Happy Birthday America!

Parades, picnics, cookouts, and the day off from work.  These are just some of the ways we as Americans celebrate the Fourth of July, a day set aside to mark and remember when the United States first declared its independence from Great Britian in 1776!

 

Tonight, in the nation's capital, there will be a spectacular display of fireworks, and I'm sure it will be just as dazzling as it was last year.  It truly is a special event!

Photo Courtesy of Associated Press

Wherever you are and whatever you are doing, I hope you have a great day today.  I will be with friends hanging out by their pool and enjoying the time with special people.

Be safe, stress free and sing your heart out when you hear "The Star Spangled Banner." 



The Star Spangled Banner
By Francis Scott Key 1814

Oh, say can you see by the dawn's early light
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars thru the perilous fight,
O'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming?
And the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.
Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

On the shore, dimly seen through the mists of the deep,
Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o'er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam,
In full glory reflected now shines in the stream:
'Tis the star-spangled banner! Oh long may it wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle's confusion,
A home and a country should leave us no more!
Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps' pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave:
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

Oh! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved home and the war's desolation!
Blest with victory and peace, may the heav'n rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation.
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: "In God is our trust."
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

Preventing Burnout

Holidays are the best!  They always seem to arrive at the right time, just when we need a break from our daily routines.  Just when we need time out to relax and recharge.

 

 

 

Holidays help us take a break, both mentally and physically, from the responsibilities we carry out every day. I intend to sleep in, exercise more, hang out with friends, and read.  I do all of these things on a regular basis but holidays allow me to do them for longer, uninterrupted periods of time.  And I can do them spontaneously which adds to the fun.

 

Holidays also opens up our creative juices and gets us to thinking of different ways to decorate our houses, apartments or even ourselves!  We try new recipes and sometimes even travel to a new place.

 

When we continually do our work routines or personal responsibilities over and over again in just the same way, every day, with hardly any break in the routine, we can start to burn out and then things start to go bad.  You can be on the path to burning out and not really know until it's too late.  Others probably know it because they see a change in you, but you are probably determined to power on, pushing to do what you need to do at all costs.

 

It's time to take a break!

 

The Washington Post story below is about nurses and how they deal with patient burnout but their solutions could be our solutions too:

 

Nurses at the Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center
do stretching exercises
Photo by Marvin Joseph/The Washington Post

 

http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-06-10/national/39865768_1_burnout-intensive-care-unit-nurses

Independence Day

Photo by Eileen Milner

Today is Independence Day, a day we as a nation celebrate to mark our break with the Kingdom of England and our birth as the United States of America.  As Americans living in a dynamic democracy, we share many freedoms that we sometimes take for granted.  We are so lucky to live here and blessed with our way of life.  It continues to be a work in progress but I'll take it over any other system of government.  I send my thanks to our leaders and those in the military who protect and serve us and put their lives on the line for us every day.

Many of you are missing those precious loved ones who lost their lives in the line of duty.  Or maybe you are missing those who were with you this time last year or perhaps many years before.  There seems to be no independence from the journey of grief.  But there is hope and healing.

We pick ourselves up and go on with our lives because we must.  We may remarry, have additional children and meet new friends.  Yet there will always be that special place for that special person and no one can take that away or change it.  It is yours.

We can't stop time but we can reminisce.  Some people create a personal rite to mark the memory of a loss.  My friend, Eileen, who took the beautiful photograph of the bright pink flower posted here, tirelessly fundraises for breast cancer and organizes a large group of people to walk in the Susan G. Komen Walk For The Cure every year in memory of her dear sister, Rose. That is powerful.  It is taking your pain and turning it into a positive experience.

The Fourth of July always reminds me of a dear friend lost many years ago, Bobby Dolan.  Bobby made the best potato salad in the whole world and all of his friends constantly badgered him for the recipe.  He never gave it to any one.  After he died, we asked his wife, Darlene, if she knew it and she said didn't.  "I have no idea.  I wasn't even allowed to be in the kitchen for the last steps of the recipe," she said. 

I kept trying to figure out the recipe and seem to have come pretty close to Bobby's version.  So today my friend, Joan, is having her annual Fourth of July cook-out and it is understood that I will make the potato salad and when we eat it we all talk about Bobby.

We take the memories of our loved ones and freeze frame and hold them dearly in our hearts.  They are like old friends that we visit from time to time.  While those memories can make us cry, laugh, and shake our heads in wonder, those same memories can also help us heal.

Grief is a challenge and it is a slow.  We all work through it at our own pace and know that ups and downs are part of the process.  Take comfort in the fact that you will eventually heal and see life from a different perspective.

Rabbi Harold Kushner wrote When Bad Things Happen to Good People after the death of his young son.  Here are his words of wisdom:  "I think of my son and all that his life taught me, and I realize how much I have lost and how much I have gained.  Yesterday seems less painful, and I am not afraid of tomorrow."