Gardening Therapy

~ There are only so many hours per day that you can search for work.   After 3 or 4 hours of searching and applying for jobs,  I start to get really depressed.  But I may have found a good way to balance that.  Today, instead of starting my day sitting at the computer to look for work, I’m gardening instead.  There are countless flower beds on this property which haven’t been properly tended in a couple of years now.  I’ve been haphazardly working on them but I think I am going to make working on them part of my daily routine for as long as the weather allows.  My Mom would probably be very surprised at this behavior, I never really liked yard work.  Maybe I need to give credit to my dear friend Cindy.  This time last year she drove down to visit me and we worked on my yard and something shifted in my attitude.  Even before that I started thinking about gardening as more a Zen thing than a chore and over the past couple of years I’ve observed Cindy get such personal satisfaction from her gardens.  It helps to keep your mind in the moment (which is always good for depression, stress, and worrying),  the exercise is good, everyone needs a little bit of sunshine / vitamin D per day, the cats and dog keep me company, and when I’m finally ready to call it quits I have lovely, visible results from my hard work.  After a shower and some lunch I was ready to go back to the job search tasks.  So thanks Cindy - wish you were here ;-)