NPR: Church for people like me!

Eating snapeas.. one of the best inventions ever. Just got done listening to "Speaking of Faith with Krista Tippett. (for those here in Portland: NPR @ 7:00 p.m. Sundays) I love that show. I always feel more alive, more connected to humanity after listening. Maybe like a church service is for some. Tonight she interviewed a Unitarian Universalist, Kate Braestrup, author of "Here If You Need Me". She is a chaplain to the Maine Warden Service.. random but actually pretty neat work. She spoke of the paradox of life and death and the miracle of love in very practical matters. I found her view of "God" to be probably the closest to my own that I have heard put in words. If interested check it out:
http://www.speakingoffaith.publicradio.org/

Today Ben and I moved stuff around so that the new bedside tables my grandpa made for us would replace the filing cabinets in our room! They look sooo much better. Thank you Gramps! We then put the filing cabinets in the closet where Ben's desk had been (I know, crazy right?) and moved desk to livingroom, more accessable to both of us for writing. Ah.. I like it. No more laptop on the floor. And the best part is it replaced the TV, yay! I will miss The Office re-runs, Charlie Rose, House re-runs, Myth Busters (for Ben's sake mostly), OPB .. ok and a few more too but it is refreshing to have the TV put away where the cable doesn't reach. And I know it's bad feng shui to have a TV in the bedroom but it is tucked away in a corner and tonight we all laid on the bed together and watched Thomas Christmas DVD and laughed and tickled and played before putting the girlies to sleep.. so it can't be all bad, right? As long as some more play goes on after kiddos are in bed and as long as that play involves me getting a back massage... its all good.

Ben and I also made a "discipline plan" which I'll try to write more about later. Then we turned on Christmas music and turned the girls loose on the Christmas decorations as Ben put up lights.. ah, I'm getting that warm holiday feeling..

I'm also getting sleepy. More to write, will have to wait for another day. Real quick update though, I am feeling SOOOO much better these days. Wow, so much better. Also feeling very greatful for all the thoughts and prayers throughou the past few months. Thank you Friends, Family, Friends of Friends and Family. The miracle of Love... It has the power to heal.

To do tomorrow:

* Write and send 4 more thankyous (having many to thank for much is a good problem!)
* Bake bread or make pretzels with girlies
* Get up early enough to have at least 20 minutes "me time", ie. tea, bath, meditation, yoga, or whatever before girls wake
* Take a load of things to Goodwill (we've been simplifying again, our bedroom/bathroom hall is FULL of STUFF we need to pass on.)

I and Love and You...

I'm in love with the Avett Brothers right now! "Brooklyn Brooklyn take me in.. ..three words that became hard to say, I and love, and you." Ben just bought their CD at Starbucks of all places! I'm a sucker for accoustic bands with drummer who sing. You have to check them out..
www.youtube.com/watch?v+Jj8HDe5M-Jo

Ben and I have had some good quality time together as the girls have been at my sister's for the week (thank you Nina and Matthew!!!). We are reminded we need to schedule time for just us each week. We are best friends and we like eachother too much to just live together without making quality time and attention for one another a top priority. The craziness of life can really cloud and scramble one's priorities.

Well this is gonna be a good week:
Jaymie took me to get my hair cute on Friday, It's always refreshing to start the week out with a new haircut. (thank you J! You are always there in just the way I need!)
I have been narcotic-free for nearly two weeks now. I am still having a lot of pain especially when I do anything with my left arm, like dishes, laundry, washing my hair, anything.. but it is somewhat manageable with Tylonal and Ibuprofin and regular back/neck massages! (thank you Ben!!!)
The girls come home today after being at my sister's for nearly two weeks! I needed this time to recover but I really miss them and am hopeful that we will enjoy our next phase of life day by day as i am "forced" to be home with them instead of working, a blessing in disguise, I'm sure.
My long lost friend, Emily, is in town and is making us dinner on Tuesday! I get to meet her new baby too!
Ben has Wednesday off!
Mila turns two years old on Thursday!
My Favorite Roommate, Megan, who I apparently haven't seen in nearly 4 years is coming to visit on Friday! I'm soooo excited.
Then on Saturday Nina and Julia (my sister-in-law, Kyle's wife) have planned a Dr. Suess B-day party for Mila!
Well, the girls are coming back any minute so I should be done here for now.

Utube sternotomy cracks the spell..

Yesterday Ben and I watched a sternotomy on utube. Yes, this is the major surgical procedure I had done two months ago to remove the baseball sized thymoma in my chest. Hey, I'm curious! I've always enjoyed science, I loved disecting frogs in middle school and when those mad-science people did presentations at assemblies I was the first to get in line to touch the organs (did they really let 5th graders touch a cadaver's brain?? I guess it must have been fake, come to think of it.)

At the time it didn't seem like a big deal to me to watch the sternotomy. The fact that Ben was watching it, and had even initiated it, now that was the real shock. The poor guy has been desensitized since the good ol' days in college when he sat in pre-natal development class slumped in his chair with his hoodie pulled up over in head, looking like he might faint. Two children and a couple surgeries later and he's immune it would seem!

So the video was pretty interesting. I won't go into too much detail but I really had not considered beyond "cracking open the chest" what all a sternotomy entails - and mine included the bonus of a couple ribs being accidentally severed and a lower neck disection to remove thyroid cancer on the trachea! It's all pretty intesnse and really incredible to think a body can recover from such a procedure.

So today I feel reflective. I have a newfound and profound respect for my body and what it is capable of going through. Following a wonderful but stressful year of business start-up and care-providing, the loss of that business and our home, among other personal and relational losses, being literally in the middle of moving into a new apartment, I was very fatigued. And then I got the phone call that a routine scan came back with scary results requiring urgent attention. And then this intense surgery, in which the very core of the body is basically torn apart, assaulted and abused, then wired and glued shut as if to prevent the telling of it's awful story..
And then at some point during the past couple weeks when I was at a very low point in the healing process I contracted a virus and was sent to the ER for testing, where I all but begged to be admitted to the hospital, convinced I would die if they sent me home. I honestly thought I was dying. No, really. I started planning and arranging in my head how to practically deal with leaving my family and this known world. This is the most sobering things I have ever experienced. I'm not sure how to talk about it yet.

But today marks three consecutive days of feeling like I am gonna be ok and I'm starting to believe it! Especially after watching the utube video last night. Wow. It amazes me that we (people, individuals, humanity in general) keep going in the face of adversity. I know I am not the first or the only one to go through major life struggles, consider that I might not make it through, and then see the light at the end of the tunnel only to attempt to leave it all behind like a bad dream. And I guess that's the natural coping mechanism at work but I think there is also much value in remembering, at least to some extent, the trauma of the hell one has walked through - even if only to remind myself that I am strong and there is something or someone, a power, a love so great in and beyond myself which exists with or without my existence or belief, but is made more beautiful through both my being and my believing. My life is borrowed, it is a peice of the Whole. I hold it only breifly. To present it authentically, lovingly, graciously back to the Whole through life and in death. That is what I see as the ultimate existence.

Some great examples: My brother Caleb, Mother Theresa, Henri Nouwen, Brother Lawrence, and my current "teacher", Thich Nhat Hanh.