Whelp, the first month of 2025 has already come and gone. The big thing that happened this month is my wife an I adopted a dog. It's certainly helped distract me from the rest of what's going on in the world.

Tess

In mid-January we adopted Tess. She's a Great Pyrenees mix and is adorable, smart, and quite energetic. She's a little over a year old so not only does she have quite a bit of puppy energy, she also might have some husky in her, which means her energy level is quite high. We don't mind it or anything, just a bigger adjustment than we were expecting.

One of the bigger adjustments has been getting up at 6:30am every morning to take her for a walk before work. My alarm for work had been set at 6:30 prior to Tess, but it was common for me to just snooze it a time or two and end up getting out of bed a little before 7. Now I'm up in darkness to take her for a stroll around the block. Again, not complaining as it gets me up earlier and gets me moving and my blood pumping. Just a lot of adjusting.

The good news is that it appears she's starting to get the hang of our routine. We got her started with training so we're hoping that helps.

Lots of Walking

Most of my exercise this month came from walking, even before we adopted Tess. I was putting off legs day at the gym and walks were just easy. Either way, I was still moving which is the important part. Once we got Tess, a walk in the morning before work, a walk over lunch, and then one after work. It all added up. An added bonus was that I was able to take advantage of the walks to finish 1, almost 2 audiobooks!

Routines

The one thing I've been trying to do this year is get into a new routine, and am using Tess as the catalyst. Getting up early for walks has helped allow me to get an earlier start to the day which has given me a little more time to dedicate to myself. I'm still working out what works best for me, but I'm hoping it will help me feel more productive this year.

Social Media Hiatus

At the beginning of the month I decided to take a break from social media. I deleted Mastodon, Bluesky, & Pixelfed from my phone and logged out of them on my laptop. I've so far felt good about the decision. I'm currently spending more time reading more of my RSS feeds and focusing on longer, more in-depth content. I'm not sure how much better that is compared to social media if I'm randomly browsing, but I feel better about it for some reason. I'm not sure if it's that I don't just randomly reach for it like I would often do with Mastodon or Bluesky, or something else. Either way, I've felt more productive this month without those distractions.