Mid Year Review

Looking Back at 2024 So Far

When looking at the previous six months, I need to first recap how I came to be on Substack. I had been blogging on Wordpress, on my blog Next Phase in Fitness for about thirteen years. My last week of work, was a busy year and lifestyle blogging began to feel stale. Also, when Wordpress introduced their new editor, I fell out of love with the platform. I closed down my blog in August 2023. At the time I had a Book Blog, Family History Blog, and a One Place Study. While I was working full time, these were enough to keep me more than busy.

Soon after retiring, I started to miss my lifestyle blog and the connections I had made with other bloggers, so decided to start over on Substack. There are positive and negatives of this decision, but so far I've mostly enjoyed the new start.

This new Substack that I named Another Phase, began in mid January 2024. I started with more of a quiet whimper than a bang, but am very pleased with the experience so far. During the first six months of 2024, I have published 22 times, which over six months isn't huge, but it's ok.

The post that received the most views was my birthday post, 70 Things About Me At 70. This post received about 40% more views than the next highest. I don't usually take much notice of stats, as mostly I blog for me. Being a family historian, I can’t resist leaving information about my every day life, for descents who may be researching our family in the future.

Unexpectedly, I found there was an active genealogy community on Substack. I don't blog at all about genealogy on Substack, as I have a blog on another platform for that. However, when there was a call out from Projectkin for submissions for family stories to be published in March, I couldn't resist. I submitted a story about Famine and the Earl Grey Orphan In My Family. During this past six months, I've mainly been lurking in the genealogy community, but plan to get more involved in the future.

Word of the Year #Health

I wasn’t planning on having a word of the year this year. My word last year wasn’t really meaningful to me, so I decided I would give it a rest this year. That was until, two weeks into January, I realised that Health was the perfect word of the year for me. I had a few minor health issues in 2023 and was about to turn 70. It was time to take better care of my health.

I started 2024 not being able to walk more than a few metres, mostly on crutches, and with medical advice that I needed a knee replacement. However, after an intensive three month block of physio, three times each week, the knee improved more than I ever could have expected. I was able to walk for longer distances and was advised by my doctor and physio team, to cancel the surgery. I can always go back to the surgery plan in the future if necessary.

In March, my doctor developed a care plan for me. The plan doesn’t really mean much to me at the moment, but now that I’ve had one done, I will be notified when it’s time for an update. Hopefully now, any issues that need attention, will show up early enough to deal with them.

In March, I also had a follow up bone density test done. I had the first test, two years ago, which showed my bone density was very low. Since then I’ve been taking calcium tablets and twice each year have a calcium injection. Very surprisingly to me, and to my doctor, my bone density in this test had increased. It wasn’t expected that there would be an improvement. So that was very good news.

Image: nhs.uk

Exercise

When my 12 week physio program was completed, I decided to join the gym, to keep my knee strong, and to stop other body parts disintegrating. I’m loving the strength program, techno cycling programs and RPM classes. Both the strength training and cycling are great for my knee.

In April, my blogger friend Sue, recently featured the Action For Happiness Theme Calendar, on her blog, Women Living Well After 50. The theme for the calendar was Active April. As I had been intending to focus on increasing my exercise in April, I decided to join in the fun.

Sue who is always supportive of bloggers and women in midlife, created a Facebook page, where we could post a photo of our walk, each day in June, to keep us motivated. I loved checking in each day and seeing where others were walking. I loved seeing beaches and sunny days, as winter was taking hold here. Below are two of my favourite spots to walk, and my favourite walking buddy, Oscar.

Usually, I do the Get Fit With Rick indoor workouts on the days that I don’t have gym. I’ve found them to be really beneficial for my knee, and they are a great way to increase my step count.

Started cycling again, on the cycling paths and rail trail as my knee began to feel better.

Retirement

I retired in November last year, about a year earlier than I expected, but I was only two months away from age 70, so can’t be too disappointed. I’ve been very fortunate to be able to work for so long, especially, as until one year ago, I was on my feet all day.

The first seven months of retirement has been about creating a life for myself that I’m happy to take into the future. My main objective in retirement is to live the life that I love, every day. I loved my job, but retirement is much more fun.

Doing The Things That I Love was a post that I wrote about my experience of retirement.

More on Blogging

Once again, I participated in, and completed the April AtoZ Blogging Challenge. This year, I decided to do it on my One Place Study Blog - Haverfordwest History This challenge always makes April a busy month, but with preparation, it’s much easier to handle publishing a post, every day in the month.

My intention is to publish more frequent posts on each blog from now until the end of the year.

Blog posts so far in 2024:

Substack: @retirement phase - 22 posts

Best Bookish Blog - 24 posts

Jones Family History - 17 posts

One Place Study Blog - 38 posts

This post is linked to the Wednesday Words & Whimsy linkup hosted by Min from Write of the Middle