Happy March!

You guys, I just accidentally threw my dogs' ball over the fence into the neighbor's yard. So instead of going over there to retrieve it, I'm journaling to alleviate my anxiety.

I don't fiddle with the admins stuff enough to know what the heck I'm doing regarding following other blogs, but check out my followers in the sidebar over there. They have their own blogs, and they're smart peoples. To give you an idea how clumsy I am with this site, I just almost followed my own blog trying to follow theirs. So...yeah.

So, happy March! The winter weather here hasn't been terrible, but I'm loving 70F-ish, sunny, and breezy. I think it helps my mood.

I'm working hard on keeping my routines, but I'm admittedly falling short. Three things I've had to newly resolve to do each morning:
-Eat & have coffee as soon as I get up
-Open the blinds and let some light into my cozy cave
-Turn on the radio--up-tempo music wakes me up. Lots of bass is a plus.

Also, I've found that taking my antidepressant at night helps me sleep. Go figure. When the doc prescribed it, he said, "Ok, there are two that fit your budget. One mellows you out and should be taken at bedtime. The other has an energizing effect and should be taken in the morning." Since I have trouble getting out of bed, I chose the "energizing" one. So I've been taking that every morning and struggling to get anything done. But guess what? I missed it the other morning and tried it at night. It helped me fall sleep! I thought it might be a fluke, so I've continued this way for the past few days and...yep. About 2hrs after I take it, my mind gets quieter. Go freakin' figure.

I haven't been reading those books. The good news is: I can pinpoint why I've stalled on each one.

For Winter Blues, it's because of what I've learned about Transcendental Meditation (TM) via YouTube. Winter Blues includes ideas for beating depression; there's a new chapter included on TM. I ran across some videos on YouTube and went to the websites mentioned in the videos. Long story short, people espousing the benefits of TM insist that it's impossible to learn TM via book, video, CDs, etc. This is horrible news for people like me because there's no way to afford hiring a practitioner for lessons. It really just smacked of scam. I'm quite disillusioned. So it's put me off the book, and I haven't read any more of it since. I will read it, though, because I promised. Also, chances are there are other suggestions included that can help.

For The Nerdist Way, there's homework in Part One. It stopped me in my tracks. I'm having a hard time visualizing the system of points he lays out, for some reason. I haven't given up, I've just put it aside and am refusing to beat myself up about stalling. I have so much paper clutter in my house, I am hesitant to do things via hard copy, and I became annoyed trying to do it in Excel (the homework suggests using graph paper) when I couldn't even visualize it and my screen was too tiny to fully examine the examples from the website. But as I said, I haven't given up. I told my therapist I'm willing to try anything for progress, and I think what Hardwick has to say will be valuable to me.

Someone on Twitter just suggested that I throw the dog over to get the ball back. HA! :-D That's thinkin' outside the yard!

Yeah, so other major stuff:
-Didn't get the most recent job I was gunning for
-Dominated on cardio this week
-Kicked ass on yard work yesterday

What a boring life I lead! But it's all good.

Cardio--I'm practically breaking my arm patting myself on the back because I have done 20-60 min on the treadmill almost every single day since my last post! Wow! I did take Sunday off because my body said "F.U." due to the yard work I did on Saturday. But I even hopped onto the treadmill on Saturday after yard work! So, there! Put that in your pipe, etc.

So interesting that a certain entity requires a certain level of fitness but provides crap for training on how to achieve their standards. They provide no initial or recurring education, but they're quick to punish and belittle.

Here's what I've learned: to work on the speed of your running, you should run at a pace of 180 steps per minute. Since, as I stated before, up-tempo music helps me get moving, I've kept the local pop station blaring on my stereo while on the treadmill. It is hard to find music that's 180 beats per minute (bpm) but fairly easy to find music that's 90 bpm. I can't find the motivation to actually cobble together a playlist right now, but when I finally do, I'm going to use DJ BPM Studio's site to build it.

In the meantime, here are some songs I've heard on the radio that really help keep my mind off the drudgery of the treadmill.

• Party Rock Anthem (LMFAO)
• Sexy and I Know It (LMFAO)
• Stronger (Kelly Clarkson)
• Set Fire to the Rain (Adele)

I'll post more as I think of them.

And with that, I have to leave you to do my treadmill time right now. I've procrastinated far too long today, and I still need to shower and go meet my neighbors. :-o
Peace.

Hope

I've been clinically depressed for a long time. During the past 12 or so months, everything crashed. My meds weren't working well, I couldn't get out of bed much less accomplish anything, and I lost both of my jobs.

My family and friends have been supporting me emotionally and, since my savings ran out, financially.

A few weeks ago, I finally pulled myself off the couch and sought help at the VA. For so long I could see no light at the end of the depressive tunnel. But I finally glimpsed some hope, and it was enough to spur me to seek help. Since then I've still struggled daily with the mess of emotions this mood disorder brings. But for some reason, the clouds are parting. There's a fragile, gossamer ladder hanging to the bottom of the well where I am, and I hope...HOPE...to be able to muster what it takes to reinforce it enough to climb the hell out of here.

I know, so many clichés. So what? They're accurate and adequate.

Sometimes people are ridiculed for reading self-help books. But what's worse is not being able to give two shits about helping yourself in the first place. So I'll freely admit I'm reading two self-help books at once right now. One is goal-centered; the other is about treating depression.

• The Nerdist Way: How to Reach the Next Level (In Real Life)
• Winter Blues, Fourth Edition: Everything You Need to Know to Beat Seasonal Affective Disorder

I'm not far into either of them yet, so I don't have criticism. What's important is that I'm presented with options and find inspiration to work daily to improve my situation. So far, so good. But really, I wouldn't have acquired either book in the first place if I didn't think the authors had something helpful to say.

You may notice that the release date for this edition of Winter Blues is in late 2012. Yes, I've been sent an advance copy which I'm reading and then will submit my comments to the publisher. It's sort of a pathetic little morsel of one of my old dreams, to have my feedback on publications valued. Gotta start somewhere.

Anyway, I'm making list upon list of goals and prioritizing, and I decided that one thing I need to do for my mental health is journal. I hate writing by hand; it's unwieldy, tedious, time-consuming, and tiring. Lucky you, I've decided to spew my crap here instead.

It's been said that happiness & success are in the journey, not the destination. So another broad goal I have is to develop daily habits that I had when I was happiest, including having a set bedtime/straightening out my days & nights and expending some calories in a semi-athletic manner.

Because of standards set by an entity I will not name here, I'll be doing one minute of push-ups, one minute of sit-ups, and an hour on the treadmill daily. That's the goal, at least.

Buy My Good Junk!

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