Weakly Email

We’ll start with Christmas. We spent Christmas in Cedar City and it was wonderful. I haven’t spent the entire Christmas season in Cedar City in 10 years. It’s good to be home. The kids had a great time playing with their cousins and they really got into Christmas this year. Spencer was very excited and helped Jessi to understand what was going on. Christmas is so much more fun with kids. My siblings and I decided to do some remodeling in my parents’ basement for their Christmas present (this is what we do when we can’t decide on a purchasable gift for them). The remodel turned out to be quite a deal and we had some minor (or major depending on who’s telling this story) setbacks, but when Melissa and I left on the 28th most of the sheetrock and the first mudding was done. Apparently Robert has had his hands full finishing up a lot of the work while everyone else is gone (he also put in a lot of time before Christmas with the plans). I’m told that it looks pretty good now and I’m excited to see it when we get back in a few weeks.

As I mentioned above we left Cedar on the 28th of December in order to start my ER rotation in South Bend in January. The drive across the country wasn’t too bad. We spent the first night in Grand Junction in the Esplin’s house. With Ryan and Becca being in Cedar for the New Year holiday we missed them, but Spencer sure enjoyed playing with Evan’s toys and Jessi loved sleeping in the princess room. We drove to Hayes Kansas on the 29th and took the kids to IHOP for dinner to celebrate our 7th anniversary. We’re actually hoping to have a real anniversary celebration in 3 years (I’m trying to convince Melissa that we should go spend that one in the Caribbean so any stories of wonderful winter seaside trips to help my effort would be welcome).

We had a wonderful treat on the next day of our trip. We drove to St. Louis and spent the holiday with the MacDonnells. The MacDonnells are our good friends from school and Greg is doing his Anesthesia residency there. You long-time email readers (that better be most of you) may remember the MacDonnells from previous emails and some of the adventures Spencer had with their twin daughters Rio and Rylee. We had a wonderful getting reacquainted and they were wonderful to put us up for a couple of nights.

We drove into South Bend on the 1st in a horrible snow storm. Thankfully we made it safely to our apartment just north of South Bend. There was so much snow that they were just plowing it into the middle of the streets making it impossible to make a left turn except at intersections. The kids enjoyed watching the tractors and giant snow blowers put all of the snow into dump trucks two days later.

My rotation is going well. I definitely do not enjoy emergency medicine as much as I once did. I don’t hate it, but the endless amount of work as well as the move em out attitude that is necessary in the ER is hard on me. It is nice to be in a busy ER where the physicians actually want me to do any stitching that comes in so they don’t have to spend the time to do it themselves.

Chain Letter

I don't forward chain letters (and usually dislike it when I get them), but I don't have any problem posting them on my blog and this one very much suits me. By the way we are safe and happy in South Bend and should be posting some next week.

The following was written by Ben Stein and recited by him on CBS Sunday Morning Commentary.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I am a Jew, and every single one of my ancestors was Jewish. And it does not bother me even a little bit when people call those beautiful lit up, bejeweled trees Christmas trees. I don't feel threatened. I don't feel discriminated against. That's what they are: Christmas trees.

It doesn't bother me a bit when people say, "Merry Christmas" to me. I don't think they are slighting me or getting ready to put me in a ghetto. In fact, I kind of like it. It shows that we are all brothers and sisters celebrating this happy time of year. It doesn't bother me at all that there is a manger scene on display at a key intersection near my beach house in Malibu . If people want a creche, it's just as fine with me as is the Menorah a few hundred yards away.

I don't like getting pushed around for being a Jew, and I don't think Christians like getting pushed around for being Christians. I think people who believe in God are sick and tired of getting pushed around, period. I have no idea where the concept came from that America is an explicitly atheist country. I can't find it in the Constitution, and I don't like it being shoved down my throat.

Or maybe I can put it another way: where did the idea come from that we should worship Nick and Jessica and we aren't allowed to worship God as we understand Him?

I guess that's a sign that I'm getting old, too.

But there are a lot of us who are wondering where Nick and Jessica came from and where the America we knew went to.

In light of the many jokes we send to one another for a laugh, this is a little different: This is not intended to be a joke; it's not funny, it's intended to get you thinking.

Billy Graham's daughter was interviewed on the Early Show and Jane Clayson asked her "How could God let something lik e this Happen?" (regarding Katrina)

Anne Graham gave an extremely profound and insightful response. She said, "I believe God is deeply saddened by this, just as we are, but for years we've been telling God to get out of our schools, to get out of our government and to get out of our lives. And being the gentleman He is, I believe He has calmly backed out.

How can we expect God to give us His blessing and His protection if we demand He leave us alone?" (She said the same thing when interviewed after 9-11)

In light of recent events...terrorists attack, school shootings, etc. I think it started when Madeleine Murray O'Hare (she was murdered, her body found recently) complained she didn't want prayer in our schools, and we said OK.

Then someone said you better not read the Bible in school. the Bible says thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, and love your neighbor as yourself. And we said OK.

Then Dr. Benjamin Spock said we shouldn't spank our children when they misbehave because their little personalities would be warped and we might damage their self-esteem (Dr. Spock's son committed suicide). We said an expert should know what he's talking about. And we said OK.

Now we're asking ourselves why our children have no conscience, why they don't know right from wrong, and why it doesn't bother them to kill strangers, their classmates, and themselves.

Probably, if we think about it long and hard enough, we can figure it out. I think it has a great deal to do with "WE REAP WHAT WE SOW."

Funny how simple it is for people to trash God and then wonder why the world's going to hell. Funny how we believe what the newspapers say, but question what the Bible says.

Funny how you can send 'jokes' through e-mail and they spread like wildfire but when you start sending messages regarding the Lord, people think twice about sharing.

Funny how lewd, crude, vulgar and obscene articles pass freely through cyberspace, but public discussion of God is suppressed in the school and workplace. Are you laughing?

Funny how when you forward this message, you will not send it to many on your address list because you're not sure what they believe, or what they will think of you for sending it.

Funny how we can be more worried about what other people think of us than what God thinks of us.

Pass it on if you think it has merit. If not then just discard it... no one will know you did. But, if you discard this thought process, don't sit back and complain about what bad shape the world is in.

My Best Regards. honestly and respectfully,

Ben Stein

My Frist Blog Tag

So I was blog tagged the other day. My husband informed me that now I am supposed to complete the tag by writing about the given topic (6 mystery items about myself) and then tag someone else. My husband says this is to much like a chain letter for him and that he won't ever do a blog tag (so for future reference, you might want to avoid "tagging" him), But whereas this is my first time being tagged I have decided to comply. So here it goes, 6 mystery things about me.

Mystery #1
I don't like clutter. Everything in our house has a designated spot. My husband can attest to this. I have a hard time seeing stacks of things lying about and often I can be found stacking up newspapers, books, or such at houses that aren't even my own.

Mystery #2
The first and only boy "I" ever kissed was Jacob. Since you will eventually comment I will explain the whole "I" thing. Another boy kissed me in college after I had "fallen asleep" during a movie we were watching. I wasn't really asleep (just closing my eyes because I was really tired) but I was so scared I just continued to let him think I was and never kissed him back. So I don't consider that my first time kissing a boy. On a side note, the first time Jacob ever kissed me I was also just as scared and reacted by laughing. And I seem to recall I also reacted the same way the second time he kissed me. Poor guy, good thing he really liked me.

Mystery #3
I tend to get very anxious when meeting new people. I wish I had inherited my mother's ability to chat with anyone. I once saw her carry on an hour long conversation with a man in the grocery store that asked her how to pick out oranges. She is amazing. Unfortunately I didn't inherit that skill and continue to work on my small talk skills. You should have seen me at all these interviews, I was a wreck.

Mystery #4
I never attended a high school football game. My husband says this only further sums up my high school experience. I was a swimmer and the swimmers at my school tended to pretty much only hang-out with other swimmers. I think it had something to do with the smell of chlorine. When I look back at high school I can sum it up rather quickly. Class, Swimming, Work, and Homework. That was pretty much my life. Ironically my college experience was about the exact opposite. It is funny how that happens.

Mystery #5
I would say I have a touch of OCD. For example, I have all of my families clothes (yes the children's and Jacob's as well) organized by type of article, season of article, and dressiness of article. They are also organized by color hanger and must all hand in one direction. I know, a little crazy, but I just can't help it.

Mystery #6
While in high school at worked at a local Arctic Circle. After a few months I worked my way up the mighty career ladder to "Night Manager" My memories of this place were great and all included the smell of french fries and greasy burgers. My husband often teases me about how fond I am of these memories and often refers to them as my "glory days". Well on our last trip to SL we were heading back to my parents when we drove by the old "glory days" location. I was shocked to find that my old high school happiness had been torn down to make way for a car lot. I have to admit that a tear escaped. And them my husband teased me again. I really had some good memories of that place.

So that is it. I have now completed my first blog tag. Now it is up to me to tag someone new and whereas I only know of one faithful reader that has their own blog . . . I tag Charlotte.

Oh Hillary

I was reading in a family practice journal this past week about Hillary's solution for the national healthcare crises. I was dumbfounded when she stated that one solution would be to get nurses to do more so that more people would have access to a healthcare provider. Now I don't know about the rest of the country outside of Kentucky, Indiana, Washington, and Utah but all those places are struggling with quite a shortage of nurses. Good research there Hill.

Later in the article she stated that her healthcare plan; "Will not be a government run program, unless you consider Medicare a government program". So now the woman is either a complete idiot or she is just so far removed from real life that she's useless as a political leader. Maybe in the future she can make comments like Baron Davis, who said; "there's nothing wrong with making $70,000 to $80,000 a year", and further display her removal from mainstream society.

Take your kids to work day

Kristian had his one year check-up today so I got to take him and Jessi (Melissa came too) to the clinic this morning. He's dropped a bit on his growth curve from the 90% line down to the 75% line (for both height and weight). He didn't like his shots too much but made it through without too much difficulty.

As if that wasn't enough I was able to work with my dad today. I have been working in the IHC clinic with Dr Bunker this week and today is Dr Bunker's day off so I worked with Dad all day (well until 2:30 when he goes home anyway). He kept introducing me to his patients and telling them that I'm coming back to town to take his place. It was pretty cool as most of them said they were looking forward to having me take over as their physician in the future. All in all it was a great day.

We finished up interviews last week with one at the University of Utah and another at St Marks hospital in Salt Lake. They both had some good things about them and some bad, but neither supplanted either of the South Bend programs on my rank list (Melissa is still struggling with her list). I ran into Mark in the University hospital during my tour, and we chatted for a moment before we both had to run to other areas. I had forgotten how much I love the University of Utah. Just driving through campus gave me chills. In about 20 years there will probably be some friendly encouragement for my kids to attend the U (unless they stay here and go to SUU which is completely acceptable).

We're looking forward to seeing my siblings as they trickle into town over the next couple of weeks.