Monday March 15, 2021

Greetings and Salutations, Blog Readers!

Today is the Ides of March, but, alas, it has actually been pretty good for me so far. I am working on this blog as either a part of a long blog or a part of a series of blogs, chronicling my productive week of self care- This week is all about taking care of me in every way possible. 

So, for those new to the blog, you may not know this, but for those who are familiar with me or my blog, I tend be a bit of a productive self care junkie, meaning I like my self care to be more then a nice thing I do for myself to make me feel better, no, I want the self care to actively work at making something better, in addition to making me feel better. 

An example being I don’t simply slap any old face mask on my face, I use one that is either hydrating, targets aging concerns, or is relaxing like a lavender something, or any combination therein, to ensure the face mask not only makes me feel awesome, but treats concerns I have with my face. 

Productive self care. 

Another way I do this is by tackling projects that have been building up, like deep cleaning areas of my apartment, organizing messy areas, doing laundry, dusting, achieving things that make my overall living situation or life in general better, while also flooding my body with hormones and feelings of goodness, from being active and working on me. 

This method works well for me, although I will admit I can be too dedicated to productive self care over relaxing, but I have been working on that more…and I feel we all need to focus on more productive ways to take care of ourselves, or else we can’t fully enjoy the relaxing time we give ourselves anyways. 

This week, my productive self care is to help me stress less, and to help me achieve my goals, but it is also geared with lots of fun happy stuff, like face masks, so I am making it a whole week, which I will be blogging about, because as I have mentioned, I am getting back to my usual blogging, or, what will likely be a new normal, because damn, it has been two years of blogging now! (A bigger blog all about the things I have learned in the past two years is coming, don’t you worry.) 

So, what all am I tackling? Well, I have a few long lists, because I am breaking everything down into the smaller tasks. Some stuff is re-purposing old work to finish old tasks, some is recreating old ideas with better eyes, some is editing, some is writing, a ton is boring behind the scenes stuff that I will try to make look interesting with some vlogging content because I promised I would try to vlog more of my day to day instead of just posting my gaming content on the YouTube channel. 

All in all, I have a lot to do, and I am also working on being much more vigilant on my healthy habits, namely, being active and moving more each day and drinking water. 

I am working on water right now, as i am a little lower than I should be, so let’s all drink some water together….

And now that we have done a hydration nation water check- Let’s talk about the work out I did today!

I may still do some stretching and more yoga later, but I did some earlier, and I also went on a walk with my good friend Katie. 

On the stretching front, I used a new roller for my stretching and that thing was a game changer for my back pain, and it really helped me warm up a bit…and then something crazy happened. 

Because I warmed up, my workout went better. 

I know that is silly to say, we all know to warm up, hell it’s a rule of every zombie universe it seems, including my own- and yet here I was, surprised I should be limbering up in the first place. 

Seems silly, but sometimes we take things for granted. You see, normally I use stretching and yoga as a way to warm up for things like taking walks or getting on the stationary bike, or even doing mat workouts. 

But if I actually warm up, stretching things out, massage them, get things moving, and then use the yoga and stretching to start the work out, I am able to do so much more, and, more importantly, my energy levels are a bit more level, allowing me to get more down after my work out. At the moment, I am cooling down from my walk with Katie, and I am feeling great, my body doesn’t feel pushed, it feels well worked out. It makes me wonder if maybe I hate some parts of working out because normally people rush to the “work out” part instead of warming up, stretching, warming up with some more yoga type intensive stretching, and then finally being ready to do a proper work out. 

Because the thing is, the yoga work out and stretching was better for the rolling and stretching I did before it, and it allowed me to do more, and this allowed me to not short change the yoga, and therefore not shortchange some of the mat workout I did. Then, I had no problem going on a lively and energetic walk around my neighborhood. 

As silly as this may sound to the people who work out more in my life or who read this blog, I am writing this for those of you who are like me, and don’t want to make fun of others, but instead want to try and be a bit healthier or feel better. 

Seriously, spend time warming up, stretch, roll, really breath deep and massage your body while stretching it out, get the blood pumping into your muscles without running out of breath, and then stretch, do some yoga, get into it, and watch how much deeper you can go, how much longer you can hold poses, and how much better you hold them. You can then manage the mat workout easier, hell maybe you even add an extra ten mountain climbers to it, because you feel better, and your body actually nearly enjoys its performance time, being active and in motion. Then you can attack whatever your main work out is, and you will not be dead ass tired after, no, sometimes you even feel energetic enough to write a whole blog, plot a few others, figure out some content schemes, all while on the work out cool down. 

Now I am going to go, wash up, put on a new face mask I am reviewing this week on the blog as part of my week of self care, and take a nice hot shower. After, who knows, writing, gaming, working on content in some fashion, all things that are a part of my awesome week of self care. 

I hope you find time to commit little or large acts of self care, be they face masks or deep cleanings of your home, a single self care Saturday or a whole week of dedicated focus on you and your needs, I hope you do so, and if you do, let me know. 

I am wanting to do a week of productive self care challenge for others to use to “G.Y.S.T.”(Get Your Shit Together), maybe for after big depressive episodes, or just times when things have gotten behind- And I would love to hear some of your needs and wants for self care, be they productive or otherwise. Comment or DM me on any of the social media’s I am on- @AbbiGrasso. 

Thanks for reading 

❤

Abbi 

PS- It is now Wednesday morning, and the week is still going great, so great that I want to schedule this blog for tomorrow and write another blog post for this weekend about a few more days in my productive self care week.