Things have been a little dark lately, as you likely surmised from the last post. I greatly appreciate all of the comments, encouragement, suggestions, and support. All of the kind words helped motivate me, and gave me some things to consider as we plunge into the holidays, followed by the upcoming anniversary of my father’s death, the anticipation of which hasn’t exactly been helping my mood. I’ve been loading up on omega-3 in hopes that it will help. In autumns and winters past, I’ve been quite diligent about eating my hot cereal with a serving of flax meal every morning. Omega-3 is supposedly good for the cardiovascular system, and as a diabetic, I do try to do something nice for my heart and circulatory system when I can because I have a rather persistent fear of dying from a heart attack or stroke. Omega-3 is also good for the neurological system and brain functioning, and rumor has it that it can alleviate depression. I’ve found it does have a positive effect on my mood, which could just be a placebo effect, but whether I feel better because of my imagination or because it’s actually having a physiological effect matters not.

So far this fall, I’ve been lax with the flax though, so the last few days I’ve been making more of an effort to make my breakfast and get my flax meal. I’m somewhat skeptical about vitamins and supplements, but I also bought some flax oil capsules over the weekend, and I’ve been taking those. I’ve heard that the fish oil capsules are a better source of omega-3, but they kind of skeeve me out. I did exercise one day last week, and because I know that exercise helps with mood, I’m going to make more effort to do that, but as I’ve disclosed on many occasions, exercise is a perpetual struggle for me because, alas, I hate doing it.

Exercise does not just come in the form of movement and sweat though. Writing is an exercise, and while I enjoy that exercise far more than sweaty exercise, I’ve still not been inspired to do it lately. Obviously, with all of two or three posts in November, I was not part of the NaBloPoMo crowd. I was miserable at the end of NaBloPoMo last year, and swore it off after that. Then the NaBloPoMo folks tempted me to try again in September when they offered the theme of art. I decided to do it, and it was going well until the very last day of the month when I traveled to California, and the final post got lost in the travel shuffle.

You might think that I would have learned my lesson by now, especially since posting everyday burns me out, and as it is, I don’t even have much fuel to waste, but it seems I’m a slow learner. Allison posted a couple of days ago about Reverb 10. As you might guess, this is another exercise in daily blogging, but this one comes with daily prompts to reflect on this year and consider what the next year might bring. Or something like that. I don’t know what the prompts are like, but I figure I might be able to post something everyday this month if I’m provided an idea or theme. As anyone who’s done any of these daily posting exercises knows, generating ideas can be a challenge. I think I can respond to the prompts though, or at least, I’m going to try. I registered for it, and assuming I can keep up, there will be a little more action in this corner of the internet for the next month.