Isn't it interesting...

I had a pretty good first day true summer vacation yesterday.  I got in a nice 12 mile bike ride, I got some laundry done, a little cleaning and I did some sitting and thinking and relaxing as well.

Instead of finding someone to go out to lunch with, I stayed home and did exactly the things that I wanted to.  I also had a good session with my life-coach.  I needed this so much, I had some things to sort out and understand some of the deep sadness and anxiety that I have been feeling lately.  It was exhausting and I needed a lot of reflection time.  So I took that time, guilt free, instead of feeling like I should do such and so, or avoided it by going to do something else.  Sometimes you have to feel all the feels, including the ones that suck.

One of the writing prompts (for lack of a better phrase) that she gave me to help sort through my stuff, was "Isn't it interesting..." and you simply write endings to this phrase as it pertains to your point of anxieties or troubles.  I find that I had a bit of a backslide towards feeling bad about myself when I had these ongoing stresses.  I have been feeling good, overall, about myself in the last few months, which is like the first time freaking EVER in my life.  Which is not an exaggeration at all. It made me question everything that I was doing and felt insecure about almost every relationship that I have.  I had been finally at peace, mostly, about many things in my life  and most specifically about the way I look and how I eat.   Anyway, when I was finding myself not at all confident in anything again- it was time to talk and write about it.

This little exercise was quite instructive - when I read my responses - the flood of words that I wrote down yesterday afternoon and then again in the evening, I found a lot of things to think about.  No judging, no editing, just writing and then reading and reflecting.   It was good.  I feel more relaxed and happy this morning than I have in weeks.  I slept much better and feel like I am BACK to my usual self.  And that is good because I like my usual self!

So my first adventure begins today later.  I am off to visit the seester for a few days.  I love going to cities and this summer is looking to be sprinkled with city visits.  YAY!  For now tho, the Twin Cities it is!  I have a few things to do first, so I should make up my list and plan the day.

I am not sure if I will be blogging or not for the next few days, but you know that I will be finding my joy... and I hope you will too.

Ah.......summer vacation

I feel slightly bad about doing this to all you non-teachers but......

 RAISE YOUR HAND IF YOU ARE FILLED WITH BLISS THIS MORNING!!!  **HAND RAISED**  **WAVING HAND AROUND**  ** OBNOXIOUS "MEMEMEMEMEMEME" SHOUTING**

Ok, I am done now.  :)

So, what to do, what to do??  I will be heading out on the bike soon, because of the afternoon chance of rain and then prepping my house for being gone for a few days. I am looking forward to this, let me tell you.  I have had enough of the suffering of my odd internal brain workings, and I am ready to get ON with it already.  First up is a nice visit with the sister and then a visit south.  YAY!

Yesterday was a hard day for me.  I felt really bad all day, as evidenced by a recent post or two.  But the Mad-Art teacher can NOT stand to be swept up with melancholy and feelings of despair very long.  I just can't.  I have officially shaken it off and will go on with life.  I feel like I have had a huge load lifted off my shoulders this morning.  And I will not be taking it back on anytime soon.

I just saw the blaze of orange the tells me a poppy bloomed overnight and I have some iris that have also blossomed and a few other mostly purple flowers that are doing their thing out there.  I need to do a little weeding in between the raindrops as well.  I know that the sun is going to be shining a good deal of the day, and I look forward to being out in it.  Not going to let a little threat of rain keep this Sunshine girl down.

Or let it keep me from being a joygiver once again.

NOW what shall I do??

The subtitle here should be - what should I do first???

I am sort of stumped.  I have arrived home from sister Rose's house, the place where I usually disappear to immediately after school.  I had a WONDERFUL trip, a blog post about that may follow, and it is SUNNY here today. WAAAAA HOOOOOO!!!

I have a deck full of plants, a package of some breath-takingly beautiful black iridescent glass that is needing to be applied to a cute lil concrete raven, a deck that needs arranging, a body that needs working out and I SERIOUSLY don't know what to do first.  I also have to finish cleaning up my Highschool art room, put in my orders at school (a rainy day event for sure), work on my upstairs rooms, work on my garden shed, blog more, photo edit, you get the picture.

It gives me a fair amount of anxiety. PLUS, I should stop by the grocery store and get myself some food, and I should go get horse feed and fly spray.......


HELP!



But in among this all, I will find my joy, and I will take a picture of myself having coffee on the deck!

Orange dreamsicle morning....

I was blogging away this morning, when I happened to get up to get make some coffee.  I had been awake a LONG time, and had been idly playing around on Instagram and then decided that I should switch over to my blog.  Good opportunity to get some posting done- good use of my time.  That is if I couldn't be sleeping!

So, coffee was in order and  just as I was about to pour the water into the coffee maker, I turned and saw the orange light of the morning sun.  I made a beeline for my camera, discovered several missing parts- battery, memory card springs to mind- and so then had to gather and assemble, find some footwear and off I went in my robe again......  at least at this time of the year it isn't cold!

It was an orange dreamsicle morning.....

Sun coming up

Orange glow

Sometimes you just luck out, in spite of the fact that you couldn't fall back to sleep.  So today I found some unexpected joy at a very early hour.  Be on the look out!  Joy pops up in lots of places.