Here are some random pictures of the past few months, because that is my life too...
 |
| A store display where some customer must have been thirsty for coffee ('bakkie pleur' is colloquial for 'a cup of coffee'). |
 |
| Cat Circle. |
 |
| I am a control freak, so sometimes I need to remind myself how much control I really have. |
 |
| Visited a book-fair which was heaven. |
 |
| My book-fair loot. |
 |
| Visited the Drents Museum which had an exhibit on American Realism. |
 |
| Trees, trees, trees. |
 |
| My favorite doggy came to visit and brought my family with her. |
 |
| Participated in another readathon and reread the last three Harry Potter books. |
 |
| A very complicated pattern in progress. |
 |
| Lots of relaxing with magazines and coffee, always a good idea. |
 |
| Spring is here and so are spring blossoms. |
 |
| Everything is so idyllic on the island right now. |
 |
| Stay stubborn, again and again! |
 |
| A little tapestry in my journal that I made on my lunch break at work. |
 |
| Sometimes there is no real horizon over the Wadden Sea. |
 |
| A day in the city of Leeuwarden. A fine day at that. |
 |
| White flowers are everywhere! |
 |
| My Lamys, my loves. The blue one is a new addition to my little collection. |
 |
| Walking. Always. |
 |
| I seem to be rereading a lot of old favorites lately and am enjoying it very much. |
The above pictures show the good stuff that my life is full off. Besides just helping me document the beauty around me, I like to take pictures to remind myself of all the things I am grateful for and enjoy.
What my life is full of right now too however, is work related stress. Or maybe not so much my life, but my
head. I only work three long days a week after all, so it's not like I don't have any free time.
I am also usually pretty good at leaving my work at work and not fretting about it, but the past year or so it has been different, which I have written about before.
We are working on a big project together with the other islands and let's just say it's not always going as smoothly as we (I?) would want. I'm not going to get into detail here, but it's all about the building and implementation of documentation software across five different location and municipalities. It's ambitious and interesting and it will bring a lot of good stuff to all those involved, but it's also frustrating, nerve wrecking and tedious and there's just no way around that.
For me personally it's mostly about lack of control. I am but a cog in the system so to speak and have limited ability to speed things along or make changes that are necessary. This is simply part of the deal, but it's hard for me because I am someone who likes to make decisions on her own and fix stuff herself. So basically this whole project is a bit of a test on my whole personality. Everything is dependent on so many different parties and people and technologies and software that nothing is simple and straight forward, so I need patience and I need to let go and trust the process.
All the above means that this project is on my mind a lot and sometimes even keeping me up at night, which is so not my thing. Being awake at night for me has always been about being full of exciting ideas for art or things I want to do in the day, in short: about the good stuff. Now it's more about worry and concerns and feeling frustrated and in general I am not good with stress, I'm just not.
In this state of mind it's absolutely essential for me to keep any responsibilities, obligations and chores to a minimum and just do things that I enjoy and that relax me. So I draw a lot, walk a lot an read a lot, and consciously try to focus on the things that bring me joy, but I am also slacking when it comes to things like the blog and have temporarily stopped my morning art practice. I usually love doing these things and am pretty consistent in keeping them up, but right now it's just not working and that is adding extra stress, because I don't like half assing things like this. Did I already mention I was a control freak? ;-)
So to take some pressure off myself (and I do realise it is
me who puts that pressure
on me in the first place) I am going to take a blog break for a while. I have no intention of quitting this blog or anything, I just don't seem to have the right mindset for it right now. I just feel I need to take extra good care of myself and cut myself some slack.
So I don't know exactly when I will be back, but I was thinking somewhere in July. In June I will be having another vacation dogsitting for my sister (see above cute dog in the pictures), so I will probably have some nice vacation pictures by then to share with you.
Also I will keep posting on Facebook and Instagram, because that's a thing that's fast and easy and ad hoc and I like keeping a record of the fun and beautiful things that my life is full of. So if you want to see what I'm up to you can follow my
Facebook here or my
Instagram here. Would love to see you there!
Hope you are all enjoying either spring or fall (depending on where you live) and having a wonderful artsy time! Hope to meet you all again here in July!
