A Slow Start to Summer…

I have been taking a break from blogland, and though I have missed my daily interactions with the amazing people I have met online, I have enjoyed stepping away for a time. I have been catching up on blog reading, reading some paper books (!), and doing a lot of baking. Dee (our youngest, at 15) and I took a month long baking class and BOY can my scale tell!

I think the biggest thing for me to take away from my break was perspective. Have you ever read about “changing negative thinking”?  This is a very modern psychological study based on cognitive therapy.

I was complaining to my husband that we haven’t had much of a summer – just lots of work and not much family fun. About the only thing I did this summer was try to eat outdoors at least 3 times per week (which isn’t saying much), and even that went by the wayside when the heat came upon us.

But my husband reminded me that we haven’t canoed, hiked, camped, or swam because he had been ill for quite a while, and until the testing was done in which they found he needed his gallbladder removed, he wasn’t up to doing anything. So here I was whining about not having a summer when we really couldn’t do our traditional outdoor things, but I wasn’t even thinking about the pain he had been experiencing.

His health is back and we are trying to make the most of it – we only have 3 weeks left of summer and we are packing a LOT in during this short time. Soon 2 of our kids will be back in college and the house will be a lot more quiet.

Do you, too, sometimes discover that you need to change your perspective to see the reality? Do you need to think “outside the box” to see a positive side to a subject (or a less painful side)?