Archive for January, 2018

On the last Saturday of 2017, we headed over to Manchester to see Michelle. She was stopping there on her way back to China. I don’t have a photo from the event, so here is a stock image.

It went well. The trains ran on time and Venla was reasonably well behaved. She had a lot of fun shuffling around Manchester Piccadilly station but was not a happy baby when I told her shuffling time was over.

Most of all, it’s nice to spend time with old friends and that while life circumstances and locations may change, the things you love about each other never do.

We had lunch at a place called LEAF. It was very good; recommended if you’re in the area.

In, January I set out to make 2017 my year of marketing. Have I learnt it? Well, I’ve definitely learnt a lot. But there is always more to know. January was also “book launch” month. I released Why Restaurants Fail and How to Exit VIM, which, despite both being short books, would turn out to be my most popular. Our friends Craig & Zoe welcomed Holly into the world.

Valentine’s Day is tricky when you have a baby, so February was not all it could have been. As if it wasn’t already bad enough that I had had to trade down my guitar amp. The Patriots won the Super Bowl and I launched a new version of my website.

The excitement of our domestic lives increased significantly in March when we bought a stick blender. It proved very useful for Malaysian month. In business, I launched the IT Career Acceleration course and launched the WAM online store, built with Stripe and React. Venla had her naming ceremony.

I published yet another book in April. This time it was the Human Baby Cookbook. I also discovered that costermonger is a real thing and made it to the Division E final in the public speaking world championships. In business, I launched one of my courses on Udemy. Most of my time, though, was taken up running my 30-Day Anxiety Challenge for WAM subscribers.

Everyone knows that May is all about Eurovision. Portugal won for the first time. We discovered chanterelles in Pateley Bridge and said goodbye to Ho’s Chinese. On the back of my 30-Day Challenge, I launched my 4th book of 2017, Do More, Worry Less. And knocked a respectable 24 minutes off my half marathon time. Anxiety Leeds pitched at Leeds SOUP.

In June, Venla had her first trip to the beach and started learning the xylophone. We celebated Kerny’s first birthday and had a changing of the guard at West Yorkshire Humanists as Moz stepped down as chair and we celebrated 50 years of the group’s existence. Food was tasty but small due to canape month. I wrote half a million words in one week (according to Grammarly).

It was a good foodie month in July with hand-rolled truffles and MasterChef-inspired dishes. We attended the annual Finnish picnic and celebated Higgs Day. I ran an okay-ish time in the Leeds 10k and launched my Mindfulness for Anxiety course.

Things got technical in August, with a focus on accessibility and mobile-first navigation. We celebrated Leeds Pride and Anxiety Leeds published its first impact report. It was also a month crammed with sport: inspired by the Tour de France we got on bikes for the first time in decades. We went swimming. And I traded in my Air Retaliation 2s for new trainers and brought my Parkrun PB down to 25:06. We celebated Gran’s 90th birthday and Finland turning 100. Riitta came to visit and Hugh and Anna got married.

In September I helped the NHS launch their new homepage before heading back to university. We bought bikes and went to City Ride and ran the Kirkstall Abbey 7. I made a very early exit in the Toastmasters speech contest.

Richard Thaler collected a long-overdue Nobel prize in October. We celebated our second wedding anniversary and Venla’s first birthday. I also celebrated my birthday, just after squeezing in last year’s birthday present. I ran the Yorkshire 10 Mile in under 90 minutes and moved my Parkrun PB down to 24:37.

I declared that November would be a month of action for my business and it was. I published two books: a book version of the IT Contracting Master Class course and Skeptic’s Guide to Pregnancy. I published my course Mindfulness for Social Anxiety and made Running For Anxiety available to the public. I went to my first business networking event, WapenTalkie. Outside of work, I went sub-50 in the Abbey Dash, completed my first duathlon (and my second and continued training on the bike.

Finally, in December we celebrated the festive season. It wasn’t quite a white Christmas, but it did snow. Venla mastered the art of standing up and climbing and we celebrated Finland’s independence day. Elina became an auntie for the second time. We held the 8th annual Holiday Food Drive for local homeless shelters. I placed 9th in the Braham pie-athalon: a dualthon where you had to scoff a mince pie at each transition, and completed my first sportive.

With a rather long full title of Handbook of Sports Medicine and Science, Sport Psychology (Olympic Handbook Of Sports Medicine), this textbook provides an introduction to the major issue in sport psychology.

It’s a really well put together book. It covers each area in short and to-the-point chapters. The whole thing is just over 100 pages and gives you a brief but comprehensive introduction to the areas.

What it’s missing are the details on some of the interventions. It talks about confidence, mental preparation and focus. And explains what these areas are. But then it goes on to say “imagery is useful for this” without going into any detail about what exactly imagery is.

Overall, though, this is a great introduction to the subject.