Travel Workout Routine and Jewelry
It’s astonishing to me that despite my recent travels, I have yet to default on my workout routine. That said, not having access to a gym makes things a little different. Strength training happens inside our own apartment in what little floor space we have. We have two alternating workouts, which we do every other day, if that makes any sense. So, for instance, one week we do chest twice and back once, and the next week we do back twice and chest once, with cardio days in between. So we’ve kept the same routine here in Germany, but we’ve had to change the specific exercises. Chest day is simply push-ups (on my knees) and then squats. Back day is bicep curls with water bottles in a backpack, then squats, then “Superman holds.” That’s what I call the move where you get on your hands and knees and extend your left arm and right leg for 20 seconds, then switch sides and do the same. We still do 3 sets of everything, just like at the gym. After these mini strength workouts, we walk uphill in the park across the street. It just happens to have an upward climb that ends at a monument with lots of steps at the top. If we wander around a bit, it takes about the full required 10 minutes. Alternate days are simpler: We walk at the park for 5 minutes, run for 5 minutes, walk for 5, and run for 5 more. The uphill/downhill element changes pretty randomly, but psychologically I’ve accepted that it’s about the same as what I do at home. We’re also walking around a lot every day, so that helps me ignore any discrepancy between the home workout and the travel one.
Walking down the main drag here today, I stopped in a couple of shops with some lovely jewelry. I’m carefully considering whether to buy anything since I’m trying to maintain a pretty minimal jewelry collection. But it’s been my ritual to bring home one piece from each trip to Europe (my peacock earrings from Germany, my bird earrings from Paris) so I am considering it. I packed with me for this trip 4 items from my current collection: blue round glass studs, pink round glass studs, silver bent-wire hoops, and a brown beaded bracelet. I go through phases with jewelry, usually cycling through a few pieces for a few months at a time, and that’s what’s in the current rotation.
My complete collection consists of 27 pieces:
9 Earrings:
Blue glass studs: These were a gift from Matt’s mom, one of those randomly spot-on gifts that ends up becoming a favorite. I liked them so much that I went on Thredup and looked for some like them in another color.
Blush pink round glass studs: I found these on Thredup. I love how subtle they are.
Bent-wire silver hoops: These are from LOFT. I find them much edgier than what you’d expect from LOFT, but you never know where you’ll find things sometimes.
Gold mushroom-cap studs: These are from a beautiful gift shop in Providence called NAVA. I’m not sure they work on me- too yellow, perhaps?
White circle earrings: These are from Old Navy. I bought them when I needed some non-dangly earrings to wear to work at a coffee shop. Apparently the dangles might end up in a latte or something.
Blue dangly beaded earrings: These are from a random trip to Kohl’s with my mom. I’m sure a coupon was involved.
Aged brass painted bird earrings: These are from a Paris vintage shop. I lost one of the original coral beads, so I changed them out for jade green ones I got on Etsy. My husband made me a matching necklace out of the extra beads (see green wedding necklace).
Peacock dangly earrings: These are from our first trip to Germany in 2010. I got them at a fast fashion store called Pimkie.
Rhinestone drop earrings: These were found in the vacant apartment at my brother’s house where the tenant had left behind loads of stuff, including our current sofa and armchair.
5 Necklaces:
Grandma’s medals: These are little Catholic medals my Grandma gave me as a kid, all strung onto a long silver chain. My favorite is the tiny full-color Virgin Mary.
Blue tassel necklace: This was a gift from my mom one recent Christmas. I picked it out and she wrapped it.
Green wedding necklace: These beads were first strung onto a white ribbon, which I wore long at our wedding. Later I was afraid of the ribbon breaking over time, so we got some wire and a closure at a craft store and made a choker.
Tiny star necklace: This was a NYC garment district purchase. There are tons of these cheap jewelry places with loads of beads and things.
Rhinestone antique necklace: This was from Bee-bop-a-lula, the vintage shop of my high school days. I wore it for a number of formal singing occasions, including my senior voice recital.
3 Bracelets:
Brown beaded bracelet and Pink faceted beaded bracelet: These are both from a stack of bracelets that my mom picked out for me one Christmas in college. They created this great boho-style look with some other bracelets that have since departed due to weight gain.
White seed-bead bracelet: This is the one bracelet remaining from a stack my uncle got me for my senior recital. The others were pink and purple, not really my colors.
4 Brooches:
Turtle, Crown, Pointy star, Round star: These antique brooches were my grandmother’s, just some costume jewelry trinkets she gave me to play with when I was little. I love the tiny turtle one, but I wish it still had more of its stones.
6 Miscellaneous:
White stone ring: This was something I got at Forever 21 when I was looking for jewelry to wear with a red dress for my best friend’s wedding. I was a bridesmaid and she was kind enough to give me some red-stoned jewelry to wear, but I still hung on to this ring.
White faux-leather watch: This was from my working days at Brown University when it was just practical. I think it was from Target.
Turquoise clear-lensed glasses: These are definitely from Target, I think when Matt and I were in Miami for his work. I wear them when I need a bit of distance from the world.
Pink sequin clip: This might be called a “fascinator” or just a hair clip, but it has a little alligator clip on it, so I’ve used it to clip scarves as well.
Sunglasses: These were $3 from Job Lot, a ubiquitous discount store only in Rhode Island and Massachusetts. An absolute steal.
Necklace extender: I grabbed this in NY when I was there for a concert. It hadn’t occurred to me that my necklace wouldn’t fit since I’d gained weight, but apparently it has occurred to other people and they’ve solved the problem.
Over the past couple of years, I haven’t even bothered to wear jewelry very much. But much like my high-heel collection, I consider it “aspirational clutter” - things I don’t use now, but hope to as I get better. I have edited it down quite a bit to just my very favorite and very practical things, storing sentimental items away with mementos. It’s funny, a lot of times when I was getting dressed for a psychiatrist’s appointment, I might think to put earrings on, and then quickly change my mind. I’d think how doctors might look for clues like “patient is wearing jewelry” as evidence that you’re doing better. And I didn’t want to give anyone the impression that I was doing better than I really was. And so I wore jewelry just about never, almost as a protective measure. But maybe there’s a way to think of it as more protective to wear the jewelry than not. I’m thinking of those with punk or gothic inclinations who wear jewelry as a rejection of the mainstream, not as submission to it. Basically, I’d like to wear it on my own terms, not just in a traditionally feminine way.