Small achievement you managed to do today....How did it make you feel? Did it help you feel better today?

[Ggrand]

Hi everyone..

Their are days when just getting out of bed is a huge achievement...Other days we can achieve things like washing up the dishes or clothes, sweeping the floors, mopping the floors..very mundane and automatic robot like chores for the mentally well...They do these chores without even thinking about them...for people struggling with their mental health..these are huge tasks...

Very often I’ll get my vacuum cleaner out to vacuum ...then it will sit their for days, me looking at it, walking over it...until I can get motivated enough to vacuum..after I do find the motivation to vacuum...I am pleased with myself...
Right now I have a small foot cycling peddle machine, sitting on my front veranda..I got it out last week..to start exercising..it’s still their, I’m still looking at it...My thoughts each night is I’ll use it for a few minutes tomorrow..

My car hasn’t been washed getting close to a year now I think...Today I did managed to wash it....and discovered that it has a nice shine on it.....I did it...I achieved something positive today..which made me feel better in myself...

Have you achieved a little something today...and how did it make you feel...If you want to share that achievement it might make other people a bit more motivated to achieve something they need/want to do..

Looking forward to hearing about your achievement....and how it made you feel..

Little steps and achievements can lead to bigger steps..and bigger achievements...

My kindest and most caring thoughts...everyone.
Grandy...

[Ggrand]

Hello everyone….🤗..

Wow you’ve all done so very well with your achievements…

Thank you so much HappySheep in saying that this thread is helping and inspiring you….

Since my last post, I have swept and mopped my floors, even made my bed once or twice😂..today I wiped over the grubbiness on my light switches, door handles and TV screen Hmm wonder how that all got their…🤦‍♀️….I’m on a roll this morning, garbage night tonight so I will try and clean out my fridge and cupboards of old food….

Aged care came and mowed my lawn on Thursday, outside looks good…I don’t need to do anything outside, well maybe sweep my front and back veranda’s….I’ve put it to my to-do-list…which I might say is growing longer and longer and longer…but I did tick a few of those jobs off today…and that’s a good thing…

Hugs, care and love everyone 🤗💕🌈…you’re all awesome people..doing the best we can,,,.and that is good enough!…

Grandy..

[Eagle Ray]

Hello Everyone!

Grandy, you are most certainly on a roll. Good on you 😀👍  It feels good doesn’t it when things are done.

My small achievement today was getting up early and going on a walk in the bushland across the road shortly after sunrise and before breakfast. This was a significant achievement to me as I’ve had such extreme anxiety that even though I wake early I stay frozen and usually can’t move much. I still had anxiety this morning but something shifted enough that I could feel my body wanting to move and be active. So it wasn’t too difficult at all and it was so beautiful to be out in the early morning light. I saw many different birds from little ones to a large bird of prey that I think was a Whistling Kite. I find early morning sojourns always make the day better even if I get sleepy later as is happening now - feeling ready for a snooze 😴

I hope you are all having a good day 🙏😊

Hugs,

ER

[HappySheep]

Well done Grandy and ER! 

Every tick on the to-do list is a success.

Clean light-switches Grandy? You're already well ahead of most of us! Good job! - from someone who notices such things, but not enough to do anything about it!

Going walking and admiring our avian friends sounds right up my alley ER. Are you a photographer, Twitcher, or just an admirer? I love Whistling Kites; just about any raptor I don't know but see in flight is labelled a Whistling Kite by me - my enthusiasm far exceeds my ability! It never ceases to amaze me what's out there if we take the time to look.

Success all round. 

[Eagle Ray]

Hello Happy Sheep 🙂 🐑 

I feel happy every time I see your name.

 I am a photographer and admirer of birds. I’m probably not quite a twitcher in that I’m not that obsessive. I once went on a guided bird walk in a national park. The guide was a nice man who was attempting to tell us things. But there was a twitcher within the group who completely took over from the guide with elaborate details about different species. He had the obligatory notebook in which he recorded every bird sighted and which was full of multiple prior bird sightings. He would go manic when he heard a particular bird call and completely talk over the guide. It reminded me of a story the comedian Steve Martin told in relation to the title of his album of banjo music called Rare Bird Alert. Apparently in the US twitchers are in constant communication with one another when a rare bird is sighted. They will all then rush from across the country to that location to see the rare bird who with that amount of human attention probably gets stressed and just wants to be left in peace! I can just see a bird with a wing over its face and a thought bubble saying, “oh no, twitchers”. Steve Martin decided to name his album after this phenomenon. I am just happy to see what I see. If I chance upon a rare bird that is a nice surprise, but I always respect the space of birds, especially when they are nesting, and I don’t obsess about needing to see rare species. But I’m sure there are plenty of twitchers who respect the space of birds too but just like to keep records of everything they see.

As I have a telephoto lens I can confirm it was a Whistling Kite I saw today after I looked at the image on my computer tonight and compared it with google images of them. I also saw a group of Weebills today which are tiny, so it was from very big to very small in the variety of birds.

If you would like to watch/listen to some yee-ha, thigh-slapping bluegrass music I can recommend googling “Steve Martin and the Steep Canyon Rangers - Rare Bird Alert - Delfest 2012”.

Are you a photographer Happy Sheep? It sounds like you enjoy being in nature too 🌿🌼🦅🦋🐠

[HappySheep]

Hi ER,

The secret behind the name is that I chose a cute cartoon sheep as my avatar (although BB won't let me add a profile picture) but thought the sheep looked a bit sad - and I couldn't bear it. So I called it 'Happy' so I can use the picture without it being a sad face. 🤣 True story!

I wouldn't call myself a photographer although my friends may disagree as I usually have a camera with me. I take a fabulous snapshot but don't know anything about apertures etc. so can't do anything artistic. I do have a smallish telephoto lens for the birds and a macro lens for the spiders and bugs but I don't carry a tripod or intentionally go out to take photos. I just like to wander about and, if I see anything cool, take a photo of it.

I recently went on a night-time guided walk of our local wetlands with an entomologist - wow. I never knew there were so many different types of huntsmen out and about. Very cool.

I do love being out in nature and love all the creepy-crawlies. I have a massive dilemma at the moment. One of the jobs I'm trying to do while off-work because of Anxiety collapse is to weed and tidy my garden. The dilemma is that the main weed seems to be the only plant-food for masses of caterpillars at the moment - if I pull up the weeds, I won't have any butterflies!

[Eagle Ray]

Hello Happy Sheep,

That’s a cute story about your avatar. I tried to upload a profile pic of a stingray as an eagle ray is a type of stingray, but couldn’t get it to work either.

It’s good you have the interchangeable lenses for different kinds of subjects. It can be a lot of fun can’t it! The night time guided walk sounds great. I have been on some of those finding spiders, frogs etc. It is good having an expert there too to find out about the different creatures active at night.

 I love creepy crawlies too and find them all fascinating. I really understand your dilemma. I have an area of garden that gets overgrown with weeds and I also hesitate pulling them up, because as they’ve been growing all sorts of creatures have been making new homes there. I also find I disrupt earthworms when pulling up the weeds too. Where I previously lived the backyard grass had become overgrown. But in amongst that I found peacock spiders, other types of spiders I’d not seen before, grasshoppers with interesting colours and so many other little things. It was like a total ecosystem had become established.

One thing that might help in relation to attracting butterflies is researching native plants that attract them and putting those in the garden. Someone suggested this to me a while ago but I haven’t got around to it yet.

I am going to drive to a neighbouring town today which is going to be today’s achievement. I haven’t been in a while as I’ve not been up to it but feeling I can today. As well as doing tasks/errands while there I plan to do a bit of a forest walk on the edge of town. I’ll be looking out for what creatures I can see.

Take care Happy Sheep and I hope you have a lovely day 🙏

[HappySheep]

Hey ER, how'd the forest walk go? Very exciting. Great achievement if you managed the walk as well as the chores. 

So, why 'Eagle Ray'? Are you a diver or marine lover as well as a birdie? I won't be offended if you tell me it's none of my business, I'm just curious about what people choose to label themselves.

[HappySheep]

Oops, sorry ER, I hit reply before I'd finished my message. Very rude of me to ask a personal question and then hit 'send'. Sorry, trying to type on my phone...not a Millennial or Gen Z.... difficult (but I can handwrite in cursive, so there's a bonus to being old!)

In response to your previous: I definitely have planted butterfly attracting natives, but caterpillars have fussier eating habits than Super Models! The Lurcher butterfly apparently only eats this ugly weed that is taking over my garden. They're not a spectacular butterfly that you'd plant especially to attract, and any other time of the year I'd happily pull all the weeds out. I just picked the one fortnight/month that the ground is heaving with these caterpillars!

Hope your forest walk was good for the soul!

HS.

[Eagle Ray]

Hello HS,

Yes, I did go for the walk in the forested area and it was good for the soul. It’s on a track shared by mountain bikers so a few sped past. There was lots of rustling under fallen leaves which I think were probably small reptiles. There were various birds including golden whistlers, fairywrens and robins. I started to feel unwell at the start of the walk which is just my health going up and down at the moment, but I managed to do it and still happy I went. The river and creek that run at other times of the year are currently dry, but I imagined what landscape photos I could do of them meandering through the forest once they are running again. I kind of framed imaginary shots from particular vantage points.

 I called myself Eagle Ray because around the time I joined BB I was doing some meditation down by the estuary near where I live. Sometimes when I opened my eyes I’d see an eagle ray gliding past. They felt like my spirit animal at the time if that makes sense and so that just came to me when I was thinking of a user name. I also see dolphins, small sharks and plenty of fish in the estuary. Herons, egrets, terns, gulls, pelicans and cormorants too. Plus oystercatchers who have to be one of my favourite birds because of their great character.

 I am a Gen Xer and I too can do cursive writing 😂 Little did we realise back then it would become a lost art! But like you describe I’m a bit more cumbersome typing on the phone.

 I am wondering about the weed dilemma and whether it may be a case of pulling some of the weeds but not all (though that may increase interpersonal caterpillar conflict). I can tell you are a caring person thinking of them. I wasn’t familiar with the Lurcher Caterpillar so I just looked them up. They look distinctive with the orange and black. I’m not sure of the answer but I hope you can find a balance between catering to caterpillars and removing some weeds.

When you put caterpillars and supermodels in the same sentence my weird imagination thought of caterpillars in designer outfits looping their way down the catwalk, stopping to pose now and then which for them means sort of waving about in the air, showing off their outfits 🐛  Oh dear, my brain 🙈

Well take care HS and I hope you had a good day today 🙏

Best wishes,

ER

[Paw Prints]

Hello HappySheep & EagleRay,

I'm just going to jump in on the caterpillar dilemma.... a weed is just a plant growing in the wrong place... so if you choose to leave those plants (weeds) where they are for a reason (caterpillars), then they are not in the wrong place & so aren't weeds. That's my logic anyway.  The other option is to just leave them for the short time the caterpillars exist & then pull them out.

My achievement for today is I am out of bed & dressed.

Paws