Well, it’s been one heck of a month. I’m becoming one of those busy people with a lot to do. Who would have ever thought that I would go in that direction? Things have been a lot of fun, though. Between the lifestyle class at the rehibilitation centre and the creative writing course I joined, I have been learning a lot about myself and what I want for my future.

But, as the Bloke says, I don’t often get a break.

The reason for the online silence has been a seemingly random case of vertigo – something made worse by being on the computer for any stretch of time.

Fun stuff, right?

While putting up my screen higher and taking a break from the computer altogether for a while have both helped me to get back to spending more time on the computer again, I’ve mostly been using that time for writing. I’m trying to make a true effort of turning my writing into a career, so I have been being (a little) more strict with my time.

Cross your fingers for me that the vertigo leaves soon and permanently. While I’m still having dizzy spells, I’m not allowed to go to the gym. I’m going to talk to someone about other options, but I’m really not sure how that will go.

When I first started writing online, I couldn’t get enough blogs. Granted, most of them were paying jobs, but there were still plenty of them. One per subject, and you never blended them. At one point I think I had nearly a dozen blogs, both personal and professional.

But as the years have gone on, the jobs have been cut and I’ve moved on to different projects. I’ve cut down a lot on blogging, but I still had that mentality of one blog per subject.

While I’d still like to keep my fiction writing blog separate, I am thinking of putting all of my content from my health and wellness blog – Naturally Curvy – to this site. What Teresa said about making her health journey a part of the rest of her life makes a lot of sense to me.

Plus I think it would be great to have one blog with somewhat regular posting rather than two with barely regular posting. Haha.

I know switching URLs can be a death stamp for some blogs because readers don’t follow, but I am hoping people would be willing to make the jump with me.

I’m not doing this right now because I want to have the time available to fix issues that might come up. I will let you know when it’s happening, though.

So that’s what I’m thinking. I’m hoping the people here don’t mind heath stuff and people from over there don’t mind crafty and life stuff. Either way, I think it could make a better blog overall.

When I first started writing online, I couldn’t get enough blogs. Granted, most of them were paying jobs, but there were still plenty of them. One per subject, and you never blended them. At one point I think I had nearly a dozen blogs, both personal and professional.

But as the years have gone on, the jobs have been cut and I’ve moved on to different projects. I’ve cut down a lot on blogging, but I still had that mentality of one blog per subject.

While I’d still like to keep my fiction writing blog separate, I am thinking of putting all of my content from here onto my ‘life and stuff’ blog Down Under Views. What Teresa said about making her health journey a part of the rest of her life makes a lot of sense to me.

Plus I think it would be great to have one blog with somewhat regular posting rather than two with barely regular posting. Haha.

I know switching URLs can be a death stamp for some blogs because readers don’t follow, but I am hoping people would be willing to make the jump with me.

I’m not doing this right now because I want to have the time available to fix issues that might come up. I will let you know when it’s happening, though.

So that’s what I’m thinking. I’m hoping the people here don’t mind posts on crafty stuff and daily life stuff, and I’m hoping people over there don’t mind health stuff. Either way, I think it could make a better blog overall.

I have missed it here, but I have still been quite busy. Stress management and pain management classes have ended and I am going slow and steady at the gym. After Easter, a lifestyle class (a bit of group therapy, doctor and dietician) will be starting.

Job help is progressing, too, and I’ll be taking my first class since 2006 in May. Woohoo!

But here we come to the grit of it.

I have always been about standing up and dusting yourself off when you fall off the horse. I’ve said that, if nothing else, at least I am a person who keeps on trying. But the trucking has been very difficult lately.

I’ve started a food diary, cut calories, become more calorie-aware, have been going to the gym, cut out almost all alcohol… and things have gotten progressively worse. The tiredness that has plagued me off and on for years has been happening a lot since I had the flu last year and came to a major peak in the past fortnight.

I’ve been so exhausted that putting on my clothes in the morning is a major effort – and that’s after a full night of sleep. You can imagine how going to the gym has been going. That along with a bunch of other niggles that are happening more frequently finally got me to go to the doctor to address the problems.

So today I started on the road to getting the mystery sorted out. Tomorrow I get some blood tests. After Easter, I will get the results and go from there.

I’m hoping it’ll be a short road to answers, but it may be a long one. For those still reading, thanks for bearing with me while I try to get my energy levels back up.

I have missed it here, but I have still been quite busy. Stress management and pain management classes have ended and I am going slow and steady at the gym. After Easter, a lifestyle class (a bit of group therapy, doctor and dietician) will be starting.

Job help is progressing, too, and I’ll be taking my first class since 2006 in May. Woohoo!

But here we come to the grit of it.

I have always been about standing up and dusting yourself off when you fall off the horse. I’ve said that, if nothing else, at least I am a person who keeps on trying. But the trucking has been very difficult lately.

I’ve started a food diary, cut calories, become more calorie-aware, have been going to the gym, cut out almost all alcohol… and things have gotten progressively worse. The tiredness that has plagued me off and on for years has been happening a lot since I had the flu last year and came to a major peak in the past fortnight.

I’ve been so exhausted that putting on my clothes in the morning is a major effort – and that’s after a full night of sleep. You can imagine how going to the gym has been going. That along with a bunch of other niggles that are happening more frequently finally got me to go to the doctor to address the problems.

So today I started on the road to getting the mystery sorted out. Tomorrow I get some blood tests. After Easter, I will get the results and go from there.

I’m hoping it’ll be a short road to answers, but it may be a long one. For those still reading, thanks for bearing with me while I try to get my energy levels back up.

This one has already been mailed off and arrived at its destination, so I can share it without spoiling the surprise.

I made this travel-themed junk journal for my friend Jenera who said that she liked scrapbooking and had a lot of travel stuff but found traditional scrapbooking a bit more annoying than relaxing. Well, I was looking for someone to make a junk journal for and thought this kind of ‘loose” scrapbooking might be right for her.

I had a lot of fun with the travel theme. I found an A5 size travel paper pack that was perfect. I used ultra thick paper (as opposed to chipboard) for the cover and used the papers on that for the covers.

I didn’t do a heap on the inside, as I wanted to leave that mostly to her. Some people I’ve seen on YouTube do some amazing stuff, but I’m not up to that level you.

I did, however, include goodies for her to have fun with, including stickers, paperclips, and envelopes to put fun little stuff in.

I love making these smashbooks, but I’m thinking I need to watch more videos for ideas.

Almost since I started out getting healthier, I have struggled with the whole rewards thing. I’ve gone from saying that I don’t need rewards whatsoever, to giving them a go, to tyring to figure out what would work for me anyway.

For a long time, I have worked without them. Frankly, I was too busy trying to figure out a multitude of other things to sit down and figure out how to reward myself. But after a talk with my psych about rewards and how they really can be beneficial to helping one accomplish any goal, I decided to rethink the situation.

I’d tried books, gift cards, magazines and other stuff before, but I never had a reward that really stuck with me. The magazine was read, the gift card spent, so on and so forth. I’ve struggled to find anything that I would find both rewarding and encouraging.

I sat back and looked at myself. Not always a pretty prospect but valuable nonetheless. With the kind of person I am, I needed something fun and pretty to keep me attracted. But I also needed something permanent – not a book I would read and be done with or something that would be spent and gone. Whatever ‘it’ was, it needed to stick with me.

And, knowing me, (here’s the not so pretty part), I needed it to be in my face as much as possible. I get distracted. I get emotional. My head often has one or more cast of characters for whatever novel I’m working on in it. Being healthy isn’t always first on my plate. However, having a visual reminder either on my desk or on my body would have it right there nearly all the time.

Taking that all into account, I came to getting a charm bracelet with charms and beads to mark my progress. It’s pretty and fun, something permanent, something that marks my progress and something that will almost always be within my eyesight.

You might think that buying all the charms first up might take away the pleasure, but I don’t get to wear the charms until I reach the corresponding goal. That is enough to keep me going and working toward the next mark.

In the end, I’m quite proud of myself. It took some time and self-examination, but I think I have come up with something that will prove to be a good motivation.

Now only .8 lbs to go until I reach my first goal…

PS. These charms are the ohm symbol and the hamsa. Combined for strength, serenity, peace and protection.

My awesome package (and some stuff for The Bloke, too):

What I don’t have pictures of (because my camera is still being annoying) is the heating pad, pepto bismol, chocolate treats (including <3chocolate pretzels<3) and such she sent me. Love, love, love this woman, her husband, her two boys and bub on the way. They take such good care of me.

On another note, I received another little goody in the mail today...

Charms from Treasured Charms on Etsy.

I struggled for a while to think of a way to give myself rewards for weight loss that I would want to really work toward but that would also last so I could have a sold reminder of my accomplishments. Yay for charms! I have some beads coming as well so I can have a nice chunky charm bracelet by the time I reach my goal (100lbs away). I’m nearly to ten pounds lost, which is when I’ll get what is serving for a bracelet and the ohm and hamsa. They’re hanging up within my sight so I can keep my eyes on the prize.

All in all, a good mail week! And it’s only Monday…

This is another craft video featuring something on my ‘to be done’ list. And appropriate for this Wednesday because I ordered some Perfect Pearls to try out… and they arrived today! I’m down with a virus at the moment, but hopefully I’ll have some of my projects to feature here soon.