rest – The Hermits' Rest

The Slug of Exhaustion

The title is my weak analogy to yesterday’s blog title, The Salmon of Knowledge. I was pretty sluggish today after all yesterday’s exercise, though I ended up with almost as much exercise today, thanks to swimming in circles around the pool and vigorously winding yarn into ball, which counts.

Of course, I spent time in nature. Hope these Mockingbird babies make it.

It’s healthy to take a day off from being busy, though, so I gave myself permission to sit on the porch, watch documentaries on octopi, and enjoy food Kathleen made. The porch is getting even more relaxing. Two of my cushions arrived, and now lying on the couch is as comfortable as my bed.

Lee says the pillows are too loud. I say they pull together the trim, couch, and blue chair colors. Wait until he sees the outdoor rug…

Being the Slug of Exhaustion today also allowed me to ignore anything stressful that I possibly could. I just looked at my surroundings and enjoyed them, enjoyed the family, and will take the stress back up tomorrow.

Since I have nothing deep to say, let me recommend the Billy Joel documentary, And So It Goes, part 1 of which just came out. This part covers the years I really liked, the 70s, when he was quite amazing to see live. You end up really liking his first wife.

Oh, here’s something exciting. The unused RV that had been next to my tack room went away today. It will be easier to get to my square bales of hay that way. It looks all color-coordinated now!

Tarot card of the day

Today I pulled the Explorer (knight) of Water (cups). It’s a pretty darned happy card, hinting I’m in a good place, emotionally today, able to navigate the waves of feelings smoothly. It also may indicate a new emotional path, sort of like yesterday’s 10 of Water.

We will see. As I grow more Hermit-like in my self preservation mode, I’ll be interested to see if anything manages to stir me in new emotional directions other than inward!

Resting Truly Helps

The people who tell you to get rest and drink a lot of fluids when you’re feeling sick know what they’re talking about. After a couple of days of a sore throat and congestion I gave in to the fact that not only Lee is under the weather. I caught the latest mystery virus.

We spent all day under the beautiful storm clouds.

Once I accepted the situation I decided to be kind to myself and rest today. Tarrin fit me in for my riding lesson later in the week, so I didn’t push myself to do all the prep work and riding that entails. My only scheduled activity was a Zoom meeting for Annual Meeting field trip planning, which was easy to do sitting down.

This Hackberry Emperor was on the porch, so I didn’t exert myself to photograph it.

It helped that it rained a while, so I just wrote stuff and drank hot beverages. That was most of the day.

I did spy on the Barn Swallow nest. Still just eggs. Wonder where a Guinea fowl feather came from?

Admittedly, I’m still not as good at loafing as I was when younger, so I did take two long walks to enjoy the pleasant weather after the rain.

I thought I was taking it easy, but I got 39 minutes of exercise and 10,000 or so steps in. Plus, I cooked dinner, an easy one, but still…

These views helped me forget feeling sick.

I’m not very good at resting. And I’m nowhere near as sick as Lee, who’s still having chills and congestion and all that. Thank you, immune system, for being so hardy! Combined with my somewhat restful day, I may already be feeling better.

I saw this while convalescing on the new porch watching the sparrows flying in and out.

All in all, it was a perfect day to watch clouds and a perfect evening to watch the Strawberry Moon. Days like this make living in the moment easier.

Plans for Today Cancelled

I had so much confidence that I’d have few side effects from my second COVID vaccine. But, while it’s not as bad as last time, just a couple hour after I woke up I got the bone tiredness that’s common. So, Sara will ride my horse today and I will read knit, and nap.

But, at least I have a nice new bed set and valances for the dogs…I mean for me to sleep under.

I ordered these Western linens (on sale, too!) to see if they’d make me like my brown walls better. They do look good with the headboard Lee made, and the valance looks pretty good, though we plan to stretch it out a bit. We also have valances for the windows, but need something to hang them on.

The dogs always enjoy morning walks, even when it’s cloudy and breezy.

It’s a windy, gray day, anyway, so I’ll be okay inside. The clouds were really pretty, in a gloomy way, this morning, a nice start to the last day of Standard time.

Is it important for your clothing and dog to match your knitting? I think it’s classy.

I’ll get back to my knitting and resting at the Hermits’ Rest. I hope someone listens to the podcasts! Enjoy my lisping. You will also get to enjoy music from my son, Declan Murtagh, on the podcast. It’s just what I wanted!

One Last Day of Rest

One thing I’ve figured out in the past year is that I need more rest than I’d been getting. My mental health is so much better now that I’m allowing myself more downtime. I’m going to try to keep that up. After all, I’m at the Hermits’ Rest. I should rest when I can.

I’m not even going to pressure myself to blog if I don’t have anything useful to say. My plan for today is to finally ride Apache again, and otherwise knit and play with dogs.

My role model can snooze under the afghan while I knit, now (that’s the back).

I guess there IS good among the challenges of this era. I do see more self care and kindness to others. Let’s keep it up!

Front of afghan, actually with Carlton under it, too !

Recharge Time

This morning I waved goodbye to Eva and Joe, found out what was going on with the rest of the family, and realized I was gloriously alone for a while. Lee and Kathleen are still in west Texas, Mandi has other issues, we canceled Sunday dinner due to stress and confusion, so no visitors today. Alone.

Part 1

Of course, being me, I felt compelled to write up stuff for work blogs and volunteering blogs. And I’m late on my LLL newsletter, so I worked on that.

After 5 hours of writing, I’ve declared I deserve some recharge time. No one can keep going and going forever.