Tag: health

health, healthy hacks

Just Breathe

2chicksandapen

Such a simple statement: just breathe.

There are many times now-a-days I think about this simple statement. In the morning when my coach programs deep breathing in my warmup. It’s almost a time to put me back to sleep but it doesn’t. It settles my mind. It gets me ready for the crazy day ahead. Just simple breathing.

Then I think about the many I know near and far struggling with their breathing. Just breathe is hard for them. They could be having issues with Covid or they could be just aging or they could be dealing with an asthma flare up. Just breathe for them takes on a totally different meaning than my just breathe in the morning.

Then there is deep inhale and long exhale of breathing I do in times of stress. When the calendar is full to max capacity. When everyone needs you in different places at the same time. When life is crazy amidst a pandemic. When you need to make choices. Just breathe. It’s simple but not so simple.

On days like today I take a few minutes to breathe in and breathe out. Appreciating each breath for what it is. An opportunity. A chance to take on a new day. For me the fresh air breathing outside is much more appreciated than indoor but some days I take what I can get.

Don’t underestimate the value of breathing. It can be therapeutic. If done calmly with purpose and thought it can be a reset button of sorts. Just breathing has hidden values.

Take a walk in in the park and inhale the scents, exhale the worries of life.

Sit in your yard and listen to the birds chirp while you inhale and exhale.

Take a trip to the mountains and breathe the crisper mountain air. Exhale the toxins of the city hustle and bustle.

If you are near the the ocean, enjoy calm breathing with the mist of the sea. Exhale any negativity in your life.

Go to your special place. Close your eyes. Just breathe. Remember a loved one. Cherish memories while you breathe in and out. Just breathing slowly with purpose allows up time to enjoy the simplicity of breathing and reflection.

Just breathe. Just breathe as you wait for the big news you are anxious about. Just breathe as you stress about the days ahead. Just breathe as you tackle the the new you that’s on the horizon. Just breathe. It’s simple enough but sometimes we all need that reminder to just breathe through it all.

I’ll leave you with this clip of my morning routine today. Give simple breathing a shot for five minutes. Let me know how this 5 minutes of your day worked to your advantage.

author moments

Cranky Pants 2.0

2chicksandapen

Today I did something funny. I spun the dial on my app to revisit my blog posting from 1 year ago. What was my mindset? What was I writing about? Was I even writing?

I was indeed writing about being cranky and the post was titled Cranky Pants hence the title of today’s post. Now here is my update for today. I am not cranky at all. I am feeling purposeful, strategic and I glow.

Today I had a great day. It started out with my sweat sisters doing what we love. Working out in the early hours of the day pushing our body and mind to the limits. I had some play time with my pups which always takes any stress away. I met some great people at an event I hosted and I was able to make and impact today in my work. The work that I classify as my purposeful work. The work that simply provides joy for helping others. In a nut shell, I’m floating in my own little happy cloud celebrating the day.

Now I got a little curious to see what was on my mind in 2019, pre-pandemic. Well I was writing again. This time I was writing about my new-to-me black beach bike. I still love the bike but it has a flat tire so I don’t ride it as I should and I have a newer road bike that seems to get more mileage than the beach bike. I guess this is a reminder to book a beach trip so I can pack up my bike and take for a spin in some beach town. What a fun reminder.

Ah the beauty of blogging over time. I have check in points to see if I have grown in some way or maybe I’ve been stuck in a rut or maybe I was just at a loss for words and not writing. Now that I circled back to 2018 just to see what I was up to. I was writing about dreaming. Creating a vision. Working your plan. I can safely say I live that model day in day out. Just this week I spent time planning. Preparing for big steps of progress. I use a white board to post ideas and revisit them. It’s an ongoing process. What a great reminder it is for me to spin the dial on my blog posts from time to time.

Where am I going?

Where have I been?

What have I learned?

What am I in the process of learning?

Who’s been along for the ride?

Who’s jumped ship when the waves got rocky?

When will I stop writing about stuff?

When will I publish my next big book?

So many questions.

Life is unfolding and the future is a mystery. This blog is a placeholder. A keepsake for people to read over time. For now I’m living in the moment. I’m choosing the virtual writing platform of this blog as we seem to be in the digital world right now thanks to Corona. 

This isn’t really a fancy post it’s merely a look back for me. A reflection I can openly share as I have published pieces over the years that share a sliver of me. Make no mistake when I say a sliver. My life is full of many twists, turns, and tangled webs. Some who know me well don’t even fully grasp what makes me tick or a ticking time bomb of sorts. For that reason alone you have a sliver. A glimpse. A snapshot of what’s hot or what’s not.

Until next time. Enjoy my twisted sliver of today and yesterday. I guess you will just have to visit this blog often to seen when I spin the time dial again. 

3Splitz Farm

Flowers Don’t Care

2chicksandapen

The first summer season as a flower farmer. The triumphs. The trials. (I’m looking at you, weeds!) The lessons.

Flowers have their own time. On the back of each seed pack, it tells me about how long I’ll be waiting to see their blooms. For so many, it’s weeks and weeks, even months, before the blooms begin to peek out. Seems like forever I’m just waiting and waiting, thinking they’ll never get here.

Then, driving in through the trees, into the wide valley, I crane my neck and finally see…

color.

Red, pink, yellow, orange, purple, white, and more. Color after color exploding in the middle of the wide green field. The flowers are here!

And from that point on, every time I make that crossing into the valley, I hold my breath. Will they still be here? Are they still coming? And every time, the answer is a bright, explosive YES!

Yes, we are here. Yes, we are growing. Yes, it’s time to cut us so we can make more more more more more.

It’s a lot of work, the whole process of growing and cutting flowers. It may seem simple but it isn’t. So many steps from dream to plan to ground to stem to vase to the recipient’s smile. It’s worth it in the end, but the middle parts can be wearisome.

But, no matter how tired or busy I am, the flowers don’t care.

They are driven. They have a mission. They bloom and bloom and bloom.

If it’s raining? Bloom. Sunny? Bloom. Come wind or any other weather.

If I have a busy social calendar? They don’t care. Bloom. If I’m tired? Bloom. If a family member is sick? Bloom. They must.

It’s kind of a beautiful thing, with all the ugliness in the news, the poison and pandemic and pessimism, they just keep on blooming, totally unaffected by the goings on. Their whole job is to make the farm and faces light up with color. And next year we will have even more of them.

When I don’t feel like making the trip, I remind myself that the day will come when I will crane my neck coming into the valley and the color won’t be there. I’ll miss them when they are gone. So I continue on, enjoying the blooms.

Teddie Bear Adventures

That Feeling

2chicksandapen

The pit in your stomach. 

The nauseous feeling that is churning.

My heart is aching as well. The accident that caused the turmoil. The unknown. The cries. The sad eyes. The stillness.

My little baby had an accident. My little Bear. My puppy. She was under my feet. Playing like a puppy as a canister slipped from the pantry shelf above my head. I couldn’t catch it. It smashed the floor and the little dainty puppy’s paw. Tiny little girl didn’t stand a chance to dodge what would be a missile in her eyes coming at her full speed.

Oh my heart sank as she yelped. An ungodly sound like I had never heard before. How did such a little baby make such a loud scream? She was in agony. I never experienced anything like this. My stomach had a super big pain in it. The I’m going throw up now but I have to hold it. I have to be strong for her. I have to get her help.

I practiced my deep breathing. I woke the world up. The vet wasn’t open yet. Waiting 30 minutes seemed like a lifetime for them to open. I made it to the vet for an emergency appointment. I waited as the tech unlocked the building. They knew a crazy momma was there. They took my baby for X-rays. I had to wait yet again. 15 minutes for the results. 

That pit in my tummy was raging. My mind was dancing. My heart was aching. What horrible person lets such an accident happen? That would be me. I am 100% responsible yet I can’t absorb the pain for her. This is devastating. An experience I don’t wish on my worst enemy.

As I wait, I write. I’m choosing writing therapy to help calm my mind. To help share my pain and heart with others. A painful part of life but a real life encounter. Her blanket is clinched in my arms as I wait. As I write on my tablet. Sitting alone in a desolate room. The longer it takes the worse I think the outcome will be. Oh how I want to snuggle her during this difficult time. 

She is so loved, but does she know it? Deep breathing ensues. The vet comes back.  Nothing is broken. Hallelujah. A bone bruise. She will be sore but the doctor assured me she will be fine in a few days. Off we go with some anti inflammatory medicine to ease the suffering.

This momma sighs in relief to a point, but wishes she could start the day over to eliminate this mess all together. Snuggle your pets and loved ones. Circumstances can change in an instant. Look at these worn out eyes. She has nap time written all over her cute face.

Goodbye for now. I do plan to document her recovery at some point. Watch for a later post.

awareness

Script Flip (Again)

2chicksandapen

Another Street Parking challenge has come and gone. These challenges come around a few times a year. Each one has a slightly different focus, but in the end establishing healthy habits and consistency are the overarching themes.

The little daily extras in each challenge sneak up on me. This challenge required writing a daily gratitude reflection. I like to write at the beginning of the day so I challenged myself to write at the end this time. There were many days when I had to pull myself out of near-sleep to jot it down, but it got done almost every day.

Knowing I had to write what I was grateful for actually made me think about my mindset throughout the day. I realized I had fallen into some of my old habits of negativity and grumpiness. I’ve done this exercise before, but a reset was needed. (I’m also just going to pause and say that right now seems like a tough time for many in my life circles as well as the world in general. Between the pandemic surges, war, weather, craziness, on top of all the regular life stuff, things. just. feel. very. heavy and hard.) So early in the challenge I decided to pull something I was grouchy about it and flip it to a gratitude each day. I did this early in the pandemic as well to try to reframe some of my challenges.

Here are some of the before / afterthoughts from this time around:

-We recently had a stretch where many people in our circles needed a “place to crash” for a few days. This added adults, kids, dogs, and stuff to our already slightly chaotic household. Grouchy to Gratitude: “I am grateful we have a home with enough room to welcome those who need it.”

-Covid hit my family in the past month, bringing sickness and many associated challenges to our daily lives. Grouchy to Gratitude: “I am grateful the vaccine protected some of those around us from sickness.” “I am grateful we have focused on our health over the past couple of years to help us have a better chance of beating this virus.”

-I’ve been given many more work responsibilities this fall. Our student numbers have increased along with a focus on keeping kids safe. Grouchy to Gratitude: “I am grateful that my boss finds my inclusion in projects to be beneficial.” “I am grateful for the opportunity to be a light for kids at a time when lots of things are dark.”

-At times my “extra jobs” have been overwhelming this month – i.e., launching the cut flower arm of our business and being a booster club president / treasurer for a high school sport. Grouchy to Gratitude: “I am grateful for all the smiles a joy I get to give people from the groundwork we have done.” “I am grateful for the abundance our land has provided.” “I am grateful for the chance to organize a season that these girls can find special and memorable.”

The list goes on. I found myself, during grouchy moments, mentally flipping my script. Finding the flip side, the upside, the silver lining.

It’s all in the story we tell ourselves. Another great lesson hidden in something small. Hopefully I can sustain this discipline in the coming season.