Thankful

I am so thankful today for so many things. The events yesterday with my brother were enough to cause me to pause and reevaluate the things that are important in my life. It also helped me realize the many things in my life for which I am thankful. There are so many I don't think I could name them all here but for starters I'm thankful for my family. Sure, they drive me nuts quite a bit but they also help me make some of the best memories anyone could have. I don't know what I would do if I ever lost one of my siblings. Yesterday was scary enough with the realization that things could have gone very differently. As I walked out of the hospital last night I couldn't help but wonder what if he hadn't made it and I was now one family member short. Things would be so strange and I would miss him terribly. I'm thankful he made it out of the accident alive and that it appears he will recover pretty well. I'm thankful for my mom. She has such strength and she is willing to do what is necessary in the really hard situations to take care of her kids. She's been with my brother now for almost two days at the hospital and she spends the night in the waiting room so she can get up throughout the night and check on him. I'm thankful for my church because they never stop taking care of each other. All my life I have seen them live the Scripture: When one member is hurting we all hurt with them and when one member is rejoicing we all rejoice with them. We take care of each other and make sacrifices for each other so that each person can be blessed and helped when they need it. Last thing I'll write here, I am so thankful that God lets me get up each morning and enjoy life to its fullest. Truly, it is a privilege to be on the earth and allowed to experience all the things that God has for me here.
I love this song because the words are so true and they mean so much to me.


*About Me* One thing everyone who knows me really well knows is that I absolutely love Tucson sunsets. There are no other sunsets like them in the world. I have looked in every place I've been outside Tucson and not one has compared to the beauty that is Tucson at sunset. It's amazing. So, I thought I post a few pictures of one.

My Day

This has been one heck of a day. I woke up this morning and was stumbling around trying to get myself ready for the day. I had a performance so that meant two sets of clothes. I had rehearsal so that meant making sure I had music. I had my regular daily activities and that meant making sure my head was placed on my neck and then fastened properly. Then suddenly my day changed and everything that seemed so important no longer was. At 5:40 a. m. my sister came running out of her bedroom to inform me that my brother had just been hit by a car and was on his way to the hospital. It took 5 minutes to get in the car and head to the hospital to meet the ambulance. When we got there they had no information for us. We didn't know what had happened, how it had happened, and what kind of condition our brother was in. That first 30 minutes of not knowing anything was torture. All the possible case scenarios that fill your head are not a comfort in any way. Thankfully the staff at the hospital was really nice and they tried to let us know things as quickly as they could. After a while we learned that my brother had been hit head on by a truck. He had been walking and the driver of the truck didn't see him and ran into him. The truck hit my brother full force in the chest and then flung him backwards. The impact caused his back to split open, but thankfully didn't damage his chest cavity at all. Amazingly he had no broken bones or internal injuries. His fall caused quite a bit of damage though. His shin bone was completely broken and dislocated and there were surface wounds all over his body. He had to undergo several x-rays and a CT scan and then emergency surgery to correct the broken leg. I saw him in the ER just before he went in to surgery and he was not a pretty sight to behold. He was so beat up and he was in so much pain I couldn't help but get teary-eyed. My brother was suffering in front of me and there wasn't anything I could do to stop it. All I could offer was to hold him as best I could and tell him how much I loved him and was praying for him. You know, it's funny how in an instant your life can change and suddenly things look so different. At that moment in the ER nothing mattered but letting my brother know that I loved him while I still had the chance. More than once the thought crossed my mind, "What if he hadn't made it and I never got the chance to talk to him again?" What if I had lost my brother this morning? Would he know that I love him and really care about him? What would I do differently with him if I had it to do? I know these are common thoughts for people to have when they go through this sort of thing, but it was startling to be reminded of the uncertainty of life, of brevity of life, of the fact that you should show those you love how much you love them while you have the chance because they won't always be there for you to show and you never know when they will be gone.
Needless to say the day was a bit emotional for me, I'm still fighting back tears of relief as I write this, but I am so thankful that things didn't turn out worse than they did. Something good out of the bad - my family really came together and we tried to support each other and ease the burden each one was carrying. From one of my sisters buying breakfast to my little brother letting me cry on his shoulder to my uncle staying most of the day with my brother in the hospital, my family was there for each other as well as for my brother and when it's all said and done that's what really counts in times like these.

Absolute Silliness

I am at home getting ready to post a blog and absolute zaniness breaks out. My sister, who should never be up past 9 p.m. or trouble will start, is up at 10:35 p.m. and she is cleaning clothes out of her closet. If she was just cleaning that would be fine but, no, she is being absolutely bizarre. First she starts singing loudly from the closet, "You get a line, I'll get a pole honey. You get a line, I'll get a pole, babe. You get a line, I'll get a pole, we'll go fishing in the crocodile hole, honey, babe of mine" And now the craziness has really begun. With each article of clothing there is some new strange comment. "I am way too fat the wear this." (she's a size 6!!!!) "my hips are shaped really weirdly." "My butt is so big!" "Why are you sitting at the computer in your underwear?" (which I am not) "Oh look, the bottom of these pants is really loose but the bottom isn't. Hahaha." "I don't know why I bought these, they are too short." (she's talking about a pair of shorts) "Dear (talking to my niece), I found this hanger on the floor of your bedroom and it said I could have it. I asked it if it belonged to anyone and it said no." My niece responds, "Wow, I'm disturbed." All I can say is WOW!!!!!! Where did she come from? I know I am never that silly. She is absolutely one if the silliest people I know. Crazy. Anyway, ya, so now I've forgotten what I was going to post. Something about my day and dealings with Fitzgerald and how I hate arrogance. Oh, and I saw the most perfect man today and he was a doctor! I was literally speechless. I wanted to ask him his name but the words simply failed me. Now how is that for stupidity? Mr. Tall,Dark, and Handsome walks up to my counter, asks me for help and all I can manage is a smile and very few words. He even told me he was coming back later to have me do something else for him and I still couldn't get anything out. The man probably thought he was working with a deaf-mute. He was like the man your mother always told you to be on the look out for and I let him just walk away. Sigh. Of course I'm being totally ridiculous, but the man was really good looking and I wouldn't have minded having him as a customer every day. So, this post is full of ridiculous things and I will stop here for safety sake.

*About Me* Random facts: I need absolute pitch black to fall asleep at night. I hate when someone leaves a light, any light, on because I never fully fall asleep and then I don't rest. I hate cold temperatures. Anything below 60 degrees Fahrenheit is cold weather and I never swim unless it's 90 degrees or higher. 80 degrees is beautiful weather and it isn't really hot until it hits 95 degrees. My favorite time of year is spring but fall holds a very close second. I absolutely LOVE the Farside comics as well as Calvin and Hobbes. I have more nicknames than anyone I have ever met. the last time I checked it was at 20 different names. Ya, scary.

Wandering Thoughts

I got home a little late tonight, and I am completely exhausted. Not really sure why seeing as I had nearly 8 hours of sleep last night, but I am. I've been working all day and now I just want to relax. My neice is playing the piano and she sounds like a concert pianist. I love that her years of lessons have paid off because I get to enjoy an hour of nice music several times a week. Tonight she is playing an arrangement of the hymn "Blessed Assurance". I love the song anyway, but the arrangement is really beautiful as well. It makes me want to sing the song. There is something about music that I just can't escape. It has this unbelievable ability to transport me to another world in what seems to be only moments. I can't even really explain it but it goes beyond merely enjoying the music; the music has such an affect on me. It can alter my state of mind or my attitude or can provide such an outlet for releasing whatever it is going on inside me. Ah, the power of music, good music that is.
There are other thoughts running through my head tonight. Like, I miss speaking Spanish. Quiero hablarlo pero no hay nadie quien hablar conmigo. Hoy, cuando tratando hablarlo, no me recuerdo muchas cosas y no peudo hablar muy bien. Que triste! Me gusto mucho hablando espanol. I used to speak with someone almost every day and now I never use it and I'm losing it. What's really sad it that there are some things that Spanish allows you to say that English just doesn't, and besides there are so many things that sound better in Spanish!
I was asked again this week what the status of my love life was and then what my goals are for the future. Normally those two things wouldn't have too much to do with each other, but in my case they seem to be directly linked. For whatever reason I can't seem to settle on any plans for the future that don't include marriage, but there are absolutely no prospects in sight at the moment. Although I do enjoy being single, I am not getting any younger and I can't help but feel like the pause button has been pushed and I haven't started to really live my life. Part of this I call the feeling-like-a-student-for-the-rest-of-your-life mentality. Most people go to college, get out and live their lives. Not me. I'm still here and still feel like I'm a kid waiting to grow up in so many ways. Oh well, I guess that can have its good points, so I will resign myself to keep on enjoying where I am currently at.
Well, this post is starting to sound a little crazy and confusing so I think I will stop it here. Maybe in the next few days I will post things that are a little more coherent or at least truly interesting.

*About Me* My high school career as a student was a disaster. I went to summer school every summer for four years and I still graduated late. It wasn't that I made bad grades; I just didn't do the homework. Math was really hard for me and most of the other subjects bored me. There were a couple that I liked and I actually did excel in a few, but most of the time I did what I wanted to and not what I needed to and I paid for it later. The one thing I can say is that I learned a very good lesson my senior year. I dug myself into quite a pit and didn't think I was going to make it to graduation. Instead of my mom trying to make it easy for me she told me that if I was going to finish it would be up to me. There were many things that happened that year, far too many to relate here, but I can tell you that by the time April rolled around I wanted to graduate more than anything. I spent 4 months straight getting 2 and 3 hours of sleep every night and working almost non-stop throuhgout the day. I completed a year's worth of work in a few months. I did get help with my studies when I needed it and Lord knows I was praying every day even if just to make it through the day, but it was really a time where I was faced with making some necessary life changes and I am so thankful today that I made those changes. I know that God was more than gracious to me and helped me with so many things even when things seemed so impossible or insurmountable. There were many a night when it was just me and Him sitting at my kitchen table trying to figure out all the theorems and rules of geometry and how each one applied to the problem I was working on. Or when I had so many papers due and I really didn't have a clue what to write or how to format it. There were so many things that happened. It was a time of great need in my life but it was also a time of great experiences with the Lord.