Practicing Self Care

In light of everything going on, I'm trying to practice more self care.  It does no one any good if I am not healthy, and stress will be my undoing.  I have found that getting back to the basics, writing, painting, crafting is incredibly soothing when my life gets crazy.  It's as if the stress rolls out onto the canvas, off the keyboard, or into the bag of scraps to be pitched later.

Every year our grapevine gets cut back.  Some days I wind the vine into a wreath and give it away, other years I've made a new seasonal wreath for the door.  This year we only got a small wreath.

And since I only have one front door, I decided that Oldest should have one for his door in the city...

He'll only be in school for 12 days during December, so I got twelve fillable ornaments and made him an advent wreath.

Will he like it?  Who knows.

But with treats like candy and gift cards, and stress relievers like a yo-yo and light up alien baby bouncy ball to get through finals week, I suspect he won't hate it.

And in this moment, I am stress free.

And have left over chocolate.

Win-Win.