Day: October 14, 2007

It is October 14 and I have not had a spare thought for Halloween costumes. I usually have a costume plan hammered out by this point. The costume plan is important so that I know how much time I’m going to have to spend. I may not have been thinking about costumes, but the kids have.

Kiki has designed her own costume. She wants to be an anime style girl. Not from any show she’s seen, or book she has read, but one of her own creation. I’m hoping that we can find things at the thrift store to alter which will be close enough. I don’t want to make it from scratch which was what Kiki intended.

Link wants to be the Master Chief from Halo. I’m not sure where he fixated on this because we don’t play Halo. I tried to see if maybe he wanted to be a Naruto ninja instead. No. He wants body armor and a big gun he can stick on his back. Eep. Hopefully I’ll find some child sized shoulder pads and a dirtbike helmet that I can spray paint green. I am NOT going to try to bid on the ebay Master Chief costume. It is going for over $200.

Gleek seems inclined to select clothes from her dress-up box. Last I heard she wants to be a ninja fairy princess. I have been corrected. She is not a princess. She is just a ninja who wears a dress. The only accesory she is lacking is the ninja head band.

Patches wants to be a spider. This one is easy because all I have to do is pull the spider costume out of storage in the garage.

So it looks like I have two easy costumes and two tricky ones. Hopefully I can pull it all together in the next two weeks.

I believe in healing by faith, the power of the mind to heal the body. I also believe that prayers make a difference and miracles can happen. During my medical adventures in heart monitoring I tried to exercise faith toward making myself better. But there is a difference between true faith and trying to make myself well by sheer force of will. Faith says “What should I do? and thy will be done.” Will says “I’m better now, really I am. That tremor there is just an after effect, but I’m all better.” Faith is patient. Will is petulant and insistent. Will is my good friend. Together we have set many goals and achieved them. Will is a familiar tool. So, familiar that I didn’t notice it masquerading as faith. But faith to be healed is more than willing it to be so. Having the faith to be healed is listening when you’re told to go to the doctor. It means taking the medicines to restore health. It means accepting that taking a medication daily does not make you an unwell person; often the reverse.

I thought I was exercising my faith to be healed. I was instead exercising will power. Two weeks ago I was told as part of a blessing prayer that I need to get more sleep. I’ve also known for weeks that my diet had turned into a mess of skipped meals and sugary snacks. In the past two days I’ve slept until my body was done sleeping and I made sure that I ate nutritious food at regular intervals. The heart palpitations and mental fogginess are gone today. I feel normal, healthy.

I ought to feel stupid for over looking such an obvious solution. Curiously I don’t feel stupid. I just feel relieved to find a solution that does not involve further medical intervention. I feel glad to have the validation of the message I was given weeks ago. I feel grateful to have this lesson in the difference between faith and will power.

I will continue to eat and sleep well. Hopefully that will be the end of my adventures in heart monitoring.