Below is a list of a few gifts I’d like to give and the reasons why I would like to give them:

DICTIONARY

There is a girl’s blog I read every day, at least every day that she updates, and she tries to sound so professional and educated by using big words. The problem is, she uses them in similar context to how they should be used but with a meaning just slightly off, so that it’s obvious to those who really know the meaning of the words that she doesn’t fully understand how to use them. I suppose that the meaning of them is close enough that a good majority of the people who read her just assume she’s using it right, after all, she’s a writer. She should know, right? Sadly, that’s not true, she doesn’t know, and I cringe when I see these words–it’s as though she used a thesaurus to get a similar word, but didn’t get the nuance of the word. As a lover of words myself, I would like to buy this blogger a dictionary to go with her thesaurus, and give her the gift of knowledge and hopefully the desire to actually look up a word before she assumes it’s a synonym. Read the rest of this entry »

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See that title up there? Up there ^ see, where it says, “It’s kind of fun to do the impossible”?

That was in my fortune cookie tonight from dinner.

I had fried rice with pork, chicken, orange sauce and string beans. Thanks for asking.

Oh, and a soda. I know, I know–but I indulge now and again.

It was diet, if that helps. Not really, huh?

So here’s the thing. It IS fun to do the impossible. I think I do it nearly every day of my life. Every morning when I get up and get out of bed, I’ve done what was, two years ago, impossible for me. Read the rest of this entry »

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I have the heart of a writer…

….in a jar, on my desk.

Sorry, couldn’t resist. Buffy made me do it; I swear. It’s all her fault. Don’t worry. The image isn’t blood and guts and a heart. It’s making jam, strawberry. Promise.

Now, let’s get back on topic.

In the forum the other day, we were discussing characters in our novels. They are really amazing creatures, these people who live inside our heads. We breathe life into them. We make them whole, complete, real human beings, at least for as long as we hold their universe in our hands. I like the power of this, but sometimes, I balk at the responsibility of it.

When writing one of my current WIPs (work in progress for those who aren’t aware), Accepting Aimee, I have to be in a quirky mood to write her. She is like me in many respects, but in some very important ways, Aimee is nothing like me, and that sometimes makes writing her hard. Her best friend, Gigi, while nothing like me at all, is a lot like someone I’d like to be, so I find writing her (she has her own book coming up next entitled: What Makes a Woman – part of my Convington Confessions series of books) to be a lot more fun and easier for me, since I can slip into her skin, so to speak. Read the rest of this entry »

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Sitting on the table in front of me right now is a gorgeous vase of roses, yellow with orange tips, that I received for Valentine’s Day. As gorgeous as they were then, they are now opened up and in full bloom and are absolutely stunning right now. Don’t believe me? Check out this perfect, unretouched photo of a beautiful Texas yellow rose. Is that not the most beautiful rose ever?

Of course, on my bedside table is another bouquet of flowers, I also received on Valentine’s Day. These flowers were waiting for me at the table when we arrived at the Mockingbird Bistro, in Houston.

First, let me show you these, because they are quite unique and very pretty:

These are what I see first thing upon waking up in the morning, the last few mornings.

You know, I complain a lot about my health, and while I’m not going to sit here and say that it’s not so bad to live in constant, horrible pain, to have flares that make me swell up like someone blew me up like a balloon–I guess I do have to step back and say this: I love my life. Read the rest of this entry »

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Have you ever blown up a water balloon? You know, you fill the balloon up with water and it slowly fills, stretching the balloon and then, there’s only two ways to get the water out of it: pour it out the balloon’s mouth or pop the balloon. Either way, once the water is removed, the skin of the balloon is never quite the same again, is it? The skin of the balloon went from thick, strong, smooth… to stretched out, thin and all mushy.

I know, you’re wondering why I’m talking about water balloons aren’t you?

Let me explain, but before I do, let me talk about the word ‘flare’ as it pertains to my health. The other day, I mentioned in FB and Twitter that I was having a flare. Some of the folks, particularly on FB, were super kind and I really wanted to thank everyone for the well wishes, energy, good thoughts and prayers. Read the rest of this entry »

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I run a mostly paperless office, which has been really nice for me over the years. I keep very good records, folders with things saved in them, emails with their own categorized folders, etc, and I have disc backups and saved disc copies of everything in case a computer goes bad, etc. My online store that I just started back in December, has excellent reporting features, and PayPal simply rocks in the way it keeps up as my Merchant account. I don’t think casual PayPal users are aware of just what all PayPal offers to us business users — it’s amazing the services they provide, the reports, the ease of use for tax purposes, etc. Fortunately for me, I do almost all of my work/income/sales through PayPal, which is kinda cool for me when it comes time to do taxes too.

I even scan in receipts, contracts and other things I get in paper form and save them to the appropriate folders too, so that even the few things I get papered still, I convert to paperless. Read the rest of this entry »

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Some of you might remember when I wrote about getting the DITI scan, which is the Digital Infrared Thermographic Imaging. It was quite the experience, to be sure. It was embarrassing, and it was expensive, but at least it was noninvasive (something my poor needle poked arms were thankful for).

Well, the results of my scan came back. I wanted to share the results with you guys, and I’m going to, but first… when I received the results, I was alone. I read through them quickly, and then re-read them slowly, and I promptly began crying.

It wasn’t because there was any significant bad news here. There wasn’t. In fact, the DITI really didn’t tell me anything I didn’t really already know. But that was the point, I think, that made me cry. For the last few years, struggling to be ‘normal’ and be my ‘old self’ again, I’ve been telling the doctors what hurt, where it hurt, how it hurt, the only thing I couldn’t tell them was why it hurt. I sort of figured that’s what the doctors were for, you know, I pay them to tell me why I hurt. Not one of them ever could. Some doctors dismissed me, saying I needed to lose some weight, eat better, exercise more, and take an antidepressant. Others tried things valiantly, but when all the tests came back negative, they too suggested an antidepressant. Read the rest of this entry »

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I sit here tonight at 3am drinking a hot buttered not-rum, because I can’t drink alcohol but they are still good with coffee in place of the hot water, and I’m thinking, “Man, I really wish I could drink alcohol…” Nah!

As I sit here tonight in this beautiful home, surrounded by blinking lights and presents under the gorgeous huge Christmas tree, with the smell of apples and cinnamon wafting in from the kitchen (an apple crumb pie in the slow cooker – I’ll have to share the recipe some day)… I shiver, and I think about turning up the heat, cursing the storm that blew in earlier today and flustered over whether I should start the ham tonight or not, and cursing about how much I have left to do before everyone gets here…. and…. and… I just finished wrapping the second to last present but have one more to go… And  I have a paper cut and my back hurts, and I’m tired and… and… and…

Wait a second!

Walk Down Memory Lane Read the rest of this entry »

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So the battle rages….. what’s wrong with Michy?

One doctor says I have Lupus, that I’ve had it all along, and my symptoms are ‘classic autoimmune’, regardless of the fact my ANA is always negative. Another doctor doesn’t disagree that I have the symptoms of Lupus, but she’s not quite so willing to give up with a ‘possible’ diagnosis and wants something more definitive, though she admits, “We do have some patients who are serum negative…” the research I’ve done indicates about 35% of all Lupus patients are serum negative.

Here’s what I know: When I take steroids, the pain goes away, or at least greatly diminishes.

What are steroids a treatment for? Lupus. Read the rest of this entry »

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Okay, in my last post, I talked about some of what’s going on with me and medical stuff. The last thing the doc did after prescribing the steroids was to get me registered to do thermographic imaging. I’d never heard of this type of testing before. Apparently, they use an infrared thermographic camera to find ‘hot’ and ‘cold’ spots on the surface of your skin, and these spots correlate to conditions under the skin (you know, in your body). It’s actually been used a lot for diagnosing breast cancer, because it can, presumably, detect and diagnose suspicious vascular activity indicative of cancer in women literally decades before mammography can find it. It can detect the increased blood flow around the breast area that is typical of cancer before I lump can even form! It’s unreal!

But it has other uses too, such as detecting nerve damage. With nerve damage, the body shows ‘cold’ spots that shouldn’t be there, because the blocked or pinched nerves block flow into those areas. It can show inflammation by showing ‘hot spots’, so it can diagnose injuries, inflammation, swelling, and yes, even shows pain – it can show areas where a person is hurting, and prove the pain is real. Read the rest of this entry »

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