Sourdough, DIY and staying on track

With a sense of normal setting in and my sourdough starter long dead, I began to wonder if there's been any lasting change in my daily life. Certainly moving back to Vancouver and beginning contract work was a major change, and the new partial work from home setup seems permanent (at least the employers/clients I've had), so what, if any, good things resulted from staying home.

In March and April my working hours shifted with the lighter mornings. I found myself starting before 8 am, and clocking out sometime after the 4 pm standup (though Slack stayed open for a few more hours). There was plenty of tv to binge, and books to consume, and strangely I found myself getting a lot more sleep, turning in early and getting more hours.

Sure there were the sudden hobbies picked up out of boredom and shortages. I made a sourdough starter, and followed the multi-hour schedule to prepare the resulting loafs. I picked up a Dutch oven and perfected the process before moving on to ginger beer just as the loaves were insta-worthy. The ginger beer starter was equally short-lived.

Early on I substituted the gym with long walks up and down the active transportation path outside my door. Sometimes my dog joined me, but mostly I went alone, discovered Podcasts finally, and closed my rings. After moving back to Vancouver and finding more time to be outdoors (thank you mild winter!), I wasn't just closing my rings, I was hitting the arbitrary goal of 10k steps a day. Sometimes more.

Two weeks into January 2021, I committed to the goal. I would walk a minimum of 10,000 steps a day. Despite all the rain!

Now after a year I have not only completed over 365 days closing my rings and passing the 10k step goal, I've felt better as I've been more active. Closing the rings was easily achievable without getting near 10k, so the milestone became a good stretch goal. There was a month where I competed in a step challenge and pushed out a few 20k days, and even closing in on 30k one sunny Saturday when I walked from Kingsway & Boundary to the Second Narrows and along North Burnaby up the mountain to SFU. Needless to say I did quite well in the step challenge.

So after a year I'm committed to keep going every day no matter what (again, despite the rain, or that atmospheric river)! I like to say it wasn't a New Year's resolution, and I started two weeks into the new year. Instead it has been a goal, and a commitment. Oh, and a way to wear out some shoes!