Self-Care Stories (#4) in COVID19 Times. 28/51 #LifeThisWeek. 56/2020.
I went looking for my Self-Care Story #3 and found I did not write one! What?! No, it was because “I” decided to get another of my Telling My Story chapters published. So, even if I did not do #3, I am back to write what the latest is for me and self-care.
Self-Care: Regular Routines.
As many know, my routines post-head and neck cancer surgeries and treatments have been to help me re-connect with the world out there, socially and physically. This was something I began about 3 months post-operatively in 2017.
I was getting used to a different body. I had always hidden it as there was too much fat…my words. So, when anxiety and head and neck cancer helped me lose a lot of that fat, then I found C L O T H E S a very attractive way to spend my time…looking, trying on…and wearing.
It was a huge boost to my ego and generally to my health over all.
I coupled ‘getting dressed with purpose’ to going out for a daily coffee, where I would interact with others and despite no teeth on top for 14 months, I made friends where I went as I had conversations.
There is no way my reconstructed mouth was going to stop me talking!!
Then in 2020 Self-Care Got a Shock.
From around March, self-care the way I used to do this every day had to stop. The shock for me is that I wondered how I would deal with the restrictions that came with self-isolation, COVID-19 thank you not.
I was understanding cognitively what I had to do, like everyone else, and that was stay home most of the time and only go out for essentials. I remembered my shock as the first day of real change came because I went to my local shops for some groceries, and everything was being locked up, closed off, taped off….sad to see. Then I thought of all those people and their employment (sad) and of the people whose daily routine was to go to those shops and now they could not (sad again).
I also found, as time went on, that I needed to change my attitude and thinking about what was happening. Yes, we had a virus somewhere in the air that no-one could see or touch, and yes, it had to change the way we went about our daily lives. I recall that I got a shock/surprise at the restrictions placed upon us even to visit the chemist and the doctor. I needed time to process what was in fact, good safety measures.
Changing My Thinking During COVID19 Times Helps Self-Care.
So, over time, I built-in some new ways of integrating self-care for me with what we had and had not. These three quotes, source is in image, have probably best summed up how ‘life is now for me’.
Telling the Self-Care Stories in Images. March – June 2020.
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- Right Eye Cataract Done.
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- Left Eye Cataract Done
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- Mindful colouring helps me.
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- My first Sunday ‘not going to a cafe’.
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- Complicated patterns help me, the rules of COVID & chocolate craziness for Easter.
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- This was confronting. March.
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- Iso Baking for me. Helped!
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- More Life as it is…I didn’t continue series.
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- Driving home, I had to stop & capture this: The Entrance.
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- Doing my ‘best’ to self care & walk at local beach.
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- More iso-baking. Too much trouble!
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- Self-care: COVID test. Negative.
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- Easter Sunday. I got a book at BigW & this was local centre.
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- “Doing my best” to self care: hair cut & physio
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- Not lying: with my IBS & more I do need these!
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- Another shot of a very deserted centre.
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- Thanks for the gloves & facemasks Shauna.
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- Out into the WIND ….helps clear those cobwebs.
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- A stall by the road…& a piccolo to go.
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- Making marks and colouring. My design.
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- Self-care. 12 month skin check.
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- Yay: coffee shop in Wyong opened. So good to see owner who is now a friend.
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- Some days ‘this is what I do’ to be mindful.
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- Selfie by the water. Doing my best to achieve equilibrium.
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- First time back here: another coffee spot. Lots of distancing.
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- Coffee out is not happening as much but appreciated when I can
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- My bridge, for thinking gratitude, after self-care at podiatrist
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- Another challenge set by me.
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- THIS was so good. A visitor. One GD.
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- Post flu-vax, the garden refresh…all helps.
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- This is what I continued once I could sit again for coffee.
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- How well I am cared for at my local places.
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- A very mindful drawing by me.
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- Finally got to see Dad for which he was grateful.
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- Mother’s Day at our daughter’s.
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- This is self-care…to come.
How is your self-care these days?
Maybe you’d enjoy this 18 seconds…
Denyse.
Link Up #197.
Life This Week. Link Up #197.
You can link up something old or new, just come on in.
* Please add just ONE post each week! NOT a link-up series of posts, thank you.
* Feel free to go with the prompt for the week to add your ‘take’ on the prompt. Or not.
* Please do stay to comment on my post as I always reply and it’s a bloggy thing to do!
* Check out what others are up to: Leave a comment on a few posts, because we all love our comments, right!
* Add a link back to this blog in your post somewhere, or on your sidebar or let others know somewhere you are linking up to this blog’s Life This Week.
*Posts deemed by me, the owner of the blog & the link-up, to be unsuitable for my audience will be deleted without notice. These may include promotions, advertorials and any that are overly religious or political or in any way offensive in nature.
* THANK you for linking up today! Next week’s optional prompt 29/51 Your Choice. Mine is: World Head & Neck Cancer Day. 20.7.2020
I Want. 33/51 #LifeThisWeek. 66/2020.
I Want. 33/51 #LifeThisWeek. 66/2020.
Last week I wrote this post: Why Did I Start A Blog?
Today I conclude the ‘Why I Blog” series with ‘I Want’ because that is essentially the ‘why’ of blogging for me.
I want:
It’s been a very big learning curve to be a blogger.
I say that because, for me, it was quite foreign to my world of work in education. Yet, as determined person who does not eschew hard work, I did my best to blog for what I had found was my way:
Conversational
Informational – based on experience
Photo-centred
Stories shared
Difficult Topics Which May Be Helpful
Creativity and Art
Health & Mindfulness
After a huge move (literally) in our lives, from Sydney to the Central Coast at the beginning of 2015 I set myself a goal. To keep me focussed on “doing this one thing EVERY day”…. I wrote a blog post Every.Single.Day. of 2015. No-one read the posts bar me, until, I re-visited the best way to connect more broadly and that was:
L I N K U P S.
Hosted by fellow bloggers.
Yay for that. I linked up posts for some time on the Annoyed Thyroid’s link up each weekend , Kylie Purtell’s on a Tuesday and Kirsty Russell on a Monday. Great news! I was meeting up with old friends and new. Right into 2016 and I continued…slightly decreasing my posts and relieved to do so.
I found I needed a good refresher of how this blog looked and made contact with an old Sydney friend, Tanya, who enriched the look and settings of the blog already set by my techie guy and that meant 2016 was even better. I made a commitment to blog almost every day under these topics:
I was having a good time, connecting and meeting new bloggers. Lots had just started blogging, others had left and there was talk of a linky being retired and I asked if I could, perhaps, with permission take over the Mondays with Life This Week. I got a lovely approval from my friend and in September this LINK UP kicked off….and is now #202!
I was also delighted to know there were link ups happening here (co-hosted) on Wednesdays (sadly for me, this one is finishing up soon) and here on Thursdays. Thank you for your link ups! They are great places of connection.
I Want: to write my memoir.
I had been postponing the idea of writing a memoir of my life until a friend and blogger encouraged me to try writing the chapters in blog-type posts. I did this. Here is the first one. I was not to know it would be a while before the next one!!
I Want: to share awareness of head and neck cancer.
Those who have been here since then and before will know that things changed very fast for my life and priorities when I got a head and neck cancer diagnosis in May 2017. I did think long and hard before pressing publish on this but the love and support which came back to me proved why I love to blog and love my community. The post is here.
I Want: to promote and encourage education- self and others always.
I also told the story of how I like to learn…this was because as a life-long educator I was placed in the role of student at an adult crochet class and because of how poorly my needs were understood I never went back!
I Want: to feel well within myself and portray that confidently.
As an anti-dote to cancer treatments and letting myself be positively impact each day, I began a daily routine some 4 months into my cancer and started to ‘dress with purpose’. This became a photo on instagram each day…and then over time one big boost to my self-confidence when I had no upper teeth and was still in cancer-treatment mode. Here’s what this was about.
I Want: to have women share their stories of courage.
From May 2019 I introduced a series to the blog for women I invited (or who self-invited) to share their stories: answering 5 questions. This series, Women of Courage continues….I am so pleased this has been a success. Many women have told me what it meant to share.
I Want: to show my appreciation to you, my readers, bloggers and friends. Some even joined me for my 70th birthday morning tea late in 2019. Many of you I may never met but already feel you are good friends. This blogging business is a great way for me, a relatively isolated retiree, to connect.
I Want: to continue blogging. Writing a post up to 2 times a week is good for my health and for my connections. Over time, I expect with fewer Women of Courage stories, my Wednesday posts will be a way to make some changes of direction if that’s what I choose.
This Is Why I Blog!
Thank you all. You have made a difference in my life.
Denyse.
Link Up #202
Life This Week. Link Up #202
You can link up something old or new, just come on in.
* Please add just ONE post each week! NOT a link-up series of posts, thank you.
* Feel free to go with the prompt for the week to add your ‘take’ on the prompt. Or not.
* Please do stay to comment on my post as I always reply and it’s a bloggy thing to do!
* Check out what others are up to: Leave a comment on a few posts, because we all love our comments, right!
* Add a link back to this blog in your post somewhere, or on your sidebar or let others know somewhere you are linking up to this blog’s Life This Week.
*Posts deemed by me, the owner of the blog & the link-up, to be unsuitable for my audience will be deleted without notice. These may include promotions, advertorials and any that are overly religious or political or in any way offensive in nature.
* THANK you for linking up today! Next week’s optional prompt: 34/51 Self-Care Stories. #5. 24.8.2020
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