Daylight Savings Time

It's daylight savings time again. This is the time that I wish I lived in a state that did not practice this insane messing with time. We are losing an hour this time of year. I am a CNA in a nursing home on the day shift. We start getting residents up at 6 a.m. But with the time change, they are not going to be ready to get up at 6 because it's going to feel like 5 and too early to get up. Not to mention the exhausted staff who will miss that hour of sleep. In the fall, the residents tend to get up too early. The overnight shift starts complaining that residents are wanting to get up at 5 because they think it's 6 and ready to get up for breakfast. And it isn't just the nursing home population. It's anyone who has a day job, church attendees, and even pets and farm animals who are on a regular schedule for feeding, playing, and expecting families home. This disruption lasts for about 2 weeks but some, especially pets, don't ever adjust. Is all this stress really necessary? I may be wrong but I was told it was to get the farmers to work longer. Why? Don't they work hard enough as it is? So much of what they do depends on the weather rather than time anyway. So what is with making them work an extra hour? I have not heard anyone, no matter what their occupation, say they looked forward to daylight savings time. Can we just put an end to thee madness and do away with daylight savings time?

Winter

Winter finally arrived here in Northwestern Wisconsin. It took a long time. We should have had piles of snow in late November but we didn't get anything that stayed around until Leap Day! I am not a fan of winter. If I could move to a warmer state I'd go in a heartbeat. I don't mind a little snow for a day or 2 but normal Wisconsin winters are ridiculous. I hate the cold and snow and ice. This storm started the night of February 28th and continued all night and into the next day. Just my luck I was scheduled to work at 6 a.m. I drove the 12 miles at 10-20 miles per hour. It took 45 minutes and it was dangerous but so many had called in already that I had to make it. When I got to town, I found that even those roads hadn't been plowed. We're talking about ankle deep snow and it hadn't been touched by the plows. When I went out to my car at lunch time, the plow had been by our parking lot and plowed us all in. The guys had not touched the parking lot to clear the exits so if anyone had had an emergency, they were not getting out. I climbed over the snow bank into the parking lot well enough. But since they had not moved the snow or salted, it was icy. My feet slipped in opposite directions. Even as a teenager, I could not do the splits. I am less capable now than I as then. So I tried to at least keep my knees together. I ended up on my hands and knees with a great pain in my groin. I could not get up for at least a minute. When I did get up, I used my water bottle to help. Then the pain went from my groin to my knee. When I had gotten what I needed from my car, I had to climb another snowbank to get out of the parking lot and back to the building. I limped back to work. I made sure I told the nurses but they weren't too concerned. The next day, they decided I needed to see a doctor. As it turns out, I strained a ligament in my knee. I got the next day off plus the weekend I already had off and a knee brace for 2 weeks. Tomorrow is my first day back in a brace. It's going to be a long 2 weeks and in my opinion, winter is still the worst season ever!

Being a Writer

Dear World,

I have been a bad writer. A writer should write. Everyday. I have not been in that habit. So in my opinion, I have not been a good writer.

Being a writer is a hard job. It takes practice and dedication. If you have ever read a book or article or short story was was interesting and easy to read, the writer put a lot of hours and thinking into the writing of it. The easier the read, the harder the writing.

I had another thought about writers. They need their hands just as much as carpenters and surgeons. It's probably possible to write without hands. I hear there are voice things that you talk to and it does the writing for you. But I think my hands are much more reliable. If the computer misunderstands your voice, your message will not be typed correctly. If the computer can't get it right, you'll have to do the typing anyway. Therefore hands and fingers are very important to a writer.

I work in a nursing home and as I look at the residents and think about what I could be like at their age, I pray hard that I can keep my ability to write. I love to write. In my opinion, it's the only thing in the world worth doing. Sometimes I have words swimming around inside me and they grow and grow and threaten my very life if I don't get them out on paper. I can never not write. If I have to lose my ability to write, then I pray to lose my mind so that I can't think about writing anymore. Writing has been my mental survival since 6th grade. I don't know what I would do if I couldn't write. Even my kids know that when I am angry, I turn to my computer and write. It's all I know.

I guess that's all for today. I promise to make more sense next time. My mind is a jumble lately and while I don't expect it to change soon, I hope to be able to sort it out for writing. Until next time.......

In case anyone is reading, I want to apologize for the long absence. It started with an eye injury. I scratched the cornea of my eye and was unable to even try to look at the computer screen. Then it sort of became a habit to not write. Yet I was full of ideas and things I wanted to write. So now I'm back and anxious to get started again.

I've been dealing with lawyers lately. Just their title is intimidaing. If they are working against you, they try to intimidate you. There is one I'm dealing with that is supposed to be neutral but she has clearly chosen sides. She is looking for all negative information on one party and all positive information on the other. This is obviously the wrong way to be doing her job. And the one she is looking for all negative information on is the better party. She is doing her minor clients a great disservice. Because of her negative attitude, anything positive she has to say to the one party doesn't mean anything. She started this process very intimidated by lawyers because she is a very meek person, and while the lawyer in question tried to assure her she didn't need to be afraid, the treatment she is receiving from this lawyer is not helping. She is actually more afraid of lawyers than before. In my opinion, this lawyer needs to reread her job description. She also needs to learn openness, listening skills, and how to make unbiased judgements. She needs to know how to set realistic standards for people and look at the overall picture rather than bits and pieces. Her sense of what is most important is a bit screwed up. So the environment is not what she likes but there is more room and the love, care, and work that goes into these kids is great. There is supervision, rules, and discretion. The other living environment meets her approval (though it is too small)but there is uninvolvement and refusal to comply with the proper care ordered by doctors. Supervision and discretion is limited. What's the difference in the living environments? Kids. One place has them and the other doesn't. I don't know why she has chosen sides and decided to make one incapable individual her highlighted choice and the other the evil, but loving demon. She will definately be getting some feedback on her performance when this is over.

Music....or Movie?

Dear World,

It's 2 am and I'm still up. It's not because I'm not tired. I'm very tired. I just hate going to bed. I guess that may sound strange to some people but I really do hate going to bed. The part I hate is being alone. I love being around people. I love being intimiate. Now we aren't talking about sex here. I just love being close to someone. But there is no one there. It's so bad that not only do I stay up way too late on the computer but when I do finally decide to sleep, I have to start a movie or boring audiobook because it gives me the feeling that people are interacting. I need that all the time so even during daylight hours when I'm home alone, I do the same thing. I love music. All kinds. But it isn't the same. Music is so one-sided. Someone sings or plays an instrument and you listen. It's soothing and beautiful and I love it, but many times it isn't what I need. I need to hear people talking to each other, carrying on conversations. Audiobooks work because the reader changes his/her voice for each character. It makes the conversations more real and life-like, the way the author intended. It helps me not feel so alone. It's funny that there is such a difference between music and the talking in movies, tv, and audiobooks. The talking gives the illusion of human contact. It works wonders on lonely people. And now I'm going to go to bed and let Fivel the mouse give me the illusion that I am not alone.

The Cat

Last year one of my beautiful white sister cats had a litter of kittens. Of the 5, 2 survived. One was white exactly like her mom and auntie- a female I named Dixie. Then there was a black and white male that I named Mason. Yeah, Mason Dixie. I know. Cheesy. Well, eventually Dixie found a new home with one of Kevin's friends and was renamed Snowball. Then Kevin told me he found a home for Mason, too. Great! His girlfriend wants him. However, her parents won't let her have him and she's only 14 so she has to stay with me for 4 years! I don't know when her birthday is so maybe we're down to 3 years by now. She comes over very occassionally and gets excited about seeing him, carries him around and asks to take him outside. I don't doubt she'd take good care of him. But most of us know that when we first start out, we rent from pet-hating landlords for years before we are able to buy a place of our own, if we ever do. Few are the apartment buildings and rental houses that don't say, "No pets." So Mason could be with me for a good long time. That really isn't the issue anymore. I've been thinking about what it would be like to give him up after all that time. While this girl is staking her claim, I'm feeding him, buying his litter, I even had him neutered today and didn't ask permission. Of course, it's a requirement of being a responsible pet owner but it's also because I still have Mason's mom and aunt who as not altered and I was not about to deal with inbred kittens. Mason was also born here. He knows no other human caretaker but me. And he sleeps in my bed most nights. He'll be a year old this summer and I'm getting pretty attached to this baby. You'd think I would feel that way when I am well aware that having 4 cats in the house is too many. I have told Kevin that when he leaves my house, Kenny goes with him no matter what. I've been telling him lately that he has to take both Kenny and Mason since Mason is Kevin's girlfriend's cat. That would leave me with only my white sisters, Tellulah and Dora. That is a good number- just two. And yet, I'm just not sure I will be able to let Mason go. I should. But there is that whole fantasy about having a kitten that was born in your house and then 15-20 years later, dying in your house. I guess we'll see what happens when the time comes, right?

Welcome to my blog!

I don't know where this blog will take us. I'm just going to go with my unusual thinking and that could take us anywhere! Enjoy the ride! I can't sew. At all. Really. I doubt I could sew a button on. There are a great many craft projects I'd love to do but if they involved even minimal sewing, I have to pass them over. But then, I may be able to get someone else to do the sewing part and I could do the rest. Surgeons can sew. They can sew as well as the best quilters, I think. They even have different types of stitching, just like those who sew fabric. The only difference, really, is the material. Surgeons sew organs and muscle while the rest of the sewing population sews fabric and other nonliving material. And surgeons go to school for a good many years and practice under the more advanced and experienced for several additional years while sewing with fabric and those things are taught to children who simply get better as they practice and gain experience. These things occured to me when I was watching Grey's Anatomy when the surgeons were doing a surgery of some kind (of course) and Intern Stevens was shocked by the type of stitch that Intern Yang was doing. In the next episode it became clear that a surgeon cannot necessarily sew material. He's used to living breathing flesh so when the chief had to sew a button on his shirt, he was totally thrown off. Derek Shepherd did it for him. Dr. Shepherd proved to be a bit more versatile than the cheif. That could be because the chief's wife (who had just thrown him out, which explains why he was having to try to sew the button in the first place) was a homemaker. She was the sew-er, mender, of clothes, blankets, etc while he sewed human flesh and organs. Shepherd, on the other hand, was married to and divorcing a gyn/ob doctor/surgeon. Shepherd had to do his own mending. I'm not saying that anyone who sews can do surgery. I'm just saying that it does take sewing skills to be a surgeon. I can be neither and am greatful to those that can.