Februrary Book Photo Challenge Days 3 and 4

February Book Photo Challenge (from Books and Cupcakes)

Day Three: Made Me Cry

The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova
 - Truly amazing historical fantasy novel. It delves into the legends surrounding Dracula, but that only scratches the surface of the experience of reading it. I read this book in college and then again a few years later and it had the same emotional impact it did the first time I read it. The ending is beautiful and tragic so you know it's among my favorites of all time.

Day Four: Couldn't Put Down

The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon by Stephen King
 - I think Stephen King is one of the greatest living American authors although he's rarely credited as such. (What's so wrong with being prolific or writing mainly horror anyway?)
 - This book is about a young girl who takes a wrong turn while out hiking with her family. The rest of the book follows her as she attempts to survive in the wilderness, and evade a nameless horror that is hunting her.
 - It's beautiful and haunting and, yeah, a bit terrifying. As with most King novels, I couldn't put it down because I was too scared not to find out what happened next!

July Book Photo Challenge

I love the monthly book photo challenges over at Books and Cupcakes - so I decided to do July's!

You can check it out on my Tumblr. :)

Anxiety

Nobody realizes that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal.  
- Albert Camus

I don't know what it is lately, but I've been having way worse anxiety than usual. (So all of the flower photos in this post are my attempt to cheer myself up and achieve a sense of peacefulness.)

 On Monday I had a "I'm spiraling into depression and don't know how to clamber out again" morning. For those of you who have never experienced this.... It involves a lot of thoughts in the vein of horrible self-loathing and doubt which then crash into a wave of apathy so huge you can pretty much do nothing but sit somewhere (pretty much wherever you happen to be when it hits) and stare at the wall. 

I managed to get myself to the point of "okay, I'm going to distract myself from all of this non-feeling and awfulness" by watching a lot of pointless tv and playing video games... And then yesterday, the boy and I had a very strange fight - and my anxiety levels shot through the roof so suddenly that I almost blacked out. 

That's never happened to me before. It was like having a five minute panic attack without the heart palpitations. Instead, I felt dizzy and sick and my vision went totally dark before I made myself lie down.

So this morning when I woke up, I resolved to be better to myself. I got out of bed and made myself a nice breakfast. I did the dishes and the laundry. I walked around downstairs picking up things that belong elsewhere. And then I sat down at my computer to write.

BOOM. Crushing waves of panic in my chest. Now I'm having the heart flutters and lightheadedness I associate with a panic attack.

I just want to say: WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON.

Okay. I'm done. More flowers:

Final note: Yes, I took all of those pictures.