Going to be a slow day

Has to be a slow one today.

Woke up and everything was fine. Had a few minutes before needed to hit the ground running, so I was down checking out blogs when very suddenly I was ill - in massive pain. Took about 20 minutes to realize exactly what was going on - Burst Ovarian Cyst. It happens.

It happens to me once every couple of years or so. I get the cysts two or three times a year, and usually they just cause a nagging discomfort that I can work through, but makes me tired and after a week or so the cyst resolves itself.

But when the darn things burst, that is a whole different level of pain. When I was younger I would rush to the hospital because the pain is so bad and so consuming. But I've learned: breath! Lay down with lots of covers (the pain is so bad I get the chills and sweats all at once). And wait. Oh yeah! And take a very large dose of ibuprofen.

It takes about an hour before I can be up and around functioning, and about 24 hours before I'm back to normal. I'm almost three hours out now, and as long as I move pretty slowly I'm doing okay. Hoping that by 2 p.m. I'll be ready for some grocery shopping and taking J to his first flag football practice (and taking some photos there). I also have plans to do a photo session with J and me (Andy behind the camera snapping away) if I am feeling up to it. If I stay on the massive ibuprofen I should be okay for that.

So, to entertain myself, as much as you, I'm posting a few simple little projects I did on Saturday evening.

First is a page I'm sending off to Judi for and album a bunch of scrapbookers are contributing to for Aleida's family - mostly for her two children. Here is my contribution:

The journaling says: Your mom was a beautiful woman who knew how to encourage others. She complimented freely and showed sincere interest in our work. That made us all feel so good.

Then I worked on an art journal that is making its way among women I met at Donna Downey's Inspired Artists workshop last spring. Totally cool group of women affectionately referring to ourselves as the Garage Band Art Girls - based on the dark and messy projects we made in one particular class. Anyway, these contributions are the opposite of dark. I was in a bit of a minimalist mood on Saturday night. This is what I ended up with:

The last one defines the word "encourage" which is inspired by my thoughts being so very much on Aleida and her family. But, isn't that what art is for? To allow us to work these things out a bit?

Hoping to do some more projects this week. We'll see how things work out.