How I Managed Stress This Month, and Spring Activities I am Starting

I had made a goal of wanting to take the time to review and reflect on each month. This post…is super late! I like to look back to see what habits stuck, what didn’t, what were my actual priorities? What did I change? What did I work on? For this March monthly review I am focusing on how I managed stress, and some spring activities I started like yard work and starting seedlings. 

How I Managed Stress

Last month there was a lot of conflict and tension at work. Usually, this is something that I stew about, makes me lose sleep, and increases my heart rate. This month I am very proud of myself because I did not engage in the conflict or carry it with me like I usually would. 

Working in a team can be tricky, especially a team of 5. There have been som odd dynamics among the working group for the semester despite attempts at establishing group norms and common goals. Being pregnant, I have been much more selective on how and where I spend my energy because I really don’t have a lot of it. I also don’t need the added stress on my body. Somehow I just disengaged and distanced myself from it, participating to get the work done only. This has been really freeing. Setting boundaries for myself has been difficult in the past but I am slowly getting better at it.

I also have been walking a minimum of 10,000 steps a day. This has really helped me prioritize time to myself to destress and walk the cortisol out of my body! I have been getting out in nature, listening to a podcast or the birds. Sometimes I will bring my dog if it is warmer out. She is a chihuahua and really only likes the sunny days! It has been very grounding to focus on what I am hearing, smelling, and seeing out on my walks. 

Getting my strength training in has also been a focus, and I started going to a spin class again. See this post for my pregnancy exercise goals. I stopped during my first trimester and towards the end of my second, I have been feeling up for going again. It has been since before pregnancy I was nervous, as I had not been since before pregnancy. I wasn’t sure how my body would take it. I let the spin instructor know that I was sitting up front and might run away if I felt I needed to. She was extremely supportive, and also pregnant herself! It went really well and I have continued on with my 10-punch pass with 2 classes booked this week. 

Started Seedlings

I have been itching for spring and getting outside into the garden. This year we got some mason bees to help pollinate flowers and our vegetable garden. The weather had been warm for a few days so my husband and I raked up the backyard and cleaned up. We did get a tree cut down right before it snowed, and there is a lot of wood chips on the lawn as a result. My father-in-law has a potential solution for cleaning this up and I’ll be hunting him down for help when it is warmer outside. The wood chips can chage the nutrient make-up of the soil, negatively impacting the yard and gardens around it. We will clean up what we can a use a high-nitrogen fertilizer to help the wood decompose faster. 

I started some seedlings with my stepson. This was a fun weekend activity. We mainly started some flowers to help support our new bees. After a few days of research, we chose flowers that would work best in our mostly shady backyard. We also wanted mostly perennials that would return year after year. We went to a local store and purchased a small plastic greenhouse with some peat pellets to get started.  Here is a list of flowers we started for our mason bees:

• Butterfly Weed
• Catnip (both or the bees and cats!)
• Chives (also for us!)
• French Lavendar
• Lupins
• Calendula
• Forget me Nots
• Purple Coneflower
• Daisy

And I also started some lettuce because we really enjoy this the most!

We purchased some bleeding heart and also a big bee flower mix with various flowers which we will plant directly in the ground.

I would love to hear the spring activities people are looking forward to this year!