ivyskeep

This could be a post of yet another round of dog surgery and work, work, work, so that's the only sentence I'll devote to that except to say that the dog is recovering well.

I wanted to share this marvelous crafting writer I've found. Kathryn Vercillo goes beyond crochet patterns and dives into the emotional impact of crafting. When I saw the title of her book, "Crochet Saved My Life," I knew I found a kindred spirit. Kathryn uses her psychology education background and personal struggle with depression to inform her writing on the cross-section of craft and mental health. The last several minutes I've been looking over several of her articles at different sites to find the best quote to sum up her work, but there's so much that resonates that it's hard to choose one thing. She understands that creativity can be healing, but she knows from personal experience that mental health challenges can also keep you from being creative. So I'll simply point you to her intro piece on Substack, "START HERE: where art meets psychology and creativity can thrive." Please know that I'm not suggesting craft as a replacement for professional care and neither does she. Just as I could say crochet saved my life, I say the same thing about therapy and Prozac at one point in my life.

 Work is busy after a long slow patch, so that's good. The dog is now on incontinence medication. Let's hope that helps. She'll start another pain med tomorrow. I also do Reiki and massage on her. I joked that she's like a little old lady with her daily pill box. "And these are for Monday, Tuesday..."

I found a few more charities to send crocheted items to. One is called Operation Gratitude for active service members, veterans, and their families. In between working on J's blanket, I'm making easy scarves to send.

I'm doing qigong from videos, which is helping me feel energized in the morning and more relaxed in the evening, I believe.