Hi everyone! Sorry we’ve been away for a bit, but so much is going on around us!
Last week, starting on November 14th, our region – the Fraser Valley, British Columbia – has endured the worst flooding since the 1940s or possibly ever. We are fine, our house is fine, most of our community is fine, but there’s more rain coming, and we’re all kinda still on alert for more to happen. All the roads in and out of town were or are still flooded, and there’s only one route that connects us to the next town, Abbotsford.
For a few days there, we were an inland island with the grocery shelves bare and gas pumps empty as no supplies could reach us. Fortunately, they’ve opened one road for essential supplies and workers as they work on opening our main highway, but it could be a week or two more until that happens.
That photo above is of the main highway, the Trans Canada highway that stretches from the west coast to the east coat, submerged from November 16, 2021, last week. It’s better now, but still wet. (Not my photo, screen capped from social media.)
The spasms and tightness in my hands and arms have become worse – I can’t hold a pen, fork, or chopsticks, and using a mouse or trackpad or scrolling is so painful – but slightly better in other ways. I can type for short periods of time and I’m learning how to use dictation for things like outlining posts, making lists, or responding to short messages.
I don’t have the stamina to offer much more at the moment, so I’m afraid your emails and comments will have to remain unanswered at this time.
I’ve worked with my kinesiologist again, and I’ve started going to the YMCA again for aquafit and riding the bike, so I’m feeling better, but I’m still waiting to see yet another specialist so we can figure out why this is happening in the first place. I’m taking all my medications, doing my exercises, taking supplements, getting all the sleep and rest I need, seeing my massage therapist and chiropractor, and doing all the things my medical team has suggested.
This has happened before – my left arm and hand were bad in autumn 2017, but they eventually became better – but never with my right arm, which is why this is so disabling.
On top of all of this, the person who was adding links and cleaning up the posts and e-books is no longer working with us, which is really unfortunate as doing those things and adding photos and screenshots require a lot of scrolling, mousing, and track padding. The backlog of posts is growing, but we’re working on doing the best we can to finalize them so they’re sharable here on the blog.
This does mean that there won’t be tons of links in every post to make it easier to find things, but I will do my best to direct you for searches and such. (Don’t forget about the ingredients tab in the menu where you can find all kinds of things!) I have started creating more glossary items, which creates automatic links, but if I have the ability to do those, I have the ability to write more creative things, like blog posts or e-books, so those come first.
It’s not all doom and gloom, though. My former (amazing) boss John used to remind me never to waste a good crisis, so I’m looking at all of this as a valuable learning opportunity to evaluate what’s working, what isn’t, and what we’d like to see happen in the future for both our lives and this site. I’m learning new ways of using technology, and I’m sure there’ll be loads of good things that’ll make us stronger and happier and will make the blog and the e-books even better. I’m sure we’ll find a new member or two for the SwiftCraftyMonkey team who’ll bring skills we didn’t expect.
And I’m completely sure we’ll keep on going like we have since February 2009 – writing posts, creating formulas, experimenting in the workshop, and sharing all the cool stuff I continue to learn about cosmetic chemistry!
On that note, this month’s e-book is coming, most likely on Monday, November 29th, so keep a look out for that.
Thank you all so much for your kindness and your support, for checking up on me, and letting me know you’re thinking about us. We really appreciate it, and your patience makes it easier to take the time to heal instead of continuing to push myself far too hard into more pain and misery. ❤️🤘