'Journaling'

I am kind of geeky. Despite this, I still have a paper journal. I can see a lot of advantages to electronic journals -- easily searchable, cheap, easy to back up, no writer's cramp, etc., but I just can't get past the wonderful thing that is a paper journal. Paper journals are more portable, work without electricity, no worries about file formats, and there's just something wonderful about sitting and actually physically writing your life out on paper, in a real book that often reflects your personality as much as the writing does. I have dozens of journals that I've filled over the years, and I love seeing them on the shelf: easily accessible, physical evidence of years of my life. The only thing I have to worry about is fire or flood, which would destroy my electronics and backups as well as my physical journals. I sometimes have mementos stuffed between the pages, even. And I hope that someday some of my descendants will open the musty pages of those journals, revel in the scent and feel of them as I have other old books, and remember me.

Mental Exercise

This is something I have been thinking about for a long time, but I thought would lay it out here.
Since my surgery, my muscles have been really weak. They atrophied a lot in the many weeks I was down and out. I have had to get going slowly to build up my strength again and even to help myself heal. It's hard work.
With my depression, it's a lot the same thing. I was so incapable of action for so long that my 'mental muscles' atrophied, making it difficult to function and do the things I used to do even though the depression is pretty much gone. I have to slowly exercise my brain, forcing myself to do things on a daily basis, to get back to a functional level again. And I don't just mean mental acuity tests like logic or crossword puzzles or math or English, but the ability to discipline myself to get things done, to organize, to plan and to generally think about what I am doing. It's even harder than physical exercise if you ask me. There are constant reminders that my physical body is not doing as well as it should, but once you've been stuck in a mental hole for a while there aren't as many reminders. And besides, the part of your brain that forces you to do the mental exercises is the part that is broken!
Have any of you noticed the same kind of thing in your life? Do you have areas wherein you have allowed your acumen to 'slide' and not be as 'fit' as once it was? Do you have areas in your life where you just 'go through the motions' or ignore the details you once covered because you're just too tired or apathetic to bother anymore? How do you 'get back into shape', or do you even try to do that?

Fontitis

I am going to be redesigning my site soon. Whee! But of course, me being me, I am not content with the many site templates I've been looking through, so I am looking into designing my own (or basically, figuring out what I want and telling my husband to do it. :) ). So back to the 'me being me' thing, I don't like any of the fonts on our computer, so I am looking for good free fonts. Did you know that there are a CRAZY amount of free fonts out there? It's insane! I've been looking at them for only about an hour and I already have a headache and a stomachache. Or maybe I'm coming down with something. I don't know. But hopefully it will be worth it with a spectacular new site design.

Old pictures

Well I was looking for a picture tonight and I found these. Didn't find the one I was looking for, but I suppose that's what happens when you keep most of your pictures in a box. I'm trying to learn how to scrapbook, but who wants a scrapbook with 150 pictures of Disneyland? OK I have a few other pictures but most of these days my pictures are digital. I just don't know if I should feel guilty or not. Anyway, the baby is me, playing with coins from my parents' piggy bank. I totally remember that plastic piggy bank and I LOVED that thing. I still love coins. They are cool. The other picture is about 15 years old of me and my sisters. I am the one in the peach colored sweater. The sad thing is, I STILL HAVE THAT SWEATER. How embarrassing. I need to give more stuff to thrift stores.

Family Reunion

Oooo, look! 2 posts in one week! I'm trying to start a better trend here, especially since I want any potential birth mothers to feel comfortable contacting us.

We had a great family reunion for my Dad's side of the family at the beginning of July. We went to our resort club in Lake of the Ozarks, Missouri and we had a BLAST. There were over 60 of us there at the peak time, and we had cooking contests and recorded family memories and went hiking and swimming and to the lake and built sandcastles and all sorts of fun stuff. Mostly I think it was great to see everyone that I hardly get to see, cousins and their kids and all of my aunts and uncles. They are such smart, kind, interesting people. I just love them. Here are a couple of pictures of us playing games and the view from the deck of our condo.

Adoption

We are currently in Salt Lake attending a conference for Families Supporting Adoption. It has been quite inspirational to me. So I'm going to use this opportunity to reach out to all of you (ok, like all 4 of you or so) to help us with our adoption process. The best way to find resources is to network, so that's what I'm trying to do.

So, first, if you know a young lady (or older lady, I don't care) who is pregnant and single and doesn't know what to do, please send her to this site . It's a great, unbiased source of help and counseling to help her through this difficult time. If she is interested, she can check out our profile by clicking on 'Search Adoption Profiles' on the left and putting JakeAndDyany (no spaces and it's case sensitive) in the adoptive profile name and clicking 'view profile'. The more you can get the word out about this site, the more it could help us. If she wants to contact us directly, she can send us an e-mail at munsonadoption(at)cableone.net

The other thing is something that is hard to ask. Adoption is really expensive. We have been saving for years, but we still only have a couple of thousand saved up and we need thousands more. If any of my friends and family are interested in helping us out financially with this project, please send us an e-mail to the above mentioned address.

Thanks for your time and attention and we hope to hear from you soon!