GO RED!

Today is the American Heart Association's national Go Red For Women Day. I made my five dollar donation and wore Red and a pair of jeans to work today. So did many others. It was kinda cool to head down to the cafeteria and see all the Red happening.

I am not a "causey" person. Since working in Cardiac Rehab ( where people go after heart attacks or heart or valve surgery to get their hearts stronger) I have been much more in tune to the effects of heart disease and how devastating it can be. I have had grown men break down and cry in our first session after they have had a heart attack. Women too have been teary eyed and uncertain. Having something wrong with your heart leaves you in a very vulnerable place.

Not only is the patient affected, but the family as well. Baloney, told this story of her father passing away from congestive heart failure most likely, at the young age of 42. She was only 9. That is only one year older than my Sweet Marissa. I thought this was a neat video. Now, I am going to go take a walk.

Blog Award? ME?

My first blog award...how exciting!

Annie sent this my way - thank you so much!

Here are the official rules:
1) Admit that ONE thing you feel awful about involving being a mom. Get it off your shoulders. Once you've written it down, you are NO LONGER allowed to feel bad. It's over with, it's in the past. Remember, you're a good mom!
2) To remind yourself that you ARE a good mom, list SEVEN things you love about your kids, you love doing with your kids, or that your kids love about you. These are the things to remind yourself of EVERY DAY that you rock!
3) Send this to FIVE other Moms of the Year that deserve forgiveness and a reminder that they, too, are the best moms they can be!!! Remember to send them a note to let them know you've selected them, and add a link to the person who nominated you!"

There are many things that pop into my head when I read #1. There was the time I forgot to pick up Marissa at school when they had an early out. I rushed into the school office to see her sitting there, head bowed and tears silently streaming down her face. I remember the time Maren (with her lifejacket on thank goodness) slipped off the back of my brother's boat into Lake Okoboji, she panicked and I froze, could not move. Thank goodness my sis-in-law Michelle had the clear head to jump in after her.

When I was doing my narrative for my VP3 class, one of what I have always felt was my worst mothering moments came to mind while I was writing it. I had just gone back to work after Marissa was born. I had about a half hour commute and my shift started at six-thirty - that would be AM. I would get up at 4:30, get showered, wake Marissa up at 5AM, breast feed, get dressed, pack her in the car, leave the house by 5:30, drop her off at daycare by 6AM, find a parking spot at work, hope for an open elevator and barely walk into the MICU at St. John's Medical Center in Tulsa, OK in time to get report for the coming 12 hour shift.

One evening my shift went long and I didn't get done with my shift until about 7:15PM. The daycare was right on the hospital campus, but the attendant was unhappy with me for being late. The Captain was gone on a trip. Sweet Marissa was always a bit fussy in the evenings and this night was worse than usual. I could not cope. She would not STOP crying. I laid her in the crib and I

shut

the

door.

I left her crying in the dark for who knows how long. I don't remember. It was not my actions that bothered me most, but the deep dark place my mind went in that moment. A place where mothers do shake their babies out of frustration and despair. A place where someone tells you you do not deserve to be a mom.

I do think that in my worst mothering moment, God gave me the grace to make it my best mothering moment. I didn't hurt my baby, and that night I made the decision to work only part-time and only in eight hour shifts for that season in my life.

So I release this bad mommy moment out into the endless ethernet. It is well with my soul. Actually Sweet Marissa had given me a nice little Mommy Award in church last Sunday. I'll take that one too!

1) I love it when the delicate Princess Maren laughs so hard she snorts.

2) I love their sweet kisses.

3) I love the way their hair smells after having a bath.

4) I love the fact that Marissa can still snuggle on my lap and still wants to do so.

5) I love it when they giggle together.

6) I love to watch them greet their daddy after a long trip.

7) I love it when they talk to Jesus in their own words.

Now I will send this on to:

Dawn at The B Keeper

Kelly at Beaty Blooming Blessings

Kim, you tag Rachel and I will talk three other friends into starting blogs so I can tag them. What fun!

Old Dutch Cleanser ... Updated Version

Really, why do I do it? Talk about an exercise in futility. After taking it easy last Tuesday - I am back to the usual routine. My house is clean, but why, why bother? My bathroom, 2 hours post spotlessness is now nicely encrusted with a layer of slimy toothpaste slithering down the sink ala Princess Maren. Floor, once freshly Swiffered is now tracked with soap scummed footprints from Sweet Marissa in search of a book to read while bathing.

I must have enough of that weird Dutch gene that finds fulfilment and calling in keeping her house clean. Mind you, I am not obsessively clean. This is coming from someone who in high school came home to her clothes being thrown out her bedroom window onto the roof of the garage by her father. His threat was not an idle one. (I am, by the way, keeping that one in the arsenal for future use with our girls.) I did not keep my room very clean at all in high school. Who knew what sort of disease and pestilence spawned in the nether-regions under my bed. So, to have made it this far is some sort of small miracle. I do find myself in a much better mood when my house is clean.

So the Captain and I were chatting on FB and we got into a discussion about toilets. I know! There should be better things to chat about. But, a nurse can talk about most any bodily function and fluid it might involve without too much pause, and then go eat her lunch. We often talk of these things in our household. But, the Captain was saying they have these really cool toilets in Japan that are heated, give you a nice little cleaning - if you get my drift, and then play a cute little flushing song when you are through. He thinks there may be a market for that in the US. When the Captain is not being the Captain, he is really Professor Gadget. The man has an imagination. Naturally, I had to Google it and YouTuble it.


He was right! There are all sorts of YouTube videos heralding the praises of the Japanese toilets. I saw only one thing that could be improved upon and that would be a self cleaning option, ( not the human, but the actual toilet) now that would be glorious. And then I found this.



Will wonders never cease!! Now if the Captain could market this in the US, all us crazy Dutch women in NW Iowa would go out and buy one and single handedly save the US economy.

My Personal Favorite...

I'll have to admit, I did not watch much of the SuperBowl. I did go to YouTube to check out the commercials. This one is my personal favorite. It does take some humility for me to say this, because the Captain will tell you that a) I tend to criticize his driving and b) I often slap on, not my Angry Eyes, but my Rolling Ones. So honey, I will offer this up as a peace offering. Laugh all you want. Love ya!

Lessons from a Royal Cupbearer

Pastor Jon is doing a sermon series on Nehemiah at church. I'll admit, I was less then excited about this for various reasons.

First, Nehemiah is in the Old Testament. I find the old Testament a bit daunting. Too many rules, major and minor prophets, kings, tribes of Judah and some really weird stuff. Sometimes, besides the obvious Psalms and Proverbs, and the Big Ten, the OT doesn't seem quite as applicable to this day and age.

And by the way, where exactly IS Nehemiah in the Bible? I do like to follow along with the passage during the sermon, but get frustrated if the reading is half way over and I haven't even found the book yet. Let's just go to the New Testament please. I know a little memory song about the books of the New Testament and that is way easier.

And the spelling, how much you wanna bet spellchecker is gonna be all over Nehemiah. Let's just call him NeHi for short.

Turns out, I have learned an awful lot from NeHi. He was living the life as a well respected royal cupbearer for the King of Persia, Artaxerxes (another spellcheck nightmare) and felt called to return to Judah to rebuild the wall surrounding Jerusalem. He actually got the feat accomplished in 52 days. He was a man of both prayer AND action, which can be a rare combination. He was an organizer, an encourager, a mobilizer, and just an all around upstanding guy.

This week NeHi was fighting injustice in Chapter 5. The people of Judah were being unfairly taxed, worked to death, and selling their children as slaves in order to put food on the table - and this was all at the hands of the more wealthy Jews, their own people. And I thought the OT wasn't as applicable? So NeHi took these Jews to task and some remarkable things happened. First at the end of 5:8, it says, "They kept quiet, because they had nothing to say." The truth often hurts, but don't we all usually have something to say, some excuse, someone else to blame? And then NeHi takes the high road. He admits in 5:10 "I and my brothers and my men are also lending the people money and grain". I greatly respect a man, or anyone that can admit they are wrong, and then take the steps to make it right and that is also what NeHi did.

So, Pastor Jon made some sermon points on why we, (as in I) as a community, as a church, as a nation, are often immobile or inactive in the face of injustice.

1. We just don't have very much experience with it. In fact, we are often more afraid of justice rather than injustice. Generally, on a day to day basis, many of us don't experience injustice. Jon related a story where he was speeding and passes a Highway Patrol coming over the hill in the other lane. He saw him tap his brakes in his rear view mirror - Jon was scared. Not of injustice, but of justice. Shouldn't we consider that a privilege?

So does that mean injustice does not exist in NW Iowa? Oh no. Jon then related a story told by some friends of ours that have just adopted two little girls from Algeria. Gracie, their eight year old daughter was riding the bus home when another little girl comes up to her and loudly declares, "That boy in the back of the bus says he hates you because you are black." My heart burns even as I write this. Gracie is one of my students in Children in Worship and she is precious beyond words. That makes me ANGRY.

2. We are often overwhelmed by the scope of it. How does one start to heal the continent of Africa? Or even the convoluted injustices of this nation?

3. It is often politically polarizing. Nehemiah had to ruffle a few feathers when he confronted the wealthy Jews, he even had his own feathers ruffled. I'll admit, it is hard to step out of the comfort zone, lift up my head and SEE. I think it goes way beyond political parties and their views, but it is often these differing views that get in the way of each other and therefore nothing gets done. Nothing changes. I think Satan likes it like that.

I don't know all the answers, and that is the whole point of this post. I need to sift through these thoughts and process them. It does makes me think and squirm a bit uncomfortably,and maybe that is the first step. Maybe someday I'll be brave like NeHi and take a stand.