Month: May 2018

Books I’m Reading 5.15.18

I read an article not too long ago on Facebook from Inc.  and this is what it said:

Why You Should Surround Yourself With More Books Than You’ll Ever Have Time to Read

An overstuffed bookcase (or e-reader) says good things about your mind.
By Jessica StillmanContributor, Inc.com@EntryLevelRebel

Lifelong learning will help you be happier, earn more, and even stay healthier, experts say. Plus, plenty of the smartest names in business, from Bill Gates to Elon Musk, insist that the best way to get smarter is to read. So what do you do? You go out and buy books, lots of them.

But life is busy, and intentions are one thing, actions another. Soon you find your shelves (or e-reader) overflowing with titles you intend to read one day, or books you flipped through once but then abandoned. Is this a disaster for your project to become a smarter, wiser person?

If you never actually get around to reading any books, then yes. You might want to read up on tricks to squeeze more reading into your hectic life and why it pays to commit a few hours every week to learning. But if it’s simply that your book reading in no way keeps pace with your book buying, I have good news for you (and for me; I definitely fall into this category): Your overstuffed library isn’t a sign of failure or ignorance, it’s a badge of honor.

Why you need an “antilibrary”
That’s the argument author and statistician Nassim Nicholas Taleb makes in his bestseller The Black Swan. Perpetually fascinating blog Brain Pickings dug up and highlighted the section in a particularly lovely post. Taleb kicks off his musings with an anecdote about the legendary library of Italian writer Umberto Eco, which contained a jaw-dropping 30,000 volumes.

Did Eco actually read all those books? Of course not, but that wasn’t the point of surrounding himself with so much potential but as-yet-unrealized knowledge. By providing a constant reminder of all the things he didn’t know, Eco’s library kept him intellectually hungry and perpetually curious. An ever-growing collection of books you haven’t yet read can do the same for you, Taleb writes:

A private library is not an ego-boosting appendage but a research tool. Read books are far less valuable than unread ones. The library should contain as much of what you do not know as your financial means, mortgage rates, and the currently tight real-estate market allows you to put there. You will accumulate more knowledge and more books as you grow older, and the growing number of unread books on the shelves will look at you menacingly. Indeed, the more you know, the larger the rows of unread books. Let us call this collection of unread books an antilibrary.

An antilibrary is a powerful reminder of your limitations — the vast quantity of things you don’t know, half-know, or will one day realize you’re wrong about. By living with that reminder daily you can nudge yourself toward the kind of intellectual humility that improves decision-making and drives learning.

“People don’t walk around with anti-résumés telling you what they have not studied or experienced (it’s the job of their competitors to do that), but it would be nice if they did,” Taleb claims.

Why? Perhaps because it is a well-known psychological fact that it’s the most incompetent who are the most confident of their abilities and the most intelligent who are full of doubt. (Really. It’s called the Dunning-Kruger effect.) It’s equally well established that the more readily you admit you don’t know things, the faster you learn.

So stop beating yourself up for buying too many books or for having a to-read list that you could never get through in three lifetimes. All those books you haven’t read are indeed a sign of your ignorance. But if you know how ignorant you are, you’re way ahead of the vast majority of other people.”0

It was this article that made me feel better about having books that I have half-read instead of feeling badly about never finishing them. I recently came across Oprah‘s interview of Trevor Noah and really liked it! I ordered the book that day! I got an alert that it was left in my mailbox this morning so I had to wait until Sean was home from school so he could retrieve it for me.

I began reading it immediately! I think it sad that my eyes get tired a lot more quickly than they used to! I used to be able to forego sleep and read all night but that is not the case now. I WAS able to read the first chapter before my eyes got tired though…

 

 

 

“The Three Little Ones”

I read this tweet three days ago:

I tweeted Kerryon Johnson two pictures today telling him that,  “I have loved a @Lions #33 since ‘09!”  He is this year’s second round pick for the Detroit Lions.   I came across this picture is not too long ago and I became a Lions fan in 2009 because of watching pee-wee football, I needed a model for what it was supposed to look like  and not just a bunch of little kids running around bumping into each other.

It  was the year after the 0-16 season and I don’t know a Lions team without Matthew Stafford!

2009 was a great year for, “The Three Little Ones” (me, Jimmy, and David) and my health was a lot better (rather, I should say NOT as bad as it is now).

 

This Are Hard

I talked to my brother last Friday.  In our conversation, (I don’t even remember what we were talking about) but he told me, “”This are hard!” And I began to laugh! That statement is from what I thought was a cartoon from when we were kids.  It actually is a claymation short.   It’s titled Morris Goes To School.  It is a claymation short based on a book that we owned.

I searched for the clip with just Morris telling the teacher that, “Yhis are hard!” But I couldn’t find it.  All I found was this clip that shows that Morris isn’t very smart, that’s why he has to go to school.

The  following video is the entire 15 minute short. I don’t remember how old I was when I first saw it my 2 brothers and I understand when we say, “This are hard!“

This week has been difficult for me!   Monday was a wonky day, Tuesday evening, my left foot felt like it was going to burst out of my shoe! I had visions of taking my sock and shoe off and finding out that my foot was large, black, and needed to be amputated! I didn’t have my compression socks on for less than one day and the blood pooled in my feet from of my lack of blood flow in my lower extremities because I sit all the time.  #MSsucks!!!  It was the first time in 17 years of having MS that I was scared. I have been angry, disappointed, sad, and frustrated many times but never scared.

My Mom came by that night to put them on for me. I cannot put them on myself. This process takes about a half hour!  My left foot was deep purple, my Mom rubbed it for a while and then put my socks on.  Wednesday, I saw A Question of Faith on Netflix at my Mom’s recommendation. I cried and cried!   I watched it three times. Maybe I just needed a reason to cry!  Today, I watched Beaches and I cried again!   I was reminded of spending the night at my neighbor Aseal‘s house with my friend Heather when I was young!  We watched that movie over 1 million times back then!

I’m not sure how my body will react tomorrow but in addition  to all of this, my knee has been hurting constantly this whole time!   I had to pay for a refill for the cream that my Mom rubs on my knee because my insurance no longer pays for it.  I still need it, so…

All I know is that, “This Are Hard!”

Something Else

During the week, I call to Sean to make sure he’s up for school. It takes me a moment for my body to,“warm up” once I open my eyes so lay in bed until after he’s out of the shower, dressed, and just about to leave for school. He helps me get out of bed. I have a big, four-poster queen sized bed.

I got this bed when Sean and I moved into our second apartment.  As my disease has progressed, I think the bed is too big for me now. The frame is too high off of the floor.  I can’t get over the fact that it’s paid for so I can’t seem to get rid of it just yet.  Because it is so high off of the floor, I need help to get me out of bed in the morning.

Sean got out of the shower Friday and he was in his room which is right next to mine so I called to him and told him the beginning of this meme that I read Friday morning:

All I said was, “I got called pretty today” and Sean responded with a somewhat indignant, “By who?!”  It’s just been Sean and me for pretty much all of his life. Then, I read the whole meme and started laughing hysterically!

He came into my room because he was just about ready to leave for school and I was still giggling as he put my shoes on and grabbed my ankles to pull them  sideways off of the bed.  Then he grabs my left hand to help me sit up. Since my knee has been hurting so badly lately, he just pulls me off of my bed, picks me up, and puts me into my wheelchair.

It takes me a minute to  move my arms so he buckles me into my chair.  I was still smiling thinking about that silly meme. He leaned  against my bedpost for a moment and said something like, “Mom,  you’re something else!”  I asked him why and he told me that, “You wake up and you are five steps behind everyone else  and here you are laughing and smiling when anybody else would be curled up in a ball and crying.

I was a little shocked to hear him say this. I kind of looked down and said quietly, “Oh, I cry!“  he leaned over,  kissed my forehead, told me to have a good day, unlocked my wheelchair, and left for school. I sit there in shack for a little while. My kid IS something else!

He’s told me before that he can’t remember a time when I wasn’t in a wheelchair which breaks my heart a little bit.  On days when my hands aren’t working too well and I can’t grasp both a fork and knife to cut my food. He will cut it up for me before we begin eating dinner. The other day, I told him to get forks for both of us and he comes back to the table with two serving forks.

I started to laugh asked why he  got them.  He just sat down and said, “They’re forks!” blessed himself and started saying Grace.  I joined in and guessed that I was eating dinner with a serving fork!   I told him that we should pretend we had shrunk or something. He  looked at me and just kind of shook his head.

I asked him last night what he meant about me being, “Five steps behind” and he told me that it’s so much harder for me to do the simple list things and takes me so much longer – but I still do them.”  I hope that he learns some kind of lesson in seeing all of this…  I will eat dinner with serving fork anytime he wants to!

More Than I Can Say

The last time I trained at Barwis Methods was September 20, 2016. I injured my knee on September 21, 2016. I had an appointment with Dr. Frush the following Tuesday on September 27, 2016.  He knows about Mike’s work with helping people to walk and my work with the First Step Foundation at Barwis Methods.   After his examination of my knee, he warned me to not go back to Barwis Methods until my knee stopped hurting.

It is May 2, 2018, going on 19 months later and my knee STILL hurts.   I’ve had surgery  on my torn meniscus and a tendon scrape in addition to two MRIs  and countless doctor’s appointments with Dr. Frush and Dr. Moore.  I saw a post from Mike Barwis and he was with Brock Mealer about the opening of a new center in Florida.

It squeezed my heart because I miss Barwis Methods more than I can say!   I trained there from July 12, 2013 to September 20, 2016. I was there two or three times a week where I consciously worked on getting stronger and walking with each one of my trainers there who believed that I would one day walk!

I have the biggest ache in my chest because I miss it so much! I once to talked to Sean about muscle training rotation because he was working out during football season. He told me that you have to change up the muscle groups you work each day. I told him that every day I work at Barwis is “leg day.”   Because it really is! But I can’t be there with my hurt knee and that hurts me more than I can say!

But Then I Heard Him Speak

Everyone knows that I am a HUGE GMFB fan!!!  My weekday mornings begin with turning the TV on before I even have my contacts in. Today, it was Whiteboard Wednesday.   Peter Schrager chose Jordan Mailata as his answer so then, they would cut to his highlight reel. They have talked about him before and he is the Australian rugby player who is making the transition into the NFL. He’s super tall and his highlight reel is impressive!

Toward the end of the show, they were speaking about him and they cut to the interview with him when he was on Good Morning Football the first day of the draft.   It took a moment for me to realize that I had not seen this before because it was that morning that I went with Sean to get his braces off. I had to go with him because I am the “responsible party” for his braces and I needed to sign some things.

They showed an abridged version of the interview on the show and I was amazed! First off, he is a really big dude but then, I heard him speak! 😍😍😍

I have ALWAYS loved accents!   I remembered having a conversation with a  former colleague about 10 years ago about how much I liked accents and he asked me if there was an accent that I did NOT like. I thought for a moment and said,  “Mine.”

As I write this, I am reminded of a class I had in undergrad at U of M.  It was an English class taught by Dr. Smith. I went to U of M Dearborn so  we had smaller class-sizes.  Departments were smaller and I had Dr. Smith for a couple of classes. I decided in my first class that I had a big crush on him! It was in my second class with him that I can’t even remember why he did this but it went with the conversations we were having as a class. But, he taught the back end of the class speaking in various accents.

I remember taking notes on what he was saying but I think it was somewhere around the Irish or Scottish accent that I stopped writing, rested my chin in both of my palms, and I am sure that I had a starry eyed look in my eyes!  The classroom was small and I’m sure he saw me! I almost was embarrassed as I gathered my books at the end of class.

I didn’t need to take any of his classes the following semester, but I remember he sat in on one of my classes to evaluate the professor. He was sitting in the back of the class as I walked in and put my bag down and was talking to a friend who was already seated in the class when I heard, “Hello Jennifer.“  This must’ve happened about 15 years ago but I can still remember that my face burned as I looked at him, smiled, and with an embarrassed look, quietly said, “Hi Dr. Smith.”

I found the complete interview on YouTube and had to post it here so I can watch it multiple times,  whenever I want .  I love his accent!

Then, I saw he did another interview at the draft with Rich Eisen , Charles Davis, Daniel Jeremiah, and Mike Mayock so I posted that here too.   I am not trying to be a regular season Eagles fan but I will be Jordan’s fan because I heard him speak…

 

5.1.18. “It Goes On”

My knee popped out this morning.   I hadn’t felt that pain in a little while, I mean my knee has been hurting this entire time, continually since September 21, 2016; but I haven’t felt, “knee pop out” pain in a little bit of time. I thought that pain was over with. I’m still trying to get used to the” “gnawing, teeth clenching, pain in my lower jaw” feeling of pain I feel now but I thought I was done feeling that, “knee pop out” pain.

Apparently, it was not.   I’m not sure if I feel or hear the click of my knee popping out of it socket more but either way, the feeling is intense!  Immediately following my gasp and bugging out eyes is me trying to say something but all that really comes out is, “my knee” and my frantic pointing with my right hand. My mom knows what to do. She placed one hand on my ankle and the other on my calf and felt my knee as it clicked back into its socket, and by the time she looked up at me and said, “I felt it [pop back in]”  I was crying.

I would describe them as pitiful tears. They were quick, silent tears streaming out of my eyes in hot streaks down my face.  I caught the look in my Mom’s eyes and I tried to figure out what kind of look it was.  I talked to her about it this evening. I told her that I wasn’t sure how to describe the look that was in her eyes. She asked me what I have to come up with and I said, “Sad.”

She agreed with my descriptive word. She said, “That’s enough now. That’s enough pain.”  The reality is it’s not. It’s not, because it continues. It’s going on 19 months. It would be terrible if I could not remember what a normal knee feels like just like I don’t quite remember what a normal body feels like having MS.   But, actually it’s even MORE terrible having a perfectly fine left knee right next to the pained one.

I took a deep breath and I am praying for the strength to endure this ongoing pain.  My mom said, “Just like in Ben-Hur.”  I knew exactly what scene she was talking about. I have referenced this movie before here on my blog because for me and my brothers, it is a movie we have just about committed to memory because we’ve seen it so much.   The attached clip is  that scene when Messala is dying and he tells Judah about his mother and sister still being alive and being in the Valley of the Lepers.

My pain is just like Judah’s search for his mother and sister… “It goes on.”

May 2018 Faves

The time warp continues!

This album was released into 005 but I remember listening to it in the winter of 2006.

I used to clean my apartment to this album and so I’ve been doing my dishes and loading my crock pot to it now.   I used to get a lot more done in one run through of the album. Now, I have to play it a few times because I’ve slowed down so much. Here are my faves that I almost forgot about:

I’m not even sure what made me remember this album.

When this song was getting a lot of radio play, when we lived in our first apartment, I would listen to this song and Sean was quiet. It was probably the second or third time we heard the song that he would say right after she says that she carved her name into his leather is to seat,  “Love grandma” as if that is what she carved. I remember that we laughed and laughed!

It’s a different time warp but, I’m also listening to this album on Apple Music a lot as I clean my kitchen because of that Drake song that sampled Lauren Hill that Sean listened to as we drove, I have to listen to my girl L too!: