The ICI Experience:

  HAWMC Day #30 : Word Cloud. Make a word cloud or tree with a list of words that come to mind when you think about your blog, health, or interests. Use a thesaurus to make the branches of your “tree” extend further. http://www.wordle.net/ There WILL be an explanation for my sudden disappearance midway through the month from this challenge.  It's a good one and it came on me suddenly.  Not one single thing, but a conglomeration of them.  Next post, I promise. I had hoped to do a few posts in the meantime, but I guess this is it for this month.   I cut and pasted a bunch of text and the titles from the five all-time most popular posts from my blog (since 2009 anyway, when Blogger made a big change to the way stats are kept) and this is what I came up with. Click on the picture to see it big.  These are the five posts, in order of popularity as of right now: The Twilight Saga books, and the first movie: Not just for teen gir...

Write a list of the 10 things you need (or love)most.  Here they are off the top of my head and in no particular order: My cup of tea in the morning .  Organic Earl Gray, green and chai are my favorites.  With a teaspoon of local, organic honey and some unadulterated cream from a real farm.  My mom.  Without her I don't know where (or if) I would be. My sister.  Because she really seems to get how I feel about living with ICIs, and how much I would like to be living and working without them. Our dog Miley. Our cat Buttons. My adjustable bed. U-shaped neck pillows. The warm water therapy pool. Water dancing. Digital photography. Photo courtesy of the Shabby Shoppe Blog.  And it comes with a couple of lovely recipes for Chai tea.

So we challenge you, start with this phrase: “Today I looked in the mirror and…” (Or another sentence you come across.) But sure to – Keep writing. Don’t stop for 15 minutes. Don’t edit. Post. Go! OK.  Here goes.  12:07 pm Today I looked in the mirror and thought I knew HAWMC was going to be difficult this week because I have something extra and major to do every day this week.  So here it is Thursday and I have nothing prepared for today.  At all.  Maybe I should just try to get to Day 15 and stop there.  I have so many other things going on.  Doctors appointments, lab work appointments, trying to get the reason for these daily headaches diagnosed, dental appointments, my teeth are falling apart again - four crowns have to be re-done but I just finished #3 yesterday.  I also have a major special project I'm working on, I guess you could say consulting on, for a local non-profit.  But I made the commitment to try to post every day this...

Imagine your health focus or blog is getting its own theme song. What would the lyrics be? What type of music would it be played to?  My theme song would be Some Days You Gotta Dance by the Dixie Chicks.  Go ahead, crank it up and move if you want to... I've learned to dance in mind when I can't do it in reality.

Try writing script-style (or with dialogue) today to recap an awesome conversation you had this week. I've had a blessedly quiet week.  I haven't had many conversations and at first I didn't think a single one could be considered  "awesome."  Then I checked my trusty thesaurus.com and saw that one conversation could indeed be awesome in the sense of the red synonyms to "awesome," below:    AWESOME *informal/non-formal usage Part of Speech: adjective Definition: amazing Synonyms: alarming , astonishing , awe-inspiring , awful , beautiful , breathtaking , daunting, dreadful , exalted , fearful , fearsome, formidable , frantic , frightening , grand , hairy *, horrible , horrifying, imposing , impressive , intimidating , magnificent , majestic , mean , mind-blowing * , moving , nervous , overwhelming , real gone, shocking , something else, striking , stunning , stupefying, terrible , terrifying , wonderful , wondro...

Write a haiku about your health focus. 5 syllables/7 syllables/5 syllables. Write as many as you like. Headache, headache, why?  Torment, torture, wish to die. Headache, HEADACHE, WHY? From the Migraine Art Competitions  

Go to flickr.com/explore and write a post inspired by the image. Can you link it to your health focus? Don’t forget to post the image! Photo courtesy of valstar2011 Every rose has its thorn Just like every night has its dawn Just like every cowboy sings his sad, sad song Every rose has its thorn Yeah it does Ekphrasis or ecphrasis is the graphic, often dramatic, description of a visual work of art. In ancient times it referred to a description of any thing, person, or experience. The word comes from the Greek ek and phrasis , 'out' and 'speak' respectively, verb ekphrazein , to proclaim or call an inanimate object by name.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ekphrasis So I went to the flickr site mentioned in the writing prompt above, and decided to use the date 5/12/11 (Fibromyalgia Awareness Day) to use the Explore Interesting Stuff feature to check out interesting content that was posted to Flickr on that day.  This photo of the rose with barb...

If you had a superpower – what would it be? How would you use it? I kind of feel like I've been waiting for this prompt for years.  Because I've been wishing for this superpower for years.  No, I don't want to be invisible.  Rachel Ray frequently asks the guests on her show this question, and she says invisibility is a popular answer.  Seems like that's just a way of saying you want to spy on people... For my superpower I would like to be able to transfer how I feel to another deserving person.  A lot of people say they wouldn't wish their pain or other symptoms on their worst enemy.  They're way better people than me.  I wouldn't transfer my health issues to just anyone, just to those who think people with ICI are lazy or a wuss because of how they deal with their symptoms.   My superpower wish probably has a lot to do with the important men in my life (husband, father) dismissing my symptoms as my own weakness.  These ar...

Find a quote that inspires you (either positively or negatively) and free write about it for 15 minutes.  I'm using two quotes.  And some links and pictures to go with my free writing. "Through movement we find health." http://www.nianow.com/  The Nia Technique "Many of my favorite shamans are rock stars. They probably don't even know they're shamans, but they know how to get to ecstasy and back, and how to take others with them. They may not have a license, but they know how to drive." — From "Maps to Ecstasy," by Gabrielle Roth, and as listed in the liner notes of the Carlos Santana album Supernatural http://www.gabrielleroth.com/ Sweat Your Prayers .  Movement as spiritual practice.  Music is my motivation.  I want to dance with the abandon of a child.   Water dancing works too, and it doesn't hurt.  I hope and pray to get back to dancing on my bare feet on a good wood floor.  There are no Nia classes ...

Ready, set, they're giving us plenty of time to go - to prepare mentally and get our ducks in a row in every other way before the  Health Activist Writer's Month Challenge in April.  I signed up already and am going to give it the good ol' Girl Scout try to post for 30 days in a row.  I've never done it before so this will be a first for me.  It's not taking place during the fall holidays - although Easter IS in April, it's nothing like that time before Christmas with all there is to do for those of us who celebrate that holiday! The Health Activist Writer's Month Challenge is hosted by WEGO Health.  They will send out a prompt for each day, or you can write about whatever you like.   I hope you'll join me if you feel up to it, in writing every day about health. It's going to be a lot of fun - I checked out their prompts in November and they were definitely something I could work with.  I'd love to see what you have to say about each of the...