Stress management.

I took this photo of my happy place a couple of weeks ago.  At the moment, this photo is keeping me from the brink of doing something stress-induced, like throwing up or forgetting to put pants on before I leave the apartment to head to work in the morning.

The project I'm working on has a bit of a dot com vibe to the environment to it, meaning on Thursdays, a massage therapist takes up residence and for $1 a minute, she works some productivity back into us.  Last week, as I was on the table, she said, "Breathe.  It's free."  It was a short-lived laugh, since stress always seems to be at my door. Barring tacking up trite, calming mantras on my bathroom mirror, (I have a chalkboard for that now) I sat down to craft a list of things I am doing to help keep stress levels down:

...and I couldn't come up with anything but posting a picture of my cookbooks.

So, I made a list of the things that stress me out.
1. The blind spot in my truck that can hide a school bus full of children or 16 cyclists.
2. Driving in general.
3. Keeping an accurate calendar of appointments.
4. Finances.
5. Keeping up on correspondence with friends.  I'm one of the moles in the Whack-A-Mole game to friends and family, except I pop up in places like Nebraska, the hospital and Dubai.

It is an amazing thing, once you face the stressors of life how quickly a solution appears.

I need a social secretary, a driver and a full-time financial advisor. I can totally handle the work and the cooking. And, it seems I'll be adding in classes on aviation, Final Cut and coopering, so I may have to add in a personal trainer so I can keep up on my exercise routine while I am busy with all this learning.

I then thought of things that make me smile regardless of current mood.

1. The smell of pine trees.
2. Animated cartoons.
3. Chickens.
4. Knitting.
5. Stretching.
6. Napping.
7. Planting stuff.
8. Writing stuff.
9. Reading stuff.
10. Surprise kitty.

This is either the best or the worst exercise in wrangling stress ever. At least now I'm just confused, rather than relentlessly nervous.  Time for tea and bed.