Happy New Year!!
It has been several years since I have been choosing My One Little Word of each New Year.....
What this means is choosing One Little Word to focus on for the upcoming New Year......
As I have stated in these posts for the past several years, I no longer
have New Year's Resolutions but I do have Aspirations for the New
Year.......
Last year, My One Little Word was PEACE!!!!!
I wanted a drama free Peaceful year........
What I got instead was a year of what I call "Unexpected Occurrences"!!!!
Some good and some not so good.....
It started on February 14th.......
Yes, Valentine's Day........
I was at work and it had rained even though it was not called for by the local meteorologists..
The rain froze causing sidewalks to become skating rinks........
Fearful that I would fall and break my neck when I got home from work, I called Joe and asked him to put down some Ice Melt.....
While outside, spreading the Ice Melt, Joe took a flipper on the ice and after a trip to Urgent Care, he ended up with a broken rib and a broken wrist!!!
That one incident put him out of work for 8 weeks but he was able to collect short term Disability from Wegman's even though he only works 15-20 hours a week!!!
In April, a Benefit was held for my Nephew John who was recently diagnosed with Colon Cancer...
The Benefit exceeded all expectations and was attended by so many generous people...
I call this one of 2018's "Unexpected Occurrences" because the support and generosity of others truly shocked all of us and touched us deeply!!
We were thrilled to see that our nephew had so many people that loved and cared for him.....
My nephew is still receiving treatment and holding his own......
We have grown close to him and his family this year which has been a great Blessing!!
On June 13th, I was home watching TV about 10 pm.......
Joe had already gone to bed when the Tornado Warnings came on the TV.....
I woke Joe up when I heard that they were saying a tornado was sighted near downtown Wilkes Barre and was heading towards the Shopping District in Wilkes Barre Twp where we live....
We thought it was crazy that the rain was blowing inside the house through the air conditioner in the living room window and the shade was blowing out into the Living Room!!!
Joe checked the front of the house and I checked the back for damage, finding none......
Then we heard on the TV that multiple buildings in the Shopping Center right next to our development were destroyed!!!
Joe and our oldest son quickly took a ride down the street and could not believe what they saw.....
In the light of day, the damage was like nothing this area had ever seen before!!!
We had never seen devastation like this from a Tornado which simply does not happen here in NEPA!!!
Thank God no one was seriously hurt....
We realized that we were very lucky to still have our house and our lives for that matter after we saw this Path of the Tornado printed in the newspaper.....
After the Tornado destroyed Barnes and Nobles , it turned to the right and hit Dick's Sporting Goods......
If the Tornado would have gone straight after hitting Barnes and Nobles through the parking lot, and hit Lowe's and kept going straight, it would have hit our townhouses which are directly behind Lowe's.....
My row of townhouses is marked with the yellow X.......
You can see that the Tornado just missed us.....
This "Unexpected Occurrence" shook me right down to the core of my being.......
It was almost like a "Near Death" experience and it took me a few weeks to shake that feeling.....
Some stores had to be torn down and some were gutted to the studs and rebuilt and are now reopened,
Some stores have relocated to other areas in the Wyoming Valley....
The crazy weather continued for most of the Summer and has continued right up to the end of the year.....
I had had a lot of plans for the Summer and lots of projects that I wanted to get done.......
This past Summer became the most Humid and Wettest on record here in NEPA!
In fact, 2018 became the wettest year on record!!!!
Yep, 61.08 inches of rain!!!
And it rained on New Year's Eve too!!!
I spent most of the Summer stuck in the house with the air conditioners blaring!!
Maybe this year in 2019, I will be able to get some of those projects done that I could not do last year.....
In September, something amazing happened........
I have not been able to write about this on this blog or on my face book site because of privacy issues but what I can now say is on September 21, our youngest son Jim's girlfriend Danielle, with whom he has lived with for the past 10 years, bought a $20 Pennsylvania Lottery Scratch Off ticket.....
She was extremely lucky and won a very large sum of money!!!
This left all of us in a state of shock and we could not wrap our heads around her winning on the Lottery!!!
This enabled her to pay off large amounts of student loans , the car that they owned and other bills......
And they then decided that they would get married!!
They wanted a simple ceremony and did not want anyone to spend any money on them....
So on November 28th, Jim and Danielle were married and a beautiful ceremony by a local magistrate!!
We had a family dinner at home.....
We are thrilled to now be able to call Danielle not only our Daughter-in-Love but our Daughter-in-Law!!!
Since April, the patient census in my department had been low.......
Word is that Medicare and Health Insurances were not paying for Inpatient Acute Rehab....
The writing was on the wall but I was really hoping that my department would stay open until the Spring of 2019........
But that was not to be.......
I was off for a few days from work when I received an email on face book from a former co worker and friend of mine that my rehab department were I had worked for the past 36 years, was closing!
No, I did not find out as I should have from my Unit Manager nor did half the staff on my department!
This "Unexpected Occurrence" has nearly broke me......
With less then a year to go before I have my knee replacement surgery and retire, I am now being forced to work on an Acute Medical Surgical floor ( which is what they turned my department into),
I have not worked acute care for 36 years.......
Apparently, a few inservices and 2 days of orientation on an Acute Med Surg floor is all the training that they feel is needed to function as an acute care nurse........
The stress of this transition is pretty much killing me .........
And I think that a lot of that stress had to do with me ending up with the Flu and Gastroenteritis for the entire week between Christmas and New Year's forcing me to cancel our traditional New Year's Eve and New Year's Day dinners for my family...
I have not been this ill in quite some time.......
I had a fever of 102 for several days and then diarrhea for 5 days....
I am finally feeling better now......
So you see, 2018 was far from the peaceful year that I had hoped it would be.......
Instead, it became a year filled with so many "Unexpected Occurrences" both good and bad.....
I am actually glad that 2018 is over and I sincerely hope that 2019 is a better and calmer year.....
As to what my One Little Word for 2019 is, I have thought long and hard......
Joe thought that it should be "Countdown" as I count down to my retirement at the end of the year!
My focus for this year is basically going to be getting ready for my Knee Replacement surgery which I hope to have done in October.
I need to keep doing my stationary bike to strengthen the muscles in my right leg and I need to try to take some weight off so it will be easier for me to move around after the surgery.....
My stress level this year has been through the roof.......
I need to try to remain calm and focus on what is important to me like my family, my home and my health..........
I need to reduce the amount of Stress that I recently have been feeling because of my job situation.....
I need to focus on doing the best job I can do in the situation that I have been forced into .......
I also need to realize that I only have a short time left in which I need to function in this situation....
So, have you picked up what My One Little Word is going to be for 2019?????
FOCUS!!!!!!
Yes, I need to FOCUS on getting through the next few months until I can schedule my Knee Replacement surgery.....
And I need to stop Stressing over things I have no control over and FOCUS on What Really Matters......
So there you have it.....
My One Little Word for 2019 is FOCUS!!!
I hope you will be back to visit again soon.......
And thanks to those who took the time out of their busy day to spend a little bit of time with me!!
If you do not have a blog, PLEASE
give me some way to reply to your comment, maybe by including your email in your comment. If I can not find a way to
reach you, I will reply on the post where you commented so please check
back......
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THURSDAY
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MONDAY
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