I recently went on a trip to the UK and made a few drawings. This first one I made while we waited for the ferry to cross over with. As a kid I got sea-sick a lot so this trip gave me the opportunity to see if I’d still get sea-sick. See how I try to give it a positive twist?

Yeah, it didn’t go so well…

We had some afternoon tea and some food at Tiny Tim’s Tearoom where I made a drawing of a chair and a birth-bath. Halfway through my drawing things got moved.

Another time we had tea and food at Cafe 22. I loved the little teapot/cup set and we searched around for them at the shops, but couldn’t find them. I ended up ordering a set over the internet, ah well.

We also visited Mike and his husband and played around in the pottery. I messed up a few times and still ended up with a cute little bowl. Hurray!

We went to London for a bit too and I tried drawing St. Paul’s Cathedral from Tate Modern. Lots of wind, so my pens rolled of the table and my pages flipped over. That, and I misguessed the amount of space I needed. Ah, well :)

I have filled up three little books with my Inkblobs. The fourth has the writing on the outside and no drawings yet.

I think I’ll fill it up pretty soon and then on to the fifth. And a sixth, and probably a seventh and so on.

Clearing out my bookshelves, just in case I have lots of them next year. One has to prepare for these things :)

With the way the thing is set up, I’d still be stuck with the same basic provider (they own the pipes), but I can choose a different end provider.

So I happily switched from company X to company Y and all went well.

And today I received a call from company X, asking if I had time for some questions. As I love to see how these conversations go, I said yes.

The lady asked if I wanted to tell which company I switched to. ‘Sure,’ I said, ‘I went to company Y.’ When she asked why, I said they were cheaper.

She then said, in one of those tones mothers use to scold her children: ‘Well, ma’am, I have some bad news for you, they are much more expensive!’ at which point she basically lost me and I figured I’d finish the conversation just for kicks.

I had done my research and just said ‘Oh, they’re giving me a discount.’

She then asked if Y informed me I’d still be getting a monthly bill from X because of the pipe-ownership. I said that they had not (but as I have brains I figured either Y would charge me and pay the pipe-thing, or I’d get separate bill. Either way I didn’t care much, the amount is fixed and I’d see it on the first bill I’d get).

The lady continued with ‘Well then! You’re massively screwed there (she used different words, but clearly meant that) as you do not only have a more expensive provider now, you also have to pay that extra money per month!’
Yes, and I would not otherwise? This amount is fixed, I have to pay it no matter what, so pff.

I simply repeated I get a pretty good discount (but did not mention the amount)

She then stated that with the price drops in June or something I’d end up paying much more than I should! Up to 35% for gas alone! (This price drop applies to variable contracts, I went for a fixed price for a year, which could mean I do indeed ‘pay more than I should’, but I like security so I happily pay a little more now. I’m also a bit sceptical about the price drop in general. And I barely use gas so price drop or not, I still pay a very fixed amount for that.)

I said ‘Yeah.’ not feeding her with any more info.

She then made a comment roughly like ‘Well, you wouldn’t want to pay more than the neighbours, now would you?’

I said ‘eh…’ and blinked a lot, which of course she did not see. The comment took me a bit by surprise, and I wish I had said what I thought at the time: ‘I don’t give a crap what my neighbours do.’ ‘Cause seriously, I mostly don’t care what others pay (unless they’re deliberately duped, then I try to educate them on the matter as much as I can. But if they found a good deal, yay for them. It’s not like I’ll benefit from them having to pay more than me…)

She then got all friendly-lovey-dovey and said ‘So how about you stick with us and we give you a nice variable contract? Wadda ya say?’

I said no. :)

She asked why and I said I didn’t feel like going through the administrative crap again. Not that I did before, but I was done with her. She said goodbye and I wished her a nice day. It was pretty simple for me, I have a new contract with Y, ‘sticking with X’ would mean breaking the contract and having to pay for it. Yeah, sounds great! ;)

The thing is, all through the conversation, she clearly tried to make me feel I had made a horrible mistake and I don’t buy that. If you start out like that, you lose me straight away. I’m okay with making mistakes, I’m not okay with anyone rubbing it in. And certainly not when I made the right choice for me. (little side-step here: people will often try and rub in ‘your’ mistake because they simple would not have done the same thing, regardless of what’s best for you or if you’ve already accepted the fact you made it and moved on. No need to drag that out…)
Anyway, I firmly believe I made the right choice and this phone-call leaves me with a bad feeling about company X where before, I had none.

Please treat me as an adult, and as a client. I am not your friend or your child, if you want to keep me as a customer, treat me like a decent person. Thanks :)

To help me and keep me motivated, I’ve started reading blogs about getting rid of clutter basically. I found a good list of tips over at ‘Simple. Organized. Life.’ As a recovering pack-rat I found the first two most helpful.

• Have a place for everything – this means your keys, your wallet, your office supplies, etc.

and

• When you bring one thing home, try to send at least one thing out the door.

Having a place for everything (well, not yet, but getting there) helps me not having to search for an item. Tossing out something when I bring in something new helps me to not cling onto older items just for the sake of clinging on.

I’ve started feeling much calmer with less clutter around me. A lot less stress.

I don’t do anything for Valentines Day. If I feel the need to do something special, I just do it, I don’t wait until that one day per year. Boyfriend and I joked about it and he spent most of the day on his knees with another guy, getting all hot and sweaty while filming it.

Anyway, after he finished that and cleaned up the mess, he gave me a gift. My very own cordless screwdriver! Guess who’ll put her Ikea-things together with it from now on. :D

For those of you who consider this very unromantic, too bad! I love it! Had he brought me a bunch of roses I’d have smacked him on the head with it. Pretty painful with those thorns and such.

I put some drawingsupplies in the cabinet on the left (top-right), and consider putting my yarn and crochet things there too. I crochet in the livingroom, not in my hobby/bedroom (aka ‘the funroom’ ;) )

I tossed out one full garbagebag.

Getting back on my feet from my little RA-blow takes a bit longer than expected. I have received medication that works (fabulously) and all seemed to go well again, until this itsy bitsy thing with a low amount of white blood-cells popped up, which made the doctors stop the medication. My white count went up again, so last week I restarted treatment, yaay.

I have not completely abandoned my creative projects either, I have made some nice photos and I started the painting in the picture (stuck with it now, though). I also have bought a sewing machine and managed to sew up a skirt, a dress and a top. It just goes a bit slow.

Hearing I have rheumatoid arthritis did come as a bit of shock, even if I knew I had something (the frequent pains and morning stiffness certainly didn’t fit my age (fyi: 27)). We started treatment straight away and I now take 15mg of methotrexate weekly. Methotrexate started out as a treatment for cancer (and falls under ‘chemo’) and works well against auto-immune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis. Though different people have different experiences, by default, doctors start with methotrexate to stop the disease in its tracks and prevent (further) damage. It has worked but the effect seems to have started to wear off. Nothing to panic about, I have more doctors appointments next week.

I read up a little about rheumatoid arthritis and found that currently, doctors want to treat it as soon as possible because they want to prevent damage to the joints, which apparently can and does occur in the first two years of the disease. I also found out that rheumatoid arthritis does not only affect the joints, it can also cause complications in the eyes and mouth and several other parts of the human body. Due to its nature, it also cause general problems such as fatigue, concentration problems, forgetfulness, sleeping problems, change of appetite. The side-effects of the medications for the disease can also cause and/or worsen these problems.

Of course I found a few sites with stories of people with rheumatoid arthritis and most of them I honestly found very depressing. I strongly believe that your mindset with a chronic illness/condition can help you a lot. It can also sabotage you should you have lost hope and consider your condition a ‘delayed death-sentence’. Some days you feel bad, some days you feel good. I believe the focus should lie on the good days.

Yes, I have cried and felt really bad. Yes, I have had terrible pain one of which made me end up in the ER at Christmas. Later we discovered it had nothing to do with the rheumatoid arthritis, and it could have happened to anyone. The frustration the pain and the limited movability brings has brought me to tears and in a very sad mood. And I refuse to let it become more than that. I will not let it go beyond ‘a very sad mood’. I will not stay home and soak in my own tears and not work and feel bad. I get out of bed every morning, sometimes it just takes very long.

In the end, the result counts. The ‘how’ only counts if I found a really cool and creative way to do a seemingly easy task. Anything I used to do, I can still do. It may take longer, but I can still do. And that, I’ll never give up.

As for the title of this post: if in a year or two or twenty, my legs got damaged, and I started to limp, if my eyes got affected and I can’t really see, if my hair falls out from the medication, I’ll buy a bandana, and wear an eye-patch. I’ll limp through live either with or without a wooden leg. I’ll buy a parrot, and go sail the warm seas.

I’ll become a pirate.