Plenty of Activity

Life's been looking up this past week. I've been doing things I haven't done for a while. I'm starting to feel normal and back to my old self. One of the things that has caused this, and probably the most significant, is that I'm changing medications.

My medicine chest includes the usual battery of pills for those who are starting to get on in years and two of them are prescribed by a psychiatrist. For several years I've taken antidepressants off and on. The ADD meds I've been on since I was diagnosed with it in 2000. When my career plans blew up this past spring, I decided to try a different antidepressant at the advice of my sister who's a psychiatrist. She recommended one I'd tried before and it had been ok then, but as I've aged it is no longer good for me. Instead it creates an apathy that leaves me unmotivated and ineffective at home. I can still work but there is no zest or energy in it. The ADD med I was on for a few years was a version of Ritalin. That's a controlled substance so my doctor, and my sis, suggested I try out strattera. I agreed thinking that it might help me deal with motivation which I thought came from depression and not the medication. Wrong! Strattera doesn't work for me. After a month of being on it I found myself daydreaming at work and not being aware of time passing. That's not a good situation. So two weeks ago, when I forgot to take the meds before heading off to work, I decided it was a good time to take myself off strattera and research antidepressants. Here's what I learned.

There are 3 major groups of antidepressants. SSRI's work with serotonin and that is helpful for women because without it they aren't very social. Another group works with norepinephrine which affects motivation and energy. The third group works on dopamine and that's for people who have psychotic episodes. Then there's a set of meds which don't affect any of those neurochemicals and doctors don't really know how they work, but they do. The med I was on affected serotonin, and norepinephrine once the dosage reached a certain level. Strattera also works on norepinephrine but it isn't effective as an antidepressant. Between the two meds I was taking I should have been covered on two of the major neurochemicals. Since they weren't having the desired effect I decided to take myself off the antidepressant too and go back on the one I'd been on before which didn't cause apathy. Since I couldn't see my doctor quickly (VA medical system) I called my sister for instructions on how to get off of Effexor. Following her directions I'm now off that and back on Wellbutrin which does work. Yay! I'm feeling so much better. My energy is up and so is my creativity. In fact I'm sort of going in all kinds of directions mentally because I've been so long with out creative mental stimulation. This past week I got to exercise that creativity and energy. So, there's lots of nice stuff to report.

Saturday I was LEM for Morning Prayer. I spent lots of extra time on that service. I found myself praying for people I knew needed it but weren't on the official church prayer list. I also found myself just talking to God about my life. This was so rewarding. I felt really close to Him and it's really special there in the sanctuary. That set the tone for the rest of the morning. I even found myself singing part of the Office because I'd learned the melody to one of the songs used in it when I attended late service recently.

When I was done with the prayers I went outside and noticed the small garden at the back of the sanctuary was in full bloom. This isn't one of our landscaped gardens but someone's special project. It is beautiful, not large and tenderly cared for. Every plant in this garden is different. So I spent some quality time with the camera and that garden. Not being a horticulturalist I've no idea what the names of the flowers I photographed are but I got quite a few shots and some of them I really like. Some of these flowers are Texas natives and used for xeroscaping. If you know the names of the ones I don't (I really only know the roses) please comment and let me know so that I can update the post with correct names. Thanks!

The garden has several vines along the wall that it sits against. This is one of them. I took several pictures of these intensely colored trumpet type flowers. This is the best one.

Everyone knows a nice rose when they see it. This was first of the flowers I photographed. I'm sorry to say that I was so enthralled with the color that I didn't notice the aging look of the rose. It's gotten pretty hot here in S. Texas and I guess the flowers are going to fade pretty quickly.

This is such a lovely bright color that it excites me. These roses don't have many petals. Their simplicity of form seems to go well with the intense color.

Once I wrote a poem about the garden of my heart. In it I mentioned a blue flower whose name I didn't recall. This was that flower. It is popular here in S. Texas. A huge bush of it was growing at the house I lived in up until fifth grade.

When I lived in Corpus Christie, I used to have a window box of begonias on the edge of my patio. They were a more intense color than these but they grow well in both garden and pots if you give them water and some room for their roots. I don't know the name of the small intensely red flower next to them. It too is good down here in the Texas heat. Can you tell bright colors attract me?
This one is definitely a xeroscape flower. Again, I don't know the name of it but I like the orange coloring of it.

This flowering vine abounds throughout the south. When I got married my soon to be Aunt-in-law helped me manage the wedding arrangements. This was the flower she brought from her own garden to put on the tables at the reception. Wish I remembered the name of it. I love the bright pink flowers and when I again have a yard of my own it will be one of the first plants I get.

This too is xeroscaping. I don't know this flowers name either. This shade of purple is one of my favorites. It reminds me of the choke bush although I know that isn't the name for this flower. But that's how I know it's a native to Texas, or has adapted so well you wouldn't know the difference.

This one must be a cultured wildflower. It reminds me of the flowering weeds that used to grow on the playground of my first elementary school in Mercedes, TX. I'm glad they kept this or put it in. It grows low to the ground in a straggling manner.

Here's a shot of the corner of this garden. You can see the amazing variety of plants and color that this gardener has established here.

Here's the same garden from the other end. It isn't a large plot, runs along the wall of the sanctuary, and wraps around.


This is the view of part of the church from the end of the garden. In the background you can see some of our Sunday school classrooms. The slab in the center of it is our labyrinth. That has turned out to be such a blessing. Almost everyone in the church either walks it or sits on the seating risers around it. Children who are having trouble sitting still through the service are often allowed to go outside by their parents to walk or play on it. I'm pretty sure that one of the reasons this is so often permitted is that you can see the entire labyrinth through the windows that make up the entire wall of the sanctuary, so the kids are never out of their parent's sight. We have two walls, one on each side of the sanctuary, of nothing but glass with the structures holding them in place providing framing. It really is a beautiful church.

At some point, probably when I was starting to go home, I stopped and took a picture of the leaves of this oak tree. Our grounds have lots of trees and this one shelters the rear entrance to the church.

On Monday I got out of the apartment early to drop the rent check off. It was about 7:30 in the morning and pretty windy. The sky wasn't really bright with the sun which was still climbing up from the horizon. So I thought it would be a good time to park by the lake and take some more pictures of it. The lack of recent rain had the water level down really low or I'd probably never have known we had a new type of water fowl living there.

Here's our old but faithful swan. I think it is one of the original because the first pair I saw were this black and when this one's mate died the pair we bought to replace them weren't as beautiful. That pair produced two hatching all of which eventually died and then they too passed on. So this is the only swan we have now. I hope he isn't too lonely.

After he finished grooming he started feeding. Pictures of swans with their heads buried in water don't look as interesting as they do with their long necks up and showing off their beautiful carriage. I titled this one Narcissus because he looks like he's admiring himself in his reflection on the water.

For as long as I've lived at this place I knew we had a white crane living at the back of the lake. What I didn't know was that we also had these long legged water fowl also residing there. If anyone knows the name of this bird please let me know. I've got several pictures of them because they looked so fascinating and were moving around in a very paired fashion that makes me think they must be mated.

The birds are clearer in this one because the focus is better and the light had brightened enough to show their colors. My camera only has 4x optical zoom and then a bit more of digital zoom. I was at the max for some of the pictures here but I think this one was at 7x.

This one is included because it shows the color on the top of the breast of one of the birds. You can't see that in the other shots. I'm hoping that will help with identification. Sorry if some of these pictures come out grainy. Digital zoom doesn't seem to give the same quality as optical zoom does.
Here's the last of the bird images. This was the one my PC liked the best and I do admit that it shows off their long legs really well.

Tonight our new deacon-to-be is getting ordained and I'll be attending. We are really glad to have Matt with us at Reconciliation. This is the same guy who taught me guitar lessons last summer. He is young and full of creative ideas. Everyone likes him and we are just thrilled that he is back. Our pastor is also relieved that he now has an official assistant to help him manage some of his many responsibilities.

On Sunday I'll be attending the 2nd of my "Dinners for 6 to 8" gatherings. This is a great program that our church put together to help people mingle more off campus and make friends. I think it's working and the food and fellowship I've experienced through it are great.

And there you go. The most recent bits of life I've had and the near future. Much better all around!

Kill the Blues and Your Pocketbook Too

Well I'm back at it again. That age old remedy that women are so fond of using to cure a case of the blues. I went shopping. At Amazon.com!

This past week, along with a lot of the US population, my government rebate hit my bank account. :) Yes, I now have a little extra cash. Part of me wonders how we are going to end up paying for that later, but I loathe political commentary and discussion almost as much as I hate shot needles, so we aren't going there. I promptly put the money in my savings account. Now I've spent about a 3rd of it. On what you ask? Silly question. Books of course!

For a while now I've been wanting a New Zealand Prayerbook. It's all JS's fault. If she hadn't posted that beautiful prayer from it when I needed it so much, I'd never have known the darn book existed. When I realized how cool the book was I went looking around for one. Those things just never go on sale. There seems to be a standard price for them which is about $31. The other day I was telling my friend Susan that I thought an apartment blessing by Robert, my priest, might help me fend off the blues when sitting at home alone. The reason this place gives me the blues is another long story but I got that idea from two sources at once, my PC and my own heart. So I'm planning on having one in the not too distant future. And Susan told me there was a lovely house blessing service in the New Zealand Prayerbook. So now I had another reason to get it. And suddenly I have cash! Oooohh! Google and find the cheapest prices, there were none, so Amazon.com here I come.

Once at the Amazon site I promptly located the much desired book. Yes, I'd checked out the local bookstore too. It had way too many books and not enough info. Amazon offered free shipping. When I looked down the page for shipping details and other stuff (always read the fine print from the editor/publisher), I discovered it was also sold with a celtic book of some sort. Then I remembered when we had that wonderful celtic book sale at Church after the service by Reverend Newell.


There had been a Celtic Daily Prayer book. And if I remembered right, it had Morning Prayer, Evening Prayer, Eucharist, and communion in it. So with dreams of doing a Celtic version of Morning Prayer I went looking for that one too. Amazon had it and low and behold, it was on sale. At 30% off! Now it's in my shopping cart too. Yay! I can do all kinds of prayers and healing services. It didn't seem to have any Celtic House Blessings but I'm sure something can be adapted. One of the reasons I selected this particular book instead of another one by a well known author is because it is by an entire community and seemed to have some extras in it. By all means go and check out the look inside that Amazon gives.


Then I remembered that good Sir Paschal, had suggested The Artist Way as a book to inspire and help one maintain an air of creativity and spirituality. So I went looking for that too. I found lots of versions but one was The Complete Artists Way. This one had 3 of the books and when I looked inside there were lots of small chapters and exercises too. So, of course that was put into the shopping cart too. It also was on sale. By now my total is well past the $50 mark. I told myself I should pay my bill and leave. But my sensibilities told me I had one more necessary purchase to make.


For the past few weeks I've been carrying my beloved digital camera around in my tote bag taking it to work with me. I'd not been able to find time to wander outside to use it but it was there nonetheless, building the good habit of taking my camera with me at all times(Thank you, David!). The bad thing about that is the tote bag was filled with all sorts of stuff and not a safe place for camera view screens. So I badly needed a camera case. That too is available from the font of all shopping mavens. Searching for a proper camera case for my Canon PowerShot, I found too many extravaganza's with lots of extras I didn't need, and very few real cases until I typed in the model. Then I had 5 choices of which 2 were cases, one of which was out of stock. The instock one was leather and promised to fit my model. But it had no photos. The unavailable one looked exactly the same but in a different color. Oh well, I looked anyway. It had pictures, uploaded by a past customer. And it was the exact same case but in blue. Mine will be gray. It was also available used for about half the price. So of course it is on order too. Now I'll be able to attach the camera to my belt or something suitable and protect it from mishaps while having it available. I feel good about that.

So you think I might be done shopping? Probably not! I need some milk products from the grocery store and I have a really cool 15% coupon for Barnes & Noble, plus a membership, and there is surely a wonderful next book in one of the various werewolf, or vampire series I seem to be so fond of reading these days. That will probably be my next stop. Besides, it's right around the corner from Bath & Body Shop and I just happen to be out of soap. On top of that there are some awesome movies I want to see, among them are Prince Caspian, Indiana Jones 4, and Spiderwick Chronicles.

And I've got still more blogging to do. A while back Terry tagged me for a meme I've not gotten around to. So that's next on my list. You can't say no when it's a friend. Then David suggested that because my dad is writing his memoirs on the web site of the 100th Bomb Group (yep, a genuine first source for you history buffs, just look for posts by Bill Kennedy) and I mentioned that I'd run link trainers when I was in the Navy that perhaps I could write a post on that. So I've said okay to that too. Looks like I'll be busy for a while.

Bright Colors, Beauty, and Activity Help

It's been days since I posted anything. Sorry about that! I've been in a blue funk! Yeah, that picture above of "Misty Coastline and Sea Stacks" by Corbis/Punchstock pretty much fit my mood. Life can get sad and scary you know? I don't want to sound sorry for myself, but I'm going to be going through an emotional adjustment for a while; and it isn't something I want to do, but part of the reason is something I'm glad to see happening.

My life is still in flux from the not finishing student teaching. That will have to be handled at sometime and soon. I keep meaning to get back to work on redirecting my life but right now I am involved in a job that has me sitting all day scoring tests for Pearson and at the end of the day I'm just exhausted. So I still have the dreaded but exciting job search to kick off and complete.

To add to that, my best friend, JS, the one God put into my life, is going to Vermont to become a priest. And while I love that she has gotten a great job to move her and her family up there (becoming a priest can be a long process), and has a huge house to move into, I'm also gonna really miss sitting next to her at breakfasts on Sunday and taking notes together in Sunday School. Or dropping by for something or other to visit with her, and her wife and kids. I'm gonna have to find someone else to hang out with which will mean I'll probably be bouncing from acquaintance to acquaintance for a bit. I guess right now that's a good thing because I can get really insular when I've found a comfortable niche. But like I said, I'm really excited for her and we've promised to stay in touch even though she will be way up north. So it isn't all bad. I'm not losing a friend, I'm just seeing her off.

On the positive and active side, I'm planning on becoming a Verger for my church. If you want to know what a Verger is go here. I won't be alone in this. There are four other people who want to be vergers and they are all men. Yep, I'm to be the sole woman verger at my church. There will be a course of study to follow and a test to take. I'll be mentored by the present verger, Ted, and Robert, our priest. I'm hoping this will move me further into my church community and get me more involved. I'm already a Lay Eucharistic Minister(LEM) and on Altar Guild, so that will help with my new responsibilities.

A short bit about LEM duty. On Wednesday, I was supposed to help with the Healing Eucharist by supporting out priest as he lays hands on, anoints, and prays over those who attend the service asking for healing for themselves or others. Well, Robert had gone out of town and no one who was ordained showed up to take his place. Neither did our seminarian, Lisa who worked with me last time to do the service when Robert was unavailable. So there I was, in my robes, with three people in attendance. I had to do some kind of service all on my own. Eek! By church rules, I'm not allowed to officiate at Eucharist so we didn't do the communion. I am allowed to do Morning and Evening Prayer Rites. So, that is what I did, combining part of Evening Prayer Rite II with the prayers for healing from the regular healing service. And once I got started it went ok. The scriptures to be read that evening seemed to fall in line with the requests of the people, a sign I took to mean God was in attendance, and everyone was familiar with the service so we were able to do what was needed and tend to all there after a fashion. That was my first time doing a Prayer Service with people in attendance. I was scared at the start but when I was done I felt good about how it went. Now I know that I can handle it and will be ready should it ever happen again.

Ok, so that's activity. On the inactivity side, I've got a 3 day weekend and am resting up. Yes, I could have been scoring and making overtime. But my project has ended, I'm scheduled for another one on Monday, and I felt that I needed the time off to recoup my energy and try to take care of myself for a few days. So that's what I'm doing and why I'm blogging now.

It isn't that I haven't been thinking about blogging. I have been. I've just been too exhausted and blue to think of anything to say. However, I do have a couple of bright pictures to share. They are both Jigzone jigsaw puzzles. One I worked about 5 days ago and the other one I did this morning. So I'm going to embed them here.



This first one just attracted me so strongly. I love it's strong bright colors and maybe I'm crazy but the light seems to glow through the petals of this lovely Icelandic Poppy. So that was the earlier one I wanted to share.



Here's the other one. It's full of flowers and that Butterfly just looks ready to take off doesn't it? I love bright colors. I also love butterflies and all things winged. That winged group includes angels, fairies, dragons, kites, and anything else you can put into the sky. Hmmm...if I believed that I had past lives I'd almost think I might have been a sky creature in one of them.

Please enjoy the puzzles. I get them daily and now use them to share daily bits of news with my mom to whom I send an email of that day's puzzle so that she and I can share them long distance. Cheers!

Way too long!

A whole month has gone by and I've written absolutely nothing! Well, that's not entirely true. I've done 2 research papers and an interview write up. But I think that the real reason I've not been writing is because I've been dealing with life and its effects.

One of the things I'm worried about with my writing is something my friend, Susan, has mentioned. A month ago I got on antidepressants. I didn't want to but felt that the stresses in my life, mostly self generated, were causing me to lose the ability to handle life well. Antidepressants are known to inhibit creativity. So, I'm wondering if my ability to come up with ideas is being affected by the meds or am I just so busy that I've not found time to write? Whatever the reason, I wish I had a wealth of ideas to present. Right now I just don't.

The Pastoral Counselor I mentioned a few posts ago seems to be working out ok. It feels kind of strange talking to a man about the most important things in my life. Possibly this is due to the fact that the last counselor I had was a woman. Or maybe there's a different reason. Before when God put a person in my life to talk about spiritual things to it has always been a woman. Talking to a man has a different flavor. He's good at asking questions and sometimes he points out the good/happy things I've missed in the middle of all my stress. I still have concerns about subjects I might feel more comfortable talking to a woman about even though I haven't had a reason to discuss them with him yet. One nice thing is, I've finally have someone to talk with about the subject of my 3rd post, the Communion story. That in and of itself gave a great sense of relief. I don't think I'm done with that subject yet, but having finally gotten another set of ears to listen meant a lot to me.

In the counseling sessions I'm dealing with things like anger, the need to express it in order to release it, and being comfortable with solitude. To understand the anger/expression need I'm reading (or trying to) The Dance of Anger (TDoA). When I was a child I never learned how to handle anger well. It was always hidden in my family. When it was expressed it was closely contained. The message was, "Anger is a "bad thing" and expressing it means you're out of control." The healthy reality, according to TDoA, is that we all have anger, we all need to express it, and we all need to be ok with feeling that way from time to time. To handle the solitude, I'm trying to find things I don't mind doing alone. At home that's easy. Doing it away from home is harder. This wasn't always the case with me so I am trying to recover the ability to be comfortable being out on my own. A large part of the discomfort, I believe, came from being married and used to having someone to come home to. Not having that anymore is something I managed to avoid thinking about for 8 years. Now I need to deal with it because I hope to have my first teaching job within a year and it's going to take a lot of self confidence and personal resources to handle that.

Please don't get me wrong. I'm not a total wimp and I do have some idea what of my strengths are. I excel at giving explanations and my teaching skills are good. Learning excites me and I hope to pass that on to my students. I used to be afraid of making mistakes and no longer fear that, so I should be able to use that growth to find ways of making my students feel safe and not pressured to be perfectionists. It will be the time management, the multitasking, and the gathering of resources at a new job that I will struggle with. However, that is what student teaching is supposed to help me learn to do and I'm doing that this fall. So, while I'm nervous about doing the student teaching, I know I will manage to get that done and hopefully get a good grade in it.

So that's where I am and where I've been lately. Work for the year is almost done. School for this year ends May 25th. My college classes end in 2 weeks. I'll have a summer of no schooling and maybe no work. Thank goodness my employer spreads my salary over the summer. I gathered a couple of new books to read lately. I want to see the Harry Potter movie when it comes out in July. I would like to see Spiderman 3 when it opens in May. I can hardly wait for the last and final Harry Potter book to arrive. In other places, life goes on. Please keep me in your prayers. I've a lot to accomplish in the next few months.

Peace!

I'm not a medblogger, but...

Not knowing some of the sources, I debated posting the following bits but decided that the positive and empathic nature of them was worthwhile. I would gladly have linked to the magazine articles but that option wasn't available so you get as much quotes as I could conveniently type. Sorry about that.

January's issue of Spirituality & Health magazine, a freebie subscription I accepted because of subject matter, was in my mail this past week. One short blurb, under a collection called Updates & Observations, was entitled Intimate Gifts from Depression. This article stated that:

"Psychology researchers at the University of Texas at Austin had hypothesized that women who experienced depression in the past would be 1)more prone to it in the future, 2) more closed about their emotional life, and 3) less likely to experience intimacy than those who hadn't. The results of their research proved those hypotheses wrong. Women with depression in their past were not more prone to depression in the future and, in fact, had slightly greater levels of "self-disclosure" and "marital intimacy" than women who had never experienced depression."

Knowing my friend Susan's feelings about the negative reputation of depression, I felt this might be worth publishing as a bright spot and hopefully a counter measure. Having experienced depression myself, it's nice to know I've grown from it. (g)

A few pages further along was another collection of bits called Connections. It had an article, under the subheading M.D. Trauma, entitled Doctor Mistakes Lead to Loss of Empathy...Which Leads to More Mistakes by Stephen Kiesling. It had a source, The Journal of the American Medical Association, so if you want to read the related study go here. This one talked about the idea that "when doctors make mistakes there are two victims; the patient, who suffers from the mistake, and the doctor, who suffers from the shame and guilt of having made the mistake." According to the article:

"a study of resident physicians at the Mayo Clinic Rochester Internal Medicine Residency suggests that more work needs to be done to take care of the second victim. Why? Because doctors' mistakes can lead to depression, burnout, and loss of empathy with patients - making it more likely that the doctors will make another mistake in the future."

This really struck home. My sister is a doctor, a psychiatrist, and has expressed concern over decisions she must make in her patients' treatments. The things my sister might experience by making a major medical error are: 1) significantly lowered quality of life, 2) higher levels of burnout, and 3) nearly twice the rate of depression compared to doctors reporting no major errors. She could also lose emotional empathy and cognitive empathy, which seems significant to me although those two results were not considered statistically significant. No wonder she works so hard at managing her stress!

For years my sister has meditated, run, practiced yoga, and found time to indulge herself in order to make her life and world a happy place for her. I suspect she found it necessary during her residency simply to survive. I love my sister and would never want any of the things listed to happen to her. I wouldn't want them to happen to my doctor(s) either. As a patient, I build a relationship with my physician and want to believe that he/she cares about me personally and professionally. The personal side of knowing each other supports the trust I have in his/her decisions, which helps us both on the professional side.

I've had a doctor tell me that my trust in him helped me heal better after surgery. This was from a surgery that went wrong. It wasn't his fault that things went south. He had responded to my report of a previous experience (I react to catgut - an old style suture material) and during my surgery he used a newer, lighter suture. It snapped in the middle of an operation to reposition a muscle on an eye that was turning out. The muscle that suture was attached to retracted out of sight behind the eye and I ended up spending 6.5 hours on the table while the team fished behind the eye trying to find the muscle. This was during the late '70s when I was young, in the military, and the doctor was doing his residency. The eye recovered and so did I.

It's a safe bet, that young doctor breathed a huge sigh of relief when he finally found the muscle. If it had been me, I would have cried and buckled at the knees. Somehow I don't think young doctors get much crying time even though they almost certainly need it. So when the study urges training hospitals to make sure their residents are given the help they need to deal with the aftermath of wrong decisions, I'm in favor of it! Furthermore, I hope they move that help beyond the training stage to support all doctors whether they work at a hospital, a clinic, or in private practice. I want my doctors empathetic towards me....and I hope I can be the same in return for their good and thoughtful care. Thank you!