Life, family, friends, and retirement: all a wonderful puzzle
15 Apr 2023 Leave a comment
Living life with other people is messy and requires multiple perspectives to find solutions that will positively impact the largest number of …
Reflections of a Politically Homeless Christian
Reposting from a blogger I just discovered. This describes me quite well, even though I grew up in a different church and am a bit older than the writer. Worth a read!
26 Feb 2023 2 Comments
in 500 Word Challenge, marriage, Uncategorized, Vacation Tags: 500 Word Challenge, family, relationships, Vacation, writing
My husband and I enjoy traveling and seeing new places. We have been coast to coast over the years, literally. But due to the need to be close to home for possible emergency issues with our aging mothers, and thanks to Covid concerns, one of our bucket list trips had been postponed more than once. Finally we decided 2021 was the year. We requested our time off from work, and I made actual reservations for where we would stay for a few days and explore. I purchased trip cancellation insurance just in case, knowing that my mother in law’s health could turn on a dime. The preceding weeks before the trip were not without stress. But, we managed to escape our daily grind and hit the road.
Those 2 weeks were some of the best of our lives. Hubby and I received some much needed recuperation time, and we were able to reconnect as a couple, just us, no kids or other family on the trip with us. And it made us think—do we want to spend the rest of our healthy middle years working? How do we adjust our time table for retirement? Is this a selfish goal? We had discussed in our early years what we thought our goals should be, knowing that my parents’ health did not allow them to travel in retirement. We took many fun road trips with our daughters in tow while they were growing up , knowing that those years are irretrievable once they are gone.
So now both our daughters are married, and my mother in law and several other family members have passed away since 2021. Hubby and I decided to retire the end of last year, and now are debating “where to next?” But I have to laugh. In the next few months we have a road trip planned to take youngest 2 kids to meet family in Galveston for a cruise, and hubby and I are going to do things in the area while they are on the ship. Following that trip our oldest daughter and son in law are going to concerts out of state over a weekend, and instead of having family take turns keeping little infant daughter for them, we are going on the trip too and will babysit while they attend the concerts. I suppose lots of folks think we are odd, but that’s not a new accusation. We do us. And after these trips and some other things are done, we have plans for some sightseeing in areas we haven’t been…because I want more mountain pictures!
22 Sep 2022 Leave a comment
in Uncategorized Tags: #faith, children, family, grace, parenting, prayers
Some lean over gravestones and say: The miracle didn’t happen. And others lean over gravestones and say they got their miracle because she was a miracle, and getting to love her was a wonder, and every moment together was a miracle of grace and there is no other was to explain the extraordinary
— Read on annvoskamp.com/2022/09/when-you-pray-but-god-doesnt-answer-with-the-miracle/
Our family recently received a miracle in the birth of a healthy granddaughter. But so many times we have had heartbreak of our own. Feeling supremely grateful this morning, for every miracle I have ever received.
21 Sep 2022 Leave a comment
in Uncategorized Tags: celebration, children, direction, family, grace, parenting, prayers
open.spotify.com/track/5HqSwk6BUuFDI5UBMytoJA
Just in a rather pensive mood today. I retired last Wednesday, and our first granddaughter was born Saturday. Some scary moments but she and her mama are home and healthy. So many thoughts swirling today in the midst of my migraine haze.
Left unchecked, my imagination can frequently get the better of me. Gee, wonder where my girls’s anxiety comes from? I wonder what I could have done differently, maybe better, and realize that I need to focus on what I did right. Seeing some evidence of that now. As darling first daughter and her husband learn and connect with their precious baby, I have every confidence that her dad and I, “son’s” parents planted seeds that are coming to fruition. A miracle in itself.
27 May 2022 2 Comments
Sitting on my front porch, I listen to birds chirp, mowers hum, and the wind chimes adding occasional notes as the breeze stirs them. The routine noises of summer belie the stirring in my heart from the week’s news. Friends post their kids’s last day of school photos as the nation mourns over yet another horrific school shooting. A friend’s son died last week unexpectedly; only 22, “his suffering has ended“ is how she prefaced her social media post about when his memorial service and burial would be held. He was 2020 high school graduate; cheated of a graduation ceremony, and for whatever mysterious reason, now he will not realize his full earthly potential.
I guess when Jesus said “in this world you will have trouble,” he wasn’t kidding. I know growing up my mother always talked about enjoying childhood while I could, because “life is hard as a grown up.” Or, as my now young adult daughters say, “adulting is hard.”
So I sit, savoring simple sounds of life around me. I have no answers for the suffering that abounds these days. I just keep praying for peace. Eventually I suppose we will each have it some way. I am grateful for my loved ones, and I do not take our days for granted.
08 Mar 2022 2 Comments
in family, Food for thought, Lent, marriage, Uncategorized Tags: grace, healthcare, Lent, nursing, relationships, stress
It is hardly surprising that healthcare workers are stressed, no matter what their role. I am not at the bedside directly, but my job is to get patients to beds from emergency room, surgery, or wherever they may happen to come from at our facilities. Recent changes to our leadership and processes have made an already difficult situation even worse. My husband works at the same hospital as a BioMed tech, so he understands the atmosphere of the hospital currently. So when I had texted that yesterday was a most definitely awful Monday, I came home to dinner ready and flowers in the table. With me on 12 hour shifts, he has discovered it is most helpful to have dinner prep done or underway by the time I get home if we want dinner before 9 pm. The one consistent thing in my life since our marriage has been dinner with him after I get home. For 30 years we have called when we get off work and said “I am on my way”, whether we are on time or delayed. But the flowers last night were a special surprise that he doesn’t usually do. Valentine’s Day he typically will buy a live rose plant to replant outside rather than “dead flowers,” as he puts it. Our dining room table is usually a chaotic mess of whatever hasn’t found a home in a drawer, file, or the shred box. Projects that he needs to fix, junk mail, books I am reading or want to read (because if those get to a shelf, they may or may not get read…), you name it, it all lays in a pile that would drive most professional home organizers up the wall. Marie Kondo does not live here, I do.
So as I review emails, texts, and my Lent devotional, and sip my coffee, I gaze at the wonder of pink lilies just opening their buds. These are a gentle reminder that my husband loves me and wants to make me happy. I also am reminded that long ago Jesus said, “…even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these” (Matthew 6:29) as he reminded his disciples that worrying is pointless. So I take comfort that I can try again another day to learn from my mistakes, and do better.
30 Jan 2021 Leave a comment
in Uncategorized Tags: habits, healthcare, nursing, stress
I personally believe that it is in times of failure, that the most important lessons are learned. You find the drive within yourself to get back up, to persevere, to keep going.
— Read on michaelhyatt.com/how-to-bounce-back-from-failure/
Even though this article is written from a “business” perspective , it is also true of health care professionals dealing with the stresses of work. When patients die in spite of the best efforts of the health care team, we view that as failure, because our goal is healing and returning patients to their loved ones whole. Often we cannot accomplish that, and we become filled with self doubt.
Taking care of ourselves is more important than ever. If we don’t, who will?
25 Jul 2020 Leave a comment
I watch the sunlight turn my backyard into a green and gold haven while sipping my steaming coffee. Yes, steaming. Summer or not, my morning caffeine jumpstart just isn’t the same unless it is hot and black.
My ginger kitty lounges on the plastic lawn chair after his morning prowl. Our labradoodle sniffs and nudges him with her nose and he lazily swats at her with one huge paw, not lifting his head or moving the rest of his body, except for a slight twitch of his tail. If only I could be as nonchalant at life’s little aggravations. I savor these mornings when I don’t have to race the clock and be somewhere early.
The humidity and heat drive my adventurers inside. Soon Oliver the ginger tussles with one of our 6 month old kittens who insists on attacking him while he is grooming. It reminds me of when Ollie was the active kitten pestering our gray cat to the point that Viper’s once fluffy tail became a raggedy thinned down version of his once proud plume. Now the tables have turned and Oliver is the wizened elder who only wrestled to teach a lesson; but amazingly is gentle in the process, as though aware of his larger size and potential for injury of his smaller counterpart.
The kittens soon race around and around the racetrack that is our kitchen, dining room and living room. Up the cat tree in front of the picture window, down and around the corner to the kitchen, then back to a box in the dining room that needs transferred outside to the recycle pile. One a mini panther, the other a white pawed tuxedo kitty, they scurry and pounce in perpetual motion, Val the labradoodle joining in the raucous chase. Peace and quiet recede, waiting patiently for my return; it is time to get back to my own motion of household tasks.
14 Jun 2020 Leave a comment
10 of the Best Ballads in English Literature
— Read on interestingliterature.com/2020/06/best-british-border-ballads-poems/
I have always found old literature interesting. These ballads/poems have many versions, but the snippets given here are entertaining.
Labyrinth, Ideas, and Wanderings 