I’m really feeling the simmering below the surface. I’ve missed it (or ignored it) in the past, but now I look carefully for it. I know it surfaces during big transitions – it was omnipresent last year, more manageable this year. Last week was pretty intense. It’s been ridiculously hot for weeks and weeks on end, and then we had not one – but two! – 1000 year floods here in less than 60 hours. 8-12 inches of rain in seven hours early Tuesday morning, and another 3-4 inches in about an hour Thursday afternoon. Our infrastructure wasn’t built to handle that kind of deluge, and devastating flash floods popped up randomly around the region, disappeared, and then popped up again in other places. It was truly a weather whack-a-mole situation. Not so easy on nerves that were already fried. Throw in three birthdays in four weeks, the start of a major house project, a new school year on the horizon (with high school applications in the fall!), and a shift from four to three again in the house, and it’s a lot.
Here’s what I’m doing to check in on myself and stay afloat: Scheduling more yoga, including a few morning sessions. Prioritizing eating. Reading more, preferably outside. Visualizing something that makes me feel calm. Lately – don’t laugh – I visualize myself working at the new sink in our kitchen. I’m looking out the window into the rear garden, and even though I have no idea how that garden will look like one day, I feel calm in that moment. I often did that on our last big project – the front garden – and it really helped me focus and kept me motivated to do the work.
The other thing I’m going to try out is checking in here on a more regular basis. We’ve been in a real organization mode this summer as we pack up and move out of our basement, and pretty soon – the first floor! – of our house. I’ve been organizing so many different things, and would like to start off this next renovation phase in a pretty organized manner. It helps me stay focused and motivated when everything starts to feel a little too much. I’ll do a photo dump at the end of the weekend, and then noodle around on an update each week. Of course, I’d also like to document the last 3-4 family trips we’ve made, but I know better than to over promise to myself! I’ll stick with the weekly project updates, and we’ll see where I go from there…