Shutter Sisters

5 ways to bring a little peace and happiness to friday (or any other day)

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1. Take yourself to lunch. For once, don’t eat at your desk, or worse, skip lunch altogether. Tell your coworkers that you have lunch plans. Then on your lunch break, pick up a healthy lunch (or grab your brown bag), and find somewhere quiet to sit and enjoy the view — a favourite cafe or a park bench or whatever. Take that novel you’re in the middle of (or start a new one). Or grab the latest issue of your favourite guilty-pleasure magazine. Or journal. Use your lunch break to escape.

2. Listen to some great music. Instead of listening to the same-old playlist (or foregoing music altogether), listen to something brand new. A great resource: Pandora, where you can input your favourite song or artist, and Pandora will play those tunes plus songs and other artists of the same genre — all for free. It’s a great way to learn about new music (right now, as I type this, I have bossa nova playing nonstop). Tune in while you’re getting ready in the morning, plug in earphones while you work at your desk (no need to disturb your coworkers!), listen this evening as you wind down, or before you go out later. Just give your groove thing a little shake.

3. When you get home this evening (or after the kids go to bed), have a cup of tea and light a candle. While you’re drinking your tea, look into the flame, and think of nothing but the flickering of the light and the taste of your tea. When your mind starts to wander, bring it back to the flickering of the candle and the taste of your tea. Just for the time it takes you to finish your cup of tea, think of nothing but that flickering flame and that warm tea taste.

4. Buy yourself some fresh flowers or a small new houseplant. ‘Nuff said.

5. Grab your camera or camera phone and take a photograph of something pretty. Just because. For bonus points, print out the image and display it somewhere you’ll be able to see it every day. Feel free to swap out images (or add more) as necessary. 

For extra bonus points:  upload your images, and share the link to them below in the comments.  Let’s see what’s pretty on this lucky Friday the 13th day!

(cross-posted at Chookooloonks)

Comments

  9. Oh my goodness. I’m going to buy a plant today. I was so happy to read this! I will post my photo later.Wonderful.

  15. This is awesome! I love little reminders like this of how important it is to share a little time with myself… really focusing on self… even if for just a few short moments. Bliss baby!

  22. What do you have for suggestions for shutins or housebound people like me? That is where I am at a loss. I’ve appreciated being alive and my home as much as I can for now I think. I would love to get out to do some of these things. It’s not natural to be inside of the house all of the time, I only get out for doctors appointments every several months and that’s it. Sometimes looking at it out of the window makes you happy and other times you pull the shades because you can’t bare looking at it and not being able to get out to smell the air and see and feel the beauty. No restaurants either needless to say!

  33. Oh I did that on Friday ! I took myself off to lunch at a lovely cafe, sat and ate a yummy lunch on my own whilst reading a trashy magazine. It was lovely!

  36. Ohhhh – I love #3 above. My mind feels like a BB in a boxcar, so being present and calming my mind is difficult right now. However, they say that if you focus on 2 things, you really can’t think about anything else. I’m going to try this. Not tonight. Right now. THANK YOU!