Hello everyone! It’s coffee share time so welcome and grab a cup or a cuppa. No cake or cookies although I’m going to be baking a cake (later) for my Dad’s birthday braai tomorrow.
Conference week
This week went by quite fast. I wasn’t terribly busy on the work front. Thursday and Friday I attended a virtual conference where I also facilitated a workshop on team coaching. There were some great talks and workshops and it was great catching up with people I see only at these events. I missed the in-person experience somewhat, especially the coffee conversations, corridor greetings as people move from session to session, and the drinks after the day is over.
My Dad’s birthday on the 4th
It was my Dad’s birthday on May 4th and we’re getting together as a family to celebrate tomorrow. In addition to the cake that I’m baking Chè is making his popular apple pie. My sister is making more goodies and my Mom is cooking the main dish.
I went out!
I received my new Mac Mini (with the M1 chip) last week and of course, being a tech/gadget geek, it was an exciting event indeed. I went out on Monday to get a display port because my monitor only has a VGA output. I don’t get out much now so each time I do, and only when I absolutely need to, it’s always enjoyable. A simple trip to the mall becomes an exciting adventure.
It is usually a quick in-and-out operation or mission, depending on how you look at it. I park far from any other cars and take my time putting on my two masks and making sure that my hand sanitiser is in my pocket.
Gosh, it is year two of this very universal experience that we’re all in, and weathering it in different ways. Masks, sanitisers, social distancing … The numbers in SA are climbing again, test positivity percentages rising. Our medical insurance scheme sent an SMS on Friday warning that our area is now considered a Covid hotspot. As the third wave is ebbing in the northern countries, it is beginning in the southern ones.
Rituals for resilience
Rituals are important events for building resilience. I help organisations with things like this. Creating personal rituals has helped me keep my head above water during this uncertain time. Even though vaccines are here, this is relative depending on which country one lives in. In my country of 59 million people, only about 381 000 vaccines have been administered. This slow pace is inconceivable but I’m not going to give it much energy – to honour my sanity.
So I rely on rituals – to honour my sanity:
- Coffee with Chè in the morning before he leaves for work.
- A luxury Nespresso mid-morning – it’s a sensory experience: gazing upon the colours of the capsules and choosing the right coffee, pressing the button and hearing the rrrrr of the machine; comparing the thickness of the crema, smelling the coffee, tasting the coffee …
- At lunchtime, checking in on the cats sleeping on the bed, making sure they aren’t looking at each other askance, readying for a spat.
- Our team’s 15-minute daily standup, catching up on the day.
- Eating lunch in the sun while reading a book.
- A mid-afternoon cup of coffee, again.
- Removing ingredients from the freezer for dinner.
- After work, going for a walk around the garden, checking on the tomatoes while I wait for Eddie to arrive home.
- And then the evening rituals begin …
Do you have any rituals for resilience that are helping you during this time of uncertainty?
Well that’s it for this week
Let’s meet again next week, same time, same place.
The Weekend Coffee Share is hosted by Natalie the Explorer. Click here for more coffee shares.
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Hi Regina,
Sorry to be so late again. I’ve been trying to give more time to story creation on my weekends as they tend to be best and (have you noticed) our coffee share attendance has sky rocketed. I don’t know how anyone get through everyone as I used to.
I like you theme of rituals – to honor our sanity.
I do have a few but the biggest by far is my first 90 minutes of consciousness each day.
I was the diabetic in denial for many years and tracking the whole blood sugar thing seemed to be such an intrusion that i rarely did it but a trip to the doctor one time put me over the top on how this was going to kill me if I didn’t do something.
The short of it is a new doctor and a new ritual each morning that starts with collecting data. Not pleasant, but it can be done while waking up.
I follow this with my ritual of tea prep. I have a 34 oz pot which makes right about 2 full mugs of whichever tea I’m in the mood for that day and grab some kind of protein food to start the day.
Then about an hour of dedicated reading, some bible and some good thought stimulating second source. These days I’m reading some essays from Thomas Sowell, a black American thinker who is considered to be a controversial conservative and is a master with the English language.
I follow that up with a bit of blog time (where I’m at now) and I hope to squeeze in some time spinning out some words of my own on unfinished stories.
But then my employer has generously paid for the right to expect me to appear (virtually) at work, so I honor that obligation by trying to solve various problems and progress efforts of interest to our customers.
On a good day, I come up with some reason to go out and do an errand just to remind myself that the world really is still out there.
We’re fortunate here that Covid seems to be in recline and our vaccinations are doing well. Many of us have to drive an hour or more to some site that has the vaccine and a slot with our name on it, but it is getting done at a healthy rate.
Sorry to hear that SA is struggling in this area. 🙁
I hope this is resolved soon and you get to get out more often and without such a ritual of safely moving through a shopping trip.
Blessings to you and SA
Gary Wilson recently posted…Announcing My New Site Layout
It’s been a long while since I came to my blog and only now have seen your reply to my blog post all these months ago. Since then SA’s vaccinations have ramped up quite nicely, I am pleased to say 🙂
I still have my rituals, and have incorporated news ones as well. Working from home has certainly allowed this to happen so elegantly.
I’m glad that the coffee shares have grown and thrived. I’ll check in there sometime soon.
Take care Gary.
The coffee and carrot cake looks good. My daily ritual is to have morning coffee and read the morning newspapers online. Still feeling untethered pretty much. Try to get outside before it gets too hot.
Deborah Drucker recently posted…Weekend Coffee Share #18-Camera Shy Bird
So sorry your area is considered a Coronavirus hotspot. Our cases are finally declining. Whew! Hubby and I are both fully vaccinated now, so looking to return to some of our pre-COVID activities.
Now that I think of it, we do have a lot of rituals that mark the time intervals in our lives. Hubby and I enjoy a cup of good coffee together each morning, do the Sudoku puzzle together,… lots of little things.
Laurie recently posted…Making a Choice And Making It Right
The morning coffee with hubby is certainly one of my highlight rituals of the day 🙂
This is my first visit to your site, I am so glad I stopped. I do have a few long standing rituals that may seem silly. Every day I sit on the edge of my bed for a short period, clutching my pillow and asking myself “what day is it and where am I supposed to be?” Always hoping that I give myself the right answers. At night I try to write a list of what I need to do the next day, and I think that keeps me from tossing and turning trying to remember stuff. Best and blessings, Michele
Writing a list of things to do the night before is certainly a good one. My husband does this and it’s helping him a great deal.
Lol…I’m not a tech geek, but I sure love gizmos and gadgets, usually in the form of phones, cameras and computers. lol.
My daughter loves her Nespresso!
You’ve got good rituals for resilience there. Mine includes at least three things that I do for my health, home and leisure every day. Happy birthday to your Dad. Have a wonderful family celebration! #WeekendCoffeeShare.
Natalie recently posted…5 Fun Finds
I’m sorry to hear Covid is spreading in your area. Here it’s slowly getting better, for now. Now when I see you’re in South Africa, I can understand your rain spiders are large! 😀
Rituals, oh yes. I need to change mine because I move too little and forget to do things I want to make time for. But the coffee machine is an always existing ritual in the morning and in the afternoon! To survive these uncertain times, I’ve mainly indulged in learning new things, and in writing.
Writing is certainly a good ritual. I haven’t done that in a long while, hence only seeing your comment now as I’ve only come to my blog today …