Friday, March 15, 2013

Taking a turn

My apologies to all my readers that I have seemed to vanish for a while! I am back and have decided to take a turn with this blog...

My original purpose with this blog was to share crafts; now with the changes that have occurred in my life I have been challenged by the Good Lord to revamp my outlook on life and learn how to live creatively on a much lower income. 

To briefly give a background of the life changes I have experienced I will recap the past few years in short.
  • In 2010 my husband, who was a truck driver, required emergency surgery on his spinal cord. This left him with spinal cord injury and partially paralyzed. Due to this change he was no longer able to work and was awarded Social Security Disability (Cut #1 in income and a big change in our lives) For 3 months, I needed to take off work and become his caregiver because he was not able to even feed himself. Through rigorous therapy he gained back a considerable amount of movement and I returned to work.
  • During this time I was struck with great pain throughout my entire body combined with other symptoms. I blew them off to stress, long days, and difficult strain on my body due to lifting and caring for my husband. Unfortunately, rather than relief the symptoms became progressively worse until at times I could not even move. 
  • After many frustrating doctor visits and tests, I was diagnosed with not only Fibromyalgia but Autoimmune disorders (not to mention severe hypertension and depression)!
  • I continued to push myself to work until the symptoms and the treatments (weekly oral chemotherapy and now chemotherapy infusions) forced me to resign from my stressful position at work. (Cut #2 in income and another big change in our lives)
  • This year I was determined eligible to receive Social Security Disability as well.
Those are our changes and challenges in lifestyle in a nutshell! This leads me to the change in this blog...

I will still continue to share crafting ideas, projects, and freebies; but I will now also share ways to craft on a budget, DIY home projects, and general ideas to live successfully on a budget in all aspects of our lives! It's not always EASY but it can be done and I am determined to make our lives purposeful, fun, and economical!

I apologize for the blah, blah, blah, that you may not be interested in but I felt that some explanation of my disappearance and change in blog material was warranted. Future posts will not be so long and tedious and I hope that you continue to follow along my journey and learn along with me how to cut expenses and still live a life that you enjoy along with any challenge you may encounter!

We did not expect these changes or income loss and similar challenges may cross YOUR LIFE at any time too!

I never considered myself an extravagant spender but I was not exactly very frugal either...so join me in learning lessons in frugality and life challenges! 

I would love to hear of your life challenges and how you have adjusted; your comments are all uplifting and always gratefully accepted...

Until next time...