The End of the Weekend

Tis true, Sunday evening and the weekend is almost over. 

Ah well, a hot bath, candles, the right essential oils, a glass of wine and a homemade face mask will make tomorrow morning okay again.

Have a great evening and I hope your weekend was a great one.

Good Night.

Practicing to Relax

Do you ever feel like you need to work at relaxation?  Sounds like an oxy-moron, doesn't it?  But nonetheless, it's true.  For most of us relaxation actually is close to impossible.  In our day in age, relaxation has become an art...a hard earned art and only if you practice it.

I have to remind myself several times a day to relax.  It's not something I remember to do naturally.  If I don't my shoulders and neck start to hurt and I can get a headache before I even realize it's starting.

I've learned to relax in a number of different ways, depending on where I am and what I'm doing.

If I'm at work, I have to be able to use a quick method and is pretty low key as to what I'm doing.

I sit at a desk all day and in some cases I can sit there for several hours at a time using a computer so I try to stop every hour or so.  I'll put my hands in my lap, sit up straight, feet flat on the floor and take several deep breaths with my eyes closed.  While doing this I visualize a white/yellow light above my head and as I exhale, that light rains down on and through my head and body.  With each breath my shoulders and/or neck will feel just a little more relaxed.  After about 4 or 5 breaths, I'm ready again.

Or, I'll take a deep breath and lift and tighten my shoulders, hold both for a count of 4 or 5 and then release my breath and relax and roll my shoulders slowly, again to a count of 4 or 5.  Repeating this for 4 or 5 times.

While I'm at home I can use longer methods that are a bit more involved and more fun.

Sometimes a hot bath with epsom salts, or maybe some bubble bath always with essential oils and of course candles.

A bit of music maybe a mask made of crushed oats, yogurt and honey.

Listening  to music and just watching the flame dance on the candle can be magic.

Maybe take a walk and enjoy nature.

As the saying goes, stop and smell the roses (so to speak), enjoy the view, listen to the birds and even the wind blowing through the trees.

 The point is instead of thinking of all the things that need done, just listen to what's around you, enjoy what you see.  Look for the simple things and fill your head with paying attention to those things.

Whatever works for you, use it.  We don't do it enough and it makes all the difference in dealing with stress and strain in our full everyday lives.

Keeping a 3 year old Entertained

Early last month my grandson was born.  It was SO VERY AWESOME!!!  He was born on a Wednesday, so that afternoon and the rest of the week I kept my 3 year old granddaughter.  I have her overnight about every other weekend regularly, so I didn't think this would be a big deal.  Obviously, I was wrong.  It's been 34 years since my son was born and I am WAY out of practice, even after 3 years.  My granddaughter isn't a bad girl but her attention span is about a quarter inch long.  OMG, that lovely little girl wore this old lady OUT!!

She was so excited for her new "baby brother".  As far as she's concerned he belongs to her.  It was really cute to watch.  First thing I heard every morning was "Is it time to go see my baby brother?" and again every 10 minutes after that.  Just an FYI, that's a 25 mile drive.

It was so hard to keep her attention after coming home from the hospital. We tried everything.  We made Yule/Christmas presents with glitter, glue, paint and crayons.

What 3 year old doesn't love that stuff.  She did love it, but only about about 30 min at a time and then she was ready for something else.  I truly thought glitter would last a lot longer than that.  Glue and glitter should have had an hour life, at least, I thought.  Man, was I wrong....try 20-30 minutes and then she was actually ready for bed so it would be morning and she could go see her baby brother again.

It's been more than a month and she still is highly enamored with him.  She loves touching him and staring at him, which is so cute.  I must say there was nothing more exciting than seeing her baby brother.  I can only hope that continues as they grow up.

The Cute "Baby Brother"

By Friday afternoon mom and baby brother got to go home and she wanted to go home with them.  Grandma's place is cool, but can't compare to her new baby brother.  Oh well, that's okay, I can't blame her.  He's pretty cute and I was ready for the rest too.

She loves to come to grandma's place now, but after an overnight stay and all day, she's ready to go home to "mommy, daddy and her little brother".  Next I think we'll work on teaching her his actual name.  She knows it, but I think she may forever call him "my baby brother".

Meditation Is Easy

I have a friend who has been having anxiety issues.  She's had them for a while and was on medication, then she quit taking it for about a year, started taking it again and recently the anxiety has gotten worse and they have almost doubled her meds.  This has all been over about a five year period.  She told me she doesn't want to be on all these meds and asked  my opinion.  My idea was exercise and meditation.

She knew both of these answers but like most of us, it's more effort than we want to put out.  I told

Holiday Season Blessings

This year stands out to me as one of the best in a very long time.  I lost my dad in 2011 and my mom in 2015.   In between that time there was turmoil among family members which just made get-togethers somewhat uncomfortable and tense  We've also had 2 new grand kids during this time.   These last several years have had so much change.

Since then, we've, or at least I, have been trying to build some new traditions.  Something that is solid to look forward to every year in getting ready for such a hectic time of year.  From Thanksgiving through January we have many birthdays along with the holidays.  It's almost constant.

This year I feel we achieved the new traditions I craved and found a happy medium that everyone can enjoy.  It makes this time of year so much more enjoyable and I'm so glad we've finally got to this point.

Although I miss mom and dad terribly and the holidays will always

Shopping

I really hate going to the store to go shopping.  Anybody else with me here?  Just something about all those people, loud kids and adults, lack of manners, traffic and waiting in line.  I'm just not real good with any of it.  I've discovered shopping online is SOOOO much easier and makes me so much happier.

Did you know you can even buy groceries online?  Apparently, I'm a slow learner, but as long as I

Tomorrow will last FOREVER!!

My vacation starts Monday, so tomorrow will likely last FOREVER!!!

I get to pick up my grand-daughter, Z, tomorrow, so that will be fun.  We'll have a great time and laugh and it will be a great start for my vacation.  Her smiling face always makes it all good.  She's growing up so very fast and I haven't seen her in 2 weeks.  Each time I see her, she's just that much more grown up.  I don't remember it going so fast when my son was little.

My brakes have gone out too.  So my husband and brother are so kind as to change those for me tomorrow.  That will cost me a bit, but at least there's no labor (besides lunch and ice cream).  Can't complain, haven't had too much problem with that car and next month is my last payment.  YAY!!!

There's so many things I want to get done next week.  My list includes deep cleaning, you know, like windows, and Z's toy box, my closet:-).  I also want to get a mess of cooking done, to be frozen for supper and breakfast later.  And strangely I'd like to get some vacation type stuff done too (reading, web surfing and maybe a movie), how dare I, right?.  I'll see, I may pick and choose to get a little bit of everything in.

We aren't getting a lot of stuff bought for our little homestead, BUT....we are getting some of the necessary property work done which needs to be done first anyway, AND our biggest upcoming accomplishment is getting things paid off.  We are very close to being debt-free which, in my humble opinion, would be the important accomplishment in the long run.

I supposed I should get though the next week before I get into paying off everything over the next year or two.  Baby steps:-)  I guess I'll see what all I can get done over the next week then move on to bigger & better things.  There's not enough days to get everything on my list done since I continue to add to it constantly, but I can try.  Who knows...

Did you take your vacation yet?  What did you do, where did you go?

Til later!!