Accomplishments

Looking at pictures of myself from this past year is painful. I look beside myself, because I am. More recently, I'm getting through each day a little better now, but it's still very tentative. A tool that is helping me is the daily log, in which I record sleep, food/drink, mood, meds, etc. It allows me to remember things, now that my memory has been trashed. It helps me see what direction the changes are going in: manic, depressive, both, or none of the above. Lately, it's almost none of the above, but still a little bit depressed.  This is a great improvement over a month ago.

I'm sleeping OK! better than before, but still groggy in the AM. Not trusting myself to drive after dark while I'm still adjusting to this new med means turning down some invitations, sad. Being alone almost all the time: sad.

Core goals: getting to Day Treatment on time and not missing my volunteering stints twice a week.

 Other recent accomplishments of note include:

• not getting my car towed during either of the two Snow Emergencies, neither on the odd or on the even side of the street. This is a Major Accomplishment.

• shoveling the snow front and back for my building because my lazy-ass neighbors will never do it,
• completing the budget summary for last year, ditto,
• driving around the suburbs to banks and offices to deal with condo association business as we transition to a management company, because ditto.
• trying not to be so angry about this that it messes me up.

• doing the dishes every day.
• doing the laundry.
• taking out the trash.
• taking out the compost.
• and the recycling. 
• cleaning the cat box.
• keeping the cat alive with his diabetes meds and schedule.

• having healthy food in my fridge,
• eating breakfast,
• cooking food in my fridge before it goes bad,
• not eating all of it at once,
• only gaining ten pounds instead of twenty.

• reading whole books again, after months of not being able to read almost at all,
• returning them to the library before I owe money for them.

• picking up mail at the office on a day when I didn't have to run into anyone,
• shredding, without reading them, all of the course evaluations I'd saved since 1988,
• not reading them again,
• disposing of the shredded documents in such a way that they can never be read by anyone again, especially me.

• not freaking completely out over the weekly billing mistakes from a hospital, insurance company or management company,  claiming I owe them thousands of dollars when I don't,
• sorting out said bills without losing it completely.

• not being angry and sad all the time, just part of the time.
• letting myself be angry and sad without being so afraid that is will never stop. 
• saying stuff like this out loud because trying to hide it is getting me exactly nowhere.

Blue Moon

This Thursday, May 31, there will be a blue moon: a second full moon in a month. This sweet little video in honor of the blue moon uses a recording I love by Billie Holiday of the song "Blue Moon". I

Periwinkle

Rob Bresny (Free Will Astrology) offers these words to Scorpios this week:
"Earth Island Journal says scientists have discovered natural ways to clean up old munitions sites. If you plant periwinkle and parrot-feather plants in soil that's been bombed with TNT, they'll soak up and neutralize the noxious stuff. Likewise, pondweed absorbs and transforms nitroglycerin in land where explosives have been detonated. I urge you to find the metaphorical equivalents of periwinkle, pondweed, and parrot-feather plants this week, Scorpio. It's a perfect moment to detoxify the places in your life where past battles left behind toxic debris."

So, I should think about the psychic equivalent of phytoremediation. My favorite crayola color was periwinkle when I was a little. I confess that I am dismayed to find that Crayola has retired "thistle".

Oooh! I discover Photoshop.

Better late than never, eh? This is a picture from Spain, with the "watercolor" feature of Photoshop applied.