Okay…several people have suggested names for my new line of cards.  If you haven’t seen them yet, see my post from earlier today.  Here are the options:

1. Digital Designs
2. Fun4All
3. More Than Words
4. Reproducables

So what do you think?  Please vote here.  If you have any other suggestions, let me know too and I can add that to the line-up!

I can’t believe we’re already into the middle of April.  Time really does fly by so quickly…I’ve been officially walking now for almost 5 months and it feels terrific.  Not one day has gone by in those 5 months that I haven’t been thankful.  Every morning, I step out of bed, and say to myself, “YEP!  Still walking!!”

Here’s what hope and a damn good sense of determination is so important I was told :

1. By three different doctors that I should amputate from the knee down.
2. That I would never walk again.
3. That if I DID walk again (and that was a big IF), I would always have to wear a brace.
4. Walking barefoot or with a regular shoe (no brace) would NEVER be an option for me.

Here I am, almost two years later…Been through 3 leg surgeries, two wheelchairs, a walker, a shower chair, a cane, crutches, etc…A WHOLE lot of struggle, pain, and depression/tears…A great support of family and friends….and a BUNCH of prayers!!! 

Guess what?  I am walking and I do it barefoot and I do it in a regular shoe (NO BRACE).  How’s that for a miracle?  Being that it is Easter today and Easter is a celebration of a miracle in itself, I thought it was only fitting that I sit and write about another miracle!

My point?  No matter how hard life hits you, no matter what you are going through, no matter how bad things look, no matter what glim outcome you are given – NEVER give up!!

Happy Easter!  And thanks to those of you who have supported me and lifted me throughout this whole ordeal.  I love you all and am so, so appreciative for you.  You know who you are…

Check out my foot…it’s not pretty, but it’s all mine.  The scars are an everyday reminder to me just how lucky I am…    Hover your mouse over the pics for an explanation… 

Comments are welcome and appreciated. 

I had completely forgotten about April Fool’s Day this year for the first few hours of the day.  Some co-workers of mine and I pulled a little prank on our boss, but it was nothing big.  It’s so funny, looking back….when I was younger, I would plan days in advance what types of pranks I was going to pull and who would be my lucky victims!!  LOL  As you get older, I guess it’s just not as fun!

So, I was looking on the internet today to see what I could find out about the “holiday”.  I found this great website called “Museum of Hoaxes” and they have a feature about the Top 100 April Fool’s Day Hoaxes.  You might take a gander here.

In the spirit of Christmas, I’ve decided to have a free giveaway of surprise goodies.  While the giveaway is a surprise, I can tell you that the goodie bag is generous in size and is stuffed to the gills!  How do you enter? 

It’s simple – post a comment anywhere on my blog, and receive an entry for every comment left. 

Even better, if you post a reply to THIS post, giving me ideas for different types of cards to make for my shop, you’ll be given an additional TWO entries.

Better YET – make a purchase from my shop (no min or max) and receive FIVE entries!!!!

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On Friday night the drawing will take place and the winner will be announced!

Congrats to SouthamptonCreations for helping me reach my 200th sale mark!!  A BIG package of goodies is heading her way!  Thanks so much, Pat!

Check out her shop here!  I’ve included a small sample of the wonderful items in her shop.  Visit her shop for more great gift ideas!

Shhhh…Guess what?  I am just almost to 200 sales!  The buyer who helps me accomplish reaching my 200th sale mark will receive a BIG goodie bag in their package!!! 

I can’t wait…do us BOTH a favor and be my 200th buyer!  I have goodies that I’m just itching to give away and YOU could get some great items to become stocking stuffers (or to just keep for yourself)!! LOL 

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I was at 197 yesterday when writing this post.  Thanks to a sale from my friend, South, I am now sitting at 198 sales…

The following items have been marked down in my shop!!  Stop by and check it out!
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=15959711
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=14720485
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=14721071
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=14734376
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=14718980
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=14578397

I absolutely ADORE making cards for loved ones and really enjoy selling them to support my habit as well on Etsy, but there is one aspect about selling these cards that has pros and cons – the seasonal aspect.  What do I mean by this? 

While I love making cards for seasonal purposes to sell in my shop – Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas – I feel a little pressure to make sure that my shop is well-stocked with these types of cards, but then I don’t feel as though I always have time to make the FUN cards.  I really enjoy making birthday, just because, love, congrats, anniversary, and hi/hello types of cards.  I made a goal to also keep other types of cards like “in sympathy”, thinking about you, some religious cards, new baby, etc… in my shop as well. 

With so many different holidays approaching and the requests for especially Christmas card SETS, I don’t feel like I can take the time to make these other cards I enjoy.  LOL…Does that make sense or does it sound just totally silly?  Don’t get me wrong – I do enjoy making the seasonal items also, but at the same time, I feel as though it somehow takes me away from making the ones I enjoy.  The result?  I don’t really make any because when I sit down to create, I feel this struggle – to create for business or pleasure.  How messed up am I??  LOL!!

Any suggestions?

No really…I know a lot of people probably say this, but it’s really true…    I’ll give you a brief, cliff’s notes version of the last 15 months or so of my life:

• June 2007:  Had my fifth open heart surgery (as a result of a birth defect) which came along with some complications, like the need for leg surgery.  If you have a LOT of time and absolutely NOTHING to do, my hubby and I kept a ongoing blog about that time here if you just really want to check it out.  LOL 
•  June 2007-August 2008:  Could only walk on one foot for over a year.  Used a wheelchair and a walker because my foot was angled down like a horse’s foot.  Was told by three different doctors that amputation from the knee down was the only answer for me.  Refusing to believe that was the ONLY answer, I was referred to a doctor in Dallas who told me that amputation was the farthest thing from his mind and he COULD help me.  So, since June of this year, I have been in an Illizarov (the contraption, as we called it) for two months, a splint for two weeks, two different casts for about three weeks, and then finally a walking boot for 2-3 weeks.

• I finally have been to the point where I felt some normalcy in my life again.  I was walking again without the help of any equipment (walker or wheelchair); I could take a shower again and be able to get my leg wet (not hanging out of the tub because of a cast, splint or hunk of metal on it); I could walk side-by-side with my husband again and hold his hand (kind of hard to do that when you have to hold on to a walker or roll yourself along in a wheelchair); I could go up and down the stairs normally (not hopping down on one foot or crawling up the stairs like before); I had started back to work part-time and was slowly working towards working longer hours and more days; the list goes on and on….
• Fast forward now to Friday, September 26th (one week ago).  I was out with some friends and introducing our new little dog, Bean to some people who hadn’t met him yet.  My BFF Kara and I were headed back to my house.  It was around 9:00 pm or so and I had Bean on a leash.  As I was getting out of her car and trying to manage Bean, my cell phone starts ringing, and I’m trying to carefully walk around in the grass to get to the sidewalk.  Kara’s dog, Kandi, was still in the backseat and I didn’t notice Bean trying to run back towards the car.  I tripped right over his leash and landed right on my bad leg!!!  I just laid there and cried for a moment and then tried to get up.  Kara took Bean’s leash as I tried to get up to my feet.  I knew the moment that I put weight on my leg that something was wrong.  I managed (somehow) to get up to my front door.  I took my boot off to see if I could see anything wrong, but couldn’t.  Lance then came home and I told him that I thought I needed to go to the ER to get an x-ray of my leg.  The pain was excruciating!!!
• Off we went to the ER.  After several x-rays were taken, they came back in and told me that I fractured my tibia (the weight-bearing bone in your leg) and couldn’t walk on it for 8-9 weeks.      So, Wednesday, October 1st, I went to see my orthopedic doctor about what he thought I should do.  He put me in a cast (a red one this time) and told me that while my bone was fractured all the way through, it had not separated.  If it separates, I will have to have surgery in order to place a pin between the bones to hold them together.  So, my week has pretty much been spent laying around the house with my leg elevated and doped up on pain medicine.  While I am still in pain, it’s not as bad as it was before I got the cast. 

Can you believe it?  When I watch my soap opera on TV, I think, “How can all of these things happen to ONE character?”  While I don’t have buildings coming down on me, attempted to be killed by five different people, or attempted marriage with my husband for the third time (to the same man); I do feel like everything I have been through this past year or so sounds like it’s taken right out of a soap opera plot!!  LOL

So, if you haven’t had communication from me during the past week, now you know why…While I have been sitting around not doing much, the pain pills that I have been taking make me sleepy, so I have been doing a LOT of sleeping.  LOL…How pathetic is that???!!!

Well, I mentioned in my last post that a lot happened that I needed to tell about, so here goes.. ..

First and foremost, Lance and I got a puppy!!    We named him Bean and he is sooooooo cute!!  Check him out here or you can see more at http://www.flickr.com/meldew .  We just love him so much and are so glad that we found him in need of a home at our local SPCA.    He really is a sweetie and a cuddlebug, but he is all puppy and ALL boy!!!   Plus, he has many cat-like qualities (check out the pic of him sitting in my studio window). 

When we went to the SPCA to look for a dog to take home, we were originally looking for a small dog (Bean is more of a medium-sized dog), but as we were looking around, I felt a little cold nose brush against my arm.  I turned around and this sweet little dog was in a corral area and he was standing on his hind paws.  I slowly stuck out my hand for him to smell, and he put one of his paws in the palm of my hand.  I was a goner!!  LOL…I called Lance over to look at this little cutie and he too stuck his hand out for him to smell.  Get this!!  The dog put his other paw in Lance’s palm too.  So we’re standing there with this dog and he holding hands with Lance and me together!!  HE PICKED US!!!  LOL…We played with him alone in a room and found out that his name was Tom.  After adopting him, we called him Tom and Tommie, but he just never responded to it.  One day I started calling him “my little Bean” and he started answering to it.  It kind of stuck and the rest is history.  Lance calls him “Beano” because that was how he “introduced” himself to us on the way home.  LOL  Other favorite names are “Beanie Baby” and “Beaners”.  Can you tell we’re in love?? 

Okay, so that’s about the dog!!  So the last thing I mentioned about my leg was that I had started walking and was in a walking cast.  Some good things (and one maybe not so good thing) have happened since I last posted about my leg.  Since we, of course, have a dog, I noticed one day that I had a brown stain on the back of my purple cast.  I thought, “Awww, Man!!  I must have stepped in some doggy poopy!”  Since I was to wear the cast for two weeks after this little observation, I was not too happy about it.  LOL…Later the next day, I noticed that as I took a few steps, the stain was kind of foaming…Ugh!!  I thought that since I had tried to wipe off the poopy stain with a wet washcloth that maybe I had put too much water on the cloth.  The next morning though, it was doing it more frequently and I noticed the stain was also now on the bottom of the cast. 

I should say now that I don’t have any feeling in my foot.  With all of the surgeries I have had on my leg and ankle, I have had some nerve damage and just don’t have full feeling in my foot.  So, I called my doctor’s office and told them what I noticed from the cast and mentioned that I don’t have feeling in my foot.  They put me on hold and told the nurse, then spoke with the doctor, and then came back on the line.  I heard the receptionist say, “The doctor wants you to leave whatever you’re doing and get here ASAP!”, so I did.  LOL…When I arrived, they removed the cast to find that I had developed an ulcer on the back of my heel.  They told me that I had caught it just in time (right after it popped, but before it rubbed through other layers of skin) and treated it.  Since I now had a wound that needed the bandages changed on it daily, I needed a walking boot instead.  Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!  Can you hear the angels singing??? This was an answered prayer!!!

I now walk SO much better and no longer have pain at the end of the day.  On top of that, I don’t have to elevate so often either because I don’t have swelling!!!  It’s just a dream!!!  I am back to work VERY part-time (only about 8-12 hours a week), but my job requires me to pretty much be on my feet all day.  I am a copy and print center manager for Office Depot and it’s a highly busy and active job.  I can’t tell you how great it feels to get back to some sense of normalcy!!  People think I am nuts for saying this next statement, but…I can do housework again!!!!!!!  It was such a struggle for 14 months because of…well, just imagine this – you can put NO weight on your right foot because it is angled downwards like a horse’s foot, so you have to essentially hop around on one foot.  On top of that, you have to hold on to a walker with both hands to balance yourself and to do some of the work of walking.  Because of this, “picking up” isn’t something you can do, nor is cooking, cleaning, laundry or many many other things around the house.  Heck, I couldn’t even get up the stairs in my two-story house; I had to crawl up the stairs.  It was pathetic!! 

LOL…So, now imagine how wonderful my husband is.  He not only had to work during the day, he worked at a local junior college 2 nights a week (to try to get his foot in the door), and then had to take care of me, our meals, and the rest of the house.  I know that women do this all the time, but I think we are just better equipped to handle all of this than men are.  Plus, with the tables turned, men CAN help women out…I couldn’t really do much to help Lance out. ANYWAY, the point is that things are just so much better now!!  Life is just so good. 

Since my leg is doing so much better now, I can slowly start increasing my hours at work until I am back to working full-time – eventually!!    So between work, my new rediscovery of housework and dog-owning, and the occasional rest every now and then, I have kept myself pretty busy.  Some days I almost forget to get onto Etsy for a bit.  I LOVE Etsy and always want to be on it, but it just feels so good to not have to be sitting all of the time, that I find myself being drawn away from it a little bit lately.  I am constantly having ideas pop into my head of things I want to make and destash I need to sell, but I just don’t go make myself do it.  Does that sound selfish??  I just want to enjoy the pleasure of walking as much as I can without pushing myself….I know that it probably sounds terrible, huh?? 

Sweet nibblets!!!  I have just been rambling on and on and on….and on and on and on!!!  LOL…I’ll try to post pics of my new boot soon.  It’s such a STEP up from the contraption I once had!!