Author Archives: Laurie Blundell

Weekend update–late

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I meant to post this earlier this week but I honestly just forgot. This past weekend was one of the few weekends we actually had nothing “planned” or anywhere we had to be, so we just did what we wanted. Friday night we had some friends over for dinner and played some games. Jonathan and I used the recipe from www.thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/ to make some yummy chicken legs and Keri brought a scrumptious chocolate cake from the same site. This woman is unbelievable–she has the best recipes on her site, you should check it out. Now I’m not gonna lie, these are NOT non-caloric recipes, but soo tasty. Anyway, Saturday we slept in, well I slept in, Jonathan did a little bit but then got up to meet a friend that morning. About noon we headed for Dallas to do our thrift store scavenger hunt. What you do is have a list of things you have to find (weird items or hard to find items) and you split up and see who finds the most. We took a picture of each item we found with our phone to prove that we actually did find the item. I won–yeah! by one point but I still won, so I got to pick where to eat lunch. We were in Dallas and there are soooooo many places I love to eat in Dallas so it was a tough pick. But before we ate lunch we headed over to the new firewheel shopping center in the Garland/Rowlett area. There is a winery there that we really like, it’s Texas wine and they make it right there. Jonathan got a black cherry wine and I got a strawberry white wine. We got home and tried both of them and ended up switching wines, the lady at the winery said the strawberry wine I got was not dry and sweet…she lied! It was very much dry and not that sweet. Jonathan’s black cherry wine was really good…anyway, if you like wine you should make a trip to D’Vine Wine. After our wine extravaganza we headed to old navy, no luck there, and then to James
Avery to look at rings. I am wanting to get the ladies version of Jonathan’s wedding band. I have started wearing a band to work and not my wedding ring because it’s getting really scratched up and dinged at work when we have to use the big wrenches and change out oxygen tanks and such. Anyway we tried those on and found the size/ring I need and headed off, whithout the ring…maybe sometime soon I’ll get it. Next was lunchtme and I chose Freebirds!! Have you ever been to freebirds? you should go, it’s good. Kind of like chipotle but different, they have monsterous burritos with all the fixin’s–soo good. I hadn’t been there in atleast 2 years. After lunch we headed home. Not much happened the rest of the weekend, just relaxing. As of now, we have NOTHING planned so just another relaxing weekend before my surgery on Monday.

10 ways to simplify your life

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Simplicity
Is anyone else getting overwhelmed and more tired than ever these days? Ok, so it’s not just me! Well here are 10 ways to simplify your life, not all of these are doable for everyone but even by just doing a few it will simplify your life somewhat. I am all about simplicity, I love the way you feel when you live simply. I did this when I was working after college. I was living on my own, working, and had a group of friends that I did stuff with, it was great – no schedule, I worked 3 days a week (12-13 hours a day) and lived simply. Granted I didn’t have the responsibilities I have now either, but I still wish I could go back to those times. Anyway, here they are:

1. 3-box decluttering–this is a big one for me–I hate clutter!! If you’re trying to declutter a room, drawer, shelf, desk … use three boxes to quickly sort everything. Just quickly go through each shelf or drawer or flat surface at once, putting things into three separate boxes: Trash, Donate, Maybe. The first two boxes are obvious … the Maybe box is for stuff you’re not too sure about — you can put this in storage for a few months and decide later.
2. Create a short list–This is for the big-picture simplifying. If you’re having a hard time getting your life to something truly simple, create a short list of things you love doing most. This should be 4-5 things. For me, that’s writing, reading, running and spending time with my family. Your short list will be different. Then, try to eliminate everything in your life that’s not on the short list, to make room for the things you love.
3. Deflect all requests for a week— If you’re feeling overwhelmed, make the decision that you will not say “yes” to any new requests this week. If you get a new request, politely decline. If it’s a request you can’t decline, tell them you’ll get to it next week because you have some projects you need to finish this week. Then pick one or two or even three projects (depending on their sizes) and focus on finishing them this week.
4. Single-task– This is good for those who tend to be all over the place. Don’t allow yourself to switch between tasks. When you’re working on a report or writing an article, don’t do anything else. When you’re processing email, get to empty and do nothing else. One task at a time … finish the task … move on to the next. Try this for one day, focusing on it completely for that day.
5. Start your day with peace –I love this one, because it’s so easy to implement and yet it can have such a powerful effect on your day. When you first wake up, do something that is calming and peaceful. That might be running or walking, having a quiet cup of coffee with a book, watching the sunrise or doing a devotional … whatever works well for you. It can be 10 minutes or an hour, but find some peace in the morning and use it to calm you throughout your entire day. This is a tough one for me just because I get up early as it is, so getting up earlier is difficult.
6. Go media free — If your life is filled with information overload, and you find little time to do the things you love to do, consider eliminating media from your life, at least temporarily. This includes cable TV, DVDs, newspapers and magazines, Internet news and the like. Now, I’m not saying you should eliminate the things you love. You might love a certain TV show — in that case, eliminate everything else. You can go media free for a week to see if it improves your life, and then consider extending it for longer.
7. Limit yourself to 3 tasks— If your to-do list is long and overwhelming, pick three tasks you want to do today — important tasks that aren’t just urgent but actually have a long-lasting impact on your life. Focus on getting these three tasks done before anything else. If you finish early, you can either call it a day or get some bonus tasks done.
8. Limit yourself to one project— How many projects are you juggling right now? If there are too many, you might be limiting your effectiveness. Instead, focus on one project right now, and put the others on the back-burner. Try to get that one project done as quickly as possible, and then work on the next one.
9. 30-day rule— This is a fantastic for those who have trouble with impulse buying — that great enemy of simplifying. The rule is that if you want to buy something, you have to write it on your 30-day list, with the date that it was added to the list. After 30 days, if you still want it, you can buy it. This doesn’t apply to necessities such as groceries … which helps you distinguish between wants and needs, a great skill for simplifying. This is a real tough one for me but a good one to use so I think I’ll try it more.
10. Limit storage space— Do you tend to save everything? Have tons of stuff in storage, in closets or attics or garages or cabinets? The less storage you have, the less stuff you’ll save — which will save you the stress of having to go through all that storage to find stuff, to organize stuff, to maintain stuff, to get rid of old stuff. A good example is my desk — I work on a table with no drawers. This means I don’t have all the usual stuff in a desk, and forces me to keep things simple. This goes along with the first one–decluttering, I already mentioned I hate clutter, and this will help keep that in check.
Ok, I know I said 10 but here is a bonus one

11. Decrease your information flow— Similar to the media fast, you can cut back on the amount of information coming into your life. Do you currently have tons of emails coming in? Find ways to reduce them — unsubscribe to mailing lists, ask people to stop sending you joke or chain emails (or block them from your inbox), automatically filter things you don’t really need to read. Do you read a lot of blog feeds? Unsubscribe to those that don’t give you value. Do you read a lot of news? Pick one news source instead of five.

There you have it 10, I mean 11, ways to simplify your life…and like I said, don’t do all of them, just pick 1 or 2 that you like and try those, if they work, try another one and so on. Happy Simplifying!

Palin speech

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Not sure how many of you watched Sarah Palin give her speech at the RNC the other night but here is a word cloud of her speech and the most popular words spoken throughout it. Anyway, here is the word cloud for Sarah Palin’s speech and the video if you missed it… pretty interesting.

I was looking at all the speeches today and there is a HUGE difference between the democrats’ and republicans’ speeches. Republicans are all about loving our country and what we can do for it, while democrats are all for change and promises…kind of funny. Here is another interesting thing I found about the differences in speeches.

Sick of baby Palin?

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Normally I leave all the political mumbo jumbo up to the hubs but is anyone else sick of hearing about Sarah Palin’s pregnant 17 year old daughter. Ya it’s a big deal but at the same time the media is focusing so much on that issue that we aren’t able to get to know the possible next VP of the United States. I want to know what she stands for, what her plans are and so forth, but with the whole pregnancy issue we aren’t able to do that. So here’s what I know, she’s a woman and she’s the governor of Alaska–and a few more things. I am truly excited that we have the possibility to elect the first female VP–and it’s not Hillary!! I will say that she is a strong woman and shows women of America that when struggles come up you can push through them, and run for vice president at the same time. In the last four months Palin has given birth to a special needs child (down syndrome I believe), hit the campaign trail with 5 kids at home no less and told the world she has a pregnant 17 year old daughter. Because of all she does, juggling work and family, that will speak to a lot of women. The question is, will she speak for women, will she stand up for women and their rights? The answer, probably not. She has opposed contraception, abortion rights and protecting women in the workplace. Now I’m not going to get into the issue of abortion and women, that’s not what my blog is about, but I do agree with her stance and like that she is antiabortion. Maybe in the next week or so we will finally find out who Sarah Palin is, watch the RNC tonight and hear her speak.

On another note, you have to admit, Sarah Palin looks awfully similar to Meghan Mullaly of Will and Grace and Tina Fey…can you see it! When her hair is up it’s Meghan Mullaly, when it’s down it’s Tina Fey. Then the funny part, for all you SNL fans out there, McCain’s wife kinda looks like Amy Poehler, so put them together and we’ll have a comedic white house! Oh how I wish Tina Fey was still on Saturday Night Live, I can see the skits now)
sarah palin
Sarah Palin
meghan mullaly
Meghan Mullaly
tina/amy
Tina Fey and Amy Poehler
mccains wife
Cindy McCain’s –ok so she doesn’t really look like Amy Poehler but it she could resemble her don’t you think…specially with tina fey as his running mate!

Dog Allergies

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1-6-08

I’m not talking about the dog allergies where humans are allergic to dogs, but where dogs are allergic to something. My little Presley seems to be allergic to the grass in our backyard. About 10 minutes after she goes outside for a while her four paws and ears get really red and irritated. She’ll chew and lick them for hours if we let her and she scratches her face and ears and you can just tell it bothers her. Poor thing, the only thing I know to do is give her children’s strength Benadryl. That seems to help her, the redness goes away for the most part and she stops chewing her paws. I don’t think it’s all the grass that is out there but only a specific weed that’s out there. This started about a month or two ago and that’s about the time we got this annoying weed up by our porch where she spends most of her time. So if anyone has any suggestions on how to get rid of dog allergies they would be greatly appreciated.

Mi corazon

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Just an fyi for those who are interested–I talked to my cardiologist and electrophysiologist yesterday and they both agreed that I should go ahead and have the procedure on my heart. What they are going to do is go in with a catheter through my leg up into my heart and then do what’s called an EP study and find out where the heart arrhythmia is coming from. Once they figure that out they can essentially kill that area of the heart tissue so it no longer causes problems–this is called a radiofrequency catheter ablation. I had this done 3 years ago and it cured the arrhythmia. But over the last few months it started happening again so what they think is the area of the heart they “killed” has regrown or a new area of the heart is triggering the problems. The only way to find that out is to go in and do a study first. Anyway, we have it scheduled for September 15 at big Baylor and I should only be out of work for 4 or 5 days. Then hopefully this will all be behind me. I’m ready to feel good again! In good news, my back/neck has felt pretty good the last day or so and I’m hoping it continues to heal fast.

update

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Wow has it been an exhausting couple of weeks! There’s been a lot going on with the Blundell’s, well with me anyway. I’m not going to go into much detail at all but after months and months of waiting for something I really wanted, I finally got it and then had to turn it down for some specific reasons. It was a difficult choice but in the end I felt it was something I had to do and now I feel at peace with my decision. About a week or two ago I had another episode with my heart and it’s still not back to normal yet but I talked with my cardiologist and to make a long story short, she feels it’s best to have another surgery. They would do 1 of two things, or both–1- repair the issue they fixed in my heart 3 years ago that might have regrown, 2- fix another area of my heart, or do both of those. They really won’t know what to do until they get in there. My doctor feels it’s best to do the surgery again to make sure everything is okay and if not, fix it then. I currently have another heart monitor for a few weeks and after that I’ll talk with my cardiologist about a plan. So in the mean time, I’ve doubled my meds again and continue to be completely worn out, out of breath, lightheaded and have my heart beat out of my chest all day long. It’s great!

Good news–well I think it is. I had a follow up Cat scan and appointment with my nuerosurgeon this morning and as he said “the fractures in your spine aren’t getting any worse, that’s good.” “They aren’t healed but they aren’t any worse.” He said as of right now, he doesn’t think I will need a surgery to fix it but he wants to see me back in 3 months and get another CT and we’ll go from there. I’m still in a lot of pain and can’t do much without hurting but life goes on whether you are in pain or not. And unfortunately since you can’t see my injury people tend to forget about it and either not believe me when I say I’m hurting or think I’m a baby because I still have pain. I asked the doctor how long it would take for the pain to go away and he said about 3 to 6 months. Seriously! i have like another month or 3 months of hurting!! O’well, like I said–Life goes on.

Needless to say, it’s been a crazy/stressful couple of weeks around here. Hopefully it will get better, i’m sure it will!

Clutter, Clutter–everywhere!

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I absolutely, 100% hate clutter! Our house tends to collect clutter in certain areas…the bar which is one of the first things you run into when you actually come into the house and the kitchen table. I was walking through the living room today and all I could see was clutter–mail, magazines, papers and pretty much anything else you can think of. This is what our bar looked like this morning:

Then I looked over and saw our kitchen table that looked like this:

That actually looks better than it has most of the week. Jonathan decided to use the kitchen as an office this week while getting ready for sunday. We have a nice office he can use that has a door and ceiling fan and everything– and he uses the kitchen table. So why did we spend money on furniture and shelves and such to make an office? Hmmm-O’well. Needless to say I had to clean the clutter up, I hate it with a passion-did I mention that already! Oh the things you’ll learn and learn to live with when you live with a boy!! But I wouldn’t change it for the world.

Bubble for one please!

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I’ve come to the conclusion I need to live in a bubble. The reason for this you ask, well, keep in mind, I have 4 broken vertebrae in my back–the other morning I was getting off the train on my way to work and I guess someone spilled something on the stairs. Well, my shoes don’t do well on slippery surfaces and down I went, down the stairs. It was kind of like sliding on my bum down the stairs but either way it was a pretty funny sight to see. I think my ego was more bruised than anything though. I just got up and started walking again. but then 5 minutes later I felt all the muscles in my neck and back that I sprained tighten back up and start hurting. Needless to say that night I was pretty sore. I’m doing better now but still kind of sore, I just don’t know if it’s from that fall or the original fall. I’m telling you, just let me live in a bubble and I’ll be alright. Ok, not really, I just need to be more careful apparently.

Answered Prayer

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About a month or two ago my mom received an email from a missionary in Ecuador that is/was a member of their church before they left for the mission field. He is a physician and doing medical missions in Ecuador. Here is the original email we received:

“Marjori Silva died in my arms on the way to the provincial (regional) hospital today. Please pray for me and for the family.

She presented in severe respiratory distress with a mild fever and without drooling or barky cough. Aggressive nebulization treatments (using the machine I bought and the meds I brought) made no difference, and as I was filling out the transfer papers to send her to the regional center where they have intubation and resuscitation equipment, she abruptly stopped breathing and was not able to be ventilated by mouth to mouth. I did CPR all the way to the provincial center and helped as best I could once we arrived, but by then it was too late. Visualization of the epiglottis and upper airway at the regional center showed that she did not have epiglottitis, diphtheria, or other discernible cause of upper airway obstruction, at least to the level of the vocal cords. We removed a 7-inch Ascaris worm from her throat during intubation at the regional hospital, but I believe that guy was just trying to escape given the trauma of her asphyxia and the CPR process. We’re trying to persuade the family to allow the autopsy to give us some answers.

I had never seen her before, but a postmortem chart review shows many episodes of “bronchitis” and a previous referral to the regional hospital by a pedi resident for an asthma crisis about a year ago.

Our “hospital” where I work is not equipped for emergencies and makes no claim to provide emergency services. I did what I could given our limitations of equipment and personnel, but of course it is still pretty devastating. I’ve never lost a child to respiratory failure before. If any of you have an old laryngoscope lying around or know someone who is upgrading their equipment, let me know immediately because I will certainly be buying my own laryngoscope and endotracheal tubes. I am very competent at intubation but did not have the equipment I needed to save her, and that situation can not be allowed to happen again.”

After I read that email I felt like i had to do something and I remembered that we have an extra bronchoscope at work…it’s not in the best shape and we were going to throw it away so we just kept it and played around with it. This is what could have saved this little girls life. So I asked and they said I could send it to Ecuador and he could have it. I also went to our operating room and got a bunch of endotracheal tubes and other intubation equipment that I was able to send to him.

I just received this email from him saying they got all the equipment, along with a lot of other stuff that many other people sent to him. Our God is good, many people helped and now more lives can be saved because we took the time to help our brother in Christ out. Here is the last email I received:

“Dear all:
Thanks so very much for the amazing array of great items you sent to us here in Loja. The Lord is amazing and He works thru His people. Not only did we receive a laryngoscope and bronchoscope, nebulizer machines, resuscitation medications, nebulizer meds, an amazing assortment of ENT surgical specialty equipment and supplies, endotracheal tubes, and additional medical equipment (which all got here in one piece due to the remarkable packing care of my mom and sisters putting virtually everything in bubble wrap), but also some great personal items like General Foods International Coffees and Starbucks syrup for coffee/latte flavoring, chocolate, etc. We also received some language learning software and pediatric CME materials we’d hoped would come to them in time to bring along. So we feel richly blessed and I know the Lord will see that these items are put to use in His service (and for our refreshment/encouragement as well).

Thank you for caring and for your gracious generosity.”