IHOP Girl: September 2006

Saturday, September 23, 2006

Fall Has Arrived

Ah, I am back again; finally. To my defense I have spent the last two weeks studying for my 4 exams, taking care of ill patients three days a weeks, and entertaining Velvet (woof) - she says hi.

This week we have had several very nice days, with beautiful Fall temperatures, sunshine, and blue skies. These days are truly the nicest of the South. Thursday I had to go get my senior yearbook picture taken, because someone's parental guidences insisted that for historical purposes I must have at least ONE yearbook. Personally I thought that there was no need for historical records, but hey, I may thank them in years to come.

My adventure this week was on Tuesday. I got ready to go to the monthly Oncologic Nurses Local Chapter Meeting which was going to be at a restaurant about 45 minutes away, and which I was actually excited to go to. After all, how often do you get a free steak dinner as a college student? So, you understand my excitement at the chance to go. Anyway, I get all ready, drive there, and go inside. When I get there the hostess tells me that they don't have a dinner party under that name, but that they would call the other restaurant in the area (30 minutes away), because perhaps my locations got messed up. I should have just called it a night, but I felt bad because I had said I was coming...I should have just gone home...Nevertheless, I drove another half an hour to get to the other facility where they said there was an Oncology group. When I get there, there was a group, but not my group...So, I drove home...After two hours of driving and no steak dinner I got home again. I know that its a disappointing story, believe me I felt it, and next time I will just skip the whole thing if I can't find them. :P

Well, that was my main adventure this week I know that it was a riveting story, but it was the best I could come up with.

By the way, if you haven't seen the new movie Akeela and the Bee you should rent it, because it is such a cute movie about spelling. SFL I think that Akeela is definitely Word Power - sorry, she knows more big words than I've ever heard...lol, enjoy!

Saturday, September 02, 2006

Finally

Yes, ok so I finally got around to posting. I'm back to school and all the work that goes along with it. Actually, it has not been bad yet, although I'm sure it will. I love my fabulous apartment - Velvet likes it too she has finally settled in, and loves the walks we take around the block.

As far as new and exciting adventures one funny thing happened last week. I went on a hike with my family upstairs and their friends, so we had 9 kids (5 weeks to 7 yrs) and three adults heading out into the woods. We found this great water fall with pool and spent about a hour playing in the water; the kids loved jumping from behind the waterfall. We had a blast, and then it was on to the trail. The hike was suppose to be about 2 miles long total, but after climbing the heights (during which we felt as if we were in the Sound of Music climbing the Alps - "The hills are alive!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! With the sound of music....Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh...."); we finally reached the peak only to find that they meant 2 miles one way. By this point it is getting to be evening, and we are all aware that none of the dads know where we are, or when we should be home, we almost panicked because we weren't sure if we could get nine children back two MORE miles home, but the sheer fact that we had to come back down won over our doubts. Thus we sat everyone down for a refueling of GORP (good old raisins and peanuts; aka trail mix, but I like GORP better), and prayed that God would get us down the mountain. Heading back down the kids did amazingly well, all but three year old Hannah who was so tired that she fell asleep in my arms and I carried her down the mountain...all two miles of it...Needless to say, my arms hurt the next day. :-) As you can see by my documentation we all made it safely down, and determined to never attempt that one with kids again.

I love adventures, they make your life so spontaneous! Better yet, they cause you to press yourself to a new level either physically or mentally. I think that too many people get concerned with the goal and not the ride there. Life is an adventure we need to enjoy it, and see mishaps as adventures (right Jess ;)). There my lovely soapbox....

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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.