summer is always my busiest time of year. when other people are taking deep breaths of no-school air, i’m gearing up for a summer of exciting fun at the library. every year, i think to myself that the busyness is only when i’m at work and, especially now that i’m taking graduate courses, surely summers will have some extra free time! and in some ways they do, i suppose, but summer still manages to feel very busy. the past month or so has felt especially hectic because i’ve had a pretty unpredictable schedule. when i’m in the middle of programming and doing weekly events, i get a bit more into a routine, but the past few weeks, i’ve had the most random days off. this week, i have off tuesday and thursday (and work m, w, f, sat). on tuesday, i decided to have a “screen-free day” and, although i wanted to blog and tell all of you about the fun things i’ve done recently, i resisted temptation. it was a very relaxing day! in fact, i may decide to go screen-free for the rest of today (as soon as i’m done with this post). it is amazing to me how much time this computer can slurp up.
one of the things i did recently that i wanted to share with you was my first visit to the botanical gardens here in town. i am so embarrassed that i’ve never explored them before! i’ve even had library workshops in the main building and never gone outside to explore the grounds (they’re free!). but last week, mr. happy stuff’s aunt and uncle came to visit for a few days and i thought maybe they’d enjoy the gardens, so we took them for a tour. they are beautiful! there’s a maze of tiny, discrete (and discreet) gardens full of beauty and nooks and quiet spaces, good smelling and beautiful plants, and delightful garden structures and statuary. next time, i’ll bring my camera.
on tuesday, i also went swimming and broke my own personal at-one-time swimming distance record and did a whole mile! in under an hour! i wasn’t sure i’d get the last few laps in before the pool closed, so i really pushed myself the last few laps (panic–always a good motivator for speed i didn’t know i had!) and finished. whew!
i also baked bread on tuesday, made some delicious crockpot curry chicken (if the leftovers prove to be as good as the original, and if i don’t get totally sick of it before it’s gone, i’ll be sure to post the recipe here as a “keeper”), and figured out how to hang my hammock chair up in my porch and read an entire book in one sitting (the invention of hugo cabret by brian selznick–try it out!).
this morning’s happy thing was that when i went in to do my yoga, i looked at my bookshelf in there and decided that there were a few books i could get rid of (the 365 blog has gotten kind of … behind, and i’ve been looking for more stuff to get rid of everywhere i go) because i’d never read them. i got distracted from my yoga when i began thumbing through the books to see if there was any reason to keep them. one of them was called “instant calm” and i was delighted to discover, as i flipped through it, that although i’d never read the book, i have already, instinctively, done many of the exercises they recommend doing to achieve calm. One of the ones i’ve taken to doing on a regular basis recently is consciously telling myself when i leave work to switch into “home” mode (and vice versa) because if i spend my whole day off worrying about work… i haven’t really had a day off (and if i spend the whole day at work thinking about stuff at home, then i haven’t really had a productive day of work).
ok, enough rambling. off to my screen-free day!
