Color ME Beautiful!!

Just found out today that my "Meandering Birdy" bag made it into the "Color you Beautiful" voting contest on ETSY! Lots of gorgeous and colorful items there---stop by and see, be sure to vote for your favorite, and wish me luck!! :o)

Inflammation

I know I've been pretty scarce around here and I just wanted to pop in and let you guys know a little bit of what's going on--I've gotten quite a few emails asking if everything is all right (you bunch of sweeties!) and just thought I'd say a few words.

I've been having some health problems over the last several years that have to do with joint pain and swelling--I've been tested for everything but they really can't pinpoint just what is going on. Well, recently (the last 4 months) it has basically gone into overdrive! My knees are swollen up like cantelopes and I can't bend them, my hips hurt like hell, it's in my neck (can't hardly turn my head or bend it up and down), it's starting to work it's way down my shoulders now (yeah!) and it's in my right jaw (hurts to chew and my teeth don't fit together right because of swelling).

The docs did a bunch of tests and one of them measures your body's inflammation--the usual test result on that one tops out at 20, mine was at 54. They retook the test 2 weeks later and it was at 82. This lit a fire under my doctor and she scheduled me for surgery (the next day!) to biopsy a piece (approx. 1") of vein from both temples to make sure that my veins arent' inflamed too. Happily, the veins are fine. Whew. They have determined that I have an auto-immune disease.

Anyways, they just started me on a medication that should bring down the inflammation, but it has some really scary possible side effects! AND it takes anywhere from 3 weeks to 3 months to work! Arghhh! I took the first dose on Wednesday--it wasn't too bad, made me sick to my stomach, dizzy, and tired, but didn't do a thing for the joints and pain (yet).

I'm hanging in there, though, feeling positive about the outcome, and am looking forward to getting back to my crafting and computering and such. I'd appreciate a prayer or healing thought for this medication to do it's thing and get me back up and running!!

Lucky, Lucky Me!

Wand by Ann Denise of Whimfancydesigns


Oh, you are all going to be so jealous!

StarryDeb went to the ZNE convention and met some wonderful, creative people there...and then convinced some of them to give up the goodies for a blog giveaway.


Crepe paper and other goodies---read the names on the packages and then go visit them!!! Great shops!

Guess who won it? !!

Beautiful TussieMussie and matching tag from ivacreations


It's all so wonderful! I'm thrilled with every little thing...thank you so much to all the contributors and a special "Thank You" to Starry Deb--she is the greatest!

Oh, and one more thing.....The Olde World Shoppes blog was sweet enough to include my aqua roses sachets in their latest blog post--stop by and visit, and check out the other lovely ROSE items that are featured there, it's a treat, I promise!

New Animoto Video

These are so fun to make...head on over and do one yourself and leave me a link here in the comments so I can check it out!

(You'll have to scroll down the side bar a bit to pause my music player so you can hear the music in the video.)