What Child is This Anyway? *

I think these are beautiful! (I found them at this site) I hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas!







* Yes I did steal this title from Sufjan Stevens. I love his Christmas album!!

Grandparents

Yesterday marked the one year anniversary of the day my grandpa died. It was also 1.5 years to the day of my grandma's funeral. It seems like such a long time ago...and yet there are certain things I can remember so distinctly. I remember the day my grandpa died. I drove to the city to join my cousin and some of his co-workers to sing carols and hand out gifts to the inmates in prison. This was my second year playing guitar for this group. So anyway I drove into the city to meet them, but couldn't resist my temptation to stop in at McDonalds for a breakfast sandwich....so I went in to get one...meanwhile I locked my keys into my car. (I don't know why I didn't go through the drive-thru) I also "conveniently" left my parents cell phone in my car...so I used all my change to call my sister (who lives in the city) on the pay phone. She didn't answer my call. So I was stuck at McD's and had no way of getting to the place I was supposed to meet my group. It was a long ordeal...but some time and $50 (or so) later I had my keys and we were off to jail a little later than expected. I was so frustrated at this point and definitely did NOT feel like putting on my Santa hat and spreading the Christmas Spirit. But I did, and it was fun! When we left jail, I checked my parents cell and there was a message from my parents saying that grandpa had died. It was expected, he had been basically unresponsive for weeks previous to that. I had stayed a few nights at the hospital with him, thinking that it would be any day. So the message wasn't a shock. But it still kind of was. I just remember thinking that it was the worst day ever. I didn't think it could get any worse....and come to think of it...it didn't get worse.
I don't remember crying at all. I remember thinking that I should cry, but I couldn't get any tears out. I actually didn't cry at all, until about a month ago. My grandpa was a big Yankee's fan. Most of my uncles are all Twins fans and my cousins are all Blue-Jays fans. Sports are a huge part of that family...and a good rivalry makes everything more exciting! I think Football was the only sport where everyone could agree on a team (GO VIKINGS!!!). So anyway, after the Yankee's won the World Series this year, I felt the need to visit my grandpa's grave to tell him that they won. I don't know why, I know he doesn't care and that he can't hear me or anything...but I had to go. I also visited grandma's grave for the first time. And I cried for the first time since they had died. I don't know why it takes me almost a year to cry about certain things that happen in my life. I've cried more at other people's grandparent's funerals than my own grandparent's funerals. I don't get it. I feel like I have a heart of stone sometimes.

Tonight I watched the video "Indescribable" with the speaker Louie Giglio. Wow! There are no words...(true to it's title)

Louie Giglio talks about how indescribable God is. He mainly discusses astronomy and outer space and the hugeness of the Creator of the Universe! I know in my head that the universe is HUGE...but I never really stop to think about it. I always imagine God to be looking down from heaven and he see's this huge planet earth...and sometimes (very rarely) I may imagine him looking at our particular solar system. But I never thought of God looking down and seeing and caring about our ENTIRE universe!! We haven't even discovered the entire universe yet...we don't know what it all looks like. But God does...and this entire thing fits into the palm of his hand (metaphorically speaking...since God has no shape or form). Our solar system is only a tiny dot inside the Milky Way Galaxy...and that's only 1 galaxy among the estimated billions of galaxy's in our universe. The Universe is HUGE...and God knows all the stars by name!

God's got a lot going on...and yet he cares about us. He decided to send Jesus down to this miniscule dot of a planet and become an insignificant and helpless being...a human baby. I wonder if Jesus ever wanted to slap some people upside the head and say, "No, you're NOT the centre of the universe!", or "There's so much more out there than you can ever know...you're far less significant than you think you are." It must have been so hard to be fully God and have the knowledge and wisdom of God and to be restricted to a human body, and hang around people that really had NO clue of His significance. It must have been hard to come from a place of ruling the entire universe to being stuck on some tiny little planet and being placed under the rule of human authority...the same humans he himself created! The fact that he actually came to planet earth is pretty spectacular, miraculous and mysterious! No wonder the angels rejoiced with singing, and the Astrologers from the East made the long journey! This was no ordinary birth, this was the Creator of the Universe coming to the earth as a baby.

Okay, so that's pretty crazy to think about...I can't even imagine the size of our universe...never mind how huge and powerful the Creator of this universe is. I can't even fathom what else He is capable of. Knowing that...it blows my mind away to know that this same God knows everyone of us by name. He knew everyone of us before we were born. He knows the number of hair on our head. He knows when we are coming or going...when we sit and when we stand. He protects us, He takes care of us, He heals us, He loves us, He forgives us, and He wants to spend eternity with us.

Okay, so I didn't mean to get all "preachy" here...but I just got so caught up in the whole message of the video. I think every person should watch it!

Everything's amazing & Nobody's happy!

I don't think I could survive without Google, Facebook, or the Internet in general. I remember someone from my church once telling me about when she went to university. Writing a research paper was more than just clicking on EBSCO Host, searching through some online journals, copying and pasting some quotes, typing up some of your own words in between and printing it off. They had to actually go to the library (gasp!), physically search through the stacks, read the books, then either hand write the papers, or use a typewriter. Can you imagine? I would have never survived! I'm way too lazy for that! I admit, I'm one of the spoiled people who gets mad if their wireless Internet keeps cutting out. These thoughts were brought on by this youtube clip. It's a must see...so funny, but so true!

I celebrate the day...

Seeing as it is less than a month till Christmas, I feel like now is the time to begin the preparation for the festivities. I already had my staff Christmas party...which was a pajama party this year! It was a hoot!! I laughed so hard I was crying! I am very thankful for the people I work with. They make going to work a lot of fun! I am very fortunate to be able to work in such a positive environment!

I also did some Christmas decorating this week. First at my house...then my youth girls and I decorated the Hut. We had a blast...we cranked up the Christmas tunes, untangled some lights, climbed up on dangerously high stacks of chairs, and transformed the look of the hut!

I love Christmas! I love the lights! I love the joy and hope that is felt at this time of year! I love Christmas music! Right now I'm listening to Relient K "I celebrate the day". My favorite part is:

"And the first time
That You opened Your eyes
Did You realize that You would be my Savior?
And the first breath that left Your lips
Did You know that it would change this world forever?

...And I, I celebrate the day
That You were born to die
So I could one day pray for You to save my life"

Ever since I started working on the maternity ward, my view on Christmas has drastically changed. I wonder how Mary's birth experience was. Was she already in labour while she was riding on the donkey on the way to Bethlehem? How long was her labour? Who helped her through her labour? Did she have a midwife? What was Joseph's role? Did he hold her hand, rub her back, and coach her through it? Or in that culture was it taboo for him to be in on the delivery? Was Jesus born breech? I could go on and on with all the things that I think about. I made some comment to my youth girls about Mary wishing she had an epidural...and they made fun of me for thinking about things like that...so I'm probably the only one that thinks about these types of things at Christmas...but to me, imagining this part of the story makes it more real and exciting! In the last couple of weeks I've been reminded over and over again that EVERY baby is a miracle from God! I've seen how things can go wrong so quickly, without warning...I know that every time a baby is born healthy it's a miracle! Jesus's birth is even more miraculous! I wonder if those present in that delivery realized the importance of the baby? Did the midwife (if there was one) think that this was "just another baby"? Or did this delivery stand out to her for years to come? I'd like to think that this delivery was a special one. I would have liked to have been there!

Read this book...

If you're like me, you'll literally laugh out loud as you read this book...so maybe don't read it in public, unless you like to randomly laugh out loud to yourself in public. I've done that on airplanes before because of books or movies...and then I get slightly embarrassed...not quite as embarrassed as when I start crying on the plane because of a movie...*ahem* not that I've ever done that... ;)
Anyway...as I was saying/typing...read this book, you won't want to stop talking about it!

Bringing back some Kelly

Breakaway - Kelly Clarkson

Grew up in a small town
And when the rain would fall down
I'd just stare out my window

Dreaming of what could be
And if I'd end up happy
I would pray

Trying hard to reach out
But when I'd try to speak out
Felt like no one could hear me

Wanted to belong here
But something felt so wrong here
So I pray
I could breakaway

I'll spread my wings and I'll learn how to fly
I'll do what it takes til I touch the sky
And I'll make a wish, take a chance, make a change
And breakaway

Out of the darkness and into the sun
But I won't forget all the ones that I loved
I'll take a risk, take a chance, make a change
And breakaway

Wanna feel the warm breeze
Sleep under a palm tree
Feel the rush of the ocean

Get onboard a fast train
Travel on a jet plane, far away
And breakaway

I'm craving an adventure...

and the curtain closed...

Pink Panther is done. I never expected to have so much fun! I thought I'd be super nervous about everything...but I was more nervous about the audition than I was at the actual performances. I will miss being Margot...though I'm using my "Margot charm" to try to get my dad to buy me a new car for Christmas...lol! (it's not going to happen!) He just laughs at me. I won't miss my outfits, especially the pantyhose!! I will miss the seeing the cast and crew, and all the laughs we had!! Now it's back to the 'real world'...my calendar suddenly seems so empty, what to do...

Memory Lane

Oh Wow! I was listening to some of my favorite songs from a while ago...and I just remembered one of my favorite songs from last summer. "Country Man" by Luke Bryan. I don't think I've heard it in a year...and I forgot how much the music video makes me laugh!! This video gets extra stars for best use of piglets and port-a-potties in a music video!!
(Holly you may want to get your earplugs if you watch this lol!!)

To Life, To Laughter, and to the Pink Panthers...

I decided that I love acting! I haven’t been in a play for about 7-8 years. It’s been awhile. I was sooooo nervous to try out for the Pink Panther, but I am so glad I did (Thanks to Holly and Abe for convincing me to try out!). I still get nervous when I think about having people watch me in the play, but the practices are so much fun. I just sit there and laugh…probably too much, because sometimes my character is supposed to be afraid…and I am laughing (oops!!). I need to practice not laughing!! That is something that is very hard for me.

I was telling my co-workers that being in this play has been a good stress reliever, because no matter what else is going on at work, or in life in general…I know that in the evening I will spend a good 3 hours laughing, and I forget about everything else in the world! I love it! I know that nobody reads this anyway…but this is my plug for the Pink Panther…COME AND SEE IT!!! It is Nov. 5-8th at the P.W. Enns Centennial Concert Hall. Get tickets at the City office!

On a more serious note…lately I’ve been thinking a lot about my mortality. I attended an all-day workshop last week by Dr. David Kuhl who wrote the book, “What Dying People Want”. It is an excellent book…and Dr. Kuhl is a very good presenter. I did a book report on that book for one of my classes in University, so I really wanted to attend this workshop. I was NOT disappointed! I learned A LOT! But one thing that stood out to me was when we talked about our life time line. One exercise we did, was draw a time line of our life with our birth date on one end and “death” on the other end. We were to put an “x” where we thought we were right now on that time line. Like this:

Birth----------------X--------------------------------------Death

Then we were supposed to list 5 things that have influenced our lives to make us who we are today and list 5 things we wanted to do before we die. Well, that was right up my alley…I have way more than 5 things I want to do, most of them traveling goals…and the major one would be to do missions/Mercy Ships.

Then we were supposed to revise our time line as if we had received news that we were going to die in 6 months. Like this:

Birth-----------------------------------------------X----Death (Apr 28/10)

Then we were supposed to answer those same questions again with this time line in mind. I realized that most of my goals are long term. There is no way I could do all of those things in 6 months. I could still travel if I wanted to…but I realized that more importantly I would want to spend time with my family and friends…especially my nieces and nephew. I would want to have lots of “auntie days” (as the kids call them). It made me sad to think that if I would die in 6 months that my youngest niece would never remember me, and rest of them would have very few memories of me.

I feel like everything lately has been reminding me about how short and unpredictable life really is. I keep randomly reading articles about sick/dying people (i.e. AIDS/HIV issues in Africa, mortality rate of infants in Haiti, and others). Why am I supposed to be reminded of this over and over again? It breaks my heart to think about the suffering that is happening all over the world...and in our own "backyard". I want to do something, but I feel so helpless. I was thinking about all these things a couple of days ago and this is what I wrote in my journal:

“I know that I can’t save every sick baby.
I can’t rescue every abandoned child.
I can’t comfort every grieving mother and father.
I can’t cure every disease.
I can’t take away everyone’s pain.
But I would like to do something.
My hope is that in everything I do, I can give people Hope.
And in that Hope, I hope that I can point them to Someone greater who wipes away every tear, carries every burden, calms every storm, and is the Father to the fatherless, the Ultimate Healer, and the source of the greatest Love anyone will ever know.”

That sums up my feelings right now.

L is for...

Just for fun, cuz I'm procrastinating going to bed...I'm going to do a useless questionaire/survey thingy. Here goes:

Rules: Use the first letter of your name to answer each of the following questions. They have to be real... nothing made up! If the person before you had the same first initial, you must use different answers. You can't use your name for the boy/girl name question.


1. What is your name: Lori

2. A four letter word: Lake

3. A boy's name: Lars

4. A girl's name: Laquisha...is that a real name? Oops, I just read the rules again and I'm not allowed to make stuff up...so, my "real" answer is Larissa

5. An occupation: Lion Tamer

6. A color: Lilac

7. Something you wear: Lingerie

8. A food: Linguine

9. Something found in the bathroom: Lotion

10. Location: Luxembourg

11. A reason for being late: Locked my keys in my car

12. Something you shout: LOSER!!!

13. A movie title: Lost in Silver Canyon...(worst movie ever made, but it's the only L movie I can think of off the top of my head)

14. Something you drink: Lemonade

15. A musical group: Linkin Park...again, the first thing that popped into my head

16. An animal: Lemur

17. A street name: Lagimodiere

18. A type of car: Lamborghini

19. The title of a song: Life is a Highway

20. A sport: Lacrosse

Continuing Competence

This is the time of year when nurses across the province start frantically trying to remember every article they've read, every educational session they've attended, and every course they've completed over the past year. It's registration renewal time...time to prove we're competent to practice for another year, by showing evidence that we truly are striving to be life-long learners and providing current, research-based, safe, competent care to our patients. This is the first year that I have to complete the annual continuing competence forms. It's a little intimidating...though I was relieved when the 32 pages that I thought I had to fill out, were actually for something else...so my 16 page form seems a little less daunting.

As I sit here reviewing this last year, I realize I've come a long way since being this scared student nurse trying to act confident. I don't have to act anymore. When new grads ask me questions I actually have some answers (or know where to find answers), or find myself starting a discussion with, "The last time when I had a similar situation, we did this...". That being said, I am still constantly learning new things, and am continually being challenged to improve my hands on skills and critical thinking skills. It seems that the more you learn, the more you realize that you don't know.

As I evaluate myself, I realize though I have come a long way...I still have much further to go. This not only goes for me in my professional field...but for me as a person. I have changed a lot in the last few years, some for the better, and other areas could use a lot of improvement. I don't want to wake up one day and say to myself, "I can't believe I've become THAT person." I admit, I have had moments when I didn't like the way I have responded to situations or the way I have treated people. I hope and pray I don't make that a habit. I am thankful for a God who forgives and loves to help people change for the better...cuz that's what He's all about!

my new car...I wish.

BMW Z4 Roadster

Could life get any better?

I don't think so...in the past 2 weeks I've fulfilled 2 of my dreams...
1) to see Keith Urban live (and I even touched him!!!)
2) to watch a live Vikings vs. Packers game (I've actually dreamt of this moment before I even knew who Keith Urban was...but anyway)
Here are the highlights in picture format:

Waiting for Keith to come.

Here he is!!

I wish I could play guitar like him!!

This is right before I touched him!

Getting ready for the Minnesota vs. Green Bay Game.

Getting my game face on.

Michelle is mad because she knows her team doesn't have a chance...lol!

Waiting for the game to start.

The Vikes are coming on the field!

Woohoo! What a great game!

We are the champions!!

Us, after many attempts to wash/scrub our face paint off...we thought for sure our skin was permanently colored! But eventually it did come off.

So much fun...that doesn't even include our many driving adventures, meeting new "friends", getting our pictures taken by random strangers, and oh so much more!

change

I love change...well, the idea of it. I like dreaming of new things to try. I like talking about "One day I will do this..." But when I actually sit down and think about what it will take to get me to where I want to be...it scares me, and I procrastinate taking the initial steps to get me to my final goal. I realize that it sounds ridiculous. It's like saying that I'm going to climb Mount Everest, but refuse to climb up a hill. Okay, maybe that was a dumb analogy...

Anyway...I'm starting to realize that I need to get off my butt and start thinking practically about some of my life goals, and figure out how I'm actually going to get there. I won't get there simply by dreaming and talking...though I think that is an important first step. It's time for me to take some action, take some risks, make some sacrifices...and change my dreams into reality.

keep reading for a good laugh (at my expense)

Have you ever been so embarrassed that you get this out-of-body experience and feel like you're watching what's happening, instead of living it??

Well, that just happened to me. I was at a friend's birthday party which was hosted by her family. There were lots of people there and I only knew a few of them, but thought it would be fun to join the group playing volleyball on the yard. I really love playing volleyball and sometimes get a little too involved in it. So the ball was coming to me and I dove for it and heard the dreaded sound of ripping fabric. I quickly stood up trying desperately to cover my back end...I said, "OH NO!!!" and the lady beside me looked at me and exclaimed, "OH YES!!" Luckily I had brought an extra pair of pants in case it got cold around the fire that we were having. I proceeded to run across the yard to my car trying desperately to cover the gaping hole in my behind all the way there. I changed into my pants and returned to the game as if nothing ever happened...and nobody said a word.

So I am home now...looking at my capri's with the huge hole in them and laughing...and hoping that this story can make someone else laugh...cuz it's too funny for me to keep to myself!! Then again, it might be a "you-had-to-be-there" moment.

I heart my bike!

I was so pumped to drive my new bike to work yesterday evening...and then we had a thunderstorm...and the ladies at work thought it was a bad idea to drive home on the highway in the rain...so I got a ride home...what a disappointment. But the ride to work was fantastic! I love my bicycle. I am very excited for what the future holds for my bike and I!! :)

I heard this song today...

"God of this City" by Chris Tomlin. It's an amazing song! Check it out!

"Greater things have yet to come,
Greater things are still to be done HERE!"

What a reminder! I needed that!

Restless

sometimes I try to ignore and subdue my restless spirit. then I talk with people who feel the same way that I do, and it just adds fuel to the fire. I try to distract myself with other things, knowing that I have to wait till next August. right now a year seems like a long time. there's gotta be something I can do while I wait. I feel like it's all within reach, and yet I just can't seem to touch it.

Do you ever...

...laugh out loud when remembering a funny moment from a long time ago?
...wake up from a dream and think that it was real?
...start telling a story, and forget half-way through whether it actually happened or whether you dreamt it?
...fear the known, more than the unknown?
...bend over backwards to go the extra mile, then wonder if it was even worth it?
...stick with the status quo even when you know you could be doing so much more?
...have dreams for the sake of dreaming, knowing that the chances of them happening are slim to none?