Wednesday, September 9, 2009

Practicing the art of doing (almost) nothing…

The last two months have been way too hectic for me. In June, I took two weeks vacation. When I returned to work at the end of June, my team had been restructured—adding three new employees to the six I already supervise. Between mid-July and early August, I attended four weddings—two in Southern California on back-to-back weekends. I have other challenges in my personal life that only add to this madness. To top it off, I stopped exercising. This was a bad move. All of this stress took its toll on my disposition. Fortunately, my boss noticed and told me to take a “mental health” day. Knowing how behind I was in my work, I reluctantly obliged.

A few weeks ago, Elrond and I quickly made plans for one last family getaway before school officially started for Kat. After I read a review for a restaurant called Duarte’s Tavern, we decided to go to the little town of Pescadero, California for the weekend. Pescadero is a small farming and ranching community nestled in a valley east of Highway 1 half way between Santa Cruz and Half Moon Bay. Our timing couldn’t have been more perfect. The annual Pescadero Art and Fun Fair was the same weekend. We found the last available rooms at a B&B (in this case ‘bed and biscuit’) called the McCormick House Bed and Biscuit Inn. You can read my review at Trip Advisor.com. For the next two days, we were tourists. We walked around Pescadero, explored the art fair, ate some delicious food, and visited a goat farm. We slept in. We read. We sat in the garden. I pushed Kat on a tire swing. We watched the sunset at the beach. We practiced the art of doing (almost) nothing.

Lately, my weekends at home have been spent catching up with everything I haven’t been getting done during the week. Consequently, my life has been one continuous grind with no down time. This past weekend reminded me that I don’t spend enough time ‘recharging my batteries.’ I realized it’s okay to spend some time each weekend practicing the art of doing nothing. I have made time during the week to exercise again. With a life as hectic as mine, this is necessary for my mental and physical health. Summer may be almost gone, but I am going continuing perfecting the art of doing (almost) nothing.

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