Hey the Contest is ON!!!

OK in case you didn't scroll down there is a contest here for a comment driven give away.
You may have one entry, BECAUSE for every 7 entries I will add another surprise item to the gift.
I think we have about 2 and a half right now. So peoples lets get with it! Becky was hoping for a refrigerator box full. THAT would be a big drag, yeah right funny. Scroll down two post too Spring surprises and enter if you haven't already.

I am a GRUMPKIN

Good start on the contest, 2 items in the first day. Please see the next post if you haven't entered already. It's a good thing I thought of it before the time change. I am an official wreck. I was getting used to 4:30 just barely, and now...well you do the math. It's too painful to discuss and I need to go to sleep at least 2 hours ago. Which means, I cannot go visiting until a day off. I think I may change my name to Karen Deborah Grinch -Atillah the Hun. Are you grumpy too?

Spring Sprung & Sweet Surprises

This is snow in the South! Aren't you impressed? Isn't it amazing?

This is the storm that washes the snow away.
Last week the weather was cloudy, stormy and we had a real snow fall. Yes, that smattering of white stuff on the grass and flowers is a snow fall. Don't snort your coffee up your nose choking please. We were impressed, there was enough to make a snow ball and it was gone by noon.

This week we are into flowers and spring sun. It's bee you ti ful!





This is a peach tree in full bloom.







So I thought we could celebrate a little. I love it when the peaches are coming, peaches get me happy. Let's see celebrate how? Like a spring splurge, a surprise for you. I would like to offer a surprise give away. I'm not going to tell you what it is but I'll hint a little of what it might be.

It might be a cute thrift store find, it might be something good to eat, it might be something homemade by my lovin hands,



or it might be something good to drink with something good to read. It just might be an incredible jackpot of all of the above or maybe not. What will make the jackpot bigger is to have more contestants. So spread the word. Just leave a comment. One entry per person.

We are not savy enough to use random integer. We draw names from a hat, with a photo of the drawing and the winner. For every 7 contestants I will add another goodie to the box,a good goodie. Does it sound like fun? Do you want to win? Then leave a comment and check back now and then to be sure there are others entering the drawing. It will close in 2 weeks on March 22nd at noon. I will add up the 7's and determine how many items will be in the package. My friends already KNOW that I build cool presents so get busy.

Aside from this little brainstorm my brain is in a pretty continuous state of gel mode. I learn so much every day that I work. Actually it would help if studied when I'm home but so far I haven't done that, bad girl. It isn't a requirement but it will help, so maybe I'll pull out a drug book tonight and read up on "pressors."

The ICU brings up a lot of ethical issues, so bear with me as I'm sure there will be times when I cannot avoid a heavy discussion. BUT not today! Today it is spring and it is pretty! The biggest temptation I have right now is to flip the switch from heat to AC. I won't because this is the time of year we can actually save a bit on our energy bills and just have everything off.

Speaking of off, the TV is officially dead. No one is missing it! NONE of us are joan-zing for the TV. I actually think my blood pressure is lower and I am feeling more relaxed. Now when I can't sleep I'm crocheting little cotton dish rags- yeah I know what an OLD LADY thing to do. It hypnotizes me, I will get sleepy...I will get sleepy...

So what if a whole lot of people turned their TV's off? You know a boycott. What if we boycott TV, and Pepsi CO, and mail a tea bag to the white house on April Fools day, would it do any good? I don't know. I don't know if our government is even in the business of representation any more; it may be a big business that is interested in itself, or so it would seem. However in the smaller scope of things turning the TV off is benefiting our family already. We are talking more. We look for somebody to do something with, or talk about making something instead of flopping on the couch with the remote. My honey is out working in the yard which is just fantabolous, and I'm cooking of course. Our little experiment is working.

The next course of action is going to be removing as many pre made items from the grocery list as is possible. It takes thinking, there is a lot more to eat than beans, it's just the first thing I think of because of crazy Dave. Eat beans and rice he says. He has obviously never delved into the delights of scratch cooking and home made food. I'm pretty good at it but I'd like to kick it up a notch. I'd like to invent good breakfast items like breakfast burritos and ....what? What ideas do you have? On the days you go to work do your kids reach for the Wheaties? What about ways to premake stuff? The manufacturers do it. One month of cable,$50, 3 large boxes of cereal from Sams club $25, no drive thru junk food, $50,you see how it grows? What are you doing these days to cope with the rising prices? Are you saving money by spending less?

Too bad the government is too stupid to figure out that paying off debt with more debt is dumb, pay as you go, even if it's slow. But no THAT would be a sensible thing to do.

Your 2 cents is welcome feel free to speak up, and oh yeah, enter the contest.

Sunday Surprises

We awoke to a blanket of soft white fluffy stuff all over the FLOWERS! It's been warm enough last week that it was a big temptation to flip the heater over to the AC, and then....WHAMMO. Last night it sounded like our little house might just blow away to the land of OZ, and not a pair of ruby slippers in the house. No sirreee no red shoes at all. The snow has already melted, but not the chill, so back out with some nice heavy warm sweatshirts and soft woolly socks. I thankfully did cover my hydrangeas before going to bed last night. They have budded and have very tender new leaves. They are protected and will hopefully make it threw this little roar of the lion of March.

Our TV is officially off. It's kind of weird and kind of nice. I actually took the time to load my little 6 CD player and put it on shuffle to have a little nice music in the background, a lovely touch if I don't say so myself. I love music but my man tires of it. If he enjoyed it, we'd never a minute of silence.
Think I'll be going to the library a bit more often, at least to take Tigger.

The message I heard today was "fear not," the coming of the Lord is not the blessed fear, it's the blessed hope! That's right it is, smile, sigh...

We have had a very fun filled few days off. Isn't that alliteration?

Went to a party. Played the write 2 things true and one thing false game and had to guess who it was. Nobody guessed anybody but me. I wrote that I would've run off with Sam Elliott as my false and everybody thought it was true, including my loving man! Go figure. 53 years old and still way to easy to figure out. I really wouldn't run off with him, but he IS easy on the eyes. I'm a sucker for real cowboys.

We had friends over, a little spontaneous get together. Luckily I had a big left over casserole and a salad already fixed. They don't mind leftovers at all, so we had a nice time! Would you ever serve people leftovers? Am I crazy? My friends don't mind my leftovers, they'll eat anything I have. Guess they just aren't picky.

I also got to sleep in one day until 11:00, I know Jeri that it isn't fair to even mention it. I think my job is almost as tiring as Miss Ky, those 12 hour shifts are looooonnnnng.

This week my goal is to do well at work. Fall asleep early, 4:30am comes so fast. Take some purty pictures for my bloggy buddies and write a happy post. Wish me luck! Or better yet blessings, or good tidings of great joy, or a pep talk, or forgettta bout it. Ya'll have a good week.

Just Resting.

I haven't disappeared off the face of the earth; just into the bowels of an ICU unit. Actually it's coming together pretty well. I am getting used to the routine and the business of the unit. The hardest adjustment for me is in looking at the patients in terms of their monitors. I would do more with people that the other nurses veto. For example an old demented lady who really wanted to get up to go to the bathroom. I would've put her on a commode chair. the other nurses thought she might code. I thought the stress and confusion was more detrimental than getting up, but I was outnumbered and stood down. I'm not always right, even if I think so. After 3 shifts in a row my week is done but so am I! My ankles were so swollen I was walking slowly to my car and it took a day and half for it to go away. Shoot fire I AM getting old. My ankles swell in the heat like in Colombia but they haven't swollen that bad before just from working. It's ridiculous to get up at 4:30 in the morning and get home between 7:30 and 8pm at night. Those are farmers hours aren't they? What we do to put the bacon on the table.

Speaking of bacon is it my imagination or are food prices jumping up AGAIN? I was browsing canned goods looking for sales and everything was so high. $1.00 is a sale price for a 16oz can of chili? i don't even buy that but didn't that used to be something cheap? It seemed to me that nothing was a good price. I had a small cart load and it was still $100. I'm going back to my roots and cooking more and more like my mother. We are eating more beans and they are good. I'm teaching the girls more about scratch cooking. I never have bought many processed food but the way things are going I'm taking more and more items off of my list each week. I am sorry for the companies and the job losses but the government that we have elected (as a people) is making hasty decisions that are dangerous.

I am currently in a study of Daniel with David Jeremiah. He has been drawing some very clear parallels between Daniels experience with the two kingdoms he served under and our nation. We are apparently part of nation in decline. An immoral nation that has lost it's way. We are more concerned about WHO we know to accomplish our purposes, rather than WHAT we are; a people ruled by integrity and Godly principles. Daniel had an excellent spirit. He was not shaken by the circumstances around him. He is one of the few characters in the Bible in whom no fault is found.
I am grateful for impetuous Peter and David who sinned, but even so was a man after God's own heart. I can relate to the fallen, imperfect and flawed. But I can ASPIRE to have heart like Daniels. No matter what happened to him, he continued to abide with God in the same manner and in the same way each day. He was unfazed by his current events. He showed no fear to be thrown to lions.

What would I do? Truthfully if I was being thrown to hungry man eating lions I would crap my pants and scream in terror. I don't have that kind of faith. I am not even close to being a person of God that Daniel was. I want to be though. Times are going to get worse. I don't want my heart to be blown about by the fears of these times. I can trust in my God. There are many gods, and men give their hearts to them. Some of these gods are power, money, wealth, the Earth and nature, philosophies and man's intellect to name a few; but these are not the gods I serve.
In Rome there was a monument made to honor the unknown God. Paul used that as an opportunity to tell the people of his God the living God. Jesus Christ. Many religions are created because of man reaching out to gods, but only Jesus reached his hand out for man. He lives and breathes and conquered death. His words are living and true. He changes lives and He changed me. There is no formal prayer, no fancy speech to find him. It's simple and because of that many loose their way. It seems to simple.

So how did I find God?

Better phrased, how did God find me?

I was raised in a Lutheran church and went to a parochial school until high school so I learned about the Bible. In high school my parents went through a nasty divorce and my mom lost her mind. My brothers and I all got into trouble in our own way. I ended up pregnant at 16 and after I had my baby I became a hippie and drifted into the culture of drugs, sex, and rock and roll. I'm not proud of that. I wish I had a story of loving God all my life and having parents that loved God and kept me safe till I was grown, but that is not my story.

By the time I was 30 I had married a psycho, my child was victimized, another young teen that lived with us was also under his insane clutches. I was desperate and scared. My mind was beaten down into a non functional state, my nerves gone, decision making almost lost, and defeat was close, my guilt enormous. I was barely hanging on to my sanity.

I worked two jobs then. I had an old folks home in a house next door , and also traveled around doing hair. I started the hair business on a bicycle. I did hair for shut-ins. I worked about 6hours doing that and then came home to cook dinner for the folks next door, and help them to bed.

One day at one of my hair customers home's I met Susie. She was a newly hired nurse aide for Vee a sweet little old lady. While Vee was under the hair dryer, I kept looking at Susie. I swear to you she was lit with a different light than anything I had ever seen before. We had just met and I had an overwhelming compulsion to tell her about my life. I hadn't told anyone how truly awful my life had become. The story spilled like a torrential flood, bathed in foul expressions and tears. She just looked at me and said one thing,"You need God." I wondered, really? Is that it?
She invited me to her church and I decided to go. Later she told me how surprised she was that I came. Most people don't. I couldn't imagine why, unless they were not as desperate as I was.

I didn't have the vocabulary to know what happened there. All I knew was, that man who was speaking, talked like he had been peaking into the windows of my home. I was exposed. Somehow he knew everything. I would come to understand later that he knew nothing at all, the Holy Spirit of God was revealing that HE was the one who knew me. Just as He knows everything about everyone in the whole world. Incomprehensible isn't it, omniscience? But true, as it was proven that day, the beginning of many proofs. I did nothing that day but listen. they gave me a packet of materials and inside were many items of information. There was also a little booklet. As I read it I began weeping, my heart was breaking, totally, completely as the truth directed it's revealing light all over the darkness in my soul. There were 2 diagrams in the booklet. Each was a circle. One circle showed the center with self on a throne, and radiating from that throne in all directions was chaos. The other circle had Jesus in the center on a throne of a mans heart, and that life was ordered. The pictures spoke to me. The words had pierced me and I went to my living room floor and knelt down. Somehow I fumbled my way, because no sooner had I called His name when he came and met me there. I am so grateful that I found Jesus that way, just me and him. I didn't have to worry about how I looked, or the sobs, I didn't have to worry about how much time I was using up. In fact I lost track of time altogether. I had a Judy Collins record and she had sung Amazing Grace on it. I pulled it out and played it about 50 times, still weeping but tears full of peace. Jesus met me, and I gave him my heart and my life. He has proved himself more times than I can count. Even though I fail him continually. When I fail, I know he will forgive and still love.

I so desire to become a rock of faith like Daniel. I so desire to have integrity that no one can find fault with. But I also desire to know many people, to share with them this gift. Jesus said that narrow is the way and straight the path, and few find it. Not that it is exclusive far from it, Jesus would have ALL if they would have him. But few want him. We chose ourselves. We worry we will be weirdos, we worry we won't have fun, we worry we're being duped, and a whole host of other stupid traps. It takes coming to the end of oneself. It takes a crisis or some life shaking event to get us to even think differently, we are such creatures of habit.

Do you even have a Bible? If you do is it written in a language easy to understand?
Are your opinions formed by studying this man Jesus yourself or from what others have said?
The hardest person for the Lord to reach is one who says he has no need. The good person, the one whose life is not a mess, who feels they are on course and are fine. The problem is that no man is perfect and that is the standard. The word sin simply means to miss the mark, to not hit a bulls eye. The bulls eye is holiness, perfection. At times I have eaten something that seemed close to perfect, but my behavior has never come close. God knows our thoughts, every action, every secret thing, from our entire lives. No one can make the mark. Many will chose to be judged on their merits. I know who I am and only ask for mercy, and bless the day I found it.

If you would like a Bible in an easy to understand translation to make up your own mind for yourself, just say so in a comment. It would be my joy to give you one.

Struggling

I haven't really done a post in awhile. Very few times in my life have I felt at a loss for words. While driving to work I usually listen to talk radio. The recent events from the government have my guts in knots. This administration may be remembered as the one that brought America to it's knees in defeat.

It appears that almost the entire left wing agenda has been ram rodded down the throats of Americans in this new STIMULUS law.

Word is that the next move will be to force socialized medicine through, just as quickly. Which surprised me, not in that it would be attempted but I was expecting the "right to bear arms," to be taken next. Men are you there?

The government already has such a strong position in dictating health care that the actual take over is almost complete. When we gave them the power to pay the bills, they also were given the power to dictate what they will pay for and when, how etc... translated into Medicare-Medicaid and the rest is history. No matter what you think about these policies, when YOU are faced with rationed care, when your life requires a treatment that is not "cost effective," you will sit up and take notice.

History always repeats itself. The Nazi's not only killed Jews, they also euthanized more people in the hospitals than in the camps. Anyone handicapped or unproductive. The beautiful strong intelligent youth were prized. The rest of humanity was not precious, it was disposable.
We have a serious problem with aging baby boomers, one way to deal with that is, do I dare say it? Euthanize them? Offer them palliative treatments? If you are 59 no bypass? If you are 85 nothing but morphine? Do you know that it's already happening?

Now you know why I haven't been blogging much this week. I have been stewing in my own juices. This morning I woke up warm and sleepy, rested. I have a day off. A day not to think about the crashing economy. A day not to think about what to do with the pitiful remains of my 401K. It wasn't much, but it's all I had. I had thought to ride it out and hope for recovery but that may not ever happen. Since I don't need it until about 10 years from now my plan was to wait, but it is nerve wracking!

What to do with all this negative stuff?
Negative is the biggest understatement, anyone with a better vocabulary can please fill in the needed adjectives.

The question is how to quiet oneself.
How to become calm in a distressed world.
How to be thankful in captivity.

Which brings me back to God. Everybody knows the story of Daniel. He was the guy the king put in the lions pit. They were hungry too, they would have devoured him without the power of God. God did show up for Daniel in a big way. What impresses me is the peace of Daniel regardless of the outcome. Now that is even more spectacular than closing the mouths of the lions. You see Daniel was cool with being delivered from the lions OR dying. He just didn't get rattled by his circumstances. No matter what happened, no matter what the king decreed, he just went about his business the same way every day. Daniel prayed three times a day. Actually I think he prayed mentally unceasingly, and those were his times set apart to LISTEN to God.

Giving thanks. Being thankful is the answer. As I begin to remember all the times before that God has come through. As I remember, that His ways are not my ways, and His thoughts are not my thoughts. I can delegate to the background, those troubles of the foreground. Nations have risen and fallen throughout time and still God exists.

He still speaks, through His Word the Bible, his people, his church and our lives. He still wants all people to know him, really know him, intimately. He is still love and loves me and loves you. He is the same yesterday and forever. On Christ the solid rock I stand all other ground is sinking sand. I need a rock. If you want to bring up issues of sin (missing the mark), suffering and justice we can, in another post. Today we need the quiet rock.

It's working and I am quieter inside, calmer. Have you noticed the early signs of spring? It's coming. Think I'll share with you what I saw on a stroll in the garden.

An Incredible Story and A Great Idea

I have to go to sleep, because getting up early drives me stark raving nuts. Maybe I SHOU'LD work night shift. BUT

Jeri over at IN THE GUTTER which is on my blog roll just click it; has an amazing personal story posted today about her past, with a very good idea for all of us right now! Go read it and see. If you agree leave a comment.

And another, if you didn't read coffe Bean yesterday about her husbands pants you have really missed out. Be warned, when you read it you might pee in yours.