Blizzard of '11

What day is today? Ah yes. Thursday. This week is a blur - of time and white. Monday night began the week's big adventure. And I can't lie, it's been pretty fun! I'm sure most of you know, maybe because of your own blizzard and below zero temps in your own town, but Tulsa got slammed on Monday night and most of the day Tuesday with a good ole fashioned prairie blizzard. Now we are enjoying sub-zero temps with a sub-sub-zero wind chill.

My roommate, Chenea, and I were supposed to be out of our townhouse by this Saturday. This last Sunday seemed like a better, more available time for people to help me move, so that's when we moved most of my stuff over. Chenea and I were going to spend the week in our mostly empty place, just because our lease wasn't up until Sat., but when we heard about the bad weather rolling in, our plans changed. Chenea's parents came with her and they got all of her stuff out on Monday night. I decided to go spend the night at my new place, and am I ever glad I did that!!! Work was cancelled and has been all week. Tomorrow will be my 4th day of not working.

Ari, the girl I'm sharing a room with, at my new house, just started her pediatric rotation this month, so she got up early Tues. morning and left before the snow got bad. Coming back was a different story. She called the other roomates (Rebecca and Sylvia) and I to tell us she was stuck out on our road and could we come push? So we layered up and went out to dig her out and push. I had measured that afternoon and we had gotten 13 inches of snow. Of course Tulsa is fairly unprepared for a storm of this magnitude, so the poor little side roads don't get plowed. We got her out and she parked down closer to a main road and then walked back to the house.

Wednesday, Rebeeca, Sylvia, and I shoveled out our driveway with a regular snow shovel, a snow/garden shovel, a push broom and a rake. We also shoveled on the road to clear the way to get out and had to shovel a path behind my car that's been parked on the road. Then we had to dig out my car. There was a massive drift at/on the front of my car that was 3 or 4 feet deep. All of this shoveling took us 3-4 hours. The lower snow was very wet and heavy, so today all of us are pretty sore!

Besides shoveling, I've been unpacking and squaring away my stuff that I'd moved over, working Beth Moore's Esther Bible study, eating, spending a lot of time on the phone with AT@T :(, spending time on facebook, and watching a couple of movies. Last night Sylvia and I ventured out to Wal-Mart. The roads were horrible! I guess that's why most places of business have been closed this week. Tomorrow I'm going to try to go to my townhouse and finish clearing everything out and turn in my keys.

I'm so thankful to be in a warm, cozy house this week with a nice chance to get to know my new roomates and get settled in. More to come on a description of my new living situation. I love being in a house!

Breaking the fast

This morning I met David for breakfast and since then I've been thinking about how much I love eating breakfast out!!! Of course hanging out with Dave is always fun, and that's one of the nicest parts, is eating it with someone. Actually I really breakfast at home as well, when I'm not rushing out the door. I love a leisurely-sit-down-and-enjoy-myself kind of breakfast. Then it's also nice to be surrounded by the morning regulars downing their coffee or meeting their buddies. You know they're regulars when they talk to you like they own the place and when you feel like you live in a town of about 100 when they do talk to you. Then there are the waitresses. There's something about diner waitresses that is just delightful. It seems like they're some of the toughest, hard working gals, real people you'll ever meet. The place we went this morning is a very old restaurant that I drive by every morning. It's definitely old and doesn't have much character inside or out, but after going in today, I feel like I've discovered a jewel of Tulsa. We were going to split the cinnamon roll - that they're famous for - but it wasn't being served until 7, which is when I had to go to work. Sad, sad day. Instead we got scrambled eggs, hash browns, and biscuits and gravy. It was all good, but the biscuits and gravy was excellent! I had coffee with mine, which is another breakfast must for me. Coffee is never a question, but whether it's fruit, eggs, bacon, sausage, hash browns, grits, breakfast burritos, coffee cake, an omlet, a breakfast sandwhich, french toast, pancakes, biscuits and gravy, oatmeal, malt-o-meal, breakfast casserole, kiche(sp?), ceareal, muffins, bagel and butter or cream cheese, or a big fat cinnamon roll, I LOVE BREAKFAST! I'm dying to go back and try out Savoy's cinnamon roll. My mouth is watering just thinking about it.

Doctor Pitiful

I am a bad sick person. Always have been always...well, I'm trying to do a little better. I'm a bad patient. And I'm a bad doctor/nurse. The combo of patient and nurse is a problem, when you have to be both. The problem with being a fairly healthy person (maybe extremely healthy) most of my life is that I hate hate hate when I do get sick. And I always think I'm dying (does this sound like anyone we know in the family? and you can't say me, b/c I've already covered myself). I have to say always, because I've had to remind myself that the few times I've gotten the flu, food poisoning, or even allergies, I've thought that I was dying. That makes this time not as severe - to know that I've thought that before. Then there's the part of nursing myself back to health. No thanks, I'll take the magic wand. Drink more water? When I'm sick that's even less appealing. Vicks? Slimy and gross just gets slimier and grosser when I feel bad, and you have to shower more - which is tricky when you have a fever and a defective shower. Take tylenol and nyquil. After day 6, I'm starting to feel kind of jittery and dizzy, or is just fluid on the ears that's not being relieved by the tylenol? Vicks on the feet? The chest is enough. Chicken noodle soup? I've had chicken boullion, to which the reply was, "no there's something about chicken noodle soup that's better". Today as I was back at work, one of the four year olds, said, "Teacher, are you about to cry?" No, kid, that's just how I look and feel when I've been blowing my nose for a week. She then proceeded to come pat my back. Drink gatorade? Can't stand the stuff. Honey and lemon? Show me some evidenced based research - don't like that either. Run the humidifier the brother brought for me? So much work. Vitamins? 10,000 vitamin C a day and maybe that's why my stomach's hurting now too. Nasal spray? Gag me. Literally. Sleep? Yes, please. Quotes of the day at work: "JASSIE! You best get afta that cold. You'ah lookin peaked." and another lady, everytime I blew my nose: "Bless Your Heart". Thanks, you too. :)
Don't be alarmed all you good doctors. I've been treating myself. I've even been using vicks and have about finished the gatorade. Yep, there's probably a reason I'm not feeling well still. I'm meant to be healthy. Don't give me any afrin nasal spray. I'm ready for the magic wand.

The Rtual of Blogging That I Don't Practice

I'm getting worse and worse about blogging. I though I would get better when I got done with school, but obviously I haven't!
I just flew to Boise yesterday and it is nice to be here. I'm really thankful to be able to spend Christmas with family. It always makes me sad to hear about people who are totally alone on holidays. They may not mind much, but I mind for them! I love traditions and rituals. My recent theory related to why I like those things so much (besides it somehow being part of my genetic code!) is that with all the transition I've had - especially during the past few years - traditions and rituals are things that stay the same. They offer consistency and a small bit of stability in the middle of chaos. I think that's part of the reason I enjoy drinking Dr. Pepper on Fridays. It's a small thing that I can do during the week that's routine and enjoyable at the same time. Side note - if you are spending holidays or birthdays or other special days totally alone, figure out something that you enjoy doing or eating or _______ that can become a tradition for you. Examples - eating hamburgers a certain night every week and really enjoying it, going by Quick Trip (my favorite gas station!) to get coffee on Thursday morning before work and really relishing it, designating a certain time every week that you spend with other people and really enjoying it - this fall I've met with a married couple I've become friends with for dinner, every other Tuesday. Traditions are nice too, because they give you something to anticipate, whereas not much in your life may be worth anticipating.
Tis the season!!!!

Hmmmm

I'm no scientist (at all), so correct me if I'm wrong, but is the title and concept of this article somewhat or maybe a lot paradoxical?
The title for this on Yahoo that caught my eye was: 'Mini Big Bang' Created
http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_upshot/20101108/od_yblog_upshot/scientists-recreate-mini-big-bang-in-lab

"And I've been working all week and... It's time for a GOOD Time..."

Ahhh, fall is in the air! This is for sure my favorite time of year. The leaves haven't started changing yet, but I hope the trees will be pretty here.
News on the job front: I'm employed!! I was approved by the state licensing board to start practicing so I had my first client last week. Very exciting. Because my amount of hours there is not big right now and may be slow in building, I've been hunting for another part time job. God provides and I got a job at a preschool/daycare here. The interviews were interesting. The owner (did a second interview with her) has started orphanages all over the world using the Pikler approach. I hadn't heard of it before, but I'm interested to learn more about it. So the hours there will be good. I'll be there from 10-2, M-F. Then the rest of the afternoon and evenings I can be at the counseling center. I think I'll start there on Monday.
The other thing that is not officially in the works, is that I am hoping to teach a class to home school seniors about interpersonal relationships and communication a couple of times a week. This has been one of these things that I really believe God laid on me. Soooo, I'm praying about it and will have to wait and see if people sign up. I'm interesting in combining mission work and mft, and I think this class would be potential info that I could use in other countries.
So that's my life at the moment. In two weekends, it's fair time, and Tricia's birthday!!! She wants to do a 5k the morning of her b-day, so I've agreed to do that. As usual, I'm not in that good of shape, but it will be fun.
Happy Friday and Happy Weekend!!!

Real Reality Really Realized

In this post "we" will refer to myself and a few others I've met throughout my life. "I" will refer to multiple parts/views/personalities/thoughts/feelings/actions/words (that are not claimed to be original) of myself.

Why is it that we don't like to verbalize reality? Of course some would say that it's not reality until you speak it, but I'm not going there, because I think that's only partially true. Plus, I'm the one creating reality on this blog, so I'm calling truth as I see it.

For whatever reason, situations, interactions, feelings, thoughts, actions, and so on take on new power when spoken. There are two, maybe three sides of this. I guess there could be even more sides of this. Speech can take us in a positive direction, a negative direction, or maybe in a rare case it might not change a thing (although I don't know if this third option is really possible). Something about speaking makes things more real. Really, you say, can reality become more real? I don't know, but I said it, so now it's real.

Often until something is spoken it's nebulous, floating, vague, maybe seemingly very real, but speaking it creates or morphs into it a new it.

Sometimes speaking reality makes us realize that the reality we're speaking is absurd and that we really don't know what we're talking about. This usually happens when we speak that reality in the presence of others who see reality differently or more broadly than we do.

Then there are times where we speak reality and we experience freedom. Whatever that thought or feeling or secret or interactional pattern was, has now been not only seen, but called what it is and the power of saying it makes the thought, feeling, secret, interactional pattern, etc., somehow less powerful.

Then there are times when we speak a feeling or thought or situation, etc. that morphs reality into something that feels almost overwhelming and permanent and shall I say, real? Suddenly we realize that by speaking reality, reality is changed and we can't continue on as we have been. And even though we don't necessarily like how things have been, the overwhelmingness of verbally recognizing reality is too much for ourselves or for others, so maybe we should have stayed quiet, and we should have quietly subdued or put to rest the thought, feeling, situation, etc. So I wonder, how's that been working for us? Well, at least the unspoken reality of what we dislike is familiar. Familiar reality is the more natural way than unknown reality. At least in familiar reality, we still have control, right?

Sometimes spoken reality is empowering. Sometimes we don't know who we are unless it is spoken by ourselves or by others to us about us. Certain parts of ourselves have been floating, hanging around, but not realized. Of course the opposite can be true, but I believe that's covered in the preceding paragraph.

Does reality really change when spoken? (Ahh, back to the third option. I love when I come full circle on accident.) It actually depends. If we're hearing, are we listening? And if we're listening are we acting?

Does it even matter if reality changes when it is spoken? It matters. Our choices of words matter.

Could I have written the previous sentence in place of all those other paragraphs? Probably. But just keepking it real - it was time to clear up the murkiness of understanding reality.