Posts Tagged ‘Relaxation’

I’m really tired, and I think I realized today I had to slow down and take it easy. So today has turned out to be more quiet. I’ve really wanted to nap, but I’m teaching tomorrow morning, and if I nap now, I’ll have trouble falling asleep, and then I’ll be even more tired tomorrow morning when it’s time for algebra. So I bought a new book for the iPad (Barbra Streisand’s biography) and stretched out on the couch.

I am SO tired of political ads, which are getting nastier and nastier. This is the first presidential election that I have contributed money to, and I will be SO glad when it’s done…it’s been going on for two years already.. It’s ugly, ads are ugly, people are lying all over the place, and not once has global warming been mentioned in this election, as we deal with the super storm Sandy.

Today was one of those days I had to remind myself I’m retired. I’ve done lists for the last four weeks. This week’s list is definitely shorter, but there are still projects that need to be finished. Hey, it’ll happen when it happens. The pattern will get written when it does.

The biggest issue has been serious eye strain…both in the eye that doesn’t work anymore and the good eye. I evidently can’t do some of the really close sewing (the ugly white polyester project that I am close to finishing) because I can’t see for several hours afterwards. Not only that, I bled on the white polyester…..So I’ve figured out a way to finish the project by just making it somewhat smaller. I still have lots of sewing in me…I’m evidently going to need to watch the type of project I take on.

And I’m slowly starting walks around the block again, and doing some standing yoga poses, as the leg is FINALLY healing. This has been extremely frustrating, as I was doing an hour of yoga each day. Nothing in almost four weeks.

So what happens this week happens. Little by little I will get the website changes done. I’ll slowly work on projects, play some more solitaire, read some more books, visit with friends, and generally take it easy.

Usually in Tucson the bad weather hits on a school day – the kind of weather where you want to hole up under a quilt, read, and drink hot chocolate. Today’s the day, and I am staying home…I’m debating even getting dressed today. Let’s end the year in a nice relaxed mode.

I like not having much of anything on my to-do list. Taking the pressure off to be the new emerging artist (after 15-plus years of marbling and quilting) feels very good. I played with new markers yesterday – a splurge at Michael’s with a gift card. I’m usually a pen and ink person, but I think I’m going to like adding some color to my zentangle work. I have a tentative zentangle party set up for February with a CZT here in Tucson, which should be lots of fun. I cleaned out my Google reader of blogs where no one’s posting, or it’s scrapbook stuff, and I’ve been discovering lots of great zentangle blogs.

School starts next Monday and I’m all ready….lesson plans for most of the week already set. I know with the retirement decision that my school days are numbered. This time next year I’ll only have 5 months to go. The time will go faster than I think it will

I’m reading books on France, specifically Paris, as we start to plan for our trip to Paris and Venice in September of 2012. There is SO much to do in Paris…it’s going to be a lot of fun to plan and read about historical France (since I don’t remember a lot from European history, except reading the actual words of Rousseau and the like) and about the artists I want to see in the Louvre. That will make some good planning reading over the next few months.

I’m working on a new quilt that I am going to make up in a pattern. I have a bunch of ideas, and I need to see how to save a document as a PDF – I’m thinking I need an updated version of Office for Mac (mine’s 2004…..). And it looks like the computer is going to need a trip to the shop for a needed cleaning. And…lots of back-ups done over the next few weeks, as I have so much that is old stuff, and too many pics and graphics slowing the computer down.

The elephant in the room is getting back on track for weight loss. I need to get back to my blog and keep myself on track. I like not having weight be constantly in the fore-front of my mind, but unfortunately I think there’s a pound or two creeping back up. There have been a lot of good changes in terms of health this year, and I want to build on those.

Goals for the last few days of vacation? Take it easy, maybe start work on sorting slides. Go through two more scrapbooks to decide what to keep for pictures. Get caught up on reading blogs. Finish Silk Road. Buy fabric for the bedspread I have been promising myself…notice I didn’t say quilt, because I know from past experience if I start a bed quilt (and I have…) it’s not going to get finished. So rather than spend another $30 for a cheap coverlet, I’m going after some home dec fabric for a bedspread that will work across the seasons – Joanne’s 50% off over the next few days….

I’m off to enjoy the rainy, possibly snowy weather today.