For Fellow Bloggers

I just found out that there are tens of thousands of gadgets that you can add to your blog to personalize it. Ranging from pictures of the day, to weather, to games visitors can play, you can do some pretty cool customization to your blog. To learn how, watch this short YouTube video:

Going to the Dark Side

I had to post this picture-- after going blonde this summer (I blog about my process here), I decided to embrace darker hair and go back to my more natural brunette self. When it came time to choose a color, I was feeling the pinch of a tight budget, and decided to use hair color that I already have on hand: the L'Oreal hair box that I am featured on. At first the transition was quite a shock and I kept protesting that I looked nothing like the model on the box, but after a week of getting used to it, I think you'll agree with me that my results do indeed resemble the hair color box.

Before (During the summer):


After (Now):

Knitted Donkey and Elephant

I found this really fun yarn on clearance at Walmart the other day. It's red, white and blue and made by Peaches and Creme. I thought it would be fun to make a political project like the donkey and elephant pictured below (via Cathy of California). Now all I need to do is find a pattern.

The Trouble With Men

I've said this before, but it bears repeating. I found this quote in an amazing book that I highly recommend-- The Politically Incorrect Guide to English and American Literature by Elizabeth Kantor, Ph.D. In the book, she talks about what we learn by reading great literature, i.e., lovers learn to be better lovers through reading the sensual poetry of John Donne, believers read and are inspired to pray in the words of John Milton or T.S. Eliot, a widower finds comfort in William Shakespeare's words: "Men must endure their going hence..." and finally, women "manage (their) relationships with greater integrity because of (the works of) Jane Austen."

Hence, here is what she writes we can learn from looking at the relationships in Jane Austen's book:

"The same tendency not to take responsibility-- to keep their options open, not to get involved-- is what makes young men so dangerous. The villains in Jane Austen's novels are not rapists, wife-beaters, or even jealous husbands. They're men who don't stick around. It's not men's violent, "controlling" urges that make it necessary for parents to look out for their daughters; it's men's tendencies to avoid (or weasel out of) commitment that do. In each of the novels there's at least one man who pays a woman the kind of attention he knows (if he thinks it through) that he shouldn't pay her unless his intentions are serious-- and they're not. In Jane Austen's views, this behavior seems to be an occupational hazard of being male."

Fashion Nightmare

It's still too early to criticize our new president (awwww, I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and wait to see what he does with his power), but I will take this opportunity to pick on little ol' Michelle Obama and THAT dress she was wearing on Tuesday night.




















What was she thinking? No, really. She DOES look like a lava lamp. It's a Narcisco Rodriguez dress that comes from his September collection, and it's sad to say that she does not do that dress any favors by wearing it. In contrast, the model looks lovely in the same outfit which is why one really must dress for their body type. (And why models get paid to wear the clothes, not average people, even if it is normal people who will be wearing the clothes at the end of the day. That said, a dress whose price range lies between $1,000-8,000 is hardly something an average person would wear.)

You can read the New York Times article about that eyesore here.

There's also a slideshow that depicts some of her more winning fashion moments.

Getting Crafty

One of the first rules of blogging is to pick a topic and stick to it. Apparently, it confuses readers if you jump around-- only the devoted will stay loyal while you switch from topic to topic. I'm not much for arbitrary rules anyway, and I don't exactly have a huge readership, so I'll write what a please, and you'll like it, darn it. My blog is titled "Dum Spiro Spero," which means "While I breathe, I hope," and it is my personal motto. The description under that heading states that this blog is about love, life, and literature, which gives me a lot of wiggle room when it comes to the topic department.

One of my favorite blogs is the Craft Magazine Blog which I have listed in my sidebar. They compile crafts and crafty items from other blogs and the web and showcase them on the Craft Magazine site. It's a fun site and a great way to learn about other sites. Here's some of the recent items on the Craftzine blog that caught my eye on a recent visit:

Designer wedding dresses for less site, Once Wed, shows how to make these pretty monogrammed leaves.


These tags come courtesy of Fog and Thistle. You can download them for yourself at the site.


I always want to make envelopes and wrap presents with fabric. ChezPlum.com has a tutorial showing how to make this cute one.


Mmmm... Cashmere fingerless gloves (pattern) from The Purl Bee

Cook popcorn on the stovetop with these easy to follow directions. Via Three Wheels Turning.

Yay to this person for turning a pair of thrift-store shoes into this Marie Antoinette number.

Even though I hate Scrabble, I thought these benches and pillows were kind of cool.

Another site that I discovered through the Craft Magazine blog is the Inspire Company blog which also has links to a cute magazine, and to their store which is full of charming gift ideas. The blog includes directions for different crafts and this one caught my eye.

This walnut has small gifts inside. You can learn how to make a tiny gift box for yourself here.

Cute Overload

On this day of strife with the reds fighting the blues, I thought we could do with a bit of lighthearted cute. I found this aesthetically pleasing food (courtesy of the Japanese) at Cute Overload. Yummy!

Medicating into Mediocrity

We cannot mature and be fully creative by burying or displacing anxiety, but only by moving through it.
~Soren Kierkegaard

If nightingale and linnet
Knew of my sadness and pain,
Their singing would have in it
A far more joyful strain.
~Heinrich Heine



The November issue of Elle features a strumpet-looking Nicole Kidman on the cover (who at forty-one years old looks younger and fresher than any seventeen year old) and one woman's take on the antidepressant debate. In her article, Club Med, Cathi Hanauer explains her own journey from anxiety ridden to Celexa dependent, and back to being drug free. She takes a detailed look at the world of SSRIs-- the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors that increase the serotonin levels in synaptic gaps in the brain, thereby making people feel better.

The world of antidepressant and antianxiety medicines is fraught with controversy-- ranging from questions of why Americans seem to be more medicated for these illnesses than the rest of the world, to whether it's safe, what it does to our brain, and even the implications that one is a weak person if they can't beat their problems through diet, meditation, counseling, or exercise.
The article immediately caught my eye, as yes, I am one of the many who are being treated with these drugs. I take both Lexapro and Abilify, one drug which is prescribed for depression, and the other for anxiety. I started taking these medicines seven months ago after going through what was one of the toughest times I had ever been through.

I have always thought of myself as a melancholic (see the Four Temperaments)-- I'm an introvert who lives inside my own world, and while I can be quite social, I tend to feel unknown and misunderstood. I've always longed to be one of those joyful people-- the kind that are jovial and constantly beam from ear to ear. Gregarious, outgoing, yes, I would love to have those descriptors applied to me. Instead, I'm the girl who sits in a corner and reads a book, who enjoys crying, and has long claimed to love "movies, music, and men that make me cry." It's as if in this sadness, I feel real. It puts me in touch with an empathy that feels other's pain.

My sister said to me the other day that she always felt that her depression was a gift from God. She had gone through phases where she was so low that she could barely get out of bed, and yet, in her pain, she is still thankful for the emotions that the sadness evoked. Similarly, during my own periods of particular depression, I find that I am reflective of my relationships, appreciative of life's moments. As tears stream down my face, I remember those precious moments that otherwise I might not have known. There is a song by the singer-songwriter Patty Griffin that details Mary's days after her son, Jesus, has left. He kisses her on her cheek, and she "stays behind and starts cleaning up the place." The lyrics speak of a mother who is overcome by the loneliness of saying goodbye to her eldest son. It's a poignant song, but one that I did not appreciate until I was blue. And then, one night on the floor in the bathroom of my hotel room in Athens, Greece, far away from my family and friends, my eyes filled with tears as I reflected on what it must mean to be that woman torn apart from her son. It gave me a new found appreciation of that moment in history-- one that I might not have known had that pain been dulled by antidepressants.

And, yet, that is the world that I have now entered-- one where meds take away some of my stress and ease my pain, but also one where, regrettably, I miss the insights associated with my pain. Is it possible that I loved greater and more before I was medicated? Or was my sadness and anxiousness a real drag to those around me and myself?

I have a difficult decision ahead of me. I'm comfortable now, filled with a mentality of if it ain't broke, don't fix it. But perhaps it is time to go back-- back from whence I came. I don't know. All I do know is that I have some thinking to do.