A Splintered Mind

I attended a church picnic the other day. The sun was bright, yet the weather was cool. It was a perfect day for outdoor frolicking. I wasn’t sure if I would attend at first because my girls weren’t with me. Watching other people’s families have fun isn’t high up on my things to do on a lovely Saturday afternoon, especially if they are happy li’l nuclear families, but I decided to go anyway. It was the first activity since being assigned to the new ward [1] and I wanted to meet & mingle. Since it was a stake picnic, all the wards in our stake were in attendance, including the one I used to attend. I walked around and tried to recall names of the new ward members I had met on previous Sundays and said hello to the people I bumped into from my previous ward, but then somebody called out my name. Her hair was up and she was in large, dark sunglasses. All I could see of her face was her welcoming smile. “Brother Cootey! It's good to see you!”“Yeah, it's good to see yo...

One of my favorite methods of treating Depression is to go out for a simple walk. Another is to exercise creativity in some way. When I combine the two together, it is very effective therapy indeed. I love the challenge of capturing sunsets with my iPhone and playing with filters to get the perfect effect that expresses my mood. Lately, I've been so very stressed because my car is off the road. I've sunk $1600 into it this week and it still didn't pass inspection. So frustrating. Thankfully, Mother Nature has sent me glorious sunsets to lift my spirits.   ⁂   What types of activities lift your spirits and help you fight Depression? Share them with us below.  

“It's a terrible thing, I think, in life to wait until you're ready. I have this feeling now that actually no one is ever ready to do anything. There's almost no such thing as ready. There's only now. And you may as well do it now. I mean, I say that confidently as if I'm about to go bungee jumping or something - I'm not. I'm not a crazed risk taker. But I do think that, generally speaking, now is as good a time as any.” ~Hugh Laurie   That quote drifted across my Facebook stream sometime last weekend. Normally, I snort disdainfully at inspirational quotes overlaid on gauzy photos full of dappled sunlight, but this was not one of those occasions. Actors aren't normally my source for inspirational quotes. They are no different than any other person with a demanding job. They may seem more beautiful than your average person, but they aren't necessarily so in person. Many actors are convinced that their opinions on politics or global weather are the rig...

I'm a very lucky individual. I just wish that all of that luck was good. There always seems to be a balance. For every contest I win, there is the EPA letter declaring that I will be fined by the barrel for industrial toxic waste dumping. [1] When I first started this blog in 2005, I used bad luck as one of my topics of choice. You can read a classic entry here . In the end, however, I decided that writing about bad luck was at cross purposes with my efforts to think positively. So bad luck was dropped. That doesn't mean that my luck magically transformed into a rainfall of positive li'l Nestles Treasures from Heaven. [2] Recently, I have been having trouble buying a working stylus. My chronic motor tic disorder robbed me of my drawing skill years ago . I walked away from the art desk and all my dreams as an illustrator. Since my divorce, I have been dabbling in art again and recently wanted to step up my efforts. I chose to do it digitally since erasing mistakes was...