Woo boy, I Have Pain

Tonight I can barely type..I have pain caused by my fibromyalgia.  I totally dislike this disease.  Hard to describe what this pain feels like  A bit like arthritis must feel like.  I get pain more in my feet and legs, but tonight my hands also hurt.  Maybe its worse because I have been doing some sewing..I don’t know.

Now tomorrow I am sure I will feel better.  The sun WILL shine again!

“When one door closes another door opens; but we so often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door, that we do not see the ones which open for us.”

- Alexander Graham Bell

Saturday on the Farm! Cat Rescue and more!

Happy Pink Saturday to all the Pinkies out in blogland!  I arrived at my sister’s place this past Tuesday evening and will be here a couple weeks or so..no return date yet..I keep saying that I will go home when the temps there are 75 degrees!  That could be til November!  Just kidding, Cindy!

First off, I took a week off of doing my Pink Saturday..my mind was not in a great place and I did not want that to show in my post so I pretty much stayed away from blogging.  Aside from some sleepiness I am doing fairly well at this point.

Second, let me thank sweet Beverly at How Sweet the Sound.  She would love it if you would stop over and visit her..she does a lot of work to get Pink Saturday all together and I am so appreciative of her!  Thank you, Beverly!

Like I said I am at the farm in NW Illinois…its not a working farm, just a neat old farmhouse on a few acres, but to this city girl, its a F.A.R.M.  My sis Cindy is involved in a cat shelter new here in town, Adrianne's Angels.  The whole entire place is PINK.  A few pictures:

   

My sis Cindy’s Cats and Dogs!

 

please stop by the shelter website check it out.  Lorna who is president of the shelter has done a fun job with it..It’s entirely PINK!

Have a great weekend and may God Bless..

 

Goodness Gracious Giveaway!

 

He he I remember my Nana saying that “Goodness Gracious”.  But this giveaway is NO laughing matter!

April, of The Abramyan Family is having an awesome giveaway celebrating her 200th post.  Head on over right away to enter!

Fabric, Fabric, Who’s Got the Fabric!

Denise at Riverside Stitching does!  And she is giving it away!

Head on over to say hi to her and enter the giveaway, which ends on October 3rd, her 6 month blogaversary!

 

The Eagle Has Landed…

Got your attention, no?!  I arrived at my sister Cindy’s home in western Illinois very early this morning after a long, long day of traveling.  As much as I love to go places, I always pay for it the next day or two!  Pain and fatigue. I caught a flight out of Ontario in SoCal, changed planes in Phoenix (talk about a long run to catch that flight, why oh why do they always book me on the furthest flight?  The bonus to that was the flight was maybe half full to Chicago Midway..I got the whole three seats to myself..it was a rough flight, lots of thunderstorms booming around us the last half, was glad to land but storms don’t bother me..Gave me something to watch out the window!

Cindy and Bruce got me picked up at the airport and it took us over 2 hours and a stop at the market for milk to get back to their home..I was tired and fell promptly asleep.

Dozed most of today, I knew I would.

I always enjoy being here and this trip is no different!  Cindy and Bruce’s home is so warm and cozy, and they have real good air conditioning.  We needed it today, very, very humid!

Here are a few pictures I took of the clouds and sunset from the plane, pretty cool.  I really need to know how to use that cool camera I have..ahhh

I love the handheld GPS!

Did I ever tell you I love sunsets!

Love the lightning…

Will post more as we do things near here, and away from here, got a few things planned, still up in the air!

Later gaters!

Online Friends!

Did that catch your attention?  I hope so!  To those who don’t have an ‘online life’ that statement won’t mean a lot.  But to me, it means everything.  Being ill much of the time gives me a lot of ‘down time’.  I love my ‘real life’ friends and we will always be bestest friends, but they are busy and even though we moved back to Southern California, we are still over 60 miles away from my best friend Denise and her sister Eloda, who lives nearby to Denise.  They are busy, working, going to school, still raising kids and I don’t feel so much like I am a bother, but my life is just real different right now and it is what it is!  But hoping as I feel better, and with Fibro I have times its real bad and times not so much..I will be able to spend more time with my hometown girls.

I warn you now, this is going to be a loooong post.

That said, I am so very blessed to have met some awesome and wonderful ladies online.  The world is so full of wonderful people and I am so lucky to have met a few of them!  I spent the summer meeting a few..

First, I flew to Pittsburgh and met Shelly and her doggy Watson..

 

Along with Fran, another mutual friend they picked me up at the airport and we had a wonderful dinner at Longhorn Steak house and wonderful to spend some time with Fran!

We then drove to New Jersey to meet Anne a sweet mom of twins and it was like we had all known each other for years!

 

Auntie Shel and the twins, and Watson!

Had a great, fast paced week and these gals ROCK!♥

Then a few weeks ago I had the opportunity to meet sweet Beverly.  Beverly is a blogger who lives a couple hours from me and was visiting her friends gift shop in Long Beach.  Carl drove me down there so I could meet her.

Beverly is a master quilter and seamstress..I think she can do about anything..Anyway, she is a wife, mom and grandma and a sweet lady..Stop over and say hi to her at My Sew Sweet Studio and thank you Beverly for allowing me to get to know and be friends with you!♥

Then today I got to meet Parsley of Seasons of my Mind.  Hubs drove us up to Hesperia to In N Out Burger to meet Parsley and her sweet daughter, hubby and dogs!  It was so great to meet them and again, my faith in humanity is encouraged..there ARE good folks out there.

This is Snuffy and Mariposa~

~

Parsley’s DD with Cookie~

This is Melody, Parsley rescued her from the middle of a road in July, she was never claimed..what a sweetie..she found a hiding place in their trailer, lol..What a sweet face!

Thank you Parsley for stopping to meet us..♥

Anyway, as you can see, all my friends keep us going, from my in person girlfriends, to my online friends.

I am just going with what’s on my mind right now, I do have more to write about online friendships, but that’s for another day..

Treasure your friends, old and new, in person and online.  Life is short..Make the most of each day!

Friday Night Sew In 9-17-10

Hi bloggers and blogerettes!  I just have to say the last couple weeks my heart and mind have not been in blogging.  Stuff going on, some stress going on that happens in almost all families at one time or another, the loss of my daughter in love’s sweet dad, just a combobulation of CRAP.  But I did want to join up for Friday Night Sew In…

Not sure yet WHAT I am going to work on, but for sure its a pattern or fabric for one of my now or getting to be famous silly aprons..I am NOT much of a seamstress but I am having dreams of sewing machines like

Brother NX-450

Yah like THAT’s going to happen in my lifetime, but hey, a girl can dream, can’t she??

Here are just a couple things I am working on..

And what I just finished today…

Well, now on to my Friday Night Sew In project!  Happy Sewing!

P.S. I need to do a HUGE shoutout and big hug to my sweet daughter in love’s mom Cyndi..she gave me a huge tub of beautiful quilting fabrics, there are several pieces that are a yard or more, but lots and lots of smaller pieces for pockets, quilt squares, which I am determined to learn how to make, all great fabrics, some are Moda..♥

Cyndi makes these awesome cupcakes and I am going to devote a post to her crafting..she uses all recycled fabrics and I L.O.V.E. them..and she has all sizes!

If you are interested in seeing more or having her make something custom for you, let me know and I can get you in touch with her…we need to get her a blog page..but for now my blog is her blog!

My Invisible Illness Story..

If I haven’t ‘lost’ you by now, humor me by letting me tell you a bit about me and my illness.

My life was pretty normal.  Until November, 2002.  I am pretty sure this point in time getting ill with Epstein Barr virus triggered the ugliness to follow.  Glad I didn’t know it at the time, not sure I would still be around if I had known how downhill my health would have gone.

Continuing, I missed about 4 months of work, during which time Carl nearly had a nervous breakdown, lets call it what it was, I almost lost him.  He was having issues at work, was totally in charge of his mom’s financial affairs, and God rest her soul, it was a mess that took us MONTHS to figure out. I got so ill.  The kicker was the passing of our 11 year old Dalmatian, Daisy.  She was his best friend.

 

We had lost our greyhound Casey the previous Mother’s Day and were still mourning her and reeling from that when Daisy passed and it was almost too much for both of us.  I was ill and did not have the busy-ness of my work to help me this time:(

Carl was hospitalized for over a week we thought it was his heart.  It was his heart, it was just HEAVY.  We talked it over and decided it was past time for him to retire.  the boys were grown, and he had put in 31 GOOD years.  He was a hard and honest worker and thinking back we probably could have sued the company for harassment, but we are not that type.  Anyway, we decided he needed to retire.  We got scared.  How could we afford our home if he retired and I could not work.  We decided to sell our HOME

 

Long story, we sold it very quickly, bought a new home, and this started the moving nightmare that lasted from 2003-2009.  We both lament the fact that we sold our HOME.  But you can’t undo what was done and we tried to move on.  Literally!

Fast forward to Fall, 2007.  Aside from lingering fatigue and tiredness from the recurrent Epstein Barr symptoms, I started getting clumsier than usual.  I take at least 3 tumbles down Scott’s stairs.  Not a big fall, but enough to skin my knees and elbows a couple times.  Ok, not great.  then the pain starts. and progressively gets worse.  I was diagnosed officially this past month with FIBROMYALGIA and MAJOR DEPRESSION.  Uh duh.

I have been trying to get Social Security disability since 2 years ago.  I am not lazy.  I have always worked at least part time.  I would like to work and bring some extra income in to this household.  I don’t feel I no longer have skills to bring to society.  I just HURT.  Everyday.  I am waiting for a hearing hopefully after the new year..Prayers are always appreciated.

My doctor has started me on some new pain meds and something called Neurontin for the nerve pain.  I have an extremely hard time walking, especially in the morning.  A trip out of town wipes me out for days. 

Blogging has saved me.  There are others out there like me!

Here is a link to a website to help you understand Invisible Illness.  Please check it out.  I hope most of my friends and family understand.  If you don’t hear from me for awhile, its not because I don’t care or love you, it’s because I am not feeling well.

Invisible Illness Week

I am so excited to be flying to Chicago and staying with my sis and brother in law at their sweet farmhouse for a week or two or three, leaving next Tuesday.  I am so looking forward to the fall colors of Illinois and Iowa.  I will miss my sweet hubby but he knows I need to go visit my sissy.

I love to hear from you all.  I understand if my illness is off putting to you..maybe you don’t know what to say or do, but I am the same Barb just in a different body.  I still like to laugh at the same things, I still like baseball, I still love my husband, sons, daughter in love, family and friends.  It’s just my body and health that has changed. 

Please read about Invisible Illness.  And I love you all:)

Giveaways Galore!

Stephanie at A Ditchin Time Quilts is giving away this adorable bag made by none other than herself!

She and her mom have opened their very own ETSY shop called Green Goose.  Head over there HERE and check it out..but first click on the link to Stephanie’s Blog to enter to win!  But hurry, ends September 17th!

Meet Me On Monday!

Another fun thing to get to know me better..Head on over to see Java at Never Growing Old and you can join up, too!
Here are Java’s questions for today:
1. Do you wear socks to bed?  Only when they are really needing intensive care with lotion, otherwise it drives me CRAZY to wear socks to bed!


2. Do you have any pets?  Moi?? LOL..Yes, three dogs, Gracie the Dalmatian, India our lab mix, and Halo, our doxie.  Here they are enjoying some water play yesterday!


3. What topping(s) do you like on your pizza?  Sausage, olives and pepperoni!


4. What time do you go to bed?  LATE..usually around midnight


5. Would you rather get free chocolate for one year or free potatoes forever?  HaHa..definitely the FREE Chocolate.  I can always get potatoes!