Building Strength

I went into the school holidays, about a month ago now, in a state of utter physical and mental exhaustion. Anyone who's followed this blog knows I'm an absolute expert when it comes to burnout, though, in my own defence I am learning, and when I started to see the symptoms this time I realised very quickly what was happening.

With the help of my wise woman - who basically sits there whilst I figure out all the stuff I knew anyway - I picked myself up.  It was no small feat when I had three and a half weeks of school holidays (my kids are educated in the independent system and we get longer winter holidays - yay) which any mum knows, can be pretty fraught - and I have children that are very highly strung and give new meaning to fraught.  Bless them.

I knew there wasn't going to be any chance for downtime - so I made three priorities...

1. Sleep - 8 hours, no arguing, yes an exception was made for Downton Abbey on Sunday nights
2. Eat - Fruit, light and healthy(ish) meals, make sure I never never get hungry, vitamins
3. Drink - tea and water, okay and wine and peach brandy if there is no wine but NO absinthe, well okay absinthe if really needed

And you know what, even though the holidays included a high stress (for me) kids party mid way, and we were slaughtered by flu over the last week, and that I've only got Miss 5 back to school as of yesterday, it really worked.  I've come out of the holidays feeling one hell of a lot better than when I went in, when really I was expecting to be a gibbering wreck.

The things that I think have made the most difference were; snacking on fruit constantly, taking massive amounts of vitamins (esp Vit C, Vit B and Iron), and rest (not so much sleep, but sitting down with some knitting at every chance - so maybe not rest so much as pacing myself through the days).

I'm not saying its all delightfully wonderful and I'm bouncing off the walls, radiant with inner peace and energy. But I'm building up my physical strength, and as I get stronger I become more positive and have the energy to focus on the things that fill up my soul and build my mental strength.  Like knitting, and blogging, and writing, and carrying out bizarre kitchen experiments cooking, and killing plants gardening.

:)