From The Bottom Of My Heart ...

Hello my dear friends,

I would like to say a huge "Thank You" from the bottom of my heart to all of you, who have left me so thoughtful, kind comments and emails after I told you about my recent health scare. I will get back to each one of you hopefully soon. You are all so very sweet and have yet again touched my heart with so much love that it brought tears to my eyes.

I am feeling much better these days. I am taking it easier and I am working on being much much calmer too. My stress levels have gone done quite a bit already which is doing me the world of good.
I have been out more often walking which is such a lovely thing and I have shared some of my photographs on Instagram already.

I have also started to be creative again without feeling any pressure from myself. This is the first time in a while now and I am enjoying it so much. You never know, I might just have something new to share with all of you soon.

Unfortunately I won't be sharing any gifts this Christmas with my dear friends which makes me sad but there is next year to return to one of my favorite things to do. I am still working on getting my Christmas cards out by the end of today and some of them might arrive late this time but that doesn't mean that they are not filled with much love and the best wishes ever!

And just in case I don't get back here before December 24th ...

... I would like to wish you all a very Merry Christmas!

May 2018 bring you everything you dream and wish for my dear friends!

I hope you are well my dear friends and life is treating you kind.

Hugs.

Please, Take Care Of Yourself ...

Hello my dear friends,

today's post is to ask all of you to take care of yourselves and not just physically but also mentally. A sudden and very recent visit to the ER for me was a wake up call and a very scary one too. 

I have been stressed out for weeks and weeks now and every little thing would just make it so much worse. Worry about my health after a recent scare, my family, our cats and other things were so intense these past few weeks if not months and unfortunately I tend to take things to heart which has now really started to effect me. 

Apart from all of the above things, I have also been putting a lot of pressure onto myself lately about not being able to be creative like I used to be. The more I thought about it, the worse it got. You might think it is silly that I did so, but I love to create and when that doesn't work for a long time, it can really get to me. I was getting upset that I couldn't come up with a gift idea for my friends for Christmas because I so love to gift at Christmas. I was overall unhappy with not having any idea to share on Todolwen for the festive season and in the end it bothered me a lot. Especially because being creative is meant to be fun, it is not meant for me to put myself under pressure to "produce" something.

With everything that was already going on, I would also stress out over so many really unimportant things like bad drivers on the road, rude people and so much other stuff. I would tend to concentrate more on things that had gone wrong instead of good things that happened and would go over them in my mind again and again. It just got too much and I wasn't even aware of it. I went to have my blood pressure checked several mornings ago at a pharmacy and it was at a very dangerous level and I was told to see a doctor as soon as possible.

Next stop ... the ER.

 I was scared, actually very scared because blood pressure that high can cause a heart attack or a stroke and I didn't want either to happen to me. Thankfully it went down quite well in the hospital, still somewhat high but better.

 What now? ... Change!

I am going on medication to keep my blood pressure at a good level while I am working on myself. The first thing I am working on is my stress levels. Taking deep breaths and actually telling myself to not let what ever bother me seems to be working for me most of the time but there is more work needed. More exercise and a better diet is also something I have to work on now. I went for another check up a couple of days ago with my doctor and my blood pressure is already at lower levels which is so great to hear. I am also taking little breaks through out my day, just to sit and breath for a minute or two and when it comes to being creative, I am just going to play it as it comes as they say. So hopefully all of this will make me feel much better in the future.

And for you my dear friends, I wish you all good health and please, take good care of yourselves.

I hope you are well my dear friends and life is treating you kind.

Hugs.