My tiny $16.99 Black Friday 2010 tree is all decorated, I have half a dozen Christmas Cards written and will probably finish writing all of them after all this year. I was so sure I would not get time to do this favorite task. My vision is clearing and with any luck I will be able to track my knitting directions again tomorrow and use Thursday and Friday to complete some important presents. This week has been an unexpected gift of time and love and people.

What I thought I needed was more money, I have been talking frequently with God about my goals to help my children be financially free of this house, for me to have enough savings to return to college, and to be completely free of all debt, medical and otherwise. I have read and listened to “Think and Grow Rich” I have been doing the legwork, working as hard as I can, taking opportunities to earn, neglecting a bit some of my usual holiday tasks, and budgeting, budgeting, budgeting.

Friends and family have made comments about my absences from fun and frolics, but I excuse myself with the needs of my patients and my own strong need for more income. Don’t get me wrong, if I could just get even, I would actually be OK, no wiggle room and minimal savings, but I am one of the truly lucky single women in my working class age group, I make enough to support myself. So the gift I asked of the divine in my life, was money.
However, I also ask the universe each morning to help me listen and be useful, help me know where I am needed, as the greatest moments of my life were those when I let myself be the tool rather than the artist.

I believe I get what I need the most just when I want it least.

Last Saturday, a woman drove into the back of my car at high speed. My guardian angels kept me from hitting the wall and telephone pole, but the impact still hit my face and head on the steering wheel and more significantly shook my brain a bit giving me a concussion. My wonderful high mileage Beige Pearl is damaged and not drive able, I am not released to work until next Monday so will loose a full weeks pay, our kind of work doesn’t have sick days. These facts and the pain of my injuries are the dark in which the real miracles of this week shine.
The first was at the scene, I miraculously regained consciousness just long enough to throw my emergency brake. Then the second was the people who witnessed the accident who not only delivered the food box from my car for me but sat with me until the ambulance came. The staff at Banner Ironwood were the kindest and best listeners I have ever met in an emergency room. And the friends who took custody of me so I would not have to be transported to the VA for admission were kind enough not to point out just how obviously confused I still was (apparently concussions are kind of like drunk in that you are truly NOT a good gauge of how not normal your acting!)

The list goes on and on, including my two sons giving up two days and a lot of mileage to help me get my follow-up care at the VA.

I also am seeing this week as a divine gift of time. Time to remember ANC reflect on how truly blessed, loved and lucky I am,

In all fairness, if this blog does not make sense, blame the fact I should still be resting my brain.

Frost on the car before the baby pink fingers of dawn bring temperatures back to a more typical Arizona winter warm as I wend my way to work, Christmas music and holiday decorations in public waiting places catching and holding my patient’s eyes and multicolored light displays peppering my night road home; it must be Christmas!

December means a lot of things to me; respiratory illness is in full swing and my hands dry out from all the washing; the 201 half finished knitting projects form yarn mounds around me as the thirty or so Christmas movies I watch every year, reveal some new way to bring a laugh or a tear. Everything I want to shrink (like my thighs and my laundry pile) get bigger; and everything I want larger (like bank balance and available time) shrink to almost nothing.

But however cold, mucous filled (not so much mine as theirs) or exhausting December days are, every single one I get play Secret Santa to some unsuspecting stranger! Finances are at an all time low (as they are for so many people) so I don’t do anything big. My Guerrilla RAK (Random Acts of Kindness) rarely cost more than 5$ and sometimes cost nothing, but seeing a real smile delivered from Santa to a stranger via me, makes me smile all the way to my pancreas!
Try it, you’ll like it! I promise!