Birthday Week Giveaway Contest

It's my Birthday Week my birthday is Thursday May 28th and I'm in the mood to celebrate so I'm having a Twitter giveaway contest each day May 25 to May 29 I will ask a question about me or another question with an easy answer (other answers are below) to enter follow me at
@SweetSheil   https://twitter.com/SweetSheil    

and answer the giveaway question the first person to answer each day will receive a copy of one of my e-books. the books are below the answers to the questions I might ask below that in the five facts about me. If you're here and reading this leave me a Blogpost below and I'll put you in a raffle and you might win a e-copy of one of these books.

Christmas is Calling, The Christmas Card , The Christmas Angel

                                                                               A Penny Saved A Murder Earned, A Diller A Dollar A Really Dead Scholar, Betty Blue Lost Her Holiday Shoe

                                             


                             

Five facts about me:

1.) My name, Sheilagh comes from Irish Gaelic and means musical or blind. I prefer musical, as I love to sing. My dad always said it was pronounced She-log though I go by Shee-la.

2.) My favourite musical movie is Seven Brides for Seven Brothers

3.) My favourite childhood book was What Katy Did.

4.) My favourite animal is an elephant. I love elephants and collect elephant figurines.

5.)  My writing career was born in grade six when a story about my mother’s talking crow Doc and I won for the junior trophy at my school.

N.B. You can only win once

Today is May 12th - International ME/CFS & FM Awareness Day

Like a lot of Fibromyalgia, Myalgic Encephalomyelitis  and multi-chemical sensitivity patients, I hate talking about it. We suffer in silence (after all who wants to hear someone complain day after day, that they are in  pain/and or are tired, or breathed-in/ ate / were exposed to something that made them feel sick.  Or all three? The days we complain are usually the worst days when we feel if we don't say anything will explode from the extreme level of pain/or tiredness that feels like it's taking over our every waking moment. stealing our life away. The word we hate to say most CANT. Sooner or later that word is uttered and we hate to say it.

Have you ever had the flu? Think of your flu at it's worst and double or triple that, sometimes that is our good day. We try hard to appear normal and do normal things like everyone else so we don't often appear sick. Others are worse off and can not even get out of bed/ eat/ or live any type of normal life.

Millions of people around the world suffer in silence,we don't want sympathy we just want to be heard.This disease needs research, so they can find the roots of this disease and cure it, for more info on this disease.  http://www.disabled-world.com/health/fibromyalgia/

Fibromyalgia Quick Facts

• Affects 3 to 5 percent of the general population
• Occurs in people of all ages, even children
• Men develop fibromyalgia too, although more women are diagnosed with it
• Symptoms are chronic but may fluctuate throughout the day
• Roughly one-quarter of people with fibromyalgia are work-disabled
• FDA approved the first drug for fibromyalgia in 2007 and more treatments are being developed but most find no relief.

 Top Twelve Fibromyalgia Symptoms    

     

• Pain all over
• Fatigue
• Sleep difficulties
• Brain fog
• Morning stiffness
• Muscle knots, cramping, weakness
• Digestive disorders
• Headaches/migraines
• Balance problems
• Itchy/burning skin
• No relief from symptoms
• Chemical sensitivities

                                                                          

I wrote this poem about the monster I call Fibro.

The Monster Within

It calls to me, it’s breath blowing

It calls to me, it’s tendrils showing

It calls to me, and speaks in sweet whispers

It calls to me, and shows sweet lures 

Promising if I listen it will subside 

It lies, it lies!!

I give it none. no smile no wave

But it looks at me, as if it can’t behave

I turn my head, acknowledge it not

For life, its battle I have fought

The normal things that others do 

They are not for you

It shouts and screams and screams

But I listen not.

Through distant cries it calls to me

But it’s lies, do not get to be

I close the door, heed not it’s siren call

For in my heart and body it dies

Or simply lurks in a dark corner today

I hide it away, not letting it out to play,

It is not here, I tell myself

It won’t come in and ruin my day

It shouts, it pleads

Ignoring would be a sin

But I will not let it in

I battle on and this time I win

But the battle is always nigh

And my attention will not die

Pain and strength weakening

I fight on the good fight

This battle will be won

The monster’s tendrils extend it’s reach

Fighting I move into the breach

For it’s me who will teach

The monster it is no more!

If only for today, for 

Now the monster's gone away

I can come out to play.

 ©Sheilagh Lee  May 12, 2015

Three Word Wednesday- Pet

Three Word Wednesday-  Pet

I'm stepping away from 'Home for Christmas' this week, but I'll be back with the next installment, next Wednesday.

Flimsy, adjective: comparatively light and insubstantial; easily damaged; (of clothing) light and thin; (of a pretext or account) weak and unconvincing.

Hungry, adjective: feeling or displaying the need for food; causing hunger; having a strong desire or craving.

Tense, adjective: (especially of a muscle or someone's body) stretched tight or rigid; (of a person) unable to relax because of nervousness, anxiety, or stimulation; (of a situation, event, etc.) causing or showing anxiety and nervousness; verb: become tense, typically through anxiety or nervousness; [with object] make (a muscle or one's body) tight or rigid.

My Pet 

     I was born with two litter mates. Bigger than the other two I got lots of milk and affection from my mother. Then the people came children adults and others peering at me. When the children came I’d run and hide while my litter mates would play with the children and purr up against them. First one and then the other disappeared with people. It was then that she arrived, a single woman alone. She coaxed me out from under the sofa I hid.  She spoke to me softly and held me close up to her chest and I liked it. I began to purr and she said I’ll call you Tuxedo.

    She took me home to what she called an apartment, a small space where I could run and peer out a window way up high. I thought that she would always be there, but every day she left for hours at a time and I wait watching out the window looking at the sky until she come home and fill my dishes again. She seemed unhappy that I’d claw her furniture and put rents in the flimsy material. Didn’t she understand that need? Silly human. One day she took me to a man, a vet she called him and I grew tense and very scared. He plunged a pointing thing into me and it hurt my bum. When I woke up she wasn’t there I was in a cage and my back feet hurt. I my claws and panicked they weren’t there. What had this vet done to me? When the man came hissed and bit him. He snarled. Still no sweet lady. Had she forgotten me?  

    She came and took me home; but not for long soon she took me to another place where there were many animals in cages. I cried and whimpered for her to come back but she didn’t.

    I was taken home with another lady who kept me four years then returned me to my cage.  When people came, I decided I would not be friendly. Why should I?  Attached to a human, I thought I owned them and then they’d return me like a sweater, or something brought home in a bag. I deserved better; but then she walked in an older lady with waves of sadness and loneliness coming off of her. She needed me I could sense it. She seemed awkward at first not knowing how to communicate with me. I could tell she’d never been around cats but that was okay. Trainable might be a better choice. Look at those humans that took me home they thought they knew all about cats but condemned me for being me. She would make a better pet.

    I sauntered up to the front of the cage and purred at her and she was hooked. She then passed some paper over to the people who help him in the cage and they took him out and passed her to the lady. I purred in her arms and I felt her melt. 

    She took me home and with her there was no silly baby talk. No, she talked to me like I was rightfully her companion. She called me Rudolph Valentino, a fitting name much better than that silly Tuxedo name. She shortened it to Rudy and I responded to it. We became the best of friends as I taught her how I always sat where I liked whether it was in her lap, in her favourite chair, or under the covers in our bed. I even nibble at her toast out of politeness. I would greet our guests at the door or by joining them while they sat at the table jumping up on the table and accepting their petting me.  I turned on the light on the table with my paw when it grew dark; my pet was well cared for.

    Two of her frequent visitors came every week and when they left they take her out of the house; but they always brought her back with food for her and me. They never let us go hungry, so when they came I always greeted them and let them pet me.
   She’d notice when I didn’t feel well and take me to a nice lady vet who’d make me feel better.  She allowed me to race back and forth in her house and  when her two frequent visitors brought a fireplace for her and me I lay before it basking in the warmth meant for me. A King of all I surveyed, she was my captive audience; she talked to me and I’d answer back making her feel better and alive for I had grown to love my pet. I soon found that years had passed. I was still pampered by her, but I felt the pain in my joints and the quickening of old age but then so did she. We conforted each other in our joint pains. My stomach wasn’t what it once was so she had the vet put me on special foods easier to digest. I was happy and I showed her that. I pounced on her lap when she sat to watch the funny box with the pictures on it. I crawled under the sheets and blankets and cuddled up sleeping at her side.

     This morning I awoke cold and not feeling myself. I felt the quickening and knew I didn’t have long. I hid under the dresser, but my pet found me. She pulled me out and then seemed scared understanding what occurred to me. She rushed me to the vet but the doctor didn’t understand; not like my pet and she sent me home. When we arrived home I couldn’t get out of the carrier. I felt weird as I shook and my face contorted. This was my time. I had a wonderful life with my pet this eleven long years, but it was my time. The time everyone gets on this earth, for I lay dying. I wanted to comfort my pet who had suffered so many losses, but I could not. I looked at her my pet and wondered how she would go on without me? Who would greet her in the morning? Get her up to see the sunrise? Who would she share her breakfast, with lunch, dinner? who would play with her and pat her face? I gazed up into her face with love and then glanced at her child who had come in my hour of need. She had her children that would have to be enough. At peace, I closed my eyes one last time and embraced the light.  Goodbye my pet.

RIP Rudy 04/22/2000- 07/04/2015

©Sheilagh Lee  April, 8, 2015

Happy Easter or Happy Passover

 Happy Easter or Happy Passover 

 From my house     to yours 

Have a blessed Weekend whatever you Celebrate! 

Have a wonderful Weekend

Beannacht Lá Fhéile Pádraig -(Happy St. Patrick's Day)

Happy St.Patrick's Day - 

Beannacht Lá Fhéile Pádraig

There's a dear little plant that grows in our isle,

'Twas St. Patrick himself, sure, that sets it;

And the sun of his labor with pleasure did smile,

And with dew from his eye often wet it.

It grows through the bog, through the brake, through the mireland,

And they call it the dear little Shamrock of Ireland.

(From an Irish song unknown author)

Madainn mhath  -(Good morning)

Feashar math  - (Good afternoon)

Oidhche mhath -  (Good Evening)

Céad míle fáilte romhat!- (A hundred thousand welcomes)

Dia dhaoibh  - (Hello to all)        

Is mise Sile~  (Sweet Sheilagh is my name)

Go raibh maith agat, a chara ceilidh

(Thank you my friend for visiting and sharing) and

Beannacht Lá Fhéile Pádraig  (Happy St. Patrick's Day)

And

Saol fada chugat~(Long life to you but remember if you drink today take a cab or use a designated driver)             

Happy 2015

****************************

Life is challenging but we strive and continue year after year, some good, some bad. I hope this year contains love and light for you and yours.

Merry Christmas , Happy Holidays

or 

Happy Holidays

Happy  Hannukuah 

Happy Kwanzaa

Whatever you celebrate  I hope you spend time with people you love!

See you here January 7th after New Years