Some people that I care about are supposed to be returning from a trip to Mexico. They found a house close to the beach just a little south of a resort area. The cost was reasonable and they were looking forward to the break. I am a bit nervous today waiting for news of their return. In fact, right now when I’m thinking about it—it feels pretty scary.

A small article about the Belmont College Mindset List appeared in the morning paper today. Each year the college puts together a list of interesting bits of information about the incoming freshman class. I was surprised by one of the items. Apparently, most of this year’s incoming freshmen do not know how to write in cursive. This fact led me to my computer where I have spent the last few hours researching cursive handwriting (of course I am supposed to be working on a book project today so the topic of handwriting had great appeal as a way to delay the inevitable).

It appears that although the majority of elementary school teachers teach cursive, it is not required in some schools and students don’t appear to be using cursive as much as they used to.

Especially since the advent of the Great Recession a couple of years ago, many people have assumed if they just had a little more money, all would be well in their worlds. Of course in the decades before this economic meltdown, we’d seen huge rises in people’s income, wealth and purchases. During the economic boom times we also saw alarming increases in rates of addiction, depression and anxiety. So, what’s going on?

One of our favorite topics to write about is obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). OCD presents in a fascinating variety of symptoms and the literature on treatment is extensive. So, when we were contacted by New Harbinger Publications to review a new book on OCD for teens we were delighted. Free From OCD: A Workbook for Teens with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder by Timothy A. Sisemore, Ph.D. has been released this month. It’s worth a look.

The book contains 40 activities that are designed to help the teen reader overcome OCD.