Self-Care 101 - Balance

Coming to the end of my personal Self-Care 101 Intensive, I had planned a short trip to Vancouver, WA, to visit my daughter and son-in-law who had just purchased their first house, before heading back to AZ. (3 full days)

I found myself in awe of the fact that I could be in Huntington Beach, CA for lunch and then sipping margaritas  in a little Mexican Cabana alongside the Columbia River for Happy Hour with my daughter. 

It was my son-in-law who modeled for me what balance in all areas of life can look like. While I quickly reverted back to my workaholic nature, I was able to see that you can have/do it all, when you practice balance. 

My daughter and my projects were to dig up one side of the front yard, redesign, dig new expanded borders (a mirror for their lives, (expansion) buy and plant new plants; mow, edge, trim all existing plants and bushes and oh yes, pressure wash/stain the front deck. Seemed easy enough! 

Oh yeah, we had also planned energetic face-lifts and massages/energy work for each other! LOL....

Balance: Here's what I saw working first hand. While I got up straight away each morning and went right to work on my projects, which I continued working all the way through the day until dinner, otherwise known as beer-thirty!  (Except when the ice cream truck, a lady in her mini van with a freezer on the passenger seat came by each afternoon.) Now my amazing son-in-law would wake up, have a little bite of something left over from the night before, while he was running his bath.  (He makes some kind of special concoction that he soaks in for an hour minimum, each day while he reads his book.) He then does a project or two, stops and takes the dog to the park/play in the water and even goes to their boat  in-between, he still gets 'work' done! Amazing! Now for the hard work: Practice! 

Self Care 101 - Fourth of July at Huntington Beach

As an outside visitor, the 4th of July seems to be one of the biggest events of the year here at Huntington Beach. 

For the past week, I watched as houses, bikes and golf carts started decorating in preparation for the festivities, beginning with a parade down Main Street. 

About 6:30AM, I went for a walk to the pier. I was amazed that there was no parking on the streets anywhere and at the beach, all of the fire pits were taken. On the pier, there were chairs lined up along one side (something new, I understand), for fireworks spectators. Heading down Main St, in front of all of the store fronts, people had used chalk to reserve areas for their families and friends in the parking slots.  Further down, in the residential area, others had used caution tape and stakes to define their areas and there wasn't an empty space anywhere. 

I decided to go to yoga this am and it was fun watching all the decorated bikes heading down to the parade. Parents, children, wagons, anything to make the long walk easier. Everything and everyone was decorated, including the dogs! On my way back from yoga, everyone was leaving the parade. People, People everywhere! 

Being a visitor in town, what I knew is that  I did NOT want to be where all of the people were going to be! My daughter had flown in for the day to be with her friend and so I went A...W...A...Y...from downtown and had breakfast and watched a movie with them. 

By early evening, everyone around town had spent the day partying and it became a bit dangerous just riding your bike. I felt a little sad, missing all of the activities, but I found out that doing what I do best on the holidays is still good for me....sleep! No phone calls, texts or emails to answer, as everyone is having fun with their families and friends. Hey wait! I didn't miss ALL of the activities, I have a 3rd floor sun deck which gave me a 360 degree view of ALL of the fireworks! Happy 4th! 

I hope you had a wonderful holiday however you celebrated! 

Self Care 101 - Try Again - Never Give Up

Dang it! I have to say that I need to try again... with my eating, with my exercise and balancing work projects. In my recent writings I have used the A...G...A...I...N, quite a bit and so I went to  the dictionary for clarity. Once more, another time, in addition, frequent repetition, often.

I liked this picture of the little boy trying to tie his shoes. It reminded me that when we're learning something new, it takes many tries to perfect it, whatever 'it' is!

For me, right now, it's self-care and balance. I spent the weekend balancing some parts of my life and sliding back in others. (I'll spare you the boring details:) I'll just say that I'm never going to give up and I'm going to begin...A...G...A...I...N, yet once A....G....A....I...N!