T-SQL Tuesday #134: Give Me a Break

For the first T-SQL Tuesday of 2021 James McGillivray asked us to talk about how we are taking breaks and keeping mentally relaxed during this very stressful period. For me, it was a combination of running and taking up a new hobby. I will point out that while this year has been hard for me, I realize that I’m very lucky to have no health or financial worries on top of the pandemic stress and we only lost childcare for about a month. I know many others have been dealing with much more.

Before the pandemic, running was definitely my way of getting a mental break. I belong to a great running group and we’d meet at least twice a week which kept me motivated to get out the rest of the time. We’ve been allowed to exercise outside where I live, but the loss of my group threw me off my routine. My running has been in fits and starts as other stresses have come and gone. I’m hoping I’m able to be more consistent this year as I definitely notice a change in my happiness when I’m getting out regularly!

My new hobby is watercolour sketching. I’ve never really thought of myself as being artistic, but I went down an Instagram rabbit hole when I came across a trail runner who sketches as he goes along and decided that I wanted to try it out. In the summer I started sketching anything my son picked up and asked me to hold while we were walking to daycare. This is only a small piece of the collection!

Eventually I’d like to do some painting out in the wild but in the meantime I’ve just been playing around and making little sketches here and there. It’s so relaxing to be away from screens and a nice record of what I’ve been up to.

I’m hoping that next year we’ll all be able to say that breaks in 2021 included having friends over for dinner (indoors!) and traveling to visit family. Wouldn’t that be nice…