I feel like my creative juices turned to sludge. I have nothing profound or humorous to tell you. I spent the last week working on research for something my husband and I are pondering… perhaps more on that at a later date. However for now just a few random postings….
1.
Ryan was supposed to have a routine heart catheterization this Wednesday. It’s amazing to me that it is routine for someone to have a catheter lace into their artery and snaked into their heart. This will be Ryan’s sixth heart cath in his short little life. Crazy! However, he is suffering from a cold… complete with coughing and congestion. He’s miserable. So no cath this week. It will now take place in mid-May.
2.
Natalie said to me the other day: Mom, am I smart?
Me: Yes, you are.
Natalie: You should’ve made my middle name Smartie!
3.
Henry and I headed out to hear Lunasa, a really cool all-instrumental Irish band, with some friends the other day. It was a glorious two hours where I thought of nothing but the five men and their instruments and how awesome they sounded. As soon as they came back on stage for their encore my ‘To Do’ list popped back in my head and it was then I realized I had escaped life for two hours. Priceless! Here is a sample of the concert:
4.
I started wearing glasses in the third grade and moved to contacts in the sixth grade. I had worn contacts for 19 years when in 2007 I got LASIX. I used to be blind. Okay, not all the way blind, but very, very, very near sighted. I couldn’t see the details on faces that were close to me. In fact there was a night I was staying at my sister and brother-in-law’s house that I mistook my brother-in-law for my sister. In my defense he was leaning over his son’s crib trying to get him to stop crying so really all I saw was the backside of a person. I realized it was him when he stood upright and a male voice came out of the blurry silhouette’s mouth.
My contacts helped but honestly I never had the right prescription. You know how the eye doctor flips those little spectacle pieces back and forth saying, “Is this one better, or is this one?” I could never really tell which one was better because for goodness sakes they were all better than what I could see without them. So even with contacts I had a hard time seeing far away. I could however tell you who Michael Jordan was from across a gym. It’s weird, I know, but people I was familiar with I could tell from their gait not the small details. And I know MJ’s gait because I spent a fair amount of time watching the Bulls during high school. Mostly because Scottie Pippen was my favorite player.
And Scottie was my favorite player because, as those who know me well can guess, he understood his role, accepted it, and played a good game. If he hated being #2 he didn’t show it very often. He was an excellent player in his own right and as long as his team was winning he was happy. I respect people who know their roles and run with them. But that wasn’t the point of all this.
The point is that after a little over two years of having new eyes, there are still times when I’m climbing into bed I catch a glimpse of crystal clear numbers on the alarm clock and think, “Oh shoot! I forgot to take my contacts out.” Seriously.
5.
We are now in the second quarter of 2010. I have three goals for this year: to read the Bible cover to cover, to brush up on my Spanish, and to finish the first draft of my writing project by the end of February. I am happy to say I finished said first draft on Feb. 28. I am sad to say I have ignored it the last two weeks. I am also sad to say I haven’t worked on any Spanish in the last three and a half months and I’m leaving on my first of two 2010 Spanish speaking trips in four weeks. Lo siento por me. I think I remember how to say where is the bathroom, I’m sorry, and I don’t know. I also know how to ask How do you say XYZ in spanish, but it won’t help much if they don’t actually know ENGLISH!
I am also extremely sad to report my Bible reading is going much slower than expected. I am able to get in a chapter here and there, but fifteen minutes a day (which when I think about it is not that much time) has not been happening. In fact, I am only in the book of Exodus. There are 66 books of the Bible and if I keep going at the rate I am going (one book a quarter), then I can expect to finish reading the Bible in, um, 18 years. EIGHTEEN YEARS! I better pick up the pace. Luckily the books get shorter the further you get into it.
6.
It’s yard sale season again. Enough said.
7.
Henry and I were talking about movies the other day and it went something like this:
Him: What was that movie you said I really liked but I don’t remember?
Me: An Unfinished Life
Him: What was it about again?
– SPOILER ALERT, kindof –
Me: A woman whose husband dies so she goes to live with her father-in-law who hates her and slowly they begin to respect each other and then at the end really like each other. I think she has one or two kids and Danny Glover or maybe it was Morgan Freeman lived on the ranch with them, but not in the house, in another house or cottage or something and maybe he was blind.
Him: It’s coming back, I think. It was Morgan Freeman and I think something happened and he was blind but he protected someone or something.
Me: Yeah, maybe.
Him: And there was some mentoring of the grandkid maybe.
Me: Yeah, but don’t get it mixed up with Second Hand Lions.
Him: Wait, now I remember. There was this scene with a bunch of guys in skirts up on a ridge with bagpipe music playing in the background and another guy who rides along the ridge shouting “Freedom!”
Me: Yep! Yep! That’s the one. You liked the movie right?
Anyone else ever had a conversation like this? Or are we just weird? Don’t answer that last one, I think they call that a rhetorical question.
Okay, and yes, I just did a seven quick takes on a Tuesday because that is how my life has been going recently. I’m just now getting caught up on last week so to speak. What good movie have you seen lately?
(c) 2016 Leighann Marquiss
Comments (10)
“Braveheart”,in my humble and Scottish opinion, was the best movie ever…even if it was seriously historically inaccurate!
As far as other movies go, haven’t seen anything great unless I go back a few months to when I took my older daughter to see “The Blind Side”. I saw “Avatar” (good but not great and WAY TOO LONG),
“2012”(ok) and “Grand Torino” (really good).
Hope life settles down for you a little (hard, I know, with 3 kids) so you can get your Bible reading and spanish learning accomplished. Where are you going for your first trip?
Leighann,
Most of us in the small group are reading or attempting to read the bible cover to cover this year as well with a differ. plan that we have found it to be much easier. It essentially covers chapters across differ. sections of the bible. For ex: My reading for today will be in Psalm, Leviticus, 2 Corinthians, and Isaiah. Here is the link we are using so that we can track our progress pubicly and hold one another accountable:
http://www.gnpcb.org/esv/devotions/esv.study.bible/
As far as Bible reading goes, I’m kinda a it-has-to-be-done-this-way person. Start at Genesis and go through to Revelation. No skipping to the middle. Nothing out of order. As I got older, I have tried to work on the OCD part of it and read from the old and new testament at the same time. The new testament is so full of rich, “growth” stuff that I wasn’t getting much benefit from it cause it took so long to get there. Now I try to read one chapter from the old & one from the new (in order, of course :)). It really doesn’t take that long and some days I don’t get it in but most days I do. I figure I can get through the new testament twice while I am going through the old testament. And, that works for me.
I did laugh hard with the “bad eyes” story not at you but with you. I was pretty bad myself 400/20!!! In fact it was so bad I could not hear with out my glasses on (weird I know) but I could hear the sounds better in the middle of the night if I had my glasses on. I had Lasik done 6 years ago and still to this day, I still feel the need to SCOOT my glasses up…
We love Christian movies, Facing the Giants was great. I love Heartbreak Ridge, pretty much any movie with Tommy Lee Jones in it.
I love yard sales, but I MUST REFRAIN!! only because we are moving to FLA this summer and the house is smaller then we are in now.
Will Mr.Ryan always have to have heart cath’s? Hope he feels better soon and no one else gets a cold.
Lisa – My eyes were 650/20 and 675/20…
Ryan will have to have his caths until his Fontan procedure at least. I’m not sure how often after that, but not every 6 months.
Oh my goodness that is a deficit in you old vision. I am now 7 years out and just now need a touch up, one eye has gotten a bit worse so I was given a small script if I want to wear them. The doctor also said he could make my other eye worse and it would be better, and for the life of me I don’t understand that, they explained it to me a few times, my hubby explained it to me and I dont get it, why not fix the eye to see better not the other to see worse, he said age has something to do with it too.
First time commenter, long time reader!
Here is a great website to help with the bible reading. My fabulous church started this in Jan, I’ve falling behind but still great way to do it!
http://www.oneyearbibleonline.com/
Laurin
Well, since I don’t have cable and have to resort to movies to fulfill my TV viewing quota, I have watched a lot of movies in the last 6-9 months. Really enjoyed “The Blind Side”, and “Precious” kindof gave me hope for some people (I guess it’s the social worker in me.) I have taken Seth to a few recently too, and we enjoyed “Avatar” and “How to Train Your Dragon”. Both in 3-D, which I think gives it a little extra bling, but the cost is a little much in my opinion. Two of my new-old favs are “Forrest Gump” to which I still cry every time, and “Nell” which speaks volumes about how to treat people that are different than you or that you may not understand. Touches my soul!
Richelle
Sadly the last movie that I remember being dumbfounded by its brilliance was Memento, over 8 years ago. The best rental was probably Tell No One or He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not. Both foreign “thrillers” 3.5-4 stars from me (out of 5).
I miss reading your blog… I caught up today and really enjoyed it. I miss you and am sorry that life is tough right now.