Why its important to get off your bum even if you don't feel like it ..

Isn't it strange, that even when you know something is good for you, that it will make you feel better, it is sometimes very hard to do it.

Hades is away at the moment on a business trip.  That leaves me with the children in Cairo.  The weeks are fine, if tiring, because the routine keeps us going.  But on Friday and Saturday you wake up and realise that a day stretches before you and you don't have any friends to visit, or free Museums to fall into, or surrogate dogs to walk, or anything really to do.  Of course there are things to do, but finding something that will entertain both a hormonal boy and a pre-teen girl, can be a challenge.

So Friday, we just about got through in one piece.  Things got done, some Christmas cards were made and school uniform for the "Winter" was bought.  Saturday came and I felt very sorry for myself.  I lay in bed with a cup of coffee thinking I should be doing interesting challenging intellectual things with the kids rather than let them watch crap American teen telly or play on the computer.

And now I get to the core of the matter.  At around 9.30 I realised that I had to do something to turn the day around.  My instinct was to crumble back under the duvet and ignore the day but I knew that this would be A BAD THING TO DO.  So I got up and got the kids on the bus for the new University Campus, having thrown swimming things in a bag.

We got there and found the pool, only to find that it was a women's only hour.  Even that was fine, teenage son went off to explore in the nice safe campus confines and daughter and I went for a swim.  For a blissful 45 minutes we had an olympic size swimming pool in the warm sunshine all to ourselves.  It was blissful and relaxing and felt like the sort of spot-light memory which remains clear and perfect despite years passing by.

The son returned having obviously eaten unsuitable things looking very pleased with himself.  We all then went to explore the campus sports facilities and finished off with a huge Subway sandwich.  We even made the bus and got back in lots of time for relaxed homework and a film.

The real point of this story in my positive life, is to remind myself how a day can hinge on one moment of decisiveness, of deciding to get of my bum and just do something, anything really, rather than nothing at all.  In a small sort of way, I felt that we had had an adventure.  Not having Hades with me meant I had to handle it all and although it was a small achievement, when we arrived back feeling good, I felt good too.

So here are five positive things about getting off your bum and doing something .....

1. Your pull the day out of its rut and make a new sort of day that you have never lived before.
2. It opens the door to wonderful experiences that are more joyful for being unexpected
3. Maybe just for that day your kids see you as a more rounded person who can do unexpected things like stand on their hands in the swimming pool or cover a length in front call in a really quite rapid time
4. You can go to bed in the evening thinking, I did that, I made that day.
5. And when you are tempted to sit on the couch again, doing nothing, you have a vivid memory to pull you up and out into a fresh new day.