Greetings, fellow travelers. My name is Amanda, and right now I live in Ontario, Canada. I'm a writer. (See this blog to find out more about me and my work.) I love fuzzy socks, and black-and-white movies, and reading books, and taking pictures. Chocolate and tea are two of my most favourite things. If I could, I would travel the world over and write in a hundred different tiny cafés, and just take pictures (see some of them here) and write stories for a living. I am hoping that one day I'll get there.
I've also struggled with depression in my short little life, though I am lucky in that it hasn't been terribly severe. Still, the past year has been hard. I gave up a life that I loved in Edinburgh, Scotland, and am now in the process of scraping an existence back together in rural Ontario. Right now, I live with my parents. I spent the first six months of my time back in Canada unemployed, and cried nearly every day. It's been tough. But I've decided that I don't want to be that person anymore, and so I'm embarking on a little project. Every day, for the span of one year, I am going to find and focus my attention on one little thing that brings me joy.
For the remainder of 2011 (it's June 6th as I write this) and half of 2012, I'm going to find one thing, each and every day, to rejoice over. I can't promise that they'll be amazing things, each and every one -- I can't even promise that they'll be particularly interesting! Nor do I promise that every thing I find to put a smile on my face will be different from the last. But hey, if something puts a smile on my face two days in a row, that's worth rejoicing, isn't it?
So come along, and smile with me ...
