Joy, the true meaning.

A co-worker and I were talking one workday during lunch in the month of December. We were discussing how so many other workers had been stressed thinking solely on what gifts they were getting there kids for the holidays and how are they going to get them something that they asked for since they did not have the money.How sad I felt to know that Gifts was the only thing that made up Christmas for so many of my co-workers. Being that I could not financially get gifts for my family I expressed to my friend that I was thankful that I would be able to just share the JOY of spending the holidays with my family. She then went to ask me if I knew the meaning of the word JOY. I told her what I thought it meant, and she went to tell me that she has taught her kids what the meaning of JOY is. I was touched by her definition and truly believe that this is the TRUE meaning.

What is the meaning of the word JOY in one persons life?

1: J
2: O
3: Y

#1 is JESUS. Jesus is and should be the #1 priority in our lives. We live each day in hopes to return and be with them.
#2 is OTHERS. As we live our lives we should always think of Others and help others in all ways possible.
#3 is YOURSELF. After living each day with Jesus in mind, and helping others we need to think of our self , yourself and make sure we are being the best we can be.

SO JOY MEANS.

JESUS,OTHERS,& YOURSELF.
Everyday as I go about my day I keep the word JOY in my mind.Again, this year 2010 is the year for me to bring Christ back into my life. Live according to the gospel and Follow the plan God has in store for me. Having JOY is a daily reminder now to me, thanks to my friend from work she has inspired me to remember without JOY we may stray away from the narrow path and how easy that is, speaking for myself from past experiences I believe that I have found a piece in me that knows that as long as JOY is within me, I know I will be with my Father in heaven again someday!

Bringing on the New Year with Hope & Faith!!

As we start a New Year everyone talks about New Years Resolutions. Some want to lose weight, stop eating candy, change something about themselves or accomplish something that year after year they say they are going to do. This year My new years resolution is to find New HOPE and FAITH in my life. I have been an inactive member of the church for so many years and this is my year to regain HOPE and to Build my Faith that I was born and raised to do. So I share with all my journey on rebuilding my Faith, Hope, and Happiness in life. The only New years resolution I have is to HOPE to be able to keep up with my blog and HOPE to possibly be blessed with a child this year. All I can do is HOPE for this and keep the rest in our loving Fathers hands. May everyone be blessed with great health this year and a year of joy and happiness. As my first blog of the new year I am seeking HOPE and guidance to build a stronger family, build up my Faith in Christ our Lord and Live his commandments for all my days ahead. Thank you all for being great friends and supports and helping me in making the right choices in my life. I feel blessed with having a loving husband who supports my decisions regardless and know that he will always be there and love me no matter what.I loved this mormon message and in case you have not seen it I thought I would share it hear. Happy New Years everyone!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UbsU3b2srQA

Why go to church??

My mom sent me this email and I thought it was a great message.


WHY GO TO CHURCH?


If you're spiritually alive,you're going to love this! If you're spiritually dead, you won't want to read it.
If you're spiritually curious, there is still hope!
Why Go To Church?

A Church goer wrote a letter to the editor of a newspaper and complained that it made no sense to go to church every Sunday. I've gone for 30 years now," he wrote, "and in that time I have heard something like 3,000 sermons. But for the life of me, I can't remember a single one of them. So, I think I'm wasting my time and the pastors are wasting theirs by giving sermons at all." This started a real controversy in the "Letters to the Editor" column, much to the delight of the editor. It went on for weeks until someone wrote this clincher:"I've been married for 30 years now. In that time my wife has cooked some 3222 C000 meals. But, for the life of me, I cannot recall the entire menu or a single one of those meals But I do know this.. They all nourished me and gave me the strength I needed to do my work. If my wife had not given me these meals, I would be physically dead today. Likewise, if I had not gone to church for nourishment, I would be spiritually dead today!" When you are DOWN to nothing... God is UP to something! Faith sees the invisible, believes the incredible and receives the impossible! Thank God for our physical AND our spiritual nourishment! I think everyone should read this!
"When Satan is knocking at your door, simply say, "Jesus, could you get that for me?"

IM SO PROUD OF MY SISTER HEIDI!!!!

As most of you know, my sister Heidi lives with Brain Cancer. She is such a positive person and very passionate about the medical field. She has been in the medical field very many,many,many years. My sister has applied with what was then called the Clarita Career College back in late June and was offered a job as a Mod A Medical Teacher to start I believe that August. When she was told in July of 2007 that she had Brain Cancer she made the decision to turn down the position due to her health and to focus on radiation. After radiation and her long recovery of developed Cushing Syndromes in April of 2008 my sister was ready to go back to work. So she re-applied at the same school and right away they remembered her and offered her a job immediately. They had at that time changed the name of the school to Charter College. My sister's goal in life has always been to try to impact others. Even more so when she was diagnosed. She truly believed in her students and was determined to make a difference in at least 1 students life. My sister had to make a hard decision within this past month to stop working. She has been overwhelmed with lots of work, that again she is very dedicated to accomplish. But by dedicating so much of her time, she has not been able to have her much needed rest to keep her body from not being tired. Per Dr.s orders, she has been forced to have to pretty much retire from work at this time. Thursday October 29th was her last day of teaching her last MOD A class. The Director at the school had advised my sister to let the students leave at 12pm instead of 1:30pm that day. My sister having meetings a lot with this job just assumed there was going to be a staff meeting. Once the students left the director came in and my sister was starting to pack her box up. The director told her, Heidi just leave this for now and come with me. When my sister walked out of her classroom on the 2nd floor of the school. She was greeted with over 200 students and staff lining the hallways and stairways of not only the 2nd floor but the 1st floor of the school as well. She has students that she taught from when she first started that didn't even attend the school anymore because they had already graduated all the way to students that were still presently enrolled. The great thing about my sisters position is, when you go to this school My sister is the first instructor for EVERY student for the first 5 weeks. Then the students are disbursed to the field in which they are going to school for. My sisters job was to make an impact in each students life for them to know that they can follow there dreams if the medical field was what there dream was. Apparently from the moment my sister gave her notice of resignation the school had been pulling together to have this Farewell put together for her. Apparently there was so many people that they had to have more than 10 Costco cakes present at the gathering. My sister was honored with a Scholarship that was placed in her honor. Called the Heidi Christpherson Scholarship. She will be meeting with the administrators soon to discuss what qualifications will need to be met in order to obtain this scholarship.

Heidi......I am soo PROUD to call you my sister and just as much as you inspire me in my own person life with your hardships, struggles, and life changes. You can now see that YES you have accomplished exactly what you sought out to do in life. Which was to IMPACT others. This day your final day of work goes to show just how many peoples lives you indeed did Impact. I love you. Here is a link to the entire article that was posted at her school. Please take a moment to read it and be just as touched as I was. I have posted some pics but the rest are on the web page on the slide show.

http://chartersuccess.com/lancaster/features/oct-09/heidi/index.htm

1 Year already!!!

So....yesterday was Michael and I one year wedding anniversary. Time flies. It came so quickly I think. We have had a rough one year. Well not together as a couple but with trials in our lives. But all and all we made it. Michael is truelly the love of my life and my best friend. Oh sorry Heidi (my sister) you are my best friend to.

We had a wonderful day. We went to The Odyssey Resturaunt in Granada Hills and had there Sunday Champagne Brunch. ( Minus the Champagne for me.) BLAH We had a perfect spot in the resturaunt were we were able to overlook the entire valley below us.

Then we decided to go to the Santa Monica Pier just to walk around. It was so incredibly packed there, not to mention HOT. We had this really cool picture made there that was painted that has our last name GRAHAM on it. We did not stay for very long. The last time I had gone to Santa Monica they did not have the tribute to the soldiers on the beach but this time they did.








It was nice to get away from the Antelope Valley for the day though. I have been working so many hours a week that I was looking forward to this weekend. I was able to take 2 days off of work with it as vacation days. Monday and Tues.


Here are a few pics that we took. Looking forward to another year and a upcoming year of Positive Live Changing decisions in our lives.

The sad news I was told on June 24, 2009

So yesterday was a day that I will never forget. What I thought was a ordinary day turned out to be a day that will now change the rest of my life.
Woke Up: 5:15am
Got to work :6:45 am
I was going about my normal morning, I ate a bagel around 7:30am with my morning soda, since I dont drink coffee very often soda is what gives me my caffiene. At about 10:30am I started not feeling good. I felt very hot, so I turned on my little fan at my desk. Next think I know while I am on the phone with a homeowner, I feel this RUSH of tingling go from my feet to my head, and apparently after that my head tipped over onto my desk. I had passed out. My co-worker next to me but her homeowner on the line and my manager was sitting right behind me. She rushed to my desk. Once I came out of it in a matter of seconds my co-worker completed my call and my manager took me carefully to her desk. She asked if I wanted a paramedic to be called. She got me some juice and some gum to try to get sugar in me. I sat there for a little over an hour not knowing what happend but not really feeling good. I decided to have Michael come and pick me up to take me to Urgent Care.
That was when my long night started. So after running an EKG and that being normal, they did blood work and urine samples. My diagnosis was sadly found. They clearly were able to determine that I have Diabetes. I was going to be there for quite awhile. Now the Kaiser Urgent care in Lancaster has been newly built. They built almost a hospital style one on the same property as the old, but one half is all rooms for urgent care and the otherside literally is like a hospital triage unit. I had to get attached to a IV so that my body could get re hydrated. My blood sugar level when I got there at 12:00pm was at 276. Apparantly for a person who does not have Diabetes your blood sugar should be below 130 someone with type 2 Diabetes should be below 180. So with being said they did diagnos me with type 2 Diabetes. I know I will beat this with change of foods and diet. I hate that now I have to check my blood sugar levels everyday and take a baby aspirin every day for the rest of my life. I cried at first since I didnt know a lot about it. I was scared. But now that I am reading more into it I know that I will be fine, as long as I want to be fine and maintain my lifestyle in a healthy way. I thought it was all because of my weight, however the Dr. said no its not always due to weight. So wish me luck on my new chapter in life.

A Day at the Museum Part 1 "Indoors"

Yesterday was a girls day out. My mom, sister, grandma, and I took a trip down to the J. Paul Getty's Museum. Leaving the Antelope Valley were it was sooooo windy and cold and getting down to Los Angeles was wonderful. It was very overcast the entire time but was such a beautiful day. The museum was absolutely amazing. There was different time eras of paintings, sculptures, and settings of ancient time. I did take lots of pics. Here are a few that really stood out to me.

This was just a beautiful painting up close an personal. What a great Name The Fountain of Love.



I also fell in love with this one painting. The postcard setting didn't come out very well in my photos so I am unable to actually post what the painting is of but basically its of a little girl named Jeannie Kieffe from 1885 with her back against the doors, this painting looked SO real it was incredible. The details in it literally resembled that of an actual photo. The purpose of this painting was at one point to show that of a child's perception of a world scaled for grown-ups.

When I saw this next painting I felt very joyful. I wish every May Day was like this. Unfortunately its not. However it is my nephew Chris birthday on May 1st so I can just think of joy for that. The title of it was "SPRING"

There was plenty of other paintings as well. Here is some religious paintings, I didn't get the descriptions for all so I am just posting the pics. I do know the names of a few of them, there is a painting of David with the head of Goliath painted by Pietro Novelli an Italian artist from 1603-1647. The Immaculate Conception which was painted in about 1730. Another one which is described as Christ in Glory. Which appears to be of Christ reigning on high with Angels surrounding him. This painting was done by Pompeo in approx 1736-1737. And then others.

These were some of the paintings captured. Now there was another part that was really interesting, there was a section were it was showing items that were used in France in the 1800's. I captured two different photos of common bedrooms back then. One looks like a giant sofa however you could not just sit on it, it was really deep in depth so although it appears to look like a sofa it was wide and really did look like a bed. More like what is now our modern day DAYBEDS this must of been there style. The bed itself had wheels in the middle under the bed.

This next Bed was bed that was popular in Italy.Its funny my sister and I were walking around on our own in this section and we saw it and thought our grandma will probably love this style, and sure enough when she reached that room she did and wanted a picture with it.


Finally there were two sculptures that I really liked. The artwork was fantastic.



These are just some of the few beautiful things I saw while spending my day at the museum. There was so much more there that we saw. The museum has other parts as well to it in which I will piece together on my next blog.If you are here in Southern California and are looking to enjoy A Day at the Museum "Indoors" then I highly recommend the J. Paul Getty's Museum. It is FREE yes FREE to get in, you just pay $10.00 for parking. It is right off of the 405fwy, exit Getty's Dr. I hope whomever is reading has enjoyed seeing pieces of the art that I saw. Stay tuned..there is more beauty to come that was also on the grounds of the J. Paul Getty's museum.