Absolutely Amazing

I want to tell you about my new friend. Her disposition is just that Absolutely Amazing. Give her circumstances she could easily be justified in feeling sorry for herself and yet she is the first to greet you with a big smile, a merry song and cheerful “how are you today”.

My friend is a lot like me, she is young; probably in her late 40s early fifties (see I’m that age so I consider that young). She has an engineering degree and worked for many years for Boeing. The big difference is that my friend is unable to form words to speak anything but a few phrases. There is a disconnect in her brain. I met my friend at the nursing home where my mom lives. She is has been a resident there since she was beaten, leaving her unable to use her right hand, unable to walk because her right leg is also partially paralyzed. Her mind has full capability except speaking. She knows what is going on and what she needs to say, but the words just don’t come. Her vocabulary is limited:

“How are you today?” “I’m fine thank you.” “Absolutely Amazing”

How I wish I knew my friend before, if those are the only things her damaged brain can say today. Think of all the angry, foul phrases that she could be spouting?

I look forward to seeing my friend every time I visit my mom; even though I do most of the talking we hold entire conversations. The speech therapist is amazed, I guess because we are so similar we converse easily.

I am truly blessed to have made a new friend.

Matthew 12:34

More Than a Meal

When we fix ourselves a meal we make our selection based on a number of factors. Maybe you are into organic food, maybe it is the ethnenticity, or maybe on convenience. But there are just some times that we select our meal based on the emotion behind it, thus the meaning of ‘comfort food’.

I have had a tough couple of weeks and last night when I got home from a long day I needed something in my body, not necessarily nutrition(I could miss a meal and be none the worse for it) but I needed to feed my soul. I needed something that would bring a little joy to my life. I have the ability to buy a lobster dinner, an expensive piece of beef but I needed Spagetti-Os.

I remember the 1st can of Spaghetti-Os I had, it was such an extravagant expense for our family. Such a diversion from the meals that we had it was sweet and fun and pure enjoyment for a child. I remember warming up Spaghetti-Os in a hotpot in my dorm room during my freshman year of college, another time where money was scarce.

I dumped the can in a bowl and popped it into the microwave while I spread lots of butter on a couple of pieces of good ole white bread. When the microwave finished I took my bowl to the table and sat and dipped that bread into that red sauce then into my mouth and I was reminded of all that I have survived, overcome and accomplished in my life and my soul was encouraged.

Not everyone may look at Spaghetti-Os that way, but last night it was just what I needed.

Deuteronomy 4:9-10

Good stuff

Its THAT Time Again

On Sunday The Red Wings (46-15-9) were the first team to reach 100-points and clinch a playoff berth this season, their 18th straight and the league’s longest active streak.

Go Wings!!!!

"I'm So Dizzy,

My Head is Spinning..."*

That was me a few weeks ago, if I lifted my head up from the horizontal position the whole room started to spin. I went to the doctor to find out that I had a case of Labyrinthitis. Basically I caught a cold in my inner ear. There is no cure, just like with a cold; they can only treat the symptoms with industrial strength Dramamine™. The fluid in my inner ear became a little cloudy and less viscous due to the virus. This caused an imbalance of my equilibrium. Normally the inner ear fluid if free to move and therefore helps us stay balanced. But when it thickens, the fun begins.

Our bodies are so amazing. Such a slight change can throw us off balance. This is true in all areas of our lives. If we get a little sluggish, overly tired, not eating right, neglecting time refreshing our spirit with Bible reading and prayer, we become less fluid and it throws off balance. It doesn’t take much to start the spin out of control. It is the small things, our inner ear is one of the smallest areas on our body and yet.

So what is the treatment, rest, healthy eating, and quality time spent with the Lord. Find your favorite CD of Christian praise and worship and sing to it every 4 hours until you are back in balance.


*Dizzy by Tommy Roe was #1 on April 10, 1969

“Look Into My Eyes”

Blue, green, hazel and brown, what was the color of the last person you have a conversation with? The direction of one’s gaze indicates to others where their attention is. Eye contact shows personal involvement and creates intimate bonds.

Of all the ways we communicate with people eye contact is the most powerful. The way we look or not look at someone when we are talking to them says volumns. Looking at people and meeting their eyes are the first steps toward making positive impressions and deep friendships.

There is this woman at church that I have been watching for a while. It doesn’t matter what else is going on around her, when she is talking to someone, friend or stranger, there is nothing else in her immediate focus. She will look directly at you while she is engaged in conversation, totally interested in your every word as if it is the meaning of life and death. She does this in a way that gives the other person value and security. I’m not sure she even knows she is doing it. If it isn’t natural for her, she has done an excellent job in learning this skill.

I have a bad habit, or a natural tendency, to know everything that is going on in a room so I can jump in and help someone else. This is good when I’m not talking to someone, but the reality is that I probably come off cold and un-caring when I talk to someone in a public setting. Get me in a one on one situation and I do a little better, but I am still aware of everything happening around me.

Lord help me to be able to focus on the person in front of me and to give them my undivided attentions.

Matt 6:22

Friends - On Purpose

I have a Facebook account ; it is fun to keep track of ‘friends’ and what they are up to. You add Friends that you want to be connected to or stay in contact with. In face it was a friend from New Mexico that convinced me to sign up for Facebook. It is an easy way for us to connect on a daily basis if we choose. In some aspects I think social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter and Linked In are also bad for relationships, if we don’t watch out our friendships will become casual.

Starting this weekend I will be attending church at our new 2nd campus and that means that I won’t be able to have our normal brief chat and hug each Sunday with some of my closest friends. I remember the night I told one of my friends that we wouldn’t be together on Sundays and she got mad at me. She felt as if I was abandoning her. My response to her was that it only meant that we had to be more intentional in our friendship and not just let it happen on Sundays.

I have some close friends that live in other parts of the country and I have to work at being On Purpose with those relationships because of the distance between us. I have friends that live within a few short miles of my house and it seems that I am don’t spend much more time with them than I do my long distant relationships. I can sometimes take them for granted.

Deliberate, planned, designed, purposed, intended, calculated, prearranged, premeditated. Are these words that describe your friendships or do you like most of us take them for granted? So what is a friend, per good old Webster they are person you know well and regard with affection and trust.

I continue to be On Purpose with my friends even in these busy times.

Prov 27:6; 17:17

green bananas

Each week my husband buys a small bunch of bananas for us to eat during the week. I really don’t like overly ripened bananas so we only have a few in the house at a time. Some weeks we run out of them because it seems that everyone is eating them and then other weeks they get too ripe and I have to throw them out. There are not many things that bother me as much as throwing out food. I would rather run out and have to get more then to waste it. Maybe that comes from the days in my past when food was scarce and I went to bed hungry some nights. Anyways back to the bananas.

Bananas are shipped into our region so they are not always the ripest when we bring them home. We had a bunch of bananas in the house a few weeks ago that were so under-ripe they were almost a florescent green color. I had to do a double take when I first saw them. I guess the correct term would be that they were raw. In that state they are really not very good for you to eat unless you actually cook them. So we hung them on the banana hanger and waited; waited for them to ripen. It took several days but they finally did ripen into something that was eatable and rather good for you.

I find myself like those bananas sometime, flat out raw, not yet ready for general consumption. I need to sit and ripen for awhile. Seems funny when you consider that I am over 50 and yet I still have to ripen in some areas of my life. I am formed in the right image, just not ripe yet. If I were to run out and do what I was created to do that early I would cause a great big stomach ache. Instead I have to hang around for awhile and let that part of me, that skill, that dream, that idea, that vision, that desire ripen until I have reached the state where I am rich with nutrition and sweet to be around.

So as I hang here and ripen, please don’t throw me out, I will come out the perfect fruit.

Col 3:10

A Handshake Said It All

It is common practice in the US and in most cultures to greet each other with a handshake, especially upon the 1st introduction. Handshakes tell a lot about a person. Do you make direct eye contact? Do you initiate the handshake, demonstrating your eagerness to meet the other person? Nobody likes a limp handshake. You show respect for yourself and the other person through a handshake.

It was a bright sunny, Sunday morning and I was greeting at the front doors of our old church building. A stranger walked up and I immediately reached out to take his hand and introduce myself. We had never met before but as soon as his eyes lit up and his warm hand grasped mine, I knew I had met a special man. By that one handshake many years ago I knew that he was a kind, gentle and caring man; a man that knew who he was and had lived through much only to come out of every situation better.

I remember that handshake and every other one afterwards and came to know him as someone I would call a friend. Always quick to take my hand in his and just say hi. Never in a hurry, there is always time. Over the years his body became weaker, but the warmth and gentle strength of his handshake has never lessened.

This week my friend Manfred shook the hand of Jesus face-to-face.

I will forever remember that handshake.

Latest Read

The way it should be

Part of the Process

Earlier this week I had a minor surgical procedure on my shoulder and things are going better than expected, my doctor is even surprised, Thank You Jesus. Now it is just time for the healing to take place.

With any healing it is a process, I have more mobility and less pain every day. I have bruises that have started to appear and are now going through the various stages of color dark purple to green to yellow. I have a rash from the bandage tape that is fading. The worst part is the stitches. I have two of them and with each day they are becoming more and more of a nuisance. As I have more use of that arm they tend to pull, and itch! My goodness they itch, I know that is a good indication of the healing and I will resist the urge to pull them out myself and wait until Monday and let the doctor do it.

Physical healing is a process but so is emotional. We all experience the pain, irritation and the different phases of healing. Just like with the stitches we would love to pull out and skip that part, but we are only truly healed and not scarred if we allow the full process to take place.

Objects May Be Closer Then They Appear

A mirror is used to show us where we have been or what we look like now.

Remove the reflective surface from the back of a mirror and it becomes a lens that can help us get a clear image of where we are going.

2008 In Review

2008 In Review

On January 1st, 2008 this is what I wrote in my journal:
“A new year; a year of change, a year of not wasting opportunity, a year for stronger relationships, a year of better discipline and a year with a deeper time with the Lord.”

Here are some key moments recorded via the blog:

January – new job – I really struggled to be respected in my last job and searched not only for a new job but my heart for the right attitude where I was. Then during the break between Christmas and New Years I came upon a listing on Monstor.com and in just 3 weeks I started on a new endeavor. And here it has been nearly 12 months and even with lots of changes in this uncertain world I am enjoying what I do.

February – Aunt Agnes – When you are 95 and have lived life to the fullest I guess we shouldn’t complain that she is at rest. The times I think about, talk about or remember my Aunt aren’t very far apart; she was such a highlight to our lives.

May – Need a Knee Replacement – this was the diagnosis that I got and what did I do with that? I joined the Y and started exercising to strengthen the other muscles and tendons around the damaged one to make my knee more stable. This has turned into one of the best things for my health. At the time I started I could hardly make 10 minutes on the treadmill without too much pain, today I rip off 60 minutes at 8% incline 2 or three nights a week and I am planning on climbing Mt St Helens this summer. It also has helped me to lose 20+ pounds, now who could complain about that?

June – Wings – What can you say, one of the best sports team ever won AGAIN.

July – Orange County Fair – Kyle and I spent a pleasant weekend in Orange County, taking advantage of one of my business trips. That is one thing that I really love about my husband is that he likes to just get away for a day or two to be together.

August – visitors – This summer I had the opportunity to have both my sisters come out for a visit. I enjoy visiting with my sisters and I know it is a blessing to my mom.

October – vacation – What an amazing experience it is to visit Washington DC. You can complain about our country but until you have had to opportunity to visit other nations you just don’t understand how truly blessed we are and how blessed this nation is.

December – discipline – I set goals and objective for myself and one of the key ones is daily reading of the bible. This year I was able to read through the Bible four times by reading 20 pages a day. Every time I do this I learn a little more about our Heavenly Father and about myself.

Irritating Challenge

Christmas day I was irritated with my mom for the puzzle she picked to do. One of the few Christmas traditions our family has is to do a jigsaw puzzle on Christmas Day. This year, just like last year she had saved a really difficult puzzle for the two of us to work on together. I took one look at it and knew it would be up to me to do that puzzle because she wouldn’t be able to and it really wasn’t one I wanted to work on. I let her work on it and I puttered around doing just about anything else except work on that puzzle.

The next day when I got up I almost just put the puzzle away because I had a rotten attitude but instead I sat down and started working on it and it turned out that I got totally engrossed in it and almost finished it that evening. I had to make myself stop so that there would be some left for my mother to do when she came back over on New Year’s Day.

I totally got involved in the challenge of getting it figured out and completed. A puzzle I didn’t even want to start and was upset about having to work on turned out to be fun and I felt good about getting it done.

How often do we look at challenges in our lives as I did that puzzle, something that we just don’t want to do, something that we dread and would rather just put away and not do it. Any just like that puzzle the sense of accomplishment that comes for doing something we just don’t feel we can.

Katlynn and I making snow angels

Katelynn's Snowman

FW: Gingerbread house!

Simple Home Remedies

1. If you're choking on an ice cube, simply pour a cup of boiling water down your throat. Presto! The blockage will instantly remove itself.

2. Avoid cutting yourself when slicing vegetables by getting someone else to hold the vegetables while you chop.

3. Avoid arguments with the females about lifting the toilet seat by using the sink.

4. For high blood pressure sufferers ~ simply cut yourself and bleed for a few minutes, thus reducing the pressure on your veins. Remember to use a timer.

5. A mousetrap placed on top of your alarm clock will prevent you from rolling over and going back to sleep after you hit the snooze button.

6. If you have a bad cough, take a large dose of laxatives. Then you'll be afraid to cough.

7. You only need two tools in life - WD-40 and duct tape. If it doesn't move and should, use the WD-40. If it shouldn't move and does, use the duct tape.

8. Remember - everyone seems normal until you get to know them.

9. If you can't fix it with a hammer, you've got an electrical problem.

Daily thought: Some people are like slinkies - not really good for anything but they bring a smile to your face when pushed down the stairs.

How Did I Get Here?

Yesterday in the office it was all quiet and then U heard the guy in the office next to me say, “How did I get here?” My reply; “Isn’t that what we are all asking ourselves.”

As small children we see ourselves growing up to be Doctors, Lawyers or Video Game designer all in one day. Then as we grow and experience more of life we start to see ourselves in the Real world and our goals change and become more focused as we set off to college pursuing an education that will ultimately bring us to our career.

Then at some point we sit and wonder, ‘how did I get here’. Circumstance, planning, lack of planning and other outside influences bring us to where we are and it may not have been what we thought it would be 30, 20 or even just 5 years ago.

I grew up in a Detroit suburb where most men I knew, neighbors, uncles, and friends of my parents worked for one of the BIG 3 in the auto industry. When I graduated from college with a Mechanical Engineering degree everyone assumed that I would work for the Big 3. I purposely sought out a career that was as far away as possible from the Auto Industry. It has always been a mis-managed industry and still is today. However, today I work for a company where 98% of customers are Automobile Dealers. Not exactly the Big 3 but as close as you can get. Interesting isn’t it.

At the end my life I don’t want to worry about should have, could have and would have. How did I get here is not the important questions but where am I going.