Monday's Magic Moments

As I’ve said before, the next few months are pretty hectic with work, planning and visa applications demanding a lot of my time and causing a fair bit of stress and anxiety. These aren’t emotions that are alien to me, I’ve in fact spent and I’m still spending a lot of time working on ways to manage the ways I deal with such issues. Recently I’ve been focussing on limiting the stress inducing factors in my life. The luxury of my job is that, unless and actual event is happening, I can work pretty much wherever I want, whenever I want; with the exception of regular meetings and sessions.  I’ve been using that to start a little later on a Monday (an actual cup of tea in the morning is lovely), work a little later some nights if I want to meet friends during the day and sometimes just work from home hanging out with my part time pups. While sometimes the stressful things are the most important ones and I find myself just needing to suck it up and get on with it I have also discovered that if stress can’t be cut it can surely be balanced out. For every stressful moment I am striving to achieve at least one joyful moment.

So that’s where I am now. Monday morning, looking back over the week gone by and counting up those magic moments. Did Monday feel more blessed or stressed? How was my Friday, was the weekend one to be remembered. Sadly, the past week was definitely more on the stressed side, with time spent in dreary passport offices and battling with terminally slow embassy websites. It has given me one thing to be thankful for, this post, in fact this idea, Mondays post will now be a collection of my ‘magic moments’ from the week before and any goals I have for the following week. If I can list just 7 mini goals for the week ahead (that’s just one a day) that could add happiness to the day, whether it be a small moment or a bigger completion of a once stressful goal, I may just begin to see a happier less stressful perspective on my week. Although last week I didn’t list 7 goals I do still have a few moments that I would say I was thankful for and that reminded me to smile.

The magic moments gone by.

Isn't she just the cutest.

Last week I spent time with my little brother and my sister’s new puppy. Being an ‘aunt’ to that little pup is just so much fun and she never fails to bring a smile to my face, whether she’s racing around chewing on anything in site, begging you to take her on a walk or just sleeping on the sofa, she adds a brilliant element of life to the room and gets everyone talking and laughing.

This Giant cup of hot chocolate, it was honestly bigger than my face! While waiting for my passport last week I found that I had 4 hours to kill in Durham, and while I could have used it to explore the beautiful old town the weather was definitely against that idea. Instead I bought a new book (Canada by Richard Ford, I’m about a third of the way through and thoroughly enjoying it by the way.), found a comfy seat in a coffee shop, and curled up with that gigantic hot chocolate and a cake for 4 hours. It was a perfect afternoon of chilling, and while in the past I might have stressed out about all the things I could have been doing with that time, instead I just embraced every second of it. It was lovely!

He wore that hat for a good 20 minutes!

So it would seem this week has been a little bit dog themed. On Friday night my adopted pup Bobby came to stay for the weekend. He is primarily my friend’s dog, but because of her hectic lifestyle over the past couple of years we have developed an arrangement in which we dog share so that both Bobby and her get time to chill. I love it when he comes to stay as I get nonstop cuddles and have an excuse for walks in the park, not that I should need them. So there we have it my happy moments from this week. Now for the challenge a look at what could make the next week even more magic!

Magic moments mini goals.

• Cook something new, whether it is baking, cooking or just throwing together a fancy salad. Cook something from scratch and then sit down and enjoy.
  
  
• Meet up with someone I’ve not seen in a while. Lots of my friends are at universities in cites up and down the country, living abroad or working fulltime so we rarely get a chance to meet up, but with people home this week I want to make it my mission to see someone, and actually spend time with them, whom I don’t see that often.
  
  
• Visit somewhere new. A new restaurant, café, bar, park, shop, you name it, it counts.
  
  
• Do something on my own. Anything, just enjoy the time spent with nobody but my own thoughts.
  
  
• Have dinner with my mum. Sit down, home cooked dinner.
  
  
• Keep my room clean and tidy for the week. Maybe not the most joyful but if I succeed it would definitely make me feel happier to see a tidy space day in day out!
  
  
• Paint my nails. It has been weeks months since I last actually sat down and painted my nails. Not only does that mean they look a mess but the thought of sitting down and painting them pretty colours is now just about the most exciting thing I think of!
  

There we have it. Seven goals for seven days filled with magic moments. Would you believe that I found this bit really tricky, to think of things that would make me feel less stressed, or happier, was almost the most stressful bit of this post. I know that I want them to be things that make me feel something, excitement, or calm, or happiness, but it is so hard to think of things that will have that effect without having tried them before. So this list is more of a list of things I hope will have the desired effects. Who knows, maybe this will always prove a challenge or maybe as weeks go by, finding 7 things to sprinkle joy into my life will become easier.

If you were to pick just one thing to add a magic moment to your week what would that be?