Category: My Little Blue Kayak Blog

Nudge the Happy Needle

On a scale of 1-10 how happy are you? What would it take to move that number to the right 1 or 2 digits? Seriously what would it take? Would you need to win the lottery? Would a vacation to a beach resort do it? How about coming home to a clean house and dinner on the table?

These all seem like they would help, however in reality, I am willing to bet they don’t move the needle in the right direction for more than a hot minute. Winning the lottery is out of my control and as I rarely even bother to buy a ticket it, is not likely to happen. Vacationing in a beach resort sounds great but is not in my budget and although the needle would move, the minute I returned home, I bet it would fall back to its starting point. Coming home to a clean house and dinner on the table – yup that would help. That would even help even if I did all of the work!

Would this help? Image by ardoramanda from Pixabay

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Spring Has Sprung

If you have been reading my recent posts, you know I got away from winter for the entire month of February but March came in like a lion and left like a lion. We had lots of snowy days with minimal accumulation in March. It would look ferocious outside but when I left to drive home at the end of my shift there would be nothing to brush off my car much less to shovel! I guess if we have to deal with winter, this isn’t half bad!

On April 7, my honey and I drove to the cottage for the first time this year. I always approach this day with an odd mix of excitement and dread. Mostly excitement but still a healthy dose of fear! I never know if the driveway will be passable and if there will be damage to the house or to my beloved “condo”. Luckily, there were no real issues this year and we had time for a little bit of raking, lunch on the deck and a quick kayak ride. We wrapped up the day our first visit of 2019 to a favorite ice cream stand. My honey got a chocolate peanut butter cone and I got my soft-serve chocolate with chocolate sprinkles (jimmies to my New England friends).

Sprinkles please! Image by OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay

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5 Minutes is Easy!

A few months ago, I wrote about the idea that developing good habits will lead to success. I talked about purchasing an APP called “Productive” that I wanted to use to help me develop better habits. I decided to follow-up on that post to help me stay on track toward reaching some of my 2019 goals!

This year, I have a goal to post an average of 5 blog posts per month. The reason this is important to me is that I find that writing on this blog is one of the tools I use to keep sane! Writing is a form of therapy for me and reaching this goal will help me nurture my mental health.

Can you believe this keeps me sane? Image by Werner Moser from Pixabay

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My Mini-Retirements Keep Me On Top!

Have you ever had the opportunity to take an extended period of time away from work? Away from your life? Away from Debbie Downer and Ned the Nosy Neighbor? Away from your cluttered home and messy yard? Away from your daily responsibilities? If you have never had such an opportunity, I highly recommend you do some thinking, introspection, detective work etc to figure out how you could make it happen. It can change your life!

Extended time away from life is refreshing, invigorating and good for the soul! If done well, it can provide greater insight into difficulties you are facing leading to better thought processes and better decisions. Time away can recharge your batteries giving you more energy for activities that have become a struggle. I know when I get into stressed out mode, I don’t have the mental or physical energy to do more than the basics of self-care and work much. When in that mode, there is little oomph for tending to all of the pieces of the health puzzle!

This is how I want to spend my retirement! Image by MonikaDesigns from Pixabay

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What’s Brewing Under the Surface?

A delicate balance is often required to keep me in my happy place. Not too much work as it stresses me out and not too little as that leads to anxiety and worry. I’m not sure if I am really weird, just a bit odd or totally normal. I write down my thoughts here at My Little Blue Kayak and then I hit the “Publish” button for the world to see. Generally my words are positive, express gratitude, and hopefully lead people to smile and nod their head in agreement.

I used to say I was a simple person but I am learning that is not accurate. I strive to be simple but on the inside there is a lot brewing. I tend to be introspective and am not a people person. I prefer to be alone or with close family or friends. I would be perfectly happy if I never had to attend a large social gathering again in my life.

Keeping it Simple Image by aalmeidah from Pixabay

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Improve Key Relationships

In a recent post, I talked about health as a puzzle with 8 pieces. Today’s post is all about “Positive Relationships” as one piece of the overall puzzle. Through my work as an Occupational Therapist, I have seen how having positive relationships in one’s life can improve health outcomes for my patients. When in a Rehab setting, patients are surrounded by people but it can still be an isolating experience. Those who receive phone calls and visits by loved ones have a big advantage over patients who have no support. Having someone to run errands, bring home-cooked meals, listen to concerns is incredibly important. Positive relationships are a two-way street and they don’t get built over night!

Positive Relationships are a two way street…
Image by 12019 on Pixabay

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Sharing Some “Tude”

 

I have been writing a lot lately about choosing health and how that means a lot more than simply eating a good diet and exercising. One of my goals for 2019 is to write a gratitude journal as a means to choose mental health! Expressing gratitude is a wonderful way to bring inner peace, to get outside of negative thinking and to simply focus on the good. It is too easy to get sucked into “Stinking Thinking“, negative energy, bad vibes and the horrors of the daily news.

Today, I want to share a gratitude letter that I wrote at the end of 2018 to a former boss and mentor. I mailed this letter to her and she called me within a few days of receiving it. We had a great chat, caught up on life and shared more than a few laughs. Maybe reading this letter will encourage you to share your gratitude with a special person in your life!

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Who did you follow around as a kid? Is it time to thank them?

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Solving the Health Puzzle

When I was younger, I looked at health as the composite of two things. Eating a healthy diet and getting plenty of exercise. If you did these two things, you would be healthy. Mother Fran and Papa Jack took care of the healthy diet for everyone in my household so all I had to do was get plenty of exercise. Wait, they helped ensure that as well. My parents were always kicking us out of the house to go and play, go weed the garden, go shovel the dirt around the pond. Plus my siblings and I loved to shoot hoops, ride bikes, climb trees and play catch. Getting exercise as a kid growing up in the 1970’s and 1980’s was easy.

Now that I have Embraced the Gray, I know that living a healthy lifestyle is about so much more than food and movement. These two things are absolutely critical but they are only two pieces of a larger puzzle. I have done a ton of reading on this topic and listened to many podcasts and audiobooks that it is time I summarize for myself (and for anyone else interested) what a more complete health puzzle looks like. This is important to me because energizing others to choose health is part of how I live my life strategically!  

An incomplete health puzzle…

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Can You See Your Life?

2019 is in full swing and it is time I finalized my annual goals. I try to live my life strategically, spending as much time figuratively and literally in my happy place (My Little Blue Kayak) where I make my best decisions in pursuit of health, wealth and happiness. When sitting in my kayak, I can really see my life. I can see how it mirrors the life I want to be living and where it comes up a bit short! Writing annual goals is one way I try to make course corrections to keep me on my path. I use health, wealth and happiness as my goal categories and loosely define them as:

It doesn’t have to be blue!

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Persistently Yours!

My job as an Occupational Therapist at a Nursing Home has taught me to be persistent. If I am scheduled for 75 minutes with a patient, my boss doesn’t want to hear that I only got 60 minutes. Sometimes, I want to listen to my heart when someone starts complaining that they didn’t sleep or are in pain or that they have company. Quite often though, I have to listen to my head.

Getting out of bed may sound like the worst possible torture to someone who doesn’t feel well, but in reality, it is often exactly what they need. So, I often need to go back to see the same person 3x during the day in order to get my 75 minutes. I have to bother them despite the fact that they have tried to refuse me, I have to ask them again to get out of bed, to sit on the edge of the bed or to lift some light weights while in bed. Some days, I walk in someone’s room and before I even introduce myself they groan or roll their eyes. They know I am a therapist before I say a word and they know I am going to be pushy.

My patients give me looks like this!

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