Tag: life

I’ve started to add a daily coping tip to the SQLServerCentral newsletter, which is helping me deal with the issues in the world. I’m adding my responses for each day here.

Today’s tip is to Immerse yourself in a new book, TV show, or podcast.

The idea is to give you something periodic or longer lived than a movie. I think that’s good, and escaping life is important. I know it matters to me.

Oscar Nominees

Not a book, but my wife enjoys watching all the Oscar nominated films each year. Last year we were too busy, so my wife, son, and sometimes the other kids have taken a few nights a week to work through the 2019 films, and then moved on to the 2020 films.

It’s good because many of them are films we wouldn’t otherwise have watched, or at least some of us wouldn’t have watched. It’s also a good time together where we escape.

Books

I loved reading. I usually go through 60-100 fictional books a year. Not so many non-fiction, but I do get through fictional ones. With my sabbatical, I went through almost 20 during that break. Since then, I continue to steal 5 or 10 minutes at times to read a few pages.

Lately I’ve been working through Evanovich’s Plum series. I read the first 9 or 10 a long time ago, but I started back through them because they’re light, funny, silly, and in no way related to the world. I like that.

So far this year I’m up to about 35 books, and with this pandemic, I bet I set a record.

Find Your Own Thing

Coping, cleaning, tackling projects, all good stuff. I need less stuff to cope, which means escapes are good for me. Maybe not for you, but it does help me.

I’ve started to add a daily coping tip to the SQLServerCentral newsletter, which is helping me deal with the issues in the world. I’m adding my responses for each day here.

The tip for today was to notice five things that are beautiful in the world around you.

I’m writing this a day or two in advance, so here goes.

I like to take pictures. My wife laughs at me, but I find these to be nice reminders of life over time. Sometimes I just flip through them. In any case, here are some beautiful things.

I’m leaving out friends and family, as those are certainly beautiful, but I tried to think and notice things that were in my life, but I sometimes don’t think about.

The Wide Open Spaces

I love Colorado. I love being outdoors, but of all the places I’ve lived, I enjoy Colorado. The dry air, the changing seasons, the openness of my ranch. The view is often the same, but walking around the other day, I find this to be beautiful.

The Sky

The sky in Colorado is often sunny (300+ days a year), it’s big and expansive, and it’s beautiful. Even as much as I see it, I still like looking at it’s beauty.

My Guitar

I’ve owned a few, but my wife bought me this one a year ago. I’ve enjoyed messing around on it, and I spent a lot of time during my sabbatical practicing. I built some skill, confidence, and found joy again in making music.

I’m not great, but I did feel good enough to provide a light backing track for Mike Walsh’s weekly call on Friday.

My Animals

This dog is amazing. Her name is Azure, and she loves playing fetch. She drops balls, scraps of paper, and twigs at my feet on a regular basis, asking for them to be thrown so she can chase them.

She’s a beautiful reminder of the joy of simple things, and of simple pleasures.

My Charging Stand

I built this.

I cut two pieces of wood, got them to fit together, and stained them. I’ve dropped my phone on this for 3 or 4 years. Last year I moved to wireless charging and didn’t use this as much, but over my sabbatical I routed out a hole for a wireless charger (thanks, @United) and then plugged it in. Now, I can drop my phone here and it charges.

This is beautiful to me, a useful thing I made. It’s not perfect, it’s not something anyone else would want, but it’s beautiful to me.

I’ve started to add a daily coping tip to the SQLServerCentral newsletter, which is helping me deal with the issues in the world. I’m adding my responses for each day here.

No April Fools for this one. This is a big one, and it’s likely important. The tip today is “call a loved one to catch up and really listen to them.”

I called my Mom recently. She’s in a retirement community, and locked down. There have been some illnesses among the staff and to avoid spreading, they have reduced some contact, ask most people to just stay in their rooms or apartments and deliver food. Fine for my Mom. She has a kindle, a piano, and enjoys the quiet. She exercises in her room and enjoys it.

Good catchup there.

Not so good for me as my Mom is fairly conservative and as of last week, she didn’t think we needed the shutdown, we should have all businesses open and “we don’t have that many cases.” This was before the US surpassed all other countries.

I try to be understanding and appreciate other points of view. I also think that a number of very conservative outlets are criminally negligent in downplaying the seriousness of this. I do think some liberal/progressive news outlets may be sounding too many alarms, but in the place where mistakes are serious, I can tolerate a little more chicken little news than dismissal.

So I listened, debated a bit, and tried to provide her company, swallowing some of the stress that this caused.

I’ll also have to do this again every few days. Looking forward to more virtual happy hours with friends that take me away from news.

I’ve started to add a daily coping tip to the SQLServerCentral newsletter, which is helping me deal with the issues in the world. I’m adding my responses for each day here.

Today was interesting: Take give minutes to sit and breathe. Repeat often.

It’s funny, I regularly practice yoga, and this is something we do in class. I’ve used my watch to track my exercise, and I can see when my heart rates rises, so I know we often sit for about 5 minutes quietly, or with a quote/thought from the teacher, before we get moving.

I tried this a couple times last week. I set a timer on my phone for 5 minutes, stood up, closed my eyes, and tried to just be. No music, nothing to see, just see if my mind can quiet. Sometimes it didn’t and thoughts continue to swirl through my head, sometimes I relaxed, as I might do when walking or driving and my thoughts quietly flow.

It’s surprisingly hard to just stop for 5 minutes, and I don’t know if I can do it more than once a day. So far, I haven’t, but I will be thinking about adding this to part of my routine.