what a wonderful year...

i am happy...

i love being with my boys, our life is peaceful and not too busy...we have wonderful friends, family and church family...my job is challenging, stimulating and meet our needs. God has brought me closer to some special people who have encouraged me to better health and a vision of a successful business of my own.

happy new year all!

tis the season...

jonathan's violin teacher has pretty bad arthritis, but she told us she has had some real improvement and even some reversal using honey and cinnamon. so i am making her baklava for Christmas...

i have never made it before...added some cloves to the nuts and cinnamon to make it more Christmasy and am simmering the honey syrup right now...hope it turns out gift worthy!

do you have as hard a time coming up with gifts for people in your life as i do? i find if we try and think about the person rather than the gift it's easier to find something that fits them quite well!

THE RESULTS!

my soul glorifies the Lord...

today is jonathan's eleventh birthday. he was born on a tuesday and today is tuesday and i think that has made it all seem so close, so recent, so sweet...

when i think of the boys, their birth and our life together i feel like mary when she said "my soul glorifies the Lord". i love being a mom and don't know how i could love them more than i already do. it is a privilege to be with them, to teach them and learn from them. children truly are a blessing and i am so grateful for the two God has trusted into my care...my soul glorifies the Lord!

ED

i work in an emergency department. i was made for it. trained by a childhood of family violence, illness, death, poverty and living with 3 other strong women. my position as first born created a role of independent and responsible leader. i learned early to put emotions somewhere else until at some other time i could deal with them. admittedly some of those emotions lived in the dark, starving for recognition and attention.

i love a good trauma. a good trauma is one where something extreme comes in, but ends well. i function really well in the middle of a trauma, calm, focused, and out of the way! at first i was surprised by the way i reacted to trauma. in circumstances that i thought would make me cry...i didn't and events that i thoughts would be no biggie had me crying in my office. now i have a pretty good idea at what will slay me and what won't. i cry most often when someone has no one they can call to support them, when they are basically alone in this world or when young people have to deal with the trauma of someone they love. but i don't cry at most deaths...i know death, we are old friends and it doesn't bring me to tears when it is a stranger.

i was surprised recently when i got angry at someone who had died. it was a death by their own hand and left a family devastated...i'm still mad at them. selfishness comes to mind... as does a little girl in her bedroom, feeling alone and on her own, hiding her feelings and talking only to God in the dark and smiling in the light.

it's a wonderful...but short life

when i am not with my true loves jon and sam...i work in an ER.

the name is emergency room, but often people come for company, for convenience, for free health care or for minor issues. sometimes they come because of unforeseen occurrences, a slip and fall, a car accident, a heart attack or stroke.

but sometimes they create the emergency. not like when i eat too much salt or don't exercise, but for what i have come to call a pre-meditated emergency; suicide.

many of the suicide attempts i see are defined as a gestures. when i think of a gesture it's usually a wave, a thumbs up or sometimes it's that one finger thing the grumpy looking people in the next car do. suicide gestures are for the same purpose...letting someone know what you are thinking without words. that message is "help". most often they are not lethal, but sometimes...

then there are the suicides that are clearly a surrender. this message is "i am done trying, struggling, hurting" and it is a serious attempt to end their life. i've seen 2 deaths by suicide since i've been there at the hospital and i have been surprised by the feelings they stir in me. not grief or sadness, but more helplessness. i have learned that if someone surrenders to suicide they will die. if the surrender does not change to fight; eventually they will kill them self.

we call a suicide that ends someones life a "successful suicide". doesn't that seem odd? success and surrender rarely go together...unless the surrender is to Christ. Christ brings the hope to continue in the struggle, the comfort to survive the hurt and the direction to keep trying no matter how difficult the circumstances...at least He did for me.

..planning the reunion show!

After a successful run it is time for me to hang up my character of Grandma Betty. I know that my many loyal fans will be sorry to see her go, but I believe I have taken this character as far as I can. There are rumors of a reunion show in the works for the Back to the Manger family, but details are still being worked out. Thank you for all your support, but Grandma has left the stadium!

...i don't know if i should be offended or not

i am grandma betty..."hi, grandma betty". wait this isn't an AA meeting, it's a church Christmas play and i am the star!

well, not really. i have 12 lines and i was kinda freaked out about it for awhile. i was first freaked out when they thought i could play a grandmother of 50-65 years old! why i was never so offended in all my life(that's not really true i've been offended plenty) but then i learned who they asked to play the 60-75 year old janitor/preacher and he has to be 10 years younger than me in real life. and they say men age gracefully...

secondly, i was just freaked out about having to say those lines in front of people. now don't get me wrong; i can get up in front, speak in large crowds, even like giving talks and teaching, but memorizing is not my thing. and in a play i can't really just wing it...especially with 5th graders to play off of(they just don't get the whole improv thing) but then i had a grand realization...no one will notice me...every mom, dad, grandma and grandpa, aunt and uncle, neighbor, teacher or friend in the audience will be there to see their particular kid. total focus will be given to the little girl in the front with her dress over her head and the boy on the left picking his nose. so when grandma betty gives her prize winning performance no one will even notice...hey!

is this hospital getting smaller?

so i was walking up to triage monday and had the thought...this doesn't seem as far as usual. i feel like i got there quicker, with less effort and less dread before hand. my feet weren't complaining about my not using the phone instead of hiking to the front of the department to talk to the nurse. my lungs weren't telling me to stop for 30 seconds before entering the room so that they didn't make me have a chest x-ray or EKG done.
i didn't feel like i needed to sit down before i could tell the nurse my message and i wasn't dreading the trip back to my office.

i guess something is changing and i don't think it is the size of the hospitals hallways!

!!!!

i just zipped up a pair of jeans that are FOUR sizes smaller than when i started using AdvoCare!!!

had to tell someone!

excuse #1...

well, like i said on my last post it has been busy here; as i imagine it has been at others homes. but some of the busyness has been the making of memories as a family when the boys and i made lemonade out of lemons when our Thanksgiving plans fell through.

first you need to know that i was on the verge of despair when i called and found out that we were kinda dis-invited to my sisters. actually it had been months since i had mentioned going down to fort wayne for thanksgiving and so when i finally called kimmy to check on the plan i found out that her family was going to be up here with my brother -in-laws family!!! i wisely didn't take it personally since i know the challenge of making everyone happy at the holidays...

despite my  show of maturity i was a little concerned that jon and sam might not see the change of plans the same way and i hated the prospect of disappointing them. so i went to my fall back plan...whenever i want to do something special...we go to a hotel. but a hotel alone seemed not quit right. so remembering sammy's little voice recently saying to me "can we ride on a train again sometime" i decided to take the boys to chicago for the day and go to Shedd Aquarium. it was a great time that included 2 train rides in and out of chicago, sharks, whales and dolphins and lots of other water thingies.

the only problem is that i don't think aquariums and hotel swimming pools are a very good combination. the boys kept thinking there was going to be a shark swimming out of the pool filter holes and they just couldn't stay in the water. dump, dump...dump, dump...dada, dada, dada, dada, dada dum!

ding, ding, ding...round two

i first want to say i have missed my blog. i don't know if anyone else has, but i sure have. i believe it is as busy this time of year for everyone else as it is for me, so my absence is probably no mystery.

i have made time for myself in the midst of all the stuff of the holidays though...i just finished another Herbal Cleanse. now i often say how much i LOVE Spark, but i have to say i'm really falling for the 10 Day Cleanse too! i love the way i feel during the cleanse. i don't know why (and if any of my fellow AdvoCare folks can tell me that would be great)but my back hurts less during and after a Cleanse and just like the first time my appetite is really smaller. this is my second Cleanse and i've got to say it was even easier and better than the first. i lost somewhere between 5-8 lbs. i even started thinking seriously about doing something i never thought would tempt me...using the fiber drink at times other than when i cleanse!!!

i am back on MNS as of today and feeling fine!