This might have been my weirdest year yet. My word for 2022 was Clarity, and I set some goals but tried to take it very easy on myself. Check out how I started the year here, and read on to see how the year shook out… CLARITY I wanted this word to impact multiple layers of my life. I was hoping to get clear on work, life, finances, goals… I was hoping to clear clutter and clear outdated expectations… As often happens with picking these focus words, they often don’t work out the way I expect. Did getting TMS therapy Read More
Category: Self Help
Blog posts related to self-improvement, health, weight loss, self-care, and mindfulness.
Changing Seasons
I am starting this post on Labor Day, the unofficial end of Summer. The mornings are starting to be a little cooler; the oppressive heat doesn’t last as long. Kids are back in school, and Halloween decorations are making an early appearance. The seasons are changing. This is my favorite shift of the year. My mood usually starts to pick up, and I look forward to milestones in the last months of the year. l have been doing some writing exercises, and one of them suggested writing about “I love fall leaves.” I am going to share what I wrote Read More
Adventures with TMS – Part 1
The past few years have been a struggle. You can probably relate. My mental health has gone from alright to bad to worse. It feels like my brain has literally abandoned me. I’ve been diagnosed with a slew of things, one of which is “treatment resistant depression,” which simply means that nothing helps. This is where it comes in handy to have a popular therapist who is very busy with lots of patients. When something works for someone else, I get to hear about it, which is how I heard about TMS. Keep reading below or watch my daily Tiktoks Read More
My Favorite Things – Mental Health Edition
May is Mental Health Awareness month. My mental health is not good. To even say that is an understatement. I wish I could blog more, but right now one post ever couple of months is the best I can do. If I told you how many times I worked on and edited this post, it would be quite embarrassing. This post is a shameless self-promotion by way of sharing Amazon Affiliate links, but it is also a real list of things I use to help me through the dark days of a “mental health crisis” as one doctor called it… Read More
Goals Update – End of First Quarter 2022
This is only my second blog of 2022. I haven’t written since I set out my goals for the year. I knew this would be a challenging year, but I didn’t know how truly difficult it would prove to be. I’m still in the midst of a mental health crisis, formerly known as a good old nervous breakdown. I am tempted to say this is my second in two years, but honestly, this has been ongoing since August 2019. I won’t dwell here and now on how it’s really NOT “okay to not be okay,” but I want to document Read More
My 2022 Goals and Focus
We are a few days into the new year, and I have been working on setting my goals and determining my focus word for 2022. I won’t reiterate how difficult the past few years have been. You can read my 2021 review and find links to all of my previous ones here. This year promises to bring even more challenges for me, but I am determined to continue putting my best SELF forward. Some days my best self might not be able to get out of bed, but I am going to set some goals to work on when it Read More
2021 Year in Review
My blog has been silent for a while due to a mental health crisis, but I feel it is important to take time at the end of the year for reflection and introspection. This has been my space for an annual review for several years, so I am coming out of my shell long enough to write this. I’m starting to write this on the winter solstice, and it may take several days to complete, but during this darkest time of year I need to give myself whatever time and space necessary for this process. The past few years have Read More
Everything I Read in August 2021
August was hot. While I felt like I made it through the first days of summer in a better mood this year, it seems my summertime seasonal depression had simply decided to wait a bit to sink in. That’s okay. I am grateful for that respite, and overall August was good. Both my baby squids have August birthdays, so we did some small-scale celebrating. Dance class started again, which is always the highlight of my week. I didn’t finish many books this month, but just three more books will hit my goal for the year, so I am well ahead Read More
Everything I Read in July 2021
July was a good month for reading and will help me achieve my reading goal well before the end of the year. It was miserably hot and humid, so I only went outside to mow the lawn, and listened to audiobooks while mowing. Life kept throwing curve balls during July, but I don’t want to dwell on that, so let’s get right into talking about books. Shall we? The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon In June I took a little road trip and attended the Fouke Monster Festival. It was a lot of fun and suffice to say, I met Read More
Everything I Read in June 2021
We are halfway through 2021 and I am well ahead of my reading goal. Last month I only finished a couple of books, but I had started several of these. Summertime in NWA is hot and humid, which makes for good stay-in-the-AC-and-read weather. Here are the books I read and my opinion on them. Click the underlined titles or images for Amazon links. The Assassin’s Blade I have been a little heavy on the nonfiction lately, so I was in the mood for fantasy. I previously read Throne of Glass, and I had some issues with it, but I decided Read More