A collection of small treasures I’ve found while out and about.

Featured On The Blog:

It’s hard for me to believe, but my blog turned 9 years old this summer. The sheer volume of words can be a bit overwhelming, so I’ve been pulling together a selection of posts that capture the highlights of the past 9 years. It’s a work on progress, but you can check out what I’ve done so far by clicking here, or by clicking on “My Story” in the right hand sidebar.

If you’d like more Cranky Fibro Girl, you can follow me on the social media account of your choice by clicking on the brown buttons in the sidebar.

You can click on the “share” buttons at the bottom of any post if you feel inspired to spread a little snarky love online.

If you’d like to receive news and updates, you can sign up for my email list by filling out the form at the top of this page.

Fun Finds:

I love a good story-especially a good mystery-and I also love TV. So I was thrilled to find this site, which offers a selection of some of the best British Crime and Mystery TV Series. I binge-watched all of “Broadchurch” a couple of weekends ago because it was such a good story, so I can highly recommend it if you’re looking for a place to start.

Circling back to the subject of overwhelm, I frequently feel paralyzed by the amount of information available in any given moment, on any given subject. So I was thrilled to discover theSkimm, which bills itself as “the daily email newsletter that gives you everything you need to start your day”. Every weekday I get a quick rundown of major news stories, with a variety of links to additional resources if I want to explore a story further.

Fibro:

Overestimated My Potential by Fightin’ The Fibro. Oh, how I recognized myself in this post by Fibro Facial Gal

You would expect that 20+ years of chronic myofascial pain and fibromyalgia would result in a more realistic gauge of my abilities, but, nope. Apparently reality is for other people.

I consistently am convinced I can do whatever I put my mind to, even if the evidence to the contrary is nudging my grossly overblown expectations into more realistic territory. Part of this issue is that I still want to get things done, dammit. Not a recipe for realism, I am afraid.

I just discovered Save a Spoon (@Spoonie_Life) on Twitter. I haven’t had a chance to explore very much yet, but I’m looking forward to discovering all her “tips & tricks to save every drop of energy possible”.

Funny:

A collection of small treasures I’ve found while out and about.

Featured On The Blog:

I’ve added a Resources page to the site to showcase various helpful items I’ve found on my fibro journey. Check out the posting guidelines and then feel free to add to the list in the comments.

If you’d like more Cranky Fibro Girl, you can follow me on the social media account of your choice by clicking on the brown buttons in the sidebar.

You can click on the “share” buttons at the bottom of any post if you feel inspired to spread a little snarky love online.

If you’d like to receive news and updates, you can sign up for my email list by filling out the form at the top of this page.

Fun Finds:

This week, a random collection of helpful hints.

A list of 70 of the most useful websites on the Internet.

This article from Life Hacker shows the best ways to use fresh herbs in your cooking.

When you need some help with “cooking math”, check out The Common Cook’s How-Many Guide To Kitchen Conversions.

Fibro:

Jenny Lawson (also know as The Bloggess) suffers from rheumatoid arthritis, and has written a brilliant piece on what it’s like to finally stop hurting after an extended period of pain.

This article explains why telling someone to just “cheer up” makes people feel worse. Just substitute “chronic illness” for “low self-esteem”.

Funny:

A collection of small treasures I’ve found while out and about.

Featured On The Blog:

This week I was inspired to completely rewrite my home page to better reflect where I’ve been, and where I currently am in my relationship with my illness.

I’ve been adding to my list of ways that You Know You Have Fibro If...

If you’d like more Cranky Fibro Girl, you can follow me on the social media account of your choice by clicking on the brown buttons in the sidebar.

Click on any of the “share” buttons at the bottom of this post if you feel inspired to spread a little snarky love online.

If you’d like to receive news and updates, you can sign up for my email list by filling out the form at the top of this page.

Fun Finds:

Lately I’ve been feeling really overwhelmed by life. As a bipolar writer and creator, I have more ideas than I could ever do in five lifetimes. As a homemaker, everywhere I look I see tasks and projects to be done. As a firstborn child (of two firstborn parents, married to a firstborn), I’m convinced that I need to do all these things, all by myself. all RIGHT NOW! And thanks to my bipolar/borderline personality disorders, I am swamped by All The Feelings I am having about ALL THE THINGS! So I was very happy to stumble upon these resources and strategies for coping when everything gets to be too much.

-This article from The New York Times on The Paradox of Choice explains how sometimes, too many options can be a bad thing.

TAKE my younger son to an ice cream parlor or restaurant if you really want to torture him. He has to make a choice, and that’s one thing he hates. Would chocolate chip or coffee chunk ice cream be better? The cheeseburger or the turkey wrap? His fear, he says, is that whatever he selects, the other option would have been better.

Gabriel is not alone in his agony. Although it has long been the common wisdom in our country that there is no such thing as too many choices, as psychologists and economists study the issue, they are concluding that an overload of options may actually paralyze people or push them into decisions that are against their own best interest.

 

-I love this article from The Huffington Post on how  you can’t read it all, and that’s OK.

We should go a little easier on ourselves when it comes to indifference to the news, and recognize that we’re one of the first generations to have to deal with the torrent of information about things very far removed from our own lives. For most of history, it was extremely difficult to come by information about what was happening anywhere else. And you probably didn’t mind. What difference would it make, if you were a crofter in the Hebrides, to learn that a power struggle was brewing in the Ottoman Empire?

-In What to do when you feel overwhelmed, Chris Guillebeau gives us an example of a quick exercise we can do to help decide what we really want to be focusing on in any given moment.

Anyone feeling overwhelmed?

It happens. The worst thing about feeling overwhelmed is the anxiety.

The second worst thing is not knowing what to do next.

You can resolve both symptoms through a simple exercise.

Fibro:

-Shannon Hutcheson of Living with Fibromyalgia has put together an article on   How to Build a Fibromyalgia Pain Flare Toolbox.

-Julie Ryan of Counting My Spoons has collected the lessons she’s learned about self-care in her post about the  13 Commandments Of Fibromyalgia.

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A collection of small treasures I’ve found while out and about.

Featured On The Blog:

This week I’ve added a few new things to the website.

-Links to all my social media accounts in the right sidebar above the Quotes widget.

-A signup form at the top of the site for those of you who would like to receive news, updates, and any other fun things I come up with from Cranky Fibro Girl Land. There is also an option to check if you’d like to receive blog posts by email as well.

-Share buttons at the bottom of each post for when you feel inspired to spread a little snarky love online.

Fun Finds:

Any creative undertaking is full of stops and starts, but the unpredictable nature of life with a chronic illness can amplify this to incredibly discouraging levels. So I’ve been very grateful for the articles and podcasts I’ve come upon recently, reassuring me that I’m OK where I am, that creating takes time, and that if I can keep choosing to stay with my creations, eventually I’ll get where I want to be.

-Check out this podcast by Tara Swiger on what to do when you start to tell yourself that you “should be there by now. (From the post that inspired the podcast):

When you see someone’s amazing Etsy shop, licensing deals, or partnerships – do you also notice how long they’ve been doing what they do? 

When you start to compare yourself to the other businesses out there, do you stop and get real about how long you’ve been working, with dedication and daily focus? 

I don’t mean: How long have you been thinking about this? Or: When did you first open your Etsy shop?

(I was among the first 200 people to open an Etsy shop, but then I let it sit there with two skeins of yarn in it, for nearly two years.)

I mean: How long have you been working on it in a focused way? 

When you’re feeling discouraged, this is often the best remedy: Perspective.

–This post by Jennifer Louden addresses the same topic:

Doing the work that we are burning to do takes titanic patience. Grit. Slowing down so you can speed up later. That’s never been easy – read almost any young artist’s letters bemoaning how long her work is taking – but now, in our hyper-instant go-viral-or-go-home times, patience seems wrongheaded. Bad business. There has to be a way to make it happen this week, or by the end of the summer, or before you turn 40/50/60.

Fibro:

Check out this article by Toni Bernhard on “3 Things the Chronically Ill Wish Their Loved Ones Knew”.

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