The Peaceful Bench

I took this photo quite a few years ago. Whenever I need a peaceful moment, 

I go to this spot in my mind's eye.

It's been a stressful time...days, weeks, months...heck 2020 so far. So much is swirling around all the time that it's hard to come up for air sometimes. I like to keep informed, but I know that I've been watching too much news and reading too much social media, so I've been trying to take a break this weekend. I haven't done so great at it, but I'm working on it in baby steps. 

Losing my sister, Covid-19 and the protests have had me on edge constantly. I've been kind of on autopilot for weeks, but it finally took its toll this past week. When I woke up on Friday it felt like I had been running a marathon in my dreams because I was exhausted and I had just woken up. I made it through the day, but once I finished my work for the day, I got back to my bed as soon as I could. The mind and body can only take so much and I got that message loud and clear. 

So I'm going to sit on my peaceful bench in my mind's eye and enjoy :)

10th Blogiversary

Well here I am. Ten years ago today, I started this blog. Doesn't a decade go by fast? 

I had planned to write something special for this milestone, but alas, I'm not feeling great again. I got a reprieve of a few days, but now I'm feeling kind of icky again. Icky....(smile) I guess it's the only way to describe it. We've had a very harsh cold snap of freezing temperatures and snow. I think that walking home the other day in the cold wind has perhaps pushed me a couple of steps back in my quest to get well. Oh well, that's life. I won't make this milestone for my blog about my not feeling well. That would be a real downer. (smile) After I write this, I'm going to go have a lie down and give myself a bit of TLC. I'll be fine. 

This inclination to know when to take a rest is something that has grown increasingly within me during this past decade. Blogging and life side-by-side have ushered me into some healthier ways of thinking so I'm grateful for that. When I started this blog I was ten years younger and I still hadn't quite realized the true value of being kind to myself. It's not that I hated myself at all, it was just that I didn't think of what I needed enough. I was a giving person then and I'm still a giving person now, but I also have learned that if I don't give some time to myself then I'll have nothing to give to anyone else. I know that this isn't groundbreaking stuff in the scheme of things in the world, with so much going on, but this has been life-changing for me. 

So I guess that this 10th blogiversary...ten years of my life, has given me the chance to look back on this part of my life. I'm so grateful that I started this blog. In the beginning, it was a means of coping with being so far away from home and trying to find my feet in a strange land. Later it grew into me telling about the places here and there that I've visited. It's also been an outlet for my love of taking pictures, long before Instagram came along. Through blogging I've also had some fun opportunities come my way like: visiting the US Embassy, going to the Ideal Home Show, and my favorite...going to London Fashion Week. 

My blog may not be a big thing like some, but that's okay. I just enjoy having a kind of digital time capsule of my time here in England and I like sharing what I see. I'd like to freshen things up here and offer more and this is part of my plan, but this will come in time.

In the meantime, I just want to thank everyone who has visited me here over these ten years. I appreciate this so much! Here's to another ten years and to making this space better and better!

Feeling Better and Eurovision

Hi :-)

I'm happy to report that I'm feeling better. I'm still not 100%, but I'm certainly feeling much better than I felt this time last week. I'm so grateful for that. Over the weekend I took it easy. I made myself rest because sometimes I'll be lying there just thinking about what I could be getting done instead of lying in bed. But I think that I've been cured of that this time around :-) I took the time to slow down and just let myself heal and it gave me a new perspective on self-care. The longer you go along without getting rest and letting yourself heal, the longer it will take for you to actually get better. So I have a whole new appreciation for being more patient with my body and letting it rebuild.

I mostly read over the weekend and I watched some television. I started reading this new book...well it's a book that I've had for a while, but it's new because I've never read it. I've mentioned in a previous post about my recovery as a book "collector" and how I'm trying to break the cycle of letting my books pile up without reading them. I realized that I have a case of tsundoku. Lol. You can check out my short post about that here. Anyway, I pulled a good one from my book pile and I'll be writing soon about this interesting book :-)

I also watched one of my favorite things...the Eurovision Song Contest on Saturday. This is one of my favorite things to watch every year since I've been living here. It's fun to watch singers from the different countries compete for the top prize. There are some good songs, but what I love the most is seeing how intriguing the performances are. Sometimes participants show up dressed in wild costumes and it's a feast for the eyes for a viewer like myself who loves a bit of quirkiness  ;-) The winner this year was from Sweden. Congratulations to them! I'm looking forward to next year.

Sunday was my first day of sitting up for longer stretches and I did pretty well. Yesterday was a bank holiday here so I had another day to rest and I think that it did me good. I'm slowly getting back to normal...fingers crossed.

I hope that everyone has a great week! I'll be back with another post in a day or two as I get back on schedule :-)