How I Keep My Chronic Depression in Check
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My chronic depression is here to stay, but with these components, I keep the monster from visiting so often.
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Depeche Mode: Becoming Part of the Mass
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My whole body is goosebumps as I hear the songs I listened to secretly on my Walkman, late at night as my parents would fight outside my room. These songs made me feel like I wasn’t the only person who thought things weren’t right in this world.
Read More4 Steps to Eating More Fruits and Vegetables
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Friends always ask me how I am able to buy the bulk size produce for a family of four without it going bad before we finish it. This is how I do it.
Read MoreI Want To Be An Expert In Joy
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There is a sense of surrender in Joy that is different than its lesser, tamer cousin, happiness. Joy, that next level of happiness, is when we let go
Read MoreWhat I See on My Morning Run
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For the past 5 years, I have ran or walked 3 miles nearly every morning at 6am.
It is the same 3 miles. The exact same route. This is just one of the ways my OCD rears it’s head. I used to apologize for it but when you do the same things, the same way, at the same time every day, you begin to notice that others do too. They just don’t publicize it.
Read MoreBill Cunningham: "He Who Seeks Beauty Will Find It"
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It was not his style that he is remembered for, he wore a bright blue utilitarian painter smock every day, but his simplicity, his impartiality and most of all his joy of life.
Read MoreWalk Like You Know Where You are Going (Even If You Don't)
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These survival skills morphed into actuality as I realized I had learned along the way how to adapt quickly to new situations. I size up situations quickly and adjust accordingly. Always, always act like you belong in the place you find yourself, even if you don’t.
Read MoreMunch: The freedom and challenge of Jante
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Some of us realize that we just aren’t as dazzling or special as we thought we were going to be, myself included. Life gets in the way. There is always someone prettier, smarter, more successful, someone who shines brighter.
Read MoreLost in Books
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My 5-year-old son and I are sitting side by side on the couch reading. I with Annie Dillard’s An American Childhood, a book I should have read long ago and he another A-Z Mystery. I have a bag of chips on my left and every few pages he raises his hand out, without speaking for another chip. My 7-year-old is elsewhere in the house, probably in the smallest space between two pieces of furniture, curled up with his own book.
Read MoreSummer Happy Hour Tradition
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This summer will be the 5th that I host a summer time Happy Hour on my deck. As one of the kids who regularly attends put it, “You know, Happy Hour! Where kids play and the grown-ups have a glass of wine”.
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To My Oldest on his 7th Birthday
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My precious boy with the name of a gladiator …or a dictator…not sure which. Your father told me your name on our 3rd date. I had the feeling it was a deal breaker for whether or not we’d move forward. I loved the rich history of the name of two of your great-great grandfathers before you.
Read MoreFavorite Part of the Day
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I started when my boys were quite young.
My sons, 16 months apart, needed me at every 5-minute interval…or both at the same time.
I started to see the days meld into one another, an endless sea of diapers and yoga pants. I needed something, even just one thing to set them apart. Each night before sleep, I’d write that one thing down in my journal. That one thing I could hold on to for that day.
Read MoreFruit Tastes Like Love
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No music. No singing. These were not women who would pat my red head as I passed them by or give me a little squeeze. They didn’t pop a piece of ripe cantaloupe in their mouth as they chopped. They simply cut, chopped, diced, sorted into dixie bowls. This was the morning snack for the Vacation Bible School kids, including me. Fruit I normally would not have a home. Fresh fruit that was not from a tree in our yard was a treat, a luxury. I looked forward to 10am when I’d be passed one of these bowls along with a little plastic fork. Was it duty? Was it a job that needed to be done so they signed up to do it? Was it an act of service to God? Not sure which but with each bite, I felt loved.
Read MoreThe Smiths: A Recharge of Lost Emotions
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Singer song writer, Ryan Adams says "Whenever I’m stuck when I’m writing, I could just put a Smiths record on, and it’s kind of like if my songwriting was an iPhone, it recharges it in like, five minutes.” I understand. The Smiths do the same for me in whatever mood I am feeling.
Read MoreOde To Costco
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Staff got used to seeing me and watching the boys grow. In the midst of the isolation and exhaustion that only a Stay-At-Home-Mom of two toddler boys would understand, I was thankful for the few moments of adult conversation as staff would comment on the boys.
Read MoreA Weekend Visit to a Monastery
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The first thing you notice is just how quiet is it. You become self-conscience, aware how loud every thud of your foot hitting the pavement. You are an elephant in a monastery. You take smaller, quieter steps reminding yourself you are not in a rush.
Read MorePostcards: Small Effort, Great Rewards
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It doesn’t take much to connect, sometimes just making an effort.
Read MoreFor the Love of Rosemary
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Now married for well over a decade, with our own home, I take walks with our boys, blissfully plucking rosemary from front yard walkways. The scent reminds me of falling in love, dreaming of this life we would build together. I hand a bit over for my sons to smell. I wonder what memories the scent will conjure up for them.
Read MoreVan Gogh and Finding Home
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It was heartbreaking. I could sense the desperation, not only in trying to recreate the original painting but to recreate that place of peace and stability he had just one year ago. He longed for a home, to belong and had it for fleeting moment. The pang to paint it for if he could, he would be able to conjure it up again, capture it.
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