Bigger or Better: Life outside of Texas

Actually, I reached that point a long time ago, and made peace with it, but now is the point where I make it public. My apologies to the public. The advantage of being raised by a Licensed Professional Counselor is that I know how to use my dreams to get insight into my life. When I was 5 and troubled with nightmares, my mother taught me how to control my dreams; if I have that sinking feeling in my gut while dreaming, I assert a little bit of mind control and change my dream world. Doesn't always work perfectly, but the point is that my 'subconscious' and 'conscious' communicate a lot. Hence why I pay attention to my dreams--it is my inner communication. The night in high school where I started dreaming in Spanish, I knew I was getting fluent (theoretically, anyway. I get stage fright when speaking). The night in college when I dreamed about putting the 12-lead EKG stickers on a patient, I felt certain I could pass nursing school. So, for the past few nights I h...

Although I talk to a lot of inanimate objects, I very rarely name my possessions. I don't refer to my car as anything besides 'my car.' ditto for my laptop. ditto for everything else. But I've decided I may want to name my Garmin GPS. Ty. Short for  'Tyrant.' I admit I need the thing, because I am directionally challenged (I inherited that from my father, of course). I know what's in front of me, and if the sun is on the horizon, I know which way is east/west. I have to think hard about where the other compass points are after that. I also need a moment of contemplation before identifying my right and left. How do I drive with these handicaps? Well, I drive by landmarks [my brain has figured out how to 'auto-pilot' in certain oft-traversed areas]. And I use my GPS. But we've been fighting lately. I'll want to go someplace downtown, and Ty is bound and determined that i should take the tollway. I don't want the tollway. So I drive by a...

I booted up the computer yesterday so that I could work on indexing some census records, and while I was waiting for that to load up, I found the stash of my brother Jon's mission letters. How do we not know how funny our siblings are until they go? I laughed so much reading his thoughts on his mission--a sort of self-deprecating humor which mixes the Pollyanna and the Charlie Brown of life's adventures. At the end of this week, he'll be home. The shock of adjusting to 'normal' life after a mission will hit, and things will be crazy, and I am so glad that I am here to see it. Welcome home, Jon

Today, the rare occasion of me shopping gave me a nice title idea for this post. See, I was in a consignment shop, and somebody had consigned an 'Obama' baseball cap there--that's probably not a good sign for his campaign success. It got me thinking--politics (admittedly not my favorite subject) are about consignment (Merriam Webster dictionary:  to give, transfer, or deliver into the hands or control of another ). We turn the care of the country over to one guy (or girl, but that hasn't happened yet) and hope that our chosen head has a clear direction in mind. Well, I've been watching the Republican debates, and this is what I've decided: Mitt Romney: the most distinguished-looking of the group. He's also pretty good at fighting with Rick Perry. I think of all the people competing, he is the best at sounding intelligent Rick Perry: good at creating a fight, esp. with Romney (I guess his campaign manager told him to single Romney out? I don't really ...

I got on the elevator yesterday  at work to go down (novel idea, right?) to the main floor. My timing was terrible. I got on at the 21st floor. Someone else got on at the 19th floor. Then the 18th. I snickered. Then the 16th. Everybody in the elevator was laughing. I think we hit the 14th floor, too, before making it to base. Thank goodness that elevator doesn't service floors 4-12. The experience reminded me of another family history classic dealing with elevators. Background: A long time ago (by which I mean more than 10 years), my dad had a business trip to Dallas, and took his little family with him as a sort of vacation. We stayed on the 18th floor of a really nice hotel (an advantage of business trips). The pool (my main interest) was on the 3rd floor. The hotel was serviced by 3 elevators: two normal ones, and one glass one. The plot thickens: While my dad was off in meetings, my mother took me and my 3 other siblings to the pool. When we headed back, we obviously press...

I've learned a couple of things about the hospital where I work, and so many things about it are making me smile. :) As a state employee, I get discounts on hotels in Texas. At first glance, it seems rather weird to stay in a hotel in your home state. Well, it's a big place. It takes a day or two to drive across it, so a hotel discount is useful. But still, I smile. :) The hospital has several centers around the world, so their 'locations' webpage lists the other sites and organizes them logically--'Regional,' 'Outside of Texas,' and 'International.' This makes me smile the most. Most of the rest of the world would assume "regional" referred to several states, and that "national" would be a better term for 'outside of Texas.' Maybe so. I think it's endearing. :) In a presentation, one of the trainers said, "...route [ ˈ ra u̇ t ] or rout e   [ ˈ rüt, ], depending on what part of Texas you are from." I...

Well, there goes another appliance. Our refrigerator broke. Hopefully not permanently--I don't know, I'm not a maintenance man. But I'm pretty certain something's wrong--there's a puddle of water underneath the freezer, and the milk in my cereal was lukewarm. Until the repairman comes, we are using a cooler. At first I could imagine that we were camping, but we still have a/c and plumbing, so the illusion doesn't quite fit. But I think I've got it now--it's like we are in the 1920s. "Could you put milk on the table?" "Oh, sure, let me go to the ice box"  I think it's a perfect illusion--we even have to buy ice everyday to keep the 'ice chest' cold. Now where is the milk man?