Running On Empty...No More

The past several weeks have been a little difficult, to say the least. I've been sicker by the day as my gallbladder removal approaches, which makes time crawl by. Why is that? Most of the time, my life whizzes by so fast that I'm looking for a brake pedal, but when I'm feeling lousy, the days drag on. I said to a friend recently that I'm just looking for the rainbow after the rain; but I have to wait for the rain to stop first. Chris' uncle, Chetty, has been fighting cancer for 2.5 years. We thought he was doing great, and then received word about three weeks ago that he was back in the hospital and the cancer was back and bigger and more fierce than ever. The doctors could do no more for him and hospice was to be set up for him to return home. He died this morning, surrounded by his beautiful family - his wife, Carol, and four daughters. When I say "beautiful", the word does not even begin to describe this family. Yes, they are pretty to look at - all

I easily looked up an area code this morning to identify where a call came in from last night. I identified the state and time zone in a flash, which prevented me from accidentally waking somebody up at 6 am Pacific time. It is fantastic that I could do this so quickly and without much effort; and as I think about the information available at my fingertips daily, I'm in awe of the volume of information out there as well as the speed at which we can access it. But there are times that I wonder, does there have to be  so much info out on the net? Last night I read into the wee hours of the morning all about gallstones - causes, treatments, problems after treatment. And what I've read was disturbing, as well as confusing at times. It reminds me of Billy Joel's song, We Didn't Start the Fire.  I was in college when BJ released this song. There are too many facts spewed out all at once and most of the events I cannot decipher. Did he say face monkey and bacon Reagan? Or w

Six months were spent planning our family's most glorious vacation to date, and the two weeks we spent together were gone long before we wanted the time to end. We saw some of the most beautiful scenery, ate some of the best food, and spent some of the best time together - away from the noise of our lives - the noise of schedules, computers, obligations, and commitments. I captured our time together with over 500 photos (a little hobby of mine) and plan on turning some of them into art for our home. A daily reminder of the quiet of early morning sunrises and fullness of the love of my family will sustain us until our next get away, except it's going to be difficult to top this one. The two pictures shown here have significance in the promise I made to myself several months ago - to really start taking care of myself and get rid of some of the unnecessary noise in my life. The first is the sunrise from Cadillac Mountain in Acadia Park, Maine. Twice, Chris and I rose at 4:00 am