These cards are all from a deck of artist inspiration cards I keep in my office for people to choose the ones that speak to them. The artist is Kate Allen, who is a mental health author and illustrator. This set of cards is all work appropriate, but if you are looking at more on her website, they are not always work language. I really like them because they are so soothing and also very realistic and normalize mental health concerns. I hope they inspire you today! Here’s her website if you want to see more. https://www.thelatestkate.art/
There’s definitely something amazing about the sheer power music has to evoke emotions and help us express our emotions. I tend to listen to a wide range of things, but maybe you’d like one of these.
Hello from our house to yours! We had our Covid bubble friends over today and I realized how much I missed entertaining! We had been doing at least one event a month with multiple sets of friends and I think I’m going through pandemic fatigue and social withdrawal.
We do have a distance movie watching party planned. This year our fall movie is The Hobbit and I really wanted to keep something going, even if it was going to be really different. The plan right now is to offer an “unexpected culinary journey” box of snacks for people to come pick up and then take home and watch the movie. I have a couple of people who I will probably be mailing their boxes. I’m looking forward to it! The Husband thinks I might be a little weird, but I have had some interest in it already. To prep for it and boost our decor, I bought this fun Michigan/Middle Earth themed picture. It’s from an Etsy shop called Home Squirrel, which is located in Marquette!
Isn’t it adorable? It’s a fun touch to our decorations. Tomorrow will be the day to try and switch out the outdoor decor and finish off the indoor part as well.
In the meantime, I thought a look back at my favorite parties might cheer me up a bit. Hopefully it helps spark some fond memories in you too!
Our Epiphany parties are, of course, some of my favorite parties! It’s so fun to bake and cook and welcome people in to start the new year off in style! I took pity on my Dad and didn’t feature the rulle picture. 😉
My Christmas tomte collection is growing. Don’t ask me why the ones on the left are all facing extremely left. I have no idea!
Lunar New Year started off pretty small, but got very big very quick. My favorite part about this party is that my family celebrates it and the Husband’s family doesn’t, despite there being a connection to Chinese culture. It’s been fun to look at the different cultural aspects of the holiday and incorporate them into our life. I still love the Lego set that I found unexpectedly!
Harry Potter! I’m glad we’re taking a break from this one this year, even though I loved the decorations we had. I’m saddened that the author, J.K. Rowling has had some unfortunate attitudes this past couple of years. Choosing to celebrate the good parts of the series, including messages of hope in darkness, friendship, curiosity, and the real life struggle of good vs. evil, helps me remember our party with good thoughts. Plus, I got to buy a ridiculous amount of candy!
The Tea Making party seems like it was so long ago! I enjoyed having girlfriends over to watch movies and make our own tea blends. Maybe I can recreate this one with just a few ladies!
Our very first Hobbit Party! Fancy took over the chair by the fireplace and would whine at people who dared to sit in it until they got up and moved. I remember being so nervous that no one would get it, or it was too dorky. The food picture was the Afternoon Tea table. Luckily, we have excellent friends who went right along the nerd journey with us!
I really did miss our summer party this year. If I remember correctly, this Caprese had garden basil and garden tomatoes. It is always fun to get together with friends when it stays so light out. More time for conversation and laughter.
My parents and grandparents all instilled the gift and the desire to be hospitable in me and I know it’s suffered during the pandemic. I didn’t even know if my coworkers would feel comfortable eating homemade food this summer and have only brought in a few things. We can’t see our friends, like we used to, and it’s wearing on both of us. It is helpful for Piggy to be able to decompress with just us and a very select few people, but man… I miss party conversation. Jokes about not having enough cookies, pickle trays, and friends threatening to steal whole platters of cookies. I also miss getting to try new recipes that people have made and laughing as I attempted to find a spot for them on the table.
We both miss our game nights too! We have a rotating group of friends who switch in and out. Our dining room table doesn’t fit a ton of people comfortably, but we make it fun anyway. Now, when we can have game nights again, we’ll have comfier chairs at least, with the Star Trek seat cushions I made.
No pictures from game nights, as we were always having too much fun. The thing I like best about them is that I can be myself with coworkers turned friends and friends who put up with all us weird mental health worker types. We all have such weird and mostly dark senses of humor. I like it a lot.
I really hope the distance Hobbit party works out! I really need to feed people again. It might not be quite the same, but I’m excited to try it out.
Let me know how you’re handling connecting with people too! I’d love to hear some other ideas. I’ll leave you with a peaceful Piggy dumpling as advanced payment!
“Look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Try to make sense of what you see, and wonder about what makes the universe exist. Be curious.”- Stephen Hawking
“It’s your outlook on life that counts. If you take yourself lightly and don’t take yourself too seriously, pretty soon you can find the humor in our everyday lives. And sometimes it can be a lifesaver.”- Betty White
“The wide world is all about you: you can fence yourselves in, but you cannot forever fence it out.” – J. R. R. Tolkien
“There are victories of the soul and spirit. Sometimes, even if you lose, you win.” – Elie Wiesel
“There are no rules of architecture for a castle in the clouds.” – Gilbert K. Chesterton
“I believe that a different therapy must be constructed for each patient because each has a unique story.” – Irvin D. Yalom
“Music is therapy for me. It’s my outlet for every negative thing I’ve ever been through. It lets me turn something bad into something beautiful.”– Amy Lee
“Using no control and using humor will build a relationship and make a dent to where the client puts the counselor in their quality world and then begins to relate and seek out the counselor. Effective therapy begins with the acceptance of the therapist into the client’s quality world.”- William Glasser
“Writing is a form of therapy; sometimes I wonder how all those who do not write, compose or paint can manage to escape the madness, melancholia, the panic and fear which is inherent in a human situation.” –Graham Greene
“I’ve never found therapy to be a sign of weakness; I’ve found the opposite to be true. The willingness to have a mirror held up to you definitely requires strength.”
“I kind of think of my life as this incredible hurricane of so many adventures. We can all make a difference, and we can all be courageous and believe in ourselves.” – Bindi Irwin
“I always told myself that if I was going to be given a voice, I might as well say something worth listening to and not something that’s just going to feed people stupidity.” – Alessia Cara
“The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity. The fears are paper tigers. You can do anything you decide to do. You can act to change and control your life; and the procedure, the process is its own reward.” – Amelia Earhart
“Ignorant free speech often works against the speaker. That is one of several reasons why it must be given rein instead of suppressed.” – Anna Quindlen
“The battle for the individual rights of women is one of long standing and none of us should countenance anything which undermines it.” – Eleanor Roosevelt
