This month has been a bear I have been three people short at Work since January and two people short before that since October so I have been maxed, to say the least. I have been sometimes sleeping more than normal and winter has that effect on me anyway and then the extra stress, well it sums up to Amy feeling as if she is twisting in the wind. When I am overwhelmed, I tend to feel as if I never get one thing accomplished. That is true for some things. There are so many tasks to complete it’s a traffic jam on my desk, in my head, and in my house. So today, I just had to start in my house. I scrubbed floors and vacuumed, cleaned the bathroom and AHHHHHH. Things actually were completed; there is more needing to be completed just that something was done makes all the difference in my mental health. Now I know why my family loves to clean so much its the feeling of instant gratification. It is the same reason I love mowing the grass, pulling weeds, and doing laundry. It could be worse!

This same very simple but meaningful concept applies to Blogging. I Blog because I was writing a book, which has been a 12-year journey and it just STOPPED. The 10th year of writing my memoir, the words stopped flowing, the ideas seemed stale, and I needed to feel as if I was accomplishing something. I began a Blog; mind you, I had no idea what I was doing. I take that approach quite often and find it interesting to figure it out along the way. I am big on puzzles and problem solving. I’m actually someone who would love to work in a Think Tank where all you do all day long is take problems and try to figure out the best solutions to them. My job with Division of Developmental Disabilities Services provides that very frequently so I get my problem-solving fix, I just don’t always get my instant gratification fix.

The beginning of the year has started successfully for my speaking and writing career,  I was asked to speak to a Criminal Justice class at DelTech on February 2nd and in March I have been asked to do a presentation at the Brain Injury Association of Delaware Conference on March 12th. Both were  unexpected and I am happy to be able to do them. Publishing my book this year is the main goal but I hope to be doing many more speaking engagements. I am ecstatic about it. What a great start to a year, one of promise. Point of Hope in Smyrna asked me to speak at their clubhouse and I had to put them off unfortunately for a month or so because it was in the middle of my workday and they were so hectic. This is still a box needing to be checked off. Note to self.

It all adds up to this; my Blog;  www.recoveryofthmind.com began out of boredom and  loss of creativity; it has turned into one of the many places I enjoy creating things. I was also feeling that maybe I just wasn’t that great of a writer and I’ll have to say this blog has helped me be a better writer and get the input I really needed for my self esteem, while helping others. It has become bigger than I initially thought it could be and I will perfect it and make it a better site as time goes on. I just find that I love to Blog and who would have thought, that 7,000 plus people have viewed my Google + account where I feature my posts from my blog and that 600 people would choose to “Follow” me, meaning they get a post sent to their email every time I publish one. I find it so satisfying to sit and be able to write and reach people. It doesn’t get better than that, well almost. Better than cutting the grass; no, maybe just different from cutting the grass and satisfying in another way altogether.

Check out these Links:

Brain Injury Association of Delaware: http://www.biaofde.org

Point of Hope: http://point-of-hope.com

Delaware Technical and Community College: https://dtcc.edu/

Epilepsy Awareness Squad: http://easquad.org/