Prompts from my page-a-day calendar this morning. My first appointment didn't answer today so I did some quick scribbling to answer these questions.
List 5 things you do for fun. In the last six months, how much time have you spent doing these activities?
1. Wine tastings/visiting vineyards: Clearly, not much. But I think we know why and I think I'll return to this hobby in a few months.
2. Reading fiction: I've read a handful of fiction books lately but I've also been reading some baby books and some other nonfiction (Steve Jobs bio). I read a lot before bed and I listen to a lot of audiobooks on my commute - I probably read/listen to about 2-3 books a month. So… I’d say, plenty. :)
3. Doing crafts: Thanks to Anne's Pinterest party, I got a good fix recently. Can we do this again soon please? My "crafty" board is calling my name.
4. Dancing: A year or so ago, I wouldn't have been able to say I did this very much anymore. Thanks to dance trance, I get my dancing fix at least once a week and sometimes 2-3x/wk.
5. Traveling to new places: San Fran, check. Nashville, check. Palm Springs, check. Upcoming: Nashville again and Emerald Isle. Matt and I are pretty good about making travel a priority - I'm lucky I married someone who loves it as much as me.
I think I'm actually pretty good at including "fun" in my life these days. When I went to coach training back in 2007, they had us do this exercise called "the Wheel of Life." You rated your satisfaction with different aspects of your life (family, health, career, money, etc) on a scale of 1-10 and looked at how balanced your "wheel" was. “Fun” was my lowest then - I gave it a 5, while everything else was a 7-9. I don't think I've really consciously cultivated more fun in my life, but I guess I have made it a point to do things that aren't just simply productive or work related. Yay me! If I was doing the wheel of life exercise today, I'd probably give myself an 8 in that category.
Incidentally, it's something I ask a lot of people about when I'm doing stress management coaching and I have concluded that very few people do things for fun anymore. And I'm not just talking about people who have kids or work longer hours and have less free time than I do. I think a lot of people don't know (or remember) what they like to do for fun, and don't make an effort to include it.) An easy way to figure out what you like to do for fun is to think about what you did as a kid in your free time. With the exception of wine tasting, I loved doing all those things as a little kid and still do.
Okay, off my fun soapbox/coaching moment and off to the next prompt....
Is there a quote, book or scene from a movie that makes you happy?
The first thing that came to mind for me with this prompt was that the other night I saw someone on Twitter mention going to the musical Newsies and it made me go look up some of my favorite scenes from what was one of my favorite movies as a kid. I watched the clip of "Carrying the Banner" about 3 times in a row on Youtube - I had forgotten how happy that scene had made me to watch. So I guess that's what this prompt is going after. The other movie scene that I remember loving - from a movie I probably watched a dozen times in high school - is the "Sugar High" scene from Empire Records.
What 3 subjects fascinate you?
For this one I tried to think about what blogs I am drawn to or books I peruse in book stores - and I purposefully left weight management/nutrition off since that's my job and it kinda felt like an obvious. I came up with:
- home renovations (older homes being redone, like the blog Young House Love)
- money management, savings, financial psychology (I love the blog Get Rich Slowly and the Dave Ramsey books)
- positive thinking/psychology/self-development
These were interesting prompts. I'm not totally sure what the theme was, but I think it was in general to get you thinking about things that interest you, pique your curiosity or make you happy. That's what I got out of it and it was nice to do this exercise following a weekend that was very "productive" - garage sale prep, cooking, laundry, swapping out my closet (summer clothes AND taking out the heaps of clothes that no longer fit me now), etc.
It was definitely a much needed productive weekend, sandwiched in between last week's beach trip and a bunch of upcoming travel though. And it wasn't all work, no play.
I did go to dance on Sat morning and then got caught up on some blogging and photo editing in the afternoon. We had dinner with the Forsey's Saturday night - a comfortable sit on the deck kind of night - and I got to get my snuggle on with this sweet girl.
She is the cutest. Sigh.
Sunday after my cooking marathon and closet swap out, I decided to skip my usual body pump/dance trance and do a long walk outside with Buddy to take advantage of the warm spring weather. Then I eeked out the last bit of Sunday night light on the porch with my feet propped up, a coconut popsicle and a magazine.
It was a good balanced weekend, although I still felt a little sad that the alarm went off and Monday showed up yet again. In fact, I kinda wished I could join this guy and spend the rest of the morning right here:
Somehow I turned this into a two-for-one blog post...prompts from my calendar digressed into a weekend update. Oh well, I'm running with it.
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