myLot and Networking

I’ve been pretty busy today- looking for ways to make money. I’m pretty sure I signed up for about a hundred different programs and sites. Ok, well, maybe not that many.

One that I found that I think I might really like is myLot. I forgot how I found it, but as soon as I remember I’ll post the link to that site too. So, what is myLot?

I’m not quite sure. It’s a discussion site for blogs and articles and news and just whatever. It’s set up like a CMS, so you have your own profile page and blog page. Every time you respond with something substantial (on point and contributing to the discussion) you earn money. I have no idea how much money. I’ve found some really interesting discussions, so it’s not hard to get involved. I’ve seen some discussions that aren’t really substantial too. “What color is your hair?” HUH? Ok, I’m sure that’s not posted so someone can earn points or whatever. Other than that there are some really interesting things going on.

I especially like it because I don’t get out much. That means I don’t get much adult conversation. This gives me a chance to discuss without getting flamed. So many message boards, forums, blogs or whatever now are breeding grounds for flamers. And if you voice an opposing opinion? Watch out! It gets ugly then. I really don’t need that kind of stress. And I’m glad for the moderation. I’ll be spending a good deal of time there, I can tell.

You can find me here. If you’re there, please add me to your friend’s list. If you sign up through here, please let me know so I can add you.

On another note, I’ve found some really good blogs through Blogcatalog. I really like that service for socializing and networking. Later this evening or tomorrow I plan on adding some of those blogs to my links list. Also, if you comment here with something to add to the conversation, I’ll follow your link back to your blog and probably add it to my list. Soon I’ll be adding dofollow tags, but I’m waiting to build up my traffic a little more first.

Edited to add:

I found the site that sent me to myLot. It was The Domestic Diva! Thanks so much, Sela!

Life in a Fog

One of the many symptoms of my mystery illness is the damned “brain fog”. It’s incredibly frustrating and, I think, the worse part of being sick. It’s worse than the pain, the stiffness, the damned rashes. All of it combined doesn’t hold a candle to the fog.

What is “brain fog”?

The term “brain fog” is often used by those suffering from chronic illness to define a cognitive dysfunction. Wikipedia specifically defines it:

Brain fog is a term for the “woolly” sensation of a physical obstruction to clear thinking in the brain, often extended to apply in general to neurocognitive symptoms experienced by many people who suffer from neuroimmune diseases such as ME/CFS, fibromyalgia, Lyme disease and multiple sclerosis, amongst others.

It can be symptom manifest of psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia or bipolar disorder.

The term brain fog is also used often used to describe the relevant symptom or symptoms of inattentive ADHD or resulting from chemotherapy.[1].

Brain fog involves persistent or episodic cognitive dysfunction, and may be associated with forgetfulness, confusion, slowed thinking, distractability, depersonalization, the inability to remember the correct words when speaking or writing (dysphasia or aphasia).

Brain fog is so named because the sufferer can feel like a cloud literally surrounds him or her that reduces the speed at which things can be recognized or clearly seen. Brain may promote feelings of detachment (depersonalization), discouragement and depression.

Have you ever been so tired that you couldn’t think straight? Or had to wake up suddenly and couldn’t immediately get your bearings? That’s similar to what it’s like having a brain fog. For me there doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason for the occurrence. Every time it happens it’s like my left brain and right brain are refusing to communicate and I’m stuck in the middle.

Read the rest here.

James Marsters Back in Action

Are there any Buffy the Vampire Slayer fans left? That used to be my favorite show. I’m not ashamed of it either. And one of my favorite characters (after Willow, Xander and Giles) was Spike. I was heartbroken when the show suddenly went off the air.

Two seasons ago I latched on to “How I Met Your Mother” because of Allison Hannigan. I would say I just started watching, but really, that show is addictive. Unfortunately I won’t be able to watch until January. But I digress. I think there was a show starring Nicholas Brendan as a chef, but it had an extremely short life. I don’t even think I saw an episode of that.

So, I’m happy to see James Marsters back on television. Imagine my surprise tonight when I was watching “Without a Trace” and I realized that geeky little brown-haired guy was him. I have to say that I prefer him with blond hair and that sexy British accent, but this character has the potential to grow on me. I was half expecting him to have that same accent for this role and was mildly disappointed at his lack thereof. Still, I’m happy to see him back on screen. I’d love to see him as a lovable villain again.

By the way, I’m aware that Mr. Marsters had a recurring role on “Smallville” for a while, but I didn’t see it.

"Heroes"- Season Two

NBC’s hit, “Heroes”, premiered it’s second season Monday night. And it delivered exactly as promised. There was a twist at the end that I actually saw coming because of the previews from the last week’s recap of season One’s finale. True Heroes fans will know what I’m talking about.

I’m disappointed in their Boogie man, though. His entrance was a little too much like Sylar’s last season. I wish they wouldn’t have shown him (to be fair, her) in the hoody. I think it would have been more interesting to just seen Hiro’s father fall or maybe just the back of a dark figure take him over the side. I also didn’t like the symbol on the picture. I recognized that it was similar to Kensei’s crest, but it was a little cheezy on the pictures.

This season was hyped to be a completely new start for our heroes, with no residual left from last season. During the summer there was a marathon wherein the NBC announcer man kept assuring new viewers: “If you missed the first season of Heroes, don’t worry. Season two is a whole new beginning.” It took me a little while to get used to that idea (I readily admit to being a soap opera fan). Then the finale picked up where the old left off, well, I was a little disappointed. They did do a good job of wrapping some things up, though. I liked that. Also, I was intrigued by Maya and her brother. I’m sure someone is going to try to recruit poor Maya.

What is going on with Hiro in medieval Japan? It’s almost like it’s a whole other show, trapped inside a show. I love Hiro and Ando and want for them to be doing there thing together. I think, though, finding out his hero isn’t really a hero is going to toughen Hiro up. Make him stronger. Maybe he’ll even go back and save his father. I can’t imagine Hiro just letting him go over the edge like that. That’s one of my predictions for this season.

How many people think Mohinder is going to go bad? I think he’s going to pick up where Claire’s father left off, trying to control the heroes. I don’t think I like the idea of Mohinder trying to control them, especially since his father lost his life trying to help them. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that he doesn’t go over to the “dark” side and leaves our heroes alone. Yeah, right. Where would the drama be then?

Of course, I can’t wait until next week. I’ll have to catch it on NBC.com, though. I have class until 10 Mondays. Argh! I missed this week because I wasn’t feeling well enough to go in. It was nice lying on the couch watching season premiers (”Journeyman” looks promising, but I’m not going to get attached yet). Next week I’ll have to catch it Tuesday morning. Hopefully I can avoid the spoilers until then.

Researching the Cause of My Chronic Pain

After publishing “A Personal Experience with Chronic Pain” I received many helpful tips in the comment area on how to deal with my pain. So, I decided to start a log and do some personal experiments to see if any kinds of foods triggered my episodes, or flares. I took my lead from the comments area of my article and went from there. I’m hoping to establish causation for my episodes and eventually take that back to my doctor, who seems to have given up on me or just doesn’t care. With what I’m learning about myself and my condition I hope to get a diagnosis and some treatment.

I started with tomatoes. Someone suggested that too many tomatoes in my diet can contribute to my episodes and I thought that to be plausible. I love tomatoes, tomato sauce, pizza sauce, and salsa. I have been heard to say tomatoes are fruits of the gods. So, I went out into my garden and picked the biggest, reddest one I could find. Thankfully it didn’t seem to effect my pain or energy levels. That was definitely good news.

So then I tried processed (white) sugar. I ate some jam on wheat bread and experienced a small episode. I realized that one of the foods on my list was bleached flour and thought maybe there was some of that in my bread. So, I tried a chocolate bar. Nothing. Whew. Then, to be certain, I drank a regular Pepsi, which used to be my favorite soda. I immediately felt fatigued and my skin started burning. That’s how an episode starts for me. Before long I was lying down, trying to recuperate. It wasn’t a horrible episode, but it was enough. No more processed sugar for me.

My final test, for now, was with bleached (white) flour. From my experience with the sugar, I decided to go straight to the source. I didn’t have any white bread in the house and flour is bleh. So, I opened a box of Ritz crackers, my absolute favorite, and took out a sleeve. I ate the entire thing. It was wonderful, until my body started to digest all that flour. I was immediately thrown into one of the worst episodes I’d ever experienced. My body bypassed all of the usual warning signs. I was engulfed in pain, from head to toe, and my body was too tired to even sit up. I had to lie down. It was horrible. I felt like I was fighting for my life. My three year-old was upset because I couldn’t even bear for her to touch me. I went in and out of sleep. I don’t remember how long that episode lasted, but it was a while. Thinking back, I wish someone else had been here with me so that they could take me to the emergency room. I’m sure they would have found out what’s wrong with me then. They would have seen how horrible my condition can be. Alas, I suffered alone. And I’m not brave enough to repeat that phase of my experiment even with someone here to help me.

So, some of the things that throw me into episodes are:

• The sun
• White Flour
• Stress
• Lack of sleep

Hopefully when I find a new doctor and take this to him or her I’ll finally get some answers.

I hope that by conducting these completely non-scientific experiments on myself, I’ve helped someone else find their own diagnosis. Living with chronic illness is hard, but not knowing what the illness is is excruciating.

Some Basics

I’ve noticed around that some people don’t know how to use html in Blogger comments. Hopefully this tutorial will help with that.

Basic HTML

The code in brackets must surround the word or words that you want to format. So pay particular attention to the code in brackets. Make sure that all of your code has a closing bracket which is marked with a ” / “.

Hyperlink
<a href=”http://Put your link here”>Nice, short text</a>

*Notice the space between “a” and “href”. There are no other spaces in the code.
* Put <a href=” THEN copy and paste your entire url including the “http://” put it right after the quotes. Then put another set of quotes after your url. Finish with this : “>Nice, short text</a>

Bold
<strong>Put your text here</strong>

Italicized
<em>Put your text here</em>

This is as far as we need to go with this tutorial, because Blogger comments don’t accept any other tags (brackets). If you don’t know HTML and would like to learn a little more (for your own site, perhaps) you should visit W3schools, it’s free and easy.

BTW, that link looks like this coded:
<a href=”http://www.w3schools.com”>W3schools</a>