You know it’s Christ­mas when A Char­lie Brown Christ­mas is on TV.

Today I’m doing a Snoopy “Happy Dance” and think­ing about how I’m thank­ful for child­hood mem­o­ries of watch­ing this TV special.

After a much-​​needed break, Hubby and I are in Saugatuck, MI for the week­end enjoy­ing our first expe­ri­ence at a bed and breakfast.

It’s off-​​season here in the “Artist Capi­tol of Michi­gan” but it’s still beau­ti­ful here. Many of the stores are closed for the sea­son, but one place we found to relax is a cof­fee house called “Uncom­mon Grounds.”

So here I sit, typ­ing on my iPad, enjoy­ing my frosted mint coconut latte, iron­i­cally called “Snow Day.” Ironic, because it’s 40-​​some degrees out­side with no snow in site. What is with this win­ter? (Not that i’m complaining …)

Walk­ing around this quaint town has got me miss­ing the var­i­ous city neigh­bor­hoods of Chicago. There are all these unique bou­tique shops and the streets are filled with peo­ple walk­ing leisurely to their des­ti­na­tions. All that’s miss­ing is the hus­tle and bus­tle of city-​​living. And that pur­pose­ful gait of pedes­tri­ans try­ing to catch a bus or the El.

I miss walk­ing pur­posely like we did in Chicago. I miss rush­ing to the El sta­tion or the bus stop to catch it to our next des­ti­na­tion. For pete’s sake, I even miss walk­ing the dog through the park just so she could do her busi­ness. As it is now, all I have to do is let her out the side door so she can have the run of the yard. And I know our pudgy Kozzy misses it too.

But being here in Saugatuck has been a nice roman­tic get­away; some­thing Hubby and I needed to recharge our bat­ter­ies. It’s given us the time (espe­cially here at “Uncom­mon Grounds”) to do things we both like to do; him = draw­ing, me = knit­ting and writing.

That, and ful­fill­ing my dream of stay­ing at a B&B just like the “Drag­on­fly Inn” from Gilmore Girls.

I’m sit­ting here at Ronald Rea­gan Inter­na­tional Air­port, delayed for my return flight back home after a pro­duc­tive work week away from Detroit. What should have been a quick half-​​hour lay­over has turned into a nice 2-​​hour one, thanks to a won­der­ful win­ter storm cur­rently hit­ting the Midwest.

When book­ing this flight, I didn’t hes­i­tate to pick this air­port as a lay­over since it would have got­ten me back at a rel­a­tively early time on a Fri­day evening. How­ever, what I failed to remem­ber was that this air­port had played a large part in the cir­cle of my father’s life.

It was at this air­port that my Dad had fallen down while rush­ing to catch a con­nect­ing flight … And hit his head. Three weeks — and com­plaints of a headache the week­end before his hos­pi­tal­iza­tion — later, the whole fam­ily found out that the cause of his pass­ing related back to that one fall.

As I sit here at the air­port, I can’t help but think of what had hap­pened here in Novem­ber of 2010. How this one inci­dent had sig­nif­i­cantly impacted my life. And it makes me sad; so very sad.

It seems so stu­pid to mourn like this; over a year later. I know that grief has a time­line of its own, yet some­how I feel as if some­thing as sim­ple as a lay­over shouldn’t affect me so much. A delayed flight shouldn’t cause my eyes to well up.

But it does. And once again, the grief takes over.

Given the his­toric moment last night**, it’s not suprise that work today was … inter­est­ing. Oh, did I for­get to tell you that I work for a major health insur­ance company?

We’re a smart bunch, us RN Case Man­agers. We’re smart enough to know that the land­scape of health care will change. How­ever, we’re also smart enough to know that the basic con­cept of Case Man­age­ment will remain the same regard­less of how health care is financed.

We know that nurses will con­tinue to be needed in what­ever set­ting they’re cur­rently in. We know that hos­pi­tals and other extended-​​care facil­i­ties (like nurs­ing homes or rehabs) will con­tinue to need the skills that a Reg­is­tered Nurse can pro­vide. We know that physi­cian offices will con­tinue to need the assis­tance and, let’s face it, the com­pas­sion that an RN can pro­vide in order to explain cer­tain pro­ce­dures and con­di­tion in layman’s terms.

Specif­i­cally as Case Man­agers, we know how impor­tant it is for a per­son to be aware of their own health. We know that knowl­edge and edu­ca­tion is impor­tant in order for a per­son to be self-​​directed in their own care. And we know that the aver­age per­son might not be as knowl­edge­able on how to nav­i­gate the health care sys­tem. Which is why, today of all days, that being a health care advo­cate for a per­son is impor­tant; why being a Case Man­ager is an incred­i­bly pow­er­ful thing.

So despite the fact that health care as we pre­vi­ously knew it will change … and regard­less of exactly how this will be car­ried out within the health insur­ance com­pany I work for … it’s a good time to be a nurse; a great time to be an RN Case Manager.

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Two weeks and count­ing until the end of my Lenten jour­ney. So, in Croa­t­ian …

Dobro djelo za danas: Today’s good deed. Noth­ing big today … I hap­pened to run into a fel­low super­vi­sor walk­ing into our build­ing this morn­ing; her arms full of var­i­ous things she had to carry in from the train. So being the kind per­son I am, I lended her a hand. I helped her up the stairs, through the secu­rity gate, in the ele­va­tor and onto our floor. Whew … I’m tired just think­ing about the dis­tance it takes to get from the entrance of our build­ing up to our floor!

Osjećaj zah­val­nosti za dan: Today,  I am once again grate­ful for the awe­some hus­band that I have. Let’s just say that this morning’s walk with Kozzy resulted in a nasty mess … one I didn’t even notice until Hubby and I were in the car dri­ving to work. And even then … it took me a moment to real­ize that the poo smell was com­ing from the bot­tom of my shoe. <blech!> But the good Hubby that he is, he offered to wait in the car once we got to the office so I could change shoes (extra pairs under­neath my desk, yo!) and have him take the stinky pair home. (This of course, hap­pened BEFORE I helped out my fel­low super­vi­sor!) He’s so incred­i­bly good to me!!

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** If you want to see what *I* had to say about Health Care Reform, take a look at the bot­tom half of yesterday’s Mish Mosh post.