Started with a boom…

This week at work started out frantic and hectic, but has slowed to a crawl slow as sludge.  And you know what?  I don’t care.  It’s pretty much feast or famine in this office, as I have been known to say to people.

Sears is really celebrating Christmas in July by starting to sell holiday items already. Seriously, people?  I think the holiday razzamatazz starts too soon anyway, but JULY?  Blech.  My one co-worker hit the nail on the head, Sears has opened up their lay away program again so people can start shopping for the holidays now and pay off a little at a time.  Not a bad a idea, really.  But…Christmas…already?  Seriously.

Looking at photographs.

My supervisor is going through a very difficult battle with leukemia right now.  Her spirits are good, but she is sick and tired of all the side effects of the toxic chemotherapy.  I believe she has a few more days and then she will be checked to see if she still has the disease.  If not, then it’s time for a bone marrow transplant.  Luckily, she has a brother who is a match.

She is managing to VPN in from her laptop at the hospital to do a little work, which is good for her, but she sounded terrible on the phone talking to her yesterday.  I was sitting at her desk.  There were two photographs there with her healthy, happy, and smiling.  It was hard to believe this was the same person on the phone.  It’s hard to believe this is the same person who occasionally has her boyfriend send in digital photos of her in her hospital bed…bald head and all.

The differences struck me.  As I sit here, I expect her to come waltzing in the office with her cheery demeanor.  She really is a great boss to work for and I want her back.  We all do.

Three of us have divided up her tasks in the office.  I help pay the bills and such.  It’s amazing how much she did herself.

I know she can beat this disease.  She did it before four years ago.

She passed along a web site that I thought is the National Bone Marrow Donor Program.  It’s sounds like an easy way to save a life!  If  you have every considered donating something like this, this program may be for you.

Just want to do a little ranting today.

I have this quote on my desk.  I don’t know who said it first or whatever, but here it is:

Great minds discuss ideas.  Average minds discuss events.  Small minds discuss people.

Now, we all have fit into all three of those catagories at certain times, but it really bothers me when people I know really focus on the trivial things in life.  And the gossip.  Oh, how they gossip.

First, one trivial subject I hate is gas prices.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been in a car and other people have been noting how high one station is compared to another.  I say, who cares?  We all know gas prices are high and we all know that we have to pay them if we are going drive our vehicles anywhere.  That’s just how it is.  Get over it.

I can’t stand gossip, and I hate myself when I fall into that trap.  Especially when I have to look that person in the eye.  I feel like a tool.  But, I know people who have no problem with it and it flows like poisonous gas from their mouths.  I wonder how they handle their inner feelings when they encounter a person they’ve been gossiping about?  I also wonder if they gossip about ME.  I don’t like that feeling at all.

I was always told about gossip is that if you do it, imagine that you are sticking a knife in that person’s back, because you are essentially are doing that.  You are denying that person their credibility, individuality, and that IT’S NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS IF THEY DON’T LIVE THEIR LIFE ACCORDING TO YOUR “STANDARDS”!!!!!!! It’s even wrong to do this when you’re talking about someone you DON’T know.  They are still an individual child of God.

I notice that a lot of these people that gossip about others faults share them.  That is an observation, nothing more.  Didn’t Jesus say something about worry about the speck in your brother’s eye while ignoring the plank in your own?

Gah! I actually can post!

Wow, I am actually sitting at my desk and have found some time to write!  Amazing!  Everyone is here on staff, all the document have just about been put on record, and my conference call got pushed  back.  Huzzah!

Some comments on a few things… celebrity deaths.  Wow, Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett, Michael Jackson, and Billy Mays all with a very short amount of time.  Celebrity deaths usually come in threes, but I guess Billy Mays gave us one for free.  I know, it’s a horrible joke and it’s been done.

The tragedy in Mays’ death is that he probably had a closed brain injury.  That means, nothing penetrated the skull to the brain, but the injury really hurt the brain enough to cause bleeding or a concussion.  Symptoms may not be apparent at first, and may take time to develop.  Here is a good article that explains closed brain injuries.

Ah, and now dear Bernard Madoff gets 150 years in prison. People got their justice, but they didn’t get their money back.  Fraud is an ugly, ugly thing and he was truly it face of evil.

Supreme Court nominee Judge  Sonya Sotomayor had her OWN decision overturned by the Supreme Court today, involving a discrimination suit concerning promotions among New Haven firefighters. And yes, it was a racial thing.  The city feared that minority firefighters were going to file a lawsuit because of their poor results on an aptitude test for promotions, so the results were thrown out.  I’m going to say something that may or may not ruffle people’s feathers and I really don’t care.  People need to earn their promotions by their own efforts, hard work, and qualifications.  Color of skin or where you come from is not a factor.  I HATE AFFIRMATIVE ACTION.  Even as a woman, I don’t want to be placed in a job because I’m a woman, but because I am qualified and can do it well.  If people didn’t do well on an aptitude test, sorry!  Study and work harder next time.  Don’t try to slide by on other factors.  Same goes for college entrance exams, military placements, etc.

Please, I am not being racist or sexist here, but I am just pointing out that policies like this make people wary and resentful of each other.  We need to be rated on our qualifications and abilities when it comes to jobs, not the color of our skin.  I am happy about this Supreme Court ruling.

All right, I’m done rambling now.

My Take on the Iran Protests

I support those protesters completely.  Iran has been ripe for something like this for a long time and this election was the catalyst.

These people aren’t stupid.  They know when something has been fixed and the understand the scope of time it takes for people to count votes.  I mean, it takes a long time here sometimes!  I love how Twitter and Facebook has allowed us to see first hand what is going on over there.

The Iranians know that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is a dictator that virtually has unlimited power over them with their constitution.  And this is where we should be glad there is a separation of church and state in the U.S. . . . .  the Clerical Council headed by the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khahmenei support Ahmadinejad and have dispatched their own Revolutionary Guard to try to crush the protesters.

Mir Hossein Mousavi, the main contestor of the votes, wants a recount and I think the Iranian people deserve it.  They deserve better leadership than a hardlined big mouth in a Members Only jacket and a bunch of clerics who weren’t even elected.

Be glad you got a dad.

With Father’s Day coming up on Sunday, I just wanted to say a few things.  Be thankful for your father.  Remember that there are those out there who have lost theirs to death or broken homes.  They may not even know who their father is.

We all have our Heavenly Father, but He also understands our need for a human father during our time on earth.

I lost my father in 2005 to cancer.  I remember giving him that card on Father’s Day that year with the sick feeling in my stomach that this was going to be the last Father’s Day card I was ever going to give him.

I’m grateful that I still have a close uncle, grandfather, and father-in-law that I can honor on Sunday.  Still, this does not cover the loss of a parent, and it never will.

Next time you and your dad have a fight, apologize.  If he is estranged, find him and patch up your relationship before it is too late.  A father is a special thing.

I’m going to stop writing now because I’m tearing up.

Rest in Peace, sweet Hannah.

Remember terminally ill little Hannah Garman and her wish for Christmas cards last year? Here is my original post about Hannah and her Christmas card drive. After defying the doctors for months, Hannah passed away from her cancerous tumor on Tuesday. She managed to do a lot of things people didn’t expect her to, including being a flower girl in her cousin’s wedding.

You’ve touched a lot of lives, Hannah. You deserve your rest in the arms of God.  Read more about Hannah and her battle here.

Is it good to be back? Jury’s still out…..

Sometimes you think that things will be different after you’ve had some time away from the status quo, just to come home find that things are still…..the status quo.

It was nice to get some time away from the office and the area, considering I was out for business, anyway. As the week progresses, I will be posting pics, stories, and other fun things about my adventure in Scranton, Pennsylvania.

Israeli Settlers Shouldn’t Back Down

News articles like this really disturb me. I guess it’s because I don’t like people being torn away from their homes.

Israel is for the Jews.  Palestinians, feel free to live there, but realize that this is the Jew’s Promised Land.  Jehovah promised it to his chosen race, and the Jews are STILL his chosen race today.  The Arabs took  over Palestine by force hundreds of years ago, but that does not change the fact that that little sliver of land belongs to the Jews.

I get very nervous when our world leaders talk about a Palestinian state.  They have one, and it’s Israel and they are free to live there.  I feel that promising land that divinely belongs to someone else is a very bad idea.

It’s also strange to me that the Jews have to face such hatred by the Arabs because they inhabit Palestine since the Arabs cover so much of that land themselves.  Who cares if another race inhabits a very small fraction of it?  But no, we have hateful rhetoric, violence, and broken promises.

After the Diaspora, or the scattering of the Jews throughout the world, some Jews did remain behind in Israel with no problem.  During WWII, we run into some problems.  The Jews wanted their home back and were promised it by the Allies for their support.  The Arabs wanted that land and the Axis promised them Palestine.  See where we run into some trouble?  Besides the racial and religious strains, we also have larger countries playing these groups off each other, and for that we should be ashamed.

As a nation, the U.S. needs to remain Israel’s strong ally because they are God’s chosen people.   They are the longest running democracy in the Middle East and we need their support in that area of the world and they need us.

I am a Christian, but I also have a Jewish background.  The God of the Jews is the God of the Christians, with Jesus being the difference.  And He was Jewish, too.  I could dig deeper into this, but I won’t.  The one thing that Israel MUST improve upon is its treatment of the Palestinian Christians.  This is also the birthplace of Christianity and they must treat them better, give them more freedoms, and allow them to take care of  Christian historical sites.

I know this is a heated topic for many, but realize this is my opinion, and I’m entitled to it, as you are entitled to yours.

**Note:  I will be out of town next week, so my entries and replies may be spottier than usual.  I will try to keep up as best I can.

Gah! Overload!

The workload here in the office was way heavier than usual on Monday and Tuesday, and we finally got caught up today.  It’s a relief, I have to say, considering my eyes are now so tired from perusing documents and staring at a computer screen, which is strangely what I’m doing now.

There has been some crazy scary things happening in the world of news, and the one that I keep thinking about is the shooting of Dr. George Tiller while he was in church.  Now, I am pro-life, so throw your bombs at me if you will, but here are my feelings on the situation.  First, it’s horrible that a man, no matter who he was or what he did, was gunned down.  It was a clear murder, and the man who did it will be brought to justice.

During his life, I absolutely abhorred what this man did by performing partial-birth abortions.  I actually had a friend who had an abortion performed by him, and her story about it is chilling, to say the least.  I can’t imagine what she went through, being so young at the time.  She even at one time worked for Tiller by organizing fundraisers and such.  At a turning point in her life, she finally realized that Tiller was doing this for money and power and didn’t care one bit about the women he was supposedly helping.  She left and changed her life.  Read her powerful story here.

In my opinion, George Tiller was a man who lusted after money and political power through his clinic.  I often wonder how his church felt about his work, but then after some research, it seemed that they enjoyed his deep pocketbook, as did many political organizations, including Kansas’ governor.  Still, this is just my opinion and it’s up to God to judge Tiller.

Most of the women that I know who have had abortions regret them or suffer from severe emotional damage.  I don’t know how you can go through an experience like that and not have it haunt you the rest of your life.  I even know fathers of aborted children who have emotional problems and are dealing with the decision that was made in the past.  I pray for those people and hope they can find healing.

I could go on about this, but I also love it when I find feminist information against abortion.  I love it when strong women view abortion as a way for men and doctors to exert control over them through pressure.  Even early feminist created laws to protect women and children.  This is a site that has great information.  Read up!