February Greetings!

I have been so busy this February! We had the Public Allies mid-year retreat where we frolicked in snow with team-building games and a scavenger hunt. Also, the AmeriCorps team service project is picking up speed and we're hurtling into March!  First up, a pocket park clean up!

Lover and I have several new additions to the family - first and foremost, our new kitty, Otter, who we have nicknamed "Quadrapus." She's super affectionate and a big time purr-er. Also, we have a new tank of fish - Ponyo, Chihiro, San, and Valve. Ponyo, Chihiro and San are Glofish (all named for Hayao Miyazaki characters), and Valve is an albino pleco, or as we like to call him, a "sucker fish."

I'll be ordering seeds from the catalogs soon - I can't wait!!! And, I've got a few new projects going on - painting an end table with a really cool motif, a new kitchen apron, and designing an invitation for the local chapter of Soroptimist. All pictures will be posted here!

Winter Wonderland

I am thoroughly enjoying this winter wonderland from within a bundle of bathrobe and bunny slippers. This morning I made cinnamon waffles from scratch and hot cocoa with toasted marshmallows. I've perused Reddit, Facebook, and Craftster to my heart's content. Now it's time to make a plan of action, and act.

Here are the boys digging out the driveway.

I hope everyone has a warm and safe snow day. 

A Great Sentiment

Walking in a Straight Line

A funny little video on an odd human tendency.

A Mystery: Why  Can't We Walk Straight? from NPR on Vimeo.

They’re On To Me

Just had to share this creative video I came across on the The Curious Brain!

They’re On To Me

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!!!

2010 was a big year, especially since I resolved to join AmeriCorps. It was a process that began in January with the application, interviews that took place over the spring, and acceptance in July. In the meantime, I worked a full time job, a part time job, and took a college course. In September, I made the big changes - moved in with Lover, and switched to my AmeriCorps - Public Allies position. I'm loving it. 

Highlights of the year include:

1.) Skydiving for my birthday.

2.) Two trips to Cape Cod!!!

3.) A trip to Colorado and to San Francisco, CA!

4.) The SPARKS trip to Maryland and Pennsylvania!

5.) Moving!

6.) Starting the process for next year's garden!

7.) Time spent with family and friends!

I used to not make resolutions for the New Year. I thought it was silly. However, I've come to see how I can utilize the timing (the new calendar year) and share in the momentum of countless others creating goals and taking steps to achieve them. Last year, I made goals in December that I realized might as well be called my New Year's Resolutions because it was close enough and would take me through the year to achieve. Thus, I joined the Resolution bandwagon.

I think 2011 will be about getting fit. I signed up for the Warrior Dash, and I am making smaller fitness goals along the way, including a St. Patty's Day 5k. Since I've started a food diary with the My Fitness Pal app on my iPhone and have been adding more activity into my life, I've been losing weight and gaining more energy. I am building a life, and I want to be healthy while living it. 

I know fitness is a common resolution. I know the majority of resolutions get chucked out the window. I proved to myself last year that giving up need not be the case if I have true resolve - try, try again, and when I fall, get back up and keep trying. Rest when needed. Etc.

I am looking forward to this, with the same kind of excitement as when I first entered into vegetarianism. That was eight years ago, and still going (though I will admit that I have eaten fish every couple of years...but you get back up and try again...). It'll be nice to look back in a few years and see what adventures I encountered as a result, just as vegetarianism lead me into a banquet of food choices and ethnic cuisines, and also connected me with new folks who shared similar values. 

So, that's my resolution. I'd love to hear yours!

Recycle!

I tweeted this, but I wanted to share it here with you!

Check out: Recycle Anything...yes Anything! - Crushing down plastic soda bottles,... http://bit.ly/9FiDaD

Also, here's a silly picture.



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

You can't change the seasons...

I always find so much to share, and so much that I want to share here on my blog! Yet I seem to find little time to post things to match the depth and scope I would like to - meaning I write quick posts and do my best to add pictures, though I'd like to match it with engaging and descriptive paragraphs of superb writing skill... Yet, perhaps that would be too verbose for a blog, anyway.

So, this is the quote I'd like to share today, along with some quick thoughts:

"You must take personal responsibility. You cannot change the circumstances, the seasons, or the wind, but you can change yourself" - Jim Rohn

 

Some time ago, I found myself stagnating, depressed, wallowing and wondering where my self-destructive tendencies came from. I was fearful of the future and fearful of true intimacy with others. I felt that life was a biochemical propulsion forward to...what? That question drove me crazy. It was a series of circumstances and environmental factors, plus previous personal choices, that had lead me to this place of darkness. 

 Activities that were once fun and meaningful had become dead and mechanical. I withdrew from friends, family, a lover, and amused myself for hours on a computer. I had no interest in killing myself, but ceasing to exist would have been agreeable to me. 

At some point I realized that if I was going to live this life, I might as well live it well. The fear and anxiety had become a habit. The sadness and numbness, which had alleviated the physical pain of the anxiety for temporary periods of time, had started to subside, leaving the door open for days and nights of a twisted stomach, palpitations, and what felt like a vise grip around my chest, hindering my lungs in breathing. Obsessive thoughts and analytical thinking further narrowed my view, until whatever topic it was that provoked the anxiety became all there was to life - my life, which is filled with so many things, became only this one, terrible thing that had me wrapped in a ball. 

 It's no way to live. And since I had decided to live, I couldn't continue this way. I got professional help. I reached out to friends. I read literature about depression and anxiety, and about the brain and new neuroscience. I watched ted.com talks on the psychology and brain science of happiness.  I began counting the things in my life that were good - on some days I counted the fact that I had two legs, or eyes that could see, or hands, as things to be grateful for. I began planning for the future. There was no room for advancement in my job, and I wanted to earn a Masters, though I was having trouble deciding on what one. I applied for AmeriCorps to continue working in non-profit where advancement was more likely to happen, and I would gain an education award while I decided what my Masters would be in. I gained a lover who I tried in self-destruction to alienate, but I knew he was a good partner, and he has to this day proven himself to be extremely supportive. I put negative people in my life at a distance, so I could keep my sanity, or what was left of it. I began finding activities that relaxed me, or gave me joy, and also allowed me to feel accomplished.

In other words, after isolating and shrinking into my little world of despair, I expanded. I nurtured relationships with people who were healthy for me. I gained professional advice. I stretched my knowledge on neuroscience to have a better understanding of myself, and figured out ways to make myself feel better and empowered. I made choices that would lead me to more opportunities in life, and am continuing to make choices that do so. I am defining personal boundaries, and learning how to communicate fully, openly, and honestly. I don't allow labels or diagnoses, or assumed patterns of behavior, to control how I live my life.

This all took time. But time passes whether we change ourselves or not. Changing is hard, and there are plenty of relapses. I still have days where I am anxious or sad, and I still have instances where real anger snowballs into bitchy behavior - and I witness this from within somewhere and feel like I can't stop it. But I have a goal, and I keep working towards it. 

My resolutions for the new year mainly have to do with health. Over these past few years where my mental health was in jeopardy, I largely ignored the state of my physical health. Now at the brink of thirty, I must say I have a little regret in that. Yet, I have a changing mental state, and that is helping me to understand how it informs my physical state of health. For example, I know I have a neurochemical addiction to chocolate. I see, or think of it, and I immediately begin salivating. When I eat it, my brain receives a rush of pleasurable dopamine. When I begin to crave chocolate, part of what's happening is that my brain is in need of the dopamine fix. Lucky for me, the neuroplasticity of the brain allows me to work on rewiring the circuits. Instead of hitting up an ice cream parlor, or the cupboards where I have hid some candy bars, I can find something else that will give me the same pleasure rush, but without the caffeine, cavities, and calories.

It's all easier said than done, of course. Figure out what it is that you can't change, and then work on changing what can be changed (and needs to be) within that framework. I think you'll find that that framework will expand as you do.

Salient Sunday, Dec 26

1. Christmas Day. My family celebrates a secular Christmas, as do Lover and I. We love the bright lights, the food, and the giving and getting of gifts. Christmas morning was with my family to open gifts by their tree. I got a beautiful, new tote for work from my mom, plus a really nice parka, and an extensive hot cocoa kit (I really love hot cocoa). I also snatched her no-longer-being-used bread making machine to bring back to my house and try out. I gave her one of my original paintings that she loves, a drawer for her K cups, and a CD visor for her car. Her fiance gave me a set of free weights (strong like bull!), so that'll become part of my routine. Sister got a handknitted hat with devil horns and matching gloves from us, plus a starter kit I put together for her to try decoupage.

We had dinner with Lover's family and our roommate. His father made everyone the most bangin' potato knishes I have ever had in my life, and I plan to learn how to make them. They gave us gift certificates, and we gave them a belgian waffle maker (just wait for it...).

On our way home, we dropped by a friend's house to do presents. We got their daughter the cutest little handmade monster hat, and gave them some fun art by kudu-lah. They got us...a belgian waffle maker. Score! Lol.

Roommate also gave us presents - a hot cocoa machine (everyone knows I love hot cocoa), and a snow cone machine...lol... I think we made off like bandits this season!

2. Christmas Eve. On Christmas Eve, Lover and I visited my family, bearing a gift of Chinese food (yeah, that's how we roll). We compared iPhone apps and I watched an episode of "Buffy" with my sister. That night, Lover and I returned to our home to exchange gifts. He gave me a tablet (my laptop has been dying) that he refurbished himself and filled with my favorite software programs (yay!). Along with that, he gave me a beautiful necklace, and bunny slippers, among other fun little gag gifts. I gave him a basket of humorous t-shirts (to add to his plentiful funny t-shirt collection), shot glasses that I handpainted with silly mustache faces (he's a fan of the mustache motif), and a carnivorous plant kit. My gag gift to him was an Office Space set with an Initech mug and a "Jump to Conclusions" mat.Oh yeah.

3. iPhone Acquisition. It has finally happened. I have purchased an iPhone. I love it. My favorite apps include Twitter, allrecipes, and Hipstamatic.  If you happen to share my love for the iPhone, please feel free to share your favorite apps with me by leaving a comment!

4. Gift Wrapping and Shopping. It's fun to get or make things for other people, and then wrap them up. I am thinking next year to use more sustainable gift paper like paper bags and newspaper, that I can decorate with colorful stamps. I always reuse ribbons, bows, and gift bags.

5. Twitter. I have finally discovered how to use Twitter to my benefit. As an app on the iPhone, I can follow a myriad of people and organizations whose tweets I find worth my time, and this has diversified my news sources. I retweet often articles I find the most interesting or most useful. Feel free to follow me @veramenagerie on Twitter!

Feel free to share your highlights with a comment! Happy Holidays!

Warrior Dash 2011

Because I have a little bit of a thrill-seeking personality (see skydiving pic below), and because I like to set up really awesome goals for myself,

I and my friend Angelica have signed up for Warrior Dash 2011!!!

It's a 3.2 mile run with 12 "obstacles from hell!" You get to jump over pits of fire, tiptoe across planks over muddy trenches, scale walls, and wriggle through mud beneath barbed wire. Why? Because at the end you get a t-shirt, a Viking helmet, and free beer.  

 

So, why not? The Viking helmet alone is worth it. I invite anyone and everyone to join me in the challenge!