NST June 2025: balance

DawnW

NSD # 5 for me today. I was at work, so no opportunity to spend

Came home and made naan pizzas and salad for dinner. Topped the naans with HM pesto, griddled aubergine and onion and goat cheese from L*dl. Yummy, and made a cheap dinner.

Remembered to order my meds online as I am running low.

More rain is forecast for tonight and tomorrow apparently. Anyway, no watering needed today after yesterday's downpours.

apple_muncher

dizzyblnd, you're not the only one who has blinked and missed the last 2 weeks! I definitely overcommitted this month - invigilating every day, sometimes at 2 centres so needing to travel between them, plus my exam board marking, and it seems that any time I wasn’t invigilating was because i had an appointment of some sort. I've promised myself not to do the same thing next year... We'll see if I ever learn!

I'm sat at the dining table looking out at the back garden - fully embracing no Mow May. It has been a hot day and the for last 30 mins it has been steadily raining - light rain but enough to make it smell of rain after a hot day. Love it!

Tomorrow, Pip and I are off to a local craft and flea market, which should be fun.

Shrewbie

Good morning turtles. Today should be NSD 7. Yesterday I went to the office and later I met up with a friend who was visiting and is heading back to the US today. He gave me a bag of leftover spices, dried lentils and chickpeas. There was a Thai festival going on in the Plaza de España and we made friends with a young couple in the queue for food, and they then invited us to eat with them. Was nice to speak to complete strangers and hear about their lives. 

My extra summer payment landed in my bank account yest (our salary is divided into 14 payments per year) so that was nice! for some reason I never remember when it is supposed to arrive, although it's the same date every year, so always a nice surprise. I calculated how much I will need for summer and swept the rest to house deposit savings. Will update sig. 

I have been doing the morning pages, and managed some more writing afterwards on the laptop this morning.  I'm grateful for the urge to write, even if the results only please future versions of myself. For my artist's date this weekend I want to go to the rastro market and dig around in some junk shops for old magazines to make a vision board with. 

Have a wonderful weekend turtles

KajiKita

Not doing enough stretching … <rueful grin> so my hip is still waking me a lot … sigh …

In the interests of balance, I am having a gentle afternoon after a busy morning getting my haircut and doing various bits of shopping (the worst of which was repeatedly climbing in and out of bras at a fitting this morning - finally have something comfortable that doesn’t give me a mono-boob! 😂). I am gardening but deliberately doing nice, ornamental gardening, not hard-slog veggie patch gardening (I know this makes no sense, but it’s how I feel about it!) and interspersing said gardening with breaks and water in the shade 😊

KK

KajiKita

dizzyblnd said:

Sneaking back in…

 Need to plan for more balance in my life. The last two weeks have not felt balanced at all. Work has been stressful and some days I have felt like my blood pressure would be high ha ha. I can’t see how to balance work/ life without stress. Any tips? It’s not like work is optional for most and home life jobs just keep piling up. 

Various thoughts in no particular order:

- Why is the job stressful? Are you under skilled or under resourced? Take those to your boss and ask for help - be very clear about what help you think would actually work. 

- If the organisation is just toxic, start planning your escape strategy. Update your CV and LI profile and start reaching out to recruiters. It won’t happen quickly but sometimes just making that decision eases the immediate pressure.
- Can you delegate or get help with some of the home tasks?
- When I was in the crazy job, I started doing ‘bits’ for 10 minutes each morning. It might be a recycling task, a quick wipe down of one thing etc. Or sometimes it was literally standing with the heap of mess and analysing it to understand what it was, how it got there, how much was still needed / relevant and how I could start unpicking it. 

- If some of the home life tasks are admin, I take some into work and make that call and wait on hold whilst eating my lunch. 

- Accept that things are busy atm and not everything will get done that you would normally expect to or like to. Prioritise what must be done. Celebrate if you manage those things - that’s still a big win 😊

- A gratitude practice at the start and end of every day can be very grounding and reminds us of what we really value - might be worth a try. 

Does any of this help at all? I do sympathise - I have sooo been there …

KK

DawnW

NSD # 6 today 

I haven't been anywhere. Did some gardening this morning, cleared a compost bag full of weeds and gone to seed plants from under the veg netting. DD took said bag home for her chickens and ducks who love a good rummage in a pile of weeds    

Little GS helped me pick strawberries, raspberries (which he ate  ) and sugar snap peas. GD ate some strawberries and peas. I must freeze some peas tomorrow, and also some kale as I cut lots of that while I had the veg netting off. The strawberries I am having with my breakfast cereal every morning.

This afternoon I gave the patio pond a partial water change. The plants are starting to grow well now, after a shaky start. GS and I saw a dragonfly near it this morning. We also saw some butterflies, some adult and baby ladybirds and lots of different bees.

Dinner was a use up. I had pesto to use, so I made pesto pasta with mushrooms (which also needed using up) and peas.

Grateful today for garden produce, bees, ladybirds and butterflies, and time with my grandchildren.

Thrifty_Taylor

NSD#8

Picked DS3 up from the bus stop, then took him to a garage sale down the road. The vendor lived on the smaller island where I grew up, so remembered me & let DS3 get a good deal on some tools. Walked to the village with DH to collect his tablets, then did a big circular route back home. Started raining on the way back, but we didn't care! Had the urge for pancakes for dinner, so whipped up a batch for me & DS3.

Closed my eyes 10 mins, then did a sewing job, followed by writing receipts from yesterday in my folder.

After tea, watched the first film of the two partner final M.Imp. film, with DH & finished the body of the gonk.

Grateful for DS3 being happy with his tools, the sound of the heavy rain, liking the colour way of this gonk (navy, white & burgundy), oh & the people we've asked so far agreeing to be pall bearers

KajiKita

Well done for sustaining something like normal life for DS3 @Thrifty_Taylor and I’m glad the pall bearing team is coming together. Do you know if you are going to have a eulogy and who will deliver that? They take some time and thought to prepare. 

KK

KajiKita

I actually had a night out with Mr KK last night (a vanishingly rare occurrence 😉) in the chapel marquee  and it was really good. The ploughman’s was good, the company on our table to our liking and the band excellent. There was even a crumb of dancing. I slept so well afterwards too 😊

KK

DawnW

Not a NSD for me today, so I am still on # 6. We went to a flea market (I don't count those spends as they are for my business and accounted for elsewhere) and stopped on the way home for fuel. Inside the garage / shop there were YS sausages so I bought 2 packs. Also some oranges as OH has run out. Funny, he has never really eaten oranges before but recently, since I have stopped filling the cake tin and stopped making puddings, unless we have visitors, he is eating one each evening. Much more healthy and hopefully we will both get rid of some of the extra weight we are carrying around with us! Anyway, only a small spend.

I froze some kale and mangetout peas picked yesterday, leaving out enough for dinner tonight. Then dug some potatoes. All our vegetables came from our little garden today, including herbs and garlic for the roast lamb 

I have washed my hair and left it to dry on its own. Now tamed with a comb. Also done a load of washing and mostly dried it outside. A couple of things are hanging over the backs of chairs to finish off. Can't be bothered to get the airer out.

Watering done and strawberries picked for tomorrow's breakfast 

I feel an early night beckoning as it was a very early start this morning, and I am working tomorrow.