Surprised Myself

If some asked me to choose between giving up dairy or breathing, I would have easily ditched breathing. My bf "Pearl" has become a vegan vegitarian this past year, and I told her when she first started, "I could probably do it, if I wanted to, but I could NEVER give up dairy". Well I have given it up for almost a week now, and I'm so happy about my progress.

Dairy Free Journal

day*3
I cheated for the first time today. I was out in Newport with a friend and we went out for lunch at the Rouge Brewery. I was weak in the knees when I saw the crab melt and I caved. There was a wee bit of cream cheese and some chedder. Darn it. Oh well, surprisingly it's been the only time, so I'm still pretty proud of myself so far.
I also had a really great soy 'ice cream' bar.

It's vegan, organic, and oh so heavenly! You just have to try them.
day*4
I finally opened the plain Safeway Organics today. I poured into my life cereal and I didn't even notice the difference. I have not had it in a glass yet, but on cereal it was just great. I couldn't find the milk free Slim Fast.... I think it might have been 'lactose free', but that's not dairy free. Well at least I can have cereal instead, but I'm not an 'eat in the morning' kinda gal. Rats.
day*5
Tyler wanted pizza tonight. I told him I'm not quite strong enough to handle him eating that in front of me quite yet, so we went out for Chinese instead. I had the best won ton soup. The won tons are SO good, and it's loaded with veggies like pea pods, broccoli, water chess-nuts, carrots, and baby corn. I love the shrimp, chicken and bbq pork in it too. DElish!
day*6
I've been 5 days headache free now! Amazing. Maybe this is working :)

...Time took nothing away

Oh how I love the comfort of being with an old friend. My friend Mia came into work today to surprise me... she will be in and out of town for a while. I wish it were under better circumstances - my heart goes out to her Dad right now. Anyway - we went out for dinner to catch up and it was so nice to be a with a friend and fall right back into each other's lives and never have a quiet minute. So nice to reconnect and just have that familiar feeling of comfort, kindness, and the bond... time took nothing away. We shared a great dinner and 2 hours flew by like 2 minutes. Thankfully she'll be back next week.

So I had the MRI. It was not fun, but not the worst thing I ever did. The soft white light made it bearable and they played my John Mayer cd, so his sweet sound helped calm my nerves. The only part that REALLY FREAKED ME OUT was one of the sequences made a horrible 'alarm' sound and vibrated quite a bit, so I thought those crazy 'what if' thoughts.... like "what if the machine is broken and the guy doesn't know?" and "what if the the tsunami struck - would I be stuck in here?"
I have mixed feelings over the results. They found nothing wrong, so that's terrific, yet at the same time, I have no answers to why my migraines are worsening and any leads to a cure. Ugh. Is it all in my head? Pun intended.

Snow Day .... Charms & Headache Free

Last Thursday we had a snow day! Oh ya - we got a whole 2 inches and the town was in a tizzy and canceled school. They just have no idea what snow is around.... it NEVER happens. Sometime we get slushy snow mixed with rain, but it never never sticks on the ground, so to wake up last Thursday and this was amazing!
I was so sick with my damn headache, I wasn't able to go driving around to take pics of the dunes or anything, which was a drag, but I was happy to know it was there.

So yesterday (Sunday) was my fist day, migraine free, in almost a week! I just had the best time finishing up my charms for the other charm swap. Tyler spent the whole day with me (instead of being in his room hooked up to his headphones and guitars), so I was sheer heaven. After spending the entire day taping and soldering I hopped online to read my mail, surf the net, catch up on some blogs and even managed to crank out the two scrapbook pages for the snow and charms in photoshop! I was a little too excited and stayed up till 4:30 this morning playing, but I don't care - it's the first day I have felt like myself in weeks!!!

Here are my charms... I had made up the pic with brushes in photoshop, punched them out and stuck them to the glass pebbles earlier, so all I had to do was wrap them in copper tape and solder them up, but it took pretty much all day because I did quite a bit more than the 25 needed for the shop, since I knew that some of them might would be duds. I am not a master solderer, so I always make extra ;)

(All the credits for my layouts can be found on my flicker page... click on the link to right)

MRI

I've been off sick for a few days now. Excruciating migraine again, so I haven't been able to come online because I can't see properly. This morning I woke up just a little headache, but I still have that darn eye pain. I saw my optometrist yesterday and she has scheduled me for an MRI. I've never had one before, so if you have - please let me know what it was like. I called the radiology dept and they said I would be in that machine for about 40-45 minutes. Yikes... I honestly didn't think it took more than a few minutes. Leave me a comment if you've done this before - the more I know what it's actually like to be in there, the better.

Thank you ... thank you ... thank you

I'm glad to be back among the living... my migraine is gone!
To make my day even better, I've just sold a few pendants on Etsy. Woo hoo. Thanks for the support. It perked me up big time!
I added a new one too... with pearls. Finally made something... the first thing in 2007.

Sick Days

Oh - tonight I finally have some relief of my migraine. The pain is gone, and I'm able to see clearly again but now my eyes just ache. I couldn't come on and post yesterday because I literally couldn't see - everything was just so blurry. You know somethings wrong when you can't read the digital clock on your microwave. Thankfully that's over - and I'm hoping the eye pain will be gone by tomorrow too. K - I'm going back to bed so I can go to work tomorrow. Peace!

The best head ache I've ever had

Today, like many days, I woke up with a head ache. I think it's the switch from sunny weather to rain. Sometimes barometric changes throw me off. Instead of letting it consume my day, Tyler & I went to the thrift store to see what looked interesting. I scored a terribly tacky wall pocket. It's painted black and gold and is deliciously hideous - I can hardly wait to transform it. When I do I'll post the pics here.
After that I went to Sandy's with my crazy big canvas that I bought yesterday up in Newport. I like to paint on small canvases... like 8x8 or 12x12, but I'm making all new art for my entries into the jurried show. The size limitation is 40 inches in any direction, so my new canvas fits right in there at 24x36 inches. I'm doing another in my 'twilight' series... and I'm making sure it gets noticed :) So today I packed up my paints & super size canvas and headed to Sandy's house. It was a great afternoon of painting, talking, and just hanging out. It's usually all work with us these days, so spending my day off there was a treat, especially since I had a headache... it was nice to hang out with friends.
When I came home I was followed by 4 fire trucks, 2 Florence police and a state police car, heading past our place, down the road to another apartment building. We couldn't see any flames but there was lots of smoke and the smell of melting plastic and such drifted down the street. It was raining out and cold rain felt so good on my aching head. Tyler and I stayed outside in the pouring rain for a half an hour just letting the drops soak us. It was a great end to the day.
Well it was supposed to be the end of the day....
It's approx. 2:55 am and I'm wide awake. I just finished another entry for the show. It's called Nesting. It's along the same premise of Grow, but a different look.

So excited

I'm starting to make little piles all over the house, of things I want to pack for my trip to Canada, to see my boys. I'm taking up soap supplies so my sister and I can play, kitchen gadgets for Trevor's new apartment, art supplies, camera..... I need to leave room for clothes. I'm sure no matter how much stuff I jam into my suitcase - I'll forget something.... I always do :) As the train starts to roll away - it comes to me.... every time.

The last few days have been spent painting new pictures and trying to keep my headaches at bay. They are getting the best of me and I don't know why. I've eaten healthy food for 2 solid weeks (maybe my bodies going into shock, lol), have gotten rest when I need it, have been making lots of art..... I feel happy, not stressed....except my headaches drive me bonkers.

It's Rhody Days here in lil' ol' Florence Oregon. Our Rhododendron Festival is in full swing. The carnies are here with the games, cotton candy and rides that make you think twice. The Rhody Queen was crowned last night, the craft fair is on today and tomorrow, the car show & cruise with all the old hot rods is tonight, and the streets are filled with thousand and thousands of Harlies. Whenever they ride past the house, my cats come screaming inside and hide under the couch - pretty funny. Tomorrow I'll go watch the parade with my best friend Amanda - that ought to be a kick! You can drive all the way from one side of town to the other in less than 15 minutes, even stopping for the occasional red light. Not on Rhody weekend though - it can take 15 minutes just to take your turn getting on the main drag. All the old fuddy duddies leave town or stay home and complain about all the people, all the noise. I love it - our little town wakes and parties for days and nights and come Monday morning - it's all over and you all you can hear is the distant roar of the last Harley leaving town.

Side Effects

"Secrets"

Uggh, today I'm suffering from a side effect of a nasal med to help clear my ears. Nose bleeds.... gross and a pain in the butt. I was supposed to meet my friend at the coffee house but it started when I was getting ready. Drat. Next a headache, so I've been lying down trying to 'rest it away'. I'm up to take a quick peek at my email (I'm trying not to fall asleep, just rest). I found a little good news in my email though... I just sold my latest beeswax collage to nice gal in New Zealand.