This my favorite poem from Edgar Allan Poe. I had to memorize it when I was 13 years old and it was then that I learned to appreciate the talents of this very interesting man.

Annabel Lee by Edgar Allan Poe

It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of Annabel Lee;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me.

I was a child and she was a child,
In this kingdom by the sea;
But we loved with a love that was more than love -
I and my Annabel Lee;
With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven
Coveted her and me.

And this was the reason that, long ago,
In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
My beautiful Annabel Lee;
So that her highborn kinsman came
And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulcher
In this kingdom by the sea.

The angels, not half so happy in heaven,
Went envying her and me
Yes! that was the reason
(as all men know, In this kingdom by the sea)
That the wind came out of the cloud by night,
Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.

But our love was stronger by far than the love
Of those who were older than we
Of many far wiser than we
And neither the angels in heaven above,
Nor the demons down under the sea,
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee.

For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise but I feel the bright eyes
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling, my darling, my life and my bride,
In the sepulcher there by the sea,
In her tomb by the sounding sea.

Happy Monday!  Don't shoot me I'm just trying to be optimistic.  My days not looking too good already.  The kids I take care have been here for less than an hour and things are already broken.  I have a feeling it's going to be a long day.

My weekend was totally boring except for my conversations with my special one.  I get a total kick out of him.  He's awesome.  Other than that I worked, cleaned house and sat here alone for most of the weekend.  Oh well it could be worse.

This is the beginning of a new week and hopefully it will bring new and exciting things to my life and to all of yours.  I hope all of you survive this most unwonderful Monday.

I'm exhausted and getting more and more frustrated by the minute.  The morning started out really good, but those little life stressors have intervined and have me a little worried.  I have my medicaid interview tomorrow and I'm freaking out about it.  They want to do a phone interview and I hate talking on the phone because sometimes it's hard for me to comprehend what people are saying.  It's not that I don't hear, but I just can't understand.  It's weird, but from what I hear it's another lovely Fibro thing.  I'm just going to try and chill and get through it.

I wish I didn't have to worry about all this, but I don't think there is going to be a cure for Fibro anytime soon so I have to do what I have to do.  That's so much easier said than done in this body, but I'll get through all this eventually.  I may be a little extra bitchy from time to time so I apologize in advance to my friends and family who have to deal with me and for the rants I may post here.  Stress is hard for me to handle because the Fibro has my nervous system all kinds of screwed.  I know those of you who have it know what I'm talking about.

Anyways...I hope everyone is having a great day so far.  I'm going to suck it up and force myself to have a good afternoon.

I absolutely wasted my entire day off, but I guess the rest was needed.  Nothing new has really been going on lately, except I started talking to a new guy who is perfect in every way except that he lives in a different state.  I'll probably never meet him in person, but he has been awesome to talk to and has given me a reason to smile on those days that I wanted to die. I told him that if he Googles my name he can find all of blogs and articles so we'll see if he finds this.  Just in case he does....Hi sweetie thanks for stopping by ; ).

Anyways I had a few good days, but I'm back in another flare.  I'm handling it very well because I actually had some good days...FINALLY!!!  It was getting to the point where I was just having back to back flares and it was killing me.  I feel like I have some control back now so all is as well as can be with this monster.

In case anyone is wondering I'm still not divorced.  I really, really want to be but I can barely afford to live right now.  I can't wait to be 100% free of him.  This whole thing has been an absolute nightmare and I'm ready for closure. I'm ready to start living and I don't feel like I can until all this is behind me.

I hope everyone has a great day.  Be brilliant!

Happy Monday everyone!  I hope everyone has an awesome day despite it being Monday.  I woke up feeling really good today.  Of course the pain is there, but mentally I'm good so that means a good day.

When you have chronic pain you can't base your moods on how your body feels because then you would always be sad, irritated and pissed off at the world.  I learned a long time ago that I can still be happy despite my pain and that's the most valuable tool I have against this monster that has invaded my body.

So if you see me or someone else with a chronic illness smiling and laughing remember that it doesn't mean they're feeling better or that they're magically cured...it just means they are having a good day and that they're happy.  They may be in so much pain they can barely walk, but they don't let that keep them down.

Our illnesses are chronic.  We'll probably never have a cure.  We have to learn live our lives a little differently than everyone else.  There's nothing wrong with that.  In fact sometimes it's actually a blessing because we get to see things an entirely different way than everyone else.  Life is beautiful even when you feel like yours is falling apart.

Have a great day and don't forget to be brilliant!

How come taking care of yourself is always the hardest thing to do?  I'm awesome at taking care of other people and making sure they have what they need, but when it comes to me I end up in the ER on the verge of a stroke.  Go figure.

I guess it's easier to think of others first...for me anyway.  It's easier to deal with someone else's problems, because you can see the big picture of their problems a lot more clearly than you can see your own.
I've noticed that quite a few, if not most of us, with invisible chronic illnesses tend to always put others before us.  I honestly don't think we would be like that if we were'nt sick and if we didn't have illnesses that carried such a stigma.  I personally knows how it feels to be alone and misuderstood so I make sure no one around me ever feels that way.

This is just my opinion.  What are your ideas on the matter?  Hope everyone has an awesome Sunday. Be brilliant!

Life is what you make it and I'm determined to make mine the best it can be.  I can sit around here and cry and feel sorry for myself because I'm sick or I can get out there and make something of myself despite being sick.  I'm tired of being depressed and feeling like I have to depend on others all the time because the bottom line is the only person who's going to take care of me is me.  So to all of my friends who are sick too...lets show the world what we're made of.  Our illnesses don't define who we are and although they do make our lives more challenging we're strong enough to handle it.

I hope everyone is having an awesome weekend!

It's been a rough week in the Fibromyalgia and health in general department.  I had excruciating pain in my ribs that sent me to the emergency room.  While I was there I found out my blood pressure was 200/120 and that I was about to have a stroke and that I had an ear infection. I got a shot in the butt for the pain that didn't start working for 2 hours and meds for everything else.

It's been a week today since all that happened and I'm still not right.  I went to my doctor yesterday and I still have the ear infection and my blood pressure is far from normal, but hopefully I can get my body back on track so I can attempt to be as normal as posssible.  Ha Tina be normal....that's kind of funny, but anyways.

I started working again today and I just hope that nothing else goes wrong on me.  I have a lot to catch up on and I definitely don't have time to be that sick again.  I guess none of us with chronic illnesses have time to be sick, but we kind of have to learn to deal with it.  One thing for sure is that this has scared me into taking better care of myself.  If I would have been doing it all along I wouldn't have had to go through this hell, but oh well shit happens.

I hope everyone has a great rest of the week and a most awesome weekend.

It’s been a decent week for once.  The pain hasn’t been too bad and as for my personal life…well I just don’t care anymore.  That one special person is probably history, but I don’t have the time or energy to worry about it. It may sound like I’m being a bitch, but it’s always been his choice not to get to know me and I need more than that.  I don’t need a guy shoved up my ass, but I do need someone who makes an effort…even the smallest effort would have made all the difference. I know I’m complicated, but I’m not that complicated.

Anyways I’m just going to take it one day at time and concentrate more on the Fibromyalgia more than anything else.  If I don’t start taking care of me more, then this crap is going to take me out. I don’t know why I’m so worried about finding a man because when I do find one I’m going to be too sick to care if I keep on the same path I’m on now.  It’s all about me now and if someone makes that effort to get inside my world then I may just let him.

I hope everyone has a great day. Be brilliant!