You know when you hit that wall in life that you just cannot summon the energy to scale it? No matter how much inspiration you seek, no matter how much sleep you get, no matter how much wine you drink you just can’t budge. The inertia of the weight of all the things on your to-do list, the day-to-day minutiae of your life just grinds and you end up treading water until that spark reappears to propel you forward. And you know that the spark will come…you just have to get through the current fog.

That’s been my life these last few days, actually weeks…oh who am, I kidding it’s been months! Fuck winter and fuck my lazy backside for staying so sedentary.

I was lamenting all things first world problems with my sister-in-law today who has just weathered the mother of all shit storms…the house move. So she’s living amid chaos and boxes in a fabulous new house that is just begging for her interior decorating touch…just as soon as she gets the boxes out of the hallway, the bedroom and the over-sized laundry.

There we were spluttering our way through a shared depressive language and she listed off five things that she finds useful to get through the crap days.  “It’s the little things you need,” she said. Wise. ‘Cos little is all one can manage at times like this, am I right?

Here they are:

1. Get a $20 Chinese massage. You know those dodgy looking shoulder rub places that are everywhere? Pop in and put your feet up for 30 minutes. Close your eyes and let their expert hands and elbows (& feet if that’s your thing) pummel away the weight hanging on. Nothing beats a good shoulder rub!
2. Invest in one luxury cosmetic (like lipstick). If you can manage nothing else in your day a slathering of a gorgeous new shade on your lips with dark sunglasses can propel you through just about anything.
3. Get decent active wear. Not the stretchy, loosey goosey after one wash stuff – but the good brand, strong suction power tights that make you feel like Sporty Spice the minute you hike them up. Active wear is one step closer to actually being…you know… active, even if you can’t move your butt off the couch.
4. Walk out of the house. Even for 10 minutes around the block. Leave the four walls of your cloudy comfort zone and take in some fresh air…before returning to the couch and the remote control.

And finally she revealed the mother of all ‘can’t be fucked with adulting’ tips.

5. 

   PJs or Day Wear…you decide!

   Turn your PJs into daywear. Don’t buy traditional pyjamas, buy casual loose daywear (K-Mart couture, I call it) and sleep in that then if you wake up on the wrong side of bed you can afford to not get dressed all day (just add your new lipstick perhaps) and you’ll look somewhat respectable when you open the door for your latest delivery from e-Bay (because, let’s face it, when you haven’t left the house in a week, these deliveries are your life source).

So when life feels overwhelming and you just want to hide in your blanket fort try one of these ‘go to’ tips instead. It’s the little things that may just reignite that spark.

I’m off to Kmart.

One of the best things about the house that we moved into a few months ago, aside from two toilets and an inside laundry and, as it turns out an excellent landlord, is the fact that we have a big backyard and a nice front yard and a decent nature strip. All of which add up to one thing: lots of lawn that needs to be mowed.

I am mad for mowing the lawn. I fucking love it. The smell of freshly cut grass should be the eau-de-cologne of an Australian summer (that and the smell of sunscreen on the beach). I find it so satisfying because it meets a number of criteria for a happy life.  Exercise, sunshine and a job well done!

The Victa Workout has you hauling a thirty-kilo machine up and down your yard for a good few hours all the while getting heavier and heavier as the catcher fills. Which you steadily try and ignore because watching those straight lines of freshly mowed lawn appear before you is just so intoxicating…until you’re leaving behind trails of grass patches that you have to return to rake up. Emptying a catcher full of grass is no easy task either. You’re hoisting it, shaking it and hoisting again until it’s empty. That’s hard yakka my friends.

I bought by second-hand Victa off eBay for $80 bucks from a guy that had it handed down to him from his uncle. I think it’s about 20 years old. It’s been well loved. Unlike its sister workout, the Dyson Workout, the Victa Workout has the added bonus of getting you outside on a sunny day. All that Vitamin D is good for the soul and that’s something that vacuuming will never be no matter how much you suck!

Mowing lawns gets you outside because that’s where the job is. You can’t cut grass watching Narcos on a sunny Sunday afternoon. Although, you could rig up an iPad if your obsession is strong…and honestly, with Pedro Pascal all over Season 3, I wouldn’t blame you! *exhales quickly and fans herself*

Sorry, where was I… oh yeah. A job well done.

I find mowing lawn one of life’s simple pleasures. The sense of satisfaction I get when I have completed this task is akin to Tom Hanks making fire in Castaway. “Look what I have done”. I’m not saying that my lawn mowing prowess is going to earn me a place in any gardening Olympics, because perfection can get fucked, but I do a fair job.

Another thing I love about lawn mowing is that no one can bother you. It’s a solo sport. Just you, the Victa and the sound of the 2-stroke motor, which leaves you alone with your thoughts and justified in ignoring any bastard that tries to communicate with you while you’re mid-mow. (And as a mother to an almost-4-year-old I’ll take any solo sport I can get!)

And just one final point I’ll make in this, my ode to lawn mowing, is that it’s great for your mental health because you don’t really have to think about it. It’s the perfect task to just do. I’ve been in a bit of a state of inertia these past few days where I find it hard to know what to do. There’s either too much to do or I’m not doing enough so I end up doing nothing. As a wise friend once said to me about living with depression, “When you don’t know what to do, just do anything”.

So this morning I did. I mowed the lawns. My yard looks neat and tidy and I’ve had a decent workout in the sunshine and my head is clearer than it has been in days. And, as an added bonus…I’ve written a blog post about it! Yay, go me. That’s winning at life. Simple.