March 18th

French toast for dinner!

March 17th

Happy St Patrick's Day!

March 16th

New pen organisation! I'm very excited!!!

March 15th

 Someone had a birthday party!

March 14th

Shabbat Shalom! Sorry my posts seem kind of out of order, it seems that some of my posts haven't been published, so I rectified that

January 24

My professorial homage to buddy Christ!'

March 9th

Well, that's never a good thing, at least I get a new clutch though!

March 10th

The clouds looked cool today

March 13th

Yum!

March 12th

Watching Archer!!!

March 11th

It was just a bit snowy today

2/19/14

Had the family over for dinner

2/18/14

I got new sheets!

February 17

I learned a new script tonight, uncial

All caught up and purified January 23rd

I completed all of my tasks today! The last thing I did before going to bed (where I am now) was to smudge and purify my apartment and myself with my sage smudge stick. Hopefully this will help me out of my funk!

A return to form

My dear readers, you may have noticed that I have not posted in a while. I must apologise for that as I have fallen quite ill over the past week. This is the first real illness that I have encountered since I began to actively fight to control my depression and ADD. I was not prepared for the turbulent ride that lay in store for me. Before I got sick both my depression and ADD were well controlled. I was happy, productive, focused, and social. When I began to become ill that all fell by the wayside and I slowly lost control and my depression returned (that is not to say that it had ever left, but I feel that it was well enough controlled to not be an issue anymore). I began to socially withdraw and the interest that I had once enjoyed in my regular activities began to wane. Malaise, apathy, and exhaustion began to control me.

Now, I suppose that some of you are thinking "Well, that's what happens when you get sick." The truth of the matter is that before I sought help for my ADD and depression that was my baseline, the only thing that being sick would do would be to increase my exhaustion. It was terrifying and eye opening for me to see the control that I had fought so hard to gain slipping away from me right before my eyes! My blog, my CBT worksheets, my journal, my cleanliness all started to fade away and it felt as though there was nothing I could do to stop it. The apathy had returned, and all of my motivation had vanished.

I didn't want to feel like this! I had worked so hard to climb out of the endless downward spiral of failure that I felt my life had become. I was depression, I was ADD, those two things had come to define me and control me, they had come to BE me. The thought of returning to that scared me. I took Sunday off from everything, I just rested and focused on healing. Thankfully my health began to return and by Monday I started to regain control.

In the past I have set myself up on checklists only to have something happen to make me stop using them and then I would never return. In fact, during my first appointment with my psychiatrist in November when the topic of checklists came up I dismissed them out of hand as a strategy that just didn't work for me. After the appointment I began to think about it. My problem with checklists was not so much my adherence to them, I followed them very well. My problem was getting back to them, once I stopped I just couldn't return. I then decided to start up a bunch of checklists, and I hoped that by the time that something happened which took me away from them I would have progressed far enough to get back to them. That was actually me benchmark that I had set for knowing that I had my ADD well controlled.

This illness is then my test. What to some may seem like a minor chest cold is to me a huge indicator of how far I have progressed, and how much further I have to go. This is the moment I have dreaded, I have fallen off of almost every checklist that I have, now what will I do? As my strength has been returning to me I dedicated myself to reclaiming at least one task that I had stopped every day. Today one of my tasks that I am resuming is this blog.

I have no photo to post today and I will not be posting photos to make up for the days that I have missed. I want this gap to stand as either a monument to my progress, or a testament to how much further I still have to go. Tomorrow I will resume my quest to post a photo every day. They will continue to be punctuated with random thoughts that I may have and that I feel are worth sharing. Thank you for listening, thank you for reading, any advice is always appreciated.
-Jacob

January 16t

I've started wearing glasses to work, I think it looks good

January 15th

Had a birthday dinner for a very good friend, good times were had by all!

January 14th

 

Some good inspiration that I found at the butcher shop, and they have Portuguese sausage and capons!!!!

January 13th

I cleaned up the cables under my desk and moved my new computer around. Also I finally got Grub2 configured to boot to Windows 7 as default. Is it just me or wasn't that much easier with the original Grub?

January 12th

It's Steve!!!!

January 11th

The clouds were simply awe-inspiring today

January 10th

I lit the candles for the sabbath tonight

January 9th

It was a loooooong day and I was exhausted. My creativity had gone so it took this just before I went to sleep. Enjoy my closet

January 8th

My Christmas cactus is in bloom

January 5th

Today was a very productive and efficient day! Maybe even surprisingly so. I took this picture because I love the look of un shoveled snow and as I was walking to my apartment it struck me how pristine it looked, even though it had been walked through. Plus snow always looks better at night.

January 7th

This is why I have no voice. My vocal cords aren't closing posteriorly. I had to have a camera inserted in my nose to take this picture because my gag reflex was so sensitive they couldn't go in through my mouth. Looks like I get to have speech therapy now.

January 6th

Sorry it's late 

This is my fuzzy red bathrobe, it's so warm and soft!

January 4th

I think I got a positive reaction from my spectacles. So, as an experiment  I will be wearing them to work for a while to see if there truly is a positive effect.

January 3rd

I'm trying to light the Shabbat candles every week.

January 2nd

I was feeling professorial today. I think the pipe and elbow patches bring it all together.

January 1st

I was not expecting snow today!

Introduction

Hello, and welcome to my blog! My name is Jacob and I will be doing (or, rather, attempting) to do a photo a day for the whole of 2014. As this is the 4th of January I obviously have some catching up to do and the next few post will be doing just that. Also, this blog will be punctuated by periodic ramblings on topics that I feel are important, or at least interesting. Any views that I express are my own, unless otherwise stated. All that being said, I hope you enjoy my blog, and I appreciate any feedback!
-Jacob