Never tell a nurse you're injured

It was so cold on that plane that I was shivering.  As I pulled my jacket tighter to try and warm up, I felt my hand brush up against a cool and damp section of said jacket.  For a moment I thought that maybe I had spilled some of my water on myself.  However, when I glanced at my clothes, I noticed several bright red blood stains.  What the heck?  How did I get blood all over myself?  Where and why am I bleeding?  After about thirty seconds of panic, I noticed that it was my finger that had been bleeding, probably while I was dozing.

All's well that ends well, I was able to get my finger fixed up quite nicely that same afternoon after fifteen minutes of wondering if it was possible to bleed to death from a minor scrape.  Using one bandage to protect my finger, in to work I went the next morning.  This was when I decided I would forever hide any and all injuries that might befall me while I work at DHEC with all these helpful nurses.

The first nurse I ran into was Marie.  Looking at the minor abrasion on my hand, she immediately tried to convince me to go to the doctor's office while on lunch.  "You hurt that hand before, it obviously hasn't healed.  You need to have someone look at this before you get an infection!"  This was followed by a five minute run-down of every urgent care building within a five mile radius.  She also consulted another co-worker who moonlights as a medical assistant at one such location.  Thankfully, a client came around for her, so I was able to break away from her with a promise I would have a "professional" look at my finger if it didn't heal.

"What's going on?," was the question from Grace, another nurse.  I was still trying to head to my office and set up for the day, so I did my best to give a quick explanation and brush it off.  No such luck.  Within five minutes I was sitting in her office, soaking my finger in a saltwater solution, smiling and nodding while listening to instructions to soak my hand like this three times a day, no less than five minutes.  I would be guaranteed to have a healed finger within a week.  

Walking back towards the lunch area to dispose of said solution, I ran into Melissa, who was curious as to what I was dumping into the sink.  Again, I tried to limit the information I shared so as to expedite my trek back to my office.  I was unsuccessful.  Melissa had been showing a new co-worker around the office area, and as she took my hand and carefully examined the wound, Dave and I introduced ourselves to each other and had a polite conversation.  At that point, Melissa was satisfied that my finger was healing properly and let me go.  I literally started to run toward my office.  

It was at that point that I saw Elizabeth.  All you need to know is that Elizabeth has a million stories about everything and will happily share any and all of them with you.  I tried the polite excuse of, "Oh, I think I have a client waiting."  No luck.  In the end, I was stretched out under my desk, trying to reassemble my computer (a long story for a different day.), listening to her and wondering how many people she knew who had mildly injured their middle fingers in the same manner that I had.  

I thoroughly enjoy working with all of my co-workers, but during the forty-five minutes that all these things happened, I couldn't help but laugh and remind myself that anytime you work with medical professionals, you'll get a million medical opinions at every turn.  I'm thinking that tomorrow morning I will NOT be sharing that I think I have half the symptoms of strep throat!

Well, I have officially used up ALL of the energy I accumulated during my five-hour siesta this afternoon.  Time to head back to the futon for some more episodes of Castle.  Also, before I go, I have a potpourri of thoughts to share:

1.) I only have to "work" three days this week, and one of those days I will be located next door to a Fazoli's restaurant.  Cheap Italian food, here I come!

2.) Just over two weeks until I make it back to Ohio.  I'm happy here in South Carolina, but I always forget how much I love being home in Ohio.

3.) We were discussing items needed to create a nice Thanksgiving basket for less fortunate families today in church.  Apparently, mac and cheese and sweet tea are staples not to be forgotten in a good Southern Thanksgiving dinner.

Have a great evening everyone! The end.

It's the simple things...

Every once in awhile, I have a week where the little things make me happy.  This last week has been one of those weeks.  I don't even have a fun little opening paragraph to write, I just wanted to share some of the little things that made me happy.

I found a boarding kennel for my dog.  I'd been searching and searching and finding out that every kennel in the area was already booked for Thanksgiving, Christmas, and probably 4th of July next year too!  Then, just by accident I happened to find a kennel, visited it, was super impressed with the kennel owners and their business.  Not only that, it was within my budget!

My supervisor and the regional director gave me my annual review (It's been a year already?!)  I was found to be "commendable" in my performance and none of my co-workers had any complaints about me.  Yay!

I got to go shopping for Operation Christmas Child.  It was so much fun thinking of things to buy for a teenage girl's Christmas present!

My electric bill came in about $30.00 under budget this month.  Woot woot.  

It's been in the 70s most of the week with beautiful blue skies.

I found a nickel in the parking lot while walking.  I have now made $3.20 from walking around the complex.  Keep dropping your cash, residents of Martins Creek!

I made Granger Stranger for the first time, and it was pretty good.  Not as good as my mom's or my grandma's, but pretty good.  

Lastly, I just realized today that I have less than 40 days until I'm back in Ohio.  You have NO idea how happy this thought made me!

Now that it's Sunday evening, my happy thought for now is that Friday is only five days away.  Have a good night everyone!

Take a Walk

At the end of August, I decided that I was spending way too much money on fast food, frozen prepared food, and pop (or soda when I'm talking to the locals!).  I decided that one way to make it "fun" to cut back in this area was to make it all about health.  Saving money has never been my strong suit, but as a nutritionist, I can appreciate the value of eliminating empty calories and processed foods.  So, for the month of September, I decided that I would consume no pop, no fast food of any kind, or eat any food that I didn't have to prepare from scratch.

My plan worked well, and when October 1 came around, I decided that I should continue on my health kick and start another healthy habit.  I decided that since I talk to each and every one of my clients about taking a minimum of 30 minutes a day to do some kind of physical activity, I too should be following that advice.  Thus was born my grand and glorious plan to spend half an hour walking each day.  So far, I must say that it's going pretty well.  I've observed a lot of interesting things over these last eight days.  Tonight, I will share with you.

I hate walking with dogs.  Cooper's a pretty good dog, but during the first few walks we went on he wanted to stop and smell EVERYTHING, and being a male dog, he wanted to mark EVERYTHING.  So the first few walks were rough, but since then we've been able to work out a deal- he gets to stop two or three times to do his business and after that I get to do some "resistance" exercises as I drag him away from the tree, the bush, the random spot of grass around that one building, etc.

I've had to start actually waking up and being alert and active at 6 a.m.  Before, I'd wake up, maybe watch some Hulu, stare blankly off into space while reconsidering my decision to wake up so early, eat breakfast, watch the news, do anything but actually get ready for the day.  Now, I've found out that if I wait to walk Cooper after work, at 6:00 p.m. or so, I have to deal with an extraordinary amount of small children who want me to stop and let them pet the dog and combat my own laziness, as I'd rather come home, eat dinner, peruse Facebook and catch up some Colbert Report and Late Night with Jimmy Fallon than better my health.

I've noticed a lot of good things too.  For one, I've learned that I absorbed much more of my Anatomy and Physiology classes than I thought I did.  On the third day, I started noticing that certain muscle groups were doing a large amount of aching.  After that walk, I went online and confirmed that I was 100% correct in identifying the muscles that were making themselves known.  I also had spent much of that walk remembering a lecture in which my professor used a number of her students to demonstrate how muscles were built up with exercise.  Congratulations, Emily Rock, your teaching has stuck with me three and a half years after I took your class.

Some people say they think best in the shower.  I find that I think best while walking.  I get really bored while walking, and when I get bored I tend to let my mind wander to it's "happy place" and plot and plan anything and everything.  So far I've managed to find ways to stretch $100 for groceries out over four weeks instead of the usual two, made some headway in deciding what I want to buy people for Christmas, and come up with a recharged business plan for my freelance writing business.

I'm making money while I walk. To date, I've found $3.05 while out on my strolls.  Thank you, residents of Martin's Creek, for dropping dollar bills, quarters, and nickels.  Your generosity is helping my buy my plane ticket home for Christmas.

Lastly, I took some of my walk in downtown Summerville the other day while I was waiting to meet a friend for dinner.  I had forgotten how many cool little shops are in that area and discovered a few new restaurants and cafes I will soon be frequenting!

Now that I'm on a role with the whole walking thing, I'm already trying to decide what I want to do for November.  I'm thinking maybe I'll add some of the other components of physical activity to my routine, like flexibility and strength (Thank you for teaching me that, Lonnie Lowery.  Now I feel really good about myself, I remembered TWO things I learned in school!)

It's now time to say "Goodnight, everyone."  I hope you're evening is as lovely as mine has been.  It's about 68 degrees, a slight breeze, the moon is filtering through some hazy clouds, and the bugs are performing quite a symphony tonight.  I forgot how much I love fall in the Lowcountry.

Money is the root of all ???

"What, did you buy dog food?"  That's the question my mom asked me the other night when I was sharing that I had managed to buy two weeks worth of food for under $50.  (And while I did buy enough food to have three well-balanced meals each day for the next two weeks, dog food for Cooper was included in that total!)

A few weeks ago, I decided that I was going to keep a MUCH closer eye on my budget.  Partly because I want a larger emergency fund, partly because I want to pay off all my ridiculous school loans, and partly because I like going on shopping sprees!  So, when all the stores were having back to school sales, I went out and bought a binder, lots of paper, a calculator, and pens with five different colors of ink.  Yes, being the school supply junkie and OCD list maker that I am, I went out and spent $20 on random supplies so I could write out my budget and all my money saving ideas each week. 

Most of my money saving ideas are pretty run of the mill: use coupons (but not in a crazy way!), keep the lights turned off, turn up the thermostat, conserve gas by limiting extra trips out, etc.  I stopped eating out and I quit drinking pop.  Having a fairly strict budget also works as a convenient excuse when trying to get out of ridiculous health department sponsored fund raisers.  Shhh...don't tell my supervisor I said that!  

I think I made myself look bad this week at Publix.  I had a set budget for my groceries, but I wanted to cut it in half and save some money. I think I literally jumped for joy when the cashier told me my total, which was a few dollars below what I had anticipated it being.  I looked at her and just smiled, saying, "It's the little things in life, right?"  Her half smile makes me think I was probably one of her "crazy grocery people" stories that night.  

Well, originally I thought I had a lot more content for this story.  That being said, I'm now faced with the reality that I have no more compelling words.  Oh well, better luck next time, right?  Have a good evening everyone.  It's a crisp 55 degrees right now, the coldest it's been since May.  It feels so nice!  

The Definition of Insanity

A long time ago, someone told me that the definition of insanity was "to perform the same task, the same way, and expect there to be different results each time."  Many of us can see this in our own lives, to some degree, but it's always much more fun to point it out in other's lives.  That is what I'm doing today.

It's finally "cooled down" enough that I can sit outside and eat lunch.  This in and of itself is a blessing, as it means I don't have to sit around listening to my co-workers complain about their Weight Watchers food.  But I digress.  Being able to sit outside and eat lunch means I get a front row seat to "people watching." Today's episode of people watching was called "Driveway Insanity."

Today I sat out in my car, facing Cedar Street and the little building that sits on the corner of Cedar Street and 78.   I called my best friend, I called my mom, I ate my PB & J sandwich, pretzels, and applesauce.  About half way through the conversation with my mom, I couldn't help but yell, "You idiot!"

You see, this little building on Cedar Street has a parking lot.  This parking lot is bordered by a sidewalk.  The side walk drops off about four inches to a median that you can't see from the parking lot.  Since you can't see the  drop off, a lot of people like to use that as a driveway of sorts.  This poses a number of problems. Please note that the following events all took place within a ten minute time frame.

Car #1 was a Kia Spectra.  Driver of Car #1 clearly thought it was a driveway, looked both ways, and then floored it off the sidewalk drop off.  Four inches may not seem like a large drop, but the car made a nice thumping sound when it hit the ground!  This was about the point where I shouted "You idiot" into the phone.

Shortly after this, I hung up the phone with my mom.  I finished my sandwich and looked out to the intersection, where there were two cops stopping traffic.  I watched them disappear around the corner, only to reappear a minute later pushing a red car. It was obvious they were trying to get the car out of the way.  Where did these two cops try to push the car?  Into the "driveway."  To be fair, these cops were strong (one man, one woman) and they pushed the car halfway over the sidewalk.  But the car got caught on the sidewalk, and it started to roll back down towards the road.  As the car rolled, the driver would place his foot firmly on the brakes. From across the street I could hear shouts of "TAKE YOUR FOOT OFF THE BRAKES!  THE CAR WON'T ROLL BACK ON US!  OK...JUST TAKE YOUR FOOT OFF THE BRAKE WHEN WE YELL PUSH!"  Thankfully, within two minutes a man in a pickup truck pulled up, hopped out, and pushed the car over the sidewalk.

The cops waved goodbye to the man, hopped in their car, and drove off.  The man in the pickup truck offered his cell phone to the man in the car, then returned to his own truck.  Now, the man in the pickup was heading down Highway 78 towards Charleston.  He was now heading in a different direction and needed to turn around.  Instead of driving to the next road, he too decided to drive up and over the sidewalk to turn around in the business' parking lot.  You might think that an extended cab, 4x4 truck would make it over such a minor bump.  To be sure, the truck had no problem.  The trailer he was pulling?  Not so much.  The trailer caught on the sidewalk and he had to backup onto the road, almost causing an accident.  He then attempted to clear the sidewalk again.  The third time didn't prove to be a charm either, as he finally just drove to the next intersection and turned around safely in the Piggly Wiggly parking lot.

That, my friends, is called dinner and a show.  My lunch ended shortly after the pickup debacle, and I returned to the building.  My co-worker asked me how my lunch was, and I told her that I had fun people watching.  She mentioned that she too had enjoyed "people watching."  However, she had not witnessed any of what I had seen, since she was more engrossed by the cops dealing with the man who had been in two different accidents in the parking lot (less than 200 feet from me) within thirty minutes.  Icing on the cake.

Have a fun evening, and always make sure you're driving out of the driveway, and not off a mini cliff.  Also, do not drive your car anywhere near the health department.  The end.

This is how I treat my journal...

I have this green journal I bought at Sam's Club in Fairlawn way back in 2002.  A standard size journal, it took me over seven years to fill out two-thirds of that thing.  I was reading through it last night, and I saw that I would fill out eight or nine days worth of entries, and then be done for a month or three.  I really, really, wanted to be better with the blog and keep up a post of once a week, if nothing but to keep my typing skills sharp!  Then, around the middle of July, I decided it was time for a summer break from the blog.  Or rather, I got lazy and couldn't think of anything interesting to post, so I just stopped.  Here's hoping that this jump starts my regular posts.  You've been warned.

Let's see...since the middle of July.....

I experienced my first near-miss with a hurricane.  Hurricane Irene "only" came within about 200 miles of the SC coast, but we were still close enough to receive a tropical storm warning and not much else!  For five days we spent time preparing our clinic in case of a flood, I went out and bought seven days worth of non-perishable food and water and had a back-up evacuation route planned just in case.  There was no water on the shelf the morning I went to stock up on more food and water.  The lady at ACE Hardware complimented my choice of flashlight.  I was ready!  Then, thankfully, Irene changed paths and did nothing more than provide just enough wind to close schools for half a day.  I also got to see some pretty cool clouds.

I experienced the "dog days" of summer FOR REAL!  I knew what I was getting into when I moved down here.  But it was still a shocker the day I went outside at lunch when it was 100 with a heat index of 120.  That pattern continued for some time.  I even got to experience mild stages of heat exhaustion one day when I tried to carry a whole bunch of heavy items to the trash.  That was the first and last time I did that.  Most of the summer was spent in air-conditioned rooms.

I got to know my co-workers a little better through a mini road trip we took when we went for a training session in Columbia.  I learned that Co-Workers 1 and 2 know every word to "Eye of the Tiger" and will sing it.  I learned that Co-worker 2 absolutely hates morning radio shows, but will listen to them and argue with the deejays for at least an hour.    I learned that co-worker 1 yells at other drivers just as much as I do while she's driving, and that co-worker 3 is hurt to think that people yell at other drivers on the road.

After listening to stories about the proliferance of snakes in South Carolina, especially the poisonous ones, I was a little more than happy that I had not come across any snakes myself.  However, in the last two weeks, I had a lady at the park point out some red-bellied slithering monster in the turtle pond, found two baby snakes in the health department, and discovered one terrifying beast that slithered across my path less than ten feet from my front door the other day.  (That event took place the same night I watched Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull.  The ant scene freaks me out enough, but between that and the snake I was convinced I was going to be eaten by invertebrates that night.)  I am no longer fond of snakes.

I bought a power drill to hang curtains in my house.  Since then I have been trying to find more and more projects around the house that require the use of a power drill.  There are currently none to be found.  Sadness.

I discovered Angry Birds.

I decided to give up coffee and pop for a month.  Days 1 and 2 were not pretty.  I'm thinking that I growled at my co-workers a few times.  Fortunately, days 3, 4, and 5 happened over the recent three-day weekend, so my withdrawal grouchiness was directed at inanimate objects.

More or less, that's it for interesting things that happened during my little hiatus.  I'm sure there were a few more things I could have written about, but I feel like it is time for me to sit back and relax and enjoy this absolutely gorgeous night.  The weather "broke" about a week ago, and ever since then we've been having cool mornings, sun-filled afternoons, and comfortably warm evenings.  I love it!

Well, as always, have a good night.  Sleep tight, and don't let the palmetto bugs, fire ants, snakes, or other creepy crawlies get you.  Also, if you are part of my immediate family, please start thinking about Christmas gifts and let me know what you want.  I need to start buying gifts soon.  Thanks.

Walking at Walmart

Yesterday morning, I was talking to my Dad.  After the usual catching up, chatting about the weather, and pondering all of the world's problems, Dad asked, "So did you ever get that tire looked at like I told you?"  Now, given my recent track record with cars, I'm a little paranoid about ANYTHING going wrong with the car.    This being a tire issue, I probably should have checked it about a million times over by now, but I had no recollection of him EVER talking to me about the tire.  We both chuckled and laughed, both stating that since it hadn't been a problem yet, it probably wouldn't be anytime soon.

Twenty-four hours later as I set out for the morning, I heard an unmistakable "flapping" sound coming from my left front tire, the one I was supposed to have been monitoring.  Oops.  After trying to use my emergency air compressor (probably didn't wait long enough for it to be effective) and trying to find my AAA card, my neighbor came out and kindly changed my tire for me.  Not wanting to waste any time, I drove off to Walmart to get my tire fixed.

If you've never been to Walmart for any type of car service, after checking you in, they give you a little ticket so that you can use the little price scanners to see if your car's ready and then send you off on your merry way, most likely to peruse all the wares in Walmart.  So there I was, nothing better to than be a mall walker.  Not one to sit and be bored, I set off to find anything and everything interesting.  I was not disappointed.

First stop was the paint section.  I've recently come to the conclusion that I'll probably be renewing my lease at my current apartment.  Originally, I had decided to not put any money into painting the place, but now that the white walls in my apartment are starting to drive me crazy, I'm reconsidering that stance.  So as I stood there deciding if I wanted blue, yellow, or green for my living and dining rooms, I got to hear a three year-old try to convince her mom to buy her the "pretty purple paint"  I don't think I've ever seen such an awful shade of purple, but this little girl was adamant.  Unfortunately for her, three year-old logic doesn't always persuade people to buy Barney colors for the wall.

I've been wanting to get Cooper a nice dog bed for his crate, but being a total cheapskate when it comes to stuff like that, I've been putting off that decision.  Today, since I had nothing better to do, I wandered into the pet section to see if I could find anything.  I didn't find anything I liked, but I did find a rare gem in that department.  TWO on-duty Walmart employees.  I didn't need their help with anything, which was probably good, seeing as how they were very busy...turning all the Betta fish towards each other in their little cups to make them puff up and "fight" each other.  They had names picked out for the fish and a running commentary as to how the imaginary battle was going.  Just in case you wondered, a blue crowntail Betta named "Jaws" won the competition.

Back-to-school items are now the "big thing" in stores, so being the school supply dork that I am, I went to see if there was anything neat to buy.  Inwardly I groaned as I saw all kinds of Justin Bieber and Lady Gaga notebooks and pencils.  "Really?,"  I thought to myself, "Why would a parent pay almost triple for a notebook just because it has a weird lady sitting in an egg on it?"  My question was answered about a minute later when a mom and her two daughters came over and started oohing and ahhing over the selection.  It may not have been so bad had it not been the mom who let out a squeal when she found the THIRD Justin Bieber design at the back of the box.  "Oh my gosh!! Now you girls can have one for spelling, one for math, AND one for science, AND THEY'RE ALL DIFFERENT!!!!!  I had to get out of there fast, before I started laughing.

After awhile, I got really bored of looking at all kinds of junky throw-away garbage and went to the little waiting room by the tire center.  I picked up a year-old issue of RedBook and started reading all about Katherine Heigl's kitchen.  Halfway through the story, a super obnoxious lady came in talking on her cellphone.  I really don't like to eavesdrop on other people's conversation, but when you're talking very loudly two feet from me, I reserve the right to do whatever the heck I want, and I decided that I didn't care if I overheard her conversation.  Again, I was not disappointed by my decision.  Note to all brides-to-be:  You'd better make sure there is an adequate selection of single men at your reception.  Amanda was very disappointed that she spent $40 dollars on a dress, $40 on shoes (why do your shoes cost more than your dress?), and drove all the way to Isle of Palms (half an hour away) where she had to pay for her own alcohol, only to discover that the only two single guys at the party lived in Wisconsin.  Tina (and me, mostly by accident) were reassured that Amanda was in fact not looking for a one-night stand, but was trying to find an available local guy to date, and was very angry that Chelsea didn't invite more single guys to her reception.  I was sad for myself when Amanda's car was taken care of before I could hear her talk about her plans for the upcoming week.

Just when I think I'm accustomed to some new regionalism and am proud of myself for not having a confused look on my face when I hear a new word, something happens to make me look like a dork.  As I was waiting in line to pay for the tire that had been fixed, a woman nearby said, "Look at that buggy!"  Immediately, I turned in the complete opposite direction of everyone else and stretched to look out the window.  Honestly, I expected to see a horse, a box on wheels, and several Amish people inside that box on wheels.  I could not have been more wrong. In fact, what I was supposed to be viewing was a shopping cart that had lost it's front wheel and was beginning to tip over on a customer with a full cart.  Like a cat that just had a disgraceful fall, I tried to act cool and pretend that I didn't just forget that fairly familiar term.  Thankfully for me, only the cashier noticed, and just as she started to make a comment about being from out-of-town to me, the dramatic sight of three glass applesauce jars about to careen from the cart to the floor directed her attention away from me.  Also good- the jars were saved by a Good Samaritan with quick hands.  And a bag of rice that cushioned the third jar's landing.

Well, the good news is, my tire was fixed and I was able to drive my car for another day.  The bad news is, now my eye's are playing tricks on me, and I think my tire's going flat again.  So when it finally stops raining, I'm going to check the pressure again.  And then come inside and prepare for work and get to bed early so I can call AAA at 7:00 a.m. tomorrow morning so they can come and change my tire for me before I go to work.  Yay! At least I'm prepared for the worst now.  Have a good week!

Beat the Heat

The drive to church takes approximately seven minutes.  So this morning, I got in the car, turned on the AC (it was 80 at 8 a.m. this morning), strapped on my seat belt, and then arrived at Crossroads about ten minutes later.  I gathered all of my things and stepped out of the car and started walking towards the church.  About ten seconds later I had to stop.  I wasn't waiting for a car to pass, I wasn't talking to anyone, and I wasn't stopping to look at anything.  No, I had to stop because I couldn't see.  Why?  The temperature difference between my car and the outside world was enough to cause condensation to form on my glasses.

Now, it's not like I've not had condensation form on my glasses before.  But, prior to today, the only time I'd ever had condensation form on my glasses was when I came in from the cold into the warm house.  Initially, I was a little miffed when this happened.  But, after a nanosecond, I figured it gave me an excuse to talk about the weather on my blog, and then I was trying to find my name tag in the name tag basket and completely forgot about my problems with my glasses.  

Don't worry, I know that as much as we all like to complain about the weather TO other people, we don't like to hear other people complain about the weather to us.  So I won't complain, I'll just share...

This week, most of the time Ohio has been just as warm as South Carolina.  Let me just say, I feel your pain.  Literally.  It's painful to walk outside and feel like you're walking into a sauna!  But as I would look at the weather each morning, I was amused at the way the two states handled the heat.  

I think on Monday it was supposed to be 98 here and in Medina.  That morning on the news, the heat wasn't even an issue.  The weatherman literally said, "Another typical July day here in Charleston."  I was a little aghast.  How is 98 degrees not noteworthy?!  When I got to work, the Ohio news feed on my computer at work had a crawler that kept mentioning "Excessive Heat Warning!  Excessive Heat Warning!"  I found this amusing, but only because I was sitting inside in my very well air-conditioned office.

I know it's all in what you're used to (See the comment I made about the temperature of 98 degrees.)  Back in January, the freezing rain we had that lasted all of three hours shut down all the major bridges in the area and the entire state government for a day and a half.   I drove my friend to the airport a few days after Christmas last year.  I think there were three or four inches of snow on the road and we may or may not have almost gotten stuck on Blake Road a few times.  We have truck loads of salt stored away, they used...sand.  

Friday I was listening to the radio on my way into work, and the DJs were reading a story about classrooms in Illinois and Indiana not having air conditioning.  The female DJ is a little over dramatic anyways, but she couldn't believe that there are buildings in existence that still don't have AC.  I think she talked about that for the entire fifteen minutes it took me to drive to work! 

While I am not a fan of extreme heat (I burned my hand on my steering wheel yesterday), I have learned to deal with it.  Basically, it comes down to running from air conditioned apartment to air conditioned car to air conditioned office/store/church/other people's homes, etc.  See?  It's a science!  And, now that it's almost the end of July, I hopefully have only another 50-60 days of unbearable heat.  And by that I mean that after 50-60 days the high might be less than 90 degrees.  85 and no humidity feels like heaven now.  

Adios, amigos.  I have very few hours of freedom left to enjoy, and I still have about half of my Parks and Rec DVD to watch.  I love it when Target has sales on DVDs!  

Quiet Sundays

It's been a long week, to say the least.  Last Sunday was an absolute nightmare.  I set off for South Carolina bright and early, and then spent 6 hours driving the most boring stretch of road ever.  The last 5 hours were spent driving through ridiculously busy traffic.  From the West Virginia/Virginia border all the way to Martins Creek, it seemed I was in the middle of bumper-to-bumper traffic.  By the time I hit Charlotte I wanted to pull over and just cry because I was being cut off, tailgated, and trying to stay focused on the road while making sure that Barbie, talking on her cell phone, wasn't going to drift into my lane with her Jeep.  Charlotte may be a large city, but giving the citizens of that city six lanes of highway was a major oversight on the part of some engineer.

The week at work was fun too.  I was late for work every day but Wednesday.  Monday, my car wouldn't start.  I think something's wrong with the key.  Friday, I lost ALL the keys to the car, but eventually found them in the middle of all the stuff I had brought home with me and had left sitting in the dining room. Tuesday and Thursday I just ran late.  Wednesday, when I did make it to work on time, I had to get Marie, one of our cleaning ladies, to let me enter through the treasurer's entrance and use all the back hallways to find the health department since the lady who opens the health department at 7:30 was on vacation but never appointed a replacement to open the clinic doors.

After spending a week and a half in beautiful Ohio, with it's fresh air and reasonable heat and humidity, I had a hard time adjusting back to 90+ and a "sea breeze" contributing to ridiculous heat indexes in the 110s to 120s.  One day, we had a heat warning.  Seriously?  That night, I ordered food in, because I didn't have any food in the house and I didn't feel like going to the grocery store until it was cool enough that I wouldn't be melting to the pavement on contact.

Yesterday was "catch up" day.  First, I caught up on sleep.  Then, I caught up on naps.  Finally, I caught up on being lazy and watching a few episodes each of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. By the end of the night, I was taking Benadryl to cope with the reaction I'm having to whatever poison plant I was exposed to in Ohio.  Fresh off a good night's sleep, I got up early, cleaned half the apartment, went to church, came home, cleaned the rest of the apartment, then went and did laundry. Work, work, work! That takes us to about three hours ago.

For all the nonsense of the last week, the last three hours have been blissful.  I made some really yummy chicken and potatoes for dinner, and I got to enjoy it while sitting on my freshly cleaned patio.  Once the mosquitoes came out and started bugging me, I came in and started watching the movie "Date Night."  I love that movie.  I mean really, it has Steve Carrel AND Tina Fey, what's not to like?  I even had Oreos and milk as a snack! I know it all sounds really lame, and really, it kind of is, but it was exactly what I needed: A few quiet hours to let me reclaim just a little bit of sanity.

Now, as always, we near the end of Sunday and my moment of bliss is over.  But...I think my neighbor just hit something (non -mammal) with his car, so now my neighbor the cop is walking over...maybe now it's time for entertainment!  Have a great week!

What's in a Name?

A few months back in the "Crossroads Connection" class I attended at church (aka "New Members Class"), the teachers presented us with a list of possible volunteer opportunities if we wanted to get more involved in the church.  It was at that moment that my alter ego, the one that is outgoing and likes the idea of striking up conversations with random individuals, decided to surface and sign up to be a greeter.  As a greeter, I was going to be given a name tag, which I received this morning.  Ms. Janeen, the lady in charge of the program, was so happy to present me with the name tag.  Having a last name that is spelled incorrectly 99.9% of the time, I glanced at the tag, wondering how it had been spelled this time.  I was pleasantly surprised to see that "Homonai" was spelled correctly!  My eyes then drifted over to my first name: There in perfectly etched letters was the name "Kati."

Ms. Janeen was in a hurry to go spend time with her family, so she didn't stop to ask the usual questions like, "Does everything look good?"  or anything like that.  I just looked at the name tag for about two seconds, laughed, clipped it to my shirt and started greeting.  Half an hour later when we were all done, I placed my tag in the basket and again laughed at "Kati."

Now, I don't care that I get called by different names, call me whatever you like (within reason, of course!) and I'll happily answer.  My given name is Katherine, but aside from people who are just reading my legal name, there is only one person who knows me personally and still calls me by that name.  If you're a friend or a member of my dad's family, you know me as Kate.  My family on my mom's side are the only ones who call me Katie.  Then there's my Uncle Dean and my best friend, Katie: they call me Kate-ums.  Oh, and we can't forget that two of my cousins took to calling me Kacy for a year or so when they were little!

Now, that last paragraph applies to Ohio only.  Obviously I still have the same name, but since moving here I've had fun listening to all the different names I go by. When I was first meeting people, I introduced myself as Kate.  I am now called Katie by nearly all of those people.  There are maybe five people in the area that I speak with on a regular basis who call me Kate.  The only other time I get called Kate is when I'm being addressed by a stranger who's reading my name off a paper or something like that.  One co-worker calls me "Katie-Kate-Kate" EVERY time she sees me, which always cracks me up.  There is another lady at work that calls me "Katie girl" because, "that's what you call girls named Katie, even if they say their name is Kate."  I think one of my co-workers is afraid to call me Katie since I introduced myself as Kate, but she's also told me that calling me Kate doesn't sound friendly enough.  She now compromises by always calling me "Miss Kate."  And now I guess there are about 200 people who will call me Kati!

Well, I have dawdled long enough and should probably go get some work done.  This is code for:  "I will set out with good intentions but will most likely end up just playing with my markers, crayons, and colored pencils again just like I did yesterday."  In the words of my sister, "Life is so hard."  In any case, have a fantastic Sunday and enjoy your week!  Sincerely,
       Kate, Katie, Kate-ums, Katherine, Wilson, Hey You, Person Over There, etc.

Just because I wanted a Post.

Normally I try to have something typed up by 8:00 p.m. on Sunday.  Clearly I am past that point right now, but I have nothing productive to show for it.  I blame the fact that I was REALLY sick all weekend.  Okay, so a head cold isn't really worth complaining about, but I did take Sudafed and slept a lot.  I had two really interesting posts, but after spending 45 minutes on each one, I got disgusted and am recycling them for later.  So merely for the purpose of having something to post on a Sunday, I'm posting this.  Maybe if I have nothing better to do this week I'll post on Thursday or something, we'll see.  Well, that is all.  Right now I feel a need to sanitize my apartment, so that will be my project from now until bed time!  In any case, at the latest I will have a new post next Sunday.  In the meantime, if you are interested enough in wanting to know about anything in particular that is happening here in Summerville, leave me a comment and I"ll write a post about is sometime soon.  Sooo...have a good night, sleep tight, don't let the bed bugs bite, and if you live in Ohio watch out - I am coming for you soon!

Watch your words.

For the last few months I've been spending some of my spare time reading about becoming a successful freelance writer.  Like everyone else, things can be a little tight money-wise, and I to find a way to bring in just a little bit more money to help with bills or for splurging on the fun things.  However, with four and a half years of retail work still fairly fresh in my mind, I decided that I didn't really want to be tied down to a "real job" where I'd have to follow schedules and listen to another boss and deal with more people (aka, I like my free time and don't want to give up my control over it!).  So I figured that writing would be the most fun way for me to earn a little extra money without having to give up my beloved free time, and I began searching for jobs.

Lo and behold, I got my first job on Friday.  Not a big job, just a little transcription work for a few weeks.  But any start is a good start here, right?  Not really knowing what transcription entailed, I happily began listening to an audio clip taken from some business meeting in Maine and started typing away.  I've found that it's not been the most pleasant work I've ever done, but I'm getting paid to do it and it's keeping me very amused (just wait, you'll see why!) I'm also learning some valuable lessons about communication, which I am going to share with you today.

1.) Gather your thoughts before you speak.  The woman leading the meeting was named Cindy.  I think she had one too many cups of coffee before the meeting that day. She has a very bad habit of starting to talk and then rephrasing the statement or question.  It probably wouldn't be a big deal, but when I have to type EVERYTHING that is said, it's hard to keep up with "Okay, so why don't we -- wait a second, Orono, you were talking about -- why don't you tell us -- I think it would be good to hear from Orono about -- can you tell us what your enrollment process is, Orono?"  I don't normally talk to myself, but more than once I said, "Cindy!!! Stop talking and think about it for a second!!

2.) Listen before you speak.  There is a man named Bill on this recording.  Bill likes to say things like, "I do not understand the question.  Why would we call them a new student?"  Cindy responds with, "Because they've never attended the University of Maine, Bill."  Bill replies, "Oh.  I don't think I was listening when you shared that detail."  This has happened more than once.  Again, I talked to my computer and said, "Bill! Amy just said that Machias doesn't record inquiries!"

3.) If you're going to insert yourself in a conversation, make sure you know what you're talking about.  Halfway through the meeting, a man named Roberto suddenly began speaking (via telephone): "Well, I think it is important to provide the financial data as well as the demographic data.  Why would you not want financial data?"  Cindy was clearly confused and asked him a.)Who are you? and b.) Why does financial data matter in tracking how many students enrolled in the college. After a few seconds of whispered conversation on his end of the line, Roberto sheepishly admitted that while he was from Gorham, one of the campuses involved in the discussion, he did not realize he was talking about student admission trends.  He was trying to get in on the cost analysis conference call and dialed the wrong code apparently.  I really need to stop admitting that I was talking to the computer again, but even I said, "Wait.  Who the heck is Roberto?  I don't need one more person talking!"

4.) Speak clearly.  One lady was talking so quietly that more than half of the time she was talking, I documented that what she was saying was inaudible.  I contacted the person who hired me and mentioned this, and he too had an issue with the transcription.  Needless to say he permitted me to write "inaudible" on more than half of what she said.  (I didn't talk out loud to her, but I did let my head drop to the table any time I heard her voice!)

5.) Make sure there are no barriers.  A wonderful man from Farmington would begin talking, and in the background, all you could hear was horrible static.  It didn't bother me that the static was there, but it was amusing to me when Cindy informed him that there was trouble on his end of the line, and before he could respond, Alice from Fort Kent piped up and said, "There's a thunderstorm!"  Amidst all my lines about demographic data and enrollment opportunities, in my transcription there was a line which read: "There's a thunderstorm in Farmington! It just passed Fort Kent a half hour ago!"  That made me laugh out loud.

6.)  If you're the person recording, make sure YOU are not making any noise that would show up in the recording.  I have my media player on "slow speed" so that I can type and keep up with what has been said and not have to waste as time replaying a clip.  I kept noticing these little noises pop up on occasion.  Just a very low, "tick...tick...tick..."  I figured it was just background noise.  I went back through a clip at normal speed, just to confirm my typing, when I heard an excessive amount of typing and mouse-clicking.  Figured out what the mystery noise was!  I laughed out loud when the woman recording the session knocked over a microphone.  Fifteen seconds of muffled, "What was that?"  "I don't see where it went"  "Pick it up?"  "Are we good to go? Will they be able to hear us?"  Priceless.

7.) Don't use filler words.  Cindy has a bad habit of saying "okay."  Now, most of us say things like, "uh" and "um" when we need a few more seconds to gather our thoughts.  Same with most of the people at the meeting.  It's actually almost nice, because it gives me a microsecond to catch up with the audio, since I don't have to type the filler words.  But Cindy, wonderful Cindy, will say "And...." or "Okaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyy" each time she speaks.  And that, I have to record.

Well, having completed the first job yesterday afternoon, I received my second job, which was transcribing a two-hour clip from the same people about financial databases (maybe Roberto was in the right place, just on the wrong day!)  Can you say, glutton for punishment?  But in reality, I did find a job to keep me amused for a day and a half, I learned about several towns in Maine, and I will get to take a nice chunk out of my credit card payment next month, so life is VERY good.  Plus, now my work profile will have some jobs listed, which makes me look like less of the newbie that I am and will hopefully inspire confidence with more employers!

Have a wonderful evening everyone.  If you've ever wanted to know what it feels like to be a baked potato, cooking in your own skin, just come visit me here in Charleston.  It's 95 with a heat index of 102! And on a final note: In less than thirty days, I will be back on native soil.  Can't wait!

Succeeding while failing!

   Back in March, someone in DHEC got the idea that the entire department should participate in the "Healthy Palmetto Challenge."  This Challenge was a state-wide initiative circulated amongst all kinds of health-related organizations, encouraging individuals to walk.  All the participants were issued a pedometer, a book for recording steps, and a booklet all about the health benefits of walking.  Honestly, I have no idea how the challenge ended.  I still have the pedometer, and have been using it faithfully, but I never got around to sending my steps in to the director of the program.  In fact, there were twenty people who signed up for the program, just from my office, but none of us ever sent our steps in.

    In the course of natural events, when a group fails to complete one task, they rarely decided to attempt the same task again.  But now we were apparently not following the course of natural events, as about two weeks into our failed attempt to "Walk to Hollywood" (The original intent was that together, all the participants would record the number of steps needed to walk from Columbia, the state capitol, to Hollywood, SC. ), our assistant office manager came up with the brilliant idea to form an office-wide exercise program.

  Believe it or not, we were excited about this.  We signed all sorts of release forms, we all brought in our dusty old exercise DVDs, and just about everyone went out and bought yoga mats.  We signed up for our exercise slot (mine was at 5:00 p.m!) and began exercising with gusto.  Then began our "succeeding while failing."

  On our first day we decided to do Pilates, which just about killed us all.  As the woman on the DVD gave instructions, her voice was met with choruses of "Are you crazy?"  "Ok, now she's just trying to kill us."  "Wait, she wants us to bend that far?"   Needless to say, the next day we were all moving VERY slowly and I know that I personally took the maximum amount of extra-strength Tylenol, which is something I almost never do.

  After a few more days of this, we moved on to kickboxing.  This was quite a departure from Pilates, and most of us were happy with this change.  This did present it's own set of challenges though- even though our groups of exercise participants had dwindled by a few, there were still a few too many people in our tiny classroom.  More than one person was almost given a black eye while "jabbing,"  and several participants made accidental attempts to kick holes in the walls.

   We mastered kickboxing, and then promptly lost two co-workers: one to injury and one to switching shifts.  We continued on though, now taking on "Theraband" resistance exercises.  I was in heaven, I love my resistance bands! On our first day with the Therabands, we acquired a new participant.  Two of us in the room were clearly not following the proper procedures, as even after completing the entire tape, we felt no soreness at all.  Our new participant, however, was not so lucky.  She almost called off sick the next day because she was in such a tremendous amount of pain.

  Fast forward a couple of weeks to this last week.  Two of my co-workers were working out with me to a new video, one that involved dance aerobics led by an entirely too energetic British girl.  I had tried this video a few weeks prior with some other co-workers, but after she stopped doing the basic step moves, we got lost and eventually just started flailing around, telling each other that just the fact that we were moving was good enough.  On Tuesday, I was doing well following all the moves this chick was doing, but I couldn't get the rhythm down.  Basically it was like a bad Japanese movie.  On Wednesday I was doing a lot better with the rhythm, but in order to keep up with the tape I had to eliminate a step or two with each set.  Also, when she started adding spins to the "grapevine," I almost threw up, and I don't get easily nauseated by spinning.

   Thursday was going to be my day! I hadn't really thought about the tape that much, but in the last moments I had before we started the tape, I decided that I WAS going to get all the moves and rhythm down!  I started off strong, I mean, you really can't mess up marching in place.  As we kicked it up a notch, I was still doing ok.  I have those toe taps and cross steps memorized!  We moved on to the "funky walk," which I can complete only if I channel moves I learned during my self-defense class in college.  Then came the grapevines.  Since I was over halfway done I was pretty proud of myself.  I was extremely pleased that I was keeping up with the video, not losing my rhythm, and operating almost exclusively on muscle memory.

  THUD!  That was the sound my body made when I slammed into the plastic literature racks on the wall.  I don't know what I was thinking.  Actually, I probably wasn't thinking, and that was my problem. In any case, I lost it at that point.  I tried to get back into the groove of the video, as we were just heading into the easy cool down portion, but I was just about doubled over with laughter.  The impact jarred me out of whatever fairyland state of mind I was in, and my co-workers and I spent the last three minutes of the video laughing hysterically, out of breath, trying to keep up with what we were supposed to do.  I imagine that we looked like drunks stumbling around.  We looked up to see our assistant manager staring at us.  A look of confused disbelief crossed her features as she said, "What are ya'll doing in here?!"

   Later that night, as I typed a little blurb of my idea for this post onto a "sticky note" on my computer's desktop, I started off considering that afternoon's exercise a complete failure.  However, by the time I finished mulling over the events of the week, I couldn't help but be pleased by the idea that even in our (my!) complete and utter lack of ability to master that routine,  we were getting our half hour of physical activity in, laughing all the while, thus succeeding while failing.

  Well, again it comes to that point in time where I must draw this post to a close.  I have tomorrow off work due to Memorial Day, and my biggest plans for tomorrow are to visit the Atlantic Ocean early, like sunrise early, and find a Memorial Day observance here locally.  It will be odd not standing in front of St. Mark's in Wadsworth  for the parade and then walking to the ceremony in Woodlawn, but the holiday still has the same meaning hundreds of miles from home.  Please remember all of those who died while serving our country and their families, and especially at this time, the family of 1st Lt. John Runkle of West Salem, who was a friend of my aunt and her family.  Have a good night everyone.

Boredom = Danger

 The fact that I had to leave out 1/4 of the ingredients should have tipped me off.  Starting at the low setting didn't work, but standing in one place turned out to be my biggest mistake.  You would think that in three horrible seconds I would have been able to formulate some plan of action, but instead I just proved to myself yet again that I don't think clearly under pressure.

  Let's rewind to the beginning.  Usually on Saturday I have a few plans for some fun or interesting things to do.  The beach is nice, I occasionally go to garage sales, I have started going to different free events around the area just to get a sense of what goes on around here.  But yesterday I woke up and decided that the first order of business was to pay my bills.  That effectively squashed any plans to go out and shop or even drive more than 10 miles from my house.   I went outside to sit on the patio, but at 9:15 it was already in the mid-seventies and way too humid for my taste.  In that short time frame I became very bored.  I am not one to sit and just stew in my boredom, I can't even really sit at the computer for more than half an hour.  So my first order of business was to finish some of the projects that have been sitting on my "to-do" list for far too long.

  I logged into Pandora and started playing some of my favorite music and began cleaning out my closet.  All I wanted to do was organize the paper I've been throwing in there and make room for my laundry basket again. That turned into a one-and-a-half hour trip down memory lane.  Each time that I get ready to go home, or someone comes to visit me, I start to get all nostalgic.  This time was no exception, as amongst the clothes and Christmas decorations I found all of my scrapbooks.  I immediately created 10 layouts for all the scrapbook pages I need to complete.  Haha.  I've needed to complete those since, well, since three years ago!  Maybe I'll finish that project when I am home!  I also found a scrapbook with the title, "Defying Logic."  There are maybe 5 people in this world who have seen or have read this book.  As always I laughed my way through the pages and all the events that inspired them.  I can't wait to add to these events and memories when I come home. (You know who you are and you know what we have planned!)  The danger here?  Last year there were some flames involved, some flammable liquids, and a ballgame that spilled onto a busy road...you know, the usual.

  So once I was done with that, I decided that I needed a break.  I decided to catch up on all the books I rented from the library.  I had a lot of fun reading "The Darwin Awards."  A few dumb criminal stories always seems to make me laugh.  Unfortunately, "animals" was the theme of the first chapter and I read about twenty stories of people doing dumb things and being killed by snakes.  I am hearing stories about the variety and prevalence of snakes down here, and I am none too pleased!  After I finished a chapter there I moved on to my algebra book.  That's right, algebra.  The other day I decided I was tired of saying, "Oh, I'm not good at math.  Math makes my head hurt.  I just don't understand math."  So I started my 6 week quest to get through this book (I can only borrow the book for six weeks!) I'm not really sure what benefit this will have for my life, other than the fact that I will have broadened my knowledge base.  Just preparing for my future appearance on Jeopardy, I'm sure.  The danger here?  Algebra will probably end up being a "gateway drug" to Geometry.  Plus my brain will hurt some more and I'll likely have nightmares about boa constrictors sometime soon.

   Finally, I decided that a nice, cold mocha would hit the spot.  I had most of the ingredients ready, so I went ahead and made the coffee, some coffee-flavored ice cubes, and even made some homemade chocolate syrup since I was out of Hershey's and didn't feel like driving to Bi-Lo.  I was pretty darn proud of myself.  This is where we pick back up with the beginning of the blog.  I was pouring everything into the cup of my blender when I realized that everything wasn't quite going to fit.  I poured out a little of the milk/coffee mixture and made room for the syrup and sugar, leaving about an inch of clearance.  That was a mistake.  When I turned on the blender I could see the problem starting.  I would have had about a second to turn the blender off and save myself, but all I could think was, "maybe it won't splash."  When the splashing started, I had a few seconds to quickly turn the blender off and minimize the damage, but instead, in my panic I hit the "high speed" button.  Mocha hit the wall, the cabinets, my canister set, the crock I use to hold my kitchen utensils, the floor, the closet door, my houseplant, the sink, and the dishwasher.  IT WENT EVERYWHERE!  As I was dancing around trying to avoid getting hit, Cooper ran over and decided to help with clean up.  Now I had a floor half covered with a sticky chocolate/coffee concoction and also some slobber.  The danger here?  Apparently I don't know how to work a simple drink mixer, let alone a blender.  The good news is it gave me a reason to clean my floor and I got all the mocha cleaned up before it stained anything.  Phew.

  Well, that is all for today folks, since we're heading into Monday I am no longer bored! Quite a few things to be done between now and then.  Included in the festivities?  A trip to the pool, seeing as how it's 84 degrees at 7:30 p.m.  It's a little too warm for me to want to be outside during the day, but the evenings are absolutely gorgeous.  Have a good night all, and to all my Ohio friends, I will see you in forty short days!

My life in a campground...

  I like camping.  I enjoy having one or two days out in the "wilderness,"  enjoying nature and just relaxing.  The typical activities associated with camping, such as hiking and swimming, are enjoyable.  When I was little, at least once per year my family and I would go tent-camping for four to five days at a state park.  We would have a blast.  I remember hiking at Mohican. I remember riding at Findley and having the pedals fall off my bike as I went down a hill.  We would cook dinner by the fire each night, having pizza pies at least twice, if not three times during the course of the trip. As we got older, we traded tent camping for staying in cabins, which was a huge step up and made camping even more enjoyable for me (even if you want to argue that it's not REALLY camping anymore!)

  Back in December, my sister came and visited during the week before Christmas.  Any time you visit a friend or family member's new home for the first time, obviously you HAVE to tour the abode and proclaim your admiration of the dwelling.  Even if it's contrived, there is always at least one compliment you can pay the proud owner.  After taking the five minute tour (it's a 780 square foot, one-bedroom apartment, it doesn't take long.) Kacy proclaimed that the apartment was "cute" and she gave her approval.  Then at the end of the week she cracked me up when she said, "Your apartment reminds me of a campground."

  At the time, I never gave that statement any thought. It was just a statement.  But over the last week I just couldn't help but think about how much my apartment complex really is like a campground, specifically a campground with cabins!

 First, you have the setting.  Any respectable campground is in a secluded area filled with mature trees.  To get to my apartment, you drive down the incredibly busy highway, maneuver your way through the heavily congested retail area on the north end of town, head down the parkway, and turn on to the four-lane-and-a-median road filled with small shops of every variety.  Trying to drive on this road during rush hour is terrible. It's so incredibly busy.  But once you turn into Martins Creek, you immediately find yourself in a different world.  A line of very tall pine trees creates a barrier between some shops and the property.  Old oak trees provide graceful beauty and shade.  Cleveland pears, magnolias, and maple trees are scattered around all 15 buildings on the property.  Azalea bushes and some type of bush similar to a lilac are used for landscaping around all the buildings.  Where I walk Cooper there is a fence that is covered with a vine that produces reddish-orange flowers.  Each morning when I walk Cooper, the sun filters through the leaves creating an incredibly peaceful scene.

  Seeing as how the campground is usually in a secluded setting, wildlife is abundant.  There are quite a few squirrels around here at my place.  I am VERY lucky that Cooper isn't overly excited by squirrels.  He will let a squirrel walk within two or three feet of him without caring.  He does however, mind the cats that run around.  There is a black cat and a white cat that I usually see running in and out of dumpsters all around the complex and Cooper gets REALLY angry and tries to attack them.  While him trying to maul cats is not funny, me nearly having my arm ripped off when I'm not paying attention is probably a funny sight.   You know those birds that sit right next to your tent and wake you up in the morning?  Yeah. We have those too, courtesy of the mockingbirds and crows that live nearby.  There are some cute little lizards that crawl around, oh, and don't forget the "palmetto bugs."  (Remember, palmetto bug is just a polite Southern term for cockroaches!!)

  Half the fun of camping, for me anyways, is the people watching.  You have the "lifers" who will set up camp and stay there all summer.  You have your "enthusiasts" who enjoy camping but typically just spend a few days here and there throughout the summer.  Even though they may only spend a little time camping, they have all the gear and enjoy showing it off.  Then you have the rest of the people, who really only go camping because at one point they thought, "What should I do this weekend. Oh, this sounds like fun."  These people usually don't have much other than the basics, and they rarely stay more than one night.

  You have basically the same scenario here.  You have the people who have lived here for years and plan to live here for many years more.  Their apartments are decked out!  They are the ones with piles of wood sitting on the patio, ready for use in the fireplace next year.  Their patios are decorated for each season. The "enthusiasts" here are the people who are living in apartments basically because it's the most economical option at this point, i.e. college students, single people, young families.  You know the enthusiasts because they put a little effort into making things look good, like a few chairs and maybe a plant or two on the patio.  They make themselves comfortable, they have all the right gear, but they aren't trying to settle in forever.  Last but not least you have the rest.  They were probably looking for a place to stay anyways, but I feel that their thought process was probably "ooh, shiny."  These are the people who are really excited about moving somewhere, but they don't have quite everything in place or have a place for everything they own.  This includes my neighbor who left his recliner and car seat on his patio after move in.  While not necessarily the best look, it was semi-amusing to think that to relax on his patio, his seat of choice wouldn't be your typical patio furniture.

  One of the givens of a campground is the smell of smoke generated by hundreds of people cooking dinner over an open fire.  Obviously there aren't any open pit fires here, but if you're really lucky, all the smoke stars will align here at my complex.  How so?  1.) Someone is grilling at the pavilion.  2.) People nearby are smoking (and there's always someone nearby smoking) 3.) I walk in the door when the AC comes on and that nice of stale smoke enters in my apartment.  Yep.  My version of a campground!

  If you go to the right campground, you will find a few attractions, usually a swimming pool, a canteen, and something odd like a mini-golf course.  Apartments are really no different.  Mine has a fairly nice pool, except for the ash trays which double as beer bottle collectors.  The pool is deep too, which is nice, because it offers some distance from little kids! Every once in awhile, Cooper will run crazy circles in my house trying to burn some energy.  There is a dog run here, but Cooper will literally walk in, make one very slow lap while smelling everything, then stand by the gate until I take him out.  Way to go dog, way to go.

  Well, my weekend is almost over and I still have a few chores left to do.  Rather than yummy camping food, I have a few weeks worth of yummy regular-type food that needs to find it's way into my freezer.  Then it's time for bed, which sounds REALLY nice right now.  And the nice part?  It's my comfy bed, not the ground with some tree root sticking in my back!  Sleep tight!

The smells...

    The other night I was out on my patio reading a book, enjoying the waning moments of daylight and the light breeze that was gently rustling the leaves of the bushes just behind me.  In that perfect moment, I took a deep breath to fill my lungs with the sweet aroma of the fresh air and sigh in perfect contentment.    Well, that last sentence is what I wanted to do, what actually happened was I went to take a deep breath and ended up choking on the odor.

   I couldn't help it.  Even having lived here for seven (SEVEN!!!!) months now, I still haven't gotten used to the smell of pluff mud.  The best way to describe this smell is to think about smelling sulfur, but that's an imperfect description.  You have to smell it to understand it!  Once I quit gagging, I started laughing and my thoughts wandered to the sense of smell.  Specifically, how certain scents can conjure up positive memories of seasons, happy times in my life, my home in Ohio, and new scents that I will forever associate with South Carolina.

  Summer is probably my favorite season, and there are certain scents that have always made me think of summer, like the smell of the chlorine in the pool.  To me, chlorine=pool, and pool=summer (or even mid-spring here in SC!!!!)  One of my neighbors had their grill out the other night.  Even just the smell of charcoal smells like summer to me.

  I have flowers on my patio, with alyssum included among them.  These dainty little flowers aren't flashy, and they attract a LOT of bees, which greatly displeases me.  But every year that I have a flower bed, from now until the day I die, I will include alyssum.  Why? The smell reminds me of my Grandma Henry.   Outside what used to be the main entrance to her house there is a flower bed, with one short edge being lined with concrete blocks that were turned on their side.  The holes were filled with dirt and she used to plant alyssum as a cute little edging.  I can see myself, all of six years old, standing outside the door, inhaling that wonderful aroma.  It took me probably another decade to realize that the flowers were actually the smell I remembered, but it still sticks in my head as the smell of my Grandma's house, which is and always has been one of my favorite places to visit.

  Every time I talk with my mom on the phone we compare the weather.  Lately I say, "Oh I don't miss that one bit" as she shares that it was yet again fifty degrees, cloudy, and raining.  I cannot tell you how much I enjoy the sun and the warmth here.  I do miss the flowers around my house in Ohio though.  Someone had daffodils this year, but they were in a ditch along a busy road, so I never got to enjoy their scent this year.  Peonies are one of my favorite flowers, and I can remember their scent wafting into my bedroom window at night in late May.  I haven't seen any here, but the magnolia trees are starting to bloom, and you can smell their VERY strong scent from quite a distance.  To me, they smell like a Southern version of peonies.  Basically, instead of just enjoying the new flowers, I am comparing it to home!

  Then, like pluff mud, there are scents that I will ALWAYS associate with South Carolina.  For example, the other day I came home for lunch.  It was a particularly warm day, and as I got out of the car, I couldn't help but notice the scent created by the sun beating down on the wood siding of my building. I know I've smelled that aroma before, but from now on it will be forever associated with my first apartment.  (And me thinking, "It smells like something is about to spontaneously combust.")


  Well, right now I smell my dinner, which means it's about two minutes from burning.  So I will draw this post to an end by wishing my Grandpa Henry "alles Gute zum Geburtstag!"  Also,  I will be back on Ohio soil in 61 short days!

Thank goodness for technology!

An evil idea crept into my mind.  The event was supposed to start at 1:00 p.m.  However, the guests were notorious for being late.  Then of course, you had event set up, which always is hindered by the hostess and the guests jabbering for awhile.  Don't forget to factor in the roadblocks: the pets looking for a treat and the men wandering into the kitchen to try and determine when the food would be available.  There was also a special guest today, who of course would need to be properly greeted.  My past experience with these events, coupled with intelligence I had obtained through text messages received within the previous half hour gave me a very small window to act.  My mission?  Sending my mom a text message that she would receive during the prayer for Easter dinner.

Why such a nefarious scheme?  Why not?!  Since this is my first holiday away from home I felt I had to make my presence known somehow, even if I was 681 miles away!  Unfortunately for me, my timing was a little off and the text message was, and this is quoting my mom, "close though.  You butt.  Next time I see you I will kick you."  

This is why I love technology.  I mean, yes, letter writing is definitely a viable option for communication, and I do enjoy letter writing.   I enjoy the thought and careful planning I have to put into a letter.  Because of course, you have to make sure you don't run out of room and you have to make sure that you don't have too many mistakes!  But, instant communication is SO MUCH FUN!!!

E-Mail:  I don't send a lot of e-mails, but it's a fantastic tool when I am at work and I need to send a message that's too long to text but not really worth waiting all day to recount by phone call when I'm done with work.  Case in point: My co-workers are all intelligent, educated individuals....who lack the ability to properly operate our office's vending machines.  That story was worth an e-mail!

Phone call: Obviously another great method of communication.  Lately, my phone calls seem to take place while I am sitting poolside.  Essentially, after I'm done relaxing in the pool, I sit in the lounge chair and share details about the outisde temperature, the color of the sky during sunset, the fact that it's only April and I was swimming.  You know, not bragging or anything!

Skype:  I love Skype.  I love being able to talk to someone and see them from miles away.  When Aaron was in Okinawa last year we were able to Skype on occasion.  It never ceased to amaze me that I was talking to someone who was 13 hours ahead of us and x-thousand miles away.  I talk to Grandpa Henry on Skype every once in awhile.  I love it!

Text message: I don't really text as much as some people.  For me it's a great means of communication while I'm at work.  In the moments where I have nothing to do, I'll send messages of boredom- "Ahhhhhhhh!!!!!"  Or I'll have random conversations about nothing.  It's also a great way to share snarky comments with people.  Particularly when I HAVE to share something about a crazy person at the store or something my weird neighbors are doing.

Facebook:  Facebook is awesome for touching base.  It's certainly not even close to a replacement for being face-to-face with someone, but seeing as how I can talk to my brother, who is again on the other side of the world, and my sister, who's at college, and all my friends and family back in Medina County, it's a semi-decent substitute!  I always laugh when my brother, sister, and I start having back and forth conversations with each other.  It's like being home again.  I pick on my old co-workers, making sure they don't forget me.  I share quotes from TV shows with the only other person I know who watches that particular show.  I laugh as everyone on my news feed is complaining about the clouds and rain.

Well, I am about ready to draw this medium of communication to a close.  It is 85 degrees, humid, and sunny outside.  I'm going swimming (again).  To my family: I really missed not being able to spend Easter with you, but never fear, 70 days from today I will be in Ohio with you all again! (Can we start planning our 4th of July party now?)   Enjoy the rest of your holiday everyone!

14 Days

About 6 weeks ago I got a text message from my aunt, "Only 14 days until Summerville!"  I don't remember how far in advance we had made plans for my aunts and my cousins to visit, but in any case, on that particular day we were down to only 14 days left until the beginning of the visit.  I was extremely excited, I mean, it had been roughly a month since I had seen anyone from Ohio, and about 4 months since I had seen my aunts and my cousins.  At that point, 14 days sounded like a long time, but when I got home I decided that I was thankful for that "long" wait in between that day and the visit.

The reason for the thankfulness?  As I got home that night and scanned my apartment, I noticed the mess.  There were my shoes piled around the front door and NOT in the shoe holder I have, the three dog leashes I have were piled in front of the patio window, there were dishes left on the end table, and the kitchen had all my dish rags and newspaper ads left scattered on the kitchen counter.  While not unsanitary, my apartment was definitely cluttered and in desperate need of a through cleaning before I had ANYONE in that apartment!  I know I focus in on weird things like this, but I always thought that when I moved into my own apartment, I would keep my house immaculate.  Ha.

Now, find my mom, my best friend, or anyone who I talk to on a regular basis and ask them what I am doing while I talk.  Nine times out of ten I am cleaning when I talk to them on the phone, Skype, or by Facebook chat.  It's not because I have obsessive compulsive disorder and have to clean my house 24/7, it's more like I am incredibly ineffective at actually finishing any cleaning task I set out to accomplish.  But...I decided that since I had a goal, I would be more effective this time and I would keep my apartment clean for 14 days, complete with washing the walls, cleaning the carpet, and scrubbing every laminate floor.  You can imagine how that turned out.

Day 1: Entire apartment is cleaned, vacuumed, dusted and all the trash is out.  It "only" took me from 6:30 to 11:30 to accomplish cleaning 680 square feet.  There were a few episodes of Parks and Recreation in there somewhere.

Day 3:  I don't do anything on Friday nights, this includes not putting my dishes away, leaving my mail on the table, leaving my clothes in a pile on the floor.

Day 4: I wake up late on Saturdays.  I consider getting my laundry done my accomplishment for the day.

Day 5:  Go Sunday!  I have everything cleaned, vacuumed, and dusted.  If it was in the living room.

Day 8: Somewhere in the next three days my apartment has gone from fairly cleaned and straightened to cluttered with coupon clippings on the table and receipts for online payment piled around the end table the printer sits under. I did manage to vacuum, but the dog took it upon himself to roll on his back and wiggle through the living room, which was cute, but left a trail of dog hair all over my freshly vacuumed carpet.  This is of course right after I took the filter out and washed it, so now I can't vacuum again until it's dried.

Day 9: I get the great idea to rearrange my room.  Which is fine, except I moved a whole bunch of random stuff from the other rooms in here.  Now, as I try to maneuver my bed and my top heavy bookshelf around the room, I first have to move all the other stuff out of my way.  Hey...I haven't read that book in a long time...four hours later it's time for bed.

Day 10: I discover my list from 10 days ago and remember that I wanted to keep my apartment completely cleaned for 14 days.  I laugh and rededicate myself to the cause.  I fall asleep on the floor while watching The Colbert Report on Hulu.  When I wake up it's time for bed.

Day 11: I realize that I have just about no time left, complete with an incredibly busy work week that will probably keep me there after hours and require me making a dessert for the staff meeting day after I get home.  In any case, I get the floors vacuumed.

Day 12: Today I make that dessert.  I accidentally drop the sifter full of powdered sugar.  Big mess.  The kitchen gets cleaned, but before I reach the rest of the house I get a phone call.  No worries, I will finish cleaning tomorrow.

Day 13:  I watched Castle and fell asleep at 7:00 p.m.

Day 14:  5:00 p.m., I check my phone.  They're in Columbia?! That's ok, it gives me another two hours.  Then I realized that the fact that they have made it this far in a little under 10 hours indicates that they are moving a lot faster than I expected them to.  Haha.  Upon further texts, I realize they are 30 miles away, traveling at 70 mph.  Anyone good at algebra?  I decide that my apartment is cluttered, but not dirty, so it's all okay.  Then I notice that my refrigerator is the one place that hasn't been cleaned out and is filled with all sorts of pretty, but unnatural colors.  Quickly it is cleaned out.  My laundry, which has been drying all over my apartment since yesterday afternoon, is quickly gathered into baskets and shoved in my closet.   They arrive, and all is forgotten as we travel the tri-county area, picking up trinkets, meeting locals, revisiting history, and playing in the ocean.

Day 18: As I attempt to clean up now that everyone is gone, I find the original cleaning list.  I laugh, throw it out, and sit back to watch the Amazing Race, since I now have network TV courtesy of my aunt.  I'll clean tomorrow.

Today (Day 25):  My apartment is back in it's usual state: Clean (sanitary), but my newspaper is scattered on the table, my library books are piled by the futon, where I have been reading all day, and I know the ironing board is still set up in my bedroom, where I left it this morning before church.  I can't help but laugh at myself for my overly ambitious goal and my inability to meet that goal.  I guess I can be thankful that I don't really have anything bigger to obsess about right now.  There was a tornado that touched down and destroyed a few homes and a church about an hour north of my house last night.  Everyone was okay, but it looks like a big mess!

Well, the only thing that remains to be done tonight is enjoying the weather. I have no idea what the temperature is, but it's perfect for spending time out on my patio, and that's just what I intend to do.  I have my new citronella candles ready to repel those pesky mosquitoes, some nice iced tea, and a few more books to read.  Ah....

Tourist in my own town...

This week I had two of my aunts and two of my cousins visiting from Ohio.  We drove so many places.  We walked so far! I think we gave a huge boost to the city's economy.  We toured two beaches. We had great Uno Attack games.  We kind of sort of visited three plantation homes.  We rode a boat to a historic battle site. We met a lot of very nice, friendly people.  Some of us did not eat eggs for breakfast on Saturday!  Overall we had a great time!

More than once during this weekend I had to say, "I honestly don't know.  I've never been here before."  It was great!  There is so much to see and do in Charleston.  Friday we set out to Fort Sumter, then the Charleston City Market, then Sullivan's Island.  A lot of back and forth driving and walking (almost 6 miles when it was all said and done) culminating in a trip to the only Fazoli's in the area!  Even with all the walking and touring we did, there are so many more places I need to visit.  (That is why I need more house guests!  I need more people to take out and about so I have more reasons to visit these places!)  

Saturday was a little more of the same.  We drove down Ashley River Road, which is one of the prettiest drives there is.  We wanted to visit some of the plantation homes, but they were kind of expensive.  So we just drove in the driveway and then turned around and left! After that we drove to Folly Beach, a trip that took us through James Island.  I usually have no real reason to drive an hour south of my house, but there seemed to be so many cool shops to visit.  I need to visit there more often!

I started thinking about this in relation to Ohio.  I never really had any out of town guests visit my family when I was home.  Almost all of my family lives within an hour of my house.  All of my friends lived within Medina County, and the few who moved away had lived here for so long before they left that when they came home they never needed to "tour" the area.  This is probably a good thing though, because there is just about nothing to do in Ohio.  I remember making fun of tourism guides for places other than Cleveland, Columbus, or Cincinnati.  

Essentially, the "must see" destinations in Ohio are Cedar Point, Amish Country, The Pro Football Hall of Fame, the Rock Museum, maybe the Science museum, and if you really want to go to Akron...um...maybe go there during the Firestone tournament? 

It's not really a fair comparison.  I mean, Charleston has a much longer and richer history.  Being situated where it is also gives it a much broader range of ethnic, cultural, and regional influences.  Ohio is like every other state in the Midwest: Maybe 150-200 years of statehood, a large portion of their citizens are descended from immigrants of maybe three or four European countries, and really obnoxious weather that changes whenever it feels like it.  (And honestly, Ohio does have it's perks.  I just feel like picking on Ohio.  Always a fun and easy target!)

I can't wait for my upcoming weekends.  I have about a million more places I want to visit, in addition to just chilling on the beach.  Come and visit me some time.  We'll have a ball!

Eat, drink, run, and be merry.

A flower.  A match.  A bowl of heated grains.  An ear of corn.  A bridge.  Moth larvae.  On their own, all fairly inane objects that are just "background" items in our day to day lives.   Seemingly almost unrelated to one another, right?   However,  believe it or not, these items all do have something in common: They are all the basis for large festivals!

For weeks now people at work and church have been talking about the events of this last weekend here in Charleston, especially Saturday.  You see, in the morning there was the Cooper River Bridge Run, a 10k race on the Arthur Ravenel Bridge (If you watch Darius Rucker's "Comeback Song,"  you'll see the bridge in the background.)  Then, in Summerville, there was the Flowertown Festival.  It was a huge deal, almost 200,000 people were expected to attend.  As I listened to co-workers and church-goers I really couldn't believe just how big these events were supposed to be.  It just didn't seem right that a town of 40,000 people would draw 200,000 to an arts festival held in and around a small park named after a fairly common flower.  I was wrong.

Summerville is known far and wide for two things: Pine trees and azalea flowers.  They even combined it into a motto, "Flowertown in the Pines." To me these seem like the key aspects of general Southern landscape, but I guess Summerville just has a higher concentration or just likes them more.  In any case, I signed up to help face paint in my church's booth.  I parked over a mile away from the event just so I could avoid the traffic.  Even at a mile away I was still too close :) So I began my trek to the booth.  It wasn't long before I ended up in the middle of a throng of other people walking towards the festival.  It was one of those times where once a group started walking they didn't stop, and the police ended up stopping the crowd just so that cars could go through the intersection.  Once I finally got into the festival I looked forward at the next mile of road.  It was a wavy ribbon of wall-to-wall people.  Now I could see how 200,000  people could fit here.  Vendors lined both sides of the road and were set up in Azalea park.  It was easy to see all of them in just one pass merely for how slowly we had to walk.  Plenty of time for observation!  Next year I need to take a friend and spend more time looking through the vendors...

So once I got home from Flowertown yesterday, I started thinking about how big the event was, given the nature of the event and the population of the host town.  To me, it seemed like some of these area festivals were so much larger than any events that I had been to in Ohio.  I did some reaseach...

The Flowertown Festival draws 200,000 visitors from about 14 different states.  Vendors come from as far away as Alaska (Can't say I blame them.  Seventy versus ten below?  Yeah.) It's a three day event held in an area of about three square miles.  Busy busy.  Entertainment?  Art vendors, a "Taste of Summerville", and various amateurs singers.

I tried to compare this to the Medina County Fair.  They have about 100,000 people over seven days
spread out over 60 acres.  The slightly larger Wayne County Fair draws 133,000 over five days.  Entertainment?  Famous country music acts, amusement rides, a bajillion (real word) animals, and various other domestic competitions.  The base populations of the host towns are 27,000 and 26,000 respectively.

St. George, South Carolina has a population of 2,500.  Each year they host the "World Grits Festival," a three-day event honoring the fact that they have the highest grit consumption per capita in THE WORLD.  Average crowd?  50,000.  Entertainment?  Grit eating contest, roll in the grit contest, and a 5k grit race.  Oh yeah, and lots of vendors.

There is the Blue Tip Festival- Wadsworth's pride and joy.  In the two days prior to the kick-off parade, chairs and blankets are set out along the parade route, staking claim to the best seats.  The parade goes on for almost two hours, featuring local politicians, bands, every fire truck and ambulance in the three county area, and lots and lots of candy.  The festival itself, spanning five days, features amusement rides, carnival games, and vendor booths from local area businesses and organizations.  It draws about 30,000 people each year.

Lodi is home to the yearly Sweet Corn Festival each year.   Following a parade (which features the pro-marijuana crowd!) there is a three day festival that includes amusement rides, food, and a tug-of-war competition.  Attendees?  Based on research, anywhere from 10,000-20,000 people.

Back to that Bridge Run,  it's a 10k spanning the Arthur Ravenel Bridge.  This year they stopped taking entires once the first 40,000 people entered.  All but about 2,000 people ran.  There was an estimated crowd of 20,000 people.   For three hours they have a festival with food booths, vendors, and other entertainment.  But 40,000 running over a bridge?  Though different races with different qualification criteria, for comparison purposes the Boston Marathon has 20,000 participants, and the NYC marathon draws about 43,000 runners.

So, just as I thought, relatively speaking South Carolina draws incredibly large crowds to festivals that feature fairly inane objects and have minimal carnival entertainment.  Ohio on the other hand has festivals with lots of amusement (and way more parades) but relatively smaller crowds.  Why is this?  I have no idea.  This is a blog, not a research article! In the words of my boss, "We just like big parties here in the South!"  Big parties they are, and fun parties at that!

Oh, just to highlight the one VERY large festival that Ohio throws, there is always Dick Goddard's Wooly Bear Festival.  This is a one day event that draws almost 100,000 people to a small town to watch a parade with 2,000 entries that worships a worm.  Congrats Ohio, you win the crazy festival award!

On that note, my good friend Benadryl is calling my name, and I must heed it's call or else I won't be able to breathe tonight.  I love pollen.  Have a wonderful evening and plan on attending next year's local festivals with me! (Except for the Grits Festival. Can't say that I'll ever go to an event celebrating ground up corn!)

P.S.- Happy 22nd Birthday to my favorite brother!

The daily grind.

I remember a day about three years ago shortly after whatever the latest depressing economic news happened to be had been announced.  My boss, Ted, and I were walking toward the back of the store to go pick up some supplies for the bakery.  As we walked he said, "I pity your generation Kate, you won't have the opportunities my generation did.  It'll be hard to find a job and hard to support yourself.  I'm not trying to depress you, I just feel bad for you."  He wasn't the first to make those statements, and he wasn't the last. In fact, people still repeat those words to me today! But being a true teenager/young adult, in a moment of true rebellion/naivete, I politely smiled and nodded and made up my mind to get a job and not listen to him in regards to this anymore. Ah, to be young!

In any case, God blessed me with a job that supports me and amuses me.   I normally don't like to even think about work on the weekends, much less write about it.  I am definitely one of those people who likes to forget they have a job on the weekends!  However, for some reason I decided I wanted to write about my job for today's blog.

For those of you who don't know, the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infant, Children (WIC) is a federally-funded venture meant to provide nutritious foods and nutrition education to those demographics that traditionally are more at risk to fall through the cracks, specifically women and their children.

At 8:30 a.m. I walk through the doors of the health department and head to my office.  Our first clients walk in the door at the same time, so while they're filling out all sorts of paper work and proving things like identity, income, and residency to our admin team, I set up for the day.  Each morning I put my purse away, change my Hoops and Yoyo calendar, start up my computer, print off my client roster, grab the roster, fill up my water bottle, and then talk with whoever is in the hallway, in that order.  If things are going smoothly, I will see my first client around 9:15.

Each of the client's fills out a questionnaire when they come in.  The form has about 20 questions meant to give me an idea of how to guide my nutrition assessment.  This, in addition to the lab results of height, weight, and Hemoglobin, dictate what we talk about.  We cover everything from encouraging people to make sure they eat a variety of foods from all the food groups to eating iron rich foods to help prevent anemia, from making sure they're not mixing formula incorrectly to helping trouble shoot breastfeeding problems.  For kids it seems like we spend a lot of time encouraging the parents to be parents and not let their kids be dictators.  I think I talk to every mom about limiting juice so their kid doesn't get cavities...or weigh 50lbs when they're three.  Once we're all done talking, I print up their food package.  Clients get a pretty decent package these days- things like eggs, whole grain bread, cereal, fruit and vegetables, in addition to milk and cheese.  On a typical day I see between 15-20 clients, with each session taking anywhere from 20-30 minutes.

That's the magic that happens four times per week.  On Wednesdays I teach class.  This is about eight 20 minute sessions spread out over the course of the day that are directed at prenatal women, children 1-5, and infants of different age ranges.  It's quite fun, I get to sit in a room and discuss nutrition topics with 10-20 moms.  Sometimes it's quiet and I just basically talk to myself.  Other times it gets rowdy, especially when people start throwing misinformation around and you have to tactfully tell people the correct information.  It sounds easy, but if you saw all the background work and dealt with all the nonsense that goes one with hosting a class, you'd know why I am exhausted and have a headache when I leave work on Wednesday.  I go to church about an hour after I get off work, and there have been a few Wednesday night prayer sessions at church where my first prayer is "Dear God, please help me stay awake for the next hour and a half!"

I am very thankful for my job.  It's steady, it pays well for entry-level, and it's a way to use my degree.  I enjoy getting to talk with a lot of my clients and provide them with just a little support to help them through the month.  It's also a source of frustration. (Ask my mom, she bears the brunt of my frustration!)  For every person who is on the program because they just need a little help for the month there are people who are the third generation of their family to be on WIC merely because they feel it's their right to get free food from the government (That is truly what people have told me).  It's a source of sadness too. For every family who is just in for a supplement to help them through the month, there is a girl who has little or no family support and no support from her child's father- she is the one who checks yes to box number 7: Do you skip meals or have limited food because of a lack of funds?

 People who work in WIC are typically cocky about "knowing" that their jobs will be around forever.  Since we serve such a limited demographic we don't come close to running out of funding money.  A lot of clients are unlikely to see a change in their income or nutrition status for a variety of reasons, so we'll always have a client base, and funding follows the clients.  Honestly, I wish we could see people in the community give just enough to help these families get by for the month or take these young single mothers "under their wing" and mentor them to their own success and see the WIC program shrink! (Shhh...don't tell my boss!!)  But that's a dream for further on down the road when I have more resources and more knowledge about how to start something like this...I think!

So minus the last two paragraphs, that's my job in a nutshell.  There are more intricacies to the job, but they are very boring and only worth explaining if you need to know them!  This is what I do five days a week, 7.5 hours per day (if I'm lucky!)  Like I said, it's a great job and I'm getting to learn a lot even as I am sharing information with clients.   I hope to get a few more good years out of it before I move on...not that I am planning on getting fired, I just have a feeling that this is only a temporary stop in this part of my life.

I hope I haven't bored anyone with my post today.  I know it's a departure from how and what I usually write, but like I said, it's what I felt I should write today.  And now, as always, it's late enough on Sunday night that I need to be thinking about getting ready for work tomorrow! It should be a peaceful night..the rain and mild temperatures will provide a peaceful background for sleeping! Have a great night everyone and have a fantastic week!