[Dutch Lock Down Day Two Hundred Seventy Seven]
I am basically shite if my day isn’t planned down to the fifteen minute increment. Which, by the way, does NOT happen often when there are children involved.
Shockingly.
It means that the weekends are rougher because the kids are around the whole day and I don’t have work obligations or appointments or meetings planned and, until recently, I didn’t even know this – I just sort of thought all weekends were crap and there was nothing I could do about it.
Until now.
But first the news:
Actually, until a few weeks ago when I was working with my life coach and realized part of what I don’t like about the weekends AND, frankly, about VACATIONS, is that I don’t have a 9-5 during the day or working with my personal trainer or otherwise scheduled thingsess.
But I can totally do that for myself.
Which is good.
Cause I am OFF for another fifteen days, not that I’m counting, until Monday, 04 January when I blessedly return to my regularly scheduled daily programs.
Step One.
What does Rain NEED? Every day?
Adult Time
Ideally, this means hours of introversion and intellectual stimulation, but realistically, this may be as little as a long walk (introverting) while listening to a book (intellecting). I’m okay with it, as long as it happens. Daily.
Play Time
I tend to combine my play time with minion bonding time. First Minion and I dashed through the Lego Star Wars game. Girl Twin and I go for a walk. Boy Twin and I wrestle. But every Saturday night there will be an escape room on YouTube and Twitch and Twitter and, sure, on Facebook, too. This is guaranteed to happen every single day, so I don’t even really need to prioritize it.
Sleep Time
Ideally, going to bed at nine and getting up at five, but in morning’s are a bit odd these days as we train our howling old lady cat to stay downstairs for the night. This means that it’s quite difficult to get out to my office AND keep her downstairs AND let the rest of the house keep sleeping. Lately I’ve been going to bed between ten and eleven and sleeping until seven, which is heavenly, but not as productive. I REALLY love to get up at five. I just don’t like to wrestle with the catling to get there. The priority, then, is to get around seven to eight hours of sleep. No less. Definitely no more.
Exercise Time
My personal trainer is headed to Israel for the next month which means we’re going to try online training once a week and self directed training the rest of the time. Normally we did strength training together twice a week and I was to do self directed core work the rest of the week and maybe a third strength training session on my own. It almost never happened. For some reason I have hope that This Time Is Different! My INTENTION is to do light strength training on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, BALLET classes on Mondays and Fridays, and core work on Wednesdays. Oh, yes, and also ten thousand (or more) steps every day. I’ll let you know how it goes.
Meditation
Using Headspace, at a minimum, I’ll do a three minute meditation, but I’ve been diving through the Kindness courses which are ten minutes each. It helps stabilize me and that’s an incredible necessity these days. Plus I’ve got a HUNDRED EIGHTY TWO DAY STREAK going that I don’t wanna lose!
Medication
I don’t need to prioritize TAKING my daily meds as much as remembering to REFILL it. Thankfully, none of them will run out during the next two weeks, so I’m putting it mostly out of my mind.
Writing Time
Ideally, daily posts here and stream of consciousness / morning pages there, but it’s more about keeping the daily habit going. The daily streak on 750words.com is a HUNDRED SEVENTY TWO DAYS!
Radical Compassion
This is a super baby requirement – in that it’s just started to be important in my life and DAMN it’s made quite the difference over the past few weeks. I don’t know if it’s a badass placebo or Something Real ™ but it’s worked so far, so I’m going to keep it going.
Wish me luck.