Bye Bye Pinkie Bean! Hello Play Pretties!

I have been blogging about life with Bean since 2008.  During that time, depending on life, writing here has been a lot of "on and off".  Lately, I haven't really had the desire to post often.  I've noticed blogging is down all over.  I don't know if blogging is dead or even "mostly dead".  I'd hate to think it is.

I understand people change and so do their interests.  Mine certainly have.  Going through my whole thyroid ordeal, I rarely had the energy or drive to blog or craft.  My heart just wasn't into it and pinkieBEAN fell by the wayside.

I struggled with what to do with this space.  I started this blog as a baby book of sorts for Bean and it morphed into a mommy blog and then a crafty blog.  Bean is also getting to an age where she probably wouldn't want all of her life splashed on a blog for everyone to see.

I do like writing and sharing things we come up with though and I have made some awesome friends who even though we've never met in person, I feel that we are invested in each other's lives now and we want to see glimpses of our lives now and again.

Since August or September of last year, I have been getting more and more interested in planners.  After all these years, I discovered I still like playing with stickers!  I love everything about the planning world - the shops, the stickers, the Instagram feeds, the Plan with Me videos!  I feel that after such a long slump in creativity, I am finally finding something that is bringing me back to myself.

So having said all of that, we are morphing once again.   pinkieBEAN is now becoming Play Pretties.

Play Pretties is something that I have toyed with on and off for years.  I used it as a consignment name and my now defunct Etsy shop.  Due to lack of my own interest and/or lack of ambition, neither of those ever felt right and never took off.

The focus of Play Pretties will be planning and paper crafting with an occasional sighting of Bean thrown in.  I have also decided to stop using the moniker "Pinkie" and introduce you all to my real self - April.

I understand that playing with paper isn't everyone's cup of tea.  That is a sad cuppa but I do understand. If you would like to continue on this blogging journey with us, please make sure you are following us at one or all of these virtual locales:

Play Pretties blog:   http://play-pretties.blogspot.com  (Don't forget the dash!)

Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/playpretties2016

Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/playpretties/

As always, I thank and appreciate you all for spending your precious time with us along the way.  You are all truly amazing!  Now, let's go play with some stickers!

Plan It: St. Patrick's Day with The Planner Society

It's that time of year when everyone is Irish-ish.  It's St. Patrick's Day.

This week my planner is all decked out and ready to dance a jig.  Sorry, Ireland.  I couldn't help myself.

I used the St. Patrick's Day kit from The Planner Society.  If you are a planner and you haven't heard of The Planner Society, you need to stop whatever you're doing and go take a look.

I signed up for the monthly subscription and each month it gets better and better.  Everything is beautiful and quality made.  The planner girl stickers are always my favorite and she is dressed in green and black this week.

I'm trying to get better pictures of my layouts so please hang in there with me until I figure it all out.

Plan It: Shop Review ~ CandLCrafts1 on Etsy

For Christmas I received an Etsy gift card that I've been using to support my planner sticker and pretties addiction.  The latest stash arrived Saturday and I am so happy with it.

I ordered several items from CandLCrafts1 on Etsy and I love them all so much.  I usually like to order sampler kits because it gives you just enough of the different size boxes (full and half) along with flags and decorative stickers.  CandLCrafts1 also offered the option of adding on matching washi which is a great feature.

I ordered the Bumble Bee Planner kit with matching washi.

Glamping set with matching washi - to use when we go "camping" at the aquarium.

Woodland Princess Planner - I love these little foxes!

Cookie Planner set cause you need cute stickers for your planner when it's Cookie Season!

I also ordered an assortment of skinny washi samples.  As a thank you gift, they sent a St. Patrick's Day planner clip and a mini sampler too.  It is so cute.  I think Bean is going to take it from me though.

I very much recommend CandLCrafts1 to anyone looking to pretty up their planners.  I hope to purchase again soon.  The paper quality is top of the line and the cuts are perfect.

Watch my Instagram (@bashfulplanner) for pictures of my layouts using these stickers.

Bean It: Cookie Season

It's that time of year again...Girl Scout Cookie Season!

Sales are well underway and this weekend we worked our first cookie booths of the season.  Sales have been slow but hopefully they will pick up and each girl can meet her own individual goal.  This year along with meeting their own goals, our troop is also raising money for Backpack Buddies, a charity that puts together backpacks of food for kids to have to eat on the weekends when they don't have access to school meals.  One group of girls from our troop was able to raise $80 during their cookie booth time slot.  Yay girls!

Here are a couple of pictures of Bean selling cookies this year.

If you happen to be out and about and see a troop selling cookies, stop and say hello.  Yes, they want to sell you cookies but they are also little kids just really hoping for a kind hello or acknowledgement.  I can't tell you how many times Bean has made her little speech "would you like to buy some Girl Scout cookies?" and someone has slowed down just to say "ah no thanks".  Each time someone smiles at her, it makes her day, even if she doesn't get a sale out of it.  She just likes the interaction and the smiles from others.

There have been some really cool stories already on social media this season of awesome happenings at cookie booths.  John Barrowman from Torchwood and Dr. Who fame, posted a picture of a Girl Scout at a booth he walked by that hadn't made a single sale all day and he asked people to come out and say hello and buy some cookies from her.  I personally would have just been happy meeting him! Another story I read, a man stopped by a booth and gave the girls $100 and told them to give the next 40 people that came by a free box of cookies on him and ask that they pay it forward for someone else.  Granted, that is a huge help to that troop but it is also an awesome way to make someone else's day better.

We know we are everywhere right now but it's only for 4 weeks and it really does make a difference in the community and in the lives of the Scouts themselves. They learn so much from getting out there and selling these cookies.  If you come across a troop selling, please consider buying or even donating cookies to the military, or really just stop and tell the girls what a great job they are doing.  Those small bits of encouragement really go a long way in making the girls feel special.

Plan It: Man Down!

Last week I introduced you all to Carole, the Color Crush Planner and her sidekick, Gerome.

That's Gerome.

Or...that was Gerome.

Today...

...no Gerome.

Just like any other side piece, they don't last long, do they?

Plan It: Introducing My Color Crush Planner

Look!  It's Carole!

 Meet Carole.

Carole is my brand new Webster's Pages Color Crush planner.  I have been sucked into the world of pretty planners and this is my latest acquisition.

Why does she have a name?

Well I figure if I am going to share so much about my life and plans with something, and if I am going to dress her up weekly with sweet, pretty stickers, and if she will allow me to shove her in my purse and tote her around every day, she ought to have a name, right?  So...yeah...Carole, the Color Crush.  Color Crush Carole.

She has a friend who hangs out with her too.  This is Gerome, the Gnome.  I'm sure it won't take long for us to lose this third wheel but we might as well try to have fun together while he lasts.

I picked Carole up during a Blitsy sale.  If you have not heard of Blitsy, it is a daily deal site but all they offer are craft supplies.  ISN'T THAT AMAZEBALLS????  Yes.  I know!  If you sign up for a free Blitsy account, they will give you $10 off your first purchase.  After using my $10, Carole and Gerome only cost $20!  I don't mind cheap friends.

(The link here is a referral link and I will get credit if you do sign up and make a purchase but then guess what?  You can get the same deal if you refer your friends too.  There is nothing wrong with helping a sister out, mkay!)

I love the stripes.  I also really lurve the inserts that came with Carole.

Menu planning, lists galore, memory keeping.  This girl's got everything!

Just like a real best friend, she reminds you that you are purdy.

I like the weekly layouts and can't wait to slap some stickers on them.

The only downside to Carole is the fact that these pages are small.  This is a personal size planner so of course it is all smaller.  But I find that writing on the inserts is slightly hard for me because I write big.  Carole doesn't really like "big".  So that will take some getting used to, I suppose.  I'll give it a whirl anyways.

If you'd like to check out some of my badly taken photos of my weekly layouts, check out my Instagram at @pinkiebean.

That's it for now.  Carole and I are gonna hang out for awhile.  Yes, okay...and Gerome too.

Blog at ya later!

Live It: My Thyroid Journey Part 5

You can read the other parts here.

Part 1.
Part 2.
Part 3.
Part 4.

Started off the week of Thanksgiving by meeting with my surgeon for my post-op visit.  He told me that the pathology results had come back and everything was benign.  Thank the Lord!  He said that the nodules turned out to be adenomas which is the exact same thing I had on my liver.  He could not think there was any relation to the two things though.  I told him I had started feeling faint and hot all the time and I was having trouble sleeping.  I wondered if my Synthroid prescription was too high.  He told me to contact my endo to see if they could move up my appointment but explained that even if they did labs on me right then, it was too soon after surgery to get good readings on my blood work.

Over the next two days things were just BAD.  I felt so weak all the time.  My heart started racing and feeling like it was flopping.  It's a very strange feeling to explain but my skin felt very light but under that feeling was a feeling of fastness.  The day before Thanksgiving, I was standing talking to some ladies at work.  I started feeling faint and my heart started feeling like it was flopping and stuttering in my chest.  I sat down to see if that would help.  Then I became very hot and started sweating.  The next minute I was freezing and shaking, and then very hot again and then felt like I was going to be sick.  These feelings kept cycling over and over - hot, cold, hot, sick.

Thankfully my primary is right next door to our office so I went and told them I thought something was going on with my heart.  Blood pressure was fine, pulse was slightly fast.  They did an EKG and it was normal.  They really had no idea what was going on.  I explained about my surgery and had been told there could be the possibility of something called a "thyroid dump".  The PA I was seeing that day had never heard of that before and consulted with the staff.  They suggested I contact my endo and explain what they had done that day and how I was feeling.  After getting back to the office and leaving voicemail for my endo, her nurse called me back. Yes, I was probably experiencing a thyroid dump which is where some of the remaining thyroid hormone stored in the fatty cells of your body start to release.  That gets mixed with the synthetic thyroid by prescription and it results in your body once again having too much thyroid hormone that it can handle.  Symptoms of hyperthyroidism return and all you can really do is wait it out.

I spent the remaining part of the holiday weekend on the couch thinking I was dying.  That is not an over-exaggeration either.  Several times I thought "here comes that heart attack" or thought I should get my behind to an ER quickly.  I was told to temporarily stop my Synthroid for a few days.

I did that and rested a lot, and just as quickly as those symptoms had come, then they were gone.

I woke up the following Monday morning feeling great and have continued to feel good ever since.

I have my next endo appointment next week and they will check my levels through more blood work.  I hope we can find the right level of Synthroid soon and I can start trying to get back to myself.

This was all shared with you as a release for myself to get it all out and as a warning to all that read this to be vigilant of your health.  Like I said earlier, you have to be your own advocate.  If you feel that something is not right with your health, start asking questions, reading, educating yourself.  I had always been the type to do whatever the doctor said, to follow blindly.  The problem with that is in any given medical practice, there are so many patients to each doctor.  Maybe things get missed.  Maybe the doctor you are seeing is not the right doctor for you.  If I had followed my instincts about the first endo I saw, I might could have moved onto another one sooner and found these nodules sooner too.  You know when your body isn't working like it should.

Once you lose your health, it is so very hard to get it back and most of the time getting it back isn't even an option.  Don't just sit there and wish things away.  Make yourself a priority and take care of yourself so you can take care of the ones that depend on you.