Rev Gals Friday Five - Lifesavers!

I found this Friday Five intriguing and worth musing about, and it is a good way for me to finally post! Thanks Kathrynzj. Here is her post over at RevGals and my answers:

In honor of BE Three I thought I'd offer up a Friday Five of lifesavers. I'm going on our cruise (are you?) because I am excited about meeting up with my blogging buddies again, I am interested in the speaker and because when I went on the first one my life was saved (okay, that may be a little over-dramatized but if you saw me getting on the boat and then the difference when getting off the boat you would know of what I speak).

I don't expect - or need - another life saving moment but I want to support the conference.

Of course lifesavers can come in all sizes and with far less drama. I would readily admit that I have considered a person (children's sermon substitute), the location of a bathroom, and a beverage (the last diet coke in the back of the fridge - score!) all to be lifesavers at one point or another.

And so today I ask you - dramatic or fairly common - what have been/are your lifesavers:

1) Your lifesaving food/beverage. Can I have more than one? The first would be Coke Classic. Not diet. Even while on Weight Watchers I allow myself 8 oz. a day at lunch. There is nothing like the flavor and the fizz and that nice little jolt of caffeine to keep me going, especially since I don't drink coffee or black tea.
Then there is a daily hot cocoa, preferably made by Starman using our cappuccino machine (given to me by my dear M-I-L) - I use skim milk, Hershey's special dark cocoa, and granulated sugar. Yum. I have to give this up while on WW and it is quite painful!
But really, chocolate in any form, mostly dark, has gotten me through life - through having three under 5's in my house, through long nights of studying physics and chemistry and then Tillich and Barth.

2) Your lifesaving article of clothing. I have a few of these too, but I will just mention two - my light blue polarfleece zip-up from REI - comfy and warm. And my Wicked Good Slippers, fleece lined with plastic soles, from LL Bean. Did I say warm? And did I say I spend my winters being COLD all the time? Yeah. Wool socks, too.

3) Your lifesaving movie/book/tv show/music.
When I am down, Phil Collins cheers me up. No doubt. Or helps me wallow. Depending. Right now, I like


Follow You Follow Me, which epitomizes the 25 years Starman and I have been together. I saw this in concert, and loved the background too!

It doesn't fail to bring me up when I am down!


4) Your lifesaving friend.
Many of these, actually. Too many to list - I have been blessed. Two are my best friends from college, who now live 40 minutes apart from one another in Colorado. We've been together since we were 18. We lived together, and Starman lived with us, so they know him well. We IM each other three or four times a week. They accept me for who I am, and they know me well.

Starman of course. I never get tired of being with him! Looking forward to a date night tonight. He is funny, and fun, and caring. And sometimes he even cleans the bathrooms!


5) Your lifesaving moment.
One that I can think of happened about 6 weeks after Skye, my eldest daughter, was born. After four miscarriages and a stillbirth, her very presence seemed like a precarious gift. She was "born blue" with the cord wrapped around her neck and had to be pulled out with forceps. It took her two weeks to learn how to nurse. I felt as though we were fighting for her survival. But one day, when she was six weeks old, she looked at me and smiled. And I knew she was ok, and I knew I loved her, and I knew I could trust that love. I don't know why I received the gift of her life, or the gift of the two others who followed her, and did not get to hold the five before, except in my heart. But I finally trusted the gift, that day.

Of course there were more of these as well...

What about you?