De-Stressing 101

Monday was our last day of non-working bliss and I was already getting sad to see the great weekend come to an end. I informed Karlo as we climbed into bed on Sunday night that we needed to get up early to make the very most of our last day. I mean I wanted to be up before the sun so we could have as much relaxing time as possible. I know you’re probably shaking your head right now, but this is Paula logic and somehow it makes sense to me. Instead of getting up before the crack of dawn we decided to sleep late (7:30) and then take our bike ride early before the temps got out of control. I found this next fact so amusing that I had to document it. In the middle of this insane heatwave we are having Karlo and did our quick 16 mile hilly ride in exactly one hour (not a bad biking average speed at all) and when we got home I realized that I never even broke a sweat. I literally didn’t even take a shower. Now that was an accomplishment. Of course the dirty little secret is that Eastford stays amazingly cooler than most places and our sun exposure on the roads was less then 5%. We were home at 9 am, just in time for breakfast. Now that we worked I could comfortably relax.

And that we did. We did positively nothing productive for the rest of the morning. We just sat outside in the porch, Karlo surfing the web and me making my happiness collages with the magazines that have been piling up around the house.





I can’t remember the last time we wasted this much consecutive time and it was great. I had a blast cutting and gluing my little clippings. When our tummies started to growl we took a drive up to Sturbridge to go to one of our favorite pubs for lunch. Then we did a little shopping and came home to make my favorite blueberry smoothies. More time on the porch, swinging in my swing, sipping my smoothie, and then the idea struck to do something that I’ve been wanting to do for a long time. I had an artist canvas kicking around that was just begging for some paint to be thrown on it. I had no vision at all what I wanted to do and since the canvas was already damaged (thanks to Cooper stepping on it) I had positively no feelings of “wasting the canvas” because that is what I would always think since I’m not an artist. But I brushed my paint brush across the canvas in a carefree way and it was so amazing. For this one short hour I didn’t have a care in the world. When the paint was dry I gathered some do-dads from our recent trip and started ripping them and gluing them on top of my painting. It didn’t end up looking like much, but that didn’t matter. I loved every second of it.


And guess what? I woke up on Tuesday morning and my back felt the best it has since the nerve thing started. I made it through the entire work commute and I never even thought about all the projects I would have to face. I just couldn’t believe how at peace I felt and I can’t help but to wonder if my little craft project had anything to do with it. I think I’m going to invest in some more artist canvases, just in case.