The Happy Award comes to Do Beautiful Things

I am excited to receive the Happy Award from Simone at The romantic query letter.  I have long followed her through my other blog, Southern City Mysteries, and was pleased that she stopped over here and became my first follower.  Simone writes beautiful poetry that disguised as prose.  Historical fiction, romance, call it what you like, but stop by her blog and read a sample.  You won't be sorry that you did.

The Happy comes with a few conditions, which I repeat for you here:
1. Copy and paste the award on your blog.
2. List who gave the award to you and link to his/her blog
3. List 10 things that make you happy.
4. Pass the award on to other bloggers and visit their blogs to let them know!

First, for ten of the things that make me happy...

Snow sparkling in the sun................................
.........................................................................My children laughing together...
Bartlett Pear candles from Bath&BodyWorks......................
.......................Creative jewelry from Moon&Lola..................................................
Yoga and the healing voice of Margaret at Yoga Garden...............
.......................................My husband....
...........................................................Blog comments (I can't help it!  It's invigorating!)
Thinking like a writer--writing every moment in my head........................
..............My son using big words like "injured" and "actually" (he's 4)...
The quiet that sets in when my children are asleep and my husband is ready to go to bed.  The house has settled and we are all at peace.  It is time, our hearts say, to rest for the night.  A good book, a quick thanks to God for our day and our lives, and we will close our eyes to dream.  No worries about the next day.  Just the darkness and the warmth and the closeness of each other......................................................

(The picture above was assigned to me by Simone when she gave out the Happy Award. If she thinks it is a "beautiful thing," it is worth re-posting here. Thank you, Simone!)

I give the Happy Award to:

Chris at Living with Fibromyalgia -- I learn so much from her!

EmcogNEATO of EmcogNEATo -- because I think she could use a little cheering to get her through having no ice in her freezer!

Kris of The Cajun Book Lady -- because she is creative and pretty darn cool.

And, though she has received it before (maybe even from me, I can't remember!), L. Diane Wolfe of Spunk on A Stick's Tips--she has guest blogged on Southern City Mysteries, supported me here on this blog and is an all around great blogging friend.

Thank you, friends.  And I encourage you all to click on all the links and check out the fabulous blogs!

Snow and Family

Our snow family.

The view from our driveway, kids at play.

Sledding experts.

Pure snow joy.

Admiration.

As for the cold and the fibro, I found that the more I moved and the more fun I had, the more I was able to ignore it.  My current motto is this: I am going to hurt no matter what, so what is the point of sitting still?  I know there will be days this isn't enough to get me moving and overcome the pain, but this weekend it was.  Triumph!

Separate your Pain from your Pain

My first lesson, and one I've learned rather fast if I do say so myself, is as follows:

Not everything is attributable to your disease.

Every corner of my body aches with delicious pain.  Every muscle strains as I move with the reminder of how hard I worked at yoga yesterday.  Can Fibromyalgia take this away?  No.  The syndrome adds pain, certainly, but it is a hurting kind of pain, a pain that puts one on alert and makes ones teeth grind.  This is the pain of exercise.  And I must know how to differentiate.

Learning one has a disease or syndrome can be the ultimate excuse for hypochondria.  Everything instantly becomes a sign of The Spread or The Worsening.  And do not discount this fear.  The constant questions of what body part will hurt next? How will my life next be altered? - these stay with a fibro patient for life.

As someone who has only lived in pain for a year and with a diagnosis for less than a week, I am not the be all of Truth.  But I do think this is a lesson best learned early on: separate your pain from your pain.  And I thank the Lord that, in theory, I understand it (emphasis on 'in theory').