The She Shed

Depression runs in my family for several generations and I’m no stranger to it. I finally talked with my doctor about it when I realized my thoughts were progressively getting darker and darker. Once upon a time there was a stigma surrounding depression but not any longer. In fact, it’s finally talked about more and more. Seems like since famed comedian Robin Williams committed suicide, society is more accepting and aware of depression. My medication works well at keeping my depression controlled, for the most part. On occasion I do get into a “funk” and I need to withdraw within myself for a while. If my thoughts turn down a dark alley, I remind myself that it isn’t me, it’s the depression, and I find something that makes me happy to focus on. One area in which the depression doesn’t help is with regard to weight loss and exercise. When I met my husband, Jeff, I weighed around 110 pounds. Have to admit that my figure was rockin’! But I kept losing weight and truth be told, I’m surprised I didn’t die from malnutrition considering I’d only eat a few pieces of toast once every 3-4 days and this went…

I’ve decided to start writing a journal. I’ve got to clear the thoughts from my head and release the anxiety, pain, heartache – and everything else I feel. I’ve kept things bottled up for far too long and since the very people I want to tell all of this to don’t want me in their lives, I figure this is the next best thing. I’ve made some poor decisions in my life. I’ve been a huge idiot as well as a selfish bitch. I’ve made decisions that I felt were right at the time only to later learn that the actions of those decisions hurt the very people I was trying to spare from pain, or to at least minimize it as much as possible. A good chunk of my life has been spent wondering what the hell is wrong with me. Were some of my actions and decisions the result of the massive head trauma caused by a terrible accident when I was a teenager in 1984? Or were they because I didn’t fully think things through and more or less reacted as opposed to acting in the best interests of myself and others? I have said and done…

Experience 140 mph Straight-line Winds Live August 10th, 2020 is a day when Iowa made history – again. Only this time the history in the making was an incredibly rare Derecho that: destroyed more than half of the state’s tree canopy caused millions in damages destroyed more than one-half of the state’s corn and soybean crop left millions without power for as long as approximately 25-ish days That’s just the tip of the iceberg of the devastation caused by what amounts to being basically a hurricane that happens over land.  I shot video as the storm was ravaging Cedar Rapids, Iowa. I was home alone, working. My husband was at work. Without power and no battery-operated radio, I had no idea what was happening and yes, I was freaking out.