The Summer that wasn't...

I posted this picture because this was a nice summer but I don't recall a lot of it. In may I had sugery and In September I was laid up with el mysterioso ankle infection. In between it was nice, there were great days but it's faded and I really don't remember much. If pressed to recall what I did this summer I couldn't really tell you.

Now it's late Autumn, l most winter and I am feeling back at square 1 ish. My body has done it's alien thing and I am in that state of flux where I waver between contemplating not living and not wanting to die and everything in between mainly due to the fact that I just don't feel so great most of the time.

I had 3 good months after the surgery where everything worked the way it was supposed to but then everything began to slip back into hell land again. Since October I have been dealing with anxiety, chest/abdominal/hip pain, hot flashes and sweats, heart palpitations and general WTF is wrong with me-ness. So essentially I am right back to where I started when I first began to suspect that something wasn't quite right.

I am so tired of this. I don't know how to express it any more. I am tired so tired that I don't even want to bother breathing some days. It's a struggle to find a reason to get up and get stuff done. It's defeatist and I am moaning but I am tired and some days I don't know how to cope with this.

Just saying that this summer went by fast. It was a good one, with great weather, a tree full of cherries and a husband who loves and tries to be as understanding as they come but some days even that is not enough.

You have to embrace TeH suck!

I keep trying wrap my head around it but somehow nothing seems to sink in. 1 in 10 women have this disease but so little seems to be done about it that I am in awe of the ignorance out there. Most of the people I know who I tell have no clue what it is. Endometriosis...what's that?

So my question is are women so unimportant in the grand scheme of things that a major disease which is chronic, painful and causes among other things infertility so unimportant that most people have never heard of this? 1 in 10 women have this disease and most people have never heard of it. Mention the word Viagra and EVERYONE knows what that's for.

I have endometriosis and cystic ovaries as well as adhesions. I had surgery to find out wtf was going on in May and even the head Gyn guy was clueless when he looked at the ultrasound. "Probably your bowels" he said. Well in a way he was right because the adhesions had latched onto my guts and the adhesions were from the endometriosis so..... in a round about way he was right.

This disease is tiring. I spend a lot of time exhausted and I spend a lot of time with pain. It's a daily thing though some days are better than others. Given what I read from some of the women out there who also suffer from this I am fairly lucky because most of the time I can function in a normal capacity and get away with just taking OTC pain killers when things get too bad.

though I suppose lucky is also a relative term.

sad

How is it that someone I once knew and cared a great deal for can pass away and I didn't know. It seems so wrong somehow.

Brynjulf Alver

This man was amazing and kind. I loved him dearly, to this day I still treasure and read his wonderful letters to me and the Norwegian Calendar stick he sent me still hangs in my art studio. We lost touch with each other and went our separate ways and today I learnt that he died in February of this year. I am so sad that I never tried harder to find him again.

And summer moved on...

Wow, I tend not to post here a lot any more for some reason, not sure why that is tho, maybe because more people I know hang out on live journal well what ever..here I am.

So I had surgery and it went okay. They cleared me out but now it's come back. My left ovary is giving me the old hurty owie exploding into an alien pain and I guess I have sort of had enough. So when the next surgery rolls around I am asking for a hysterectomy and to get rid of that ovary.

So tired of being in pain and tired.

whine wine whine... mmm wine....


Today being the 1st day of autumn was actually more like the last day of summer and I chose not to go to work today so that means I go in tomorrow. Today I chose instead to do copious amounts of laundry so it could dry in 40 seconds outside in the flappy happy wind and sun.

We bought new bedding at IKEA and found duvet covers that fit my North American Queen size ( oh yay) so now we have new stuff to sleep on and it is so pretty. I love ikea's stuff anyway. We are doing the barney room finally and we got billy shelves and some other shelf thing that also works as a low table/shelfy thing when you add legs to it. Will take pictures eventually.

now the sun has gone and we are awaiting the remnants of hurricane bill now called something else. Fine with em as well, means I won't be sweating tomorrow at work which is good because tomorrow the big patch of little test spots comes off my back and the marker goes on..not allowed to sweat that off till the doc has seen it.

Allergy testing is soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo much fun NOT.

Still writing away and almost done DOTE, will be weird to write The End but good also I think.

in the meantime I just wanted to say hi, still alive and be excellent to each other.

finally

So, it's been a long journey but after exploratory laparoscopy surgery last Monday I now understand why I have been in pain for the last X number of years and why no one figured it out. I have endometriosis. That elusive disease that no one seems to be able to figure out.

anyway, am recovering slowly, one day is good the next day I'm tired and a bit sore, but all in all the healing seems to be going well.

other than that, there was a trip to Canada, and spring has made the garden crazy green.

gone....

My 1st blog..... at tblog is gone. All I get when I go there now is a domain site. *sad*

spring comes to Trenthorst

So this is spring in Trenthorst.The sun has been shining for the last 5 days and it has been glorious.
We have been gardening like mad things and yesterday we went to an Easter fire, fun funfun.
things are cool actually.

just an update..

until then be excellent to each other.

oh and on the health front ... it's up and down.

My theory about me...

I am now thinking that I create all this woe is me panic and fear because I need some sort of drama in my life. Before when I was working or going to school there was always enough new stuff to keep my rain busy but now I am mostly on my own and not working in the real world my brain needs to create drama of some sort and the easiest way to do this is to create illness.

It's pretty straight forward. Find something that doesn't "feel quite right" physically and gnaw on it like a dog with a bone. Look up all the symptoms online and scare myself silly to the point of obsession. Eventually freak out so much that I *have* to go to the doctor because I am convinced I am dying only to be told "you're really quite healthy-stop worrying so much."

The kicker is the ol' brain goes hmmmmmm we don't actually believe this medical professional because the docs in St. John's completely misdiagnosed your dad and he died - right????? ( what was said to be stomach problems turned out to be pancreatic cancer.)

So the brain decides no I am not all healthy and the problem I am experiencing ( in this case anal fissures) is NOT normal and treatable and non life threatening and picks on a billion other things to make it seem worse, and the terrible cycle of panic and fear spirals out of control.

Truth of the matter is I am fine apart from a minor butt issues which are being resolved. Yeah it's painful, a little embaressing and horribly inconvinient. I had a very bad week last week but it's way better now and will continue to improve as the days go forward.

So what is the trick to turning this around...well I am trying positive thinking and reaffirmations every day. Like some sort of mantra I tell myself I am fine, happy and healthy every time I get scared or think something bad is going on. A relaxation technique that seems to be helping.

The brain is a powerful thing. And mine is definately showing me that when it comes to creating drama it rules!

I'm trying to get past myself but is hard to undo bad habits. It's hard to say wow, I'm happy and healthy and I like my life a lot. ( there is some guilt tied up in this I think) It's a long frigging hard road but the truth is I am tired of being so wrapped up in fear of ***something what ever no clues but it must be bad** that now I need and want to change. This is not how I want to live my life, and I wasn't always like this.

I'm 42, going through a mid life crisis but not dead, and according to all the tests so far I am healthy and there is nothing to freak out about. ( sorry but a sore ass doesn't really count as anything more than very annoying)

*sigh....

oh and this weekend my hard drive crashed. So am working on a secondary system at the moment ( an old hard drive that at least functions) My husband is a god when it comes to computer stuff and has successfully managed to rescue most of the data from the not so bad sectors of the HDD. ( that and some help from a nifty programe) Oddly enough he was surprised at how calm I was about the whole deal but A: it's hard to freak out about the HDD crash when one is freaking out about everything else- I can only do one item of drama at a time and B: I had absolute faith that he would be able to fix at least some of it.

This weekend was a bit of a washout because instead of going to the Shire party like we had planned I spent most of Saturday on the couch feeling pretty awful. Saturday evening noticed the dreaded death script of failure to read drive C etc... and mostly spent the evening watching tv.

Sunday was better, M'y folks came over for tea and cake and it was nice except I just couldn't sit a whole lot so I kept getting up. Then after they left M went back to the task of reconstructing me data and in between we continued to watch battlestar galactic ( the new one) and were pleasantly surprised to discover that while the pilot was a bit sucky the series was actuallyl pretty good.

M is very good at calming me down and keeping my freak out sessions to minimal. I am not quite sure how he puts up with me but he says I am not as bad as I think or feel I am...

yeah... it's all about the melodrama.

until then, be excellent to each other.

Catching up...

So, nearly after two months after the grand move things are sort of settling down. The picture above is the view from my art studio, the new one. As you can all see it's stunning and very peaceful. I can't tell you all how much I have needed this. Every morning the world outside my window shows us a spectacular show, even if it is gray and rainy and we see this when we wake up as this view is also the same from the bedroom. It's very peaceful here in many ways especially when I liken it to Bedano which was anything but peaceful however this doesn't mean this place is dead quiet. In fact there is always stuff going on near the house because this area is part of an ecological institute so lots of farming stuff goes on. I see people outside the house all the time which is cool.

I am also currently dealing with some minor but incredibly annoying health issues but have been extremely lucky to find a great doctor who is taking care of me. It's been a bit of a rough ride especially in my head where I tend to make things so much worse than they are. I don't know why I do that either, I build up huge terrible fearful scenarios in my head and none of them are real. I am working on reversing this way of thinking because it's not very helpful.

On the whole tho the move back to Germany was a good one. M is happy and busy and I am happy and busy-ish. That is to say i have lots to do and I have a lot of arty stuff on my slate but I am a bit unsettled atm with my perceived health problems and an inability to sit for very long ( yeah butt issues are just so much fun) but I still have stuff to do including housework. This is a big house so it takes up time and I am happy for that it keeps my brain busy.

I don't post here all that often...I wanted it to be a more serious blog and maybe even an art blog to talk about my art but oddly enough it's not something I really care to talk about much, it either speaks for itself or someone asks but just babbling about it seems artificial to me. So we're back to babbling about my life in general.

I tend to use the live journal blog for the day to day stuff, it's a bit faster to post to and most of my community of friends seem to use that, they get updated when I post but not when I post here, posting the same thing on two blogs seems silly but I like this one better go figure.

Now that I am getting back into a routine and the moving stress is slipping away and we are starting to find our place here in the village as well as this house it's easier to sit and make a decent post on this blog.

For the first time in years we have a busy as heck social calender and it's very nice to have friends near by to speak to and hang with and do stuff with. I had forgotten what that was like. I have been so self isolated for such a long time and it was quite damaging. I thinkI needed to find this out, that I need people and community to be a whole person but it was and is a rough side trip.

As a human being who tends to think on the more "new age" way I feel this journey is a long one and I am on earth in this body to learn, but like school sometimes the lessons are hard and avoidance is so much easier. I am going through the dreaded mid life swing right now, all fear and aprihension. My body is changing, I am changing and through it all I am a bit lost, lacking some serious direction. I know this will change and in the end things will happen which will guide and be good, but right now it's a dark place to be and yanking myself out of it is a LOT of hard work. Honestly there are days when i just wish to sleep through the whole thing and by the wholething I mean life - how's that for avoidance?

So, here I am back again. Looking inwards and outwards in a place where I know my soul can heal from the damage done in Switzerland. Not that this country is awful or anything because it isn't but it was not a good place for me to be. And while there are people and things I do miss on the whole I am glad as hell to be away, it feels as though I was released from a prison of sorts, one of my own making I am sure but never the less I feel free. It's a good thing, I hope it lasts.

until then, be excellent to each other!

not dead...

just trying to find my bearings so ....bear with me on this. Lots to talk about but no way to really word it all.

very happy to be back in Germany though.

ta daaa

we have moved. Now we live in North Germany ( again 19 km away from Lübeck if you need specifics in a large house that overlooks a small lake. ( a pond really)
It's beautiful here, no elderly ladies locked away in an end station old folks home screaming for Vanessa at the tops of their lungs at 4am. No barky neighbour dog and at night no city light pollution ( wow it's really dark in the dark.

The house has some quirks ( it's 45 years old) but so far in comparison to the falling apart 5 year old Bedano house these quirks are pleasant.

it's good to be home.

7 days...

in 7 days I and my Husband will be living in Germany.
It's crazy, this moving thing.

just saying...

Merly takes a day off

So, for the last few days it's been renovation city. For everyone out there who doesn't know me, I've actually never done this before. The closest I have ever come to renovating anything was having to strip antique crap raufase wallpaper off the first flat we lived in in Germany.It sucked.

This house we're moving into is a good solid house. It has good bones and it's been greatly loved. At least by most people who have lived there. You can feel this when you walk in, that there was a lot of happiness in this house. there are no unhappy ghosts here, at least none that I can feel. Mostly what I feel when I am in the house is love and a lot of it.However this is a house that also needs a lot of love and it hasn't had any for a while. It shows.

What I like about this particular go around is that in difference to most German rental contracts there is no renovating before leaving, the old tenants need to clean and make sure stuff is in order but no painting all walls white or anything which means we get to do what we want when we move in. This is a good / bad thing. Good in that if and when we move out we don't have to paint everything, bad in that now we have to paint everything before we move in ( well not so much bad as time consuming)

So the last few days have been about going to the baumarket, buying stuff like paint, plaster, cleaning supplies a vacuum cleaner etc....And then trotting to the house and cleaning. Oh boy does it need cleaning. the last tenants were not exactly what one would call clean.I washed the floors and each time the mop water was BLACK. ugh.The kitchen is a disaster, but we have also been spoiled by living in a brand new house with a very modern kitchen for the last 3.5 years so going from that to an "older" kitchen has its drawbacks. But it's livable.

What is stunning is the garden, okay right now it's a jungle but it's also gorgeous.I spent one morning wedding ( yay me) Lots of roses and I can't wait to get mine in there as well.

The last two days have been about cleaning, sanding the plastered holes, and prepping the rooms for painting and painting. I managed to get the UGLY green hall gone. What is annoying is that the colour we picked out looked utterly different when mixed. So now we need to rethink and maybe repaint because instead of a pale sandy brown colour ( to match the stone tiles that go up the wall half way) it's a cold pale gray colour. Still it's a huge improvement over the green.

Yesterday we painted the computer room , plain what , but since that will be the "star wars" room it will have plenty of colour. Next, Friday's job is the living room dining room and then the bedroom. We will be happy if we can paint the downstairs this go around because we don't have that much furniture going up stairs yet. ( it's a big house)

So today is a day off. mainly because Marcus had to fly to Bonn and I didn't want to be stuck out in no man's land for ten plus hours.And I am so exhausted I will prolly just sleep a lot. I have not used my arms that much in ages. Painting is hard work and no I never did the student painter's job thing.This is the first time I painted the inside of a house. Ever.

So it's early and I am still trying to wake up. Think I have to go to the post office and post stuff, maybe find some coffee and relax by reading a couple of the very trashy romance novels I brought with me out of desperation.( that is desperation for something to read that doesn't require my brain to be engaged)

I'll post pictures later.

Until then be excellent to each other.

The coundown begins

I am trying to remember the name of a film I once saw which had a US Naval ship going back in time. Martin Sheen was in it. After searching via the internet I found it... The Final Countdown.

So why is this on my mind? I dunno but it was in my head when I woke up. It was a great movie, I remember LOVING it.

Lately my dreams have gone a little south, not surprising since in less than 3 months we are moving back up to North Germany. We have a house, the lease has been signed. This is a huge good thing because now we can plan for where things go. I find it interesting that in my head I already live in this house and that sometimes I find myself "walking" through it as I wake up, feeling the hard wood floors beneath my feet.

Now the race is on. I need to finish my last fanfic novel. I want that done before we leave. It has somehow been tied to living here and it needs to end here as well. I have to sort out the house, and weed out the real crap we don't want, so that when we do schlep all our junk back up to Trenthorst it is stuff we really want and not just junk we keep dragging with us.

I find myself up and down in the health front. The constant roller coaster that is peri-menopause is a rough hard ride. Friday I spent most of the day in bed because between the racing heart, the dizziness and the terrible sense of panic and dread I decided that sleep was the best thing. I needed it, though I didn't actually sleep I relaxed.

Our weekend was good, we junked stuff on Saturday and relaxed a lot, Sunday saw us in the garden weeding, mowing and sorting. It looks more garden like now and less jungle like. The cold wet spring and the continuing cool summer has not helped. The wine plants are scrubby and brown and the roses, which do not like so much rain are also not blooming much and needed to be cut back.

So here we are, moving again.

what if...

the world learned to love without fear?

Back when I could still fly...

I made a book about photographing ( or trying to) crows... I thought I would share some of these pages now

RIP George Carlin

sarcastic, acidic, biting, painfully honest and no longer with us.
I dunno about you but I will miss his blunt truth mixed with some funny.

Gawker's 7 great moments of George

Jumping off the edge...

This image was taken in Halifax, while I was studying photography. I love the way this crow seems to dive off the building roof top into the unknown...
Sometimes I feel like that as well.

okay...

So no details yet.

They'll come, be patient. I know I have been, almost 4 years of patient...living in this place.

Not so bad but lonely, that is about to change. yay.

ON the other front I am into the third book of Daughter of the Empire for those of you not in the know, about half way home I think, I hope.

Yesterday I sorted through a box of photos, and then put them in a new box to be sorted out again later ...I saw many I wanted to scan in and post. mostly costume pictures from times earlier in my life when I had a platform for costuming and getting da hell outta dodge.

It's raining here, it's been raining here since April, almost non stop actually which I mostly don't mind it makes my terrible allergies easier to deal with but it is very unusual for such cold wet weather to happen in this place.

Supposed to get warm and sunny by Wednesday which means laundry day ( yay)

Yeah I have been a slacker when it comes to this blog, which is a shame.

until then, be excellent to each other.

great things are a foot...

details to follow....

spring!!

It's here....and so are my allergies. Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!

just thought I'd post .

merlyn and wulf's excellent adventure at JediCon

JediCon2008

ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

There are way too many things taking up way too much time that I want to and need to get done.
How the hell did I get so busy and still manage to feel as though I accomplish nothing?

Can we have more hours in the day please?

*grumble* back to writing and other time consuming things.

On another giggly note.... we are headed to Jedi Con, big star wars themed SciFi con in Düsseldorf, the last time I went to a con was in Dartmouth NS and there I met David Prowse ( OMG) which was started the whole daughter of the empire nonsense...who knew??? This photo is take from Wolfcon (I think), or something along those lines in Halifax .... this was me in one of my many Vampire outfits. It's like at least 10 years ago...but what is SUPER scary is I still have that vest, those boots and the sunglasses and the teeth. Lost a chunk of weight since then tho...

Oh yay for the past and all its silliness.

springy

Our weather, this time of year is glorious. When it seems like everyone else is getting the rotten end of sheila's Brush we get warm föhn winds, crystal clear skies and brilliant sunlight, with just enough cool coming off the snowy mountains to make going out for a walk/ run enjoyable.

I am grateful for it because now that I seem to be addicted to getting the heck out of the house and running off some pent up energy, my writing has improved greatly.

Writing takes up so much time, who'd have thunk it? I spend hours and hours editing right now, and then more hours writing the new stuff... not to mention the other little bits and pieces that get done in between along with the house worky stuff and the contemplation of the art projects which I need to get a leg up on, none btw are SCA related which is a good thing.

It seems that as far as the SCA is concerned I am in serious down time. I know I go through these phases and after 4 straight years of a pretty busy and interesting office, as well as mass production of scrolls I had to stop and take a break. People will think this is typical, she get's her laurel and then buggers off, but IDC what others think and when I am ready I will be back, I have been in this hobby for 2o odd years, believe me interest comes and goes.

Anyway the latest distraction has been screen shop manipulation in photoshop.

Here is the latest one, I like it but it needs work still.

different kind of art work

Lately it seems I have been using my computer as a drawing tool rather than a pencil. IN my desire to illustrate my fan-fic novels I have been doing the endless quest for the perfect Screen shot, after all I can actually get Merlyn and Thrawn together in the SWG game so why not use it to my advantage?

This requires hours and I do mean hours of work. First of all setting up the shots is a lot like photography except my camera is the printscreen button. Then I take the raw footage and fix it up in photoshop.

It takes hours and some of the touch up work is done like spot toning pixel by pixel. The end results are rewarding though as you can see from above.

news from the dark side...

So I decided to try and keep this blog for more of my art side than my whine side and lo and behold...NOTHING happens.

Of course it is hard to post pictures of writing and the art work has suffered due to various real life issues.

Some updates. The top painting from the below post sold and anotehr was commissioned. ( way cool)

I have a couple of interesting commissions on top of that ( nothing payingbut who knows) one is for family and the other is an SCA thing. Not sure about what to do with the SCA thing but I guess I will let my sleepy brain work on that.

My first month as Un-signet has been too damned busy to enjoy. Real life snuck in and took over ( how about that?) I have not gotten a jump on anything I wanted to do, including my very significant backlog of scrolls which I promised people I would do yay me.

Randy Aspulund is coming over for Double wars but i am not sure we'll get up there to be at the this event. I know people want me there and have even offered finacial aid if that's the issue, it isn't, though .

The issue as always is time. Marcus is working like mad and is these days more often than not away. Last weekend , this weekend and next weekend though next weekend I get to go with so not so bad.

In between there is my massive avoidance of house work which then piles up forcing me to take time out of my gaming schedule to clean. Bah!! I don'tthink a day has gone by where I have not done at least 1 load of laundry. Of course the fact that we brought back 4 laundry baskets worth of linnen from my husband's recently deceased grand mother's house did not improvethis situation lots but I don't complain as it is good to have extra bed linnens in the house.

So... not much on the art front, not that I have felt much like being artsy. I spend far too much time trying to get my ass off this chair to go and do something aerobic to get my heart rate up so that it can go down again because it is apparantly too high while I am having my BP taken at the doctor's. Yeah... my heart races... that's because I am scared witless or atthe very least as nervous as a lab bunny, Duh! Still exersize doesn't hurt so I do it anyway and try to keep my mind off the ohmygodwtf is happening to me... no biggie says my obs-gyn...just normal after 40 woman hormone process thing.... It's fun when your body goes binky! and believe me it goes binky in a big bad way!

The book, by the way, is slowly coming together. Funny how this one is the hardest of all to do. I so want to be done. Three books written in 3 years that's actually pretty good and even though no massive publishing companies are knocking down my door I think it is quite an accomplishment. Ihave loyal readers who seem to enjoy what I am doing which is in itself incredibly rewarding. ( You know who you are ...THANK YOU)

The weather here is pleasant.
The pace of life is slow-ish.

yay life!

Until then, be excellent to each other.

more art work

moon and star

Okay so I am playing with tiny here, Mostly trying to get the feel for sloppy watercolours instead of the very precise way I use them when I do the medieval works.

The moon and the star are a mix of blotting the paint away and a salt crystal then scraping with a scalpel to create the white.

This is another tiny piece, 8x8 cm, water colour and gouache on water colour paper.

I am liking that blue a lot I can see me sort of obsessing with that.

until then, be excellent to each other.

touch of frost

I painted this little gem for a friend of mine yesterday. Water colours and salt.
It is a very small thing really about 5 cm by 5 cm but I loved how it turned out. It gives me hope, this tiny paintingthat maybe, just maybe I can do this artist thing after all and that I can produce paintings that are wonderful and full of beauty. It seems that if I think small I produce big, weird but true.

Anyway it is a start.

Until then be excellent to each other.

Bright Barking Mad

This photo describes my life. sitting waiting... can't go left ....can't go right.
Wondering what is behind door #3?

As days go, today is a good day. getting some stuff in the house done. The weather outside is decent. My head cold has subsided to a midly irritating cough and the weird skippy beat heart poundy thing went away after five minutes of washing the kitchen floor. Who says that house work is unhealthy??

I'm waiting at the moment for many things. Waiting for men to show up and 'fix' stuff around the the house. Remember those leaks I chatted about last year well...

Waiting for bad news to come. M's Omi is in hospital not doing well. She is in her 90's and apart from 1 heart attack and 1 bout of fluid in the lungs she has been healthy and up and doing stuff. Full of life and energy I hope that when and if I ever reach her age I am as energetic as she is. Well at the moment she isn't and it is saddening. She is a fantastic lady and we all adore her.

Waiting for something to happen, waiting to start my life.. arghhhhh waiting waiting waiting. I write this word A LOT in my journals. I'm probably waiting for a really good swift kick in the arse actually, although right now I am waiting for the kitchen floor to dry so I can slap a coat of wax stuff on it. Waiting for paint to dry as well so that I can finish up my present for my friend BM which I started last year, I'm a bad friend. It takes me forever to do things.

waiting waiting waiting...

guess my floor will be dry now... time to make a nice hot cup of tea.

until then, be excellent to each other!