Day of Rest: The Face of Accomplishment

Yesterday, Chiro-sister got her massage therapy degree. She's been teaching anatomy & physiology at AIM for 3 years, and decided to go through the practical part of massage school for this last year. [Side note here: I'm SO impressed with the curriculum at this school. Not only do they have a kick-ass A & P teacher, but Ruthie would tell me all the wonderful techniques she was learning. What? You're learning lymphatic drain massage? COOL!]

Ruth spoke to her students and read a passage from The Velveteen Rabbit:

The Skin Horse had lived longer in the nursery than any of the others. He was so old that his brown coat was bald in patches and showed the seams underneath, and most of the hairs in his tail had been pulled out to string bead necklaces. He was wise, for he had seen a long succession of mechanical toys arrive to boast and swagger, and by-and-by break their mainsprings and pass away, and he knew that they were only toys, and would never turn into anything else. For nursery magic is very strange and wonderful, and only those playthings that are old and wise and experienced like the Skin Horse understand all about it.

"What is REAL?" asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?"

"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."

"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.

"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt."

"Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?"

"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."

"I suppose you are real?" said the Rabbit. And then he wished he had not said it, for he thought the Skin Horse might be sensitive.

But the Skin Horse only smiled.

After Ruth spoke to her students, she joined them as a classmate as they received their diplomas:

Ruth receives diploma from Joseph, founder of AIM. He is AWESOME! For energy ball enthusiasts, check out the one behind Ruth.

YAY!!!

Now we have 2 massage therapists in the fam!

CONGRATULATIONS, SWEETIE!
WUV YOU!!!