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| Work has been really busy the past few weeks. Really, really busy. And yesterday, when I got home in the morning, I just kind of snapped. I was cranky and bitter and exhausted and even though I slept a little bit in the morning, I was really cranky, bitter, and exhausted most of the day. I went to bed cranky, bitter and exhausted, and woke up at 2:30 in the morning cranky, bitter, and exhausted and I was just laying in bed fuming and realized that I needed to stop doing that. So I started humming a hymn. That didn't work. The mood was too powerful. So I finally got up and got out a book that I've been meaning to read, but just haven't had time for. It's call "Hearing the Lord" by Gerald Lund and it's a wonderful inspirational book on receiving personal revelation. And THAT helped. My mood lifted and all of a sudden I could actually think productive and start to solve the problems I was fuming about and not just nit-picking and blaming others. It was great. I finally put the book down and started writing all these ideas in my journal, then I started to put them into action. By 6:00 am when I laid down again, I was like a completely different person and that mood has stayed with me today. It's amazing what a difference a little uplifting reading can make! | | |
| Thanksgiving went well. My pies turned out successfully and I even managed to make cornbread from a box without burning the edges! Thursday we slept in till 1:30 after staying up till 3, which was a good thing because I had to work Thursday night. Now, I was planning on going over to mom's at 3, but thought I should call just in case, to see what plans were for the turkey. Good thing I called because apparently dad was timing the turkey to be done around 2-ish, so Ash and I got ready quick and hurried over. We took the pies, the cornbread, and the pistachios which I have been guarding since dad and I went to Michigan. Pistachios are a rare treat in the house. We usually on get them on the holidays when grandpa buys them. Well, about 2 weeks ago when dad and I went to Michigan, grandpa gave us a big bag and said, "Save them for Thanksgiving." Well, dad took them home and when I stopped by mom and dad's house the next day, the bag was open and they were already eating them. *sigh* So the pistachios came home with me. They actually came in handy closer to Thanksgiving because mom called me about 2 days before Thanksgiving and said grandpa had sent a box of chocolates. I asked if there would be any left for Thanksgiving when I would be there next. Mom said she wasn't sure because Kim and her friend were liking the chocolate alot! I ended having to hold the pistachios ransom. The pistachios for chocolate on Thanksgiving. It worked. Mom hid the chocolate, I brought the nuts to her house on Thursday and everyone was happy.
So this week at church, a lot of people were missing. I'm guessing it was because they are still traveling for the holidays. I ended up filling in playing piano for the little kids in primary and then helping out in the nursery with the 18 month-3 year olds. There's only two of them and they are both very mellow, so it's actually a lot of fun. I would just like to say, that I love that age group, they are hilarious. I was sitting on the floor going through a box of toys with one of them and found a floppy stuffed bear. He was a little worse for the wear. His mouth was coming out, but he still had two eyes and looked like a bear. Well, he started tapping the kids on the shoulder and then growling and jumping on the kids when they turned around. Both boys smiled and put up with it for a couple of times. After that, when the bear would say, "Come here," in a growely voice to one little boy, he would kind of laugh, but keep his distance and say, "No." After about the third time this happened, I had to try another tactic. The boy had a cellphone in his hand, and bears have pointy noses, so the bear started dialing his cellphone and then talking. The boy was fascinated. The bear would talk and then give the phone to the boy. The boy took and when the bear said, "Say hello." The boy said, "Hello," and started chatting and then handed the phone back to the bear so he could dial again. I had power!! It was awesome. The boy would completely talk to the bear and ignore me and he would do just about anything the bear said. If the bear asked for a hug, he would do it. He would play music to make the bear dance with one of the toys. Then the boy learned that he could make the bear do things too. If he stopped the music, the bear would fall over, then ask him to restart the music again. The boy thought that was hilarious and we spent about 5 minutes going back and forth. I had the best time in nursery today and now I am totally going to need a puppet for as the baby grows up. I might also need one for work because that whole puppet/child interaction thing is fabulous. I'm not sure how to get a puppet past infection control though because unless I can wash it after every patient, it won't fly. It either needs to be plastic or I need to have a puppet for every patient I see. Hmmm, I wonder what Amazon.com has available.
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| Normally, Thanksgiving at mom and dad's house is very easy. It really doesn't take much to make us happy. We have turkey and stuffing, (Kim usually hordes the stuffing) gravy, and mashed potatoes. We usually consider making some kind of vegetable and may even get so far as to put a frozen vegetable in the microwave to heat up. Then about half-way through the meal someone says, "Didn't we make a vegetable," and we run and get the vegetable from the microwave. By that time though everyone is too full to eat it, so it sits on the table looking festive and then sits in the fridge for a couple of days till dad finishes it up with the rest of the leftovers.
This year though, we have company. Kim has a friend over, so mom has been trying to fancify our Thanksgiving. She's been trying to touch up the house and has been talking about getting a table cloth and discussing different meal options. Well, I thought I might be helpful so I asked her what I could bring to dinner. She suggested I make the pie. I said, "Sure. I love to make pie." When the phone call was over, I started telling Ash about making pie and then realized that might not be the best idea. You see, our oven is a bit finicky. For example, when I made mom a cake for her birthday, the recipe called for the cake to be baked for 45 min at 375 degrees. Well, I have burned so many things in our oven now that I've started to figure out how it works and ended up baking the cake at 325 degrees for 25 min and it came out perfectly.
So tonight I started making pies. Well, first off, the recipe I have is for Great Grandma's pumpkin pies. I don't have the original recipe though. I have a copy that mom typed up. The recipe went pretty well except for the bit about adding 1 can of condensed milk. Now, I have helped mom with this recipe many times and I do not remember ever adding sweetened condensed milk, although it does sound fabulous. So I had to call mom and verify that, in fact, she meant evaporated milk. Once that was solved I went back to pie making. I set the oven 50 degrees less than what the recipe actually called for and I have been checking the pies every 20 min to see how they are doing. So far, no blackened crusts and I haven't set off the fire alarm, which is a miracle in itself. It actually smells wonderful in the house and I'm feeling pretty pleased. Cooking is such an adventure here.
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| Growing up, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe was one of my favorite books. I mean, how can you not like a book about 4 kids who walk through a piece of furniture into another world where they end up being kings and queens. It has talking beavers, an evil white queen, and a giant lion. I walked into so many closets as a kid, always hoping that one day I would just keep walking and find myself standing at a lamppost. I was realistic about it though. I knew that not all the closets I would walk into would work. In fact, it would be very rare to find one, but I was just waiting for that one. All it takes is one. I didn't get much further in the series than Voyage of the Dawn Treader. By then, the four original kids were grown-up and leaving the series and I kind of lost touch with C. S. Lewis for a while.
Then at SIUE, I found The Screwtape Letters. That book is fabulous!! It's the correspondence of a seasoned demon to his nephew who is out tempting for the first time. He's giving him advice on how to tempt his first soul. It's so much fun to read and I was amazed at how much truth is scattered in between the pages. I ended up getting the book on CD so I could listen to it while driving back and forth to Edwardsville. There are parts of that book I know by heart now and I learn something new every time that I hear it.
While living at mom and dad's, I found The Great Divorce. That book is awesome. It's about a man who finds himself in a grey city, gets into a bus queue and finds himself on a bus trip to heaven. While there, he watches as his other bus mates are met by people that they know who try to convince them to stay, but each bus mate has something they have to let go of in order to stay. I remember talking to mom one time about the book Emma and she was telling me how when it was over she was so sad that it was over that she flipped back to the beginning and started reading it again. I always thought that was so cool. There are very few books that I've ever been able to do that with. The Neverending Story is one of them. The Great Divorce is another. In the last 3 months I have probably read the book half a dozen times. I just can't stop. I love the characters and once again, smatterings of truth are found throughout the pages.
So a couple days ago, I finally picked up Mere Christianity. I've been thinking about reading it for a while, but I could just never get excited about it, mostly because it doesn't have a fictional premise. My growing love for C.S. Lewis though finally won out and I picked it up. The book is based on a series of radio shows that C.S. Lewis gave about Christianity. Oh my gosh! This book is so cool! C.S. Lewis has such a wonderful way with words. So here's the quote of the day. "If a thing is free to be good it is also free to be bad. And free will is what has made evil possible. Why, then did God give them [us] free will? Because free will, though it makes evil possible, is also the only things that makes possible any love or goodness or joy worth having."
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| You know you it's been too long since you've updated when you a) can't remember what site your journal is on and b) can't remember how to find the link to start typing a new entry. I really do need to update more. So I'll just catch you up on what's been happening.
We went to Disney. It was so much freaking fun!! We did a package deal where we stayed in the parks and did all our ticket and airline stuff through Disney and in return we got free meals. It was such a nice trip. Plus, one of my friends that works there got us behind the scenes in a couple of places. Here's my favorite picture. The Mission Space Ride has an enclosed glass area with technical looking stuff for visitors to look at while they wait in line. So we got to play with the consoles for a bit. We did not get to play with the other side of the consoles though because that's the part where the ride operators (that would be the guy showing off the equipment behind us) monitor the ride and make sure that everyone is safe. It was super fun!
We also took a segway tour around the World Showcase at Epcot. I totally want one now! They go about 12 miles an hour and I could totally use it to get back and forth to work. Well, I say they go 12 miles an hour. At Disney they have them clocked down so the top speed you can get is 6 miles/hr. The only problem is that when you are getting too close to the top speed, the segway starts to tilt back towards you to encourage you to slow down. Now, I know the machine is smarter than I am and it has all sorts of gyros in it to keep me from falling over, but the first time it started tilting back towards me, I totally jumped off and let the segway glide to a halt. Not very graceful, but it was scary. So here's me NOT falling off a segway.
So we had a great time, which was good because when I got back, one of the night shift workers had taken a leave of absence to have some surgery done. That's fine, but that really left only me and another lady who work the night shift at work during the week, so I spent the next six weeks at work almost every night of the week. Now, I know what your thinking. Most people work every night of the week. Well, I'm not used to it. I like working 3 12-hour shifts a week. Especially working midnights, it makes me feel like I still have a life. I really spent 6 weeks going to work and sleeping. That ended about the last week of October and it was so nice to get my life back. It was just in time for Halloween too.
Ash and I really didn't do much for Halloween. They had a chili cookoff/trick or treat party at church that we went to. Ash made his Kill-a-Monkey chili in the crockpot. We went out that morning and bought like 4 different kind of peppers and Ash spent the morning cutting them up and tossing them in the pot. Now, I know when you cut peppers, they are hot and the oils get everywhere. Ash had to take a 40 min shower when he was done and scrub his hands and face because he was burning! What I didn't know is that when you cut peppers there's a cloud of spice that comes up from them. Our living room was lethal!! There was a 20 foot radius around the kitchen that if you entered, you just started coughing because the air was so spicy! So we let that simmer all day and took it to church in the evening. Here's the picture I drew to go with the chili.
His chili did not win first place for the hottest chili though. He actually got a prize for the second hottest chili, mostly because he seeded all the peppers before putting them into the pot and then took out the chunks before taking the chili to church. He thought he was being merciful. Little did we know, there was one guy who used 5 different peppers, seeds and all, and left them in the chili for all to enjoy. I was tasting and rating all the different entries and I had my bowl of that chili loaded with sour cream and cheese and it was still too hot for me to eat!! At least Ash's was edible.
So that's a very brief review of what's been happening the last few weeks. Now I'm just spending time catching up on my sleep and relaxing. It's been nice.
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