Replenish, take breaks, avoid burnout

by Kathy Kuhl

Most of us have just started or are about to start a new school year. While you are opening new books and settling down to work, I want to encourage you to pace yourself, to replenish yourself to you can keep giving to your family all year.

Get away to replenish

If you can get away for a day or two sometime this year, it can refresh you. Last week I went to the beach, after a wonderful but hectic summer. We sat, read, talked, walked, swam, and ate.

Two mornings we got up to watch the sunrise over the Atlantic.

Three evenings, we watched it set on the bay.

Can’t get away? Don’t wait to replenish yourself daily

Look for beauty around you.

You can enjoy sunrises and sunsets anywhere. And you don’t have to be at the beach to find beauty. Look around. It might be flowers growing outside a store:

or just footprints anywhere, or birds racing for breakfast like commuters trying to catch a train:

It might be a seashell you found years ago, or a flowering weed like this Lady’s thumb. This delicate lavender flower crowds into the stilt grass trying to take over my lawn.

(An agronomist I know says there are no weeds, just unwanted plants. I don’t pull lady’s thumb.)

Then there is the beauty of your child’s grin.

Giving thanks will replenish you

There is always something to give thanks for, something to enjoy.

What do you see?