I rarely see positive headlines in the newspapers about nursing homes or the caregivers in them. Since negative headlines seem to stir up more excitement, there are plenty of those. Today, another: Minnesota caregiver gets jail for genital injury to 77-year-old resident. $685 in fees and a work-release, 45-day sentence are no penalty at all for this crime. I don’t think any penalty could truly atone for the resident’s physical pain, fear, and lost trust, but the court really turned the whole thing into a joke with that sentence.

It’s important to remember that most caregivers are not like this. A story about a caregiver who goes the extra mile while providing daily cares, comfort, and a healthy environment can’t be as shocking or spectacular as the above type of story, because it is the norm.

Building off of my last post, I keep going back and forth about this whole thing. Before my daughter and I even took our first course at the college we’re currently attending, we researched it. We had considered program availability, quality, length, and whether or not we could take some of it online, due to our in-the-sticks location. After the time, money, and effort we’ve put in, we were admitted not for what we applied for, but to campuses that are ever so slightly out of reach.

So. I’m considering turning it down, and looking at other options, whether it’s reapplying next year (my test scores- they are high, and I’m an honor roll student- will still be valid), applying for a program elsewhere, or taking an entirely different course. After all, there are a lot of things one can do in life.

Decision soon to follow, hopefully by mid-April, or before my next stress-out session over it, whichever comes first.

Update – April 4

I’m taking the opportunity. Have already registered for courses.

Well, it was an interesting fall and winter. My youngest and I have taken (and still are taking) some very interesting courses, ranging from science to philosophy to language arts. I love psych. Oh, by the way, did I mention I love psych? We became CNA’s, and started working in home health care, which works nicely around school. We’re signed up for a CPR course for this summer, and we’re still avoiding speech class for as long as possible. And after sweating over the PSB and working hard to keep grades up, we were both fortunate enough to be accepted for this coming fall’s practical nursing program. Not long after this time next year, we ought to be nurses, on the way to working in our desired areas, hopefully.

It’s going to be an even tougher winter next time. My youngest will likely have to drive nearly four hours a day to attend classes at the campus she was assigned to. Her other option is to live there, but between work and being away from family, she doesn’t want to- and the hours will balance out. I will be driving over two hours a day in another direction to attend classes at the campus I was assigned to. My big ol’ truck probably isn’t the best candidate for that job, so I’ll be looking for a gas saver.

Anything worth having is worth working hard for, so ultimately, things are going very well.

Eventually, the cobwebs on this blog will be replaced by a few more words.

My husband was explaining to someone the other day that he loves dogs. And he hates them. Not really dogs, just dog owners letting their dogs run wild. And I’m right with him on that. We’ve had our share of nuisance people problems. While most people might say, “nuisance dog,” I’m more inclined to hold their owners accountable. One household in the neighborhood, however, seems to believe differently. In fact, I had the pleasure of viewing video of one of them slapping their unleashed dog today for simply being unleashed and running wild as unleashed dogs will do. I have found the video and this household’s denial and refusal to keep their dog on a leash inspirational enough to create a collage.

We’ll call that collage “The Pooper Collection,” since it is just a few of the times this supposedly in-control and never-on-my-property dog has been… well… on my property, at times to do his business, at other times to rile my fenced-in dogs, or to run at us.

Just as millions of others have done when they’ve had the same problems, we’ve spoken to the owners. The responses have ranged from denial to blaming other dogs to asking, “What was he doing there,” as though we should welcome him if he’s “well-behaved.” The owner has even gone so far as to ask, after their dog brought home someone’s garbage, if we knew where that was coming from, as though the issue wasn’t the unleashed dog, but whatever it got into on someone else’s property.

So I was also inspired to take a witty person’s advice, and set out a nuisance-dog-owner-waker-upper.

Does that look close enough to anti-freeze to you? Hopefully the dog owners will have only mild cardiac arrests when their unleashed pet next visits and takes a big ol’ drink. After all, it is only water and food coloring, and a well-rinsed bottle. Besides, what’s on people’s private property is never poisonous to the dogs of others, when those dogs are leashed and where they belong.

PS – I don’t care who you are or who you know. I don’t take well to a bully or good-ol-boy mentality, and I won’t play nice in the sandbox with those who do. Even the seemingly insignificant laws apply to everyone.

Picture Wall

One of my hobbies during this winter break has been framing some pictures and prints to fill up our bare walls. The walls still desperately need a coat of fresh, neutral colored paint, but it’s nice to have something on them. Amy Brown faery prints go well with plaid. This little-at-a-time project has been good for calming my mind. I’ve been psyched up about spring classes, which start in January, and now also psyched out about one of those classes.

Psychology is one of the classes in the line-up, but not the one that’s bothering me. I’ll probably enjoy that one the most. The one that’s bothering me is the one for which a cat dissection lab kit had to be shipped to my home.

New Semester

That class is anatomy, and the scalpel in the kit might as well have been used to cut at my heart. I can handle the cow eye that came with it, and even the sheep brain. But the cat!! They might as well have sent me a preserved baby. Where do these cats come from? I understand that we have to learn about human anatomy somehow, and we have much in common with other mammals, but this is so hard to rationalize. Hopefully cats aren’t being raised for the purpose of becoming college dissection lab components. I’ll have to find out, exactly, and then decide what to do.

There’s still some winter break to enjoy, and the other courses (and the other parts of the anatomy course) to look forward to.

Wolves have occupied the shadows of land and lore for thousands of years, and the battle over whether to hunt them or protect them has come to light in their few modern American habitats. Wyoming, Idaho, Montana, and Minnesota have become legal and political battlegrounds between advocates and adversaries of gray wolves. Many ranchers and hunters consider the wolf a blight upon livestock and game, and see wolf hunting as a solution. The environmentalists and the socially concerned who oppose this approach see the wolf as a natural, historical, and spiritual treasure. Wolves help shape our culture, balance the natural environment, and they can contribute directly and indirectly to the economy. Wolves have been successfully reintroduced to a few areas within the United States, but with their range and number still greatly diminished, allowing them to be hunted could erase them from all but memory. The United States gray wolf is beneficial to the environment, the economy, and the American psyche, so its small population should be protected rather than hunted.

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