Biological Depression: What It's Like

At my Bible study yesterday, someone brought up a young man who recently committed suicide.  He appeared to have it all:  he was bright and accomplished, and his future was promising.  So why would he take his life?

I didn't know the man, but I wonder if he, too, suffered from biological depression.

Biological, or clinical, depression is caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain.  It distorts your view of everything.  What goes on in my head doesn't always make sense even to me, but I'll try to describe it to you.

It's unrelated to circumstances, which can be a hard thing to understand.  My husband has found me sobbing and assured me that everything is okay.  "I know!"

I fight that battle on my own, too.  Sometimes I know everything is okay, yet I'm driven to find a way out.  Imagine being in a happy situation, yet feeling miserable.  It's an awful, out-of-control feeling.

I try to lean on what I know:  God is in control.  I have a family and friends who love me.  I hope to see my son graduate, go to college, get married, become a dad.  None of that overcomes the heavy darkness.  It's so frustrating that I sometimes want to throw something.

My doctor has not yet found the combination of medications that helps me.  But I'm hopeful because I have an appointment with a specialist in a few weeks.  I also have a source of strength in the help of my husband and a few friends.  They listen to me ramble, wait while I cry, and hug me until the storm passes.

Next week, anxiety. ;)

NOVICA (Shopping Site and Product Review)

Have you heard of NOVICA?  I hadn't, until I was given the opportunity to try one of their products.  First I wanted to know who they were, starting with their mission:

We want to give artists and artisans around the world a global platform to express their true artistic talents and to spur their creativity. And, we want to provide you with access to unique, hard-to-find items at great values that only the Internet infrastructure can allow.

In association with National Geographic, NOVICA offers a wide range of home decor, jewelry, and wall art from South and Central America, Africa, and Asia.  The site is fun to browse, too.  You can look at a Maya mask (seeing this on the wall would give me nightmares!) and jump directly to reverse painted glass jewelry boxes (these are so pretty!).

For my review item, I started looking at jewelry.  I don't wear a lot of jewelry, and what I do wear is generally understated.  So I began with silver pendant necklaces.  A few of them caught my eye, but they were either out of my price range or tinged with religious symbolism that I didn't want to wear.  I dropped the "sterling silver" filter (I appreciate the number of filters available to refine your results) and sorted by price.  After much browsing, I chose a Carnelian and citrine pendant necklace.  I wear a lot of blue, and I think the contrast will be fun.  (If you wear earrings--I don't--you'll find a vast array of styles.  Just of garnet dangle earrings there are 226 items.)

Now that I'd decided to divide my budget between two items, I started looking at handbags.  It was not long before I fell in love with this 'Maya Meadows' cotton tote.  I like the muted colors, the pretty design, and the hand-loomed cotton.

NOVICA is also introducing a new feature, curation.  This allows users to create galleries of items and images.  I used this to save the items that I was considering, which is not the intended use.  (You can see my jewelry collection if you like.)  The object is to boost the exposure and success of favorite artisans.

The last thing I want to mention about shopping on the site is the great amount of information available.  For example, for the necklace I chose, the product page contains a description which includes materials used; dimensions of both the necklace and the pendant; two photos; a biographical sketch of the artisan, reviews of her work, and links to more of her items.

The items arrived reasonably quickly.  The necklace was in a cute, tiny box.  Inside, the necklace was in a fabric pouch.  The butterfly was just as pictured.  My only disappointment is that the butterfly is crimped onto the leather cord.  If it wasn't, I would slip it off and wear the pendant on a silver chain.

The bag was gift-wrapped and embellished with a Mayan worry doll.  The bag itself is just as pretty as pictured.  I would like to see a clearer distinction between handbags and tote bags, but I count that as my oversight.  My two favorite features?  The zipper closure and the machine washability.

So that's my shopping experience with NOVICA.  If you like items that are exotic or brightly colored, I think you'll enjoy browsing the site.

Creating the Perfect Cupcake (Guest Post)

The key to making any cupcake is not just to make it super delicious, but also pretty cute. Just as decorating a birthday cake is a cause for those creative juices to flow, so is decorating a batch of delicious cupcakes. Their small size can allow for so much variation in design; do you want them each decorated individually from each other? Do you want to follow a theme? Or will they all merge together to create one bigger picture?

The first thing you have to decide on is what flavour cupcake you want to make. There are so many to choose from, and the beauty is you are really only limited by your imagination! Want to make peanut butter and jelly cupcakes? Done! How about a decadent Bailey's Irish cream cupcake? Delicious! Flip through your recipe books or do a quick internet search to find an array of quirky recipes or search for basic recipes, such as vanilla and chocolate, and go from there. Just adding chic chips or a creamy filling to your regular vanilla or chocolate cupcake can turn it from an ordinary treat to a personal creation.

Onto the decoration. There are many ways that you can decorate your cupcakes, I've already mentioned some things to consider when choosing a design, but what will you use to decorate with? Rolled fondant is great to create flat, perfected designs. It is a firm sugar mixture that involves colouring the fondant then rolling it out to cut out the design you desire. Royal icing is a runny or stiff meringue mix that is spread onto the cake or can be used to pipe small decorations like flowers as it dries candy soft. The most popular option is buttercream which is a soft whipped buttery frosting that allows you to pipe beautiful swirls, peaks and petals, like the ones below. This is the most popular option as it is the most tasty and easiest to colour and decorate with. You can create flavours of buttercream just by adding a little flavouring or cocoa powder for a chocolate frosting. Variations of fluffy, piped frosting include cream cheese frosting, like this Pistachio and Raspberry Cupcake by Little Bertha.