Happy news

I went to the doctor yesterday and had my hips x-rayed. What a surprise to find out that they were normal. "Normal" is the word the surgeon used! I was so happy to know I would not spend another summer in the hospital.
So I have bursitis. Yes it's very painful. But the good news made me feel better immediately.
I also can quit taking Darvocet. I got new pain medicines.
I had a pretty good day back at work today. I covered more than seven classes and there are only seven periods. LOL. I really was running around, so it was a good test of pain meds.

Recited at the local National Association of Multicultural Educators conference a few days after the shootings at Virginia Tech

A Dream Deferred
by Langston Hughes

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore--
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over--
like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

Pain and doing

Not being in pain means that when you think of doing something, you
get up and do it.
When I had that luxury, I took it very much for granted. I didn't get
up to do as much as I think I'd like to now.

Here's what I want to get up and do today:
1. shower/dress
2. Water plants
3. Wash dishes and prepare meals for the coming week
4. Take out last bags of laundry
5. Put a lawn chair in my car (to use when I fold laundry)
6. Pick up cheezy bread at the Portuguese restaurant
7. Volunteer at the board of education's Professional Development
Center open house
8. Do laundry at the laundromat
9. Bring up briefcase from the car (has job applications)
10. Fill out job applications

I'll probably not do 2,3,4,8, 9,10,
I might do the laundry that Alicia (who offered to do some cleaning
Monday) already put in the car.
I'll probably get online and teach some English. This I can do lying
down.
I could also gather data for job applications - that is always a
tedious chore. Hooray for my CD cataloging program! Hmm, maybe
there's some cataloging to update.

I've had two epidurals that haven't seemed to work at all. (Most of
the previous ones worked well) Then I have a pain pill. I don't like
the side effects. It's not too good for the pain either, although it
makes me care less. I took one this morning.

Re: feelings

Oh yes. Feelings I'm finding to be difficult and related ideas:

"I don't have what I want. " I can learn to live "without" things. Extra clothes, extra luxuries, extra food ... things that give me status.

Balkiness. Comes from the idea : "i might get rejected, so why bother?" I've got a stack of school system applications to fill out. I also get ticked off because they are all different, so each one takes hours to fill out. New idea: I do have the time because I'm a week ahead on my coursework. This is just another form of coursework.

Two of the most powerful facets in the realm of thought are ideas and images. Ideas are ways of thinking about and interpreting things. They are so essential to how we approach life that we often do not understand when and how ideas are at work. Our idea system grows up with us from childhood out of the teachings, expectations, and behaviors of family and community. People are often so far in the grip of ideas that they can't be bothered to think. They don't know what moves them, but ideas govern them and have their consequences anyway.

Examples of ideas are freedom, education, happiness, "the American Dream," the feminine or masculine, and so on. To see ideas in action, look closely at artistic endeavors, especially movies and music, which encapsulate most of the pop culture, and at efforts to persuade, especially politics and commercials. Look, for example at the place freedom\, a major idea now, plays in automobile ads and rock lyrics.

One task of spiritual formation is to have our ideas transformed. By the Spirit, we replace in ourselves those idea systems of evil with the idea system that Jesus Christ embodied and taught. p. 68, Renovation of the Heart in Daily Practice by Dallas Willard and Jan Johnson

bloggishness of gratitude

I'm just so pleased with my son, DIL, and grandson. Saturday was a
weirdly snowy and cold day and the scouts were having a bbq chicken
fundraiser at the Moose Lodge. My DIL picked up two chicken halves
for me, but saw a man holding a sign saying "I'm starving" so she
gave him one of the halves. Later, there was a lot of left over
chicken, so my son and grandson went out looking for homeless folks
to give it to. They also ran into some people who wanted to buy some,
so they made some more money for scouts and still had chicken to give
away.

I'm remembering when my son was little and his grandparents overdid
it in the candy department. We decorated real hardboiled eggs, so
there would be something healthy included in what we were giving
away. We loaded up a red wagon and took "Easter" to a nearby family
recommended to us by a friend in Social Services (this was in pre-
HIPPA days).

I am so blessed to have a family - however small it may be - to share
and pass on such wonderful experiences.

Temptations

To spend money.
A catalog for comfortable shoes. (Can I buy the pretty feet too?)
The commercials on Live365. They would go away if I paid a monthly fee. (I only recently downgraded - and no, I don't listen often enough to make it worth the money. Oh, I don't have the money anyways.)
I'm trying to figure out the hairdresser's pricing. There is an on-line menu.
I have no idea what they are talking about. I am certain of who I want to cut my hair, because a woman I work with gets her hair cut there and her style is exactly what I'm looking for. But I don't have money for ANY extras. I could simply tell her my situation. But do I want to put my financial welfare in the hands of a woman holding very sharp objects?

... later. The haircut was priced right and it turned out great, don't you agree?

A day to start with

Today I learned why we had pancake dinners on Shrove Tuesday. It was to use up the milk and eggs before the Lenten fasting. http://www.getreligion.org/?p=2325
I just keep accumulating information. Tomorrow is Maundy Thursday. When I was a kid, I thought grandma was saying Monday Thursday. So I looked stuff up.

I looked up information about foot washing too. I want to go to a "Love Feast and Communion" at a church I don't know very well. Is that a meal or a cracker? I'm hoping they'll have a foot washing but I can't tell. How much information would make me feel comfortable?