Project Pamper Me
You know how sometimes you know something, but still: you manage to forget its meaning and import in your life?
I occasionally lead a retreat – a retreat that I created – called “Sabbath and the Busy Person.” Its focus is on breaking open the meaning of the 3rd Commandment to Keep Holy the Sabbath, and understand that it’s calling us to more than just worship.
After juxtaposing the theological concept of Sabbath with the reality of our lives, I offer the practical wisdom of Stephen Covey’s 3rd Habit: Put First Things First. In addition to Covey’s time management insights, I also use spiritual insights from Robert Wicks’ Availability. When you’re “too available,” giving to everyone but yourself, you’re sabotaging your own efforts. When you’re tapped – completely wiped out – you’re no good to anyone.
I know this. I teach it. I lead reflections and retreats on it. And yet I manage to forget it.
One of my favorite recent insights is how wonderful it’s been to have discovered the joy of having a hobby. I have posted about my new found hobby of Functional Art (see previous posts here and here), particularly with the addicting explosion of Pinterest. Not only do I enjoy actually doing these projects, but I find that when I do so, I’m able to turn my theologian-writer-teacher-mother brain off and focus only on creating something new. That in and of itself is a Godsend. Because when I do return to my busy-yet-wonderful-yet-stressful life, my brain is refreshed and energized.
I’m like: “Ooooh – so this is what people mean by ‘Get a hobby!'”
Shortly after the New Year, my Mom and I were having a conversation about trying to shift out of a negative mood. Mom was struggling with a multitude of things and wanted nothing more than to clear her mind of the anger, frustration, and hurt over a situation that was beyond her control. She had spent the morning trying to distract herself from it all by house cleaning, checking email, Facebooking, and whatnot. (Mom hasn’t yet discovered Pinterest, which may explain why she was not able to fully distract herself.)
Mom had the right idea, but the problem with her modes-of-distraction were that they were just time-filling tasks. She didn’t really enjoy any of them. In fact, they tended to drain her energy more than fill her up.
When you need to change your energy, when you need to refresh and re-energize, you need to do something you love. Just. For. Fun.
About a week after my conversation with my Mom, my friend Stacey emailed a few in the girlfriend group whom she recalled having some success with what she called “Project Pamper Me.”
I am feeling…stretched thin…doing everything for everyone all the time, and I am feeling like I just want someone to take care of me!
And…I realized I should pamper and spoil myself like I do for others. I had this realization this morning while simultaneously making the family’s lunches, breakfasts, snacks for the day, fixing their hair, filling out school paperwork all while they ate and I bustled around. And I thought: Man, I would like to sit down.
So…I’ve decided I want to start pampering myself daily…but that’s where I get stuck. What to do? How? So far I have been just sitting in front of the TV…I haven’t even brushed my teeth because I am so drained from giving everything to others and not myself. And I don’t really feel like Teen Mom 2 is the kind of pampering I need…
How do I make myself get up and do something good for myself when I just want to wallow?
What are some long terms ways I can pamper myself – and keep in mind: I don’t want one more “to do” that I need to do to stay healthy. Help!?!
Stacey’s complaint, assessment, and hope-yet-concern resonated deeply. One of the reasons I have been so WOW-ed by my new-found “hobby” of crafting is that it really is something I enjoy for me. And doing it recharges me.
Our group of girlfriends used to do yoga as our “Project Pamper Me” – sometimes as a group, other times individually. And we loved it. And it’s been a while since any of us have done it. In some way, I’ve heard each of us express the desire to return, but we each have a stressed out “how can I fit this in?” attitude about yoga. So far it has been too much. And “too much” doesn’t bring anyone joy.
So Teacher-Julie came up with a 3-Part Plan, and Kari and Amalour added insights to flesh it out.
Project Pamper Me’s 3-Part Plan:
Step 1: Identify the things you like to do that are just for you and bring you joy.
Make a mental list. Or a real paper one. Get your mind around what it is, what way it needs to function to be for-you, by-you. And maintain that approach. I can’t just do crafts “for” other people (on demand), because then it becomes a thing. Even if I ultimately give something to other people, if my hobby is to be rejuvenating and re-joy-infusing, they need to flow from me. Not from others.
Kari suggests:
- Make a list of the things you enjoy that are just for you (include big and small things, i.e. pedicure, massage, movie, crafts, reading, going for a walk, sitting in the sun, taking a bubble bath, etc)
- Make it for you, to relax you and bring you joy! (Not another task to be done!)
Amalour is someone who knows how vital relaxation can be to physical health. She’s in the process of beating an aggressive form of breast cancer. For the second time. After a full mastectomy. With a husband and three children under the age of seven. She offered some of her own personal approaches to Project Pamper Me:
- Fit in at least two soaking baths a week, during the day when all the kids are away. I really take my time and totally relax.
- Sit out in the sun for a while and get those good melatonin juices flowing.
- Once in a while, get a sitter to feed and put the kids to bed. Then go to a cafe or Starbuck’s and read. Just get a break from the most frustrating part of the evening.
- Grab a healthy lunch somewhere alone… somewhere I can get served.
- When I haven’t gotten the me-time before the kids are home (and find I really need it), Tell them: “I need a little break, absolutely do not disturb me.” Make sure they have a snack, and go take a power nap or ready/study.
Step 2: Do that thing.
Make sure you’re staying true to the unblemished form of the hobby that brings you joy.
Step 3: Make a commitment to yourself to integrate it in to your life.
Sometimes integrating it in to my day is too difficult. But I can do a weekly commitment to care for myself.
Kari suggests integrating into daily life:
- To implement it daily make sure you have a bunch of small things on the list – not just big things. That way, when you don’t have a lot of time you can still take 10-20 min for you!
- I get in the TV trap too when I’m feeling worn out. Sometimes I choose to go with it and don’t feel guilty. Other times, I take a bubble bath and read a book. Definitely find some way, big or small, to pamper yourself daily.
- If it makes it easier, pick the same time everyday.
- If it doesn’t happen one day don’t beat yourself up, just start again the next day!
Amalour has the planning part down:
- Look at the coming week’s schedule and block out the me-time. Because for me, it’s not always the same time of the day every day.
- Make sure to leave ample time; don’t feel rushed.
- In general, try not to schedule so much errand-running around.
Whatever we choose to do for me-time, be it a hobby or an indulgence, taking care of ourselves has to be a priority. Think of it as a Sabbath Moment; the time in which you get a chance to rest, reflect, and re-energize. It is in these moments which we remember to rejoice in the beauty of Creation. And it is through these moments which we become our best selves.
If you’re still not convinced, I leave you with the words of Robert Wicks:
If you won’t do it for yourself, do it for those you love.
rejuvenation.self.care.logo by guttersnipe.76](https://www.flickr.com/photos/guttersnipe76) licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
Flower Box – I casually mentioned that I would love a flower box outside of my kitchen window. A few months later, my engineer built me one out of scrap wood in the garage, and I painted it in some of my favorite colors.
Play Kitchen Food – Shortly after we the boys got a play kitchen for Christmas, I saw the need for more and better play food. Less plastic foods; more along the lines of the stuff the kids ate and saw in our own home.
Orange Juice Container: Engineer-Boy had a vision of creating a milk container, but since we don’t drink milk out of those half-gallon containers any more, it became an OJ container. Of course, I painted all the details… but I knew my boys would want to try to open and close it, so I was trying to think of a way to make that happen… In comes Peter with the idea to cut the whole plastic contraption off an actual, empty OJ container and glue it on to the wooden side. Worked PERFECTLY! One important lesson: although it’s easier to write with a Sharpie, if you polyurethane over it, the Sharpie will run. Use a paint-pen!
Bread: With his jigsaw, Peter cut, shaped, and sanded the bread pieces. I did the detail paint.
Cookies: Peter cut the circles out of plywood with a hole cutting drill bit… cutting these took a looooong time, but sanding was pretty straightforward. I think if we were to do this again, I’d suggest buying wooden circles from a craft store and just painting them. Important lesson from painting: When dotting the cookies with chocolate chips, avoid the temptation to think “more is better.” My first attempt looked like the cookies had some disease, like chip-pox. Less is best.
Felt Food: I identified some of the foods we eat… ones that I could easily cut out of felt and glue together (no sewing needed): fried eggs, bacon, ham, cheese, peanut butter, jelly, and lettuce. I kept the list limited to the foods I knew would be easily recognizable in addition to easy to make. Just cut and hot glue. I did sketch lettuce leaf veins with a Sharpie.
1. As part of our environmental consciousness, we use cloth napkins in our house. I realized at one point that it might be fun for the kids to have some kid-friendly ones. So I cut up some fabric and ironed the edges with Heat-N-Bond.
2. Since I already had Thomas fabric, I decided to line a basket with it for all the little odds and ends that kids pick up at parties and whatnot that don’t actually belong in any category other than “Random Stuff.”
3. Three true statements: (1) My two boys are 17 months apart, which allows for the money-saving perk of hand-me-downs. (2) My two boys are rough on their clothes, especially the knees, especially since they are clumsy like me and fall a lot. (3) I am frugal and creative. So, before I learned to sew, I just zapped these on with Heat-N-Bond.
4. I found that the Heat-N-Bond also made for a good edge seam seal for making a tablecloth for the kids’ play table.
5. One of my best girlfriends is an uber-awesome party planner. She even blogs about it at 
6. Instead of a gift-bag, I found some birthday fabric and made reusable birthday sacks.
7. I love, love, LOVE Dr. Seuss. And so do my boys. For Halloween 2009, I was still determining what they would dress up as… I tried asking them once, but they neither understood the question nor cared about the answer. But I did! So, while shopping for trinkets in the Dollar Bins at Target months earlier, I found the red and white stove pipe hat… which led to my decision to dress up as the Cat in the Hat with my “Thing 1 and Thing 2.” I cut the white circles out of some cheap material and actually Sharpie’d the words on. I believe I even had the red shirts in the boys’ drawers. Once again, I stuck the the circles on with Heat-N-Bond. At this point, almost 2 1/2 yrs later, I would’ve gone with better material and fabric paint… but to my surprise, they really held up ok! I mean they LOOK homemade, but the kids LOVED them and so did everyone who saw them. I found the knit hats for $3 each at Target. I was pretty happy with this solution instead of a wig or actually dying my kids hair. The boys wore those shirts regularly until Alex outgrew his. I promised I’d make them new ones (with my vastly improved skills – I even sew a little now!), but that’s still in my projects-to-do pile.
8. The following year, About a month or two before Halloween (in 2010), I asked my boys what they wanted to be. BOTH wanted to be Hiro of the Rails, from Thomas the Train. And THAT costume did not exist in the stores. Or the internet. I checked. So, I pulled upon my days making props for theatre in high school. Cut up three small “book” boxes, and taped and shaped 1 1/2 of them together for each train. Painted them black with acrylic paint, and detailed: wheels from red foam paper, faces from scrapbook paper with hand-sketched and painted on faces (a-la me), and crumbled black construction paper for the coal. The only “cost” was some little headlamps I found in Target that could fit inside the toilet paper tube and turn on and off. Oh – and don’t forget the frayed cotton ball steam coming out of the funnel. The buffers were painted spice container lids hot glued to some red construction paper. And then I just painted the rest of the details in gold and white acrylic paint. When the boys went to put them on, I attached thick (2″ or so) ribbon with hot glue in “backpack” style so the boys could put the costumes on and take them off at will. They were a HUGE hit – with the boys and the neighborhood. And the kids played in and with them for months afterwards.
9. So this past Halloween the kids wanted to be characters from Cars 2. So I did my cardboard box cutting and taping… but because Francisco Bernouli’s car is a Formula 1, with the wings and all, I decided to paper mache them for extra support. Knowing what I know now (about how hard it is to get red paint to cover newsprint), I would probably make the final layer of paper mache with white paper (and of course, letting it dry for a week) before painting it. I insisted that the kids keep bringing me their diecast cars so I could model the details after it. Using foam paper – and painting or marking with a Sharpie – worked really well. I make Francisco’s wheels out of recycled nuts containers from Target, while Lightning McQueen’s were just the lids of the same containers. (We were making and eating our own trail mix a LOT in the Summer and Fall). I found two red hats from Michael’s and decorated with the foam paper. It was super easy to do the character’s eyes on the hats, and that just finished off the Cars costumes perfectly.
10. Again with my love of Dr. Seuss! I made these around Thanksgiving, when it kinda-sorta starts to get a little cold in Houston… cold enough to warrant a jacket. But you can really get away with a sweatshirt on most days. This effort was in response to a request from Alex to make him a Lorax shirt. It took me forever to finally find an orange hoodie (thanks Google and 
