Once again, the weekend has gone by really quickly,, and I´m left with the feeling that I haven´t done half of the things I would have liked. Which probably means I had planned roughly twice as many things as I can realistically fit into a weekend.

Does this happen to you as well? It´s quite normal; us humans are awful at estimating the time it takes us to complete a task or project (more on this topic here).

For me, a common consequence of not being realistic with my time is that I often end up resting and sleeping less, as there are things I don´t want to leave undone, even when the day is coming to an end. And so, without noticing, I get myself into a vicious cycle of lack of sleep that only brings about more problems...

This week I caught myself in that cycle again. And I´m the only one who can get me out of it.

Sometimes we feel that we have no other choice but to fill our days with tasks and keep going until we drop from exhaustion.. Or maybe we´re already exhausted, but we don´t listen to our body. For how much longer? Do we have to wait until life gives us a fright before we start taking care of ourselves?

The good news is that life (or, rather, our body) sends us signals, it shows us when the pace we´re going at is no longer sustainable. The key is learning to listen, so that, once those signals start to appear, we can notice them and take action.

But the thing is, in order to listen to ourselves, first we need to create a little bit of silence. And being continuously surrounded by noise and distractions, as it happens nowadays, doesn´t help with that at all. We need to make a conscious effort to "disconnect" from the outside for a little while, and get the chance to connect with our inner side to take stock of how we´re really feeling.

This reminds me of two things: first, the opening sentence in Desiderata: "Go placidly amid the noise and the haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence"... If this was already true approximately a century ago, there´s no doubt it´s truer now than ever.

And second, this quote I thought I had already shared, but apparently hadn´t:

Almost everything will work again
if you unplug it for a few minutes,
including you.

Anne Lamot

And if instead of a few minutes it´s a few hours, or days, or even weeks, that´s even better.

(Poster seen in an Avoca shop: "offline is the new luxury". This phrase would deserve its own full article; maybe one day I´ll write it.)

Now, what about you? Do you need to press the reset button?

2026 is here, Happy New Year!

The girls and I came back last night after spending a few days in Spain, where the holidays continue until after January 6th (the Three Wise Men). Here in Ireland, the holidays are over, and it´s time to return to school (or in my case, to work), so we´re going through re-education.

(Photo taken a few days ago in Madrid, in a park called Retiro, which is Spanish for "retreat". Some day I´ll tell you about my end-of-year "double retreat".)

Looking for an inspirational quote to set up the year for a good start, I bumped into this one from Neil Gaiman, and I feel it´s the perfect fit for me right now; I hope you like it too:

I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes.

Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world. You're doing things you've never done before, and more importantly, you're Doing Something.

So that's my wish for you, and all of us, and my wish for myself. Make New Mistakes. Make glorious, amazing mistakes. Make mistakes nobody's ever made before. Don't freeze, don't stop, don't worry that it isn't good enough, or it isn't perfect, whatever it is: art, or love, or work or family or life.

Whatever it is you're scared of doing, Do it.

Make your mistakes, next year and forever.

What do you think? Do you see yourself practising this? Coincidentally, the theme I´ve chosen for myself this year is the word PRACTICE, so it fits perfectly, especially the part about not worrying that it´s not perfect. Now, I´m aware this is going to be a big challenge for me, but I´m also fully convinced it will be worth it.

What about you? Do you accept the challenge of making mistakes?

Do you like taking photos? What kind of photos do you usually take?

I´ve noticed that I generally take very few pictures "of people", that is, the kind you would take with your family or a group of friends. To be honest, it´s something I don´t normally pay attention to, so I almost always forget (or, at most, if I´m in a nice place with my daughters, I think of taking a selfie with them, sometimes with better results than others). Luckily, there´s almost always someone at every group or family reunion who remembers to immortalise the moment, and let me take this opportunity to say to them all: thank you!

On the other hand, what I´ve noticed I do a lot is take photos of places or things that call my attention for one reason or another. Sometimes it´s a landscape or a building that strikes me as beautiful, and I try to capture it without people if I can (this is what I call "making postcards"). At other times, I take photos of things that hold sentimental value for me, evoking fond memories.

And some other times, I snap photos of interesting quotes or phrases I find in the most unexpected places, like this one I want to share with you today:

(Sign seen in a Chick-fil-A near San Jose, in California. Chick-fil-A is a US-based fast food chain that we found surprisingly delicious.)

It turns out this quote is from none other than the founder of Chick-fil-A, here it is in text:

How do you know if someone needs encouragement? If they are breathing!

S. Truett Cathy

In other words: we would ALL benefit from some encouragement, because we ALL are going through something, and very often, that something is a lot more serious than what one could possibly perceive from the outside.

Which reminds me of another quote that I can´t believe I haven´t shared here in this blog before, as it´s one of my favourites. The only thing is, I´m not able to confirm the author because it´s not clear, and I don´t want to risk it and have a repeat of that time when I was accused of giving false information... Depending of who you ask, it´s attributed to Seneca, Marcus Aurelius or someone called Ian McLaren. But it doesn´t really matter, what matters is the message:

Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.

What about you? What photos have you found inspiring lately?

The girls and I are just back from a week-long holiday with the framily (if you´re not familiar with the concept of framily, it´s explained here), taking advantage of the October bank holiday here in Ireland, and the way schools stretch it into a whole week of mid-term break.

So, this time, our reunion took place... In California!

(Photo of San Francisco´s Golden Gate Bridge, taken from the end of the bridge itself.)

We´ve had a fantastic week (thanks a million, Juanjo, Gema, Laia and Joan for welcoming our whole gang into your house).

I have to admit that, when it comes to travelling, I´m not adventurous at all; my default option is to always end up going to the same places... That´s why I´ve been making more of an effort lately, looking for reasons (or excuses, depending on how you look at it) to introduce variations in my holiday plans without straying too far away from known territory.

The two variations that I´ve seen working well for me are either taking the girls to places I´m really excited about (like when we went to Nerja this past spring, having been there as a child, or like when we visited Paris, because, well, who doesn´t want to visit Paris), or visiting family or friends who live in really cool places (like when we went to London a couple of years ago, also with the framily, or to Stuttgart this past summer with my cousins).

This year, we´re incredibly fortunate in that we´ve been able to fit in a third trip in the autumn, with bonus points for fitting both criteria: we have very good friends who live in California, and I was very keen to get to know that area, especially the city of San Francisco.

And let me tell you, it´s been an exceptional week: as well as spending a whole day exploring San Francisco (what a spectacular tram journey we had, up and down those hills), we visited several interesting places in and around San José (each of them in its own way, as Audrey Hepburn would say), and best of all, got to spend time together like in the good old times, catch up with each other, see the "kids" enjoy, celebrate Halloween differently for once, and laugh and laugh and laugh during the whole process.

(The best part of it all, as always, is the company. Here we are, walking around Chinatown.)

I´m delighted to have made this trip, to have prioritised (time, energy and budget-wise) this Californian adventure. The shock of coming back to reality this week may be a little tricky, given the jet lag, the weather and the daylight changes, but it´s still a hundred per cent worth it.

In these times we´re living in, with its Instagram posers and its constant FOMO (one day, we´ll have to talk about the paradox of election; I just saw I haven´t written anything on that yet), sometimes it´s very hard to decide how to spend our resources in ways that fulfil us and enrich our lives, instead of leaving us feeling empty and dissatisfied.

And there´s no "one size fits all" answer that we can all use: we each have to find our own answer, and feel free to modify it as time passes and both we and our circumstances change.

What do you personally find most fulfilling? Are you giving that thing the priority and attention it deserves? Or are you simply just doing things out of habit, because it´s comfortable or because everyone else is doing them?

We only make this trip once, and we really should make it count.

Nancy Reagan

Each of us gets to decide what makes our trip count, our life count. Each of us, as Audrey Hepburn would say, in our own way, according to our own priorities. Making each moment count is in our hands.

Thank you, "chavalit@s", both junior and senior, those who could make it in person and those who accompanied us in spirit. Thanks for making this week count.