Hey all,

Well, it's been quite a while since I have let you know what's going. I have quite some hectic weeks since the beginning of October. I have had loads of work at my job, which was pretty time consuming. Next to that I have been working on updating the site of Scrapping Memories. I want the shop to reflect the actual stock I have so I have to count everything again and update each and every product. I'm almost done with that now, thank god! I hope things will go okay from now on. I have had problems with Scrapping Memories, but with this I hope it will be partially solved. In the meantime I have also been working on another mini album. This time it's about the pond in our garden. I had to try out a few things, since I wanted to work with envelopes. You can read all about it "Our pond in a mini album". And last but not least….. health wise things haven't really improved unfortunately….

With the end of the year nearby, it's to look back at this last year. Of course it's always to say "I shouldn't have done that" or "I shouldn't have started this" or any variation you can think of. I think it's safe to say some of these clichés perfectly fit for me right now. I have been suffering from RSI problems since February last year. I hoped things would work out for the better, but instead, everything got worse in 2004. Silly me, I thought I could start with Scrapping Memories while my problems with RSI were just growing. This was July last year. By the end of august I was ordered by the doctor from work to stay at home fulltime for three weeks to see if my problems would go away, the motto of this being "Rest will help your muscles to relax and the pain to go away". Well, I can tell you, that really didn't help! And seen the fact I wanted to continue my daytime job and I wanted to work on setting up a site for Scrapping Memories, I was quite frustrated. That frustration got worse when it turned out the problems got even worse and I was diagnosed with Carpal Tunnel Syndrome. And to top it all I also had got diagnosed with a Myomen in my uterus, so I was bleeding constantly. I can assure you, that's not something to be happy about! It drained my energy! So, if I look at the beginning of this year, I think it's safe to say I felt at my worst. I had been told I needed surgery for the Myomen, I had to learn to live with the RSI (while I wanted the pain to go away instead!) and I had no hope of anything that would improve. At the end of February it turned I didn't need the surgery after all. My body had got rid of the Myomen it self. The wonders of the human body. First I had to suffer from it for a year and then suddenly it's gone! I was glad I was at least rid of that, so that I could now focus on getting rid of the RSI problems. My own doctor came with a possible solution: a chiropractor. Thank god for that man! He helped me a lot. On top of that the company's doctor told me I had to follow a reintegration program to learn to get back to work while I still had the cause of my RSI problems. Of course that was something I wasn't really inclined to do, after all, I wanted to get rid of the cause. My chiropractor said I could safely do the combination of the reintegration program and the chiropraxy and this combination worked very well for me! I finally felt less pain, I could fulfill my duties at my job better and I could finally really start to work on Scrapping Memories! This was quite the relief, I can tell you that! So, while I slowly got back on my feet, I decided to start with two design teams at Scrapping Memories, so that there would be examples on the site of Scrapbooking and of products to use. This didn't went as smoothly as I thought it would. I hadn't expect the relapses I had from the RSI. So, when I had expected to work on Scrapping Memories in the evening, I couldn't do this, due to the pain I had at night. So, I needed extra for everything I wanted to do. That was something I hadn't calculated in to my plans and that was another frustration for me (and for the design team members too). Eventually I really got rid of the pain and I got the time to start to work on Scrapping Memories by May. But, unfortunately it wasn't the end of my problems. It's really like Murphy's Law was applied on everything I had planned to this year. Since half May I couldn't get rid of the coughing problems I had. I thought I had caught a cold, so I had expected it would be away in a week or two. Instead it got really worse as to the point where I had even trouble breathing during the day and especially at night. I hardly slept during the night. After not even an hour of a very light sleep, I would wake up again, coughing and with lack of breath, and it would take half an hour before I was able to get back to sleep again. In the end it was so bad I started to sleep on the couch in our living room so that at least James would get a good night sleep. I went back to the doctor (the love see me coming you know…. the bills just keep on coming!). He did some tests and gave me several medications. Unfortunately none of them did any good. In the end I went to the hospital to go to the lung doctor (or however you call it English). That was three months later, in which I had hardly any sleep, I was tired every day and could hardly do anything besides making diner after I got home from my job. The lung doctor ran several tests again and after three months I got the final diagnoses: I have asthmatic problems that won't go away! These are a result of…. guess what, all my allergies. Yes, I have those too! The cold I have had in may was just the trigger to activate these problems, nothing more, nothing less. So, now I have to get used to using medication for my asthmatic problems too. I still have to find the balance between the medication, the times at which I need to take the medication, the weather, everything I want to do and a lot more! I hope I will get the hang of it soon, cause this is frustrating too. The good part of it is that I finally have a good night sleep (half of the nights anyway) and I know what I have to deal with now. The bad thin is: I'll probably never get rid of this problem and it can even get worse! Nice look into the future, isn't it?
Also, since I have so many allergies, Hay fever and these asthmatic problems, James and I are not sure if we should even begin with children of our own. I'm still learning to deal with several of the problems and we both feel this is something we'd rather not put children through. We're still thinking about it. We haven't made up our minds yet…….
So, looking back over these last two years I think I can safely say these were not the best years of my life up until now. I'm very lucky that James is always a very good supporter and he has never complained, but I sincerely hope I don't have to put him through more of these kind of years. On a personal basis, with al these medical problems, it's been a very rough two years and I'm not finished wit hit yet. Looking at the business side, my daytime (fulltime) job has suffered pretty much under these problems (and I finally figured out I'm not quite in the right place where I am right now). Also Scrapping Memories has been suffering under this pretty hard, because I couldn't pay the attention I needed to do and I couldn't set up everything I needed to do. So, it hasn't gone well at all!

So, what can I learn from this all? Well, it seems quite simple, doesn't it. Start working hard on Scrapping Memories, try to get a grip on my medical problems and work better in my daytime job. Well, it's easier said then done, but I have set my mind on doing everything better. I need to revise my ambitions, I need to make time to spend at my hobbies and I'm going to look for another daytime job, so that I can truly find more pleasure in my work. For these last two months of this year, it means I want to finish setting up the site of Scrapping Memories properly and to get more publicity about Scrapping Memories, so that I'll get more customers. I'll continue my search for another job, maybe outside the community company. Last but not least I have decided to spend at least five hours on my hobbies a week. It would be great if could really fulfill this "page-a-week" challenge I set my self. I'd like to finish at least half of the album of Italy (I still need almost 400 photos done), so that I can start working on the next half next year. And I want to do so much more!

Well, this is it for today. I'll talk to you later!

Regards,
Ilse