The "H" word.....

My nephew Oliver moved back to NC about a year ago. He is four years old. I have really enjoyed spending time with him. He is an awesome child. One day when we were all sitting around talking Oliver suddenly said, "Mommy, Auntie Christine said the h word!" I was puzzled....I didn't say any bad words, did I? My sister in law Barbara quickly informed me that in their house the word "hate" is a bad word. At first I thought that this was a little extreme. I mean, using the word hate is ok when you are talking about brussel sprouts, cauliflower, spiders, or clowns right?

I then started thinking, what would the world be like if everyone taught their children that the word hate is an off limits word?

No more "I hate you!"

No more, "I hate faggots, nerds, hippies, black people, Mexicans, fat people, Asians, Christians, Buddhists, Jews, old people, rich people, poor people, homeless people, Russians, Iraqi's".....the list could go on. Basically anyone different than us or what we think is "normal"

What would the world be like if everyone started, one child at a time? One family at a time?Maybe it is simple minded of me to think that hate could be stopped by teaching children that it is a bad word.That the world could be a better place just by not using one word. I think it would take many years, perhaps decades, but if child by child learned that the word hate in any form or fashion is a four letter word, could hate be eradicated?

I am sure that at one time smallpox and polio were thought to be impossible to contain. Many years later though, we have wiped out these diseases.....and how did we do that? By vaccinating one child at a time! Is hate a disease that can be cured? I think so. I applaud my brother and his wife for vaccinating my nephew against this word and all it stands for. Once again, a child is teaching the adults around him.

Hate is not a family value. Even for brussel sprouts.

What if.....

This Sunday one of the verses our pastor talked about was Matthew 25:40 ....."verily I say unto you, in as much as ye have done it unto one of the LEAST of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me."

Wow! That was profound for me. I have heard that verse before but this week I can't stop thinking about it. What would happen if we all followed this verse? What if nations followed this verse? Companies? Cities? Schools? Families? Friends? The list goes on.....

What I do to one of God's children I do to him. As a parent,I understand this. When someone hurts one of my children it hurts me. When they are sick or injured I would gladly take their place. We are ALL Gods children. He hurts when one of us is hurt. What if we all lived our life by this ONE verse? How different would the world be?

-To the poor and homeless?

- To gay, lesbian. and transgender people?

- To the people with different skin color than our own?

- To people with different religions than our own?

- To the person that cuts us off in traffic?

- To the people in the country Georgia?

How would I be as a parent, partner, co-worker, friend if I followed this everyday? I think I will write this on a notecard and stick it on the mirror. Maybe I am silly in thinking the world could be changed by one passage in the bible. Maybe I can just start with me. How will MY world be different if I live by this?

We will see. I think it could be profound.

What To Do?

Ok, so I am thinking about going back to school to get my master's degree. I have the kind of job now where I can do this easily. I am working three 12 hour shifts for hospice from 8p-8a from home on call. Some nights are busy, other nights there are no calls. I am home during the day. I need to get my masters because of the late start I got to my career. I am getting ready to have two kids to send to college. In my head I know I need my masters to make more money, but my heart does not feel passion for anything! I will have to take the GRE' exam and a statistics course before I can even get into a program. The only thing I can think of right now is the Nurse Practitioner program but I am not sure I want that much responsibility or to work that hard!! The only other programs are in management or education and I don't think I want to do either of those either. Becoming a NP can mean a salary of over 100k a year. I keep waiting for that to inspire me but it hasn't yet!

I would love to hear any ideas from anyone. Should I just start taking classes and see if I am inspired? Does anyone know of any other programs out there? Anyone taken the GRE or statistics? I am petrified of them both! I would really love to spend my golden years travelling the world and financially secure. By the time I am in my 60's there will be no Social Security left so I know that I will probably have to work until I am 80!

Any Thoughts? Suggestions? Ideas?

Being an Auntie....

I am an Aunt, or should I say an, "Auntie Christine" I love being an Auntie. It is so much more fun than being a mom. I guess that sounds a little harsh. I love being a mom but there are so many worries, so many things to teach them, say to them, making sure they get into college, pass algebra, have good table manners, then there is all the drama of the mother-daughter relationship that is a whole new blog in itself....the list goes on. Being an Auntie, I don't have to worry about any of that stuff. My nephew Oliver just moved back into state after being gone most of his four long years. I thought I would have to be an absentee Aunt. Today though I got to babysit for the first time. It was so much fun! I got to be silly and have fun. Table manners were not required.

We went to the Science Museum. I let him do and go wherever he wanted. I didn't feel like I had to *teach* him anything. He had no interest in the dinosaurs, oh well, moving on....we mostly stayed in the reptile and bug section. With my own children I would have tried to expose them to EVERYTHING whether they were interested or not. After all, I only had 18 years to cram in every species known to man! Then, I asked him if he wanted to buy a toy in the gift shop. I NEVER let my kids get anything in a gift shop! They would get spoiled and think they deserved something everytime, right? Besides, those gift shops are so expensive. That did not matter today. I let him get a BIG, plastic black widow spider AND candy.

Off we went to lunch...he got the kiddie meal that came with a sandwich,chips,teddy grahams, and a drink. The chips he chose were cheetos, the drink was lemonade. Again, as a mom I always chose milk and a *healthy* side item. He ate like, three bites of his sandwich but had all the cheetos,teddy grahams, and lemonade he wanted! There was no "use your inside voice" to be heard at all through lunch....we had fun! Thank goodness my nephew is such a good boy or it could have gotten bad!

We went home to play until his parents got home. I thought for a brief moment about checking my email. My instant reaction was, "I can't do that! I need to spend as much time with Oli that I can." I wish I had had that thought more often with my own kids. There was always something "important" to do. Now they are 14 and 17. I can't even remember what those important things were. Just that I wish I had spent more time having fun with them when they were smaller, before they wanted me to put a paper bag over my head in public.

So I learned a lot today. I love spending time with my nephew, I can't wait to have fun with him and watch him grow up.I learned that being an Auntie can make me a better mom. I learned that maybe I need to have more fun and not be so serious. Life isn't always about lessons to be learned. It's also about having fun.

Maybe that is the biggest lesson of all.

Life is not fair.....

One of my patient's is dying today.I have been his nurse for a year now. I have to admit he is one of my favorite patients. I have grown close to him and his wife. Sometimes on my visits we just sat and talked about nothing. No sickness, no death. We talked about politics, children, his grandaughter, religion. We talked about everything. When I traveled, they wanted to hear all about it. He educated me on his Jewish faith and answered all my inquisitive questions. I loved him. He was warm. Sweet. He loved hugs. He was wonderful. About a month ago him and his partner got married. They had been together over fifteen years. She says they never got married because they were never ready to take the plunge at the same time. Their wedding was beautiful. He told me a few weeks ago, "I wish I had done it sooner."

About a month ago his wife started having her own health problems. She went in for tests. This week as her husband lies dying in our in-patient hospice unit, she found out that she has stage 4 lymphoma. This will probably kill her.

Her husband is now unresponsive. I visited him yesterday. She said nothing about her own health issues. She is focused on him.

I don't understand situations like these. She is a young woman, in her late 50's I would guess. Why? Why lose the love of her life, only to find out that she will die young as well? Maybe because they are supposed to be together for eternity, and now they will be. I don't know. I have no answers. It just seems so unfair. Who said life was fair? I know it's not, there are lessons. Sometimes I just can't figure out what they are.

Maybe I am not supposed to.

1330.....

1330 sounds like a big number...and it is, usually. Like if someone says that is how much your car will take to be repaired, or that is the amount that your Grandma gave you for your birthday.That number dwindles to the miniscule when we are talking about calories.

Now I have been on every diet known to man. The Cabbage Soup diet (remember this one dad?) Atkins, South Beach,Weight Watchers, The list could go on and on....Well, I have decided to diet no more. No more diets. Just like Oprah..... Well,she is on a diet and I am too. It just sounds better when you say, "I am not on a diet, this is a way of life." Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's a freaking diet! So, I have decided to go back to basics. It is really simple math. You need to put a certain amount of calories into your body, burn off a certain amount, then you get your weight loss. Voila! Unfortunately my diet is a lot like my checkbook. In that case I spend more than I take in. With food, I eat more calories than I burn. So, who knew that there is a FORMULA that tells you how many calories you need to eat per day to lose weight. I have decided for my new "way of life" to find out that magic number, count calories, exersise....the old fashion way right? The no frills diet. Very simple. Except for my number. After figuring it up it comes to, you guessed it....1330. A day! I didn't get to excited about this until I started reading labels. I wrote down my calories yesterday from breakfast and it came to 716!!! It is crazy when you really start to look at the numbers and serving sizes. So, basically we are on day 2 and I am the same that I have been for two freaking days HUNGRY!!!!!!

My only solace is when it is time for bed and I go to sleep.Then I am not hungry anymore.

A new name.....

I decided to change the name of my blog because I am so much more than a hospice nurse. There are a ton of other things I would like to write about....Parenting teenagers,weight loss, politics, relationships, spirituality....the list could go on and on. I will still write about my life as a hospice nurse but maybe this change will make me write more often! So basically, this blog will be about my life. The ups and downs.My dreams.Wishes.Heartaches. Loves.Obsessions. Just this thing called life.