Look what we woke up to Sunday morning:
The dogs and I had to go out and play in it, of course...
Apparently my dogs love the snow as much as I do. This is their first time seeing this much snow at once, and they were thrilled. They were also as reluctant as me to stay indoors, and as eager as me to keep going out to play in it, which - since they were enthusiastic about the idea, and it gave me an excuse to do so - we did on and off most of the day.
To my delight - since yes, I was delighted, even after a day playing in it - it snowed more in the afternoon, after a bit of the earlier stuff had melted, and we'd trampled a lot of it. So, since we caught it snowing this time (we'd been asleep when the earlier snow fell, so it was a nice surprise for me to wake up to) we got a bit of a video of the snow falling:
Later that same day it snowed some more...
So, of course, I took the dogs out to play in it yet again...
(OK, so I took them so I could go out there again myself, but whatever... They still got to go outside again, which they were happy about).
I know this isn't much to some of you, and it will likely all be gone before this goes live, but... We got around five inches in total in our area that day, with a lot of it (what hadn’t melted or frozen overnight) still on the ground the next day, which is a big snowfall here in Wales. It's rare to get more than an inch or so in one snowfall. It's been a great Winter for snow this year, and Winter's not even over yet!
~
I’ve been mentioning Lilie’s happy wiggle dance since she
was a tiny puppy, and trying to get a video of it for almost as long. But, no matter how hard we tried, we just
couldn’t get it on video, even though it’s her regular form of greeting. Now though, with her almost four years old, I
can finally show you it, since my Mam got a video for me when I took the dogs
outside to greet her when she came to drop off a couple of things she’d picked
up for me from Tescos that we didn’t get in our food box, and couldn’t get at
the corner shop. So, though I’m afraid
you’ll have to put up with an excited Logan getting in the way from time to
time (he was pleased to see Nana too) here, at long last, is a clip of Lilie
doing her happy wiggle dance:
As you can see, my dogs love visitors – especially
Lilie. Even Logan is learning to be
enthusiastic about people other than me and Kelly. Just wait until we stop being in lockdown so
Mam and Dad’s visits don’t have to be restricted to them only seeing us briefly
for essential errands*. Lilie’s going to
be over-the-moon. LOL!
*We could technically have one of them visit more. However, to do that we’d have to prevent the
other coming, and since both of them are doing different things to help us, we
all agreed it made more sense for us to just restrict visits from both to short
ones just while essential errands/tasks are dealt with, and keep other contact
to phone calls.
~
Though we still have plenty of things we actually need to
get to sort things in the new house, when we learned that Build-A-Bear did a
Grogu (Baby Yoda) plushy, I really wanted one, so Kelly told me to get myself
one, and count it as paying myself back some of the money I should have been
having presents from anyhow (in other words, the money I’d gotten for my
birthday and Christmas, which I’d been prioritizing paying for moving and
household costs out of, and not spending on myself like I was meant to). So, I got a Grogu plushy, and here he is:
He has a sound chip in each of his little paws. One plays the “Mandelorian” theme tune, and
the other plays the various cute little baby sounds you hear him making
throughout the show. I could have had
him with just one or the other, or with neither, but I decided to splurge for
the whole package. I mean, if I was
paying out for the plushy – which was the bigger part of the cost – I might as
well just pay an extra few £s for the sounds too, right?
~
I also brought myself a teapot. It’s a little ceramic one that’s perfect for
just a couple of cups of tea, so ideal for when it’s only me having some tea,
which is the case more often than not even without lockdown making visitors few
and far between. Anyway, here’s my new
teapot:
Though I’m told it’s not easy to tell from the photo, it’s
actually purple. Well, when I saw they
had them in purple, I had to, didn’t I? I mean, purple has always been my
favourite colour.
I had a teapot before – that one was purple too –
which was bigger. But it was a bit big
for me to be using on my own, and I gave it to someone a few years back. I’ve wanted to get a new one ever since, but
wanted just a little one this time.
Well, now I have one, and even managed to make it a purple one again.
~
In the interests of practicing better self care, adding
proper “me time” to my routine is something I’m working on making a priority
this year. I even have a plan. In fact, I’ve got a list of some things I
want to do every day, and a list for stuff I’d like to do at least once a week,
which I’m setting days for. My plan is to do the daily things for at least a
few minutes every day, and each of the weekly things for at least an hour each
per week.
Every day I want to:
•
Enjoy a quiet cup of tea while listening to some
music
•
Meditate
•
Read
•
Write
My weekly self care activities list though is:
•
Have a bubble bath (scented candles optional)
•
Have a movie/TV show night where I just curl up
somewhere and watch a DVD or something on a streaming service
•
Work on crafts (I even re-activated a craft box
subscription service I used to get to encourage this... You may remember me
mentioning the Makerly Crafts subscription box in the past?)
My tentative plan for the weekly thing is a bubble bath on
Friday night, a Saturday movie night, and a Sunday afternoon crafting
session. That way I get the whole weekend
to recharge.
~
I won’t be doing a review of this every month, but I figured
I’d do a check-in this time, since I’m only now getting around to telling you
about my plan. So, how did the first
month – well, about four weeks - of doing this go?
I’ve been managing to sit and relax while listening to music
for at least a few minutes each day, even if sometimes it’s with a cold drink
rather than a cup of tea. The point is
the quiet time just relaxing while listening to the music though, so I’m not
complaining. I've listened to a variety of music, including panpipes, country, 80s, 90s, and classical. I tend to do this in the morning, when the dogs aren't quite ready to start racing around and cause chaos, Artemis hasn't yet crawled out of her bed, and Mollie is sleepily waiting to see what I'll be offering her for breakfast before she goes for her daytime sleep. It's a nice relaxing way to start my day.
I’ve also generally managed to get at least a small amount of reading
time in each day, even if some days it’s only been maybe 20 minutes or so. And I managed to read five books in January,
even with two of them being long-ish books, and mostly doing shorter reading
sessions.
I’ve had less success with the meditation and writing. I’ve done some writing since the start of the
year, but not as much as I’d hoped, and definitely not every day. We won’t talk about the meditation part. Yes, I did that badly with it. With the writing it was a conscious choice,
since I chose to use my writing time to work on unpacking boxes, but the
meditation thing just didn’t end up happening... I'll make it a habit again eventually.
Also, despite having resubscribed to the Makerly Crafts box again,
and gotten my first kit since doing so (January’s kit was a Valentine's themed cardmaking kit, if you're wondering) I’ve not done
anything worth mentioning in the way of crafting yet either, since that’s
another time slot I gave up to unpacking boxes.
In this case it was essential I did so though, since I needed to unpack
and organize the craft supplies I owned, as well as ones I inherited from my
Nan (the one who died last August) – which my Dad has slowly been dropping off here for me whenever he’s been
here to do an essential errand – as well as make a space to work, before any
crafting could actually happen.
Plus, my relaxing bath nights have been a bit hit and miss, and
the couple of baths I have had didn’t include scented candles, even if they
were still relaxing. Baths are on my
self care list because I mostly just have a shower, but a nice relaxing bath is
something I enjoy having sometimes.
However, it’s a bit more special if I don’t have one all the time anyhow,
so I don’t mind if this one doesn’t happen every week. I mean, I kind of would like it to happen
every week, since it would be a nice way to kick off my weekend. But I’d still call this one a success even if
I only did it once a month.
I’ve had better luck with TV show/movie nights. I watched more episodes of “The Simpsons” as
well as a couple of movies. The movies
were the live action version of “Mulan” as well as “Soul” – both movies were on
Disney+. “Mulan” was really good – very
different to the animated version I’m familiar with, but still good, even if I
did enjoy the animated one more. “Soul”
was fantastic though... An absolutely wonderful movie with a lovely
message. I’d give “Mulan” four out of
five stars, and “Soul” five out of five stars.
All in all, I don’t think the first month went too badly,
especially since I was making unpacking and organizing stuff the main priority
intentionally, and we actually have most of that done now, with mainly just
stuff we need to buy extra shelves or other storage solutions for still in
boxes at this point. Although, more
organization will need to happen with the craft supplies, especially with Dad
still slowly dropping off more. But at
least I can now make use of the craft room and supplies when I want to, as well
as claim back my writing time.
~
And there are so many supplies!
Nan was a big crafter, who dabbled in a lot of different crafts, and kept anything potentially useful for future craft projects, and I'm inheriting the lot, some of the tools for which she's had longer than I've been alive. Dad’s dropped off a load,
and there’s still loads at his place yet to come over here (since he has to do
it in bits, since he can only drop stuff off when he’s coming this way for
other reasons, because of needing to restrict his visits due to lockdown, plus there really is a LOT of stuff).
There
are supplies for crafts I do a lot already, like sewing. Supplies for crafts I’ve tried in the past
and want to do more of, like quilling.
Supplies for crafts I haven’t done since I lost my sight, but would kind
of like to try again to see if I can do them – despite my initial reaction on
thinking about it being that it would be impossible – like cross
stitching. Supplies for things I’d like
to get back in to that I haven’t done much of for a while, like cardmaking. Supplies for things I’ve never learned to do,
but wouldn’t mind learning, like crochet.
And supplies for things Nan was going to teach me, but we never got
around to more than a first lesson I don’t remember very well, like tatting. Let's just say my craft room will be very well stocked by the time it all makes it over here. Oh, I’m going to have so much crafty fun!
I just have to decide what to play with first...
