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A New Home

While working to get back into a routine after the memory loss, I have found that my blog posts have brought me great comfort, a way to connect with myself and get to know who I have become.

Over the years I have written posts in three different blogs, each with a different feel and flare. Moving forward I want all of me in one place.
So I have combined posts from each of the past blogs into a new home...

Jackie Wood Blog

This is where I will be from now on. I will be sharing my journey on getting back to me. Finding my way through the cloudy fog and learning how to live life with lost memories.

Memory Loss

Things have changed for me over the past few days and I want to share with my online community of friends the reason why I won't be around as I have in the past.

On Friday morning I woke up with an eight year memory loss. It was very disorienting and quite frightening for me. Those around me though were calm, they knew what to do because they have been through this before.

I have been told, but do not currently remember....
In 2004 I had my first case of amnesia and after days of tests and a ton of anxiety I was diagnosed with Transient Global Amnesia (TGA). Then in 2007 I had another loss, but I also gained back all of my memories later that year. So the connections in my brain are not permanently severed and there is hope that I will once again remember the last eight years. But there are no guarentees. 

Physically and medically I will be fine. But emotionally it will be a challenge to adjust to all that has changed in the last eight years. 

You can't really put something like this into words. How do you describe how it feels to look at someone you know, yet they are suddenly eight years older. This is especially hard with my daughter, she has gone from 5 to 13 in an instant for me. I still can't quite wrap my head around that one. Or the situation where I have amazing people in my life that I no longer remember. I can see pictures, I can read words, but I can't make the connections to the emotions and memories of them. 

I have had moments of complete frustration, where I just don't know how I can get through the day. But I have been told that these moments will pass and I will create a new normal and continue to move forward. Oh, how I pray that will come quickly.

Everyday I am working to learn what I don't know, making a bridge from my time to the current time. It is exhausting, but I am making progress. The technology that has happened in the last eight years alone is going to take me a bit of time to catch up with. So many online communities, so much information, way too many logins. That is the reason that I wanted to post this now. I don't expect to be active in the communities that I have in the past. Right now I am focused on daily life so Facebook, Twitter, and blogging are going to have to wait.

I thank each of you for your friendship and I hope that I will be able to reconnect with you in the future.

Color Play

Yesterday Rachel and I spent a little time in the studio playing with color. No set project, no goal in mind, no rules to follow. Just creamy colorful play.

The idea for this color play came from Michelle Ward and Crusades #54 and #53

These Crusades encouraged you to mix your own colors and then name them. Or take the approach of having a name and then designing/mixing a color to match it.

Rachel and I did both. We started with our names.

Here is 'Rachel' the color:

Rachel is a huge fan of blue. So she pulled out Manganese Blue Hue, Cobalt Teal, and Quinacridone Crimson to create Rachel!

Here is 'Jackie' the color:

I can not say it enough, I LOVE ORANGE, so I pulled out the Quinacridone / Nickel Azo Gold, Indian Yellow Hue, Quinacridone Crimson, and a little Titan Buff to make Jackie!!

After the name play we just started experimenting with color and named them after we were done.

Here is "I am a delicious pizza" (This of course has to be said in the voice from the old Mac Ad). 

This color was really the result from what was left over after mixing Jackie. 

And here is "Pea Brain"

Our last color of the day, with the best name..."Munged Leaves"

We had a great time swirling color and coming up with names. Each color had many names along the way and it just kept getting funnier and funnier. Laughter, light, and love poured through the studio yesterday and it made my heart very happy.

Once the creative play was over we took our brains on color to Art Media for a little color shopping.