Just Another Speed Bump....

Oh goody, a new format to confuse me with, not that confusing me is all that difficult ;).

Now, why am I here today? Oh yes, trying to get back into writing, amongst other things. I know how much my readers miss me ;) (Or miss having some nice dull material for nights when insomnia hits). If you've been following me for any resemblance of time, you probably know I'm a wee bit scatterbrained, just a bit :D, and I have issues sticking to things; the health end of it doesn't help but sometimes I confess I use it as a crutch. FMS and CFS are real, it is frustrating to live with, it can be debilitating, but I've spent so many years feeling yucky, and tired, and in pain and just plain ill that even on good days I have no idea where to start.

With the help of some very amazing and strong and supportive friends and some well deserved kicks in the rear I was ready this week, both mentally and physically, to attack some much needed projects. I set up to go ColdTurkey with the internet (getcoldturkey), I made a list, I told people I was busy this week and couldn't play my iPhone games, couldn't visit, I needed to focus. And then I got sick. First it was food poisoning, something I've rarely been afflicted with thankfully. Then it went from bad to worse, I don't want to go into what I'm ill with but suffice to say it threw a great big monkey wrench into my plans. Fatigued, wanting to sleep all day, my FMS flared up as it does when I'm afflicted with a bad virus so I was in constant pain and I started to slide into depression as my plans were once again foiled with things far beyond my control.

The fibro fog set in and I couldn't think clearly , I became very downhearted and frustrated. Not just for the lack of being able to continue with my plans, but I felt I was letting people down; letting my kids down, letting my mom down and letting my friends down. Then, I reached out to a friend, and very gently, she took me (figuratively) by the hand (or was it dragging me by the ear? lol) and helped me take control of the things I could control. Like simple meal planning to make it easier for me while I heal, making sure I got the medications I needed once some money came in, taking other steps to help me heal faster, and just focus on resting and getting better.

I am not sharing all this to vent, my dearest friend got the brunt of that and she dealt with it (me?) admirably. While there are things in our lives we cannot control, we can work around and even with them. We, and by 'we' I really mean 'I', need to remind ourselves of this often and regularly, we need to keep in mind that the speed bumps are what make us strong and that our friends are there to push us over those, so in turn, when they hit a speed bump, we can be strong enough to help them.

Love & prayers,

~Miss Shannon **  ƸӜƷ  **

Babysteps, Patience and Goals, oh my.....

I've been having a conversation with a lovely lady I met via an FM/ME CFS group on facebook, you can find Cynthia's very creative blog, "Creative ARTitudes", here. On Cynthia's facebook fan page she was asking her readers about methods for scheduling and tracking systems that they found effective and I thought it really lends itself well to what I wanted to post about today, babysteps.

Babysteps are VERY hard for me! I don't mean, "oh it'd be nice if I could just do it and it'd be done", but it drives me absolutely crazy(er) that I can't just do it and be done! Do what you ask? Anything and everything! A good example, I want a perfect website with the perfect URL, stunning and attractive design, pages for all the passions in my life and my blog, something that will have readers signing up in droves begging for more Ducky-isms, and I want it done YESTERDAY! Everyone likes to see their passions come to fruition, but if you throw in ADD, well patience may be a virtue but it's nearly improbable for those of us with this lovely challenge in our lives. And of course add to that I have FM (fibromyalgia) and CFS (Chronic Fatigue Syndrome) (and a multitude of other nonsense) making things (namely me) move even slower and thus increasing my frustrations. BUT one thing I have that none of this has taken away from me is HOPE and DREAMS and if babysteps will eventually get me to realise these, then I will continue to plug along despite my lack of patience.

So, step one, goals. What are my goals and what can I do to reach those goals? My big picture goal, to see this blog turn into a website that is helpful and informative for those that share some or even all of my passions (oddly enough I do find that it's true, birds of a feather do flock together - I do wish the magpies would stop pooping on my deck though - literally and figuratively). Big goals are great but all too often we set them with no plan of action and with no little goals to help buoy our spirits and keep us going along the way, then we find ourselves stuck, giving up and feeling like a failure. So my first babystep goals are, amalgamate all my blogs together in one place, publish a new article at least 3-4x a week, publish photos in at least 2 of those articles. Sounds simple enough :).

I would love to hear from my readers, what works for you to keep you on schedule and to keep track of all your ideas? What helps you reach your goals?

As always, sending my prayers and blessings,

~ Shannon *Ƹ̴Ӂ̴Ʒ*

Life is NOT a Dress Rehearsal!

Cue sound effect: *tires squealing* I slam on the brakes and pull a full 180° U-Turn. I've been going about this all wrong!! What exactly do I mean by, "this" you ask? To put it bluntly, pulling my head out of the sand and getting my life together! This is not a dress rehearsal Shannon, this is the real thing!

Over and over, God has revealed to me that He does have a plan for me. I see it, I point out the reveal, then I continue my merry way trying to do things by MY rules. Here's a big surprise, it's NOT working ! Yesterday I hit a pretty big low, I spent most of my day either on the verge of, suppressing or just full out tears. I was teetering on the edge of a severe breakdown, so I did what any girl would do, I called my mom and sobbed, "I need my mommy". And I do, it's no lie, I need her love, her support and her respect. But what I didn't initially hear in my despair was I also need my daddy. My Abba Father. I know I love Him, that I don't doubt, but I've not been very good about calling Him and letting Him know that. (Hmmm sounds like a familiar complaint I have). But of course, like all parents, He was waiting for my call. Cue God's timing and a simple post by a friend on facebook. "Check out this eBook, it's on sale, today & tomorrow only". One review on the book's web site and I was sold, because it spoke volumes to me.

“Sarah, thank you, from the bottom of my heart for this wonderful resource! God bless Flylady – she’s a tough cookie – but I just cannot keep up with her, and I cannot find motivation in her methods. This book, however, with the Mary and Martha approach, gives me not only motivation to clean my home, but also to haul out my Bible and spend time in the Word, searching out scripture to go with the daily devotional… My mother and I are doing this book together. She lives 8 hours away from me, and we’ve found this to be something to do together. We can challenge and encourage each other in this area, and your book is a wonderful guide for us.

Thank you, once again, for your obedience in writing this book! God bless you!” -Val, Amazon Review

I love the FlyLady, don't get me wrong, I think she rocks it out for teaching and encouraging women of all ages and situations, but after I don't know how many years now, 6? 7? I'm not sure, I've yet to get airborne for more than a few days. I flap, I flutter.... and I flop, every, single, time. I've read her book, I've started at page one, "shine your sink" so many times, I've lost count. I wake up to a shiny kitchen, and then I lose motivation. And I blame myself, "this works for everyone else??", "I must be doing something wrong", or the humdinger, "It's my fault, I'm a failure, I just CAN'T". The tapes in my head play over and over. "I wrecked my marriage", "I'm fat", "I'm lazy","I'm broken, my health issues prevent me from doing what I can/want". You get the idea I'm sure. Good grief, I've been taught extensively how bad those tapes are but still they play on like a broken record, over and over again.

So, I paid a whopping $2.48 CDN, downloaded the book and I figured out how to read pdf files on my iPhone. I went to bed and started to read my new eBook. I read and read until my body demanded sleep, and then I got up this morning, and I read some more. And then I completed Day 1 and moved to Day 2. And I read some inspirational stories and methods and I figured it out, the reason FlyLady isn't working...

There are plenty of bloggers out there that have jumped on the bandwagon of this particular book. Since I'm not much of one for joining someone else's bandwagon, with God as my pilot, I will co-pilot another wagon right here. Feel free to join me or just follow along. With prayer, hope, grace and loving support of friends & family, I can complete something I start.

I'm hoping by now that I've captured your curiousity and you're sitting there thinking, "What book????"  Well, to keep my posts not too longish, I'll share that info with you in my next post ;).... Join me in my journey as I seek to renew my heart, my heart for Jesus, my heart for self, and my heart for my family.

Wishing you a glorious day, filled with grace and joy!

~ Shannon *Ƹ̴Ӂ̴Ʒ*

Day 3!

Holy Dinah! Has it really been this long since I posted?? Goodness gracious and even a good golly! To be honest with you though, I didn't really feel I had anything interesting to say and I've been feeling the pressure of not writing in another blog that I've made a commitment to. Anyway, whichever, it's not the end of the world, the long cold winter is finally relenting to something resembling spring, I'm ready to shake off the cobwebs and do something productive, anything.

I've talked in the past about the right way to eat and take care of our health, or rather my take on the right way, but I'm afraid I've been great at dishing out the advice, but when it's time to take it myself I smother it with chocolate sauce and whip cream. Technically the advice was for myself, but more often than not I'm just not so great on the follow through. But there comes a point where we hit the proverbial wall. I've hit the fat wall, I'm tired of being fat and tired of being tired and I'm ready to do something about it.

On Tuesday, I walked two miles and on Wednesday I walked two more miles and I did it three minutes faster than the first day. Good start even if I still ate some junk food, it's still four miles of exercise I did that I didn't do the day before, or the week before, or even the month before. Then last night I had this epiphany! I realised something, that nearly every other time I lost weight, I didn't give up a darn thing at first, I just moved more. I started by exercising, as I exercised my metabolism increased, as my metabolism increased I lost weight, as I lost weight my cravings switched from junk food to healthy food and guess what?? You got it, I lost more weight! I've always kind of marched to the beat of my own drummer, it just never occurred to me that the way I lose weight and improve my health could be bass ackwards too ;).

I hope all that clarifies why this is Day 3, and not Day 1. I won't be blogging every day, no need to bore everyone to tears, but I will blog a couple times a week. Today is rest day and I took that a little too literal, having been ridiculously unproductive but here it goes. I'll outline my plan in the next blog posting and if you're interested I'd love to have you join me, the more the merrier and the more people I'm accountable to, including myself and family, the more likely I am to "get 'er done".

How have you been procrastinating getting on the health bandwagon? Do you know what's holding you back? Please feel free to share! I'd love to hear your stories :).

Until next time, I bid you adieu and God bless!

     ~ Shannon *Ƹ̴Ӂ̴Ʒ*

One Blessing at a Time...

This morning I woke up before my alarm. This isn’t particularly unusual except that it was timed a bit nicer this time, rather than 2 or 3 hours before, it was only about 10 minutes so no great loss and kind of nice to not be jolted awake, even the radio can be a bit unnerving after a crap sleep some nights. I find waking up to a specific time (due to erratic sleep patterns perhaps) extremely difficult, and it doesn’t seem to matter what time that is, so I set my alarm a good half an hour before I actually need to be out of bed so I can let myself wake up a bit more gradually.

My routine is basically this: iPhone harp alarm goes off, I wearily hit snooze and attempt to doze off for a few then radio alarm comes on and I blearily try to listen to the "97 second" news update. By this point I might open my eyes, if I can, I reach for my iPhone and check out fb & twitter. Yes, I’m an addict, my name is Shannon and I’m addicted to social media. There, I said it, but I’ll tell you something else, just seeing others starting their day with cheery (and sometimes not so cheery) messages helps to put me in a better frame of mind to start my day.

Here’s the weird thing about today’s routine, I’m laying on my back, reading tweets and suddenly it occurs to me, I have my ankles crossed, and not only are they crossed, it doesn’t hurt! What? No pain? What is this? A small smile starts to tug at the corners of my mouth. One of the cats jumps up and walks up my belly, across my chest, to give me a nose kiss, still no pain. That smile is growing by leaps and bounds, so I call in the other cat just to be sure and then I start poking myself, maybe I’m dreaming. Nope, I seem to be wide awake. I get out of bed and I feel awesome!

Ok, so what, big deal you say. I tell you what, if you’ve ever had a bad case of influenza remember what the first day felt like after you were better. It’s a big deal, but soon you forget all the aches and pains and life goes on it’s merry way, you take it for granted that, other than an occasional headache or after you bump your knee on the corner of the coffee table for the umpteenth time, you will go about your day pain free. For someone with FMS (Fibroymyalgia Syndrome) amongst other things, pain is a constant companion, those flu like aches and pains are NEVER gone. Imagine this, your cat jumping on your legs while you're laying down is uncomfortable, a hug can leave you breathless and forget your child ever sitting on your lap and cuddling, the pain is so excruciating you feel like someone is pouring a layer of hot lead on your legs.

I just had an odd memory this morning, when I was a child I often woke with “growing pains”, yes, I know that’s not odd, shush for a moment. What I’d forgotten is what I felt like in the morning some days. As far back as I can recall, say the age of 9 or 10, some mornings I would wake up and feel like the Princess and the Pea. Remember that story? With all those mattresses, what was it, like twenty or so, that poor princess could still feel the pea and woke up feeling bruised and battered. I remember relating to this story so significantly that I thought maybe I am a princess and somehow I was switched at birth (not kidding). I know I am no princess (except in my daddy’s eyes, but he’s been gone some time) but that tells me just how far back I’ve lived with pain. In just a couple of months, I'll turn 42 years young, so that is at least 32 years of almost daily pain. I’ve had periods of remission, but I think that’s still pretty significant.

This time it’s been well over four years since I’ve had any reprieve. Last time it was for one blissful day. Pain free is so significant and such a blessing that I can recall the exact feeling even if I can’t recall the exact date. I’d been at a prayer meeting the night before and the pastor and attendees prayed over me. It may once again only last for a day (I was going to add maybe only an hour but it’s already been 3 hours :D ), but even if it lasts one week, or one month, I pray that I NEVER, not for a moment, take this blessing for granted!

So, when I say I woke up today and I am pain free, I can shout for joy and tell you that it is a HUGE deal! “Thank you Abba Father, thank you for this gift, for blessing me with this day. Thank you for giving me the pain too, so I can remember to never take any day for granted!”

“Make a joyful noise unto the Lord” Psalm 100:1

Blessings, ~Shannon

For more understanding of the life of those with chronic pain read Christine Miserandino's "The Spoon Theory" and check out her website, "But You Don't Look Sick"

Casting Crowns, "Praise You With the Dance"

Best laid plans......

During a twitter conversation Thursday morning with a friend, I mentioned that things rarely go according to plan so I usually attempt to “go with the flow” in my day-to-day life. As with most important lessons in life, I’ve learned this very one the hard way. Having fibromyalgia (FMS) and chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) there have been far more occasions than I care to count where I have made plans and promises to do something, and ended up laid out flat; Barely capable of dressing & making my boys pb&j’s for supper, let alone attempting to follow through on plans. Becoming adaptable, and hopefully teaching my children the need to be adaptable, has become something of an art form for me, this past Thursday being another example.

Weather in our area has been less than stellar this spring, with it snowing up to the last weekend in May, many plans have had to either be set aside or permanently squashed. The school track & field day was originally May 28th, then postponed until June r3rd due to said snow, only to wake that morning to dull grey skies, temperatures barely moving into the double digits in Celsius and a light drizzle. Lovely.

They did go ahead with the track meet but as the rain turned to a steady downpour and temperatures dropped I realised that I could not be there in the afternoon to watch as I had assured my children I would. Standing outside in cold, very wet, weather would have left me incapable of doing much for the remainder of the weekend, leaving any further plans I may have in the dust so to speak. I feel terrible, I always do, even though I know I have to make these choices. Sometimes it’s worth the pain and sometimes, quite frankly, it’s just not. I tried to make it up to them, we got takeout from town, picked up the newly released “Alice in Wonderland” blu-ray, some movie junk food and had a nice family movie night. Maybe this weekend, weather permitting, we’ll work our way to the city geocaching and/or a trip to the zoo. It won’t bring back the memories of their last track meet with his school, but it’ll help, hopefully, ease their frustrations with Mum’s limitations.

Aspects of adaptability in the face of FMS:

· Rarely make promises beyond promising to do your best to be there or complete a task.

· Deadlines best be set, at minimum, to double the amount of time it takes others to complete the same project. Then add extra time on top of that.

· Lower your standards. I don’t mean to substandard levels, but perfection is rare at the best of times… for us, expecting such is counter-productive (I think many of us are often perfectionists, so this is easier said than done).

· Go easy on yourself. We may want to be like “normal” people, with “normal” energy levels, but we’re not “normal”… therefore….

· Just do your best!

No matter how much I plan, or decide I want to do, in the next day, next week, next month, or even within the next year, I have to include some a bit a LOT of room for adaptability and that some plans may never come to be. Acceptance, with gumption, is crucial to not just surviving but living a life where pain is our constant companion. Don’t give in, and never give up hope!

MAWOY!!

~Shannon *hugs*