Thursday, November 26, 2009

5 More for Turkey Day

Today I am so grateful for life and the beauty in it. Here is my list of 5 for today. (I was going to do one yesterday, but life got in the way!)

1. modern medicine
2. energy medicine
3. that I get to have dinner with my family today.
4. that I have lost a little weight
5. gamma globulin

Happy Thanksgiving!

P.S. Thanks so much for all of your feedback about my blog - it is working now, I think/hope! and for your always kind comments. I am grateful for you all!

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Five a Day

Five things I am grateful for today:

1. FAMILY - you guys are wonderful and I love you all!
2. Jake - he is such a great kid and fills my heart with love each day.
3. the gospel, good church leaders, scriptures, guidance, the SAVIOR (Yeah I'm cramming that all into one so I can fit it in!)
4. good books
5. that my sister and brother and spouses/families are coming for Christmas ... WOOOHOOOO!!!

I have a question - is my blog only showing up green to you, with the pink writing, and no brown background? It keeps doing that for me so I wanted to check. And - can anyone tell me how to just get a cute banner at the top - and favorite sites for that? I love this background, but it is not displaying correctly, plus the design takes up a lot of space. Thank you for any help or feedback!

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

You gotta swim

I like the song "Swim" so much that sometimes I come to my blog just to listen to it. It is at the top of my playlist to the right if you want to hear it. Andrew McMahon, the singer and song-writer for Jack's Mannequin wrote the album The Glass Passenger during and after his battle with Leukemia. It is full of deep emotion. I read that he said he wrote this album to get someone through a bad day. Some of his songs are not my thing, but I love Swim and a few others. I just love what the iTunes review says about Swim: "Swim may be the album's spiritual center, an expression of dogged resolve in the face of dark forces." You can view a video of the trailer for Dear Jack, the documentary of the diagnosis and battle with Leukemia here.

You gotta swim

Swim for your life
Swim for the music that saves you
When you're not so sure you'll survive

You gotta swim
And swim when it hurts
The whole world is watching
You haven't come this far
To fall off the Earth

The currents will pull you
Away from your love
Just keep your head above

I found a tidal wave
Begging to tear down the dawn
Memories like bullets
They fired at me from a gun
Cracking the armour, yeah

I swim for brighter days
Despite the absence of sun
Choking on salt water
I'm not giving in
I swim

You gotta swim
Through nights that won't end
Swim for your family, your lovers
Your sisters and brothers and friends

Yeah you gotta swim
For wars without cause
Swim for these lost politicians
Who don't see their greed is a flaw

The currents will pull us
Away from our love
Just keep your head above

I found a tidal wave
Begging to tear down the dawn
Memories like bullets
They fired at me from a gun
Cracking the armour, yeah

I swim for brighter days
Despite the absence of sun
Choking on salt water
I'm not giving in
I'm not giving in
I swim

You gotta swim
Swim in the dark
There's no shame in driftin'
Feel the tide shifting
And wait for the spark

Yeah you gotta swim
Don't let yourself sink
Just find the horizon
I promise you it's not as far as you think

The currents will drag us away from our love
Just keep your head above

Just keep your head above
Swim

Just keep your head above
Swim

Just keep your head above
Swim

When asked in an interview what he has learned from his experience with Leukemia, he replies: "If I could say anything, if I've learned anything from it - you never know what's coming for you. I don't say that to instill any sort of paranoia, but the point being, you don't know that you might not wake up tomorrow, and it's you or your friend, or some other possible road block that you might not know happen. You try and make sure day to day that you're living, not so that you are prepared for something like that, but you're living in a way that would make you okay with it. That could mean a lot of different things to a lot of people. For me, it's as simple as trying to live a life as a kind person, and doing things that I'm proud of, and looking after the people that I love in my life, and being as connected to the things and people that hold you in and are special to me." - Love that.


Presents

Miss Sarah had a birthday a couple weeks ago. This is what I sent her:

A shirt I hotfixed with a rhinestone "5"

A set of jammies with a funny thing she said stenciled on them

and little treat bags for her and Sam

Here she is in her "5" shirt with flowers from her daddy for her flower party.

I just love this picture of her getting her toenails painted! I miss her and wish I could have been there to celebrate her birthday with her in person!

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Aunty Ollie Giveaway

One of my "when I get well" dreams is to become a clothing designer - mostly for kids. I have always loved apparel - it just excites me! I saw this giveaway and thought I'd enter because 1- what the heck? I could win stuff for my nieces (and maybe nephews?) And 2- the clothes are fun and I like to dream about being a designer like Aunty Ollie some day. You can join too - you just post a link on your blog!

Friday, November 6, 2009

Does This Zit Make My Butt Look Big?

I promise I will stop dedicating posts to Nie so you do not tire of them. But I was going to email Stephanie a long email in response to this post and decided I wanted to say it here since it describes a big part of my life right now. I know it is long and I hope it is not too depressing. It is real, and hard, but I am so blessed too.

Stephanie, You are as beautiful as anyone can be. You are the most remarkable person and so lovely inside and out. Seriously, the inner beauty that you contain could not compare to model beauty - they are tiny smurfs in comparison to your giant beauty.

I relate to this particular struggle, because I have a chronic illness (Fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue and Immune Dysfunction) that has taken my looks and thrown them against the pavement with a splat. I have huge cystic acne that takes forever to heal, I have gained 100 pounds, I am pale and my eyes are sunken in with dark circles under them that never go away. I could go on, and yes, I know it could be much worse, and this may seem very petty and dumb in comparison, but it has been so hard to lose the sense of identity I had tied to my looks.

I feel so much worse when I exercise that I can't handle it, even though I used to love it - so I can't seem to make a dent in the weight, even on a grain-free, hardly any natural sweetener diet. So many systems in my body have gone haywire, including my thyroid and adrenal glands and I know they play a part in that.

I have also lost some of the things I could do that I tied my identity to, at least for now. I haven't accomplished the things I have wanted to in life. I guess the Lord has a much different plan for me. It is difficult when many days, all I can do is go from the bed, getting up to go to the bathroom no less than 1,000 times, to the computer so I can sit up for a while and be awake, to the couch and then back to bed with my greasy hair slathered to my head, in my pajamas and hope that no one looks too closely when I pick Jake up from school because I look like a scary mcfright show. But I try to remember who I am on the inside. I know I put too much stock in what others think of me and my weight gain (when I do actually use the energy it takes to shower and go out in the world). It makes me hide from the world. But not you. You are courageous in the face of losing the easy movement in your skin, the worldly beauty that you knew before. You are courageous, even though you look different than you did, and different to the world. You are beautiful beyond compare.

Love emanates from you. God's love. Pure love. Thank you for sharing your beautiful self with all of us. You inspire me daily to forget the things that don't matter and focus on the things that do. Thank you, above all, for reminding me of Christ's love.