De-Stress December Day 6

Have you whittled down you to-do list at all? I have delegated present wrapping and decided that I am simplifying Christmas cards this year and enlisting help from Alexa. I am close to scaling back on destress December, but I will hold out as long as I can.

Right now, I am at the Myrtle Beach with Mom and two sisters-in-law to see Christmas shows. Today is super relaxing, but let me tell you about yesterday.

When I was getting on the plane, I was in a hurry. I took my noise canceling headphones out of my flight emergency kit, and instead of replacing the kit bag back into my backpack, I just left it on top. I wanted to get out of the aisle quickly and also knew I would be in a hurry once the plane landed because I had less than 45 minutes to make my next flight.

Fast forward an hour, the plane was landing at 12:22, and my next flight boarded at 12:23. I was stressing that I didn’t have enough time to make it. So as soon as I was allowed, I jumped up and grabbed my backpack, not taking the time to put the headphones away. I raced off the plane, not even waiting my turn.

Success! I made it to the next plane on time and even had a few spare minutes to use the restroom. But, as soon as I got on the plane I realized that I had left my emergency kit bag on the other plane. It contains my inhaler, allergy medicine, and all of my chargers. The flight attendant told me to go out and talk to the gate agent. I did that and she called the other gate agent where I had just deplaned. They sent someone on the plane to look for it. Then she had me run down there to pick it up. She said, “Don’t worry you have four minutes!” So now I am really stressing, running through the airport.

I get there and waited for the agent to check. No luck. They couldn’t find it!! And the other gate agent is away from her desk looking for me because they want to take off. She told me to talk to the gate agent when I get to Myrtle Beach that they would be able to help.

I ran back on to plane and stressed the whole (22-minute) flight. As I was deplaning, a fellow passenger who didn’t hurry off the plane told me that they made an announcement that, “We found a bag with some lady’s medicine and chargers.”

Twenty-five minutes later, after talking to 4 different employees who eventually told me to just call the 800 number, I left the airport with a half-dead phone.

Then I spent an hour filling out forms and waiting on hold. And another hour at WalMart replacing everything I needed to replace.

Have you figured out today’s destress suggestion? It is simply, “Do not hurry!”

De-stress Activity

Look over your revised to-do list and estimate how long each will take you. As you complete each, write down how long it actually took. If you are like me, everything takes longer than you think it should. I thought these posts would be about 15 minutes when in fact, I’ve been averaging about 3-hours. This exercise should help you become better at estimating so you can leave enough time and you don’t have to hurry.

Tangle du Jour

Today’s tangle was going to be hurry, but then I thought I we needed a slow-poke tangle. Being unable to find one, I thought of using snail. But I left too large a space and so divided it into two, like I was doing meer. I love the result so much, and it is so fun to do. So, drumroll please, I present to you: Slowpoke (or Meerly Snails)

For More Information

Do you have “hurry sickness?” I didn’t even know it was a thing until now.

Here is a decidedly Christian Article about beating hurry sickness.

Questions of the Day

Until I was working on this blog post, I was completely unaware that this was a habit of mine. Do any of you also have the same problem?

Please leave me a comment. (If you are on Facebook and want to share your tangles, please do so on my CZT page.)