Voice of the DBA

I started to add a daily coping tip to the SQLServerCentral newsletter and to the Community Circle, which is helping me deal with the issues in the world. I’m adding my responses for each day here. All my coping tips are under this tag. 

Today’s tip is to if you find yourself rushing, make an effort to slow down a little.

“Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it. “ – Ferris Bueller

I think life starts to move really fast for me some times. If there was one good thing during the early part of the pandemic it was that life slowed down a bit. I cooked more, relaxed with family, and enjoyed not having a schedule.

That got a bit boring, and while things have opened a bit, and life is busy again, I’m trying to remember to slow down and relax.

This year, it’s just my wife and I, and the house is a bit quieter. We have less commitments, overall, and I’m trying to take advantage of that. When I’ve had a busy time, and feel rushed, I’ve tried a couple things lately.

First, I enjoy guitar, and I’ve tended to play a bit before bedtime, but I’ve started to bring one into the office and I’ll take 5-10 minutes of a break to strum a little, maybe learn a few song, and just reset myself.

The other thing I’ve start to do is prep dinner early. No particular time, but often when I feel stressed or so busy that I can’t think, I’ll walk to the kitchen and start to chop vegetables or gather things for a few minutes. I don’t get too far along, but it let’s me slow down and relax.

Exercise is always good, but that sometimes feels like more work, and more rushing rather than slowing down, so I’m trying to find new things that help me reset my stress or busy mind by slowing down.

I am looking forward to warmer weather when I can walk outside and watch my wife teach a bit for a few minutes.

I started to add a daily coping tip to the SQLServerCentral newsletter and to the Community Circle, which is helping me deal with the issues in the world. I’m adding my responses for each day here. All my coping tips are under this tag. 

Today’s tip is to look around and spot 3 things you find unusual or pleasant.

I don’t walk around a lot, which seems strange being out in the country, but life has become a bit simple and boring for me. I work, I go to the gym, I coach, I follow similar routes. Even my workouts are very routine. Maybe a sign of the last year.

As a side note, I don’t know if this grounds me and helps me cope or it stagnates and worsens pandemic life.

In any case, I looked around a bit to find a few things one day.

First, it was the snowmelt, which has made a mess of the property. However, one section had a great view when I walked out of the barn. A lake and a current from the wind. It looks like the tide is coming in.

Later, after feeding some horses, we found the foal slightly trapped under the fence. My wife pulled her out, but she lay there for a few minutes and I caught them together.

I went back in the barn and saw this:

For some reason, a dog decided to play king of the hill. I’ve seen this when we have a large bale out for horses, but never in the barn, and there is hay here all the time.

An interesting day.

I started to add a daily coping tip to the SQLServerCentral newsletter and to the Community Circle, which is helping me deal with the issues in the world. I’m adding my responses for each day here. All my coping tips are under this tag. 

Today’s tip is to spend some time on a creative task or activity.

I don’t think of myself as terribly creative, though I do like arts of various sorts. I play guitar, but that’s mostly covering what others have done, not really doing something new.

Cooking is one area where I do like to experiment a bit. Often I’m more derivative than innovative, but I have fun. Recently I got a set of new cake pans, actually gifted to me from a friend. I hadn’t made a cake in a long time, with kids out of the house, but I decided to try and do one from scratch. We were somewhat snowed in, but I had flour, milk, eggs, sugar, etc., so I found a recipe and put something together.

It came out pretty good, despite being a bit of a pain to go through this particular recipe. If you want to try it, here’s the link: https://www.recipetineats.com/my-very-best-vanilla-cake/