The stockings were hung by the chimney with care....

....in hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there.

(For Sue, who asked for Orion pics. ;)

Because you know how much I like quotes

Great quotations from Criminal Minds:

*"Try again, fail again. Fail better." -Samuel Beckett

*"Unfortunately, a super-abundance of dreams is paid for by a growing potential for nightmares." -Sir Peter Ustinov

*"Measure not the work until the day's out and the labor done." -Elizabeth Barrett Browning

*"The bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and deeds left undone." -Harriet Beecher Stowe

*"What we do for ourselves dies with us. What we do for others and the world, remains and is immortal." -Albert Pine

*"I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary. The evil it does is permanent." -Mahatma Ghandi

*"The defects and faults of the mind are like wounds in the body. After all imaginable care has been taken to heal them up, still there will be a scar left behind." -Francois de la Roche Foucauld

*"It has been said that time heals all wounds. I do not agree. The wounds remain. In time, the mind, protecting its sanity, covers them with scar tissue, and the pain lessens, but it is never gone." -Rose Kennedy

*"Of all the animals, man is the only one that is cruel. He is the only one who inflicts pain for the pleasure of doing it." -Mark Twain

*"The life of the dead is placed in the memory of the living." -Cicero

*"Tragedy is a tool for the living to gain wisdom, not a guide by which to live." -Robert Kennedy

*"Of all the preposterous assumptions of humanity, nothing exceeds the criticisms made of the habits of the poor by the well-housed, well-warmed, and well-fed." -Herman Melville

*"Nothing is permanent in this wicked world. Not even our troubles." -Charles Chaplin

*"Fairy tales do not tell children that dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children that dragons can be killed." -G.K. Chesterton

*"Now what else is the whole life of mortals, but a sort of comedy in which the various actors, disguised by various costumes and masks, walk on and play each ones part until the manager walks them off the stage?" -Erasmus

*"No man or woman who tries to pursue an ideal in his or her own way is without enemies." -Daisy Bates

*"The most authentic thing about us is our capacity to create, to overcome, to endure, to transform, to love and to be greater than our suffering." -Ben Okri

*"We cross our bridges when we come to them and burn them behind us, with nothing to show for our progress except a memory of the smell of smoke, and a presumption that once our eyes watered." -Tom Stoppard

*"If we knew each other's secrets, what comforts we should find." -John Churton Collins

*"All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves. We must die to one life before we can enter another." -Anatole France

*"What though the radiance that was once so bright, be now forever taken from my sight. Though nothing can bring back the hour of splendor in the grass, of glory in the flower; We will grieve not, rather find strength in what remains behind." -William Wordsworth

Health update

Okay, a health update....

The short version: Not too much has changed

The long version: Well, if you'll recall, when we left off last time, I had just received a positive test result for a bacterial infection in my small intestine. As I mentioned before, this is generally a complication of some other problem and doesn't usually develop spontaneously. Anyhow, after high doses of antibiotics, my symptoms did not improve. Actually, they got a little bit worse, and I lost some additional weight. This led my Johns Hopkins GI to believe that perhaps the bacterial infection was not the main problem and that we'd need to look at other things.

Because the JH GI actually has her practice office north of Baltimore, getting there has been a challenge. It's easily 2-3 hours in rush hour, and honestly, I just don't have the energy for a 4-6 hour round trip on a regular basis. Although I'm still keeping this doctor as my GI, I realized that I needed a local doctor as well.

So...a couple of weeks ago, I started seeing a family practitioner who specializes in chronic pain and illness and uses integrative medicine. He's affiliated with Georgetown Medical School. His tentative impression is that when I first became ill (nearly two years ago), I had some sort of infection, and my body overreacted to it. This became an autoimmune overreaction, and now my body is treating most foods as allergens. This has led to the malnutrition, malabsorption, intestinal infection, etc. (Basically, think of what it's like to have the stomach "flu." Now extend this for two years. As you can imagine, this leads to significant weight loss.) However, he says that at this point, it's difficult to know what is "disease/condition A" versus the results of the malnutrition and vitamin deficiencies. So...his plan is to start IVs of minerals and such (as well as something that will hopefully help my small intestine heal) and provide supportive acupuncture to try to calm my system down. Hopefully, this will allow me to be able to eat a bit more, and then we can have a clearer view of the underlying issue. He's also looking at the possibility of some exposure to toxins (and has started some blood work to test for various things), but that is not clear yet. I'm happy that he at least has a plan. I'll be seeing him weekly for the next couple of months so that I can get IVs and acupuncture.

So...we'll see.....

That's the update.

The Top Twos in Books

Here are my top two picks for the year (read this year, not published this year) for 3 genres:

Fiction

1. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society (Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows)-- It's charming, delightful, humorous...and begs a top spot on everyone's list. :)

2. Outlander (Diane Gabaldon)-- I know I said I didn't actually love it, but it turns out that these characters have a way of sticking with the reader. I miss them. To me, that makes a book great.

Nonfiction

1. Angry Conversations with God (Susan Isaacs)-- I can't express how much I love this book. It's all the things I wish I could explain but a heck of a lot funnier. I frequently think back to the "Darfur test"-- i.e., if your theology can't hold true in Darfur, it's not valid. God is not obligated to give us what we want and understanding that goes a long way to having a true relationship.

2. Columbine (Dave Cullen)-- Besides this just being a great book, I can't get this image out of my head...and surprisingly (given the book), it's very hopeful and life-affirming:

Patrick Ireland is one of the critically-injured survivors of the shooting. He was in the library when Dylan began firing and was shot in the head and foot while trying to apply pressure to the wound of a friend. When Ireland regained consciousness, he dragged himself over to the shattered window (the only escape he could see) and tumbled out from the second story while the SWAT team scrambled below to reach him. Despite severe damage to his brain, Ireland worked tirelessly in physical therapy, returned to school and graduated as one of his class's valedictorians. He gave this speech at his commencement, just over a year after the shooting:

It had been a rough year, he said. "The shooting made the country aware of the unexpected level of hate and rage that had been hidden in the high schools." But he was convinced the world was inherently good at heart. He had spent a year thinking about what had gotten him across the library floor. At first he assumed hope-- not quite; it was trust. "When I fell out the window, I knew somebody would catch me," he said. "That's what I need to tell you: that I knew the loving world was there all the time" (302).

Young Adult (YA) Fiction

1. Shug (Jenny Han)-- We read this book in the middle school mother/daughter book club, and I loved it. It's a book about a middle schooler whose mother is an alcoholic....but it manages to not just be about a middle schooler whose mother is an alcoholic.

2. The Hunger Games (Suzanne Collins)-- I just read this, and I'll post a longer review later.

I posted this last year, but I'm going to post it again this year anyways.

From Secrets in the Dark by Frederick Buechner:

Lord Jesus Christ, thou Son of the Most High, Prince of Peace, be born again into our world. Wherever there is war, wherever there is pain, wherever there is loneliness, wherever there is no hope, come, thou long-expected one, with healing in thy wings.

Holy Child, whom the shepherds and the kings and the dumb beasts adored, be born again. Wherever there is boredom, wherever there is fear of failure, wherever there is temptation too strong to resist, wherever there is bitterness of heart, come, thou Blessed One, with healing in thy wings.

Savior, be born in each of us as we raise our face to thy face, not knowing fully who we are or who thou art, knowing only that thy love is beyond our knowing and that no other has the power to make us whole. Come, Lord Jesus, to each who longs for thee even though we have forgotten thy name. Come quickly. Amen.

Eye candy

This meme was originally "What Ten Celebrities Would Kiss No Questions Asked?" but I could only think of eight. And, well, not really with no questions asked....because, you know, that's not really me. But...with minimal questioning, anyways. ;) At any rate, enjoy the eye candy.





Not in any important order. :)

1. Wentworth Miller-- Prison Break



2. Bradley Cooper-- Alias













3. Jesse Spencer-- House


















4. Ian Somerhalder-- Lost and Vampire Diaries












5. Matthew Grey Gubler-- Criminal Minds













6. Sam Trammell-- True Blood














7. Scott Foley-- Felicity (and The Unit)














8. Josh Holloway-- Lost