After yesterday’s thunderstorms, the temperature cooled off considerably! It was perfect weather for at least one thing – reading in a hammock! My sister in law, Phoebe, bought me a hand-crafted hammock from Costa Rica when her and my 2 other sister in laws were off backpacking in Central America. I’ve made very good use of it so far this summer – when I’m not busy photographing wedding or taking other photos; I try to spend a few hours a week just laying in it and enjoying that time for myself. My stress management class textbook emphasizes the importance of taking time for oneself, to recognize when the body is being overworked and making sure time is given so the body can recoup.

Once I got all situated with my pillows and my iced tea, I carefully positioned myself in the hammock – hey, they can be tricky to execute sometimes! There is truly nothing like a nice “hammocking” on a perfect summer evening. And, there’s something poetic about relaxing in such an idyllic setting while reading a book on relaxing.

The only fly in my ointment was when I went to plug in my laptop to read the discussion posts there wasn’t any current flowing from the outside outlet. It took me 10 minutes to finally put things together and realize that the ground fault interrupt on the outlet had been tripped somehow – maybe from the storm the night before. Anyhow, that was frustrating because I had to get out of my comfy hammock!!!

We’re wrapping up the chapters about anger and humour which are great polar opposites! Humour is so subjective, as the text points out, and so is anger. So, you’d think they would be more closely related, though they are quite different from each other! I love that – a little duck and swerve.

I wish we could visit a comedy club as one of our lab assignments, actually I might be jumping the shark because I haven’t actually looked at what the lab assignment choices are – maybe I’ll get lucky and that will be one of them!!

I wonder if I could write that off as a required school expense… Hrrm.

For our first assignment, we had to breathe. No, seriously that was the assignment. Ok, perhaps I’m distilling down the work a bit. Specifically, the assignment was to practice diaphragmatic or deep breathing exercises. I have to admit, I’m very green when it comes to “breathing” – in the scope that we’re discussing here.

After a moderately stressful day at work, I decided to get a jump start on this course in an attempt to NOT be so stressed when I start my other accounting course in 2 weeks. Hopefully, this course will prevent future stress.

As I find myself most relaxed in the shower, and in the water in general, I decided to try my diaphragmatic breathing there. It took a few tries to engage my abdomen in my deep breathing, but once I got it, it was very easy – and very relaxing!

Breathing sounds easy, and somewhat involuntary, but deep breathing does take some concentration. Though, I imagine after a few weeks of regular breathing exercises, it will become quite effortless. As the exercises suggested, I envisioned inhaling clouds of clean, white air, and imagined exhaling nasty, putrescent clouds of black air. This took a few tries, concentrating on breathing through my diaphragm AND simultaneously focusing on visions of contrasting puffy clouds. This will be an interesting 5 weeks!

Once the weather warms up, I’ll try my deep breathing exercises laying down in a hammock that I bought just a few weeks ago. In April. When the temperature was 20 degrees warmer than it is now! This weekend will be a good time to try it.

I finished my last 4 papers for the two business classes I was taking during the spring semester, last weekend. I have only a test for my BUS-104 class that I’ll take on May 12. I ended up with a 123% in my Entrepreneurial Studies class – though there might be a glitch with the online system the school is using. If not, kudos to me!

Other exciting news: I filed my Articles of Organization for my limited liability company which effectively made my photography a legitament business on May 5, 2008. Not exciting for most, but quite exciting to me, as I begin to implement my business plan and start marketing my photography business.

Finally, I wrote a few months ago about submitting an application to be on the show, “Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?” well kiddies – today my application is going in the mail! I’m not sure how long it will take to receive a response, but I’d guess that I’ll hear something within a few weeks. Keep your prayers coming!

With school done, for now, I hope to have a little more time to keep up the posts on the blog for everyone. Keep your feedback coming too!