Gratitude, July 26, 2016

Thank you Lord for this day. Thank you for my work. Thank you for my colleagues. Thank you for the staff. Thank you for the patients.Thank you for my teachers and mentors. Thank you for the joy I experience when someone becomes well and moves on with their life out of the stuck place that brought them to me. Thank you for all the knowledge that you have helped me to acquire, all the training, and all the experience. Thank you for your wisdom and teaching.
Thank you for my family and friends. Thank you for my buddy, Gilbert the cockapoo.
Thank you for the end of this day, the sunshine and blue sky and the peace and calm here outside at a picnic table, Gilbert watching for other dogs and entertainment on the street. Thank you for the green and this lovely breeze.
Thank you for summer. Thank you for summer vacations.
Thank you for people who fix things, repair things, make things whole. Thank you for Honda Centre, for Tom for his help, for Eric at Starlet RV, for Carolynn and her help and Joelle and her help. I love that I know people I can phone who have specialized skills that I can call on and they will be there to ‘fix’ something.  I don’t mind the cost because these professionals are so reasonable and the solutions are so rewarding.  Right now I’ve the second toilet problem this year, but one that involves a holding tank and sewage removal.  I understand how my colleague chose bowel and anal surgery as a speciality because people are simply so happy when these ‘systems’ are restored. Right now I’m using secondary systems, having an outdoor toilet options but I don’t like the inconvenience of walking to the building when it’s just so nice to ‘dump’ at home.  It’s only a day or two delay but I’m going to be so thankful when it’s resolved. I loved when Eric fixed my bath which was leaking.
I just love when people fix things. I fix things. I fix things at the physical , social and psychiatric and beaurocratic, medical legal and various paradigm levels too but it’s not as ‘obvious’. I arranged for a couple of surgical hernia repairs after getting ultrasounds and reviewing the reports.  I miss doing the actual cutting myself. I treated a few infections, cellulitis and std’s. There’s such a pleasure in the seen. I do all this other stuff in which I feel much like I’m just holding people on till they get out of deep water and it’s not so apparent and more I don’t really know if I’m doing the ‘good’ things, convincing people not to suicide, convincing people to get off drugs. There’s such a disillusionment going on. I’ve seen a few notes of colleagues and they seem happy enough to see people and do the text book stuff, not questioning the ‘raison d’être’.  I feel like the little boy with a finger in the damn.  It’s the insanity in the media, the feeding frenzies and manic depressive, paranoia and frenetic writing.  I muddle along.  Aging takes its toll.  There’s a same old same old, humdrum and I wonder if I’m doing okay.  So many people are so ‘offended’ and so ‘entitled’ and the expectations in the bureaucracy for others to do all the work for free is at an all time high.  People who wouldn’t lift a finger for a dying man seem to think you should give your left kidney and heart to their ‘pet of the month’.  Causes come and go.  The people who are being paid off our income living in palaces are the worst.

But thank you Lord for the joy I experience. Thank you for the things I maintain and need to fix. Thank you for this little dog and the vet. Thank you for my brother and his doctors. Thank you for the nephews and sister in law.

Thank you for the church and the meetings and the literature of hope.
Thank you for prayer and meditation.
Thank you for TV and Hagen Daz tv.
Thank you for iPhone.
Thank you for Apple and Netflix movies.

I really did enjoy Divergent Alluvant last night.

I’m so looking forward to go ing to the theatre to see the new Star Wars.

I hope that we can get away and enjoy the summer long weekend.

Thank you for New Orleans and my conference there this year. Thank you for Laura caring for Gilbert. Thank you for the lovely Chinese lady who does my laundry in loads.I”m glad I’ve bundled a pile so I actually have some clean clothes in the coming weeks. I hadn’t realized I was running low having no time to do my own with all these demands for reports and records and meetings.  I’ve enjoyed it. But can only consider that these positions were made for ‘back up’ and I’ve lived so long on my own without the assistance that the position were originally designed for. It’s my choice.  I have independence  and more freedom to come and go but looking back at my mother’s help to my father and realizing I’ve never known that, myself the ‘wife’ in my relationships as well as the major breadwinner I can’t see the merit in the modern marriage but I do miss my cleaning lady and I so admire my sister in law and brother in law on their maintaining their large home and taking care of all the guests.  They’re regular hotel managers.  I’m overwhelmed with Gilbert and I.

I was thinking that if I cleaned up my trailer and unloaded all the excess in the storage locker which needs sorting too I could take this trailer off for the weekend but instead I’ll whine and moan. I could get the tent out too.  It’s there in the storage locker and I could really enjoy tenting this weekend rather than worrying about finding a cabin which isn’t booked this high use time.  I’m so looking forward to being away in the wilderness though maybe by a lake. I really out to swim.
Thank you Lord for summer.
Thank you Lord for all the possibilities.

Now thank you for the peanut butter and fresh bread I bought. I’m going to enjoy myself right now.  And the new Hagen daz Coconut ice cream.  Gilbert loved licking the bowl as much as I loved this new flavour I’ve not enjoyed before. Normally I love hagen daz coffee and vanilla but this coconut is so summer.
Thank you Lord Jesus.