Musings
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Baby, it’s hot outside.
According to weather.com, it’s 102 outside. According to the National Weather Service, it’s 96. It feels more like 96 to me than 102, but I suspect 102 gets more sympathy than 96, so I’ll go with the Weather Channel on this one. Hey, at least it’s a dry heat, right?
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13 Ways to Beat Stress
You will all be relieved to know that I’m doing much better lately. There is, of course, still worry, but I feel like I’m doing a bit better as far as the stress level goes. I had my first therapy session on Tuesday, and the therapist told me that she thinks I’m doing pretty well, and gave me a few tips to help me to cope. As a favor to any of my readers out there who might be stressed as well, I’ll make a Thursday 13 out of a combination of tips she had for me, and things I’m already doing, which she agreed would be helpful. Keep a…
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My Therapy
What if these last practically three months in hospitals and care facilities and confusion have taken too much of a toll on my mom? What if she’s too far gone down the road of depression, and no amount of encouragement, no words of love and support, no gifts or even medications, can bring her back to the point where she’s willing to fight the good fight, the fight that must be fought, and fought by her, to eat and move and get well again? What if she’s given up, without realizing that that’s what she’s done? And what if that struggle, that giving up by her mind and the not…
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Cadettes!
Maya has been a girl scout for several years now. She was first a Brownie, for one year I think, and then ‘bridged’ into a Jr. Girl Scout a few years ago. Never having been a girl scout myself, I was indifferent to her participation at first. Especially at the Brownie level, it seemed like a lot of crafts and kind of make-worky, and while I didn’t dislike it, I didn’t really see the benefit. Jr. Girl Scouts has been a whole ‘nother ball of wax, as they say. To watch these girls take charge of their meetings, their projects, and their awards, has been wonderful. They have worked really…
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Burma
That tiny country (not really tiny, not really) in the middle of Asia, flavored by India and Thailand and the middle east… a tiny country (not really tiny, not really) now named Myanmar, torn apart and wrecked by a horrid combination of God’s wrath and man’s indifference. Burma, a tiny country (not really tiny, not really) full of suffering and sorrow and pain Burma, that tiny country (not really tiny, not really) if I knew how to pray, I would pray for you.
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Apparently, I’m Stressed
Seems like these last few months are taking their toll on me, and my mom’s latest setback has thrown my stress into full gear. She had a horrid reaction to the Prozac (duh), in that it made her paranoid. She thought she had been kidnapped, and that people were trying to kill her. That wouldn’t be horridly stressful, since I’ve seen this before (far too recently, with the Paxil), and I know the answer is to change the meds. Except that gosh, she hasn’t eaten more than a few bites of anything in a few months, and she isn’t motivated to get up and move like she needs to. Her…
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Weekend Wrap-Up
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbpzJRWz6rg[/youtube] Other than the stress related to my mom’s condition, this was a lovely weekend! Friday, Ted and his brother went out for a yummy dinner at Wente, while Maya and I had a nice evening doing some last minute birthday shopping and making plans for the birthday boy. Saturday, Ted’s parents invited everyone to their house, and we had a birthday BBQ for Ted. His mom is smart, and the majority of family functions are ‘pot luck’, meaning we all bring something, and no one has to cook or pay for everything. We feasted on pork ribs, lamb ribs, chicken, corn on the cob, fruit salad, the best potato…
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The “F” Word
This is a rerun of a post that I originally posted on May 10, 2006. It seemed a good post to rerun during this month of letters. 😉 Warning…this post contains SWEARING I lived in Fairbanks, Alaska, from the age of 4 until I was 9. It was the early 70’s, and it was much more a frontier society than we have down in the lower 48. I haven’t been back since, so I can’t speak to the modern sensibilities, but I digress. In Fairbanks, at that time, everyone swore. I mean, EVERYONE. At one point, we lived next door to a church, and it wasn’t unusual to hear people…
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Z End
This being the 26th of April, and Z being the 26th letter of the alphabet, I’ve come to ‘zee end’ of my letter themed posts. Or have I? I’m thinking I may run and oldie but a goodie that was letter based, and perhaps I’ll write a few letters as well. We’ll see. It’s been a fun month, and sometimes a challenge. The NaBloPoMo theme for May is “Voices”. That one isn’t grabbing my interest, so I’ll probably skip it. By the way, I used to think that Zebras were awesome and just pretty horses with stripes, but then I saw one nature video too many, and was witness to…
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Yaz – Only You
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Yod7jc8U94[/youtube] The spring and summer of 1986 is when I discovered Yaz (known as Yazoo in the UK and on Youtube), and Upstairs at Eric’s and You and Me Both were in heavy rotation on my boom box. As a matter of fact, I may not have played anything else for weeks on end. Just to give you a picture, my car stereo was stolen from my rag top ’66 candy apple red WV bug, and since I could see myself offering up a series of car stereos to car stereo scumbag thieves, while driving a car that effectively didn’t lock (the rag top was held in place by snaps),…
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the perfect Omelette
Py and I had an amazing honeymoon, almost 15 years ago. We started in London, where we saw some plays and ate some bad food. We then spent a few days in Amsterdam, and went to the Anne Frank House, and ate yummy shwarma. Finally, we spent almost a whole week in Paris, in a hotel with rooms that looked like dungeons (not on purpose, just old buildings), and went to museums and ate wonderful yumminess. The best Chinese food I’ve ever had in my life was at a little deli type shop around the corner from our dungeon. We had the best meal of our lives there, too. (When…
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Licorice Day!
Today, April 12, is National Licorice Day! Who knew? As a matter of fact, you may wonder how I know this factoid. Well, I went over to Chrissy’s blog, where I saw the pile of candy that she won, and spied in that enviable pile a Bit O’ Honey. I remember Bit O’ Honey being made by the Ward Candy Company, because my maiden name was Ward, and I used to imagine that it was MY company, or maybe my Grandpa’s company, and I would be able to invent all kinds of groovy candy, ala Willy Wonka. Well, Nestle bought the company at some point, and I felt a little…
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Kindness
(picture found here. Kind of a groovy article accompanying the picture as well.) I’ve written about Kindness before. It is the virtue that resonates most deeply with me, because I feel like if more people were more kind more of the time, many of the world’s problems would disappear. If we were more kind to strangers, we would have many fewer problems like road rage and fights in bars. If we were more kind to children, we would raise more kind, thoughtful adults. If we were more kind to our families, we would have more harmony and laughter at home. If we were more kind to ourselves, we would have…
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Isolation
(picture found here) I was IMing with Dot yesterday, musing about ideas for an ‘I’ post. Ice Cream. Ikky. iPod. Ichabod Crane. Isolation. Isolation…I like that one, so I’ll run with it. Sorry, Dot, if you wanted it. You can have Ichabod, or go with Idolatry, Idiots, Ingenious, Idealism, Inspiration, Instant Messaging…whatever you want. Really, I shouldn’t take this one from Dot, because she gave me the thought as well, which was how we all feel, at least sometimes, like we’re alone in this world, that we’re the only one going through crap and no one really understands. And yet, you talk to someone, and they say, Yes, yes, I…
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Happiness
(click to enlarge) (warning…I started this post with a simple idea, but it sort of took over and became unwieldy. In other words, I lost control of it. So it’s not completely coherent and doesn’t have a clear beginning, middle, and end. At least not as I would define them. But I can’t think of what I would change, because that’s how my brain works anyway.) Pursuant to yesterday’s post on grace, a post on happiness came easily to mind. After all, I firmly believe that one of the main components in living one’s life with grace is a sense of gratitude, and the ability to focus more on the…