We had our Christmas dinner last night because my daughter couldn't get Christmas Eve off so she came early and we celebrated early.  I enjoy her company so much.  She has turned into such a lovely young woman and I miss her deeply when she goes home.  But she has a life and I am only a part of that life, not her whole life which is as it should be.  We visited with Miss Katie, we shopped, we played Scrabble, we drank wine and we laughed.  She helped me cook Christmas dinner and helped me clean up which I appreciate.  Tonight I take her to the airport.

This is my girlfriend/adopted daughter from work.  She and my daughter are both the same age.  She brought her little girl over for the evening and we had a great time.  I love her and her little girl.

However, her little girl definitely prefers the big guy.  Those two get on like a house on fire.  She's only 3 1/2 but that little girl is sharp and funny.  Stubborn too, a lot like her mama.

Grace came too.  It was nice to have her over but the more I get to know her, the more I worry about my grandbaby which is a waste of time I know.  What will be, will be.  She's sweet and immature and has been forced to become a part of this family for better or worse.  She seems okay with that.  I have reservations.  I'm terrified of raising a baby again at 56.  I don't know how messed up her life was before she got pregnant but she was with my son so that's kind of an indicator.  I can only hope that things turn out and I am so thankful that she is letting us be a part of this baby's life.  

And so it goes.  It's set to get cold here which I don't enjoy but have no control over.  I will get back into quilting now that Christmas is over.

I took down most of my photos at work on Thursday.  I was at a meeting and the subject of my photos came up.  We are having an audit in the spring and according to the audit rules, walls must be bare of everything except signage.  Because that's so much better for patients, bare, ugly walls;  walls without beauty, walls that make you feel like you're in a hospital and you have cancer, walls that suck the life out of you.

Bureaucracies exist only for themselves and their rules, or so it seems.  So I left the meeting and started taking down my photos and ripping them up.  If those photos are going to be removed, it will be by me, not someone else.  I took those photos, I paid for them to be processed and I hung them.  They are my art and a part of me now.  So I took them down and ripped them up and cried.  I cried because bureaucracies have no souls and yet they care for humans who are souls on a human journey.  We need beauty and nature around us.  We need to remain connected to this earth, even while fighting cancer.

My manager, a young woman born after I became a nurse found me and asked me to stop.  She loves the photos and wants to find a way to preserve them.  I told her that if she can find a way to do that, I will provide the photos.

So for now, my department is ugly and sterile but abides by the rules put in place by people who don't spend all day in a cancer hospital, caring for people who have been given the worst news they'll probably ever get.  I'm angry and sad but I also fight for my patients.  My photos help people, not because they're my photos, but because they remind us all of the beauty all around us.  I'm not willing to give up without a fight.