An Oath for Recent Mistakes

your other right!

       OK, for all you who are beginning to realize the extent of financial and psychological impact that the Holidays beat us down with ...may I suggest we all contemplate, take a few minutes (perhaps 10) to take an Oath.


Stand
Ahem...raise your right hand. Yes you in the back with the armful of bills...drop 'em and join us

repeat after me  "I, State your name  <---I know someone out there just said state your name...animal house great movie.

I, state your name do hereby solemnly swear.....

repeat

That next Christmas I will not charge so much on my credit card that the statement would have to be mailed to me in a big cardboard box.

repeat

I will not try to break the record of  cookie consumption and then blame "Shrunken Pants syndrome" as to why belly flaps over jeans in January               (This one is all mine)

repeat

I will not allow myself to be over-served at office party then proceed to tell boss what I really think of him and his wife and his mistress.                 (You there, its ok he probably doesn't rememberwhat you said)

repeat

I will not get fired...again.                    (OK, may be he did)

repeat

I will not break every resolution by (what day is it?) oh yeah...January 9th

repeat

My Macy's charges will not equal our national debt

repeat

This is a brand new year and I refuse to repeat the same mistakes of the past.

repeat

This is my solemn vow.

repeat

OK good people Go on about your lives...See you next year when we take the same damn oath again ;-)

Four Letter Words

Four letter words can feed or starve a person

  For the last few days I have taken the time to "blog hop" I have discovered many many blogs. At times felt like some virtual peeping tom looking into people lives and pictures. I have found a few things. First there is a lot of sadness, disease and suffering. And there is also alot of joy and caring out there too. But the people who are suffering have touched my heart in such a way that it is almost overwhelming. Alot of blogs are host to people in great pain...people suffering with loss of some kind or the fear of what was to come. I don't like the word Hate but in this case I am going to use it.

I HATE Cancer
I HATE Depression
I HATE Diseases that swallow up people and rob them from their families
I HATE Loneliness
I HATE Despair
I HATE That one minute a grandfather is fine and the next he's told he has tumors in his brain
I HATE Suicide and the hell it leaves behind
I HATE intolerance
I HATE AIDS
I HATE Doctors that feel they can treat people like they don't matter.
I HATE Abuse
I HATE cruelty
I HATE Indifference
I HATE Politicians who promise then forget
I HATE Places where it's OK to kill women just because
I HATE HATE

Now here's another four letter word

LOVE

I LOVE GOD
I LOVE family
I LOVE all the nurses that are sweet and compassionate to patients
I LOVE Doctors that dedicate their lives to saving people
I LOVE that there are people in this world that care to help others even when they themselves are hurting
I LOVE Hope

I LOVE Faith

I LOVE people who practise what they preach

I LOVE Humor

I LOVE people who come together to help someone in need without being asked

I LOVE Babies and their ability to see past color of someone's skin

I LOVE Kindergarten philosophy---share, don't take too much, and play nice

I LOVE Peace

I LOVE LOVE

 Through out our lives these two emotions flow and mix together to create all shades of "in between".  They affect us positively and negatively. They prompt us to stagnate or to  move. to create or to destroy. to help or to hurt. But I'd like to think that through love Where God is. lies a power strong enough to move us to heal. so much more can be created, achieved, nurtured and saved through love. I have seen alot of Love in alot of the blogs I read. There that's it there ain't no more. I don't know why I have written all this. I don't know if it even makes sense. it's past two in the morning and had to write all this down to sort of scratch that writers itch that can only be relieved by seeing it in print. Here's hoping you feel LOVE today.

I'm Adding a Little Red to My January Blues



My Handy Dandy Greetings Workshop

       January has and always been a tough month for us here in our neck of the woods. Bills fly in and clog the mailbox. The repacking of all my kids home-made ornaments make me a bit sad. The Birth of winter has now become a bone chillin' freeze. January has always meant alot of contemplation and every year the journey of January becomes more convoluted and dire. Dumb. I don't why it has to be that way though. A few days ago Dan at http://anythingatanytime.blogspot.com/   Had a wonderful post about looking ahead and in his post one could actually feel his renewed strength. He wrote with joy. Another Blogger Becca at http://becca-mycrazystuff.blogspot.com/  wrote about her non resolution beliefs and her yearning for people to be satisfied with just who they are. Great Bloggers. Great posts. I feel I fall somewhere in between those sentiments...kind of planted  between renewed strength and saying you know what? I am alive, healthy and if the world can't see that as awesome too freakin' bad.  When I was first told I had cancer and then I accepted that I had cancer (two very different states of mind I can assure you) I was shoved into the reality that I might leave my kids and Husband....but something else happened. A strength that I had no idea I had (gift of God) and an appreciation of here and now. NOW this moment was the most important moment. I had quietly accepted the fact that "OK, I may die from this...but it won't be today. I will not die today from cancer."  I am OK now, and since we cannot possibly live in a state of alarm 24-7... I have settled into a comfortable fluffy state of complacency. Every now and again I need that nudge to let me know hey Joanne this moment is important too;  make the best of it now. My Dad used to say Tomorrow is not guaranteed to you...today is what is real. So I have chosen for January to be not a month to just get through. I will enjoy it make the best of it. No dread, no blues. Just greens and whites and in your face celebration reds.  Today I am going to take ten minutes to buy some flowers for myself and my Mom. She needs a here and now smile too.

CO Coming From Stove?

    

Health and CO

Carbon monoxide causes more poisoning deaths in the U.S. each year than any other substance. Many of these poisonings happen during cold-weather months when indoor heating devices are misused or malfunction.

     For a few days now My Husband has been working on some shelves. He likes to build things. So for that last few days he has been staining and re-staining shelves and the smell has permeated every pore of this house. I thought the weird smell was coming from his newest project... I was wrong. I smelled it in the kitchen. What is that? Every now and then I would smell sort of an engine smell. Then I realized a few days ago that it was coming from the stove. Every time I turned the stove on a slight weird non-gas smell seemed to waft around. Maybe it's this cold I thought It's making my sense of smell act wacky and or maybe its the stain hubby is using. Last night as cold as it was I had the urge to open all the windows in the house  for a while to air it out and knew that first thing in the morning I was going to call the gas company. Just to be on the safe side. They came within the hour and tested the stove. They found that it was emitting higher than normal amounts of CO. They capped the line and we are now waiting for Sears to come and check out the stove. I hate to think what could have happened if I had not opened all the windows last night. He said the levels weren't lethally high but he did shut off the gas and capped the line on the stove. Now, I tell you I have CO detectors and Fire Detectors on every level of the house and they will be definitely be replaced for better newer ones today.  Perhaps the levels never got high enough for them to detect? I don't know. But you want to know something weird? CO is odorless. The smell that was coming from the stove was something he had never smelled before and he couldn't explain. Again CO is odorless. Thinking on it... I believe that  perhaps yet another miracle has happened in my life. ...If there had been no slight smell that concerned me about a possible gas leak I would have never known about the CO.  I would have just gone on and I shudder to think what could have happened. I feel the detectors would have alerted us but I have had them for more than five years. Maybe they would not have. They need replacing. So as I wait for the Sears guy to arrive I ask You all to check your Smoke detectors and if you have no CO detector Get some right NOW. And if you have them and they are more than five years old get new ones RIGHT NOW. I don't care if you have to go into debt or have to borrow the money til pay day. Take care of Yourselves and the Little ones who innocently depend on you to protect them. God, you never seize to amaze me.      Blessings Joanne
Carbon Monoxide facts

Protecting Your Family From CO

No Sick Day For Mom

Greetings workshop

            As I mentioned in another post my Daughter got sick on Christmas night. High fever, chills, aches you name it. The next day she still had the cough but felt 100% better. A day after that she was her normal healthy self. She has a great immune system God Bless her. I, on the other hand feel like crapity crap crap. I have what she had but it's lasted for much longer. I am amazed at her ability to bounce back quickly. And I am also amazed at how my bug has beat me to a pulp. I walk around with a fever, aches and a hacking cough and let me tell you it is not pretty. When I have a  coughing fit it lasts FOREVER. No lady-like ahem ahem here. My face gets contorted , I can't catch my breath and I make sounds that I can only liken to a dying seal. Everything hurts and yet I have to trudge along. I mean Moms don't get sick right?...it's not allowed.

           It starts at the hospital where we give birth. We push out a human being through a place that we think could not possibly fit a baby or worst they cut us open and demand that we walk around hours after giving birth. I am convinced If men gave birth they would be in hospital for a month with daily massages, Sports Center in HD and round the clock nanny and personal chef. Yes,  have spent the day resentful of my husband. All I wanted was for someone to make me some tea. Just put a stinking tea bag in some hot water and voila. Did I ask for one? NOOO! He should just KNOW that is what I need. That would have made me feel better. Everyone wants to feel taken cared of when we're sick right? I mean we are moms...when we are cut do we not bleed? When we're sad do we not cry? When we are hacking like seals do we not need a little nurturing too?  But, moms are not supposed to be sick. I know my mom waited until her kids were grown to do all that illness stuff. Just when I had lost all faith in my family.....after a particularly bad coughing fit my son asked "Mom... are you OK?" I said yes. There, was that so hard people? A little empathy is all I ask. I spent the next ten minutes making tea, then starting dinner and giving my husband dirty looks when he wasn't looking. I looked at the "MOM Handbook" that was given to me at the hospital and good golly there it is.....Now that you are a mom you will not get sick until your children are 21 years of age.....well that's it I broke the rule. And as a mom I do not like to break the rules....I guess I'm not sick after all....cough cough hack hack cough ahchooooo wheeze uuuugh.