Spirit, Move Me!

Written December 26, 2012

When I was a lot younger, the days and weeks before Christmas were filled with a frenetic burst of energy – for shopping, baking, wrapping, decorating, cleaning, cooking, letter writing...and more. Nowadays, the spirit has to move me before I do anything remotely connected to those previously enjoyed activities.

Last week I did bake cinnamon rolls – well I had to – to go with the chili I planned for Saturday evening supper. Ah, left-over rolls will be fine for Christmas – no need to bake any more for Christmas morning. What, no cinnamon ring with cherries and nuts on top of the frosting? NO. Spirit didn’t move me.

Presents? What are those? We do not need one more ‘thing’ in this house! Besides, we got a new refrigerator after Thanksgiving and a new microwave a week later (OK – so the 36 yr old microwave gave up the ghost, and the 26 yr old refrigerator did the same). Those were just early presents, right? And so Santa came early with a new dress coat and several shirts for Vern – mail order comes when it comes, not necessarily on Christmas Eve. And so Vern got a new jacket, pants, shirt and tie early – OK, he had to have something to wear to church in Sioux Center after we left the Sunday clothes hanging in the closet at home. More presents needed? NO!

And office staff? Love my co-workers but I do not need one more Tchotchke in my house! A box of Lipton teabags from one co-worker for my birthday? Now that is the best present she can give me! Last year I tried to disengage from the Christmas giving in the office but did not get the job done – but did accomplish that this year. Instead, the money I would have spent on gifts went to the Open Door Mission, Crossroads, a Giving Tree for seniors, and the Joy Offering at church. OK, so my own children did get checks...and they could buy what was needed for the little ones. Athena thanked us for the new sheets for her new bed.

I hate shopping! Yes, I went to Wal-Mart on my way home from work on Friday and thought maybe...but, the Spirit did NOT move me. I waltzed out of that store into the melting mess in the parking lot with nary a purchased item in my hand!

And Christmas decorations? If they get put up, they just have to be put away. OK...I procrastinated and procrastinated and procrastinated. Finally on Christmas Eve morning somebody (NOT ME) went downstairs and brought up the very tiny tree that we have and set it up on the lamp table in front of the window. But guess who had to go find the ornaments for that tree – among the mess of boxes in the storage area that were still in disarray after a sewer disaster last year. OK, I found them and brought them upstairs...and that is as far as *I* went. It was up to somebody else to decorate the tree – and yes, it looks very sweet and festive in our front window – not quite so Scroogie!

And baking! Was I going to do any more? OK...we had a package of raw peanuts in the ‘horse’. On Monday morning before Christmas I did make the famous peanut brittle – used the recipe on the package...but it still is just as fabulous as ever. It is a little smaller batch. Perhaps the husband will not keel over in a diabetic coma if I can keep it out of sight. And yes, I did find a new recipe for gingerbread – so a small batch was made on Monday. BUT...the spirit still has not moved me to frost the darn things.

And cooking...OK, a turkey breast, fresh sweet potatoes, canned corn, some stuffing, canned cranberry sauce (Spirit didn’t move me to make my own...left-overs from last Thanksgiving had to do), and a bought pecan pie. No, we are not going to over-do it. Not for two people. And yes, we have some very nice left-overs for several meals of turkey sandwiches, turkey soup, turkey hash...whatever we can make from left-over turkey. The smells of Chex Mix are now wafting through the house – the Spirit did move me once again.

A long time ago I was somewhat upset with my mother for not doing anything for Christmas. She didn’t put out any decorations or put up a tree. I think I found a recipe for Gingerbread Men – the last one she used and the last time she made them, probably early to mid 70s. I don’t know if she was even 70 at the time. I did not understand what was going on – why she did not continue the giving traditions that had been such a part of her life. I think I remember her saying ‘the spirit didn’t move me’. Hmmmm...like mother, like daughter?

As I grow older, I don’t see the point – if I cook/bake it I have to eat it – and my hips are far too wide now (secretary’s spread). If I don’t want to eat it and give it away, I have to deliver it – and at this time of the year with the ice and snow that can be treacherous – I don’t need a broken leg or hip; we’ve had enough of that with Vern. If I put up the decorations, I have to take them down and put them away – too much work.

So I will just go on my merry way, waiting for the spirit to move me. Oh, by the way, the spirit did move me fairly early to ‘write’ the annual Christmas letter – but the spirit still has not moved me to get the address list out, print the letters, and get them mailed. Maybe this week? Before New Year? Maybe just posting it on Facebook will suffice for 2012! Nah, the Spirit will eventually move me!

November Thankfulness - 2012

Rather than post these thoughts daily on Facebook, I just kept a document adding to it every day. Here are my thoughts of thankfulness for November 2012.

November Days of Thanks!
1 Thankful for a beautiful, glorious day in Nebraska!
2 Thankful for great Halloween pictures on FB of grandchildren far away!
3 Thankful for a conversation with daughter and granddaughter!
4 Thankful for a newly painted ramp and clean gutters courtesy of friend extraordinaire Marvin Fast!
5 Thankful for a vehicle that comfortably gets me where I need to go – even if it is 11 years old.
6 Thankful for another birthday and a healthy beginning to my 70th year!
7 Thankful for the end of another election cycle with some good and some not so good results.
8 Thankful for the friendship of my friend Cindy on her 70th birthday – she has been gone almost 13 years.
9 Thankful for the ability to multi-task (sometimes) – even at my advanced age.
10 Thankful for the skill of knitting and the ‘fixed’ hands that can still knit.
11 Thankful for the men and women who serve so that we may remain a free nation, under God, with liberty and justice for all.
12 Thankful for my eclectic taste in music – classical, easy listening, folk, 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s…whatever.
13 Thankful for the privilege to serve on several church committees and thankful my term is almost up.
14 Thankful for dinner-date with husband – a belated birthday dinner.
15 Thankful for another glorious fall day in Nebraska!
16 Thankful for another CCC ELS ‘tabloid’ (brochure) in the can (finished) – and on time even!
17 Thankful for yet another Y meet (with too many swimmers) in the can and celebration dinner with the Waltemaths. Here’s to another 49 years of wedded bliss for Rick and Phyl.
18 Thankful for the spiritual gifts of Kylie Wenburg as she begins a new phase in her spiritual directions ministry.
19 Thankful for husband who does the grocery shopping – with the assistance of good lists.
20 Thankful for $.01 books from Amazon that keep me reading through the night when I can’t sleep.
21 Thankful for a ‘spirit’ that moved me to clean my work desk – so much nicer to work off of a clean desk!
22 Thankful for family and friends – all who have been part of my life – I have been enriched by each and every one!
23 Thankful for Robin Koozer and his wonderful gifts and talents shared with FPC and Hastings for so many years.
24 Thankful for a half-way clean office.
25 Thankful for my friend Diana who celebrates her birthday today and thankful for my freedom to worship or not to worship if I need the time at home to get work done.
26 Thankful for being able to buy a needed new refrigerator without having to borrow from Peter to pay Paul.
27 Thankful for feeling better today than I felt yesterday.
28 Thankful for hair stylist extraordinaire Jerry Benker – always makes my hair look fabulous!
29 Thankful for a long, fruitful day – work, workshop, swim meet, session meeting.
30 Thankful for old computer that still runs swim meet software with sufficient ease.

Joy

Our precious grandson and his family were able to make a Make-a-Wish trip to Disney World in April. From the pictures taken, I think the trip was worth every penny that was spent. I have never seen such smiles on Caelie’s face. I just want to see these smiles in person – and hopefully I will get that opportunity in early July when his mommy comes to Omaha to swim at the Masters Nationals (his brothers are coming too).

Thoughts on Cael

Grammy spent five days in Dallas while Caelie was in the hospital (as of this writing he is still there). Grammy does not know what to think. Cael is not a normal child. Nothing about him is normal. He has Down Syndrome. He also has Hirschsprung’s Disease. And failure to thrive. And… And… And… the list goes on. He is a precious little boy who is very good most of the time – until he is stressed.

At this point I think the whole medical profession has gone crazy. The docs do not listen to the mom. They order ‘goofy’ tests as the mommy puts it. They diagnose something that is totally inappropriate for his condition. He needs to go home and be with his family and get back to a normal routine to be able to do what he normally does, but until he is able to eat and drink he will not be going home. And they say he has ‘forgotten’ how to crawl and how to eat. Sure. Who are these nut cases, anyway?

Before this hospital stay is over, I am afraid my daughter may kill somebody. The strain and stress on a family of a medically fragile child is unbelievable. And with the medical profession batting in the dark for diagnoses, the stress is doubled.

Continued later…
The strain and stress got worse as the hospital forced an airlift transfer (with daddy) half-way across the country, necessitating a travel trip for mom and brothers, a trip for grandpa and grandma, several more air trips for the daddy, a hotel stay and a Ronald McDonald House stay for family members, and an air trip for auntie and cousin to try to help this family through a very trying and stressful time.

From a not-too-objective perspective, this could and should have been avoided if a hospital staff had been willing to listen to the parents rather than thinking they knew what was wrong and trying to play god in the process. A child with Hirschsprung’s induced enterocolitis should not have to wait 48 hours for medical staff to determine that this was not just the ‘flu’ but rather a very life-threatening infection. A child should not have to stay in the hospital 20 days with inappropriate treatment for his condition because the medical staff cannot understand that the parents have been trained to take care of the Hirschsprung’s related problems in very specific ways by world-renowned specialists in that area. A child should not have to be airlifted half-way across the country because hospital staff cannot get around to contacting previous medical providers regarding appropriate treatment for the current manifestations of the condition. No parent should have to be questioned so harshly regarding treatment requests when they have been through the same thing more than once and know what treatments have worked in the past.

We are grateful to the hospital staff in Cincinnati for listening to the parents, for understanding the needs of this special child, and for treating appropriately. We are grateful to the Ronald McDonald House for a very pleasant stay, albeit we all would have rather been home for Christmas. (Three full Christmas dinners was a pretty nice perk.) We are grateful for healing for our precious grandson.

And…6 weeks after being home Cael is gaining weight. Yes, weight. He may be a chunky monkey yet;-)

Zane thought his brother needed a welcome-home party, so the family got the bouncy house and had friends over to enjoy an afternoon of fun. Below the three brothers are pictured enjoying the fun.

Thoughts on a High School Class Reunion

I was privileged to be able to attend my 50th high school class reunion – Chino High School, Chino, CA, class of 1961 (the one year where our class rings could be turned either way and the year still reads the same). Everybody seemed to recognize me (no one else in my class was any shorter) but I seemed to need the name tags to put the names with the faces. Most of us have aged (with a few exceptions), but what should one expect after 50 years. We were a class of 204 in 1961 – we have lost 42 of our classmates. To hear of some of their tragic deaths made me very sad – murder, suicide, traffic accidents, cancer, heart disease, stroke, and more – and even more sad especially for those deaths that would not be considered ‘natural’ causes. The number of classmates who chose not to join us also made me sad. Some of us did not feel very much a part of the whole in 1961, but in 2011 we were all one whole, enjoying each other’s company even though we had been apart for so very many years. All of the petty stuff of the teenage years was gone. An afternoon social hour, a dinner and more socializing, and a late morning brunch at our class president’s home made the weekend very special.

Going home after so many years where there is no home to go to and no family in the area is a tough one. I decided to spend some time with a former neighbor. We had tea together. Her son and wife joined us (I babysat for him when he was a little kid). We had lunch together. We reminisced and talked of everything – family, friends, church, school, neighbors and anything else we could think of. This visit really helped bridge the lack of family as we had so many friends in common. I can never catch up with the last 50 years that I have been away, but I do know a little more about old friends than I did before I made the trip.

Again, I spent a little time driving around the area, trying to find old haunts, homes, and landmarks. As with everyplace, this little place in the sun has definitely changed – a LOT – since 1961. It has even changed a lot since my parents passed away and changed since I was home in 2001 for my 40th HS reunion. Life was simpler 50 years ago. People weren’t in such a hurry. We took more time to just be with friends and visit. Everyone has someplace to go and something to do today and there is no time for just ‘being’. My few days at ‘home’ gave me some for just ‘being’ – being with friends, renewing old acquaintances, and just relaxing without the daily pressures of my convoluted life.

Thank you to all my classmates who joined us for a great weekend. Thank you to my friends who made time for me to just visit and relax and be with them and catch up on everything. Thank you to my husband who again let me go and ‘be’. There are plans for another reunion – perhaps earlier than five years. I don’t know whether I will go or not, but I do know this 50th reunion will be a very good memory for a very long time.

Lenten Thoughts

I was asked to give a 'testimony' during the worship service on March 20, 2011. As one who is NOT comfortable at all with demonstrative effusions on my faith, the following is what I ultimately stated.

Thoughts on God’s Presence in my life:

Some of us can stand on the street corner and proclaim our faith. Others of us can pray with confidence in public. And others of us can put our faith in erudite words as a verbal testimony. I don’t feel comfortable doing any of those things.

I come from a Dutch Reformed background and generations of psalm singers. I attended a Christian elementary school and a Christian college. I learned early and throughout my formative years to SING my faith. The words of the hymns and psalms of my youth are firmly imprinted on my brain. I feel closest to God and most uplifted either when singing or listening to the glorious music of the church. In times of joy and in times of sorrow, in times of stress or in times of relaxed pleasure, I chose to sing my faith.

One hymn speaks my faith loudly and clearly – even to the point that I had it sung at the memorial services for both of my parents and will request that it be sung at mine too – Our God Our Help in Ages Past.

I invite you to join me in a testament to my faith and yours as we lift our voices in praise to the Almighty singing together Psalm 90, Hymn #210, Our God Our Help in Ages Past. Hear the words. Let them speak to you as they speak to me. May you feel God’s eternal love and eternal presence in your life – our guide while life shall last and our eternal home.

Lenten Testimony
March 20, 2011
Betty Kooy

1. O God, our help in ages past,
Our hope for years to come,
Our shelter from the stormy blast,
And our eternal home.
2. Before the hills in order stood,
Or earth received her frame,
From everlasting Thou art God,
To endless years the same.
3. A thousand ages in Thy sight
Are like an evening gone;
Short as the watch that ends the night
Before the rising sun.
4. Time, like an ever-rolling stream,
Bears all its sons away;
They fly, forgotten, as a dream
Dies at the op’ning day.
5. O God, our help in ages past,
Our hope for years to come,
Be Thou our guard while life shall last,
And our eternal home.

QUIT Moving My Cheese!!!!!

Alright, already! Enough is enough. I don’t want any more changes in my life!
January 2011 – life seemed pretty normal other than rotten computer problems at work, but at least we dealt with it. BUT, on February 5 everything seemed to fly apart. Vern broke his right leg in several places slipping down the front steps early in the morning. A call to friends and the recommendation to call 911 got him to the hospital. At 2pm on a Saturday afternoon he was in surgery and was plated, screwed, wired and casted together with the lovely words ‘ absolutely no weight-bearing on that leg for 6-8 weeks’. UGH! He got a lovely room in the hospital, but by Tuesday, February 8, he was moved to the Acute Rehab Unit – to try to get strong enough and used to hopping on one leg and dealing with everything that comes with an unusable limb. In the meantime Grandson Soeren Aberdeen Kooy Codel was born on Monday, February 7. Grammy had promised Liz that she would come to Chicago and help with the family for a week. So she left Vern in the hospital to be taken care of by an excellent staff and made her way on the train to Chicago.

In the meantime, we are being asked how are you going to get Vern home and keep him safe? How do you get him into the house? First solution – a ramp. Bless the swim team friends who volunteered to build the ramp. Next solution – room in the house to maneuver a wheel chair and walker. Again, bless the ramp builders. Next solution – a cleaner house. Bless the new hired help who is absolutely FABULOUS! So…ramp up to house, bunches of stuff thrown out to make room for the rehab stuff, other stuff moved or put in place to make mobility safe. Check! So as of March 1, Vern is home. But who knows where the majority of my cheese is? I am so much a creature of habit that things just don’t feel right.

The work cheese is getting moved big time too – not yet, but soon. I am not anticipating any of the changes. It is not that I can’t change. I just don’t think we need to change just because someone thinks they have to make changes just because…! Nobody who has been dealing with the new changes is liking the changes and they are not going smoothly. I am frustrated already listening to the grousing. How am I going to deal when NOTHING in my workspace works like it is supposed to and I have to constantly figure out how to make things work. I already am making work-arounds for a lot of ordinary daily tasks. What will I do when everything is changed and will require a whole new set of skills/work habits?

Things changed/or caused problems since February 1:
Vern’s broken leg
Whole house rearranged
New Grandson in Chicago
Flash drive (Betty’s Brain) fails (backed-up Feb 1 but…)
Betty’s car died in hospital parking lot (luckily only a battery)

Guess I still have much to be thankful for. I have my health and my brain (what is left when I don’t feel fried). I can still get around and take care of business. But I miss having a honey-doer! It will be a while before he can honey-do again.