How are you relaxing these days?

I’m relaxing by sitting on my front porch and reading.

Ironically I’ve been relaxing by working. I’m doing all sorts of things in my back yard. I’m worn out at the end of the day but have a great sense of peace and accomplishment too.

Mine could better be described as ‘escaping’. I have a rent situation through no fault of my own, and numerous other stressors and all I want to do is watch tv and sleep. Part, but not all of the rent situation is that I’m going to have to call every pharmacy, doc’s office, xray office – basically verifying anything medical that I’ve paid out-of-pocket for, in order to get a rent discount from the agency that assists with my rent. It’s 15 different places!! I see a lot of being on hold in my future. :/

I finally made myself make an appt to see a therapist, which I really need right now, and I was successful, but she’ll be on vacation for 2 weeks beginning this coming Wednesday!

Needless to say I’m not relaxed.

I walk up to the lake and put my feet in the sand. Sometimes I like to take a dip.

By sharing a very large meringue in a local café.

A little unexpected tree work, had a 15 foot branch drop on my rose arbor (may be able save). Exercise is good for you, relax afterwards.

I’m on summer break from teaching I’m only teaching two online classes for the summer — so I have a good amount of free time to catch up on reading, shows, and movies. Been walking the dogs more and hanging out with my daughter.

Denial about some of what is happening in my life. It will only work for so long.

Zumba class.

Disney world.

Swimming.

Cuddle with my husband.

Eating too much food.

I add, but not necessarily buy, things on my wish list. From DoorDash, Instacart, SkipTheDishes, Amazon.

Also I watch a variety of YouTube videos. Like psych2Go, and economics videos, personal finance, mining, science, video game music, freedom toons, Common Sense Soapbox, and video game walk throughs.

I nercopost and update old Fluther questions.

Sorry is Necro-Posting. And I watch YouTube videos on earwax removal and pedicures.

Frequently I take my 2 cats for walks in the woods that surround our house. We don’t go very far (¾ mile) on narrow deer trails. We stay off the main tails where people let their dogs run free. So relaxing. Cats love it. Sniffing about every other bush. Sometimes they crawl through the thick brush. When there’s a fallen tree trunk they have to walk across it. Always ready for stalking little animals. Darting here and there even shooting up tree trucks. Pretty sure they like showing off their athleticism to me.

I know when it’s time to go home when they start meowing. They take their time about it but they always follow me back home. Smart cats. They never venture into the woods without me. There are coyotes and huge raccoons in the woods.

Here’s a YouTube video that I made with my cat “Wolfy”:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7-AC4b4dXY&t=1s

^So cute!

@gondwanalon Thanks for that! That’s one very happy cat. I miss my kitties. One of them, Pepper, looked like Wolfy. She had green eyes. Funny…I dreamt about the other one, Mugsy, last night.

@gondwanalon Fun!

I’m stuck in the house because I’m currently on oxygen after a hospital stay. But I’m reading about five books and I typically take a nap before dinner every day. I’m also streaming a couple of shows and slowly getting back to doing my diamond art. And of course having two cats always helps me relax.

Hiking in nature is my best way to actually relax. Still relaxing everyday like that.

It’s June, the days are long. I’ve written about this here before – my apartment has a nice lawn enclosed by tall trees. It’s breezy, shady and comfy, even on a 90+ F day like today. I watch and listen to the birds in the trees and at my bird feeder. Some days I grill. I drink a few beers.

Today my friends in the yard included downy woodpeckers, goldfinches, cardinals, chickadees, robins and grackles.

Saw my first firefly of the season today. I was outside solely to look for them because it’s good firefly weather (early summer, 90 F) but I saw only one. One. A single flash. If I were more artistic I could write a poem about the one lonely light in the trees, when the goal is showing off for a community swarm.

^I saw my first one over the weekend.

I remember fireflies, sigh! Now I’m lucky if I see one or two all summer and I think it’s a sad statement about us using way too many pesticides. Used to be every night in the summer, if it wasn’t storming, it would be a whole host of them outside. We would go out and catch them in our hands and look at them and then let them fly off. I miss that.

@gondwanalon I love that video! I love how you filmed it from a low perspective. I used to have a cat that would follow me if I was walking, maybe she’d stick with me about six or seven house-lengths and then she’d cry and I’d walk her back home. I live in a development where the road is not busy so it wasn’t bad for us to take a little walk.

@LifeQuestioner A few weeks ago, I shut the TV off and the light off and I was trying to close my eyes to go to sleep, and I saw a green blinking light on my bed. I was wondering what it was, was it the TV remote? Was it my cell phone? What could it be? I put the light on and put my glasses back on and I saw it was a firefly on my bed.

@jca2 that is too funny! And as far as being driven crazy by the blinking green light, that would have been me to a T because I like my bedroom really dark.