Taking time out for yourself
We all know how important it is to take time out for yourself. Whether that is a break from children, partner, pets or work – you still need a bit of me time. What you do to get this spare time depends on your circumstances. As an example, a busy mum may not have any time until the kids are in bed, then she has to do all the cleaning. Well, give yourself a break! Let yourself have an hour or two hours, or however long you choose, just doing what you want to do. The cleaning can wait! If you are at work all day and then have more work to do in the evenings, it can seem like you never have time for yourself. Again, give yourself a break! Make sure you have at least two evenings a week completely free for you. If you have a partner that is always around, take yourself off to a different room. It will be great for them too!
What can you do to chill without spending a fortune and without taking up loads of time? Some top ideas are reading a book or having a lovely hot bath, You can combine the two, actually! Perhaps baking is your thing? In that case, get in the kitchen and start whipping up some lovely cupcakes – but only if its truly relaxing for you. For me, the clean up would stress me out again!
I love playing computer games as part of my relaxation. This is just perfect for an early evening chill session. Don’t get me wrong – fighting games and scary video console games are not what I mean. I like to play some really simple, straightforward and possibly even old fashioned (in a good way!) games on my laptop. You can put some music on in the background and lose yourself in some great games, the ones you used to play. Solitaire.org have (you guessed it!) lots of different options for playing solitaire. Solitaire (we used to call it patience as a real life card game) is a fun and importantly, non taxing game to play. You end up completely switching off as you are concentrating so hard on the next card to come out.
There is even a Christmas version! You can mute the sounds on the website (its all played in the website, no downloading and no signing up to anything) so I had Christmas music playing on my Alexa all morning! (Yes I went a bit far and spent all morning – there is a fine line between relaxation and procrastinating in my book!)
If you have too much Solitaire (how can that be!) then look on the website for other great games too – I played a Candy Crush type game which was fantastic. Because I didn’t need to download anything it was completely safe and more important – free!
Some other great ideas for relaxing on a budget are things like jigsaw puzzles. Why not visit a car boot sale and pick up some cheap jigsaws. You can get special rolling trays for them to go on so that they don’t get destroyed by children or pets. You can also write a journal – online or in a beautiful notebook.
The most important thing is to take that time for yourself, whatever you end up doing. Just make sure its not cleaning or working! Plan your wedding, maybe?