I’m tapping for day 3 of the Ultimate Blog Challenge. I’m trying to stay focus and not to be distracted by all the small inconsequential ‘stuff’. Those stuff are different things to different folks. My mission is to show up here every day in November and give it my best in words – in content, layout, grammar, the whole enchilada. Working to improve gives me spark. I am a self-help junkie at heart. Nothing can change that. I know I am in trouble when I stop being curious, quirky and self improve.

I felt a little grey and dull in October, a little of Peggy Lee’s Is That All There Is? The phrase played in my head off and on through the month. I felt listless and tepid, like old dishwater. I wonder if it’s too much Covid news. I wonder if it’s my old friend, SAD back for a visit. I haven’t seen him for awhile. I could never stay down, being helpless like that for long. It doesn’t feel good. I don’t like suffering. My self-help mentality pushed me to do something. And so I joined the Inktober Challenge again.

Like the site says, anyone can do Inktober. Just pick up a pen and start drawing. It helps to improve inking skills as well as to develop positive drawing as well as living habits. The trick to doing anything is to start. I didn’t invest alot of time and effort into the project. Each day I look at the word prompt, then make a drawing in my journal and post it on Instagram. There was no huge accolade, no thousands of likes. But each day I felt a bit lighter. Then one day I thought: This is rather easy and fun. By the time I got to the prompt SLITHER, I felt happy. I was singing “inchworm, inchworm”in my head. I was delighted with my last inking – RISK. I felt daring.

Risk is what life is all about. I had to step out the door, out of my comfort zone once in awhile to look around and see what is going on around me. It’s a way of connecting with the real world and nature. So to the park we went, on our daily walk. It’s a chance to move, to learn and to see what other people are up to. It’s a chance to connect with another person now that we’ve lost some of the old ways.

What really puts me in a blue funk is bad company, the negativity and meanness on social media, the news and articles on Covid and conspiracy theories. Our province ranks the worse with most highest per capita in our country. Our provincial government has not done much. They are more interested in economic growth rather than the health and safety of the people. There’s not much I can do to change all this except not to participate or engage with the negativity and to ‘keep safe.’ Through my blue funk October I am more observant of what builds me and what depletes me. I am a big fan of Snoopy. He is teaching me how to live.