Quiet Reflection

This was quoted in church today. After reading the beginning of this poem (found below) I wanted to post about how we need to take more time in our lives for quiet reflection. In this time we can put the knowledge we have gained to good use as we connect it to the Great Plan of Happiness. I was going to expound and then I read the full poem and now my mind is all over the place. I highly recommend reading this...really makes you think. 

"Choruses from The Rock" by T.S. Eliot

The Eagle soars in the summit of Heaven,
The Hunter with his dogs pursues his circuit.

O perpetual revolution of configured stars,

O perpetual recurrence of determined seasons,

O world of spring and autumn, birth and dying

The endless cycle of idea and action,
Endless invention, endless experiment,
Brings knowledge of motion, but not of stillness;
Knowledge of speech, but not of silence;
Knowledge of words, and ignorance of the Word.
All our knowledge brings us nearer to our ignorance,
All our ignorance brings us nearer to death,
But nearness to death no nearer to GOD.
Where is the Life we have lost in living?
Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?
The cycles of Heaven in twenty centuries
Bring us farther from GOD and nearer to the Dust.

This Girl Needs a Belt!

On October 24th I joined 'Boot Camp with Jess and Company'

This is after one week of working out. One week wearing a 30 lb vest while working out.

Since then I have lost 8 lbs!!! and feel amazing. I am doing workouts I never dreamed of doing and now I cannot wait to get to the gym every morning.

Hopefully, I will get some measurements soon but I will tell you my clothes are fitting again and I feel like I look good. My arms are looking toned.

This is the best move I have taken for my overall health. Today one of my trainers came to me and said "You have come so far in such a short time, You will have no problem reaching your goals."

I believe him! I can do this.

Along with working out I am doing a meal plan. I eat 6 meals a day. I actually eat the same thing all week long which is great for me. I do not like planning food and I do not like having to come up with something new every day. This takes all the work out of it. Plus I am learning how to prepare so many new things. I am loving it. I also like it because I know I am getting the nutrition I need for all the working out I am doing.

The best part is I feel good all together. I am tired a lot but overall my energy has improved!

Stay tuned!

If I ever find my camera I will take another picture.

Death of a Fruit Fly

Clapping your hands frantically will yield approximately 1 fly per hour. They are tricky little buggers. You can however come at them with your finger and smash them, but you have to get the right angel so they do not see you coming. If you try to catch them in your hand they disappear when you open your hand. My solution... I run my hand under water in case they are in there I drown them.

These darn flies are driving me crazy. They like to eat my dinner when I do I would not be surprised if I had one of them for dinner last night.

My plan...though they are persistent and tricky they are dumb. I hear if you put a little treat in a bottle, then put a funnel on the top they will fly in to get the treat. But the "catch" is they will not be able to get out because they do not realize that the entrance is also the exit!

Wish me luck in my experiment. Anyone have some wine...I hear that is a good bait.

Short commute, steep hills

As the weather starts turning colder I have been assessing the hills I now live on and travel up and down daily. This is going to be a fun winter. I am reminded of some thoughts that I once shared. I feel there will be plenty more of these to come.

Icy Thoughts
By Jessica B.

Oh I hope I stop soon...
There is the curb...
stuck in the gutter I hope not...
I am hungry...
Remember when my house was not on a hill...
To far past the driveway I will have to turn around

The following are more thoughts as she spun her wheels attempting a turn back up the hill...

You knew this would not work...
I am hungry if I get stuck here I might not get the dinner I want...
I hope a car does not turn down this street...
burnt rubber not really a good smell...
Oh remember when my house was in the desert...
Note to self next place I live there will have hot guys next door

Thoughts as she drove around the block...

Should I try from and uphill aproach or a downhill...
Who should I call to coach me...
what shall I have for dinner...
oh nice Christmas lights...
here goes nothing...

Parked safely in her driveway. Jessica heads for dinner

Sleepwalking in Utah.

There are not any big stories for Utah just a bunch of little gems.

-Woke up one morning with all the sheets and blankets from my bed folded and stacked nicely on my bed.

- found myself wandering my room on occasion no purpose known...usually I realize I am up just tell myself to get back in bed.

- I use to have a curio cabinet in my room woke up and the door was open. I do not remember the details anymore but in my dream I was looking for something.

- When I was really stressed with school, surgery and other stuff... Monica would hear me talking night after night and she would come in and see how I was doing and I would get mad at her for talking to me. I usually would try to tell her I was awake and not talking in my sleep. I finally asked her to ignore me because it only stressed me out.

- I sleep in clothes that I would consider immodest for public...In my dreams I start to realize what I am wearing and become uncomfortable...I use to just pull the blankets up...lately I have woken up in modest shirts I did not got to bed wearing.

Oh how I wish I could remember all the odd things I have done. I have been sitting up in bed a lot lately in my sleep...until recently i changed pillows...I wonder if comfort has something to do with it.

So apparently it is not sleepwalking I am doing because I am aware that I am walking. Whereas sleepwalkers do not know they sleepwalk. One may say I am lucid dreaming because I can talk myself back to bed...but I don't really think I control my thoughts. I don't know what it is but I hope it has provided you with a little entertainment.

The fun continued into the college years!

In 2003 I became a Certified Nurses Assistant (CNA). At that time Amber had moved back home and instead of making Jeff share a room again the girls shared a room. It was fun I loved it. We all have talked in our sleep at some point in time and gotten caught by each other. I remember Amber and I trying to keep Monica talking when she talked in her sleep. Whenever I talked in my sleep I would get embarrassed that I was talking and become defensive saying I am awake I do not know what you are talking about but really I was still asleep or woke up and new I was caught.

So back to my new position as a nurses assistant. Once I started working the sleep walking started as well. For awhile I just heard call lights in my sleep and had to fight the urge to get out of bed and answer the call light. Then it happened...I woke up one morning and there were no sheets on my bed. They were there when I went to bed. After looking around I found a wad of sheets and blankets. Let me explain why I found then in a wad. When I am at work and taking the sheets off a hospital bed I would pull the corners off the bed and wad the sheets together and toss them in the laundry. So in my sleep I stripped the bed of linen.

Oh it gets better. I did not put those sheets back on my bed properly because at the time my bed was on the floor tucked behind Monica's and Amber and it was just a hassel. So a night or two later I found myself working again. This time I was dreaming that the charge nurse (head nurse) had given me an order to put a warm blanket on a patient. (Warm blanket is a heated blanket when you apply them to patients you want to put them next to the skin and put the other blanket back on top to seal in the warmth). So being the good CNA i was I climbed out of bed and prepared to put the blanket on the patient. So here I am standing over the patients bed. As I stand there I start realizing the patient is Monica. So I climb back in bed knowing I this is just a dream. Well the charge nurse got really mad at me at this point so I climbed out of bed again. As I stand next to Monica's bed I start to tell myself the trouble that will come if I touch her. In order to put this blanket on her in the process described above she is bound to wake up and then she will laugh at me because I am sleep walking. Likely she will wake up Amber and they will both laugh at me. I climbed back in bed. I think I got up a time or two more but never actually put the blanket on her. Maybe I stood up to the nurse, who knows.

This last one I did not remember doing until the next day Amber asked me about something related to it. Amber and I were hanging out in our room and she asked why everything from under her bed was sitting on the floor between our beds. Once she asked that it all came flooding into my memory. I said "Funny you should ask, last night when you were in your hospital bed you asked that I lower the head of your bed, in order to do that I had to move all this stuff for it to go down." I then remembered how weird it was that all that stuff would be stored under a hospital bed. My bed was on the floor and hers was not so I could see under it.

I am sure I did more during this time in my life but those are the ones I remember well. From then on I told Amber and Monica if they every woke up to me moving them "not to worry I was just changing their brief."

This is me hard at work at Banner Baywood Medical Center. The start of my Orthopaedic career.

A Sleepwalkers Day Never Ends

I am sure I did some more walking through the years but I do not remember much more from the younger years.

In high school it started to get really interesting! It all started my junior year of high school when I worked at the little league concession stands. When I got home from school I would head to the concession stand and I worked there until 10 or 11 most nights. Once I got home I always had some homework to get done before I could go to bed. Once I went to bed and was asleep I started to dream that I was at work. I would dream that a customer came to the concession stand counter. I would actually get out of bed and go to my dresser and take care of the customer. Once done with that I would climb back in bed. Once I felt comfortable and ready to sleep (even thought I was sleeping the whole time) another customer would come and I would get out of bed to help them and do the whole thing over again. I did this night after night and many times throughout the night. The strange thing was I knew what I was doing, I knew I was asleep but I still felt I needed to get up every time. The sleep I did get was not very restful.