Paint under my fingernails, will it ever come off????

It has too long since I last posted and I apologize for that.  My Mom is retiring up here to Michigan and I have been VERY busy getting her new home ready for her.  I am in the midst of painting EVERY square inch.  Now let me explain to you how much I detest painting.  I would rather cut the grass, weed the garden and give the dogs a bath just to get out of one day of painting.  I have no choice though because she is moving in less than 10 days....  The clock is ticking so needless to say, I am not on the computer as much as I wish I were.

BUT this is the reality, it is my Mom and I am more than willing and mostly happy to do something to make her feel as if she is moving into a dream home for her...  She has been a ministers wife and then after my father passed away she has lived in apartments most all of her life.  This is the first time she can choose her favorite colors to paint her walls.  It may seem like a simple thing, but her excitement is a bit contagious....  SO here I am painting my heart out with paint under my fingernails......

Here's to happy painting...

Michelle

A Give-Away Opportunity by The Selling Sisters

A blog I love to read and follow called The Sellling Sisters is have a celebration give-away for their 500th comment...  So pop on over and enjoy the blog and sign up for the give-away, just click on their name it is a link to the give-away...

The Christmas Tree is Down.. Yes I am serious!!!!

I took our Christmas Tree down last night and it was sort of a sad occasion.  I know some of you are reading this thinking this chick is nuts.  Most sane people take the Christmas Tree down within a week of Christmas, if not the day after, right?  Not us...  Luckily I married a man who loves Christmas and our Christmas Tree as much as I do.  We love to have the lights on at night and just enjoy the subtle glow, it is beautiful.  I enjoy looking at the ornaments that represent the years of my children's lives. The weeks leading up to Christmas are crazy and I don't get a chance to truly bask in the memories of what the tree represents to me.  Now the time after Christmas is something different.  Life slows down a bit and I can sit and enjoy the Gingerbreadman that Sarah made in Kindergarten or Brass Ornament that was engraved in honor of Liz's birth. Call me goofy or sentimental, but by all means call me a MOM who LOVES her children, the memories of past years of tree decorating parties and a woman who will sit on the couch with a cup of tea and gaze at a Christmas Tree in February and smile at the memories.

Taming The Beast....

I have now had my eBay store, Redeeming Treasures, up and running for nearly a year now.  It has been a lot of hard work at times and it has been a joy at times..  It has also been our financial life raft lately.  I have been out of work for over 2 years and have officially considered myself self-employed for the last 3 months.  This business has paid our car insurance and our utility bills.  It has helped keep our home through the winter.  I have over 650 items in my store and it should be more, but I am in the midst of a MS diagnoses and my heart is not in it right now, so I am just hanging on and listing as I feel like it, but I still sell items almost daily due to what I established all those months before.  Everyday I ship out sales and that is an answer to prayer because I am making money when I don't "feel" like going to work.  We have some very wise women on the group I am an administrator for on Face book called eBay Underground and one of them has a saying and it is this " Are you going to work for your business or have your business work for you?"  I have found at this point in my life I am happy to say that I  have my business working for me.

Now the question is which one is it for you???  Are you a slave to your business or have you tamed the beast and have IT working for you?

One of those days.... weeks

Have you ever had one of those days that turns into one of those weeks?  Well boy am I having one this week.  It is far too deep to go into , but needless to say I want a do-over.. I want to do-over the entire week.I think I am bound to do better at listing in my  store, because I won't allow myself to become so distracted. (yeah, right)  I will do better with my housework, I will actually blow dry my hair and maybe put on some make-up.  One of the down falls of working at home ,I have found, is I have let myself go a bit.  I don't do my hair daily.  I don't do my make-up except on Sundays for church, which saves money on make-up, but REALLY how attractive can that be to my wonderful, husband.

You know what..  I am going to get up in the morning and I am going to blow dry my hair AND put on my make-up. I work my eBay business full time and tomorrow I am going to treat it like that, a full-time job.  Lets see if I get more done in an 8 hour shift.  I feel an experiment coming on....  Stay tuned...

Michelle

Another week past...

Well another has gone and it seems to have sped by.  I have been busy with the regular things that take my time as usual.  Housework, listing thing on the computer for our eBay store, Redeeming Treasures, keeping up with our Facebook Group eBay Underground.  I have met several new people this week and found people I never knew that happened to know me (long story).  We spent this week in our Facebook Group going through a Boot camp and we had to make directives each day and  I had to work to complete them daily, but I also had to work to choose which ones to pick.  Do I choose easy chores or do I push myself?  In some ways I guess I took the easy way.  I DID NOT conquer fixing up my ebay room exactly how I want it.  I hate to bother my hubby who works really hard, but I can't do it alone.  Maybe this week...  I did however get several listing issues taken care of, I finally have a new photo tent for taking more professional photos and it really does make a difference.  Overall.... I guess it was a successful week. especially thanks to Sandy our Sargent.  Boot Camp was great......

Tea Tee Oil.. What is that smell????

Now I am not going to try to fool you and tell you it smell like spring time, but it is a fabulous little brown bottle to keep in the medicine cabinet. It smells quite strong and not very pleasant , but it has great anti-bacterial properties. It can be used neat (or directly from the bottle, not diluted) on a cotton ball to take care of a scraped knee or a mosquito bite. It can be dabbed on a small acne break out. There is a whole host of people that add several drops of it to their shampoo and use it as a head lice deterrent. It is a very long story, but I can vouch for the fact that tea tree oil and olive oil mixed together placed and saturated on the hair, wrapped in saran wrap overnight can kill off even the most stubborn lice. It only takes 2 washings to get the olive oil out and the mixture somehow releases their glue to the hair shaft. The little guys just slide right off. I made a habit of spraying my girls hair and coats with a water and tea tree oil mixture before they left for school everyday when they were in elementary school after our little exposure. Never had another problem.

Bringing everyone up to speed...

I am a Daily Chronic Pain Sufferer and have been for well over 10 years.  It all began with daily headaches that just would not go away.  I went to every specialist that could possibly have anything to do with what was causing these headaches.  I have been to Oral Surgeons, Ear, Nose & Throat Dr's, Allergists, Rheumatologist, several Neurologist, Psychologist,  Physical Therapy and I have had several sleep studies.  I have been in the hospital twice for in-patient stays trying to break the headache cycles once for 3 days and once for 3 weeks.  I left with a headache each time.  I have had at least 20 MRI's and CAT-SCAN.  I have had Radio Frequency Nerve Blocks and Occipital Nerve Blocks.  I have had trigger point injections, I have even had Botox at the insurance companies expense across my forehead and scalp. lol

I finally found a Dr', who after nearly 10 years looked at all my records and said th me "Michelle I can tell you a couple of things.  You have Fibromyalgia and you have had it for years".  I sat there and cried tears of JOY, I finally had a name and I was not going t die.  He also informed me I had Chronic Fatigue and pooled it all under something called Central Nervous System Syndrome. It is getting worse, I can tell as I get older.  I lost my job for reasons not associated with this, but I see now that I may never be able to do my job again.  I was a Pharmacy Technician and it required a lot standing an bending the waist and neck  My Pain Management Dr. wants me now to go see an Infectious Disease Dr. to see if I might have been exposed to something  all those  years ago .  Probably something along the lines of Lyme's Disease..   We will see , I have an appointment with her on Jan 28th..

From here on out, all of the Chronic Pain issues will be on the Chronic Pain page of this blog.  I just wanted everyone to be aware of what the page was going to be about.   Well that long story made very short and I will  make sure more story will come out as time and question come in...  Please add you short story in the comments sections under each post.

Here's To A Happy Healthy New Year...

Michelle

UPDATE..

I have finally started to add some information to the page tabs.  It is most certainly a work in progress and will take some time, but I hope you will enjoy the little treasures that I come across and share with you....

Michelle

Good things are happening here at Wisdom or Ramblings....

I has been a while since I have devoted any time to my blog, but a dear friend has shown me that the world of blogging is not quite as imposing as I have been thinking it might be.. She has a beautiful blog KV Creative Designs, her name is Kathryn you should pop by her blog.  See what beautiful things she can create not only within the web, but her crafting abilites are amazing.....  You will not be disaapointed I promise.

As you can see from the tabs at the top, I have changed course yet again.  I was planning on having two separate blogs; one for my life in general and eBay and one for the other side of my life and that is Living with Daily Chronic Pain and starting a support Group locally.  Well to be bluntly honest, it takes a lot to maintain a blog properly and to run our growing eBay store Redeeming Treasures properly, so I am going to do what any sane human does and cut some corners... I know it will take a while for me to get up to speed on this new learning curve, but I have some incredible friends who are more than willing to help me get there.  So heres to many more posts on the new and improved "Wisdom or Ramblings"....