Jo's Personal Blog at Blogger.com: 04/01/2014

Friday

18 Nov 2006 Thanksgiving

Hi All, Here's some pictures of Thanksgiving 2006!

A great time was had by All!

27 Nov 2006 Tree Pics

Here's some pictures of our decorating.

I'll try and take some pictures of the tree with its lights on too.

"The Book of Me, Written by You" - Your First day of School

This is a journey of finding yourself and how your loved ones see you in their eyes. Further, this can be online and carried forward to share, if you wish, to future generations.

This is a journey of finding yourself and how your loved ones see you in their eyes. Further, this can be online and carried forward to share, if you wish, to future generations. - See more at: http://joannfitz.blogspot.com.au/2013/09/the-book-of-me-written-by-you-topic-1.html#sthash.2TuO2bVu.dpuf

The prompt for the week is:

Your First day of School

The Brief:

Do you remember the day?

The weather

What you wore

How you got there
Who took you to school

Where was the School

Any stories?

Friends
Teachers

How old were you?
Were you perhaps home schooled or taught in a different way to the usual traditional methods - such as were you in a remote area and lessons conducted using the phone etc
Do you have any other memories or thoughts of your first day of school?
Or perhaps ask a sibling, parent, child etc
Caution - do not spend lots of time on your junior school that will be in another prompt!

I don't remember if it was the exact day of starting school, but I remember my mother complaining about school and we were going to be late and nearly pulling my arm out by her tugging while we walked to the school.

I remember her taking me inside to the teacher and then leaving. I was told to go stand on the stairs until everyone else showed up as we were extremely early.

Taken from Walden's website - The staircase leading to the upper level of the school.

According to my report card, I started in January 1978, which made my age to be 6. I do remember wearing a winter coat and had gloves attached to it with a hood.

The school I attended is Walden Elementary School which is within the Valley Central School District in Walden, NY.

Walden Elementary School Building - Image taken from www.panoramio.com

Walden Elementary School's entrance - from www.recordonline.com

Other memories
I remember walking into the classroom. There were areas to paint, play with blocks, and the other side had wooden desks. Each desk had something on it with crayons. We were to go to a desk and use the crayons on the paper it had on it. I remember the crayons being huge ones and we used them, I think, the whole year I was there.

Each day we were to have a quarter (25 cents) and we got a small pint of milk and a cookie to have while we were there. I remember sometimes my mother wouldn't have the money and I would be brought to everyone's attention because I didn't have the money and that meant I couldn't have any milk or the cookie. It made me very uncomfortable in front of everyone.

I do remember the years I attended elementary school being very snowy and cold. In fact, when I looked up 1978, I found there was a bad snow storm, but didn't realize how bad it was.

New York snowed up: the normally congested Northern Boulevard in Queens is transformed into a winter park, 7 February 1978. Photograph: Bettmann/Corbis

As I have mentioned in a previous post, even in Kindergarten, I always felt highlighted and sectioned out and that is highlighted in my Kindergarten report card by the teacher where she states "Jo Ann seems to observe what others are doing rather than starting an assignment". Thankfully, I've learned to get past this point and get on in life. In fact, I try and make everyone in my classes I teach, feel as if they are included in the class because I know how it feels to be made an example of when its not a good thing. I try and make my classes as friendly and comfortable as I can, because its been proven the more comfortable people feel the better results you get.

Check back for the continuation of "The Book of me, Written by You" series.

Thursday

"The Book of Me, Written by You" - What makes you proud?

This is a journey of finding yourself and how your loved ones see you in their eyes. Further, this can be online and carried forward to share, if you wish, to future generations.

The prompt for the week is:

What makes you proud?

The Brief:

Your achievements
Against the odds
Challenges
Your Family Members
Spouse
Parents
Grandparents
Grandchildren
Children
Friends and Colleagues

This prompt makes me sit back and think...what exactly is my emotions to being proud? I think these emotions are mixed because while I've accomplished and fought for things I believed would make my life easier, I've had so many roadblocks in life that its hard to sit back and think about them all. Everyone has roadblocks in life and we all deal with them in different ways. I've probably went through what many in life have done and have just pushed on.

Family

My great grandparents in front of their shop in the 1930's in NJ.

The people in my family are all fighters on some level. You have the ones that want to fight and will actually pick them with you quite loudly. There are others that are the exact opposites where they fight for all their worth, but do it in a quiet and dignified way. Just sitting back and thinking about how each person in our family goes about how they view life and how they combat, or fight, their way through it is different. I do have to say, as fighters, one thing we do not do lightly is give up. We keep going and keep on giving no matter what. This is one of the traits, I'm proud to say, stem down from my great grandparents - on both sides of my family. Both sides come from Poland, and as anyone who knows Poland's history, knows that no matter who's running the show, Polish people just keep on going and keep on giving. This does make me proud.

My Spouse

I am proud of my spouse because he supports me in almost everything I do and want to do. Its also reflected back by me doing the same back to him. Did you wonder why I put the word almost in? That's because sometimes, like in most relationships, you just need to compromise. I encourage, support and show him love when and wherever I can. True, we don't show a lot of public displays of affection, but the emotion and respect is there.

My Achievements and Challenges Against All Odds

I have to say, I've been fighting since conception. My mother mistook how to use birth control pills in the 1970's, keeping in mind they were a new way of prevention back then, and then she found out she was expecting. Then came my mother breaking her ankle and being put in the hospital and needing help to get around until her ankle fully healed. As my progress in growing was being made, they were reducing the cast my mother's leg was in. The downside to this point was her roommate helped her take up smoking, so by the time she left the hospital she was truly addicted to them, which, in turn, affected me. However, as you can see, I still made it to being born.

One of the braces for people with pigeon toes

However, once I was born, there were problems. I had birth defects which affected my heart (a murmur) and legs (pigeon toed). When I started school, it was found I had a learning disability as well. Each thing as it came along, I fought and dealt with. First the doctors did what they could and tested my heart at different times trying to figure out if it was life threatening, which it isn't, but I still have to be careful. The legs were put into many different shoes and braces until I was at least 4. By then, I hated the things and would hide or "get rid of" them, so I've been told. I still remember when my grandmother Jean was alive, we would go walking around Newburgh and she would always tell me not to be so lazy with my legs and keep them at the right direction. I believe this was one reason why she didn't take me many places with her. I got used to just ignoring the small, but sharp, barbs growing up about my legs as they were as they were and nothing could make them right.

Then came my learning disability when I was in first grade. Not only did I not have many friends because of the custody issues (my time was split between my mother and father), but then I was constantly singled out each year which I had problems and needed to be sorted out and then taken away from most of the other kids and put into a room with about maybe 20 kids. Talk about a real confidence boost in making and keeping friends. However, over the years, I learned on how to make things work for me and deal with this disability. People don't even realize that I have a problem and it isn't until I tell them, and in some cases I don't tell them, they even know. If anything, I fight my way through it and take the more challenging route for me.

What didn't help was throughout my education, I never was encouraged to keep going or celebrated. The times there were ceremonies, either I didn't go, or if I did, it was by myself. To most people in

One of my many achievements

the family it was a normal day even though I was just given a new badge in Girl Scouts, or had a chorus show, or even made Honor Societies in both high school and my trade school. There was only 3 times were it was celebrated - when I graduated from high school, my trade school and I received my Associates in Applied Science degree. However, the high school ceremony was destroyed because it started to pour out and my mother got mad and went back to my car and sat there, wet, while I received my diploma. The trade and Applied Science degrees were attended to, put I always felt like it was a huge inconvenience instead of a big deal - we got dressed up, attended and then back home after. No celebration other than to say "Are we done yet?" or the feeling of those words.

My birthday each year was a bit of the same type of feeling as the graduation celebrations. Because of this, in my teens, I stopped celebrating my birthday and now, I don't celebrate any birthday's or achievements any longer - not the Certificate 4 in Training and Assessment and I don't have any plans on celebrating my Certificate 4 in Web Based Technologies which will be completed in the next 2 1/2 months. I did the work, received the paperwork, hit another birthday on the calendar and let's move on.

How does this relate to being proud?
What does make me proud is how I've handled my life - I can't do much about what life throws at me, I can just deal with what life throws at me, look at it and do something with it. Its happened there's not much you can do. However, I think its a bonus of a day if I can get up, walk up to a mirror and look me straight into the eyes and know that everything that I have done, I could do to my up most ability and do it both mortally and lawfully, then its something I can be proud of.

Some people have asked me in the past, doesn't that make you mad and tick you off? Of course things do, but its happened all you can do is deal with the fallout of what's happened. Will it make me feel better to call people names and sledge their name? Sure it would, but it could also come back and bite me right in the ass and by doing this could actually hurt or take away some of the options I could have had if I hadn't done that. Its thinking of the cause and effect or Newton's law of Action and Reaction in Physics but instead of all the chemistry stuff that goes with that, just think of the concept - something you do will cause something else to happen which might limit your choices. Because of this, I try to look at the brighter side and go the way less harm will happen.

All I can say is I do what I think would make myself proud. In doing that, hopefully, others will see value in what I've done. Further, to do anything in malice will only make things harder in the long run and could result in missed opportunities. In fact, one of the places I teach at recently gave me this certificate, because they said it fits me.

I've put some of my challenges and accomplishments within this post, but feel free to look at my tiny story below, which will show you a bit more. This is also on my About Jo Ann page of our website and will take over 13 minutes, so make sure you have a drink handy.

Check back for the continuation of "The Book of me, Written by You" series.

Wednesday

"The Book of Me, Written by You" - What's in your bag/pocket?

This is a journey of finding yourself and how your loved ones see you in their eyes. Further, this can be online and carried forward to share, if you wish, to future generations.

The prompt for the week is:

What's in your bag/pocket?

The Brief:

Do you routinely carry a bag or holdall?
What do you carry?
Why do you carry it?
What do you carry it in?
Do you carry differently things on specific days or to specific places?

My girlfriend Gail and I (notice a big my purse is?!) in 2000.

I've always had a problem carrying a purse. I never wanted one and then as I became a woman I had to because of getting my periods. However, I could only see carrying one if it could fit a romance book inside as well as dealing with my periods. This is how I used to measure up if a purse was worth it.

My purse in 2014

Today I'm not that different. It has to have my wallet with the cards in it, things for dealing with my periods and its able to hold my iPad and easy access to my iPhone. Why? Because the iPad has my books on it and the iPhone has access to my social media. I told you I wasn't that different than growing up and then add the social media.

Check back for the continuation of "The Book of me, Written by You" series.

"The Book of Me, Written by You" - How do you De-Stress?

This is a journey of finding yourself and how your loved ones see you in their eyes. Further, this can be online and carried forward to share, if you wish, to future generations.

The prompt for the week is:

How do you De-Stress?

The Brief:

Read
Swim
Walk
Music
Yoga
Sport
Anything else?
What triggers your acknowledgement that you need to de-stress?
Headaches
other pains?
What triggers you stress?
As always, share what you feel comfortable - anything from nothing to.....your choice!

De-Stress? What's that? Hmmm I better look it up...Ok I found it. According to Merriam Webster encyclopedia, it says:

"to relax your body or mind : to stop feeling the effects of stress"

I think this prompt is going to either be a very short or one that is very informative.

The short answer

What do I do to de-stress or destress? The answer is actually very easy - I don't. I'm usually on the go go go or the body is still but the mind is constantly on the go. I do try and relax just a bit by reading, listening to music, cuddling with our dog, Buddy, and a few other things, but even while doing these things, my mind is still going 100% strong.

The longer answer

I'm basically a time poor person. People have asked me why I'm so time poor at the moment due to not working full time and I should be less stressed than when I was working full time. Yes, this is a good point; however, just because I'm not working full time doesn't mean that I am busy. While I'm not working full time, I do work part time as a teacher of IT in 2 different places when there are enough enrollments. Then I'm currently taking classes, I believe its a full time student course load, and I try and write on each blog (which means 2 because I have this one and an IT blog) once a week. Further, lately I've had some medical issues crop up (and have had 2 day surgeries within 6 weeks of each other) and we've had 3 people ( 1 friend, 1 a close family friend and my husband's grandmother) who have passed away. Then we have been helping with getting my husband's grandmother's estate settled and have my mother in law understand what is happening (not easy this one!). This is on top of all of my other commitments. Then add in physical therapy for my shoulders and normal day house things, and you can see...not much time is left.

With the little bit of time that is left, I try and manage to clean the house, do the shopping, and go for walks to get both the blood pressure down AND loose the weight/manage the sugar due to a doctor diagnosing me with Type 2 diabetes which is controlled by diet and exercise.

Part of the screen for relaxing at calm.com

Because of all the stresses, I know I've got to try and relax. When I was living in the US, I had cassette tapes which I listened to to relax - it had sounds of waves, rain, and other types of things. I've downloading an app called Calm which I've been using for about a week now. I have to say I think its helping, because if I can't sleep and my mind keeps going, I put this on with using the headphones and it does relax me enough to go to sleep.
taken to

People say to walk or swim or some other physical exercise but not before bed. I could go out and walk down the road and back and I'll be ready for bed and I'd still be stressed. Besides, while I go for the walk or swim my mind is still going...for instance, I was out on a long walk just yesterday and instead of clearing my mind I was actually going through my ancestry of each side of my family and trying to figure out how to get past the brick walls I've hit - not exactly relaxing. Today, when I went for my walk, I was actually doing a planning schedule of a class I'm currently teaching. There just doesn't seem to be an off button.

De-stress?
I don't think I can... I live on it and thrive. The doctors have all asked me about this and I told them the same thing. My physical therapist asks me each time he sees me about stress and he always asks me if I'm going to slow down...If I could I would is my standard response!

I've even looked at websites for help in de-stressing....

20 Scientifically-Back Ways
Twelve Ways to destress

As you can see, most of the websites have even listed the ways I've addressed above. I have tried each of these, but it just doesn't work...Even on holidays/vacations I'm usually stressed. *sigh* Eating chocolate? I'm there. Take a walk? I've tried it and the mind keeps going. Just sit still. Did it but the mind is long gone at about 100mph.

Like I said above, the calm website and app are both great and seem to be working, so let's hope it stays that way. The doctor's will be happy if nothing else...

Check back for the continuation of "The Book of me, Written by You" series.

"The Book of Me, Written by You" - Love

This is a journey of finding yourself and how your loved ones see you in their eyes. Further, this can be online and carried forward to share, if you wish, to future generations.

The prompt for the week is:

Love

The Brief:

Love comes in varying shapes and sizes
I love you
I love ice cream
I love the smell of rain, Spring, toast
I love my (insert your family member, pet etc)
There is no right or wrong way to love....or is there?
Define what love means to you.

Love is a 4 letter word that can and to some does mean so much more than a 4 letter word. It means a variety of things from loving a song, colour, a food, a thing, a place, a pet and a person just to name a few of them. It also revolves over your lifetime as well. Something you love when you are aged 10 changes and as you grow some of the things you love drop off once you reach the age of 40, while others stay there but there are different types of love each of which has a different level of importance.

As I group these into types, remember these are MY types and levels and not everyone will feel the same way.

Hobbies & Everyday Items Type - Lowest

2 of my running trophies before I had to stop

The lowest type of "love" are for hobbies and everyday items such as chocolate, ice cream, shoes, songs, etc. These are the things we do love but if they ever went away, while we would feel the loss, it wouldn't bring you to your knees. Further, these are the items I'm talking about when I say love drops off and evolves overtime. Other types of love do this, but this is more frequent in this group. For instance, when I was under 15 years old, I loved to run. I would run to school and then run home...just to run. However, once I had injured first my back and then my knee and ankles, I still
loved to run, but just couldn't do it any longer. Do I love to run? You bet, but I can't. Another form would be chocolate and ice cream. I love both, but I have to regulate how much I eat, so I can't eat as much as I want (or else I'd get sick if nothing else!). I could survive without them, and I have done so in the past when I needed to regulate my sugar, however, I wouldn't want to go without. Besides, as I'm sitting here writing this article up, I'm eating some dark chocolate baking bits. YUM!

When you discover a new hobby or item, such as a new food you tried, and when you experience it or accomplish something is when you feel true love of this type.

Pets & Friends Type - Medium

This is in the middle as we have very close friends and some friends that we haven't seen in awhile, but the fact remains if they were to go away or die we'd feel a more severe heart ache because we do love them. The same goes for pets. Some people have pets and they go outside to feed and give them a quick pet. Whereas others, like myself, consider them family and they are a member of the family. When something happens to them, we have the same severe (or maybe even more so) than loosing a close friend. An example would be my friend Brian Sherry VanLeuven. I knew him from school and considered him a friend; however, when we lost him in 2013, it hurt and I was sad to know someone that young is gone. Another example would be when we lost our dogs JR (2004) and Jackie (2012). They were both our dogs, but JR was under 3 years old and Jackie as over 10 years old. They both hurt, but Jackie we let go due to diabetes complications as it was the thing to do. JR I still think of and mourn for but Jackie I am sad but know he's in a better place.

During better times, you have when you first meet the friend or pet or parties or celebrations for them are some examples of these times.

Family Type - High

Unfortunately, we only have one of these which for some people is a good thing and for some people is a bad thing. However, how much everyone within that family fights and doesn't get along with they are still joined by common genes, people and views on basic levels. Believe me, I don't have the closest of families, and have never even had a reunion or gathering because World War 3 would probably be a safer place, but we all still have the same genes and basic views on most things (please notice the world MOST).

Some family at my uncle's funeral

While I put the word most in there, there are sometimes very few things families look at the same way whereas sometimes you cannot mistaken they are family because they have the same outlook on all things. For instance, my father's a Republican and sends me (who's a Democrat for the most part) jokes about things against the Democrats. At first I told him not to send me those things, but he didn't take any notice of me. At first I was ticked off and annoyed, but rather than getting upset, I just delete them now. However, the fact is we both have strong views in politics, which is a common thing and that's ok. Another is my brother, myself and my nieces feel strongly about family and how close they should be. And if anyone in the family needed anything, we would help out as much and where we could and nothing would stop us. An example would be when my niece needed help after the hurricanes visited her multiple times in 2005. They needed a bit of help to get them up and going again, and my nieces took up a collection for her to help them out, which it did. It wasn't much but it was all we could do to help them out and they were very thankful.

Some good examples of this type are parties, celebrations, births and weddings are when you see each other during the better times.

Spouse/Partner & Children Type - Extremely High

This type are the people you are in direct contact with day in and out. If something happens to them, your whole world feels like it comes crashing down on you. This is the extreme love where your chest feels like its going to kill you because it hurts so much. I know all about the children loss when I didn't have a choice to have surgery because our baby was in the wrong spot in 2004. Your whole world just stops spinning and you just feel completely and utterly numb. Every day you think about the person - even if its just something small or in passing but it reminds you of the loss. True over the years the loss feels less but its still constantly with you no matter what.

1997 My husband's family at our wedding

Marriage, commitment or baptism ceremonies are probably the best examples of these types of good things in these types.

As you can see by my chart, there are different levels and types. They do vary but if they all still hurt when it comes to death or disassociation from them. On the other hand, which I don't think I've mentioned enough in this article, when you feel the love with these types its the best at the same time.

Check back for the continuation of "The Book of me, Written by You" series.