Sometimes when one says, "I feel no reason to live," there is nothing that can be said or done to change how that person feels, so please don't argue with them - just hear them.
On a similar note...
One of the coldest things one can say to a friend who is hurting is, "It's none of my business."
I can't relate to making "New Year's resolutions", or the idea that any particular year is going to be better or worse than another.
You are still you, and I am still me.
It's all just days, and we can really only take one of them at a time. Why bite off more than one can chew?
It's good to have goals, but setting oneself up for unrealistic expectations is not my preferred way of doing things.
And so, here is the New Year's Day song by U2, for you to get stuck in your head today.
All is quiet on New Year's Day
A world in white gets underway
I want to be with you
Be with you night and day
Nothing changes on New Year's Day
On New Year's Day
I will be with you again
I will be with you again
Under a blood red sky
A crowd has gathered in black and white
Arms entwined, the chosen few
The newspapers says, says
Say it's true it's true...
And we can break through
Though torn in two
We can be one
I...I will begin again
I...I will begin again
Oh...
Maybe the time is right
Oh...maybe tonight...
I will be with you again
I will be with you again
And so we're told this is the golden age
And gold is the reason for the wars we wage
Though I want to be with you
Be with you night and day
Nothing changes
On New Year's Day ~U2
They feel "too much". They have the power to love deeply, to understand the plight of those they adore, to heal the heartache of whoever reaches out to them. If they give you their heart, carry it carefully. If you drop it, you shatter it like glass. The pieces, moonlit teardrops on a broken face, are hard to fit back together. When they feel hope is lost, they die some more. Stop all the music. Songs intensify the pain. Let the death march begin. They don't "get over" being harmed. It piles up inside, silently - where it cannot be seen, sometimes hidden even from their own sight. A new lock is added to the door of their heart. Woe unto those who offend one of these tender beings: not because the tender beings wish pain upon them, but because of the ways of reaping and sowing. I pray the torments that drive the hatred of the offenders will end when they make things right with the ones they have harmed, and that the broken hearts will somehow be mended by the miracle of love.
Early in the morning on Christmas Eve, I was in the hospital for
blood tests. This time, it’s a test for a.m. cortisol. My doctor is
trying to figure out if it is Addison’s disease. I am praying it is
just adrenal fatigue, which I have had and overcome before, albeit
slowly, as it takes at least a year.
After I was done at the hospital, I went to the grocery store and
bought some of my kids’s favorite fruits - mangoes, Oriental pears, pomegranates, boxes of mandarin oranges, and containers of raspberries.
I also bought a few special candies and chocolates, and bottles of
Pom pomegranate juice - things my kids love but seldom get to have.
At home, I got my day’s worth of work done before 6:00 p.m., drove my
18-year-old daughter to her dad’s house five minutes away for dinner
with a bunch of her relatives, came home, tucked the little ones into
bed, and then I sat on the living room floor with Daddy, gently wrapping
the gifts I had bought earlier, imagining the joy the kids would
experience in the morning.
“What do you want for Christmas” is a phrase that doesn’t make sense
to me. As many in the world assume it to be the birth day of Yeshua, if
He is their Lord, He is enough.
He is my Lord, and He is enough for me. I do not, however, believe
that December 25 was the day He was born. Based on some things in the
Scriptures, I suspect it was another day, and based on some things in
historical writings, I believe “Christmas” is the “Christianized”
version of an ungodly day of celebration, the same as Easter.
Nonetheless, a day does exist where thoughts are tossed around that
God came down to Earth in the form of a man. May the hearts of many be
softened to the point of acceptance of why He came to us, what He did on the cross to pay
the price for sin, and that that is all that is needed for eternal life.
And, so, sitting on the floor in my weakened state, I simply
breathed, and took in the fact that I am still alive. The silence of
the evening was precious.
And then I ate some chocolate. Yes, yes, I ate chocolate, I did. Sooooo un-Steenybopper-ly of me, but it is what it is.
I knew my children wanted a tree, but I had no time nor strength to get one. Daddy said, “Let’s draw a tree on the easel.”
I smiled, and I got the dry-erase pens. I drew the tree symbol that
represents the timber company that gives us half of our family’s
income. We put various Christmas decorations around the edges of our
son’s easel, including ones made by the kids over the years, and we hung
colourful glass balls from pretty thumb tacks I stuck into two of the
ceiling beams. I also taped to the beams some decorations made by the kids.
In the morning, the kids had so much fun seeing the decorated living room and opening presents while Patty Loveless sang "Christmas Time's A-Comin'", and John Lennon sang "So, This Is Christmas". I got the turkey in the oven, and started work. No days off for the self-employed barely making ends meet.
Peace on Earth? I’m not sure that’s possible. Peace in my heart
beyond comprehension, even in the face of illness and whatever else this
world throws my way, because I know I am loved with an everlasting Love
and will be with the Lord forever? Yes.
(Song: "Heaven Came To Earth", by 2nd Chapter Of Acts)
Do you like my writing? More can be found in the archives and highlights on the right of this page. Here are a few quick links:
Since I Quit Eating Sugar, I Am Healthier (and yet I still end up with illness... had I not quit sugar... ok, yes, I did eat that chocolate last night... I might be dead!)
I wonder how you feel about knowing your medical details may be shipped
overseas to be transcribed, or that your vital information may be
mistyped by an underpaid transcriber who is rushing to get through the
job in order to make enough money to feed their family.
To be clear: we who transcribe medical reports from home are underpaid.
I have had a contract with the same company since May 2006 and never once has my rate of pay increased, despite my having requested it a few times.
Furthermore, the rate of pay for my entire team has been decreased twice.
From what I hear from others in the industry, this has been the norm.
I read of one MT who had an increase in pay, though it was miniscule, and her rate of pay is still way below what her several years of experience and excellent skills are worth.
I'd like to hear any information, opinions, and/or questions from
those involved with medical transcription, whether you be a medical
transcriber, one who is involved in a medical transcription service
organization or medical records department of a hospital, one who is
involved in a school or course which prepares people to become medical
transcribers, or a medical professional who utilizes the services of
medical transcribers.
I'd also like to hear from the
end products of medical transcription services - patients. This may well include you, if you have ever been, or are yet to be, to a doctor's office or a hospital.
I will probably have future blog entries on this subject. For now, I will close and invite comments and conversation. Please do not be afraid to comment. I moderate the comments but publish anything that is not spam or abusive.
More of my writing can be read by clicking on the blog entries in the right hand column. Here are a few quick picks:
I've fought all week
against one thing after another trying to steal my joy, faking it in
hopes of making it, but now I have finally gone under and feel I am
drowning.
I know this is not my normal state and so I am hoping I will
come back up gasping for air and find the sun shining fully enough to
dry these tears within.
I feel like I want to talk to someone about it, but at the same time I hold back because...
Because why?
I don't know.
Well, I do know, but I don't want to explain.
I know there is nothing anyone can to do fix anything for me, and I don't expect that, but sometimes I wish I had someone to whom I could go who would care.
I am not so unique that the feelings I have just expressed are ones that nobody else has ever felt.
Those who know me well will know I'm not a fan of Halloween. My reasons go back to the ancient history of it and how it doesn't mesh with my Biblical beliefs, but when I was a kid, I didn't know about any of that, and I did some silly things.
But have you ever heard of something THIS silly?
Without mentioning any names, I will tell you the story of some girls.
They were two sisters in their early teens. One was cleaning out the lint screen in the dryer on October 31, when she got the twisted idea to give it to the soon-to-arrive trick-or-treaters.
Her equally twisted older sister laughed maniacally, grabbed some brown paper lunch bags, and started shoving wads of greyish blue dryer lint into them, closing the tops with a few staples.
I heard that the older sister even drew the middle finger on one of the bags.
Apparently, one of the girls filled another bag with an old holey pair of orange socks.
Who DOES this kind of thing?
They saved the "special" bags for certain people, such as the boy from across the road, who was a few years younger than the girls but had always been mean to them.
The girls, with such kind faces, bestowed a bag of dryer lint upon the unsuspecting visitor.
"Heyyyyyy, thanks!" enthused the boy from across the road as he beamed.
"You're welcome," I can hear the girls say as they stuffed their giggles beneath innocent faces.
I wonder what happened to the boy who opened that bag of lint. Did he even remember who had given it to him? Did the lemony smell of laundry soap get masked in his senses and confuse him into thinking it was some ghoulish sort of cotton candy? Did he taste of it and suddenly develop a craving for other types of dryer lint and become a dryer lint addict?
Maybe that boy went on to roam the streets, reaching into dryer exhaust pipes in residential areas, looking for his next fix. Maybe he wound up in a treatment centre and is still digging through his past to figure out the roots of his addiction.
Maybe, in one of his recovery groups, he ran into another person with a strange addiction - to holey orange socks!
Maybe I've just got a silly imagination.
I like to put a photo or a video in my blog entries, but couldn't think of anything for this one. So, I asked one of my teenaged daughters, in a serious voice, "Hey, do you know any songs that might be appropriate to put in a blog entry about dryer lint?"
She burst out laughing and said, "Yyyyeah, I'll Youtube that right now, Mom!"
But she DID find something, and here it is:
So, tell me... have your eyes glazed over from reading this, or did you laugh, even a little? :)
Like my writing? More can be found in the archives to the right, and now - NEW! - the most popular recent entries are showing up over there for your clicking/reading pleasure.
I used to catch every cold or sniffle that went around. I'd get it worse than anyone else in the family and for a longer duration. Sometimes it would turn into bronchitis, which would stick around for months at a time.
Two things made a positive difference in the above problems:
1. I went to a homeopath. They cost a bit more than a medical doctor (here in BC, we have medical coverage so it doesn't cost anything to go to a family doctor, whereas it's $40 to see my homeopath - BUT she spends at least an hour per session with her clients, and if the remedy she gives doesn't solve the problem(s) after a few days or weeks, she will give a different one).
The last straw came when I had a killer sore throat that would not respond to three different antibiotics prescribed by doctors. It was so bad, I woke in the morning barely able to swallow, and I went to the emergency room twice during those few weeks.
I told my homeopath about the sore throat, and she gave me a remedy that cleared it up in one day. That was four years ago and it has never returned, and neither have the bronchitis bouts, but I still went through too many colds for my tastes. (I'd prefer none!)
2. I went to my naturopathic doctor and he told me to quit eating sugar. This was only part of the diet he recommended, to address a number of issues, but the omission of sugar has been, I believe, key to my no longer catching every bug that enters my proximity - and I've got seven kids, so there's plenty of opportunity for one or another to bring a virus home, not to mention from my trips to the grocery store etc.
A few times, I had sugar when a virus was going around, and next thing I knew, I was sniffling and fending off a sore throat by snorting and gargling sea-salt water.
It took a few weeks to break the sugar habit that had been in my life for 40+ years, but now, I don't crave sugar at all. I use stevia to sweeten my green tea and my oatmeal. Sometimes I will make a stevia-sweetened treat, such as my chocolate almond bark, or I'll add a bit of stevia to a fruit/vegetable smoothie.
I do have the unrefined sugars intrinsic to fruit and vegetables, but those come with the rest of the package required for them to work gracefully within the body to provide their intended health benefits.
I still get the odd cold, but it's nothing like the 6-10 per year I was getting for the first 40 years of my life.
I also no longer eat wheat, potatoes, corn, or dairy products. Like with sugar, I have had them a few times since quitting them in the fall of 2009, and with almost every instance, something negative happened to my body or my mind, reminding me that what I had consumed was not for the best.
Here are some things I do eat:
chicken
turkey
fish
beef
almonds
sunflower seeds
rice
barley
rice noodles
rice crackers
various soups
various fruits and vegetables
chili
beans
hummus
Of course, there's more, but those are a few of the main ones off the top of my head.
Not only do I not get sick as often as I used to, combined with aerobic and resistance exercise, I have lost all of the difficult-to-lose weight I had gained from my past two pregnancies, and my skin no longer breaks out (unless I ingest some of the offending items).
I'd love to hear about it if you have eliminated sugar from your diet. I've encountered very few people who have undergone the cessation of this destructive, highly addictive drug.
I dare you to quit.
(Speaking of addiction, here is a song that comes to mind.)
To your health!
Edited April 9, 2013 to add this link from another blogger:
The recent rumors in the past week about Facebook private messages leaking out are true.
And I have a solution for you.
Here is what I posted to my Facebook Timeline this morning:
Hey, this is "Steeny Lou" talking and not me copying and pasting some questionable info I saw somewhere else. I figured this out myself today. Read it, please, because privacy HAS
INDEED been compromised by Facebook, and it may have happened to you,
too. I saw it myself on my own Timeline and was pissed right off.
Seriously, snippets from an old PRIVATE conversation I'd had with one of my daughters,
from Oct 12, 2010, showed up on my Timeline. I commented in my own
thread and tagged my sister, as she and I had been discussing this whole
rumor about private messages leaking out to our publicly viewable
Timelines.
THE SOLUTION:
1. On the top right of your FB page, click the little drop-down arrow.
2. Click on "Privacy".
3. On "Timeline and Tagging", click "Edit Settings".
4. Click on "Who can see what others post on your Timeline?"
5. Click on the box to the right and click on "Custom".
6. Click the dropdown box and choose "Only Me".
7. Click "Save changes".
8. Click "Done". And then you're done - FOR NOW... just be wary of
the next unannounced alterations in your privacy from those who
"provide" us with this "free" service known as Facebook, and exercise
caution in whatsoever you post anywhere on the internet. Big Bro is
watchin'.
I tested out the solution by signing into another account, to see if the thread in question still showed up. I couldn't see it, so I went back to my account and tested further by tagging my other account name. I signed back into my other account, and the tag was not even received.
And now, a song about paranoia - but a little paranoia isn't such a bad thing:
(Wow, Ozzy was so young once!)
Have you found any of your private messages showing up on YOUR wall?
Please share a link for this blog entry with everyone. Our privacy should remain as our privacy.
If you'd like to read more of my writing, much can be found in the archives in the right-hand column of this blog. Here are a few quick picks:
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