Chris Loehmer Kincaid's Blog, page 169

For Val

“You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose. You’re on your own. And you know what you know. And YOU are the one who’ll decide where to go…” From: Oh, the Places You’ll Go! By Dr. Seuss
How can you not love Dr. Seuss? My daughter Val got the book “Oh, the Places You’ll Go!” as a graduation gift. What a great book! What wonderful inspiration!
It doesn’t matter if you are graduating from high school or college, or taking a new job or relearning an old one. It doesn’t matter how old or how young you are – the world is out there, yours for the taking. You can be anything you want to be, you can go anywhere you want to go.
And don’t let anyone say that you can’t!
“You can get so confusedthat you’ll start in to racedown long wiggled roads at a break-necking paceand grind on for miles across weirdish wild space,headed, I fear, toward a most useless place.The Waiting Place…”
And if you end up in that useless place, don’t stop, just race through to the other side. And remember to learn something along the way.
“So be sure when you step, Step with care and great tact. And remember that life's A Great Balancing Act. And will you succeed? Yes! You will, indeed! (98 and ¾ percent guaranteed) Kid, you'll move mountains.”
But you’ll move nothing by just sitting there. So go for it!

The PALM tree room

In early 1993, my first husband moved out. In the spring my dad died and that fall my sister was diagnosed with cancer. Can you say “stressful”? I’d rather say it just all stunk. Two good things came of that year. Pebbles and Bam-bam came home to live and in the summer my sister Pat and I started to finish my basement.
I had a computer sitting upstairs on a table in the living room. Pat and I were both writing then, and I longed for an office of my own. We came up with the brainstorm that she and I would build two rooms in my unfinished basement, a playroom for the kids and an office for me.
I remember that first day. We worked for hours and then looked around and it didn’t seem like we had accomplished anything, maybe a few sheets of drywall were up. We looked at each other and said in unison, “Dairy Queen”.
Somehow we got the office finished. Nearly. I mean it sure wasn’t perfect, but I was happy. The playroom, on the other hand, well it’s my husband’s man-cave now, so it is perfect for him. 
 This picture was from 2011 when I was actually doing most of my writing upstairs at the dining room table. I had just cleaned up the old office and made it my craft room - as if I craft.
 Here's the office in the basement, being used as an office. It is where all of the edits on my book took place.
 Here it is a nearly empty room. The desk was moved upstairs to Val's old bedroom. So what did this room become?
Well, Val's bedroom, of course. And where did the palm tree theme come from? In 2000, a year after Pat died, I started a Relay for Life team in her honor. Her initials spell PAL, so add an M for memorial and you have the PALM team. Over the years, I collected a few palm trees which we decorated our Relay for Life campsite with. What a better place for these PALMs to reside now.

Separation

And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 8:38-39 New Living Translation
As I go through each week, I am constantly on the lookout for blog material. Earlier this week, when I learned that my husband’s aunt had died, I thought, “ah, ha, a funeral. That should provide me with good material.” (I thought that only after I felt bad for the family and sent up a prayer that God was with them. Honest.)
Saturday morning, as I was sitting in the church, looking around, listening to the eulogy, humming along to the songs, I wasn’t finding anything in particular that I could write about. Then, bless her heart, one of the cousins stood up to share about her aunt and she used the verse above. What a great verse for a funeral, don’t you think?
(I got my little notebook out of my purse right then and wrote down Romans 8:38 so that I wouldn’t forget. And my husband gave me one of those looks.)
There are so many bad things that happen to us as we go through our sinful lives. It’s so easy, when things are going wrong, to ask, “Where is God? Why has He abandoned me? Doesn’t He love me?” But He will never abandon us, He is always there for us, He loves us no matter what. We just need to remember that and seek Him first. He’s there. Always. I promise. And more importantly, He promises.
Thank you, Lord God, for always being there for us, and for sending Your Son to take away our sins. Help us remember to turn to You first in every time of trial. Amen.
 Can the wide expanse of Lake Superior separate us from God? Nooo.  Can we fly so high in an airplane that we are separated from God?  Nooo. Can a cage at the zoo separate us from God? Nooo.

Another Dimension in Book Reviews

Do you sign up on every blog you can to win the free stuff the author is giving away? I am always tempted to do that, but then when the free stuff comes – which is almost always a book – I feel obligated to drop everything, read the book and then give it a glowing review. I know that is just the nagging guilt in my head, and that book reviewers always close their article with, “I did not give this book a good review just because I got it for free.”
Sigh. What’s a girl to do who has a penchant for free stuff, who does all her shopping at Goodwill and won’t shop in a regular store unless she has coupons?
So here we are with another book review to write. With a buildup like the one above, you are probably thinking that this book stunk. It really didn’t.
I won “Seventh Dimension – The Door” by Lorilyn Roberts by commenting on someone else’s blog. It is a Christian young adult fantasy and actually I had wanted to get it to share with my Kinship kid (that has yet to happen, but hopefully this weekend I’ll remember to give it to her).
Maybe it was because of the genre, but I really didn’t know at first if I could finish this book. When the animals started talking, I said to myself that I don’t have time for this. But I hung in there and I’m glad that I did. Like I said, it took a while to get into it, but by the time I was half-way through, I couldn’t put it down. I just couldn’t see how this was all going to get wrapped up into a satisfying ending. But it did.
The book tells the coming-of-age story of Shale Snyder who gets pulled into a world far from her own. Or is it that far away? The more I read about her adventures, the more comfortable I was in her new environment – a place which I have read about many times.
Putting my prejudices against talking animals aside (and this is actually explained later on in the book), I would give the book 4 out of 5 stars. 

Ode to my daughter's old room

How long have you lived in your current home? Have you made many changes in that time?
Last September I had been in this same house for 22 years. I’ve made a few changes over the years. 
Hopefully soon I’ll scan in the pictures which tell the story of why I fell in love with this house, but for now I wanted to show off the latest changes I’ve made.
When we bought this house, it only had two bedrooms. For many years, Nick and Val shared one room. As they got older, we put each of their beds on opposite sides of the room and lined their two dressers down the middle, so that they had the tiniest shred of privacy.
In 1999, we put on an addition (which will no doubt be blogged as well), and each of the kids got their own room. Val stayed in the same room. We did some painting, stenciled, Granma made a comforter.  November 12, 1999 When Val was a senior, we took in a foreign exchange student and Val lost her bed frame. Poor kid, practically sleeping on the floor til she went off to college the next fall.
November 1, 2007Then I don't remember where Val lived, but I apparently turned her bedroom into my sewing room.
April 4, 2010 She must have come home at some time because I turned the room back into her bedroom. Kind of.
March 6, 2013 Then it dawned on me that she probably wasn't coming home again, so I took over her room one more time.
March 9, 2013 I turned it into my office, aka Snoopy room. Let the creative juices flow.
March 11, 2013What's the saying about you can never go home again? But at least you can read a Peanuts cartoon there.

The picture of health

 But we are citizens of heaven, where the Lord Jesus Christ lives. And we are eagerly waiting for him to return as our Savior.  He will take our weak mortal bodies and change them into glorious bodies like his own, using the same power with which he will bring everything under his control. Philippians 3:20-21 New Living Translation

The other day at work I was asked to attend a meeting to brain storm ways to bring a new model of health and wellness to our patients. One of our doctor’s had recently given a presentation to the community on the “circle of health” and the goal was to further that idea. To achieve proper health all these different factors are involved, such as weight management, proper nutrition and exercise. Other things such as your spirituality, stress management, outlets for creativity and having a purpose in your life are all equally important.
Because my brain never shuts down and I can take the tiniest tidbit and expound on it, I changed the circle of health to the hierarchy of health. It looks something like this.
*Person who is the picture of health – is physically active, mentally sharp, emotionally stable, eats right, gets enough sleep, enjoys their job, volunteers, has a loving family, etc, etc (as if this person exists)
*Person who eats ok, works out occassionally, 
but has a lot of stress at home and at work
*The vast majority of us
*Person who smokes two packs a day and eats most meals at McDonald’s
*Person in a vegetative state in long-term care
The question is where on this list is someone who has died. When I was first picturing this in my head, the first thought is to put a dead person on the very bottom of the list, right? That would be where a lot of people end up, people who are not saved, who do not know Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.
For me and for other believers, I would put the dead on the top of the list. Except of course, those are people who are only dead by the world’s standards. As Christians we are on top of this list because we are very much alive in heaven. That is the only way this couch-potato, junk-food lover will ever get to the top of this list.
Lord thank You for giving us our human bodies, with all of the frailties and weaknesses. Thank You for making these bodies temporary and for providing us with the perfect bodies once we reach Your kingdom. Amen The Windmill is legend in our town. No one can hardly wait for it to open in the spring to get the first ice cream cone of the season. There is a biking trail that takes you there from town. Can you really burn off those ice cream calories on a fourteen mile round trip bike ride?

Show your courage

“Courage doesn't always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, ‘I will try again tomorrow’.”  Mary Anne Radmacher
I end a lot of my days feeling as if I have not roared all day, have not made a noise, have not stood up and been counted. Most days I crawl in bed wondering just what I did that day. Have I ever had a day where I was courageous? (Except for that little interview LIVE on TV last week, which I promise I will not bring up again.)
But I think that every day we do have courage. Even if it is just getting through, or getting by. We waited patiently in line at the grocery store. We didn’t retaliate at the inattentive driver who almost took us out at the stop sign. We smiled at a stranger. We laughed at an elderly gentleman’s joke which wasn’t funny.
And tomorrow morning, if it is God’s plan for us, we will get up and get out of bed. And have many more of those moments.   And when you can't roar, it's OK to purr. 

The final week

Since the first of February, I have been writing about my dad’s life. Since it is March already, I will wrap up this series of stories. 
In April of 1993, Dad was up all hours of the night, sometimes becoming belligerent, sometimes just wandering.  He would put things, mostly his dentures, in the strangest places, sometimes it was in the linen closet amongst the bath towels, sometimes it was in the birdfeeder. 
With the support of us four kids, Mom finally made the decision to put him in the nursing home, on an Alzheimer’s unit. She checked him in on a Friday morning, April 22. He seemed to adapt rather quickly, contentedly pacing the halls with the rest of the residents. 
Mom told the staff that she had started puréeing his food because he would sometimes choke on whole foods.  It’s not that the staff ignored her comments, or that they thought they knew better; things happen and they are not anyone’s fault.  Saturday night, while eating his dinner of whole food, Dad choked on something.  It wasn’t long before the nursing home staff realized he had aspirated some food, resulting in aspiration pneumonia. 
Sunday morning, Mom got the phone call – Dad wasn’t doing well. The physician on call wanted to put in a feeding tube, he didn’t feel there was anything else that could be done. Both Mom and Dad had decided long before that they never wanted a feeding tube.
Eventually, Mom was able to reach their own doctor, and he agreed to admit Dad to the hospital for IV fluids and antibiotics.
Four days later, Dad was still in the hospital when his doctor came in on rounds as usual, asking Dad how he was doing.  The other three days that week Dad hadn’t responded.  That morning he clearly answered, “not so good”.  Mom and I looked at each other. Was this a good sign? Or not?
Later that afternoon, while I was visiting Dad, with Mom at his side, she got a phone call from one of my cousins. My cousin and her husband had planned a trip to Alaska to see her brother, but with my dad not doing well, she thought they should cancel.   
Mom, though, told her several times over the phone, “You should go, we will all be all right, you just need to go.”
Shortly after Mom hung up the phone, Dad let out at a slow breath. Then nothing. After a few moments, he took one more breath, in and out. Then nothing. Finally one last slow breath, in and out. Then nothing.
Later, Mom recalled the conversation with her niece. She felt sure that her words were what let Dad peacefully slip from this world. “You just need to go, we will all be all right.”
And somehow, we were.   

Just "ducking" out of the spotlight

I did my interview for my book on WJFW, our local TV station, this morning. I kind of figured I wouldn't be in any shape to write coherently after that, so here are pictures of my most recent dumb hobby. No, I don't collect ducks, I just collect their pictures.   Sitting Duck  Lame Duck  Viking Ducks or maybe Duckings   Monkey Duck  Biker Duck  Lucky Duck  A little bit of everything Ducks Then, holy waterfowl, there are over 400 ducks on this table. Where to even start? Oh, that's right, I was helping set up a fundraiser for Kinship Friday night and we had the ducks all lined up to purchase for the chuck-a-duck. You mean, I can't take any of them home? I guess that is why I don't collect ducks, only pictures of ducks. 

Just like a movie script

Last week, on February 20, my dad would have been 98 years old. I’ve been writing all month of what little I know about his life before he married Mom.
In the fall of 1944, the depression was releasing its gripe on the nation and he was able to get a job as a school bus driver, making $58.20 a month.  His route was long, 40 miles round trip, twice a day. 
One winter afternoon, as Dad was driving the bus full of kids home, he overheard a group of girls talking about the basketball game that night. One of the girls, Margaret, wanted to go, but she didn’t have a ride. At that point my dad interrupted the conversation.  “I have a horse”.
The high school girls must have looked at him and said “what?”  Margaret, though, rose to the challenge.  When they got to her house, she ran inside and asked her dad’s permission to go to the game that night.  My dad drove her home later in his mother’s car.  He had just turned 30; she was still 17.        
Doesn’t it sound like something out of a movie? She graduated from high school and turned 18 that May. They were married by the justice of the peace on July 6. And the rest as they say is history.