Views are my own...

Sorry, this isn’t very jewellery related, but I thought I’d start my day today with a blog. I keep seeing so many posts on social media about stress, and how to not have it. Well, before the start of the school summer holiday’s, I too was feeling pretty  stressed out, I think just because I had so much work on and that build up of a year’s worth of frustration at having to see the dangerous actions of parents playing car Tetris every day as I walked my child to school. But over the summer, we (my family and I) all relaxed and really enjoyed having more time together. We spent a week camping at a festival and then two more amazing weeks travelling by train to Spain and France. When school started again, I’d decided that I wasn’t going to let the car Tetris get to me any more as, even though its so dangerous and is filling 300 children’s lungs with pollution every day, there was nothing I could do. I’ve tried in the past and just been subject to abuse, as unfortunately, it appears that only a very small handful of people care. Well, its been ok so far. I’ve been successfully ignoring it all and just concentrating on enjoying the walk. I’ve also been running(well, jogging), and yes you did read that right! It all started when we were in France, and my older (and home-educated) child said that they wanted to work through the “Couch to 5K” app. I installed it and off she went! Then on the second run, we all decided to join in. It was pretty hard going but we’ve kept it up and are now almost at the end of week 4 and today ran for 16 minutes! Woohoo!! 

So what does this have to do with stress? Well, this week has seen the return of that “school stress”. For a different reason, this time, but nonetheless it’s been there. I think part of the problem is that myself and my partner are not part of the “cool gang” of parents. You know, the ones people look up to and flock towards in the playground; the ones who run the PTA; and now this is a little controversial but hey ho, its how I’ve been made to feel, the ones that are seen to be good “Christians”. I think, maybe we’re seen as the “odd hippy” parents, who ask too many questions and don’t just follow what everyone else does. I’m happy with that and have no desire to join the “in” gang, but when we do try to make a suggestion or help out with something, we’re often subjected to a virtual firing squad. Anyway, back to the running........This morning’s run was the perfect stress reliever to all of this. It was hard work, but it was a chance to focus on something else, on me, on the beautiful trees and fields around the edge of the housing estate that we were running around. If you’re feeling stressed over something, I’d highly recommend going out for a walk, run, skip, swim, whatever - just do something different for half an hour. I finished my run feeling refreshed, happy, and most of all ready for breakfast!!