I don’t personally know the majority of people who read this blog. I don’t know where you live or your real names. So it goes without saying that I don’t know your religious beliefs. With the exception of a few of you, who I know can’t eat bacon.

I don’t know your beliefs and I don’t really care. I tend not to judge people because I feel that in the end, the judging will be done by someone slightly more powerful than Momo Fali. I think all human beings are flawed, including me, and that’s why I never write about religion. Except for today.

Something happened yesterday that I can’t really describe in any other way than to say I was slapped in the face and then kicked in the shins by God Himself.

I have a reader, named Alison, who hasn’t been around here much lately. It may be that she’s tired of my writing, but a more likely reason is that she just had her colon removed because of Crohn’s Disease. Oh, and she has Lupus too.

So the slap came in the form of a comment from Alison on my post in which I was complaining about my ongoing sinus infection.

A month ago, when Alison was desperately in need of medicine and was dealing with insurance atrocities, she asked her readers to pray (not for her) but for the woman at the pharmaceutical company because she might be “stymied and frustrated” in her job. Yeah, she’s that nice.

The kick in the shins came when I found a brown, tattered, piece of paper laying on my living room floor. I picked it up to find an old Dr. Abby article I cut out over a decade ago. It’s been on the side of my refrigerator ever since…exactly right where I never see it. But there it was on the floor of a different room where I needed to pick it up and look at it. How it got there, I will never know.

Things to be Thankful For

-Be thankful for the clothes that fit a little too snug because it means you have enough to eat.
-Be thankful for the mess you clean up after a party because it means you have been surrounded by friends.
-Be thankful for the taxes you pay because it means you’re employed.
-Be thankful that your lawn needs mowing and your windows need fixing because it means you have a home.
-Be thankful for your heating bill because it means you are warm.
-Be thankful for the laundry because it means you have clothes to wear.
-Be thankful for the space you find at the far end of the parking lot because it means you can walk.
-Be thankful for the lady who sings off-key behind you in church because it means you can hear.
-Be thankful when people complain about the government because it means we have freedom of speech.
-Be thankful for the alarm that goes off in the early morning hours because it means you’re alive.

Me? I’m thankful that I can still recognize grace when I see it.

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Somewhere around mid-December my husband brought home a nasty cold. After two days of sniffling and sneezing he was better. For my son, and for me, this cold turned into a sinus infection and we both have been through three rounds of antibiotics to get rid of it. My boy is finally better, but the last two days have left me feeling even worse.

I am typing this with a raging headache, which is a frequent occurrence. I have to use an inhaler before I exercise thanks to my asthma and I take medication and use two different nose-sprays and a rinse for my sinus problems. I am sick. A lot.

I am also a klutz. I have broken the same ankle three times. That stuff they say about the bone getting stronger after it breaks? Not true. I have suffered two concussions and now keep prescriptions in my cabinet for dizziness and nausea.

My ailments over the years have ranged from adhesions from my two c-sections (ow), to pleurisy (more ow), to meningitis (mostest ow). I had meningitis, I can say mostest if I want to.

I once played a board game with two of my sisters where they had to guess the answer I would give to certain questions. One of the questions was, “How many days a year are you sick?” One sister answered 300 and the other one wrote down 350. They were both wrong. My answer was 365.

At the beginning of 2009, my husband said he was going to start a journal to keep track of all my illnesses. Last night, I called him at work and said, “Go ahead and put down that today, on top of my lingering sinus infection, I had dizziness and a sore throat”.

He replied, “I stopped keeping track. I figure it’s easier to write down the days you are well.” That’s how often I am sick. I didn’t even make it a month-and-a-half before he gave up.

My poor health probably just boils down to stress and insomnia, but you know what boys and girls? It’s getting old. I am sick of being sick.

I wish they could give me a pill for that.

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The kids were sitting at the table the other day, reading messages on little candy hearts, when my son asked my daughter a question. She didn’t know the answer, so she asked me, “Mom, what’s a soul mate?”

I replied, “Well, it’s when two things are meant to be together. Like with me and Daddy. It’s love like no other love, and nothing can ever come between you.”

She thought for a second about how to properly relay this information to her little brother, then she turned to him and said, “It’s like how our dog feels about her bowl of food.”

And just like that, I went from someone’s soul mate to just another piece of meat.

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My husband, the kids and I recently ate dinner at a local tavern called, The Winking Lizard. This restaurant is well-known for its buttery popcorn that you serve up yourself out of a giant popper (which the kids love), and also for its World Beer Tour (which the adults enjoy).

They also have a very large, glass-enclosed area where they house a live lizard. Not some pansy gecko, but a big creature the size of a tree limb. Needless to say, my six year old son was quite interested in it.

But I didn’t quite grasp his excitement, because I didn’t see it coming when he came back to the table after using the restroom, and loudly announced to our table and to a roomful of patrons, “Hey Dad! I just went to the bathroom and I saw the big lizard!”

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