A Clouded Mind...

 I was pretty surprised today when I saw that it had been this long since I had been in here to write.  I have so many things to say but I have no idea how to say it.  My fibromyalgia and the meds that I take for it have caused a "fog" in my brain that seems to keep my thoughts in a whirlwind inside my brain.  Sometimes even the conversations I have with myself are hard to follow and have to be left unfinished. 

I am extremely grateful for all that I have in my life and I am seeing everyday the many miracles that God is putting in front of me.  I am coming to an age where I am seeing the the choices I made as a young mother were good choices.  Was I perfect? Absolutely not, but my kids have taken the tools I gave them and are applying some of them to their lives and they are making some really great choices and are making me a very proud Mom.  

I am also very Blessed for the job I have with Thirtyone Gifts.  I prayed for a job that would give me the flexibility I needed and one that I would love and God sent this company to me.  It is amazing to work for a faith based company that promotes Jesus as our Lord and Savior.  I thought this would be a company that I would be able sell pocketbooks and run "my own business" but it has become so much more than that.  I belong to such an amazing team.  I can call on them for anything from a catalog, to deep prayers and they are there for you.  I am actually going to our national conference this year in Atlanta, GA and I am very excited to meet more of my sisters in Christ and my fellow sisters in Thirtyone.  In case you weren't aware, Thirtyone is based on Proverbs 31 from the Bible which talks about the virtous woman who works hard and recieves many blessings for her hard work.

I am praying that with more prayer and a better diet I will be able to focus more and tame my thoughts so that I can communicate without my thoughts spinning in my head like a hurricane.  If you are a praying person, I ask for your prayers, for peace in my thoughts and spirit, to be calm.  With Many Blessings....

Going Beyond My Comfort....

So I have started my new business and at this point I had hoped to have many bookings on my calendar but I have two.  I have posted my new business on fb many times and I have sent out emails to the women in my life that I thought for sure would be more than willing to jump up and help and book a party.  I got one email back from a "new" friend who is away for the summer but said she would be willing to book a show in the late fall.  I know now my next step is to make phone calls and that is out of my comfort zone.

I don't like to be uncomfortable and I don't like to make other people uncomfortable and I know that I will have to step into that zone for my business to flourish.  I also know that once I do it I will get better at it and God will bless me abundantly.  The problem is....I don't want to do it and I can feel my anxiety growing out of control inside of me...like a vine out of control and it is going to smother me if I don't get control of it.

I also believe that God has sent me tools to use to get control of this.  I had a woman call and email me this week that stated that she wanted to speak to me about helping with a reception to be held after church because she is getting married at my church during a regular service.  I was left very confused because the whole conversation doesn't register correct in my mind.  Weddings during church, receptions during coffee hour, people who call strangers out of the blue????  I am having a hard time calling people that I know and love to have a party where they will earn free merchandise and this woman called me to help with a wedding reception, her wedding reception, out of the blue.  This has left me feeling...I'm not even sure what I'm feeling.

I want to be open to hear her, to help her, to learn from her.  I want to be the kind of person who can pick up a phone and talk people into things, without being manipulative, of course.  Sometimes I think people just want to be asked.  I know that at the root of this is rejection.  I have always had issues with rejection.  My biggest fear has always been that "you" weren't going to like me.   I have worked on this my whole life and I believe that I have to give this to God.  I probably give this to God and take it back all the time.  I am good at giving and taking.

Now at this point I haven't actually spoken to the woman yet.  We don't even know each other.  I have recieved an email and a phone message.  My thoughts are who is this person calling a complete stranger to help with her wedding, how much am I suppose to help.  What does God want me to do????  That is the biggest question I have been asking since yesterday.  I believe this has to be something from him....So what am I to do with it???  I am praying that when I do finally speak with her God will give me the words that I need because I have no idea what to do?  Talking with a stranger about something so personal....Is definately Going Beyond My Comfort!!!

Rough Days...

I am not sure why the last couple of days have been so rough.  It could have been because of the medication, I was taking 150mgs of Lyrica 3x a day and I was in such a fog that I didn't even know my own name, so the doctor took me down to 1x a day only at night.  I think I am still feeling a little groggy from that.  It also could be that I have been waiting on an email that is going to change my life.  I found a company that I am going to work for, working for myself.  I will be doing something that I am passionate about and the company is faith-based.  I just have to be patient and I am not good at that which is something I really need to work on but the more I work on it the harder it gets.  It could also be that on top of all of this, I finally got some hours at work.  Twenty-six hours may not seem like a lot to some but I have been going from 6-9  hours a week for a while to now working 26 hours on my feet.  So going from 6 hours a week (and not all in one day) to 26 hours a week (6 hours a day)...I am not only physically tired but I am emotonally tired.  I know this sounds like a lot of whining and it probably is but I am hoping it will make me feel better. 

My daughter called me a ray of sunshine once and I was very happy to hear that but the problem  is that sometimes it does rain.  I am almost always a very happy person.  I always remember how much God Loves me and that I should be grateful for everything in my life and even when I feel like this I am extremely grateful to God for everything I have been given.  But there are days when it rains...sometimes its a drizzle and sometimes it's a downpour. 

The last few days I have to accept as a downpour.  Just as in life when it rains I always wait in anticipation for what will come when the storm is over.  I always think about what the flowers will look like when the rain ends, I think about how green the trees will be when the sun comes back out.  So I will try and take a deep breath through this rain storm in my life and think about how beautiful life will be on the other side of this storm.  I believe that God has an amazing gift waiting for me on the other side of this drizzle...It will be an awesome rainbow of sorts and I am willing to wait.  Thank you Lord for giving me the gift of writing through this storm and finding you again.  I love you!!!

Just need to Vent...

So a couple of weeks ago I started a new medication called Lyrica.  I was very excited about this one because I thought for sure this one was going to work.  It is,  of course,  the most expensive one on the market with a $50.00 co-pay for me and I know that others have paid more, and the insurance company made me jump through a small hoop to get it,  making me try another cheaper drug first.  That drug did not work and it actually put me in more pain than I was before.  So I started the Lyrica and right away I noticed a difference...it put me right to sleep at night...out like a light!!  I thought ok,  this is good I won't need my sleeping pills at night any more.

Then I started the morning pill...I had to eventually work my way up to a three times a day dosage.  The pill made me feel like I had a couple of drinks and I wasn't feeling any pain but also wasn't able to really function to well either but it was my day off and I figured this is a feeling that will go away, I just have to get use to the meds.  It will work its way into my system and I will be ok.

A couple of days later I worked the afternoon pill into my schedule and now I am asleep all the time.  I am up but basically I am functioning asleep.  This is no way to live.  Why would they make a pill that makes you feel like this.  Am I feeling any pain?  Well the pain isn't as bad as it was on the last pill but I could have just had a bottle of wine to feel like this.  I will be contacting my doctor today to see if this is too much medication or if this is how I'm suppose to feel.  If it is I am done with it.  I am suppose to be heading off to the Fibro Clinic in Boston if this medication didn't work.  I have a feeling I will be going to Boston sometime soon.  I am not sure there are any more medicines to try but thats ok...I want to try new remedies like massage, diet and exercise.  I really believe these will work more than the medications. 

I would love to hear from anybody reading this...If you have an opinion, a story or just support, I love hearing from people.  If you have anything to add to the medication dilemma, I would love to hear about that too...Until the next time...

Fibro's Birth...

If you google Fibromyalgia you will probably read that fibro is usually found in women and it's usually the result of a trumatic experience as a child.  They have quoted rape or abuse to be the cause.  Well I was not raped or abused as a child but I did loose my dad at the age of nine.  Was that trumatic enough to bring on this type of condition?  It is a mystery.  But now that I have it I have to live with the continuing mystery of it...or do I?

For about a year I did question every aspect of this condition.  Why did I have it?  What do I do about it?  When am I going to stop hurting?  Why doesn't anyone understand?  And then I decided to stop....

And please don't think for one minute that I don't have my moments...I have moments when I ask every one of those questions again. But for the most part I decided that I had to start living my life again.  I don't know why I have this and there is nothing I can do to change it so I will live with it and do what I need to do to help others.  What does God want me to do with this?  When I am in deep pain I ask to be prayed on and with and I have an awesome boyfriend who does that.  God has become a huge part of my life that he once wasn't.  Although God was always a part of my life he is now allowed to be a part of my relationship with the person that I intend to be with for the rest of my life.  So laying on of hands and healing prayer is so much a part of my life now and so important.  Although Todd doesn't always understand he is always very supportive. 

The part of this condition that has really gotten me very frustrated is the emotional and psychological part.  One of the pieces of this condition is depression and I have issues with this.  I am not a depressed person.  My depression comes from the fact that I can't get rid of the pain.  So I feel that depression is not a peice of this condition but a side effect.  Does this make any sense to any of you?  I am very, vey happy for the most part.  I am usually only depressed when I am taking a medication thats supposed to take away pain and the pain doesn't go away.  When I have a flare up thats when you may find me blue.  Now I'm not saying that this is eveyones position, I understand that depression may be a bigger part of someones fibromyalgia.  A lot of the medications have depression meds in them and I know that I personally didn't need that and those meds didn't work for me.

Okay now as I'm writing this I found another frustrating part...the medications and the fibro make you "stupid".  I know that sounds bad and I hope most of you understand this, but I have been on Topamax for quite a few years now and it just takes away things from my brain, and the fibro has broken the connections. I have called my mom out of the blue and asked her things like...What is that flat thing you flip bugers wth called?   to which she will say with hesitation....a spatula...and I with the greatest delight will shout with joy....Yay...A spatula.  This is something that has embarrassed me in many conversations and when you get stuck on a simple word it can be pretty embarrassing.  Fibromyalgia in itself can make you "stupid"...it's what I call stupid brain....It is because the nerve endings are all messed up so it's really not because we are stupid but because the connections are broken so if you can remember that you will feel better. (hopefully) It is still very frustrating but at least you know there is a reason.

I haven't even started to talk about the pain...that will be blogged later!!

They Say it's Your Birthday...

I told Todd last night that I wasn't going to be able to get him anything for his birthday because money is tight for me and he said that it wasn't a big deal because it was just another day....Just another day???  I don't get that, birthday's are not just another day.  This is the day that you were born.  This is YOUR day...ok...Let me explain how I grew up with birthdays.

We, always from the time I can remember, had celebrations for our birthdays.  We had cakes and partys and friends and presents. Some years the partys were bigger and the presents were smaller and some years the presents were bigger and the partys were smaller and sometimes there wasnt a party but just cake and a small present but there was always a combination of Celebration. When we were old enough to have chores, this was the one day we actually got to skip our chores without any guilt.  We were sometimes given the luxury of picking our favorite meal on our birthday.  The day was made to feel special and when I was young I just knew that it was because I was special and loved.  I tried to pass this on to my own children and I hope that they picked this up in the many lessons that I taught them.  If they didn't and they are reading this, I hope they realize it's not too late to fix it now. 

Now that I am an adult I want to continue the celebration part of the birthday.  I know we don't want to get old and thats ok because we don't have to celebrate the number.  We just have to remember that this is the day that the Lord made US!!!  Let us rejoice and be glad in that!!!  I feel so Blessed on my loved ones birthdays because I am so thankful to God that they are here and that he gave them to me as wonderful gifts.  Maybe I should be celebrating a birthday on my loved ones birthdays because I am so thankful...they feel like gifts to me.

I am especially thankful to God for blessing me with such an awesome spirit because my dad died the day after my ninth birthday and that could have destroyed a wondeful part of life.  I am truly thankful to my Mom and Dad (Eddie) for blessing me with awesome birthdays and making them so wonderful.  They really were very good about lifting my sister and I up and telling us how special we were and reminding us that we were truly loved by God. 

So when I hear people say...It's just another day...It makes me sad.  Every Birthday should be celebrated...For this is the day the Lord has made you!!!!!

My Passion...

Once upon a time I had 3 children and I thought "Is this all that God wants me to be?" and he said "Yes...this is all."  I told God, "I will be the best mom I can be." And so it was...

Well as much as I loved that life, it ended.  Being a stay home mom ends if you don't continue to have children your whole life...(not for me).  So what was I to do with only a degree in motherhood?  My sister is always telling her students that you need to find your passion in life.  Being a stay home mom was surely my passion but that life had ended so I had to find my new passion.

One day while sitting at the computer I decided I would Google my passion...pocketbooks!!!!  I googled homebased businesses selling pocketbooks but the only companies that came up were companies that did not interest me.  One was a company selling pocketbooks that I did not find appealing, which I think is important, and the other seemed on the not so legal side, which I also find very important.  Oh well...at least I tried.  I prayed to God and I know that he knows whats on my heart.  He knows exactly what it is that will make me happy and successful.

Less than a week later I recieved an inbox message on Facebook from a friend that was titled Thirtyone, and there was a lot of reciepients in the reciepient list.  I assumed it was one of those forwards that was going to tell me that I was one 31 of their favorite people and if I forwarded the message to 31 of my favorite people I would be blessed.  Well I ignored the message.  Later that night I recieved another message from the same list of people.  This time I decided that I would open the message and read it.  WELL!!!!  I was blown away with what was inside.  There was a link to a company named Thirtyone and it was a homebased pocketbook selling company and these pocketbooks were AMAZING!!!!!!!  I started to read, well I started to skim really quickly....then saw the words...God Bless!!! What??  God Bless??  Is this a Faith based company??  Can't be!!  I had to start over...Slowly I started to read.....

This company was started by a woman who wanted to spend more time with her family so she went to her basement and started sewing....

The company is based on Proverbs 31...The entire chapter is a beautiful testament to women.  I suggest you read it.  Its based on strong women who work to support thier families.  It encourages women and rewards women when they show the love of God in their work. 

I feel very Blessed to be a woman who will be a part of this company.  I have been a woman who believed in taking care of my family first and now to have God reward me with a comapny who believes in the same thing is a miracle and I praise him for that.

I have always believed that the more you thank God for the blessings in your life the more blessings he will give you and this absolutely a blessing from God.  I have no doubt in my heart that God has brought this company to me.  I will continue to take care of my family and I will continue to praise God along the way.  For it is God who has brought me every Blessing I have...Thank you Lord!!!