Today I was lamenting it was Monday and a start to a new week. I went in search of images about Mondays and found 70,000,000 images in 0.69 seconds. Many of the images featured characters from cartoons that I follow. I chose this one featuring Snoopy because he illustrates how I feel. I am no stranger to Mondays, it is easy to predict when you will meet one. Now I must summon the self-discipline to go into work and tackle Monday and make the most of it. Just having surveyed the cartoon images about Mondays has me feeling much better about the start of the work week and the end of a relaxing and enjoyable weekend.
1. A gradual, unconscious assimilation of information, ideas, etc.
2. Movement of a solvent through a semipermeable membrane from a lower concentration to higher concentration, thus equalizing concentrations on both sides.
The image and definition above were sent to me by Wordsmith.org because subscribe to their free Word-A-Day feature that places a word and its definition in your inbox six days a week, Mon. – Sat.
I fell in love with this definition, even though I knew the meaning of the word “osmosis” because of the image that was posted with it. The email made me smile, I hope seeing this image on my blog starts your day off with a smile!
This is a picture of my dog Cooper. I was visiting a friend of mine. When my friend got up to fix us some tea, Cooper moved into the space where he had been sitting because he likes that spot best. My friend refused to displace Cooper when he returned with the tea.
I feel like I am failing to teach him good canine manners. But that is hard when he considers himself the “center of the universe”!
Thursday night I received some news that bothered me greatly. It resulted my not wanting to go to work on Friday, but since I had no good reason for staying home – I went to work. Once there I was not in the mood to visit patients. That was a problem for me because part of my job is to visit patients. After I spent some time doing office work, it was time to begin making rounds, so off to the patient rooms I went.
The picture above is from the Internet and is representative of one visit I had with a patient. This patient had just been weaned off the ventilator the day before. The patient was also on dialysis several days a week. I was in my own mood of negativity, and being in that mood I was impressed the patient who had more reason for negative attitude than I did was very positive. As we talked I realized the patient had tapped into his own process of resiliency. It was serving him well, it allowed him to deal with undesirable facts and not feel overwhelmed by them.
This visit stuck with me throughout the day. I found myself tapping into my own process of resiliency. By the end of the day I was feeling good about the things I had done and about my own situation even though nothing had factually changed. The change was in my attitude and that made all the difference!
Heroine is becoming an epidemic in our nation. In our local area, the increase in heroine related deaths has risen to levels I would have never guessed would be possible. The drug Naloxone has reverse the effect of heroine if administered in a timely manner. Police and emergency personnel have been trained on the use of this drug for a long while. Now classes have been offered to train non-law enforcement and non-emergency personnel to administer the drug. The goal of course is to save lives be eliminating fatal overdoses of heroine.
While I applaud all the efforts being made to address the heroine epidemic it frustrates me that we even must fight this battle. Since I was high school age I have known heroine is something you avoid. It is harmful to your body in many ways. It creates a dependency that drives many users to crime to support their habit. It destroys trust in families and other relationships. Once trust is destroyed it is difficult to re-build and in some cases impossible to re-build. I long for the day when heroine is not in the news because people have simply stopped using it!
Last night I went to the funeral visitation of a good friend and former member of my Sunday School Class. Bob was a heck of a guy and experienced many sacrifices in his life. What I remember most about him is that no matter what the circumstance he looked for the most useful way to move through and beyond the experience. He loved his wife and was devoted to her until her death several years ago,. Visitations provide us one last opportunity to gather with those people who love the person who has died. We can mark the death by sharing our memories of him with each other. We did that last night and all the memories shared were good memories!
This is the weather alert issued by the National Weather Service that is depicted in the map above for our zip code:
Issuing Office: Baltimore/Washington
Source: National.Weather.Service
4:00am EDT, Mon Mar 13
… WINTER STORM WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT FROM 7 PM THIS EVENING TO 2 PM EDT TUESDAY… * PRECIPITATION TYPE… SNOW. * ACCUMULATIONS… SNOW ACCUMULATION OF 4 TO 8 INCHES. * TIMING… SNOW WILL OVERSPREAD THE AREA THIS EVENING AND PERSIST THROUGH TUESDAY MORNING. * IMPACTS… THE HEAVY SNOW WILL CREATE DIFFICULT TRAVEL CONDITIONS AND MAY PRODUCE SCATTERED POWER OUTAGES. * WINDS… NORTHEAST 5 TO 10 MPH WITH GUSTS UP TO 20 MPH. * TEMPERATURES… IN THE UPPER 20S. PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS… A WINTER STORM WARNING FOR HEAVY SNOW MEANS SEVERE WINTER WEATHER CONDITIONS ARE EXPECTED OR OCCURRING. SIGNIFICANT AMOUNTS OF SNOW ARE FORECAST THAT WILL MAKE TRAVEL DANGEROUS. ONLY TRAVEL IN AN EMERGENCY. IF YOU MUST TRAVEL, KEEP AN EXTRA FLASHLIGHT, FOOD, AND WATER IN YOUR VEHICLE IN CASE OF AN EMERGENCY.
We have had a mild winter so it is not such a surprise that March would have at least since major snow storm for us to experience. I am not dreading this storm because I know that it won’t last long. By next week, things will be warmer for us again. Just a word of caution to everyone: BE CAREFUL!!!!!
Today for a change of pace I escaped to Washington DC for the day. My destination was the Kennedy Center where I watched a performance of the opera “Champion”. It was a clear day weather-wise and the drive into and out of the city was not congested at all. In the corridor of the Kennedy Center they had posters detailing the “coming out” stories of athletes. Many of them are either in high school or college. I was struck by how hard the judgment in society on the issue of sexual orientation is for individuals who are struggling with their identity in a situation that is often hostile to who they really are at the core of their being.
One athlete’s story documented his thoughts of suicide to escape the conflict of who he knew he was and what his family, school and others expected him to be. I long for the day when the youth of America no longer consider suicide as preferable to speaking out about who they are and the type of person they want to love.
Each Saturday I eat breakfast at Mark’s Café downtown Cumberland. I enter through the back door even when the closed sign is displayed. Mark leave his back door open prior to opening so customers don’t have to stand out in the cold in the winter time. Those of us, like me, who know the practice of how the sign works don’t have to wait until the “magic hour” to enter his Café. This is the relationship of caring that Mark has for his customers that keeps many of us coming back on a regular basis. Good job Mark!
When I was a child there were only 2 ways to deposit a check: take it to the bank or mail it to the bank. Now as an adult I have appreciated the convenience of using my smart phone to deposit paper checks electronically and not have to visit the bank at all. Today the bank computer system was not accepting mobile deposits, so I had to go use the ATM to deposit my check. That took my mind back to my college days when depositing a check in an ATM was something “brand new”.
Banking has continued to evolve just like everything else in our society. I must admit was a little bit indignant that I had to drive to the bank to make a deposit. I guess I should be glad I had a check to deposit. A lesson to learn the hard way.
