Almost every morning, since I’ve moved to having an Eastern facing bedroom window, I’ve been enjoying watching the pink and golden dawns of the forest, then I think of my inevitable death (since it cheers me up).

Yesterday I had a few hours of despair after getting scared by semi slugs (Parmarion martensi), which are known to carry brain eating paracites (Angiostrongylus cantonensis) in our area. So far only 5 people this year have been reported as infected in our state, but it is deadly to children and incurable in anyone.

I really enjoy gardening, but our property in particularly infested with slugs known to be carrying the paracites. This summer we were eating lunch out of the garden everyday, and I was double washing the produce, which is supposed to be safe after being washed. We hunted slugs as a family for two weeks, prior to 4th of July, and took out over 300 slugs (mostly semi slugs, but also some cuban slugs), but they are still around… I’ve been applying pet safe, forest safe sluggo bait, however due to frequent rain that hasn’t had enough of an effect yet. The slugs act crazy because they are carrying the brain paracite, so they sometimes come out before or after dark (scaring me), one came into the kitchen sink once with the door closed (scaring me a lot, as their slime is potentially deadly also but much less than their bodies), they go our pathways, driveway, walls, my daughter’s gardening tools, our patio, and sometimes into our house… I hate it very much. Yesterday two went onto our welcome mat (that is not next to any plants or food sources) and left it all slimy, that sent me into an antigardening dispair I don’t usually fall into.

I’ve been working on an emotional diversity project, just recording how I feel each day to make a monthly (and maybe someday yearly) calendar. Supposedly noticing the variety of emotions I go through should make it easier to get unstuck in any emotion. It’s called granularity. From a book called “How Emotions are Made.” I’m finding it useful so far, especially because I’ve been more depressive than normal for me post partum. Exercise helps a lot, but being mindful of my emotions helps too, it helps me ask for help with the kids when I’m burnt out. The burn out, being rushed, being overwhelmed or not exercising tip me towards depression, but I’m grateful it’s not a very deep depression, a 10 minute exercise or a cup of green tea is enough to bring me back out of it. It’s very erie having hormone based depression, because I’ve always thought my brain/mind/soul create my emotions and they were a part of me, but definately with this depression it has nothing to do with me, nor my life, it’s just something that happened to me because of my physical body and I can manage it easily if I can be mindful that it’s happening.

Another cool part of the emotional diversity project, is to be able to pick a meta emotion for the month, which reflects the month (without being baised to my memory of the end of the month being stronger).

After thinking about my thinking in August I believe I’m still rushing myself to multitask, to meet self imposed deadlines that don’t matter, and not enjoying enough of the day. I have kids to take care of, but there must be a way to do that and still enjoy life? One thing that makes it hard is that my son is five months old, so worse than any needs he has is the way his needs change everyday. He rolls very easily, so he can’t be left anywhere… I can carry him, but he doesn’t like it, so I can get chores done that way, but he will start getting frusterated, whenever I try to spend time being close to him (which I love) my daughter gets jelous and I get angry because I’m sick of her understandable jelousy already and I completely stopped having sympathy for her the day she kicked her brother in the spine. But anyways, I feel positive about starting the new month with “ganbate spirit,” to do the best I can with what I have, to do what I need to do to, to have time to do some of what I want to do, to live my best life as best I can and not regret it later.