The Bed’s Done!

Posted on October 31, 2016 by flamidwyfe

Steady progress for the week. The bed is now completed. Joey & I designed it so that the entire middle can be taken out. You can move the mattress, lift the plywood base and then remove the three middle rectangles. This will allow us to bring in larger pieces of furniture or appliances like the fridge.

We also almost have the flooring completed I’m short one box. Oh! And the electrical is done. My bonus child Ashley’s husband Evan came and did all the electrical wiring in about four hours yesterday! And my BIL, Rick, stopped in to give us a hand today. Tiffany and I finished the painting on the lower 2/3 of the bus, too.

Here are some pictures of the progress…

Productive weekend!

Ciao 😊

Bus Update

Posted on October 18, 2016 by flamidwyfe

An update in pictures 😊

While everyone was working hard on Sunday, I took grandson Shane to a Dolphins game. They won!

BULLET JOURNAL – 1

Posted on September 9, 2016 by flamidwyfe

I was introduced to Bullet Journaling last month by Kristi Ridd-Young the President of the Midwives College of Utah. I have been working on improving my time management and she talked to me about the Bullet Journal and why it works for her.

So I did a lot of research and realized this could be something that works for me. This is the best place to start if you want to learn more about this type of journaling: The Bullet Journal. The original Bullet Journal is not available in the U.S. right now and is shipping from the U.K. for more $$ than the journal itself, so I did some research and found other companies that sell “dot grid” notebooks and ordered from a really cool company called Cognitive Surplus. They are a science based notebook company with really awesome colors! I bought the Cellular Biology Vintage Softcover for my first journal and the Mathematics Vintage Softcover for my second.

Here’s Bullet Journal 1…

BULLET JOURNAL 1

So for tonight I’ve got the front page and my index pages done and I’m off to bed… last night was a late night getting back from Maroon 5 in Miami! 😀 Taking my quick reference guide to bed with me to do a little studying. The quick guide was done by Kim of tinyrayofsunshine.com. Her site is wonderful!

TITLE PAGE

INDEX PAGE

Ciao!

Day 2

Posted on February 1, 2016 by flamidwyfe

Day 2

Still on flight to Rome. Watched the documentary “He Named Me Malala”. Powerful story about not only Malala, but her amazing, heroic father, both whom spoke out against the Taliban.

0912: Landed in Rome

0921: cleared immigration and customs

0935: checked the two big bags with supplies in to luggage storage at airport. No sense in schlepping them around.

0950: on bus headed to main Termini in Rome.

Rome Airport = most efficient international airport I’ve been through!

Napped from 1-3 and then a walk about town.

Dinner next door to hostel. They had gluten free pasta!! So I had carbonara sauce. Oh my, so good!

As I was leaving restaurant I met Sarah and her son Sam. Brits living in Turkey. Literally on the coast just opposite to where I am going in Lesvos. There are no coincidences.

A lovely chat with my new friend Rita from Lithuania. She’s on a short holiday to Rome. I am always amazed at how much Europeans know about our U.S. Politics, probably more than a lot of our young folks know. Both Sarah and Rita are concerned about the negative impact Donald Trump would have on our world if he were to become president. I concur.

In bed and sound asleep by 10 pm. I awoke at 435 and ended up in a WhatsApp chat with Aisha, back to sleep around 6 and slept until 930. More tomorrow!

And if you are willing donations for the refugees can be made here: https://www.youcaring.com/sandra-blankenship-480179#

Or by PayPal: flamidwyfe1@aol.com

Ciao!

Serendipity and Love

Posted on December 17, 2015 by flamidwyfe

Sometimes in life serendipity happens. Serendipity is the occurrence and development of event by chance in a happy or beneficial way. This happened to me this week 🙂

I am going to Greece and Turkey to work in the refugee camps. I will be leaving on February 14 and will be there for 9 weeks. I will be providing well women and maternity care to women that are just arriving or who have been assigned a camp. I absolutely cannot wait!

As a result of this, I am fundraising to enable me to afford transportation, ground transportation, accommodation, supplies and shipping costs. I put together an email and decided to send it out to everyone in my AOL address book. I got a message back from C, asking how she knew me. I was able to cross reference her email in my mail folders and realized that we were both included in an email from someone very special in both of our lives. And thus we began a conversation as to what my purpose was for this trip and a little walk down memory lane. C has generously helped me put together a message to share with others and is going to send it out to her friends and family and share it on Facebook.

Two people with common threads, working together to help refugees in a far away land. This kind of connection is what living is all about! To add to the chance happy part, myself and 2 friends have planned a girls weekend for the one and only weekend I will be in town the first 7 months of this upcoming year. A reunion long overdue.

Here is part of the letter:

Dear Good People,

My name is Sandi Blankenship. I am a mom to 3, a grandma to 10, and a midwife. I became a midwife in 1998 to serve women of all socio-economic backgrounds and provide equal, loving and compassionate care to all.

I have extensive experience in providing midwifery and health care services to women internationally. (I have included a brief description of my work at the end of this letter.) The plight of the refugee women in the current great migration to Europe is profoundly distressing to me.

And so I am traveling to Greece (5 weeks) and Turkey (4 weeks) from February 14 to April 20 of this year, and will be going with an organization called Sisters in Health. My goals are three: to give well-woman care, and maternity care to the women that are arriving and are temporarily camped in Lesbos, Greece; to travel to Turkey to work at the large refugee camp in Suruc, where I will provide women’s health care as well; and lastly, I want to bring with me 500 women’s comfort/hygiene kits to take with me and have the money to purchase more products while there. Listed below are the items that I am planning to take with me. (you can find these on my youcaring web page).

I am additionally responsible for all of my other expenses: air, ground transport, accommodation and excess baggage fees.

I am just one person, but one person, with an army of supporters, can do BIG things. Every little bit will help. Even a $5 donation would help. Please help me make this trip the best that it can be!

And please feel free to share this opportunity with your family, friends, Facebook, and any other source you might have.

I am drawn to give my time and services and heart energy to these refugees. They are ordinary people, like you and me, in extraordinary circumstances. Thank you for considering supporting these brave women.

Blessings,

Sandi Blankenship, RM, CPM

https://www.youcaring.com/sandra-blankenship-480179

Ciao! syria header

Day 5 – Epic Summer Roadtrip with Momma – Guest post

Posted on June 29, 2015 by flamidwyfe

Today’s guest post is by another 11 year old granddaughter, Faelynn.

June 29, 2015 Sunday

Today we ate Fruity Pebbles for breakfast. Then we went to Hirshhorn Sculpture Garden and then we went on a carousel.

Now we’re in a museum called The National Museum of American History. We ate lunch at the cafeteria part of the museum. Then we went on a 3-D simulator in the museum which was fun cause it felt like we were on a roller coaster. Now we’re walking around the museum…

Now we’re at a museum called The National Museum of Natural History. It’s soo cool! Tonight we’re go to Boltz Burgers again. Yummy!

Sadie sketching next to another sketcher.

This last photo is of me and Pam. Pam is my friend Natalie’s friend and we were both on The Mall at the same time. We had never met. So we both stopped what we were doing, met at the Carousel, Sadie snapped the pic and we were all on our way, in under 3 minutes! We have a lot in common and I look forward to spending more than 3 minutes with her in the near future!

Day 1 – Epic Summer Roadtrip with Momma

Posted on June 26, 2015 by flamidwyfe

And we’re off! I’ve loaded up my brand new 2015 Ford Escape for an epic 21 day East Coast Roadtrip with 3 of my grandgirlies.

Day 1 took us from home in Stuart, FL to a fun 5 hours in St. Augustine. We parked in the garage at the Visitirs Center for $12 (car stayed cool!) and spent about 30 minutes viewing the exhibits in the center.

We then started our 6 km walk, first stop the oldest wooden school house in America (can’t remember admission price), stopping at the fort ($10 for me, free for the kids), lunch at the White Lion and a long stroll down St. George St, stopping for ice cream. We stopped back at the car for some water and then the kids played on the “Swing” log playground for 30 minutes.

We then headed 40 minutes north for an overnight stay at my friend Teri’s house. The girls swam with her daughter and then Mike treated us to a lovely Mexican dinner at La Nopalera.

Fantastic day!!!

Maasi Mara Kenyan Safari

Posted on August 2, 2014 by flamidwyfe

So, all work and no play makes Sandi a grumpy person, LOL. I told our trip organizer, Natalie, I really didn’t want to go to Kenya without adding a safari in. That’s like coming to South Florida and not going to the beach! So our lovely host, Roberta, planned us a safari. And WHAT AN EXPERIENCE IT WAS!!! We did a 3 hour evening safari, spent the night in tents and then a 3 hour sunrise safari. Most pics are mine (taken on my iPhone 5) and a few belong to Natalie and Maya (both of whom had real cameras on them, lol) I’ll let the pictures do the talking.

CHEETAH

BEAUTIFUL LION – WE SAW A MOMMA AND 3 CUBS THE EVENING BEFORE.

ZEBRA… SEE THE BABY?

STUNNING

AFRICAN BUFFALO

YOUNG GIRAFFE

CHEETAH

GIRAFFE

LION

OSTRICH

I JUMPED OUT FOR A QUICK PIT STOP, MAYA CAUGHT ME… ZEBRA AND WILDEBEEST IN THE BACKGROUND… AMAZING!

I TOOK THIS WITH MY iPHONE… SUNSET

PUMBA AKA WART HOG

THE WILDEBEEST WERE FUNNY. WE WOULD DRIVE UP ON THEM, THEY WOULD RUN A FEW YARDS AND THEN TURN AROUND AND LOOK AT US AS IF SAYING, “YOU WANNA PIECE OF ME??” … TOO FUNNY

ZEBRA… ONE OF THE NEATEST THINGS WAS EARLIER IN THE TRIP, WE SAW ZEBRA HANGING OUT ON THE SIDE OF THE HIGHWAY GRAZING WITH THE COWS.

A mission to Kenya

Posted on August 1, 2014 by flamidwyfe

I had the opportunity this month to travel to Nairobi and Sakwa, Kenya on a mission trip with Mission:Hope, an organization headed by my friend from all the way back in middle school, Natalie West Evans. Natalie is also the wife of the pastor at my church.

I invited Maya Bond-Duarte, a graduating midwife student from the school I was teaching at, to come as well. WHAT.A.TRIP!

We arrived in Nairobi very late in the evening, and were greeted at the airport by Roberta Peterson, our host for this trip. She is an incredible woman from NC that has a heart for Kenya and lives in Sakwa doing amazing work! We showered and hit the sack after 19+ hours of flying. Up early and a hearty breakfast and off on a 6 hour, bumpy ride to Sakwa. On the way we stopped at the Great Rift Valley viewpoint. What views we had!

Natalie, Roberta, Me, Maya and Petranila

We had two main objectives on this trip. To provide educational seminars and a clinic to the women of the community and to spend time with the children at the Hope Educational Center, where Roberta is the Matron.

Roberta

We held our seminar at the church. Words cannot even begin to express the joy at seeing 170+ women sitting in that church listening to health education seminars. We spoke on the importance of care during pregnancy, breastfeeding, family planning and HIV.

Women’s Health Seminar

Maya, Evelyne and I saw about 50 women for various and assorted ailments in the church, while Michelle (part of the NC team) saw women in an outer building for HIV testing and family planning.

Evelyne Osano is an amazing woman. She lives and works in Kisii, Kenya. She is a registered nurse and her husband is a pastor. They have a beautiful little girl named Blessing. Evelyne works full time at a local hospital and then comes home and runs a clinic, financed with her own money. She loves her community THAT much! It was an honor to meet such an amazing woman. She inspires me to do more!

Evelyne and Me… Love this amazing woman!

Me, Evelyne and Maya

Showing Evelyne the medical supplies that I collected and brought with me. Donations provided by many of my midwife friends and the birth centers they work at.

The next day we got to spend time with the kids!!! Oh my, what wonderful kids! We read to them, sang with them, were welcomed by them, made rainbow faith bead bracelets with them and danced with them!

This is Natalie with the kids 🙂

Me teaching the kids the Hokey Pokey!

I love this photo of Maya!

Me reading Bugs, Bugs, Bugs to the kids.

Reading to the kids.

Natalie and I on Field Day with the kids.

Maya tying the bracelets on the kids. Natalie read the story of how Jesus is our friend.

I even kicked a GOAL in a soccer game!!!

Goal!

We had AMAZING food at our host home in Sakwa!!

This lunch was provided by the local ladies on our Women’s Health Seminar day… YUM!!! Goat, greens and ugali… Mmmm, Mmmmm!

This little man stole my heart. On the day we were doing the Women’s Health Seminar he approached shyly and asked if I had a pen he could use for school. In 4th grade they stop using pencils and use pens instead. I gave him the pen I had brought from the States. He goes to the public school in town. As the days went by, he showed me each day that he still had my pen and let me know he was using it in his studies. On the last day we were there, he and other public school children were standing outside the Hope Educational Center watching the children put on a presentation just for us. As I left, he gave me a hug and said, “Thank you my friend, for the pen”. My heart melted! On our journey back to Nairobi I asked Roberta what it takes to sponsor a child to go to school at the Hope Educational Center. $60 pays for a years tuition, uniform, satchel bag and some supplies. YES, THAT IS SIXTY U.S. DOLLARS, A YEAR! A hundred dollars will help sponsor a kid and supply the school. I will sponsor this young man for many years. He will forever hold a place in my heart ❤ If you are interested in more information, you can contact me privately at sandiblankenshiprm@gmail.com.

I left part of my heart in Sakwa, with this little guy!

Here are more pics of the kids… lots more.

Maya reading with one of the wonderful teachers watching.

Tomorrow… the Safari. 😀

Ciao!

On My Way, Home Sweet Home

Posted on July 2, 2014 by flamidwyfe

I’m sitting in the airport hotel, dressed, packed, phones charged, coffee in hand excited to be going home.

It’s been a fantastic work trip that included some play time. Two adorable baby boys born 2 weeks apart in China, time spent getting to know 2 more families who I will love and cherish… So blessed to have been welcomed into their homes and be with them while experiencing the beauty of birth. It never gets old for me, no matter how many times I’m present at a birth.

I also traveled to Jinan, China (near Bejing) to teach staff at the hospital there about the importance of water birth and breastfeeding. Beautiful city, lovely people!

I also was part of a month long virtual race in June. Held by fellow blogger Tatjana, the Midsummer Sun Kilomathon was a great way to get in that much needed exercise. It was HOT here in China and Hong Kong, but I did it. In fact I completed 107 kilometers which is 66.5 miles!

I finished off the trip to Asia with a 5 day trip with my friend Lillian “Alice” Sanpere to Ubud, Bali. We stayed with Robin Lim who runs Bumi Sehat, a non-profit birth center where care for the locals is free. What a giving, loving, honorable woman. Doing so much to ensure that babies enter this world gently. Alice and I were invited to be part of a birth there and it was magical.

So, I’ll let the photos do the talking. I’ve got to call for the bell cart to get my stuff over to the airport.

Ciao!