Yesterday I prayed to God to find the leak in a client’s upstairs patio.  I didn’t make any deals with Him like I had when they found my tumor, I just said…

“God, could You please help me out with this leak, I’d really appreciate it…”

I know that from a prayer priority standpoint my request was definitely at the bottom. But hey, I had to put it out there!

I got the call – the flood test on the patio once again produced the ever elusive drip.  Tearing up I went right for “my very own” juggler!  I am the WORSE designer in, not just the world, but the whole universe. 

Why can’t I FIND THIS STUPID NEVER-ENDING LEAK?!?

I seriously feel like a Dickens character standing next to my client’s wallet saying, “Please, [ma’am] I want some more [$$].”  She’s recently had two strokes which I believe I’ve given her, as I am unable to FIND THE ANNOYING LEAK!

Before you say it, I do take this all personally because the individuals I’ve hired have failed over and over.  Even though they were referrals, had great reviews and really seemed to care until they could not find the leak, they merely suggested a lot of band-aids for the problem but no solution. Then there are the questions that haunt me like – Did the client need the new roof for the patio leak, because I believed the contractor when he said it.  Did she need the two new drains installed in the patio to prevent the leak, because I believed the plumber when he said it.  Why didn’t the sealed and re-tiled patio prevent the leak?  Did she need a new patio door – well that one I actually did see it leak, but yet the damn trickle continues.

In five years I’ve had four to five contractors, a roofer, a plumber, a stucco guy, a tile guy and a structural engineer. They all looked for this fricking leak but yet the clear and mighty liquid prevailed.

After making calls and feeling sorry for myself I devoured Oreos and potato chips to deaden the pain. I researched and re-read the engineers notes. I thought, how could such a small request to God go unanswered? Because you know in the scheme of things this was such a “big deal”…

Intellectually I knew, of course, it wasn’t a life or death situation or a threat to national security; but emotionally I felt I had failed her yet again.

Today I decided to walk a couple miles to clear my head. I was trying not to think about the upcoming meeting I will be having with her next week.  I walked in my favorite park with squirrels and newborn geese. Although it was peaceful, the problem hung over me like the California marine layer in May.

When I left the park I walked by a sidewalk that was NOT written on when I entered. 

I walked to my car with a tear in my eye and said “Thank You, got it.” Prayer answered… It may not have solved the leak issue but did solve mine!

Grateful for you,

Sheree

Yesterday started off like any other day in southern California in May.  The marine layer was hanging over looking gloomy.  Jeff left for work and called to tell me there were a lot of police cars, a firetruck and an ambulance at the end of our street near the entrance to the hiking trails.  We thought perhaps someone had fallen while hiking. 

I left for my morning walk and as I turned the corner I saw the gathering.  There were quite a few police surrounding a small blue car. One officer spoke to the landscapers while the prepared firefighters stood helpless on the side of the road.

The chill in the air seemed to sink deeper into my bones upon this sight.  A neighbor stood there watching and I asked what was happening. He explained that he had gone to the car to see if everything was OK as the engine was running. Unfortunately, he viewed something he most likely will never forget, the gentleman inside was dead.  As he started to share his thoughts on the situation, all I could think was…

“How could this happen when people live so close?”

I walked home numb and called our neighbor who is a detective. I asked if he could find out what had happened. We live in a nice part of Anaheim; a small gated community where the condos of 1100 sq. ft. cost a half million or more. People are generally happy here because it’s beautiful, expensive, but beautiful and the neighbors are generally very friendly.

But, how do we know what happens behind closed doors?

After a bit, our neighbor sent a text to say he had spoken with one of the officers. They confirmed that it was a person who lived in our complex. He had cancer and while he sat alone in his little blue car, parked at the end of our street, he took his life.

There were so many questions as I stood there frozen. How could this happen when people live so close? But the thing that made my heart just ache was that he sat in that little blue car, alone.

There is an End of Life Option Act in California.  Why couldn’t that have been his option?  Was it pain, or depression or confusion that drove him to his decision?

I thought of the suicide of a close friend of my daughter. And I had just recently heard about the suicide of a 30 year old, the nephew of a friend.

Could a call or a text or a card make a difference?  Could checking in on someone, keep the darkness away? I don’t know who the gentleman was, if he had a family or what his diagnosis might have been.

What I do know is how the ripple effect of what happened has affected a total stranger – me –

We donate monthly to the Patriotic Service Dog Foundation that provides Vets with service dogs. Those who are suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) or Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI).  This organization is working on taking the suicide rate of 22 vets a day down to 0.

By helping out an organization or something as simple as checking in with a neighbor or a friend, could we could help drop the suicide rate by one, then two, then many?

To the troubled soul in the little blue car, you will never be forgotten…

Grateful for you,

Sheree

Isn’t it interesting that old is new again, like organic food or being “green” by recycling?  All of a sudden people realized it’s bad to put pesticides on or inject the food we eat with chemicals; how brilliant of them! Could we be missing a simple fix to being green that’s beyond recycling? I found this great timeline on the History of Recycling.  The world has been working on the premise for centuries. 

Let’s step back in time to MY childhood which is not quite a century yet – ha ha. 

We had milk delivered in glass bottles and returned the bottles to the milkman.  We used paper straws and had to drink quickly before they got too soggy; they were paper. We covered left-overs in glass dishes with reusable covers sort of like shower caps.  And we used the popular re-sealable and washable Tupperware bowls to keep food fresh.  We wrapped our sandwiches in wax paper (no plastic sandwich bags) and took lunches in paper bags.  Oh and there weren’t plastic coffee pods, just percolator coffee pots that sounded awesome.  We didn’t have disposable dish cloths or throw away foamy scrubbers.  We had cloth napkins and carried cloth sacks to the grocery or were given paper bags.  We hung our laundry out to dry, no dryer sheets necessary.  We didn’t have paper towels; we used a dish towel to clean up messes.  And for diapers, I actually used cloth for both my ‘now’ grown-up children until potty training time. 

So America, besides the straws and plastic bags we’re all worried about, what about the trash generated from fast food? In a 2018 article from Franchise Help stated that “Globally, fast food generates revenue of over $570 billion – that is bigger than the economic value of most countries. In the United States revenue was a whopping $200 billion in 2015 – quite a lot of growth since the 1970 revenue of $6 billion.” That’s a lot of paper trash.

I’m not a hater on fast food, but this cannot be good for our waistlines or our “waste bins.”

What surprised me in California, which has banned plastic bags and frowns on straws, is the huge lack of recycling centers.  How is it possible that the people in California “lost out on at least $308 million in nickel deposits on cans and bottles in 2018, largely because it’s increasingly difficult to find a place to recycle them…”  KTLA.com. 

And while we’re at it should we be including those few gazillion cardboard boxes that are generated by that oh so convenient Amazon delivery company in this discussion?

Will the ban of plastic straws and plastic grocery bags keep the world from being polluted?  It obviously can’t hurt but how do we get other countries on board?  An article carried by Deutsche Welle in 2017 stated, “90 percent of all the plastic that reaches the world’s oceans gets flushed through just 10 rivers: The Yangtze, the Indus, Yellow River, Hai River, the Nile, the Ganges, Pearl River, Amur River, the Niger, and the Mekong.”  How do we make the world aware?  It seems that many just don’t know or don’t have access to recycling centers.

After mulling over all of these points, I wanted to come up with some earth-shattering solution to be presented on Earth Day 2019.

The solution, at least for Americans, was very simple:   TIME

We have one or two jobs and our children need to be involved in something 24-7.  Our work week is no longer 40 hours but rather 60, making shopping on-line for clothing, food and entertainment a way of life, which then generates a whole lot of boxes.

Drive-thru food is convenient when there’s no TIME to cook.  Disposable packaging means less TIME doing dishes, cleanup or planning.  We don’t really think when we reach for a plastic bag to store a slice of cheese or grab a paper plate to hold a few chips.  If we slowed down we’d grab a reusable bowl to store that cheese and a glass plate for those chips.

With more TIME we could reach for reusable things not just recyclable things.  We would be present in our lives instead of living a blur to get us from this day to the next; a blur that causes us to do things that are more convenient than conscientious. We might like being calmer and choose a lifestyle that affords us more TIME which would ultimately help us create less trash. 

Well that was easy…. Enjoy your Earth Day 2019!!

Grateful for you and living on this big blue planet,

Sheree

We went to see the movie “Unplanned” this weekend.  Knowing it was going to be intense I tried psyching myself up. I believed I could logically get through it, plus the major TV channels weren’t advertising it, so that also piqued my interest. 

Why shouldn’t this side of “a woman’s choice” be told?

Jeff and I sat with our neighbor Sandy.  We had our “just-in-case” tissues in hand as we sat and watched previews of cute movies coming out this summer. Finally, the movie began and it was pretty intense right off the bat.

As my chest tightened and tears flowed, I was surprised I became so emotional so quickly. It wasn’t from a ‘bloody’ standpoint, although there was blood.  It’s not blood you’d see in every action movie or video game caused from bombs, guns or knives.  This blood occurs from a procedure on a table and pills to induce an abortion. 

My tough façade melted in front of the screen as my one fricking tissue became soaked with tears that just could not be stopped.  Jeff was lucky, he had a cloth handkerchief!

Possible spoiler alert:  In one scene PP performs a vacuum aspiration using an ultrasound to guide them.  The baby with all its limbs developed, appears to push away from the suction device.

This is the scene I couldn’t catch my breath because I’ve seen my baby push away in an ultrasound just like that. At around 20 weeks into my second pregnancy I was 35 years old.  My doc stated I needed an amniocentesis being an “older” mother, the baby could have defects. 

I had no history in my family of losing a child or birth defects, nevertheless I went along with it. They numbed my large abdomen, and did an ultrasound to locate the baby, which we now call Emma! The nurse attempted to insert a very large needle into my belly, but couldn’t pierce the sack to take a sample of the amniotic fluid. Watching the ultrasound we saw our little girl consciously move out of the way of the incoming needle.  The nurse withdrew the needle and tried again.  Once again the uterus lining didn’t give way and the baby moved to avoid the intrusion.   The nurse asked us to come back the next week and try again.  We both looked at each other and said “uh no.” No matter the health of this baby – who has been waving at us through the ultrasound comes out – she’s ours.

This movie pretty much puts the purpose of Planned Parenthood (PP) right up in your face.  Sadly, in my youth, I was as naïve as the author of the book as to the purpose of PP.  I believed PP was there to “just” provide birth control, female tests and advice on “planning” births.

I AM NOT KIDDING YOU, I really did!

The headlines in the news, for the past few years have made it crystal clear that the number one purpose of PP is to provide abortions.

I read the reviews of the movie which follow the pro-life and pro-abortion lines.  I looked through them for a mention that maybe, just maybe someone would suggest there was an alternative to termination, but I didn’t really find it. The one thing that amazed me in those reviews that no one touches on the physical and emotional wounds that a woman could deal with forever.

The movie has a MPAA film rating:  R – Restricted – Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian. Contains some adult material. Parents are urged to learn more about the film before taking their young children with them.

I don’t agree with the rating, but perhaps this makes a case that parents should be with their 16 and 17 year old sons and daughters at this movie. They can discuss the outcome of having sex and the affect is has on all parties.  These children so desperately want to act like adults, so they should be given both sides of the story.  The term “getting an abortion” is so easily used in conversation; it’s like saying “I’m going out for coffee.”  It has no personal resonance because the physical and emotional effects are never really discussed.    

I understand that many believe life starts at conception.  And as a logical human being I also understand that there are unwanted pregnancies, the pill and protection don’t always work and there will always be that “heat of the moment” thing. But… should having sex be given a higher importance in society than taking a life? 

This was a very hard movie to watch and even harder to think about afterwards. Perhaps we all need to be a little uncomfortable…

Grateful for you,

Sheree