Secret Santa!!

A few months ago I had several run ins with another coworker at my work. It just seemed that I could not do anything right in her eyes and even if I tried to talk to her, I was snubbed. Well at the first of this month I received a text from our boss letting me know who my person was for a our secret santa exchange. To my surprise I had gotten the name of the coworker that I had been having some struggles with.

Ever since I was a little girl, I remember a bible verse that says something about heaping coals of fire on your enemy’s head. Which is doing acts of kindness to the person who is mean or unfriendly to you. This is not an easy thing to do for anyone, even myself. There has been times I have had to make a choice of continuing to try to be friends and showing kindness to the person that was hurting me or walking away from the situation. Even though I have had to walk away from some situation’s and leave them  in God’s hands, this was not one of those times I could walk away.

I have bit my tongue several times around this coworker, but something was revealed to me about her. After taking a step back and looking at who she was, where she came from and what she was dealing with in her life. I realized there may be more to the story then what we are seeing in front of us. So when I got her name as my secret santa person, I chose to heap coals of fire on her head and bless her with a gift, something I would love to get as a gift myself.

Well I want to wish everyone here a Blessed New Year!!!!!!

“Scary weekend”

This past weekend have been  very difficult for me, after waking up in the middle of the night to hear my dear hubby struggling to breathe. My training kicked in gear as I jumped out of bed and turned on the overhead lights. By then my dear hubby had ripped off his CPAP mask and was breathing on his own. As I evaluated the situation I realized things was not going back to normal, my dear hubby was having stroke symptoms that was getting worse as the minutes passed. This is not our first time dealing with this health problem, my hubby suffered his first stroke several years ago. We have been very blessed to have caught the symptoms and got him to the local hospital in time to reverse the symptoms.

This time around it was very scary for me, the local ambulance service was not available and at one point I thought I was going to have to do CPR on my hubby.  After the ambulance arrived and whisked my dear hubby away to the ER. A dear neighbor checked in on me, letting us know that she was there for us. It was after everything calmed down for me that I realized my decision to take some time for myself the evening before; was one of the best things I had done. Because I had went away for a few hours to visit my former coworkers with another coworker, I did not go to bed at my normal time. Because I am a heavy sleeper, it is very hard for my hubby at times to get me awake. That night I had just laid down and had barely fallen asleep when I was woken up  to hearing my dear hubby struggling to get air into his lungs.

The one thing every caregiver, husband and wife have in common is they stay strong thru so much going on in their lives. They sometimes have to put things aside to be there for the one they are carrying for. This is not easy for anyone who is a caregiver, their lives are centered around the one who they are taking care of. Having a support system is very much a must for a caregiver and their loved one.

I very much struggle with not having family nearby to support me in these times of illness. All of my family live farther away from me, with only my in laws living close by. Having a cell phone has been a wonderful thing in keeping in contact with some very special friends who stand up with me and keep me looking up.

 

 

 

Healing with a Pineapple Upside Down cake!!

My childhood memories are a mixture of wonderful, good and some very harsh memories. One of those harsh memories has to do with a simple mistake in a recipe for pineapple upside down cake. To this day I do not know for sure what I did wrong, but it triggered  a very violent response from my mother. From that day on I did not ever want to try to make the cake for the harsh memory of having  a mixer thrown at me. Several years after I was married, my dear hubby told me that one of his favorite cakes was a pineapple upside down cake. It was at this time I realized I had to face a past memory and make a new memory out of something very harsh. I made the choice to attempt to make a pineapple upside down cake for the second time in my life. My second attempt actually turned out  better than I thought it would.

There are times we have to do something in our lives that carries a very harsh memory, it may be forgiving someone for something they did to us or even just making a cake that carries a bad memory for us. It is a chance for us to make new memories to replace old ones in our lives. This is the time of year of celebrations and giving of gifts, also it is the time to make memories with those we hold precious to our hearts.