IHOP Girl: May 2006

Tuesday, May 30, 2006

As requested by popular demand...Drumroll please!!!!!

SFL in tights!

Ah yes, the truth is out...hahaha....

Enjoy my dear readers!

Friday, May 12, 2006

Home again, home again!

Well, I'm back home, and enjoying a little R&R :-). Actually, I've been getting really for work, and another wonderful summer of reenacting! I know...its so exciting!!! Well, at least try to understand...

As for Merle, no, I have not forgotten about him I just haven't learned to load my camera pictures on my computer yet. Sorry. He did however, tell me to describe a quite remarkable story which transpired not but two days ago.

It was Wednesday morning, and Merle was upstairs doing what all people doing the in morning, and as he was he told me that he heard this strange noise down in the living room. I know that you don't know Merle very well yet, but he is very curious, and well, he went to go check it out. When he looked through the stair railing you will never believe what he saw! Merle described this huge brown squirrel sitting on the couch holding an acorn not three feet from a broken window. Now you may be wondering what happened to bring a squirrel into Merle's house, but I tell you it did not take Merle long to figure it out. You see the nut which the squirrel held was the giant acorn that sat in decoration on the mantle of Merle's living room! Yep, the stupid squirrel had busted through Merle's window in attempt to reach the acorn. Who has an acorn sitting on their mantle you ask? Please! What kind of question is that??...Weird I know, but you can believe Merle he is good with the details. ;-)

More later...

Tuesday, May 02, 2006

Finals Week

Well, we're two days into finals week and I can't wait till I'm on the road home. I hate finals...I also hate 40% cumulative finals, and 10 research study critics, and research proposals, and periods, and professors who only give two tests and a final, and, and, and.....Give me a minute I'll think of something else...Sorry, I just finished a 100 question MedSurg final, and found out that I missed an A in Gerontology by a point. Perhaps dwelling on the negative is not a good idea, after all not getting a 4.0 semester is really disappointing, but not the end of the world.

On a lighter note I will have a picture to post on here as soon as I figure out how to transfer pictures from my camera to the computer. I have a friend to show you his name is Merle...he's green. Hehehe, I've peaked your curiosity now haven't I. I can see SFL getting very excited, well you'll just have to be patient.

Anyway, good luck to all my commentors experiencing finals week I'm sure you will all do great! I'll post more later!!

Movie Night In...I love a good movie!

Mega Mind
Taking Chance (Will make you cry like a baby)
Charlotte Grey (A bit of a different take on Nazi Germany)
Series - Merlin (I LOVE BBC)
Robin Hood (Okay, a love Russell Crowe, you'll have to understand that about me...)
Kingdom of Heaven (Chuck full of acting power with an epic tale)
Miss Potter (Such a great film! Story of the creator of Peter Rabbit)
How to Train your Dragon (Possibly my favorite animated movie ever...I'm like a little kid, I watch it over and over)
Buck (Sundance winner, Biography of Horse Trainer, heart touching)
Lost in Austin (Modern day spin on Pride and Prej.)

Life as a nurse...

Great words by Reb Jeff: Vayishlach: Facing Death

"Rachel died. She was buried on the road to Ephrat — now called Bethlehem. Jacob set up a pillar above her grave. It is the pillar at Rachel’s grave to this day."–Genesis 35:19-20

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vidui http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shiva_(Judaism), and preparing the notifications to the community, feel like little fragments of the sacred. I have been entrusted with the care and tending of the most powerful, complex and difficult emotions that a person can experience in life. I have been made, in some small part, a guardian of the memory of a departed soul — a life that touches upon many other lives.After dropping off my older daughter at her high school this morning, I made a stop at Treasure Coast Hospice http://www.tchospice.org/, a remarkable organization that sets a very high standard for the loving and respectful care of the dying. There, I visited a lovely man whom I have seen a few times in his hospice room. I sat by his bedside and listened to him (in full possession of his faculties) as he told me about his worries about his family, the support of his wife after he is gone, and the future of his children and grandchildren. I was deeply moved by the way he put any concern for himself — even while facing death — in a distant backseat to his concerns for his family. When my own time comes, I can only hope to have his awareness of the way that one life can touch so many others.Also at hospice, I visited a woman I have known for the past two years — a dear soul who is a former Jewish religious school director. I sat with her, too, singing psalms to her as I listened to her heavy and labored breathing. I have no medical training, but I have come to know the sound of a person who is close to death. The body begins to fight for each breath as it slowly looses it grasp on life. As I held her hand and sang, I realized that being a rabbi is no protection against becoming one of the people caught in the web of connection. I, too, am changed by the loss of a life that has touched mine.Later in the day, I met with a couple from our congregation. She had just learned that her brother died yesterday in a car crash. Coming to terms with the loss is made more difficult for her by the fact that she and her brother had not seen each other or spoken in five years. Sometimes, people think it is easier to mourn the death of someone who has moved out of your life. In my experience, though, it's harder. Grief is magnified by wounded love and regret. I have no magic words to say to ease the pain of mourning. All I can do is listen, become a vessel in which people place their stories, and offer compassion.Actually, there is one more thing I can do. I can have faith that "all I can do" is all that I need to do. It is enough.In this week's Torah portion (Vayishlach) Jacob watched Rachel, the love of his life, die in childbirth. He was overcome by grief. Jacob had worked for his cruel uncle Laban for fourteen years to earn the right to marry Rachel. Now she was gone. Because she died while they were traveling, Jacob had to bury her by the side of the road. He built a pillar of stones on the spot to mark the place as sacred.This is what we all do, in one way or another, when death enters our lives. We grieve and our hearts break. We wish that we could continue to walk along the path of life with our loved ones forever, but the dead cannot fully join us. We have to leave something behind in order to resume our own journey. So, what do we do? We mark the moment as sacred. We erect monuments — both in cemeteries and in our hearts. The stones we place on top of stones remind us that a life may end, but its sanctity is forever.The Torah says that the monument Jacob built for his beloved continues to stand until this day. A life that touches the lives of others never ceases to send living reverberations throughout the web that binds us all.