CPRMom

When Becca was in high school she became a vegetarian for a while.  I honestly didn't know much about it and just cooked a lot of vegetables.  She wanted to eat a lot of pre-made high-soy products that I wasn't a fan of.  One of her college roommates is a vegetarian.  She might be visiting us, so I asked Becca what she ate, ...could she eat cheese?  Have dairy products? Fish?  Turns out there is more than just carnivore, vegetarian, and vegan.  So I looked it up. Vegans  do not consume any animal products at all. There are several types of vegetarians : Lacto Vegetarians  do not eat meat, fish or eggs, but can consume cheese, milk and yogurt Ovo Vegetarians  do not eat meat, fish, or dairy products, but do eat eggs. Lacto-ovo Vegetarians  do not eat meat or fish, but do consume dairy products.  This is the most common type of vegetarian. Pollotarian does not eat red meat or fish, but will eat poultry. Pescatarian  do not eat meat, but will eat fish. Flexitarian  is

Last night I printed several copies of a meeting agenda, and left them all on the printer when I went to the meeting. {sigh} This morning I have housework, a meeting, shopping, and errands.  This afternoon is more projects and shuttling kids to robotics, dentist, etc.  I also have a class this evening.  But what I also need to do today is mentally process and transcribe all the ideas and tasks I learned the last two days at the workshop I attended. One of the things we briefly discussed at the workshop was a book, Write it down, make it happn : knowing what you want - and getting it!  by Henriette Anne Klauser.  I've requested the book through ILL at my library and I'm excited to read it later this week!  But I was thinking of that while seeing the paper on the printer and thinking of all the ideas needing to come out. So I spread the paper out on my table this morning.  Gave several sheets a header for the different businesses and things I have going on.  And I wro

I've had a lot going on lately.  Work, family, and a lot of decisions/changes coming up that I need to figure out. I've posted a bit over at Coastal CPR & First Aid  about some of those changes.  These are things I cannot change, but need to decide how I am going to approach each change. What has happened is that there is so many directions that I can take while deciding how to approach these changes that I've become stuck.  I can't seem to move in anyone one direction and haven't made any decisions.  It's been frustrating. This week I'm attending a conference.  I've worked at this annual event for 5 years.  This year the focus and content has changed ... and it is amazing!  I'm working ... and taking copious notes ... as the content is addressing what I need to be considering right. this. very. minute. It's overwhelming.  In a good sort of way. First I have to say if you ever have the opportunity to work with, or attend a workshop

We have a 3 1/2 -4 day weekend at our house.  2 kids did not have school on Friday, 1 had a half day, none have school on Monday.  Since the kids are home I'm not scheduled to teach.  It's catch up time. Friday was spent on housework, most of Saturday at a college open house.  When I scheduled the time off over a month ago I didn't realize all the unique decisions that were going to have to be considered.  I have to find a new home for my courses and the AHA changed it's pricing structure this past week.  It sounds like only 2 things, but each has multiple solutions and I have to figure out what is the best.  I also am hosting a workshop next weekend and I have a 2-day conference the week after. Sometimes I get overwhelmed by what I need to do or figure out.  I end up procrastinating and doing something else instead of what needs to be done.  And that's where I'm at right now.  Sitting in front of the computer and not accomplishing anything. Well, not exactl

I'm teaching tonight and had planned on myriad projects throughout the day.  Nothing critical, but things that had been piling up. But I got a call to sub, so I headed in to teach.  Halfway to the school I received a call that they didn't need me after all. Despite a plan already in place, that call canceling work made today feel like a Bonus Day. You know what a Bonus Day is, right?  It's that day that suddenly is wide open.  No appointments or pressing projects or work.  A completely open day - or in my case a 3/4 day since I have a late afternoon class. What to do on the Bonus Day?  Go to the gym?  Take a walk?  Go hiking? Lie in the hammock? Write?  The possibilities are endless! So my Bonus Day was not that exciting.  I did some housework (necessary), I did some paperwork (not necessary, but was piling up), I journaled (necessary), I'm blogging right now (necessary), and I'm going to post some classes (necessary).  I made myself a nice salad for lunch

A while back I wrote about one of my squirrel project days .  It's one of those days that you start one thing, and then do finish that thing you need to do another thing first, and then you see that other thing over there that needs to get done and hours later you realize you never finished the first thing. That was pretty much how my pantry got completely cleaned out and organized today when I really just opened the door to see if I had flour. I wanted to bake cookies.  The kids are going back to school this week, our oldest is going to back to college next weekend.  I wanted to bake cookies.  So I took the butter out to soften, looked up the recipe, and went to see how much flour I had in the pantry. Keep in mind that I have a small pantry cabinet.  Not like a walk-in it's-called-a-pantry-but-is-really-a-storage-room-pantry, it's a small cabinet. And it is really neat and organized right now.  It won't last long, members of my household like to rearrange it an

This is a post about email.  I have several email accounts, it helps me to keep home and business separate.  Somehow I ended up with more than one home account.  I think I know how that happened, but that's not the point of this post. This post is about all the email newsletters I seem to be receiving. I am thinking I did sign up for these newsletters at one point.  Some might be from rewards accounts at different stores, some are recipes, some are salesy promotional things I have no idea how I got on their list. The thing is, I'm slowly using one email address less, and using the other more.  Which means I don't check it as much and things pile up in there. Yesterday I realized it's mostly junk and newsletters.  A lot of junk and newsletters. So today begins day 1 of unsubscribing to all this email.  Several sites have said it takes up to 10 days for the email to stop. {sigh} Each day I will unsubscribe to at least 2 things.  We'll see how long it takes

I am going to quote the opening lines of an AHA video I like.  "It started off as a perfectly normal day ... ". And then it went to crap. Errands done in just over 2 hours (go team!) back home and unloading groceries when I get a pretty nasty phone call.  That kinda immature ranting crap is something I should be able to deflect, but I can't.  I just tears my good mood and heart to shreds.  And it's hard to recover from because the first instinct is to lash out at others around me... my kids.  And it's not their fault my good mood is gone and I'm feeling sad and irritated. So lesson reminders for today: People who say they are going to change or work to become better people usually don't.  It's a panacea said in the moment.  That need to assert themselves or rain on the happy sunny days of others is something they just can't restrain.  They've always been this way and no conversation otherwise is really going to change that. Some folks

The past 2 races I started to think about which mile is the worst of the race.  Is the first mile? The last mile? One in the middle? I've settled on a mile in the middle. A few weeks ago I did the Runner's Alley Redhook 5K .  I think the 2nd mile was the worst, at least it felt that way.  I am so thankful for the additional unofficial water stop after the first mile. Last year I took the entire season off.  My mom had become ill and it was terminal cancer.  I posted a bit about it last year.  We spent several months driving out of state to visit as much as we could before she passed away.  And then I spent a few months catching up on all the paperwork that didn't happen last summer.  It was an overwhelming time, and I was not racewalking, walking or training all season. I had a late training start for this year.  I'm determined to finish the Seacoast Road Race Series again, and might do an extra race or two.  My part-time business work schedule has exploded in

Teaching CPR and First Aid is not a steady business.  I'm either super busy or listening to crickets.  Some months are fairly even with course registrations and scheduled on-site classes.  I've had some  pretty quiet months with almost no one calling, but usually my schedule isn't too crazy-busy. Until now.  Last month my phone and inbox literally started overflowing. In May I taught 26 classes, 13 of those were scheduled on-site courses.  As of June 17th I will have taught 21 classes, traveling on-site to 6 of them.  I still have 2 hospital courses towards the end of June.  8 of those June classes were just this past week.  And yesterday I had 2 emails asking to schedule courses before June 26th. Last night in class suddenly my brain felt like I had hit a wall.  I've hit teaching exhaustion.  I felt like I hit a brick wall. I'm not great at saying to no to scheduling classes, if I can fit it on my calendar I'll usually schedule it.  My last scheduled c

Last week I racewalked in the Runner's Alley Redhook 5K .  This race supports the Krempels Center and people recovering from a brain injury.  It's always a great race. It's a 5K with 2 water stops.  Last weekend there were 3 water stops. Between the 2 official water stops was a third one organized by the unionized employees of Westinghouse who are currently locked out of work by their employer. I only know what was posted on WMUR's website .  On the bystander side it looks the union wanted to renew their existing contract and the employer wanted to lower their health benefits.  I'm sure there is more to it than that, but there are not a lot of articles explaining their stalemate. Westinghouse has a facility at the Pease Tradeport where the race was held.  The union set up tables and handed water out to all the runners and walkers.  These are folks who aren't working right now and aren't getting paid.  But they brought water and cups to help out the

I feel like I have been discussing ticks with someone at least once or twice a day for almost 2 weeks. I'm not a fan of bugs or ticks, so not something I would normally introduce into a conversation. But the ticks have been plentiful lately, and I've been seeing some Facebook posts on creative ways to remove them. First I want to say there are really only 2 safe ways to remove a tick. Tweezers or a tick spoon. I have a whole post on tick removal on my Coastal CPR blog .  Read the post, it explains how other methods can increase your exposure to tick-borne illnesses. The safest thing is to prevent getting ticks. So the conversation of insect repellent comes next. There are a lot of great insect repellents and some contain ingredients we might not want on our skin. I've been enjoying and learning about essential oils for a while and have made my own insect repellent. It's been working pretty well so far and I'm getting a lot of requests for the recipe. I mostl

Friday Thing 3 attended 2 APEX programs at Hidden Valley. It's an hour drive so I decided to stay and do a little hiking. It was overcast in the morning so I did not set out until lunchtime. The plan was to hike the red trail to meet the blue trail to the top of Mt. Shannon which is a small mountain on the camp property. I would then take the yellow trail back. This is the map I used.  I found a lot of red trail markers, but they were not the red trail. This is not the red trail I started down what I thought was the red trail, until the trail markers disappeared. I saw 1 blue marker, and no others. There was a nice snowmobile trail so I followed that. That lead me up to a nice field by a road. When I got to the road I saw the field was posted 'No Trespassing', so I couldn't return that way. So I followed the road to the next road, and eventually to the entrance to the camp. This is where I met up with Tucker and his owner. Tucker was a very friendly bla

*Update below* Almost a month ago I bought the World's Most Powerful Hand-Held Solar Charger online.  At least this is what they called it on their website. A few weeks later it arrives.  The only directions with it were a small piece of paper that said to plug it in to charge it fully, drain the battery, charge it fully, and then drain it, and then it would be ready to use.  No other directions were provided.  No mention of solar charging.  This should have been a hint that I obviously missed. The cord that came with it was loose and wobbly when connected, so I used my own cable and followed the directions.  I drained it by using it to charge my own phone.  As a battery pack it charged really well.  It had a flashlight which did not work.  I emailed the website, outdoorshiking.com about this, but never received a reply. After charging/draining, I set it in the sun. And waited. And waited. It never charged. I took it on our trip to D.C..  The charger sat in the

Last month I wrote about snow.  I was making fun of people comparing the forecast last month to the Blizzard of '78. Today I'm the one complaining about the forecast, and I'm using terms like snowmageddon and snowpocalypse. The forecast is for 10-20" or 14-18" depending upon where you read the forecast.  Compare this to just over a week ago when we were running around in sweatshirts and it was 60 degrees out. I'm ready for winter to be over.

I was working with a student in the school cafeteria where I was subbing yesterday.  We could hear the kitchen and custodial staff talking about today's snow. They were comparing it to the Blizzard of '78. {sigh}  [insert eye roll] The forecast on Wednesday morning was 6-12".  This morning it was upped to 10-16".  We woke up to clear roads and no snow.  But it started snowing light later on.  This is a somewhat quick moving storm and will be over by this evening.  We have weather technology, weather websites, weather on TV, and social media to let us know the conditions.  It's not the Blizzard of '78 which lasted over 3 days and dumped more than 20" of snow where I lived in MA.  Yeah, I'm old enough to remember actually tunneling out the front door of our house. I'm laughing at terms like Snowmaggedon.  Several years ago we had snow storms like this on a regular basis and the snowbanks were taller than my husband's pick up truck.  Toda

We all have opinions. We base them on fact, conjecture, experience, and hearsay.  But we all have them.  The difference between opinions today and opinions 10 or 20 years ago is that we all see each others opinions on social media.  Like my blog, or your Facebook post. I have friends who have all sorts of opinions. Some I agree with, some I don't, some I really wonder where they got them from.  But we're all entitled to our opinion - that's what makes us all beautifully unique.  If we all had the same opinion on everything we'd probably all be pretty boring. Which brings me to this past weekend.  The Women's March. Based on my own Facebook feed I have seen it called amazing, enlightening, shameful, and pitiful.  Again, we all have our own opinion.  But I think some people missed the point. This was not just an American Women's March on Women's rights.  This was not a Women's March against President Trump. This wasn't an abortion rights march

Despite my best intentions, I did not get caught up on blogging during school vacation week.  In hindsight I have to wonder,.. why on earth do I think I will get work done or caught up on things when everyone is home?  Chalk it up to good intentions. I did spend the week thinking back over the previous year.  I'm not pessimistic, but it wasn't the best of years.  We lost my mom to cancer and spent most of our summer driving to visit her in hospitals and at her home.  The world lost some amazing artists and we saw friends posting about their struggles or losses. But on other side of the coin there were a lot of good things that happened in 2016 as well. I was able to chaperone the PHS Band trip to Disney with Becca.  Becca applied to college and we all watched the mail come in.  She was fortunate to receive scholarships to her top choice schools and we watched her graduate in June.  In August we brought her to school and she loves college.  She finished the semester with g