Happy New year!

True, the year started over a week ago, but I wasn't here to great you, was I?


I found myself interested in different online scrapbooking challenges. The first one I joined was the DSO December Color Challenge. Those were the first paper packs I designed. You can still get them if you go backwards a little...


Then I found this challenge at the Digital Scrap Shop.
And in one of the Israelis Forums (here) we had our first monthly challenge - design a page about you.
So I decided to combine the two, and what came out was something so far out from what I usually do, but I really like it.

Here, you be the judge:

Life on the refrigerator door by Alice Kuipers

The English Cover Version:
The Hebrew Cover Version:


I just finished reading this book. I think it's a must book. I read it in just under an hour, and that should tell you something.
It's not a long book. Some pages really have no more then one line in them, but the book takes you places.
The book is composed of notes left on the refrigerator door between a mother and her 15 year old daughter. A full year of notes. A year of dealing with a broken heart, with the loss of childhood in a sense, with growing up, with breast cancer, with death.
Maybe cause my own mom died of breast cancer I felt this book so much, I don't know. I only know I couldn't put it down, and I ended up crying.
As I'm trying to think how I feel about this book I realise that I love and hate it both at the same time. It's stirring up things inside that I don't want to deal with.
My own mom got cancer while she was pregnant with me, but it was diagnosed only after my birth, when it was too late. She went through three years of treatments, losing one breast, radiation and chemo, being in bed most of the time, and then she was gone.
I was three when she died, so it's no wonder I hardly remember her at all. I have two small memories from her, two pictures in my mind. That's all. Everything I know about her came from stories, from other people, and I think that's one of my greatest regrets, that I didn't get the chance to get to know her personally. But that's life, right?
I'm going to put this book aside now, but I know I'll read it again. And again. And again.

Prurigo Nodularis

My curse.

I don't think any other word would fit as well as that word, for Prurigo is indeed a curse to whomever has it.
Basically Prurigo is a skin disease, one that has no cure. It isn't fatal, It isn't contagious, it's simply ugly, irritating, annoying and hated.
The condition manifests itself in little very very itchy nodules on the skin, and the result is you can't help but scratching, which end up in bleeding nodules, scars, change of skin color etc.

I have Prurigo for as long as I can remember, 18 years for sure, and I bet even more. Only 2-3 years ago was my condition diagnosed, which means I went through life going from one doctor to the next, acting mostly as their guinea pig. I can't really blame them. They tried what they knew to help me. They just didn't know about Prurigo.

So why am I writing about it now? Cause I started a new treatment - phototherapy - which I'm hoping is going to help. I do see some improvement, but it's early days yet. Basically what this therapy means is exposure to specific wavelength of light for a certain amount of time, whuch increases every time I go to be treated.
If you want to read more about it here are some links (or you can use Google to search):
Prurigo Nodularis - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prurigo_nodularis
Phototherapy - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_therapy

Wish me luck!