Fibro, Facebook and Fingernails

Sometimes facebook gets on my nerves. Some days, the site as a whole, seems like a giant cesspool. It is usually on especially bad pain days -like this entire week- that I purposely spend more time away from social media. It's the dishonesty that gets me. Every time.

This morning, I knew better than to check the site but I did anyway. In my feed were three ads from separate companies promising that if you just empty your wallet to try their product, you would be cured of fibro. Each ad had hundreds of comments. Most were from people who are willing to do anything to be 'cured' of fibro. A few were from people who knew better and were attempting to warn the desperate that there is no cure. But believe me, when you are in agony on a daily basis and there is no cure in sight, you will do all most any thing, no matter how absurd, to rid yourself of the pain. What's more, these companies know it. It's sickening really.

Winter is hard on those with FM but then again, so is Spring if you live in tornado alley, which I do. What do you do? You have to have a plan in place to fight back but even the best laid plans sometimes falter. With so much misinformation out there, I am noticing that most people with FM never bother to go read the science behind what is happening to them. They are simply praying for a cure. Or hoping that this new medicine or that new medicine will give them their old life back if they can just get through the side effects.

Most people want a 'right now' solution. The truth is, regaining a small part of your active life is going to take time and dedication. You have to start moving no matter how much it hurts or how completely it wipes you out. You have to start sometime. Why not now? Get it over with. In the beginning it sucks! Believe me, I know, but once you get started you find that you are doing more each day until you can get through most days with less fatigue and more energy.

Start eating right. You know exactly what I mean by that too. More fruit and vegetables, lean proteins and knock it off with the carbs, the sugar, the processed foods, the chips and sodas. McDonald's is not your friend. Break up with fast food and start eating real food. You are going to get out of your body what you put into it. Especially with FM. You want to eat that candy bar? That's okay. As long as you are prepared to feel like crap later. Sugar causes inflammation. Inflammation causes more pain. Your body fighting that extra pain causes fatigue. Still want that candy bar?

Be prepared though, even with the perfect diet, exercise program and as much R.E.M. sleep as your fibro body will allow, you're still going to hurt. Weather changes, stress, hormonal changes, medication changes, even catching a cold can bring the pain. How will you react to it?

I have friends with FM who deal with it by encouraging others. Some post happy memes or positive affirmations. I'll be honest, when I am in a huge amount of pain, like right now, those things get on my very last nerve. I am not a super positive person when over whelmed by pain. I'm not going to pretend otherwise. I tend to keep to myself and remind myself that even though this moment has the potential to drag me to a dark place, if I hold on, it will pass because the worst of it always does.

This spring I am building a huge greenhouse on our property. Beside it will be a massive garden. I intend to have someone knock down another two acres of scrub so I can plant an orchard. This is my way of healing myself. If I grow it, then I know where it came from. I know that I am not eating pesticides or GMO's because my seeds are heirloom. Spending my days outside moving will do more good for this chronic body than any pill a doctor could give me. I have spoken with others in my shoes who have done this very thing and you know what? They are experiencing periods of remission. One lady told me that it seems like the longer she lives this way, the longer the periods of remission last. Her latest stretch of living pain free was seven months. Then Winter came and with it pain but not as severe as the year before.

Our bodies were built to heal IF we give them what they need to fight. I'm still in the fight. I'm in a horribly painful place at the moment but I have something to look forward to and that is what I want you to think about. We all know how high the suicide rate in FM patients is. The reason that I even wrote that last sentence is because of the utter desperation that I read in my feed this morning. A lot of people are barely hanging on while many more are white knuckling it to get through each moment. I'm in that place too. Hanging on by my fingernails. But damn it, hang on! Find something to look forward to. If, like me, it's a project in the Spring, then you have to hold on to see it through. Make a plan. Then make it bigger. It needs to be something that excites you. Even if you think that your body would not allow you to do whatever your plan is right now, plan it anyway. Then work on your body until it isn't such a struggle to reach your goal. Don't let anyone give you permission to give up. That kind of permission abounds in FM communities and it will harm you in ways that you may not recover from.

I am not going to tell you that I am little Miss Polly Perfect when it comes to handling this extremely complicated disease. I am not going to tell you that I have all of the answers or even that I have some of them. I will tell you what works for me and what doesn't and I will tell you where to go to start taking your life back. One of my friends is one of those encouragers that I was talking about. The reason she is my friend is because she is not fake. She won't ask you to do something that she isn't all ready doing herself. She's paddling this FM boat too and what's more, she is writing a book on how to handle FM in a common sense, take your life back way, that you will see on the best seller list when she is finished with it. She has the same struggles as the rest of us. She's just handling them with more class than I am at the moment. :)

If you are not in the 'I'm sick of facebook' mood that I am in, look up The Fibromyalgia Five Minute Fitness Challenge. It's five minutes of gentle movement to get you started. My friend admins the page. Her name is Tanya. If you can't handle five, then start with three minutes. You have to start taking back the pieces of your life at some point. Now seems like as good a time as any.

While you go look up the page, I am going to push through and cook dinner for the kids. Hopefully, the pain will die down and I'll be in a better mood tomorrow. That's something else you need to know. You are allowed to have a bad day. You're even allowed to have two. Feel what you're feeling. Ask yourself why you are feeling that way and what you can do to help yourself. Don't be embarrassed to reach out. There are plenty of us who 'get it'. Send me a friend request or go to someone who understands what you are dealing with. You are not in this alone, though most days it feels alone. I'm here. I have a group of very smart, caring women, all with FM who would be there for you too. If you need to reach out your hand, one or all of us will grab it and pull you up.

Okay. Now, I'm taking my grumpy self to the kitchen. I love you.

A Word To Aspiring Writers

This is not going to be a Pinterest Challenge post, though I am still doing the challenge and enjoying it immensely. This post has to do with another very important part of my life - writing.

I have been writing since childhood. I was first published in a poetry anthology at nine years old. Writing has afforded me a way to work through problems and emotions as well as, to get the stories out of my mind in order to make room for the others that are fighting for attention. It has also given me a reason to research all of the things that I am curious about. It is an important part of my little world and one that I happen to know is an important part of the lives of many of my friends.

If you are an aspiring writer and are looking for a way to earn a living writing, I want to give you some advice. That advice is, know your worth! This morning I was rather hatefully accused of being 'too good' to write for certain websites. My reply? "Damn right I am!" You are too. Let me explain....

If you have never been published online or in print and you want to earn a living writing, then you have to gain some experience in order to be able to show a potential client that you know your stuff. For most new writers, that means content mills. There are thousands of web sites that claim that they are looking for writers and will pay you to write articles for their clients. Avoid those places like the plague! They are not worth your talent or the inevitable time you will spend banging your head against the wall wondering why you can't earn enough to pay your bills.

Content mills will offer you a penny per word. Most articles are between 400 and 500 words. BUT, many content mills will offer you less than a penny per word. Those unscrupulous sites want a 400 word article for two dollars. Here is what you may not know when you are starting out, those sites are receiving twenty dollars or more for your work while you are receiving pennies. They turn out articles with lightening speed for various clients and while they are making loads of cash, you can't even buy cat food.

Most of those articles are illegible because the 'writers' do not have a firm grasp on the English language and have never found the spell check button. Punctuation has become unimportant to many content mills and as a result, people like me are called in to re-write entire web sites. It's a pain but you'd better bet they are going to pay me for it.

If someone tells you that it is a good idea to work for a content mill -because, you know, writers have to 'pay their dues' A.K.A. starve until their name is recognized on the header - think of this; What did you have to do to earn that penny? Before you can put down the first word of your article, you had to apply to the website, create an account, write no less than three 'sample articles' if you had no links to provide to your previous work. Then you had to wait for an acceptance email, have a list of articles assigned to you and research the article that you are writing. How much of your valuable time did that take? You haven't even put down the first word of your article yet. Isn't that worth more than a penny?

Some content mills are even worse. I was asked to write content for the web site of an incredibly popular band. In fact, I am a fan of their music. Though the money was good, when I asked what I would be writing, I was given a list of reputable websites and told to troll those sites, 'borrow' their most popular articles (the ones with the most comments), re-write them to look like they had originally come from the band website and publish them under my name. There was a disclaimer on the site that included the line - we are in no way responsible for the articles that our writers provide. WHAT?!!? If you know me -and I hope that you do by now, then you know that I turned the job down flat. Money is not a good enough reason to plagiarize another writers work and ruin your name before you even get your writing career off the ground. If it sounds shady, it is.

Most posts like this one will give you advice on what to stay away from but will not point you in a direction that will help you get started.  I'm not going to do that to you. When you first start writing online for payment, you are not going to get rich quick. In fact, keep your day job. If you are a person who stays at home, for what ever reason, (raising children, disability, illness) you will be able to devote more time to learning the ropes so that you can get your career off the ground faster.

First and foremost - Spelling, punctuation, proper grammar and fact checking are paramount! I can not stress enough how important those four things are if you want to be taken seriously. While some slang in a piece of writing may add color to the work, most of your work needs to be spot on. Here is an example of something I recently saw in an article from a content mill. I would have thrown this article out immediately had I been the editor; 'Maddie got all flustrated because her cousin bill went down the slope widout her.' This made my left eye twitch when I read it. Why is this sentence a problem?

NEVER write in text speech. Ever. It's immature and makes you look illiterate. Save 'text speak' for texting. 'Flustrated' is not a word. You can be 'flustered' or you can be 'frustrated'. This is what I mean when I say to know the English language. The word 'bill' should have been capitalized. 'Bill' is a proper noun. 'Widout' is a fine example of why you should use spell check and never write in text speech. What I am trying to tell you is this, write your articles as though your career depends on it. It does. Articles that are written properly get noticed, which means that you get noticed and will get the best writing gigs.

Learn SEO. SEO means Search Engine Optimized. Put simply, it means that when you write an article, put keywords in several places within that article so that when someone is searching for a specific topic, your article will be displayed by the search engine. Be mindful of how you use keywords. I have read tons of articles that are so SEO laden that the article makes no sense. The writer just wanted to make sure the piece was pulled when a search term was requested. Use your keywords in a way that make sense within the body of the article. Otherwise, you come off looking like an amateur and no legitimate SEO content offers will come your way.

Now, where do you start if you are trying to break in to the paid writing world? I have a few examples for you and one is a content mill but I will explain that in a moment. If you have never been published, I suggest that you look for what is trending on any major search engine home page. Yahoo and Google both have a 'trending' section on the right hand side of their respective home pages. Choose five topics, research them from as many angles as you can think of for different perspectives and then write an article on each of no less than 400 hundred words but no more than 500 words. Polish those articles until they shine and put them away to be used as sample articles. I often do this just to stay sharp so that my writing and research skills remain strong.

Yahoo offers paid article writing. This is the content mill that I wanted to explain to you. The reason that I include Yahoo on my list of places to start is because it is a good place to begin to sharpen your skills. The payment per article is low but it is much better than other content mills and there are three benefits to writing for them. One: They have an editorial team that will not accept articles that are full of errors. Two: You will receive residual income for your articles. Meaning, once published, you will continue to receive a small income for every person who reads your article after your initial payment. For example, You received five dollars for a 400 word article but thirty days later, you received another small amount per one thousand people who have read your article. You will continue to receive those small payments for as long as your article is still being read. I have an article on Yahoo that has been read 178,000+ times over the past three years. It isn't a lot of money but it does add up. Three: The more articles you write for Yahoo and the more popular you become with their readers, the more money you will be offered up front for your work.

http://www.writersdigest.com  is, in my opinion, a fantastic place to find legitimate work. Not only will you be able to find gigs that pay well but you will also find thousands of articles that will help you to hone your skills as a writer and as a business owner. Make no mistake about it, writing for payment is a business. You must treat it as such so that you can do what you love yet still pay the bills.

http://www.wahm.com WAHM stands for 'Work At Home Mom'. They too, have a job board. Their job board is not just for writers, though they do post quite a few writing gigs. The site offers advice and direction for anyone wanting to stay at home and earn a living. If writing isn't enough to pay the bills yet, you can apply at one of the call centers that route calls to your home. Alpine Access and West At Home are both legitimate call centers who use home workers rather than massive call centers to take orders for everything from infomercials to The Home Shopping Network. I have worked for West during writing dry spells and recommend it to anyone needing a legitimate job.

Blogging. I have yet to monetize this blog though I am strongly considering it. Once your blog has gained popularity, you can sign up for Google AdSense. You do not have to fill your blog with ads, rather, you will be able to choose the ads that are relevant to your blog or your current posts. When a reader clicks on the ad, you receive a small payment. I have not done this yet because honestly, my blog goes in whatever direction the wind happens to take me that day but if you have a specialized blog, say crafting or cooking, you can place ads that are relevant to your blog.

Craigslist. So many writers overlook craigslist as a place to find legitimate writing work. Don't make that mistake. Under the 'Gigs' section there is a tab for writing. Check it often. There is a good chance that you will find work.  Placing an ad on craigslist offering your services as a writer is free and, even better, local. If you deliver quality work on time, word spreads fast and before you know it, you will have local companies asking you to write articles and blog posts for them. $50.00 for a blog post has become the norm so do not be afraid to ask for what your work is worth.

I hope that I have been able to help you get started. Don't expect to have an inbox full of requests for your work over night. Writing has never been a get rich quick scheme but with some patience and a lot of love for your work, you will eventually be able to earn a living.

On an unrelated topic; Google has changed the cookie policy pertaining to leaving comments. I have attempted to work around the new policy (to have readers set their settings to accept third party cookies) but I am not certain if my little 'fix' has worked. Try to leave a comment, if you will. If the page still won't let you, let me know on my facebook page, please. Thank you!

Polymer, Pinning and Pinterest

Change comes slowly. I would prefer that once I make my mind up to change something that it would happen quickly but forming new habits is not always an easy thing to do. It takes time. It takes even more time when your body is throwing a tantrum and refuses to cooperate.

In doing this Pinterest Challenge, I have decided that I love yoga and I love the new cleaning schedule, although it does need some tweaking. But I am not a fan of putting on make-up and trying a new hair style every single day. I like it once it is done. I just don't like doing it. My family likes it but I had to ask myself, 'Am I doing this for them or am I doing this for me?' Me won this time. The hair and make-up routine has been cut back to three to four days a week. I enjoy learning how to do new things with hair and make-up but if fibro is throwing a tantrum, I see no real benefit to standing in the bathroom fighting with my hair.

I feel a little guilty that my dining room table is littered with craft supplies for the various projects that I have been doing but there is good in that also. I am now getting quality time with my youngest daughter, who it turns out is quite the artist! She has fallen in love with polymer clay, paint and jewelry findings. She made her own necklace this week. It is a tiny dahlia flower mounted on a one inch square tile that she also made out of polymer clay. Before it went in the oven, I put holes large enough for jump rings through two of the petals so that she could put a chain on it after it was baked and painted. She normally will not wear jewelry. She isn't a girly girl but she will wear her new necklace because she made it herself and no one else in the world has one like it.

Sitting over piles of clay with her, teaching her, talking and laughing with her has been wonderful. She is an amazing young lady with a sarcastic streak that had tears rolling down my face from laughter. She is one of those teenagers that really didn't want to spend time with Mom -until now. If I had not taken on the challenge, I would have missed that.

I won't claim that everything is coming up roses. Chronic pain gets in the way of a lot of things and sometimes it seems like the moment I have a handle on the pain, some cosmic joker throws a cold front my way just to mess with me. That is when everything comes to a screeching halt until I can get my body back under control. It's just life. It isn't always pretty and rarely painless but it is beautiful.

This week I will be trying some of the new recipes that I have been pinning. It's cold so I'm thinking we'll start with the crockpot meals. I like those. No fuss meals are always my favorite as long as they are healthy.

When my daughter and I are finished with our current projects (they have to be baked again) I will post them here along with some other projects that I have been doing. I think that art and yoga have been my favorite parts of this challenge so far.

Even if you are not participating in The Pinterest Challenge, find something new to try this week. If it doesn't work out, at least you tried something new. If it does work out and you find something that you love or just makes your life easier, then let us know! It is never too late to learn something new.

No Make-up Necessary

I am just coming to the tail end of a fifteen hour migraine. Man, I hate those things! Knowing that I need to rest but also knowing that there are fifty things that I need to do before my husband heads off to work tomorrow is an exercise in guilt. Guilt that I haven't finished 'the list' and guilt that I haven't taken care of me. I finally gave in to the blinding pain and laid down on the sofa. The last load of laundry can wait until morning.

I did manage to stick with the Pinterest Challenge though. No, I did not do hair and make-up. As I said before, I am doing this my way and my way says that if you would be eternally grateful to have that one side of your face go ahead and violently explode in order to get rid of the migraine, make-up is not necessary.

Instead, I worked on my challenge board. I didn't bother with recipes or cute outfits or organization. Instead, today was about fitness. Chronic bodies require exercise routines that are gentle yet effective. I read through so many blogs and websites that I lost count and pinned about a hundred yoga exercises as well as ballet exercises. Some I will need to work my way up to but they look like fun and stretching is not only good for chronic bodies but my cardiologist told me that the more flexible you are, the more flexible your arteries are, making them less prone to gather plaque. The list of benefits of doing yoga and ballet are endless, better posture and sleep being the two I am most interested in since I have such trouble reaching and maintaining R.E.M. sleep.

The down side of all that reading was that I ended up prolonging a migraine that should never have lasted fifteen hours. Had I just gone to sleep, or at least attempted to, it probably would have subsided much sooner. Stubbornness is not always my friend.

Keeping in line with my new cleaning schedule, I will clean the house for about two hours in the morning (believe me, that is less than half the time I spent with my previous schedule) then I will figure out which of the hundred or so exercises will make it to Monday's schedule and then the husband is off to work for the week and the rest of my day is open to spend some quality time with my oldest daughter before I have to take her back to college.

I am liking this new scheduling! Normally, I would spend the entire day cleaning (because once I get started I always find more to do) and I would have no free time until after the dinner dishes were done. It was only then that I could focus on what I WANT to do. If I took time off during the day, I would play catch up the following day. It was an exhausting cycle. If nothing else in this challenge works out I will still be glad that I did it because now I have a better way of cleaning that meets my high standards and saves me a boat load of time. The cleaning schedule stays.

For now I'm off to bed and if I drift off to sleep,  maybe the remainder of this migraine will drift away too. If you are interested in The Pinterest Challenge, follow me on the site and we can exchange ideas. You'll find me under Rebecca Christman. Goodnight Y'all!

The Pinterest Challenge

My oldest daughter asked me if I had ever heard of The Pinterest Challenge. The what? What is this challenge for the sparkly website that I love so much? That lovely site where I find so much inspiration and stand in awe of the creativity that we humans posses. There is a challenge? Where do I find this unicorn?

After some research, I discovered that for many people, Pinterest is viewed in a negative light. I had no idea! There seems to be a stereotype for people like me who adore Pinterest. Why do we do that? Why do we classify people based on what they like or dislike if it doesn't jive with what we like or dislike? Here is what I found out; For many people, Pinterest is for middle class white women who strive to be Martha Stewart, June Cleaver and Cindy Crawford all rolled in into one perfect white girl. Apparently, we kill ourselves trying to follow every bit of advice on Pinterest in our ridiculous quest for perfection. We strive to be the perfect home maker, the perfect Mother, the perfect wife, the perfect cook with the perfectly cleaned and organized home, while we look like a super model trying to do it all. There are women who claim that they have what is called 'Pinterest anxiety' and are suffering from low self worth because they can not accomplish all that is Pinterest. Seriously? Are you kidding me?

To prove just how wretched they feel, they have decided to challenge themselves by building 'Challenge boards' and following all of the most popular advice Pinterest has to offer, for one week. After they have documented what worked for them and what they feel they failed at, they point to those perceived failures and say, "See? I told you so! This is why I am unhappy!"

I read through several of these blogs with my jaw in my lap. If you set out to prove that you will fail, then guess what? You're gonna fail. There are over one BILLION posts on Pinterest. Did you catch that number? The reason for such a massive number is because we are all interested in different things. Why torture yourself with something you are not interested in trying?

I started thinking about the negative aspect of this challenge and decided to turn it around. If you feel stuck in a rut or are chronically ill, like I am, and feel like you aren't accomplishing anything, wouldn't it make sense to schedule time throughout the day to do those things that never seem to get done?

I am doing The Pinterest Challenge 2.0 -A.K.A 'my version'. I am building (it's ongoing) a board filled with the things that I love and want to accomplish  -or at the very least, try. I am scheduling my day based on my daily board. For instance, I never bother to look put together anymore. I am usually in so much pain that I just do not care how I look. I also found a daily cleaning list that trumps my routine. It covers everything that I normally do plus a few extras but it does it more efficiently, freeing up my time for things I seriously need to get done. I scheduled time for those things too. Like, daily exercise, writing my book, finishing my art pieces and finding the time to learn to do something new each week. My challenge is based on my likes, dislikes and what I am curious to learn. Also, the one week challenge just isn't going to cut it for me. I refuse to try something so structured for only one week so that I can call myself a failure before I have completed the learning curve. My challenge is 100 days. By then, the things that work will be habit and the things that don't will have been dropped from the schedule.

I am on day five of this challenge. So far, I have only seen positives. For the past four days, I get up and actually put myself together after yoga. I'm new to yoga and not very good yet but even though I look silly doing it, I feel better after. Getting dressed with a quick hair and make-up session has so far, made me feel good about myself. I feel like I am showing up to my life ready to go.

The new cleaning routine has been a good thing, especially since yesterday was Christmas and my old way would have had me in melt down mode by noon with all of the cooking and cleaning that needed to be done.

What will all of this do for me, really? Do I expect to be 'the perfect white girl' at the end of this? Uh...no. What is perfect anyway? I do hope to have some new habits that benefit my life rather than hinder it. I hope to learn some new things and complete a lot of things but I also hope to show other women - no matter what your race because the whole 'white girl' aspect of this really got on my nerves -  that when you challenge yourself, you should do it in a way that is helpful to you. If you fail at something, so what? You tried, which is more than what a lot of people can claim. You had the moxy to go out there and try to make your life better and at the very least (if you want to be negative about it) you learned what not to do.

Judging your self worth based on what you think other people can or can not do is never helpful. My advice, if you are up for The Pinterest Challenge, do it on your terms. Do it in a way that will benefit your life in the long run. Never set out to fail unless that is part of your learning process - and then, that can't even be called a failure because you learned from it. We're too hard on ourselves. I'm not going to make myself crazier by constantly comparing myself to other women.

I will keep you updated as I go. For now, I am going to head out with my family and enjoy the day. I have made time for that when normally I would be stressing about what needs to be done. The new cleaning schedule has allowed me to lay that stress down.

If you decide to take on the challenge, let me know. We could swap advice on what works for us as we navigate forming new, fun, healthy habits! That's all for now. I'm out the door!

It's Me Again, Margaret.

I am amazed that anyone is still reading this blog. I owe you an apology. I have been inconsistent in keeping up with it for quite a while now. Life has just been so....chaotic is a really great word.

Between fighting with Fibro, CMP and CFS, I usually have around twenty projects going at any given time but I have also had a great many major life changes and epiphanies hit me one right after another. I have been waiting for things to slow down but since they never do, I decided that making the time to be here with you has to be a priority.

This was the first year that I participated in NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). I finished the word count challenge but not the book. November is not the ideal time to sit down and write an entire novel but I'm over fifty thousand words in, so it will keep until after Christmas.

Everyone makes New Year Resolutions. I'm not going to do that. I mean, really, who keeps those things anyway? I have goals that I am working toward but I can't say that one has to be done by this date or that date. I intend to make some major changes that will surprise some people but others will just be relieved that I finally got on with it.

 I do want my gym membership back. I loved the gym. Rejoining is one of my goals. Finishing the book is another. Honestly though, just finding that place where I am more happy than unhappy is my main goal. If that means shedding certain people from my world then that is what will have to happen. I feel so drained by the toxic people around me. Their constant negativity helps to keep me in a state of flare that I can not escape as long as they are a part of my day to day life.

Something that I have been doing for a while now -and excites me to no end - is I have been taking the Bible back to it's original translation and finding out what it meant when it was written. Even in the King James version, there are some bad translations. It wasn't intentional. We're human. It happens. But being able to read it the way it was meant to be read has been a real eye opener....and has caused me to resent the hell out of the church. If you ever read it, you'll understand why. I'm working on that too. I'm human. Aggravation and anger are understandable, and forgivable.

Like most of the church, I trusted that the various preachers in my journey knew what they were talking about. They didn't. So then I got mad at myself for doing what I know better than to do -trusting the word of other people without checking the facts. My fault. I'm a little ticked off that lies are being taught in church...that's a lie...I'm straight up pissed off about the lies being taught in church but isn't it my own fault for not checking it out? Yup! I'm correcting it in my own life now and I'm enjoying the heck out of it! I'm such a curious person by nature, I LOVE learning. Love it! I like real. I like authentic. We live in such a fake world, it's refreshing to peal back the layers and find what is real.

I don't know where this next year will take me. I do know that major changes are on the way. This is a short life. Far too short to live it in a way that doesn't bring you happiness. I'm chasing my happy. There will be dark days. There always are, but I'm ready for them. Now, when this flu goes away, I'll be up and running again. I will take you with me. If you have stuck with me this far, then anything I am going to do won't surprise you a bit. I love you for that.

What Is A Christian?

Today has been a tough one. I received some news that set me back on my heels and while I knew it was going to come eventually, I was unprepared for how hard and how fast it hit. I did what I always do. I ran to God.

I have been talking to God since I was seven years old. I am long past the point that I mistake His voice for the chatter in my own head. You talk to someone long enough, you know when they are speaking back to you. I can honestly say that I am not a typical Christian. I disregard the rules that men have put in place over the centuries in order to gain more power and keep the people in line with what they want religion to look like at any given time. Those rules change constantly depending on who ever is in power at the moment. I completely ignore the opinions that are spouted from the pulpit if that opinion can not be backed up by the word of God. If any of us are honest even the tiniest bit, you have to read much more than the Bible in order to get the full scope of what God wanted us to know. The Catholics corrupted The Word. Nero corrupted The Word. The Romans and even the Christians have all had a part in corrupting what we were meant to understand. So now, If you truly want to know The Word, you not only have to study the Bible but also The Dead Sea Scrolls, The Apocrypha, The Codex and the independent writings of the Apostles just to name a few and you must do it in their original languages because everything loses vital meaning in translation.

All of this study, which I find immensely interesting, just boils down to one thing. LOVE. Gods laws are written on every person's heart. Love is what He wants from us. To love Him and to love each other. It's too bad that we don't get to see much of that anymore.

There is a big, fat difference between being a religious person and being a Christian. I hate religion with a neon purple passion. Religious people think that if they show up at church and look pious and follow the rules that men have set forth, then it is perfectly acceptable to be judgmental of another person for whatever reason they feel like, all the while smiling to your face, hugging your neck and then whispering behind your back. God bless them in their stupidity. They sorely need it.

 I feel sorry for religious people because they believe every word a Pastor says without searching it out for themselves. Pastors are human beings and many of them make mistakes. That is understandable, but to not find out the truth for yourself doesn't make it the Pastor's fault when you screw up majorly because you didn't educate yourself.

I say all of this for a very good reason. The news that knocked me backward today was about my health. I am now facing a major battle because when I was a child, the people around me who claimed to be Christians, damaged my body in ways that now only God can heal. These are people who were not really Christians. They just claimed the title. What they actually were was religious. Fake Christians. A Deacon of the church who was a major player in the KKK. A group of relatives who were at every church function and put on 'the perfect family' act for the other religious people but behind closed doors did and allowed to be done unspeakable things to us -the children. Those people are still in the church and yet they encourage suicide to any young adult in the family who does not present 'the perfect family' act to the rest of the religious idiots. The message sent out is "If you don't live like us, then maybe you should think about not living anymore because we don't want people to think badly of the family. We have an image to maintain."

This evening, I read a post on facebook from someone who said that they had stopped listening to a certain Pastor after he had said that gay people go to Heaven. Religion is exactly what I saw in that judgmental statement. In no part of Gods word does it say that gay people go to Hell. In fact, The Bible clearly states that there is but ONE unforgivable sin and none of us are capable of committing that sin yet. Religion is a funny, judgmental, hateful thing and I truly despise it. You can not have too many blessings in the form of money or nice cars or clothing or you must somehow be corrupt nor can you have too little or you must have committed some sin that is impeding your blessings. You must be just like every other religious person to be a 'Christian'.

But a real Christian thinks for themselves. That person seeks out Gods word and asks for Gods help in gleaning understanding. A true Christian will see the sin and pray for the sinner privately rather than gossiping about that person. They do good for others without shouting it out for the world to hear so others will praise them for their goodness. A true Christian loves honestly and helps quietly. They take no pleasure in making others feel small because they prefer to offer a hand to help that person back to their feet.

Today, after realizing the full effect of what religious people have done to me, I confronted each and every one of them and proceeded to purge every religious person from my life. That meant that all but two members of my extended family had to go. Permanently. I'm ok with that.

I don't know what God's plan is for me but I do know that it does not include religion. I am a daughter of The King. I deserve better than religion and the damage it brings. I am not perfect but each new day, I do my best to be better than the day before and I do nothing without my Father. I am a Christian. I follow Christ. That's the difference.

Not Sleeping With The Enemy

There are 168 hours in a week. Most doctors recommend that we sleep for 56 or more of those hours in order for our bodies to repair and refresh themselves and maintain optimal health. In the past 168 hours I have slept for a total of 9 of those hours. My chronic body has once again, become my enemy.

As in many chronic pain conditions, fibro bodies go through periods of flare, also known as intense, unrelenting pain everywhere. No matter how strong the sleeping pill the doctor gives me, the pain walks right through it and says, "Oh! You thought you were going to sleep tonight? Aren't you just the cutest for thinking that."

Even though I am insanely cranky and tired, I may even just be insane at this point, today those four little words sunk in that drive most of us chronic pain people nuts. This time they didn't make me nuts, instead they caused me to re-evaluate how I feel about those four words. You don't look sick.

I ran into an old friend today that I haven't seen in several months. The moment that I stepped out of my truck she squealed, "Oh my Gosh, Rebecca! You look amazing!" She hugged me and then kept putting her hands around my waste, squeezing to see how small I have gotten. She repeatedly asked what I have been doing to look so amazing. She kept calling me 'beautiful' and 'one sexy Mama', and wanted to know if I could show her how to get in the shape that I am in.

Now, the internal conversation was vastly different from the external conversation. In my typical smartass fashion, the reply in my head went something like this, "Oh sure! You can look like an anorexic teenager too! All you have to do is ask God for fibromyalgia and as many of it's companion diseases as you can handle. Make sure that you ask to be in so much pain that you either have no appetite or can not hold food down and be certain to ask for enough pain that sleep is impossible for four or five days at a time and you're golden! Now stop touching me!"

The external conversation went like this, "Oh! Thank you. I haven't been doing anything different but that's so sweet of you." She knows that I have fibromyalgia but she is not one of those friends who has bothered to try to understand the disease. She means well and I don't want to hurt her feelings so even though the squeezing caused more pain and the gushing compliments made me uncomfortable, she doesn't know any better because I don't look sick.

I don't have an injury or illness that is obvious to the person who isn't looking for it. My close friends can take one look at me and know when I am having a bad pain day but the rest of the world sees a healthy, well groomed, fit woman. They have no idea that my shoulder and ribs are out of place again, making it hard to breath. They don't know that I haven't slept at all because I have learned the tricks that get rid of bags under my eyes and freshen sallow, sleep deprived skin. They never notice that I am gritting my teeth behind that friendly smile because it's killing me to stand there and observe the niceties of small talk. They have no idea that hug or friendly pat on the back probably just left a bruise or that under my jeans my legs look like someone used them for soccer practice because I have fallen down four times this week and bumped into various objects countless times because once again, my depth perception is off and sometimes my legs suddenly decide not to work mid-stride.

I don't look sick because I work damn hard to not look sick! As I drove away from my friend today, it dawned on me that I have been working to not look sick for over twenty years. Early on, I did it because if you look like you are in pain when you go to work, inevitably, the boss will want to send you home. Not good for the paycheck. Later, I did it to hide my pain from my children. I didn't want to scare them. I didn't want them to get the idea that Mommy couldn't play with them so I would paint on that smile and push through the pain so they could have great childhood memories. After that, I decided to not look sick so I didn't get those awful sympathy looks from anyone. If I am going to look the way that I feel, it will be when I am at home by myself when I have no intention of going out.

My pain is internal. You can't see it. My daily struggle is also internal. You won't see it unless I let you in. Come to think of it, I am pretty proud of the fact that I don't look sick. I don't want to look sick. I want to look healthy and vibrant because it gives me hope that I can beat back some of the effects of this disease and guess what....some days, I actually do! It takes a whole lot of work to look normal. It takes even more work to have just one day every few months that I all most feel normal but like most of the chronic pain people that I know, I am more than willing to put the work in just to have that one day.

The strongest people that I have ever met are chronic pain patients. We are strong because we have to be. We feel that we have no other choice. Well, I suppose we could give up, lay on the sofa and wait to die but what fun is that? We'd rather fight. Every-Single-Day.

The next time that someone utters those four little words to me I won't be offended. I will be proud. The next time that I hear those four little words, I will know that once again I have won because I don't look sick.

Getting Back To You

I have been having several small breakthroughs in my little world lately. They are all of a deeply personal nature. Small things that I have never noticed about myself until I started paying more attention to me than to everyone around me. Tonight I had that one big epiphany that caused me to literally stop in my tracks and say, "You knew that all along. You just never acknowledged it out loud." The best way I can describe it is like seeing cracks appear in a concrete wall. The wall has been solid for years. It has also been in your way, preventing you from moving forward. Now there are hundreds of cracks in that wall, some large enough to allow sunlight to peak through. Any moment now, the whole thing is going to fracture and fall and you will pick your way through the rubble and move forward.

Here is what I know about me; I could easily become a recluse. Other than the company of my children, I rarely crave human interaction in a face to face encounter. I have friends online. I talk to them often but at the same time, I realized this week that I am comfortable enough in my own skin that I very often prefer to spend my time all by myself. I know me and I like me. How many people in this world can say that? How many can say in all honesty, "I enjoy my own company." and truly mean it?

I have also discovered another truth about myself that deep down I have always known but pushed aside in order to take care of everyone around me; I was born to create. I am extremely unhappy if I am not creating something. It can be a new piece of jewelry, a mud pot, a quilt, a piece of knitting, a new chapter in my book....it doesn't matter what it is. I feel as though I have accomplished nothing at the end of the day if I have not created something or at the very least, drawn up a pattern for what I intend to create tomorrow. I am an artist.

It isn't a hobby. It is what I am. That truth feels like more than truth, yet it is a truth that I have not allowed myself to hold true to. There are many reasons that I have pushed me aside; Being a dutiful wife, Motherhood and just the effort that is required to keep day to day life from becoming a hopeless mess leaves no time for me. How many of us push our true selves aside for the very same reasons?

Something under my feet has shifted recently and changed my perspective. While I watch the wall in front of me begin to crumble, I am beginning to give myself permission to be me. Not everyone around me is happy with this shift. There are those who don't want to see me as anything except who they expect me to be. Those are the people who built the wall. There will always be people telling us that we can't. It doesn't really matter anymore though, does it? It's too late. I have seen the rays of sunshine pouring through the cracks. I can't unsee what has been seen and I don't want to.

I see a future filled to overflowing with books, sparkling beads, custom furniture, red clay pots, quilts, jewelry and most of all, peace. While I will make a conscious effort to not become completely reclusive, it is so incredibly easy for me to get lost in all of the creativity. Yet, I do intend to get lost in it. I have a sneaking suspicion that once I make my way through the rubble, whether others like it or not, I will have discovered something important that right now, is just out of reach but has been waiting for me for years.

I'll get there. My dining room table is currently covered in sparklies of all shapes and sizes. I am moving forward slowly but surely. How many of us realize one day that we are not being true to who we are inside? How often do we set aside our dreams in order to keep our day to day lives in perfect order or to take care of those around us?

Ask yourself this question: When is it your turn? Now answer yourself honestly. Is it when the kids grow up or when you have helped to make your spouse's dreams come true? Is it when you have saved enough for retirement or when you have met some other goal? Or is it now?

Spring Cleaning

I have been away from the blogging world for a week or so. I succumbed to the winter blues. While the rest of the country was wrapped in a blanket of snow, we were wrapped in a blanket of ice. School was cancelled for a week and we all came down with a bad case of cabin fever in addition to that  'blah' feeling you get when the sunshine has been absent for way too long.

Today the sun made an appearance. She brought warmer temperatures with her and you could just feel that gray feeling lift. We threw open the windows and I started my Spring cleaning. I am one of those odd balls who actually enjoys cleaning. When the house is clean, I feel clean. I don't know what it is, but for my family, a clean house seems to put everyone in a more relaxed mood.

I love the Spring all most as much as I love Autumn. It just feels like new possibilities. Today I struggled a bit with vacuuming the ceilings. I have all ready been laughed at for that but in my defense, we have textured ceilings. Thank God they aren't popcorn ceilings! Textured ceilings catch every piece of dust, dog hair, human hair and cobweb that happen to float by. I can't stand them! I vacuum them once a week to keep that nastiness at bay and to prevent it from some day falling in my coffee as I walk under it.

As I said, I struggled with the task today. Sunshine or not, the weather changed, meaning my fibro has been cranky. As I vacuumed, dusted, swept and mopped, I wondered about others with fibro. What things have others done to make daily tasks easier while in pain? There is no way that I can clean our entire home in one day. For one thing, I am ocd and if I am going to clean something I am going to be meticulous. If I don't, it bugs me until I go back and do it 'right' but also, fibro is not going to allow me to do everything in one day. After three hours of cleaning today, my wrists and hands were swollen enough that I held them under cold water for half an hour. Tonight my arms and back are mad at me for standing in an unnatural position for so long cleaning the ceilings.

Normally, I will knock out a couple of big chores a day. Bedrooms and bathrooms one day, dusting, sweeping and mopping another, a couple of loads of laundry everyday, but Spring is here so it is time to add four or five extra tasks to my day to day list until every part of this house has been scrubbed, polished and shined. I have had fibro my entire life but this year has been the worst for flare and sudden, unusual pain so I am looking for ways to accomplish my Spring cleaning while making it easier on myself. I can't hire someone to do it. For one thing, we can't afford it and for another, I would clean the house before she got here because I would be embarrassed to have another person clean up our messes. So that's out.

I have seen the Roomba vacuums but do they clean well? I want a steam mop but my husband says it will damage the laminate flooring. I do have a hand held steamer that I adore. It cleans better than anything I have ever used before and I don't have to coat the house in chemicals to clean it well. So that is my question of the week. If you have any condition that makes cleaning your home difficult, what have you discovered that helps you to clean effectively without aggravating your condition?

While I wait for your answers, I am going to scour the web for ideas and just get it done. My list is long and the fibro fairy saw it and cackled like the hag she is. I love starting Spring with a truly clean  home so I am not about to give in to pain. I hope that where ever you are, the weather has warmed and you are pain free. As for me, I am done for today. I over did things and my body is letting me know it. I will spend the rest of today being nice to me and do it again tomorrow. Happy Spring!

The 'D' Word

I have come to realize that sometimes our best is just not good enough. That's a sobering thought. I am not someone who gives up easily. I tend to fight for what I want and for those who can not fight for themselves. My older sister once called me a pittbull. She had told someone that if they did not leave her alone, she would let her pittbull off the chain (meaning me) and they would be sorry they messed with her. I own a pittbull. I know how tenacious they can be. I just never looked at myself that way.

My younger sister has called me a Mama polar bear on many occasions. She said that a polar bear won't start a fight but if you mess with her or God forbid, her cubs, she'll end that fight in a hurry and you won't know what hit you unless you are lucky enough to regain consciousness. I suppose that is true about me when it comes to my children, but again, it's strange to be compared to such a powerful creature. Especially when lately I have been feeling so helpless.

I think that when we fall in love, we refuse to see our partner's flaws. Actually, it has been scientifically proven that for the first year in a relationship, there is a chemical reaction in our brains that prevent us from acknowledging our partner's flaws unless those flaws damage us in some meaningful way. After that first year, love is a choice. You see those flaws and you either acknowledge them, you choose not to see them, or you see them, accept them (and if you're smart you work to change those flaws) and make the choice to love that person anyway.

For the first sixteen years of my marriage, I chose not to see those flaws. I, like my husband's mother, had convinced myself that my husband knew what he was doing, even if he refused to explain those choices, he had his reasons for making the decisions that he made. There have been a few times that he and I went to war with each other but in the end, I always took every bit of the blame both because I idolized him and didn't want people to doubt him and because I chose love. I didn't care what anyone thought of me. That was not the important thing to my mind. What was important was his reputation. I did not want anyone to question him. Period. If anyone said anything remotely negative about him, they would deal with me. I was very protective of him, no matter what it cost me.

In our sixteenth year he knocked himself off his pedestal. It crashed to the ground, never to be re-built. The love didn't go away but the trust did. There are many reasons I did not leave. One - I'm not a quitter. I understood why he fell and I thought that if we worked together, we could evict the elephant in the room. Two- I grew up in turmoil. There was always a new husband. The children were welcome depending on whether or not the new husband wanted the children around and it was just a very confusing, abusive situation. I did not want confusion for my children. I am not one to jump from man to man to man. I did, however, want my children raised with both of their parents in a stable, loving home. I was not going to be my mother. Three- if I left, I had more to lose than just my husband. His parents are the only parents I have ever known. I didn't want to lose his family. His nieces are my nieces. His Mother taught me more about life and love than my own mother probably ever knew existed. His Daddy, well, his Daddy was the best man on the planet. He was a man who could see right to the heart of a situation and he helped me in ways that he took to his grave. I can only be grateful to have had these people in my life.

We are entering our twenty first year together. It will be our last. For the past four and half years we have had good moments but those moments are few and far between. The rest has been a quick slide down a dark hole. I don't do well with darkness. It is now affecting our children and I can not allow that to happen any longer.

Sometimes, people change so drastically that you no longer know who they are or maybe those things were there all along and you refused to see them. Either way, you can't keep feeding the elephant and expect there to be enough room for a healthy relationship. We have decided that I will move as soon as I can buy a home that is equal to what our family is accustomed too. We aren't going to be deliberately ugly about it. We will do our best to part company on good enough terms that we can remain friends and not harm our children any further. It's the best thing that we can do.

For some of our friends and relatives, this news will come as a shock. Others will say that they saw it coming. What it comes down to is this; you just get the one life. You can live it in misery if you choose. You can live it according to what others think you should do or you can love yourself enough to know when it is time to find happiness. There will always be a deep rooted love between my husband and I. You can't spend twenty years with someone and not love them. I want to see him happy and healthy and I want the same for me and our children.

So there you have it. I don't know what the future holds for me but I do know that I am looking forward to it. My husband will be free to live in what ever way pleases him and I will be free to finish raising our youngest child while chasing down my dreams.

Just to squash the rumors before they get started, I have no intention of dating until our youngest daughter graduates high school. She has four more years at home and I want them to be happy years not confusing years. She deserves all of my attention. My husband will more than likely date but it is his life and if that makes him happy, then he should be allowed to be happy.

It is sad that one story has to end before we can start a new book but at the same time, it's a blank page and I get to write it! We weren't meant to be miserable. We weren't meant to be shackled to a life that slowly kills the soul in order to be accepted by those who advise us to just stick it out. I refused to leave my marriage until I knew in my heart that I had given it all I had. I have done that. Love is not always enough. Stubbornness and tenacity is not enough. Deliberately blinding yourself to the things that hurt you is just stupidity. Love is hanging on but at times, it is also letting go. When you absolutely know that letting go will open the door to happiness for both of you, that is real love. It doesn't have to be ugly. It just has to be. So now you know.

Waiting For Me

I looked across the river and saw you standing there
The waves, they roared liked thunder
The wind whipped against my hair

Behind you shone the sunlight
Above me poured the rain
You called out something to me
The wind whisked your words away

You gestured wide behind you
Emerald fields and fruited trees
Thunder split brown earth beneath me
And brought me to my knees

Suddenly you whispered
Much louder than a shout,

"The storm resides inside you
It's within and not without!

Now you must calm the tempest
You must purge the rage
Release the ties that bind you
Cause the ropes to fray."

I listened with intensity
I watched you stretch your hand
And realized that in front of me
Stood the woman that I am

I turned to look behind me
Such misery and pain
You whispered, "Just look forward.
Don't turn around again.

Your name means something special
You used to hold it dear
It's something that defined you
And kept at bay the fear.

But then you let them take it.
They locked it in the dark
To diminish light eternal
Down to just a tiny spark.

The river is your savior
Now you must find a path
Leave the darkened world behind you
Find your peace and joy at last."

I looked across the river
And saw me standing there
The raging tide before me
The sunlight in my hair

I have whispered to my soul now
Of all that I should be
I sit down on the emerald land
And wait there still, for me



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Turn right at the Freakishly Happy sign

There comes a point in life when you begin to realize that you aren't getting any younger and you haven't reached your goals. You begin to quietly ask yourself questions; Am I happy? What can I do to become truly happy? What do I need to change within myself and what obstacles do I need to remove in order to be happy?

Answering those questions honestly isn't always easy. Taking a hard look inward and seeing what you don't like about you sucks, to be frank. Looking around your little corner of the world and identifying the people, things and behaviors that bring you misery also sucks but if life is going to change for the better, you have to identify those things and then decide what to do about them.

I have been quietly exploring my little world and identifying the things that I want to change within myself and the people and things in my life that need to go now. Change doesn't come easy but in order to make the most of the days that I have been given, change must come. I have made a list of the steps that I need to take in order to ensure that I reach my goals. It is something that I have advised countless people to do. Now it's my turn.

In doing this, I had to remind myself to also look at all of the good things in my world. There are many and in the middle of changing all that is wrong, it is easy to miss all that is right. It is so easy to get caught up in every little thing that annoys you as well as, all of the glaringly huge things that are such a source of misery that we (I) often forget to look at what is right and good in life.

I find it amusing that part of my anxiety as I write this is letting the people who know me, know that I am unhappy and just about to do an about face and walk the other way. Changing my world isn't something that I take lightly. In fact, it is something that I have been chewing on for the past four years. The difference now is that all most all of my children are grown and I just turned 41. Life is too short to spend it miserable. I am done with miserable.

There are so many things in this life that I want to do. Things that I have been held back from either by circumstance, fear or by someone telling me that I can't do them. Forgive me but, screw that. A few years ago, I wanted to start a small business making and selling jewelry. I'm actually pretty talented at it but I was told that if I was going to be a writer then I couldn't have both. I was naïve enough to listen. But now, I'm asking myself, "Why can't I have both?" Recently I realized, I can, and much more than that. I can do what ever the hell I want to and the only person who can stop me is me. The only reason that I am not where I want to be is because I allowed someone to convince me that I couldn't get there. That was my fault for listening. I'm not listening to that negativity anymore. What I should have asked myself is why that person tried to discourage me.

I have spent the past two weeks making jewelry and researching the best ways to market my pieces. I have also been writing. Later, I will re-cover some of the furniture pieces that I have been meaning to get to and I will make every quilt, Christmas decoration, knitted sweater and what ever else I want to because I can and because I enjoy it all. Yes, it brings in income, which is a perk of doing what you love, and I intend to take that money and finally go spend some time enjoying the ocean in the Carolina's or maybe even a cruise. I have always wanted to visit Alaska. Maybe I'll make it in time to go salmon fishing -which would be amazing!

The point is, after I am finished slogging through the mess and muck that has caused so much misery, I intend to be freakishly happy and I will never apologize for it. Yes, there comes a time in life when you take stock of what you have and what you need for your soul to shine. You have to purge what is toxic to your spirit in order to find the sunshine again.

It makes me wonder about other people that I know. Life is not always the surface picture that we are presented. Human beings try to hide our flaws and our pain in order to appear happy and to keep others out of our personal lives. I do understand that. We don't always want others getting involved in our personal lives but what are we missing? Do our friends really feel that they can come to us with their storms when all we put forth is a false image of bliss? If you are blissful, then I am super happy for you but if you aren't, hey, I'm human too. I don't have all of the answers but I am here to listen. I am just as flawed as you are. I am human and humans are messy creatures.

I have just about enough jewelry made now to re-launch my dream. This time, I will close my ears to the negativity and give it wings to fly. I don't know where you are in life right now but where ever it is, find your happiness and grab it. Tackle it if you must but take hold of it and don't let it go. Plant it and care for it so it can grow into an amazing life. Don't be that person who, at the end of your life says, "I wish I had....." I want to be able to say, "I'm so glad I did...."

Sparkly Creepy Crawlies

We are heading into the second week that my husband has been home. In the construction business, things tend to slow down in the winter months. This winter has been slower than usual. I blame the economy. I have to decided to not allow myself to worry. What does worry really do for you other than give you ulcers? Instead, I am falling back to the natural talents that God gave me, both because they relax me and they bring in much needed cash.

I write because I love it and it brings in income but I do other things as well. I am a craftaholic. If Pinterest were a store, I would move right in. Forever. Yesterday I put my computer away and brought out all of my jewelry making supplies. I sat and made spiders. Yes, I said spiders. Those eight legged, creepy crawlies that I prefer never to come face to face with, but in jeweled tones, I not only like them, I see them as something beautiful.

Bugs are the big thing in jewelry this year. Don't ask me why. I really have no idea but I do know that they are easy to make and can be used in anything from scarf pins to hair bands to necklaces and bracelets. The list is really only as limited as your imagination.

My picture came out a little fuzzy. Maybe photography will be my next hobby but for now, I am just going to make a whole pile of crystal spiders and put them on what ever tickles my fancy. My youngest daughter, who does not like bugs at all, saw one of these little spiders and asked if I would make her a scorpion as a scarf pin.  I am going to do just that. Everything else will go in my etsy store and hopefully, find new homes.

My point in telling you all of this is that we each have natural talents that bring us joy and calm us when everything else seems to be going wrong. They can help get us through rough financial spots too. Doing what you love is not work. It is pure joy. Finding ways to earn a living doing what you love will allow you to live in that sweet spot forever. Kind of like if I was allowed to live inside Pinterest.

How do you turn your hobby into income? I suppose that would depend on your hobby. If you are an artist or crafter, run a search on places that will allow you to sell your art online. Etsy and ebay are both great places to start. You can place free ads on craigslist to sell what ever item or service that you are offering. There are also local yard sale sites on facebook that allow you to post your item/service for sale. Just run a search string: yardsales in (insert town or zip code).

Spending money to begin advertising is not necessary in the beginning. All of the websites that I mentioned will allow you to advertise for free and I know that there are more out there. When your business grows to the point that you need to reach out further, you can pay for advertising then.

I have found several lists of sites that offer part time work from home. I am going through those sites one by one to see which ones are not scams. Once I am through that list, I will post the legitimate sites here for you, but if you need a job now that is an actual J-O-B and not a home based business, I have two that I know to be legitimate. Westathome.com hires home based call representatives. I have worked for them and they do provide a two week training period (that you get paid for) and you are allowed to set your own schedules as long as you work at least 20 hours per week. I was paid on time, every time. You will need a basic phone line so that they can route their calls to you. The calls are generally those who are ordering from infomercials and catalog sales from several companies. When I last worked for them, I was taking orders for Eddie Bauer.

The draw back for West is that if you have satellite internet service or Voip, it isn't going to work. We now have satellite, otherwise I would still be working for them. I liked them very much. The other work at home job that I know of is West's competitor, AlpineAccess.com. They do the very same thing that West does. I have heard nothing but good things about them as far as making sure that you are paid on time, every time. You can also go to WAHM.com (Work at home moms) and scan through their job board. You will need to sign up for a free membership but it is totally worth it. The site has tons of information about working from home, a forum where you can network and get advice and the job board is updated daily. I visit the site often and have found several freelance jobs there.

As for me, I'm heading back to my bead boxes, needles, threads and wire. I have scorpions to make. If all goes well, these sparkly little bugaloos will keep the bills at bay. May you all have a sparkly day!

You Asked For What?

When I was a brand new Christian I wanted to be perfect. I knew that I had been saved from so many dangerous situations, so many times and I thought that I needed to be absolutely perfect to pay God back for saving me so often. I knew He had been the one that took care of me. I have never doubted that. I decided to do my very best to be the virtuous woman that Proverbs 31:10-31 describes. Epic Fail! That woman had help and she didn't have fibro and if my husband wants to sit on his butt at the city gates and listen to everyone tell him how blessed he is while I'm working my behind off, we have a problem. I'm Irish, not perfect.

I still believe it is important to be as virtuous as possible. Strong morals and values are important. If you don't know who you are and what you really believe, you just drift. I have always been stubborn once my mind is made up, but along the way I have earned some of the virtues that I possess. As a new Christian, I thought that if I asked for a certain virtue, it would just be magically granted to me. Kind of like fairy dust sprinkled down on my silly little head. Patience is one virtue that I earned the hard way. I think some of us have to be knocked down to get the message.

I was out of my mind frustrated that year and there was not a patient bone in my body. I worked 16 hour days at a nursing home while my husband traveled all over, removing asbestos from military bases. Our children spent the majority of their lives being cared for by my best friend, who was also our next door neighbor. I only saw them long enough to feed them breakfast and then carry their sleeping bodies home to bed at night.

To make matters worse, the nursing home refused to keep the equipment we needed in working order and some of the charge nurses were so incredibly lazy that they wouldn't get around to pulling patient files to see if a patient had a DNR (Do Not Resuscitate order) until after a patient had died. It was my experience that patients tend to die in three's. I don't know why that is. It just was. Some of those people did not have to die but when the law says that you can not start CPR until it has been confirmed that a DNR does not exist and the charge nurse is too lazy to pull the file, people die anyway. Some of them were my favorite people.

I had all ready been in trouble twice in two years. Once for starting CPR without a DNR confirmation (Once CPR is started, you may not stop until the EMT's arrive and take over) and once for beating the hell out of another CNA that my hall partner and I caught slapping one of my patients across the face. I'm still not sorry for doing that.

I sat on my front porch and cried just about every night after work. My husband kept telling me to quit and I knew that our children needed their Mother but I also knew that my people at the nursing home depended on me too. We were both working long hours, doing our best to save a down payment to buy our first home. We hated renting. Quitting meant it would be my fault that it would take a lot longer to save that down payment. I'm not a quitter but I wasn't patient either.

Before you ask God for patience, you had better be prepared to earn it. I had no idea I was biting off more than I could chew. I sat on our front porch in tears once again, after work and I begged God to just give me patience. If I could have that calm patience that I saw so often in my elderly friends at the nursing home, everything would be fine. I could get through without tearing myself apart. He said, "Sure kid! Let's get ready to rummmmbbblllleee!"

One month later, It was Jimmy's bath day. Jimmy was bathed every other day. We needed a lift for Jimmy because he weighed 417 pounds but once again, the two lifts that we had were both broken because Jimmy thought they were swing sets. He had Down Syndrome and he didn't mean to break anything. He was just having fun, but with the lifts broken, it meant that we had to pick him up to put him on a shower chair and roll him down the hall. Then he had to be lifted on to the potty to do his business before we put him back on the shower chair for his shower. We were supposed to have four people to lift Jimmy in order to keep him, and us, safe. As usual, we were short handed so there were only two of us.

We were all most there! We lifted Jimmy off the potty and he decided that we were his new swing set. He wrapped a leg around each one of us and bounced hard. He was giggling the whole time, which was cute, but we were heading for the floor and I knew if he hit the floor, he would cry and I would feel like a big, fat jerk for dropping him. Tracy had all ready been hurt by Jimmy once before when the lifts were broken, she let go and Jimmy wrapped both legs around me and bounced a second time. I weighed 107 pounds at the time. That's a 310 pound difference. But I'm stubborn, so I planted my feet and lifted him all most on to the shower chair when he bounced a third time and down we went. I didn't get back up.

I knew I was hurt, but Jimmy was crying and apologizing so I just laid in the floor with my arms around him and told him we were okay. Everything was going to be all right. It took a year to heal. My stubbornness ended with having every muscle in my neck, shoulders, back and hips torn. Three weeks later, while my husband was riding as the passenger in his work van, a semi rear ended them while coming down an off ramp. Danny saw it coming and put his feet on the dash to brace himself. The impact shoved his spine so deep into his pelvis that, to this day, he still walks like he just dismounted a bull. Guess who else was out of work for over a year?

This was early in our marriage. Neither of us were what you could call a grown up. Not emotionally. I had come from an environment where I had to fight for everything. I knew how to fight and I knew how to win. I did not know how to talk. I did not know how to lay down my pride and say, "That really hurt my feelings." Because in my world, that was a sign of weakness and weakness would get you hurt in a hurry.

My husband had come from an environment where he was not only the youngest child but also the only son. He had been told his entire life that he was perfect. He knew how to fight. When he was a little boy, he realized one day that he was a really good fighter. Other people realized it too.  He was not accustomed to being challenged. Certainly not by a little 107 pound woman. I think it amused him at first, but a year off with both of us hurt and neither of us willing to lay down our pride.....gooooood lord! Things got ugly quick. It wasn't long before we decided to go our separate ways.

He moved back home with his parents and I finally got to spend some time with our children. My husband and I were not hateful to each other during our time apart. He still came to visit our children and fix things around the house but what I did not know was that he and I were still on the same path. He was spending his time reading his Bible and going to school for C.A.D. and I was home reading my Bible and enjoying being a Mom. Each time he came to visit we talked. No pride, no stubbornness, just honest, this is how I feel, talk.

Here is my big secret; I finally learned to talk without pride and fear of being hurt getting in my way when I accepted that we were not going to be together anymore. Now he was just my friend. He was no longer someone that I worried would see that I really wasn't as strong as my stubbornness and pride suggested. With the husband title out of the way, I could talk to him. Except, he did not know that he was now just my friend. I thought that he did. After a year, I thought that was clear. Apparently not.

One day he suddenly realized that he was in the friend zone and had been for quite some time so he decided to break out of it and take his title back. He walked in my front door one day and announced that he was taking his family back and that was that. After I got over the initial shock, I kind of liked that. The rest, as they say, is history. My lesson in patience was not finished though. After our third child was born, I still had seven miscarriages to go through. Then I found out that I would never have a fourth child and that I have fibro and four other chronic pain conditions.

It has been a major growth experience, to say the least. I am so patient now, it surprises people. Sometimes, I surprise myself! Yes, I still get irritated. Like I said, I'm Irish, not perfect. I doubt I ever will be but I can certainly say that I am a patient person. I think that learning to be patient in all things is a part of becoming a grown up. Fighting in my house doesn't happen often and never the way it did twenty years ago. I think that if we had done more listening than arguing back then, we never would have separated, but it all worked out for the good of our marriage. You have to walk through it before you can learn the lessons.

I do not advise people to ask for patience unless they know what they are getting in to. It isn't going to be handed to you. You will absolutely earn it but if you're up to the challenge, when all is said and done, it will have been worth every second. I believe there is a plan for everyone and maybe I will never be the virtuous woman, but I am a better woman today than I was yesterday and a better woman still, tomorrow. I hope you earn the virtues that you want in this life and I hope you chase down your dreams. We get to do this just the one time. Even if the lesson is painful, make it count.

Just Keep Swimming, Swimming, Swimming

Today has been a bust and I am still in a mood about it. My husband has been home the entire week. I was really, really hoping that his boss would call and say, "Hey man, we have a job to do." Didn't happen. What did happen was my husband spent the day pestering me to the point of annoyance. I have never understood why it is my job to entertain him when he is bored. Rather than just let me work, he can find one hundred reasons to interrupt me every single hour of the day. I had many things on my 'To Do' list today. If I am very quiet and very lucky, I will get this one blog post finished without interruption.

I am not a big fan of the network news channels. I do know what is happening in the world but I strongly dislike listening to every rotten thing that happens on a daily basis. It puts me in a dark place because eventually, after listening to it, I begin to wonder if there is any good left in the world. My husband, on the other hand, believes that if he is home, he absolutely must have Fox News blaring from every television in the house until he falls asleep at night. He also believes that it is his job to commentate during the programs. Now, let's think about why this jumps on my last nerve so much; He has been home all week, which means that I have had to listen to Fox News every minute of every day. If I leave a room to go find a quiet place to work, my bored husband tracks me down and wants to tell me about who said what on the news so I never miss a thing.

He also decided to be helpful. Not throw in a load of laundry or wash a dish kind of helpful, which would have actually been helpful, this was the' surf the net to find writing jobs for my wife' kind of helpful. On the surface it seems like a really sweet, caring thing to do. In reality, I all ready have work that I am behind on due to our five day internet issue and as hard as he tries, my hubby has no idea what he is looking for. Every time I began to get absorbed in my work, he would interrupt me to come look at this ad or that ad that he found on craigslist. Then he would get upset when I would look at the ads and explain to him why each one was a scam. Long story short, between the news, which put me in a mood to begin with, the constant interruptions, the fact that my workaholic hubby is bored and looking to me to do something about it, impending bills and impending deadlines plus the fact that it is darn near impossible to work with him home, well, I would have gotten more accomplished just twiddling my thumbs.

He is currently sitting right beside me watching Bill O'Reilly on Fox News and every time he starts to open his mouth during a story I shoot him a warning look and he closes his mouth. I love this man but after another full day of getting nothing finished, I am irritated. After twenty-one years, he apparently never noticed that I need a little quiet to work. Believe it or not, even with the tone of this post, I have been surprisingly patient with all of these distractions today. I know that he is frustrated too. He is unhappy if he isn't working. As long as I have known him, he is a pain in the butt if he is not working. Even if it's just his weekend off.

In other news, to show you how far south my day went, my angsty 15 year old daughter has decided that she no longer wants to be my daughter. She had asked to go to her school Valentine dance. She also wants to go to the prom. I said 'No' on both counts. Back in October, I took her to the Halloween dance. She got into a fight, something she has no problem stepping up to, and I took her school dance privileges away for the remainder of the year. I suspect that in her mind, I was supposed to forget that I had taken that privilege away but I forgot to forget so when she asked and I said no, hell hath no fury like a red haired child. Now I am a terrible Mother and she does not want to be my daughter anymore. Geeze!

I am going to do my very best to salvage what is left of this day by attempting to make up with my daughter (She needs to know I love her even when she's mad at me but she is still not going to the dance) and I am going to try to get a couple of articles written and turned in now that my husband has noticed 'the look' and understands its meaning. Oh boy, I hope tomorrow is better than today and I certainly hope that none of us has too many days like this in our lives. I am going to take Dori's advice (Finding Nemo) and just keep swimming.

Give me a minute. I'll figure it out.

Murphy stuck with me for another week. Right after my last post, our satellite went down. Permanently. Seems we have been forced into an upgrade. After one angry phone call, we are getting that upgrade for free and a two year contract that insures that our bill remains the same BUT it took the company a week to replace our satellite and get us back online.

I can choose to be aggravated that I now have to play catch up. No Internet access means that all of last weeks writing jobs went the way of the dinosaur. Instead, I have decided that I will just be happy that we now have better Internet service and I have plenty of things to catch up on. I could have no jobs waiting for me.

Murphy has not entirely left us. My husband has not worked at all this week. He is not a happy camper. He is a workaholic who, when not working, lets his irritation be known all day, all through the house. I have not worked in five days due to the Internet issue and now he has not worked in three. We are both freaking out more than a little about our bill schedule. Try playing 'catch up' with a highly irritated husband stomping around the house. My concentration levels are not exactly at their peak and he is a definite distraction.

Before you ask, the answer is no. I have not returned to the sleep schedule that those elusive 'normal people' keep talking about. I get a few hours here and there but with all of the extra pressure lately, my mind has channeled the energizer bunny. It. Just. Keeps. Going.

The Carolina's have also been a big topic in my house. There is high paying, consistent work for my husband, an artists community for me, plenty of historic homes that need remodeling, ocean (which I have never seen, by the way. Not one. Ever.) and mountains for my husband. Our youngest daughter has a melt down every time the topic is brought up but if we decide to sell our land and move, she will be 18 soon enough. Who knows? She may like it there. She has never seen an ocean either. I bet she would love it. I doubt her melt downs would happen if there wasn't a boy that she has her eyes on.

Something has to give. My dreams are finally beginning to take hold and inch forward but we may have to move again in order for my husband to be able to chase down his dreams. We have done it before. I can work from anywhere so I am willing to move again. Especially if I get to play in the ocean.

I love Tennessee. I have for the past ten years but sometimes in order to move forward, you first have to move. Standing still is not an option. Not for us. Not for you. What ever dreams you are reaching for, don't stand still and wait for them to come to you. Literally chase them down. You will never catch them by standing still. Move forward. Even if it's baby steps. Keep moving forward.

Why Does Murphy Get To Make The Laws?

Murphy's Law has ruled my world for the past week. If it could go wrong, it did. If I thought it couldn't go wrong, well, it did.

It started with me trying to find some quiet time to work. The only quiet time in my house is when everyone else is sleeping. I stayed up very late two nights in a row and knocked out a whole lot of work but I also managed to re-set my body clock. That is an easy thing to do with fibro considering that many of us find it difficult to fall asleep in the first place.

By the third night I was ready to sleep like a normal person. That didn't happen. Sleep flat out refused to visit me. The fourth day I was so exhausted, I decided to not even take a cat nap. That way I would just fall right to sleep that night. Mother nature had other plans. She brought in such a painful cold front that I didn't sleep the fifth day either. I finally gave in to an afternoon nap because by then I was so cranky, I couldn't stand to talk to me anymore - and that's saying something! But guess what happens when you take a late afternoon nap? Yup! No sleep that night either.

I finally broke out the sleeping pills that I am usually too afraid of to take. By then I was desperate. Those tiny little pills promise that if you will take just one for three to four nights in a row, you will re-set your body clock and go to sleep on a normal schedule. They lied.

An hour and a half after that first sleeping pill, I decided to count sheep but after a while, my sheep started dressing up in hats and pearls and wearing lipstick. Before long, they were break dancing and I thought it was so funny I laughed out loud and woke my husband. So I changed tactics. I visualized lying on a floating bed in the middle of the ocean just letting the waves rock me to sleep. Do you feel the warm breeze kissing your skin as your body rocks gently on the waves? Can you smell the salted air? Did you feel that? Ya, me too. Damn whale just spit water all over us! So I got up and swept the floors.

I took a nap this morning. It is now 4:02 A.M. and obviously I will not sleep tonight. Not sleeping at night directly affects how horribly Murphy and his stupid law will impact my days. So far this week I have gotten no work finished. Started, yes. Finished? Nope. The laundry is done and the house is clean but that's about it.

Instead, I have been trying to track down the current owners of a property that I want to buy but I keep hitting dead ends. I got into a very loud conversation with my doctor; a man whom I normally have nothing but praise for. My youngest child is doing her best this week to see just how far she can bend the rules before Mommy snaps and my wonderful husband seems to be going through a manstrual cycle that has my nerves twisted into a pretzel. I have a list of work to start and finish that is literally as long as my arm and it all hinges on whether or not my body will finally give in to sleep and release me from Mr. Murphy.

Guess what just happened? My browser suddenly stopped working and closed the page while I was typing. I was so relieved to find that blogger did its job and automatically saved this to draft. I do believe that it is time to have a knock down, drag out with Mr. Murphy and I had better go do it now before his stupid law closes the page again.

In the end, all any of us can really do is smile and get through the day. I will get the work finished and eventually, I will go to sleep for an entire week. I love you guys! Do your best to avoid Mr. Murphy. He's got a strange sense of humor.

How did you do that?

I did it again. I worked all through the night. I was so caught up in writing that I did not realize just how fast the time was flying by....until my daughter's alarm clock went off. Scared me half to death! 5a.m. came fast and yuppers! I'm gonna pay for staying up all night again. I'm not always the brightest bulb in the box when it comes to managing my fibro. I do know better. I just get really tired of fibro interfering in my life. It isn't going to let me stubborn myself to death much longer. I will have to pay the fibro fairy dearly for staying up all night again. If I'm lucky, when she pays me a visit this morning, I can catch her, strangle her and bury her in the backyard and we'll all be better off! :) A girl can dream.

I have gotten quite a few emails from people wanting to know how I lost the weight and reversed heart disease. I will tell you what I did but only if you first understand that each body is different and what works for one person does not necessarily work for everyone.

After the stents were put in, I had a lot of chest pain for over a year (they forgot to tell me that would happen) so I took my exercise program slow. I started with walking. We live in the country so I would take my dogs for a 30 minute walk. I started with three times a week for a month and then added a day each week after that until I was up to 7 days a week. I did not start off with brisk walking either. Just a stroll until I felt comfortable stepping up the pace.

I bought a pedometer and started setting a step count. I began with 2,000 steps. Seriously, that sounds like a lot but you would be amazed at how fast you reach that goal just cleaning your house and running your errands. I added steps at 500 step increments until I was up to 10,000 steps a day. That final number was my cardiologist's suggestion. 10,000 steps equals five miles. I just starting walking to our church and back. Viola'! 5 miles. If I can't walk outside, I have a Tony Little Gazelle in my den and get my steps in that way.

The more I exercise, the less I hurt, that is, unless I exercise until I hurt and then the fibro fairy pays me a visit and exercise is reduced to gentle stretching. Stretching! I highly recommend it! Stopping to gently stretch through out the day not only keeps your muscles limber, it keeps your arteries flexible. You want your arteries to stay flexible. Hardened arteries collect plaque. Plaque builds until it ruptures and cuts off the blood flow to your heart. 50% of first time heart attacks end in death. Stretching is our friend!

Exercise combined with a healthy eating plan is what helped me to drop the fifty-five pounds that I did not want. I never have counted calories or invested in one of the many weight loss guru's plans. I don't doubt that they help many people but I am a researcher so that is where I turned. I learned the difference between good fats and bad fats. I found out how much of each we are supposed to ingest everyday and I took the bad fat number and cut it in half. If the Saturated fats are more than 5 grams per serving, I won't eat it. If it has Trans fat, I don't even bother to buy it. That is extreme for some people but I had just had a heart attack and I don't intend to have another so I have stuck with severely restricting bad fats. You would be surprised at what is really in your food. Learn to read labels.

I cut sugar out all together and moved to Stevia. Cutting out sugar gave me a headache for two days but now I can not eat sweets without getting sick all most right away. My body does not want the sugar. Stevia is 300 times sweeter than sugar so I use less, it can be used in baking just the same as sugar and your body does not react to it the way it does to sugar. No blood sugar spikes and no high triglycerides.

I also drink a dose of Metamucil everyday. My Cardiologist (and my research after he told me this) said that the pills are not as effective as the powder. The powder doesn't taste good but, down it real quick and it's done and over with. Metamucil helps in several ways. Not only does it help to sweep away plaque that has settled in your arteries, it helps you to feel full for several hours so that you avoid mindless snacking. It also keeps your bowels healthy and regular. Just make sure to drink plenty of water through out the day to help it move through your system.

I also cut way back on red meat and now make sure that we eat much more fish and chicken. I bake or broil the meat 90% of the time rather than fry it. Fruit, veggies and whole grains make up the majority of my diet now and if I want a snack, I either grab a handful of almonds or I make a smoothie with Greek non-fat yogurt, coconut milk and whatever fruit I am in the mood for.

The real key is this....never tell yourself that you can not have something if you really, really want it! When I deny myself that something that I really want, I find that I want it even more and if I berate myself for indulging, I just end up feeling guilty. When you feel guilty, you start to believe that you have failed when you didn't! If I want a piece of chocolate once a month, then I have a piece of chocolate. I no longer want the whole chocolate bar because my body can not handle the sugar but a bite or two satisfies that craving.

Becoming healthy is about more than reaching a goal weight. It is a life style change and a change in your relationship with food. Eating healthy does not have to be a bland diet full of restrictions and hunger pangs. There are plenty of websites with super healthy recipes that my whole family loves. It also doesn't have to be expensive. Many times eating a healthy meal at home is more cost effective than running out for fast food.

Like I said before, the way that I did it may not work for everyone. I never counted calories and I did not join a weight loss program but if you feel that you need the support of a program, go for it! There are plenty of support groups on facebook and twitter where you will be able to connect with those who are walking down the same road and are very supportive of one another.

It all comes down to what you want. You are the only person who can take the first step to becoming a healthier, more energetic person. I think you will find that once you have taken the first step, there will be plenty of people who are willing to help guide you. I wish you a healthy, happy life!