Crippie's Back... Again... AND ANSWERING QUESTIONS!

I'M BACK!!!!! Please don't kill me!

I wish I could explain why I didn't write anything for almost two months... I dunno, I had a wicked case of writers block. Felt like I had nothing new to say. No real update, all was status quo with the animals. Bleh... oh well... I'm swear I'm gonna try to get back into the swing of things here.

Tonight I'm gonna answer some questions from a survey by the freakin' awesome Rachel at "Fluted Cups & Ampersands". If you don't read her blog and or watch her vlogs you should... cause she's full of win.

Alright... let's answer these questions!

1. What's a song that has a lot of meaning for you and why? (You could even post a YouTube video of the song if you want us to jam along with you.)
--- For me it's a tie between Simon & Garfunkel's "Bridge Over Troubled Water" and "Red Rubber Ball" (Yes I know that The Cyrkle recorded it first, but I don't care for their version.) Both give me a feeling of optimism and they reassure me that everything will be ok.

2. The name of my blog, Fluted Cups & Ampersands, contains my favorite words to say. Do you have any favorite words?
--- Weaseal, Strudle, Schadenfreude


3. Make up an acronym for anything in your world. (Example: FAQ)
--- PPOM: Pig Peed on Me


4. If your life had a theme song, what would it be? 
--- Up On Cripple Creek probably


5. What are THREE of the most awesome things about ME? (See, NOW I'm fishing for compliments. And if you only know me from my blog, then just go by what you know about me from the blog. Easy like Sunday morning.)
--- 1) You're freaking funny 2) You're honest and blunt when you need to be honest and blunt 3) We share the hatred of birds while liking the general idea of them (seriously, they freak me out. Heaven help me if I come across a dead one)

6. On crowd funding websites like IndieGoGo where people raise money, there are often incentives that the creator gives for the amount you invest. Most are light hearted and personal, like a personal thank you card. Other examples: If you invest $10, you'll get an advanced copy of this film or cd or book chapter. If you donate $50, you get a personal phone call and my first born child. So here's my question - in all seriousness, what would be some incentives that you would go for? Your cup of tea, incentive style. (Even if you don't answer the rest of the questions, you'd be doing me a HUGE favor just by answering this one...in a comment, email, Facebook, whatever. ANYONE can answer. Please? Huge favor to me. I'm winking and smiling at all you internet people...you just can't see it. But I'm being very sly.)
--- I'd probably go for something like a t-shirt, I lurv me some t-shirts. Fun fact: I once gave blood just to get a free t-shirt... and to help people... kinda

7. What are FOUR of the most awesome things about YOU?
--- I'm getting pretty awesome at nail art, I'm a guinea pig whisperer, I'm so sarcastic that people call me Daria, I'm really awesome at Simpsons trivia and Disney movie trivia.


8. Write a short lil poem. As short as you'd like.
--- There once was a girl named Crippie, who while walking took a slippie. She fell on her ass, while others did pass, yet on her face there was a grinnie (yes that rhyme sucks, but I'm taking creative liberties here)


9.Where do you see yourself in 10 years?
--- Hopefully have a job as an awesome graphic designer, living in a fabulous little apartment or condo somewhere, and hopefully I'll have some company there, whether it be human or animal ;)


10. Write a joke or a pun about anything. But YOU (or the people around you, if you're near people) have to come up with it. No Google-ing.
--- My dog Helen is blind, yet she barks at minorities. Weird right, I guess she's a not-see. 


11. We're halfway through the year. Make at least one half-year resolution.
--- STOP SUCKING AT BLOGGING. OH MY GOD SERIOUSLY.

YAY! I did it. Okay, now it's MY turn to come up with 11 questions. If anyone wants to answer 'em go for it! 

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1 - Would you rather fight 1 duck sized horse or 100 duck sized horses?

2 - How'd you come up with the name of your blog?

3 - Are there any quotes or phrases that inspire you?

4 - Are there any YouTube videos that are so funny that they'll cheer you up regardless of what mood you're in?

5 - Guinea Pigs: Do you like them or do you love them?

6 - Would you rather travel back in time or forward in time?

7 - What is the weirdest talent you possess? 

8 - What song is stuck in your head right now? MAHNA MAHNA!!! 

9 - How do you decide what parts of your life to share on your blog?

10 - What is the air-speed velocity of an of unladen swallow?

11 - In the world of blogging what would you like to see more of? Less of?

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If anybody answers these questions, comment with a link to your blog and I'll totally check it out! 

I really am gonna try to get back to blogging regularly. I missed it. I missed y'all the most <3

Crippie's Tippie - Seriously, check out Rachel's blog... I mean it

NHBPM - To Share or Not to Share

Ello!

Yesterday I opted to take my own advice and sleep instead of blog, got to sleep at decent hour :)

Now on the NHBPM blog prompt... I wasn't thrilled with today's choices, so I went and picked one from earlier in the month.

Disclosure post. How do you decide what to share? What do/don't you share?

Alrighty, this blog is about me and being a cripple. Thus I share things relevant to that topic. If something of use occurs with my health I'll post it. I do want this blog to be an accurate representation of what it can be like to have a disability. There are many aspects of being a cripple that are by no means glamorous. Whether its having 17 staples on your butt, not being able to open your cup to pee in at the doctor, or having a tampon shaped scar on your wrist... it's part of my reality. On the same note, even though I try not to blog when I'm in a bad mood, there are times when a massive Crippie Rant pops up. While I'm not always proud of what I say in those, they're pretty good examples of some common cripple frustrations. That's why I don't delete 'em.

What don't I share? I keep most of my life private. I don't discuss matters pertaining to my family. That's mainly for safety reasons. While I talk about work in a very vague sense, I NEVER go into great details (as much as I might want to) cause ya know... I don't wanna get fired.

There is one subject though that I will gladly give 110% full disclosure on... MY ANIMALS! Yup! Maybe it's because they're so freakin' adorable, or that they won't care if I post their pictures here, or that I don't have to worry about hurting their feelings. But I love my piggies and pooches to bits, so if something out of the ordinary happens to them (good, bad, whatever) I'll post about it. If I take a cute picture of Nellie sleeping, you bet your ass I will post it sooner or later. Speaking of animals, Angel's second anniversary is this Sunday :3. We must prepare some special noms for her.

I guess to summarize, I am a rather private person... that being said I'll post anything that I believe to be relevant to the blog, and lots of guinea pig pictures. Lots and lots of guinea pig pictures.

Crippie's Tippie - When possible, try not to be in an overly bad mood when blogging.

Why I Do What I Do

Salutations!

I hope everyone is having a lovely week thus far. Crippie has been very busy with work. I also somehow managed to wrench my shoulder today. One of the many fun parts of MHE is that you don't need to really do anything to injure yourself, apparently the slightest movement can potentially cause a whole lot of discomfort. Oh well, NPH has been helping it feel better.

Moving on, Crippie is going to use another prompt today! Today's topic is... I write about my health because... Reflect on why you write about your health for 15-20 minutes without stopping.


Well let's see... back when Crippie was forced to create this blog for a social media class my professor told us to blog about something that we "could be experts in". As soon as I heard that I knew I wanted to blog about health and disability. Why? Because I have over 20 years of experience living with it. I've spent my entire life adapting and coping with a disability. Thus, I am an expert on cripples. Also, Crippie also has a very broad general knowledge of all things medical (absorbed a lotta information watching House and the Discovery Health Channel). Apart from the fact that I know what I'm talking about (I'm so modest) I also wanted to blog about being a cripple to help other cripples. That's probably the main reason I do this, because I feel like if this blog helps someone else cope with a disability then my pain is worth it. 


That's it, nothing terribly philosophical or anything. I blog about being a cripple because a) I can and b) I want to help others in similar situations. I don't think y'all would want hear Crippie blabber on for 15-20 minutes about that.

Crippie's Tippie - Wanna sharpen your knowledge about oodles of random disease for some off reason? Watch "Mystery Diagnoses". Sooner or later you'll guess what the patient has before they do. Crippie has literally yelled "YOUR KID HAS MARFAN SYNDROME" at the TV on more than one occasion. 

Crippie's Readers Are Freakin' Awesome!

Salutations!

Crippie can't believe that January is almost over... annnnnnnnddddddddddddd in a week "Crippie's Corner" will officially turn one year old! These blogs grow up so fast *snif snif*.
Seriously, I want to thank each and every person who reads this blog. Whether you read this once a year or once a day, words cannot describe how much it means to me that you took some time to listen to what I have to say. Thank you for all of your love, support, comments, questions, everything.
Crippie has to give a special thank you to a few special readers who recently bestowed Crippie with very awesome awards, thus Crippie is giving a shout out to the following bloggers!


Mary from "Shuffling Along With PD" - Mary runs a completely inspirational blog about living with Parkinson's Disease. Not only does Mary (AKA, Mariodatcatsmom) comment on this blog regularly with super nice words of support, but she recently awarded me with the "Liebster" (favorite or beloved) award.
Thank you so much Mary, I honestly consider you a friend.

Chris Dean from "Life Your Way!" - Chris also lovingly gave the "Liebster" award to Crippie. Chris blogs about her trials and tribulations living with a chronic illness. She also has a bunch of kick-ass tattoos which I approve of greatly. Thank you Chris, I hope you love my blog as much as I love yours!

Mario the Cat from "Mario's Meowsings" - Yes, Mario is literally a cat, as an internet female it is my duty to LOVE ALL TEH KITTEHS! This kitteh in pawticular gave me the "Shining Star Award". All the piggies say "THANK YOU KITTEH, WE LUV YOU ALMOST AS MUCH AS NOMS, we would say as much, but we're realistic". Thank you Mario, and your wonderful translator Mary, you guys are the cat's meow. 


Crippie could probably continue on thanking everyone, but I reckon I could sum this all up with a meme. In conclusion readers, give yourselves a pat on the back, YOU ARE FREAKIN' AWESOME!

Crippie's Tippie- Cat's make for surprisingly good bloggers... also check out all of the awesome blog links I posted! 

Crippie's Bloggie Tips!

Ohai

ENTER MY CONTEST PEOPLES!!! You have till Friday!

Moving on, people have been asking me for blogging advice recently. So without further adieu I give you

CRIPPIE ANSWERS BLOGGING RELATED QUESTIONS!!!

1) Why did you start blogging?

I started blogging because it was a homework assignment. Crippie was taking a social media course and having a blog was actually a requirement. I rather enjoyed the whole blogging experience so I decided to keep the blog going even though I am no longer being graded for it (btw, I got an A for the blog).

2) Do you ever get any negative feedback, if so how do you deal with it?

Luckily I've never had any real negative feedback or comments on this blog. I get the occasional spam comment which I delete. Generally speaking negative commenters are trolls, and you never ever feed a troll. Just let the comment be. 

3) Do looks matter?

As a graphic designer of course I am going to say that having a pretty blog does make a difference. Seriously though, having a properly designed blog makes you look more legit and it sets you apart from other bloggers. 

4) Any tips to boost viewership?

I get a fair amount of traffic from social networking sites for bloggers like bloggers.com and 20sb.net. I also get traffic by participating in events like blog hops and NHBPM. I've also found that consistently labeling my posts makes it easier for people using google to find me. 

Crippie's Tippie- Remember, blogging "success" takes time and a fair amount of effort. 

NHBPM- Branding "Crippie"

Aloha!

Statement #3 was the lie, apart from the episode where Marsha gets pelted in the face with the football, I really don't care for the Brady Bunch. Moving on to a more interesting prompt, today's is... My personal brand. As a Health Activist, you are a front-facing leader. What do you imagine you look like to your readers? What qualities do you possess. It’s ok to toot your own horn today – you have full permission to indulge. And don’t hold back.
Ideally I'd like to appear as awesome smart, quirky, funny, optimistic, ginger and a cripple. Realistically this is what I think people see when they imagine me

If there are any rage comic readers on this blog that agree with that image... PLEASE COMMENT. I really want to know if I'm right in this assumption. So yeah, I think people see me as quirky, nerdy, optimistic (almost annoyingly optimistic), ginger cripple. I tried to take some photobooth pictures of how I "want" to appear as an activist/blogger but this is what I ended up with...

Yeaaaahhhh... I ended up with a weird blend of serious and funny which works for me, and yes Frida Kahlo is photobombing those pictures. Ultimately that's what I try to brand myself as. Crippie is a blogger/activist who uses humor and optimism to get through tough times. That's me in a nutshell right there. 

So what do you guys think? Am I in the general ballpark here? Am I a totally dallusional asshole? 

Crippie's Tippie- As far as general blog branding goes, I think having a nickname helps you be more memorable in the reader's eyes. 

This post was written as part of NHBPM – 30 health posts in 30 days: http://bit.ly/vU0g9J 

NHBPM- Oh My Word, WHAT DID I JUST POST?!?

Ohai Everybody!

First off, Frida says "thank you" to anyone and everyone that thought she looked adorable as "GUINEA BEE". If anyone is wondering, she really didn't mind the costume all that much. I tried to put it on one of my other guinea pigs, Maggie, first. She started screaming and tried to rip the costume off, so after snapping a quick shot of her we took it off. Frida did not scream or try to kill me, she did try to pee on the costume... but she does that with everything. Here's a picture of me with the "Original GUINEA BEE", Maggie.

Moving on to day 3 (for me anyway) of National Health Blog Post Month. The topic du jour is...
What happens after you press “publish.” Write about your post-blog-writing process. Do you immediately tweet a link? Email it to everyone? Re-read it for spelling errors?
After I finish writing all the crippled goodness that is this blog (which I usually write really late at night/early in the morning when I am tired and not exactly functioning) I do a quick skim through to find typos. Generally speaking I don't spell words wrong, I either forget a word or rearrange it with something else. Once I finish the basic look over I press publish. After that I actually view the post and find more typos. I go and fix those and then I press publish again.
I use Networked Blogs which automatically updates my twitter and facebook page with a link to the new post. I highly recommend this feature because I can never freakin' remember to update those.
So yeah, that's the glorious story what happens after I publish the blog.

Tomorrow I have regular appointment with my pain management physician. Crippie's Mommie thinks I should switch some of my medications. She wants me to replace my anti-inflamitory drug (which can do a crap ton of damage to my heart and stomach) with an anti-depressant. Crippie is not depressed nor does Crippie suffer from depression, but apparently anti-depresants stop certain pain signals in the brain. I'm curious as to what my physician will say about this manner, I'll def keep you updated.

Crippie's Tippie- Research different pain treatment options, http://www.painfoundation.org/ is a great place to learn and get information about pain and pain treatment.


This post was written as part of NHBPM – 30 health posts in 30 days:http://bit.ly/vU0g9J 

New Blog Design!

Hey Y'all!

I reckon that some of you might have noticed that I redesigned the blog. What can I say, I'm a graphic designer, I enjoy redesigning my blog. This time I decided to be "deep" and made a pattern that was a metaphor for the blog itself. It has pills and scars all over it, but they combine with flowers to make an ornate and beautiful pattern. So what do you guys think of the new design? Love it? Really Love it? Hate it? Indifferent?
If any of my totally awesome readers would like a blog design that matches their awesomeness feel free to email me at crippies_corner@yahoo.com.

Crippie's Tippie- If you're as inspired by patterns as I am, check out this blog! 

Crippie's Intake Appointment

Ohai,

As the title suggests, today was my intake appointment with the "help cripples get jobs" people. I was expecting a long review of my medical history, listing everything I can't do (I've had to do that before... super fun), and a brief description of what I would like to do in terms of work. In actuality it was a lot of paperwork, a long review of my education history, listing every job that I have done (MINI CRIPPIE TIPPIE- BRING YOUR RESUME TO YOUR INTAKE APPOINTMENTS, SAVES LOTS OF TIME). I was pleasantly surprised how they really didn't focus on what I can't do, but more what I want to do with my life. I'm rather optimistic at this point that this service will help me obtain some form of employment.

I returned home after the meeting, only to find a crap ton of emails in my inbox. I NEVER get crap a ton of emails. All of these emails were notifications from bloggers.com, a social network for bloggers. Curious I looked deep into my inbox to find that I was chosen as one of the "Editor's Picks of the day". This is pretty much how Crippie's mind processed this honor...

Crippie's Brain- Hmmm, buncha emails... hmmmm, all from bloggers, oh I'm the Editor's pick of the day, cool *FIVE MINUTES LATER* HOLY CRAP I'M THE EDITOR'S PICK OF THE DAY!!!

I've gotta give a big thanks to whoever picked Crippie and also a bigger thanks to everyone that reads this :D

Crippie's Tippie- Crippie is a good worker, hire Crippie

Disability & The Work Force

Greetings,

I've been a college graduate for a few months now, and unfortunately I'm still unemployed. This isn't an uncommon problem for people with disabilities. Along with the general sucky-ness of the job market, having a disability puts further strain on my search...
--- No really long commutes. I have chronic fatigue so driving home late at night after a long days work could be kinda dangerous.
--- No subways. Thanks to my RSD my legs are vibration sensitive (in other words my legs hurt when a floor shakes). Sadly, this kinda eliminates the possibility for me to work in the city, which is pretty much every graphic designers dream. The money I'm saving by not having a NYC apartment makes me feel slightly better about this.
---Nothing involving significant amounts of physical labor. I think that one speaks for itself.

While I would just like to find ANY JOB, unlike my "normal" friends I do not have to the luxury of being able to find a "teenage job" like a waitress for the time being. I had a dandy conversation with my grandmother about this subject.

Grannie- How's the job hunt coming?
Crippie- I'm applying to everything I see
Grannie- You should find a small job in the meantime, like a waitress
Crippie- But I can't walk....
Grannie- Retail?
Crippie- Can't lift heavy objects and I can't stand for more than 10 minutes without it hurting
Grannie- hhhhmmmmm
Crippie- yyyyyyeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhh
Grannie- yeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

So in the meantime I have been looking locally for any jobs that I might even sorta qualify for. Also, the program that paid for my driving lessons, part of my education, etc has a job placement office. I didn't want to use their help, but it looks like I need it. I have an intake appointment on Wednesday with them. I'll let you guys know how that goes.

Also, I'm trying to see what I can do on the interwebz as far as making money and finding freelance clients. I'm going to be writing articles for blogcritics.org about whatever my little heart desires. At the moment I feel like writing reviews for "pretty books" :D.

Additionally, I've been getting more comfortable with styling my blog and adding HTML/CSS goodies. If anyone out in the blog-o-sphere would like a blogger redesign, HIT CRIPPIE UP. I designed my blog and I am also currently working on THIS blog's design as well. I'll do anything from a badge, banner, to the whole damn blog!

So yeah, expect several job related posts in the next coming weeks/months. Wish Crippie luck!

Crippie's Tippie For Pre-Work Force Crippies- Go to school and become educated in something that a) you enjoy doing and b) you can physically do. Desk jobs seem to do nicely.
Crippie's Tippie For Work Force Age Crippies- There are places and programs that help you find jobs.

Fellow Crippie's Unite!

Greetings,

One of the main reasons I blog is to give support for other people in my situation. So when I found a blog hop of blogs related to disabilities by Kat's Cafe I knew I had to join to. I urge my fellow crippies to check these blogs out, ya never know what kind of information you will find on 'em.

Crippie's Tippie: Check out my fellow crippie's blogs!