What does burnout look like?

 
I am seeing burnout in record levels in those around me and it is concerning. I feel like people are drowning from either COVID-19 fatigue or just life burn out. I am worried as an empath. I try to be supportive and if the individual is open to it I try to give some tips to help but ultimately... you have to take care of yourselves people. We live in a culture where we are seen as a failure if we slow down and take time for ourselves to recharge. It's looked like a luxury if you take a bath or sit and just read a book for the night. Our society really needs to change and I am determined to be a good example to those around me. I want them to see my life and be like "I can do that too I can take the time to recharge." I mean this brings up another thing people throw at me "but you don't have kids so you have plenty of time to do that." 

I am going to be clear here. My journey is not yours and yours is not mine. We do not have to compare our struggles this is not a competition. We need to stop that attitude in our society and instead look over when someone else is struggling in their personal journey and help them up. Regardless if we think their struggles are not as bad as ours. 

I also want to say this-- You have to put the work in. You have to make your self care a priority. 

I will also share some things that work for me with burn out and how I get back to center. 

• Put it on your actual schedule and make the time. Even if it is 5 minutes alone in the morning just drinking coffee and sitting. 
• 
  Find things that work for you. I enjoy the following you may not like any of these ideas but find what works for YOU.  Mediation (Sanvello app and Peloton app), Walking outside, Working out, Reading a book,  Making dinner, Talking to my husband, Watching bad reality TV or even taking a bath. 
• If you are REALLY struggling right now in a moment don't suffer through it. If you can get up--- walk around-- play your favorite song-- do a quick 5 minute mediation-- go make that cup of tea-- self care can be real quick like that to just keep it together when you are burning out. 
• When I am burning the candle at both ends and BURNINGOUT I will often have to set more firm boundaries. I will tell people "I am not in a place to be able to help you right now I need to focus on me." We need to be more willing in this society to set up personal boundaries to protect our own well being. 
• Cancel some plans. It's alright you do not have to do everything. I think COVID-19 taught me that it is okay to say no to things. 
• It's okay to not be okay. I love this saying. Some days are hard and that is fine. We cannot be expected to be happy and perfect all the time. When the days get hard sit in it and feel your way through it. Make sure you look for EAP resources or maybe do a virtual visit with a therapist if it is getting to be too much. I do that as needed myself. But please know you are allowed to have crappy days! 
• Take a break from social media. I mean it. I have a week off in October and I most likely will be stepping away for at least a couple days to just live!

I hope I did not come off as a preacher here. I just want to help people around me because I am seeing people really struggling lately. Please take care of yourselves out there and reach out to me if you want more information on any of the self care things I do. I love sharing ideas. 

Be safe!

-Emily

Stella: Hospice Life & Being Special Needs

 I have had a lot of questions about our 20 year old cat Stella since she is special needs and I have been sharing some of her journey lately. I figured this might be a good time to deep dive into that exact journey. 

• We know Stella is 20 and this is an end of life care plan for her and has been for a long time. We legit call it hospice care like if she was a human. We always have a goal of giving her the best life we can with her illness's and we know that there is no cure for what she has. Ryan and I have had lengthy conversations on this topic and we agree that once her bad days start to heavily outweigh the good then it will be time for her to go over the rainbow bridge and be put down. We are under no rose colored glasses thinking she will live forever. In fact I cannot believe she has lived this long! 
• Stella has always been sickly. ALWAYS. When we picked her up at 5.5 years old she had barely any fur and was not eating. She has lived most of her life with on and off random issues. The biggest health problem she has is kidney disease. We are unsure how long she has had this disease but her phosphorus numbers are alarmingly high since the last time we bought her in for this last year. This causes issues with eating, going to the bathroom and sometimes pain for her. 
• I want you to know that we are blessed. We have the means to take care of a special needs cat with bills running into the hundreds. We took her on and knew what we were getting into. It's why I am so passionate about Safe Haven and want people to donate to them for my birthday. I know the dedication of my time (no vacations without her), money and frustration (sanity) that it takes to give your all to taking care of a special needs animal. It is around the clock care there are no off days. 
• I mean I want to take some time here to go over what we are currently doing for her treatment but it is ever evolving. It involves special medicated food to bring down her phosphorus levels, gravy meant for cats with kidney disease (yes gravy for cats!), antibiotic shots (she may need 2), meal stimulant's that you rub in her ear and you cannot pet her for 2 hours after,  a phosphorus binder I had to order off of amazon and miralax mixed with milk. It's a lot... we make it work and I hope it will help within the next week.  
• I know that some people read all this and think "why don't you put her down already she is 20?!" Listen... As a special needs human I think every life deserves a chance to live a happy life. If at 5.5 years old we would not have adopted Stella I assume they would have put her down she looked homeless with all that fur missing. Everyone in this world deserves to be loved and cared for. She is the most gentle/sweet soul and I know I don't regret any of the time or money over the years I have spend on caring for her. I am sure Ryan would agree. 

Here are some of her cute pictures for you to enjoy. 

Can you tell she loves her basket in her old age? 

Be safe out there!

Emily 

Mountain Biking August 2021

 

Do you ever later in life start a hobby or something and you think to yourself "man younger me would never do this!?" That is exactly how I look at mountain biking. I got into this last year with my fat tire and I enjoyed it so much. I knew with a normal bike my back would not tolerate down hill, rocks or tree roots it was not even an option. I mean I even broke my tail bone riding last year.... OR so I thought.... 

I never even knew there were different types of bikes guys. Like when I bought my first REAL bike that was like not from Walmart and cute I just wanted something to trail ride. Nothing crazy. So I got this bike which at the time I had no idea was called a hybrid bike. 

Blue my first bike.

So let's talk about it. What the heck is a hybrid bike? There are a lot of bike types and currently I have 3 of them. ha-- anyway a hybrid is not something for mountain biking and also not a road bike for riding on the road. It sort of is a multi-purpose bike but honestly it does not really do anything really well. It cruises nice yes but does not have the speed for riding on the road fast. It also is NOT good at mountain biking unless you want to destroy your back. It was a good beginner bike. 

Last year for Christmas I got a fat tire bike and it changed my life. I love hiking and I love being in the woods. Being able to be in the woods and bike was like mixing my two favorite hobbies. Single track riding on a bike is heaven. I never sweat like I do on a bike. It is an amazing full body work out. The only issue is my fat tire bike is a tank and it does cushion my back but not enough on hard ground. Here is my fat tire which I love riding in the winter. It does awesome in the snow!

Ru (named after Ru Paul) my fat tire!

As you can see my fat tire is a heavy bike and it is not meant for being agile by any means. So recently Ryan and I had some talks about me possibly getting an actual mountain bike. We had been wavering if I needed a full suspension bike (shocks on the front AND back) or what is called a hard tail with only front suspension. I had no idea what any of this meant last week when I was shopping for bikes by the way I learned a lot in a short time. We saw a Rocky Mountain bike for sale on market place and after much research we snagged this full suspension bike up. Full suspension bikes are EXPENSIVE so that was a big investment in my biking. I rode this bike on Saturday and I had a blast. Struggled on hills so we are going to see about adding a gear to help with that and maybe change up the tightness of the suspension as needed. Ryan wanted to try a hard tail out on Sunday so we rented two in door county. My POOR BACK! I need full suspension. Even if I cannot get the gearing right and need to walk my bike up some hills anything is better than that hard tail ruining my back. 

Rocky the newest bike to me (full suspension) mountain bike. 

So here we are I sit here with a sore back and bum but well on my way to looking like I belong on the trails out there. I cannot wait to go for another ride really soon and continue to share these rides with Ryan. I am happy we both love biking so much. Onto looking for a good bike for Ryan next!

Hints:

Get the padded shorts. 

Having plenty of water is a must. 

If your bike does not have metal studded pedals get some. Game changer. 

Until next time~

Emily 

Some thoughts on grief

 

I mean I am no expert on grief I can only really relate to you my personal experiences and what I have observed from others on their journeys. I say journeys because I am a firm believer that grief is not a linear thing. It's not a check off list where you can just say "okay today is the funeral I cry today and move onto another check box on some grief list." I personally have tried to challenge myself to allow myself to really feel the feelings as they come and practice mindfulness more when the feelings come. I assume I may have lost some of you with the word mindfulness. It's actually one of my personal goals this year to be more mindful when emotions bubble up and notice them for what they are and take the time to sit with them... feel them out and process what that emotion is and why I am feeling it. This is important because no matter what sort of grief you are going through "loss of a job, loss of a loved one etc" you will be on this little personal journey. I have noticed no one grieves the same. Each person has to really take that grief into their heart and process it over time. I try to let people breath in that grief. How we process it will for sure be different some people may never really touch their grief. I tend to have some really strong emotions up front that I have to sort through right away and then over time I will get little thoughts here or there about that person or thing that I have to work through. I will also say I am the type of person that may need help sorting through the grief if it is a mixed emotion situation. A good example of this is that my uncle just passed. I am a transparent person and him and I never had a good relationship. I felt so conflicted all day yesterday because I did  not have the same relationship others had with him it was so complicated and honestly today I am still trying to process him passing and what does that mean for my heart and for me. This is the type of situation where I may reach out and schedule a therapy session or reach out to an online community for support. I use the Sanvello App for mental health support weekly. I want you to take away from my little thoughts here that it is okay to ask for help. It is okay to ask others to sit with you in your grief even if you cannot verbalize what is going on inside. It is also okay to feel other emotions in your grief. I remember laughing at my grandpas funeral and feeling like "OMG-- what is going on you cannot be happy right now." This is such an old idea and out dated. You are allowed to live. You are allowed to be happy. I know that my grandpa Jupe would have loved to see me smiling and thinking of him. 

I hope that in your life when you come to the hard moments that you seek the help you need and know that grief is normal. It is part of life and you are not alone in it. 

Stay safe and be healthy out there-

Emily 

Foo Fighters Appreciation Post

 

I mean at this point I would think people would start to understand my undying love for not only all things Foo Fighters but Dave Grohl (lead singer). I wanted to just type up some of my thoughts in a post to sort of focus in on my thoughts on this band. I really struggled throughout my entire life with mental health and something about the music specifically during COVID-19 isolation helped me get through and cling onto hope at times. I think I am so drawn to this band because their lyrics and the music fuse so well together. Some of their music is hard and almost metal like but other albums like Skin and Bones are soft and smooth. No matter what mood you are in you can find a song or vibe in their collection of albums (and there are 26 years worth) to listen to. I have actually been listening to their albums in order the past couple days to prepare myself for my 5th time seeing them in concert this Friday. It's not just music they have documentaries they have done and music specials like the one time they wrote an entire album exploring certain cities in the US. 

I am going to now share with you my favorite song and no... it is not Everlong. I make that joke because that is the most popular of their songs that they pretty much have to play at every concert forever till they die. My favorite song comes from the album "Skin and Bones" 2006 release. The song which is the same name as the album Skin and Bones is the pinnacle of what I adore in their song writing with a smooth lyric but awesome and unexpected music.  NOW what you really want to know.. Is there a song you just cannot listen to? Yes. Yes there is and it is the song White Limo from the "Wasting Light" album 2011 release. I cannot do it. I have tried to like it and I just dislike it. I openly admit I skip it any time it comes on. It's too much just yelling for me it gets into like screaming metal territory for me. 

What was the most surprising thing when you first saw them in concert? This is a great question someone asked me recently so I thought I would share this nugget of info here. Their concerts are 3 hours long. I am not joking. It is intense. This is a marathon concert where you better not have to work the next day because you cannot talk, you cannot walk... you just need to lay down. This is because if you are a super fan like me you know every... single... song. You sing along while the music is pulsing through your veins. You cling and dance to those around you. I assume this time I see them I may sob through half the damn concert. If they play These Days also from the "Wasting Light" album 2011 which was my COVID-19 survival jam I will for sure being crying in a puddle. 

Here are some fun photos from past concerts: 

Yes. This stage in Madison WI tilted and moved. These were the closest tickets we ever had. 

Dave!

I have forcefully made my friends love Foo! I mean it is not hard the music is so dang good. Cannot wait to see them all again this Friday. We will miss you Alyssa take care of that adorable Owen of yours. 

Ryan and I. He has been to every show with me!

I am really excited for this Friday if you cannot tell. I am sure it will be another show for my memories and the record books. Concert #5 here I come!

Stay safe and healthy-

Emily 

Back Yard Renovation July 2021

 Progress! 

I like this word it makes me feel like we are actually getting somewhere. When we bought our house we knew we needed a new deck, to fix the fence and do something with the side yard that refused to grow grass. Here we are years later and it is finally starting to feel like a little oasis. When you buy a house you think you will get everything done in no time. You make little lists of what you want to do but then reality hits when you realize it costs a lot of money, blood, sweat and tears to get it all done. I will be the first to admit that I am blessed to have a spouse that is extremely handy and tackles many of these projects to the point he is exhausted from planting trees this weekend. Here are so recent photos with some of the work we have been doing. A note here too paying others or knowing your limits is not a bad thing we hired someone to do our deck and pergola. Could Ryan (my husband) done them himself? Sure but it would have taken him a lot of time. 

The above images are the side yard that is just a little sliver along our home. It is between our lot and our neighbors. For years we tried to grow grass but in recent years we just mulched it all in, removed an old tree stump, planted 4 trees, Ryan built a cool stand for our hammocks and a little retaining wall. At the bottom of the wall he placed out little planter he made out of the fence posts that fell down years ago in a storm. Now we have these cute little pots here too to look at while in the hot tub. Ryan also replaced some rooted fence posts and we stripped and painted the leftover fence we have. The fence was a labor of love taking us a year and a half to complete. The last picture is before we removed the weeds and put the cute pots in this year.

The next space up in the yard is most likely the biggest yard change and of course cost the most. Where the back yard meets the tiny side yard we went through the difficult process and expense at that of installing a hot tub during COVID-19. It involved multiple permits, meeting with the city and loads of money. We are so happy with it though. The pergola was built by someone we hired. Ryan did build the sand stand surround and the stairs which were old wood from the deck that was replaced. The sun shade was purchased from Amazon. We are really excited for the future of this part of the back yard. 

Here is the last part of our tiny backyard the deck and corner before the side yard. Now we used to have an enclosed fence that went all the way to the end of the house. If you have followed me on social media you would have heard about a large part of that fence falling down because the  giant tree that used to be next to the deck pushed on it so hard and it was rotting. Ryan in the past year has replaced the rotting posts and used the wood from the  fallen fence to make all sorts of furniture and decorative walls in our home. He is good at not wasting wood. The fixed fence was painted as well this was mentioned above. The concreate patio was done before we bought the house and it works but causes some drainage issues we are working on with pea gravel along the fence to prevent future fence rot. Ryan stripped the deck and we had it rebuilt this year as the wood on the deck part was rotting. It looks great! We also bought replacement trees for the 3 trees we cut down along the house this year. It's really coming together. We are not thinking about upcoming mulch, maybe an arbor and finally planting grass by the deck. 

The joys of home ownership is that things are never really complete! 

Until next time~ Emily 

2021 Indy car races at Road America

 I barely took pictures so this is more of a text post sorry/not/sorry. I have been going to Road America for years. It is one of my favorite race tracks. There is something to be said about the smell of the racing fuel, the quick pace of cars around the corners and the thrill of an almost crash. 

This weekend when we went the races I could not believe the crowds. I go here often throughout my life and outside of a Nascar weekend this is the busiest I have ever seen it. We started by parking at the bottom of corner 5 (yes this track has multiple corners!) and walked around. The weather was hotter than I expected as the weather guy was wrong about it raining yet again. It did not rain. It was cool to see all the sponsor stands and take a quick walk through pit lane. I am not a fan of groups of people still so we tended to stray from that as much as possible. We then decided to watch a little of the race ending and then we were on the hunt for food. We found the perfect spot to watch the Indy race in the last corner before the finish line with a food/drink stand, cover in case it rained and TV to watch when they were not in our corner. I mean the course is 4 plus miles so you need a screen to see it all. 

Fun note of interest I have really gotten into watching this docu-series on Netflex about formula 1 that follows the racers called Formula 1: Drive to Survive. I bring this up because one of the drivers I really liked is now racing for Indy so I got to see him (Romain Grosjean) finish 5th at the race. 

Here are some highlights: 

Here is the only picture of an actual car I took all day. I was taking pictures with my brain though all day. Super cool! 

It really turned out to be a lovely day for a race. Enjoyed some slushies and an awesome view. 

I love being back to doing the things I love. We also went to a concert Saturday night! Keep staying safe out there. 

Until next time~ Emily