and chaos ensues Archives - Page 2 of 9

Fairy Gardens | How I Love Them

February 24, 2013 By barb 3 Comments

Fairy gardens make me happy. There I said it. They are silly and fun and girlish and I just love them! Lately I have had some friends have some awful things happen in their lives. I feel surrounded by sadness and I just want to share some pictures of the fairy gardens they had last year at Tagawa Gardens because well, they just make me smile. It’s blizzardy and blustery here in Colorado today and we could all use a light dusting of fairy dust!

For all my friends having darkness in their lives I hope for you some fairy magic comes soon….

No Mas Silence!

February 9, 2013 By barb 8 Comments

It’s funny. I just wrote the title of this post while sitting in the living room with the family and I had to get up and leave to retreat to the silence of my room, as I write about No Mas Silence.

I need the quiet retreat because I need to really think about how I want to frame my words explaining why I am getting louder.

To put it simply, I have finally found my voice.

After years (14 now to be exact) of trying to find my voice online and letting plenty of other people do it for me, I finally said No Mas late last year.

No Mas to caring if I lose campaigns because companies don’t like my language, or my politics, or heaven forbid, ME. No mas to caring if people unfriend me on facebook because I support the 2nd Amendment. No mas to caring how many online friends or followers or likers I have.

Maybe 40 finally caught up with me. Or maybe my beliefs became more important than my “popularity”. Or maybe I just realized that after 14 years at this, my internet life really is a “jobby” (a hobby meets job). And a jobby is not worth the loss of my true voice.

Whatever it was that pushed me over the edge, I am grateful. In the last few months you may have noticed I type more like I talk (which is really like a salty sailor or dirty truck driver), I am more inclined to show my Libertarian (note that is SO not the same thing as I Liberal if you were unsure) side, or just plain reveal my snarky-ness more. I am getting more involved in politics and losing lots of “friends” over it. And I am totally, 100% OK with that. If you don’t like me because I like guns or I am one of those nutter preppers, trust me, there isn’t a whole lot we were going to agree on anyway. My real friends are OK with us agreeing to disagree and respecting one anothers values and value as human beings. I remain, above all, adamantly respectful of the liberty all Americans have in using their voice.

And you know what is funny? As soon as I walked away from letting other people tell me what my voice should be, I started getting more and more business thrown my way. In fact, I am busier turning down more campaigns now than I ever was accepting them. And that feels really, really awesome. Because I only take what truly speaks to me….

Like this No Mas campaign. A campaign that celebrates the freedom of expression. MY freedom of expression. YOUR freedom of expression. Our civil right and responsibility to exercise the freedom of speech we are guaranteed by our Founding Fathers. THIS is the kind of campaign that aligns with who I want to be. Someone who isn’t afraid to speak up, share my self in a real way and listen to your voice as well. I firmly believe that we cannot grow as a friends, a community, a nation, and planet if we all don’t start to do two things:

Speak and Listen Equally.

So, over the next few weeks while I am working with No Mas please look for stories I will share on twitter and facebook and G+ about people that are being imprisoned, threatened or even killed for expressing themselves around the world. For this is something I think we need to guard against here in our own country and channel our collective voice to push for the freedom of these victims in others.

Sometimes my No Mas badge maybe silly. Sometimes it maybe snarky. Sometimes I may be serious. But at no times will my No Mas badge be Silent from this point on. There are just way too many things to talk about.

So, what about you? What are you saying No Mas to? It can be as silly or as serious as you want. Go make your own badge, share it wherever you want. But please let me know in the comments what it is! I’m so nosy like that!

FTC Disclosure: Thanks to Participant Media for sponsoring today’s discussion! I appreciate you paying me to blab on and on and on like this.

Filed Under: and chaos ensues Tagged With: politics, sponsored

My Hope For 2013 Simplified

December 31, 2012 By barb Leave a Comment

And that is all I have to say about that

Hope you have a wonderful, safe New Years and a very likeable 2013

Filed Under: and chaos ensues

You Are Very Loved

October 19, 2012 By barb 5 Comments

Dear Wyatt Samuel,

You probably don’t know this but in two days your mom and dad will leave your 3 sisters behind in California and make a 12 hour flight to meet you in Russia. That’s them:

Pretty good looking family you have..

I have to be honest with you little guy, when your mom first started talking about you I thought she was C R A Z Y! I thought it was a phase she was going through. I mean, seriously, she is just coming out of the hard years with Hannah (your sister who also has spina bifida), she has 3 girls, and to be honest, things in their lives have been a bit rocky the past year or so. Why in heaven’s name would she really want to adopt another child with spina bifida? One child with significant special needs is already so hard.

I clicked over to your picture on Reese’s Rainbow and I saw what she saw. I imagined you not having access to the medical care that has made Carter’s (my son who was born with spina bifida) life as full and wonderful as it. My heart broke for you knowing that your future would likely be spent in an institution because you had a physical disability. But I still thought your mom was C R A Z Y and, honestly, I doubted she could ever pull it off.

Boy was I wrong! Your mom has a strength far beyond anything I could ever hope to possess. Because she loved you and had the courage to trust that feeling the moment she first saw you. Over the past year many, many people have worked tirelessly and contributed generously to your families new dream-you. I often wonder if you could feel that love coming to you from so far away.

In a few days you will get to meet these two fabulous parents of yours. They finally get to hug you and let you know how loved you are. The 30 day wait period after your first meeting I am sure will be the longest they have felt in quite some time.

I am sure things will be hard for you when you finally get to come home with them and you all will have many many challenges. But I am sure now that there is nothing your family won’t do for you.

You are one very, very loved little boy that God certainly must have a special plan for.

Love,

Your Mom’s Crazy Friend

PS…for you grownups out there: You can read all about the DeHoog’s journey to bring Samuel (they will be naming him Wyatt Samuel most likely) home. Adopting a child from Russia is a very expensive proposition and they have fund-raised almost all of the fee’s to date through their church and Reese’s Rainbow. Laura is a stay at home mom and Geoff is a typical Dad working to provide for his family. It’s not like they had 30K laying around to fund this. If you don’t yet know about the amazing work that is being done by Reese’s Rainbow, please click over and check them out. Just be sure to have plenty of kleenex nearby. If you feel like you want to do something to help them finish their journey you can make a secure donation through Reese’s Rainbow for them here: Donation’s For DeHoog Adoption This has come together with lots of 5, 10′s and 20′s!

I know they would appreciate your comments below.

Filed Under: children with disabilities Tagged With: spina bifida. dehoog adoption

Meth Monday: The Devil Wants His Due

August 14, 2012 By barb 17 Comments

I struggle with whether or not I want to share my live journal about my latest round of medications since I often dance around the subject here and there I don’t want to fill you in on all the gruesome details and I certainly don’t want my blog to become about documenting my illness. I have always been and always hope to be the positive voice among some of the sucky stuff that my son deals with in having Spina Bifida. But as I teach him how many people have come together and learned so much from his story through this blog and Spina Bifida Connection, I can’t help but note my own hypocrisy in not being more open with my own story.

I am an over googler. When I want to know something about a medical condition, I want to know the exact precise timeline these things happen. Did I ever share with you that when my father passed away I sat there holding his one hand and with my other I was googling terms like “how long after the toes turn blue will his breathing stop”. I am just the kind of person that needs a blueprint. The more prepared I feel the better I can cope. But when I google this for a blueprint I just see general talk. So, here is my experience for those of you looking for what to expect.

This new medicine I am taking is called Methotrexate. It is joining its earlier friends of plaquenil, savella, and prednisone and 5 other daily meds (yes, I have a granny pill holder now) to wage the war on the autoimmune disease destroying my body called lupus & fibromyalgia. The goal of bringing Mr. Meth onto the team is to destroy my immune system so that it will stop fighting itself.

Battle 1of 52 began yesterday and here are my honest real-time journaling thoughts not edited as it happened:

Methotrexate Day 1-

Saw a movie with the family this am and then went to Tokyo Joes.

Took first meds at 12:30.

1:45 I have read accounts of being able to tell when this stuff hits your bloodstream. I think it just did. A bit dizzy and lips are tingling. Stomach is burping and I am sweating up a storm. Sipping white blossom tea from Tokyo Joes wondering why the hell I decided to take this with all I have going on this week. I am so stupid.

4:00 pm went over to sprouts to buy ginger and other stuff for nausea. Sleepy and dizzy and stomach feels like lunch is just sitting there. Good thing DH drove cause I think I would have been too dizzy. Feel like I am in that place between drunk and buzzed.

7:45 pm felt much better last few hours. Still a little dizzy but was hungry for dinner and ate my share of ribs

10:15 no stomach problems other than the heavier feeling today. Just took all my regular meds except vitamins. I would say overall today I felt MUCH better than I had expected. My overall lupus symptoms seem the same. I do have a dry mouth and feel like mouth sores are coming on. Using more steroid wash than usual.

Methotrexate Day 2-

6:30 am-slept great. Woke up still sleepy and nauseous

8:50 after power bar, small amount of coffee and morning meds, stomach gremlins and sweating have set in. 3 times in the last hour. Stomach cramping is terrible.

Somewhere around 12- feels like a devil was being exorcised from me. The sweating, cramping, shaking and constant pouring of vomit and well, other things *edited made me not be able to lift my head off the bathroom floor. Finally got back to the bed and am praying for some sleep.

3:00 feels like round 2 is coming on. My head is killing me. I slept but all the tummy stuff is coming back.

5:00 Was able to sleep. Feeling better.

6:00 chips, hummus, and Gatorade–these are my new friends

Day 3-

woke up feeling pretty darn good.

1:00 had to go downtown to a new dermatologist to have some lesions looked at. Thought I was feeling fine until I got about halfway there. Driving was a big mistake. I got dizzy and sleepy. Noticed myself stammering at the doctors. That feeling of buzzed was back but this time it doesn’t feel like a good buzz.

5:00- no tummy troubles today. Just the general head fogginess. I hope this doesn’t mean I wont be able to drive until Wednesday’s each week. That will suck.

But you guys, in all of the yuckiness known as Monday. THIS made me smile. Isn’t this the coolest thing ever? That is my friend Jo. She makes me happy