fitness · rest · self care

Sick Day(s): How Christine Spent The Weekend

Christine Hennebury

I had a few “off” days at the end of last week.  I couldn’t really tell if I was just tired, if my allergies were acting up, or if I was getting a migraine. 

It didn’t even occur to me that I might actually be sick until Saturday afternoon when my head suddenly weighed about ten thousand pounds, my throat was sore, and I started sneezing.

Luckily, I didn’t have many plans this weekend and I could easily shift things around to make room to rest.*

Here’s what that looked like:

I wasn’t quite in ‘lie-around-and-read’ mode so I spent a long time playing with paints and markers and paint markers.

While drinking approximately 1.5 million cups of tea, of course. **

a tea mug
My favourite Tarot card – The Empress – on a mug sprinkled with gold stars. You probably could have guessed this was mine. 🙂 Image description: My mug is sitting on a folded red cloth napkin and both are resting on my worn wooden kitchen table. The mug is white with a black handle and black interior. The white parts are sprinkled with gold stars and in the middle is a black and white image of The Empress, a woman in a crown and flowing robes with a scepter in her right hand.

I had a lot of fun with this video from Art Therapy with Sana

A video from Art Therapy with Sana called ‘Feeling Overwhelmed? Try this Klimt Pattern Art Practice. Still image shows a patterned painting in shades of red, brown, and gold. On the left side of the image is a woman in red robes, the woman’s face is cut from a magazine. The rest of the image is made up of vertical sections framed in wavy lines and each section is filled with a different pattern – spirals, ovals. dots. Behind the first artwork is another work that features a collaged image of a woman with patterns drawn around her in gold and black.

Here’s what mine turned out like:

a small painting that's fairly abstract except for a drawing of a woman's face between two sections of the drawing that kind of look like a robe.
My version of the first painting from the art therapy video posted above. The colours are shades of red, purple, yellow, pink and gold that work well together (I hope!) Near the centre of the painting I have drawn a woman’s face looking out between two sections that form a robe. The rest of the painting is formed from wavy lines that mark off different sections that contain different patterns of squares, circles, dots, lines and spirals.
a decorative artwork with a photo of a woman surrounded by a variety of patterned sections
My version of the second painting from the video. I cut out a picture of a woman in a blue and green patterned dress – you can see her from the waist up- she is leaning towards her right shoulder and looking down. The rest of the painting is divided into sections filled with patterns – squares, spirals, grids, circles, and squiggles, all patterned in green, yellow, and blue.

And since I like to listen to podcasts while I draw, today I chose Old Gods of Appalachia – a horror anthology show with incredibly strong writing, world-building, and performances. (Yes, I do like spooky stuff!)

When my head got too heavy I tried the exercises in this video. They helped a lot.

One Move to Quickly Relieve Sinus Congestion – YouTube

And I borrowed some moves from Joelle here:

Yoga for Sinus & Cold Relief – Feel Better in 10 minutes!

When I needed a nap on Saturday, I did Yoga Nidra: Yoga Nidra For Sleep & Rest | The StillPoint

And on Sunday, I fell asleep to some ghost stories from the Classic Ghost Stories Sleep Compilations.

My husband thinks it’s pretty funny to fall asleep to ghost stories but the stories on Classic Ghost Stories are more ‘creeping dread’ than ‘scar them with the horrors’ kind of tales and Tony Walker is an excellent narrator.

My weekend wasn’t all art and ghost stories though, I also did my usual stuff – walking the dog, making meals, puttering around, but at a much slower pace than usual. 

It is no fun to be sick but being ‘too sick to go out’ and ‘not up to doing much at home either’ was a great reason to prioritize rest, creativity, and taking good care of myself. 

What are your go-to activities when you are feeling under the weather?

*As I write this on Monday afternoon, I am feeling better than I was on the weekend but still not great. I actually ended up having to reschedule a dentist appointment AND a mammogram so I could keep my germs at home instead of taking them on tour to various medical facilities.

** Don’t worry, it wasn’t all caffeinated. I alternated between Cold 911 from David’s Tea, Ginger Peach, Chocolatey Chai, Wild Sweet Orange, (no caffeine so far!) and black tea (there’s the caffeine!) with the occasional foray into boiled water with lemon, candied ginger, and honey. I also drank regular old cold water.

Published by Christine Hennebury

I'm a writer/storyteller/director/creativity & lifestory coach with a black belt in ITF Taekwon-do. I read voraciously and I write like my fingers are on fire. I'm the founder and Chair of the Association for the Arts in Mount Pearl and I'm a former president of the St. John's Storytelling Festival. I bake a mean chocolate chip cookie.

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