First of all, I am moving on to the next step on the Celebrating Silver quilt. I might pinbaste the other quilt this week, like on a night when I get home before 9 PM maybe. I will be quilting it over the Tday weekend, so it’s not a rush. I do need to get started on Silver though…ideally getting some fabric cut out before that week as well. Cutting out Wonder Under is relatively boring. I watch TV while I’m doing it, but it’s also nitpicky and fussy, especially with all the tiny little pieces, so it’s hard to start when you’re already tired, because it often feels like work.
But I did it anyway, because I’m persistent (and crazy) like that…
I didn’t do a lot, 45 minutes, but it’s a start. I got one yard cut out, but it was a yard with lots of long big dirt pieces in it. If I work on it every night, it won’t take very long, and then I can start picking fabrics for that one as well, which means I need a background fabric, which means I have to make a decision about the color of the background fabric, which means I have to start coloring that sucker in my head. No problem. Especially if I have another insomniac night when I wake up like three times for no apparent reason and can’t go back to sleep. Meditative breathing got a real workout today, starting about about 1 AM. At least I’m using what I learn in meditation practice, eh? I’m hoping that between the lack of sleep two nights running and the bitchy workout I did at the gym that I can sleep through tonight…because little sleep makes Kathy really sad and unhappy and that’s not good.
I read an article today about 10 simple things you can do today that will make you happier (backed up by science)…the article is here. Is it OK to get irritated by articles like this? I was angry at first, because they make it sound so easy and it’s not that easy for me at the moment, but when I read it the second time (no, I’m not obsessive, shut up), I realized I do most of this stuff already…
I do exercise a lot. I’m revising HOW I exercise, but I don’t think adding 7 minutes/day is going to make a difference…I’m already over 9 hours/week. Wow. That is a lot.
I don’t sleep enough, but hell, it’s not for lack of TRYING. My biology is fucking with me. How do I deal with that? I can’t force myself to sleep more. My brain wakes me up, completely wired, and refuses to go back to sleep (last night truly sucked, and I’m convinced a lot of it is hormonal).
My commute is 2.47 miles. I could walk to work if I didn’t have to carry all that teacher stuff.
I do hang with a small number of friends and family. I could improve on this…but is it quantity or quality? I vote for the latter. It’s on my mind and I’m taking steps.
I could go outside more…although teachers do spend more time outdoors than a lot of office drones. I get to stand outside between each class and walk back and forth outside regularly. I could add to that…not sure how, but working on adding some hiking to my exercise repertoire (more hours!).
Help others, 100 hours/year. Now, does being a teacher count for that? Because I feel like all I do is help others some days, when some days maybe I should spend more time helping myself. I get all helped out. The article talks about spending money on others (being a teacher definitely qualifies for that). So I spent a ton of money on my students and about 6 hours a day for 183 days a year. Seems like a lot.
Practice smiling. Despite the depression, I do smile and laugh every day. Sometimes it’s some dorky kid thing (whether it’s a student or my own children); sometimes it’s something someone wrote (Tanya, Sion, and Monique are good at making me smile). Sometimes it’s that dorky video of cats. Or dogs. You know what I mean.
Plan a trip but don’t take one. OK. That’s just depressing. BUT…that said…I realized yesterday that there were some places I wanted to go, and yes, money is incredibly tight, but at some point in my future, the kids will be gone and on their own, and I could travel, and I am no longer limited by…um…well…certain factors that limited me, shall we say. I talked to my SIL years ago about going to India together…
because neither of our significant others wanted anything to do with that trip. I want to go to Antarctica…
the Galapagos Islands (can you say science teacher? Iguanas that swim!)…
Hawaii for the volcanoes and that park you have to walk into…
I found a friend’s picture of Machu Picchu from when she went a few years ago (at least, I think this is her picture)…
All those places…the Mayan temples, the Egyptian pyramids, all the places I’ve seen in pictures and read about, minus the tour guides and that crap. I just want to go. So I guess I can plan for that, even if it’s 10+ years in the future and I don’t get everywhere I think I want to go. Even if I’m going by myself. There was some animal reserve on the West coast of Chile where only a certain number of people were allowed per year. There. I want to go there. So. I guess that’s a plan. Of sorts.
Meditate: yup. doing that. every day. So there, brain. Take that.
Practice gratitude: I talked about this yesterday and how it goes against my nature. But if you look back at my years of blogging, I do show gratitude…for good books, good movies, good art, being able to make art, pets, kids, donuts, stupid shit, beautiful landscapes. I do it all the time. I just don’t use the words “I am thankful for…”. Maybe it’s just the triteness of those words being trotted out every year in November that I object to…the being thankful for the stuff that keeps me sane and here on the planet? I can do that. I do it all the time. I just don’t label it properly (much like the water faucets in my shower, says my plumber…I blame Dad for switching them around). Tonight? Tonight I am thankful for apples and a decent cup of tea. In a minute, I’m going to be thankful for a warm bed and a Kitten. I’m hoping to be thankful for a reasonable amount of sleep. Did I cry today? Oh yeah. But I still did the stuff I needed to do and even some stuff I wanted to do. I’m thankful for Brussels sprouts, however weird that is.
So that’s it. I’m doing all the things that should be making me happier. I need to sleep more and go outside more. OK. I’ll do that. Bring on the happy, dammit.
Kathy Nida 
Yeah, here’s the thing about the article on happiness. It makes some good points, but to get in to the damned thing, you first have to get past the inordinately gleeful photo of the woman balancing on … I don’t know what, maybe tombstones or posts or ammo boxes standing on end. Then there are those gigantic dots behind her. What are those? Is she living on a planet with multiple suns? Has that so affected the gravitational field that she has to lean one way in order to stand up on the upended suitcases, while the liquid (?) in the background is clearly stable while tilted in the opposite direction? Or is she maybe experimenting with hallucinogens, which is why she’s seeing giant dots while stomping around on basalt monoliths by the Dead Sea? The whole thing is a bit more than worrisome.
If they send that woman over to a tampon ad, which is where she clearly belongs, I may give the article more thought. Until then, I’m going to sip some coffee and putter in the garage, which is close enough to happiness for the likes of me.
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