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...

My poor flowers! I've been so busy with freelance work that I completely forgot to water them. It's been maybe three days tops? The weather has been so hot outside, my plant just baked. Drat. I didn't get a chance to draw them yet. ADHD & me always seem to do this to my plants. I have the best intentions, too.  

Using Nature to Calm the Mind I've been doing a lot of biking lately. Losing weight. Getting out in the summer sun. It's felt good. I've needed the escape from the stress of my life to get out there and combat depression with hard exercise and sunshine. I've rode over 30 miles in the last three days, but none today. Today was spent indoors furiously typing away on freelance work that I was behind on. I'm thankful for the work, but freelance work has been taking over. What I mean is that I'm not spending any time working on my own book which desperately needs the fifth draft to be completed. It seems the faster I get, the more freelance work I have time to do. That's a good thing. Money is good. However, I'm not planning my time correctly, and not leaving time for my own pursuits. My book isn't going to write itself, and I'll need to squeeze even more open slots into my busy schedule if I want to make time for writing fiction. In the past week I...

I had a lot of fun writing this article for  ADDitude Magazine . Everybody misspeaks from time to time, and ADHD Adults can do it more than others. We just have crossed wires and things come out wackbards all the time. Can you relate? In this case I asked for an unlikely condiment to be put on my sandwich. I used that moment to help my girls understand later how they need to be patient with each other and cut each other some slack. You can read all about I'll Have a Turkey Sandwich; Hold the Autopilot  over at the Family Guy . Other Stuff • A year ago. Yes, one year ago , a friend on Twitter send me a link of articles on ADHD over at Psychology Today . Then I forgot about it. I have to say that the one on French kids not having ADHD was a joke, but the other articles were quite interesting. You probably would have found them very interesting, too, one year ago. Here's hoping you still will. • Not quite a year ago Healthline put together a very cool list of Android a...