IHOP Girl: It's My Birthday! April Fools!!

Thursday, April 01, 2010

It's My Birthday! April Fools!!

No really.

I do turn a quarter of a century old today...

I couldn't have asked for a nicer birthday! Today it's suppose to be 80 degrees outside, and I'm having breakfast with my sis and her friend then lunch in the park with one of the girls I work with. All in all I think it should be a very fun day! There are almost to many people wanting to do stuff with me. If only they wanted to do things on days that I'm bored! ;-)

It is really strange to look back at this year. I can't really believe that its been that long already, I kind of feel like it flew by!! Last year I had just been through the worst winter ever, and was truly hoping that Spring would make a difference. Standing on this end of things now, I am just glad to be alive, well, and finally a little more sane! This year is going to bring so many family weddings, and with the puppy I know that the summer and Fall are going to fly by.

I don't know about you but every year for my birthday I always like to jot down thoughts about the past year, and look ahead to the next. I guess by now it's just a habit. I see birthdays a little like the pillars of stone that in old times were erected to commemorate something important. (I'm sure SFL will make something with this analogy...)

On a slightly different note, I always liked how close my birthday was to Easter. Although I pretty much love all the holidays, Easter is something special. I love how the earth is coming alive! The grass is growing and green again; flowers and trees are blooming, and their smell is amazing; birds are back and singing in full force. Everything about Spring screams rebirth and new starts. I think that while Christmas is full of joy and wonder as Jesus came to live among us, there is such a growth and maturity of love that is expressed at the cross. Not that God's love somehow changed, but more so how the expression of that love was displayed. Easter is about the ultimate sacrifice of that love in death. That then destroyed the chains that held us. Over the years there have been so many analogies relating to this. You see it in books, movies, and songs. The idea that there is an unexpected love so strong and powerful that it not only looks past our failings and weaknesses, but that is wipes them away, and we find who we were meant to be. A love that shouldn't exist, a love that is not even separated by death. It's the stuff stories are made of - it is the ultimate story. It is what we are all looking for, and can't find in anything or anyone. There is a reason that Jesus describes himself as the Bridegroom, if only we realized that more.

Okay, enough of my babble! ;-) Thank you again guys for loving me, and reading my wacky blog!! I love you all! I hope that you enjoy the 1st of April, and can enjoy the wonderful Easter Weekend ahead.

P.S. Enjoy the baby pictures I included!

2 comments:

shrunken_frontal_lobe said...: well, your pupal stage was a remarkably well made human covering. if one didn't know better they'd actually think you were a cute little girl instead of an alien-human hybrid sent to begin the re-colonization of earth.

as we can observe from the bottom picture, your alien bodyguard looks amazingly like a little white dog. but the trained eye can see the little-white-alien-bodyguard telepathically communicating that you should drop that piece of cookie before you choke on it. you of course are telling it to mind it's own business; you're over seven hundred years old and know how to assimilate human foodstuffs.

ha!

yes, better to have stone piles of remembrance for good things from God than salt pillars as remembrance for things not done quite correctly...; 6:32 PM
Anonymous said...: Awww.. Aren't you cute! I bet you were a brat then to weren't you! Either way, the picking & harassing has been a lot of fun. I hope you had a great day and a better year to come. Happy Birthday my friend, in glad we've gotten to know each other.

B; 2:29 AM

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.