This was a tough decision to make – I’ve really enjoyed working for Duck Creek, but now that the decision is made, I’m very much looking forward to this next chapter.

Yesterday Allena and I went shopping for Christmas, and we left all the kids at home with Dominic.  It was almost like a date.  We stopped at a couple of stores, and while walking back to our car, this homeless lady asked us for some money.  We didn’t have any cash, but we offered to take her to get her something to eat.  She turned us down, but you could tell she was interested in the idea.

I think most people would have taken the out, but we pressed her, and she accepted.  We ended up at a Subway so we could get a hot sandwich for her.  My original thought was we’d get the sandwich and be on our way.  It ended up going very differently.  Once we got her to Subway, we couldn’t get her to order.  She wanted us to order, so we could all eat together.  (We of course, had eaten lunch just a little earlier).  I finally ended up ordering a foot-long sub, that we could share.  The guy working the counter gave her a bowl of soup – I guess he helps her out sort of regularly – and I got her some cookies as well.  I think she originally wanted to eat the soup, and just have company, but ultimately  I ate a quarter of the sandwich, and she ate a quarter of it.  We were unable to get her to take the left over half, or the cookies, or even the soup that the Subway guy gave her.  She even had a can of stew and two dollars that she tried to give us, but more on that later.

By this time Allena and I had both come to the conclusion that this lady was a little “off”.  She wanted to show us where she slept (NB: in hindsight, it was stupid of us to go with her to her little campsite – it could easily have been a setup for a mugging.  God looks after the idiots I guess).  She was proud of her cardboard, and she had a little bit of a piece of brush sticking out of the ground that she called her “Charlie Brown Christmas Tree”, and she had a rock she was really proud of – it had a fossil of a sea-shell in it that was perfectly heart shaped.  She had told us that she had a blanket and that it was hidden, but she flip-flopped on that one several times.  I think she didn’t have one.

We told her we wanted to get her a sleeping bag or some blankets.  She didn’t want any part of that.  She kept saying that cardboard was really pretty warm.  I finally told her that I was going to go get her a sleeping bag, and that I was going to bring it back to her campsite, and that if she didn’t want it she could give it away to somebody else.  So she came along to Walmart with us.  She kept worrying that we would be embarrassed by her.  Truth be told, I could see why she might worry – she said and did some pretty odd things, but nothing too bad.  My kids have done worse.

By the time we had the sleeping bag, it was after dark.  She had us take her to a place back behind a used car lot.  I guess they have a vehicle there that they don’t lock – she climbs in and sleeps in it on really cold nights.  It took her 20 minutes to finally get out of the car.  I think she really didn’t want to go.  We kept inviting her home with us, but she wouldn’t have it.

We spent a couple of hours with her all told.  We talked some about faith.  She said she’d never had time for God until she was homeless.  We invited her to church with us.  Again, she was worried that she’d embarrass us or that her clothes would not be good enough.  She finally agreed to be picked up to go to church with us today.  We all dressed down – jeans and t-shirts, so she wouldn’t feel uncomfortable.  I didn’t even shave.  She didn’t show up at the place we were supposed to meet, which we half-way expected to happen anyway.

The whole thing has had me very thoughtful since.  I’ve worried about our debts and such, but we still have a house, and 3 vehicles, and more food than we can eat, and the list of our blessings goes on and on.  This gal had the clothes on her back and some cardboard and a couple of rocks, and that. is. it.  I’ve worried about how I won’t be able to spend that much on my kids for Christmas, and she doesn’t have any one to even share Christmas dinner with.  We gave her a nice gift of a sleeping bag if you want to call that a Christmas gift, but she was worried about taking it because she was afraid somebody else would just steal it from her.

It really leaves me with a low opinion of myself.  Not the fact that I helped her out as much as I could (and as much as she’d let us).  I just feel like I must be incredibly spoiled because my worries are petty compared to hers.

What would it be like to spend a week on the street?  She said she’d been there just over a year.  Could I make it a week?  Would I beg for food or money?  I have so many other resources – family, friends, etc. that I’d have to exhaust a *lot* of possibilities before I was on the street.  Plus, I have sense enough to make use of the services available to homeless people – but how long would that last?  I think this lady’s mental problems are probably due to being alone and being scared for a long long time.

I guess I’ll close.  I still feel this swimming circles in my head, but I can’t think of anything else to say.  Say a prayer for the homeless if you read this.  And remember the phrase “there, but for the grace of God, go I”.

The following is a quote from the book The War of Art by Steven Pressfield:

Creating soap opera in our lives is a symptom of Resistance…Sometimes entire families participate unconsciously in a culture of self-dramatization. The kids fuel the tanks, the grown-ups arm the phasers, the whole starship lurches from one spine-tingling episode to another. And the crew knows how to keep it going. If the level of drama drops below a certain threshold, someone jumps in to amp it up…It’s more fun than a movie. And it works: Nobody gets a damn thing done.

The follow up quote to that (which is what really struck me on a personal level) is from the author of the blog I read (Conversion Diary):

I think the primary difference is that Resistance drama is ego-focused, whereas the healthy ups and downs of the spiritual life are God-focused. When I get mired in bad drama I withdraw into a tiny solar system with my blazing ego at the center, where I fixate on who said what that offended me, whether people will think what I’m doing is great or terrible, whether what I do is good or bad in comparison to other people’s work…and I give nothing back to the world. I’m a black hole. Paralyzed by Resistance. Whereas on the occasions that I’m swept up in positive drama, I’m more focused on God than myself, more concerned with helping people than comparing myself to them, and, most tellingly, I’m still creating. I’m still giving something back to the world.

I see a lot of “ego” based resistance drama in my life (sadly).  It’s something I need to work on, and I thought this was expressed eloquently enough that it was worth sharing.

There was the time I jumped off a really tall rock spire at Lake Havasu into the lake.  The spire was probably 50-100 feet tall.  That was crazy-stupid at the time, but it’s crazy-awesome in my mind now.

Then there was the time I joined the army – more or less on a whim.  I followed that up with moving to Colorado with Allena and Nick, and getting settled in there in an apartment with eleven bucks between us for food, and no jobs.  Definitely crazy-adventurous.

One time, Allena and I gave a car to a girl that did a lot of babysitting for us.  It was a crappy car, but it ran, and she was 16 and was tickled to get it.  Crazy-cool.

The stuff where the men in white get called I don’t talk about too much…but Allena knows.  She’s saved me more than once.

A few days ago I started having another crazy idea.  I’ve been thinking about training to run a marathon.  Now I’m a big guy – 6’4″ or so and pushing 290lbs at the moment (thank you sooo much Depakote.  Not.), and I get shin splints, and I’m currently having some fun with plantar fasciitis, and on top of that I doubt I have the money to spare for good running shoes.  So, why would I do such a crazy thing?  I want to get in shape and lose weight…and I think this will help.  I’ve been struggling with depression (thank you again Depakote and Keppra too!) and I think it will help with that too.  But I think mostly because I want to say I accomplished something that not that many people have done (relative to the population of the world of course).

So what do you think?  Crazy?  Should I go for it, or not?

P.S. – Jerome – if you get around to reading this, you and your triathlon’s are a big inspiration!

• Staying up too late
• Not taking the medication to help you go to sleep (so you sit and breathe through the CPAP and stare at the ceiling for an hour or more)
• Seizures/episodes/whatever – I’m still not sure what these dumb things are
• Crying children that have decided to be awake at 3:00am
• Having to use the bathroom
• Dogs barking (and sounding like they’re in your yard, even when they’re not)

So, as far as I’m concerned the jury is still out on the CPAP machine.  I think if I ever get to sleep all the way through the night, it’ll be a big help.  :)

Another bit of upsetting news from Friday – I had a biopsy done on a rather ugly mole, and it turns out it’s cancerous.  It’s a basal cell carcinoma (which I think is Latin for “big ugly mole”) and is technically malignant, although they almost never spread to other parts of the body.  Normally I would not have found it that upsetting, since my goal was to get it removed anyway and this just confirms that it was a good goal.  But put on top of the other news about more EEG tests…well it just kind of sunk me into a pit.

I’m feeling better today though.  The day started pretty early – our neighbor shot a doe and called to ask if we wanted it.  We all like venison, so the day started pretty early with skinning/gutting a dear, but it was a good time all the same.  We also had some folks over that are buying a couple of sheep from us, and they were really nice.

Tomorrow I get to do another sleep study.  It turns out I have sleep apnea after all, so tomorrow they will be putting me on a CPAP machine and getting it adjusted to me.  I’m really, REALLY looking forward to this.  I’m extremely hopeful that I will actually start SLEEPING through the night again – something that hasn’t happened since the seizures started.

Trying to stay positive!

That may sound odd, but in a way I was hoping my sleep problems were due to apnea and they could put me on a CPAP machine and it would be this magic bullet that just fixed everything.  So I’m kind of back to square one, in not knowing why I don’t sleep well.

The technician who was monitoring me was kind enough to take a picture for me and mail it to me – I thought it would be good for laughs.  If you look closely, you can even see the red “L” on my forehead.  I’ll let you decide for yourselves what that stands for :)

All wired up

Elizabeth is definitely on the mend.  She does *not* want to lay around and rest, she wants to get outside and play.  She forgets that she’s still hurt, but gets the occasional reminder when somebody bumps her arm.  We keep telling her to go easy, but she must be using a different definition of “easy” than we are.  She has another appointment with the orthopedic surgeon today – I imagine she’ll have quite a few of these follow-ups to do x-rays on her elbow to ensure everything is mending correctly.  Very encouraging all-in-all.

My seizures are definitely coming under control.  Most days I have a handful (read: 10-20) of “shivers”, especially at the end of the day or during stressful times, but even if you were looking for them you’d never notice them.  I can feel them of course, but from the outside they’d be almost invisible.  I still have a bigger one once in a while but not daily any more.  Last Thursday (Friday? not sure), with the help of a couple of Benadryl, I slept through the entire night for the first time in about four months.  If you’ve never gone an extended period of time without a good nights sleep you don’t know how wonderful that really is!   I also got my blood tested last week to check the med-levels in it, so I hope to hear back on that today or tomorrow.  The doc may or may not increase my dosage depending on the results of that test.

I may still be on the emotional roller coaster – I may just be on an “up” part right now, but I’ll take it! ;)

I feel like calling the neurologist and saying “crank up the dosage another 1000mg and lets get these suckers knocked out!”.  :)  That’s probably not a good idea, but I feel pretty optimistic all-in-all.

Today has not gone so well.  I was getting a ride to work with a co-worker, and that apparently isn’t going to work anymore.  Having to depend on other people to get around has got me pretty down.  For the first time in years I find myself wishing I lived in a larger city that had buses – and I really don’t care to ride the bus.