Tag: Blogging

#HAWMC Day 2 – Blogging Process

On By WendyIn Chronic Illness6 Comments

Today is day 2 in the #HAWMC.  (Health Activist Writers Month Challenge)  If you’d like to read more blog posts about this please check out WEGO’s Facebook Page.  And don’t forget to Like my Facebook Page – Picnic With Ants.

wego-day-2

My blogging process is a bit different as I change it up a bit.  For some posts I just shoot from the hip; I write what comes to mind and hit Publish before I change my mind.  🙂  Other posts I do a lot of research so it takes time to develop those post, they can take days to write.  Still others I write in advance.  I know I am going to post them so I get them ready ahead of time and schedule them to come out.

I do try to edit my posts, unless I do a stream of conscious post, even though it may not seem like it sometimes.  Isn’t it funny how you can read the same thing over and over and it looks just right until after you hit Publish then you notice it has a lot of errors?  Really, I did read it over for errors, really I did!

Trying to decide what to blog about is the hardest thing for me.  I will sometimes come up with some great ideas and I get very excited to write.  Other times I’m stuck.  I have no idea what to write about.  I don’t want to always write about me and the newest things that may be going on with me and my illnesses, especially if nothing has changed in a while.  Having a chronic illness can mean that things just stay, well, chronic.  They may not progress at all.  Things are just the same.  It can be a challenge to come up with new topics to write about when you feel things are just the same.

I read a lot of blogs and I feel a lot are either all down in the dumps, or they are all sunshine and rainbows.  I want my blog to be somewhere in the middle.  I want people to come here and know that having an illness doesn’t mean you have to be sad about it all the time, but you also don’t have to be positive all the time.  Here is someplace in the middle.

Don’t get me wrong, here you will find the down and dirtiness of being ill, and you will also find good days and thoughts that may help you along the way.

Oh, I’m moving away from my process.  Well sometimes my process is to just sit back and talk to my readers, like I am right now.  You are, after all, who I write this blog for.  Well you and me.  🙂

It seems my blogging process is rather eclectic.

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Job, moving, packing, and spilled spoons

On By WendyIn Chronic Illness11 Comments

 

spoons by w. holcombe
spoons by w. holcombe

This will be a very quick post….I just don’t have time!  And I’m spilling spoons all over the place……..

I realized how long it has been since I have posted or read anyone’s blog posts and thought….my people will think I have died!  Or they will think I have run away and am dancing with the natives on a semi-deserted island!

I’m happy and sorry to disappoint, but both are wrong.

Many things have happened….and I will not be able to tell you them all here.

Here are the highlights:

  1. Stuart was offered a job in Charlotte, NC….about 3 hours from where we live now.  This is a great job.  We are so grateful!
  2. We had to go look for a place to live in Charlotte, NC.
  3. We spent 4 exhausting days looking for suitable place to live in Charlotte, NC   (a suitable place, must be 1 story….I can no longer do stairs. Walker should fit in bathroom. Preferably 2 bedrooms. A very narrow price range due to the fact that we will still be paying a mortgage until we sell our house ….plus double utilities, ect.,)
  4. We returned home, not knowing if we had found a place to live, even though we changed some of our must list. (walker did not have to fit in bathroom, could have 1 or 2 steps to enter. Would accept 1 bedroom.)
  5. After being home for 2 days we found out we had the duplex we really did like!  It did not meet all of our preferred requirements, but we can live with it.  My walker will not fit in the bathroom…but I’m used to that.  It does fit in every other room.  There are 2 bedrooms!  There are 2 steps to enter the home, but the landlord is going to put in a railing.  I can deal with that too!  It’s in a great place, and it ‘s just what we need.  Yay!  (dancing a little jig!)
  6. Our new place is about 1/4 the size of our house.   Yes, we meant to get a place that was much smaller than the place we live now.  We want to downsize and minimize.  It will make things much easier on both of us.  However, the next couple of weeks things will not be easier!
  7. Stuart starts work on July 20th.  We want to move in about a week or so before then.  However, that means we want to have the things we want to keep in the new place.  That doesn’t mean we will have all the things we no longer want out of our old place.  We plan to have that taken care of by the end of the month and put the house on the market next month.  Whew!

So……I’ve used up all of my spoons every day.

some days I haven’t had any spoons when I wake up in the morning.  One day I had no spoons to even make it out of bed.

Today I got up and started to do a go through things and suddenly I picked up something that was my mother’s and spilled all my spoons all over the floor!   I had been surrounded  by dusty things and my asthma was starting to tickle…I had planned to go get my inhaler, then I picked up my mother’s things….and CRASH spoons everywhere!!!……suddenly I couldn’t  breathe!    eehheheheheeeeeswwwhwhwhwhwwwwwwwwwhwhwhwweeezzz   Stuart was upstairs, I’m crying and can’t take a breath….eehehewwwhwhwheeehwwheeeezzzzz   I picked up something and threw it trying to make a noise….luckily he was coming down stairs and saw me and grabbed my inhaler….I got was able to get a breath and then I had a nebulizer treatment.  I could breathe again….but Stuart had this huge guilt trip….”What if I wasn’t here?  What is going to happen when I go to work?”

Then I had a guilt trip….but…”Ummmm. when you aren’t here I have my emergency kit next to me.  This was my fault I should have had my inhaler with me.”   and I’m thinking….please stop I feel bad enough……

But he is getting all worked up, it’s been so long since he worked out of the house…..then I started feeling more guilty…..and suddenly i feel like a little kid being scolded for not taking care of myself.

yep….Spoons all over the place!!!  some I’m sure are coming from tomorrow”s reserve.

(no worries, you know we got it all straight, emotions calmed down and communication started working…….we work well together….but we are both out of spoons today!)

if anyone is reading this and doesn’t understand my reference to spoons please refer to this link:  The Spoon Theory