September 18 2013 Greetings My Friend, My energy level is starting to come back after the fall I took last weekend. These days I don’t get depressed that I am not moving about like I’d like to. That is so helpful. I do what I need to get healthy again and at the right time I begin to do what I can. Gone are the long lectures I give myself because I am not doing as I’d like to be doing. Getting my girls out to the bathroom is so helpful. I must get up and go outside for them to use the bathroom. I must move about. Keeping them fed is also important. At that point I also begin to move about the house and begin a routine of picking up and such. Once more I learn how important it is to learn to look outside of myself. I do like to make everything about me and frankly the world is not all about me. As I learn to focus outside of myself I begin to find life settling down and not so confusing and hard. As I struggle with health issues it becomes easy to get self- centered. I need to focus on how to get better and how to deal with my disability. As I care for the girls I find myself figuring out how to deal with my struggles and then moving out of my struggles and into life in general. I do need to focus on “me” somewhat but at some point it is important to look outside of myself. When I can do this life begins to fall into place and have a nice rhythm to it. For me to function well I realize I need routines. The more I organize my day the freer I feel. I get up and go into my day with my daily agenda and frankly life for me is wonderful. Junior teaches me that being a slave to routines is not helpful so his upsetting my routines from time to time is helpful. Sometimes I find that changing my routines also is helpful. I am not 20 anymore and learning to do housework all day long is better for me at this stage in my life. As a 20 something I could tackle major projects in a few hours and today I can’t do what I did back then. So life is also about making changes from time to time. I have three favorite colors. I love jazz, Christian and some good old rock and roll. Life for me has been a diverse one. I like different types of people groups as well. I was never into the popular crowd routine. At times I craved it but over all I liked knowing different people and the way they tend to think. I guess that is the “writer” in me. I love exploring. It moves me. I like the idea of being flexible. I loved contorting my body into various postures. Yoga was fun for a long time for me. In school I was always doing cart wheels and such. I was still standing on my head at the drop of a hat well into my 40’s. As I developed neck issues I had to stop. As I get older I find that once more I have to rethink the way I do things. As I learn how to do things differently I begin to find my brain being able to open up to new ideas. I love to work things in life through much like some people like to do jigsaw puzzles. I knew I was on the mend when I began thinking about what I’d like in our new home. I will contemplate an area, tell Junior and sometimes my thought is so good that he will actually make the project like I had thought it out to be. Sometimes I will hear that he is doing it the way he is doing it and I am good with that as well. Still I am very happy when I am puzzling my way through the day. It moves me to no end. Slowly I am entering into Twitter. I am enjoying the back and forth exchange of ideas. Again it is something that moves me. By opening myself up to other thoughts I begin to learn more in life. I truly like that way of growing the best. For some reason I thought by the time I got to my “older” years I’d have figured life out. That is not the case and as I ponder that I am grateful to be honest. I have much to learn still. Learning is something I love to do. If life was all in place like I thought it would be then learning would not be needed. So again I love to learn new things and old age is teaching me new things. I still have struggles as well. I still struggle emotionally. These days I have learned to lean on God. In a daily dialogue I find myself “hearing” God and His direction. As I learn to listen I find myself growing as well. I am able to let go of struggles after a conversation with God. Sometimes God teaches me to be more patient and sometimes God guides me to move out of a relationship. I also am learning that God loves me even when life sucks. Some part of me is depressed about the fall realizing that I may have more falls ahead of me due to my balance struggles. To add to that I also have osteopenia which is the start to osteoporosis and broken bones are a good possibility in my older years. The old Janet would worry this situation to death. Today though I go to God and He teaches me what I need to know to deal with life. God does not take away all the bad situations because frankly that is at times how we learn. When I had cancer I had to slow down. In the slower pace I finally was able to be still enough to hear God. My struggles have necessitated that I stay home more. I have learned to love being home and quiet. In that quiet I have begun writing and that is a dream I have had most of my life. If I was running about like I would love to then writing would move to the bottom of the list. So life is hard learning to slow down but I am ever grateful that I am learning to slow down. May God bless you and keep you make His face to shine upon you. Love Janet