April was filled with Easter Eggs and Anzac Cookies, among some of these other things!
Lil was busy changing jobs and practising #SelfCare so we gave her the month off favourite-ing!
| 🎞️ | The Bold Type | What if we refuse trash? (TEDx) |
| 🎧 | RAW | The Minimalists |
| 📖 | Future Crunch | Money Diaries |
| 📱 | Sweat | Fitbit |
| ➿ | Home cooking | Drinking more water |
| 🎒 | How creativity works | Knitting |
🎞️ Watching
The Bold Type (TV show)
I’ve watched every available episode of The Bold Type — a show about three besties working at a fashion magazine in New York (think Gossip Girl meets The Devil Wears Prada) — and feel weirdly empowered by it.
— Jess
What if we refuse trash? (TEDx Talk)
Andrea Sanders is focused on inspiring, educating, and activating individuals to rethink their lifestyle habits. This is a short 12 minute talk where Andrea discusses three simple and achievable actions:
- Learn how to simplify
- Move from a disposable to a reusable lifestyle
- Embrace community and consumer power
— Aimee
🎧 Listening to
RAW: Mrs Snook’s Diet (podcast)
The new RAW podcast from author Greta Puls tells the story of West Australian naturopath Dorothea Snook (1914-2008), her raw food, gut cleansing diet, and how the science has finally caught up 🍏👩🏻🏫💫 Pass the raw celery, please!
— Jess
Digital clutter (The Minimalists podcast episode)
Cal Newport (author of the book Digital Minimalism) is on for this episode to talk about choosing a focused life in a noisy (digital) world. They touch on how they each continue to maintain healthy relationships with themselves and others in a digital age. I might have to get myself a copy of Cal’s book once I get through my current ‘to read’ list! I particularly like listener tips that they play at the end of each episode, there’s always some great takeaways.
— Aimee
📖 Reading
Future Crunch (newsletter)
The fortnightly Future Crunch newsletter is a lovely recap of good news around the world, including scientific breakthroughs and interesting stories. It’s one of the last mailing lists standing in my inbox, after The Great Unsubscription (when I unsubscribed from just about every newsletter I had been accumulating over the years). Check out a few of their past issues to see if it’s your jam too.
— Jess
Refinery29 Money Diaries (website)
Ok, I’ll admit it… I’m obsessed with Money Diaries. Modern working women from across the globe can submit a week long diary of how they spend (or don’t spend) their money. I think what I love most about these is that I’m often finding new podcasts, apps and articles to read that people link to in their diaries. Also, food, I don’t know about you, but I’m fascinated by what people eat 😬.
— Aimee
📱 Using
Sweat (app)
I’ve mentioned Kayla Itsines before: she’s a personal trainer from Adelaide whose BBG (“Bikini Body Guides”) fitness program has gone global, in the form of her Sweat personal training app. It’s designed to be used at the gym, giving a combination of bodyweight, hand weights and common machine exercises. The app becomes your trainer, telling you which exercise to do next, how to do it, and for how long. I’ve had to modify the exercises a few times when certain machines were already in use, but have been sold on the method! At $5 per week it’s cheaper than a real personal trainer, and lets you choose when you want to work out. Here’s a one month free trial referral code if you’d like to give it a spin 🏋️♀️
— Jess
Fitbit (tracker and app)
I’ve been tossing up whether to get a Fitbit for a good few months, and I recently came across a deal which I thought was a sign. I’ve had it for just over a week now, and I’ve been getting quite a lot of use out of it. I went with the Charge 3 and the main things I was interested to track were sleep, heart rate and daily steps. Of course, I get a lot more than just those features such as exercise, food, water and menstrual cycle tracking (yes, I’ve parted ways with Flo for the time being). I haven’t yet enabled message and call notifications, as I’m not sure I want to be that connected.
— Aimee
➿ Practicing
Home cooking
I’m often lazy when it comes to cooking, making the same recipes over and over, so I’m trying to learn some new tricks in the kitchen. Usually this means looking at what’s in the fridge, then Googling on a theme for recipes. Last week I made a sweet potato buddha bowl, halloumi cabbage wraps (adapted from a taco recipe), and salt and pepper tofu. This week with the weather cooling down, I’m going for broccoli soup and roasted root vegetables.
— Jess
Drinking more water
I usually drink a lot of water, but I find as it starts to get colder my water intake goes down and I replace plain water with more cups of tea! A handy tip I’ve been following is to fill up a full bottle of water each night and leave it by my bedside. When I first wake up and before getting out of bed I drink the full bottle of water. This means I’ve already had 850ml before even starting my day, win! 💃🏼
— Aimee
🎒 Learning
How creativity works
I watched The Creative Brain on Netflix recently. It’s a doco which explains how our brains are setup to process information, why it’s important to harness creativity, how to do that (!), and some exemplar stories. A fascinating, useful film.
— Jess
Knitting
Yep, I’m still on the knitting bandwagon since last month. I went back to my parents over Easter and went through my late grandmothers wool collection. My goal is to be able to knit one pair without having to refer to the tutorial. So yep, I’m still knitting, and no I haven’t progressed from socks just yet. Give me time!
— Aimee
