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I know, it’s been a few days since I’ve posted. I’m not going to apologise to you though, Dear Reader, because well, it always seems a little sad to see someone feeling guilty that they haven’t posted an entry in the last few days, so no guilt here! Sometimes you just don’t feel like posting. My reason is that I have been dealing with depression again, if only fleetingly.

If you don’t remember my post on it from ages ago, I suffer from PMDD - Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder - which basically means that for about a week before my period is due every month I have three to seven days of depression, lethargy, etc and of course the most frustrating part of it for me is that it pretty much stops my creativity. The best part is that I am very grateful not to be suffering every day of the month, but even though I know that it is only temporary it still wipes me out every time.

I felt it creeping up on Saturday and then I spent Sunday in and out of bed, sleeping or laying on the couch most of the day. Then by 9.30 on Monday morning, I was in tears over nothing, then I pulled myself together pretty well to go to Playgroup with Emma (I felt a LOT better after my big pathetic cry session at my sisters) then I forged on to the Gym afterwards - exercise being good for shaking the mood - and ended up just walking out of the BodyBalance class before the end. Tuesday I was still feeling pretty blah, though I managed to get a few things done, in between zoning out in front of the telly or computer. I had no patience with the poor kids though. And then today, Wednesday I woke up and felt absolutely fine again. It’s as if nothing different had happened these last few days.

It’s a weird feeling really - comparing how I felt yesterday and the day before with how I feel today. Completely opposite frame of mind and energy levels.

One thing on the plus side of having PMDD (you have to find the silver lining!) is that often on the day that I come out of it, I am so pleased to be back to normal that I have a frenzy of activity. This afternoon I completely tidied up my workroom. Well, halfway anyhow. I will be finishing it up tomorrow so you will have to wait until then to see the evidence.

Here’s a reminder of what it looked like earlier - the before shot:

In other interesting news, I may have broken my left wrist! My non-dominant hand, thankfully. Astute readers will remember that I had a fall about a month ago (you can read about it here if you are not that astute! ha!) and hurt my wrist as I put it out to break my fall. It hurt quite a bit but that was to be expected and it soon felt almost back to normal. I had a niggling pain that remained but wasn’t too annoying - it was only when I had to do something that involved putting pressure on bending my thumb back. Helpful advice included the classic “Well if it hurts to do that, then don’t do it!” I managed everyday things quite fine and just was reminded of it here and there.

Then over the last couple of weeks I noticed the pain getting quite a lot worse and it was a dull pain pretty much all the time. Then the pain seemed to be travelling down my wrist, to the inside part of my forearm and I started getting quite worried! Of course it took me a bit of procrastinating to get to the doctor but I went today and she said that it sounded like I had fractured my scaphoid bone which is right inside the wrist. I just found this great site with lots of info (some of it a little scary) that you might like to read… you know if you are bored, interested or if you are my mother - hi mum!

So I have an x-ray tomorrow to see if it’s broken and then if it is I will probably have a cast put on my wrist on Friday afternoon. How often does a person get advance warning that they will be in a cast? So I have some sewing to get out of the way quicksmart as I’m not sure how easy it will be to guide fabric through the sewing machine with a cast on! Am I typing all this using my left hand right now? uh… yeah.

Now here’s a pretty picture:

This is a shot I did a few months ago - it’s a giant orangey marrow that Paul’s dad grew, and it is sitting on a great old leather couch of ours, full of wrinkles and texture. I worked on it in Photoshop obviously but it did already have that glorious colour. We didn’t end up eating it but I’m pretty sure it was a marrow, though I didn’t realise they could be orange.

When I took the photo I was thinking of the amazing pinhole photographs of Bill Brandt - like this, this or this.

I have set up a photo gallery of my Flickr photos so that they show up here within my site. The link is www.jenleheny.com/photos. It was extremely easy and I think it’s a neat addition to the site.

If your blog runs on WordPress as this one does (it’s free, easily customisable, all the best features etc) then simply download the Flickr Album Plugin, activate it, answer a couple of questions to customise image size etc and it’s done!

In fact, the Plugin system is one of the very best things about WordPress - besides the fact that it is free! Most Open Source programs have an army of clever users who write Plugins for others to download that extend and customise the usefulness of the program, but with WordPress it really is just a matter of uploading the Plugin files and then activating the Plugin from within the Admin screen.

What? You don’t know about Open Source programs? Programs for just about anything that are available for free and the code is open for others to make their own changes which are uploaded for other people to use as well. The thing I like about them is that people are always working to improve the code and you can find the answer to almost anything with lots of searching in the appropriate forums.

Edited to add:
Wow! I’ve found another very cool Flickr Plugin for WordPress bloggers. This one is for the Admin side of things and speeds up the process of adding Flickr photos to your posts as you type them.

“The WordPress Flickr Post Bar plugin very simply allows you to easily insert your Flickr photos into your blog posts. Once installed, this plugin will display your most recent Flickr photos as thumbnails in a bar across the bottom of your WordPress post form. Clicking on the thumbnail of a photo you want to use will then automatically insert the proper HTML snippet into your blog post.”

I have just had this photo pass the test at the very tough Delete Me group at Flickr, where people vote to either save or delete the photo. I am very pleased - thank you to all who voted.

Here is my first entry for Photo Friday . The theme this week is Retro so I thought of this shot from a few years ago. Taken on a Lomo and worked a little in Photoshop.

I’ve already found Self Portrait Tuesday and Illustration Friday and now Photo Friday - if you know of any other similar projects then please let me know by leaving a comment below. These projects are great fun!