Welcome Tiannah

The baby is here!

Tiannah Leigh Mugler
Born 01-25-06 at 8:49 a.m.
6#11oz, 20.5 inches long
Mother and baby are well, at home, and resting.
Daddy and big brother Austin are doing great and are already pro's!

My friends Laura and Matt have wanted this baby for a long time.
This is a child who will never be short of love.

Poem for My Daughter

Jenn starts college this semester. She is a wonderful young woman. I am so fortunate and proud to have her as my daughter. I wish her a safe and successful journey through academia. May her many discoveries be filled with wisdom as well as knowledge.

Teaching My Daughter to Sing

"Goddess of words, goddess of voice,
Genetic backbone of our ancient grandmothers,
Let her find clarity of mind.
Let her feel the power of sound.
Let her learn the strength of voice,
her woman's voice."

We shall dance in circles
Of strong women
Where she can learn the steps
Of their sacred dance,
Borrow their energy,
And grow wise from their voices.
We shall dance in circles
Of strong women each singing
Their own song.

We shall dance in circles
Where she is safe
To sometimes be out of step,
To sometimes be off key.

We shall dance in circles
Of strong women
Where she can hear clearly songs
That dance within her mind alone,
Where she can boldly move in dances
Of her own making,
And sing with confidence songs
Unique to her voice alone.

Betty Becquart Sanders
©2006

Bad News/Good News

Well, the doctor phoned to say she found a mass. (Something about a thickening in the uterine wall.)
It is not big.

I am going in a week from Thursday to have a tissue sample taken.
It is outpatient and apparently not the most pleasant procedure in the world.

Send positive thoughts my way.

Yuck

Spent the morning at Deaconess Hospital getting poked and proded in ways I didn't know the human body could be polked and prodded. Yuck.
Hopefully, it's nothing serious. They want to know why my "baby basket" which shut down several years ago is suddenly sputtering and acting up. Won't know any results until Monday. I'm hoping it's more of an annoyance than anything else. It did bother me that everyone kept asking about how long ago I was on HRT (hormone replacement therapy) and for how long, etc. I quit several years ago because of the side effects. I wish I'd written all this stuff down somewhere. I'm terrible with remembering dates and how much time has passed.

The Advent of Theocratic Bureaucracy

"Christianity started out in Palestine as a fellowship;

it moved to Greece and became a philosophy;

it moved to Italy and became an institution;

it moved to Europe and became a culture;

it came to America and became an enterprise."

Sam Pascoe, American scholar.

Ashes and Snow

Click on the new weblink for "Ashes and Snow" below.
Once there click on "Portfolio". (Turn on your speakers)

These are the most beautiful and ususual photos I've seen in a long time. Very spiritual.

http://www.ashesandsnow.org/press-room.php

Damn It !!!

The fires have started up again.

I had hoped that the snow we had on the 10th would stop them.

On the news tonight they stated that this could continue through MAY!

Towns are beginning to report that their fire departments are running out of money.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/01/13/OK.wildfire.ap/index.html

Anybody out there know some really good rain dances?

My FRIENDS are at it again.

Kelli is playing with my head again.

What a hoot!

So much better than Nick Cage.

Now if I just had access to some of that money..

We've got SNOW!!!

So of course it is on a day when I'm going to be busy with work and meetings until 9 o'clock tonight!! I hate cold and I hate winter.

Daisy was tiptoeing cautiously around the backyard with snow up to her belly this morning.

Two days ago it was 75 degrees and I was walking.

Winter always feels like a stealth attack by Mother Nature. A woman with whom I usually have a good relationship. But on days like today it is difficult to think of her as anything but a backstabbing bitch.

My Secret Life

I am so distressed.
My life is being ripped open and cast into ruin by my supposed friends. Okay, ladies, I am naming names. Gena Showalter, Jill Monroe and Kelli McBride have tried to expose the link between me and my secret lover. (Long before Ben, of course.) In doing so they have created total falsehoods. TOTAL deceptions to support their cause.

I have NOT! I repeat ABSOLUTELY NEVER & HAVE NOT been involved with Nicholas Cage!!

If you will look very closely you will notice that "his" head doesn't match his body. That is really Brad Pitt, who I only wish I had an affair with. (Also before Ben, of course)

You need to also pay very close attention to "my" body in the photo. It is absolutely REAL. Yes. I am really that thin. Eat your heart out!

Betty S.

A Resurrection - of sorts

I found a friend, one of my students from work, today.
I know that doesn't sound like such a big deal, but I thought she was dead.

"M" went into the hospital on Tuesday morning for some serious surgery. She was suppose to be in surgery from 9:45 till 1 p.m.. She was really nervous. She has had a lot of health problems and the surgeon didn't want to operate because he felt she wouldn't live through the proceedure. Her MD talked him into it because it was her only chance. (Sorry I can't go into more detail) If she made it she was suppose to be in the hospital from 3-5 days recovering. I promised her I would visit on Thursday to check on her.

When I went to Deaconess they had no record of her. They suggested that she might be checked in as confidential, but I knew that wasn't the case. I was then told that if she hadn't survived the operation she would have never been checked into a room and there would be no record of her. I was really upset. I thought "M" had died and I wasn't there for her. I called the office, told my family and CPs. It was horrid.

All Thursday night I had a strong sense of her presence. I wasn't sure what it was. I'm still not sure. I had this compelling feeling that I had to reach her, but I thought she was dead so I was really confused as well as distraught. Our office Administrative Assistant became depressed too, and couldn't accept that "M" had died, so she began phoning different hospitals and asking if she was there. She FOUND her at BAPTIST! How weird is that? They had moved the surgery to a different hospital. I have no idea why. When I was told the great news Friday morning, it was like the resurrection of the dead.

I visited yesterday (Friday) morning and she was doing terrible. In addition, she was feeling very alone and frightened. It's been 4 days and she still has tubes poking out all over her. She is in a great deal of pain. She held onto my hand and didn't want me to leave, so I sat beside her and stroked her hand and tried to calm her. "It's hard, Betty. It's so hard. The pain is really bad."

Her eyes never opened more than half way and she was a little out of her head part of the time. Her mother didn't seem to know why she isn't improving. I suspect there must have been some complications. I promised I would check on her every day.

She asked for prayers to stay strong, be courageous, to heal and make the pain stop.

I'm passing that request along to all of you.
She is having a very difficult time.

Sweet Daisy

Meet my little doxy, Daisy.
She thinks she is a people.
We know it is a delusion but we humor her.
It makes her happy.

She was my mother’s day gift 2 years ago. My daughter found her on the internet at a Daschund rescue site. Someone had tossed her out of the window of a truck at 122 and May. She was bones covered with skin, had two scars near her eye, a broken tail and a deformed or broken ear. She was very remote at first and we were afraid she would never learn to trust humans.

Now she thinks she owns us and bosses us around. Let me in. Let me out. Give me food. Take me car ride. Or she lays on her back in all her cuteness and twists and turns waiving her paws in the air because she wants to play. I can always count on a late night, “Woof, Woof”, it’s time to go to bed. Of a morning my husband and I will wake up and she will be between us, under the covers, with her head on the pillow. (Isn’t that how people are suppose to sleep?)

When she comes inside, she checks the house till she knows where every member of the family is. If someone is missing she watches the front and garage doors until everyone is home. Now that Jenn is dating, it confuses her. If I go to bed before Jenn is home she fusses at me until I get her to settle down. She then lies on the end of the bed with her nose pointed in the direction of the front door until Jenn gets in. The family reports that she does the same when I’m gone. Sometimes she goes to the door and softly whines, obviously sad that she was left behind.

I enjoy watching how she interacts with everyone. I’ve never had a pet so full of love for her family. Having her with us has changed the family dynamic. All of us laugh often and focus on our struggles less and her more.

I guess there is nothing profound or interesting about this post, other than I love her and wanted to post that on the internet. The last time her photo was posted she had been thrown away and looked like a refugee from one of those starving villages in Africa.

Here we Go - 1st blog of 2006

I wanted to start the new year and this blog off with something really great, but with only 4 hours sleep last night this was the best I could do. This is going around and I had some fun thinking about it and filling it out. So, welcome to 2006, everyone. Here is the "dirt" on me.

The 7 Meme
Seven Things to Do Before I Die:


1 Write my books
2 Start a business
3 Read all the books I want
(It's my list. It doesn't have to be realistic!)
4 Travel More
5 Grow a successful veggie garden
(I have the blackest thumb in America. If I were a Pilgrim I would have starved to death the first year after I landed.)
6 Lose weight
7 Spend time with my grandchildren
(as yet unconceived)

Seven Things I Cannot Do:
1 Intentionally hurt people
2 Grow younger
3 Laugh enough or Love enough
4 Spend enough time with my family and friends
5 Have enough time to read
6 Spend enough time writing
7 Have a clean house
(You could move me into a mansion and I would quickly find a way to make it look like a storage closet)

Seven Things that Attract Me to My Best Friends (or significant other, etc.)
1 Sense of humor
2 Honesty
3 Tolerance
4 La joie de vivre
5 Compassion
6 Creative thinking
7 Dedication and Reasoned Loyalty

Seven Things I Say (or write!) Most Often
1 I love you
2 Shit
3 It's an adventure
4 How did that happen?
5 Is the internet down?
6 Write it on the grocery list.
(Or the variation, Was it on the grocery list?)
7 Let's go

Seven Books I Love
(There is no way humanly possible I can limit this without driving myself insane. I love them all equally so I will just list catagories.)
1 Romance (OKRWA Outlaws especially)
2 Science Fiction (Robert Heinlein "Stranger in a Strange Land". Also, Bradbury, Asimov, Arthur C. Clark, HG Wells, George Orwell, Aldous Huxley, Kurt Vonnegut, )
3 Science (archeology, anthropology, astronomy, biology, psychology. Just about anything, really.
4 Poetry (From just about any period)
5 Spirituality, Philosophy, Self Improvement
6 Biography (My favorite form of fiction)
7 Current Events

Seven Movies I Would Watch Over and Over Again
(Okay I cheated. These are by 7 vague personally defined catagories instead of 7 movies. It is the tip of the iceberg and nowhere near complete)
1 Somewhere In Time (many couples have a song, my dh & I also have a movie)
2 Bull Durham, Dances with Wolves, Turner and Hootch, Jumpin' Jack Flash,
3 Pretty Woman, Sleepless in Seattle, You've got Mail, French Kiss, Out of Africa, Her Alibi, Runaway Bride,
4 An Affair to Remember, The King and I, Citizen Cane,
5 ET, Logan's Run, Mrs. Doubtfire, Tootsie, Close Encounters, From the Earth to the Moon Series, the 5th element, True Lies, Guarding Tess, The Banger Sisters,
6 Princess Cariboo, Oh Brother Where Art Thou ("I thought you was a toad!"), Second Hand Lions, Local Hero, Cats
7 Anything with Tommy Lee Jones, Robert Redford, Brad Pitt, James Garner, Richard Geer, Sean Connery, Kevin Bacon, Julia Roberts,