Friends

I have many good friends in my life and for that I'm thankful. It would be a lonely world without friends. There's my carpool friend. My facebook friends. My co-worker friends. My long distance friends. My church friends. My crohns support group friends. My friends from the past. My long lost close friend who I just barely found again. My internet friend who I've known for almost 9-yrs. My pet friends. I have best friends and just "friend" friends. All of my friends play an important role in my life. I'm fortunate to be close to all my children and although I'm their mother, I consider them to be my friends. We have a good time when we are together. I enjoy their company. I do my best to cultivate my friendships because I wouldn't want to lose any one of them but sometimes, time and distance, places a wedge between us. It doesn't mean I forget about them - in fact - I think about them all often. It does sadden me when I lose touch though. I will always do my best to strive to always remember how important each and every one of you are to me. Thank you for being my friend back..........

Its interesting how the years have come and gone for more then a decade and then you re-connect with somebody from your past and all of a sudden you are warped back in time and all those years that have past don't seem so long ago after all.

Katie

Wow! Katie has so much talent. She re-did my blog page and it looks great. Other than, whats up with all the pictures of my children making a face? ha ha. No Wynstun, Unja or ZaZu either? Maybe her work is not yet done. Katie is a very talented young lady. She has made good choices in life where they count the most - in the eternity aspect of things. She makes me laugh, a lot. She makes me stress, a lot. She can evoke a whole series of emotions in a short amount of time. You can go from wanting to hug her to wanting to choke her in just one conversation. I love her with all my heart. She was like my anchor child when times got tough and a divorce was imminent. She gets frustrated at me because I worry so much about her but its only because I would die if anything bad happened to her. Just the thought makes my heart ache and brings on stress that I would rather not deal with. She has so much creative talent that it puts a lot of us to shame. She's going to be a nanny now, as she starts this new chapter in her life. She will do a great job because she has an inborn love of small children and they seem to gravitate towards her. She can use her talents and creativity with this job. Cooking, hair, nails, crafts, songs, games, etc. Her brain sometimes amazes me. She can figure out almost anything on a computer. She thinks I'm brain dead when it comes to computers but thats just because I'm so far behind her that it seems that way to her. Don't get me wrong, I work on a computer all day at work and do just fine. It's expanding out of the programs I work in that I have a challenge with. Most of the time, she tries to be patient with me when I ask her questions. But a lot of the times, she just laughs at me. That's okay. I can see why she would and it's only out of fun. I know that deep down she loves me too!

Difficult Day

It's been a difficult day for me today in more ways than one. The biggest and most emotional thing was finding out that my parents couldn't come and see me after all because yet again, they had to host family members of my older siblings. One of which has already spent a good amount of time there already. It's a sibling jealousy thing, I know that, I should have outgrown it by now, but it's still real to me and it's still emotionally hard. I was in tears by the time I got off the phone with my mom trying really hard for her not to notice. It's not really her fault, she's told me more than once that sometimes it seems her life is not her own. I can understand that now.

I also had to deal with my difficult co-worker and her ranting and raving over the schedule - yet again - because she might miss out on some of her precious lunch time. Forget the fact that it's a provider who asked me to make the schedule and forget the fact that this same co-worker generally only works 2-days per week but in the last 3-months, has barely worked 30-hours due to one personal thing after another. She left co-workers to work alone twice by not showing up for work. So when she's finally there, after almost 3-weeks, and the provider today left at 10:00am and didn't get back until 3:00pm, she really had no excuse to be saying anything. Yet she did, as usual and it irritated me, as usual!

Then I got the results back from the lab tests I had done and find out that I'm positive again for C-Diff which is a difficult gut bug to get rid of and yet if you don't get rid of it, it could eventually kill you and in the meantime, you live with the horrible symptoms I've had once again since the last time I had to treat it. This time my GI doc gave me the heavy duty stuff to fight it, at a cost of $155.00 my cost for the 2-weeks I need to be on it. Can you say, ouch!?

So, there you have it. A day I'll be happy to forget.

Disappointment

As I was sitting in church today I was thinking about how disappointed I've become in the actions of my brothers & sisters in the gospel. Let me expound . . .

Since working part-time at Robert's craft store, I've seen greediness abound in individuals who should be setting a better example. They come in and don't want to follow the simple rules that go along with the coupons. They want everything for nothing. If a sign says, "Free bubbles", they pull up in their cars and take case loads with no thought or care to anybody else that may want some. Sometimes after these people leave and my co-workers turn to me and comment about how "they probably went to the temple last night", I am embarrassed for their behavior that is so obviously un-christian-like.

At my full-time job, I deal with lots and lots of different people. You couldn't imagine my surprise when one of those people showed up in our wards sacrament meeting today for the blessing of her grandchild. She was obviously a member. I knew this because she knew the hymns very well. She had "garment" lines and she partook of the sacrament. The sad part is, I would have never known based on the way she acts at work. Not that I've seen her do anything particularly wrong, just the snippy way she has always been when coming into the clinic or when I'm dealing with her in regards to the department she over-sees.

Shouldn't we be a kinder, more tolerant, honest people? I always thought so and that, my dear friends and family, is why I'm feeling disappointed today.

Now, before I end this blog I must tell you that I know that I haven't always been the best example of our religion either, and for that, I feel bad. I'm going to work harder at remembering who I am "at all time, in all things, and in all places".

Random Rambling

I don't feel well today. In fact, I haven't felt very well in several months. I think it's starting to play with my emotions. In other words, it's depressing. I feel like a deflated balloon most of the time. Thank goodness for the short bursts of energy I do get or I wouldn't get anything done. I'm thankful I've been able to function enough to go to work every day although to tell you the truth, once I'm done with work, that's pretty much it for the day. Pathetic isn't it? Having Crohn's sucks. At least I'm not alone though. I went to my first Crohn's support group this past week and got to talk to people just like me who have Crohn's and can relate to EVERYTHING I've been living with for the past 11+ years. Many of them are worse off than me which just goes to show you that no matter how bad you think your own personal situation is, there's always someone worse off than you!! Taking immunosuppressant drugs for the Crohn's is what I believe is the cause of my constant weariness and general malaise. It's a no win situation for me, however. I need the drugs or my Crohn's symptoms get worse. It's not fair! But then again, life isn't fair and I've always known that. . .

Negativity

Do you know anyone who is a "wet blanket,"
someone who dampens your brightest ideas by saying,
"That will never work"?
Take a sopping wet blanket,
place it in the linen closet atop dry bedding,
and soon you've got two wet blankets.
We can absorb the energy of negativity
if we lack a protective layer.
Eleanor Roosevelt said, "All the water in the world
can't drown you if it doesn't get in you."
We build that protective layer
by building our relationship with God.
The truth of who we are, and the greatness
we are meant to experience, is bigger than anyone
or any circumstance that would try to hold us back.

~Mary Manin Morrissey