End of Summer Sale: Buy 1Get 1, Half Off

End of Summer Sale: Buy 1Get 1, Half Off! Raspberry Lemonade, Cucumber, Sugared Lemon Drop email: info@faery-wings.com to order! http://ht.ly/2sRgM

Lyme Takes another Victim.

Her name is Jennifer and she was a long-time Lyme sufferer. She passed away in early June. Her last post on a Lyme Disease forum expressed how much she had fought against this disease, against the insurance companies, against people who did not understand.  She spoke of being overwhelmed and depressed from illness and from fighting. And now she is gone.

I do not want to speculate how she died. Yet however she died, whether it was either directly or indirectly from Lyme, she left behind family and friends who loved and lost due to this debilitating disease. It speaks volumes to me that her family has asked for donations to the International Lyme and Associated Diseases Society (ILADS.org), in lieu of flowers. Even after she is gone, she still fights for Lyme Awareness.

RIP Jennifer, may you be in a place without pain.

3-1 Special at ACDSee

This is a great deal. You can get ACDSee Photo Editor and FotoSlate for free when you purchase ACDSee Photo Manager for $69.99. If you are already an ACDSee customer you can get additional discounts as well. Get all of the details at ACDSee’s Website.

Ticked Off: Philidelphia Weekly

Ticked Off: This is an old article, but shows how *nothing* has change. It was written over two years ago, and the Lyme Community is still facing the same struggles,  sense of disbelief, challenges from the IDSA-led medical community and insurance companies.

When will this change?

Thank Goodness for ACDSee Photo Manager!

I would be swamped by now, if it were for Photo Manager. Today was Caitlyn’s 6th Grade Award ceremony. I brought my Canon DSLR with the “big” zoom and snapped off 113 photos.  Yeah, 113 of 10.1 megapixel files. How many gig is that? The card is 4 gig, and I still had room left, but it took forever to download them off of it. The easy part for me was being able to sort through the photos, tag the keepers and then edit the ones I wanted to share on Flickr.

I went right into  View Mode and using my Page Down key, I quickly ran through all of them and deleted the ones that were outright bad pictures. Anything blurry or missing heads were instantly sent to the Recycle Bin. That reduced the amount of photos I needed to look at more closely to about 90. I know that I could have (should have!) deleted more than that, but I have a hard time getting rid of photos. Don’t you??

My next step was to go through a second time., this time looking for some really good shots, as well as photos of Caitlyn’s friends that I was planning on sharing with their parents. By using both hands, one on the Page Down key and the other on the backslash key (\) , I zipped through the photos and picked out about 20 that were pretty good. Next, I went back to Manage Mode, selected the Category “Tagged” in the Organize Pane and those 20 photos are now ready to be edited. Most of them are just going to be cropped and a few need a bit more editing, such as with White Balance. I was using a fast ISO and a zoom lens, so there is a lot of noise on some of them.  In those, I am using the Noise Reduction, “hybrid setting”, which reduces digital camera noise.

Approximately 20 minutes later, I have 20  photos cropped and edited and now I am ready to upload them to Flickr which I can do right within the Photo Manager Program. How easy is that!?

I am almost done with Elementary School.

Since 2001, Marshall Hill School has been a huge part of my life. Today will be one of the last times I have to be there. It is Caitlyn’s 6th Grade Award Ceremony. So this is it. Its feels so weird. On the one hand, wow- I am going to have one kid in Middle School and one in High School this September. One the other hand- wow No more little guys….

It is going to be bittersweet. I am not sure if I am going to cry. Any bets? I am really proud of Cait, she has had a really enjoyable  time in Marshall Hill. The teachers and staff have been fabulous. I am going to miss seeing them too.

I guess all of this is a part of growing up, even for moms.

New Research on Lyme Disease and its Treament

Disclaimer: If you or a loved one has Lyme, be warned, the research seems quite depressing. Don’t read this if you are overly emotional, experiencing Lyme brain, Lyme rage or confusion. Do not read if you are currently engaged in any conflict with your insurance company, doctor or family members over the reality and/or treatment of Chronic Lyme. Is there anybody left? 

Gary and I were at our Lyme doctor’s last week. Gary is still just as sick as he has been for the last year (s). I seem to have hit a plateau, no better or worse, minus the typical Lyme flares, in the past several months. Since I was first (Gary and I like to take turns who gets to sit up on the Exam table first  at each appointment hehe), I showed my LLMD (“Lyme Literate Medical Doctor”, since after my disclaimer it is likely that there are only non-Lymies reading this!) my Symptom Chart, expressed my frustration at not getting any better, and wondered if it was time for me to come off all of my antibiotics and see what happens after that. Who knows, maybe this is just the way I am going to feel every day?

After checking over my chart, my latest blood work and then after proclaiming my Lymph Nodes “massive,” my LLMD tells me that coming off abx is not an option. She seemed to debate with herself for a moment, then decided to tell us about a conference she attended in May. It was the  2010 Lyme Disease Symposium at the University of New Haven. The topics were  “The Challenges of Lyme Disease: Emerging Research and Pediatric Care.” Anything with the words “challenges and “Lyme Disease” in it starts out sounding depressing and overwhelming. As she discussed the conference and the research, it became even more so.

Since I will never be able to interpret all of the research and facts given to us at our appointment, here is a link to a summary of the conference, posted on the NeuroEndocrineImmune (NEI) Center website.

Basically, the research is showing that the Lyme bacteria are much more complex than it was first thought, even by LLMD’s. Due to its ability to adapt to the host and to create a protective biofilm, many of the recognized abx that are used to treat Lyme may actually create even more bacteria in a cyst form. Penicillin and Doxy both increased the number of  the round(cyst) form of the Borellia bacteria. However, when used in combination with Flagyl or Tinidazole, Doxy shows a more effective treatment and reduction of both forms of the bacteria.

So this sounds pretty promising that there is a combination of medications that might actually HELP!

Eh- don’t get so excited unless you have a really, really good prescription plan or are wealthy enough that $500/month for a Rx doesn’t hurt your financials.  Sadly, Gary and I don’t fall into either category. Neither Medicare nor Healthnet covered Tinidazole. If we could pay out-of-pocket, it would be $450-$500 a month for each of us. That was a big bummer.

So after all of that, Gary is staying on his combination of Biaxin, Minocycline and Flagyl, which he hates because of the very nasty side effects. I am sticking with Minocycline and Doxy. We’ll have to see when and if our insurance companies cover Tinidazole, and go from there.

To end on a positive note, I am very happy that there is such excellent and informative research being done. If not for the people who are leading this field, we Lymies would be much worse off.

Using Shortcuts in Photo Manager

I don’t know about any of you, but when I am tagging my scrap kits in Photo Manager, I tend to have my pen (from my Wacom tablet) in one hand, while I try to type and move around the screen. I love having shortcuts, so I am going to share some of my most used shortcuts in the newest version of Photo Manager, version 12.

There is a huge list of shortcuts that you can use, preset by ACDsee. The list is pretty long, but there are a few that I use quite often. Of course, I use Ctrl-C and Crtl-V when I am adding information to the Author and Caption boxes. I will use Esc. for exiting out of View Mode. Of course, these are most likely familiar to many of you already.

One of my favorite shortcuts us F2, which is to rename a folder or file. I use this one all of the time to rename folders of kit names so they are more uniform.

A new shortcut  in this version is \ (backslash) which tags or untags files in one step. This is not tagging with a Category tag, but is a one step way to “tag” photos or files that you want to be able to find easily later on. If you are working with a group of photos, you can \  to tag them then when you need to call them up, you go to the Organize Pane, select “Tagged,” located under “Special Items,” and any of the photos or files you selected will come up. I used to add photos to my “Favorites” but I find this to be a much faster and easier to manage process.

Another one I am using more is Alt-M which moved files without having to right-click or go through the Edit Menu.

These are just a few of the ones I use most often. In another blog post coming soon, I am going to show you how to customize your shortcuts to make it even easier to work in Photo Manager 12.

Blending Papers in Photo Editor

One of my favorite “Fantasy” style digital scrap designers is Mystique Designs from Oscraps. Her papers are simply fabulous. They look gorgeous just on their own, but when you layer and blend them, you can make them make them even dreamier.

I am going to make a fantasy faery page using the photo that extracted in a previous blog post and some of Mystique’s kits. First I drag my photo and a few of the papers from the kit Anyone Else But You into the image basket. Then I take one of the papers and open that up. I drag my photo onto that page, but the paper is too “green” for the photo which has a pink cast to it. The second paper I choose has a pinker/cooler tone to it. I drag that on top of the first paper, and now I get to play with the  Transfer (blending) Modes. I start with the first Transfer Mode and work my way down until I can visually see which one looks the best blended with my photo. For this layout, the Burn Mode, at 90% opacity works perfectly. It gives the background paper a mysterious feel but is not overpowering. The two papers blend nicely.

However, against the soft feel of the papers, the harder edges from the extracted photo don’t work as well. I am going to select the photo and feather the edges a tiny bit. This involves using the Image Masks. In the Object Palette, click on the far right box that says “Edit Mask (Image Invisible)” This changes the image to a black and white object. Use the Magic Wand Tool to select the white potion of the image.  Go to Image| Selection| Feather.  I used a Feathering of 15 pixels. Now click Delete and the photo now has a softer edge.

Now all I have left to do is add some elements from Anyone Else But You and Forever and drop shadows, and a title. I love this page!

Another Donation Made to Turn The Corner.org

I had an envelope full of  money on my refrigerator for oh, about 6 months. It was definitely from before the holidays…. So with our new fridge arriving yesterday, everything that had been hanging on the fridge door, buried under layers of papers and magnets,  had to be removed. And what did I find? That envelope of money, clearly labeled “Donations Lyme Line/TTC.”

Oops. I had forgotten about the money I had collected from the sales of Lyme in the Coconut. I had sold a whole bunch for holiday gifts, plus some bottles that I had over at the consignment shop. Business has been slow for the Lyme Line since then, but I was really happy to find this “lost envelope.”

I just donated another $27.00, and it feels great. Now that my envelope is empty, I hope that everyone will consider ordering/reordering some yummy body care that helps out a great cause!