Life update!

Exciting things going on in Jenny land at the moment:

I bought a sewing machine!

And made a skirt! And it turned out surprisingly well! I guess my years of reading sewing blogs paid off, hehe.

I'm going to try making some work suitable clothes next. I wear pretty much the same kind of thing every day, and have done for the past 5 or 6 years, and unfortunately some of my shirts are starting to develop random holes in them (not mendable ones at the seams, but just holes in the middle of the fabric, haha), so I need to replace them, and it is DIFFICULT to buy things that fit me and flatter me here, especially for smart work clothes which tend to have a lot of ruffles and stuff on the front here (generally not flattering for me - I do NOT need to make it seem like I have any more volume on my chest than I already do!), or to be plain shirts which I cannot see fitting me at all, seeing as I have enough problems finding shirts that fit and flatter me in England.

In general I am not THAT bothered anymore by how I look or my body shape, but when trying to buy clothes and shoes here I really wish that I was skinny, small chested and had small, narrower feet. (Okay actually I wish I had smaller narrower feet anyway, not because I hate the way that my feet look, but because buying shoes in England is really difficult, never mind in a country where the biggest shoe size for women is normally 25-25.5 cm - around size 6 to 6 and a half in UK sizes). Because that is the shape that 99% of clothes and shoes here are made to fit.

Also need to buy some wool so I can start knitting again! I love knitting.

I restarted the couch to 5k program!

I have tried this a couple of times, and never stuck with it because life got in the way, or I got sick or something... but I'm determined not to let that happen this time! I've done the first two runs of the program, so I should hopefully be finished by mid July... I'm actually finding it much easier this time round than I did the previous time I tried, for the following reasons:

• I have a beautiful park near my house to run in. Seriously. It's lovely. I will take pictures at some point. It's only a few minutes away from my house. A nice place to run in definitely seems to be helping!
• Before when I tried it I was running around my hometown, which is also nice, but full of people I know (or at least was at the time), and I was scared of running into. I stand out much more here, but I don't really know that many people properly, and to be honest do not care as much as I did before.
• I walk a LOT. And the area I live in is ridiculously hilly, so my legs are already used to getting me up and down ridiculous hills several times a day.
• I am letting myself go slowwwwly. The main aim is to build up my endurance so I can run (okay, let's face it, jog slowly) for half an hour without stopping, rather than to go quickly. I can work on that later! 

So the runs so far have been kind of easy (still getting a bit out of breath by the end, but I can remember having to force myself to carry on through the last few running sections of my first run the last time I tried). I also haven't had much soreness or anything so far (I expect this is thanks to all of the hills), although my leg muscles are feeling a little bit tight.

At some point I expect my enthusiasm is going to wear off a bit, but I am determined to do it this time! I plan to read lots of running related books/blogs to keep my enthusiasm up, so if you have any recommendations let me know! And I'm keeping a running journal this time so hopefully I can look at that to motivate myself when the lazy part of my brain is trying to talk myself out of putting my trainers on and going outside.

If I make it to week 4 I'm going to buy myself some proper running clothes, because it is about to get HOT here and I don't think any of the clothes I own now are that suitable for running around in 30+ degree temperatures.

Not so good things....

I am in a bit of a reading slump. I'm still reading, but a couple of weeks ago I was getting home from work, watching maybe one episode of parks and rec (I am currently on a massive rewatch of all of it, yayy!) while eating, doing all of the other stuff I need to do around the house and then reading until it was time to go to bed... but at the moment I just do not feel the urge to keep on reading once I'm back, and I'm finding it hard to read while on the train etc. Hopefully I'll get my mojo back soon though, because I really really do love reading and I am at my happiest when I manage to get a good chunk of reading into my day.