Hey hey, it’s MJ,

            I was originally when I started the blog going to have a section called “Self-Care Sunday” but that never became a thing because I needed to practice self-care before I wrote about it and I still probably won’t have a section dedicated to self-care. Everyone has a different definition of self-care and that’s totally cool. I have a page in my Bullet Journal that is dedicated to self-care ideas and I use it pretty frequently. I am going to do a post next month about self-care activities that I find helpful when I need to take a mental health break or just a few moments for me. 

            This is also a tour of my coloring book collection and I should use them more but it’s just the fear of ruining the picture because I don’t like the colors or something but I need to stop living with that fear. I grew up loving to color though I think that most kids feel that way and then in what like 2013 the trend of “adult coloring books” began and I think it’s kind of faded now but I for sure have Happy Color on my chromebook and it’s like a color by numbers app and I use it really frequently because it’s relaxing.

            I have seven coloring book and more than half of them are geeky and I love them so I’m just going to run through them and then maybe quantify why coloring is relaxing. Because I for sure did color some things during quarantine but I cannot find them at the moment because I tore them out of one of the books, my mistake. I think I got all of the mat Barnes and Noble, maybe one from Amazon but I bet you can find coloring books pretty much anywhere. 

            This first one is my first coloring book and I really like it and it’s the one I have torn pages out of to color them which it’s not perforated pages like coloring books for kids are and I should stop pulling pages out. I like the big bold designs and patterns and it is a lot of fun to color but it also can take days to color them because if you are like me your hand cramps up because you don’t write by hand much anymore so that repetitive motion hurts after a while.

            I’m doing all of the non-geeky ones first and the second which I am going to get my teeth into here soon is Winter Wonderland, what I like about this one is it’s mostly two page spreads and nice simple whimsical patterns and drawings. The sheer work that goes into a coloring book is amazing and I would never be that creative. 

            This one is one of my absolute favorites, I grew up near Chicago. The town I was born in and grew up in was about 45 miles south east of Chicago in Indiana so I grew up knowing about the Art Institute but didn’t actually visit until they had Van Gogh’s Bedroom’s on display a few years ago and I love that place. So having a coloring book of the classics at the Art Institute brings me great joy but also great trepidation because they are master works and I don’t want to do them dirty. 

            On to the geeky themed ones, first off is Harry Potter because I am in the age group where the books came out when I was in elementary school and I kind of grew up with the series. I do not support some of the authors viewpoints but I enjoyed the book. There are quite a few two page spreads in this one as well but my only problem with it is the binding, you can’t actually get to some of the middle sections between the pages which is a problem if you are a completionist like me. 

            Next is A Bestiary (did not know that this was a real word) of Tolkien, I also grew up on Lord of the Rings and I love Tolkien so having this coloring book is great because it’s all of or at least most of the beasts in the Tolkien universe.  

            Two more, I promise. The next one is Dr. Seuss and we all grew up on Dr. Seuss before they made all the movies I can still remember reading The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins which I feel like no one actually remembers and The Sneechs I loved Dr. Seuss growing up but I was never really a fan of Cat in the Hat, personal opinion that many people do not share. 

            Last one! I love Doctor Who that is not a secret, I am a lot less visual about it now but I still love the series and they came out with a coloring book in 2015 and I had to have it. I really like the formatting of this because the back of each page tells the episode in which the image is from and that is such a good idea because some of them I know but some I have no idea about. 

            Coloring is a lot of fun but it can also be frustrating and when you are practicing self-care it is important to find that line and not cross it. I now have a pile of coloring books on my office floor that I need to take pictures of and then put them back; for now. 

            How do you practice your version of self-care?

            I’ll see y’all later in the week with another post, I hope everyone has a great start to the week!

            -MJ