Pain dulls the quirky edge

I realize I haven't written for over month. Have I been gallivanting in Europe, having an affair or won the lottery? Or have I had any quirky edge dulled by pain and done very little. Sadly, it's the latter.

I saw that I wrote on April 6th that I had back trouble so that makes it more than 6 weeks now, that I've had pain daily. You know what I don't like about pain - not that it's painful, which is a given, but that it impact on me is to turn me into someone I don't like. I'm snappy, with low patience, low interest, not moving much physically or spiritually.

So for the first few weeks I thought it would pass, and for the next few weeks I thought this will never pass this is my life from now on, and in the past week or so I've become much more proactive - I changed meds, went to a physical therapist, and then went to a chiropractor that my friend recommended.

The meds are definitely essential, and the physical therapist was okay but no real difference. After one session with the chiropractor I feel hopeful that this is not going to be the rest of my life... I'm having another session tomrrow and hopefully more interesting blogs (and a quirkier life!) will follow....

(I did find meditation helpful, and in my proactive phase have started listening to Joan Borysenko regularly again. She's really very good.)

Works of Art

I've managed to avoid presenting youtube clips. It's just too easy in a way. Also, while many are quirky, it's such an invitation to waste hours of your life, I can't wholly condone it. But this, this is amazing. A guy recreates the Mona Lisa using Microsoft paint.

See, the potential for art is everywhere!

In our home, we are currently on a beading kick. When I first bought the bead sets, we threaded them and if you made a mistake you had to start again. Clearly not a sport for champions. But then, (and this shows you what a rank amateur I am) I discovered bead boards. Highly sophisticated - basically it's a board with grooves, where you lay your patterns out before threading them. And now, we going gang busters, churning out bracelets with ease. And I'm designing bead rings! I have large fingers and find it really hard to find jewellery that will fit, especially as my current obsession is to have rings for my thumb and pointing finger. But now I can measure them out for myself, and that makes me very happy. So we are hunting beads down and have just put in an order to make this. I'll tell you how it goes...