Farewell New Orleans

     Approximately twelve years ago I was in Russia and received one of the worst emails of my life. My dad has taken a new job and we were moving. From Montana, the "Last Best Place." to New Orleans. From Montana to Nola. I knew that dad's company was being sold and there was a possibility of moving, I just never expected that far!
     Now my parents are again moving, in reverse this time. Going from the South to the Northwest. Although not devastated, I find myself a little sad. I don't know when the next time I'll get to visit New Orleans will be. I will miss it and the free hotel. :) So one last time my husband carted the kids and me down to that grand old city. Once more I traipsed through Jackson square, chowed down on red beans at rice at the Acme Oyster Bar, and inhaled powdered sugar at Cafe du Monde. I didn't get to do everything on the list, but I got to do enough. It was the perfect day to say goodbye, raining lightly and a comfortable 60 degrees; a polar opposite of my introduction, a token that the city has come full circle to me.

     It was a roasting hot July day in 2001 and the humidity was full swing in a city I wanted no part of. Dad had dragged mom and me to the French Quarter in his eagerness to show off the "new" home. After wearing much of my powdered beignet, I debated whether the precious remnant of ice water would be better served poured down my gullet or my forehead and back. I was so hot and miserable that I daubed water on my flimsy napkin and wiped any exposed areas of skin, caring nothing about the wadded napkin remnants comically clinging to my face. Draped over the table to increase surface area under the ceiling fan, I remember hearing dad say "let's go walking" and distinctly thinking "are you NUTS!?!" let me remind you that Montana only has several days of 100+ temperatures every year and the humidity stays well under 30%.  I felt like a wilted flower. It took a bit before my body adjusted and I stopped comparing opening the front door to that of a blast furnace.

     People familiar only with Bourbon St. and Mardi Gras often refer to Nola with epitaphs resembling Sodom and Gomorroh, Sin City, and the like.  I can't tell you how many times I heard things like "New Orleans?! That's such an evil place. I would never go there." The truth is that you will go where God calls you. The truth is that, although there is great darkness, the city also has many who walk in the Light of God. The truth is that  a wonderful seminary is down there. It has refused considerations of moving, knowing that where there is evil and hurting, and people who are lost, there is a need for the children of God. The truth is that many strong churches exist in the city, who faithfully preach the word of God, who reach out to the lost. I made many good friends, who reached out to me when I was hurting and in need.

     This final trip down could only have been better if my brothers were able to make it. They both have those job-things that wouldn't allow them to take the time off. :(  My sister-in-law brought her kids down to join the party. What a party with four stair-stepped kids from 8 to 4! We had a girl's shopping trip, a visit to the childrens' museum, and an afternoon through the sprinklers. There weren't many quiet moments with the kids running amuck, but it was wonderful!

      New Orleans to me is a mixture of things I never want to forget and times I try not to remember. It was a great place to date--good cheap food, free entertainment. I had my first oysters there and learned to love shrimp. Also lobster, crab, crawfish, you know the expensive stuff? I don't miss the traffic. From both the city itself and my personal experience with it, Nola is a place that reminds me of the goodness and faithfulness of my Savior. It reminds of his power to redeem, restore, to heal. That was something worth experiencing and worth remembering.

Goodbye New Orleans. I will always love you.

*I tried uploading some pictures, but after blogger was being a pain and wouldn't let me arrange them and making me want to pull my hair out, I decided to save that for a different day.

Return of our Truck

All in all, I'd say that it's been a pretty rough year to be a vehicle in our household. First there was the traumatic death of our beloved George last fall. And then, there was the truck.
     The day was absolutely gorgeous, sun shining, moderate temperature, and I was having a good day with my patients. That was until our maintenance man appeared with a woman that I learned to be the facility's brand-new bus driver. It was her first day on the job. The maintenance man asked me if I drove the '01 Dodge and when I answered the affirmative, he dropped the bomb. "She just backed the bus into it." Yep, you read that right. A handicap accessible, 30 passenger bus had just creamed the passenger side of my truck. Parked truck. (we were later told by the body shop that it was within 1% of totalling out the 12 year-old vehicle.) I finished getting the patient back into bed before meeting them outside to inspect the damage and meet with the Sheriff for the accident report.
     The reaction of anger never really surfaced, praise God. I was upset, but I prayed that He would allow me to extend the grace that I would want in the same situation. After both the driver and I met with the administrator to call their insurance company, she even thanked me for being so nice about it all. I hope that day I was able to demonstrate the love that I have been given. And it's just a truck. (Don't tell my husband I said that! ;) And it didn't hurt to realize that it happened with a bus that was fully insured, thus leaving me with no out of pocket expenses.
     Another thought constantly running through my mind: how to tell Ryan. He did take it pretty well, after an initial minute of panic. Glad that I was able to get hold of him before he got home and found that in the driveway.   My company handled everything very well. It was just a pain in the neck to deal with all of the adjustors, insurance agents (mine and theirs), rental company, etc. If you've been through a wreck you know how time-consuming it is.
     Today we got our truck back. Black and sparkling. Dent-free. :) Happy husband. I was impressed with the body shop, as we weren't happy with a small detail on the door initially and they kept the truck longer to work on that spot. I was sad, however, to hand over the keys to the rental Impala. Those babies will move! Not that I was ever speeding in it or anything...
     So it's done. It's consumed time, thoughts, prayers, time. It's not big, or earth-shattering. Just a simple matter really. But once again, God demonstrated his faithfulness. Now I can throw the boys' bikes it the bed to go meet my running group in the morning. Actually, pray for that one. I've never taken the kids before the work schedules necessitate it tomorrow. There are a lot of scenarios that end with unhappy children and/or mother. Ryan's as bit skeptical. I'm pragmatic with as double shot of optimistic if that's possible.
"My God will met all your needs according to the riches of his glory in Christ Jesus." Phil 4:19

Most of the truck length

Pretty deep

That's better  

No more pilates

This morning I cuddled my son. He had curled up on the pilates mat while I was fixing him breakfast. He was supposed to be getting dressed for school. Instead he lay there telling me with a cute grin how soft it was. If I hustled him along, I could finish the last ten minutes of my workout before taking him to the bus. Instead I sat down and pulled him into my lap. He still fits, but there will soon be a day when he will no longer fit or want to snuggle in his mommy's lap. So today I put off the inevitable, the workouts, and the hustle, and spent a few minutes cuddling my son.

Breathing--it's that important

Picture from www.beckyjanedavis.com

If you walk into my therapy gym and ask if I tell corny jokes, I'll be the first person to raise my hand. I admit it, I'm no stand-up comedian. Additionally, my sense of humor is somewhat (ok, very) black and dry. Quite unlike the coffee I drink, but that's a whole other blog post... I blame it on my dad the engineer, his time in the military (even though he was out long before I was born, cynicism CAN be inherited), and an entire childhood of both watching M*A*S*H and listening to Aggie jokes.  Seriously, there needs to be a support group for people who have been forced to listen to Aggie jokes... So it's really no surprise that my collection of professional humor is really just corny, recycled one-liners designed to get a quick grin. Many times they contain a point that I'm trying to make to my patient while not sounding nagging. Several that get recycled more than others are "Don't stop breathing on me, bad things happen when you stop breathing" and "Breathing is beneficial. I highly recommend it to all my patients." They usually get the desired effect--the patient who has been holding his breath under the strain of whatever exercise laughs a bit and resumes breathing. This is an important step as I have a record of 10+ years CPR certification that has never been used on anything that can in fact breathe. I do not want to break this record.


Breathing is something I've been thinking about a lot this last week, primarily because it's been such a struggle secondary to a severe sinus infection.  One day my O2 saturation level was even below that of one of my patient's that I was walking down the hall!  After several sleepless nights filled with coughing and labored breathing, I desperately called my doctor and begged for the soonest possible appointment. And, yay for the strong antibiotics and prescription cough medicine, I'm actually sleeping. With the help of Afrin, I'm breathing again too! (and my husband is also glad that I'm no longer tossing and turning as it kept him awake as well.)  Breathing is beneficial. In modern medicine we tend to think of the heart and it's importance to life, but it was actually breath that was chronicled as the start of human life.

Genesis 2:7 "the LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being." Job affirms his belief of the divine origins of life: "The Spirit of God has made me; the breath of the Almighty gives me life." Job 33:4 Two chapters earlier one of Job's friends addresses not only the physical, but also the spiritual design of God, "But it is the spirit in a man, the breath of the Almighty, that gives him understanding." Job 32:8 (emphasis added on all verses.)

 Breathing. Spiritually, how are you breathing? Are you taking deep breaths and enjoying the sweetness of a God who loves you? Are you free and unrestricted with Him? Or, do you have something obstructing your spiritual lifeline, stopping you from filling your lungs? I'll confess that many times I let the stress of my life interfere and I forget to breathe. I find myself perplexedly gasping for breath and wondering why I feel so winded and weak. Bad things happen when you stop breathing. Instead of running to the Creator and letting Him fill me, I continue with the same, inefficient way of managing even when I know it isn't working.

Question: which is the more important part of breathing, inspiring or expiring? (breathing in or breathing out) The answer may surprise you. It's actually breathing out. When you expel the old, stale air from your lungs your body will automatically take in a nice, deep breath full of fresh air. What are you getting rid of, expelling from your life? Are you holding onto things that are slowly strangling you and preventing an influx of that which is good? For me, there are many things that I hold onto and stubbornly refuse to do what is best. It's not that I don't want to breathe, I just don't place a high priority on it when the truth is that time with my Savior is the most important. Without breath there is no life.

Breathing. It's that important.

The Deaf One

Recently I've started seeing a patient who was born deaf. We'll call her Jane. (You'll probably notice that all of my female patients are named 'Jane Doe.' If the story requires naming another one, you'll find Janet, Janine, and Jinny... along with their spouses John, Jim, and James. Just making sure Im observing HIPPA.) She'll tell you that fact and shrug her shoulders, saying in the blurred pronunciations of one who cannot hear her own voice, "I don't know why." For her, communication is obviously something that she has struggled to achieve. She speaks sign language, but few do so she has adapted other skills as well. She reads lips incredibly well as long as the speaker looks directly at her. Imagine trying to learn to speak if never heard a sound, yet she has achieved the ability to make herself understood however cumbersome it may be. She has endured this her entire life and is not bitter or questioning about it at this stage in her life. She is one of the sweetest and happiest residents in the entire facility. Or maybe I'm just biased, but I'm really enjoying working with her.

Today she showed me again what an amazing attitude she has. The facility I work in recruits various types of talents and performers to visit and entertain the residents. Today it was an elderly man armed with a slightly out-of-tune guitar and a repertoire full of comical ballads popular when our residents were much younger. I looked through the crowd and there sat my deaf one, smiling and obviously enjoying herself. A common view from people blessed enough to live in their own homes and take care of themselves is that "I'm not going to a nursing home. Nursing homes are for people who are waiting to die." Jane certainly isn't sitting around waiting to die, she's getting as much as she can from life. Most people won't go to something that they can't fully benefit from, but she participated the best she was able and enjoyed all that she could. And I was humbled.

Ride and a Personality

A couple of weeks ago MSN had a feature on what your car says about you. Originally I wasn't going to put it on the blog, but after re-reading it, I just had to! Maybe I'm clinging to this personna since the death of George and the realization that I probably won't find another BMW in an affordable price range again. My hubby is currently sitting next to me with his laptop researching minivans. Minivans!!! After an agile, fast, fun, performance vehicle! So yes, I think I need to post this and remember the good times before I start crying or something else... Really, I'll be ok.

BMW 3-Series

"In an era when we define ourselves by the type of personal computer we use — we're either a Mac or a PC — those who own a 3-Series are Macs. Like an Apple, the BMW has style, a cultlike following and stellar performance. "They make you feel like you're smart and with it," McManus says. "It's a very well-executed vehicle." By that reasoning, we'd have to consider the owner to be a smart, considerate, yet style-conscious individual."

And the irony is that I'm reading this on a Mac. :)

Farewell George

The Shelton family was sad to learn that a member of their family passed away suddenly. George the Monkey, named by Nathan, was a 1996 BMW 328i who gave out with a rusted frame. This experience is yet another reason why his owners wish the state of Indiana would quit using salt to clear the roads. He is survived by his owners, their children, and their other vehicle, a 1998 truck that Landon named Blacky Wacky. It is hard to tell who will miss him more, his mistress, Kat, or the children who rode safely buckled in back. Kat was very happy with "her baby"  and loved the agile, powerful but yet smooth driving experience. She also loved the feel of the standard transmission and it brought a grin to her face. George handled like a dream and made driving fun again. (Especially after years of driving a Buick Century.) Interstate driving, traffic, and snow were all handled with ease from the precision machine. The boys loved having a "fast car" and constantly begged for the driver to hit the accelerator (of which George would happily do!) Nathan could constantly be heard making shifting noises in the backseat. It was the first time the Shelton family had a vehicle in which the boys would rather ride in instead of the truck. The next vehicle will never be the same as driving George.

1996-2011

RIP George the Monkey, you will be dearly missed.