Alright - the follow up I meant to share yesterday... I took a pottery class this summer and loved it, but that wasn't achievable this fall. I loved the habit of being creative, so I bought the Emily Lex watercolor kid, and it's been amazing! The perfect way to decompress after my kiddos are asleep. Low stakes, high fun art 😂
I definitely got lost in postpartum phase and partially had a hard time finding things to do for me after because all of my pre kid hobbies were SO active and outdoors. I thought that I would bounce back and be able to do all those things again just with baby in tow. Well that didn’t happen. I was either too exhausted or my body wasn’t well enough between all the many illnesses or just plain out of shape to do the things I used to do. But like the women in pottery class, there was nothing stopping me but me, I just had to make time for me. I used to loathe reading and now it’s my favorite thing to do, I can be horizontal and it requires very little effort but brings me so much joy. I’ve started baking bread again, have tried knitting stockings, pottery, and painting by numbers, lots of home cooked meals, occasionally pretend I’m teaching myself piano but have only made it to twinkle twinkle and Mary had a little lamb.
I love this encouragement and think it is so good for us as women to make space to cultivate hobbies that make us feel like a person outside of the function of our work and home life. At various points in my adult life, I have felt like the things I enjoy don’t “count” as hobbies in comparison to my husband’s many varied hobby interests. But I’ve worked to move on from that perspective because no one else gets to decide what fills me up or is worth creating space for! If I love it, it counts!
For me, walks (either solo or with a friend), reading (even for 5 minutes!), moving my body from a place of joy and gratitude rather than shame and “should” (Melissa Wood Health is my ride or die for various length flows that I can do at home during naps or after bedtime), visiting a coffee shop (solo or read or with a pal to chat), podcasts (The Lazy Genius and The Next Right Thing!), thrifting… all of these things fill my cup and make me a better, more wholehearted human.
One of my longtime go-tos is reading a mindless book on the beach (or a park bench, or my backyard if the timing won’t work) for an hour or two. I also love going for solo walks in my neighborhood listening to music or a podcast.
Love that - I was just listening to a podcast that talked about the resurgence in reading since COVID, and I'm definitely a part of that statistic too! I finished The Women last night 😀
Alright - the follow up I meant to share yesterday... I took a pottery class this summer and loved it, but that wasn't achievable this fall. I loved the habit of being creative, so I bought the Emily Lex watercolor kid, and it's been amazing! The perfect way to decompress after my kiddos are asleep. Low stakes, high fun art 😂
I definitely got lost in postpartum phase and partially had a hard time finding things to do for me after because all of my pre kid hobbies were SO active and outdoors. I thought that I would bounce back and be able to do all those things again just with baby in tow. Well that didn’t happen. I was either too exhausted or my body wasn’t well enough between all the many illnesses or just plain out of shape to do the things I used to do. But like the women in pottery class, there was nothing stopping me but me, I just had to make time for me. I used to loathe reading and now it’s my favorite thing to do, I can be horizontal and it requires very little effort but brings me so much joy. I’ve started baking bread again, have tried knitting stockings, pottery, and painting by numbers, lots of home cooked meals, occasionally pretend I’m teaching myself piano but have only made it to twinkle twinkle and Mary had a little lamb.
I love this encouragement and think it is so good for us as women to make space to cultivate hobbies that make us feel like a person outside of the function of our work and home life. At various points in my adult life, I have felt like the things I enjoy don’t “count” as hobbies in comparison to my husband’s many varied hobby interests. But I’ve worked to move on from that perspective because no one else gets to decide what fills me up or is worth creating space for! If I love it, it counts!
For me, walks (either solo or with a friend), reading (even for 5 minutes!), moving my body from a place of joy and gratitude rather than shame and “should” (Melissa Wood Health is my ride or die for various length flows that I can do at home during naps or after bedtime), visiting a coffee shop (solo or read or with a pal to chat), podcasts (The Lazy Genius and The Next Right Thing!), thrifting… all of these things fill my cup and make me a better, more wholehearted human.
One of my longtime go-tos is reading a mindless book on the beach (or a park bench, or my backyard if the timing won’t work) for an hour or two. I also love going for solo walks in my neighborhood listening to music or a podcast.
Love that - I was just listening to a podcast that talked about the resurgence in reading since COVID, and I'm definitely a part of that statistic too! I finished The Women last night 😀