relaxation

Sipping tea and cocoa, reading books, and watching All Creatures Great and Small. That’s all I want to do today and hopefully, I will.

It wasn’t a rough week. It was a relaxing one, but it did have various bouts of sad news mixed in about a variety of people and situations. I just need a break from things.

The world is heavy, right? I’m not the only one who feels it, am I?

I mean – it’s a lot unless you lock yourself in a house and never engage with people or go on social media or participate in society whatsoever. That may be something I look into soon.

Again, though, could just be me, but I’m sort of over the craziness of the world right now.

Which is why I am piling up my cozy mysteries and popping in some old movies and eating a lot of chocolate this weekend.

Okay, maybe I won’t eat a lot of chocolate. I’ve actually been craving fruit more than anything else. I just want fruit all the time lately and I think that’s because my body wants healthier foods. I intend to give it those healthier foods it wants this week. Even if fruits and vegetables are some of the most expensive foods right now.

This past week, as I said, wasn’t really too stressful other than bad news.

The Husband had off work for the week so we had some family time, including a trip to a nearby reptile zoo yesterday.

Earlier in the week we hung out at home, went for some walks (well, I didn’t but the rest of them did), went to the playground, visited my parents and had some pizza with them, watched some Adventures of Sherlock and Perry Mason and read books or, for me, wrote blog posts.

The kids had school but we took it easy, especially on the nice days when we had sun and warmer temps. We seem to be in this routine in Pennsylvania of two nice days and five not-so-nice ones. I’ll take those two nice days and hope for more nice days in a row in May and the rest of the summer.

Wednesday night we had a pizza night at my parents’ house. We made homemade pizza – well, not really. It was store-bought dough but we added the sauce, cheese, and roasted peppers.

Yesterday it was off to Clyde Peelings Reptiland where Little Miss was able to see her favorite creatures – reptiles. She was able to pet a snake and was thrilled by that but I’m sure she would have been more thrilled to bring it home. She’s still trying to talk me into us buying her one. I just keep pushing her off and hope she will forget about it.

The Boy, The Husband, and Little Miss went inside the zoo and I stayed in the car reading books, partially to save money because the tickets are quite high, and partially because I had already seen the zoo and The Husband hadn’t.

He is not a fan of reptiles, especially snakes, but he did well.

Afterward, we decided not to go to a fast food restaurant to eat but instead stopped at a local supermarket called Weis. It’s like a smaller version of Wegman’s, for those familiar with that chain, or Trader Joes with less options.

Still, it provides more fresh fruit and natural products than other supermarkets in our area, which means my lunch was some pork chops I had brought from home and a package of raspberries, blueberries, and blackberries. Everyone else had things like General Tsaos chicken, dumplings, and fried chicken pieces. To me, it always seems a better deal to pick up lunch at a place that provides good quality food next to some healthier options, especially since our last restaurant experience was expensive and disappointing.

The sun has been out a little bit today and that’s been nice but it looks like it is clouding up again out there. We really need a stretch of several days of sun to perk us all up.

I plan to spend the rest of the day sipping tea, as I mentioned above, and finishing up a The Cat Who … book that I got wrapped up in the other day when I was looking for a comfort read to deal with all the overwhelming news of people I know with health issues.

There are some very funny lines in this book – The Cat Who Talked to Ghost by Lilian Jackson Braun – it’s actually become one of my favorites.

At one point, Polly, the main character’s girlfriend (they are an older couple in their 50s just for a visual) adopts a Siamese cat and, usually reserved, gushes over it and talks baby talk to it.

Main character, Jim Qwilleran, a slightly uptight newspaper columnist with two Siamese cats of his own, is aghast at her behavior.

“Qwilleran had to admit he was an appealing little creature, but he found Polly’s commentary cloying.

He occasionally called Yum Yum his little sweetheart, but that was different. It was a term of endearment, not maudlin gush.

“What’s his name?” he asked.

“Bootsie, and he’s going to grow up to be just like Koko.”

Fat chance, Qwilleran thought, with a name like that! Koko bore the dignified cognomen of Kao K’o Kung, a thirteenth-century Chinese artist.”

I don’t know why that section cracked me up, but it did! I guess I needed the laugh.

How was your week this past week?

Do anything fun?

Let me know in the comments.

Next week I plan to start a link-up for weekly wrap-up posts and then anyone who does similar posts (they don’t have to have the same name at all) can add their links and we can catch up on what everyone is doing. I’ll let you know more about that next week.

Last week I was really struggling mentally over some situations in my life that I truly have no control over. I kept grasping at quick moments of relaxation to try to steady myself mentally. The mental worry really affected me physically by the end of the week.

Throughout the week, I forced myself to put my phone down or stop scrolling Facebook. I scroll through social media when my mind races. I seem to think that doing those things will distract me. They certainly distract me, but they do not calm me down. In fact, my mind races even more when I go onto social media during a time of anxiety.

As you all know, I am an overthinker and I was in full force overthink mode half the week and then much of the weekend.

By Sunday I was at my breaking point – crying over everything, even simple inconveniences. It was like a hormone shift but that hasn’t been happening a lot lately, so I had a feeling it was from me trying to shove all my worries from the week deep down inside, so those worries didn’t spell out onto others. At least one issue is something my husband really doesn’t want to talk about because he knows how helpless we are in the situation so I couldn’t vent on him.

I found a friend to vent to and then tried to pray through my feelings of hopelessness and guilt. I didn’t pray as much as I stewed inside about it all, though, unfortunately. I tried to be a bit better and intentional about praying instead of worrying this week.

Last week, when I felt my most anxious, I had to consciously tell myself to put the phone down or shut off the computer. I would then either go out and take photographs of the flowers starting to bloom in the yard, pick up a book or put on a worship song, even if it was just for 15 minutes or just one song. I started to call these moments Pockets of Peace.

They were little pockets of time in my day where I could regulate my thoughts and my soul, even if only slightly. It helped give my nerves and mind time to calm down, instead of continuing to race and raise my cortisol to dangerous levels. I even made a point to pull a blanket over my lap and make a cup of tea during those times, mentally envisioning myself in a type of comfort zone.

I even imagined stepping inside a type of bubble – or shall we say a pocket made of soft fabric – zipping it closed and making myself cozy down in the corner for that brief moment of time.

Iit’s very important for us all to find those little pockets of time throughout our days to help slow our thoughts and feelings down. Maybe we need to find that time because we are already at the breaking point level or maybe we don’t want to get to that level. Either way, those pockets of time don’t need to be hours of time. They don’t even need to be an hour or half hour. Even 15 minutes of sitting and reading a devotional, listening to music, or reading from a book we enjoy can help calm most of us down inside. There are days where longer stretches of time for peace are needed, of course.

Have you found yourself in need of those little pockets of peace at some point in your life? How would you use those pockets of time if you intentionally made them?