Hi guys, just wanted to hop on here to apologize for some confusing blank blog posts this past week (it’ll show up if you subscribe or have my blog in your RSS feed). I’m usually on top of making sure my drafts don’t publish but sometimes life gets in the way and I forget. This week, Emi is home from school because of both a student and teacher exposure to the coronavirus. I’m grateful that so far we seem alright (and I’m grateful for having ordered several boxes of rapid tests so we could test every several days). But having her home again means less time for everything else. I’m just trying to enjoy time with my sweet girl instead of thinking of all the other things I could be “accomplishing.”

One thing I’m doing (though I’m struggling), is my #NoBuy10x10 challenge that I talked about for this No Buy Month. It’s basically the only thing I’m accomplishing this week lol 😂. I haven’t done a 10x10 challenge in awhile and I find that I’m really enjoying it. I’m wearing mostly items that I added to my closet in the last six months, so it’s great to put these new-to-me things through their paces. I’ve been toying with the idea of doing a 10x10 each month so I actually wear some of the items that I hardly touch (or items that I feel are for special occasions only—looking at you silk skirt).

Also before this week I had a fairly steady workout routine (which hopefully I can get back to soon). But I thought I would share it for those who are interested in doing some at-home YouTube workouts that have a fairly low barrier to entry. And by that, I mean they’re quick (20-30 minutes) and perfect for out-of-shapers and/or sporadic exercisers like myself. (Also this is for you Lynne in case you never got the links to the workouts lol). So I usually start with this 5 minute warm-up since being out of shape means I sometimes pull a muscle and that defeats the purpose of working out. So warm-up is a must. But if I’m pressed for time and I’m doing this 20 minutes “chill” HIIT workout then I’ll skip the warm-up. I always start with this chill HIIT since it gets my heart-rate up but there’s no jumping involved for my poor worn-out ex-runner knees. It’s also best to start with this workout since it can give you ideas for what to substitute in when doing some of her other harder workouts (and you just can’t do the move she’s doing on the screen). If this chill HIIT is too easy for you then she also does the harder version here that I usually get to once I get a couple workouts under my belt. And then if I want to incorporate dumbbells (I have a 10-year-old pair that’s 8 pounds each), then my current favorite is this 20 minute dumbbell workout. Also, I do some yoga in between these harder workouts since ngl, I get some pretty sore leg muscles after these workouts. This is my favorite easy yoga routine I do between my HIIT workout days. And that’s it. This is my current bare-minimum workouts that I’ve been doing off-and-on for the last several months. It won’t help you lose weight or anything but it’ll at least get your blood pumping and preserve some muscle tone as you age lol. What are some of your favorite bare minimum workouts?