Weekly Whimsy – Relax

Why, hello there bugs!

So, we are going to start this week with a short story time.

Once upon a time there was a girl, we will call her Laney, who was known among her family and friends as someone who works incredibly hard most of the time but occasionally has a mental breakdown because of it.

Okay, I won’t tell the whole story in the third person. But you get the point.

So I basically do this thing where I focus like crazy on school and everything is totally fine and I’m doing really well, and then all the sudden in one day it hits me that I haven’t sat down and relaxed for more than 10 minutes at a time for the last 8 weeks. Suddenly I start freaking out and basically have a little mini-breakdown. This usually happens about halfway through each semester. Well… that happened on Monday. And just for the record, today is exactly halfway through the semester, so it happened right on time.

I felt okay Sunday night. I felt a little off but I didn’t think it was much of a problem, I just thought I was tired because I’m in college and that’s part of the deal. That is, until my boyfriend informed me the next day that he was legitimately worried about me because apparently I hadn’t seemed myself when we had skyped the night before. He told me that I had been really distracted, looked physically exhausted, and just seemed stressed and anxious. As soon as he said this I realized he was right. I suddenly realized how tired I was and how stressed out I had been. This was around 8:30 on Monday morning, and I decided to skip my 9:10 weight training class, which is pretty big for me. I never miss class – even weight training. I skipped partially because I didn’t want to do something stupid such as drop a weight on my face due to my anxious state of mind, but also just because I suddenly felt that it was really important for me to go back to the dorm and take a nap. And call my mom.

So I did just that.  My mom talked me down a bit because, well, that’s what moms are for. She did successfully calm me down, but I still felt in over my head. After all, that type of stress won’t go away with one phone call.

My roommate also gave me a hug and told me that it would be alright, which helped as well. It’s amazing how much a simple hug can do.

So at noon I went to my next class of the day, then in my 2-hr break I forced myself to at least try to be productive since I hadn’t been that morning. At 3 I went to my last class of the day, and that night I did a little more studying but mostly let myself relax. I didn’t even go to swim practice, which is also pretty big for me. After swim practice I typically don’t get to bed until 10:30 or 11, and I decided that that probably was not the best decision for me at that point in time.

So, after my studying I did a little bit of art (which I will hopefully be posting about soon), ate the last piece of leftover birthday cake, talked to my boyfriend on the phone, and went to bed early.

However, before going to bed I did one more thing – I looked up quotes about stress on pinterest. Because I’m a teenage girl and you’re not allowed to judge me for the fact that this makes me feel better. The quote I have chosen for this week is one of the quotes that I found that night;

You have enough. You do enough. You are enough. Relax.

This really made me reflect and realize that I could chill out a bit without any severe consequences. I realized that I have high A’s in all my classes right now, but that if I totally stopped studying for my upcoming chemistry test RIGHT FREAKING NOW, that I would still probably get a low A. Of course, I didn’t completely stop studying for it because I am who I am and it is pretty much physically impossible for me to stop studying, but I did decide to cut back a little bit. I realized that as long as I do my best it will all be alright, and I don’t want to push myself so hard that I’m not taking care of myself.

While talking to my mom that afternoon I realized that I hadn’t sat down and done art in about a month. A MONTH. There’s problem #1 right there. Art is a major stress relief for me, so I have now made a mental note to make sure to make time for it. It’s not that I haven’t wanted to do it, it’s just that I’ve been so busy that I haven’t gotten around to it in a while. But it’s important to get some of that stress out of my system!

Another thing I realized about myself is that while exercising and training is also a stress relief for me, I need to balance it with my art time as well. Exercising is a stress relief because it gives me something to focus on for a while and get my mind off of my chaotic life. However, art actually makes me evaluate my troubles and realize that they really aren’t as troubling as I’m making them. Both of these types of stress relief are important for my sanity, and I need to remember to have a balance between the two. Just because I’m training for a triathlon doesn’t mean I can ignore my artful side and just focus on my training. I need to do both, so for now on that is what I will do. For the sake of both my sanity and my happiness.

Anyway, I’m doing much better now – my tests for the week are all over and tonight my family and boyfriend are coming into town and I can’t wait to  see them. Next week I don’t have any big projects or tests for my classes so I plan on focusing on spending time with family and relaxing a bit.

Anyway, keep arting bugs, and stay positive! 🙂

Love,
Laney-Bug ❤

Weekly Whimsy – Surround Yourself

Hello, bugs!

So this week I decided on this quote;

Surround yourself with people who encourage you, inspire you, and believe in your dreams.

I really like this one right now, mostly because it relates to how I’ve been feeling lately. I’ve just been thinking a lot lately about all the people that I have chosen to be a part of my life and why they mean so much to me.

So last week was my birthday and I had some friends throw me a “pseudo-surprise party”, meaning that I knew that I wasn’t supposed to make plans for Friday night and that I should “look pretty”, but that was all I knew prior to showing up. At 6 o’clock my roommate got a text from the party planner, telling her that it was party time and that she should bring me down to the lobby. When we got downstairs I had 6 of my closest college buds waiting for me, most of them dressed in purple in honor of my favorite color. First we went to the school cafeteria for dinner, but made it “fancy” by pulling out a table cloth and some fake candles (you know, to make it classy). Then we headed back to the dorm, and I quickly realized that they had claimed one of the study lounges as a party area and had decorated it with party streamers, paper snowflakes, and a giant “HAPPY BIRTHDAY” sign. The two masterminds of this whole event then brought out the cake, in the shape of a lady bug of course. And since I simply can’t finish this post without showing you guys the cake…

We sat around and ate cake and ice-cream for a while, and I had a present or two to open. While this was going on, they surprised me by skyping my boyfriend and placing the laptop on the table across from me so that he was there with us to celebrate, which was a particularly great surprise. Lastly we watched Frozen, my favorite movie of all time, while singing along VERY loudly. Luckily it was a weekend so the quiet hours of the dorm didn’t start until 11:00, and by this point it was only 8 or 9. No one could stop us. Muahaha.

After Frozen we took some seriously great selfies, and then about 4 of us decided to stick around and do an encore showing of Mulan as well before cleaning up and retiring for the night. Overall it was a whole lot of fun, and it made me realize that I’ve made some pretty great friends in the short amount of time that I’ve been at college. We have all gone through the first-year-of-college traumas together, and for the first time I’m starting to feel like I’m really getting settled into a group again. My high school was super tiny and I was really close to my whole graduating class (“whole” being 20 students – told you it was small), so it was a big transition for me to get to college and not know anyone. I’m really glad I have a group again that I feel a part of.

At one point in the party I also looked around and laughed a little bit about how different we all are. We had 3 people from Montana, 1 from Nevada, 2 from California, 1 from Illinois, and of course me as the Texan. We also had a mix of majors; 1 computer science, 3 wildlife biology, 1 music, 1 pre-law, and 2 exercise science. We all have so many differences yet get along so well and I just think that’s a really cool thing about humans. In general I often think that humans as a whole are pretty stupid, but this is one of the things that I actually think is pretty wonderful.

Anyway, linking back to the quote now. The friends who put this party together did it purely because they wanted to get together with friends and have a good time, and because they wanted to make me feel special on my birthday. Those are the kind of people I want to surround myself with – the ones that do things for other people just because they can and want to. The kind of people who are always there for you no matter what, and the kind of people that you can always count on for a good laugh when you need it. The kind of people who encourage you, inspire you, and believe in you – and in one another.

Well, I kind of got sappy with you today but I suppose that’s okay. After all, it is my blog. So ha.

Oh, and of course I have to share a few of the fantastic selfies with you guys; (one serious and one silly, duh)

Take Home Message: Surround yourself with the people that make you happy!

Love,
Laney-Bug ❤