Giving up the guilt

Today, I am giving up the guilt of taking the afternoon off from work. Usually, I feel guility if I am not here by 7:00 a.m. and feel even worse if I leave before 5 p.m. On Wednesdays, I am running out of the door at 4 p.m. because I am on duty at the rescue squad but then spend all of the time that we are in the station on my lap top catching up on work.

However, for today, I am absolving myself myself from the guilt and leaving early. Thanks to global warming or a freaky winter or what ever reason you choose to believe, my allergies have started taking their toll earlier than usual and I would just like to have a love affair with a few benedryl and my pillow. And, with our departure date looming large, I have a few errands that need to be taken care of before leaving for Ireland.

So - for 4 hours today I am givng up the guilty of not being at work.

Today I gave up some dollars

So in the spirit of giving something up for the next 40 or so days, today I gave up quite a hefty amount to Hertz car rental in Ireland. Automatic transmission cars are a luxury in Europe, which come with a luxury price tag. However, since John will be driving, I have "gave in" (note the play on words on "give up") and gave up the money to Hertz for an automatic car. Our luxury car? A Nissan Micra, no larger than a golf cart. I might have given in to the automatic car but I was not giving up all of our travel budget to Europe.

Wedneday, February 22 - Ash Wednesday musings

Today is Ash Wednesday and the beginning of the Lenten season. I was raised Southern Baptist so the act of "giving up" something was not practiced in the Baptist Church. However, I always believed in the symbolism of Lent and self-sacrafice. Many people "give up" or do something for Lent because it is what they've always done or everyone else is doing it. There have been years that I have skipped Lent because what I decided to give up was trival or for one reason or another, I was not feeling very spiritual or faithful that year.

So as Mardi Gras came to a close, the annual question arose - what to give up? In a conversation with a student, he shared that one year his priest suggested that instead of giving up a thing, give up a few moments of time to the betterment of one's self. Give up 15 minutes to read the Bible or to pray or to journal. It was an interesting twist on "giving up." My student decided to "give up" a few moments of the medical exam to ask one non-medical question of his patients.

This got me thinking about what time I could give up. What is doable? What can I achieve? I could give up 10 minutes of sleep to do crunches and pushups or I could give up 60 minutes of work each week to have lunch with a co-worker.

I certainly need to give up sugar in some form or another but is that really self-sacrificing or is that just another way of saying I need to clean up my eating habits. And, I need to do that with or without Lent.

I still have a few more hours to decide what to "give up.

A child can often say it better than an adult

This poem was recently sent to me by a friend. It was written by Dylan Coldiron, a fifth grader who recently lost a very dear friend to pancreatic cancer. Dylan had to write a poem for school about something he would like to change about the world we live in.

A change to better our world: Cure Cancer

Cancer is something that dogs, cats, and people have had,
it is something that makes people really, really sad,
it makes you weak it makes you down,
and this makes me upset to see people frown,
lots of times people who have it will die,
it is something that makes tough people cry,
it is not funny, its horrific and true,
I don’t want to see it, it makes me blue,
there’s not anything you can do because it happens so fast,
it takes people from the present and puts them in the past,
my wish to help the world is to make cancer go away
so that people stop dying from cancer today
I wish that I could find a cure to make them all healthy,
so they can drive, breathe, sing, and maybe get wealthy,
If I found a cure it would make me smile and be glad,
But it can’t take back the time that we could’ve had.

Wednesday, April 21 It's Clinic Day!

Wednesdays are quite possibly the best day of the week. Today was jumping in the ASK clinic. The treatment room was full, the patient rooms were full, the consult rooms were full and the waiting was full! I was so lucky to spend my lunch hour playing SORRY!, Memory, and with legos.

This week I also met Wilson. Wilson is two years old, recently diagnosed and an amazing child! He joined us and helped move my playing pieces while we played SORRY! I recently learned that the Reesestrong Foundation provided a new swing set for Wilson. With all of his amazing energy, he'll definitely make full use of it!

Saturday, April 17

Ah, another weekend of hill training. I hate it; however, my good friend who lives in San Diego said that I will appreciate the hill training when I finally get out there. Saturday's hill training consisted of a scenic run through Hollywood Cemetery.

My teammate Art and I were a bit scared of the hills that awaited us as we ran through the gates.

Charging up the FIRST hill.

Everyone always questioned why a polar bear showed up on the Island on LOST. How come no one has ever questioned a polar bear in Richmond?

Art still working on his Runner's World cover pose.

Friday, April 9 - Riverside Drive

So I've been slack about blogging. It all started out so well. Oh, well. 7 weeks until the race so I'll do my best to keep up until then!

Last week, Art and I tackled Riverside Drive for our 6 miles. You either love it or hate it because its all hell. I mean, hills. We had a great pace and ended up with a great time.

My teammate, Art, posing before we headed out. He's working on his pose for Runners World. We'll work on a better pose during this week's run.

We took a break and marveled at how far we had come since crossing the bridge!

Art's fancy camera caught me in mid-stride. I was going to so fast, I am amazed the image showed up!

Coming back across the bridge. Another mile and a half and we're done!