Learning How To Relax (Kinda)

 As a person who tends to constantly be busy doing something, I have recently come to the realization that my reason for being busy constantly is that I have seen from a very early age that to not be busy is to unproductive and lazy.

I am working towards finding a balance between working and relaxing and below are a few things I've discovered that help me relax:

Practicing Meditation on a Daily Basis

In an effort to begin my day in a more positive way, I've begun to use the free Soothing Pod app every morning. I love this app because the meditations are short and because meditations are grouped by similar topics. Soothing Pod app also offers other things such as bedtime stories, music and sounds to help the user relax. 

Writing hotel gym reviews on Hotel Gym Rater.com website

As someone who exercises daily, hotel gyms have been a godsent as me and hubby get settled into our new life in southern California. Since I post my daily workout on Instagram, I was surprised when I was contacted by a gym named Christian from Denmark regarding his new website rating hotel gyms.

Since this sort of thing is right up my alley, I created a profile and have already submitted a hotel gym review for the place where we're currently staying. By writing reviews whenever we stay at a hotel, this helps me to help others know where the best hotel gyms are as well as ones to stay away from.

Engage in more body inclusive workouts

As I wrote earlier, I exercise daily and I do a combination of using exercise equipment (when available) and YouTube workouts. My new favorite YouTube workout channel (as well as website and free app) is Joyn which provides body inclusive workouts. So far, I've enjoyed a workout using a pillow (called pillow fight) as well as a 90's dance workout. I love Joyn because the workout instructors a plus size and are moving the bodies that they have now versus waiting until they hit a number on the scale. Seeing the instructors on Joyn help me to accept the body I have now as well as learn that I don't need to exercise for a long duration each day to improve me fitness. 

Continue with goal of completing two reading challenges

As I mentioned earlier this year, I am currently particpating in two online reading challenges: the 2021 Popsugar Reading Challenge and the 52 Book Club's 2021 Reading Challenge. So far, I've completed 20/50 books for the Popsugar Reading Challenge and 20/52 books for The 52 Book club's 2021 Reading Challenge. You can follow my on Instagram to see what books I've read for each of the  challenges.

Relaxing by journaling

I have kept a journal since I was in middle school and have often used my journal as a way to express feelings and emotions I don't feel comfortable speaking aloud. Although there have been time periods when I have stopped regularly journaling, as life has changed due to COVID-19 as well as me leaving my old job and starting a new job, I have resumed journaling and find that it helps provide clarity and insight on my feelings. Currently I also use my journal as a way to clear my mind after work or word out situations occurring in my life presently or in the future. 

Learn to not work when not at work (and during lunch breaks)

One of the hardest things for me to do is to disconnect from work and not work on my off days. At my last job, since I was the digital services librarian, at a small rural library system, I felt like I was on call and never got a chance to rest when our buildings closed due to COVID in  March 2020 which lead to a higher number of usage of our ematerials (eaudiobooks, eBooks, streaming video, etc.) Due the building closures, my boss was texting me constantly with things to post that she found from other library Facebook account she follows online.

Eventually, I started to have daily anxiety towards words regarding having to create, edit and delete content on a daily basis for six Facebook pages, one Twitter page, and one YouTube channel. In addition to my digital librarian job duties, I was also branch supervisor for two library branches as well as project lead for our Zip Books program and our Career Online High School program. If this sounds like a lot, that's because it was a lot. 

Having been at my new job for almost a month, I can say that my anxiety less is much less and I feel this is due to it being a different library set up with two locations ( 1 building and 1 bookmobile) and that fact that the staff at my new job are super chill. I'm slowly but surely learning to be less regimented and less in a rush and more go with the flow which I'm starting to see is not necessarily a bad thing. 

Although learning to relax is something that doesn't come naturally to me, I feel that the more effort I make on a daily basis to relax, the easier it will become. 

2021 Popsugar Reading Challenge

Each year, I take on different reading challenges as a way to get outside of my reading comfort zone. For 2021, I plan to complete the 2021 Popsugar Reading Challenge which contains a total of 50 books as well as the 52 Book Club Reading Challenge.

Below is a list of reading prompts for the 2021 reading challenge. After I finish each reading prompt, I will update this list. If you want to see more of the books I've read this year, you can check out my Goodreads profile at: https://www.goodreads.com/user_challenges/15431036.

2021 Popsugar Reading Challenge:

1. A book published in 2021: Act Your Age, Eve Brown by Talia Hibbert
2. An Afrofuturist book: My Soul to Keep by Tananarive Due
3. A book that has a heart, diamond, club, or spade on the cover: Fattily Ever After by Stephanie Yeboah
   
4. A book by an author who shares you zodiac sign: Ribsy by Beverly Cleary
5. A dark academia book: What Big Teeth by Rose Szabo
   
6. A book with a gem, mineral, or rock in the title: The Final Revival of Opal & Nev by Dawnie Walton
   
7. A book where the main character works at your current or dream job: Deal with the Devil by Kit Rocha
8. A book that has won the Women's Prize For Fiction (2017:) The Power by Naomi Alderman
9. A book with a family tree: The House of Broken Angels by Luis Alberto Urrea
   
10. A bestseller from the 1990s: The Bridges of Madison County by Robert James Waller (1993 & 1994)
    
11. A book about forgetting: Still Alice by Lisa Genova
12. A book you have seen on someone's bookshelf (in real life, on a Zoom call, in a TV show, etc.:) The Passive Programming Playbook by Paula Willey and Andria L. Amaral
    
13. A locked-room mystery: Home Before Dark by Riley Sager
14. A genre hybrid: Seconds by Bryan Lee O'Malley
15. A book set mostly or entirely outdoors: 100 Hikers 100 Hikes by Andrew Camani
16. A book with something broken on the cover: Childhood Disrupted: How Your Biography Becomes Your Biology and How You Can Heal by Donna Jackson Nakazawa
17. A book by a Muslim American author: Proud: Living My American Dream by Ibtihaj Muhammad (Young Readers Edition)
18. A book that was published anonymously: Letting Ana Go by Anonymous
19. A book with an oxymoron in the title: Born a Crime by Trevor Noah
20. A book about do-overs or fresh starts: Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert
21. A magical realism book: The Charmed Wife by Olga Grushin
22. A book set in multiple countries: Contents May Have Shifted by Pam Houston
23. A book set somewhere you'd like to visit in 2021:The Museum of Rain by Dave Eggers (California Central Coast)
24. A book by a blogger, vlogger, YouTube video creator, or other online personality: Feeding My Soul (Because It's My Business) by Tabitha Brown
25. A book whose title starts with "Q," "X," or "Z:" Quirky by Melissa A. Schilling
26. A book featuring three generations (grandparent, parent, child:)
27. A book about a social justice issue: Spirit Run by Noe Alvarez
28. A book set in a restaurant: Sweet Bean Paste by Durian Sukegawa
29. A book with a black-and-white cover: The White City by Karolina Ramquvist
30. A book by an Indigenous author: Bury My Heart at Chuck E. Cheese's by Tiffany Midge
31. A book that has the same title as a song: Between You and Me by Mary Norris
32. A book about a subject you are passionate about: I Love it When You Talk Retro by Ralph  Keyes
33. A book that discusses body positivity: The Self-Love Revolution by Virgie Tovar, MA 
34. A book found on a Black Lives Matter reading list: The Day You Begin by Jacqueline Woodson
35. A book in a different format than what you normally read (audiobook, ebooks, graphic novels:) Hidden America by Jeanne Marie Laskas (large print)
36. A book that has fewer than 1,000 reviews on Amazon or Goodreads: The Silence by Don Delillo
37. A book you think your best friend would like: Pop Sonnets by Erik Didriksen
    
38. An book about art or an artist: Leonardo's Knots by Caroline Cocciardi
    
39. A book everyone seems to have read but you: Sula by Toni Morrison
    
40. Your favorite prompt from a past POPSUGAR Reading Challenge: book based entirely on its cover - Reading the OED: One Man, One Year, 21,730 Pages by Ammon Shea 
41. The longest book (by pages) on your TBR list: From My People: 400 Years of African American Folklore edited by: Daryl Cumber Dance (736 pages)
42. The shortest book (by pages) on your TBR list: I'd Rather Be Reading by Anne Bogel (149 pages)
43. The book on your TBR list with the prettiest cover: Make Your Own Sunshine by Janice Dean
44. The book on your TBR list with the ugliest cover: All Systems Red by Martha Wells
45. The book that's been on your TBR list for the longest amount of time: Dirty South by Ben Westhoff
    
46. A book from you TBR list you meant to read last year but didn't: My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite
47. A book from you TBR list you associate with a favorite person, place, or thing: A Pictorial Guide to Biltmore by Rachel Carley
48. A book from your TBR list chosen at random: Rediscover Jesus by Matthew Kelly
49. A DNF book from your TBR list: Afraid of Everything by Adam Tierney
50. A free book from you TBR list (gifted, borrowed, library:) Secrets of a Former Fat 
    Girl by Lisa Delaney