Overcoming Bad Feelings....

I've been in a funk lately. I reacted badly to some things in my life, and I started to spiral down. My reaction was one of creativity.

I've picked up the crochet, and made myself a little blank book. I spend all today working on the book.


The glue is still wet, so it has to sit out and open overnight. At least overnight.

I'm working on this crochet pattern:

I added some rows to the pattern so that it will make a nice stole, so this printout is only about half the size of the finished stole. I'm making it in black yarn.

When I get upset, depressed and otherwise unhappy, the best way for me to get out of it is to connect with that Universal Force and Intuition. I connect with the Universal Creative Force. I get out of that nasty place right away.

I don't like being unhappy. I don't like being depressed. I don't like feeling helpless. This is my remedy.

Horrible Mood - Moving!

I've been in a horrible mood for a few days now. I am moving and I hate moving. The disruption, not being able to find anything, the disarray, and the upset. I know it's just temporary, but it still sucks. I just hate it. So do my cats.

I'll be SO glad when the move is over and all my stuff is in one place and it's just a matter of emptying boxes.

Economy - Recession or Depression? It's 1975 Again.

I've been thinking about the economy lately.

There are few jobs out there, and what there are, pay a lot less than what we used to make. However, prices aren't falling. We still have expensive gas, food and utilities. Housing costs may go down a little bit - but do you really think landlords will lower the rent? Not unless you move to a cheaper, smaller, less desirable place to live, anyway!

So, this is beginning to sound a lot more like a depression than a recession. A recession is when the economy is contracting. Our economy is beyond that. It's trying to rebound, but there are too many downward forces, and that defines a depression. That and high unemployment.

The figures you hear about are skewed - too many folks are out of the job market - no jobs, no benefits, no tracking....

People in the generations after me are likely not prepared for this. Even folks in my generation (boomers) aren't really ready for it! Our parents are children of the Great Depression, so they know how to do things, cut corners, and make a little stretch a ways...

Folks in my kid's generation and younger (just now welcoming twenty-somethings or grandkids), are not prepared for this. Some of them even had everything handed to them, in compensation for what we didn't have as kids....

Let's face it, we do that - we want our kids to never know the privations we endured - whatever they may be. There are generations that were never allowed to fail - all kids had to succeed - even if all they did was show up! Those folks don't know how to handle disappointment, failure, or privations. Those folks are the least capable of surviving what's still to come.

We are all told to prepare for retirement, because government spending is so out of control that social security (which we've paid into our whole lives) is not going to be there for us. Well, I'd like my money back, please.... I never said you could use those earmarked funds for something else, did I?

It's a mess, that's for sure. We will be living with the grand ideas of the 80's, 90's and 00's for a long time. I truly believe we will be going back to the days of the oil embargo - at least financially. I remember that, and the recession that followed it. I was just out of college and couldn't find a job. There weren't any. And that's happening again! So, yeah - it's 1975 again.

Better Today...

I'm doing better today. I plan on taking a break and resting. Maybe my nerves will calm down a bit.

I want to get my sewing room cleared a bit, so I can do some sewing and get creative. That always calms my nerves, too. All the boxes and commotion and mess in there are not conducive to creativity.

I find that when I get creative - crochet, knitting, sewing, painting, or beading; that my doldrums go away, and all's right with the world pretty soon. It's getting the creative juices flowing that's the issue.

If creativity is plugged up by stress, worry or disorganization, I can be very difficult to be around. It's like a spiral out of control, toward depression and unhappiness.

If I'm expressing creativity in one place, it spreads out to the rest of my life. I come up with interesting and novel ideas that actually work, when dealing with the little annoyances that pop up in life. I handle finances better. I approach the most mundane task as an opportunity to express art. I get more satisfied with work. It all just flows. I become very productive, too! It seems to build on itself and feed more creativity. Like begets like.