Working Towards Wellness: November 2025

[itsfi]

Whether self-care is new to you or you're a seasoned pro when it comes to wellness activities, welcome! 👋

There's a lot going on in the world - be it due to the holidays season, or 2025 coming quickly to a close, or just everyday stuff. Sometimes, we just need a space to block out the outside noise and spend some time focusing on our own well-being. Or some time to remind us to look after ourselves. Consider this one of those spaces. Jump right on in and join us for another month of wellness bingo. 

Self-care, the activities we undertake for our own well being, varies on our circumstances and needs. We're each on our own personal self-care journey, but it doesn't hurt to have a little encouragement along the way. Or to be an encouragement to others as we work towards wellness. Wellness takes work; let's do the work together, BIC! 

For more information on wellness bingo, check out the following:

• How To Play
• Rows 1 & 2 Activities Described
• Rows 3, 4 & 5 Activities Described
• How To Post

Wishing everyone a happy and healthy November!  

Spoiler

Tagging a few folks who have posted to previous Working Towards Wellness threads. Will try to update tags throughout periodically. If I inadvertently missed someone, I apologize. Feel free to tag others you think may be interested. Be well!
@ather @blackkitty2014 @caitbird @CorgiMommy @curlychiquita @danielledanielle @missjeanie @PrettyPaint @Samtian @Shosh85 

[Samtian]

@CorgiMommy The farmer's market part made me smile big time haha, that sounds like the way to do it! 

[CorgiMommy]

Thanks, it was fun and the last one of the season @Samtian 

[missjeanie]

@CorgiMommy Sounds like the best way to do a farmers market to me!

[CorgiMommy]

Thank you @missjeanie 

[itsfi]

@CorgiMommy, that's an amazing way to spend your time at the farmers' market! Good on you for listening to your body when it comes to your recovery. 

[CorgiMommy]

@itsfi thank you, the afternoon nap is very much appreciated 

[caitbird]

@CorgiMommy  great job! Your farmer's market trip & goodies sounds so nice! And I'm glad you are taking care of yourself and healing at your own pace, that's so important. Best wishes for your recovery! 🤗

[CorgiMommy]

Thank you @caitbird 

[itsfi]

Was able to check off some additional squares since my last check-in but spent most of the time going back over a handful of self-care practices I did the first week. 

Activities completed marked by a different woodland creature each week. 

• Week 1 - bushy-tailed squirrel
• Week 2 - doe-eyed deer

Some highlights include: 

Body Care  

Wellbeing with a focus on caring for my body has involved a few different activities this month. In addition to stretching and exercise, I've been trying to make use of my HigherDOSE Infrared PEMF Go Mat for Recovery and Stress Reduction more (because I paid for it and want to get use out of it) particularly as part of my digital detox before bed practice, and have been making an effort to be better about keeping myself exfoliated and moisturized from head to toe more consistently with the shift to the cooler season. 

At some point, between First Aid Beauty reformulating its First Aid Beauty Facial Radiance Pads 28 ct / container and my facial skin becoming a little more sensitive to actives, I've been repurposing the FAB pads to exfoliate my elbows and the soles of my feet. 

The Hanni The Fatty, Fatty Acid Moisture Stick for moisture barrier 2.5 oz / 70 g has made for a nice, quick and easy way to pack in some moisture getting out of the shower. I reach for this when I don't have time or am too lazy to wait for lotion or oil to dry. (photo from another trip)

Stress Management + Stretch (30 minutes): I had an idea to knock out a couple of good-for-my-health activities at once and came up with this plan:

• As I was holding my stretches for a count of 10, I'd use the countdown for each stretch to "let go" of a thing/person/issue that was either taking up more time than necessary or worthwhile. When I moved on to another stretch, I tried "letting go" of something else that was needlessly taking up space in my head or heart.

• I would do this throughout the week, some days with my stretching taking place in one set time and place, like after I got home and changed into my comfy clothes or at the end of my day as part of my wind down routine before bed. Or, other days, I'd do one or two stretches throughout the course of the day - stretching my calves or ankles while waiting at the checkout line at the grocery store, or my arms/wrists while waiting for the light to turn green; or shoulder and neck rolls on the couch during a commercial break, etc.

Aromatherapy + Music Therapy: Have been reaching for my candles a lot more when I'm home, occasionally adding some music in the background, or softly humming whatever tune or jingle has found its way into my head. I've had some jazz instrumentals 🎷🥁🎹 playing in the background on a few weeknights and have been listening to a lot of Daniel Caesar lately as well. 

Quiet Time - Journal - Meditate - Breathe: Occasionally, a candle 🕯 or tune 🎶, or both, make their way into my quiet time / journal time. Weeknights or weekend mornings are when I typically sit down to journal, and I mostly write freely (without a predesignated prompt or topic) when it comes to my journal time). At times, I will try other forms or approaches to journaling, but more times than not, I just go with whatever I have ruminating in my head or heart and put it down with pen and paper.

On one particular morning earlier this week, I lit a candle (this was gifted to me by a dear friend and smelled incredibly of warm, freshly made pancakes with maple syrup, yum!), made myself a cup of warm water with lemon and thyme (recommended to me by a former coworker), and spent a few minutes jotting down some thoughts and feelings. 

[missjeanie]

@itsfi I just found one of the Hanni The Fatty, Fatty Acid Moisture Stick for moisture barrier 2.5 oz / 70 g in my stash when I moved and I had forgotten how nice they are!  Excellent job keeping up on exfoliation and moisturizing with the winter weather settling in. 

[itsfi]

It's taken many, many years @missjeanie but I've figured out that exfoliating and moisturizing regularly helps keep my skin from getting dry or more dry. I know, what a discovery, right?! 🙄 So innovative. 😆 Now, if only I can do this regularly. I will say that products like that Hanni stick make it easier. One of the angles that brand used when it first launched was that it was body care for lazy people or people who didn't have time for body care and I was all "sign me up!" 😅 

[caitbird]

@itsfi  awesome job! Love the little squirrel and deer - where did you find them? They are so cute!

Great job with your wellness progress - I really love your idea to combine your stretches with "letting go" of something, that's such a great idea! I'm going to have to try that myself. Love that you spent some time combining aromatherapy + hydration + journaling time - multitasking and combining self care/wellness activities is always particularly satisfying! 

My wellness activities this week have been mostly repeats of last week's, I think, but I'll see what I can check off by the end of this weekend.

[itsfi]

@caitbird, thank you. The stretch + letting go routine is a nice one; letting go sometimes extends beyond one stretch but that's fine. Depending on what I'm trying to let go of while stretching, there's that physical self-care + mental/emotional self-care combination that's really helpful. There's a lot of clipart online through various vendors, some free, some for a fee, like freepik, vecteezy, etc. - some of them have rules / terms for attribution and some of them have easier search filters to work with. I find that a few of the self-care activities I tend to do often lend themselves naturally (for me anyways) to being paired together, so those usually get checked off early on in the month or I sometimes pick and choose if I want to focus on something more in a given month.

[caitbird]

notes for week of 11/1-11/8:
I've already made a fair amount of progress on this month's Wellness bingo board, and am quite pleased with how many activities I've been able to check off so far! Several of them kind of ended up tying into one another, as you'll see. Notes on each activity under a spoiler, because I accidentally wrote a book 😅

Spoiler

💜treat yourself: It's my birthday this week! I decided to treat myself to a special gift that I've been wanting for awhile: a blind date with a book + self care box from Etsy. There are a lot of shops on etsy offering blind date with a book boxes; the shop I ordered from is WrappednMysteryBooks. The shop owner is lovely and puts a lot of care into curating a blind date with a book you'll enjoy, and I was very excited to see what book (and self care add ons) I would get! I can't wait to start reading my book - and everything was packaged so nicely!


💜fall faves: I have been enjoying a lot of seasonal things this fall, from seasonal treats like pumpkin muffins or pumpkin cranberry bread, to teas like pumpkin spiced pie or apple cinnamon, to candles like Sweet Water Decor Warm and Cozy or DW Home Sweet Apple. It really helps me to appreciate the season and all that comes with it (despite how much I dislike the colder weather and shorter days).

💜body care: I hate that prickly skin feeling I get after showering as the water evaporates (I guess it is trans-epidermal water loss, or TEWL, happening), so I have been making an effort to apply a lotion or body cream after I towel off, which helps. I like to use either a basic unscented one, or one that layers well with whatever fragrance I am wearing that day (more aromatherapy!)
my current full sized body lotions & creams

💜stress management: something that I have been coming to terms with as I get older is that I often don't deal with stress very well, and a lot of my coping mechanisms and behavioral patterns that I tend to fall into when I am dealing with stress are, shall we say, not exactly helpful or healthy. So, that is something that has been an ongoing work in progress for me, working on identifying and unlearning unhelpful behaviors and patterns, and trying to replace them with new, helpful ones. I've definitely gotten better in this area, but it's something that I'm continuing to work on for sure. My therapist has been a great help with this, and has pointed me toward various resources and tools/techniques to try. I have also been trying some different things on my own. I have found journaling (there are lots of prompts out there specifically for anxiety and/or stress management) and practicing gratitude - or even combining the two with gratitude journaling - to be very helpful. The other night I was feeling very anxious and stressed, and I impulsively made a list in my journal of all the positive things I could think of in that moment to appreciate and be grateful for. It really helped me to feel better, so I plan to try to do this more often, as I feel the need. I had an interview this week, and they actually asked me about how I identify and manage stress to prevent compassion fatigue and burnout (it is a job in the animal care/animal rescue field, so this is a real issue).

💜stay hydrated: as always, I bring one of my big (20 oz) reusable water bottles with me everywhere, and refill it multiple times per day. I've also been drinking more tea since fall began, getting in at least one cup pretty much every day lately.

💜aromatherapy: I am definitely in my aromatherapy era! Most days I wear at least one perfume, and sometimes two - one for daytime, and one for bedtime. For my daytime perfumes, I'm mostly focusing on samples right now; I've been trying to balance both new-to-me samples to try, and tried-and-true favorites in sample format, which I'm working my way through for the Shop Your Stash / Use Your Stash Challenge: Fall 2025 🍂🍁  thread. I have also been lighting a candle pretty much every day lately. I have been enjoying a lot of fall scents, as I mentioned.

💜have a warm & cozy drink: as I mentioned, I have been drinking more tea of late; partly because I'm trying to work my way through more of my (enormous and excessive 😂) tea stash, and partly because I just enjoy it, particularly in colder weather. One of the other forums I post in (FabFitFun) also has a very active tea lovers thread that hosts periodic challenges (kind of like these Wellness bingo threads!), which is encouraging me to drink more tea as well, so I can post and share. I've been drinking at least one cup pretty much every day, and more often two - sometimes I even manage three!

💜practice gratitude: I have been practicing gratitude quite a bit lately, actually. First, because I've changed up my digital journaling a little in the past couple of weeks (partly because I have a new laptop, so new apps, etc.). I've started making daily short journal entries in my notes app, each with the same few simple prompts, plus space for whatever is on my mind currently/whatever is happening that day. One of the daily prompts is to list 3 things I'm grateful for each day. I've only been doing this consistently for a few weeks now, but so far, I've always been able to come up with (at least) 3 things pretty easily, and I don't think there have been any repeats either, which really puts into perspective just how much I have to be grateful for. The other reason gratitude is on my mind every day this month is that, as I mentioned, one of my other forums often posts monthly/periodic challenges in the tea thread - and this month's tea challenge includes practicing gratitude! The rules are that every time you check off a bingo square and post your tea, you also share something you're grateful for. I am big on gratitude, obviously, so I love this idea. BTW, if any of you ever feel like sharing with BIC something you're grateful for, I made a thread for that! Gratitude Thread! 🙂 

💜free space: one other wellness/self care activity I've been working on this month (and for the past few months) is my ongoing efforts to tackle the clutter, mess, and general unpleasantness of my room. Over a long time of periodic depressive episodes that made it hard to keep up with tidying and cleaning, I ended up with a pretty horrendous case of "depression room" as it is apparently (and appropriately) called. In the interest of improving my general environmental wellness, I've made it a long-term project to declutter, tidy, and clean my room as much as possible, as and when I'm able to. It's been a major undertaking and is still very much a work in progress, but it is better than it was, so I'm grateful for that. Another thing I've been working on is keeping in touch with friends more, which has been really nice.

💜treat someone else: another thread in the FabFitFun forum is called "PIF and Purge." PIF stands for Pay It Forward, and the way it works is that people post items they don't need or want and are looking to re-home, and other forum members can claim the items if they want them. The person who posted the item then "pays it forward" by sending it to them as a gift. I posted an item - an unused mug, since I have so many (and recently bought several more, oops 😅) - and it was claimed by a very sweet lady from the forum. So, I shipped off my gift to its new home with someone who will use and enjoy it.

💜quiet time, journal, meditate, breathe: As I mentioned, I have been using journaling as a self care/stress management tool (pen and paper journal), as well as for practicing daily gratitude (digital journal), among other things; this past week, I've also started branching out into a few more different journals and notebooks. One of my hyperfixations-slash-insomnia-projects last weekend was inventorying all of my (many) empty notebooks, which I've sort of been collecting/hoarding XD I decided to look on Pinterest for ideas for what to do with empty notebooks, and, after finding quite a few interesting suggestions, pulled out several of my notebooks to use for new types of journals. Time will tell which of these I actually manage to keep up with, but as of now, here are my current (traditional/non-digital) journals and notebooks:


💜music therapy: as I mentioned, I recently got a new laptop - actually a Chromebook (a very generous early birthday gift from my parents), and am still working on transferring everything over from my old laptop - including my extensive music library. In the meantime, I finally caved and joined Spotify, which I've just started exploring. I also still enjoy listening to CDs in the car; right now I have one of my many mix CDs - I believe I titled it something like "murder ballads & trad folk III", which should tell you something about the type of music I like XD - on rotation. Also, another of my daily digital journal entries' prompts is to list my song of the day; sometimes, I post whatever it is to the 🎶✨Song of the Day and Music Thread!✨🎶  thread.

💜seasonal fruits & veggies: this year's tomato bonanza from the garden continues aplenty; in addition to fresh tomatoes in salads and cooked tomatoes in pastas, chilis, stews, and soups, my mom has dehydrated a large batch of them, and also made 11 jars of tomato pesto! My current favorite lunch (or snack, or anytime XD) is a toasted bagel cheddar cheesemelt with sliced fresh tomatoes; it's so flavorful and feels like an incredibly indulgent treat every time. As for fruits, apple season is in full swing, and citrus season is beginning, so we've been enjoying lots of both of those.

💜exercise (30 minutes): yesterday was a pretty nice day, and I managed to get outside and spend some time in the yard and woods around the house gathering kindling for our 2 woodstoves. It was really nice to enjoy the fresh air and move around, something I am afraid I don't do often enough. And I like the feeling of getting ready for the cold weather and cozy times ahead.


💜have a healthy meal: one of the things I'm often grateful for is that, as I still live with my parents, and my mom is an amazing cook (my dad pitches in once a week, too), I'm spoiled with delicious - and healthy - meals almost every night. My parents were away on vacation for a bit over a week last month, and I really missed my mom's cooking XD The other night, we had salmon burgers with roasted butternut squash (more seasonal veggies from the garden!), which was really good. And tonight, veggie stir fry with ramen noodles and tofu, and pomegranate!

If you read through all of that (I swear I didn't mean to write so much! 😅), bless you.

💜

[missjeanie]

@caitbird I love all of your journal categories.  What a great way to keep thoughts organized.  

Do you find the EOS body lotion formula a good one?  I see a few people posting about the different scented ones and have contemplated giving them a shot.

[caitbird]

@missjeanie  thank you! I am the type of person who likes to keep lots of lists and notebooks and journals, haha. I do like the EOS lotion - I've only tried the unscented one, but I find it's moisturizing and absorbs easily. It's a good price IMO, too. I'd like to try some of the scented varieties at some point.

[itsfi]

@caitbird, congrats on BINGO x2! 🎉 On your way to more too. Ahhh, love the warmth from a woodstove - and that you can cook on them! Enjoy your birthday week. 🎈

[caitbird]

@itsfi  thank you so much! (I love that gif, haha) 💜

[danielledanielle]

Seriously, awesome progress @caitbird . HBD and that book date looks great 

[caitbird]

@danielledanielle  thank you so much! 😊

[Samtian]

@caitbird Wow amazing job!!! I wish my mom cooked haha. Those journals are stunning.