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Auld Lang Syne My Friends

Can this year have gone by any faster?  When time is dragging by slowly, I wish it to speed up- and now the opposite.  Goodbye 2012 and Welcome the fresh New Year 2013!

My bloggy friends, 
"Thank you for bringing laughter, wisdom, and heartfelt tears."  
Let's renew and continue to meet again in the New Year... 
Wishing a Happy, Healthy, New Year 2013 to you all.

Daniel Cartier's, "Auld Lang Syne."

Dan Fogelberg's, "Same Old Lang Syne."

My Post Op Technicolor World

My technicolor world has returned.  This world is a beautiful place.  

♥ Thank you for the support, healing thoughts, and prayers. 
You touched my heart and helped me so very much! 


There were a few hiccups pre, during, and after surgery.  but the vision is now like night and day.  It was triple image, now it's down to double vision, and I hope it will soon be good old normal single vision.  

I return for another post op visit later this week, and am hoping that my eye will heal nicely.  The dr was pleased the day after surgery, but I still couldn't see very much then, so as time passes, there should be more improvement.  If the eye improves I won't need the second surgery, at least not right now.

Uveitis is a wild one, sneaks in, wreaks havoc, is not law abiding, and doesn't care who it hurts.   There is a very good website about uveitis, it was started by parents whose daughter has the disease.  Olivia's Vision  is a UK based group and it has a lot of helpful info.

I haven't found an active group for uveitis in the US, it's probably out there, I just haven't come across it while searching the web.    Driving back to the hospital on the day after surgery, I thought  it would be great to start up such a group for the US.  Need to come up with a good slogan/name.  Suggestions?  
Soon I will be visiting your blogs and replying to comments and emails. In the meantime I hope you all have a fabulous holiday this week.  We have snow on the ground, it's mighty cold, in the teens, with more snow on the way.    Enjoy this song, it tells you how I'm feeling right now...






Dear Santa

Dear Santa,

I don't want much for Christmas, I only want the person reading this to be happy.

Friends are the fruitcake of life; some nutty, some sweet, some tough as nails, some dry, some heavy, and there are a few flakey ones,  some are soppy with alcohol, some are like boomerangs, and some are unexpected surprises - but mix them together and they are my friends. 


MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE !!!

My eye surgery is today, I hope to be able to make a little post-op blog post as soon as I can.  
Thank You for all the good thoughts, prayers, positive energies, white lights, happy vibes, and warm healing messages.  They have meant so very much to me.  
Take good care, God Bless, and see you soon.  

Gloria

Happy Christmas, Mr. Dickens

Mr. Dickens delivered the sentiment and priorities, but I have only this collage.  
Not a goose or a turkey in sight, yet lots of happy wishes from me to you.  
♥ Keep Christmas in your heart all the year round.     



The chocolate dipped pretzels are in the "Recipes" link, along with Chocolate Jumble, Chocolate Peppermint Bark, and a few more recipes such as rolls, stews and cakes.   The other images are from around my home and yard in years past.  My wreath on the door is in this post and in this post. 

Would you please read this post if you haven't already, and send a positive thought my way?  I want you to have the best eyesight possible, so there is also a little helpful info in there to pass along to you.


Finally, allow me to interrupt the Christmas Greeting to preach a tiny bit, with good intention,

  • Make a wonderful holiday with those you love and care about.
  • Put a gentle heart at ease, including the awkward, the lost, and frightened furry ones.  
  • Offer peace and make forgiveness a priority, it enriches your life and takes away stress.  
  • In the midst of the loud and busy preparations, consider your blessings a gift, perhaps to share.  
  • Give a thought to the goals you are hoping to achieve and how you might extend a hand to help someone else achieve their dreams.
  • You can love on a budget.  Christmas gift debt is a New Year burden.   
  • Some people aren't celebrating with joy, they are grieving losses of all kinds- jobs, relationships, health, ... and the Christmas season may be extra difficult for them.
  • With heavy hearts in Newtown, CT, we feel their shock and pain and mourn with and for them. 
  • Our troops are celebrating far from home, we honor their commitment, want their safe return.
  • Survivors of Superstorm Sandy are a long way from having their homes, businesses, schools, etc. back to normal and they need everything we all probably take for granted in our normal routines.      

There is more to add, but it would go on too long, so I step down from the soapbox to say to you,     

Now, Go and Make Your
Best Christmas Ever!!! 
Thanks Very Much 



Was it a dark and stormy night?

Oh, no, it was not a dark and stormy night.  It was a perpetual fog that descended while I slept.  Physically, the fog hasn't budged for several days.

8am, 10am, Noon, 2pm, the sky and the long skirt that hangs down are a deliberate blend of gray and white.  You can barely see what is 20 feet in front of you.  It's like trying to push aside layers of gauze that tangle around your fingers and wrists, getting heavier with each twist and turn.


The sun is shrouded and useless to burn through the cloying cover.  There are no serenades by the birds these mornings.  Squirrels are scarce; they don't zig zag through the yard or dodge traffic to cross the street.  It looks like October and not the middle of December.


If you put your hand out there's a nearly transparent double that follows you.  Wherever you reach, the twin is a hair's breath away.  Try wiping it off, go ahead, it won't stay gone.  Before you finish the gesture, the twin has laid down upon the surface once again.  Like a hamster in its wheel, you wipe, again and again, yet the foggy molecules are fingerprints that you cannot erase.





I think it's time for a good mystery movie and a bowl of popcorn or settling in a chair with a captivating book, making sure to leave the lights on and the doors double locked.



If this was less eerie it would almost feel like being a character in one of Corbin Bernsen's collection of snowglobes.  The man is a snowglobe fan(atic).  Do you have collections? Maybe a hoard of buttons or gemstones, beads, peace signs, ...?


I do like snowglobes and find it hard to resist (usually I don't resist) picking them up and giving them a swirl or a shake.  Here we are trapped inside, the fog lingers, the air is heavy and wet and we can't break free. I just don't want to live inside one.  

Good news, a couple of days after I wrote this, we have been fog-less, fog-free, no longer fog bound!


Both images are edited and from the free image site, Morgue File. 









Do You See What I See?

I've tried to edit an image of one of my favorite bowls to give you an idea of what I currently see.  I didn't do a very good job with the limitations of my eyes and the software.  No photoshop, at least not right now.

This explains part of the reason why I've been taking longer breaks from the blog.  From time to time the eyes get bad.  Back in 2010 I had eye surgery in my right eye and knock wood, my vision has been good in that eye.

However, the disease jumped from my right eye to my left, a week after surgery, the stinker, and now for the past two plus years I have it in my left eye and mildly in my right eye.  The drs call it a disease, and for over ten years I would just call it my condition.  I thought if I diminished it's stature, it would not be so bad to me.  Didn't work.

For me there is no known cause, I've had every possible test to determine the cause and to eliminate it from my body.  No go.  Some people get it for a brief period, weeks or months, and others, such as me, can have it for many years.  I first got it in 2002, so I am in my eleventh year, and never thought it would take over as it has.

The eye disease is called, "Uveitis."  You can search online and find lots of info.  There are many kinds of uveitis.  There are very few doctors trained or specialized in the disease.  I've been seen by some who never saw it first hand.  What a treat it feels to be an oddity and asked if others can come and look, too.  If I had stayed in NJ, I would have been a patient at Wills Eye in Philly.  They are one of the top eye hospitals in the country.

Uveitis can be mild or it can blind you, which I've come this .. close to several times.  The treatment causes cataracts and glaucoma.  You can have surgery for those, but glaucoma can blind you.  Uveitis is sometimes painful, but I'm tough, usually.  It often feels like someone has punched you in the face- hard and often.  Sometimes it doesn't hurt like that, but lamp light, computer light, sun light, etc. can hurt.

I am at the end of the list of eyedrops and oral meds for the glaucoma part.  I've had an implant in my right eye.  The debris and scarring inside the eyes can happen quickly.  I can go to the dr one day, have a "flare" a day or so later and be scarred.  The scarring does not go away with treatment.  I've lost bits of my iris and both pupils.

Why am I finally revealing this?  I'm weary of trying to avoid talking about it.  I rarely talk about issues with health  but I wanted to ask you guys, you know, my blog friends to keep some positive thoughts for me.  I am scheduled for surgery on my left eye on Dec. 20, next Thursday.    Plus, if anyone can be helped by me talking about it, all the better.

Slowly I slacked off on doing lots of projects, chores, errands, etc.  My get up and go just left on its own.  I hope the surgery will give me back some clarity in both eye and overall wellness.  I'm not proud to say that my energy and zest are waning due to my eyes and other things.  But, I'm not giving up.

I have lots of stuff on my desk, images on the camera card, and more to do.  Hope to be up and at 'em very soon.  I have written a couple of posts and will schedule them, but what I really want to do is some of the art and jewelry projects banging around in my brain.

If you got this far, Thanks Very Much for reading.  I hope you will say a prayer or keep a good thought for me for Dec. 20 and for healing well.  I really appreciate it.       Surgery can only take place when the eye is "quiet" so I am keeping my fingers crossed that there won't be a flare between now and the 20th.

If I don't reply to emails, this is why.  I've had to limit my computer time and everything takes much longer than it did before the uveitis got bad.  

If anyone has any kind of eye inflammation, pain, redness, sensitivity to light, or something doesn't feel just right- get to an eye dr pronto, your eyes are precious, take good care of them.


Guest Post: Antiquity Travelers


Antiquity TravelersHello and Welcome to Cynthia, the first Guest Poster here on New End Studio.  I'm happy to share her art infused post with you.   

Visit Cynthia's blog to see more beautiful jewelry inspired by her love of gemstones, history, and travel and to read the colorful, funny, and realistic stories.   Thanks, Cynthia! 





Vincent Van Gogh is an artist who had periods of visionary creativity juxtaposed with times of deep despair. Such a complex story, but then that is what this series is about. Taking certain aspects of his life and using that as creative juices.


You might recall that I mentioned having a bowl of earring 'singles.' I have this bad habit of creating only one earring because I love the creative process, and then I grow tired of duplicating my efforts. As inspiration, I've chosen Van Gogh and his rich use of color to motivate me.

Van Gogh moved to Arles, France in 1888 where he was enchanted by the local landscape and light. His works from this period are deeply influence by intensity of color and light on his subject. Yellow is a prominent color in his paintings of the wheat field series and sunflowers.  He also painted the nearby old mill and haystacks. A letter home from Vincent to his brother Theo noted of painting bunches of sunflowers on multiple panels "the whole thing will be a symphony in blue and yellow." He worked on it from early sunrise to afternoon when he lost the light on the flowers. You can see the richness of color throughout his many paintings of flowers and landscape. 

I picked up my unfinished pair of lemon quartz dangle earrings. I love this color, but wanted to add a rich color with them as the quartz can be a little timid. I don't normally mix and match colors like this, but I was going with it, from Vincent's influence. The deep richness of the center of the sunflowers play off the yellow. That is influence for this pair that you'll find finally posted to my Etsy site!