💎 Collecting Gems 💎

As I mentioned in my previous post, my mental health has nahhht been the best lately. Most days have been really difficult and pushing myself to do anything but lay in bed and scroll on my phone has felt nearly impossible. My list of to-dos has felt insurmountable and it seems like life keeps throwing curve balls* at Brett and me in 2019. It's felt really hard to find the energy to keep going when all I want to do is hide under my blankets.

I was thinking the other day about what I can do about how I've been feeling because all I've wanted to do is feel better. Clearly I needed to do something because feeling like that every day is just not healthy. For some reason the idea of collecting gems in video games came to mind. 💎

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In many video games (I was specifically thinking of Zelda, shown above, but this applies to a lot of games), your character needs to collect gems, coins, or other shiny objects in order to up your health, money, and other stats in order to be more successful in the game. When relating this to mental health, you need to think of waking up every day as starting the game over at level 1. You have your natural "stats" that you wake up with (your natural level of positivity, energy, motivaiton, focus, etc.), but in order to boost those "stats" you need to collect gems throughout your day, or physically do things that will make you feel good! (And no, scrolling in your bed on your phone doesn't count. I've actually have found this makes me feel terrible if I spend too much time doing this in the day!)

Some examples of the gems that I personally need to collect in order to boost my stats include:

💎 Exercising - I usually have to fight so hard to motivate myself to exercise, but I know that when I finally get out there and work up some kind of sweat, I'll feel so much more energized, motivated, and happy (yay endorphins!).

💎 Cleaning - This sounds weird and, again, isn't something that's necessarily easy to motivate myself to do, but having a clean space puts my mind at easy and clears up space (literally) for me to focus on other things.

💎 Going outside - It's finally getting to be consistently warm outside and I always forget in the winter time how therapeutic it is for me to be outside. While I love spending time at home, going for a walk, getting some sunshine, and breathing in the fresh air has an amazing calming effect on me.

💎 Working on a project - When I can focus all of my energy into one project, whether that's doing a craft, editing a video, cooking a meal, rearranging my bookshelf, or something completely different, I feel like I can totally shut my brain off and focus. PLUS I can have that sense of accomplishment of completing something when I'm done!

💎 Self-care - I mean this in the more literal eating fruits & vegetables daily/drinking water/sleeping enough/showering regularly kind of sense. You know, sometimes (a lot of the time) you just gotta remind yourself to do those really basic tasks and it's always wild to be reminded how much of a difference those tasks make!

💎 Trying something new - I'm a big fan of learning and exploring, so trying something new always makes me feel energized! The other day I tried a new IPA I picked up at the store (with a brilliantly punny name) and while that might sound small, it was super exciting to try something I never had before and learn more about the brewing company (White Lion).

Aforementioned punny IPA #ROARange 🍊

I could, of course, mention my specific hobbies by name as gem collecting activities, but I really think they can easily fall under the above categories and definitely bring me energy and positivity in my daily life. For example, writing this blog post has helped me collect some gems under the "working on a project" gem category! The more gems I can collect throughout each day to boost my stats, the better my overall mental health generally is, and if I can build some momentum day to day the better I can deal with all the craziness life can bring my way. (Leave it to me to gameify my mental health, but hey - whatever helps, right?)

What gems do you need to collect each day to boost your stats? 💎

*Our most recent curve ball was Brett getting into a car accident last week in the car he literally just bought a month ago. He's totally fine which, of course, we're so thankful for! But his car is pretty dinged up meaning money going toward repairs on his new car. Cool cool cool. 💸

Books I'm Currently Reading

• No Exit by Taylor Adams - I picked up this book last night because I had my windows open, it was pouring rain, and it was putting me in the mood for something ~spooky~. I didn't have to get past the dedication page before I was just totally creeped out. 😱

• Still working on Night Film and Good Omens and will hopefully finish those up by the end of May!

Shows I'm Currently Watching

• I finally got around to watching Big Little Lies over the long weekend and loved the way HBO adapted the novel! Big Little Lies was one of my favorite books I read in 2018 and they really did the original story justice while also adding a few more twists and turns that weren't in the source material. I'm interested to see where they go in season 2 (which comes out next week!) now that they'll be off-book!

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• A Double Shot at Love with Pauly & Vinny - Brett and I love our trash television, especially when it has anything to do with Jersey Shore! We binged the show to get all the way caught up last week and now we're obsessed. Suzi is totally our fave.

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• Finishing up Season 3 of Queer Eye, one of the best shows to every grace our televisions, of course.

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Plans for the Rest of the Week

Lucky for me, I only have a full day today and half a day tomorrow in the office this week. We're doing a staff BBQ tomorrow at our Director's house and then it's the weekend again! I'm loving having Fridays off in the summer. It's already been such a dream! I'm not sure how I'm going to be able to go back to 5-day work weeks at the end of August haha.

Friday will be mainly spend collecting gems 💎 in the form of going for an AM run and finishing up some books by the end of the month. Saturday starts June and also starts my 30 Books in 30 Days Reading Challenge! I'm real nervous to take on this challenge but also super excited to strive for this fairly lofty goal. I'm hoping to put out weekly progress vlogs for this project, so make sure you're subscribed to my channel to see what I read each week! The rest of the weekend will likely be filled with hockey watching (GO BRUINS!), cooking good food, getting caught up on some much overdue blog posts and videos, and spending time with B. We don't have anything specific planned which will be nice as our summer trip to Florida is fast approaching, so it'll be great to hang around the house over the weekend!

💎I hope you all have a fantastic rest of your week 

and remember to collect your gems!💎

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