Puzzle’s “Cousins” Schnoodles and Whoodles– Repost

I’d like to repost these adorable photos of Puzzle’s cousins–brothers and sisters actually!  They were born in August, 2007.  The post the photos were in before went corrupt and loaded too slowly, so I thought I’d repost.

A Schoodle is a cross between a Schnauzer and a Poodle.  A Whoodle is a cross between a Wheaten Terrier and a Poodle.

Here’s Captain, the dad:

Here are some photos of the Schnoodles:

Here are the Whoodles:

Here’s Puzzle:

For more photos and info about Puzzle, click on the category “Puzzle” on the sidebar, on the right.

*******************

My wonderful new book, This Hunger Is Secret: My Journeys Through Mental Illness and Wellness is now available in e-book form from Chipmunkapublishing.  Click here to download the .pdf file.  To read excerpts at my home site, click here.  The book will be available in paperback form in May 2011.

New Photo of me

Click here:

https://juliemadblogger.wordpress.com/about-my-website/

and scroll down to view the new photo.  I wanted one that showed my braid and also looked happier.  I look younger in the new photo, too.  I don’t like that the background is in my bedroom and looks kind of sloppy.  Maybe I should use the photo that crops that out–???  I have another cropped version.  I don’t know.

I’ve changed my mind about my creative thesis title–again!

First title — Forgotten Lines, Remembered Years: For an Occasion as It Arises

Next title — Arrows to the Hand: My Journeys Through Mental Illness and Wellness

Current title — This Hunger is Secret:  My Journeys Through Mental Illness and Wellness

Ah, the human mind at work…

New Title for My Book: Arrows to the Hand

Hello everyone,

I have decided to change the title of my book, the work I am doing as my creative thesis right now at Goddard College.  Formerly, the title was:

Forgotten Lines, Remembered Years: For an Occasion as It Arises

This is a mouthful, and is also not very catchy.  I generally referred to the book as “Forgotten Lines” for short.  It was a title that required a nickname.

Here is the new title:

Arrows to the Hand: My Journeys Through Mental Illness and Wellness

I like it!  My advisor, Darrah Cloud, has told me that it is not too late to make the change.  I am so sold on this new title that I have gone ahead and changed my title page draft and a handful of other documents.  Darrah says that a title should pique the reader’s (and an editor’s) curiosity.  What about you?  Are you curious?

Goddard Photos – repost

Hi!  I’m reposting these.  I had posted them previously, but the post went corrupt and I had to delete it, because I didn’t want YOUR browsers freezing as mine did.  Here are the photos again.  These are the quarters where I will be staying while I am at my GRADUATION RESIDENCY!

Check out these Mind Freedom International links

Although I don’t subscribe to the antipsychiatry movement, I do respect it.  I have benefited a great deal from psychiatry.  I say that with reservation.  I have had my share of good and bad psychiatry.  You have read about a portion of my experiences here.

Click on these links to see photos from MFI’s protests of the American Psychiatric Association last week!  Be sure to view the photos full screen, and check out the all the posters and banners!

http://www.mindfreedom.org/apa/photos-american-psychiatric-association-2009-protest

http://www.mindfreedom.org/apa/photos-american-psychiatric-association-2009-protest/american-psychiatric-association-2009-protest/image_view_fullscreen

Parade!

I went into town to run some errands, and took the back route, as I always do, but then when I reached the library I heard a band playing.  I realized that today is Memorial Day.  A parade!  I shut off my headphones and went over to Main Street to check out the fun.  A high school band was just passing.  I didn’t catch which high school it was, but it didn’t matter, because just seeing the teens–the baton twirlers, the flutes and piccolos up front, the clarinets, the brass, the percussion complete with bass drums–how exciting!

Yet I found myself weeping, hiding behind my wide-brimmed hat so that the others in the crowd would not witness my tears.  The high school band, the hubbub of the parade, the marchers, the pageantry, the veterans, the Cub Scouts–I was at once awed and overwhelmed with grief.  My memories of parades are bittersweet.  Certainly, most children feel joy as they witness a parade.  How could a child not feel this way?  But I recall in my teen years grueling marching practices, endless rehearsals, fatigue, and the feeling that I was never good enough.  I remember the band director yelling at me for mistakes I didn’t make.  I remember being overheated in my uniform.  And I remember the cruelty of my best friend, who enslaved me.

And so I wept.  I wept for the kid in that high school band who practiced and practiced and never made it to first chair.  I wept for the kid who was teased.  I wept for the kid who always had to sit at the back of the bus.  I wept for the kid who had cancer.  I wept for the athletes: winners and losers both.  I wept for the druggies, the outcasts, the nerds, the geeks, the freaks, and the girls that got pregnant and had to drop out.  I wept for the kids who went crazy in high school and had to be hospitalized and lost all their friends and their self esteem.  I wept for the straight-A students, who felt they had to live up to others’ expectations, instead of their own.  And somewhere in there, I wept for myself.

I stepped into the store and made my purchases, then I traveled through the parking lot, over to the playing field.  In the nearby park, a crowd had gathered, and someone was giving a speech over a loudspeaker.  I couldn’t make out the words.  I sat and listened from afar.  A trumpeter played Taps.  That was my instrument: trumpet.  I never played Taps at a parade because there was always someone better than me that got to play it.  I knew the instrument was a trumpet, not a bugle, and I knew that a lucky kid in the high school band was playing.

Next, guns fired.  Silence.  Then bagpipes played the song I only know as Amazing Grace, though there are other words to the song, and then the bagpipes played another bagpipe song, but I forget now what it was.  The entire high school percussion section joined in.  I knew this because of the immensity of the rhythm.  The solemnity of Taps had faded, and was now replaced by joy.  After the bagpipes finished, the crowd dispersed.

I trekked home.  What had started as a brief trip to the store had turned into a melting pot of thought and memory for me.  The brightness of sound and pageantry seemed like too much.  I let myself into my apartment, greeted the dog, and unpacked my bag.  Somehow, I needed a release–what better way to let out my emotions than to write about my experience.  And so, I sat at the computer, and began a new blog entry.

Happy Memorial Day.

Dog Sweater Pattern!

Here is Puzzle, modeling her latest sweater!  It is a granny square sweater, made of 100% Peruvian wool.

Here is the sweater, in progress:

I invented the pattern myself.  In fact, I even invented the stitch I used to make the squares.  I call it “quarter double crochet” (qdc) as opposed to half double crochet.

Here is the pattern I invented for the layout of the squares:

I have invented many patterns before but this is the first one that I have actually written down!  You may use it yourself if you wish!

I have used this pattern using knitted squares instead of crocheted granny squares.  Check out this sweater here:

https://juliemadblogger.wordpress.com/2009/08/12/progress-on-my-next-dog-sweater/

Here’s a link to another dog sweater I have posted:

https://juliemadblogger.wordpress.com/2009/06/11/another-dog-sweater-pattern-l-l-greene/

Here’s a link to another dog sweater pattern I have designed myself:

https://juliemadblogger.wordpress.com/2010/02/20/new-dog-sweater-pattern-free/

*****************

My wonderful new book, This Hunger Is Secret: My Journeys Through Mental Illness and Wellness is now available in e-book form from Chipmunkapublishing.  Click here to download the .pdf file.  To read excerpts at my home site, click here.  The book will be available in paperback form in May 2011.

Have a nice day!

Thoughts for Today – Saturday

Yesterday I felt very anxious while I was at my therapy session, and  my therapist guessed right when she suggested that I may have been anxious because I was afraid that she would ask me about my eating.  She then asked me straighforward how the eating was going, and I replied, “Is it true that a person’s body can adjust to getting by on very little food?”

To which she replied, “You have avoided my question.”

I said, “I answered your question, with another question.”

And that seems to be how my life has been going, with so many unanswered questions, or questions begetting yet more questions.  I am not always honest with my therapist, and she is aware of this.  People with eating disorders can be very creative liars.  “Do you plan on eating dinner?” “Yes.”  “How often do you weigh yourself?”  “Once a week.”  And so on.  I don’t know if she is truly aware of the whole picture of my life right now, and I find this both a comfort and a bit disturbing.

How much longer can I go on like this before something really bad happens?  I asked my therapist what happens when you starve yourself, and she told me that the body takes nutrients from itself instead of from food.  The body takes from tissues–from fat, muscle, bones–and from organs.  That sounds like a horrible, scary thing.  I am convinced, though, that this is not happening to me, that my body is getting energy vibes from Puzzle.  Whether this is delusional or not I don’t know.

The truth is that I am truly sad that I will have to leave Goddard College, that I am graduating, and the idea that I am beginning a whole new life as a person with a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing degree doesn’t serve to alleviate my sadness much.  For five and a half years I’ve been centered around some big goals, and suddenly all that will be gone.   There will still be a sense of community, but not the precious sense of purpose and direction that I once had.  Already, I am beginning to feel lost, and I’ve latched onto this starvation thing for security, as an anchor, unhealthy as it is.

I’ve updated my home site!

I’ve updated www.juliegreene.name!  I put in new writings and updated the home page (again).  I think it’s an improvement!  Go have a look!

Click HERE!