Back at Work

2 minute read

Back to the hamster wheel (Image: Matt Bero)

Yesterday marked the last day of my parental leave. I’m back in the game, back at work, and welcomed by nearly two thousand chat messages and around six hundred and fifty mails. What a start. And what a way to motivate myself. Time to look back!

So, what have I been up to, the last two months?

Well, I did listen to a couple of podcasts, while I was walking the newborn a lot. And I mean a lot. My fitness tracker recorded a whopping 12,883 steps on average per day in October, and currently 12,555 steps on average per day in November (though this may slip to 7000-8000, when December rolls around). Up until now, in November I haven’t had a single day with less than 10,000 steps per day. This might also be the reason, why I lost around 3 kg in weight.

Reading was also something I did more than before parental leave. I’ve read Horst Evers' Bumm!, which I genuinely enjoyed. It’s a weird mix of Babylon Berlin, Dark and Qualityland with characters from Russian Doll. That weird mix definitely clicked with me. Speaking of Qualityland, I also started reading part two of it, but am not finished yet.

I’ve built a Lego model of a Ford Mustang Shelby GT500, the first big Lego set in like 20 years. It’s something to look at, and the building process was quite fun.

I’m also now in the sourdough game. I prepared a starter, and failed. It smelled like rotten eggs. The second time, it worked, but the bread I baked looked very similar to the wheels of the Flintstones' car. I also forgot to add salt. But I’m getting better and better, trying out different recipes and flours.

What I planned, but didn’t do

I wanted to take part in the #30DayMapChallenge 2022 on Twitter, but haven’t until now. I even prepared data and ideas for a couple of days, but ultimately found no time.

My wife and I haven’t played the new Monkey Island game, even though we wanted to. But even finding time to watch some Netflix was hard, so we skipped that, too.

What did I enjoy the most?

Spending time with our baby boy, of course. What were you thinking? 😅