Its odd the last few years have been in a state of flux.
Not knowing what to do, not knowing how to do it, not knowing if what I am doing is the right thing. I need to move forward, to stop just standing still just hoping that no one will notice that I am really just afraid of what comes next. Of the hard choices I have to make since no one else will. About the only things I don't need to 'change' are my job (THANK GOD) and my kids. Everything else is up for grabs.
I have always said I want to finish school. So do I start that now? How do I start that? How do I manage that? I am back to being a single Mom... and in there lies another choice. Honestly I don't like being a single Parent but at the same time I really am not sure I know how to be a parent with anyone else. Even when I have had a partner it was never a full partnership. Then there is money, the kids, school, work, and play. Medical things that I have been putting off.
So do I start with a list of things to do? A game plan? I guess right now it just starts with a list then a game plan. So list, of things that need to be done, that I would like to have done, things that I/we need and things that I/we want. Wow looks like I have work to do.
Friday, September 26, 2008
Friday, May 16, 2008
This week…
This week…
Has been such a mixture of all kinds of emotions and experiences in some ways it has really been a bad week and in others it’s been a very rewarding week.
Everything from very simple pleasures like the girls washing my truck or listening to Fiona talk to her new pink dog named Fifi “no Fifi you don’t need a leash you are a stuff animal” and then having her tell me “Mommy I have powers to make my stuff animals real!”
To receiving praise and acknowledgements for talents that I have and haven’t really been using a lot of lately and feeling very proud of myself. Sometimes it is the littlest things that make your day like someone telling you that you did well.
To extremely bad moments this week like the realization that things will never be the same and that truly is really a very sad thought.
To also getting bad news at work, I interviewed for a job (kind of a promotion) and I didn’t get it. In the whole scope of things I still have a job and they love the job I am doing but very disappointing to say the least.
To working for www.handsonbayarea.org the company I work for organized a “Community Day” where we shut down the offices. Everyone from the President to Sales people to Warehouse people went out to different projects around the Napa/ Sonoma county area and did everything from painting to pulling weeds to sorting food for the local food banks. IT was HOT! It was a GREAT day it really felt good to do something not work but still work. If that makes any sense at all I am not sure that it does.
That’s my week in a nutshell. It was all over the place.
Has been such a mixture of all kinds of emotions and experiences in some ways it has really been a bad week and in others it’s been a very rewarding week.
Everything from very simple pleasures like the girls washing my truck or listening to Fiona talk to her new pink dog named Fifi “no Fifi you don’t need a leash you are a stuff animal” and then having her tell me “Mommy I have powers to make my stuff animals real!”
To receiving praise and acknowledgements for talents that I have and haven’t really been using a lot of lately and feeling very proud of myself. Sometimes it is the littlest things that make your day like someone telling you that you did well.
To extremely bad moments this week like the realization that things will never be the same and that truly is really a very sad thought.
To also getting bad news at work, I interviewed for a job (kind of a promotion) and I didn’t get it. In the whole scope of things I still have a job and they love the job I am doing but very disappointing to say the least.
To working for www.handsonbayarea.org the company I work for organized a “Community Day” where we shut down the offices. Everyone from the President to Sales people to Warehouse people went out to different projects around the Napa/ Sonoma county area and did everything from painting to pulling weeds to sorting food for the local food banks. IT was HOT! It was a GREAT day it really felt good to do something not work but still work. If that makes any sense at all I am not sure that it does.
That’s my week in a nutshell. It was all over the place.
Thursday, March 06, 2008
Just an Update... fast and dirty
Well the first two months of this year have been busy but not full to the point of no relaxing. We have been able to spend time with family and friends.
I attended the Sea Dogs Xmas exchange it was great fun as always. The kids and I also had a great time with 12th night!! My Mom got a puppy, which means we have a puppy when we go camping this summer. Then came, Brennan’s 16th birthday, which was celebrated with a small fanfare. We did manage to make it up to the snow for a great weekend at Snowflower, the place were we normally spend many a camping weekend. The kids were quite pleased to find out how Snowflower got its name… Whew that was just January!! February has been a little quieter, babysat for friends for the weekend, two birthday parties and one crab feed… I am helping to teach a sewing class.
March proves to be very FUN. I leave for Paris on the 12th I can’t wait I am going with a few friends and leaving the kids at home (NOT by themselves) it will be a good trip. Its not like I NEED to get away from them, this is a trip that has been in the works for about a year and a half… When I turned 39 I was bemoaning the fact that 40 was just around the corner so the idea that was posed by friends was to go on a big trip I chose Paris… And we are really doing it we opened it up to whom ever wanted to with us! There are seven people going should be so much fun, I love to travel. I had to get a new passport I have been haunting Paris websites. Making lists of places I would like to go, things that I would like to see, things that I have to pack. I will be flying by myself, something I NEVER have done. Spending a whole day in France by myself and truly I can’t wait!!!
I have to say it was odd making all the arrangements for this trip, choosing the seats on the airplane for one, looking for a hotel for one. When the idea was first broached I thought my hubby would be going with me but in the last year in a half we have separated. I also thought that my best friend/sister would be going also it was mostly her idea… But her ‘real’ sister is getting married this weekend across the country so two trips in the same month is not in the cards. My other best friend/sister is going but she will be arriving several days after me but I am so looking forward to this trip so I am on the plane by myself… which on one hand sounds pretty GREAT and on the other is sounds a little well scary.
The best news is I will have some kind of computer in Paris and internet access… so I will try and post to here while I am gone if for no other reason to keep it all straight in my own head.
I attended the Sea Dogs Xmas exchange it was great fun as always. The kids and I also had a great time with 12th night!! My Mom got a puppy, which means we have a puppy when we go camping this summer. Then came, Brennan’s 16th birthday, which was celebrated with a small fanfare. We did manage to make it up to the snow for a great weekend at Snowflower, the place were we normally spend many a camping weekend. The kids were quite pleased to find out how Snowflower got its name… Whew that was just January!! February has been a little quieter, babysat for friends for the weekend, two birthday parties and one crab feed… I am helping to teach a sewing class.
March proves to be very FUN. I leave for Paris on the 12th I can’t wait I am going with a few friends and leaving the kids at home (NOT by themselves) it will be a good trip. Its not like I NEED to get away from them, this is a trip that has been in the works for about a year and a half… When I turned 39 I was bemoaning the fact that 40 was just around the corner so the idea that was posed by friends was to go on a big trip I chose Paris… And we are really doing it we opened it up to whom ever wanted to with us! There are seven people going should be so much fun, I love to travel. I had to get a new passport I have been haunting Paris websites. Making lists of places I would like to go, things that I would like to see, things that I have to pack. I will be flying by myself, something I NEVER have done. Spending a whole day in France by myself and truly I can’t wait!!!
I have to say it was odd making all the arrangements for this trip, choosing the seats on the airplane for one, looking for a hotel for one. When the idea was first broached I thought my hubby would be going with me but in the last year in a half we have separated. I also thought that my best friend/sister would be going also it was mostly her idea… But her ‘real’ sister is getting married this weekend across the country so two trips in the same month is not in the cards. My other best friend/sister is going but she will be arriving several days after me but I am so looking forward to this trip so I am on the plane by myself… which on one hand sounds pretty GREAT and on the other is sounds a little well scary.
The best news is I will have some kind of computer in Paris and internet access… so I will try and post to here while I am gone if for no other reason to keep it all straight in my own head.
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
The Drill
Saturday was a different story…
Anyone who talked to me on Saturday got the totally hyped up version of how I was feeling. Sorry if I was over excited but it was VERY COOL!!!
The day started at 10:00am at the fire dept’s training grounds. We were briefed on what the emergency was and then we were given a few minutes to get some basic stuff taken care of, who was in charge and who were his minions. I become triage supervisor and Danni was one of the medical personal. My job: place my team with search and rescue teams, make sure that they had all the supplies they would need and help if needed. Danni would be part of the team that would take over as soon as we got them to the ‘hospital area’. Seeing as we found more wounded than we had teams I was called out to do some transporting of people.
We had five boys from St. Pats High school that were given parts to play and lots of really cool makeup to make it real. When the earthquake hit the kids were home alone and had been having a New Years Eve party some were in the house and some were in the abandoned apartment building next door, the kid that was the ‘owner’ of the house also was babysitting his younger sister (CPR Dummy).
The first victim we found was a DOA, (a CPR dummy) he was on the roof when the earthquake hit, we had to black tag him. We moved him later in the drill. I had to move two of the victims. One had an arm laceration LOTS of blood all over the place, I mean I was kneeling in it in order to attach him to the backboard for moving. (It wasn't until later in the day that I looked at my jeans and wondered what I had all over them...it was fake blood) He was a smaller than Brennan and I have to say it wasn’t easy to move him. The second person I had to check (but not move) was a leg injury with protruding bone… (Make up was so cool) Luckily with that one, another person on the team had it all together and all I needed to do was bring some splinting materials. The last move I helped with was a (CPR dummy) guy trapped under a pile of rubble. We were out of backboards so someone from the S&R team found some plywood and we duct taped the patient to the plywood with me wrapping the duct tape around the patient and the plywood, being careful not to put any duct tape on the patients skin but also making sure he didn’t slide around. My Poppop would have been proud of me, he used duct tape the way Greg G. uses glue! We got kudos for that idea as well as me securing pieces of wood to either side of him as bracing for his neck.
The last thing that we had to do before they called an end to the drill was make sure we had all the victims. The kids kept saying that we were missing someone named Matt. Finally we took the one kid who was least injured and had him identify the DOA we found in the beginning… He was a great actor really reacted well when we had to identify ‘Matt’… Yes they named him Matt since he fell off the top of a three-story building and was flat as a mat… get it? There was quite the discussion on weather or not to bring the ‘kid’ over to identify a body. Even though it was a drill and I knew were where going to be showing him a CPR dummy it was still something we in the medical tent talked about before doing it. It really made it real.
The drill was over when the ‘fire dept’ showed up to take over. We ended up with one green tags (walking wounded), two yellow tag (serious) and four red tags (critical) and one black tag (poor Matt). That was what we were supposed to have! Whoo hoo!
Then we debriefed afterwards, what worked, what didn’t… what we could have done better. All in all it was great. The kids took pictures of their makeup, and mourning poor Matt and Capt told them that they did have to take it off before school on Monday.
Then we were sworn in as disaster first responder volunteers. I have to say there was sense of duty to raise my right hand and swear to up hold the Constitution of the U.S and of California. Puts a lot of things into place. I don't know if I feel 100% prepared in the event, and I am not sure you can ever feel 100% prepared. I do know that I have the skills to help if needed and that feels good.
Anyone who talked to me on Saturday got the totally hyped up version of how I was feeling. Sorry if I was over excited but it was VERY COOL!!!
The day started at 10:00am at the fire dept’s training grounds. We were briefed on what the emergency was and then we were given a few minutes to get some basic stuff taken care of, who was in charge and who were his minions. I become triage supervisor and Danni was one of the medical personal. My job: place my team with search and rescue teams, make sure that they had all the supplies they would need and help if needed. Danni would be part of the team that would take over as soon as we got them to the ‘hospital area’. Seeing as we found more wounded than we had teams I was called out to do some transporting of people.
We had five boys from St. Pats High school that were given parts to play and lots of really cool makeup to make it real. When the earthquake hit the kids were home alone and had been having a New Years Eve party some were in the house and some were in the abandoned apartment building next door, the kid that was the ‘owner’ of the house also was babysitting his younger sister (CPR Dummy).
The first victim we found was a DOA, (a CPR dummy) he was on the roof when the earthquake hit, we had to black tag him. We moved him later in the drill. I had to move two of the victims. One had an arm laceration LOTS of blood all over the place, I mean I was kneeling in it in order to attach him to the backboard for moving. (It wasn't until later in the day that I looked at my jeans and wondered what I had all over them...it was fake blood) He was a smaller than Brennan and I have to say it wasn’t easy to move him. The second person I had to check (but not move) was a leg injury with protruding bone… (Make up was so cool) Luckily with that one, another person on the team had it all together and all I needed to do was bring some splinting materials. The last move I helped with was a (CPR dummy) guy trapped under a pile of rubble. We were out of backboards so someone from the S&R team found some plywood and we duct taped the patient to the plywood with me wrapping the duct tape around the patient and the plywood, being careful not to put any duct tape on the patients skin but also making sure he didn’t slide around. My Poppop would have been proud of me, he used duct tape the way Greg G. uses glue! We got kudos for that idea as well as me securing pieces of wood to either side of him as bracing for his neck.
The last thing that we had to do before they called an end to the drill was make sure we had all the victims. The kids kept saying that we were missing someone named Matt. Finally we took the one kid who was least injured and had him identify the DOA we found in the beginning… He was a great actor really reacted well when we had to identify ‘Matt’… Yes they named him Matt since he fell off the top of a three-story building and was flat as a mat… get it? There was quite the discussion on weather or not to bring the ‘kid’ over to identify a body. Even though it was a drill and I knew were where going to be showing him a CPR dummy it was still something we in the medical tent talked about before doing it. It really made it real.
The drill was over when the ‘fire dept’ showed up to take over. We ended up with one green tags (walking wounded), two yellow tag (serious) and four red tags (critical) and one black tag (poor Matt). That was what we were supposed to have! Whoo hoo!
Then we debriefed afterwards, what worked, what didn’t… what we could have done better. All in all it was great. The kids took pictures of their makeup, and mourning poor Matt and Capt told them that they did have to take it off before school on Monday.
Then we were sworn in as disaster first responder volunteers. I have to say there was sense of duty to raise my right hand and swear to up hold the Constitution of the U.S and of California. Puts a lot of things into place. I don't know if I feel 100% prepared in the event, and I am not sure you can ever feel 100% prepared. I do know that I have the skills to help if needed and that feels good.
Psychology
The last class not so much fun.
Last Tuesday we had our last class before the drill/test. It was a sobering class. In the other weeks Danni and I came home feeling jazzed and that we learned something new that if needed we could help someone or even just ourselves and our family. Tuesday’s class was different we focused on the psychology of disaster and the reactions that range from just taking it in stride to just completely coming unhinged. There is no “normal” response. We covered everything from how to deal with a dead body to how to protect ourselves from any blood-borne germs (HIV or hepatitis) or even air-borne germs (TB) and even food transferred illnesses like E. Coli.
We also touched on what is terrorism. I say touched because it was a lively discussion one that other people’s political views came into play. After 9-11 the U.S. Government defined terrorism as “the unlawful use of force and violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives.” Okalahoma bombing terrorism... Columbine not terrorism… other events were also discussed trying to make us see what is and what is not terrorism. Other things may feel like terrorism or them may cause you to feel terrorized but it doesn’t fall under the definition of terrorism as set by the U.S. Government. It was an emotional conversion one that made you think, debate with yourself. Danni and I talked about it later in the evening and really it is hard to separate the feeling of being terrorized with true terrorism.
They did keep blaming the Irish for the beginnings of terrorism, as we know it today. They were sighting things that happened, about Michael Collins time frame and the beginnings of the IRA, and I really wanted to argue that point but that wasn’t the point of the class. :)
Last Tuesday we had our last class before the drill/test. It was a sobering class. In the other weeks Danni and I came home feeling jazzed and that we learned something new that if needed we could help someone or even just ourselves and our family. Tuesday’s class was different we focused on the psychology of disaster and the reactions that range from just taking it in stride to just completely coming unhinged. There is no “normal” response. We covered everything from how to deal with a dead body to how to protect ourselves from any blood-borne germs (HIV or hepatitis) or even air-borne germs (TB) and even food transferred illnesses like E. Coli.
We also touched on what is terrorism. I say touched because it was a lively discussion one that other people’s political views came into play. After 9-11 the U.S. Government defined terrorism as “the unlawful use of force and violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives.” Okalahoma bombing terrorism... Columbine not terrorism… other events were also discussed trying to make us see what is and what is not terrorism. Other things may feel like terrorism or them may cause you to feel terrorized but it doesn’t fall under the definition of terrorism as set by the U.S. Government. It was an emotional conversion one that made you think, debate with yourself. Danni and I talked about it later in the evening and really it is hard to separate the feeling of being terrorized with true terrorism.
They did keep blaming the Irish for the beginnings of terrorism, as we know it today. They were sighting things that happened, about Michael Collins time frame and the beginnings of the IRA, and I really wanted to argue that point but that wasn’t the point of the class. :)
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