Surprise!

Today I set up an appointment with one of my classes to review for their exam tomorrow. They are my favorite class - only 11 students and they are all really cool and fun and involved in the things we talk about so each time I am excited to go to that class and smiling all day afterwords - I love them. Well today, I come into class and it's all decorated and there's a cake on the table and they all yell "surprise, happy birthday" with beautiful beaming faces. Now, I've never had a surprise birthday party before, and I was definitely surprised for this one, not least because my birthday is more than 4 months away.
One of my students, Tim, has a very fun sense of humor. We learned in his first speech that he has taken the movie Wedding Crashers as inspiration and has crashed more than 20 weddings, along with other parties. In his 3rd speech we learned that he and some friends made up a fake MySpace girl and got a guy they knew to correspond with her and even arrange a date with her before finally admitting she was fictional. So, today we learned that every semester he gets one of his classes to believe it's the teacher's birthday and arranges a party. It was very sweet. They had an ice cream cake and other snacks and were in the middle of signing a birthday card for me when I came in. I was very surprised and smiled and thanked them and then said, "but it's not my birthday." There was a guy at the back of the room not from our class taking pictures to document the event. My students kind of stared at me and then stared at Tim and then stared back at me while he had a big goofy grin on his face. He had emailed the class earlier saying he had just learned that it was my birthday and wanted to have a party. Some of them said they had wondered if it was serious, but not enough to question him.
So my first surprise party turned out to be a surprise for all but one of the people involved. Well done, Tim!

Another addition (?)

Well, this weekend has been nothing if not interesting. Today, we had another piece to add to the craziness that is our home. Jordan's friend Rosa was coming over to see Jordan when she saw a cute little kitty outside. Rosa recognized the cat from a lost cat paper she had seen and came to get Jordan. Jordan (without informing me first of course) went to get the cat and bring her into our house of two humans a cat and a dog. Well, needless to say, the craziness escalated from there. Kiki went crazy over the cat, jumping up and barking and trying to play, so she got locked in Jordan's room. Sheba was less than thrilled over a new cat and added some more growls and hisses. The new cat (with her front AND back claws out) hissed and spit and generally showed her disfavor with the whole situation. Thankfully in this case we had a phone number and Jordan called to get the cat's owner. The owner was on the other side of town and wasn't going to get back until evening but Jordan and I went to see the students from our school perform The Messiah and so I wasn't about to leave two cats and a dog alone in the apartment. The lady came to get the cat - who calmed down a lot when Kiki was with Jordan, Sheba in my room, and the kitten with me in the living room. The owner came about 5 minutes before we were leaving and, thankfully, identified the cat as hers so we're back to the two animals. I'm not sure how we suddenly became the shelter for lost animals, but I told Jordan two at a time is about all we can handle - more than we can handle actually, so we'll try to settle down over the next week...

An Unexpected Visitor

Well ladies and gentlemen, it has been a very interesting 18 hours. Yesterday after school, Jordan rode her bike to a friend's house to see if she could play. On her way back she encountered a girl with a dog looking to find the dog's owners. The dog is a little cocker spaniel puppy - maybe 9 months old or thereabouts. The weather yesterday was rainy and cold and so the puppy was shivering and drinking out of puddles. The girl had not been able to find anyone, so Jordan quite unselfishly offered to take over the job. So, 15 minutes after Jordan left with her bike she returns with a bike and a puppy. Now this puppy has had some care - a bad haircut on the top of its head the main indicator - so I told Jordan, and Jordan didn't argue, that we had to find the owners. Our first stop was our apartment office to see if they recognized the puppy or could let us know if anyone was looking for one. The office was closed (apparently on Fridays it is open from 10-12 only). Our next stop was the neighborhood surrounding our complex. We asked everyone we encountered - dog owners and kids especially - to see if anyone recognized her, but nobody did. So, our next stop was home where we bathed the poor cold shivering dog and got her some cat food to eat. Jordan then set out to clean her room to eliminate choking hazards and I had a chance to entertain the puppy. She really is quite adorable and snuggly and funny. She found one of our cat's toys - one the cat has no use for - and enjoys playing fetch and pouncing on the toy.
Jordan, of course, is delighted with the dog. She gets more and more sure that the dog will be ours as the day goes by. I remind her constantly that the puppy belongs to someone and our job is to find them, so last night when she said her bedtime prayers, she prayed that we find the owner and that either they take the dog, or tell us we can have her, whatever God thought was best. I thought it quite mature of her, however I'm afraid she'll be a little heartbroken when we have to say goodbye and I admit I'll be a little sad, too. Last night, the dog slept with Jordan. Since Jordan's bed is a little high, we moved the mattress to the trundle and the two of them snuggled together on the bed while Sheba and I slept in my room locked away from the dog.
Sheba is less entranced by the puppy (who we're calling Kiki Darling at this point). Jordan has finally gotten her wish to see a dog chasing a cat and skidding and running into a wall. It's happened several times already. When Molly the dog visited us last week, Molly was pretty uncertain about the cat, and Sheba dominated her. When Luke came for a short visit, he nearly killed her and so we kept them completely apart. Kiki is much more interested in playing, and Sheba resorts to hissing and growling and overall letting everyone know how unhappy she is. This morning, Jordan and Kiki and I were sitting on our Lazyboy all together watching a little White Christmas together when Sheba came into the room. I don't know if she didn't see the puppy, thought she was a blanket, or otherwise mistook the situation, but she walked over to the chair and jumped up on it as if she was going to join us. It took her about .15 seconds to realize her mistake, puff up her tail, arch her back, and start growling as she dashed away. This was one of the points when Kiki chased, skid, and ran into the wall while she chased Sheba.
As I said, it's been an interesting 18 hours - only 6 of which were engaged in sleeping. We're heading to the office again in a little bit and then I'm going to see if the puppy has a identification chip to let us know who she is. We'll see how long she hangs around...

Operation Snow

yesterday morning, Jordan and I woke up and prepared for church as usual (choosing the 2nd service since we both slept in until 8:45!). As we were driving down the road we noticed, to the northeast, a sight I hadn't been sure I would see here in my new home... snow! The previous two days brought LOTS of rain to our area and not the warm sprinkles that we got in August. No, this was cold, wet, shoe/clothes-drenching rain more on the level of PA and MI than OR. So the cold annoying rain we got here brought some lovely white to the peaks of the mountains that surround us. Jordan and I were a little bit excited about the idea of snow. Those of you who recently survived the ice/snow-storms in the east may be groaning or making inappropriate gestures toward the computer screen at this moment, but snow sounded really nice on the 2nd day of December so Jordan and I decided we would spend the afternoon seeking out snow. We stopped first to pick up some Christmas presents and a map of the county so that we would be less likely to get lost and then we headed east.
This is the kind of driving I love to do, just jump into the car with no preparation whatsoever (except the purchase of the map - past lessons learned) and see where we end up. I honestly had little hope of finding snow since it was only on the peaks of the mountains and generally mountain peaks don't have roads leading to them, but we headed off anyway to see what we can find. We headed east until the snowiest parts were immediately to our left and then found a good road (on the handy dandy map) and headed north. The road, unfortunately, was more a northwest than a north road and so began to drift back toward we came from, but as we hit the crest of the foothills and started heading back down into the valley, we passed a bunch of apple farms. I had no idea that apples were grown in this area known for its oranges, but there it was, 45 minutes from home. We stopped in first to a farm that had some animals to pet, some craft shops, and a place to buy caramel apples (for Jordan), caramel burritos (warmed up for me) and fresh, cold apple cider (to share). It was quite delightful. After looking through the shops and bothering the emu and goats, we headed for another little chain of shops. Unfortunately they closed at 5:00 and we were there around 4:45, but we saw more cute little crafts stores, a place with more animals and a "reptile cave" and some little booths with food, train rides, etc. We will have to go back another time when we can look around some more.
All in all, despite the fact that we never found snow (although one of the shops was called "snow line" so maybe later in the season...) we had a great time hanging out together and having an adventure. We'll have to do this again soon!

What's a mother to do

Over the past few weeks I've been noticing a tendency in Jordan that concerns me a bit. It became more obvious last week when we were going to church and we started talking about our different services. She told me that she didn't want to go to the children's church, but would rather stay with me and listen to the pastor preach. Now, this in itself isn't a terrible thing. We didn't have "children's church" when I was growing up so it isn't a necessity. The problem is that I worry that she separates herself from other kids in favor of grownups in general and me in particular. We stopped going to the Wednesday night group because I wasn't getting anything from it and she wasn't really interested in the kids program. She was going to spend the night at the house of a friend in our apartment complex last night, but ended up coming home at midnight (without informing the parents of the girl who stopped by at 2:47 AM to make sure everything was all right) because she couldn't sleep and would rather be home with me.
Is this normal?
Now I love my daughter and I love spending time with her. It's nice to have her next to me at church instead of sitting on my own, and I love that she doesn't hate or avoid me since she's the only person I know well within a 60 mile radius. I just worry that she's not making friends of her own age and maybe relying too much on me. Part of it is our relationship, the only child of a single mom who have lived away from other close family for a majority of her life. It's natural that she should cling to me a bit I guess. I'm just wondering if I need to force her to interact with others when she'd rather just hang with me.

Voting Smart

I'm a big fan of voting, and especially of voting in the primaries. It's all well and good to vote between Democrat/Republican/whatever-else-is-out-there, but if we don't choose they BEST Democrat/Republican/whatever-else-is-out-there, we end up with a situation (like the last election) where we're choosing which of the terrible candidates is least terrible. So, voting is good but one of the problems people have when they vote is they don't know what the candidates really stand for and what they are likely to do in office. Well this website, SelectSmart.com, helps take some of that guesswork out. It takes the voting records of the candidates in their various political positions, and, based on the issues you designate as being most important, chooses the candidate who fits you best. Check it out and vote - In California the primary is 2/5/08, in Oregon it isn't til May, Michigan's is January 15 (January, really?). For your state's primary date, check this website.
So, now you have access to the info, so go use it!

the 9-year-old college student

It's Veterans Day (happy veteran's day to my favorite vets) and Jordan gets the day off school. Thus begins the long line of vacation/holiday days of which Jordan gets a break but I don't. In the next two weeks, she gets today off for V-day, Thursday and Friday for "teacher's conferences" and all next week for Thanksgiving. So in two weeks of school she goes twice. In that time, I get 3 days for Thanksgiving and that's about it. So she came to school with me today. Another perk of working in a Christian school is that on speech days, I don't need to worry about what she might potentially hear come out of the mouths of students. We just got done with one class full of speeches and instead of reading Captain Underpants as she had planned, she listened to, and enjoyed the speeches.
I also realized today, that Jordan has basically been going to college classes since she was 3 years old. She started when I started my Master's work and has come on and off over the years. Does this mean that in 9 years when she's ready to start college it won't have the same allure for her? Oh, and after about two speeches she patted me on the arm and asked if she could have a turn, too. I guess the dreaded public speaking class won't be such a problem for her.

I'm going back to Asia

This summer, I'm leading an ISP (international service project) trip through my school to South Korea. I had wanted to go to Africa or a Spanish-speaking country, but it seems that Asia and I are bound to each other somehow. I'll be leading a trip at the end of July/beginning of August to teach English to junior high and high school students. I'm not sure if I'm excited about it. I really feel like it's a good experience for the students, but I've been to South Korea and it isn't a place I necessarily wanted to return to. Hopefully it's a great trip and opens the students' minds to the larger world - they tend to be fairly sheltered around here.

An Exhausting Weekend

Jordan's b-day party went off without a hitch on Saturday, and as an extra bonus the kids all spent the night on Saturday night. I thus was in charge of four children between the ages of 5-9. They were pretty good the whole time, and on Sunday it was warm enough to go swimming so we found a variety of things to do. The sleeping thing didn't go quite as well, however. By 10 o'clock, I had threatened to put the kids all in different rooms - including having Maya in the bathroom - if they didn't quiet down and get to sleep. They did, but then at 5AM I heard noises from the bedroom and, while I told them to be quiet and stay in bed until 7, I eventually gave in. Some of you function fine on 6 hours of sleep, but I need at least 8 to be friendly and fun.

Another day, another annoyance

We woke up this morning to no power in our house. This wasn't because of the fires, which are mostly contained, but because of a power line that fell over the freeway. Jordan was excited because she thought she might get to have a day off of school on her birthday (happy birthday Jordan!) but unfortunately, the lights came back on 45 minutes later and so she went to school. My school was closed, though, so I came home and decorated the house for her birthday. Fun times.

Jordan's California Blues

Last night, Jordan was taking a shower when she stubbed her toe on her shampoo bottle. While some crying and moaning was expected, she could not be consoled and so I sat down on the side of the tub and had a mom-to-Jordan talk. At first, she just kept whining about her toe, but then when the cat started adding her own whining (she's been particularly annoying since we moved here and meows all the time), Jordan kicked her - literally - out of the bathroom. I told her that kicking the cat is not an appropriate response, and she started crying even more. I finally got her to admit that all the crying was not about the stubbed toe and the whining cat (really?) and we had a pretty good talk about things that have been bothering her.
The biggest problem she has is that her birthday is tomorrow and we had planned to have a birthday party (with a Halloween theme, of course) with Eric and the kids. Because the fires have closed freeways and made travel between cities almost impossible, it is possible they won't be able to come. She has been all about the birthday party for the last month. She called Eric in September to make sure they were available to come up for this Saturday. We got a Halloween cookbook and have been planning meals. The house is decorated with cobwebs, skeletons, and bats. I told her they would be able to come sometime, even if not on Saturday, but she's not good with changes in her schedule so she's been praying several times a day that the fires will stop so that her cousins can come for her party.
The second thing she's worrying over is being the new kid in school. I assumed this would be a problem, but she never mentioned it before. Yesterday, however, she was upset that "all" the kids in her class had been at this school before and so they would share stories about what happened last year and talk about events that Jordan isn't familiar with and so she feels left out. I'm not sure our discussion made things better, but at least I know what she's worrying about now so we can keep working on getting past them.
*sigh* a mother's work is never done :)

Focusing on the Important Things

Every day, GoogleReader brings me a sampling of the news of the day so that I can get a general idea of what is going on in the world - problems in the Congo, presidential candidates gaffes, the Myanmar protests, Britney Spears' custody battle, Dumbledore's sexual identity... This article brings an important part of the Southern California fires to light, so I thought I'd share it with you. I'm so glad we know now where the real problem lies.

All's Well

Well, we're into our fourth day of fires all around. Thankfully we haven't had any come too close. The closest fires to us are Lake Arrowhead and Temecula and those are fairly distant. When I look north I can see brown skies and when I look south there's a kind of pillar of white clouds. The air smells like burning and there is ash that floats down occasionally. Today I heard on the news that when cleaning ash we need to not let it touch us as it might have cancer-causing chemicals... great, just what we need. Jordan's school is not letting any of the kids outside for recess. They watched Mulan yesterday, which I'm pretty sure she was okay with. She's getting antsy, though, because I won't let her go outside at home, either. She had a bad cough and runny nose before this all started, and it's not going away, so we're definitely not going to make it worse by breathing in cancer-causing ash!
I'm so glad that I decided to move to California this year - the year of the worst forest fires and highest evacuation rates in California history. It's good to be a part of history, right? Now all we need is a gigantic earthquake next year, and I'm set...
Okay, enough whining about the out of doors. We still are in our home and are far from the fires, and Eric and his family are still safe - still no school or work for them, but they haven't had to be evacuated yet. So, I'll be thankful.

We're not Shaking but we are Baking

The gulf states get hurricanes, the midwest gets tornados, the northeast gets blizzards, the northwest gets flooding. When I considered the natural disasters of a move to SoCal, I thought of earthquakes only. I've been through some mild earthquakes before and they didn't seem to be too big a deal.
This week I was reminded of the second, and more pervasive, natural disaster from SoCal - the wildfire. Yesterday morning on our way to church, the air was more smoggy and dirty than usual. It felt bad to breathe in and made me want to stay inside. It was warm enough to go swimming, but I didn't let Jordan go because I didn't want her breathing it in. The fires have not gotten close enough to us to effect us. Eric's kids have no school and are preparing in case they need to evacuate, but it hasn't gotten to that point up here yet. They are getting closer, though, and the air isn't looking any prettier today. I could go for a nice clean blizzard right about now...

Volleyball vs. Cheerleading

Last night, Jordan got her homework done in a record 43 minutes so we went out to see CBU women's volleyball against Concordia. We won all 3 sets/games/whatever it's called (I did go see my friends play volleyball occasionally in high school, but that was a LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOng time ago.) Jordan and I decided to sit near our cheerleaders. Two of my students cheer and so we sat near them. I waved at them as we came in and sat down and then told Jordan which students were mine. She kept looking on them and asking me to go say hi to them. I told her that I already had and when she kept bugging me, I told her that she could go say hi if she wanted. This led to her spending most of the rest of the evening wheedling her way into their midst. She first sneaked some pom poms from one of them and stood behind them in their three rows. The next time I looked over, she was next to the cheerleaders in the back row. A few minutes later she was in the middle row and finally got herself to the front of all of them, cheering for all she was worth. Now, no offense to my cheerleading friends, but cheerleading is not where I expected my daughter to be interested. She's pretty laid back as I mentioned in my previous post, she hangs out with boys more than girls, she'd rather wear her camouflage shirt and shorts than a dress. Apparently, however, she still wants to be a cheerleader. sigh.

Victoria Avenue

Last week I discovered a new way to work and it makes me so happy that I had to share it. Usually, I have to fight traffic to get on and off highway 91 - my average wait time through the four stop lights leading to the onramp/offramp is about 5 minutes. This wait time is full of people cutting me off, weaving in and out of traffic, pushing the clutch in and out over and over, shoulders tensing, teeth gritting, stress levels rising... to top it off, the two radio stations I prefer to listen to (NPR and AIR 1) don't work at these intersections for some reason, so I don't even have that to distract me. So I arrive at work all tense and upset about traffic/drivers and I decided that it was ridiculous. I went onto Google Maps (love it!) and looked over the roads leading from my house to the school and found a road that went the same length of town as the highway did so I decided to try it on my way home from work.

The street is Victoria Avenue and it was made in the early 1900's as a way to get oranges from the groves to the railway. The designers placed all kinds of ornamental trees along the way, with palm trees, eucalyptus trees, roses, etc. There are orange farms along the side of the road. There's a path on which people walk their dogs, jog, and walk with their kids. The trees block the smog and just show the beautiful blue sky up ahead. The road isn't very crowded, either. It is one lane on either side of a median with palm tress and other plants. There are very few stoplights, but stop signs throughout the drive (I pass by 8 of them). The drive just makes me happy. Nobody cuts me off, I never have to wait any time to get past the stop signs, and the view is gorgeous. So now I get to work with a smile!

An Unexpected Weekend

Last Thursday, Jordan and I went to "Downtown Thursday Night" and enjoyed the family night they had there. Some students from UC Riverside brought a climbing wall and Jordan took advantage of the free climbs - she must have climbed it 10-15 times and was not very happy with me when I told her she was done. There was also a family-friendly band (not kid songs but songs that didn't have racy lyrics) and some kid activities. While I was watching Jordan climb the wall, a lady came up to me and said that she had gotten tickets to an event on Saturday and since it was for girls she wasn't going to use them but asked if we were interested. It turns out they were tickets to the Revolve Tour, a weekend event for pre-teen and teenage girls with music and speakers dealing with girl issues (boys, body image, self-acceptance, etc.). Some of it was beyond Jordan's knowledge/experience/whatever, but it was pretty good. The event was all day in Anaheim and the highlight of the event for most of the girls there (judging by the screaming and squealing) was the concert by Hawk Nelson - kind of a Christian version of Green Day. What I found most amusing at this concert was Jordan. She is a very low-key kind of a girl. Looking around, everyone in the stadium (moms as well as daughters) were standing up, bouncing, waving their cell phones (instead of lighters) to the music, and basically screaming as loud as they could whenever they could. My adorable daughter, on the other hand was sitting back, covered in her blanket (it was really cold), feet up on the seat in front of her, eating nachos. She could have cared less that HAWK NELSON!!!! were there singing. It gives me some hope that in the future I won't be dragged to annoying teen band concerts and asked to endure the pre-teen shrieks on a regular basis!

Southern California in the Fall...

...is just not as exciting as the Northeast in the fall. It's hard to remember that it's October and some places in the country have striking colors filling the hillsides when the hillsides here are all brown and full of scrub grass. I just got back from a conference in Wisconsin, though, and was able to enjoy the beauty of fall once again. There was a tree by our house in Pennsylvania which was the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. It had all the colors of fall in one tree - bright red, dusky orange, mustard yellow, and usually a bit of bright leafy green left over from summer. It was a pleasure to pass by that tree every day and get a bit of beauty in the midst of autumn. I will miss Pennsylvania in the fall. Oregon in the fall wasn't that great - it was when the rain began and was a reminder that sunshine wouldn't return until the following summer. The trees changed colors but the mountains were mostly filled with evergreen trees so there wasn't that amazing variety of fall colors.
Another reason I loved PA in the fall was the change in the weather. In PA, it tends to rain continuously during the summer. The fall brought less rain and a crispness to the air rather than that heavy, horrible humidity from the summer. Unfortunately, my trip to Wisconsin didn't have that lovely crispness. I brought my wool suit thinking this would be the one time I would be able to wear it this year, but it was warm and humid with thunderstorms both nights I was there. Actually, it was cooler in San Diego when I landed than it was in Minneapolis when I left. This morning I feel some of that fall crispness in the air. I'm not sure if living in the desert, rather than near the ocean, will make it cooler here than elsewhere in So. Cal. but I'm looking forward to finding out!

Why we Love Wikipedia

Requiring students to do research in my class can be a big pain in the neck. One of the reasons for this is that they are so uncritical about the sources they use. When they use non-internet sources, they are generally biased, but mostly they rely on the internet to give them the "facts" about the issue they speak about. They often use Wikipedia as a source without even questioning the information that is found there. This article provides an example of reasons Wikipedia is a less than accurate source of information.
Today in class we talked about picking a topic for speeches. Since I work at a Christian university, I figured that I needed to deal with abortion as a speech topic in case someone wanted to choose it to talk about. Thankfully I did because at least half of the class wanted to make that the problem they were solving in their speeches. I explained to them that, first, abortion is a bad speech topic for their class because it's one of the polarizing topics. You're either REALLY against it or REALLY for it. There is rarely an in-between. Second, it's a bad topic because most of the arguments you hear on either side of the issue aren't really dealing with the arguments on the other side of the issue. Third, it's a bad topic, because if abortion is outlawed, you're stuck with millions of babies born to (primarily) unwed teenagers and that leads to a whole heap of new problems. Thankfully, they understood my argument and so now, instead of 10 speeches on abortion, I'm going to get speeches on teenage pregnancy, poverty, birth control, etc. Trust me, it's much better this way!

Deep Thoughts at Starbucks

Yesterday, I went to Starbucks to get some work done on my dissertation while my car was getting its oil changed. I went in and a boy, maybe 18 years old, who had some kind of mental handicap was in the front of the line trying to buy a drink. He was difficult to understand, but was showing the cashier his one dollar to see what drink he could buy with it. This was Starbucks and so it's no surprise that there was nothing for that price. As the cashier was explaining this to him, a woman who was waiting for her coffee to be made came over, handed the cashier a Starbucks card, and told her to get him whatever he wanted. He ordered his venti iced pumpkin latte and waited for it while the man in front of me and I ordered our coffees. It did occur to me to offer to pay for his coffee. This is a boy who couldn't buy what he wanted and, while I am by no means rich, I was paying $3 for an overpriced, but small, drink so I could afford another one. I didn't offer, however, and let someone else be the generous person in this situation for a couple reasons. First, I didn't want to spend any more money than I had to (the cheapskate defense). Second, I don't see the benefit of giving coffee to someone. It reminds me of a lady I used to work with who would whine about being broke, but went to a nail salon faithfully every week to get her nails done. Or the Christmas present charities where the Christmas list requests of the needy families includes XBox games. Or the woman who uses the food stamp money to buy food and supplies for the family, and uses cash to buy a large dog and all the accessories that go with that dog. Does the pleasure of a moment of indulgence do something for someone that taking care of practical needs does not? This boy was clearly troubled, as time went on it was clear he was a regular to this shop and he talked to the manager about "troubles" in his last visit not happening again and showed scars from a recent suicide attempt (debatable if it was real as the scar was on his upper arm).
What does it really mean to help someone out? This is something I'm pondering for my dissertation, but on a personal level as well. If I go out and work to aid needy people, do I bring with me all the practical supplies they need only, or do I throw in some toys and candy as well? I just don't know.

My Life's Motto

Hello all

Well, I've decided to join the blog bandwagon and, instead of sending out those annoying mass emails to everyone, write a mass blog to everyone and then it's up to you to read. Of course, knowing me some of you might be saying "I wonder how long she's going to keep this up," which is a valid point to which I will say, I have no idea. I just know that I enjoy reading little tidbits about other people's lives and sometimes have things that I want to say about my life, job, life's purpose, frustrations, etc. so this seemed like a fairly good venue in which to share. Eventually I'll add some pictures for those of you more visually oriented, but my cameras broken at the moment, and so you'll have to be content with words and the few "borrowed" pictures I get online.
To get this started, I will share with you my frustration of the moment. I am currently without healthcare. I just started my job and will have healthcare on October 1st, but as it is still September, I'm healthcare-less. This did not seem to be a problem at all until Jordan came down with a fever on Friday night. The fever continued through the weekend and after a fairly good day on Sunday, she woke up Monday with her fever over 100. Now I am faced with a dilemma. What do I do? Do I take her to the doctor she is scheduled to start seeing in October, or do we wait it out? I decide to wait it out. The fever still persists and Tuesday she's fairly sick and lethargic all day. Right before dinner, she took a nap and woke up dizzy with a huge headache. I decided to give in, after all this is my baby and I don't want her to suffer because I'm cheap and, for the time being, monetarily challenged. So I call the doctor on Wednesday and she wants to see Jordan. I go into the doctor's office in the afternoon and Jordan is bouncing off the walls with energy. No fever, no headache. Still, she has seemed a little better before in the week, so I pay for the visit and the doctor sees her for about 2 minutes, looks in the throat says "it's a little red." Asks about symptoms, none of which are usual for the flu, but she says there's been a flu going around (other kids have nausea, cold, etc. which Jordan doesn't have, but nevertheless it's the diagnosis I'm given). So she writes a prescription for Amoxicillin and sends me on my way. I'm left with another choice, fill the prescription and drug my daughter, or see where this all goes. I decide to wait again. I generally always choose the non-drug route if possible. Jordan is fine the rest of the day, and she wakes up this morning with no fever and no headache, ready to return to school. This kind of thing always happens to me. By the time I decide to get to a doctor, they do a cursory look-over without getting any real idea of what the problem is and send me on my way with a prescription (I once got a Valium prescription for a stiff neck, along with 2 other pain prescriptions). My question? Do we really need doctors? Yes, there are times when I'm glad doctors are around - ear infections, broken bones, serious illnesses need professional treatment. I just wonder about all those other things doctors do. I very rarely come away from a doctor's office feeling satisfied, and I very rarely choose to go to the doctor when I'm sick in the first place.
Well, I don't know if blogging about my frustrations helps or not, but at least now you all can share my pain for the moment!