My Request to my Friends

Hi All,

As you know from my previous post, I have been sick with a staph infection and that caused me to develop thrush! Yuck!  It's been a very rough couple of weeks over here and I am behind with absolutely everything.  I haven't even picked a winner from the Cricut Crawl yet and I apologize for that.  I will do that this week and get it posted.

I just wanted to write a little bit about some personal things that I wanted to share with you all.  When I first started this blog, I honestly didn't know where I wanted to go with it or what would become of it.  I figured I'd write a little here and there and kind of have this as a journal that everyone could view because if I could touch even one person's life, I would be doing a great thing.  I believe this blog has touched more than one person and I can't tell you how happy I am about  that.  I am so happy that I have all of you, my blogging friends, to keep me company on these lonely days, when I'm home by myself with my multitude of illnesses.  It's amazing how much it helps just knowing I'm not alone.  Not really anyways.

I've been feeling so ill lately that it's gotten me quite down, mentally as well.  I haven't crafted, have barely answered my phone, haven't eaten properly or really taken care of anything.  Today is the last day for that!  I called my good friend and she helped get me on track. (We all need someone to do that for us sometimes.)  So here I am, trying to write this to hold myself accountable.  I need some help to keep motivated to help myself so I decided that writing this, maybe some of you could help encourage me to keep going and keep doing things that are good for my body and my soul.  That's why I'm writing today... to reach out to you, my friends, to help me with my journey to healthfulness. 

Fibromyalgia is very complex in itself, but besides that, I have a lot of other issues, some of which very few people have ever heard of.  One of them being a digestive issue that I am really struggling with right now.  I've been having issues since October with my digestive system and I've had about enough of it.  I have to go on a super restrictive diet (yes I'm very tiny and I'm not dieting for weight loss, but for health reasons only), but I've been procrastinating for a long time.  I'm at the point where I can't wait any longer.  The bloating and sick feeling I constantly have has just become to much to live with so now it's time to deal with it and become proactive!  You might all be wondering why I'm writing about that here, and I'll tell you, when you put something like this (a goal of sorts) out there in the universe, it helps to say it out loud to keep you accountable!  By that, I mean, people are aware of what you are trying to do and you are not just doing this by yourself.  You have other people counting on you to do this and that's what I need.  I need some motivation because just lying here in bed thinking about it all day is certainly not getting me anywhere!  I need your help.  I need your support and your questions and your comments.  I need some partners who want to get healthy too, whether it be physically, spiritually, or mentally healthy, it doesn't matter.  Just healthy!  It's hard.  It's so hard to do it on your own and ultimately there is only you that can control your actions and make you really do the work, but when you know you have told other people what you are doing, it makes you much less likely to slack off.  So, there it is.  Accountability.

If anybody has any questions as to what is going on with me on a deeper level, please feel free to email me or leave questions.  I welcome them very much!

Now, I have a little list of goals and things I'd like to share with you and put out there, and then I'll stop rambling and you all can get back to the fun things in life like scrapping! :0)  My personal goals for the near future are as follows:

• Take my vitamins and increase them to tailor them specifically to my needs (I sell some of the best vitamins out there; it's high time I start using them!) Please, if anyone is interested in learning about the vitamins I sell and the essential oils, I'd be so happy to share my knowledge with you.  I have studied and learned so much and have been ale to help many people with this knowledge.
• Get back into using my essential oils (once again, I sell one of the best brands and they help so much).
• Now that spring is almost here, I need to get outside and walk.  I can't do a lot of exercise because of the fibro, but it is one of the best things you can do for fibro!  Go figure!  Light yoga and walking are best, so that's what I plan on doing.
• I really want to start weaning off of my medications.  I take more medicines than most 80 year olds.  I have row after row of bottles.  It's unbelievable! 
• I need to get back to my healthy reading.  I used to read everything on the subject of health that I possibly could.  You can never learn too much and you should never stop learning.  I have several books I want to read right now including:  The Inflammation Syndrome, Coping with Chronic Illness, and Treating and Beating Fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.  If any of you would like more info on these, please ask!  I have a huge library of books such as these that I actually have read and can recommend.  These are just a few of the ones I haven't gotten to yet.
• I am in a business that provides me with amazing motivational tools such as cds and books.  I used to listen to them all the time and I was a much happier person!  So, I need to get back to listening to these.  As corny as it sounds, people, these really do help!  I scoffed at the idea myself at first, until I realized how excited about life I was after listening to a cd or two.  Being around positive influences leads to positivity in you!
• Don't lose focus or hope.  I'm struggling with that right now.
• Meditation and affirmations.  As simple as that.
• Keep up with my crafting and things that make me happy.  I haven't crafted in over a week and in fact, I even cancelled a job I had for creating Easter cards because I have been so sick (mentally and physically).  I'm letting the illness take over me and am losing my grip on what keeps me sane.  No more of that!  I need some help!  Any thoughts on how to stay focused would be much appreciated.
• Lastly, don't be afraid to reach out for help and write about it if I must.  This is key.  It's very hard for people, in general to ask for help.  We are taught to be strong and to keep it all inside and just deal with it.  Well, I can only handle so much by myself and I'm okay with asking for help.  The people that truly care about me will be happy I asked and happy to help and that is something to remember.

Thank you all so much for being there for me through all this and for those of you who took the time to read this.  It means the world to me, knowing how many people I have on my support system.  I couldn't do it alone so thank you.  I appreciate each and every email, comment, and follower I get.  You keep me going.  Bless you all!


In love and light,
XO ~ Amy Jo