My fierce shopper went into town for a secret mission, as well as a not-so-secret mission. His first mission was dropping off our goldfish, who is a victim of the bully, Percy goldfish. The local pet store said they would take it for us.
Goodbye, goldfish!
goldfish from Jennifer Jilks on Vimeo.
Hello Percy! This is from Oct., 2022. I'll bet he's grown. I can now bring Percy in next month, or whenever it get cold.
On the way, JB found a turtle on the highway, on its back. JB keeps a box in the back of the car, usually lined with a plastic garbage bag, just in case he finds a turtle. We take them in to our Vet, dead or alive, as they will harvest eggs, if the turtle is carrying them. And/or send them to the official turtle rescuers, if they need extreme help, via relay drivers. It is a great system.
Dropping off the turtle, he did some secret errands. Later, he picked up the turtle, as it was fine. He brought it home, for a photo-op, and it was released. He was certain the turtle was good, as driving home it was quite anxious to get out of the box!
Excitement over, I filled the fountain, and inspected the canopy where a lovely caterpillar was regretting its place in life.
We've many sphinx moths and this one sheltered under a piece of wood. I tried to capture a closer photo, but it flew off in disgust!
The week is done! We've our Ottawa kids visiting tonight. We've been happy to find some motivation and have made some plans, and preparations. I wondered what was happening, between the gun range issues, and COVID, it is just depressing. I looked up Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), which in winter is a result of little sunlight.
I was listening to a radio interview, and missed some of it. It is Summer SAD. Hallie Cotnam, the radio host, sent me this information.
The summer version is more excitatory in nature. You might sleep and eat less, and be less comfortable in your skin, be more irritable.
This is known as melancholia agitate... or agitated depression.
And he shared some advice from mindfulness teacher Tara Brach:
RAIN: Recognize, Allow, Investigate, Nurture.
Recognize the symptoms of agitated depression that are common around this time of year. Just recognize them in yourself. (Sometimes our feelings seem to hide inside other people -- be aware of your projections too).
Allow the experience. You don't have to judge or diagnose it, push it away or fix it.
Just give it space to feel seen. That's what people do with those they love -- so why not love yourself?
Investigate the experience with interest and curiosity.
Nurture your hurt. Sometimes when we recognize our pain, our first instinct is either to run from it, or to fight with it. But when the pain is in side of you, there's another option. You can love it.
12 comments:
Oh I really like RAIN. Whatever may be going on with our emotional lives, it works to look at them and accept them. A friend with a mental illness diagnosis has been unable to do much of anything for most of the summer, and she said her psychiatrist visit gave her a bit of comfort. He told her that her "baseline" was depression...so sometimes it would go very deep, but she really never had times of feeling not-depressed. I was surprised that this was satisfying to her, but I'll let her have whatever comfort she can get while they work out a medication to help her function better. OK, maybe I shouldn't share her story here. But I think this information is interesting to consider.
Hello,
It is nice you are able to rescue the turtles and eggs.
Take care, have a great day and happy weekend!
While I am not thinking about SAD, I did opine to Sue that we would soon need to buy a new heater for the bathroom, specifically for showers. We do tend to have our house on the nippy side during winter.
I just told a friend I thought I was suffering from SAD even though it's summer. I thought I made it up! Thanks for the information.
That was a lucky turtle to have a kind rescuer take care of it.
My partner gets a version of summer S.A.D. something awful. It always seems to start as soon as we return to life after whatever vacation we've been able to have. He loses all motivation and gets quite depressed thinking of the days getting shorter and fall approaching. I'm quite the opposite, looking forward to the coming autumn with cooler days, brighter colors, etc. That lasts until about November when I go into the winter slump.
Wow beautiful photos and post.
I think I have this problem from all the smoke.
Glad the turtle is OK.
Thank you for saving the fish and the turtle.
Have fun with the family.
That SAD advice makes a heap of sense.
You're a busy girl! Do you have time to eat?
Thank you for the nature, for helping the turtles, for that snazzy photo of the turtle herself, and for the good advice about being kind to ourselves. So much going on in our world. Maintaining our balances job one. Thank you for helping me. Jenn, Aloha!
First of all I'm glad the turtle was saved. Poor fish, though. The Summer SAD info is very interesting and helpful. When you don't feel like you've had a real summer it's very easy to slip into that. I can relate.
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