Barb's Blessings . . . Counting them one by one.

They say it never rains in Southern California! But it's been raining all day . . . all day. I planted my sweet peas last Saturday so this is making them very happy. Currently I am waiting for it to clear up a little so I can run to Costco or Staters or Wal Mart -- somewhere to replenish the scarcity of supplies here in our little humble abode. We need the rain desperately so rain is good, just not on Saturday, my only day to get anything done. But the good news is, I have my Saturday's back twice a month because I have hired a cleaning lady to clean the house every other week. Having a cleaning lady ranks right up there with a new car, a great hair cut, Christmas even. The joy I feel when I walk in the house on Friday night and smell the Fabulouso, see the clean floors, the vacuum tracks in the carpet, the clean sinks and mirrors in the bathroom, etc., etc., is indescribable. It doesn't last long, of course but having those two Saturday's a month when I don...

How I love this time of year. October starts with General Conference which fills our home with gospel learning. What a blessing it is to listen to and see a prophet of God on TV twice a year for two days and four two hour sessions. In between sessions I switched out all the summer decor in the house and replaced it with fall colors, pumpkins, scarecrows and flowers and a couple of cornucopias. I just love the way it looks and the way it makes me feel. It feels like Thanksgiving and what could be better than a holiday set aside specifically to give thanks. Before the month is over I will plant my sweet pea seeds so that they start to bloom in February. If I'm lucky they will bloom until June. The trick is to get to them in early so the blooming season is long. They don't like the heat and by Memorial Day, at the end of May, they are usually fried. Autumn . . . it's like a Sunday afternoon nap before the work week starts -- A short rest between the long hot days of summer and...

Jared, Liz and kids at the Grand Canyon Our niece, Liz, writes a blog about being the wife of a doctor. Our nephew Jared, her husband, is in his first year of residency in Seattle, Washington. They are the parents of four children and Liz managed to get her masters in public health while Jared finished medical school. They are amazing! This blog post left both Kent and I bawling this morning and is worthy of a visit and a read. It hit close to home on so many levels. I wanted to share it with the world. Just click on the highlighted area above or here that says This blog post .

Juicy Ann This is my velveteen rabbit. If you don't know about the Velveteen Rabbit, you can read it in its entirety here . This quote from The Velveteen Rabbit explains what happened to Juicy Ann: Adapted from the Velveteen Rabbit: "That night, and for many nights after, Juicy Ann slept in my bed. At first she found it rather uncomfortable, when I hugged her very tight and sometimes I rolled over on her, and sometimes I pushed her so far under the pillow that she could scarcely breath. . . . And when I dropped off to sleep, she would snuggle down close under my little warm chin and dream with my hands clasped around her all night long. And so time went on, and Juicy Ann was very happy -- so happy that she never noticed how her beautiful body was getting shabbier and shabbier, and her arms and legs were becoming unsewn and all the pink rubbed off her nose where I had kissed her." On FaceBook yesterday my cousin, Bruce, posted a picture of my Grandma West -- my mother...

Roger Sterling Davis October 1980 8 days old in my arms Almost 30 years ago I was home for lunch one day and I got a phone call from my brother-in-law, Roger, and after a few minutes of conversation he asked me if we were still interested in adopting a baby. I assured him that we were and he told me about a baby that had just been born in the hospital where he worked that was going to be relinquished and the doctor had been given the privilege of placing him. Providently, Roger crossed paths with him in the hallway and he shared that with Roger along with the fact that he didn't know of anyone who was interested in adopting. Roger told him about us. We had been on a short list a couple of times before but had been disappointed so we were excited but cautious. After a few days of legalities, it appeared all things were in order and we left for Utah to pick up our new baby boy. I remember that during that entire 12 hour trip my arms ached, literally, to hold that baby. I was afraid ...

Roger Sterling Davis holding Mason Michael Davis Born September 3, 2010 8 pounds 12 ounces 20 1/2 inches long One proud daddy.

Danny Fontoura, SVP/Administrator of University Hospital (my boss); Brenda Bruneau, Chief Patient Care Director, University Hospital (my other boss); Ellen McCarville, Director of Patient Placement. We were delivering Ice Cream Sundaes to the emergency department late on a Friday night. (I was taking the picture) It has been 3 months today since I started my new job at Loma Linda University Medical Center. It has been 3 of the best months of employment ever. Ever! I love the people I work with and what's best is that they love me. After the 2 1/2 years at Riverside Community I wasn't sure I was worth anything. I asked myself so many times how so many people in my past could have been so wrong about me. I just couldn't seem to make anybody happy at RCH. After a nearly 6 month search they have replaced me and the word on the street is that they don't like her either. (Gloat, gloat.) My first month at LLUMC I was feeling pretty guarded. I wondered if they would turn on ...

Davis Family Reunion 2010, Cedar City, Utah Grandpa doing the Hinckley wave. It seems I lost the entire month of July. We had a wonderful Davis family reunion in Cedar City at the end of July and getting ready for that consumed the six weeks preceding it. I am the unofficial family historian of sorts and I was working on updating my father-in-law, Sterling Davis, life history. It took many hours to edit and add pictures to it only to discover that I had edited the wrong version he had sent me. He sent it 5 different times and I chose an earlier version. So back to the drawing board. I am starting over from scratch but the version he ended up with is much richer and interesting than the one I did so it's all good. I created a video with all of the pictures I took and posted it to YouTube. That was a first for me. I have created a lot of videos over the years but this was the first time I put one on YouTube. It is actually a pretty slick way to share it with the family. I didn'...

I think I am who I thought I was again. I reread a draft I wrote but never posted in June of last year. I had just received the worst review I had ever had from one of my bosses. He took an immediate dislike of me almost as soon as I started at RCH. He would invite me into his office periodically to tell me how offensive I was and he would shake with rage. It was scary. This review was at the end of my first year and it was full of vindictive, vicious accusations that he could not substantiate. There were no examples, just accusations. In the end it was that review that fueled the fire and cost me my job. I recognized the content when I was told I was being terminated. Just as he never had any examples, the person who fired me didn't either. He just told me "This isn't working out." But who wants to work for people like that. It was like working in Hell every day. The difference in the welcome at Loma Linda is the complete opposite. I have written about t...

This picture (above) was published in Northwest Sportsman Magazine's online edition this week. You can read the story here . Amanda says she is ready to stage a fishing intervention for Roger due to his obsession with the sport. But it's easy to see why if you look at these pictures. Have you ever seen a happier smile on the face of a fisherman? These pictures are all from this season's catch. He is still trolling for the state record in big mouth bass. He came close a few years ago with an 11+ pounder. The state record is 11 pounds 9 ounces. They will be spawning soon so the chances of catching one big enough to break the record are just about over for the season. By the way, he just catches, weighs and releases.

I thought I understood what it took to successfully run a hospital. I watched two completely different adminisrators run Riverside Community over 2 1/2 years. I studied the business until I understood the forces that made it successful or not. It is a challenging-- I think the MOST challenging-- business model there is. Someone told me last week that Tom Peters thinks so too. Nice to know I am as intuitive as Tom Peters . The administration at RCH did a good job at making a profit. RCH is a for profit hospital and I totally understand that every business has to make a profit or it ceases to exist. This being my first experience in the world of healthcare, I thought that was the way it was supposed to work. Making a profit permeated every decision. Four days at Loma Linda University Medical Center has shown me that healthcare is a higher calling than $$. The first day (Tuesday) was spent in new employee orientation. I learned about the LLUMC mission " To continue the te...

Star jasmine gone wild. That's my kitchen window in the background. I can barely see out of the window but I can't trim it until the blossoms are all gone. It smells heavenly. One solitary white rose. THE BEAST. I love these things but they just can't be controlled. Time to remove it, I'm afraid. One beautiful variegated red rose. Sweet peas up close and personal. If only I could upload the fragrance. Sweet peas on a TP in the corner of the backyard. Orange gazanias. A bank of gazanias across the backyard. More star Jazmine. One pink rose (and a few weeds). A horseshoe pit with more gazanias. And they say we don't have seasons in Southern California. HAPPY SPRING!

I have so many conflicting emotions on Mother's Day each year. I spent my first 10 years of married life without children and some of those years Mother's Day was the most painful day of the year. And then in an instant we had a baby. We found out about him on a Wednesday and the following Tuesday morning, they placed him in my arms. Never was there a mother less prepared for motherhood. Never was a baby more loved and cherished then he was by us, and by friends and family who had waited and prayed through that long decade for this blessing to come to us. And then, as if life couldn't get any better, 18 months later, God sent us a daughter. They have brought us challenges, growth and much joy for nearly 30 years. But I can close my eyes and still envision the moments when each came into our lives. I can remember where I was, what I was wearing, and how completely awe struck we were. We are so blessed. Each Mother's Day I recall the joy of that day and the miracle of it ...

I got the job offer from Loma Linda University Medical Center this afternoon. I wasn't expecting to hear from them until next week but the administrator I will be working for called at about 3:45 and said that they had all agreed that I was the candidate they wanted. I feel so blessed. It has been a difficult five weeks but I have felt the support of my wonderful friends and family every step of the way. I thank you all so very much for your kind affirmations of my value and worth. I told someone yesterday that if I had been interviewing with all of you, I would have gotten the job on the first interview. How kind and generous you are to me. I don't deserve such admiration but I will take it and try to be gracious. My nieces and nephews, in particular, on both sides of the family have been incredibly supportive. They have emailed, sent text messages and Facebook postings day after day. Thank you all. Kent and I love you all more than you know and pray for your success ...

A friend directed me to this article by Maurine Proctor published in Meridian Magazine. It was exactly what I needed and maybe it will be meaningful to you as well. Meridian Magazine:: Line Upon Line: When God Lets Us Be Cast into a Pit

It has been hard for me to get to the temple very often since I started the job at the hospital 2 1/2 years ago. I was working longer hours and didn't have the flexibility to take any time off like I used to do at Fleetwood. We used to take an afternoon off every couple of months and go into the LA temple and do a couple of sessions, eat some dinner and come home after the traffic had cleared. So when I lost my job I decided that for as long as I was home I would try to go once a week. The first week I was home the temple was closed but I went the second week, missed the third week and made it back to the temple yesterday. Today marks four weeks since I lost my job and it has been four of the most challenging weeks I have had in my life. The ups and downs of it are the worst. The highs are great but they don't last and the lows are miserable. Satan is the master of discouragement. It is one of his finest and most effective tools. Intellectually and s...

It's been two weeks today. I have planned so carefully to not be in this position -- unemployed and 60 years old. But here I am. I won't go into the details other than to say that office politics are not my forte. I have found the last two and a half years some of the most difficult of my career but I would have stuck it out, if given the choice. I am the main breadwinner and benefit provider so this is scary. Very scary. It's ironic that Kent and I have been saying for a year how truly grateful we were that all four of us were employed in secure jobs while so many others were adrift in the worst economy and job market in 50 years. Now both Roger and I are out of work and Rachel is hanging on by a thread. I am spending every day all day networking, searching job boards and calling for references, etc. It is amazing how long it takes to fill out one application. Everything is done online now and each application takes a minimum of an hour to complete. When you are al...

For all of you who send me emails railing against the government, here is another point of view: This was copied from a blog you can find here . The author is Dr. James Tracy who is the headmaster of Cushing Academy, a boarding and day school in Ashburnham, Massachusetts for grades 9 to 12, with students from 28 countries and 28 states. He has guided the school in creating a curriculum that integrates timeless academic and social values with mastering the opportunities present in digital technology to prepare young people to become leaders in the 21st century. THE JOY OF TAX Well, today is That Day, April 15th, and I seem to be the only person smiling. Leaving the post office after dropping off my tax payments, I have the same warm feeling I get when I leave WalMart after finding a good bargain. It is all the rage these days to rail against taxes and vilify government. Why doesn't this get through to me? My idea of a Tea Party is to pay my taxes gratefully then enjoy a cup of Ear...