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.

Funny:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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”.

Funny:

You must go here now and read this article, “How to Lose All The Weight You Want in Just 89 Simple Steps“.

“Summer’s here and the time is right for getting super duper skinny! Where to begin? Since there are always approximately one point seven two zillion stories about how to lose weight, you might be confuzzled. Don’t be! We collected the most important weight loss stories we’ve seen over the last couple of months and compiled them into one handy guide. If you do everything on this list, you will absolutely, positively lose weight — and maybe your mind.”

OK-I’m hoping you guys can help me with a quick poll.

I’m thinking of putting together an ebook of favorite posts from this blog. If you’re one of my regular readers, could you tell me if you have any posts that are particular favorites? I know what mine are, but I wanted to get some other opinions.

Thanks so much!

So I don’t know if anyone else here was a fan of the show “Veronica Mars” when it was on TV back in the early 2000’s, but  I LOVED that show. Keith Mars; the dad that everyone wanted. Logan Echolls; sexy bad-boy who just wanted someone to love him. Wallace Fennel, best friend and sidekick extraordinaire. The mega-rich ‘o9-ers; the snobby kids we all loved to hate.

Sadly, it only lasted for 3 seasons, and I couldn’t even bring myself to watch the final 3 episodes because I knew that when I did, there wouldn’t be any more.

BUT-a glimmer of hope has struck from out of the blue, and now we the fans can help make a “Veronica Mars” movie a reality.

Rob Thomas has launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund the movie, and if they can raise $2 million dollars by April 12 then they will film the movie this summer. (We interrupt this blog post for some uncontrollable SQUEE!!-ing.)

There are all kinds of gifts you can get, depending on the amount you donate, which of course would be sprinkles on the icing on the “Veronica Mars” cake.

So go, quickly, and get thee to the donation page. We’ve got a movie to make!

1. This TED talk by Dyana Valentine on How You Are Doing Everything Right.

2. The story of how journalist Paul Salopek plans to “retrace the steps of humans’ migration from Africa until he gets to Tierra del Fuego, at the southern tip of Chile.” You can follow the story on the project’s official website, “Out of Eden“.

3. These first few, grey, weeks of January are really challenging to me, So this invocation of the light really speaks to me.

4. My friend, Sarah Marie Lacy, is attending a Paris art school this year, and to help fund her tuition and living expenses she is offering something called “Sketches From The Road“. For a donation of $20 (or more, if you are so inspired), “Every week(ish), you’ll receive an email from me containing a little love letter, a video of me being a goof and sharing stories about life in rural France & our travels and about the art I’m making, as well as photos of the places I visit and images of my work as it changes and improves from week to week.”. It’s a fun way to kind of go “behind the scenes” with an artist, to watch their creative process and see one example of living an art-full life.

5. This amazing artwork  by David Hayword, aka,nakedpastor: Graffiti artist on the walls of religion. He’s done an entire series of prints featuring the female energy/presence of Sophia-“wisdom”. I haven’t yet been able to choose just one print to buy for my office.

Hope you enjoy!

Hey, everybody!

I know I haven’t been around here in a while; I’ve been taking a couple of writing classes, and so all of my words have been going there. But I’m feeling newly inspired as I write, so the benefits will soon be spilling over here.

I just wanted to observe my Bloggy Birthday, and to thank everyone here-old reader or new-for hanging out here with me in my little corner of the Internet 🙂

…because when I was making lunch this afternoon I looked down at my salad only to discover that my lettuce has its own Facebook page.

Last night, as  I was trying to talk a friend into signing up for Google+:

Me: “Will you sign up for an account so you can help me test the ‘Hangout’ feature? My computer is having some problems with it.”

My Friend: “No.”

Me: “Please? You can just do it for a little bit. You can cancel your account if you don’t like it.”

My Friend: “No you can’t.”

Me: “Yes you can.”

My Friend. “Nuh-uh. Those things stick to you forever-like herpes.”