I’m having a banner day! This just arrived from Vistaprint. ‘Tis a thing of beauty. Thanks to writer pal and graphic designer, Christopher D. Ochs, for his brilliant work.
Tag Archives: phil giunta
The Gratitude Box
The Gratitude Jar has become an increasingly popular method for recording positive moments in one’s life and reinforcing a mindset of—you guessed it!—gratitude. If you’re not familiar with the concept, it’s simple. There are several variations, but the basic steps are:
- Find a jar.
- Whenever something good happens in your life, write a short note about it, fold it up, and drop it into the jar.
- At the end of the year, open the jar and review all of these wonderful moments in your life for which you’re grateful.
- The following year, repeat steps one through three.
Mine is a clear acrylic box, the kind used to store trading cards. I have plenty of empty jars at home, but I chose a small container when I started it because at the time, I was spiraling into yet another bout of depression and anxiety, two demons that have plagued me since childhood. Gratitude was the furthest thing from my mind.
The past ten months have been turbulent for me and I’ve been struggling to adjust to the changes. I won’t bore you with the details and I’m certainly not fishing for sympathy. Suffice it to say that it’s been an enervating experience which exacerbated my chronic depression and sent my writing productivity—not to mention my outlook on life—plummeting. As a result, I felt myself foundering, failing, and generally falling apart.
Given all of that, I couldn’t see too many positive moments in my future, so why bother with a jar?
As you can see from the above image, the box is nearly full and we’re only halfway through the year. I also tossed in some uplifting fortunes from the occasional cookie.
Thus, I stand corrected. Clearly, I have much to be grateful for and seeing it manifested in this collection of notes reminds of this even through the darkest times.
While I’m still working to find the right direction for myself and struggling to surface from what has become the longest bout of depression in my life, perhaps I need to upgrade to a jar after all.
Memorial Day
Wishing everyone a relaxing Memorial Day and hope you will, in fact, take at least a moment to remember those who gave their lives in the service of our country.
Happy Birthday, Harlan Ellison
Today would have been Harlan Ellison’s 85th birthday… It’s been almost a year since the grand master left us, but his work will last forever.
Getting Outside…
As an outdoorsman, I’m always grateful for beautiful weather, especially since my new day job has me tucked away in a basement office for roughly 40 hours per week.
Unfortunately, life has been so hectic and fraught with stress, anxiety, and depression this year that it took weeks longer than unusual for my first fishing trip. This morning, I drove up to Beltzville State Park in Lehighton, PA for several hours of fishing followed by an hour of just kicking back and enjoying clear skies and sunshine.
My first catch of the day was a sizable black crappie. This was followed by an enormous largemouth bass that threw my hook just as I was about to pull it out of the water. I was disappointed, but only for about an hour. Near the end of my day, I hauled in one of the biggest bass I’ve ever caught from any lake in Pennsylvania.
All told, it was a fantastic start to my fishing season!
Book Review: Strange Stories of the Supernatural
When I was in high school, mumble-mumble years ago, the Scholastic Book Club was known for selling inexpensive reprints of classic novels and anthologies published by Watermill Press. You can still find these old paperbacks online and in used book shops.
In October, I reviewed two of them on this blog—The Legend of Sleepy Hollow/Rip Van Winkle and Great Ghost Stories. I recently discovered Strange Stories of the Supernatural tucked away in one of our bookcases at home. It is a thin anthology consisting of only five tales, the best of which is the “The Monkey’s Paw” by W.W. Jacobs. A military veteran returns home from India with a mummified monkey’s paw, which grants its owner three wishes—at a terrible cost. While visiting a friend, the soldier tosses the trinket into the fire, but his friend hastily retrieves it and insists on trying it, despite the soldier’s warning…
The remaining four stories range from mildly enjoyable (“The Upper Berth” and “The Ghost Ship”) to disappointing (“The Mortal Immortal” and “The Dream Woman”).
In “The Upper Berth” by F. Marion Crawford, an Englishman named Brisbane recounts a ghostly encounter while crossing the Atlantic aboard a ship where six previous passengers threw themselves overboard during previous voyages. As it happens, every one of them slept in the same stateroom as Mr. Brisbane…
While spending the night at a secluded inn, Isaac Scatchard dreams that a young woman with a knife tries to murder him in his bed. Upon arriving home, Isaac describes the dream to his mother, who takes detailed notes. Years later, he meets an attractive woman and eventually arranges for her to meet his mother, who recognizes her instantly from Isaac’s description of “The Dream Woman.” This story by Wilkie Collins is among the better ones in the book.
“The Ghost Ship” by Richard Middleton. In the English town of Fairfax, ghosts are a common sight and are, in fact, taken for granted. However, it is unusual for a tall ship to materialize in the middle of a turnip field after a violent storm. The ghost ship’s captain assures the town that he will return to sea in a few days—after taking on new recruits.
In Mary Shelley’s “The Mortal Immortal,” an alchemist’s young apprentice drinks a solution that might have made him immortal, for his outward appearance never changes throughout his decades-long marriage. Yet, he drank only half the bottle, so is he truly immortal or merely aging slowly?