OUCH!!!!

Well....I tripped over a shoe in my daughter's room 3 weeks ago (you know, you tell your kids to pick up their stuff for a reason!) :)

Just when my left ankle was no longer swelling...I dropped the entire weight of my scrapbook bag on the same ankle and almost fractured it!!!- so now I look like a total doofus with an ankle brace on to hold my severly sprained ankle in place. This has been a real challenge at work, as I am supposed to prop my foot up and ice it...okay, prop my foot up at a "phone/desk" job and ice it how!???

Since I work in a big basket, I have managed to find a basket the size I need today and I brought one of those ice packs from home and wrapped it in a cloth napkin...Mac Gyver would be proud, no doubt! It is funny to see me typing and trying to face the computer while my leg is turned sideways!!!...I'll post some pix later :)

FEB 11TH UPDATE:
I called the doctor's office today to see how long I have to wear this sexy ankle splint/brace "thingy" and they said 4 weeks. 4 weeks!!!! ...I will be limping around and walking at a much slower pace than what I am accustomed to...so therein lies a whole new challenge!...I will keep you posted :)

Recipe Swaps and the Weather...

I have been "keeping my sanity" by joining several recipe swaps on Split Coast. Some were "late" (past the due date) due to the snow/ice/rain mix that we have had as of late. I am sooo tired of snow (it started again this morning and we could get up to 6 more inches!!!)...don't get me wrong...I love how the trees look and how they glisten (hello!!!- I am Little Miss SPARKLE)...and the glittery sheen on the white lawn makes a fabulous sight, esp. at night when the moon is shining...I am just tired of not being able to get around because of the road conditions and I am done with being C-O-L-D (brrrrrr!!!!)

I decided to start hosting some swaps...so if you log on Split Coast and go to Swaps/Recipes...look for my swaps:

Recipe Swaps:
Presidential/White House
Jello
Muffins
Spice Mixes & Seasonings
Smoothies
Dinner On The Go
Coffee

I am also hosting a GLITTER ATC swap too...let me know if you read these and have any questions...all of the details are out on the Split Coast Forum...since I can't get out much right now...I am trying to stay warm and craft away in my Scrapbook Room.

I have also signed up to do an "Altered Book Round Robin" with my friend Deb at our monthly Scrapbook Crop this month. You bring a book and an idea of a theme that you want (love, friendship, numbers, etc...) and you give the book to someone. They have until the next month when we scrapbook again to alter a double page or a few pages back to back, and then give your book to another person the next month. By the time you get the book back, most of it will be finished and will have pages altered by your friends, making it even more special. It might take a while, but as my book "progresses" I will try to take pix and post them. (Although, I have been very BAD about pix lately!)...I will try and upload some for my recipe swaps that I have completed.

Stay Warm! :)

I AM STILL ALIVE!!! :)

WOW!!!

It has been crazy and hectic with the holidays, work, winter school break and Donnie has been in and out of the hospital over 6 times between Christmas Eve of last year and he is having surgery again, tomorrow...so it has been a "wild ride" to say the least!! Sorry I have been "M.I.A" for a while. :(

I have also been helping Donnie's mom in between her chemo and radiation treatments with house cleaning, trips to the grocery, etc...and being Mom and Youth Worker and Sunday School Teacher at church...in my "spare time" I have joined and am hosting a few recipe swaps and a Glitter ATC swap on Split Coast (check them out and join!- I would LOVE to have you!!!!)***I am of course, who else, but LittleMissSparkle on Split Coast...

To all of my SBS#24 gals....I have MISSED you ALL!!!!! and hope you all have been well... thanks for the comments of concern and the prayers..I really appreciate all of it and hope to bring some good news for a change soon. Donnie will get his PICC line taken out tomorrow and a new Groshon chest catheter put back in so that hopefully all will be smooth sailing from this point forward for a while and he can live a somewhat "normal" life!...well...as normal as someone can with Short Bowel Syndrome, having to hook up to an IV machine every night for 8 hours when they go to bed...

When this last bout of issues arose for him (he picked upi ecoli during a hospital visit)...we were having to do at-home IV antibiotics for 3 weeks. "Get the meds out an hr before to warm to room temperature, run for 45 mins, and then uphook and flush with saline"...this was H-A-R-D when we were both still trying to work. Fun-times as the work week consisted of "after work meds, bedtime meds and 4-5:30 am meds"...I only know that the Good Lord Himself brought us through that one without killing each other or Paige for lack of sleep- ha ha! :)

You gotta laugh sometimes or you would go insane....

I PROMISE to keep you all updated and blog more often...I miss my coversations with my SISTERS and want to look at your blogs tomorrow or later this evening, as I am off tomorrow to go to Donnie's surgery at 6:30 am (and we are supposed to get a major snow/ice storm later!)...more GOOD TIMES- jk! :)

I miss Sally's cool artwork...Leona's beautiful layouts, Jenn's inspraitional messages and all of the other WONDERFUL and FABULOUS things about my creative sister-friends that I LOVE- Christina, we have LOTS to catch up on and music to talk about too...I have to check out Anna' lastest challenges, what's going on in Wendy's world in Wales, and soooo much more with all of my other sisters...I better get going and get to it! :)

Shannon

Days One and Two...

Day One and Two of my 100 day challenge were just that! - A Challenge!
I had a Baby Shower and a Wedding the first day and a Community Thanksgiving Dinner on the second day. Talk about a challenge to find something that I could eat- thankfully there was salad and made from scratch cranberry and apple salad.

It is amazing what a HUGE emphasis our culture puts on FOOD and EATING...it is a social event. You meet with friends for drinks and food... your family reunions and holiday gatherings revolve around fellowship and food...we go to church functions that usually have food, etc... etc... and you get my drift...

...and, as my SBS Shelly has mentioned...it is EXPENSIVE to eat properly!...I am still waiting on the FDA, CIA, FBI, or the Pres himself to lower the cost of fresh foods and raise the cost of the preservative death in a box ones...yeah, like THAT will ever happen. If that happened, we might not have as many health issues and might not have to go to the doc as much or pay the pharmaceutical companies an arm and a leg...and the cycle of viscious money-grubbing continues!

I have learned so far, that I NEED a great juice machine, a food dehydrator and I am not sure what else yet. Good thing my hubby is always wanting to know what he can get me for Christmas and my birthday in February :)

I have also learned that I need to get organized and plan ahead with food prep, so that I can have what I need at my fingertips throughout the work week and not have to "prepare" stuff--- for that is where and when I will fail this challenge for sure, and just grab something that is more "convenient". I am so grateful to Bunny Berry and all of the bloggers at her Raw Fu Blog. I can find so many recipes, tips, and gadgets in order to make this feel like less of a challenge and more like a new way of life. This way, I can do what others who have walked this path before me have done and learn from them in the process. I sort of feel that I am almost walking on a "sacred path" of sorts. Kind of hard to explain the emotional side...almost a spiritual journey, as I am on a quest to find what God has intended for my "temple" that He has bestowed upon me (my body), should really and truly feel like and function.

I don't know that I have ever had that feeling, since I have been eating this way my whole entire 39 years on the planet. So it will be a challenge...but it will be an adventure and a journey at the same time. please keep me in your prayers if you think of me, because that will help me to succeed in my journey and quest to a better me! :)

Thank you... thank you... thank you for your love, support, and kind words of encourgement... they mean the world to me! It's funny if you think about it... to think that some people in the world will ridicule me and try to discourage me from what I am doing...thinking that I am a freak... for merely attempting to eat "the way nature intended", to coin a phrase...oh what a messed up society we live in, folks.

November 15th is nearing....

Well, my lovelies...the day is arriving...November 15th is THIS Saturday!
This is the first day of my Raw Fu 100 Day Challenge. I have some mixed emotions going on right now. I am getting excited, and scared at the same time. Seeing as how my entire house is a cesspool of pre-made, pre-boxed, pre-packaged food...I can see the extra $$ going out already for those vitamin giving,organic,fresh foods. Why does the government or the FDA, or whoever is to blame, make it so damn hard and expensive to eat right???!!

You can go to the grocery store and get great deals and sales on 10 for $10 microwave meals and pre-packaged, pre canned foods...but then you hit the fruits and vegetables aisle, (let alone the greater expense for the organic ones), cost you a full day's pay, your right arm, left leg and signing your life away on some secret document just to be able to pay for the stuff!

"They" preach to us Americans about eating right, exercising, and shove a "new and improved" Food Pyramid down our throats...how about THIS concept???...try charging LESS for the foods that will heal your body and are good for you and MORE for the foods that won't...I mean, come on now people...WAKE UP!!!...don't all those preservatives and chemicals that we can't even pronounce cost a hell of a lot more to manufacture than good 'ole homegrown foods???

OH...I KNOW!!!...we pour $$$ into the Meat and Dairy companies and LESS to nothing for the Farmers who grow the fresh foods...man!...I thought I lived in a messed up world before!!...sorry I am venting and sounding so cynical...but you gotta love a blog...that online "journal" of sorts in which you can use that Constitutional freedom of speech and the right to express yourself! :)...I just hope that doesn't change too with our new President elect. I gotta give one thing to Barack...his political campaign slogan of "A Time for Change" has sure motivated me to make some necessary changes in my own life!

Heaven Forbid... the government sure as heck won't help me do it, in the food world.....okay everyone, I hope to find encouragement along the way in this new venture and on this journey away from "the norm"...sad, really, to think that eating correctly is a venture away from the norm, and not the norm!..I have been putting some blogs under my "Blogs I Love" section and between Bunny Berry, who has graciously allowed me to be brought "into the fold"...and the other bloggers, who are walking that "narrow" path in life...I will find what I am searching for...

I plan to blog each day about my 100 day journey. I will warn you now...plan on some venting, whining, and just plain carrying on until I get this thibg figured out. I am on a quest to feel better, look better, have more energy and possible lose part of myself (the fat part!) in the process.

Wish me luck and say a prayer for me when you read this!

Love and *HUGS"...Shannon

I am feeling better every day! :)

THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU!

For all of your prayers, nice comments and just down right genuine love, care and concern across the globe for me and my family. Your prayers and friendship has been truly appreciated! Donnie's kidney wound has healed and the scab is starting to fall off (gross, I know!)...Paige is almost finished with her meds and spent the night last night again with her girlfriends...I was feeling good enough to have all the girls stay at our house on Thursday night (no school on Friday because of Veteran's Day on Monday)... and I actually got up and went to work on Friday...and I am feeling well enough today to go to my church scrapbook/craft day that I host once a month! Miracles, large and small still do happen and I am thankful that I worship the God of those miracles! :)

I have to get a reader card for our pc to be able to upload pictures; but my friend Deb is gracious and lends me hers once in a while. She will be there today, so I am going to borrow it over the weekend to get some pix uploaded of those recipe and card swaps that I told you I was working on before I caught the epizoodek! )I don't know about you gals(Karyn & Christina), but this cough and stuff seems to be hanging on for all it's worth!...I feel like I am living in one of those Mucinex commercials where the Mucus Family is trying to take up permanent residence!

That is another reason that I am wanting to better myself, both physically, as well as Spiritually. I want to see just how God has created us, internally...I want to see if eating the way that He instructed us to, will really help my body rid itself of years of built up "sludge" and heal itself from the inside out. That is another reason that I am signing up for a 100 Day Raw Food Challenge, over on Bunny's Blog "Raw Fu". (More about that later!)...but right now, my lovelies...I have to scoot on over to the church...it starts at 10 am and runs until we get tired and I lock up (usually around 2 or 3 am on Sunday morning)...any later than that and I might as well forget getting ready to teach Sunday School at 9:45!

Have a great day...and until next time...keep looking upward for your answers...keep on being thankful...keep loving your family and friends and keep on using that glitter!!!! :)

Shannon

It is a Historic Event....

Well folks....it has just been announced since 100% of the polls have reported. For the first time ever an African American has won the race and has become our newest President. Either way we voted, it would have been a decision that made the history books- either we would have an African American President, or we would have had our first woman Vice President. I try to only talk about politics with my closest friends, but I must admit that I am an independent voter who makes educated and prayerful decisions- and for the past few elections I have voted Republican. I too, am ready for a change. I am still not sure that Barack Obama is the change that I am ready for...so I pray the best for him and his family, and for the decisions he will make for our country on the whole...just as I have for every President that I have voted for in the past.

Even though John Mc Cain was soooo old...I just liked, and still do like the guy! And if you watched your television all evening like I did, you have to admit that he gave one hell of a speech to usher in our new President. He definately has class.

Here's to the next 4 years... to a brighter economy...to well thought out and educated decision making from that big White House...and to better days a head. God Bless The President!

You Are Pumpkin Pie

You're the perfect combo of uniqueness and quality. You're able to relate to many types of people with many different tastes. But you're by no means generic or ordinary. In fact, you're one of the most original people around. Those who like you are looking for something (or someone) special. You tend confuse people when they first meet you. But you're not as complicated as you seem. Even though you have a lot of spice and flavor to you, you're never overpowering. You are a calm and comforting force in people's lives.

What Kind of Pie Are You?

I owe...I owe...(Thankfully) to the Doctor (Again!) I Go...

Can you tell that I have a sarcastic sense of humor?? :)

It's not that I am ungrateful...it's just that my daughter has just gotten well and now she has had congestion for over a week and over the counters have done nothing for her and this morning at 4:42 she was in the bathroom puking!...so again, I trudge off to the doctor (this time her Pediatrician)...with my $25 co-pay in hand...(which by the way used to only be a $10 co-pay a few years ago).

I cried out to God this morning,in the only place that I got to be by myself when my kids were little,(the bathroom)...and asked Him to just make my family well!!! PLEASE!!!...it's not that I am ungrateful...because I am of the many, many blessings in my life, and the things that my family and I are able to do that other people aren't....it just gets frustrating and I am getting tired of feeling like we all are walking around in this house, or the morgue of death as I am calling it right now,...carrying the "epizoodic"!!...(Sara, I now know what the epizoodic feels like-LOL!)

I'm not sure about you, but I sure think that the older we get, the harder it seems to be able to get rid of stuff. I never remember getting sick like this when I was a kid! And I even unknowingly tried to become a human science experiment! (more about that for another time and blog entry). I am just one of those people who absolutely despises having to take a pill for what ails me! We have become such a "pill popping" society and culture..."Here, take a pill for this and then oh, by the way, that causes these side effects, so take this pill too to counteract the effects of the first one!"...AHHHHHH!!!!!- will someone just sign me up to have my bikini area waxed and all of my eyelashes pulled out instead!!!????

...and thankful that I have a job and health insurance, that hundreds of thousands of people do not have...and thankful that we are not a "socialist" country and I can choose which doctor I get to see...I will thankfully be standing in line at 7:30 am to see the doctor, who also provides a sick child walk-in clinic every morning before the office opens for regular business hours. They even have separate ares of the building for sick kids and kids who are noy sick...although I have to admit, that has always baffled me...because germs know no boundaries, right!??? So in reality, are we making the well kids sick, or are they making us well?? :)

If anyone else out there is sick right now...hang in there for this too shall pass and we will be celebrating (only I think that comes later after the wellness has settled back in). Well my lovelies...my computer is in the basement in our family room, so I can type (in between coughing and blowing my nose), without waking up the rest of the family. But alas, I just pulled the last tissue out of the box...(this makes box #3 to bite the dust). My other box is in my crafting room upstairs between the bedroom that my hubby is in and the one my daughter is in. If I can sneak in there and am able to create a little without waking them up, I might have some pix to post soon- YEA!!!!!...BTW, I didn't get to craft the other night when I said that I was heading to the hot shower and then to craft...I headed to the hot shower and it drained me so much I headed to bed instead! LOL!...so I am waaaayyyyy overdue to post some photos...which I should have as soon as I get the three swaps finished that I am working on.

Happy November!!!

HAPPY NOVEMBER!!!!

It's the month when we all remember to be thankful for something and despite my venting, whining and groaning about being sick right now...I truly AM thankful that I can breathe now...man do we take that one for granted every day! I feel for all of those people who have to be on breathing machines or hook up to an oxygen tank, or use inhalers...it sure humbles me and brings me back to a "reality check".

I know that even though I get frustrated at allergies, colds, sinus conditions, etc...that there is always someone out there that is a heck of a lot worse off than I am. I am thankful to God that I can walk, talk, breathe, swallow, think, speak and do all of those things that come so naturally and seem so basic to us. They aren't so basic or natural to those who can't do them without being assisted in some way. I know that they would give anything to be able to have my stuffed up nose and congestion...just to be able to be off that machine and breathe better!

So this shout out goes up to You God...my Lord and my Savior...for sending me the best gift that You could ever bestow upon me (Jesus)..let me never forget that He is the air I breathe! :)

As we start to make those Thanksgiving vacation and/or travel plans...let us not forget to be thankful for all the blessings we have in life on this planet called Earth. For the mere fact that I can type this and you can read it, is reason to be thankful...tell your loved ones, while you still have the chance...and they still have the chance to hear you say it...just how much you LOVE them. For we never know if this will be our last holiday that we celebrate together. You may never get a second chance...then again, you might---but what if you don't? There's no sense in setting yourself up for regret that can be avoided.