the most precious gift you can give

It is that time of the year again. Christmas is around the corner. Shopping is a necessary evil... lol!

Speaking of giving, the most precious gift you can give is life. It has always been my desire since before I was even an adult that someday when my soul was done with my body, whatever is left would be donated for others to continue to use. After the useful part was harvested, my wish is to be cremated and my ashes tossed into the ocean.

Yesterday in my media clips, a story was told about a woman who died of an aneurysm and how her husband gave consent for donating some of her organs to save two other lives. It is the most simple thing we could do to save another... yet so many, in their grief, cannot consent.

If you live in Texas, you can make that decision for your loved ones by signing up at www.donatelifetexas.org. I'm not sure if there is a national registry or if every organ donation list is state by state. If I find another link for other states, I will post it.

I encourage every one to take the time to consider saving someone else's life when yours is over. It is the most wonderful thing anyone can do for another human being.

Give them their freedom...
Give them new life.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

---

Texas City Woman’s Death Lets 2 Others Live

By Chris Paschenko
The Daily News

Published November 28, 2007

Lugging around an insulin pump while enduring 12 hours of dialysis every week hampered a Midland woman’s dreams of earning a better education, starting a career or having a family.

Mary Grace Jackson, 36, began suffering from diabetes at age 8, but her long bout with the debilitating disease ended Nov. 11 after her successful double-transplant surgery at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston was made possible when a Texas City man fulfilled his wife’s wish to become an organ donor.

Carol Hayes, 45, died Nov. 8 after a weeklong struggle to recover from an aneurysm. Her husband, Pluria Hayes, said he initially declined an invitation from a representative of an organ-donor organization at the medical branch.

After speaking with his sister-in-law the next day, Hayes made a decision that changed the lives of Jackson and another recipient Pamela Prudhoe, 49, of Little Elm.

Saying no would have been a selfish act, he said. Both Jackson and Prudhoe said Tuesday they’ll forever be grateful.

“I was sick a lot as a kid,” Jackson said from the Galveston La Quinta hotel lobby on the seawall. “I had a virus at the time ... That’s what triggered it.”

Judy Latimer of Big Spring gave her daughter insulin injections for the first year, but Jackson took over thereafter.

“She had some rough times,” Latimer said, “and was in a diabetic coma and didn’t come out of it very easily, sometimes not for days.”

Jackson said the predicament was the cause of her kidney failure. She also had open-heart surgery in January.

“Once I got all that done, I was put on the donor list May 4,” Jackson said. “They thought it would be six months or longer,” she said of the wait to find a suitable kidney and pancreas donor, but she awoke Nov. 10 to a 5:30 a.m. phone call.

“I was really excited and a little nervous. I was here by noon and in surgery at 6 p.m. All-in-all it was a 10-hour surgery,” she said.

Jackson’s pancreas is producing insulin, and the doctor told her she would no longer need insulin shots. She’s taking 13 medications to aid her recovery. She also doesn’t have to continue testing her blood-sugar level.

“But I still do, because I’m curious,” she said. “I don’t have to wear an insulin pump anymore. When I go back home Thursday or Friday, that’s going to be a big change. I still have to pinch myself.”

Prudhoe said she began suffering from “complete” renal failure in 2006 and received a grim prognosis.

“It was very shocking. I was a healthy girl my whole life.” Prudhoe said via a telephone interview Tuesday. “I’m a survivor, I was given two months to live in July 2006. I beat the odds. Without the transplant my prognosis was two to three years.”

Prudhoe had the same early morning phone call as Jackson, and under went an eight-hour surgery at Methodist Hospital in Dallas where she received Hayes’ liver and other kidney.

Both Jackson and Prudhoe said words can’t express their gratitude to Carol and Pluria Hayes.

“I’d give him a big hug, and tell him, ‘God bless you and thank you for letting me live,’” Prudhoe said. “‘There are not enough words in the world to show my full gratitude. Even at your loss, two other people can live from the graciousness of you and your wife.’”

Jackson is thinking of becoming a dietitian, but she didn’t know until her interview with The Daily News that her donor was previously employed in that very profession.

“I know what it’s like to be a child and have to cut out sweets and certain foods,” Jackson said. “Maybe I could have a job at my dialysis center.”

Pam Silvestri, with Southwest Transplant Alliance, said Texas has a new organ donor registry, www.donatelifetexas.org, to assist in the process.

“If you put your name in that registry, then your family will not have to struggle with the donation decision,” Silvestri said. “All who take time to register are legally and officially organ donors. With that registration, we will not have to ask the family members for permission, and that should make an already difficult time less difficult...”

For more information, call 800-788-8058.

+++

On the Web

www.organ.org

http://news.galvestondailynews.com/story.lasso?ewcd=e6704959b29db022

you're as happy as you want to be

As everyone knows I love my quotes... lmao
Found a new one today that ties to yesterday's theme:

"Most people are as happy as they make up their minds to be."
~Abraham Lincoln

If you understand nothing else, know this one thing:

You already hold the key to your happiness,
No matter what life brings.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Keys to Happiness, and Why We Don't Use Them
By Robin Lloyd, Special to LiveScience
Posted: 27 February 2006 08:55 am ET

"It requires some effort to achieve a happy outlook on life, and most people don't make it."
—Author and researcher Gregg Easterbrook

Psychologists have recently handed the keys to happiness to the public, but many people cling to gloomy ways out of habit, experts say.

Polls show Americans are no happier today than they were 50 years ago despite significant increases in prosperity, decreases in crime, cleaner air, larger living quarters and a better overall quality of life.

So what gives?

Happiness is 50 percent genetic, says University of Minnesota researcher David Lykken. What you do with the other half of the challenge depends largely on determination, psychologists agree. As Abraham Lincoln once said, "Most people are as happy as they make up their minds to be."

What works, and what doesn't

Happiness does not come via prescription drugs, although 10 percent of women 18 and older and 4 percent of men take antidepressants, according to the Department of Health and Human Services. Anti-depressants benefit those with mental illness but are no happiness guarantee, researchers say.

Be Happy University of Pennsylvania’s Martin Seligman offers questionnaires for assessing your happiness, beating depression and developing insights into how to be happier on his web site.

Nor will money or prosperity buy happiness for many of us. Money that lifts people out of poverty increases happiness, but after that, the better paychecks stop paying off sense-of-well-being dividends, research shows.

One route to more happiness is called "flow," an engrossing state that comes during creative or playful activity, psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi has found. Athletes, musicians, writers, gamers, and religious adherents know the feeling. It comes less from what you're doing than from how you do it.

Sonja Lyubomirsky of the University of California at Riverside has discovered that the road toward a more satisfying and meaningful life involves a recipe repeated in schools, churches and synagogues. Make lists of things for which you're grateful in your life, practice random acts of kindness, forgive your enemies, notice life's small pleasures, take care of your health, practice positive thinking, and invest time and energy into friendships and family.

The happiest people have strong friendships, says Ed Diener, a psychologist University of Illinois. Interestingly his research finds that most people are slightly to moderately happy, not unhappy.

On your own

Some Americans are reluctant to make these changes and remain unmotivated even though our freedom to pursue happiness is written into the preamble of the Declaration of Independence.

Don't count on the government, for now, Easterbrook says.

Our economy lacks the robustness to sustain policy changes that would bring about more happiness, like reorienting cities to minimize commute times.

The onus is on us.

"There are selfish reasons to behave in altruistic ways," says Gregg Easterbrook, author of "The Progress Paradox: How Life Gets Better While People Feel Worse" (Random House, 2004).

"Research shows that people who are grateful, optimistic and forgiving have better experiences with their lives, more happiness, fewer strokes, and higher incomes," according to Easterbrook. "If it makes world a better place at same time, this is a real bonus."

Diener has collected specific details on this. People who positively evaluate their well-being on average have stronger immune systems, are better citizens at work, earn more income, have better marriages, are more sociable, and cope better with difficulties.

Unhappy by default

Lethargy holds many people back from doing the things that lead to happiness.

Easterbrook, also a Visiting Fellow at the Brookings Institute, goes back to Freud, who theorized that unhappiness is a default condition because it takes less effort to be unhappy than to be happy.

"If you are looking for something to complain about, you are absolutely certain to find it," Easterbrook told LiveScience. "It requires some effort to achieve a happy outlook on life, and most people don't make it. Most people take the path of least resistance. Far too many people today don't make the steps to make their life more fulfilling one."

• Happiness Buys Success
• When Money Does Buy Happiness
• Happiness in Old Age Depends on Attitude
• Mona Lisa Was 83 Percent Happy
• Optimists Live Longer

an attitude of gratitude

From a very young age, I have always been one of those Pollyanna types. Seeing the good in every situation, person, place, thing. Something positive in amongst negatives. There is always something good to come out of every event in our lives. We simply have to be open to receive the knowledge of what it was we were supposed to learn and integrate that growth into our core.

When I was only fourteen, one of my many memberships in a 'Book of the Month' club series delivered to my home was titled The Value Tales for Children. Many a night, when my kids were little, we would read "The Attitude of Gratitude."

Some research shows that having the attitude of gratitude may be good for your health.

No matter what life throws your way, there is a reason for it.
Look for the good in it. Treasure the life lessons learned from whatever happened -- good or bad. Then move forward.

Today is the first day of the rest of your life...

Live it fully... one moment at a time...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The gratitude factor: giving thanks can add years to life
Galveston County Daily News, Nov. 22, 2007

In this article about expressing gratitude, associate professor Glenn Ostir, of the Sealy Center on Aging at UTMB, says that science supports the benefits that accrue from choosing to be a thankful person.

Giving thanks can add years to your life.

By Rick Cousins Contributor

Published November 22, 2007

A rich assortment of lifestyle prescriptions have been touted for improving your chances at a long and happy life, but often these entail an unpopular level of self-denial.

No fat, no salt, no sugar and so on, plus generous levels of possibly boring exercise.

Good advice, no doubt, but hardly a suitable suggestion for this celebration — Thanksgiving Day.

But, what if one of the things you could do to better your future prospects for health and happiness was non-caloric, self-rewarding, and absolutely free?

Like giving thanks every day.

Dr. Glenn Ostir of the Sealy Center on Aging at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston and other experts say that science backs the benefits that accrue from choosing to be a thankful person.

"Simply put, we have found that positive emotion offers a lot of benefits for well-being," he said. "In large measure, we can choose to be happy or sad."

Ostir said that happiness was a choice that comes from understanding your place in life and your own self-worth and that accepting your environment and circumstances could be a healthful alternative to bitterness.

"Happy people live longer and are less likely to have a heart attack or stroke," Ostir said. "Even when they do they are more likely to recover quickly from such a negative health event. How you cope with change makes a real difference."

Ostir, a professor of internal medicine, said medical research showed that cultivating a positive, thankful point of view pays proven benefits.

He also cautioned that anyone who dwells on the might-have-beens or what-ifs of life was courting the down side of this same effect.

Jason Marsh, editor of Greater Good Magazine, agreed.

"It's hard to say how deep or wide they go, but it has been documented that there are physical benefits that come from gratitude," he said. "Fewer symptoms of illness and greater joy — both physical and emotional health — as well as relationships are better for thankful people."

Not feeling that thankful this year?

Marsh said that it appears that even faking gratitude may be of some measurable benefit.

He described a physiological study where participants were asked to simulate gratitude as an exercise.

"The families of those who did the exercise reported that those who did the gratitude exercise were happier as well as better people to be around," he explained.

Although better founded, this sentiment is not new. In fact, it was famously expressed by Abraham Lincoln who has been widely quoted as saying, "Most folks are as happy as they make up their minds to be."

Scientists may be relative newcomers to the benefits of thanksgiving but, of course, the Pilgrims, who began the founding feast in 1621, saw significance in it.

Later, the practice was enshrined as a uniquely American holiday by Lincoln in 1863, though both President Franklin Roosevelt and Congress adjusted the dates of the observance in the 20th century.

Allen Isbell, an attorney who is a minister for Broadway Church of Christ in Galveston, suggested that hardship could help some learn to be thankful.

"The impulse to be thankful happens most often when we feel threatened with the loss of common blessings, such as health, personal relationships, work or freedom," he said. "People who can project mentally the possible loss of these blessings are usually the most grateful."

While suffering and thanksgiving may seem to make unlikely companions, the two have been linked in many lives.

Gregorio Pedroza, a noted bilingual storyteller, has an illness that fills his days with constant searing pain, but he counsels thankfulness instead of bitterness, even for others who suffer.

"There are no coincidences in life," Pedroza said. "I thank God for the joys of the highs and for the strength to live through the lows. The impulse to thanksgiving begins when we realize that there is a loving, creator God."

another road to ride

I am officially registered for the Spring 2008 session.  The decision has been acted upon.  I am a college student.  Woo hoo!

I have waited years to go back, always putting my education on the back burner while raising kids and getting my life on track again.  Both of my children know that Christmas will be nothing this year as the money for Christmas is now tuition and books payments.  Neither of them care.  They know how important my dream of an education has been for years and both have told me to go for it. 

Thank you, Bethany and Joel...  for understanding and encouraging.  I love you both more than anything else in my world.

So, we shall see if I "have it in me!"  Can I do it?  I was told at 29 that I couldn't.  I am going to enjoy proving that statement wrong...  lol

Today is a new day...  as they all are... 

Are you where you want to be?
With those you want to be with?
Doing what you want to do with your life?

If not, why not?
If so, isn't it a wonderful way to live?

Living moment by moment...  following your dreams... 
There's nothing like it! 
Go for it... 
Start now...

Today is your day.

:-)

valuing yourself through your thoughts

My Dahn Yoga e-newsletter contained the quote listed below this past week. Food for thought for all of us today.

Never forget your own worth.

Cultivate it with your words, your thoughts, your actions...
Your life.

Hope ya'll all had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

:-)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"You must trust yourself if you want to develop the good thoughts that you have. 'I am a truly valuable and precious being.' 'I am a great soul.' Such a realization is needed. This feeling will grow like a seed as you continue to develop it. Like a continuously spun thread, it can be formed into something useful, like a pair of socks."
~ Ilchi Lee

understanding the heart of Hope

Most of you know that my goal is to be able to maintain my bike on my own. The learning curve for the workings of anything mechanical is great if you have no prior hands on experience. A very patient man, and his very understanding wife, opened their home shop for me last week in the late evening simply to ensure that Hope was mechanically sound, safe and secure.

Bob walked around the bike and pointed things out to me, had me take parts off and put them on, told me about oil and viscosity, the transmission, the brakes, etc... He sat on the cement and explained how the primary fell into place with all the other parts and what happens when you turn the key. He showed me how to clean the air filter, check the suspension, and burp the oil after the change. We discussed additional maintenance and other parts that would need to be replaced soon. He showed me how to clean with 4 ought (even if some think I ought not! lol).

To be honest, a lot of it was way over my head about the engine.
I wasn't able to visualize it.

Until now.

A friend from Delphi has explained and then shown me exactly what Bob tried to show me. Then she shared this awesome video of the inside of another machine -- working, firing, pumping.

Omgosh... I understand! Woo hoo!!! LOL

Thank you, Leilehua, for being so patient and explaining things to me at Bounty's place. I am so appreciative of people who take the time to help me understand my bike and all the things that go along with being a rider. Many others have been there for me this year and I appreciate all of the posts, explanations, links and descriptions. The education has been one of a kind.

I will never be a biker, but I am a rider.
Someday, hopefully... a knowledgeable one.......

the courage to know the difference

There is freedom in understanding that we cannot change others.
There is peace in knowing we can only control our own selves.
There is hope in letting go of situations where dysfunction and drama rule and people use each other instead of love each other.

Understanding, knowing, letting go...

Hope.

It's a relief to be free of the worries of others and simply enjoy my own life...

Today is going to be another great day!
I was told, "Life is short.  Enjoy it.  You only get one shot."

Thank you...  I am.

~~~~~

"This is your life, are you who you want to be?"
~ Switchfoot

one last update

Pasting a modified update from the forum here instead of rewriting it. Thank you to everyone for their concern. This whole thing has tired me out. I didn't recognize it for what it was...

My prayer --
Lord, give me discernment...

~~~~~~~~~~

Well, finally talked to my brother tonight. Melissa woke up and is still in ICU. She was angry at him. Said it was his fault for what she did. He did not give me a medical update.

Thank you again for your prayers... I have to remove myself from their drama now.

update

Melissa is fighting her tubes, which is a good sign. My mom said it looks like she's going to make it. Still in ICU but alive. My mom's chest x-ray turned out ok. The infection when she aspirated went to her sinus' and down her throat. She's on three different medications but looks like it is just a really bad respiratory/sinus thing.

My brother needs a lot of prayer... 'nuff said.

Thank you to everyone who has sent healing thoughts, prayers or whatever you believe their way. They are working... thank you for caring...

I love you...

{{{{{{{hugs to all}}}}}}}

the value of *you*

Somewhere along the road of life, some individuals lose their identity. They are someone's wife, husband, mother, father, sister, brother, uncle, aunt, neice, nephew, child, grandchild... and so on.

But they don't know who they are.

If threatened with the loss of that identity that has been carefully constructed, their world begins to crumble. They stumble. They slip. They fall.

That void where they are no one to anyone is dark and frightening. The one where they are alone with only themselves. They don't know what to do or how to get out of it. They see no future without the life they've fabricated being something to someone else. Their self-worth is tied to the other person(s) in their life. They can't find a reason to exist alone.

Their greatest fear is being alone. They'd rather die.

What makes someone choose to live and others choose to die?
I don't know...

What I do know is that people don't realize their value. They are valuable all on their own. Alone. They don't understand all that is important in life exists within them. That the love they crave and search for can be found in their own core... in their own heart... in their own soul. Especially when they are alone.

People don't dictate who we are... others don't determine our own worth. Human beings have value simply by the fact that we are alive and breathing and individual in our uniqueness.

The greatest gift I have ever been given in my life is the knowledge that all that I am is enough. That all that I need is within me. That all that is within me is good.

Acceptance.

People search their whole lives for acceptance and yet, they never accept who they are on the inside. They want others to tell them that they are ok. They don't believe it themselves. They can't begin to acknowledge it without validation from another.

The simple fact is the only validation we need is our own. Other's opinions of who we are don't matter. Our sum total of our being is whole without another. Those brought into our life are simply bonuses, not the backbone of our core. They add to our life, they don't create it. They are the whipped cream on top of an already awesome chocolate ice cream sunday. They are the extra... the dessert of life.

I pray that those who see only darkness alone, find their own light... and live.

prayers

Melissa, my brother's girlfriend, wrote a suicide note and then swallowed 99 vicodan pills. She's currently in ICU and out of it. Doctors say if she does make it she will need a liver transplant... if. It's not looking good. She would leave behind a 7 year old son and a 17 year old daughter.

Please send prayers, healing thoughts or whatever you believe her way...

Thank you.