To Change and How?

If you could change your body, how would you change it and why?  Simple question and the answer seems to be simple, yet so hard to actually achieve.

I would change my body by changing its shape and size.  I would love to have smaller breasts, a flatter stomach and more defined arms.  This can be achieved by working out and eating better, which I have been doing.  However, the need for plastic surgery is a must. 

Why a surgical route?  I have had three children, and no amount of crunches and sit-ups will get rid of the stretch marked, loose, roley skin across my midsection.  Lovely picture isn't it?  The same goes for the upper half.  Things just do stay where God had first placed them.  Nothing that a little reduction and lift can't handle.  As far as my arms, I feel that could be done with a little lifting of some weights.

I would want to change not because someone else wants me to, but because I want to.  I want to look on the outside, how I feel on the inside.

Normal or Not?

What exactly makes a family functional or dysfunctional?  First you have to decide what is normal.  What one thinks is normal the other may not.  I believe spanking your kids if they are naughty is normal, and some may view that as not normal.  I think everyone has their own opinion about what exactly is normal and whether or not their family is functional or dysfunctional.  Take the book The Glass Castle, which we are reading in our English class right now.  The author grew up thinking her life was the norm.  If you are in a family and that is all you know, then to you it's going to be the right way and only way.  Even though while reading it, it appears to be the most dysfunctional family to others, including myself.  At a young age, three I believe, the author was making hot dogs on a stove and was burnt and ended up having to have skin grafts.  She thought it was a normal thing to make a hot dog on the stove.  She was hungry and her mother let her do it before, so big deal.  Right?  I as a mother couldn't ever imagine my daughter making any kind of food on a hot stove with boiling water.  The author and her brother and sister basically had to fend for themselves even though their parents were very intelligent, but lacked the ability to be a parent.  I assume they thought they were doing the best for their children by letting them experience things and figure out right and wrong on their own.  Most parents try to shelter and protect their children from the bad, but they seemed to throw them at the train.  It's amazing how those kids survived!
So just because one person feels something is normal, the other may not.  Maybe the normal ones are the dysfunctional ones.  Who are we to decide?

Zumbro Falls Flooding

Well last week I had a nice stretch off from work.  Eight days to be exact.  I ended up in Zumbro Falls cleaning up the mess. 
A girlfriend of mine grew up there and her parents owned and ran a gas station/convenience store on Highway 60 in down town Zumbro Falls.  I called her to see how things were going and that's when she told me about Thursday night, September 23, 2010.
It was raining like cats and dogs all day.  The whole town had been sandbagging trying to keep water out.  At around 11:30pm she said her and her family went across the street to the bar to have some pizza and relax for a bit before getting back to sandbagging.  At 12:30 the water had come over the levy and they knew it was not good.  Not once were they told to leave or evacuate town.  I would have thought that when they closed Hwy. 63 at 9:30pm they would have evacuated just for safety reasons, but they didn't. 
The water was like a nosebleed.  Moving steady and fast.  Her family could not move fast enough.  They were trying to place things up on shelves and moving their vehicles to higher ground.  Finally at 4:45 am they were waist deep in water in the middle of their store.  She said the current was so strong they could hardly move.  Could you imagine?  It's dark and you're in water waste deep and it's as cold as ice. 
I went down last Tuesday and Wednesday to help clean.  There was so much mud and sewage it was like walking through chocolate pudding, but it did not smell like it.  There were a lot of families that lost everything.  The streets were lined with piles of appliances, drywall, carpet, beds and family photos and stuffed animals.  I felt so sad for everyone down there.  What's worse now is Zumbro Falls may not be able to build again.  They may raise the flood plain and then Zumbro Falls will not exist, as least not at that level.  It's said to think it won't be there.  I have driven through Zumbro Falls everyday to get to my job in Rochester.  I can't imagine not seeing the glow of the street lights anymore. 

If anyone wants to help out any families please feel free to donate at the drop off location of Jenny's Greenhouse on highway 63.  They are in need of cleaning supplies, men's shirts in all sizes, laundry detergent, space heaters, mattresses and winter coats and boots.  All help and donations are greatly appreciated and it is all free for the flood victims.