Belated Honest Scrap

Thanks to Alix over at Casa Hice for bestowing upon me the Honest Scrap Award many weeks ago. I don't do awards well, and am grateful for the acknowledgment. Alix is one of the sweetest and funniest people you could meet, if you could meet her that is. Which I haven't. But I feel like I've known her most of my life.

Thank you, friend. Thankyouverymuch.

Honest Scrap rules require that I list ten honest things about myself, and then I have to pass it on to seven people with blogs that I find brilliant in content and/or design, or those who have encouraged me.

I'm well aware that many of my favorite bloggers don't "do" awards, so don't be surprised if this doesn't appear in their blogs, but do me a huge favor and drop by their cyberhomes. They are certainly worthy of visiting.

My 10 honest things:

1. Just  because I cry, it doesn't mean I'm sad. It means that emotion is my spiritual gift, which I have not yet learned to either contain or gracefully embrace. Short of a coma, I probably won't be cured of this.
2. My co-workers think I'm a lot smarter than I really am. I'm an idiot savant, but for work purposes, the "savant" part is all that matters.
3. I can and do forgive very easily, but unless you're repentant, I may have a hard time forgetting. Being sorry without repentance means you keep reminding me because it keeps happening.
4. Finding pleasure in solitude is one of the most wonderful gifts God gives me.
5. My faith is an exercise in "use it or lose it." And the more I practice, the better I get. I need more practice.
6. I never see a little girl with long hair without thinking of my own and remembering the smell of her hair.  And usually tearing up (see #1).
7. When I walk by the giant bags of cereal at the grocery store, I miss my boys (see #1).
8. I have been to a mall once since January, and only out of necessity of an undergarment. Yup, just one. 'Nuf said.
9. Bad table manners are like fingers on a chalkboard to me. I'm not a dining snob. Please, don't make inappropriate noises and eat like it's the last meal you'll ever have. Because if you get really gross, it just might be.
10. I absolutely, totally, and undeniably love to cook, especially concoctions that call for 10 or more ingredients and lots of chopping. I love my knives. Be very afraid.

I'm supposed to pass this along to seven others. I hate to pick seven, because I love more than seven - I love everyone on my blogroll. Starters: Hysterical Steph. Random Katdish. Deep thoughts Billy Coffey. Strong and courageous Gitz. Boz my favorite dog, and his "mom" Annie. Encouraging Peter (who even made me a special video - check out that accent!). Food with Style (oh my, just look at that food - you won't find a ham sandwich there)!

The problem with these gifts is that I've left of at least a dozen of my favorite bloggers, all of whom I find gracious, encouraging and who make my day. But I have to stop and peel a pomegranate.

Because every quick fruit snack should require a sharp knife, a big bowl of water, a strainer, a stack of paper towels, and 20 minutes.

Just bein' honest.

Tea today: Jasmine

My Keepsake Moment

Alix at Casa Hice gave me this precious award last week. Be sure to swing by her blog and check out some of the others on whom she bestowed this “Keepsake Moment” honor! If you haven't visited her lately you might not recognize her - she is a mere shadow of her former self and deserves a pat on her skinny little butt. Nicely, of course.

Now that I have allegedly bagged this award, I must I'm supposed to follow these rules:

1. Post a funny or sweet keepsake that tells something about myself.
2. Pass the award on to 10 other bloggers that I think are keepers.

I'm all about rules. Or not. I have so many blogs in my reader that many days that go unread. There. I said it. Sorry, friends - just being honest.

My charge is to write about someone or something that will forever be kept in my memory. It wasn’t hard to come up with one that totally blew me away.

Actually I came up with several ideas, but now I have some blog fodder. And boy, do I need prompts. Instead of being a Proverbs 31-type wife and writing about Ron Burgundy like I did here, or being supermom and writing something sweet about my children like I did here and here and here, or being the doting daughter and writing about my mom or dad like I did here and here, today, it's all about me.

Sort of.

It took a very long time for me to figure out what I do at my job. I mean, I know what to do, but as soon as I get good at it, things change. Since I’m in health care, the only thing that remains constant is change. Things like blood and vomit and pee are pretty constant, and fortunately, I only spent a few years dealing with that. Or rather, getting paid to deal with that.

And heck, you don’t even need to know how to make a “hospital corner” on a bed anymore. Nursing students today have no idea how bloody those fingertips can get if that quarter just doesn’t bounce high enough off that bed.

Because now they have fitted sheets. Whaaat??? (Here's where I start showing my age).

My current job landed in my life about 20 years ago by default. That’s politically correct terminology for “We’ve eliminated your position and you can take this other one or leave it, thankyouverymuch.” They didn’t want to pay that “high nurses salary” (ahem) to run a health promotion and wellness program and keep people from actually getting sick. So they put me in charge of the cardiac rehabilitation program. They apparently thought I was trainable. Or a sucker. A trainable sucker.

I leaped from teaching healthy people how to prevent heart disease by eating nuts and twigs and exercising to a 33 1/3 rpm vinyl album featuring Jane Fonda in bad legwarmers with a matching sweatband, to teaching people how to take 18 different over-priced medicines, pry themselves from the Lazy-Boy, while living with the #1 killer in the United States that was going to blindside them on a Monday morning and kill them anyway.

It felt like I was being pushed off a ledge. Or choosing to leap before I was pushed.

Did I mention I was a wife, mom of 3 elementary school kids, working part-time, and going to grad school? Details. I was kind of busy. And stressed. And feeling very inadequate.

This was a paradigm shift, to be certain. The scary part was that I didn’t have a clue what I was doing. (Here’s where you pause, Reader, and say “Praise the Lord I wasn’t her patient back then…”)

I did what any good nurse does – I panicked (but on the inside only - iced saline in those veins). Then I proceeded to the local University library to research every article I could find about the clinical practice, but not reading the articles. Back then a young Al Gore was just getting started with the internet in his garage and “google” was something you did on the beach at some ridiculously immodest person in a badly crocheted bikini.

I gathered piles of research articles. I immediately went to the back of each article and perused the researchers/authors names in the reference lists. After several articles, I had compiled a list of people who were obviously in-the-know.

The Big Kahunas.

The Really Important People in the Specialty Who Were All That.

The “Published.”

And I called them. Yep. On the phone. Long distance. Land line. Five cents a minute. Zach Morris’ cell phone wasn’t even in beta then.

The first two calls got me through to assistants of assistants and I was unable to talk to the actual person, who was either a physician or an exercise physiologist. Twice I got “I’ll have him call you back.” Uh huh. Then I called the office of Dr. Pollock, one of the foremost pioneers in the field. His name was on nearly every article I'd collected. The phone rang twice, and then this lilting friendly male voice said “Hi, this is Mike.”

Wrong number? I stumbled and stuttered. I had expected “Department of Cardiology, may I help you?”

“My name is…uh.. and…uh… I… would…uh...like to talk to Dr. Pollock for a few minutes about some basic clinical cardiac rehab questions. Would you be so kind to help me arrange a brief phone conference?”

“This is Mike Pollock, Candy. What can I help you with?”

COLOR. ME. TOTALLY. UNPREPARED.

“Oh my gosh, Dr. Pollock, I didn’t expect you to answer the phone! (Talk speed, 0-60 in 3 seconds)…. You see, I have this new job in cardiac rehab and I have no idea what I’m doing but I am a nurse and I think a pretty good one and I have always loved exercise and I’m taking exercise physiology in grad school and I see you've done lots of research and written a dozen books and now I’m told I have this job in cardiac rehab and I have absolutely no clue where to start and what to do with all TWO of these patients but we’re hoping there will be more someday but….”

“Whoa, Candy. Slow down! Let’s start from the beginning!”

I always wondered what he really thought. After all, I wasn't the ditzy college co-ed I was acting like. I was a mature non-traditional student with a family, having a panic attack. On the phone. With a renown researcher and professor.

He was so calm and patient. He recommended several “How To” resources and told me where to get them cheap. He gave me a list of the things I needed to know about now and things I need to research eventually, like diagnosis codes and reimbursement and Medicare regulations and involvement in professional organizations that support my impending career and on and on... It was a clean, neat list of where my professional life would be headed for the next 20 years.

I just didn’t know it at the time.

I was writing fast and furiously, my questions became more sensible and hopefully I sounded less panicky as the conversation went on. Wow, I had a good start. A plan. Some goals. And a mentor. Several mentors, actually. He dropped some names for me and said to “tell them I gave you their name.”

As our conversation was coming to a close, he asked “Would it be helpful if I came to Iowa to speak with the physicians in your hospital to help you support this?” Long story short, he came to Iowa from Florida in the middle of winter. And he charged for his expenses only.

As he hung up he said “Call me anytime - you’re going to love this job!”

I had my doubts. I felt like an old dog and this trick was horribly new.

Over the years, I studied, practiced on my patients (did I really say that?), graduated (again), took additional certification exams and clawed my way up the cardiac rehab food chain. There really is no top, no end to the learning process, never an end to the advancements in the treatment for heart disease. I know so much less than most of my colleagues, but the important thing is that I now know them, have fostered some incredible personal and professional relationships, and I know they are merely a phone call away. Some of them are pretty darned snarky (as in blog-like snark), have no idea I dabble in blogging, and have threatened to publish my emails. I really should be more careful.

All because a brilliant, famous, but mostly humble and gentle man with a big heart said “What can I help you with?”

And he never forgot my name.

It was a "Keepsake Moment" to learn that you should never be afraid to ask questions that you think may make you look ignorant or foolish. There just might be a brilliant scientist on the other end of the phone who would love to answer and even come to visit you in Iowa in the middle of winter.

Mike died unexpectedly about four years after I met him as he was preparing to give one of his infamous lectures. Rest in Peace, Mike. You were the best.

And you were right, I love my job.

This post will be continued one day with “Iowa Girl Goes to Arizona and Turns into a Fellow.” It will be a fun one, but Ron Burgundy has some serious video editing to do in order to appreciate it fully.

Who am I passing this on to? Rules, I hate rules! I have a terrible sense of obligating people! Look at my followers list and if you're there, I like you, too! As well as a heckuva lot more of you that I follow.

If you've stopped by on a whim and would like to share a "Keepsake Moment" kindly lift this award for your blog and don't forget to leave a comment! I'll stop and visit!

Tea tonight: Young hyson

Sisterhood!

The origin of the Sisterhood Award comes the awesomeness of Diana who created it out of inspiration by The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. This is a special award that is meant to be given and shared with our best bloggy girlfriend(s). The mission is to bestow on them the award in thanksgiving for their special friendship. No need to list favorites, addictions or what-not, although today's winners have plenty of the latter two, as well as a severe case of commentarrhea. And mine is a Equal Opportunity Blog.

I was catching up on some of my favorite friends in the midst of this sleepless night when I stumbled upon this award from Alix at Casa Hice. I've had several of these as of late (sleepless nights, narcoleptic days, but certainly not awards) and if you think the reason I nearly missed it is because of that, you're wrong. It's because Alix has literally become a shadow of her former self and when she stands sideways, she's beginning to resemble a zipper. With cool traveling pants to boot. So bless you, Alix, for this sweet award, for your sweet success, and whom I will forever remember as being the only person in my life who made me cry over a duck. Love you, LuLu.

It is with deep pleasure and true irony that I pass this on to the women and men who have given me the support and grace laced with sarcasm, humor and even a bit of eewwwww over at the Fellowship of the Traveling Smarty Pants. You see, they (meaning katdish) stole this award from someone early on in the writing of FOTTSP because they wanted to be that blog. Now, they are. So ladies of the Marvelous 7+ and men, you have earned this award for real. Do with it what you (respectfully) please, eliminating all references to Rotel, Velveeta, and Joel Osteen, if you would.

• Stacey
• Jeff (who may have actually disowned us?)
  
• sherri
• Shark Bait
• Nick the Geek
• Steph at The Red Clay Diaries
• Peter P
• Beth
• Marni
• katdish
• Hucklebuck
• Annie K
• Ryan B
• Mare
• Helen

I bestow this upon you. You are redeemed and you now have this for real. No more liftin' awards off of others now, ya hear?


Tea tonight: Tazo Zen

A Prize and a Funeral

Thanks to String Too Short to Tie for the "Friendly Blogger Award" yesterday! I'm passing it to all of my friends at Fellowship of the Traveling Smarty Pants for their compassion, understanding, and sweetness. Yeah, watch them make a mess of it and force Vanilla to snatch this right back. I'm anxious to see who they each pass it to. I'll bet they throw it amongst themselves, hot potato style. Warning: there will be sass and snark involved, which is (usually) done in friendship.

*****

We'll be attending a funeral next week - the sweet Grandma of my future daughter-in-law. Too many of these, lately (funerals, not daughter-in-laws), but I've come to accept them as one of the best parts of life. Particularly if life ends in little suffering. Being with the Lord for eternity is how it's supposed to end.

But it certainly gives me pause to ask God once again about the algorithm He uses for His timing.

Death doesn't scare me nearly as much as life does sometimes. But I'm working on that. Those Respectable Sins continue to haunt me.

Last week at a funeral home, I told my dear friend who is the Funeral Director that I was coming for a "two-fer" since both visitations I was attending were at the same place. He accused me of coming for the dinner.

"Really, there's food downstairs???"

One visitation had lots of family and friends; the other, not so much. One was mellow and quiet; the other was a little more upbeat and life-giving. It really is OK to laugh and chatter at a visitation. I hope people don't mope around at mine. I want them to laugh until they snort ( you know who you are). I'm going on record to say (again) please return me to ashes when I'm gone.

Otherwise someone will say "She's wearing that again???" or "She looks better dead."

Hopefully someone will drag out those wedding pictures for display, and people will have their last memory of me at 110 lb. with some great music playing in the background. It's all picked out, and Ron Burgundy often reminds me that "people aren't going to want to hang around that long." You will if there's food.

This takes me back to my own Grandmother's funeral.

My kids were pretty little, and it was only the second funeral they had ever attended. My youngest boy (the one who was banned from the church nursery when he was 2) was being his typical self. Squirmy, restless, ricocheting off walls. He's the kid who always got the chipped plate at family dinners, because we knew if it wasn't chipped or broken, it would be when he was done. When the kids played "house," he thought it was neat he got to be the family dog. They just wanted to tie him up. Anything that was destroyed or lost in the house was bound to get blamed on Luke.

He was that kid.

At the cemetary after Grandma's funeral, my oldest, the "Alex P. Keaton" of the bunch, whispers to me "I'm going to go tell Grandma how sorry I am that Great-Grandma died." Oh, how sweet.

Yeah, he was that kid.

"Take your little brother with you," I said, hoping to distract him a bit from his hooliganisms.

"Where we goin'?" he hollers (the kid never grew an "inside" voice).

"Go with your brother and tell Grandma how sorry you are that Great Grandma died."

"Well, I didn't do it!!"

Yeah, we knew that. But apparently you thought you'd get blamed.

Sweet boy. He called me last night. LYF.

And Grandma "I" - rest in peace. You loved so, and you are so loved!

Tea today: Green ginseng with citrus

A Most Prestigous Average Award

Subject yourself to snark and sass, with a heart of prayer and a mind of mensa. Steele (the Day) didn't win an award (no doubt because the background looks like that skirt I took to Goodwill) but this post at The Fellowship of the Traveling Smarty Pants did, if only for the comment tally.

I'm humbled, honored, and horrified that a picture of a urinal was probably my best post yet.

I'm feeling more worthy of Katdish's friendship every day - sort of. And check out that awesome cat in the sidebar at Smarty Pants.

Tea tonight: Jasmine

Butterfly Kisses!

My blog friend Liz over at Eternal Lizdom has graciously given me the Butterfly Award! No hoops, no tricks, just a sweet little award from a sweet little lady that I'm honored to pass on to a few of my favorites. I do this in honor of my mother, who loves the Christian symbolism of the butterfly, and who has threatened to disinherit me if I ever get her a computer.

I'm passing this award on to:

4under3. How does this mom do it - manage a beautiful family AND rock the blogosphere? Her tweets keep me giggling all day long, too.

Loving Mom 2 Boys. Liz has some great posts with the most darling pictures of her boys that don't appear to sit still much.

A Wrinkle in Time. In honor of Kameron's 100th post and her penchant for contests!

Congratulations, ladies!

Tea today: Tazo Green Ginger

My Blog is Fabulous? Seriously? Woo Hoo!

My friend Beth in NC has blessed me with the Fabulous Blog Award! Wow, this is a first! Stop on over to I AM HEADING TOWARDS MY DESTINY to see hers. She never disappoints!
I feel like I need to clean my blog because company will be coming! But alas, as a recipient, I am required to confess 5 things I am addicted to, then pass this award along to 5 other fabulous bloggers. While this is humbling for some of the previous winners, it will indeed show you how boring I am. But let it be known how honored I am! Thank you, Beth!

So let's get started - the 5 things I'm addicted to and can't live without (blogging is a given, so I can't fairly include it):


1. My red grapefruit every morning

2. Green tea

3. Acai juice (are we sensing a food theme yet?)

4. Crawling into a made bed. If it's unmade at bedtime (and it usually is - story for another post), I will make it before retiring for the night. Sometimes this requires evacuating Ron Burgundy.

5. Sermon podcasts. Thoroughly convicted by Pete Wilson's "Baggage" series. You will be too. Check. Him. Out.

I'm passing this most prestigious award on to some of my favorite bloggers!

• Elaine, at Matters of the Heart (gives more "green things" on Facebook than I know what to do with and has precious children!)
• Beth E at Outnumbered, Three to One (only woman I know who can get a teenage son to do ANYTHING!)
• Stacy from Louisville (not like this babe needs more love, I'm just sayin'...)
• The Mom Jen at Cheaper than Therapy (wow, and it really, really works!)
• katdish at Hey Look, A Chicken! (I think she's really a daughter of mine in a former life, and I can hear my own daughter as she reads this...."Be afraid, be very afraid....")

Enjoy their blogs, and thanks again, Beth in NC!


Tea today: Hibiscus Honey Lemon Green (Hawaiian Islands Tea Company - thanks Lynn!)