Wednesday's Walks with Arwen

This is the first in what will (we hope) become a weekly feature with ME! Yours truly, Arwen the wonder dog. Now, mommy says that I have to give credit where credit is due, so we need to say that this feature is inspired by BeadedTail's Saturday Strolls with Sadie, a fellow beautiful blogger dog. Thanks for the idea!
Now, back to business. Walks are serious events, that I try to have happen daily, but when it rains or is too icy or too hot, mommy says it is dangerous and we can't go. Rain makes the gravel roads like sandpaper on my paws, icy roads are slippery for paws and cars alike, and heat is not good for a black dog with a permanently thick undercoat! In those cases I play keep away while mommy tries to play fetch with me. I don't want to fetch! Stop throwing my toys around, I just want to chew them!
Back to the serious walks. I think this way smells good, let go!
Now one thing that mommy always laughs at is "The Pee Spot". There are actually 2 on this route, but mommy is only showing one today. Mommy laughs at me when I mark "The Pee Spot" because: 1. I'm a girl and have to squat, which she says looks funny (I can't help it, I'm being discreet!), and 2. I HATE it when people watch me! I have to turn and look away or I can't do it. It is even like that in my back yard. No one watch okay? Moom! You peeked! Yeesh.Okay, now that I've marked my spot, let's keep going...Here I am on our road, sniffing furiously as I walk. You can sort of see my bushy tail - it isn't as good as Sadie's, but I'm not full Husky. I'm trying though!Sometimes I get a really good sniff and have to stop my furious pulling to check it out. STOP MOMMY THIS SNIFF SPOT IS GOOD!!! I can never seem to remember what was here, even though I stop there every day. Here is mommy wiping some plant fuzz off of my head after I sniffed the spot. She also got rid of a pesky deer fly from my muzzle, thanks mommy!Here is a totally uninteresting spot that mommy made us stop at. No good sniffs here, but she said that a wild cat gave birth to some kittens and was keeping them there by that stone wall, not 6 feet from the road! Fortunately mommy told the person living across the street about it and he has been feeding them and keeping them safe - mommy tried to photograph the corner of the pie plate he put down for them but it didn't show up - he is still a nice guy though!!Now hurry up mommy, we have to make up for lost time after all the stops! Run mommy, run all the way home! Here is a photo of us running, I am pulling her to go faster, but she was laughing too hard trying to take a photo of me running :)We ran all the way home and I had a nice big drink and then, as is custom after our walks, we had a nice big cuddle. Until next week, mommy wants to remind you to sign up for our mailing list to be entered in her contest, she says:
Remember to enter my monthly contest by adding your name and email to my monthly newsletter (You have to sign up for the newsletter first to be eligible to win!!), see the full contest details here.
Take care, I send you high fives and tail wags,
Arwen
and

I've Been Featured!

I have been featured on JohnToftBasketry Blog! Please go and check it out, he said such nice things that I am still blushing :)

Remember to enter my monthly contest by adding your name and email to my monthly newsletter (You have to sign up for the newsletter first to be eligible to win!!), see the full contest details here.

Tuesday's Treasures - A Wee Garden Visit

I know I promised you a new bracelet inspired by Queen Victoria and I am working on it, I promise, but it is a new stitch and is taking a very long time to finish as I want to get it perfect the first time.
However, never wanting to disappoint, I bring you photos of my cotton candy colored lilies. They went from tiny buds to full-fledged open blooms in the space of about 24 hours and I love it! They also have very little smell, which is great if you have allergies. The bottom photo shows Arwen smelling the flowers before we took our walk :)
I will try to have the new bracelet up next Tuesday so please check back for that. Also, see tomorrow's post for a new segment I am doing, with the help of my wonderful grown-up puppy Arwen, called Wednesday's Walks with Arwen.

Remember to enter my monthly contest by adding your name and email to my monthly newsletter (You have to sign up for the newsletter first to be eligible to win!!), see the full contest details here.

New Celtic Necklace!

Boudica's Sheild 3Spiral Celtic Necklace

Just added this Celtic necklace to my Etsy store, what do you think? http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=21764753

Melodious Monday - I LOVE Plurk!

Okay , okay, when I first heard about Plurk, ANOTHER site to social network, I thought my head would explode. Honestly, aren't I on enough sites already??? (See yesterday's posts for that). But after reading RoseWorksJewelry's blog post on how it is similar yet different to Twitter, I thought I'd give it a try. To me, it seems like a great merger between Twitter, Facebook and MSNChat. You can easily follow conversation threads, or ignore them. You can easily find your current friends, or make new contacts by following other's friends. Want to see people's lives but don't want to chat with them? Instead of becoming theyr "friend", become their "fan". You can't message each other, but you can see what the other is up to. It can automaticall post your updates to Twitter and Facebook as well, to save you posting time ifyou are into that.
Yup, I love Plurk! I've already met some cool people and I've gained 10 new followers to this blog in the past 2 days - welcome to all the new people, thank you for following me here!

Until next time, remember to enter my monthly contest by adding your name and email to my monthly newsletter (You have to sign up there first to be eligible to win!!), see the full contest details here.

Soulful Sunday - No More Forgetfulness!

I admit it: I forget things. Not just the "what was I saying?" or "Why did I walk into this room?" sort of forgetfulness, but the sometimes scary, "Where am I?" or "Did I already take this medication?" kind of forgetfulness. It is mostly just annoying, but can be dangerous also. I stopped driving when I started getting these serious spells of forgetfulness mixed with severe dizziness and disorientation spells. Fibromyalgia does more than just make your body hurt, it affects your brain too. In fact, in recent studies, it was found that people with fibromyalgia actually experience grey matter decreases in their brains (So NO more blond jokes, okay?? It is the fibro, NOT my hair color, lol!).
More annoying than not having a driver's license (I hated driving anyway), is the fact that I am trying to run an online business while dealing with this forgetfulness. I never forget orders, as I pack and ship them as soon as I receive payment (thank you email notification!), but online businesses require online marketing, social networking, etc. Here are the items that require my daily attention, in addition to emails (of which I get about 200 daily):
1. I am a part of 5 online groups to support other businesses and promote my own through Etsy, my main selling site: Etsy for Animals, Creative Animal Relief, Christian Artists Street Team, Etsy Ontario and Capital Crafters. I am leader of one of these groups, the Capital Crafters, for artists in the Ottawa area.
2. I am the owner of 3 blogs, and contributor to a fourth.
3. I am a part of 10 (yes 10!) different social networking sites: The Capital Crafters Forum, Flickr, Twitter, Plurk, Squidoo, Facebook (where I have my personal page, and then a fan page and a group page for my business), MySpace, Beader's Showcase, Stylehive, and UsTrendy.com.
4. I am a member of 2 online Fibromyalgia support groups
5. I design and run my own website and prayer list
6. I am a part of 2 other online selling venues aside from Etsy. They are: iCraft.ca and Artfire.com
7. I am a part of Entrecard, which means I visit many different blogs each day to collect "cards" which I use to advertise on other blogs.
8. 100 or so blogs I follow daily (I love all of you and hate to miss a day in your lives!!)
9. I am trying to make new jewelry for my collections
10. The fact that as I work from home, I see the mess that my house becomes and HAVE to clean it.
11. I help my fiancee with his business by remotely monitoring servers and doing his bookkeeping.
12. I am disabled and need to frequently rest, sit, lie down or nap to stay semi-mobile.
13. The gardens! Oh my gosh the gardens! Yeah, the weather has been either too rainy to go out, or so hot and buggy that it is borderline dangerous to do any kind of heavy yard work (heatstroke is baaaad).
14. Plus I have a fiancee who needs attention, and a dog that demands attention. At least I think I did....they were around here somewhere.....

So how the heck do I remember to do all of this??? I tried to write things down, but inevitably I forgot to write some of the things down and those things just didn't get done. I tried typing a one page general list of things that need to be done, but I am the kind of person that needs a daily list that I can write on and cross things off as they are done (I love that sense of accomplishment!).
Enter Microsoft Publisher! I managed to get my business items and chores divided into fairly easy to do daily lists, with space to add more if I need to. It took about 2 hours, but only because I wanted to make it pretty - hey, if I have to wash windows, it must at least look pretty on paper! I then spent about 1/2 an hour fighting with my printer as it does not automatically print double sided - it just prints 1 copy on two separate pages, so you have to rearrange the pages and then reprint to get a double sided booklet. That and, my printer is in the basement (it is big and loud, so it stays there, and I run up and down the stairs to get things printed), which, on the bright side, gives me a good workout going up and down 16 stairs every time I need to print something!
So all of this to say that I now have 2 months worth of daily to-do lists, with all of my household chores, yard chores and business items clearly stated out in nicely timed intervals. I'll let you know how well they work out!

Remember to enter my monthly contest by adding your name and email to my monthly newsletter (You have to sign up there first to be eligible to win!!), see the full contest details here.

Baby's ChainMaille Charm Bracelet!

Just Listed this baby bracelet: http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=15133239 What do you think?

New Treasury!

I managed to get another treasury! Please click on the photo to go and see it up close. Once you're there, please click on each photo and make sure to comment on that page :)
Have a great Saturday!

Sweet Saturday - Another Award!

DazzledBeader, maker of some great jewelry on Etsy, gave me this award yesterday and I thought I'd share it! I have received this award before, but I sort of copped out and didn't list anyone to give it to, so now I will :)
1 Loopy 4 Ewe
2 Wisp of Whimsy
3 Gandalf and Grayson
4 Mishkat
5 marniekat's musings

These are all wonderful blogs and I encourage you to check them out :)

Remember to enter my monthly contest by adding your name and email to my monthly newsletter (You have to sign up there first to be eligible to win!!), see the full contest details here.

New Chainmail Charm Bracelet

I just listed this in my Etsy store: http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=14886309 What do you think?

Remember to enter my monthly contest by adding your name and email to my monthly newsletter (You have to sign up there first to be eligible to win!!), see the full contest details here.

Insult To Injury - Poor Arwen!

UPDATE: Arwen is doing fine now, the swelling is almost completely gone and she is back to carrying her seal around everywhere and trying to play fetch with it. Thank you all for your comments of concern and well wishes, she appreciates them :)

Poor Arwen! In addition to the torture I put her through earlier this week, I came upstairs from my workout to this face:One eye slightly swollen (on the left, her right eye) and the other VERY swollen (on the right, her left eye). Obviously her right eyelid had been bitten by a mosquito, but the other was bitten by a deer fly: a nasty, evil bug! Poor Arwen! The swelling had gone down a bit by the time I took this photo as I gave her some Benadryl (in peanut butter of course!) and waited a bit, trying to make sure it wasn't going to get any worse. Here's another shot:
Rest assured, she is getting lots of cuddles and attention. Now that the Benadryl is kicking in, she is sleepy, but still trying to play with her toys, so that is a good sign. I'll keep you updated!
Have you signed up for my contest yet??

Fabulous Friday Feature: LindaGJ on Etsy!

Welcome to the wonderful world of LindaGJ on Etsy, otherwise known as Visual Smiles Gallery. She is a remarkable artist who, like me, suffers daily from Fibromyalgia and yet still manages to be cheerful, outgoing, and make incredibly cheerful art. Here is a bit about her, and some great images of her art (click on the images to go to her Etsy site, where there is more wonderful art).
I recently won a set of her cards and a large print and I have to say the quality was phenomenal. If you are looking for beautiful art, this is not only quality, but a great value, as her prices are more than reasonable.
The Story: Really there is a story behind everything. I've always been an artist and my styles changed as I did. And now with the collages I plan to do, here is another change taking place. There is so much that has happened in my life as everybody...each trauma and good thing leads us to where we are now.
The Cats: A lot of my inspiration came from my true love "Peanut" my kitty that lived to be 20 & a lot of the illustrations you see in my shop, comes from a book I made while I was teaching art to little kids & also going through chemo for 2 solid years for hep c that I got from a transfusion in the 80's, and the rest is from all the art jobs I've done in Special Events as my paper mache started working on a haunted house! The first paper mache item I made was Peanut of course.
The Angel, Fish and Mermaid Sculptures: I was so into angels after my fiance got killed by a drive by and I was with him in La in 1989. So that is where my inspiration for angels came from. A fellow worker wanted a big fish, so that is where the fish come in. I had a dream about mermaids flying in heaven, that's where they came from.
The Dogs: The dogs came from the dogs I have known in my life and it just started when a girl that visited our Houston mini team meeting asked if I could do a Boston Terrier. But now I am venturing into collage art as my fibromyalgia is getting worse & my art is getting very difficult to do. I did my 1st collage as I just posted on my blog. The blog tells the story how that came about. See the blog here: http://lindagjones.blogspot.com/
This last trauma led me being disabled and practically home bound after a very exciting adventurous life. I found Etsy and that opened a brand new door. I met people with the same interests, met people that are also disabled,like you!!!! I have learned so much about all kinds of art I wouldn't necessarily be able to do, but that I find fascinating!!! I found a niche in making Etsy treasuries to support Houston. I found a whole new door open for me. Here is light at the end of every tunnel, a door shuts only to open another door. Life is fabulous, even when it's not your idea of what you had in mind for your life. And as a cliche...Life is not what you go through, but how you handle it.
Words to live by Linda, you are a true inspiration in addition to being a great artist and wonderful woman!

Please visit her Etsy store here: http://www.LindaGJ.etsy.etsy.com

Thanks for stopping by! Remember to enter my monthly contest by adding your name and email to my monthly newsletter (You have to sign up there first to be eligible to win!!), see the full contest details here.

New Earrings!

Just listed these, what do you think? http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=14698257

Thankful Thursday: Some Awards and Updates

I have to thank Marianne from Lovely Purses for this Interesting Blog Award - she has the most wonderful blog and really pretty bags :)
I need to share this with 5 bloggers:
1 Jen from Epic Farms Equine Epiphanies
2 John from JohnToftBasketry
3 Marjorie from TheFanTail
4 Renee from CirclingMyHead
5 Heather from 3AMArtProductions
I wanted to thank Audrey at Stage 3! Who Me? for the Uber Amazing Blog award! She is one of the friendliest bloggers out there and I encourage you to visit her blog :)
Now I am supposed to share this with 6 bloggers:
1 The Furkids (and their Mommy and Daddy!) from FriendsFurEver
2 Daisy, Harley and their Mom from DaisyTheCurlyCat
3 The Goats and their Publicist from TheMaaaaaofPricilla
4 The Kitties, Sadie and their Parents at BeadedTail
5 The Llamas and their Mommy at SplitRockRanch
6 Jennifer at TheMare'sTales

Also, to update you on the Arwen story from yesterday...she kept the seal WELL out of my reach for 2 days, and then brought it to me this morning to play fetch, so I suppose I am forgiven :)

And to update on a prayer request, about 2 weeks ago I got an email from Jason asking to pray for his father, recently diagnosed with lung cancer, undergoing treatments and having to be put in ICU for some major health problems. This morning Jason emailed me again saying:
Good Morning,
I wanted to provide an update on my father's condition. The Lord has shown his ray of
healing power. My father was on ventilation and intubated last week but on Thursday,
he was feeling strong enough to breathe on his own. The pulmonologist turned off the
ventilator and my father was breathing normally! To help with his breathing and
coughing up phlegm and other 'stuff', they put in a temporary chest tube to drain the
build-up. What is happening is his lung has the large tumor on it, causing him to not to
be able to cough up and break up everything in his lung.
Since, last Thursday he has been good. At least one person in my family has been
staying the night with him each night but we left him alone last Friday night. That was a
mistake. He had horrible dreams and dreamt of his sister and aunt who passed away,
asking for him to go with them. My father was unable to 'reach' them in his dream but
came out of it and was disoriented. They sedated him and he was fine by Saturday
night. This past Tuesday, he received his 2nd round of chemotherapy. When he
received it last week, he was intubated so they weren't sure how he would react. He
handled it pretty well but had more crazy dreams and disorientation on Tuesday night.
I was with him that night and helped him through it all.
Yesterday we received some better news. They moved him out of ICU and into a
normal room! So, now he can get some more sleep, get some steady physical therapy
and slowly work towards going home potentially!
It is so mysterious how the Lord works. Last Monday, we were told he may never
breathe on his own again or wake up. Now, he is getting stronger and fighting the tumor
and cancer with all his might with the good Lord backing him.
My family and I would like to thank you for all your prayers, kind words and piece of
mind. When I started sending out 'random' emails, my pregnant wife thought it was
strange but I felt that my dad needed more prayers and help. For once, the internet
has shown some positive powers rather than the negatives you see on the news and
read about.
If you don't mind, please continue to pray for my father and my family. I give you full
permission to spread the prayer request to anyone and everyone. Thank you very
much!
God Bless. - Jason Torres

Isn't that wonderful?? I am so happy that all of us praying is helping his family in such a way. Thank you for your prayers!
That's all for now, I'll be back soon with more great things :)
Remember to enter my contest for a chance to win a free pair of earrings!

New Bracelet!

Just in! New Shell charm bracelet - what do you think?? http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=14945788

A Stressful Day in Arwen's Life

Hi! It's me, Arwen, Meghann's wonderful perfect grown up puppy dog! I have a story for you today: When mommy was a kid, her parents gave her a stuffed baby seal toy (not a real one, don't worry!), which her cat, Gandalf, soon stole as his own special toy. When I came around, with all my wonderful doggyness, Gandalf and I stole it from each other as our favorite play toy. This went back and forth for years, until Gandalf went to the Rainbow Bridge last year, and since then, I have become incredibly attached to this seal. Mommy has tried to sew the stuffing back in it many times, but I have told her very clearly that I like it full of holes, floppy without stuffing, and DIRTY! Well, mommy got disgusted the other day and threw it in this big white machine! It started making sloshing sounds and wouldn't let my seal out for me to play with no matter how much I smelled it and tried to get on top of it!!I sniffed the top - I even tried to jump up there, but mommy wasn't fast enough with the camera....
I sniffed the side.....and then when mommy went back upstairs to fold some of the big people clothes and I stayed down right beside the washing machine, waiting. Mommy couldn't find me after a few minutes so she came back downstairs to find me giving her the evil laser eyes, wanting my seal! Please mommy, I need it!
Mommy sighed and said, "This calls for specialist equipment...."
"A big gob of peanut butter, her favorite cookies and her Kong ought to do the trick!".... and it did, but it took a while to get me upstairs....
And then FINALLY! Mommy brought a big basket of big people clothes upstairs and hidden in it was...you guessed it! My seal! We had a very happy reunion where I got to smell it, then I chewed it and now I am back to carrying it all through the house where ever I go :)
Mommy says to remember to enter her contest this month to win a pair of fancy earrings. Click HERE for the post.
Thanks for listening to my story, I hope you have a happy Wednesday!
...and Arwen too!