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Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Wasp Stings and What To Look For

Audrey pre-wasp sting
Two of my grandchildren and I went out in the back yard this morning. Nolan, 4, had to use the bathroom, though, so I followed him inside, leaving Audrey, 6, to play on the swing set until I returned.

Last year, wasps had built nests inside the slide, but we hadn't noticed any activity there this year.

While Nolan and I were returning to the back yard, however, Audrey, who had been playing on the side and then jumped onto the swing set, was coming inside screaming that a wasp had stung her. As I am allergic to bee stings, I was concerned about what her reaction might be so I visited Mayo Clinic online to find out what to expect with a wasp sting.

According to Mayo Clinic, anyone stung by an insect should move to a safe area away from where the sting was delivered, remove the stinger (wasps won't leave a stinger), apply a cold pack, hydrocortisone cream, calamine lotion, or baking soda, and take an antihistamine.

The following signs (also from Mayo Clinic) indicate a severe reaction:

    •    Nausea
    •    Facial swelling
    •    Difficulty breathing
    •    Abdominal pain
    •    Deterioration of blood pressure and circulation (shock)

If reactions progress rapidly and include any of the following symptoms, call 911 immediately or visit your nearest emergency room:

    •    Difficulty breathing
    •    Swelling of the lips or throat
    •    Faintness
    •    Dizziness
    •    Confusion
    •    Rapid heartbeat
    •    Hives
    •    Nausea, cramps and vomiting

I applied Benadryl cream to the sting area and I'm keeping a close watch on Audrey, because reactions might not show up until tomorrow.

Delayed reactions could include "fever, hives, painful joints and swollen glands."

Now that we've taken care of the physical reactions, we have to concentrate on the emotional reactions, because Audrey now refuses to go outside anymore – she thinks the wasp will remember her.

For more information on what to do for insect bites, please CLICK HERE!


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Thursday, June 16, 2011

HOME FOR SALE – Should I Offer a Rebate?

Kids are grown and though my youngest daughter and her family had moved in to help me with expenses, they are moving into a home of their own. I will soon be fending for myself. I would love to keep my home, and I'm sad I have to lose it, but I can no longer afford it and I had to put it up for sale.

My home has been up for sale for not quite a month. I've been getting calls and people have been stopping by to look at my home from the outside, because in addition to having the home listed on craigslist, I also have a sign posted on my front lawn. Nobody, however, is offering to look inside the home or to purchase it.

In a way, I'm glad nobody is stopping by to look at the place, because I have giant holes in my ceiling where the contractors cut open the drywall to find the source of the water damage that has leaked through to my floor. Because of all the rain and because so many other people in my area are experiencing all kinds of damage due to the weather, the contractors have not yet been able to repair my ceiling. After the night before last they still won't be able to fix it, because it rained again and I heard water dripping on a different spot above the ceiling. Time for a new hole.

The roofers have already replaced three vent caps on the roof, so either they are going to have to replace more vent caps (if I even have more up there – I don't know – I've never been on my roof), or they're going to have to find a different source and reason for the water getting into my house.

When I posted my "home for sale" ad on craigslist, long before I knew about the water damage, I was going to offer buyers a $1,000 rebate at closing so they could get the carpets cleaned.

But then I wondered if maybe I should clean the carpets myself. The home is quite large – over 2,000 square feet of space, but the only rooms that have been badly affected with stains have been the living room and the dining room.

I honestly don't know want to come back into the home (should I sell it) to clean the carpets myself. I don't have a lot of upper body strength to handle carpet cleaning, so I thought hiring a professional carpet cleaning service would be the most attractive solution.

How much do professional carpet cleaning services cost? I wondered.

Surely it wouldn't cost me $1,000 to get 2,000 square feet of carpet cleaned. And now that I think about it, two of the bathrooms have no carpeting at all and neither does my kitchen. Even if the cost was $.25 per square foot, I'd be saving myself more than $500 (online sources place the national average for professional carpet cleaning costs at around $.22 per square foot).

I'm going to have to look into this. In the meantime if you are looking for professional carpet cleaning services and you live in the Austin area, click http://www.thesteamteam.com/.

Maybe I should offer a $500 rebate?

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Sunday, June 5, 2011

Lost and Found – Teachers Who Kill Their Students' Spirits and Students Who Reclaim Their Lives

When I was young I was so insecure, one negative comment would send me into a tailspin of despair. I thought I was stupid and ugly, so when I entered high school, I was already prepared to feel like the outcast I knew myself to be.

What didn't help was a home ec teacher in my freshman year who targeted me with her loathing.

I saw it on her face the first day I met her, her squinty eyes subtly warning me, "I hate you already and I will make this year miserable for you." She had never before met me, but I figured she must have known ABOUT me, because her contempt was accurately pointed toward the only student in the class who deserved not to be liked – me.

Our first project to sew was a skirt. I was 5'6.5" and weighed not quite 100 pounds. Stores didn't carry size 0 back then, so I wore the next largest size, which I think at the time was a size 5 (still too large for my anorexic-looking frame). She commanded me to purchase a pattern in a size 10.

My mother, however, refused to buy one in a size 10, but then reasoned that maybe this teacher's intentions were to have her students make the skirt too large so they could take it in later. As a compromise, we bought a size 8 pattern.

A too large pattern was not this teacher's intention; everybody else had purchased the size they wore. She was probably angry with me for purchasing a size different from the one she ordered me to buy, but she never said anything about it; she just punished me relentlessly the rest of the school year. In any event, with pattern in hand, I, along with all of the other students, proceeded to open the package and spread out the pattern.

Sewing was new territory for me. I didn't have a clue about how to read a pattern. While Mrs. Bunyan labored over detailing the pattern instructions to the other students in the class, hopping from student to student, she told me to "figure it out." After several failed attempts, even though other students stepped forward to offer me help, I finished the skirt. When I put it on, it promptly fall to the floor.

On "swatch" day, she draped swatches of cloth near the faces of several students while she explained to the other students why a certain color looked good or didn't look good on those students she chose to wear the swatches. To show the differences, she chose a blond, a brunette, a red head, and the only girl in the class with black hair, me.

As she placed the different colored swatches on the blond, she remarked about how good the blond looked in red, blue, orange, black, white, brown, purple – every color, as a matter of fact, except yellow.

The brunette looked good in every color, too, though green wasn't her best look, and the red head looked good in every color but red and orange.

Then she sat me in front of the class. "Notice how green makes her look sick. Notice how yellow drains the color from her face and makes her look sallow. Black makes her look too stark and white makes her look too pale." The ONLY color that looked good on me, according to Mrs. Bunyan, was pink.

With each negative comment, I felt my shoulders slump more and more and my self esteem sink deeper and deeper into the floor. I wanted to run out of the classroom and never return. I wanted to smash her face with a frying pan, but instead I held it all in until I left class and balled my eyes out where nobody could see me. She had humiliated and degraded me in front of an entire class of my peers, and now I knew for certain how truly ugly I was.

Teachers have the ability to make or break a child. Mrs. Bunyan broke me. When I added her insults to my father's injuries (he always told me I was stupid), I felt unworthy of being in the this world, let alone in her classroom. I sunk deeper and deeper into a state of despair and even contemplated suicide. Who could love somebody as ugly, stupid, and unworthy as I was?

Somehow by the grace of God and perhaps my Guardian Angel, I survived her class and I have managed to make it to the ripe old age of 59 without allowing her negative comments to prevent me from moving forward. Why she chose me to attack, I will never know, but I do know that she probably sought out the most insecure person in that classroom – me – and chose me to persecute relentlessly. She offered me no help while I made the skirt, nor did she offer any help with the sleeved blouse I mangled, and she completely ignored me during cooking class.

I know that I am probably hypersensitive to child abuse in any form, and I know that if my child had experienced Mrs. Bunyan as his or her teacher, I'd have forced the school to accommodate my child and I would have gone through all the necessary steps in ridding the school of the cancer known as Mrs. Bunyan.

My parents probably thought I was exaggerating when I talked about the evil woman who taught me home ec, and in defense of my parents, I probably wasn't all that vocal about the abuse back then – I was an extremely emotional and sensitive teenager – but in my opinion, any person who deliberately drains you of your spirit and who thwarts your every attempt at success is evil.

An evil, negative presence that hacks away at a child's spirit prevents that child from moving forward and causes (sometimes) irreparable damage. Parents have the right to remove their children from classrooms where teachers treat their children abusively.

If your child is stuck in a classroom with a teacher who hates him or her, get your child out of there NOW! Don't allow ANYBODY to destroy your child's spirit. She or he will be able to reclaim it someday, but why put your child through the torture of enduring that kind of hell?

Side note: I was nearly triumphant when I heard Mrs. Bunyan had been fired several years after I left high school. Perhaps enough students stepped forward to confirm her abuse and the school was able to rid itself of her cancerous behavior.

This post was written as part of a new Group Blogging Experience (or GBE), previously begun by a woman named Alicia. Today Beth, along with Marie Anne, continue the experience for bloggers to associate with one another, support each other's blogging experience, and hopefully expand their readership by providing a network for bloggers.



If you would like to read more from this author, click any of the following links:

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My Heart Blogs To You 


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