Other than our world right now, I mean honestly, take any subject and tell me, without telling me, how nuts it is.
But I’m specifically talking about healthcare. I think COVID broke our healthcare system, ya’ll. And it was pretty broken before that whole fiasco. But it’s not only broken, it’s changing.
Case in point: being able to buy antibiotics without seeing a doctor. And no, I’m not talking about buying it from a mysterious stranger on the corner with a long trench coat, (though I suppose those do exist), but being able to buy certain medications online.
I really thought my flu spiel turned into a sinus infection. I used to get them all the time so I know what they feel, and smell, like. So when the signs started appearing I thought, “well crap. Now I’ll have to make a trip to Urgent Care.”
Only. I didn’t have to.
I watch “The Chicks on the Right” every morning. I start work at 7:00 AM and they’re an early show so it works out well. I really like how they are informative but also have a great sense of humor – makes the darkness that is our current political landscape bearable, you know?
Anyway, One of their sponsors is All Family Pharma. It’s an online pharmacy out of Florida that prescribes COVID medications, antibiotics, Zofran, Prednisone, Tamiflu … and a few other things. It’s hard to believe that you can buy antibiotics without seeing a doctor, but you can and I did. I wanted to have some on hand in case what I had really was a sinus infection – I had a plan B.
I’m the kind of person who HAS to have a plan B.
All they did was ask my weight and … I think that was it, actually. The antibiotic cost $20, the doctor’s fee was $20 and shipping was $10 through FedEx. Fifty bucks for peace of mind? Count me in!
On one hand, it’s cool you can buy “simpler” medications online without seeing a doctor. On the other hand, it’s WEIRD to be able to buy medications online without seeing a doctor. I’m grateful that it’s a choice, though I do worry about people taking advantage and ordering too many antibiotics. That’s not a good thing. You don’t want to get used to antibiotics so that when you need them, your body doesn’t respond to them. I wonder how the pharmacy prevents that from happening? The pharmacy also strongly recommends that you take a probiotic to counteract the antibiotic killing off the good bacteria in your gut.
It all seems so … underhanded and sneaky, in a way, to be able to do this. Or, maybe we’re so brainwashed into thinking that you have to go see a doctor, that this is the way it’s SUPPOSED to be when in fact, it’s really not that big of a deal?
I don’t know. I’ve worked in healthcare for the past 13 years – I’m brain washed.
(*Side note: got an email from the hospital today – since the number of flu cases is on the rise, they have implemented the mask policy for the unvaccinated. (*GASP*) If I were still in the clinic, I would have to wear a mask. I probably wouldn’t outside the clinic, but I would have to wear one in the clinic – therefore advertising the fact to everyone in the clinic my vaccination status. Yet another reason I will NEVER go back to the clinic).
Something else that is new to healthcare – private primary care physicians (PCP). We have one, maybe two, in my hometown that I know of. When I retire and we are no longer on my company healthcare, I think that’s what we’re going to do. Pay a monthly fee to have access to a private PCP. This is a doctor not beholden to a certain hospital and completely independent. They can do x-rays and ultrasounds in the office, so that would save you money, if you needed something like that.
I like the concept and again, I’m glad we have a choice. Whatever we can do to get away from the “establishment” healthcare system, I’m all for it. Whatever we can do to break the mold and make changes, I’m in.
I hope buying medications without seeing a doctor and seeing a private doctor outside the “system” collects steam and opens a door to more and more anti-establishment options. Something needs to change with our current system and I feel like these options are a step in the right direction.
The year was 2010 – and it was a tough year for our family. Kevin had his motorcycle accident, (the ER doctor said his pelvis was a “bag ‘O glass”), in April 2020 and by Christmas time, I couldn’t pass gas or have a bowel movement. (TMI, but we’re friends here, right?)
I remember being SO UNCOMFORTABLE when we went to Brandon’s Christmas concert at school, (he played the saxophone in band/Jazz), and I thought I was going to explode. I looked six months pregnant. I felt like a walking whale.
I couldn’t stand it anymore and went to the ER. They gave me a bunch of laxatives, kept me for a bit, nothing happened, they sent me home.
Let me repeat that, they pumped me full of laxatives and nothing happened. Now, my gut is full of liquid crap with no way to exit … after about a day of feeling like I was going to implode, I went back to the ER. They did a colonoscopy and prepped me for emergency surgery.
I had a blockage.
I mean – DUH. I tried to tell them that the last time I was in, but whatever, I was about to be fixed. The doc said, “No problem. The scar will only be about six inches long – you can still wear that bikini.”
DUDE – you clearly haven’t met me. This body hasn’t ever seen a bikini and never will, but I appreciated the positive attitude.
This all happened right smack dab during Christmas. I had my surgery shortly before Christmas and was in the hospital Christmas Eve/Christmas day. And my incision? Was gigantic. It went from the bottom of my belly button to nearly my lady bits.
I’m no math wizard, but my incision was CLEARLY longer than six inches. And I was stapled, so that was unbearably uncomfortable. But I pooped …. boy howdy, did I poop – eight times in the hospital, to be exact. And it was GLORIOUS. lol
It wasn’t until my post-op appointment w/ the general surgeon that flayed me open did I learn why my incision was much bigger than anticipated. I had not one, but TWO twists in my intestines and they ended up removing nearly three feet of intestine.
So. That was fun.
But being in the hospital during Christmas was awful, and sad. And I don’t wish that experience on anyone. (Don’t recommend having your intestines removed, either).
The boys were in high school when his happened. So, they were disappointed but it wasn’t like they missed a visit from Santa. I got home on the 27th and we had a late Christmas at that time.
Fast forward to now.
We had our family Christmas party on the 22nd. My family came over to our house – it was our boys, my mom, my brother and his family, and my sister’s sons. Mom brought over her signature “goodies”, (i.e. cookies, fudge, peanut butter cups, snowballs, etc- all homemade, by the way)., and Kevin and I made tacos, with all the trimmings, and little smokies. Mom brought over macaroni and potato salad. It was quite the spread (and I stressed about not having enough food … we had juuuust enough food).
After we ate, we played our (now) traditional Saran Wrap Ball game. Mom wraps up a bunch of small gifts, money and this time, she put numbers in the mix, up into a giant Saran Wrap ball. One person unwraps the ball, (you can’t tear it!), while another person rolls a pair of dice and tries to roll a double. Once a double has been rolled, the person unwrapping the ball must stop and hand it off to the next person while also handing off the dice to the next person to roll another double. It sounds easy, and it is, but the game actually lasts much longer than you think. When a prize falls out of the ball, the person unwrapping the ball can keep the prize.
The numbers are for picking a gift after the game is over. Everyone brought a “gag” gift with them to the party and after the ball had been completely unwrapped, we went down the line, starting at one, and people picked a gift of their choice. Other players had the option of stealing gifts along the way.
It was a lot of fun and I think everyone enjoyed themselves. I filmed the game while Kevin looked on.
But during the game, Kevin said he started to feel sick. I had no idea this was happening and I felt fine but when Monday rolled around, Kevin was down. He had a 101.9 fever and he was pretty much comatose. I made sure he was drinking fluids, giving him Tylenol and putting a wet cloth on his forehead to cool him down, but I felt fine, save for a dry cough.
Christmas Eve rolled around and yep … I’m feeling sick. I had chills and a fever but my fever never got as high as Kevin’s. We had to contact mom and the boys and let them know not to come over. We didn’t want to take the chance of infecting them, especially since we were running fevers. Kevin still had a slight fever on Christmas Eve, but not as bad as Monday.
By Christmas day, I was down. It had settled in my lungs and sinuses and I was coughing up a storm. Still a dry cough, but more consistent. We contacted the boys and had to tell them we needed to postpone Christmas.
What a terrible, sinking feeling that is to have to cancel something that people are looking forward to. I not only felt physically terrible, I just felt terrible, period, for being the reason it had to happen.
By Friday, my sinuses were a solid block of concrete – I couldn’t even blow a puff of air out of either nostril. I don’t know what happened, or what triggered such a reaction, but it was terrible. And of course, it happened while I was on the phone with my supervisor because yes, I still worked during this time. I didn’t feel bad enough to be bed bound and I work from home so … why not?
Neither one of us went to the doctor, and we’re still recovering though to be honest, neither of us are at 100% yet, (I’m still coughing up crap and sinuses are still pretty stuffy), but we were pretty sure we had the flu. Maybe it was COVID? Who knows. It doesn’t really matter at this point, I’m just GRATEFUL that no one else seemed to have gotten sick after the party and I’m especially grateful that my elderly mother didn’t catch anything. Getting sick, in general, is terrible and a challenge, but when you’re an elderly person, it can be really bad and this virus? Was pretty bad.
So, Christmas 2024 was a bust. It was a huge let down but what can you do? Viruses are out there and though you can make healthy life choices and cut down the number of times you get sick, you can’t avoid getting sick entirely. All you can do is get through it and try not to pass it on to another person.
Kevin went through some old paperwork a few days ago and sent me this snippet from a news story:
This snippet is so old it refers to flight attendants as stewardesses!
It’s a little small and certainly faint but if you press the control button on your keyboard and use the scroll button on your mouse, you can make it big enough to read.
This snippet is from 1991. Kevin had a work thing in San Francisco and I went with him. One of his (very pretty and very skinny) co-workers went, too, and she took her mom. So, the four of us went to San Francisco to keep him and his co-worker company.
I don’t remember what I did while Kevin was working, but I do remember hanging out with everyone afterward and touring the town. We rode the street cars, Walked (? – Or did we take a taxi?), to Lombard street, and walked around Fisherman’s Wharf and watched the sea lions sun bathing. It was a lot of fun, but I was four months pregnant with Blake and I do remember huffing and puffing up and down those streets and also feeling very self conscious of my growing belly, especially next to his attractive, skinny, co-worker.
This experience was only my second time flying. Kevin and I went to Cozumel, Mexico, for our honeymoon and I was terrified. Not so much of flying, but of leaving the country. I had never been out of the state of Missouri before that time, let alone the country. And let alone to a country where English-speaking people were the minority.
But back to San Francisco … I know we’ve been back to San Francisco since that 1991 trip … but I can’t remember the circumstances. I think it was a cruise port, or maybe it was a cruise stop, but I remember taking a taxi and doing an impromptu tour of the city, the Cliff Notes version. Our taxi driver was our tour guide and he was so awesome. I believe this happened in the early 2000’s sometime. So, we’ve seen San Francisco on the surface, but we haven’t really explored San Francisco thoroughly. We would likely never go back now, which is sad, because I remember it being very pretty and certainly interesting, but we have no desire to go to a city that has an app for visitors on places in the city to avoid drug needles and feces.
No thank you.
Plus, I think it’s criminal how Gavin Newsome has contributed, (he’s not the only one – there have been several throughout the years but he’s certainly the most current), to the downfall of the state of California.
Back to the 1991 trip.
The trip ended and we flew back home. I guess it was United Airlines. If Kevin hadn’t found this snippet I would have sworn it was American, because I feel like we’ve always flown American primarily because of the points reward credit card that we use 99% of the time, but it was United, apparently.
Other than this incident, I don’t remember anything weird about the trip. It seemed like it was pretty straight forward. But the moment we reached the Springfield airport, we kept circling the airport. Even with my flying inexperience, I knew something wasn’t right. Why weren’t we landing? What was going on? We circled the airport several times. People were getting antsy, myself included. And the more people got worked up, the more I got nervous. Again, I didn’t really know what was going on but based on the crew and passengers’ reaction, something was off.
Finally, the captain made the announcement: “Attention ladies and gentlemen, we’re having a little trouble getting the landing gear to cooperate. We’re circling the airport until we resolve this issue. We’ll keep you updated.”
Say what??
Okay. Now I could hear grumblings and low murmurs from the passengers. The aircraft’s nervous scale just shot up about 50 points. Were we going to have to land without wheels? How would that look? I guess it would “technically” be a crash landing? How were we supposed to use the oxygen thingies again?
My head is spinning and Kevin is trying to reassure me and I think he grabs my hand, but maybe I’ve seen too many airplane crash disaster movies over the years. The memory is a bit fuzzy.
What’s not fuzzy is I remember a female flight attendant crouching right next to me, (because I had the aisle seat), and lifting a trap door in the floor. I had no idea what I was looking at – mechanical stuff, but I swear I saw the landing gear wheels looking all cozy and docile still nestled within the belly of the airplane.
This may, or may not be true, because I don’t know the first things about planes, and especially back then, so the black thing I saw? Could have been a number of things, who knows if it was actually the airplane wheels.
The flight attendant reaches down into the planes guts and again, I swear I see her cranking something. I’m thinking, “Is she manually cranking the wheels down? Is she qualified to do that?! Is that even possible? I mean, I guess the airplane manufacturer would have some sort of fail-safe system in place for times like this, right??”
Shortly after she fiddled with whatever she was doing, we were able to safely land. I was nervous, but not really scared. I have faith. I’m a Christian. And I trusted God to land us safely – and He did.
But it was a bit of excitement and for a brief moment in time, we bonded with total strangers. Nervous laughter and weak smiles were shared on the plane once we touched down, (with wheels, I might add). And when we stopped at the terminal, everyone clapped with relief.
Apparently, we had been up in the air long enough to trigger a reporter showing up at the airport when we got off the plane. I have no idea why a reporter decided to pick me, out of all the people who got off the plane, to approach and ask questions, but as you can see, it happened. I remember speaking to a reporter, but I was still too amped up on adrenaline to remember what I said. Who knows if I said anything more intelligent than what you see in the news clip, knowing me, probably not. In fact, that poor reporter was probably thinking, “I couldn’t have picked a more articulate person to get a quote from?” Ha!
So, that’s my short claim to fame story. This experience hasn’t soured me on flying but I won’t lie, I was pretty nervous to fly the very next time after this incident.
Your turn:what has been your most memorable flying experience?
I mentioned I’ve been training at work. This activity is painful for me because I don’t have a lot of patience to begin with but when you train? PATIENCE IS REQUIRED. I’m feeling annoyed, I won’t lie. I’m getting impatient with this girls’ stupid-ish questions and her inability to retain what we talked about minutes before. Then I feel uber guilty because, good grief Karen, cut the girl some slack. She’s new. She doesn’t know what is happening and you’re bombarding her with a ton of information.
She’s one of these people who have to take notes on EVERYTHING. Which, I suppose, is better than never taking notes, but when you take too many notes, and then can’t function without referencing said notes, then it turns into a crutch; an excuse to stop using your brain and putting the puzzle pieces together. The problem with this approach to learning anything new is … what happens if the thing you have to deal with falls outside your carefully crafted notes?
But it’s okay, everyone has to start somewhere and I’m throwing a lot of information at her, it’s normal, right?
Yes and no. A person’s ability to learn also comes from his/her own personality. How receptive is she? How intelligent is she? Does she have the ability to multi-task, think on her feet, problem solve?
Everyone says they can multi-task, but that’s a lie. Not very many people can ACTUALLY multi-task. It takes a special sort of brain to juggle several things at once and still focus enough to get these multi tasks done.
I hate to say it, because I’m not completely convinced it’s a real thing, but I sort of think she has ADD. She is constantly talking about her dogs, shushing her dogs, letting her dogs out, letting her dogs in, she’s hot, she’s cold, she has a headache, she needs to throw another pod on her Keurig …. it goes on and on. And I think she KNOWS she’s like this because I will be talking, she interrupts me to make a comment about the above distractions and then she will reign herself in and say, “I’m sorry, yes, so getting back to A, B, C …”
I just stop and let her regroup her brain cells when she interrupts me. But I would be lying if I didn’t say it didn’t drive me crazy. Training is not a game, it’s generally not fun, it’s draining and after 11 weeks of training, I’m OVER IT. So, my patience threshold is at an all-time low. I’m trying very hard not to take it out on this girl, she’s actually very sweet and it’s hard to be truly annoyed with her … but then, it’s the over-the-top enthusiasm, too.
“Oh my gosh, I’m just soooo excited to be here!” Or, “This is exactly what I’ve been wanting to do!.” Or, “I love this sooo much.” Or, “I can’t believe I’m here right now getting to do this.” Or, “This is the best, I JUST LOVE THIS!.” Or, “This is my dream job!”
Look …
I appreciate your enthusiasm, really. It’s sort of refreshing to talk to someone who WANTS to learn and LIKES to work. You definitely don’t see that often nowadays, but girl, please, can you tamp down your overly-excited Chihuahua behavior about 15 notches because … we’ve crossed over into the weird zone and now it sort of sounds like a Stepford wife that is short circuiting.
I’ve actually had to ask her to take a deep breath, slow down, read before clicking, and I did sort of have to bark at her, (to continue the dog reference), … I feel like I’m trying to corral a 5-year old who drank one too many root beers. It’s exhausting and it’s no longer cute, or flattering, now it’s just annoying. Can we get back to training so we can get you up and running and I can stop talking to you and stop working 10:30-7:00, (because I HATE this shift), and get back to my regularly scheduled working life?
Most importantly -F.O.C.U.S
She has three dogs, and they are very cute, (how do I know? Because she posted a picture of them after they got back from the groomers), and I get that dogs, pets, are some people’s children, I get that. But when you’re constantly having to pull your attention away from work to reprimand them, talk to them, shush them, takec are of them, or, at the end of the business day, interrupt to me to say, “Daddy’s home! Go get daddy!”, I feel like I might say something I will regret, throw my computer against the wall or roll my eyes so hard I might need to seek medical help.
COME ON.
I’m all about having fun, posting funny memes and having a laugh, but when our primary purpose of spending time together is to get some work done, I’m gonna need you to get serious, retain what I’m telling you and focus – we have a job to do.
My mom lives for crafts. She has been into crafts since she was a little girl. And she’s very good at them. She has made hundreds, (1,000s?) of things in her lifetime. She’s entered her crafts into our county fair for decades and has won countless ribbons. She participates in craft booths at least twice a year selling her wares. In fact, her Fall craft fair, people recognize her and tell her that they’re glad to see her as they were looking for her to buy her crafts. One of the reasons people like her crafts, other than she has cute stuff, is that she’s cheap. I tease her that she needs to make a sign for her booth – Barb’s Five and Dime.
If you’ve ever gone to craft shows you know that the majority of the booths are nice crafts for a nice price. Mom’s crafts are small and cheap and people love them because they can buy something from the craft fair and take home as a souvenir and not have to skip dinner in order to pay for it. And after doing crafts for so many decades, she has a feel for what sells and what doesn’t.
She’s figured it out.
My mom is a crafty woman. (See what I did there?)
I like crafts, I don’t love crafts. And I don’t really know why. I enjoy putting stuff together but I guess I just don’t have the patience to follow through. I would rather read/write than do something with my hands.
When dad died and mom and I started hanging out every week, I got back into crafts. It gave us something to do together, (after we watched Survivor), and I confess, I quite enjoy it. Not only because of the time I spend with my mom but because it’s relaxing and it’s quite satisfying to complete something for a change. But don’t be too impressed – the “crafts” I do are cross stitch and diamond painting. (Which is paint-by-number with beads – and it sounds as hard as it is). I definitely don’t do any crochet, knitting, painting and everything else my mom does. My sister has gotten into macramé, which is making a comeback, and she’s quite good at it. in fact, look at these cuties that she plans on putting in mom’s booth in the Fall:
I plan on putting some of my crafts in her shows as well. I’ve made quite a few diamond “painting” ornaments and will make a few wall hangings and coasters, too. (I need to get busy though – October is coming fast!!) My stuff is not nearly as cute as my mom and sister’s but they’re small and I’ll price them cheap so someone can take it home and toss it in the trash when they get tired of looking at it.
All of this to say, a craft conference was never, nor would ever, be on my radar. But it was on mom’s radar and when she asked me if I wanted to go to a Pinner’s Conference with her I was like, “say what?”
So, I do what any good person with a world wide web at her fingertips would do – I Googled it.
It’s a conference where you and your friends can hang out and shop crafts all day. Or, you can take craft classes, create something and take it home, or, you can sit down at make/take tables and make a craft and take it home. If you’re into crafts, this is the place for you.
It looked fun and I’m always up for a road trip so I said, “sign me up!”
You have to purchase tickets and if you want to take a class, you have to sign up and pay more money for the class, this is on top of the normal admission ticket. This is to pay the teacher and for the supplies you’ll need for the class. Mom and I took two classes, a needle punch class and a calligraphy class. When you check in for your class, you get a packet of the supplies you’ll need for the class.
Mom and I drove up to the Kansas City conference the night before. When I started searching for hotels, I started to hyperventilate because WOW, the cost of hotel rooms nowadays … wow. I pulled up the venue on Google maps to try and see if there were any hotels near the venue, again, not hoping for a good deal but a decent deal would be nice at this point. And I was pleasantly surprised to see a Quality Inn quite literally across the highway from the venue. And the price was $180 per night, which mom and I split, so it wasn’t that bad, quite honestly.
And we were pretty happy with the room, too.
Mom loved the window seat and took possession of that right away. Ha!
(As you can see, she brought her WIP, (work-in-progress) craft. Mom is NEVER without a WIP. You never know when you have time to craft!)
Saturday morning rolled around and we arrived as they were letting people in. There were a lot of people, but not so many that you felt closed in and gasping for fresh air.
Or, maybe that’s just me.
We walked around and looked at each booth – three times – throughout the course of the day. I ended up buying a small bottle of homemade laundry detergent, (that I’ve yet to use but plan on using it on our towels) and mom bought Cynthia the macramé heart pattern, (that you see she has already made several of in the picture above).
In addition to booths, the Pinner’s conference has classes and they were located against the back of the conference room and in another section off to the right of the above picture.
We went to our first class, the needle punching class,
and though it was fun, I hated it. lol I felt like I was murdering the material by punching large holes into it to get the yarn in and though it didn’t look half bad by the end of the class, (no, I didn’t finish it – we were making coasters), I knew there was no way I was going to take it up again and … sorry mom, don’t read this part … I threw the kit away when we got home. It just wasn’t my cup of tea. But I’m glad we did it and it was fun to take a class together.
But remember, my hand/eye coordination is .. poor at best, so trying to do ANY crafts in a room full of die-hard crafters was intimidating. But I’m glad I tried it.
We walked around some more after our class and we made a list of booths we wanted to return to at the end of the day. We were interested in their stuff but we didn’t want to carry bags around all day. One booth was selling this funky-looking tube thing that you can take on camping trips, or just use outside, I guess, and mom had to try it out.
I was actually interested in it since Kevin and I go camping quite a bit, but it was just too weird and too expensive and I can’t even imagine what Kevin would think if I brought something like this home so I passed on it. But it looked comfy. Mom doesn’t look very comfy here, probably because people were walking by and stating at her, LOL, but she said it was comfy.
Our calligraphy class was the last class of the day and by the time it rolled around, mom and I were getting pretty tired. We likely won’t take a class at the end of the day next year. I didn’t take any pictures at the calligraphy class but I enjoyed it. I do get frustrated by calligraphy though, mainly because I’m left handed and it was hard to follow a right-handed tutorial. Our instructor said there were left-handed tutorials on YouTube so of course I looked it up. Here’s one to whet your appetite if you’re a lefty like myself:
The instructor was entertaining but a bit ditzy, in my opinion, and I started to lose a little patience with her, and the class, after about 15 minutes. But like I mentioned, it was getting late in the day and I was getting tired so that probably had a lot to do with it. We actually got a pot of ink and an actual nub, which I haven’t played around with yet, I’ve always used brush pens, so I thought that was cool. Again, I’m glad we took the class but I could have learned just as much, if not more, watching a YouTube video.
Another thing that was cool at the conference were all the make-and-take it booths. I think mom and I are going to focus more on the make-and-take it booths than the classes next year. (Yes – we’re already talking about next year!) They are a little expensive but they’re so fun as we get one-on-one attention from the vendor and we get to bring home a fun craft. Mom and I participated in a “chalk” painting class and these were our projects:
I really enjoyed making this. (The one on the left is mine). I could see myself doing more stencil projects like this because well, they’re easy. lol
By the time our calligraphy class was over, the place was emptying out and it was time to go back to the hotel. We were exhausted and ready to relax.
It was a really fun trip and it was even more fun because it was with my mom. I’m really looking forward to the Pinner’s Conference next year, (the end of January!) and hopefully we can talk my sister in coming with us. We’ll see. We have a few months to work on her!
It’s hard to believe that we’re coming up on four years post-COVID. In some ways, it seems like it happened ten years ago, in some ways, it feels like it’s still happening, on some level.
I know a lot of people have mixed, and strong, feelings about the man-made pandemic, and that’s okay. We all have unique experiences, we all went through some very uncomfortable, sad and in some cases, horrific times. All I can relay about COVID is my personal experience and my personal thoughts and opinions – feel free to agree, or disagree. We’re all unique individuals and are entitled to process traumas in different ways. My way of thinking is not right, your way of thinking is not wrong – but my goal is to process these sorts of events with my eyes wide open.
I hope you will, too.
To catch those up just joining us, (thanks for the subscribes, by the way!), I work in healthcare. I used to be a medical assistant in Neurosurgery, yes, brain surgeons, and it was the most challenging, and the most rewarding, experience of my life. I did that for 12 years. Now, I work from home with the precertification department, meaning, I run testing, like MRI’s, CT’s, and other testing, through the patient’s insurance company to make sure they know about the test and agree to pay their portion of the bill.
It sounds boring because it is boring, but it’s a necessary step in patient care.
Health insurance – now that’s a topic for another day.
As you can imagine, working in healthcare during the height of COVID was … challenging. Especially since I didn’t agree with the vaccine mandates, and still don’t agree with vaccine mandates, (they have since lifted the COVID vaccine mandate at my hospital – is anyone shocked?). and to me, it made zero sense to subject myself to an experimental vaccine for a disease that had a 99% recovery rate for healthy people. I had to fight the hospital. I filed a religious exemption and was denied. I then appealed it and to my utter surprise, it was approved. I really think that by the time I appealed my exemption, the hospital was bleeding employees, they were leaving because they didn’t want to get the jab, and the hospital felt like they couldn’t lose anymore employees and approved me.
I’m quite sure it wasn’t because I was a valuable employee, it all came down to numbers – let’s not kid ourselves.
Anyway. I ended up staying. Filed a religious exemption against the annual flu vaccination, which is still a requirement to this day, and they approved that, too. And as long as they continue approving my exemptions, I’m happy to continue working for this company.
Now that COVID is behind us, for the most part, a lot of really disturbing information has come out about the experimental jab. “Vaccine injuries,” they are calling it. In many cases, people have died from the complications of the injection, whether you want to admit it not, it’s been happening.
I subscribe to an email newsletter: Coffee and COVID. Jeff is a lawyer and it’s interesting to get a legal slant on the COVID madness surrounding us.
“The pandemic is behind us, but the propaganda, the psyops, and the relentless drumbeat of bad news continues. My mission is to deliver truth and light in an entertaining and optimistic way that you can safely share with people you love who haven’t yet seen the light.” says Jeff.
It’s also refreshing to keep on top of the COVID fallout because have you heard any follow up news about COVID in the, (MSM), main-stream media?
I didn’t think so.
Jeff also writes witty, and informative, opinions and takes on all of the other craziness in the world right now, too. He often brings a smile to my face. I highly recommend his newsletter.
I don’t bring all of this up to scare you, though it is scary to read about, but to inform you – there is a lot of crap that is going on in the world and you can’t count on the MSM to inform you. It’s better to know what we’re dealing with so we can come up with a realistic defense if/when it directly impacts our personal worlds – again.
Ignorance is NOT always bliss.
Here is an interview between Tucker Carlson and Bret Weinstein. I really enjoy listening to Bret, I feel smart if I’m able to keep up with his commentary, (ha!), and though there are some things I disagree with him about, I do appreciate how he takes the time to articulate his point-of-view and with how thorough he analyzes an issue. This interview is Bret’s take on the WHO’s plan to force everyone to give up their bodily autonomy and hand it over to the WHO on a silver platter so they can dictate what is “good” for us and of course, the good of the people in general. It’s scary stuff and something you would read in a story like “1984” and yet, here we are. It’s worth a listen.
A few thoughts:
“Pharma is healthy when people are sick.” A lot can be said for this simple statement but in a nutshell, Pharma is big business and in order for them to stay in business, they need people to remain sick. If that doesn’t rock any trust you might have had in pharmaceuticals, or the healthcare industry as a whole, you’re really not paying attention. It’s a shame that COVID damaged healthcare so much, but perhaps we should have been paying closer attention to what Pharma has been doing all along.
“Pharma created something truly beautiful with the mRNA technology.” Interesting. I never really thought that the technology could be used for good. And perhaps at some point in time, it might be able to manipulate people’s DNA, trick it, into repurposing cells to help the body’s natural way of producing what it needs to produce but for some reason doesn’t produce, like insulin, as Bret suggests. I suppose the question would be, would Pharma be motivated to use their “beautiful” technology for something like that? I guess it depends on how much the profit margin would be.
The part about your heart not repairing itself … didn’t really surprise me but alarmed me. I wonder how many people know this? Once our heart is damaged, it’s damaged forever and if your heart is not pumping at full capacity, then it will ultimately shorten your life. His hypothesis on why these athletes have been collapsing on the fields because they’re likely pushing damaged hearts to the limit makes perfect sense, too. The fact that these “vaccines” targeted the hearts of so many, and that so many people’s lives have been and will be, impacted by this government over reach … it’s truly mind blowing when you look at the big picture. These people that pushed this crap on to us, that ruined so many lives, that killed so many people, truly should be in jail. It’s pure evil what they have done to people.
The fact that Pharma thought they had the media in their back pocket and were confident they could sell us anything they wanted to sell us because the media would have their backs was also very telling. And the fact that it was podcasts, Elon Musk buying Twitter, and alterative platforms and news sites like Rumble and NewsMax that thwarted their plans also demonstrates how crucial it is to have alterative sources to go to. Because if we allow MSM to control the flow of information … think how much power they would have over us. It’s mind boggling, and terrifying, honestly.
“The measures that would have allowed them to silence the podcasters, to mandate various things internationally in a way that would prevent the emergence of a controlled group that would allow us to see harms clearly, that’s the reason I think that people, that want to move on from thinking about COVID, maybe stop thinking of COVID, but do start thinking about what has taken place in respect to medicine, public health, Pharma and ask yourself the question, given what you now know would you want to relive the COVID pandemic without the tools that allowed you to ultimately in the end see clearly that it didn’t make sense to take another one of these shots, or your kids to take the shots, we want those tools, in fact we need the tools,”
In a nutshell, Bret is saying that we had enough tools, THIS TIME, at our disposal during COVID to push enough doubt in enough people and then to spread this doubt, that we were able to push back on the narrative so that it stopped the hemorrhage from being fatal. If we had not had those tools, that dissension, I’m betting our world would look a whole lot different right about now. This is why it’s CRUCIAL that you get your news from different sources. You can’t trust anything anyone tells you so it’s up to you to use due diligence and educate yourself on what is truly happening so that you can make informed decisions when it comes to you and your family.
Pay special attention to what Bret says about what the WHO is proposing to do if/when another pandemic happens. The WHO is trying to give itself authority to tell you what you can and not take, to demand that you take what it thinks you need, to doctor documents so that you may not travel freely if you do not conform to their demands and to box you in so tightly that you can not live a free life. You will be at the mercy of those that are doing what is “right” for the “greater good.” However, because we have these tools, these voices and platforms that dare to speak out, to ask questions, to bring these evil agendas to people’s attention, the WHO was forced to back off and lie to the camera in order to dilute it’s intentions.
For now.
This, THIS, is why we must never forget COVID. Because if we forget what they did, what they are trying to do to do to us when future tragedies strike, it will make it that much easier to squash us under their thumbs like the ants they think we are.
When Kevin first proposed getting chickens I thought he was joking. But then when he looked me in the eye and told me he was serious, I thought he had lost his mind.
Chickens? I don’t like animals, why would we get chickens?!
And before you animal lovers sit back, cross your arms and sniff in disdain, I didn’t say I hate animals, I don’t like animals. I don’t like owning them. I don’t like how noisy, smelly and costly they are. I don’t like the work it requires to take care of them. Call me lazy, I won’t argue, but I like animals if someone else owns them.
Kevin wanted to get chickens for a few reasons:
He wanted to see if he could raise chickens. He wanted the challenge. He’s crazy like that.
He was curious to see what it would take to raise chickens – what kind of food would they eat? Where would he house them? Could he keep them alive and safe from predators?
If, (when), the world goes to Hell in a handbasket, was he capable of being self-sufficient enough to provide for his family?
We’ve always been fascinated by people who live off grid. What a life that must be! To actually set yourself up in a house, away from the city, and build an energy infrastructure so you didn’t have to rely on the government for power, sewer, water … to grow your own food so that you didn’t have to rely on artificial preservatives, grocery stores … TAXES.
I watched a few YouTubers that have done exactly that – built a life for themselves completely off grid. It looks like a lot of work, (remember – I’m inherently lazy) and wow – you spend all of your waking moments thinking about where your next meal is going to come from and making sure you have enough basic supplies to live semi-comfortably.
But I could do it. I wouldn’t WANT to do it, but I COULD do it. And I KNOW Kevin could do it. In fact, I think he would THRIVE on it because he’s one of those men who thrive on challenges and has the smarts to just figure it out. He’s one of the best problem solvers I’ve ever met in my life. He’s also very handy and can pretty much figure out how to build, or how to fix, anything.
He’s a Jack-of-all-trades kind of man.
I think anticipating the world to end might have been the biggest deciding factor to actually buying the chickens. In case you haven’t been paying attention to all of these food plants catching fire, the skyrocketing price of food and how the government has started the subliminal, (and perhaps not so subliminal) message of EAT BUGS, THEY ARE GOOD FOR YOU campaign, it feels a little like our government is trying to starve us out of a hostage situation.
Not to mention, the crap – the additives, the preservatives – the government puts in our food and water, (like Fluoride in our water), “for our health” and well, you have to wonder if that is one of the many reasons people are sick and need medications.
(Medications means Big Pharma – ah – definitely a topic for another day).
But, back to the chickens.
He bought six chickens. And Oh. My. Gosh. They were SO CUTE when they were little!!! Cheeping away in the box he set up for them. Sunning themselves under the heat lamp. Kevin watched a lot of YouTube videos and spoke to some people at the Farm/Feed stores about how to care for the chickens. He worked hard to make sure they were well cared for and they thrived.
He did have one, the runt in the group, that wasn’t growing as fast as the others and when he did some research he learned that the runt had “poopy butt.”
And henceforth, that was the chick’s name, by the way.
Sometimes chicks will not be able to drop their poop and it sticks to their butts. As you can imagine, this causes problems and some chickens die if it’s not dealt with. So. Kevin went in and dug the poop out and the chicken not only survived, he/she thrived.
He’s nothing if not committed. Ha!
The chicks stayed in their box for a few weeks (?) and then graduated to a bigger, plastic tub and stayed in the tub for another few weeks (?), (I’m estimating the time here because I didn’t really pay much attention to his “projects”), while he worked to make a “home” for them.
I don’t believe I’ve mentioned that they currently live at the rental house across the street from us. The same house that LeRoy and the boys are currently living in. Not sure how the boys actually felt about co-habituating with chickens, I think they reacted to dad’s “experiment” the same way as me, just shook their heads and moved on with their lives, but that’s where they live now.
The rental house has a fenced in back yard and a shed. (It also has a pool which I worried about – what if the chickens fall in? Can they swim? Will the chemicals morph them into a science fiction character?). So he worked on making the shed into their home. He made a little door for them to go in/out and some ladder thingie for them to roost on when they got larger. He rigged up some sort of contraption for them to get water from, (like a pipe with holes in it), though ultimately I think he figured out it didn’t work that great. But my point is, he built them a home and when they were finally big enough to let out of the plastic tub and run around the backyard, they were living like chicken kings and queens.
We watched them grow up into ugly, red chickens. And then we watched with bated breath to see how many, if any, roosters we may have had because believe it or not, you can’t really tell right away.
I was especially nervous about the roosters because we live within the city limits and we’re not supposed to have roosters within the city limits. Now usually I’m not a big government rule kind of girl but this one I understood – our neighbors would not appreciate waking up every morning to a chorus of crowing roosters, I’m sure.
I didn’t want to wake up to a chorus of crowing roosters.
Kevin started experimenting with what to feed them. He often took our leftovers (a bucket we fondly labeled, the slop bucket), over to the chickens to see if they would eat it. They pretty much ate everything but they didn’t like watermelon or carrots but they LOVED bread.
Chickens after my own heart. Ha!
And of course, they LOVE bugs. In fact, quite by accident, Kevin had a bucket underneath an outside house light when he discovered that the bugs that swarm these lights at night would drop into this bucket, (I guess because they got too close to the light??), and for some reason, couldn’t figure out how to get out so by the next day, the bottom of the bucket was full of live bugs.
Kevin would take that bucket to them, dump the bugs on the ground and the chickens had a bug smorgasbord – they went NUTS for it.
As I said, they live like chicken kings/queens. It’s also a great way to get rid of the bugs.
Fast forward – the chicks grew up and we didn’t have one, two, or even three roosters, we had FIVE. So, five out of the six chicks he bought were roosters which meant we had to get rid of them. He advertised them on Craig’s List and an Asian lady showed up to take them. I’m sure they ended up on someone’s dinner table, but you know what? I don’t want to know … because I watched these things grow up – lalalalala .. moving on.
(Side note: we didn’t truly know the chickens were roosters until one morning Brandon was in the sun room and a few of them crowed. ha!)
So. We were left with one lone red hen. And she is a pretty hen, too. Fat and spoiled. She follows Kevin around whenever he goes into the backyard. It’s pretty cute, actually. But we still wanted eggs, so Kevin went to some lady .. I think, details are hazy, remember, I can’t keep up with his projects, and he bought five more hens. These were teenage hens, grown enough to know they were hens but not mature enough to lay eggs.
Several weeks went by and … no eggs. Kevin wasn’t sure what he was doing wrong. He was feeding them well, they had a nice shed/roost to sleep away from predators, they didn’t seem stressed, they could get in/out of their house any time they pleased … and still, no eggs.
They were officially on probation. No eggs = chicken soup. (Not that I think Kevin could bring himself to kill the chickens to eat. He said he could but …. I know the man, no way!)
Finally, FINALLY, after weeks of waiting, one hen laid an egg. And a light bulb went on over the other hens’ heads and suddenly, we were getting four/five eggs every day. We had so many eggs at one point that we gave them away to Kevin’s parents and my mom. We had a lot of eggs because I couldn’t bring myself to eat any. And trust me, I LOOOOVE eggs. I don’t know, I just … couldn’t do it. It weirded me out. Which I know sounds stupid because, come on, where do you think eggs in the supermarket come from Karen, but it took me several weeks of making sure Kevin didn’t keel over from food poisoning before I cracked the shell, (see what I did there?) and started eating the eggs.
They’re quite tasty, actually. The yolks are a bright yellow, much brighter than the store-bought eggs. I usually eat three eggs on Mondays, Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Yes, on those specific days because I have an eating schedule … more on that in a future post. (I do Intermittent Fasting – STILL).
So now we have a steady stream of farm-fresh eggs from our grandchickens. That’s what we call our chickens because I’m starting to doubt we will actually have any grandchildren the ways things are going now.
Which brings us back to why we wanted our own chickens to begin with.
The coordinated efforts of the US billionaires to decrease our population by tainting our food because of the climate change cult.
STOP.
I can see you rolling your eyes. And maybe I’m completely nuts for going down this rabbit hole but … WHAT IF IT’S TRUE? I mean, think about it, our food is already being injected with all kind of growth hormones, additives, preservatives, CRAP, and animals are being genetically modified in order to produce more, more, MORE food, why is it crazy to think that the elites see an opportunity to inject more nefarious crap? Like, the mRNA from the experimental jab, for example?
You know it’s funny, but when I went to research this topic, I came up with pages and PAGES of “news” sites that debunked the fact that Bill Gates tweeted anything about putting mRNA into our food supply and yet, you see that he did in the above video. Granted, he didn’t specifically mention mRNA but does it really matter? Why do we need our food injected with anything at all?
And it makes me wonder if the cause of a lot of diseases, cancers, aren’t somehow linked to the crap that the government, who care for it’s people and chant like zombies that it’s for the “greater good” aren’t somehow poisoning it’s citizens?
Call me crazy, but I smell rotten meat.
I’m all about getting my news from different sources because let’s face it, all news organizations, whether they are left, right, independent, have agendas. So it’s important to get news from several different sources and make up our own minds, right? But when the media starts censoring these dissenting voices, my BS antenna quivers. What’s the dealio? Why the secrecy? Why the determination to censor people who are simply asking questions and/or seeking answers?
Why indeed?
And then, look what happened to Amos Miller, the Amish farmer who has been fighting the government, FOR YEARS, because he refuses to give his livestock any artificial crap and relies solely on decades of tried and true farming techniques to produce quality food for his family and his community? The government hates people like Amos Miller because they can’t control him. They can’t keep him under their thumbs so they do what any totalitarian government does, they try to shut him down by swatting his property and confiscating his food.
“Today, the Department of Agriculture of the State of Pennsylvania suddenly came, without notice, raided Amos’ farm, and detained everything Amos had in the farm’s freezer.
The state’s rules require advance notice, reasonable time frames for inspections, and a showing of credentials, none of which occurred here. Instead, the state unlawfully obtained a search warrant based on materially false statements in an affidavit by a high-ranking state official in an agency with a known grievance against independent farmers like Amos, and, after the raid and finding no evidence of wrongdoing, then illegally ordered detained every item of food in one of Amos Miller’s coolers, including buffalo meat not even subject to federal regulation. “
This is where you can support #AmosMiller the Amish farmer targeted by the state of Pennsylvania who unlawfully raided & impounded his food products in an effort to bankrupt him before he can get legal relief. #FoodFreedom is critical to our future.https://t.co/14ZpVK0w2H
If they can do this to an Amish farmer, what can they do to YOU?
Miller’s Organic Farm seize really got Wendy Bell fired up, too. I highly recommend following Wendy Bell’s podcast on Rumble. She’s a conservative talk-show host who is not afraid to tell it like it is. She reminds me a lot of a female Rush Limbaugh. It’s also fun to watch what goes on behind the scenes of her podcast. I hope you’ll take a moment to watch her, she says what we’re all thinking and it’s REFRESHING.
Okay, back to our chickens.
These issues? The messing with our food supply, the swatting of innocent farmers just trying to make a living and produce quality, drug-free food, this is why we want to do something – I realize it’s a minor thing, minute really in the grand scheme of things, but we often think, could we figure out how to be self-sufficient in an end-of-the-world scenario?
I’d like to think so, but … probably not. But hey, at least we would have eggs to eat.
Write From Karen 