This time of year, I always find myself with more time than usual and it is way too easy to let it slip through my fingers. Although I have a lot more time, it isn’t really mine. I am hanging with Mother Fran in Florida and providing 24 hour care along with my sister. Mom isn’t hard to care for, however, we don’t leave her alone anymore. This means one of us sticks close by all day and all night. I am enjoying my time, but trying to decide if I should schedule activities for myself or simply go with the flow.
Depending on the situation, I embrace both approaches.
The sky is blue, the clouds are airy and the sun is shining. That makes for a pretty good day here in Upstate, New York. As I write this, The temperture is 19 degrees and going down to three degrees overnight. The windchill? Well that is whole different ball game. I am getting tired of bundling up in winter clothing just to take the dog out for a quickie. Damn – I wasn’t going to complain. Let me try again…
The sky is blue, the clouds are airy and the sun is shinging. Life is good here in Upstate, New York.
For the last several years, I have worked per diem as an Occupational Therapist in a nursing home and doing yard work jobs on the side. These two income streams were sufficient to pay my bills and live my life on my terms. I love being outdoors and getting plenty of exercise without actually feeling like I have exercised. As I have mentioned before, with the onset of Covid, I made a decision to stop working in the nursing home as the risk of exposure is high. I knew I needed and wanted to spend lots of time with Mother Fran.
My sisters and I have been updating each other on the phone and by text of how we have been spending our time while social distancing! This post was inspired by those conversations! Thanks to Mother Fran, our family bond is strong!
I like to keep myself relatively busy. I wake up most days by 6:00am and am ready to greet the day. Once I drink my tea, take my quiet time, eat some breakfast and walk the dog; I’m ready to get cracking! I’m not good at just sitting around twiddling my thumbs. Between Covid19, daily rain storms, and not working at the nursing home; I have way too much time on my hands.
In a recent post titled Don’t Be a Stranger, I wrote about my being a bit more complex than I tend to admit to others or accept for myself. I usually think (and write) about how I like to wing it. This applies to certain areas of my life like cooking. In other areas though I keep a pretty rigid schedule and this keeps me on top of my work life and helps to ensure I remember to have a social life and some fun in my week. Interestingly enough the ability to be flexible helps me with winging it and scheduling it. Not simple at all!
I have learned that I need to schedule fun activities in order to ensure I do the things I say love to do. If I don’t literally get it on my calendar, I don’t find the time to go biking, hiking or kayaking. I get caught up in work, chores and the day to day tasks of running my life and the weeks slip by one after another. I have to literally schedule date night with my honey and overnights at the cottage with Mother Fran or these incredibly important things don’t happen. One of my rules for living my life is to spend time with people I love doing activities we both enjoy. In order to make this happen, it needs to get on the schedule. I also need to be willing to do the work that is involved with having fun.
My honey and I just spent 27 hours away from home for a biking adventure with my cousin. 27 hours sounds inconsequential. It sounds like nothing. All we had to do was get the bike rack on the car, the bikes down from the garage ceiling, the tires pumped up. We had to pack the car, arrange for Fenway care and get the day off from work. Making this biking trip happen involved work AND it was well worth it!
Isn’t she a beauty?
Getting away from home, even for a 27 hour period of time can feel like a vacation. It doesn’t have to be expensive, it doesn’t have to be far, it doesn’t have to be loaded with activities. For us, just getting to a new environment and spending quality time together is wonderful. It gets the oxytocin activated – you know the feel good cuddle hormone! Yes it involves a bit of effort AND it is worth it!
One of my Happiness Goals for 2019 is to go on to two bike/kayak/hike weekends away from home. The trip to my cousins counts as one so one more to go! It has taken a long time but we finally purchased 2 sets of JBars for the kayaks and a load assist device to help us get them on top of the Rav4. It is time for me to do some planning and get a kayaking weekend on the calendar! Now we have to figure out how to assemble everything and make sure we know how to secure them on the roof! Sometimes fun sounds like work AND it is worth it!
The 2 hour drive to my cousins house was a breeze. Making this happen was easy but only because I got it on our joint calendar. We use the Google Calendar – we each have our own calendar and we have a joint one. We can both see all three of them at the same time (color coded) or can easily turn one off to make it look less daunting. I don’t know how I kept track of my life in my 30’s and 40’s but I know I didn’t use any phone Apps or even a paper calendar. All I know is this process works well for us!
When I feel overwhelmed, I tend to shut down and disengage a bit. That makes planning fun activities more difficult. I don’t know about you but I intend to have a wonderful summer and that means it is time do the work so I can have some fun! My honey and I are also talking about a return trip to Florida this winter and a drive cross country in 2020. It is time to start some planning to make these both happen!
I started working at age 14 and my work ethic is strong. I feel the pull to be productive, to earn money and to pay my own way. By the age of 22, I became a manager at the human service agency that I worked for and by the age of 25, I was running a program. Once I finished graduate school I was a department director overseeing 30 staff and 3 different programs. There is a sense of security when you have a career, climb the ladder and earn a salary versus an hourly wage. You know how much money is coming in each month and can plan ahead relatively easily. You know where you will be Monday-Friday for 8-10 hours per day. Security is nice.
Last night my honey and I went to a wedding for one of my co-workers. It was a short, sweet ceremony followed by an hour-long cocktail hour, buffet dinner and wrapped up with some dancing. The night was a lot of fun and it was good to let loose a bit!
I loved the sunflower theme at the wedding!
Now this freshly married co-worker is getting ready for her honeymoon and I am going to cover her shifts for the next 2 weeks. Then another co-worker is taking the following 2 weeks off and I am covering for her too. During this time I will also have a few yardwork jobs lined up.
Yup 4 weeks of essentially full-time work. I can’t believe I agreed to this. When I get stressed I lose my composure, I get off track and life gets chaotic. I don’t want this to happen this time so I thought I would do some planning in advance to ensure I stay sane for the next month!
Do you want to increase your happiness? There is more than enough to go around and it is free to make more and more. One could argue the supply of happiness is endless.
Then why are people so unhappy all of the time?
I think we live such busy, hectic lives that we are stressed out most of the time. We don’t spend time doing things we love and eventually we forget the joy we once derived from simple pleasures. We get caught up in daily chores, work, responsibilities, and commitments and forget to do the little things that bring us joy.
I bet he is smiling!
I would argue that if you want to increase your happiness, if you want to be a better person, if you want to be the best YOU possible; that it takes work. It takes some introspection and quiet time. But all of the time and effort is worth it once you can find ways to maximize your happiness, reduce your stress and spend time with the people who bring out the best in you.
The long winter of 2017 is over and spring has been pretty wonderful, although a bit rainy. I managed to plant my small garden several weeks ago which is pretty early for this area. I have tomatoes, basil, parsley, scallions, and peppers. I have been doing lots raking, weeding and planting in my own yard and with others.
