My Walking Pad Keeps Me Stress-Free without Breaking a Sweat
May I recommend
A walking pad
Being a lady in my late forties, I have, of course, discovered the pleasures of Ibuprofen, a well-spotted cardinal, an early bedtime and walking.
I quite like to walk. It’s something I’ve been doing for QUITE some time (brag) and I’ve really got the whole thing nailed down (brag). One foot, then the other. Very seldom do I a fall (brag). Free, easy and get you aroundish, walking is the whole package.
You can walk with a variety of expensive and fancy add-ons (My preference is a dumb but pure-hearted cockapoo) or you can, you know, just walk out your door.
Sometimes, however, it is not that simple. Maybe you live in a city where it gets very very very cold, but then also confusingly, very very very hot and humid? Sometimes that same city spits down precipitation that is not quite snow (so fluffy and cozy!) and not quite rain (so romantic and damp!) but is instead an infernal, inbetween called Freezing Rain, which makes exiting your door a literal impossibility due to the fact that everything is covered in a thick and not-as-fun-as-it-sounds layer of ice.
Or, maybe you need to attend many a meeting or read many a report and you get sick of sitting around all day and your finely tuned athletic body screams out for the only physical exertion you’ve ever actually enjoyed — “Take me For A Walk!” cry your hamstrings.
In those instances, I have the solution — this little guy. It is a walking pad! Not a treadmill… You can’t run on it, but it is cheap(ish), small(ish) and easy(ish) to move around. You can hop on this little friend and in 20 minutes crank out a bunch of steps and feel good about your day.
Now, I see the one I ordered (which was about $250) is no longer available on Amazon Canada, but might still be in US.
The thing about incorporating a walking pad into your life is that you can walk reallllllly slowly and read from your computer screen. I do not have the coordination to walk reallllllly slowly and type an email, but some people can! Similarly, I have found that no matter how realllllllly slowly you walk, if you’re on a Skype or Teams meeting, the other people can tell you are moving around a little bit, so an on-camera meeting is a no-go treadmill wise, which is a bummer.
Still!
I use my walking pad a fair bit and it really does clear my head and make my body feel better without feeling like a difficult, horrible, unpleasant thing to do (see jogging).
Do you have a walking pad? Want one? Discuss in the comments!
Article Roundup!
The 45 Definitive Rules for Hotel Stays
We’ve got some travel coming up — Huzzah! and there are some good tips in here.
I always do this one, not so much for the price, but because I feel like if you book direct from the hotel you’re more likely to get a better room (have no actual proof of this…)
2. Book at the source
When you book a room through a third-party site, the hotel has to pay commission. Cut out the middle man, and you may be able to negotiate a better deal. Experts say hotel rates may be more flexible than you think. Sign up for the hotel’s loyalty program, too. You might find lower prices, even if you haven’t built up status.
The Twenty-Five Best Places to Travel in 2025
I haven’t been to many of these places, though Japan is on my list now thanks to being knees deep into the new Sho-gun.
I *have* been to Newfoundland twice and the first time I drove there from Nova Scotia in my 1982 Crown Victoria with my Newfie boyfriend and a pack of fellow bouncers from the Swinging Axe Lounge and I stayed at my boyfriend’s house in Grand Falls, and his mother and his grandmother (who lived with them) DID NOT LIKE ME AT ALL, even though I tried as hard as I could to be charming and I ate a lot of potato-based food and got my first UTI on the way home and literally didn’t know what was happening and thought I was going to die on the four hour drive from the ferry to Halifax until I pulled over at a gas station just outside of Truro with my boyfriend and all the Newfie bouncers asleep in the car, and called my best friend on a PAYPHONE because of olden days, and she told me about cranberry juice and I guzzled that until my pee turned pink.
Anyway, Newfoundland is beautiful.
In 2025, Red Bay National Historic Site, a Unesco World Heritage Site and former Basque whaling station, will debut a new interactive boardwalk and visitor centre; L'Anse aux Meadows, home to the first Norse settlement in North America, is enhancing its ecological protections and upgrading visitor facilities; while Gros Morne National Park will introduce new interpretive exhibits that highlight the park's dramatic geology, wildlife and landscapes.
Thirty-five Simple Health Tips Experts Swear By
There are some real pearls of wisdom in this one. In particular, I liked this guy’s Second-Grade teacher’s advice:
My second-grade teacher, Ms. Edson, told us: If something feels too hard to do, it just means that the first step isn’t small enough. So often when we’re struggling, we tell ourselves that it’s a sign that we’re broken or that something is our fault, and then we freeze. But when something is too hard in the moment, tell yourself Ms. Edson’s advice.
Buy my books!
One of the things I like best about my novel, Speak for the Dead, is that I finally allowed myself to write a cranky-mistake-making-screw up… Up until SPEAK I tended to write sunny, bouncy protagonists who had funny things to say and positive outlooks on life.
I like those characters, maybe because that’s kind of how I perceive myself (not sure that’s entirely accurate but anyway, how much can one ever truly know oneself etc etc). In any case, writing Dr. Cate Spencer — a woman unmoored by grief, embittered at the world, and most of all, disgusted with herself — was weirdly fun.
It’s possible I, despite my ambitions for sunny and bright, have felt those very emotions and it was cathartic to let those “bad” and “negative” feelings appear on the page.
If you like dark, cranky protagonists, you might like Speak for the Dead and its sequel, Honor the Dead… Check’em out.
Free Books
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Here’s one of the books available for free:
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P.S.
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