My friend Amy that accompanied me to the Pops Concert the other night (preceded by Uno’s Pizza, but after spontaneously researching the calorie content in ˝ a regular ‘Shroom pizza, I will never freely eat one again!) Amy has a great deal of stress occurring in her life right now, and it builds upon stress from a RAD child that nearly imploded her family (the child is no longer in her home.) Amy told me she is just starting a job with UPS … loading boxes for 3-5 hours a day. Many of her friends and family thinks she’s nuts … but I don’t. It makes perfect sense to me. She will be physically tired and sleep better at night. She will be productive and immediately see the fruits of her labor. It requires no brain power. She will be paid and get benefits. She will be more physically fit and not be paying a health club for the privilege. It makes tons of sense to me.


In fact, the very same logic is at work at my house … for Dora. She has been contributing to the household here of late by cleaning out the paddock for me. Shoveling dried manure into bags is good physical activity; requires little to no brain power; contributes to the family; and all indications so far are that its biggest advantage is it appears to uncork her bottled up anger, as the cacophony from the paddock is quite impressive. She’s determined to spend more time hollering at me to rescue her than she does doing her chore, but this too shall pass. I’m actually quite pleased to have found such a simple and honest way of tapping into her bottled up emotions. The chore she is asked to do is one that has been done quite often by Beth. I have been known to pay kids a dollar a bag, but in Dora’s case, she’s not getting paid right now. Beth and her friends have often done this chore to earn a few bucks. Dora persists in filling the bags too full, and we have repeatedly told her lighter is better … making them easier to toss into the dumpster and … duh … making her job quicker! She could do this job in an hour tops. But, she’s not …


She should sleep well tonight.


Maintaining mental health


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