Dealing With Annoyances
Every day I’m confronted by a dozen little annoyances, lights being left on, fighting my way through the under stairs cupboard to read the meters, clothes left on the floor, washing up not done during the day, and on and on. I used to let it get to me but I can honestly say that now I just feel grateful instead. Grateful that we have lights and enough money to light them, grateful that we have heating at our finger-tips, grateful for the wonderful kids – even if they can be messy, grateful that we have plenty to eat – even if it does generate washing up and on and on. As soon as the annoyed feeling arises, I just switch it to a grateful thought and it’s dissipated before it’s started. I do the same with annoying people I meet, but I tend to switch those thoughts to compassion. It really has transformed my inner life, to have mastered this mindfulness practice, definitely a great return on investment. The only downside – if there is one – is that I don’t have much motivation to fix the things that annoy me now, but I’m working on that too. Today the biggest annoyance is of course the rain, and boy was I grateful for my wet weather gear.
My rainy day started at 6:40 after a reasonable nights sleep. I’m already noticing that as I reduce the cocodamol dose each night, I’m more disturbed, tossing and turning and waking up at least once to go to the toilet. On a full 60mg dose of codeine I almost always sleep though. But no matter, waking once in the night isn’t a problem provided I can get back to sleep, which I am so far. I went straight to Caffe Nero, by the shortest route and did my stretches outside while waiting for opening time. I always use these 5 minutes for stretching and Achilles tendon strengthening exercises, it’s become a solid habit. I spent my usual two hours there and when I left it was still raining heavily, but I had my full body gear on so I walked to the Beach Terrace Cafe and back. I wanted to see how much damage the storms had done to the dunes and was surprised to see none at all, except to the sacrificial sand piles that had been deposited in front of the dunes over the last few weeks, they did their job.
I then did my, mostly organic, shop at Aldi and headed home. I was planning to go to Sainsbury’s and M&S but my bags were full to the brim from Aldi. Once home I stripped off so that I could wash and re-waterproof my gear as I’m planning two more rainy day walks in Rivington this week. I also bought some additional bottles of cleaner and proofer as we are running low.
Today is dedicated to cooking and cleaning, with a nap and cycling in between. As I write this I’ve just finished washing and drying four loads of clothes (bedding, towels, clothes and wet weather gear), I’ve cleaned the toilets and bathroom, taken the electricity and gas readings, cleaned the floor, done the washing up and got the veg ready for tonight’s dinner. I’ve made a couple of cheese cakes and some vege sausages.
I also watched Madame Secretary on my exercise bike and walked to Sainsbury’s to finish off the shopping.
Dinner was very late tonight so I didn’t get chance to go swimming, but I might go tomorrow after my meal out at Toby’s with Debbie. Tonight for dinner I had Deb, Tess and Anna, Jennie arrived later after a tiring day’s training for her paediatric first aid course, which she passed with flying colours.
Today’s picture is from tomorrows walk to Rivington, for lunch with Matt
