Personal life – Page 5

March 25, 2021March 25, 2021

The little things are important too

This morning, one of my beautiful friends shared a post on Facebook that caught my eye. You can read the whole post here, but, in essence, it encourages us all to acknowledge the fact that sometimes, we are trying to do too much. And we do not give ourselves and others credit for just… surviving.

The small hours found me awake this morning because my Labrador had insisted on going outside. Coming back to bed my brain was responsible for not being able to go back to sleep. I thought about all the little things that are currently challenging me. And one of these are that I feel that I am not doing enough. So my question is: why do we always want to do more? Is it comparison? The whole social media dilemma where we compare our own situations with the little glimpses we see of other’s lives.

March 4, 2021March 4, 2021

The value of my debrief

If you know me, or you have been following these somewhat random notes of mine, you will know that these come from the mind of an overwhelmed overthinker.

The last two weeks have presented various hurdles, of which I will not go into detail now. Let us just say that having a routine checkup on Tuesday could land you in hospital on Thursday in the midst of work and parent chaos. Also, bad things don’t always just happen in threes… It could be multiples of three. Anywhoo, so I have not had my head attached correctly for a while and thus just doing some chaotic form of crisis management. So my excuse is that I did not have time, while the truth is probably that I was in a funk and did not feel like it.

Silence and stepping away from something do however always bring some time for reflection, self-doubt and avoidance – an ongoing spiral of the overthinker.

This afternoon I finally sat down and did a debrief. The purpose was to just get everything out of my mind and onto paper. Categorise, sort and try again. A lot of the last 12 months have been dedicated to figuring out how to manage my time effectively and juggle various responsibilities. Mostly because I was overwhelmed and this caused anxiety. Many of these little discoveries have been noted on this blog. I started implementing the bullet journal method. Most days this helps me to stay on top of things. On other days, however, things happen that were not on the list.

February 9, 2021February 9, 2021

Watch your language

This week has been … weird, for many reasons and no reason at all. Probably because it has been raining for most of it. Work has also been quite hectic (yes, I know, everyone says that), with way too many little bits of things that fill up your day without having anything to show for it.

On Tuesday I had a phone call from a friend whom I have not spoken to in forever. It was… simple. Uncomplicated. And shame, then the poor guy caught me at the most horrible hour of fed-up-ness. First problematic thing was that the Lilliputians were singing along to a movie that they have been watching on repeat for weeks now. Why do they do that? I cannot remember doing it as a child but then again, that was because you would have had to rewind the tape first… that’s maybe it. And the dogs were being dogs, barking at anything that moved from the safety of the dry living room. Protecting the house without getting wet, you see.

So my rant started, and summarised all the chaos together with all the little things that were annoying me, which then turned towards myself. Comments about weight gain and not getting to everything. I depicted exactly how chaotic mornings have been here, because of my less than sunny disposition before 9 am. So he told me to watch my language. I was surprised. Don’t get me wrong, the guard in front of my mouth is a drunk sailor, but… he’s known me since school, I did not think that that was a problem.

November 25, 2020November 24, 2020

Something to look forward to

Today I finished a book. I adored this book. And even if it did take me almost three months (due to being distracted by many other wonderful thing) I have now completed it and now I feel sad… that I have to let go of these characters and the beautiful scenes and the descriptive language and plunge into another book. And the food. Oh my word there was so much lovely food! It sometimes feels like you are letting a friend go home after a perfect weekend. Even though this was an extended stay.

I have always been interested in what other people read. A friend of mine whom I visited this weekend has the beautiful principle that on his birthday you should give him a book that you love. And he promises to read it, because that way he gets to know a little bit about you too. Not only is it the perfect gift but just think about knowing that you can look forward to all these books on an annual basis.

I have however now been so happy and familiar with this book that I am unsure what to tackle next. I have to admit that I really try not to be judgy, but I do get judgy about people who do not read. I am suspicious if I cannot see bookshelves in your house. And I don’t know what small talk to make if it cannot be about books.

I registered on Goodreads about four years ago. Not only to answer my tracking addiction (I did not even know that I had it then) but also to be able to connect with other readers. Not only are there fantastic reviews but you can also see, for example, in what order a newly found author wrote their titles. You also start to get to know which of your friends like the same genre’s as you do and you can then safely click on “want to read” if they gave it a good review.

Goodreads therefore also gives you a fantastic starting point for when you are in the mood for a specific author and unsure of what is available. Nowadays it also has a link directly to Amazon. So it is actually almost too easy.

I do however think the best feature for me and most applicable today, is that I can choose a book from my “want to read” list. I have to admit that even though I am a tremendous fan of hardcopy books, our household simply does not have enough space. I do buy books. But those are the ones that I want to keep. I bought my first Kindle eight years ago and it has given me endless late nights but it broke about four months ago and was immediately replaced… no questions asked (except for what cover I want). What I love about the Kindle is that when we go on holiday I now only pack books for the Lilliputians. The Engineer and I have endless possibilities on our Kindles (I converted him too).

That is a very long ramble about books to say what I actually want to chat about today, that you always need to have something to look forward to. I think that is why “hard lockdown” was so difficult for me because the days were all the same and there was no end in site. I also believe that that is why the Engineer and I started the cooking together during lockdown – it was something to look forward to after a day where we were both working from home and trying to keep the Lilliputians alive while turning a blind eye to the dishes.

Speaking of the Enigineer, he actually has a fantastic rule. While in the car back from a vacation (even if it is a weekend away) you have to make a plan for the next one. And it is exactly so that while you are doing the laundry from this one you already have something to look forward to in the future.

Now, let us all admit that this year kicked our asses with that rule. Everyone had plans that did not quite pan out. But maybe I can start again with the small things. Looking forward to my first cup of coffee in the morning, or my run. A pilates class or an episode of a series. But there should always be something. This is why I am so perplexed that I do not have my next read downloaded yet.

November 24, 2020November 23, 2020

Let’s talk about voice notes

This past week there was a lot of organising things… a dinner with friends, tennis league matches (the Engineer is sometimes a tennis player), a time to pick up documents from my parents. Just… ordinary grown-up adminny things. All of these were organised through WhatsApp… all on text. Easy peasy. The Engineer, however, brought to my attention how many people like to send voice notes. Now, I, who hate talking on the phone, hate voice notes even more. But for reasons that I could not put my finger on. I have, however, been guilty of sending a voice note or two when driving or when I simply have a lot to say (read: need to crap someone out without the actual confrontation).