The best way I can describe the Windsor Spine Center is taken from the commercial on TV when the man talks about the Cancer Centers of America and how they breath hope into you. That’s exactly what the clinic is doing for me. The people that work there are genuine and they truly care about their clients. My normal routine when I get there is to do my stretches, then Dr. Rich or Dr. Jason make adjustments to my neck and spine. Next I do different stretches focusing on the neck and legs which one of the girls assists with. After that I go and sit in traction for 10 minutes (might sound mid-evil but it really feels good). Last stop is laser treatment that I get done all the way up and down my spine which promotes pain relief and helps bring down the inflammation in my spine that is damaging my nerves. Every Monday I have a weigh in with my nutrition specialist and we go over my meal plan for the week. I also attend classes every Tuesday that goes along with the Ideal Protein diet with others that are on the diet (which most everyone is that goes there is on).

I’ve gotten to know some of the other patients that have the same schedule as me and I’ve made a lot of new friends. I look forward to seeing them every time I go. One patient is my age and he and I have become buddies. He was shy at first but he’s opened up the more we talk. When I got done with my stretches today I went and laid down on the adjustment table to wait for Dr. Rich to adjust my back and neck. He looked over and said “you are so pretty” which caught me off guard, but not as much as it caught him off guard. He said “did I just say that outloud?” and his face turned as red as my hair. I thought it was cute. When he was on his way out he said “see ya next week cutie” .. It made me smile. It’s been a while since I’ve gotten a compliment like that from a guy. Sort of made my day.

It was a big day for me in another way too. My Uncle Don has been needing a wheelchair since his surgery and now that I don’t need it anymore I packed it up and dropped it off at his and my Aunt Donna’s house. I know he meant this as a compliment but he said he hasn’t seen me look this healthy and strong since before I left for Florida in 2005 because since then I’ve looked like an invalid. Nice, eh? Made me laugh in the car on the way home.

I cut my hair and bleached it and it looks totally rockin’

Like a 1980's Punk Rock Chick

The one person I have control over is me. I’ve learned some pretty hard lessons this last year I’m surprised I made it out with my sanity. I’m going to let go of the last horrible rotten year and leave it in the past. I will carry with me those lessons learned. They are the only stow aways that are permitted to come with me into 2011.

I will do everything in my power to kick myself. I’m going to kick my ass out of the pity parties that have been coming around more and more it seems. I’m going to get myself out from underneath this cloud of negativity. I’m not going to be afraid to fail – because i will from time to time and I can grow from it – at least I would have tried.

My first leap into making this the year of Yolospat has to do with my better half. My best friend and soulmate. My ex-husband. I know I know, you’re all thinking, “You’re best friends with your ex-husband?!” Well, we are a rare breed I suppose. In fact, we have better communication skills now with each other than when we were married. I would have not made it through this last year without him. It’s been a year and almost 4 months since I saw him last so this month I’m going to fly out to Georgia to see him. We are both excited, and it gives us something to look forward to. We never got to say goodbye when we made – in my opinion – too rash of a decision. Growth and good changes between us have happened, and also individually that couldn’t have happened had we still been together. Brendan is what smiles are made of, and I can’t wait to see him. We have agreed that I would bring his xmas box with me instead of shipping it so that we can open his presents together.

I have a few projects lined up for this next year. I will be focusing on my writing this year. This includes my blogs, articles, journaling, poetry, freelancing, short stories and a novel I’m working on at the moment. I’m also going to be focusing on my artwork and bring my portfolio into existence. I’m going to try and volunteer at the humane society. I also have house projects lined up, like painting a few rooms, my fence and my deck. I need to put the art studio back together too. I think I might bring the studio inside and put it int he basement for the winter so I won’t have to worry about heating the garage (which is detached from the home).

I have to remember to pace myself. Living with Fibromyalgia is a very tricky balancing act. If I have a good day and I use up more energy than I should have I’ll be in bed for the next 2 days exhausted. I have to remember that I can only do so much and the better I pace myself the greater my “good days” will be. I also want to talk about Fibromyalgia this year in detail to spread the word and to debunk the myths. I’ve talked about it briefly from time to time but it’s a very hard medical condition to understand. I want to help people understand, so anyone has questions please feel free to ask.

My Writer’s Market book came in the mail yesterday. It’s what every writer needs in reference to publishing, agents, writing idea’s, tips and tricks. You name it, it’s got it. It also has the updated 2011 list of all agents and houses, including what they specialize in and what they are looking for. I also got the Short Story Writer’s Market book too.

I hope everyone makes this year a better year. I know I am.

I’ve been gearing up for NaNoWriMo!! NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month where one has to write 50,000 words of their novel from November 1st through November 30’s. This will be my first year doing it. I’m excited. You can follow my progress at My NaNoWriMo page. I’m writing a lot of short stories this month, and practicing on some writing prompts I have been collecting over the last year since I missed it last year.

Speaking of missing NaNoWriMo last year, sigh. This is the month of October and in 4 more days will be the anniversary of the day I got married. It’s almost going to be a year since I’ve seen my husband ex-husband. It doesn’t feel possible, it feels like a decade. And the worst part about it is through all the hustle and bustle of getting packed and moved, we never got to say goodbye to each other. The other worst part is that I don’t know when I will see him again. I miss him more than any word I can think of in the English language. Its emotional agony, only worse. I lost my soul-mate and my best friend all at the same time. Adjusting to being a single female living by myself is an adjustment I keep fighting subconsciously. I feel scared much of the time, especially at nights knowing he’s not here makes everything seem empty, but through my art, writing, reading, crocheting, and now knitting, I’m trying to keep myself as busy as possible. I’m so grateful for our telephone calls nearly every night, and I’m thankful we keep in constant communication and we’ve both grown from this experience, and he will always be my soul-mate no matter what happens in the future. The distance is so hard though, just so hard. When incidents happen like they did with “Lance” a week ago it makes me wish I were still in Georgia.

Jonah is a lot better. His face is healing at a remarkable speed. The scabs are starting to fall off and new skin is fresh and pink underneath. My friend David got a new puppy. A miniature Chihuahua named taco. I was scared at first that taco and Molly would butt heads for dominance but it was amazing how fast she took to him. This is the first time she’s meeting a dog smaller than her, it was so cute. David made a funny joke. He said if Molly and Taco had puppies, they would have tamales. Hehe. Pictures coming soon of Taco. I’m also building a computer for David that he can use now that he’s gone back to school and kicking ass with his grades.

I’ve been using my iPad a lot for writing out my short stories and my writing exercises. For some reason I’ve gotten a talent for tying on it. It actually makes me write even more than I do already. I found a program on the iPad called Manuscript that connects to DropBox so I work on it no matter where I am.

It ran out of space.

I headed straight to ATTs website and for the first time, I took advantage of my upgrade features. I got the iPhone3gs 32GB (white of course). It arrived in the mail yesterday, sparkly and brand new. Right away I powered it to full and sync’d my whole music library. To my gleeful surprise I still had room! This is not something I’ve ever ran into before. So I started syncing some of my TV shows I haven’t watched yet. I’m a big fan of Fringe & The Office. After that sync got done I was again surprised to see I still had tons of room.

It’s not like my music collection is tiny by any means but over the years I’ve weeded out the music I don’t listen to anymore. I decided not to push my luck and happily left all that empty space, proud that my usual instinct to fill a drive to the fullest was at peace.

Next I started loading my iPhone apps. One of my favorite apps right now is “Red Laser.” It reads bar codes and suggests places you can get that product the cheapest or it will tell you the nutritional value of a food product like it did for a loaf of wheat bread Mom got from Safeway.

With the iPhone3gs the camera on it is so clear and it has the focus capability. All those barcodes my iPhone3g wouldn’t read the iPhone3gs picks up in seconds. I think I’ve managed to scan every barcode I could find upstairs in Mom’s house.

The good news is my Uncle Don is going to buy my old iPhone3g since my Aunt Donna just got one under one condition. I have to give them a rash course on the basics as well as the fun stuff like apps, picture messaging, and text messaging. I’m looking forward to that. I get so excited about gadgets I want to tell everyone about them.

One more thing the iPhone3gs has is something I’ve been wanting since 2005 when I left Colorado for Florida. A compass. Ironic I have one now when I have no idea which direction is up and/or down and what my future will bring. I think it’s perfect timing I got it now.

Good Timing ….

I actually feel I’ve accomplished something and I haven’t felt that way for a long time. It was an easy fix, I just swapped out the router, configured the Netgear and all the mac laptops in my Aunts house connected right away. She tried to pay me but I wouldn’t let her do to the fact that she’s family.

She said I should do that for a job. That made me giggle since I’ve been doing this sort of thing since 1998.

I’ve been working on getting my RSS feeds read today but I’m still at 1000+ in Google Reader. I’ll eventually catch up since I don’t have any plans this weekend.

I think I’m going to get through all this, I really do.

So I’m headed to best buy to pick up a Netgear wireless router that will fix all their problems. My Aunt Donna and Uncle Don have a full Apple network (that tickles me to death, I love it) so it’s nice to finally be a tech for apple products.

I’ll be heading to BestBuy tomorrow to pick up the Netgear wireless router along with some blank DVD’s since Mom and I are running low. I feels good to be needed finally. I’ve felt like a wart on a toads back for so long, I forgot I was actually valuable to people. Plus, I was paid in yummy homemade soup and this homemade cracker spread, vegetarian of course.

No, I will not come to your house if you live in or close to the Greeley area to fix your home networks, but family is family and I’ve been sitting in the basement of my Mother’s house not getting much more interaction than talking to my fur babies and playing World of Warcraft.

I might have more jobs on the horizon. My Uncle Don’s son needs some consulting on a web design for his production company and I’m supposed to talk to him when he comes home from Christmas. Apparently he’s dished out a lot of money for a web site and got screwed. I hear more and more stories about that. It’s a shame.

To add to the geekiness, my friend Brett and I might have a web design project dealing with his band. We’d work together in providing a working web site to promote the band and I can continue to add to my portfolio. That’s exciting and just what I’ve been waiting for.

It’s been a good day so far. I hope it is tomorrow because my job at my Aunt’s house isn’t done yet.

Reason being:

1. My blog is a chronological record of my life. I’m missing big details over the last few years that I wish I would have written about. That is something I need to fix.

2. My blog is a place for reflection and growth. Life is a lesson, and there is something to learn around every corner. I need to take advantage of that.

3. I have a love for gadgets and technology. I love reviewing products, and I haven’t done more than I can count on one hand in the last year. This disappoints me because a lot of great technology has come out and I have no record of it.

4. It has always been inside me to help people. I have been helping people with technology since 1998 and even tho I’ve complained about it in the past, when I know I’ve really helped someone it’s the best feeling ever.

5. I’ve been wanting to get my blog underway ever since I got laid off in July. It’s already December and I’ve yet to do that because I had no idea where to start. So I decided to start from the beginning and take it one step at a time.

Those are my commitments for this blog and they have always been. I’ve been a very bad procrastinator to keeping up with it especially when it’s something I love most of all.

My inspiration in this has been my sissy Camille who has started the project I’ve always had in my head but couldn’t execute. Now is the time.