August: The Monthly Fluent (Patreon)

In an effort for the monthly fluent to be more fluid I’ve decided I will do these roundups as they come! Nothing much was added to my life or started in early August but I have a few things now I want to share :) 

Listening to: I recently found the band After while listening to random music on Spotify. It’s dreamy…almost like Addison Rae meets Moby? Exactly the type of whimsical and beautiful music I like to listen to - their song 300 Dreams is my current favorite. 

Working out: Working out has always been the bane of my existence. I just hate it. I find no joy in it. But the more I research stress and mental health, the more I find that exercise is almost always (depressingly) the answer. I’m trying to hack ways to get into it, and have decided for the next few months I’m not going to do the type of exercise of lifting, yoga, boot camps…but I want to learn skills. So today I did my first Tai Chi class (me and 3 older women, we did arthritis tai chi haha and I’ll be back next week for more) and I’m also looking into ice skating and horseback riding classes. 

I’m hoping that I can replace my workout mentality of a mentality of “I’m learning a new skill/sport I didn’t know how to do previously”. Will tai chi and horseback riding burn massive amounts of calories? I don’t think so, but I think I will have fun doing them, and hopefully that will work at changing my overall mindset towards exercise. 

Eating: Children’s meals! What can I say, I have the taste buds of a 7 year old, but this helps sometimes when I’m hungry but also have no appetite. I make adult lunchables with good quality cheese, meat, and crackers. Or chicken nuggets from the Whole Foods kids section that are healthy and stuff. Microwaving a bag of peas and putting it in a bowl with mac n cheese. It’s a bit of a 1 step forward, 2 steps back method - but better to have eaten kids meals than to have eaten nothing at all!

New Hack: Lowering screen white brightness! For anyone else who is super sensitive like myself, I have always wanted my phone to just be less…spicy on the eyes. Sometimes lowering the brightness all the way down still isn’t enough. Well, if you go into ‘accessibility’ on your phone, and then “display and text size” there is a sliding scale for “Reduce White Point”. Lowering that has made it so much easier to use my phone - and especially helps when I use it at night. (Yes, the goal would be not using my phone before bed but please…baby steps)

ISO: In search of a great quality bathrobe with a cool funky pattern on it. I’m willing to pay over $100 for this, and looking for 100% cotton, terry cloth…but also something a bit more fun than just plain white. Anyone have any brands they like for this?

Let me know what you've been adding to your life/trying on/enjoying/in search of for August!