Our latest purchase from Facebook Marketplace:

Cycling and “Cycling”
Like most people, I go through cycles in life. I do or am interested in something for awhile, then my interest turns to something else or circumstances dictate that I change paths, or I cut my hair and keep it short for a decade and change and then decide to grow it long again.

I find it fascinating that I keep cycling around through the same basic interests (so, the more things change, the more they stay the same), but each cycle takes on a bit more nuanced and focused form. I learn more about what I like, what I’m capable of, and what I want, and I bring the focus in tighter the next time I cycle into that habit/routine/interest/whatever.

For example, when I had long hair before, it was just…long. And a lot. Now, I’m conscious about keeping it cut and styled certain ways. When I kept/collected houseplants before, I bought anything that I hadn’t tried before. Now I’m quite a bit more picky about what I want to try growing, and what I want to spend money on (hopefully I’ll be even pickier next time, as I’m well and truly out of plant space).

Another cycle I go through (and this is a “we” cycle with my husband), is going to the gym. We go for awhile, then decide to workout at home, then go back to the gym (or one of us might, and the other works out at home), or we take months at a time off (the worst part of the cycle). A couple years ago, I decided we should go back to the gym, so I bought us a gym membership and off we went…except shortly after, I fell walking the dogs and really bunged up my knee. We finally went back, and then I had eye surgery and was out for a couple weeks. Then winter came and neither of us wanted to leave the house after work in minus zero degrees. Then I had surgery, and just when I was getting back to the gym, had another one.

Needless to say, our gym attendance has been extremely sporadic this “cycle”.

So, we’ve canceled our membership again, and last weekend, we bought a used recumbent exercise bike off Facebook. Our “workout” last night was to rearrange the workout room downstairs to fit the bike in with the treadmill, the total gym and our weight set, and to make sure the TV still works so we can watch while we workout at night.

Moving a couch, table, exercise equipment and a bunch of zombie babies around is a pretty good workout, incidentally. Especially when your muscles have atrophied from nearly 6 months of inactivity.

We now have a nice place to workout at home, and as soon as the TV remote dries out (corroded batteries, etc), we’ll make sure the Fire Stick still works and have entertainment while we’re getting in shape. Cycling, in more ways than one. Hopefully this one sticks for awhile – I actually much prefer working out at home, even though the motivation is still just as difficult to find some days.

Writing News
The good news is, I’ve been writing. Steadily. Nightly. I’m getting a good 250-300 words a day, but the key is that I’m doing that on a very routine basis now, which is awesome. It’s not a good enough pace for NaNo, but it’s a start, and I feel good about it.

My goal is to bump that up to 500 words per day over the next week. Training, as it were. I’m working on a short story that I’d like to finish by the end of the month. I think I have a decent shot at it, if I can bump up the volume.

The bad news is, I’ve gotten nothing more done on the publication side of things, which means there’s no way my alter-ego’s DBV collection will be out in print in time for Halloween. Someday, I’m going to have all the bits and pieces falling into place at the same time, but…this is obviously not that time. Or point in the writing cycle, if you will.

Recommendation(s)
We have a very thick mattress, topped with a 4 inch mattress pad and even deep sheets don’t really stay on well. I finally ordered some elastic sheet clips a couple of weeks ago, and after looking at all sorts of them, I decided on the cheapest $6 clips from Sopito to try.

I wish I’d have done this sooner! They’re a little hard to get on due to our frame, but once they’re on, the sheets (and the mattress pad) stay put! Woohoo!

I got these from Amazon, but I’m sure they sell them elsewhere if you prefer. If you’ve been on the fence like me though, just do it! I haven’t been so excited about elastic and clips in…well, ever. LOL