A few weeks ago I was annoyed that a man on the internet saw my reel and told met to lower my saddle. In response I made a video reminding folks not to give unsolicited advice. If I had a nickel for every peice of expert advice I recieved from a stranger on the internet, I’d own several properties in New York City and Spain. Unfortunately, no one ever pays me when that happens, so now i’m still not wealthy.

Today another man saw a different reel and told me to raise my saddle. I suggested he and the guy from a few weeks ago come together and argue amongst themselves and i’ll just stick with the results of my bike fit. I literally went to the same guy who does bike fits for Pogacar, so I feel like I can trust his expertise more than two randos online, but I digress. Both of these gentleman assured me that they were correct, and I was not, and it’s because they know what they’re talking about, and I do not.

I find it so annoying. Not just because they’re literally wrong and they can’t fathom the possibility that they are incorrect, but because if they’ll do it to a retired professional, they’ll do it to ANYONE. During Thee abundance camps i hear so many horror stories of bad advice from over confident people, almost always men. Telling women how to fix their bike fit, not to eat because they need to lose weight, how to get faster, what they need to buy… all sorts of things. These bits of know how are always uninvited.

It doubly annoys me because if you’re just getting started, it’s much harder to know what advice is worth listening to, and who actually knows what the heck they are talking about.

Anywho, that just happened and annoyed me all over again. But enough about that. My next random topic is the Focus Friend app.

I am very much addicted to my phone, and i’ve tried all sorts of timers, putting my phone in another room, distracting myself with something else. But in the end, I always end up doomscrolling on Instagram. I don’t even notice it happening. The only thing that has worked for me is the Focus Friend app. It’s not a perfect solution, but caring for a little pinto bean that I named “Jelly” is enough for me to stay away and do literally anything else.

The concept is that you have a bean, and the bean has a hard time focusing. So you set a focus timer for your bean so he can knit. Yes, knit. The free version only makes socks, but if you’re willing to pay (which I have yet to feel like i need to), the bean will also knit scarves. The socks and scarves are used as capital for decor to spruce up the bean’s room. When the app first launched, the bean only had one room, but now, you unlock more rooms.

While the focus timer is on, there’s a polite reminder to not interrupt your bean while it’s knitting. And that is enough for me. There’s a button that will allow you to stop the focus timer, BUT if you do that you’ll unravel all the bean’s hard work. No socks, no scarves. If you make it all the way through the timer? You are rewarded with a number of socks relatively proportional to the number of minutes you put on the timer. I’ve been working with 40 minute intervals today, and that usually yields around 35-40ish socks.

Random? Yes. But the psychology behind having such a disdain for dissapointing others that not wanting to interrupt a knitting bean is enough to keep me off of instagram, CRACKS ME UP!

Of course I don’t want to disturb my fictional friend. I want Jelly to be happy and knit socks until it’s heart is content. Brains are so weird. But it works!

What have I been up to in the past few weeks? I filmed a really cool project with one of my sponsors. It’s scheduled to see the light of day sometime in February. I can’t wait for y’all to see it. Otherwise, I’ve been riding here and there, working here and there, and resting here and there. I’ve been keeping up with my digital advent calendar, mostly on instagram, but there’s 7 days left and this Blogpost counts for one of them!

Sometimes I forget how busy the year is and fail to take advantage of the ability to lay in my own bed a few hours later than most folks would agree with. If someone is mad i wanna sleep in, that sounds like a them problem…

That’s enough for now, Until next time!

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