Keeping Kids Clean

Busy Busy girl!

I am once again floored at what I see in the world.  Was I raised in a bubble?  No.  I just didn’t get involved in the drug scene.  Thank God!  I had friends who did drugs in front of me and I always opted not to do them.  Yes I drank, sometimes so much I made myself sick, but I never had an interest in doing any hard-core drugs.

I know that they are everywhere but I guess with what I do with my free time I get to see what is really going on out there in the world.  I started thinking, is it just my town?  Is it bad that we live here?  I feel a little better when I looked up the statistics on drugs in my town.  We are pretty much where most other towns are.  My old town is 3X higher so I guess we are not doing so bad.  I am guessing I  just see it now  from being an EMT.  Thankfully they are not the people I associate with.

It really scares me for my children though.  As an advisor for our Youth Squad I pray these kids learn everything they can to stay away from drugs and alcohol abuse.   I am going to try to get someone in to talk to the kids.  I would like the share with them the number of people who are dying each day, young and old, from abuse.   Our school used to have the DARE program but they don’t do it anymore.  Daytop is building a  facility on school grounds for our students.  Do we really have enough students abusing drugs?  That’s a scary thought!  Really has it gotten worse or has it always been this way?

I thank God for the way my parents raised me and the friends I choose to hang out with.  I can only hope and pray that I can keep my children free from abuse and help them make the right choices in life.  I am as involved in their lives as much as a parent can be.  I am pleased to say that most of my children’s friends are the kids from our Youth Squad.  I know them well and I know their families.  I don’t let my kids go roaming around town, walking the streets like some of the kids I see that used to be friends with my son.  But I can’t be with them 24 hours a day, so I need to make sure they make the right decisions on their own as well.

I know that the time will come that my children will be around alcohol, I was a kid once too.  But I will make damn sure to educate them about being responsible.  I will be the parent that will pick them up without punishment before I let them get in a car with alcohol!  I may not like it, I don’t condone it but I am not stupid either and would rather them be alive!  Not only that my youngest will have to know how to cover his insulin so he will know the carbs of a beer too!  Things you have to think of as a grownup.  We all were told of the risks of smoking, drinking and doing drugs.

“We all know that as teens we thought we knew it all!” – Just Me Jewel

In My Dreams

Day Okay maybe I won’t keep a running count!

I love reading supernatural type books.  Ghosts, vampires, witches, whatever.  I started reading the Harry Potter books to my son years ago.   I ended up reading them all to myself, he never read them just skipped right to the movies.   Yes, I read all of the Twilight books before seeing the movies and I truly enjoyed them.  I love envisioning the unnatural.  Since then I have read several different series.  Most of these books are found in the young adult section.  I am not a Harlequin Romance hot and heavy type.  One of my favorite adult series was  the “Undead” series by Mary Janice Davidson.  From the beginning of the book I laughed out loud so much my husband started to read them as well.  The most recent series I am reading starts with “Born At Midnight” by CC Hunter.  In the book the main character dreamscapes by entering the dreams of another character.  Dreamscaping or sometimes called lucid dreams means basically you control your dreams.

It made me wonder, if this was really possible.  I had sworn in the past this has happened to me.  I swear this person would occasionally enter my dreams and would be there while the rest of my dream was happening around us.  Odd right?  The other thing that had happened several times was a visit from my grandmother who has passed.  Again, I would be talking to her while my dream was happening in the background.  Sometimes there was a real message from her others it was just to show me some love when I needed her.

I have always known my Grandmother was watching over me.  My husband knew I believed so much it was her he asked for to show him a sign of hope when I was on life support.  It was then when the numbers on my monitor had improved.  He did that again when the numbers returned to their original setting and again, they showed signs of hope.  Just before her husband passed away she came to me again to say she wouldn’t be around as much, she was waiting for him to arrive.  I still dream of her but not often.  Thinking of this last night while I was saying my prayers, I asked God for her.  I asked to see her in my dreams.  Sure enough, when I awoke this morning my eyes popped open, Grandma had come to see me.   I miss having my grandparents.  It makes me feel good to know they are always watching.  Although my children and my husband haven’t met them, I am sure they know my family.

“I close my eyes, then I drift away, into the magic night I softly say. A silent prayer, like dreamers do, then I fall asleep to dream my dreams of you.” – Roy Orbison

Keeping Busy

Day I don’t know, I’ll have to reconfigure!

I know I vowed to post a new blog daily but apparently that just isn’t in the realm of possibilities right now.  So, I vow to post a blog a few times a week.  This way I am not feeling guilty about skipping a day of two when needed.  I will try to still keep a running count of days even though they won’t actually match up with the number of posts.  Oh well, I’m not going to sweat it.

Work has been busy and I have been getting a lot more hours lately.  This is great as I do need the money and I truly love my job.  I’m still an officer and a volunteer with the ambulance company of course, however my time there is definitely shortened as well.  There is only 24 hours in a day and only so much I can physically do in a day as well.  Plus my kids need a mom and that’s the best job of them all, so blogging will just have to get done when I have the time to do it.

I am feeling so much better lately, knocking on wood, as far as the stressful things in my life.  I am loving my chief for that.  Hopefully things will stay that way.  I just have to get my body to forget about its ailments and I’ll really be happy! Now If I could only win the lottery!  Le t me tell you, there is not much on channels 2-11 unless you want to know if it’s the baby’s daddy which I find to horrible to watch!  It’s funny when you think you don’t watch a lot of the many channels you pay extra for each month, how much you miss them when they are gone.  They are going to have to come back even for the little times I sit to watch TV!

“I believe the term “blog” means more than an online journal. I believe a blog is a conversation. People go to blogs to read AND write, not just consume.” – Michael Arrington

A lot of days to go.

To Smart to Start

Day 73

Spending some time at our local foodmart, I am amazed at the things that I have learned.  Forget the normal grocery items being sold first thing in the morning.  Yes,coffee and cigaretts are sold in abundance but that is about the only “normal” morning ritual some people have.  I can’t believe how many people skip the coffee and go right to the six-pack of beer!  Talk about breakfast of champions!   Along with the beer, the number one seller of the store, cigars.  Not that these people are actually smoking the tobacco that is in the cigar.

In addition,  there is a new legal form of marijuana that you can sell in stores.  Who knew?  They are packaged in these little jars each one with a different name.  How do they get away with it?  Easy they are sold as insence and are clearly marked not for human consumption.  Although on one, it also says highly potent.  The real meaning of them, they apparently are smokable.  I asked a little about them just out of curiousity, getting high is not someing I do personally nor is beer for breakfast but to each is own.  I was told that these incense when you smoke them give you a high, I guess it is like a marijuana high, but slightly different.  You have to be over 19 to purchase them, so obvioulsy these are not used for making your home smell nice.  I’ll stick with my coffee breakfast!

Its no wonder as an EMT I see so many overdoses!  It’s actually sad as some of the people who come in to buy beer first thing in the morning are the ones I pick up in the ambulance.   It’s sad to see how many people, young and old that die due to an overdose of drugs and alcohol.  I find it disheartening to see so many struggling with abuse.  I pray that my children stay away from the drugs and alcohol.  I hope that as they are both part of the ambulance company they will see what really happens to people when they get into situations of abuse and choose to stay away from them.   I do share with them the scary  things I see without breaking HIPA laws, in hopes that they will never take these paths.   I pray that it works better than any DARE program, which our schools took out due to budgeting.

“I pray my children stay ‘to smart to start’!” – Just Me Jewel

293 Days to go.

“If You Say My Eyes Are Beautiful”

Day 70

Happy Valentine’s Day!

In honor of Valentines Day, I want to share one of my favorite songs of all times.  This was our wedding song and I share this with you all and to my loving husband whom I love with all my heart!

Whitney Houston
If You Say My Eyes Are Beautiful (duet with Jermaine Jackson)

If you say my eyes are beautiful
It’s because they’re looking at you
And if you could only see yourself,
You’d feel the same way too.
You could say that I am a dreamer
Who’s had a dream come true,
If you say my eyes are beautiful
It’s because they’re looking at you.

If you wonder why I’m smilin’
It’s because I’m happy with you
And the warm sensations touch my heart
And fill me through and through,
I could hold you close forever
And never let you go
If you say my eyes are beautiful,
It’s because I just love you so.

Now, my heart is an open door
Won’t you come inside for more
You give love so sweetly now,
Take my love,
Take me completely now.

If you say my eyes are beautiful
It’s because they’re looking at you
And my eyes are just the windows,
For my feelings to come through,
And by far you are more beautiful
Than anything I ever knew,
If you say my eyes are beautiful
It’s because they’re looking at you.

Because this just happens to be by Whitney Houston, RIP, such a sad story.

“Have a very loved and blessed day!” – Just Me Jewel

396 Days to go.

Once a Bully…

Day 69

I have been sitting in front of this screen for days now trying to put into words anything but how I feel.  No such luck.  I can write a good story but unfortunately this is not once upon a time.  I started this blog as a place that I could write anything I wanted to.  There was no one who could tell me different, so why am I holding back now.  I feel like a little girl who went to school one day and got bullied and now don’t want to say anything at all.  I actually contemplated stopping my blog but I am not letting anyone take that away from me.

Why do we allow ourselves to be bullied?  Why do we have to care so much when someone says bad things to us?  Why do we let it hurt so much?  Why do we question what they said as if it had any real meaning to it all?  These are the questions that have been running through my head these last few days.  I actually was naive enough to think that when we grew up to be adults we wouldn’t have to deal with bullying any more.  I was so wrong and I just can’t wrap my head around it.  A coworker said to me yesterday that the bully’s we had as children grow up to be somebody elses bully today.    According to dictionary.com a bully is described as a blustering, quarrelsome, overbearing person who habitually badgers and intimidates smaller or weaker people.  I am definitely not a weaker person, anyone who knows what I have done in my life knows that, but I am definitely sensitive.  I like happy what can I say.  I am a people pleaser even when it hurts me to do so.  I have been something I am not for months now, angry.  I am tired of being angry.  I am tired of the bully’s.  I just would like to be around adults acting like adults.

“Call me what you will, I know the real me.” – Just Me Jewel

297 Days to go.

Where’s The Real Me?

Day 65

I have been feeling blue lately.  Which totally sucks.  Over the weekend I  realized that a piece of me was missing.  I would like to have that piece back.  I can’t believe I have let certain people and things in my life take that piece away from me.  I enjoy being the happy person, the one who loves to laugh and smile and feel good even when my body doesn’t.  I love being the center of attention, and I don’t mean that in a self-centered kind of way.  I mean that I love being around everyone, when people are truly happy to see me.  Not a fake hello or hug but feeling like I matter or count and not feeling like I have been outcasted.

I guess on the brighter side I know who my true friends are but I didn’t need the stress to figure that out.  I already knew.  I wish I could stop feeling the way that I do.  I am tired of the way some people talk about others.  I am not talking about me per se but the opinions of some about others is rude and just not nice.  I really am a nice person.  I don’t like drama and I hate confrontation, but I feel like I want to yell and scream and fight, which is just not the person I am proud to be.  Some things are just not easy to “get over” when they still effect you.  It’s so easy for someone on the outside to say that when they weren’t the ones that were tossed around like a salad.   I feel like the piece of lettuce that fell off someones plate and lays wilting on the table.

I was raised to treat people the way you want to be treated.  My parents instilled me with you follow the rules and do what is right.  It’s just so hard being around people who go out of their way to bend the rules, to find a technicality or interpret them to their liking depending on who they are referring to.  I find it totally frustrating and there isn’t a thing I can do about it.

I am trying so hard to work through this all but I hate what it is doing to the real me.  The lack of motivation on doing not only the things that I love to do but just about everything is not who I want to be.   I want the real me back.  I am just having a hard time finding my new place.

Sorry for the delay on posting my blog, went out on a call, the real reason I put up with the stress 🙂

“I’ll be me again, I’ll feel better, I’ll stop being so tired…..eventually” – Just Me Jewel

301 Days to go

To Be or Not To Be

Day 63

Pretty much every year when I get the Adult Education guide sent to my house, I start looking into going back to school.  At this rate I will be about 90 before I actually do it.  Last years delemma was do I want to go into nursing or paramedic?  I love emergency medicine, but do I want to do it on the streets or in an emergency department?  In the ED  I get to have more one on one care with  my patients, but am stuck in one building for 12 hours.  With a paramedic, I have less time with each patient but will be in a more comfortable setting awaiting calls but probably for a 24 hour shift.  I hate overnights, sleep is just too important for my poor body.  Decisions, decisions.  I thought about possibly going for Medical Assistant, where I can still work in an ED, take some blood and EKG’s.  This is the least amount of schooling where even after 3 years (because I would need prerequisite for both paramedic and RN)  for RN I would need to get my bachelors.  I am not a kid anymore and I can’t give up my job yet and with the lupus I am tired all the time.  Hmm, what to do?

I originally went back to Stony Brook for English as I wanted to be a teacher.  That all started from writing.  What could I put on my biography when trying to get published without any education in English.  Once we bought our house and moved, I never went back.  I would like to go to Suffolk as they have a volunteer tuition program.  I really don’t want to rack up more student loans mine are finally paid off and my oldest will be graduating high school in 2 years.  Decisions, decisions.   I probably should just go take some writing classes and write my way through life.  No promises of making any money yet I can do it in my PJ’s even when I feel like crap.

So with that, I am sitting here yet again looking at the course catalog trying to figure what do I want to do when I grow up?  Getting a little old here, I think it’s time to make a decision!

“To be or not to be?  That is the question.”  – William Shakespeare

303 Days to go.

Murphy is Hanging Around

Day 60

Murphey’s Law!

Murphy came when I dyed my hair, obviously.

Murphy came to work with me last night.  Being the manager on duty I am the only one who has a key to get into the stock room which also happens to be the same key for the main door of the store.   Last week I dropped my iPhone in the toilet so thinking I was being smart I took both of phones and my keys and left them by the door so I wouldn’t take a chance on drowning my phones.  Smart right?   Not so much.  I walked out of the stock room only to realize that both keys and phones were locked inside.  Okay, not the end of the world, there is a spare key in the safe.  Our safe has a ten minute delay on opening but I had just opened it to get change.  This should be an easy fix.  Nope!  In the safe there are several keys, two of which look identical and look like the main key.  I take the one key that isn’t sealed and figure I am not the first person to have  to use this key.  Wrong again!  I put the key in the lock, turn, but the door remains locked.  I pull the key from the door only to see the entire lock is attached to the key!  WHAT?!  Ut oh!  Now I remember there is a way to re-key the doors.  I look at the doors handle, see the hole, look back at the key in my hand still attached to the lock and the laughter catches in my throat!  Are you kidding me?  I put the lock and key back in the handle, turn and remove just the key.  Phew!  Now the panic starts to settle in.  Did I just screw up the lock?  If so I am so screwed if I have to to call my store manager,  his key matches the one that is already locked in the stock room.  I can feel the heat rising in my face as I think OMG he is going to kill me!  Especially since I know he is at home and sick.  If he has to come up and we have to call a locksmith I am so going to hear it!

I head back to the safe and take out the sealed key.  Okay, If I try this again and still remove the lock, then what?  I take a deep breath, hold and insert the key.  I turn it, a little shaky, and the door opens!  Oh thank God!  I grab my keys and phones and close the door.  Now all I have to do is make sure my key works, no problem.  PHEW!    Lesson learned, keep keys on me and now I know how to re-key the door!

Murphy followed me outside to my car to find that my green emergency light is flashing.  Huh?  It wasn’t on when I left the car.  Oh please let me have enough juice in my battery to start my car.   I turn the key, it starts!  I realized I put a can of car freshener in the little cubby and must have hit the switch to turn on the green light.  Phew lights off, car started, finally I can go home, a little late for dinner, but I am on my way.

Murphy woke up with me this morning.  All is quiet just my puppy and me sitting in the kitchen first thing in the quiet house.  Crash, rumble, bang, one cabinet door swings open,  out comes two of my bakeware dishes and SMASH on the floor.  Ok, REALLY?  No one was even over that side of the kitchen.  Trauma ( the puppy) sits looking at the pieces of glass on the floor with this look of I didn’t do it!  I pet him on the head and told him, no it was Murphy.

I am now inviting Murphy to leave me alone and go find someone else to bother.  Tonight is the ambulance company’s installation dinner.  I would really love to go without having Murphy follow me around.  I definitely didn’t invite him!

“If there are two or more ways to do something, and one of those ways can result in a catastrophe, then someone will do it.” – Murphy’s Law

The Hair Experiment

Day 59

Funny story.  I was bored a couple of Sundays ago so I decided it would be a good idea to dye my very blond hair an auburn brown.  I went to CVS and bought a couple of boxes of Feria and  it came out the most beautiful red ever!  I loved it.  It made my green eyes pop and look even greener, and my skin looked less red then it usually does (thanks to the Lupus I always look like I’ve been in the sun.)   My new nickname at headquarters is Ariel!   The first wash in the shower, washed most of the red out of the lower half of my hair due to the blond.  It turned a lovely shade of pink!  I guess you can’t fight nature, although most of that color was color from a box.  My natural hair color has definitely turned to a dark ash blond which looks more devoid of color than an actual color.

I decided to color it again only I purchased professional hair color in hopes that it would stay the same.  I took the box top from the Feria and matched it to what I thought looked like the perfect match based on the hair sample they had in the store.   I had my hair cut, which I usually do right before our installation dinner anyway.  I usually cut several inches off in hopes of getting it all up and away from my collar when I am wearing my Class A uniform.  Good news, at last nights company meeting it was decided that women do not have to put their hair up for installation!   Yay!  That is the biggest stress of the night let me tell you.  I was going to wait until Saturday so I had the just fresh-cut and color look for our big night but decided to do it yesterday as I have some last-minute running around to do on Saturday.

In a two-week span my hair color went from blond to red to pink to now purple!  UGHHH!  The new color looks very pretty it’s just way to dark for me!  Now what?  I’m afraid if I dye it again this month it might fall out!  Guess I am going to stay purple (eggplant sounds better) for a little while.  I am hoping it will lighten up after I shower but I am guessing not since this is professional color and not drug store dye!  I’m thinking maybe I will get some red shampoo and maybe that will help bring out the red tones and lighten the eggplant?  Who knows I guess I will keep experimenting!  Good thing I am pretty flexible with color in my hair, not to say I am not a little disappointed.  I have had pink and purple in my hair before but that was intentional!  Who knows what color I will be next week, I guess we will just have to wait and see!

“Beauty is our weapon against nature; by it we make objects, giving them limit, symmetry, proportion. Beauty halts and freezes the melting flux of nature.” – Camille Paglia

306 Days to go.