Progress? Watercress? What's the difference?

It hasn't all been birthdays and crashing computers around here. We actually found someone willing and able to finish up some of our missing sheetrock. His name is Bernard and he has done more in a matter of 4 hours or so than we have in the last 6 months total.

Look! Sheetrock!

Have you ever written down a word and it just didn't look right? I mean - some common everyday word that you use without thinking... And one day you write it down and it looks all wrong? You don't recognize it at all and for a moment or two you can't at all see how those shapes make the letters that would make up that word?

Progress. That's exactly how I feel when I type the word 'progress' today. It's jibberish, at best -- maybe the native tongue of an imaginary race from some science fiction novel.

Progress: from the Latin roots 'gress' meaning 'to walk' -- and 'pro' meaning 'forward'. To walk forward. No wonder it sounds foreign. We fall, stumble, lie prostrate, and wander aimlessly around here these days. Not a whole lot of 'walking forward' going on...

If finally getting someone willing to be paid to hang 8 sheets of sheetrock over the course of 12 days (so far!) nearly 365 days after a disaster when that sheetrock makes up only the tiniest fraction of repair work to be done is considered 'walking forward' these days then dabnabbit there is nothing left to do but embrace that looming mental health crisis.

Depressed. Now there's a word I can wrap my mind around. It drips off my tongue like butter off a hot biscuit. Depressed. Depression. Depress. From the Latin "press down" - it's interesting to note that the prefix 'de' in Latin also means 'entirely'. Ah yes! To entirely press down.

How do you walk forward when you are being pressed down... entirely?

I don't know either -- but I can tell you this for sure... Sheetrock is no longer the answer.