Category Archives: Family

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My Masterpiece

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About six months ago my boss asked me if I would make a T-shirt quilt for her niece. I said sure just bring in the shirts. Of course the gal who always loses her debit card forgot to bring them home. Fear not, for my boss put them in her office until I remembered I had forgotten them. She gave me free rein to do whatever I wanted.

Therefore I googled T-shirt quilt ideas which was my first mistake. I quickly decided I didn’t want to do the standard cut them all the same size. I did not head the warning that said do not attempt a quilt with varying sizes if you are not an expert. Ok so I thought this girl is just saying this so she can make all the money. It was game on.
I then cut all the shirts up in various sizes. I used both front, back, a sleeve, and a pair of sweat pants. I then laid them out on our pool table and quickly realized I was in over my head.
After about a week of thinking how am I going to make this work and considering sending them to the girl who said not to do it, I thought of the graph paper in the closet. I figured each square could represent an inch. I then measured every shirt square twice and cut the pieces out to represent the dimensions of the shirt pieces. This turned into a jig saw puzzle but I would then be able to know what size to add the blank pieces too. I had this finished by the very beginning of December.
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I had been asked to make T-shirt pillow’s for a friend to give as Christmas gifts so I put the pattern and all the shirts in another room. Because the pillows were made from my friends fathers golf shirts and I had a ton of material left, I made her a quilt out of the leftover shirts.
Sometime after the first of the year I picked it back up and realized it was now or never. I figured out how to sew all these pieces together and keep them flat and nice looking. I did partial seams and stuff. This took a couple of weeks because I did not want to rush. I finally got the top all together and it looked pretty good. Of course I can see little flaws but that’s just me.
I then decided rather than hand quilt around the edges of each square like I normally do, I would quilt around some of the words and the volleyball’s. After I had finished three-fourths of it, I then decided I needed to do the edges as well. I just didn’t like the way it looked.
So I had a bunch of blank material squares and I seriously didn’t want to do anymore volleyball’s so I asked my friend Meg what she thought about putting volleyball fun facts there. She thought that was a fantastic idea so I embroidered a bunch of different things. This took a lot longer than I had originally planned.
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I gave it to my boss this past week and she loved it. She was so excited and couldn’t wait
to give it to her niece. Because she did not ask for this insanity and gave me free rein I only charged her what I had charged for the easy ones. However, I would not even consider making another like it for less than five hundred dollars. This may seem outrageous but when you look at the picture of the back all of that sewing was done by hand. There was no machine involved.

Mole Moral ~ It’s dangerous to give a creative person (who doesn’t think she’s creative) free rein.

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The hot water heater

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A couple of weeks ago Brian came up from the basement furious because the hot water heater was leaking. Since he can fix almost anything I asked if he could fix it. He said no we need a new one and then “Red, you need to call these people and demand a new one for free.” To which I responded “Negatory, I just spent the day at the ATT store resetting my pin to cancel and on phone with Charter getting the Golf and NFL channel added for you. Looks like you’re calling.”
So he called and it had a six-year warranty so it would be replaced for free. He just had to take the old one out, bring it to store and get the new one. Because of the mole luck he called the store first and they said bring it on down no problem.
Last week as I was leaving for work he and his current work partner Bobby pull up. They are off to replace the hot water heater. About three days later Brian says I guess I can now tell you what happened. He and Bobby drag the hot water heater into the basement and then Bobby asks him if he wants to unbox it outside. Brian was like no I’m not dragging this back outside, that’s stupid. So as they were opening Bobby yells and takes a run for it. Then a mouse runs out behind him and straight into Emily’s room. Brian pretty much moved to Emily’s room when he was doing the hardwood in our room. He says he sleeps much better down there and I’m like cool I’ll take the queen to myself. When Kayla heard this she thought we were getting divorced. I assured her we are still a married couple just sleep better apart. Hahaha.
After the hot water heater was installed Brian went to the store to get mouse traps. He says to me I strategically placed eight traps and caught it in less than an hour.  I looked at him and said was eight really necessary? He assured me it was.

Mole moral ~ One mouse trap is good but eight is better. If anyone needs some traps we have a few extra

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Brian and eBay

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After an incredibly busy four-hour shift yesterday in which I admitted four patients, sent one home and had to call doctor for the other I came home to Brian saying “I need your help with something.” This almost always means buying something off of the internet. As soon as he picks up his tablet I’m pretty sure I said F me.

Sure enough he found something on eBay he wanted to bid on. It was something for his gun or pistol or whatever the ancient firearm he owns is.

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But it did not have a buy it now feature so it involved bidding. I could not sign into my account on his tablet so I’m like tell me the number and I’ll pull it up on my phone. So he reads me the number that he had written down on the box the locks came in for our new doors.
The auction was at twenty-two dollars  and he didn’t want to go higher than forty with it ending in twelve hours. So I placed the bid and was outbid until I hit thirty dollars. He was shocked and just couldn’t understand. I tried to explain to him how this would work considering I stopped with the auction crap after I invested in amazon prime. On eBay, if buy it now is not an option I just keep scrolling.
So he started texting me at the crack of dawn about where the auction was at. He decided he would go as high as seventy and that was it. So when I was outbid for the third time and put in seventy and still outbid I was finished with that.
He came home and wanted to look at the bidding history. He grabs his tablet to type the number in. He then gets the box he wrote the number on and starts accusing me of losing the box. I inform him I was on the phone with Meg for two hours and did zero housekeeping. I did not touch his box. He keeps it up and then picks up this pen and says this is the pen I used.
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I take one look at it, start cracking up, and said that’s disappearing ink. I used it the day before to draw eyes on a teddy bear to know where to embroider. He’s looking at me like I’m an insane and I say I use it for quilting as well. The ink disappears within twenty-four hours or so without having to wash it. By this time Allyson is cracking up and says only you dad. He tells her it’s a good thing he figured this out, otherwise “ I would have beat you until your mother confessed what she did with the box and the number.”

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Who my Emily was named after

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Last week Pokémon Go had a special event where if you did a certain task you got a Pokémon with a heart on its face. I came up with this blog and tracked down the task. However I was unable to throw five great balls in a row to catch the stupid thing. This morning I realized I have friends in a chat group that I am in who were successful and caught them. So I reached out to them for a screen shot. I also asked them to call it Emily, because had I actually caught one I was going to name it Emily Valentine. So here is the picture.

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In case you are wondering what this is about, you know I always have a story. Way back in 1990 the TV show 90210 started and I pretty much watched it every week. Brian would sometimes watch it with me. After I became pregnant I decided if I had a girl I would name her Emily after Brandon’s girlfriend. So this is how Emily got her name and the only information I gave her about the show.
Fast forward twenty-three years or so and Emily is now in physical therapy school. Somehow it came up about her namesake. One of her classmates who was on his second career turns around and says Emily Valentine who burned down the school float. Yeah I might have never told my Emily that her namesake went nuts, doused the float with gas, was sitting on top of it with a lighter and Brendan’s sister had to talk her down and off the float.
I’m my defense I thought that happened long after I came up with the name but I was barely pregnant when that happened. However, Emily was by far my most favorite character on the show so that makes it all ok. My Emily doesn’t take crap off of anyone and who knows if given the chance she just might burn down a school float.
Mole Moral~Always disclose the full story about how your child was named because otherwise at some point someone else will do it for you.
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Happy 2319 Day

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For those of you who don’t know me, you do not know my love of Monsters Inc. I thought it was one of the most cleverly written movies of all time, just like Toy Story. When Allyson was little her Aunt Teresa bought her a Monsters Inc game for the computer and she and I played it quite a bit until we beat it like five times. Anyway to get into Monster world you have to put the code in which of course was 2319. When George comes back from a kids room with a sock stuck his back the guy yells “we have a 2319” and the CDA (child detection agency) shows up, shaves him bald and destroys the sock like it’s a bomb. So today is 2/3/19 and I have been looking forward to it for a month.

Way back in 2009, I ran my second half marathon. I was so excited when I picked up my bib number. What are the odds?

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Then a little over five years ago Women’s Health moved from the fifth floor to the newly renovated second floor with four digit numbers. I don’t think I was on the floor more than ten minutes before I noticed one of our rooms was numbered 2319. This is my favorite room and even though it’s really no different from any other room it is still special. Three or four years ago I decided to place stockings on each room door and if you read them in room order, they tell the story of Jesus’ birth. All of them are red with white tops except 2319. It looks like this.

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This year I decided to make hearts for our room doors with the verse 1 Corinthians 13:13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. My manager teased me about the hearts but within three days, three of them had been taken by patients including 2319. You see on 2319’s heart I put this.

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I would like to have something on the room doors year round because I think it brightens the place up. I am sure I can find a Monsters Inc picture to fit my needs.

 

Mole Moral~ This day would have been perfect if the super bowl wouldn’t have fallen on it. Not a fan, not now, not ever!

 

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Christmas Angel Mole Style

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The year was 2004 and it was our first Christmas at Oak Bridge Community Church. Pastor Tom spoke about a program called Christmas Angel where for 12 days before Christmas you pick someone and drop a gift off and run. On night one it was one of something, night two, two of something etc. The key was to not get caught and choose someone who was going through a rough time or needed a lift at Christmas. Our first angel came immediately to my mind and we bought all the gifts. We had a great time that year and on the eleventh day we were left cookies and a poem. The poem is in the family scrapbook. Over the years we have sometimes done two people. Twice the work but twice the reward.
This year my Christmas angel came to me in mid July while at work. I walked into angel #19 room and I knew she was the one. It’s just a feeling I had and I looked up her address later that night. She lived fairly close and I thought score. I knew she would need chemo therapy first and then surgery. Based on the dates I knew surgery would be close to Halloween. Her original surgery date was scheduled for a day I was off work. I had the supervisor change my schedule so I would be at work. The next week I discovered her surgery had been moved to the week of Halloween. I of course was in Disney.
The night before this was to start I read a friends Facebook post and I hadn’t even finished it when I felt God say do her as well. I was like are you kidding this starts tomorrow night and I’m heading into work. However my after work plans got cancelled so I went to the store and actually managed to find all twelve days in one visit. This rarely happens because odd days are tough. I work with this girl so I asked our supervisor for her address. She did not live anywhere close to my other girl or me for that matter. The next night it was game on.
I worked the first night but ran home to pick up Allyson. I needed help locating the houses. Allyson looks over at me and says what if they have a porch camera. That triggered an entire new wave of paranoia. I knew my friend would recognize me and wasn’t sure about the patient. So on the nights I did it, I wore this.


I was not taking any chances of getting caught. The friend’s house always had something crazy going on. One day a car was parked in the driveway with the headlights on. Another day the car door was open but no one around. The best night I get out of the car and someone is calling their dog. I’m not sure if it’s them or not so I get back in. I get back out and someone comes out the door of the house and hops in the car. I get back in and try to act causal. 
The patients house was quite interesting. On the third day they put up an inflatable Christmas duck. Allyson came back and said be careful there are wires everywhere and I don’t want you to trip and fall. Also if you walked in front of the garage the super power light would flash on. I finally got smart and walked on the other side of the street and hit the doorbell from the opposite side of the porch. It was day eight that I was almost caught. As I am sprinting away I hear this “who are you?”  It scared the crap out of me and I didn’t know what the rules were so I kept running and yelled “can’t tell you” without turning around. I decided it would be nice to write on day nine note “I will reveal who I am and why you were chosen on Christmas Eve (day 12). If you are not home I will leave a note with the day twelve gift. Now according to church you are not to reveal yourself ever. However, if someone angeled me and never told me it would make me crazier than I already am. So I usually place a note on day twelve, ring the bell and run. 
Day ten arrives and it dawns on me that I don’t think my friend lives at the address I’m dropping gifts off at. So I get home that night and get on Facebook and start looking at her recent pictures. Sure enough it looks like she is living in an apartment and then I remember a post about her dishwasher breaking in a brand new apartment. So I then found her maiden name and found her parents address which matched the gift drop off location. I also looked her up by her married name and an apartment address was revealed. 
I told a couple of people about the wrong address and they asked what are you doing to do? I said I’m going to drop off day eleven and twelve like I had planned as there is a reason God told me to do this. In the meantime Allyson and I decided that we would also stop on day twelve and see my friend who we thought we were dropping the gifts off for. I sent her a message asking for her address to confirm the white pages were correct. 
So today was day twelve and only the second time I have ever knocked on the door and waited for the people to answer. I was a nervous wreck waiting for the girl who almost caught me. They invited me in and then asked who I was. So they kind of remembered me as the nurse after I dropped a few reminders. They said they eliminated all their family and friends and couldn’t think of anyone else. They did decide that mercy had way too many patients for it to be them. (Also Mercy could not do this because of the stark law, they aren’t allowed to give any thing to a patient more than ten bucks). Apparently it was driving her crazy who it was and so the day she got the note she showed her sister. She called and texted people every night about what gift she received. As I was leaving I noticed the Christmas ornament from day one hanging on the front door and she said it was there the entire time. I said I was so paranoid about being caught I never noticed. It made their entire Christmas and gave them something to look forward to. They also gave me a gift which was not expected or necessary. I accept gifts almost as well as hugs. However this is beautiful and if I would have put a tree up this year I would have hung it on there the minute I got home. 


Next stop was the apartment. I asked if she knew it was me and said not until I posted about trying to do something nice and it turning into a comedy. That made her kind of suspect me. Her parents and she wondered if it was supposed to be for her based on the gifts. She has a five-year old so I had a blast finding stuff for kids. My favorite was day one, it was a gingerbread bat cave and bat car. She told me her son would call grandma  every night and ask what the angel left. It brought her parents closer together. After we saw her we did our last drop and run at her parents house and I left them my note about who I was and the story. 
And as we were driving away I realized I experienced what this is all about. To show people love and kindness during what can be a stressful time. Yes Allyson and I would leave the house knowing we wouldn’t be back for at least two hours. All kinds of crazy stuff happened, like almost getting caught, seeing a deer on the sidewalk, driving around the block three and four times till the front was clear, getting out of work late every single time causing me to barely make it to second house before nine. However all kinds of cool stuff happened too. Allyson and I debated blonde Oreos vs chocolate. I ate these yummy white chocolate peppermint covered thin pretzels almost every night. Allyson got to meet someone she had always wanted to meet and wrote him a huge letter. She had a story to tell! But the greatest part of all was being able to see what a little bit of kindness made such a huge impact. I give up as I cannot find words to describe it. I would encourage every single person reading this to do this just one Christmas. It is the part of Christmas we most look forward to. We have family memories that will last forever. I will do this until I can no longer run fast enough not to get caught. 

Mole moral ~ If you move please notify your employer, you never know who might need your address or why.

Merry Christmas 

 

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God Friended Me

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If you haven’t seen this show, you should. I think it ranks right up there with This is Us. I started watching mostly because I am a Facebook junkie and I thought how cool would it be to get a friend request from God. Miles who gets the request is an atheist and is convinced someone is behind it so of course his Indian friend is a computer genius and is busy trying to trace who keeps sending the friend requests. It is so well written and it just keeps tying one episode to the next. I usually binge watch TV shows but this one I watch every week.

Although I am sure when the show ends they will discover a person is behind it. Someone is sending him friend requests of people who need his help. I have always felt if a person is quiet and listens (not audibly) they can hear God and things he would like you to do. My Christmas Angel yearly program has always been chosen by God. It’s hard to describe but I just know when it is the right person. I’m thinking about it because that starts again on December 14. It is one of the things I look the most forward to.

Mole Moral ~ Just like This is Us, you need to start from the first episode. Another great show is A Million Little Things and also needs to be started from the beginning. This may be the year of the great TV shows.

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A Pinterest Thanksgiving

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First of all I will confess I have a love/hate relationship with Pinterest. It was about two months ago when my boss requested rice krispy treat turkeys for our Thanksgiving teamwork reminder. Our one word for the year at work is Teamwork between women’s health, mother/baby and labor/birth. So each month the Professional Governance committee that I am on comes up with different ways to remind the unit of the word. I had thought about the turkey request but made the mistake of getting on the above mentioned website and found these.

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They are so cute and look so easy. Looks can be very deceiving. I had to make them in three batches and I ended up with chocolate everywhere. Six hours later this was my end results.

The next issue was just exactly how was I going to get them all to work. So I decided to put them on a tri-fold science project board, folded up. That worked well, except they were heavy as all get out. I covered them tightly with Saran wrap and put them in my car. I hadn’t made it three miles from my house when there was an accident on the highway and I hit the brakes. That sent my turkeys flying into the floorboard. I thought I was never going to get to work to assess the damage.

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A few lost a leg, a few lost an eyeball and  three lost their entire face but all in all they survived pretty well. My boss loved them and the general consensus was I have way too much patience to put that much work into something. Actually by the time I realized how time-consuming they were, I was in over my head and decided I had no choice but to finish what I had started.

I could not figure out what I wanted to make for Thanksgiving when it popped into my head to look for a carrot cake cheesecake recipe. I swear you can find the kitchen sink on pinterest. So here is what I found and the article said the ingredients made the cake look initimitating but do not be afraid it was pretty easy.

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Well the way it said to layer the cheese cake with the carrot cake did not work out at all for me. And after I had the cake in the oven I realized I had forgotten to put the sour cream in the cheesecake portion. It was too late. So we finally cut into around four this afternoon and I baked in a 9×13 pan so mine looked like this.

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It tasted really good and my mother in law told me to leave it with her. Now she had made my favorite cheesecake of all,  Jello No Bake Cheesecake so I took a chunk of that home for later tonight.

Mole Moral ~ So many things to be Thankful for, I can read, I can follow directions, all of my family is healthy, I can taste, I can see, I can enjoy good food. I love my job (most days) and I have patience to do crazy crafts.

 

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Toy Story Land

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As most people know my two favorite Disney movies are Monsters Inc and Toy Story. It’s been a couple of weeks since I returned from the most fantastic graduation trip with Emily. It’s been about eighteen months since she became a Physical Therapist and she could have time off for vacation. We both love Disney and Halloween so what better time to go then over Halloween. We also heard the park goes to sleep on Halloween night decorated for Halloween and awakens the next morning decorated for Christmas. That indeed is true which will be a different blog post.
Toy Story land opened in Hollywood Studios over the summer and I was so excited. The three-dimensional shooting game that was already there was incredible and major fun. I was looking forward to riding the slinky dog roller coaster. Walking into that section was like the movie had come alive. There was a giant woody greeting folks as they came in.

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Up by the rollercoaster was a giant Jenga game with Rex on top who also spoke.

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Standing in line for the ride was like being in the box the roller coaster would have come in. The attention to detail was mind-blowing including the wall of “stickers” with some missing. They had artwork of Andy’s and how the coaster would go together. I must say it was the smoothest roller coaster I have ridden to date.


It was just the two of us so of course I needed photos of us with Buzz and then Woody and Jesse.

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When the first movie came out, Emily was three years old. She refused to go to the movies to see it. I finally saw it when I bought it on VHS. It would be a few years later before she admitted she was scared of the cowboy (Woody). So to get her to be in the picture I told her she could be by Jessie and I would be by Woody. I walked up to Woody and hugged him. I was so excited, like a kid at Christmas and then I stepped on his boot. This caused me to lose my balance and I almost fell. He grabbed my arm and saved me. Although he never spoke a word, I could tell he was very concerned by his body actions which was really cool to me.

Before we started the photo’s, Jessie noted that I had a bucket o soldiers in my hand. A green army man just happened to be walking by so she waved him over to show him the bucket of soldiers. While we were busy taking pictures he autographed my bucket o soldiers. While walking around the park a guy my age asked where I found them and then proceeded to tell me he would light his on fire when he was a kid. I informed him he was just like Sid in the movie. After I got home, I opened the box and sure enough, the injured soldier that Andy’s mom stepped on was in the bucket.

Mole Moral ~ Never let a trip and near fall stop you from having your photo taken with the scary cowboy.

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Two incredible amazing people.

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It was May of 1991 and I had been a burn nurse for nineteen months when Gary was found in a car that was on fire after the fire had been put out. The fire department did not think anyone was inside. His burns were extensive and he had breathed in a ton of smoke so Dr. Ayvazian told his fiancé Linda that he would not survive. Gary and Linda had both worked on the movie White Palace which was filmed in St. Louis about a year prior to his burn. I have never seen the movie but always remembered this fun fact.

Anyhow Gary was with us for a few months  and then he was discharged home. The thing I remember most about him was the day they were making the mold of his face for his pressure mask. They inserted straws into his nose for him to breath through and then pretty much covered his head. I was his nurse that day and had to think hard about other things as I was having a claustrophobic panic attack for him. I am pretty sure I gave him extra Valium, Versed or something to make it more tolerable for me. Hee hee

     It wasn’t too long before we started seeing him again. There was a Burns Recovered Support Group that was run by a guy who was before my time. It wasn’t long until he passed away and Gary and Linda stepped up to take over the group. I believe they met once a month and Gary would come visit patients once or twice a week during the day time.
     After seeing an article in People magazine about a burn camp in Texas, Linda felt called that  Missouri needed a children’s burn camp. After doing research she discovered we had none so she and Gary decided to start their own. The first year (1997) they had 17 campers and no child has ever paid for camp. The camp is located at the Lake of the Ozarks. Brian’s parents have a house at the lake so one summer Emily, Kayla and I made a visit to burn camp. Either Linda gave me bad directions or my lack of GPS skills were showing because I somehow managed to miss the turn and ended up driving to Jefferson City. I turned around and went back to the lake. Brian got his map out and gave me new directions. We found it the second time around. Although we didn’t stay long, I immediately knew it was a wonderful place for the kids. A week where they can be just kids and not burn survivors.
     I have had so many burn unit memories over the past couple of weeks. Linda shared my blog and I heard from a nurse friend I have always remembered and wondered what happened to her. Back in the day people would ask how I could work there. And my answer was pretty much everyone got better and went home. I never really knew how most of them did after they left. There were certainly days when I left wondering if all the torture I and the team inflicted on these patients was worth it.
     So on Friday I went and spent the evening with Gary and Linda. I had such a wonderful time that I ended up staying past eleven and the next day went to Universal Studios on four hours of sleep. I would have done it on no sleep! They are both two amazing selfless giving people. They took the support group to an amazing place and they started the camp from the ground up. I am sure at the time of the accident if you would have asked if this would have been their path in life they would have said no way. I can’t help but think God had this planned all along. I use to see Gary in the cafeteria on Tuesdays from time to time. It was always an exciting day for me. I cannot remember (even though we just talked about this) if they retired and moved four or six years ago. I do know it took me close to two years to stop looking for Gary in the cafeteria.

 

     I’ve never felt that were truly recognized nor appreciated for all they have done, especially by the hospital. However it’s as if God purposefully put these words of Jesus in my head (yes I had to look up exactly where they are located. Bible bees locations are much like patients names. I know their story but not their names)
 Matthew 6 “Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven. 

2 “So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full.3 But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4 so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you 

These two live this every day. I’m so thankful that I decided to share my Dr. Ayvazian blog with Linda. She responded with an invitation if you are ever in the area please come see us. She was probably blown away when I said I will actually be there in three days, free on Friday. Originally Emily and I were both coming on Saturday and starting trip on Sunday. Since I’m a theme park nazi I decided we should start on Saturday and fly in Friday. She took a red-eye so she could work on Friday and the rest is history.

Mole Moral ~ Gary and Linda are my providential people. (Another church term). Meeting them changed the direction of my life and so many, many more and for the better!