Gideons, Auxiliary Members, Physical and Mental Health All Rolled Into One

This is in response to a comment/question posted by a friend on FB and since I ended up running off at the mouth as I am wont to do, I decided to blog it as well.  So here we go (took my meds so I hope I don't wander too far off - just took 'em so I should be safe :) )

My Status on Facebook was this when I left the house :

Jodi Swanson Cornelius Just chillin' - waiting for tonite - Gideons are giving a Pastor Appreciation Banquet tonite so I gotta be on my best behavior and in the new clothes that I bought for it :)

Spare Ribs
do you go round sneaking Bibles into hotel rooms? No offence Jodi! sorry gotta be said (my daughter's friend is a Jehova's witness - she's lovely too) best behaviour is hard for me x

My MULTIPLE responses - I don't think she knew what she was getting into when she posted that LOL
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Jodi Swanson Cornelius

Ain' no thang - and no, I don't go sneaking Bibles into hotel rooms - that's the Gideons (the men) - I belong to the Auxiliary and we sneak Bibles into the hands of domestic violence victims, and women prisoners, and nurses, and various other places :) We don't do anything but place Bibles - we aren't like the Jehovah Witnesses - we will share ourtestimony but we don't go door to door forcing Bibles in hands - in fact, we don't "hand" out Bibles - we place them on top of our palms and you are welcome to take one or not. Sometimes when we have what we call PWT (Personal Worker's Testament) in our pockets we will offer them to service people, waitresses, waiters, gas pumpers, grocery clerks, etc. We don't push 'em - if the person says no thanks we say no problem, just thought we'd offer and if they say yes we show them where there are helps in the front and the plan of salvation in the back and that's the extent of it UNLESS they ask. Some people will take our Bibles and throw them in the garbage - that's ok too - we have many testimonies of people who were down on their luck and came across one in the garbage. We are simply an extension of the churches in America - ALL Bibles and Personal Testaments are paid for by monies donated by churches. Every single penny that a church gives or an individual gives in memory of someone or as a Thank You or whatever goes to the making and sending of Bibles - not one single penny goes for postage, administrative fees - we as Gideons and Auxiliary members pay for that out of our own pockets. The PWTs are paid for our of our own pockets. Every single penny goes to what the person is "paying" for - a Bible. And just to let someone know - if you want to "steal" a Bible placed by a Gideon in a hotel/motel room? TAKE IT!!! They are placed there for people to read but also if someone wants to take it, that's fine as well. The housekeeping staff let us know when they notice some missing but we also make it a point to visit all the hotels/motels once a year to make sure all the Bibles are in good condition and there. If not, we replace the damaged or missing with a new one. And even the Bible is damaged - they aren't destroyed. Prisons don't allow hard covered books into the cells so we take those damaged books, remove the hard cover and replace it with a paper cover that we are careful to glue just right so the guards can tell there's nothing hiding in the binder. So no $$ spent on Bibles go to waste.

Bet you didn't expect THAT long a reaction didja?? LOL That'll learn ya. :) But seriously, I'm not offended - the Bibles in the hotels and motels are there when someone wants something to read - no one is forced to read it. And if it helps someone, more power to them and Praise God!!

Jodi Swanson Cornelius 

To be honest, *I* didn't expect myself to ramble on like that LOL

Jodi Swanson Cornelius

oh and nothing ever offends me that is aimed at me - I might get offended if someone starts talking trash about Jesus and God in a nasty way but as I keep telling people who have a number of problems like we do, God doesn't care if you yell at Him - He has big shoulders. He MADE you so He understands you. Usually, before too long, you come around and understand the whys. I take me as an example. I got more things wrong with me mentally and physically than Carter's got liver pills (dating myself) and I used to yell at God - WHY? WHY ME??? Why do my loved ones all die of cancer? ALL OF THEM!!!!!!!!!! Why do I have to suffer with pain every day 24/7?? Why do I have so many mental issues that I have to take tons of medicine to keep me from killing people?? Why do I have to live with the sword of cancer over my head in my esophagus (I have Barrett's really bad) and all the family members both dead and alive who died or survived their cancer? Why do I have a granddaughter who, at the ripe old age of 15 months was discovered to have bilateral retinoblastoma - cancer in BOTH eyes. Within 3 days of finding out she had cancer, she lost her right eye. Why did she have to go thru that. But you know what the answer is? The answer is now God has built up MY strength in HIM to not be ashamed of my mental issues - I understand people and can relate to them when it comes to people who are ashamed that they have mental problems - I can show them that hey - just cuz your mental doesn't mean you have to be mental. Embrace your being different. Once you accept that this is the way it is then it ceases being a problem for you. And if someone outside of you has a problem with you having issues, then buddy, they'd better look to themselves because there is no reason for anyone to have issues with someone who has mental problems.

So I said all that to say this - with all the problems both physical and mental, all the meds I have to take for the rest of my life (I'll be 48 in April so, Lord Willing, I have quite a ways to go yet) all the pain that has to be maintained by meds that will be part of who I am from now on has simply made me a stronger person both physically AND mentally in a non-physical/mental way - if that makes sense LOL Plus with the almost (it seems) daily addition of new problems (now I'm having major problems sleeping on my back - I quit breathing) if I didn't have the mentality that God has given me, I'd be dead or one of the most miserable people on this planet spreading my misery everywhere. But I'm not because GOD has given me the grace (about the only way I have grace because I sure as heck didn't get "grace"ful at all!! :) to be accepting of my problems, find the humor in all of it - EVERY SINGLE BIT OF IT including the TOS, the fused neck, the damaged nerves, the many numbers of mental issues, yada yada yada. And if you ask any of my friends here on FB they will all tell you the same thing - I am nuts - but, while they know of my physical problems I don't make life miserable around people by grousing about it (just on the Status Forum on the TOS site :) and they would tell you I'm basically a very happy, insane person.

And now you see why I try not to go off on tangents on the TOS boards LOL Ok - I'm gonna shut up - American Idol is done and I'm gonna go watch the recording I made of it while still awake.

Hope I didn't irritate you with all this babbling caused by an innocent remark. Course if I did, you probably aren't reading this part where I'm telling you it wasn't meant to be irritating :) But I think I've purged - and probably would be a good thing to copy and put on my blog as well.  Which, as you can see, I did :)

Hope you have a fantastic night

Stupid Time Change

Why can't the whole world just pick a time and stay with it - I mean, cut the dang hour in half and add it to either end or whatever they want and just leave the time zones alone.  Other places in the US refuse to change their time zones so obviously it's not that big a deal.  And then to top it all off, they stop it a week later and begin it a week early (I think - heck I am on my meds - I'm not even sure I'm really typing this!!)

LEAVE OUR TIME ZONES ALONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ginger - Again

Ginger is getting most annoyed with us - she can't stand the drops but Andy keeps trying anyway - don't know how much they are working - hoping that even the little bit that can soak in before she licks it off will help. On the plus side, it's not getting bigger and MAY be getting smaller - MAY be......praying so anyway.

And if it doesn't go away and they decide to remove it (right now it doesn't bother her - maybe it's not that Mast Cell tumor they said - but regardless - I'm trying to decide if I want to take the time to do a needle biopsy on it or just take the danged thing and get it over with.  Another thing - stitches in that part of her body (lip) I don't know how well that works  I mean dogs don't "smile" like we do and they have lots of mouth - if she eats will it tend to try to pop the stitches?  I've never had a dog that has had to have stitches in it's mouth.  

But, on the pessimistic side, I told Andy tonite that if something happens and we lose her, I'm getting another one as soon as there's another litter listed.  I can't sit home alone when I can't get out because I'm hurting -- I'll go crazy(er)!!  Even when she's not sleeping on me and is over on the couch or by my feet or outside playing with babe and we're not interacting, she's still "here".

There's no reason that this should turn ugly - it should turn into one of those "Do you remember when Ginger....." stories.  So I'm hoping God, who gave me this dog who attached to me IMMEDIATELY when I picked her up - Clay had his hands in the carrier as well and she jumped over into my hands and then burrowed herself inside my coat - won't take her away from me after so short a time.  And she's been MY baby since.  Oh, as I've said before, she loves Andy too - she may get up to see which way he's going (if she even bothers doing that) but if *I* get up it is to go see what I'm doing - she'll follow me in the bathroom in the hopes that she gets an empty toilet paper core - man she loves to take those into the living room and just chew and tear that sucker up into bitty pieces.  She very seldom eats one of the pieces - just likes to make the mess.

Oh, and to top it off, when it gets close to her visit on the 31st I have to start watching for her to go to the bathroom so I can go grab up her "goodies" for her yearly fecal test and she's also due for one of her shots so depending on what Brad does to her, he'll definitely have the feces to test but she may not get her shot until later on.  We'll see.

You know - this is the stuff I should be writing on my blog instead of FB!! LOL  Maybe I'll copy all this and do that :) Which, as you can see - I did :)

Night Terrors

My son gets up to go to work about 4am.  Imagine my surprise when at just after 12am, 2 nights ago, I get an IM on the computer for me to call him!  WTH??  So I call him on his house fone and he's close to hysterical (well, as hysterical as he gets) telling me that my granddaughter, Katyra, is having god-awful nightmares.  Screaming for mommy and daddy and when either of them picks her up, she looks at them and starts screaming again for mommy and daddy.  When I called, she calmed right down.  My son was weirded out by that because up to that point, she'd been going nuclear.  When I called, she stopped.  That kinda weirded ME out but I was glad of it.  I talked to her a little bit on the phone, told her I loved her and that I was glad that I could talk to her and then got back with my son.

They called Philly the next day (she's the one with bilateral retinoblastoma - eye cancer that is currently in remission) to find out what they thought and to let them know so it was in her file, just in case it was a symptom of a brain tumor.  We both thought that but neither of us spoke it out loud that night.  Was just too scary to contemplate.  They said it was probably night terrors (I saw a movie about a guy that had them and I've seen bits and pieces of what they are like but have never experienced it myself (that I remember), nor did my kids so this was new to both of us) and since they had given her children's nyquil to try to help her sleep because she's catching a cold, the doctor's office suggested they stop the nyquil because that could be aggravating the dreams.  My son told me in an IM this morning when I logged on (it was waiting for me as he had sent it just before 4am) that she had slept restlessly but no night terrors.  But since she's catching a cold, she didn't sleep very well, kept moaning and thrashing around, and somehow, at some point in the night, stuck herself in the ear.  He didn't say with what....I'm guessing her finger.  Regardless, he didn't get much rest last night either and ended up getting up an hour before he normally does.

Now I'm worried about HIM because he hasn't had a full night's sleep since Friday night - as of the night before, he'd only had about 6 hours of sleep.  He works 4 12s so I worry about him driving to and from work.  Hopefully, tonite he'll sleep good and Katyra will sleep good and they can get past this.

The fish

Did you know you can feed the fish?  They will follow your cursor and if you left click, you drop food which they will eat.  Kind of fun

life

I'm watching American Idol and a post comes across in memory of family members who have passed away and now my mind is resting on the many many family members who have died and particularly all the ones who have died due to cancer.  Normally it's not a "big" deal, but it'll be 2 years May 20th (her birthday) that my Aunt Bev passed away and took a huge part of my heart away.  I patiently wait for my turn to join her in Heaven (sometimes not so patiently as a few of my readers can probably understand).  But I await the day when He shows up and the dead in Christ will rise and then those of us still alive will join in on the party.

Enough - time to finish watching American Idol and then maybe my banjo or a video game - it'll depend on what the dog does - maybe I'll read a book or watch a movie.