So Now, I"m a "Journalist"

hi,...It's been awhile and I've missed writing this blog...I've had to take out all of my sarcastic wit on a chat friend of mine, Vicki.  I love to make people laugh...should've been a stand-up comedienne rather than a lie-down schizophrenic! lol.  And honestly, my other two blogs really aren't very funny.  Treasures from Darkness is honestly rather morose (did I hear someone mutter "whiney"??? See, I hear these things....) and Flying Faith; Muddy Trenches  well, it's about faith, pain, hope...a smattering of everything...but NOWHERE is there a hint of humor.  (See, I can keep secrets!)

I told someone recently as we were both roaring over something exceptionally funny that I'd said, "I love to make myself laugh.  Then I know it was really funny!"  And it's true...sometimes (and don't let word of this get out) I walk around laughing out loud - for no apparent reason.  The reason is that I just thought something hysterical.  Don't you wish you had a tablet of paper and a pen with you everywhere you go ---OH, you do?? yeah..it's called an iPhone, I know. Well, I'm not organized enough to carry around pen and paper and I'm not rich enough to have an iPhone so --sadly--my really funny thoughts just float away into neural-space, lost to the rest of  the world...and five minutes later, lost to me as well. (Short term memory loss bites!)  But... if I did have paper or iPhone, I would be a world famous comedic journalist or something....

JOURNALIST!
That reminds me of the whole reason I started this absurdly pointless post: Tonight I had my first article published that was picked up by a news-service/  The news service is called
"ANS" or "Assist News Service" (web site: www.assistnews.net ) I wrote a story that was solicited from me by a --I believe, world-wide news service which sends out multiple daily emailings to its subscribers.  So right now, millions (??) of households are in a few short hours going to be marveling over my insane life story....Here's the link --should you want to marvel too ( :)) ) Holding Fast to My Rock

I hope you enjoy it...And although I don't think it will make you laugh (if you do, I'm coming looking for you!)  maybe you'll get some idea of where and how this poor mind of mine got so bent. lol

Have great one, peeps!

New Blog Announcement

I've begun a new blogging venture...which is a bit different than I've done before...I invite you to take a look and if you like what you see, hang out there a while with me....

www.adonaischild.blogspot.com

"My Daddy Owns this School!"

I know I said I wouldn't be posting for a while...but can't resist putting this post in which I wrote for my Facebook Notes: I hope you like it---

"I love Thee, O Lord, my strength."

the Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer,

My God, my rock, in whom I take refuge;

My shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.

I call upon the Lord, who is worthy to be praised,

And I am saved from my enemies.

The cords of death encompassed me,

And the torrents of ungodliness terrified me.

....

In my distress I called upon the Lord,

And cried to my God for help;

He heard my voice out of His temple,

And my cry for help before Him came into His ears.

Then the earth shook and quaked;

....

He bowed the heavens also, and came down

With thick darkness under his feet.

And He rode upon a cherub and flew;

And He sped upon the wings of the wind.

He made darkness His hiding place, His canopy around Him.,

Darkness of waters, thick clouds of the skies.

From the brightness before Him passed His thick clouds,

Hailstones and coals of fire.

The Lord also thundered in the heavens,

And the Most High uttered His voice,

Hailstones and coals of fire.

And He sent out His arrows, and scattered them

And lightening flashes in abundance and routed them.

He sent from on high, He took me;

He drew me out of many waters.

He delivered me from my strong enemy,

And from those who hated me.....

Psalm 18:1-17 selected

-------------------------------------------------

Do you realize that this is what God's response is when we pray to him for help? Deuteronomy says that "he rides the winds to help us"....in this passage it is described even more elaborately.

When his little ones are in trouble...or just being beset by the demons of the night....this is how he rides to our aid...mounted on a cherub (and no, they are NOT fat cute baby angels!), accompanied by lightening, hailstones and coals of fire....

I love the wild beauty of this passage. I wish I'd known it when I was a kid being bullied on the schoolyard. I recall once I told a girl who was constantly harassing and hitting me; "You'd better watch out; My Daddy owns this school!" meaning my heavenly Father. Well, that gave her some pause, and the abuse stopped for a couple of days...but soon she decided I didn't mean it...and picked up where she'd left off.

Our Daddy owns the universe--Satan, you'd better watch out!

Temporarily Suspended

Don't you hate things that leave you without closure? I do.
In particular, I hate abandoned blogs. I always wonder: What happened? Did the author get bored and walk away? Or did they get run over by a bus? And questions like that will drive me nuts. So I am not going to do that to you...

I am currently writing a book, as you will know if you read my other blog, Treasures from Darkness. (www.cynthialottvogel.blogspot.com) And I am also trying to actively work on my writing (so that I can actually get PAID for all this work! lol) So because I've been maintaining numerous blogs (4 to be exact) and am getting all wrung out of ideas, I am taking a temporary, (I hope) leave of absence from this blog. Please continue to follow me at the aforementioned blog, and also, please avail yourself of the material on this blog which may have preceded your arrival here...There's plenty of material to read in the annals of these two blogs. Plus I will be updating the other one.

Blessings and Joy to you.

Keep a smile on your face...after a while you will begin to believe it.

WHAT a Night!!!

Last night was horrible.
Firstly, I was in record -breaking pain. And believe me that's saying something. First I dug out my heating pad and laid on it. (yes, in 90 degree weather) . No Help. Then I found I had to lie completely flat; no pillow, no bend in my hospital bed. My neck was as terrible as my lower back. (Just TRY operating a laptop from that position. I'd better figure out a good system going because I have a feeling that, maybe quite soon, I'm going to be working from that position all the time. Anyway, long Long story short, involving many very sincere prayers to God for relief; I ended up tripling my pain med dose--which is the first time I've ever done that. I'm not one to invent my own dosing instructions...But last night, it was either that, or suicide. No Joke.

THEN, I couldn't sleep. Yes after a triple dose of (insert name of strongest pain med in existence here) I still was wide awake. So I chatted online til midnight then began the old toss and turn attempt to sleep minus the toss and turn. Toss and turn?? You kidding ? To turn over on the bed is an agonizing piece of work, taking at least of minute of groaning and cursing, while using my hands and arms to turn my body by pulling on the side rails of my hospital bed.

So then I gave up on sleeping and moved to the recliner (about 30 munutes later) with my laptop. However (by this time it was about 2:30), I was sleepier than I thought, so dozed off with glasses on and laptop on. I slept til 3:00, and in about 5 seconds, jumped up and moved as fast as this body will move, to the bathroom and removed the commode from the toilet and.....
heaved up all of the contents of my stomach which included dinner and several night time snacks afterward. I mean I HURLED...the kind of puking where , though your head is down over the bowl...it still goes everywhere. This went on for a while and the clean up efforts took even longer. Then, completely miserable , I went back to the recliner.

And fell asleep again.
A weird, weird dream ensued. Of me rebuffing some man who was not my husband. Of trying to catch my daughter as she sneaked outside to meet drug dealers...of seeing her take something and then slip the bottles into her pocket. I then confronted her a short time later and made her empty her pockets...and finding she was taking some drug (a pain killer, don't recall which one,) and Meth.

Going in tears to my husband who was in bed, and encountering some sexily dressed woman who was just exiting his room. Well. That was just a peachy end to a peachy night's sleep..I'll tell you.

Then waking all paranoid and freaked out...Going into the mess in my kitchen and not being able to find several items and being convinced that they were stolen by our lovely cleaning lady, who I assure you, would never consider doing such a thing.

I thank the Lord for daylight...the realization of a better reality; a chance to start new....and an end to a night like that.

Hospital Nostalgia?

So.
The two hospitals which have served as "our" hospitals for the past 18 years had merged a couple of years ago...And then a brand-spankin'-new medical center was built from the ground up...With state of the art EVERYTHING....And a list of benefits and qualities so amazing that it makes everyone who hears a description of the place want to go to the hospital for a nice long stay!!! It sounds more like a 5 star hotel than a hospital...the only thing they lack is a jacuzzi in every room!

And today was the big day. My husband, who works at that Medical Center, moved his department and office to the new building about two weeks ago. But TODAY a super-sized fleet of ambulances descended upon the two towns housing the old hospitals...and carried away every single patient from each place and deposited them safely in the new building. The first baby was born in the new hospital this morning at 10:40 AM....! I'll bet that mama got the royal treatment!

So I just got an email from my husband that both hospitals are now officially closed.

Sigh.

I spent so much time in those two buildings. Had my butt yanked back from the hungry jaws of death so many times there....Struggled to breathe. Yelled in pain....and had such good friends in the staff. The staff will remain...in the new building; but I'm sure the staffing assignments will get shifted around a bit, so that even if I return...the staff may not be the same ones who cared for me before.

I really thought I would die in one of those two buildings.

But nope. I outlived both of them.

Wonders will never cease.

In October I will probably have my shoulder replaced in the new medical center. It will be so interesting to see it. And I'll bet the OR doesn't look like a storage area either!

My husband too is a bit sad. His whole work history (any of consequence anyway) was spent in that building. Now we move on, to make new memories.

And how weird is it for a couple to feel saddened and nostalgic about a HOSPITAL closing???
...............Well, you know me: "Weird" doesn't even begin to describe me.

Puddles and Stroopwaffle

Recently I joined BlogFrog (have yet to put the button for that 0n this blog...NOTE to self: DO It!) and wow, has that kept me busy! For me, up til now, blogging has been a leisure activity...Something I just do because it gives me a sense (and if this isn't true: keep it to yourself) that my limited life has some meaning. And it still gives me that sense except that suddenly I'm a very small frog in a BIG puddle! (Ok: pond. Or maybe: lake....Ummm frogs don't swim in the ocean, do they??)

I mean these are HUGE blogs (some of them) where it's become a JOB and lifestyle for the owner/writers of them. They travel, sign autographs, write books, have their pictures taken everywhere....(Ok, maybe I'm confusing them with Reese Witherspoon, but you get my point!) And here I am, sitting in this 8'x10' bedroom where I spend 98.9% of my time, Sleepless in M'ford yet once again. (Actually I got 5 hours of sleep tonight: a stellar night!), tapping on my laptop, yet another rather pointless blog post....but feeling kind of like I'm talking to YOU tonight...and if there are more than one of you reading this post, sorry , you'll have to wait in the hall ...because my room has exactly room for me and ONE OTHER PERSON.....

Anyway...what is the point of all this??? (You're looking at your watch tapping your toes and saying 'Get on with it, I have an important cup of latte with my name on it, waiting)...
The Point.
Well, excuse me while I take a moment to consider how I'm going to neatly tie this up and how I can make some kind of sensible moral or erudite thought to leave with you....(while you all scramble for the dictionary to look up "erudite", I'll just think.............thinking....................still thinking.......)

I was thinking that I could say something trite and a bit foolish like, "Life is what you make of it"....which in all cases, is true. However when your life is limited by illness or pain, this takes on a particular significance. There is a young lady I follow on Twitter who has a rare disease called: Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (or M.E.)...Her Twitter profile says this about her:
25. Poet. Bedbound, unable 2 sit up/talk. Love athletics+swimming+BrentfordFC, TV+films, SciFi+Fantasy, Uni Challenge, Medicine, acting, Greek+Latin, wildlife

Sounds like a fairly full life right? NOT an active life: just a full one. Here are her own words describing herself:

"What I can say is that I’m very very glad that I exist! However, I have a worse quality of life and suffer far more significantly than most people who commit suicide or who go to Dignitas.* My condition is constantly deteriorating and every day there is the threat that I might die. Every day I don’t know if this will be the day that one of my organs might finally completely fail. Would others consider that my life is not worth living? I’m bed-bound, unable to sit up, unable to speak; a nurse bedbaths me, someone has to hold a straw to my mouth for me to drink my liquid food. My current condition is unbearable. The severe symptoms, 24/7 physical distress and agony is intolerable. And yet, I’m still alive. I see the minutes moving by on my clock and I’m still here. My will to live, to survive, has never been stronger."

[This was written over a long period of time, sentence by sentence, on Jenny's iPod]
*"Dignitas" is an organization which promotes and participates in "Assisted Dying" or Euthenasia.


Jenny's life by anyone's standard is a life of hell...yet she has managed to infuse meaning into it by her writing...of her thoughts on her mom's blog...by her lively, albeit rare, comments on Twitter which reveal an active, life-loving spirit; by her poetry (of which she has published a book available for purchase - see the end of this blog). I have been touched by her life...me, lying on my own bed, thousands of miles away from this young lady who never leaves her room...

And I so much wish I could tell her that there is a God; I know Him, hear him regularly speak to me...have seen him do wondrous things...and he loves her deeply and so passionately, that in fact, he died for her....and now lives, having conquered the death that she so deeply fears...and that if she can believe in this and accept it, then even if she walks through the door of physical death, her spirit will live in a new, glorified body...One untouched by sickness...And that I'll be there either before or after her arrival and will be glad to roller blade with her or to go running down some "golden"streets.

So LIVE your life, no matter what your circumstance, how limited a span of contact you have; Now with the internet, NO ONE need live and die in isolation. I praise God for this gift which has enabled me to chat with you tonight...here in this small puddle we are sharing!
Love you Jenny! Thanks for showing me that any life, anywhere, anytime has meaning if you grant it that chance. When I was sick and suicidal in those dark years following college...I thought my life was meaningless and awful. Then I was thin, beautiful, and healthy. And I was completely hopeless and hated life. Now I'm a "few" pounds heavier, not healthy by any stretch of the imagination, and I'm so so grateful to God for rescuing me from death, not once but NUMEROUS times both despite sickness and my own hand.

LIVE and Learn. and I would add: LOVE.

{To buy Jenny's book, go to : http://www.jkrowbory.co.uk/}

Infamous Black Bean Brownies.

So you say you'll never touch brownies made of black beans...? Just wait til you take your first curious bite...If you're anything like me: the entire pan will follow! And you can just tell yourself, "they are pure protein.."Because they really ARE!

So here they are, the subject of much discussion - and much eating of words....:

1 (15.5oz) can of black beans , rinsed and drained

3 eggs

3 Tbsp vegetable oil

1/4 cup cocoa powder (organic tastes better)

1 pinch salt

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp vanilla extract

3/4 cup white sugar (I used beet sugar)

1 tsp. instant coffee

1/2 cup milk chocolate chips (optional) And or chopped pecans.

1) Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (170 degrees C)...lightly grease an 8"x8" baking dish.

2) Combine all the ingredients but the chocolate chips in a blender. Blend until really smooth; pour the mixture into the prepared baking dish and sprinkle with chocolate chips (I personally think that mini dark chips would be much better) or pecans.

3) Bake in the preheated oven until the top is dry and the edges start to pull away from the sides of the pan...about 30 minutes.

4) Cool on a rack and then cut.

5) I found these are immensely more enjoyable refrigerated. A Cross between brownies chocolate fudge.

Enjoy them...want to or not!

Man vs. Creature

There are winged creatures on my ceiling.

At first shudder I thought we’d been invaded by roaches (didn’t see the wings immediately) but as I look, with poor eyesight, more intently…I have come to the conclusion that:

THEY’RE BACK.

We had them last year, resolutely, persistently, busily scurrying through our home in the mountains of NE Pennsylvania: Carpenter Ants. My husband tried everything – then researched it (lol) online and found what seemed to be, by consensus, the most effective cure.: POISON. So we made the trip (One hour long) to the second closest Walmart to us (he’d also checked online to see who had it available and at what stores) and picked up the touted substance…in three forms….(“MORE IS BETTER!” -Hey, he’s a man.) And Then he went to work spreading it all over our house to the degree that I was really glad I’m done bearing children.

Anyway, it worked. How could it not? Those ants were toast from the moment he’d logged on to his computer.

So given his industry and zeal last year, It’s a tad surprising that this year when I told him I’d seen a few…he didn’t leap right into action…Just muttered something about “gotta go back to H—dale to get some more of that stuff…”

And that was the last mention of it.

So now. they are here, molting and lying comatose as they recover from the effort on my ceiling. And you know what this means don’t you? It means that this is ONLY the beginning! Soon, very soon, there will be scads of them.

You see, the ants will win this war because they possess two qualities in abundance that, at least in this particular situation, my husband did not: They are hard workers, and they are persistent. I’m sure that our house has a reputation amongst ant colonies as a type of Auschwitz… The place where they were all but annihilated. And for them to come back this year demonstrates what? (NO, not stupidity) Tenacity. Persistence. You see the ants own this mountain…and we moved here with our tasty redwood house and they said…

“Dessert!!”

They will not give up.

WE will kill. They will return. And so forth. and so on.

Until our house is a rubble of chewed wood…and we are old and gray. (which is not so many years from now.)

The only way to overcome such persistence and such effort is to match it with GREATER persistence and GREATER effort.

………….And a healthy dose of foresight wouldn’t have hurt.

The point of all of this?

Why, to Plan Ahead. Work hard. and Be Persistent. Never say “die”–(unless you’re talking to carpenter ants.)

And YOU, too, will eventually have lots of tasty redwood to chew on…for many years to come.

Announcing: New RSS Feed!

For those of you who would like to subscribe to this blog via RSS, I now offer that capability.
Just click on "Subscribe Now" toward the top right sidebar and you're in! thanks for your interest and support of my blog,
Blessings!
Cynthia

Unbroken and Free

I'm currently reading a book entitled "Unbroken" by Laura Hillenbrand. It's an amazing tale of the life of Louie Zamparini....a world record breaking Olympian runner who became a WWII bombardier, on the infamous B12 and B13 bomber planes that flew over Japanese-held territories and wreaked much damage there. He eventually was in a crash when his plane went down, having suffered severe damage due to being shot at by the enemy. The plane crashed into the middle of the Pacific Ocean and only three men lived; only two, to tell the tale. They drifted aboard a raft in shark infested waters for some 2000 miles for a record breaking length of time for men to have survived such things. Eventually they were shot into the water and then taken captive by the Japanese, the book then goes on in horrible detail to describe the unimaginable conditions the men as POW's lived through as well as the unspeakable cruelty of and violence inflicted by their captors.

As the book went on for hundreds of pages describing the mental and physical torture these men endured, several things occurred to me:

1) is the unbelievable tenacity and bravery of the human spirit which these prisoners demonstrated to us all. Makes me think that I should never complain about my pain or discomfort again! And neither should I feel deprived in any way by any financial strictures I may have. These men had NOTHING....except their dignity ...and a sense of humor.

2) Humor?? Yes. it is one of most powerful forces that kept these men alive. The ability to pull practical "jokes" on their captors and to mock them among themselves and to their faces in an language the jailors did not understand was one of the few things that kept the morale of these men up to a degree that they did not all lose their minds , give up hope or commit suicide.

And I think, in any instance of suffering we need the very same things : tenacity and humor. We need the ability to stick with it, day after day, week after week, year after year if need be until God's Children look up and see that big cloud - which in this case will part instead of mushroom- and they know "the war is OVER." And if we can keep laughing...at ourselves, largely ...and maintain the ability to laugh then this is a great boost to our spirit and to those of the people around us.

And a 3rd thing occurred to me perhaps which is an aside: GRATITUDE for these men and for those who died in the attempt to maintain our freedom. I've never thought much about Veteran's Day before...and never understood what kind of scars, mental and physical, these men bear as they return stateside; what horrific memories they have and the nights of nightmares reliving the horror of those years. I think that it is pride that saves them...National Pride. Pride in the Freedom which is the trademark of this country, the USA. As Ms. Hillenbrand described the emotions and the celebration that the POW's experienced as the liberating B24's carried and dropped supplies and food to them after years of starvation and captivity....my heart swelled with pride for these heroes and for this country which produced them and others like them. As I read of the sense of well-being and forgiveness that the POW's showed to their captors after being freed, providing them with food and courtesy....I was awed. And Proud. It is typical of an American to respond with such a humane and yes, loving, manner to those who had brutally broken them in every conceivable way...but who could NOT break their spirits or their commitment to this great country.

To those among us who mock the USA...the snakes within her bosom...who are ignorant of the morals and the morale of these heroes; who disparage the foundation of faith upon which this great country is built; who try to defame and belittle the founders of this country and their faith...I would say: "You should be ashamed. Read this book. Compare the differences in the behavior of the captors and the captives...and know that pretty much across the board, this comparison will hold; that NO other culture is built upon such a humane and solid foundation of beliefs and behavior as are those in the USA.

Do you recall the feelings that swelled in your heart as you watched the Towers fall ...the tears that fell; the outrage for our nation - which was attacked without provocation? The feeling you got as you watched those firemen erect the tall wonderful image of the Stars and Stripes upon that crumbled heap of refuse ? The Pride.? The urge to Salute??"

I felt that same sense when in church on the Fourth of July, we stood --all of us--with our hands on our chests and recited the Pledge of Allegiance. I had not spoken those words for many years and I struggled not to cry as I did. These men; these heroes of war understood that pride. They understood the morality and faith that underlay their efforts to maintain freedom for us. And I pray sincerely that the US forces now understand that same thing. That they can fight with the determination and nobility of these men in Hillenbrand's book....that their suffering overseas should NOT lead them to sociopathic or psychopathic behavior...but that they will sit, in a free country at ripe old ages, with their grandchildren at their knees and tell them tales of bravery and survival with pride and not of shame.

This year I will be celebrating Veterans' Day...with more commitment than merely purchasing a red silk poppy ...I will be celebrating with enthusiasm and looking for ways to honor those who fell and those who fought for MY freedom.

God Bless America.

An Infestation of ANTs!

Today I published a blog on another site describing my past couple of days....and as I read it over, it sort of left a bad taste in my mouth. One of the first comments I received on it asked if maybe the reader had actually authored the blog...for she recognized a tendency in it, that she evidently struggles with. She called them "ANTs" (Automatic negative thoughts.) The blog had focused on all the mistakes of the past couple of days; was full of expectations that others would respond and act in the most negative manner possible; focused on failures rather than successes....and yada yada, ad infinitum.

I was just finishing up reading "The Forgotten God" today (by Francis Chan...get it! read it! ) which we had spent the last some weeks discussing in my home Bible Study which meets on Wednesday nights....and found myself to be profoundly moved and yes, disturbed by a question which Chan asked which was this: "Would you say that your life is characterized by a supernatural abundance, that exceeds normal human effort, of the Fruit of the Spirit?" (love, joy peace, gentleness, patience, self control.) Am I more joyful than the most positive person with out the Lord? Am I more gentle than the most compassionate person motivated by human sympathy alone? Do I show more self control than an ascetic Buddist monk ? More peace than any yoga and meditation practitioner? More love than the best mom in the world? More patience than any psychiatrist? (LOL)

I would have to have serious reservations about my answers to those questions.
Actually I have an infestation of ANTs.
Actually, when I get frustrated or have small accidents, unspeakable words fly from my mouth.
Actually, I have real trouble loving some people...and my actions and words are FAR from always being motivated by love.
Actually, I have gained 15 pounds back this winter and am really struggling with my goals to live a healthy, disciplined life.
Actually, my words are often harsh and condemning.

Would someone looking at me say (as Chan suggested should be the case, ) "The Lord HE is God, blessed be his Name!"

Nope.

I got a card this week. It was from a friend in my church who was observing me worshiping on Sunday; coming to church despite pain and difficulty. And she called me (get this) "A woman of God'!! Instead of blushing with gratitude to God for the truth of this statement, I blushed with shame. Because the truth is far from what she sees on Sunday. I've read this card over and over this week. And God has really shown me some of the dirt in my heart and life as a result.

And Chan's book has compelled me today to ask some hard questions of myself....and to look at myself in the manner which God sees me. And at first that perspective was one of conviction that some major confession and turning around are in order; and the second conviction that this look from "God's eyes" brought, was one of the incredible love and patience of God. That he has NOT EVEN YET given up on me. And that he still loves me with the love that brought him to earth...and to the cross to accomplish that rescue mission he was on...and is still on. He will not rest until he has completely and fully "converted me"...from a child bent on destruction....to someone who has been transformed by being around him.

So I closed my Kindle cover, and picked myself up and went down to my room downstairs where I had once spent many long hours in prayer...away from the hearing of my family. (yes, I pray out loud, even when it's just God and me)...and God and I had a long long talk. I took care of a bunch of dirty laundry that had been piling up in my character....

And now what??

I intend, and will, with the strength and mighty power that he shares with me, live a different kind of life. And I hope with all my heart, that those around me will not only hear my words, not only see a smiling face on Sunday....but will see a profound change in me. I want them to see GOD...not me....when they look at me. And when they interact with me, I want them to walk away saying, "The Lord, HE is God!"

A Tale of Two Tales

I know, once a week or so is not frequent enough to post on a blog....However I currently am maintaining four blogs so even once a week is a fairly tall order!

I've been also reading several books (yes; simultaneously)...it's easy to do that on the Kindle. If you get to a spot where the hero is about to plunge into a seriously scary adventure that may well kill him...and you don't want to read that, then push a button, and bingo: you're in a different story altogether! I recently did that with Laura Hildebrand's book, "Unbroken"....this is one nail-biting account. It is about a world class runner who became a bombardier in a B-12 airplane in World War II's struggle against Japan. There comes a point in the story in the chapter entitled, "No one will Survive This!" where the plane crashes into the Pacific Ocean and he and two other men must survive in shark infested water on a life raft, without water or food, until they float far enough to land on an island occupied by the Japanese where they are taken as Prisoners of War. (and you can find this out from reading the book jacket so I'm not letting any cats out of any proverbial bags!) ...But knowing in advance that all this would happen, when I got to the above mentioned chapter...I had to put the book down. He'd already survived impossible situations against every odd...I didn't want him to have to go through this too....NOR did I want him to take me into it with him either! (okay, I'm officially a wuss).

So I pushed the handy dandy "Home" button on my Kindle to be taken to my library listing so I could spend some time in the woods on the Appalachian Trail with Bill Bryson...Facing bears and mosquitoes seemed like nothing after reading "Unbroken"! But the problem was: I finished that book relatively soon...so was forced to return to "Unbroken" to pick up that narrative in then tense spot where I'd left off.

So I survived the crash and the life raft...now am in a hopeless and frightening situation in the POW camp and am struggling not to look for something else to read. It is not that I don't like the book! I love it! It's one of the best books I've read....but it's terrifying...and I guess I'm just a softie; I don't like to see anyone suffer and die. But finish it I will, then off to Amazon to look for the next download - and I have no idea what type of book I want to read! Decisions! Choices! Help! (for the chronically conflicted and ambivalent, among you; you'll know what I mean by this quandary. I do think it's time to visit a nice big bookstore though. Not to buy books!! To window shop...and then slink home to Amazon and buy it from them.

Now I do realize that this is what is putting large and small bookstores right off the map. (See Borders for example). Because I"m a die hard bibliophile and because there is NOTHING better than spending an afternoon in a bookstore, sipping an iced coffee whilst you sample their wares....and it would be a crying shame to lose every one of them; I do still buy books. For example, I recently purchased "Unbroken" and "A Walk in the Woods" for my father who is to this point, Kindle-less and who devours books also. As does my daughter. In fact I, who used to read over 600 pages a day--until I became ill with schizophrenia and could no longer assimilate what the heck the book was about--am now the least frequent reader of all. (with the exception of my husband , who, however, has recently become a collector of the Dirk Pitt series by Clive Cussler, and is now working his way through them.) So I durst say that our family alone has kept Borders in business for as long as it was.

My biggest problem in reading nowadays is the brain damage I have suffered at the hands of a procedure called ECT...electro convulsive therapy. Yep. Shock treatments. These have quite effectively made me a child of the moment. No worry about me living in the past...because i do not recall 99% of the past three or four years...And if you tell me something today...or even if I do something exciting and remarkable today---I will not recall it tomorrow...and maybe not even five minutes later. But that is a wholly other story, which I will save for another time...and possibly another place.

But do the world a favor...Go out to a bookstore (NOT AMAZON.COM) and purchase a book or three. You might start with the two I've mentioned here. You very well could be saving an American institution.

True Friends,...Never Met

"How can you call these people your friends?? They may not even be who they say they are!!" My husband snorts in exasperation. I don't know what HE does online, but I make friends. I have friends in the Philippines, the UK (both England and Scotland), way off in Alberta Canada....and Texas even !! lol. Some of them I've been close to for nearly four years...and others have come along more recently. I collect such friends like pearls on an add-a-pearl necklace. Some I've met through my blogs-commentators-and others through forums (I always wonder if I'm supposed to call that plural , "forii" lol), Some through social venues such as SparkPeople.com or Jango or Facebook....but often our relationship will begin at one site....and then bleed into others and finally into chats. And with some, it has even crossed over into phone conversation...or web cam chat.

Regardless of my husband's opinion of the possibility of such a thing: I KNOW these people. I walk with them through blow-by-blow accounts of their daily lives; hear their commentary on various subjects; struggle with them through their struggles; and even know what they ate all day long and how much they weigh! When you live so intimately with someone for months and years on end, you can say---with some degree of security: I KNOW WHO THEY ARE.
I can predict how they will respond to various remarks by myself or others; I appreciate their individual senses of humor; I know their needs and hardships.

It fascinates me how my life --as is true of most of us--has changed in just the last ten to fifteen years. When I was in college I could never have believed in such a thing. In fact, I recall my incredulousness when I first heard of the odd phenomenon known as "the internet." "You mean I can type a document...and someone in the next state can have it instantly??? There's not even any PAPER that has to exchange hands???" I recall trying with my 20th century mind, to wrap it around this 21st century concept....and failing miserably. When the person went on to tell me that soon it would be in every house and that almost all business would be conducted through it, they left me completely lying in the dust.

It was the same disbelief with which I greeted microwave cooking. Heating? Without HEAT?? And you have to give it more time, to go along with greater mass?? But WHY?? Surely if one cooking time is good for one item, the same time should be good for two! My conventional oven-bound mind could not grasp such an odd thing. And the food gets hot, but the plate doesn't??? How can that be???

But yeah...now my friends, five to one, are mostly from this strange "place"--the internet...Vaporous and mysterious.....it connects me with solid, real personalities, the globe over. My world has simultaneously shrunk and expanded. And my heart has made room for these people whom I most likely will never meet in this lifetime. And that makes me sad.

Already my closest online friend has passed away...almost WHILE TALKING TO ME...as we said our last goodbye, and he collapsed in front of his computer, his brother later finding him unconscious on the floor by his desk. I saved that last conversation. His last words....In printed form in my hands...Kept for any posterity that should care...and mostly kept so that when sadness grips my heart at the loss of him, I can pull it out and read it once more. Rest in Peace, David, My Friend. And this loss, I have mourned as intensely as any other death....although I could not attend the funeral. I knew intimately every person who attended, having heard descriptions of each relative and tales of their personalities and interactions with my friend...I was there in spirit friend. And I still think sadly of you every single day.

YOU just don't get intimacy with people in your "real" world like this. With the people in my tangible world, we meet and greet at church,and they get into their car and drive to their home, shut the door behind them....and the rest of their life is a mystery to me. They may be wife beaters for all I know...or engage in some secretive illegal behavior...and I would not know. There is no security in tangibility or in personal knowledge.

However, my online friends write their thoughts....their struggles and we celebrate each other's victories....It is MUCH harder to hide here. True, predators can lurk and nab innocent children and teens behind false personae. However, i know for a fact, that my friends are who they say they are. I have their whole lives spread out in their photos, their opinions on every topic and their night time quiet tears....all here on my monitor. A person would have to be a genius of the Stephen King variety to invent such an elaborate ruse....And what for??? It's not like I'm planning on leaving them my extensive fortune at my passing! it's not like I'm planning on leaving my husband to run away with any of them!

But what a marvelous moment it will be in God's Kingdom, after this life is over, to have someone walk up to me. Someone that I will immediately know....And I get the first opportunity to hold these sisters and brothers from foreign lands in my arms. I know that in that moment, many tears will fall. Tears of joy.

Thank you David Gates. For as little as I may think of you in some regards, you have given us all an inestimable gift. The gift of company on a zillion sleepless nights. The gift of friendship.

Pickles and Giggles

So. It has been almost a whole week since I last posted (my apologies for the long silence)....I've been sick with a bad flare of my arthritic disease and haven't been able to think of anything --let alone anything humorous for days --other than pain. My hands right now look like beach balls bouncing around on the keyboard...and the number of typos I'm making is certainly not humorous -Not to me anyway. This flare came on complete with fever and chills and pain in every single joint in my body..So no, this house hadn't been full of giggles for a while.

My problem right now, in shifting gears, is that I was just chatting online with a friend in Texas, and at first we were doing what we do best: making each other pee our pants in laughter. Some people just bring out the "funny" in me. And this woman does that better than anyone else. I am sure that we were cut from the same cookie cutter when God put us together. And she is as much an odd cookie as I am (although we won't tell her that- our secret; because I can't think of many people who would like to be cut from the same fabric as I. And yeah, I know I'm mixing metaphors. It's MY blog...)

But at the end of our chat, we began by talking about the severe drought she is facing in Texas, it not having rained for five months there....and then our talk wandered to gardens, buying extra freezers, generators, and the seemingly inevitable crash of the US economy and the fall of the almighty dollar. So you can see, from the train of thought we were riding, that our talk ended on a more sombre note. So , shake it off, Cynthia....!

But in our conversation we talked about how easy it is for us to be funny together...the jokes just kept flowing in our own dry style which just really tickled the other conversant. And I mentioned to her how hard it is to be funny with some people (who shall remain nameless-in the cause of maintaining the friendships of several humorless people I know.) People who take themselves too seriously and can't laugh at themselves worry me. And should probably scare me. But instead it brings out the devil in me. Because you see: I take it as a divine mission to get them laughing. And it is hard work in the case of some folks. Especially the more pickled amongst my church friends. And why is it that these people are usually amongst the more mature amongst us?? Does our sense of humor burn out, somewhere along the line? Is it just inevitable that the pain and sorrow of life just really eventually kills our ability to laugh?? But no, that theory falls flat on its face when I look at my lovely friend, Esther.

Esther has had the hardest life of anyone I've ever met. She faced starvation as a child in Nazi Germany and escaped to South America where she lived...and married a harsh and difficult drill sergeant of a man. She has had incredible health challenges all of her life...A cellular disease which prevents her from healing; a life long infection picked up in S. America which occasionally flares up leaving her with painful sores on her, which do NOT heal due to the other illness. A fractured hip which required replacement; and many other complications have plagued her life like a blight of flies about her head. YET: Esther has the best sense of humor of anyone I ever met. She loves to laugh. And she says things like "When people tell me that I'm not healed because I lack faith, I just want to kick them!" and the image of this diminutive 4' foot something woman hauling off and kicking someone leaves me on the floor laughing.

Esther right now is in the hospital following her second leg amputation in recent days.

Sigh.
If anything could dampen a sense of humor, it's that--that and the months of agonizing pain she's just come through. And you would think it had. I thought it had in the many phone conversations with this sweet friend where she cried out her doubts and fears....and discouragement. But you know what? The devil himself can't keep this woman down. The last I talked to her; her laughter rained on my ears like the refreshment my other friend seeks from the reluctant rain.

Esther is back.

Legless. and Home-bound. But her prayers are not home-bound. They rain down on God's people and God's work, nourishing us and it like a beautiful spring rain, encouraging us and bringing it to fruition. I think, personally, that it is Esther's wonderful sense of humor that I like the best about her. That and her faith. And it flies in the face of the pickle pusses which have haunted the church for generations. When God saves and sanctifies us; he does not quarantine our sense of humor! NO! He releases it to shower the rest of his people like the summer rain, so badly needed in Texas.

I need to grasp that tightly when my body swells up like a toad and hurts like the dickens. Even my friend Esther's laughter was stifled in days of pain. But we can't let it kill our humor completely. Put it in a safe place; and at the first sign of relief, bring it out and put it on with JOY...because it is a gift.

Just like the rain.

A 160 Pound Tadpole

....So I shared recently with a friend, my desire to learn to really swim this summer. You see I "kinda" swim....I can stay afloat and get from point A to point B (provided it's not more than ten feet away lol) but I don't do it with any kind of grace....NOR do I get my face wet. lol. You see, I never had any real opportunity to learn, nor to go into a pool or lake very often, as my childhood was firmly landlocked in Hackensack, NJ. There, in that city environment, I was an expert bike rider and could run and do cartwheels with the best of 'em.... But when I got to Camp Spofford for my first time...I stared at the lake in awe...and promised myself, "I'm NOT going in THERE!"

But yeah, swimming lessons were on the docket as part of every camper's schedule...and I found myself standing in chest high water about thirty feet from the life guard, having just watched his demonstration and was told, "Come on, try it! Swim to me!" So I told Jesus I'd be there to see Him momentarily as I plunged into the water with enormous amounts of reluctance.

I splashed a lot...and I traveled...but I had this "secret" I REALLY was walking with my feet on that rocky bottom and "swimming" with my arms! I have to laugh now as an adult at the stupidity of mine not to realize I was fooling NO one. And I give kudos to that gracious lifeguard for not laughing aloud.

He didn't laugh. And I didn't pass the test necessary in order to go beyond the yellow floating line which divided the shallow water from the deep. As I stared out over the water, I saw "The Island" out in the lake...where only the best swimmers could reach...and I wanted to go there badly...but NOT badly enough to stick my face in that water!

So you see other than that one week at camp, the rest of my year I traveled with my feet firmly on dry , HOT pavement and at that age, all I felt was relief that no one was forcing me to swim or to learn to. However, now, as an adult, I recognize that swimming is one of the best cardio workouts that exist. And it is completely non-impact...the work which the swimmer does, being masked by the buoyancy of the water, enabling them to work their body hard, and not to feel like they are working at all.

So several weeks ago, as I penned a list of goals for myself this summer, on that list I wrote firmly; determinedly; "LEARN TO SWIM." I shared somewhat with some abashment, this goal with my 19 year old daughter and was surprised when she didn't laugh, but rather said, "Mom, I think that is so cool that you want to swim at your age." I didn't even get offended at those last three innocuous words...because the compliment was heartfelt and sincere. The fact that my daughter thinks I'm cool for wanting to swim further cemented my desire into determination.

I looked around for swimming lessons. The tadpoles...was the name of a swimming class. However, I don't know of any 160 pound tadpoles...so really didn't think a 48 year old novice swimmer would be very welcome. Finally after striking out completely in my own searches, I was speaking to a friend...and I confessed to her my desire. She said, "Oh, I think there is someone who gives lessons in my community." And I was completely surprised when Anna called several days later with the details about how she would drive me and accompany me every Friday to the pool where the woman had agreed to allow me to attend the lessons.

So . Okay.
Tomorrow is FRiday. The first Friday of the 30 weeks of classes.
I haven't heard anything more from Anna.
And I'm scared to call her.

For one thing it is only about 45 degrees at night and between 65-80 during the days. That water is going to be COLD. And arthritis and cold water do NOT make good bedfellows. Also, I confess to having last minute ---ummm, shall we say, "hesitations"....no, I think "TERROR" is more fitting. Because you see, if I walk my way across the pool--arms thrashing--I'm sure it will be a subject of great hilarity in the 500 or so people who will be watching...and my ego has grown considerably more tender than it was at the age of 10. I'm not at all sure that this asthmatic, post bilateral hip surgery, arthritic woman is even capable of getting afloat, never mind swimming laps...which is my ultimate goal.

But I promised Anna I would try. And I will....

Assuming she calls or show up on my doorstep.
But am I going to call to nudge her??
Doubtful.

The FirstFruits

"PURSUED" - ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. 2011

'Self Portrait' - All Rights Reserved 2011


The Garden Steps.- All Rights Reserved. 2011


How is it that a device exists...and is not priced out of possible reach....that could restore to me the ability to paint and to draw ---and I didn't know about it! How long has this been the case....when I've been suffering and mourning the loss of my art career and the loss of the creative release of painting....and I didn't have to suffer all this time!

But that's water under the bridge. The good news is that, due to a friend's coaching (thanks Sean!) and due to the gift of another friend, I was enabled me to make the purchase....And now, for two or three days, I've been painting and drawing my head off....I know that I haven't even GUESSED at all the possibilities this pad offers me. The ideas seem endless...and most of them are way beyond my ability to pull off technically...but I've got nothing but time...

So, enough talk: here are the "first fruits" of my efforts:

Happy in Carolina - All Rights Reserved, 2011

Bowl of Sunshine - All Rights Reserved , 2011

Can-Does-Will God Heal??

I am listening to one of my favorite songs right now as I write this. Its called "Healer" and it's sung by Kari Jobe. Healing for me is a REALLY sticky issue and one that I hesitate to tackle, because it is also a daunting one to take on--for anyone.

Do I believe that God heals people? Yes I absolutely do. Do I believe that He does - or should - heal EVERYONE who is sick? No, I do not. I've said it before, and like a stuck record, I'll say it again. God has his purposes which are often (maybe much or all of the time) beyond our ability to grasp or comprehend. HE IS GOD AND I AM NOT!! So who do I think that I am, telling God that He MUST heal me or someone else for whom I am praying ? The only way He would be compelled to do that is if He had somewhere promised it. And I am not convinced that any Scripture clearly conveys that promise. Now God is always very clear about what he promises...in fact, he repeats them over and over in multiple arrangements of words-all very clear- as to what it is he is promising. If God were going to grant the world, or even just his people, the right to blanket health...he would NOT leave us any room for doubt. I mean, that would be a major promise, Right? That is one reason I do not believe it.

Second reason is this: how many times have you been sick in your life? Do you know anyone, even any believers who have asked God for healing , but have not received it? Are there many billions of sick and dying people in this world? God is a big and strong God. If he promised us something like guaranteed health then certainly he is able to carry out that promise! And I just don't see it happening too often. And it is not because people have not prayed for health! I myself have fervently interceded for some people to be healed...and they are either still sick or they have died. Did God not hear those prayers? Did He ignore them? WAs he unable or too weak to carry out his "promise"?

Third reason: We are not promised eternal life on this earth are we? No, we are promised in fact, that "ALL MEN DIE ONCE..." Neither do I see many people like Elisha being taken to Heaven in a flaming chariot. So here's my question put rather crudely: How do you suppose that God plans to get rid of all these people to whom he has indeed promised death?? They don't live a life of health and then evaporate!

NO, I believe that since the Fall of Adam and Eve, mankind has been under the curse of sickness and death. And Jesus,when he came, showed that He was strong enough and able to BREAK that power of the curse, by healing people! It was a foreshadowing on the physical level,of what he intended to - and in fact did- which was to break the spiritual curse of death once and for all... It was a display of his Deity and supernatural power and it was also a method of publicity for his cause. Face it. If Jesus just came and walked around telling people he was God but had no evidence for it...do you think that the birth of a new generation and covenant of faith would have borne such force -? Force enough to propel it into the 21st century? No, healing some people is God's manner in which he displays his love and his ability and desire to grant us LIFE;....life that -in the future- will be free from the effects of Adam's curse once and for all.

So that is the philosophical and theological reasoning behind my position. And when people tell me to "rebuke the demon or the enemy who is causing your illness" or "if you have enough faith, you WILL be healed," or "God has PROMISED you healing" I frankly (and rudely) want to kick them ...(as I told to an elderly woman with whom I share friendship and very poor health recently much to her giggling delight.) How much needless suffering has been added to the burdens of already struggling and suffering sick people by these kinds of incorrect and insensitive remarks!! When you cause someone who is ill; who obviously has begged God to heal them; who believes that He can do so, with all their hearts; and who has been subjected to the TORTURE of rising then waning hope time after time of annointing laying on of hands and intercession for their healing...to doubt themselves, to question their faith...and ultimately TO QUESTION THEIR GOD because they believe that he's broken a promise to them; then friend, I believe you are committing a very grave sin. God said hat "a bruised reed I will not break and a smouldering wick I will not put out"...Jesus berated the Pharisees for their "adding to the burdens of the already bowed down." ...What makes you think it's all right for you to do it and get away with it?? YOUR WORDS ULTIMATELY CAUSE PAIN AND DESPAIR BECAUSE YOU ARE DRAWING ON A PROMISE THAT GOD NEVER MADE...AND IN SO DOING YOU ARE MAKING GOD LOOK LIKE A PROMISE BREAKER.

OK, that's enough of my rant.

I'm just sick of being told that I'm demon oppressed because I'm mentally ill.
I'm sick of being told that the asthma, spinal degeneration and rheumatoid arthritis will leave my body if I just prayed or had enough faith.

And it makes me feel really terrible to believe that what is happening to me is the power of Satan in my life! I really struggled horribly for years with these things. And with my own self doubt and questioning of my faith...and of God!

I would so much rather believe that, "Yes, basically, this sucks. But God is in it. He's behind it and under it and around it...and nothing can or will happen to me that he does not allow. And because HE IS A GOOD AND LOVING GOD NOTHING CAN TOUCH ME THAT WILL NOT ULTIMATELY RESULT IN MY BENEFIT...." That kind of thinking builds rather than destroys my faith. It makes me secure and safe in God's arms. And it does not remove the prerogative of God to heal me! Yes! God heals some people. Why? Jesus answered that when the disciples questioned the reason for a man's illness, "That the glory of God might be manifested in him" in that situation and in that illness. And you know what? That answer applies to the illness of EVERY BELIEVER WHO IS SICK...whether they are healed or not. Do NOT remove the right of God to display his glory in any manner that he should see fit! He is God and we are Not!

the Workout Woes

I hurt every day. But today I HURT. Like every muscle, every joint , every bone, even my skin: HURTS. And so I got myself together, did my breathing treatment on the nebulizer (without which I wouldn't make it 5 minutes into the warm up), and trotted....okay hobbled...downstairs to my gym/other bedroom. Usually when I wake in the morning, I have a PLAN; I know exactly of what my workout will be comprised. But today I was torn. Yesterday I had a shortened workout, having only done Leslie Sansone's "Walking off the Pounds" 1 miler. Which is like a snort type of thing to me. I was doing the 4 mile, 1 hour long workout, right before my last two hip surgeries...without hardly a gasp. But now...after being close to bedridden all winter, the most I'd done was the 2 miler...and that was a bit of a struggle although feasible enough to have done it twice. But yesterday my goals were big: one mile of Leslie while holding 3 pound weights.... and then a longer strength workout.

Dumb idea.
I mean it was a good PLAN....but just a dumb idea.

Because I had no idea how much of a difference those weights would make. And CRAP ! they made a BIG difference. An "if-I-don't- put-these-down-right-now-I"m-gonna-die" difference. But I did it ...I endured the mile and then was WIPED. I didn't do any more strength training .,..In fact because my new blood pressure medicine was making me feel so sick, I went to bed...and slept all day. Wonder how many dream -calories I burned?

But I'll tell you, Judging by the litter of food containers and wrapppers in my room this morning, I ate WAY more calories than I burned. Don't you hate it when you eat in your sleep and don't even have the pleasure of the memory???

OH. You don't do that.

OK. so I'm weird, that fact has already been established....I believe, at birth.

So back to today. Feeling awful in terms of my body image. Where as yesterday things in the mirror were fairly acceptable to day, that old anorexic voice from my youth (and every day in between then and now) kept saying 'Oh , how GROSS!": every time a mirror was in sight. I tried not to do it....but I had to weigh myself....and that was the low point of my morning. Somehow (probably from the midnight gorge) I'd put on something like four pounds more than yesterday.

In all fairness and honesty - to myself. I have to say that it is likely that the weight gain is water weight...considering my husband had been serving up 20 GRAMS of sodium to me daily for the past month. (he didn't realize that the new bottle of sodium was FIVE times the strength of the former ones---or so he said ;) ) So I was holding in gallons of fluid... my blood pressure had risen to around 200/100 for the past several weeks....And I was sporting a HEADBANGER's headache, that's for sure. It's lovely to sit and just WAIT FOR YOURSELF TO STROKE OUT. You know it's coming...The engines are firing under that rocket....Lift off will be at ANY moment now....and my head will blow right off it's shoulders. But thus far, it hasn't happened. I got new medicine yesterday.. Medicine that made my head swim and made my skin crawl and me short of breath. don't think this will be going on for any longer...I cannot tolerate that feeling: anxiety. I have enough misery to deal with in my life...ain't no stupid little pill gonna make it any worse.

So , that's it...AFter my weak effort at strength training today, I made a huge blunder. I Have a chair yoga video...and that sounded soothing and nice, so I put it on and perched in front of the TV and watched as an OLD LADY (at least 65) with long flowing gray hair, and a body I would have liked to own at age 20, contorted herself into pretzel shapes....and suggested that I do the same.

Hmmm

I did fine with the exercises until we got to the legs and hips. And I was APPALLED to find out how little, I mean REALLY LITTLE my right leg and hip would do. The joint is practically frozen into position. And it hurts like HECK. So then the inner castigation began again....*grumble grumble you're gonna let an old granny look and move better than you??? She's got thirty years on you....and probably weighs that many less pounds....LOOK at her move, would you??? What's your PROBLEM???? And how come you didn't realize how pathetic you are until this moment?? Everyone ELSE knew." and on and on.

You know how it goes.

OH.
You don't hear voices in your head?

Ok , I'll shut up now....

Welcome to the New "Midnight Muse!"

Yes, last night was a particularly long night...I only got a total of one hour of sleep, (in two 30 minute installments) ...So I looked at the old Midnight Muse and thought, "I really should put a new picture in the background here,..I mean, after all, I don' t even live in Chicago! And well....I couldn't find a picture I wanted to use,...except for one and that one belonged to someone...So one thing led to another and, as you see, it got a whole new look.

Just in case you 're curious about the background on this new look to Midnight....It is a detail of a painting I did...WAY back in my years as a fine artist....It was paper which I'd soaked in metal paints and enamel powders prior to painting on it. So I took a small detail of it and liked the way it looked when tiled into the background of "Midnight". The photo of the moon is one that I took of the Perigee Moon recently. (also called the "super moon"). And the other random pictures are ones that I've taken on my travels...To see these and others, you may visit my Flickr Page at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/58847132@N06/

I hope you have as much fun looking at the design and reading the posts on this blog as much as I have enjoyed making it. If you have any feedback for me on the new design or otherwise, please leave a comment. Thanks.

Twitter-Heads Invited

I opened a Twitter account awhile ago....and posted a few pithy statements on it...and then, frustrated because I didn't KNOW any of my followers or even followees very much...and there was no one to talk to...I left it to moulder in Netdom. I found myself most prolific and most amusing (to myself ) in times of great boredom as in when I'm in the medical hospital (Doesn't EVERYONE have to specify "medical hospital"? because what is left?? yep: PSYCH hospital lol or as an acquaintance so tactfully says: MENTAL INSTITUTION ). Otherwise my Twitter account sits stagnant as a swamp in a drought.

Every once in a while however, my email will deliver to me a message that some very lonely, very desperate person is now following me...Either that or it's an organization who wants to sell me something. And I'll wander over to Twitter spy on his profile to see whether or not I should follow him....I'll read a few posts....and something will rise up in me....I'll open my mouth and out will come: A TWEET. Yep, some delicacy of profundity will be there for the writing...and so I do....maybe even a few in a row....
And I'll sign out.
And forget it exists.

So now, I just got this great idea.... Do any of you have Twitter accounts??
Leave me your Twitter name (is there a Twitty name for that too??) and I will follow you and you can follow me...and I'll finally have someone to talk to on that God-forsaken site. And I promise: I'm gonna do better on my consistency, OK??l

The Divided Mind

The word "Schizophrenia" actually comes from the words "divided mind"....perhaps that is what gave people the wrong impression that it is the same as "Multiple Personality Disorder" which is a dissociative disorder rather than a psychotic one. HOnestly, btw, nothing ticks me off more than remarks - prevalent in the media and by people who JUST OUGHT TO KNOW BETTER - such as "hi I'm schizophrenic and so am I"...Why flaunt your ignorance? And why perpetuate a false conception of a genetic and physical disorder which is literally the deterioration of a human mind?? What could be sadder and more serious--and honestly, more unfair than this?

When I was first dating my husband...his best friend insisted on calling me "the Bin Woman" because of my multiple psychiatric admissions. Would you call someone with cancer "The chemo King" or the "hairless wonder"??? NO, because cancer is a serious and sad disease. Well, let me tell you, as a person whose life has been devastated by this illness; Schizophrenia is just as sad and just as serious.

And it really just infuriates me that society insists on the persistence of such false ideas and misconceptions and as I've said, IGNORANT ideas of what it means to be schizophrenic. Words like "crazy" and "looney bin" and "cuckoo" and "nuts" are hurtful and actually, even though spoken perhaps out of a lack of harmful intent, only serve to perpetuate these misbegotten stereotypes.

Does it surprise you that a person with schizophrenia can speak and write as logically and well as I do?? Well, even though I myself suffer with this disease, I had no idea of how common this is....having only seen other schizophrenic people when they were psychotic and ill in the hospitals I'd inhabited...it was a shock to me that there are people with SZ who are working in high level jobs...or are working as established and lauded authors. (For example Ross David Burke, who eventually committed suicide due to his misery, Sandra Yuen MacKay, and Lori Schiller --among a host of others who chronicled their descent into this hell and their "recovery" -which I"ve heard defined as "doing the best that you can do")...

I found on forums such as Schizophrenia.com, people who are intelligent and eloquent, creative and successful...And sadly, I've watched these people fall into episodes when all of their logic, reasoning, and rationality disintegrate into disjointed and deluded expression. And why should this surprise me? Hasn't it happened to me time and time again??

Ahh, but you see, "I'm not schizophrenic,...it's THEY who are insane" "It's impossible for me to have sz....I can think and write and usually speak clearly." This is a common symptom of sz: denial and lack of insight. I thought for YEARS that I'd been misdiagnosed...and therefore, there is NO reason to continue to take these drugs which make me feel sick and awful, right??? So I'd go off of them...and before you know it, would be watching the door lock behind me and once more be hospitalized. It wasn't until I was 46 ---after close to 30 year of illness, --that I fell apart to such an awful degree...having made such a rubble of my relationships and life and family...that I began to see that there really WAS something wrong with me. And it wasn't until I started reading from and talking to people with SZ in all stages of the illness and so powerfully identified with their experiences and feelings, that I finally can now call myself "a person with schizophrenia." And yet, oddly, there are times when I still slip into denial and go for periods without taking my medications. These times never ever end well...but that "evidence" fails to be convincing all the time.

My purpose here is not to gain pity, but merely to give you some better, clearer and more accurate understandings of what this disease really is...and hopefully to put a chink into the mountain range of misunderstanding which surrounds this disease. it is bad enough to watch your brain descend into this state, but to also be a brunt of cruel jokes and ignorance and poor stereotypes really is so unjust as to be unbelievable. I was at the top of a very large graduating high school class and went off to college with both full academic and art scholarships...with a future wide open and almost guaranteed to succeed. My classmates and friends are now famed doctors, lawyers and musicians....and I spent the majority of my years between 19-28 sitting in psychiatric hospitals, with all hope of a future wrenched from my grasp watching unfold a future of unbelievable difficulty and challenge. This is the case for the majority of the people with this disease; to suddenly find that options are suddenly closed to them...and having to face the reality of a limited life and frequent suffering. Please just walk away from this article understanding that this disease is nothing less than a tragedy - and one which is of no fault of the sufferer. Understand that us "crazy" people have feelings too, despite our apparent lack of them....and that your laughter hurts.

Have some Whine

I just got out of the hospital...following what appeared to be a diverticular bleed, which plummeted my Red Blood Cell count down to the point where they were considering a transfusion. But God is good and the bleeding sealed itself off and now my body is in the process of recuperating from that event...

Unfortunately, a slight sinus headache that I had immediately before my admission, there in an environment where I couldn't employ my usual naturopathic methods of diverting and ending such an infringement on my health, really took hold and now I'm sporting a whopping sinus infection, complete with aching teeth and fever. Already the dry asthma cough is beginning...and I know where this whole thing is heading. Honestly, I would rather get hit by a truck than by one of my famous sinus infections. I think if I have to go into the hospital and receive steroids for an asthma issue, I will just call it quits. I'm already weakened by the hip replacement surgeries this year....and then by blood loss and now...When I got home from the hospital yesterday, I had trouble getting across a room without stopping for a rest....Too eerily similar to how I was last spring...although I don't see how I could have possibly lost ALL the muscle tone I'd worked so hard at attaining last spring-fall.

Blasted weather!
We've just gone through about 2 or 3 weeks of solid damp, cold, rainfall. I can't help but think that this, combined with the heavy pollen counts, had something significant to do with it.

Sorry for the humorlessness of this post...maybe it shouldn't be published....too much of a downer...Who wants to read of someone else's misery--? We each have enough of our own. I would have normally regaled you with the experience of my colonoscopy ( okay, I would eliminate the grosser details...but there ought to be a laugh or two in there.) Or told you of my solution to the paranoia which plagues me in the hospital. Maybe another time...

...Right now, I just feel like whining....

God's and the "F-Word"

Sorry that I've been silent for so long...my life has been busy going down the tubes...and it has required some attention from me.

God is a hard Truth to follow.
I spent my whole youth trying to run from Him out of fury that he'd made me sick.
And my whole adulthood trying to come to terms with my sickness and to get to know God better---so that the whole thing would make some kind of sense.
And when problem after problem came. The blizzards, hurricanes, avalanches and tornadoes....I clung tight to what I'd found to be true...And my house, built on the rock, remained standing. And I trusted him through the whole gamut.

And then this week...an unprecedented disaster of unnatural proportions...came ripping through my life.
And I felt my grip on the Rock loosen and my fingers began to slide.

And I screamed at God:

"LORD, I've trusted you through the Blizzards,hurricanes, avalanches and tornadoes...WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS TO ME??? WHY have you upped the ante??? It's just not fair!"
There it was ...the "f" word.
Fair.
It's been the bastion of every God-deserter since the beginning of time. Eve herself thought the way God played the game wasn't "FAIR"...and there it began.
But you know what?
God INVENTED THE GAME. He invented the players too. AND he invented the room in which the game is played. SOOOOOoo, We don't have a very big right to whine about "Fair" do we??? It's his game, he'll play it the way he wants to.

And God has looked at me with Love in his eyes today, and said softly, "Yes. But can you trust me NOW??"

Good thing He is a Loving and generous God...
And he hands out immense unbelievable, unimaginable prizes....NOT just to the winners....But to all who can finish the game without storming out uttering the "F" word.

EOB's and the Golden Gate Bridge

For those of you who are not from my lovely country of unregulated medicine and private practices and medical groups and conglomerates and insurance companies…you can just skip this post…unless of course you want to scratch your head and wonder why we’re called the “Land of the Free”.

A quick lesson.

We go to the doctor…any doctor we choose,….whenever we are sick, depressed or bored (JK), and then these doctors, who belong to medical groups or medical conglomerates of doctors (that’s when they all have partners of their own specialty (so they can take some weekends off and there’s someone to pat the hand of their patients who are in the hospitals) and they also (in conglomerates) have other groups of doctors of other specialties …all under one roof. THAT is so when you need a test, or an xray, or to see a doctor for some other malady….they can point to a door down the hall and say…”Go to this guy here, he’ll take care of you” and then you will get billed by 1) the doctor 2) the group and 3) the conglomerate. NOW, you don’t have to PAY all three, but somehow you are supposed to figure out WHICH of the three to pay and what amount. BECAUSE….

EOBs.

Explanation of Benefits.

These are the papers the insurance companies send you (and the insurance companies are the one who usually pay the majority of the bills….AFTER you pay , copay, deductible and coinsurance….ARE YOU WITH ME HERE???? The EOBs explain to you – usually Doctor by doctor….how much the insurance company pays…how much YOU pay….and how much the doctor swings for…..(basically…).

Now the problem I”m having….the one that wakes me up in the morning like morning sickness and keeps me up at night like caffeine….is when the EOB tells you how much to pay a DOCTOR…and you get bills from groups and conglomerates….HOW THE FREAK am I supposed to know how much to pay whom????

Because the groups and conglomerates also include the amounts owed to other doctors.

Now, you are probably thinking: Just pay anyone who sends you an itemized bill.

Ahhh yes.

I would, were it not for the fact that I’ve met my maximum out of pocket expenditure for the year…and beyond that I owe A BIG FAT NOTHING!!!

And doctor’s offices are sneaky. They send you bills before the situation is fully paid by the insurance company and they send you bills with errors…and they send you bills every month, despite the fact that you have already received 25 copies of that bill before. And I am completely swamped, overwhelmed, confused and SUICIDAL over this.

And that. is. just. what. they. want.

BECAUSE: If I panic as I did last week and say “Screw, it, I can’t figure this out, I’m just gonna pay these damn bills and hope it’s right.” And if you messed up and paid too much or you paid someone that you weren’t SUPPOSED to pay…then you are out of luck buddy…and then they get paid twice. Once by you and once by the insurance company. AND the to make matters worse, the doctor you were SUPPOSED to pay instead has every right to take your butt to court if you don’t pay him every penny you owe him….

My brain was fried numerous times by ECT.

I can’t remember anything from one minute to the next….due to whatever. Illness, meds,…age,….Alzheimer’s, ….ECT, ….Schizophrenia…..or all of the above.

And my husband has handed me this stack of papers two inches thick. And a stack of bills five inches thick. And said, “Here. You are paying these with YOUR disability money….YOU FIGURE IT ALL OUT and pay the doctors.”

which leads me to the second part of my blog title……(and if that is over your head also because you are not a local…then Google it.)

What an Idiot Does.....

So what does an idiot do?
....Makes a piece of bread spread with butter and honey
and sits down, picks up her laptop and.....
you guessed it.
Bread flips upside down and lands face down on said laptop's keyboard.

ummmm

sticky
Crumbly
gooey mess

I think I got it mostly cleaned up...but the keys seems a tiny bit slower and the touchpad a bit, well, ...jerky....which is probably due to a thin residue of honey left on it.

Nothing like starting your morning and wanting to kick your own backside from here to Texas.

More Fun than I can Handle

"Negligent" is too kind a word for my upkeep of this blog. "Abandonment" might do better.

The truth is that I've been too sick, physically and mentally to really be able to attend to it...and I"m not sure that it's any better right now because, being the anal retentive schizo that I am, I can't just leave it unfinished. And I'm finding that I must tenaciously cling still to an idea...like a dog after rawhide...until it is COMPLETE because if I don't I find myself typing things like "eihior lgioh hswoieuyyo "....and when I read it and try to retrace mythought-steps, they are gone like footprints in a dry snow during a blizzard.

So of course that begs the question: when is a blog finished? I mean done? altogether?
Is it when the writer is dead? When she has become so ill that she cannot physically peck out the words on a keyboard? Or is it when the words she pecks out make no discernible sense at all? Is it when she is locked up in a state mental facility...or comatose in a nursing home? Is it done when it becomes so boring that even the AUTHOR is bored?? That last possibility seems to be the one most common reasons for the death of a blog.

Anyway.
I started out with the goal of giving you some idea as to my path in the past two months. I had my hip surgery. And it was without major complication...unless you count the loss of a mind a major problem.

For about two weeks...I made NO sense when speaking. Couldn't recall diddly. Didn't recognize my family members...husband included. I was really only aware of pain. mind bending, excruciating agony which shall remain hereafter n0t described because it is completely indescribable. I cannot tell you what unit I was in....Who visited me; who cared for me....or what kind of prognoses they envisioned for me then. I was concerned because people weren't GETTING the ideas I tried so hard to portray to them. Even requests for a drink of water got lost in a tangled of words and thoughts.

Eventually, when I could put a whole sentence together, they decided it was time to be rid of me and transferred me to a rehab unit which is really a less intense level of care than was the rehab I 'd been in prior. This one resembles more a luxury hotel and therapy only takes up about two hours of my time in a day. Which was a gift from God who knew that more would have been more than I could handle. My energy is low. Pain level is constant. And my get up and go has got up and left.

I'm sheduled to go home on Saturday which will have been a month since my surgery date. And from there hopefully the fun will go on...

Lou Fellingham - There Is A Day

less than five hours to go....

... until I'm on the operating table...getting cut open, limb sawed off (well, just the bone gets sawed...) and the other gruesome details of a total hip replacement I will spare you. I'm trying to remain present in the moment. I'm wondering if my husband will be able to leave his desk for long enough to come upstairs and hold my hand while I'm in the holding area....(LOL...wonder if that's why it's called "HOLDING AREA" because there's a lot of hand holding going on there.)

Yesterday there was a code called for the OR Holding Area. I am wondering now if that person made it. Or if they didn't. There's ALWAYS a concern in major surgery...like the one I'm having....and when the person has asthma there is more concern. And then there is my other flakey self conditions....which always are good for a worry. The only one that really worries ME is that I will NOT regain clarity of mind after the anesthesia. With every surgery, the confusion is worse and worse and lasts longer and longer. And I feel like with every surgery another chunk of my mind gets lost...that more and more I am compromised. And that at some point, I will simply run out of chunks to blow. lol. (sorry, gross...couldn't resist) ...Anyway. I worry that the confusion, that fog and those hallucinations, will NOT lift and go away as they should...or have thus far.

So if when I come back, my serious remarks are funny and my jokes are NOT, and it stays that way...you'll know what happened.

Gypped a Hip

So.
I have one more day of freedom. And then I will be admitted to the hospital for three days of IV sodium to raise my blood levels to a safe number for my impending surgery.
And after next Tuesday I will be post-surg after a Right Total HIp Replacement. (and YES, I know I've had three hip replacements in one year. And Yes, I did start with only two hips. And actually; That is the number I still am left with. (I think somehow I've been gypped a hip somewhere along the line, don't you??)

So, here's the question I pose to you.
If you had ONE day left of freedom and relatively less pain than you'll have for weeks...how would you spend it?? What would you do??
If you had some money....and also a pile of doctor bills higher than you can hope to pay in a LONG time....and one day of freedom....what would you do?

Save the $ and pay the medical bills?
Or go out and do something nice for yourself?

What might I do?
A leg waxing sounds mighty tempting.
AS does a pedicure.
hhhhhmmmm

Can you say "massage" boys and girls???

Missing You....

Hers are the only ears left who perk up at the sound of my footsteps. Hers is the only body now warming my bed at night. The only one left for whom I'm responsible. She is the one who will look for me forlornly when I'm gone...who will open my bedroom door hopefully, thinking maybe I'd mysteriously returned without her seeing. She will wait by the window next to the door for me...each morning. She will become sadder and sadder as the days go on by without my return. Food will disinterest her. I'm the one she will long to play tag with; the one whose voice on the phone will make her look around hopefully..."Is she here? Is she back?"

She will sleep in my empty cold bed nestled amongst my blankets and the nightgown I'd left flung onto the bed. And sadly, she will give up hope of my return.
Maybe.

Her name is Mayo.
And she is the Princess. 10 pounds of adoration.
The one who makes me smile rare smiles these days.
As I pack for the trip to the hospital and prepare for my two or three week absence...I think of the heart that will mourn my absence. Of the loneliness and sadness she will feel...and I wonder:
Is a new hip worth a broken heart??

The Eating Machine

I just worked really hard to lose over 50 pounds. Why is it then,that for the past two or three nights, every time I stir or are roused at night (which is pretty frequently when you have a cat who thinks you need a face washing in the wee hours of the night and you are also in sheet-twisting pain), I head into the kitchen, stick my head into the refrigerator and ROUT..snuffling through the food which after some days of this, is getting pretty sparce, select several items and head back to my pen for the feast?? It's a simple explanation...one word really:

STEROIDS. My arch enemy. My anathema. My worst fear.

And they came from a subtle source. NO, I was not taking a course of prednisone. (My pulmonologist recently prescribed a 12 day regimen of them and I decided that death from asthma was preferable that this....so I didn't take them. )

But then my shoulder was recently Xrayed because of increasing pain and the feeling that I was a breath away from a dislocation...and they discovered that this body-eating disease I have, has gnawed its way through my shoulder cartilage and the bones of my joint and that it, too, needs to be replaced. (no wonder I couldn't get a jacket on and off!). So my rheumatologist sent me to my ortho surgeon to get a shot into the shoulder joint which they hoped, would enable me to hold off on that surgery until after I'd recovered from the impending hip replacement surgery (coming up in two weeks now). Sigh.

Anyway...that unobtrusive injection held....you guessed it....cortisone. STEROIDS. And yes, I am eating my house once more. I've worked my way through the kitchen and am now about to start on the living room. My cheeks are puffed out, my stomach is protruding (both of these changes in the location of body fat, are a consequence of steroids....Lovely, right?) and I am HUNGRY. The ''if you don't hand me that candy bar-slice of pizza-fiber bar-banana-whatever-it -is-you-hold-in-your-grubby-little-hands RIGHT NOW, I will break your arm"kind of hungry.

The other day, my husband came home from doing the grocery shopping and I spied a package of SIX Snickers candy bars. My spirit soared. I had great plans for that candy! But I didn't have any right THEN. Then the very next day, said husband confessed to eating all SIX of those candy bars...and I did not get even ONE! Needless to say, my husband will be fending for himself for meals this week. (have to punish him SOMEhow! lol.)

Did I mention that I HATE steroids?

Did I mention that everytime I take them, I vow it will be the last time?

yeah, sure.

A Recliner in which to Lay; Perchance to Pray

This last Sunday was the first Sunday (at least in a long time) that I found myself unable to attend church because of the severity of my pain. In fact, the whole week was one of those, "Go to bed, go directly to bed...do not pass Go, do not collect ...."weeks-that-feel-like-eternities' You get the picture. Maybe.

I didn't go anywhere; see anyone; do anything...just laid as still as possible trying to avoid stirring up the little man who loves to stab me with those red hot pokers. ...Is this what hell is like? (lol. No, I'm sure hell is much worse...which is exactly why I'm doing all I can to avoid going there :) ) But how hell is, is rather irrelevant to me now, because my problem NOW, is simply to find a way to function, even minimally...as in get showered, change PJ's occasionally and eat a bit of food...I would like to say that I succeeded at all those tasks this week...but honestly: I didn't.

And days...and weeks like this are becoming more and more frequent...when sleep is impossible; eating is unimportant; and any other pursuit: unlikely. Pain yawns like the abyss...unavoidable and inescapable. It roars like a freight train with me tied to the tracks and no Captain Marvelous or Lone Ranger or any other hero in sight to rescue me. And it finally dawned on me this week, that church attendance is really no longer possible. Now you must understand that church has been my last bastion of social contact...my self-pretense that all will be well...that all IS well.

But lately, it has changed for me. It has gone from being a joy; an escape from the mundane to the eternal and sublime...; a time to connect with my faith family and to sing and worship my Lord and God...and become instead....an exercise in endurance. A teeth-gritting, lip tensing, nail-biting, hand-wringing hour of torture. My spine cannot put up with being perpendicular to the floor for longer than ten minutes without smacking me in the head and demanding to go lie down somewhere: OR ELSE. And usually about a quarter of the way through the service, I need to stand up, slip through the back door and pace in the foyer...just trying to convince my body to shut up and hang in there for a little while longer. But the "hour" stretches in to a mere century or two....and by the time I crawl into the car to go home, all the furies of hell have been let loose upon me.

So, this week, I made that really difficult ...but I felt, unavoidable, decision to end the charade that my body is anything like a normal one; and to stop saying, "Ok, thanks" or "hanging in there" when asked how I am; and to stop trying to go to church regardless of how important it is to my faith; or to me socially and relationally. It has gone far past the point of "gains outweighing the losses" and it is time to stop denying that huge purple elephant that is dancing in the corner of the room....

When I told my Home Bible study this last night - while comfortably ensconced in their overstuffed recliner - there was a ripple of consternation...and the ideas started coming... The idea began as a joke, "Why not put a recliner in the back of the church for her?" and as the sentence settled in and made itself at home in our thoughts...it didn't seem so crazy or impossible. There was discussion and it was agreed to try to get permission to bring my recliner from my basement over to the church so that I could eke out yet a little more time until that day arrives when no accommodations will alter the fact that my church-going days are over.

Hopefully the heavens will split open with a shout before that point and we'll be seated in the heavenlies together where there will be no more pain or tears, sorrow or sighing....and we wil be worshiping in the place where the worship goes on and on.