Saturday, November 26, 2011

Crafting: Part Two

I have been really enjoying crafting! I've done a little here and there and have become completely obsessed with Michael's and Hobby Lobby.

I have some pictures of what I've done. The first one, is a mirror re-do which I owe total credit to my friend Katie for showing me what she did with hers. This mirror was only 10 dollars!! And Katie gave me most of the materials. I'm still debating on wear to hang it in
my apartment. Please comment on what you think! Option one: over my bed to balance out the fact that I have no headboard. Option two: keep it catty-cornered in my dining area behind my table. The picture below is before and after. This was so fun. There were 3 of us and we got 3 huge heavy mirrors in Katie's car along with my closet door after some laughing and stretching haha....


The second picture is of a lamp shade. I bought this furniture set and of course the free lamps are plain and it was bothering me. My couches are a deep purple and I found this awesome ribbon on clearance at Hobby Lobby so I added it to the top. Feeling much better about those lamps. I was ready to buy new ones!


I have needed a hair bow and bobby pin holder in my bathroom but have been avoiding using my previous one because I got a new shower curtain. So...I painted and used some ribbon to make it match my bathroom!

My up and coming crafts are secret because they are for my friends and family for Christmas! I'm excited to start on them! And of course I need to start on my closet door.

Hope everyone had a fabulous Thanksgiving!!!!! I have a LOT to be thankful for this year.

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Crafting: My outlet

So, I've needed an "outlet" to fuel my relief of stress towards once I get home at night and over the weekends. Don't get me wrong, I still have to take a LOT of work home with me, but if I can just work on one of my crafts for an hour or so it really does relieve a lot of my stress and it gets my mind off of work.

My friend Katie has inspired me the most! This past weekend we started some crafts which I will later reveal, but the best part (besides catching up and spending time with her and Bronwyn) was finding that crafting is something I really like to do. I've been thinking "why haven't I done this before????". I'm very excited about the craft ideas I have ahead.

Pintrest has also really helped with ideas. If you don't know about it, you need to. It's amazinggggggg. It fuels my "creative juices" and my craft thoughts start to flow. I'm so excited for the weekend. I'm having a crafting night Friday with a girlfriend. It's going to be great.

I need to turn half of my home office into a crafting room, but I'm not sure how I want to go about it. I'm looking at some different ideas. Pictures once I'm done! I'm also thinking about taking some crafting classes at Michael's (whenever I actually get time).

I will reveal more of my crafts later, but for now you can see the Christmas wreath I've made! Yes, I know it's early...but us music teachers tend to do that. I mean, all I have been hearing is Christmas music so I skipped right over the thanksgiving wreath. That doesn't mean I'm not thankful! I am very thankful that God has shown me an outlet and hobby that I can do on the side to relieve some of the pressure and stress at work. I have been praying about this for a long time. He always comes through no matter what you are facing. Even if it is as simple as something like crafting!


Thursday, November 10, 2011

Healing

This has been the scariest 7 months of my life, but the better I feel the more I am thankful that they happened. For those of you that don't know the journey I've been on these last 7 months, let me give you the details.

Last February (while student teaching) I was diagnosed with Hydrocephalus. Which sounds really scary and actually is as scary as it sounds. Before I tell you exactly what that is, I want to share with you how it happened. The day before I was diagnosed my best friend Chase took me to doctors care because I earlier that day I had to leave from student teaching because of head pain and seeing floating spots. They sent me home with "tension headaches" and told me to take Advil. The next day my mentor and dear friend Ken Turner sent me home because I looked so bad when I showed up for school. Later a CAT scan was done and the radiologist told me to not leave. I was alone because I told everyone (including myself) that everything would turn out normal. I got a very nauseating and scared feeling once the radiologist told me to stay. I knew something was wrong. For the record, it's horrible how they break bad news to you. So, I went back upstairs to my doctors office (everything was in the same building) and they took me in this small consultation room. The only thing in the room were a table, two chairs, and about one million boxes of tissue. By this point, I was thinking I had a brain tumor. The doctor came in and said we've discovered that you have condition called Hydrocephalus and that means that you have too much fluid around my brain. This only commonly seen in babies. (I remember they kept telling me that and it was upsetting me! I wanted to scream "But I'm not a baby!!!" Her last words to me were, "You're going to need brain surgery. This is a life threatening condition."

The next week I was hospitalized in Lexington for a week. I was told to hold off and let's wait on surgery and see if steroids work. (All while I continued on with student teaching.) Well, little did we know that neurosurgeon that I will not name planned on keeping me on steroids for over two months. I gained almost 45 pounds, which is slowing coming off! (yay!) So, after those two months my family and I felt hopeless and knew we needed to get a second opinion. That's when we finally got to MUSC which I can truly say is an AMAZING hospital. The new neurosurgeon saw me on a Wednesday in April and I had the first brain surgery the next day. MUSC doesn't fool around.

So, the next chapter of my life continued and I was feeling great. I graduated from USC and had job interviews all summer. I landed a job in Aiken County and was so excited to begin my life-long dream of being a band director.

August came and school and band camp were great. Amazing students and I was just feeling really good until the headaches came back. I kept ignoring them with the positive thinking that maybe they were just stress headaches this time....nope...the hydrocephalus had come back. So, on September 7th of my very first teaching job I had invasive brain surgery to put in a shunt device that will drain the excess fluid for the rest of my life. I actually (believe or not) have a computer chip in my brain that controls how much fluid is drained. That was about the only "cool" thing I could find about having to have brain surgery twice. I went back to teaching 2 weeks after my surgery, and felt tired but was doing ok until 2 weeks ago when I was hospitalized again for high blood pressure, exhaustion, and tachycardia.

But through all this, it has really put life in perspective and how important it is to cherish every moment you're given because it is a TRUE blessing from God. I know my kiddos are waiting on me, I have wonderful family and friends, and I cant wait to get back to teaching. I love what I do and feel blessed to be alive! Thank you again to everyone who has been there for me whether it be in person, by phone, or even texting. It means SO much. I love you all!

My dear friend Nave shared this picture with me and it is so true, but easy to forget!