They Who Feel Too Much

They feel "too much".

They have the power to love deeply, to understand the plight of those they adore, to heal the heartache of whoever reaches out to them.

If they give you their heart, carry it carefully.  If you drop it, you shatter it like glass.  The pieces, moonlit teardrops on a broken face, are hard to fit back together.

When they feel hope is lost, they die some more.

Stop all the music.  Songs intensify the pain.

Let the death march begin. 

They don't "get over" being harmed.  It piles up inside, silently - where it cannot be seen, sometimes hidden even from their own sight.

A new lock is added to the door of their heart.

Woe unto those who offend one of these tender beings:  not because the tender beings wish pain upon them, but because of the ways of reaping and sowing.

I pray the torments that drive the hatred of the offenders will end when they make things right with the ones they have harmed, and that the broken hearts will somehow be mended by the miracle of love.

 Some related posts:

•  Are You Highly Sensitive?
• Feeling Un-Understood 
• Info on HSPs (Highly Sensitive Persons) (from someone else's blog) 
• The Empath Within - Are You A Highly Sensitive Person? (This is also from someone else's site.   It includes a helpful list by which you might see if you are an empath/highly sensitive person)

So, This Is "Christmas"

Early in the morning on Christmas Eve, I was in the hospital for blood tests.  This time, it’s a test for a.m. cortisol.  My doctor is trying to figure out if it is Addison’s disease.  I am praying it is just adrenal fatigue, which I have had and overcome before, albeit slowly, as it takes at least a year.

After I was done at the hospital, I went to the grocery store and bought some of my kids’s favorite fruits - mangoes, Oriental pears, pomegranates, boxes of mandarin oranges, and containers of raspberries.

I also bought a few special candies and chocolates, and bottles of Pom pomegranate juice - things my kids love but seldom get to have.

At home, I got my day’s worth of work done before 6:00 p.m., drove my 18-year-old daughter to her dad’s house five minutes away for dinner with a bunch of her relatives, came home, tucked the little ones into bed, and then I sat on the living room floor with Daddy, gently wrapping the gifts I had bought earlier, imagining the joy the kids would experience in the morning.

“What do you want for Christmas” is a phrase that doesn’t make sense to me.  As many in the world assume it to be the birth day of Yeshua, if He is their Lord, He is enough.

He is my Lord, and He is enough for me.  I do not, however, believe that December 25 was the day He was born.  Based on some things in the Scriptures, I suspect it was another day, and based on some things in historical writings, I believe “Christmas” is the “Christianized” version of an ungodly day of celebration, the same as Easter.

Nonetheless, a day does exist where thoughts are tossed around that God came down to Earth in the form of a man.  May the hearts of many be softened to the point of acceptance of why He came to us, what He did on the cross to pay the price for sin, and that that is all that is needed for eternal life.

And, so, sitting on the floor in my weakened state, I simply breathed, and took in the fact that I am still alive.  The silence of the evening was precious.

And then I ate some chocolate.  Yes, yes, I ate chocolate, I did.  Sooooo un-Steenybopper-ly of me, but it is what it is.

I knew my children wanted a tree, but I had no time nor strength to get one.  Daddy said, “Let’s draw a tree on the easel.”

I smiled, and I got the dry-erase pens.  I drew the tree symbol that represents the timber company that gives us half of our family’s income.  We put various Christmas decorations around the edges of our son’s easel, including ones made by the kids over the years, and we hung colourful glass balls from pretty thumb tacks I stuck into two of the ceiling beams.  I also taped to the beams some decorations made by the kids.

   

In the morning, the kids had so much fun seeing the decorated living room and opening presents while Patty Loveless sang "Christmas Time's A-Comin'", and John Lennon sang "So, This Is Christmas".  I got the turkey in the oven, and started work.  No days off for the self-employed barely making ends meet.

Peace on Earth?  I’m not sure that’s possible.  Peace in my heart beyond comprehension, even in the face of illness and whatever else this world throws my way, because I know I am loved with an everlasting Love and will be with the Lord forever?  Yes.

(Song:  "Heaven Came To Earth", by 2nd Chapter Of Acts)

Do you like my writing?  More can be found in the archives and highlights on the right of this page.  Here are a few quick links:

• Dryer Lint (a silly story)
• Foiling Your Own Kid's Shoplifting Attempt
• Are You Highly Sensitive?
• Since I Quit Eating Sugar, I Am Healthier (and yet I still end up with illness... had I not quit sugar... ok, yes, I did eat that chocolate last night... I might be dead!)

Medical Transcribers Underpaid

I'd like some dialogue on this.

I wonder how you feel about knowing your medical details may be shipped overseas to be transcribed, or that your vital information may be mistyped by an underpaid transcriber who is rushing to get through the job in order to make enough money to feed their family.

To be clear:  we who transcribe medical reports from home are underpaid.

I have had a contract with the same company since May 2006 and never once has my rate of pay increased, despite my having requested it a few times.

Furthermore, the rate of pay for my entire team has been decreased twice.

From what I hear from others in the industry, this has been the norm.

I read of one MT who had an increase in pay, though it was miniscule, and her rate of pay is still way below what her several years of experience and excellent skills are worth.

I'd like to hear any information, opinions, and/or questions from those involved with medical transcription, whether you be a medical transcriber, one who is involved in a medical transcription service organization or medical records department of a hospital, one who is involved in a school or course which prepares people to become medical transcribers, or a medical professional who utilizes the services of medical transcribers.

I'd also like to hear from the end products of medical transcription services - patients.  This may well include you, if you have ever been, or are yet to be, to a doctor's office or a hospital.

I will probably have future blog entries on this subject.  For now, I will close and invite comments and conversation.  Please do not be afraid to comment.  I moderate the comments but publish anything that is not spam or abusive.

More of my writing can be read by clicking on the blog entries in the right hand column.  Here are a few quick picks:

• My Worst Day In Freedom Is Better Than My Best Day In Bondage Ever Was
• Foiling Your Own Teen's Shoplifting Attempt
• Nekkid Pictures Of Me
• Why Does Sh!t Happen To Me?  Ohh, I Get It!

Un-Understood

I am in a state of emotional overwhelm.

I've fought all week against one thing after another trying to steal my joy, faking it in hopes of making it, but now I have finally gone under and feel I am drowning.

I know this is not my normal state and so I am hoping I will come back up gasping for air and find the sun shining fully enough to dry these tears within.

I feel like I want to talk to someone about it, but at the same time I hold back because...

Because why?

I don't know.

Well, I do know, but I don't want to explain.

I know there is nothing anyone can to do fix anything for me, and I don't expect that, but sometimes I wish I had someone to whom I could go who would care.

I am not so unique that the feelings I have just expressed are ones that nobody else has ever felt.

I feel un-understood.

Does anyone even read this drivel?

Dryer Lint

Those who know me well will know I'm not a fan of Halloween.  My reasons go back to the ancient history of it and how it doesn't mesh with my Biblical beliefs, but when I was a kid, I didn't know about any of that, and I did some silly things.

But have you ever heard of something THIS silly?

Without mentioning any names, I will tell you the story of some girls.

They were two sisters in their early teens.  One was cleaning out the lint screen in the dryer on October 31, when she got the twisted idea to give it to the soon-to-arrive trick-or-treaters.

Her equally twisted older sister laughed maniacally, grabbed some brown paper lunch bags, and started shoving wads of greyish blue dryer lint into them, closing the tops with a few staples.

I heard that the older sister even drew the middle finger on one of the bags.

Apparently, one of the girls filled another bag with an old holey pair of orange socks.

Who DOES this kind of thing?

They saved the "special" bags for certain people, such as the boy from across the road, who was a few years younger than the girls but had always been mean to them.

The girls, with such kind faces, bestowed a bag of dryer lint upon the unsuspecting visitor.

"Heyyyyyy, thanks!" enthused the boy from across the road as he beamed.

"You're welcome," I can hear the girls say as they stuffed their giggles beneath innocent faces.

I wonder what happened to the boy who opened that bag of lint.  Did he even remember who had given it to him?  Did the lemony smell of laundry soap get masked in his senses and confuse him into thinking it was some ghoulish sort of cotton candy?  Did he taste of it and suddenly develop a craving for other types of dryer lint and become a dryer lint addict?

Maybe that boy went on to roam the streets, reaching into dryer exhaust pipes in residential areas, looking for his next fix.  Maybe he wound up in a treatment centre and is still digging through his past to figure out the roots of his addiction.

Maybe, in one of his recovery groups, he ran into another person with a strange addiction - to holey orange socks!

Maybe I've just got a silly imagination.

I like to put a photo or a video in my blog entries, but couldn't think of anything for this one.  So, I asked one of my teenaged daughters, in a serious voice, "Hey, do you know any songs that might be appropriate to put in a blog entry about dryer lint?"

She burst out laughing and said, "Yyyyeah, I'll Youtube that right now, Mom!"

But she DID find something, and here it is:

So, tell me... have your eyes glazed over from reading this, or did you laugh, even a little?  :)

Like my writing?  More can be found in the archives to the right, and now - NEW! - the most popular recent entries are showing up over there for your clicking/reading pleasure.

Quit Eating Sugar - Your Body Will Thank You

I used to catch every cold or sniffle that went around.  I'd get it worse than anyone else in the family and for a longer duration.  Sometimes it would turn into bronchitis, which would stick around for months at a time.

Two things made a positive difference in the above problems:

1.  I went to a homeopath.  They cost a bit more than a medical doctor (here in BC, we have medical coverage so it doesn't cost anything to go to a family doctor, whereas it's $40 to see my homeopath - BUT she spends at least an hour per session with her clients, and if the remedy she gives doesn't solve the problem(s) after a few days or weeks, she will give a different one).

The last straw came when I had a killer sore throat that would not respond to three different antibiotics prescribed by doctors.  It was so bad, I woke in the morning barely able to swallow, and I went to the emergency room twice during those few weeks.

I told my homeopath about the sore throat, and she gave me a remedy that cleared it up in one day.  That was four years ago and it has never returned, and neither have the bronchitis bouts, but I still went through too many colds for my tastes.  (I'd prefer none!)

2.  I went to my naturopathic doctor and he told me to quit eating sugar.  This was only part of the diet he recommended, to address a number of issues, but the omission of sugar has been, I believe, key to my no longer catching every bug that enters my proximity - and I've got seven kids, so there's plenty of opportunity for one or another to bring a virus home, not to mention from my trips to the grocery store etc.

A few times, I had sugar when a virus was going around, and next thing I knew, I was sniffling and fending off a sore throat by snorting and gargling sea-salt water.

It took a few weeks to break the sugar habit that had been in my life for 40+ years, but now, I don't crave sugar at all.  I use stevia to sweeten my green tea and my oatmeal.  Sometimes I will make a stevia-sweetened treat, such as my chocolate almond bark, or I'll add a bit of stevia to a fruit/vegetable smoothie.

I do have the unrefined sugars intrinsic to fruit and vegetables, but those come with the rest of the package required for them to work gracefully within the body to provide their intended health benefits.

I still get the odd cold, but it's nothing like the 6-10 per year I was getting for the first 40 years of my life.

I also no longer eat wheat, potatoes, corn, or dairy products.  Like with sugar, I have had them a few times since quitting them in the fall of 2009, and with almost every instance, something negative happened to my body or my mind, reminding me that what I had consumed was not for the best.

Here are some things I do eat:

chicken
turkey
fish
beef
almonds
sunflower seeds
rice
barley
rice noodles
rice crackers
various soups
various fruits and vegetables
chili
beans
hummus

Of course, there's more, but those are a few of the main ones off the top of my head.

Not only do I not get sick as often as I used to, combined with aerobic and resistance exercise, I have lost all of the difficult-to-lose weight I had gained from my past two pregnancies, and my skin no longer breaks out (unless I ingest some of the offending items).

I'd love to hear about it if you have eliminated sugar from your diet.  I've encountered very few people who have undergone the cessation of this destructive, highly addictive drug.

I dare you to quit.

(Speaking of addiction, here is a song that comes to mind.)

To your health!

Edited April 9, 2013 to add this link from another blogger: 

Six Compelling Reasons To Quit Sugar "

Dig my writing?  The links highlighted in this blog entry will take you to a few, but here they are again for quick reference:

• How I Make My Oatmeal
• Healthy Chocolate Almond Bark Recipe
• Green Smoothie Of The Day

...and a few more that are not food related:

• Posting Pictures Can Be Perilous
• Are You Highly Sensitive?
• When I Was A Teenager

Facebook Private Messages on Timeline - SOLUTION

The recent rumors in the past week about Facebook private messages leaking out are true.

And I have a solution for you. 

Here is what I posted to my Facebook Timeline this morning:

Hey, this is "Steeny Lou" talking and not me copying and pasting some questionable info I saw somewhere else. I figured this out myself today. Read it, please, because privacy HAS INDEED been compromised by Facebook, and it may have happened to you, too. I saw it myself on my own Timeline and was pissed right off.

Seriously, snippets from an old PRIVATE conversation I'd had with one of my daughters, from Oct 12, 2010, showed up on my Timeline. I commented in my own thread and tagged my sister, as she and I had been discussing this whole rumor about private messages leaking out to our publicly viewable Timelines.

THE SOLUTION:

1. On the top right of your FB page, click the little drop-down arrow.
2. Click on "Privacy".
3. On "Timeline and Tagging", click "Edit Settings".
4. Click on "Who can see what others post on your Timeline?"
5. Click on the box to the right and click on "Custom".
6. Click the dropdown box and choose "Only Me".
7. Click "Save changes".
8. Click "Done". And then you're done - FOR NOW... just be wary of the next unannounced alterations in your privacy from those who "provide" us with this "free" service known as Facebook, and exercise caution in whatsoever you post anywhere on the internet. Big Bro is watchin'.

I tested out the solution by signing into another account, to see if the thread in question still showed up.  I couldn't see it, so I went back to my account and tested further by tagging my other account name.  I signed back into my other account, and the tag was not even received.

And now, a song about paranoia - but a little paranoia isn't such a bad thing:

 (Wow, Ozzy was so young once!)

Have you found any of your private messages showing up on YOUR wall?

Please share a link for this blog entry with everyone.  Our privacy should remain as our privacy.

If you'd like to read more of my writing, much can be found in the archives in the right-hand column of this blog.  Here are a few quick picks:

• How Bloggers Make Money
• Are You Highly Sensitive?
• For The Record, My Heart Is Sore
• Foiling Your Own Kid's Shoplifting Attempt
• Nekkid Pictures Of Me

I Stepped On A Rusty Nail

A couple days ago, I was driving to an appointment in a town 2-1/4 hours away.

I stopped along the way to take a picture of myself at a place that is special to me and my husband, with my tripod and remote. 

I was sitting on a log, but I found that the remote wasn't quite aiming at the camera, so I jumped off the log to move over, and landed on a rusty nail that was sticking through a piece of wood that I'd knocked off the log a minute earlier.

The nail went straight through my Birkenstock sandal and pierced the soft part in the middle of my foot about 1/4 inch deep.

Can you see the nail sticking through my shoe in the above photo?

I immediately grabbed my foot and applied pressure, as I was afraid it would bleed like crazy, but in retrospect I probably should've let it bleed to help let the bacteria out.

I took my sock off after a couple minutes and blood poured out of the wound.

I hopped back to my car and got some paper towel, folded it up, and put it against the wound, then put my sock back on.

My 3-year-old daughter, who was in the car, asked, "Why are you hopping on one foot, Mama?"

I disguised my pain and fear with a cheerful voice and said, "Mama just got a little owie.  I'm okay."

She was fine with that.

I hopped back to the log to get my shoe.  That things was stuck good and it took some yarding to get it off.

I grabbed my camera, folded up my tripod, put it all and me in the car and drove off.

I was in the mountains, at least a half hour from cell service, so all I could do was keep driving.

When I got in cell phone range, I called 911 and talked to ambulance staff, asking if they figured I'd be okay to keep driving a further hour to the nearest town with medical care.  (I had no idea how fast tetanus could set in.  I was thinking like snake bite or something.)  They said as long as I felt fine, I should go for it, but if I wanted an ambulance, they'd come get me.

Then I called a walk-in clinic in that town where I was headed.  They told me the soonest they could see me would be 4:00, and that I could call one of the other two walk-in clinics or the hospital emergency room.

I used to live in that town.  I'd been to one of the other clinics a few times and I knew their waits were always long, and in a town of that size and busy-ness, I couldn't imagine the other one being any different.

And the hospital was out of the question.  Their wait times are notoriously long, as I've experienced at varying times of night and day with friends, family members, and myself.

I had an appointment at 1:30 with my counselor, and had to get back home by 5:00-ish so my husband could take the car to work.

I called my homeopath, and asked her what I should do.  She said Ledum 30 c, but that it was my call if I wanted to go for a tetanus shot.

After my counseling appointment, at 2:25 pm, I headed to the health food store and asked if they had Ledum.  They did not.  I told the guy that my homeopath had some up in my town 2-1/4 hours away, and that I was headed there right away.  I asked if he figured I'd be okay to wait that long, or if I should go for a tetanus shot.  He emphatically said that I should go to my homeopath for the Ledum.

I bought fruit smoothies for my daughter and me, to go with the hummus and rice crackers we'd brought for our on-the-road lunch, and headed out to the highway by 2:45 pm.

I called my husband to ask if he could run over to my homeopath's house a few minutes from our place and pick up my remedy, but he had just gotten up and was getting ready for work, so I planned on picking it up on my way home.

Half an hour later, my husband called and said he could go get the remedy.  Whew!  That'd save me a few minutes.

I got home by 5:15.  I had a few quick things to do for the kids, and then I called my homeopath at 5:30, asking how many grains to take of the Ledum.  She said 3, so I popped them under my tongue, got my two youngest kids in for naps, took a bath, and then had a half hour nap myself, as I'd been up since 6-something and was dead tired.

By 8:00 pm, still very tired, I wrote about what happened and posted it on Gentle Christian Mothers - a message board with a lot of like-minded hippy-ish Christian moms like myself, many of whom are anti-vaccination - to see if I could get some opinions, experiences, and/or advice, plus I did a bit of googling to see what I could find.

The conclusion I reached was that there was no point going to the hospital for a shot.  If I was going to get tetanus, a booster would be too late to help me at that point anyway.  Besides, I'd already taken the homeopathic remedy, and I am praying that will suffice.  I have seen a lot of good come from homeopathy, from personal experience as well as in various members of my family.

My foot hurt all the next day when I walked on it, but today it's a lot better.

I'll be watching for any signs of my jaw stiffening up, but praying it doesn't happen!

And if you have any info on the subject of tetanus, please share it in the comments section below.

I thought, "The camera's all set up - might as well take a picture anyway", so here I am in agony, seconds after stomping on that nail.


Tell me - have you, or anyone you know, ever stepped on a rusty nail?  Did you/they go for a tetanus shot?  Did it prevent tetanus?  Were there side effects?  Details please!

Dig my writing?  There's a lot more listed chronologically in the right hand column of this blog.  Here are a few quick picks:

• Posting Pictures Can Be Perilous
• Wearing Masks In Walmart
• How Bloggers Make Money
• Three Minutes Of Thoughts
• Nekkid Pictures Of Me

Followup: Abusive Bell Customer Service Rep

This is a followup to the blog entry I wrote in early June concerning the abusive Bell customer service representative.  (That original story is at this link.)

Back in late June, Argyle McArgyle informed me that the National Director of Customer Relations from Bell Canada called him to personally apologize, and to let him know that the abusive rep had been fired.

Sorry I've not updated sooner.  Life's been busy this summer.  Perhaps I will have more blog entries at some future point.

(Heheh, here's a Lego video of Queen's "Another One Bites The Dust".  They also included a clip of "We Are The Champions".  I think both songs suit the subject matter.  It's good to speak out!)

 

Want to read more of my ramblings?  The archives are in the right hand column, listed chronologically, but here are a few quick picks:

• How I Make Oatmeal (includes photos)
• Foiling Your Own Kid's Shoplifting Attempt (oh, yes I DID!)
• Wearing Masks In Walmart (just some of the silly stuff I do)

Abusive Bell Customer Service Rep

WARNING:  Contains coarse language.

Can you believe this?

Someone named Ian, who, at least until a few days ago, was representing the cellular telephone division of Bell Canada, seems to be in need of therapy.

A friend I've known since childhood, whom I've mentioned in another blog entry (this one) where I changed his name to "Argyle McArgyle", was trying to get some help with his cell phone account on Friday, June 15, 2012.  The following is the actual conversation he copied word for word between himself and Ian: 

Bell agent: Updating the Fab 10 contacts take 3 hours to take effect.

Bell agent: Getting a representative to change a contact(s) for you will cost $5.00.

you: ok, well it was a couple of hours ago. i wanted the top to be XXXXX, 2) XXXXX

you: but it was a mistake that i am trying to correct right away. you will charge 5$ for that?

you: seriously?

Bell agent: It's not exactly our fault the mistake happened, right? We'll find out in the next hour if that change took effect though.

you: that's excellent customer appreciation, Ian. lets point out whose fault it is. Never tried to imply it was Bell'

you: Bells fault of course.

you: just thought that Bell might like to be more helpful than penalizing. i see that its not the case.

Bell agent: Sorry but that's the rule. I mean, we've already tried making things easier by putting it on a self-serve application.

Bell agent: I'd say it'd be our fault if we were the ones who originally put the number for you.

Bell agent: As a one time courtesy, I wont apply the $5.00 but you should know better by now.

you: OMG - did you really just say that?

Then, after Argyle closed the chat log, he got the following text from, he assumes, the Bell agent:

To quote Argyle, "customer service excellence" indeed.  Such followup.  Wow.

I can't help but think of the song, "I've Got You" by Dwight Yoakam, which I've posted below.  In case it gets removed, the specific lyrics I mean are:

"I got a letter from the folks over at Bell
Just to let me know my next phone call I can walk outside and yell."



Bell could've been more tactful in the way they communicated with Argyle, and I wonder how much irony there really is in Dwight Yoakam wording things the way he did.  Even if a person is delinquent on payments, customer service representatives should be respectful, as should, I believe, all people.

There's way too much abusiveness in this world.  I hope Ian, or whoever that person was, gets help and changes their 'tude.

Argyle is following up with management, but it will take a few days till it gets resolved, if at all.

Read more of my writing in the right hand column of this blog, ordered chronologically.
Here are a few semi-related and completely unrelated samples:

• M-Dawg Facebook Repartee
• Hamburger Helper Facebook Banter
• The Risk Of Friendship
• Are You Highly Sensitive?
• Why Does Sh!t Happen To Me? Ohh, I Get It!