This is a bit of an unformed series of thoughts that I’ve been having. Last year my perimenopausal symptoms hit a tipping point- I couldn’t sleep. I had a month where I got maybe 2 or 3 hours of sleep per night. My brain was one giant fog and my memory was shot.

Let’s not talk about my mood. I mean, I was cranky AF.

I finally made an appointment and my primary care suggested progesterone and perhaps later other forms of HRT.

Immediately my sleep improved.

My brain fog improved.

My mental state improved.

However through all that, my motivation remained low, and my knee was still killing me.* Exercise tapered off and I learned that I do not respond well to long term low level pain.

​I recently started riding my bike again, both my regular bike and my eBike. My knee is still not perfect, and likely never will be again, but the benefits of riding definitely outweigh the twinge I feel here and there as I up my mileage.

The reason I’m posting this HERE and not on my Less is More Healthy Vlog is because I’m riding my eBike to work every day and I’m figuring out how to cut my art supplies down so I’m not totally weighed down.

The rule:

• Everything MUST fit into my Po Campo Vernon trunk bag. (No affiliation, just a big fan of their bike bags.)
• Exception: paper can go into my pannier bag.

My small pochade box fits into the Vernon bag. It’s compact. It also allows for me to fit some additional art supplies in the bag. My red or green kit fits.

I decided to work lightweight for my current set up. I’m using my cardboard pochade box, postcards, watercolors and a handful of colored pencils and inktense pencils. I tossed my Soola** bag in there too.

So far it’s working well.

The picture is of my regular bike, not my eBike. I bought it shortly before I tore my MCL last year. It fits me really well and there is nothing quite like a bike that actually fits me.

*I think I detailed it here, last summer I tore my MCL and kept tweaking it.

** The Soola bag is a maximalist bag and I don’t even have mine completely filled. It’s heavy but for now as I test it out, it’s in there.