Blogging

We have old people jet-lag! I don’t recommend a red-eye flight if you’re over 40 and just spent a week manically running all over the tropical paradise known as Oahu! As I sit here typing my eyes feel heavy and like I could sleep for 24 more hours and thats after getting a full night’s sleep last night! Our flight coming home was well over an hour late, which had us waiting in the Hawaii airport for three hours before boarding the night flight home.

Kevin and I decided this was a good thing, since it was painful tearing ourselves away from the Island to head home. We have always felt by the end of a vacation it was time to come home. Not this time!

The four Hawaii bloggers we met up with for dinner last Friday helped make our stay on Oahu extra special. I would have liked an extra week just getting to know Ma, Kamalani, Bitchatude and DB better!

Ma, I especially would have liked more time with you dear lady! I know you had family functions on Saturday, and Kevin had our itinerary booked up the rest of the week. I comfort myself knowing that I’ll get to spend some time with you here in Phoenix in early August! We thought of you often after our dinner together! As late as this morning, when Kevin brewed up that delicious coffee you sent back with us. As well as the cookies that he broke open last night, right before we collapsed in exhaustion! Thank you for the goodies you sent home with us Ma! You made us feel welcome and gave a dimension of warmth to this vacation that playing sightseeing tourists is not usually known for. We are glad you were able to bring Kamalni along for dinner as well. She is such a beautiful little girl, and I was amazed at what a lady she was at dinner! She is a special little girl, so well behaved and intellegent. Give her a big sqeezy hug from Aunty 3T for me!

Getting lei’ed by Bitchatude and DB was another high point of our vacation! I think that had we been lei’ed by strangers it wouldn’t have been nearly so special for us. It was perfect and beautiful and we hope it was good for the two of you too! Those were THE most gorgeous lei’s I’ve seen, and over the course of the week, we saw hundreds! Thank you for adding that special touch to the experience. Although it wasn’t the first time we had been lei’ed, it was by far the best!

Saturday’s tour around the Island was also a highpoint. Thank you for showing us some of the most beautiful areas on Oahu! I know after this last hectic semester, the two of you had to be completely exhausted, and I appreciate the sacrifice you made to show us all around. I hope that the two of you will make it out to the desert soon, so we can play host to you as well. I promise we don’t get lost here, like we did there!

While I recuperate from jet-lag the rest of this weekend, here are a few photos from our Hawaii blogger get-together! More to come, when this sleepy exhaustion lets up! I’m off to take yet another nap now.

Love,

3T

All of my blogspot favorite blogs are giving me trouble getting to them this morning. Since 5:00 AM and still counting. Dang it! I’ll keep trying to get to you!

I want to wish Becky at Searching for Oz a very happy and fun-filled-fabulous 32nd Birthday! A very special, and beautiful bloggy friend, with a kind and caring heart!

Becky, I am honored to call you my friend!

Please go over to Searching for Oz, and wish this special lady a Happy Birthday!

Cheers!

3T

I recently wrote a post on the weblog Bent Collective and the gentlemen who author it. Their latest post, The Reality of a Woman is one I urge all to read. It gives an account of HIV test results to a couple in one of the most desolate and inaccessible areas of the country in Uzbekistan. As Steve’s and Al’s own warning states, this is not for the faint of heart.

Revealing, powerfully written and yes, heartbreaking.

Let me introduce you to a couple of bloggers who author Bent Collective. They are Steve O’Brien and Al Rae, authors of Bent Collective. I have mentioned in the past that Steve is a favorite blogger because of his many and varied humanitarian projects in medicine, as well as his amazing talent as a prolific writer. From working in the Sudan and in Africa to aiding the victims of Katrina in New Orleans, Steve uses his extensive medical education to care for people who often live in areas that blatantly lack in comparison to the Western world. To say I see this gentleman as modern day hero would be an accurate assumption.

Steve has his masters degree in the nurse practitioner program at UCLA, and is currently studying for his PhD on a specialization in HIV clinical management from an underserved urban and international perspective.

Al has is transitioning from a masters in literature to a PhD in the written referencing of pandemics and disease, from Bubonic Plague to HIV. He is currently working in the ethical research field, in the area of measuring emergency treatment and functional outcomes. He was and still is an advanced life support paramedic. Al spent a year in Bosnia with the restoration project. He helped train and set up the first post war air ambulance system. As well Steve and Al worked together in Sudan their last year there.

Both Steve and Al learned they had a rare genetic cell mutation known as a CCR5 delta 32 panel deletion. That means both gentlemen have an immunity to HIV/AIDS. They are part of a study of this immunity that is ongoing. On Bent Collective, these gentlemen discuss their status in greater detail and how it effects their lives and perspectives.

Right now, Steve is working with a medical team over in Uzbekistan administering medical care. It is an area of the world that doesn’t recognized HIV/AIDS as a problem for the Islamic community. His willingness to travel to a country that is surrounded with political upheaval and give aid to the people who live there has garnered my respect, admiration and support. I have kept in contact with Steve via email and his and Al’s blog Bent Collective.

I am honored to call both of these men my friends, and I met them through blogging. Steve’s work in Uzbekistan is desperately needed, and Steve is deserving of all the support his friends and readers can share with him. I know Al has been a great supporter and intrical part of Steve’s communication with those of us here in the United States and in Canada.

I highly recommend checking out and reading about Steve’s Humanitarian adventures in Uzbekistan and those from his past in Africa, Thailand, Sudan and New Orleans. If we could clone a few more Steves and Als, I do believe the world would be a much kinder place to live. As I keep in touch with Steve through email, I would very much like to send him support from a wider range of bloggers, known as the readers here at Stumbling/Grace, as he continues his humanitarian efforts over in Uzbekistan.

I have a new renter, Barb, from bloggo chicago! Barb is married, lives in Chicago, has four cats and is bi-polar. Barb blogs honestly and openly about her life and her struggles and triumphs surrounding being bi-polar. Her candor and honesty are disarming and heart warming. Please go say a Hello to Barb, and let her know 3T sent you. She blogs about her beautiful cats too, sharing photos of them.  Go ahead, go over and see Barb. I won’t post for a while, you can use the time you normally spend reading my verbose banalities, to read her!

Thank you!

3T

And someday I hope to change. But for now, it’s not looking real good. Please check out my Rent My blog Tenant Kentucky Girl. A warm hearted lady living in California, although looking to move back home to her beloved Kentucky! She collects pressed pennies, loves to plan parties and is looking forward to a trip to Disneyland with her sister. She has been a fantastic tenant, and I am adding this wonderful lady to my blogroll!

She only has less than two days left as my tenant! So please make up for my procrastination and click on the thumbnail over Rent My Blog and give her a read! You won’t regret it. And Kentucky Girl, I’m sorry I took so long to introduce you. Please forgive this scatterbrained woman!