Now is the time!

Iam bound and determined to start to use this blogging for myself. I have found myself alone at the cross roads of being what most would call letting go. I have spent 25 years, 1/4 of a century, and close to a thrid of my life trying to do things the correct and proper way. I have reached great mountains and valleys of dispair as I have tried to people please all my life and now I have reached my limit physically andemotionally. Where as I have spend every moment trying to remember all the have toos and filling in as others blythly went elsewhere. I am now lying that I have completed things and spending great lengths of time dreaming of running away, even from those that I love. Inded it is those same people that have presumed upon me for much too ladder and expect that their choice is what will be and have never chosen the oppisite or picked up on one social clue.
I am terribly angry about the positions I have found myself in, even to today.
So I expect I will find myself here sharing as much of my art as possible and I am afraid that the dream of Mississippi Lake has to be posponed until after it is impossible for us to go anywhere.
I have this new little computer and I mean to learn how ro keep financials straight and a journal of what was accomplished and a calender of things to come.
This is venting for me. I am 53 years old and it iss time to take a sabatical for me.
Thanks for listening.
Yours J

Now is the time!

Love is a Verb!

This afternoon I was again reminded that there is a lot of elbow-grease to friendship...or for that matter any relationship. I think that the hardest parts of being in a relationship is to stop assuming that everyone is on the same page. I was cleaning my studio, when my hisband brought me the phone. It was my dearest friend here in this time and place, and we have almost a 18 year history. She called not visit but with an agenda to clear the air.
There were alot of hurt feelings on her part about what she felt the distance was, I was amazed as the generalizations poured and the assumption piled up. I was speechless.And in tears.
It turned out to be one of those times when a misunderstanding is not unknotted when it happens. It gets discussed with others who support the hurt and each imagined or real bump in the road only fuels the fire.
It took an hour to figure all of this out. We do not have a problem and we love eachother a great deal. Just each dropped stitch in knitting needs to be tended too, each concern needs to be addressed. Involving others no matter how well intended does not straighten things out. In the past ( long past) I have evn found those who would fuel the fires to destroy a friendship hoping to "own" one of the divided.
We both relsovled to be clearer and to nuture what we may have taken fore granted.
An example ..... she wondered why she was not being invited to any of our doings at our house since she became single.....when I explained that in the past year there had only been 2 doings, Easter last and Christmas and she had been at both here....it unknotted. We have not entertained this year at all......just 6 family for Sunday dinner ( nuclear.) OH!...she had assumed she was being left out and passed over.
Never stir the pot of another's friendship. Being a good listener is not something you need to open your mouth and advise for....JUST OPEN YOUR EARS !!!
I sign off emotionaly exhausted with just as messy a room to face.
Janet

I am content!!

It is hard to believe that I would ever feel this way. I am content with where I am. I have enough to keep myself sane and busy and I am finally able to stop thrashing about worrying that I am not doing enough.
I am spending my days working my way through my vision of the grant and it is working out well. I am on my 4th figure of 14 although I know that there will be more. It is a long list and I have many ideas. The museum needs my stuff, the boutique has called for more jewelery and I have been juried into a doll circle and an art store who need my my things as soon as possible.
The Lyrica I cut back and I must say it is night and day to gabapentin. My family is taking me seriously because I am taking myself seriously for once and it feels really really good.
I think that I am grownup. .....finally.

If 3 is good, 6 must be better

I just could not beleive how much of a blue funk I have been in. It is the pain and it is so loud I cannot see, feel or hear anything but. It snuck up on me. I am trying to be a good patient. I try to follow orders. I have been great since May of 1999. But now it is almost 2008...that is 9 ^^%&^^*^&^%&^$$*&5 years !!!!!
So the Lyrica that I was hoping would help I had over-ridden again. I was in so much pain I was up over 48 hours, I could not sleep. I wrapped all the presents and organized and tried to find something on the TV. I sat down and did a great deal of reading, I dare say as much reading as I could on Lyrica and through that I decided that if 450 mg were good, 900mg would be better. This drug has a 6 hour half life and so you have to have enough and overlapping to get the effect that you are searcing for. My Doctor is going to flip as he only has one other patient on the drug and she is still at 225mg per day.
The point is I need to be normal, I do not want the interuption of pain and I am tired of being patted on the head and told that there is notheing more they can do.
So I am going to make an appointment with the pharmasist to talk to him and get his spin on things. He know them, gives them to me and controls the amount that I get. I want to spend some time with the gatekeeper and hear his/her wisdom.
Christmas is soon here, and my husband and youngest child have the whole holiday off. I a thrilled that this perk is his.
The snow is pileing up and the house is almost ready. Just some baking to do.
God Bless Us Everyone!
Janet

Advent

How differently the world is feeling this year. Maybe it is me, maybe it is the world....I am not sure. I am amazed at how little time there is to be responsible enough for the family my husband and I have created let alone be reponsible for reaching out and being accountable to others. I marvel and feel lesser when I notice someone with a capasity for neverending giving and no-one feels shortchanged. I feel shortchanged a lot by energy and there are many in my life who state all kinds of times that I short change them.
Being an artist makes me feel selfish. It is my job but it is the kind of job that has overtime everyday and invades everything. It would be nice to rise and leave and separte my life into states of time and effort that are more tangible to all... or to be making enough money that no one would think twice about interupting.
I feel lonely in this struggle. And I feel alone in my calling. It is a ministry and I feel as though I am struggling to stay on an even keel.
I need to get away from here, even for a short walk each day. This week will bring that and making my bedroom up each morning. If I cannot leave the house at least I can leave one room ready to come back to with no guilt.
I hate fibro and what it has and is doing to my soul. I am feeling older now.
Janet

Another Month and an Affirmation

I still have to figure out how to not use this as a diary and better as a conversation. I enjoy reading many blogs of others daily, but I have yet to figure out how to join in the circle. I have yet to be discovered. I feel like a shy one on a chair in the corner, on the dark at a school dance waiting for someone , anyone to notice. I am so computer illiterate that I am embarrassed.

I have received a great gift. I have been given a generous grant of funds by the province to spend the next year creating my gallery of dolls that represent the unique gifts that northern Ontario has. The small treasures that most might miss or might not consider until....
The greatest part of this is that I have started to feel very different and very purposeful as to who I am. If you asked me a week ago I would have admitted to being artistic. I am now to proclaim that I am an Artist. I want to celebrate. I want a tattoo or a Nome tag or a sign on my house. Strangers have recognized my work as Art.

This has also opened up many other channels. With my Maker, my family, the rest of my time here and how much time I might have and a heady sense of Freedom !

I have also at the same time finished a hellish month of withdrawal from one Fibro drug ( gabapentin) and the introduction and now up to dose with a new one called Lyrica. IT WORKS ! I had heard that the results showed a favourable trial and with crossed fingered I hoped for myself. It does work and life has a lot of possibilities that I had decided were gone.
Firbri has robbed me of the last ten years of self actualization and now I feel like there is real hope and my family has noticed a great deal. I am so full of gratitude that I could bust.
The photos included are of the first doll for the grant Amethyst.

Now to connect with all of you.
Janet