Insomnia....Surfing Etsy

I am having some insomnia and my insomnia brings me to Etsy.com to surf - which is probably a dangerous place to surf in the first place. Lately my obsession has been pottery on Etsy. Tonight I stumbled on to the perfect little gift - ESPECIALLY for those that need....SPOONS. (my 100 things about me - spoons)

The spoons are made by Scrumdidlyump.

Aren't they just the coolest?

Just a few of the others I surfed tonight...
Magpie Pottery - really love those plates. The style of collage on them seems very me.









Tina Rice - I love this necklace - really all of her necklaces but I am not sure I could wear it because of my skin allergies. But they are so fun that I keep coming back to them.









Cyrus Potter - I love the colors of most of his pottery. They just are colors that appeal to me. The lines and colors of the vases are my favorite though.

New Attitude

I am cheering as tonight I cleaned my studio. Which sounds probably silly but the thought really is - I was ABLE to clean my studio. I still ache and can't bend completely but hardly any pain walking and able to move around fairly normal. I am hoping tomorrow I can get a little housework done. I know I will need to take it slow to make sure I am not pushing.

My whole attitude tonight is so different because of my knee finally feeling better.

Face Plant on the Driveway

Always a great way to start the day by doing a face plant on the driveway. I was walking to the car and looking at the things in my hand to make sure I had everything and tripped. I landed half on the driveway and half into the snow next to the driveway. My face and all the stuff in my hands ended up in the snow. And my knee hit the driveway hard.

When I first came into the house, I couldn't put any weight on my left leg/knee. Now after icing it - it is weight bearing. Bruised and battered looking but movable (mostly). Thank goodness. We leave for Denver this afternoon. Hopefully I will be able to film tomorrow. I think filming is possible as I would just be able to sit and film. I don't think I will be able to help with set up though and that will almost kill me watching Michael do that all on his own.

2 More Trip Photos...

Unfortunately I have been hit a string of migraines. It started lightly on Sunday evening when we were out of town. And has gotten progressively worse. So today hasn't been very productive.

But here are a few more photos of our trip...


I love this shot that Michael got of the picnic table. I bet it would look lovely in black and white too.


This photo has an effect on it too - similar to the one in the last post. I have been wanting to play with those kind of things but often feel I shouldn't with Michael's photos. This one and the other one with the effect were shots I took while he was driving.

Gratitude Friday

I am thankful...
1. for the new piece of equipment we got for our business that ROCKED! Today was really extrodinary and the possibilities of where we could go with this is something I truly express gratitude in.
2. for all the people that have stood behind us for this change and really supported and believed in us...really Michael being able to give them quality.
3. for coming home after being in Denver and being able to sink into our bed that has clean sheets on it and extra blankets
4. for apples and crisp fall days - this past week I enjoyed our crisp fall days and bright red juicy applese too. Thankful for the beauty in those simple autumn reminders.
5. for Michael who truly is awesome in so many ways. Tonight after we loaded the car with all our equipment in Denver, I had a really bad asthma attack as I have a cold that moved to the lungs. It was to the point I almost said bring me to the ER. But he calmed me down, stopped and got me cold medicine, water, a little cute Christmas cup (because I requested airborne too so he wanted me to be able to take it right away) and just everything I needed to feel better. He pulled over and talked to me and held my hand - and just did everything he could to make me feel better. I am so very grateful to have such love in my life.

I had the dumb

Today we were out on the Colorado National Monument with the couple whose wedding we are filming. They are a lot of fun so there were many laughs. I still had a little lagging migraine so when we got home I pretty much went to bed. After I got up, I was going to attempt making dinner but thinking wasn't coming so Michael ordered us pizza. Thank goodness because when I came to look up if there were any coupons online - I had to put our zip code in and couldn't even remember it. I had to pull a bill from the stack I had sitting on my desk to input the correct zip code. So I fear what would have happened if I had tried to cook.

Sunny Saturday Out

Michael agreed to do a wedding video. The personal type videos aren't really his main area but he LOVES doing them for the very reason that they are personal -- about people. He likes capturing people. And he has a way that just seems to put everything together to create very beautiful and touching memory.

So today we met with the couple and went through some pictures with them and he asked them some questions to prep for filming them tomorrow. He is doing a pre-wedding interview for the video.

Because it has been raining every afternoon/evening -- we saw clouds forming over the Colorado National Monument -- where we were going to film. So that made us a little nervous that we might get rained out or that one of the areas we were filming would be too muddy to film (coincidentally the place is called Muddy Springs - and even after all the rain it wasn't Muddy). After meeting with the couple we went to check it out and it was fine. It was again nice just to kind of get out of town. I mean it wasn't far -- still in our area but up on the Monument and in Glade Park. But still incredibly beautiful. Always reminding me how lucky we are to live in Colorado.

Unfortunately by the time we got home I had a migraine. So had to take some meds and get into bed with an ice pack. I hope it clears up before tomorrow.

But over all it was a very nice day.


***image I did that was part of a book I made for Michael for Valentine's Day several years ago

Sick of being Sick

Michael just left to go out of town -- without me. Because yes of course...I am sick. I am sure everyone is sick hearing about me being sick but not as sick as me -- feeling this way! I am so sick of being sick! Can I use the word sick anymore in this post?

I have come down with what I think is a cold. It is weird. I feel fine for a little bit and then I feel like I have a full blown cold for the remainder of the day. And then feel fine but exhausted...like the whole process of going from sick to not sick is making me just worn out. And if it seems like I have seen sick all of January..that would be a correct assumption. I get done with one thing and have maybe a day or 2 and then go to the next thing! ugh! So lets hope February ends up being better!

Migraine Cycle

Michael mentioned that he thought I had a bad migraine cycle like the one I have had this week -- last year about the same time. So I went back into my journals and he was right every year for the last 3 years I have had a week long migraine cycle. Although it doesn't make things better, it was nice to at least see the pattern. It is hard because the cycles always pull me down. And so I have to work hard to not let it totally do me in. Living with pain....is a phrase I wish I didn't know.

Cropped image from a painting I did after hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans -- I was really just feeling overwhelmed by the feelings. The canvas was layered with ripped papers and then I used thick paint just letting the brush work over and over and over. Everything was mixed and chaotic....just like the feelings that came from Katrina. I guess I assochiated that with my migraines because I just get so down and overwhelmed by them. I feel like I am going crazy.

Uh Oh....

Laid down for a nap yesterday and woke up with a broken blood vessel in my eye. It looks oh so very lovely! NOT! Grrrr! We have a party to go to this coming weekend too so I am not a happy camper with the thought of red splotch in my eye.

Stomach Flu....

I woke up sick this morning. It is horrible to have company and be sick. I hate having the stomach flu....I mean who likes it but really there is just something about throwing up that makes the stomach flu worse then a cold for me.

Michael's Dad helped out with some tasks around the house that we needed help with -- so I am very thankful they got all those things taken care of for us. That was very nice of them! They had to run out to get some parts and such and on one of their outings they found a very cute bear in a vest and hat that they thought I must have to make me feel better. So I got another bear to add to my collection under the Christmas tree (pictures of bear and tree will come I am sure in a few days).

I stayed in bed most of the day but finally felt at least a little human around dinner time. And dinner stayed down so that is great! I just have a headache and just have achy muscles now. So just watched a movie tonight while hanging out.

I felt horrible that I couldn't spend much time with everyone today but thankful they totally were able to keep themselves busy with the little projects.

Going to go read a little before bed.

Deep Thoughts...Okay not really...

Sunday
I thought my day was going to go bad. Once a month my cooking skills go out the window. For brunch I burnt our turkey bacon and then the biscuits were more ummm blackish-brown on their bottoms then they should have been. Luckily Michael took care of the eggs or we wouldn't have had anything that was -right-. I forgot a few things that day too - like meds.

I did though get lots of work - coding websites templates - done. I really kicked ass on them actually. They look really good and I need to keep them in my portfolio because I might be able to modify them for another client. It really made me want to redo Michael's work website to though because I just was really in a groove -- so I jotted some notes down to redo his -- this will be version 3 now. I just redid his probably 6 months ago though. I need to start also working on a holiday banner for our blogspot.

Monday
Sunday night I think we went to bed close to 2am. And I read until 3:30 am and then got up fairly early so I was dragging ALL DAY. You would think that last night I would have slept soundly but I didn't. I didn't do a lot yesterday - some chores, laundry, a little graphic thing Michael needed me to do and that was about it.

Tuesday
It is only 12:45 and we have been really productive but just got home a bit ago. We left the house at 7:45am. I had to go get blood drawn. I have border line high blood pressure. Then I have white coat syndrome - meaning as soon as I set foot in the doctors office my blood pressure sky rockets. But because I am a big girl my doctor always worries it is just not white coat syndrome and that I have heart disease. So I get to go do blood test every so often for a lipid panel. It always come back in the acceptable range but I guess it is better to have her care enough to do it then not.

When we got there, I was freezing. I said to Michael I bet it will be a hard go on my vains today because I am so cold they all are shrunk up and hiding. He laughed and nodded his head like my girl is silly. I get back in the nurses chair and she is saying how busy it has been and everyone has been a hard stick. And I said you will probably have problems with me too. My doctor walked by as I was getting it done so came to see how it was going and both the nurse and I said not good. I said I am so cold this morning it is hard to get one to come up the surface. They both commented that my hands were ice. So I get to come back as she didn't want to stick m again...she only stuck me 2 times. Thursday morning I have to be back at 8:10am -- I told Michael that I probably should get up and get moving around more so that I warm up long before we leave the house. We woke up, showered and left so I know my body wasn't awake at all. Even my usual for sure place on my hand wouldn't pop up and that vain always springs right up with a few times of clenching/unclenching my hand.

Getting stuck this morning though reminded me of when I was getting married. I was having lots of asthma problems - in and out of the ER several times right before our wedding. I knew it was probably just stress of the wedding. Our honeymoon was going to be in Colorado...going to high altitude with the asthma problems - made me a tad bit worried. So I made an appointment with my doctor to maybe change my inhaler or do something to help me out while there. My appointment was 2 days before my wedding. And they wanted blood. The nurse stuck me once, twice, third time...I threw up. By the 6th time she knew I was on the verge of getting sick again she is trying to keep my mind off it by engaging me in conversation where I then tell her - I am getting married in 2 days. She went white and looked like she was going to get sick. She blurted out in a very worried tone.."omg does your dress have long sleeves?" Because after sticking me that many times I had bruises on both arms appearing before I even left. I told her yes it was long sleeves but after that she was so nervous she ended up sending me to the hospital lab...which they stuck me once - barely felt the needle go in. It actually was one of the best blood labs I have been too. Oh I guess the nurse in Cleveland too was good too but she had to stick more then once sometimes. But her attitude and energy were so great...she was funny and just so nice. She usually had me crying - not because of pain but from laughing so hard.

I guess back on track of daily report....so had the lab appointment this morning, then after we went to breakfast, target, grocery shopping, library and post office. I am starting to stock up on stuff to make Christmas goodies. Library didn't have the next in the Outlander series ready for me yet. Someone was suppose to return it on the 8th but well that hasn't happened. I never read The Golden Compass before either so I requested that one and there is not even a waiting list on it. I figured there might be since the movie will be out soon.

I need to do some laundry today and I need to finish some work.

(from an ATC - Monster Joy)

In Texas

We are in Amarillo, Texas tonight. This will be a quick entry as I am SO SO tired!

I have seem to develop an allergy that only affects me when we cross the mountains to Denver. My eyes get so red...goopy and just hurt. When we came over for Micahel's work a few weeks ago - the same thing happened but I thought it was with the little cold I had that time. But obviously not as my eyes look horrible! They actually are feeling better tonight though so that is good.

I am going to end it here but I do want to keep a note for myself to write about the spiders.

(cropped image from Dream 58)

Up at 6AM?

Monday was crazy busy and I suspect today will be too. We ran a ton of errands yesterday morning and when we got home I made a brochure for a class Michael taught last night. After we got home though Michael and I both felt like we had been hit with a truck. I ended up being bundled up in my fleece robe and wool socks drinking down some airborne - just in case.

At 2am I woke up with a really bad tension headache/migraine. I thought it was just because I was so tired when went to bed last night but by 3am I realized it wasn't going away so got up made some toast and took some meds. But now at 6am I am awake. The meds have caffeine in them and normally caffeine doesn't affect me but in this it does at times.

It is 9/11 today and I really don't feel it like I have in years past. I am thoughtful but I am not feeling the intense sadness I usually feel but maybe I am too tired and my headache is all I can handle at the moment.

Picked up some library books in our running around yesterday morning. I found a series but of course it isn't the first one and I am really the type of girl that likes to start at the beginning. But they didn't have the first one....wondering if anyone read them though to tell me if reading one out of order would really screw me up. The book is The Bitten by L.A. Banks (link to the website about the books). Vampire book again. I saw on my way to check out in the new books section - that there is a new(er) book in the series. I picked it up and looks like it has quite a few books in the series so might be fun to read them. I liked what I read on the back of the book so I guess I will see. I also got 2 book that I had reserved so I will start with those and might not even get to the LA Banks book before they are due. Uggh just did a search on the library's website and they have the 4th book which is the one I have (The Bitten) and then they have the 6th (The Damned) and then The Wicked which is the 2nd to last in the series (so far). And that is it. They don't have the whole series. So maybe I will need to read this one and see how if I like it enough to add them to my wish list of books. The same has happened with the Kelley Armstrong books too. They had the first book but no others in our library system.

Today we have to go out and film. And then run a few more errands. I really need to kick some ass on the scanning project.

Sunday I made this Mexican Chicken Stew in the crockpot...it made me all excited for cooking fall/winter dishes in it. I love the crockpot. The dish I made on Sunday...I sliced chicken into about 1 inch strips, coated them with a little taco seasoning and flour threw them into the crock, added half a bag of stir-fry veggies (peppers and onions), one can of diced tomatoes with the juice, one can green diced chilis, 3/4 cup salsa, one can of beans (would have liked 2 cans one pinto one black bean but didn't have both kinds). I cooked it in the crock for 6 hours and then served it over rice - topped with cheese and sour cream. It was very tasty!

Well feeling tired again...so going back to bed for a few hours before needing to get up and film.

(cropped image from a piece that was just for me...for to let my emotions out. It was right after Katrina. Thinking of 9/11 made me think of it too though.)

Normal

I think I am feeling a little distant since we got back from being out of town. And I think mostly it is just that I haven't felt well.

I really get frustrated with my migraines. I know DUH. But not only do I just get frustrated by them because of the pain....but I think also because I do some things that people assume I can do those things always or do more. And much of the time I am pushing myself to do them because I just in general feel I "bad" that I am not doing all that I normally do. So my guilt over the migraines...makes me push myself and that really isn't the thing to do either. Doing little tasks at times make my migraine spike to the point I really feel I am going crazy because the pain makes me feel so out of touch with reality.

So instead of being here complaining about them. I just hold up until I am "normal" again. I guess I am "normal" today - I think. No migraine at least! I think the flu-bug has passed too. So today I need to get some chores done....since things are a little behind. I need to do laundry for sure. While Michael watches football, I am going to get back to my scanning project and I have 2 movies to watch (well really more then 2 but - 2 netflix that I want to watch first).

I have to say I am going through recipes this morning and I must be hungry as EVERYTHING looks so good. I want to make and eat everything! I think I want to make something similar to these for us to have the freezer. I have frozen just regular burritos and enchiladas before but these look good too (except for the corn - I can't eat that much corn).

(crop of Deconstruct Big Picture that was made for a good friend's birthday.)

Back from Denver

We have been out of town. Michael still had business in Denver but wasn't going to be the full week so I went with him this time. Of course we arrive and I almost immediatly get sick. I felt stuffy and achy Monday night. And then Tuesday I woke up with goopy, red eyes and wheezing, aching and stuffy. It just got worse as the day went on. I ended up sleeping most of Tuesday. Yesterday was an odd day because Michael's schedule didn't quite go right so I hung out in the building he was working. They had a cafeteria so I sat next to the window that had a gorgeous view of the mountains. I sat there drinking a diet coke, reading, writing out some mail love and just people watching for about 6 hours. I was still feeling really sick or I would have went to the mall or something but with fever going on and off at times, wheezing and blowing my nose - I thought best just to stay put and read.

We got on the road to head home about 5pm. We stopped and had pizza at Beau Jo's. I had never had it before but we have talked about going there many time but it just never worked out. Well last night we did go and it was really good pizza! On our way home we hit bad storms. I am not thrilled with thunder and lightning in the first place but to have it going off around us in the car plus really hard rain made me a little tense. We finally got home at 10pm and it was still storming here so we just unloaded and then went to bed shortly after.

I am still feeling pretty bad. My eyes at least aren't so red. But my lungs feel really heavy. Glad we are home. Today we are doing a few things but nothing much so I can rest still.

Living with Pain...

I have had several people ask me about living with pain (migraine pain). I usually don't go a week without one. And at times they are cycles where they last from 3 to 10 days. Every thing and every day with a migraine is measured. I wake up and gauge the level of pain...such as today is a 4...okay I might get away with coding or medium level of housework. If today was a 9 I wouldn't be able to get out of bed. And I would need everything quiet and black.(Pain scale)

Let me give an concrete example...lets say if I was to load/unload the dishwasher. I have to measure all the factors that goes into the task and the environment that surrounds it. So the kitchen has a window over the sink that has quite a bit of light coming through it. It also has a skylight and the adjoining dining room has a window too. So the kitchen is fairly lite up, light hurts my migraine and can cause it to spike if I don't watch it closely. Next smells affect me so the fragrance in dishwasher detergent, some foods residue when rinsing off plates and other dishes might bother me, if I need to scour something a little more I use vinegar and baking powder (vinegar is not the most pleasant smell). When I unload and load the dishwasher I then wipe the sink and counters down the smell of what I clean it with can make my migraine worse. I am overly sensitive to smell with a migraine so if the trash has onion peels from the night before so I could be heading to the bathroom after unloading/loading dishwasher because the smell might get to me. Also my strength when I have a migraine is just not full because if to have to really scrub a pan that is causing me to move more....which makes my heart rate up (even a little) and that causes my head to pound more. Bending up and down over the dishwasher - the motion - can aggravate my head too - making it spike. I am sure there are other factors I am missing too that I have to add in.

So I wake in the morning with a migraine I might not be able to do it because of all the things that go into that simple daily task. If I am lucky I might get to do it in stages...unload the top rack and then walk away for a while. A pain level of 3 or 4 in my migraine, I might be able to unload and load all at once but usually I do have to rest after because I do cause it to spike a little and by rest then I can get it back to a 3 or 4. If I start to push too much I can send it over and make it the pain level spike to a 7 quickly and stay that way for the rest of the day.

The thing about this all....that if I didn't do things when it is a 3 or 4 I would NEVER accomplish anything. But I do have to say some days when there have been a string of them back to back, I wonder where is my quality of life? I feel angry that I don't get to do some things because of the migraine. I also feel guilt because I can't accomplish or keep up with some things because of it.

So there it is...I try to live each day the best I can and get the most I can accomplished and pray and hope that the next day I won't have a migraine so that I can do even more.

(Okay one friend that I was discussing this post with asked me if I had ever heard of the spoon theory. I never had so she sent me a link. It does an excellent job describing it...I am thankful I don't live with something more than migraines...although they suck I know I could be worse off.)

(cropped image - ATC - Lost)