THE YEAR OF THE DRAGON

Happy Chinese New Year.  This is the year of the Dragon.  Guess what Joe and I did for dinner.  I stopped on the way home at this great Chinese take-out that Joe and I love.

We celebrated by having "lucky" food for dinner.  Pork, long noodles and dumplings (money bags) mean moving forward, long life and wealth in the new year.  We had pork lo mein, egg rolls and almond cookies.

I had a really pretty picture of the sunrise today that I wanted to share with you but I can't find my camera!  I know it is around here somewhere.  When I find it, I will share it with you.  Fortunately, I know where my other camera is so I can take the sunrise tomorrow.  Sigh.  I am so disorganized.


At least I have an excuse today.  I spent last night in the emergency room (from midnight to 3:00 a.m.).  I was OK until I ate dinner.  Then I started feeling nauseous.  I laid down and had a hard time breathing.  Then I got chest pain and pain in my shoulder and arm.  By this time I started panicking which made everything worse.  I know that since my surgery last year I have gas pockets in my chest.  Usually if I burp it relieves the pressure and the pain goes away.  This time, though, nothing was helping and the pain was getting worse.  Then I started gagging and retching.  So Joe took me to the hospital.


After some tests and an exam the doctor determined that it was not my heart, it was a severe case of trapped gas.  While I was in the waiting room, the pain started to slowly go away.  But I was still very sick to my stomach and felt like I was going to throw up any minute.  My blood pressure and heart beat were up also.  They gave me some medication for the nausea and when I felt better, they sent me home.

After 3 hours sleep we got up to go teach our Bible Study.  We had four ladies show up today.  Joe is on part 2 of "Searching for God's Will".  The ladies really got into it and the two newest ones are just eating it up and telling him what a good teacher he is.  Joe is really into leading this group, but likes me to help out because it is mainly women that show up.

I went to work, but left early because I was having trouble staying awake.  I feel as if I have lived this day in a fog.

We had another special event for the kids.  "The Amazing Mr. Q" came.  He is a comedian, storyteller and does amazing things with balloons.  The kids absolutely loved him!  Here are some pictures.

Mr. Q began with a funny sequence with a puppet.

A boy cut a piece of rope in half which Mr. Q then put back together in one piece.

This trick was where he put different colored handkerchiefs in a box and a boy from the audience pulled out this large hankie.

He did lots of things with balloons.  This is the beginning of a magic trick  He put this spike through the balloon without breaking it..

At the end he made annimals, hearts, swords and snakes from the balloons and gave them to the kids to take home.