The Story of the Linne-Laughlin Family!: March 2009

Sunday, March 8, 2009

Bad Blogger!

Wow, I can't believe I haven't posted anything to the blog since February 23rd. I am a lousy blog friend. Sorry gang! Let's see, what has been going on lately in our lives? I was supposed to leave for Cambodia this upcoming week on an Operation Smile medical mission. The original student sponsor had a death in his family and was unsure if he would be able to go. So, I was on stand-by. Fortunately, or unfortunately, the sponsor was able to go and I pray that he and the students have a fabulous, safe journey and change many lives! Hopefully, I will get another opportunity sometime this year. I am also waiting to learn more about a medical research trek my friend Michelle and I signed up for. My doctor told me about it and I thought what the heck?! Free vacation to Antigua, Guatemala. All expenses paid and get to travel with Doctor's Without Borders. All I have to do is wear a patch. Some people will receive a placebo, others will receive an investigatory anti-diarrheal patch to prevent Montezuma's Revenge. So common in third-world countries. I will still take my bottle of Cipro with me just in case. Ha ha!! My good friend Carolyn just got approved by her medical plan for Gastric Bypass surgery. She is hoping to have her surgery around the 25th of the month and is totally ecstatic about it. Michelle and I are wrapped up in her excitement. We pray for her safety and that this opportunity will help her to find the happiness she is searching for. I would also like to ask all my friends to pray for my mom's best friend Jody. She is in her early '60s and has a 27 and 29 year old daughter. She is much, much too young and she needs to be there to see her daughters marry and have children. She is much too young to be dealing with a newly diagnosed malignant brain tumor. Keep Jody in your thoughts and prayers as she begins her treatments, that she can be strong and beat this thing. Kids are all doing great and only a few more months until my soon to be 18 year old son graduates from high school. Wild, seems like yesterday he was just a baby. Overall, our family is happy and very healthy. Just the way we like it! Hope you are all great as well.

Love, Tracie xoxoxoxoxoxo

A Profound Quote From my Friend Marry

QUOTE OF THE DAY: I have come to the frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element. It is my personal approach that creates the climate. It is my daily mood that makes the weather. I possess tremendous power to make a life miserable or joyous. I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration. I can humiliate or humor, hurt or heal. In all situations, it is my response that decides whether a crisis will be escalated or de-escalated, and a person humanized or de-humanized.If we treat people as they are, we make them worse. If we treat people as they ought to be, we help them become what they are capable of becoming.

DRAGON BOAT FESTIVAL

The Dragon Boat Festival is celebrated on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month, and together with Chinese New Year and Mid-Autumn Festival forms one of the three major Chinese holidays. Since the summer is a time when diseases most easily spread, Dragon Boat Festival began as an occasion for driving off evil spirits and pestilence and for finding peace in one's life. The festival was later enriched by the legend of the patriot Chu Yuan. Dragon Boat Festival is highlighted by the dragon boat races, in which competing teams drive their boats forward rowing to the rhythm of pounding drums. This lively and colorful tradition has continued unbroken for centuries to the present day. The festival's significance as a time for warding off evil and disease is symbolized by a number of customary practices such as hanging calamus and moxa on the front door, and pasting up pictures of Chung Kuei (a nemesis of evil spirits). Adults drink hsiung huang wine and children are given fragrant sachets, both of which are said to possess qualities for preventing evil and bringing peace.