September 11th, 2009 by karibrodin
Today was orientation day for Tomboy Diva’s alternative school, and the beginning assembly (attended by students and their families) opened with a moment of silence honoring the heroes and victims of the terrorist attack of 9/11.
To my surprise, a lump formed in my throat and my eyes welled with tears. Eight years later, I still remember the anguish of that day.
Our day had begun calmly. It was a beautiful fall morning and our first day of school. Tomboy Diva was just 6, and beginning first grade. Doodlefairy was just 2 and Chatterbug a mere 6 months old. I had finished nursing the baby, and was calling my oldest to the school table when the phone rang.
It was my youngest sister calling. She lives with her family in Virginia, just across the Potomac from Washington DC. “I’m just calling to let you know that we’re all OK,” she said.
“That’s good,” I replied, puzzled. She evidently heard the confusion in my voice, because she told me to turn on the TV to see what had happened. She had more calls to make to other family. So I turned on the TV, and that marked the end of our first day of school.
I watched the second plane hit the Twin Towers. In anguish, with tears running down my face, I watched people jumping to their deaths to avoid burning in the flames. I cried out as I watched both towers collapse, knowing that anyone unfortunate enough to be still in the buildings (including many heroic policemen and firemen) could never survive such a thing.
I saw the damage done to the Pentagon, and the smoldering wreckage in a field in Pennsylvania, and I could not stop crying. All of those lives–gone. All of those families, now devastated by loss. Photos of the missing, the recordings of 911 calls and quick calls home to say goodbye–all these stories pierced me, but it seemed important to hear them, to honor them in my viewing and my listening.
And even today … eight years later … I remember. I remember and pray that the souls lost on that day found peace with their Creator. I also remember and pray that the American people do not forget that evil exists, and that it visited us on that day.
We must never forget.
August 25th, 2009 by karibrodin
As someone dealing with a chronic health issue, I have had far more contact with doctors and medical personnel than anyone should have. I know I’m not alone in this, and I’m not asking for sympathy. I mention it because it provides some credibility for my next statements:
- Medicine is as much an art as a science.
- Doctors don’t know as much as they think they know.
I don’t hate doctors. In fact, I like most of my doctors very much, and believe them to be well-intentioned in their treatment of me. But the fact remains that many times, they just don’t have answers to my questions. In fact, one of the side effects of dealing with my health issues has been the realization that not only do doctors not have ALL the answers, sometimes it seems they have very FEW answers.
I have friends whose firstborn son was born with part of his brain outside his skull. The doctors could do nothing but remove the tissue, and they told my friends that their son would be a complete “vegetable” who would never walk, or talk, or be able to do anything at all.
That “vegetable” is now an adult who enjoys baseball, reading the newspaper, and reading aloud to kids at the local elementary school.
If you think about it, you can probably come up with some similar stories of people you know who were told one thing by their doctors, but experienced something completely different. The plain, simple truth is that doctors often make their best guesses, and while they may be educated guesses, guesses they remain.
This is just one of the reasons why I hate the whole idea of government-run health care. The language in the House bill on health care reform indicates that treatment decisions would be made by bureaucrats based on the latest “science” available. But medicine is as much an art as it is a science, and this reality would not be reflected or considered in the new world order proposed by Obama and democrats.
This is why I continue to oppose the “public option” or any other government interference in health care (i.e., government run or controlled “coops”). There are so many other things we could do to try and improve the system–things that would cost far less and help so much more than a government power grab ever could.
We are in danger of losing our liberty to seek the medical care that makes sense to us, and doctors risk losing the “art” of their profession. There are many, many other good reasons to oppose government health care schemes (the immense costs on top of an already-burdened economy, for one), but the loss of liberty is a big one for me.
I hope it is for you, too. If it is, DO something. Phone or email your representatives. Register your opinion with the power brokers. They may not listen, but we have to try!
August 4th, 2009 by karibrodin
One of my greatest griefs last summer came from realizing that, given the tenuous nature of my health status, I could not commit to homeschool my three daughters for the school year. I cried whenever I thought about it. In fact, the girls handled the whole concept a lot better than I did.
On the first day of school last September, I asked Chatterbug if she wanted me to walk with her to her classroom. She thought about it and then said, “No, I don’t think so. You’ll probably cry and then I’ll be embarrassed. I’ll just walk with my friends.”
OK, then. (She was probably right.) For the next month, I wandered around my empty house during the day, not knowing what to do with myself. It felt like an early version of “empty nest syndrome.” It was a little pathetic, I know.
Why was it such a big deal to me? I’ll tell you why. It’s simple, reallly.
We’ve homeschooled from the very beginning of the school years, and I’ve grown to love it.
- I love planning the curriculum for the year.
- I love seeing the lights go on when my children finally understand a concept.
- I love the fact that I’m the one who taught them to read, and to write, and their math facts.
- I love the flexible, relaxed lifestyle of homeschooling.
- I love that they get to learn from real life events, and that I can take advantage of “teachable moments.”
- I love that they get to spend the day together, cementing those sisterly bonds.
- I love that I get to spend each day with them, since I’m all too aware that no one knows how many days we’ll get!
- I love that we can take vacations whenever we want.
- I love that my kids can learn at their own pace.
- I love that they don’t have to take the stupid WASL test, but can take a nationally standardized test that gives me real information I can use.
- I love the fact that I can ignore the experimental and new-fangled theories of education developed by academics with too much time on their hands and too many government grants to insulate them from the real world, and use the stuff that really works (you know … like phonics, and regular arithmetic concepts!) (Yes, I was a victim of “new math.”)
Amen.
Really, when all is said and done, I’m a homeschooler at heart. And it just GRIEVED me to think that my homeschooling days might be over.
Unlike many homeschoolers, I never planned to homeschool my kids. I kind of “fell into” homeschooling when Tomboy Diva turned five and I started researching the local elementary school. But I made the mistake of telephoning the local school and asking some questions. When I asked to observe a kindergarten class, it became painfully clear that they did not want me to do so. In fact, they sort of acted like I had requested permission to bring toxic material onto the school grounds. This made me uncomfortable, and raised some red flags. I didn’t understand why a responsible parent would be made to feel unwelcome.
Then I received the scope and sequence of the kindergarten curriculum in the mail. My five-year-old had already been doing everything on the list for about a year and a half. What was she going to learn?
These two events caused me to re-think the options, and so Hermit Crab and I decided to homeschool Tomboy Diva. (Hermit Crab has always been a bit counter-cultural, so he jumped right on this!) We kept right on homeschooling while Doodle Fairy and Chatterbug came along. And although the first few years were a little rough while we were finding our way, my kids have thrived in our homeschool environment, and Hermit Crab has been an enthusiastic and involved supporter.
The girls did very well in the public school system this year, but I missed our family school. We found out at the end of August that I didn’t have the horrible disease they thought I had, and my arrhythmias responded well to the meds I was on. I began to harbor hopes of returning to homeschooling, but alas, Hermit Crab did not seem to be on board with the idea.
So I went over his head, and started praying. 
In fact, because I wasn’t sure if homeschooling was just my own desire, or truly something God initiated in me, I prayed that God would use Hermit Crab to guide me. If he brought up homeschooling again as a possibility, I would take that as a green light and begin the discussion. If he did not, I would let it go. In the meantime, I resolved that I would not bring it up or mention it in any way, positive or negative.
I have to confess that I wasn’t hopeful. This “fleece” that I laid out before the Lord felt like no sure thing. I knew what I wanted. I just didn’t know if that was what was best, or what God wanted for our family. So I prayed, expecting to wait for months before knowing anything. I shared this “fleece” with some of my prayer partners so they could pray along with me.
About a week later Hermit Crab–spontaneously and with no prompting from me–came right out and asked me if I thought we should return to homeschooling the girls. Well, DUH! You could have pushed me over with a feather! Mind you, up to this point he had been fairly negative on the idea. Turns out he was worried it would be too much for me and he didn’t want to overburden me.
But seriously … a week! I was prepared to sacrifice myself on the altar of intercessory prayer for months, but God, in His great mercy, only made me wait a WEEK. (I hope that doesn’t say anything about His opinion of my ability to persevere in prayer!)
So we’re back to homeschooling for this next year, and I couldn’t be happier. True, it’s a lot of work, but this last year has shown me that sending the kids to public school did not actually give me that much more time to work at my freelancing (another reason for the change) or save me much work or time–it just changed WHEN I worked on stuff and WHAT I spent my time doing. I’m using this summer to try and simplify and streamline my life to help with the workload for the school year.
But I’m very excited and grateful to God to be able to homeschool again!
July 18th, 2009 by karibrodin
Here’s another amusing story from the Chatterbug files:
Hermit Crab and Chatterbug were downstairs together early the other morning. While Hermit Crab made some breakfast, Chatterbug decided to watch one of those early morning kid TV shows where adults dress up in costumes, pretend to be rock stars playing instruments, and dance around. Just when the song started up, Chatterbug turned the volume all the way down.
Hermit Crab: Why did you turn the sound off?
Chatterbug: (spoken in a rather condescending tone) Dad, they’re not really PLAYING those instruments! They’re trying to fool thousands of 3- and 4-year-olds.
Hermit Crab: They’re just having fun and pretending. Aren’t you being kind of critical?
Chatterbug: (matter-of-factly) It’s OK, Dad, I like to criticize. But since Mom doesn’t like me to be critical around the house, I just thought I’d get it out of my system now!
July 17th, 2009 by karibrodin
Read it here (Health Care Mythology @ stumblingontruth).
If you agree with what he says (as I do), then it’s time to call your senators and representatives and tell them NOT to pass this joke of a health care reform bill! I’m serious about this. CALL THEM NOW!
By the way, if you don’t call and this monstrosity of a “health care reform bill” passes, you have forfeited the right to complain when your taxes go way up, your doctors (and private insurance) go away, and your desperately needed surgery gets scheduled for ten years from next Saturday.
Just sayin’.
June 25th, 2009 by karibrodin
I knew I had been avoiding my blogging responsibilities, but I was a little shocked to see it had been over a month between yesterday’s post and the one before it.
It’s not that I hadn’t thought about blogging … I did.
It’s not that I couldn’t think of anything to blog about. I had more topics than time to address them.
It’s not that I suddenly decided that I hated blogging and wasn’t going to do it anymore. Because I didn’t.
But I felt decidedly unmotivated, and possibly even a little depressed. A busy schedule, made busier by the necessary end-of-school-year events and acted out against a backdrop of depressing political events and economic news (both national and international), has made me feel both exhausted and sad, like there’s little I can say that will make much of a difference. I even wondered whether I should continue to blog.
Instead, I’ve been feeling a heavy burden to pray … for our country and our soldiers; for the people of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Iran; for all the dear friends I know who are fighting cancer or other, equally serious health problems; for friends struggling to find work or to pay their mortgages; for my children and their futures; for my own attitudes and future … it seems that, lately, prayer is my only refuge.
I guess when the choice came down to whether I should blog or pray, I chose prayer. What can I say? I think it was the wiser choice.
But I’m grateful for those of you who have stuck around and who bother to read what I write. I hope you find some help or benefit in the reading of it! I’ll try not to neglect the blogging for so long in the future.
In the meantime, why don’t you join me in praying for our country, our soldiers, our president, our economy, and for God’s will to be done. In case you need a little encouragement, remember this:
If my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land. 2 Chronicles 7:14
June 24th, 2009 by karibrodin
Note: This is part of an ongoing series. You can find parts 1, 2 and 3 of this series under the Spiritual disciplines and Prayer categories. I recommend that you read them before reading this, if you haven’t done so already. It will help give you context.
I agreed to meet with Mary and my friend at Mary’s house. Mary, a cheerful and kind woman in her 70s, welcomed me and we chatted for a while, just normal “getting to know you” conversation. After 30 minutes or so, Mary’s questions became more probing as she asked me about my life, my history, my understanding of God, and my feelings about what was happening with me. The combination of my desperate anxiety and her genuine interest caused me to be more open than I normally might have been with a stranger, and after about 2 hours of conversation, Mary asked if she could pray for me.
Well, I wasn’t going to turn down anybody’s prayers, so I said yes. Mary stood, placed her hands on my head and proceeded to pray out loud in a language I did not understand.
After Mary prayed in “tongues” for a few minutes, she then prayed for me in regular, good old American, which I could understand. And it was during that part of her prayer that the most amazing thing happened to me. I’ll never forget it.
When Mary prayed that “the love of God would be released to do its full work” in me, that knot of anxiety which had occupied the center of my stomach for the last 14 months just dissolved into peace, and I could literally feel it melt inside of me. It felt like a huge sigh after holding your breath for too long. I have never felt anything like that in my life, and I consider it one of the few miracles I’ve experienced first-hand.
(Side note: Now I know that people–especially Christian people–have many strong opinions about the spiritual gift of “tongues” as it’s called. And although I myself have never spoken in tongues, the fruit of Mary’s prayer in my life has convinced me that God uses all sorts of people with all sorts of gifts to accomplish His purposes here on earth. I do not presume to tell God what gifts He can or cannot give, or can or cannot use. OK, soapbox moment is over.)
But we weren’t done with the praying yet. After Mary prayed for me and I felt that release of anxiety, we chatted for just a minute. Then Mary said to me, “OK, now it’s your turn to pray.” Uncomfortable and somewhat self-conscious, I launched into one of my “standard, pray-out-loud” prayers. I hadn’t gotten more than 3 sentences into it (and I felt it was going pretty well) when Mary said, “STOP! You’re praying all wrong. Pray like this …” and she proceeded to go on and on and on for what seemed like an eternity while I tried (and failed) to memorize her words so I could get it right. After all, this woman seemed to have some connection to God that I wanted in my own life.
“OK, now try again!” Mary said. Gamely, I tried to recite Mary’s words back to her, but finally stopped and just admitted my failure to her: “I can’t remember what you said.”
Somewhat exasperated, Mary told me, “It’s not in the exact words you pray, but in the attitude reflected in your words. Whenever you pray, you keep asking God to help you have more faith, or to help you to have peace, or to help you to trust in His love.”
And suddenly, I got it! My prayers were all about ME, ME, ME! I wanted God to help ME while I retained control of the agenda. Mary pointed out to me that I could not do any of it … I should not be asking God to HELP me with anything; rather, I should be asking God to just handle it all for me, because I was helpless to handle it myself.
It’s a simple concept, but this one shift in attitude–from “God help me to (fill in the blank)” to “God, I can’t handle this, so I lay it at Your feet and ask You to handle it for me”–has made a HUGE difference in my prayer life.
That encounter and lesson on prayer from Mary became a “turning point” for me, both in anxiety management and also in my health. It’s not that I no longer became anxious, but I had learned how to immediately pray and give that over to God for handling. I no longer pretended that I had any idea or hope of handling it myself.
Looking back, I also see now that it was the beginning of the healing of my heart. Up to that point, the echocardiograms had remained distressingly the same. My next echocardiogram would show the first real signs of improvement. In fact, when he phoned me with the results, my cardiologist sounded shocked, using words like “remarkable” to describe the improvement in my heart function and admitting he had no explanation for it. I think that after the previous 18-24 months of virtually no change in my heart function, they had assumed I’d live with chronic dysfunction of my heart until I died.
What I didn’t know then (and have only recently figured out) was that it was also a turning point in a larger story of my life … the story of this journey of prayer. That night, right there in Mary’s living room, God began something in me that He continues to this day. But that’s a story for another day …
May 21st, 2009 by karibrodin
If you want an alternative view on the health care plan currently being proposed by the Obama administration, you should check out this interview with Sally Pipes on NRO. She calls the current plan being proposed by Democrats a “classic bait-and-switch” plan. I agree.
Here in Washington state we are familiar with this tactic, as our own Democrat-controlled government continually proposes new taxes needed for (insert name of critical emergency or infrastructure program or project here) while they continue to blithely spend our money on their pet welfare and ineffective “green” programs and international jaunts for Queen Christine Governor Gregoire and her entourage. They also make endless promises that THIS additional gas tax will finally solve the traffic problems that have plagued our state for as long as I can remember. And we keep falling for it!
Instead of our already high taxes going to fund necessary government services (police, firemen, roads and other infrastructure, free and fair elections, education), we instead get bonds and levies each election cycle which threaten us with reduced services in these important areas if we don’t pass said tax increases. We also get “vote by mail” elections, known to make vote fraud easier to commit, but hey, it’s cheaper, right? Who cares if dead Uncle Leo voted five times in the last election. We wouldn’t want to disenfranchise him, now would we?
Errr … ummmm … rant is over. Back to the health care topic. The state of American health care is one I’m intimately familiar with … for all the wrong reasons! Hence, it’s something I also feel passionately about.
I agree that health care is a necessary part of life, but that does not make it a right. I think one of the problems we have in our society is everyone trying to make everything a right, an entitlement, if you will. Hey, why don’t we decide everyone should just have a red Ferrari and call it a right? Saying that something is a right only promotes an entitlement mentality, but does nothing to make it possible for everyone to have one. (Hey! Where’s my red Ferrari? Everyone else has one? I need one, too!)
It also assumes that everyone needs and/or desires a red Ferrari. But what if I want a blue Jeep, or a yellow Volkswagen bug? Or what if I don’t like motor vehicles and prefer to ride a bike?
If a red Ferrari is a right which the government must provide, then the only way to do that would be to take over the auto industry (check!), start telling them what they have to produce (red Ferraris — or Fiats, take your pick…check!), and then eliminate the competition so that everyone MUST have their red Ferrari, whether they want it or not. And of course, because government can’t afford for EVERYONE in the country to have a red Ferrari, we have to ration them out to only those most deserving. And we have to make them cheaper, so we cut corners on costs, making the Ferrari more like a Fiat. Ba da boom, ba da bing! You have socialized the automobile industry.
Those who want yellow Volkwagens or blue Jeeps are out of luck. There won’t be any of those left. And because bikes also represent competition to the government-provided Ferraris, they will also be highly controlled and/or regulated out of existence. We’ll all have to go to Canada or another country just to be able to drive the vehicle of our choice.
This is a clumsy metaphor, but the point here is that a government takeover of health care will lead to rationing of health care and loss of health care options. You think the government is intrusive now? Just wait until they’re paying your medical bills, or telling you that your health care is too expensive and you’re not worth it. Think it doesn’t happen? Think again.
I know that ObamaCare proponents argue that we will still have private care options, but I think that’s either ignorance or a lie. Once the government starts offering “freebies,” more and more people will join up, making the costs of private insurance skyrocket out of control (more than they already have!) and then NOBODY will be able to afford it.
In our household, we pay a sizable chunk of our monthly income for health care insurance for me and the kids. I have very good coverage (grandfathered in under a high-option HMO plan which I don’t dare drop due to my health issues) and the kids have minimal insurance with high deductibles. We pay roughly the equivalent of a second mortgage each month for this health insurance. And if the kids get sick, or go to the ER, or need anything other than well-child checkups, we pay out of pocket. Between last year and this year, we’ve had thousands of dollars in extra health care expenses, above and beyond the “mortgage” payment we make each month.
So it’s not like we couldn’t use the break financially. We’d probably come out ahead, money-wise, if ObamaCare passes. But it’s the intangibles involved–like the loss of privacy, the loss of freedom of choice, and the diminished quality (and availability) of health care–that concern me more.
We need people in this country to wake up and understand that THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A FREE LUNCH! OK, so we have people who are uninsured in this country. A significant percentage of them choose to be uninsured. That may be stupid, but they have the freedom to choose that road. They should not be forced to be insured.
If we take some of the steps that Pipes talks about in the interview–like making health-care reforms patient-centered with health care choices controlled by patients and their doctors, and institute some sort of tort reform–we could do a lot to reduce our costs AND improve our care. And reducing our costs would also make it possible for those without insurance to get it.
I encourage you to read The Top Ten Myths of American Health Care by Pipes and think about her arguments. Then consider whether you will like living under ObamaCare if (or maybe I should say when) you get sick, and whether other options may serve us better in the long run.
Get informed, get involved, and let your voice be heard now, or ObamaCare will be our future. And that’s just plain scary.
May 10th, 2009 by karibrodin
On Mother’s Day 2008, I enjoyed my traditional “breakfast in bed” — brought to me by an orderly. I was finishing up the better part of a week in the hospital while they monitored my heart rhythms and tried to decide what to do about the ventricular tachycardia I was having. I was discharged later that day … one of the best Mother’s Day presents I’ve ever received.
Today, I also enjoyed my traditional “breakfast in bed” — this time delivered by a loving husband and daughters … much preferred to an impersonal hospital orderly.
I am so grateful to still be here, available to be a mother my daughters and to enjoy watching them grow up into the fine young women they are becoming. Even as I grieve a little at each new milestone, I also breathe a sigh of relief and a prayer of thanksgiving to God for giving me this time with my family.
I don’t know what the future holds for me; truly, no one does. But for now, I am grateful for the time I have been given and for little blessings like breakfast in bed–delivered by family members instead of strangers in scrubs.
April 29th, 2009 by karibrodin
Here are some interesting links for you to peruse today …
I can’t tell if this post about Dick Cheney is serious, parody, or serious parody! But it’s an interesting read, nonetheless. Here’s an excerpt of one of my favorite parts:
Nobody knows what Dick Cheney did all day — but whatever it was, it was certainly important. Whenever the government said the Vice President was in a secure, undisclosed location, we pictured Cheney racing through the tunnels under the Greenbrier resort, through the supposedly decommissioned fallout shelter and secret command center entombed beneathe that isolated swath of West Virginia, plotting and scheming and keeping terrorists awake at night, wondering when Darth Cheney would strike and how many of them would live to tell their tales the next day.
Dick Cheney, as Vice President, was the twisted, relentless, ruthless love child Batman and the Penguin biologically could never have. He may even be a robot sent from the future to keep us all from harm. He was, without question, the exact Vice President needed at just the right moment in history. Who knows what he was up to, but we’re certain, 100%, that it helped keep this nation safe for the last eight years.
I like this summary of the questions and issues surrounding the unnecessary scare New Yorkers faced this week, thanks to this White House photo op stunt. Who was taking the pictures? Must’ve been the pilot in the fighter following the jet … that’s not too much to ask, is it? Fly this tremendously complex fighter plane lower than you should over a major city and while you’re at it, snap a few 4×6’s for posterity’s sake? Can’t say that I buy into any of the administration’s statements on this. A photo op? Really? Something doesn’t add up here.
And of course, the media is all abuzz with the whole “100 days of Obama” coverage, doing their usual objective lap dog coverage about how successful and popular Obama is. I’m confused, though; some polls say he’s more popular than his predecessors at 100 days, while others claim he’s less popular than those same predecessors. Looks like that old quote could be changed to read: “There are lies, damn lies, and statistics polls.”
But enough of politics!
If you’re looking for something meaty to chew on, then you’ll want to head over to this post at The Doctor Is In blog. It’s not an easy read, but it is well worth reading.
I love this little slice of life from The Pioneer Woman. Made me laugh out loud (especially the pictures toward the end)! The Pioneer Woman is one of my favorite sites because she makes me laugh. I aspire to be her, except I’m not as funny as she is and I don’t live on a ranch in the middle of nowhere with 4 children, countless cows, and the Marlboro Man. But maybe I could manage to be The Suburban Woman? Whaddya think?
And, as usual, Big Mama made me laugh out loud in this post AND in this post.
Go ahead and read them all. You know you want to!
UPDATE:
Hmmm … this post at Commentary is interesting … and this post at Wizbang is infuriating, if true. Unfortunately, it’s all too believable, when it SHOULD be laughable and ridiculous.
