Shopping for Thanksgiving Dinner

Wow...today we went grocery shopping for Thanksgiving dinner and I was not suprised at the amount that it cost but my boyfriend was.  I had him go with me to help get the stuff because I wanted him to see that it is not an easy task, grocery shopping that is, and I wanted him to see what this meal was going to cost to feed 13 people.

There is alot more involved than just time to prepare the dinner and make the plans and try to get everyone together at the same time with them having to go to multiple places and have multiple meals all in one day.  The grocery bill by the way was $204.00 and he nearly went into shock.  I let him know that I spend that on groceries alot just to keep food in the house and it not is easy, the food prices go up everyday and it gets harder and harder to prepare meals when you are not able to get as much from one week to the next and he didn't quite understand that, but he does now.  This was not an I told you so lesson it was just something that I thought that he should know.  This will make the cost per plate approximately $15.70 person and five of them are children.  I think that it is a crying shame that people are put in aposition where they cannot afford to prepare a decent nutritional meal for their families and they cannot qualify for food stamps either because they went over by $4.00.

I guess once the meal is prepared and all the bellies are full  and satisfied then it will be well worth the cost and the time, and then we start preparing for Christmas and not just the dinner.  I can only imagine, so I decided to start getting the non-perishables now and then as time gets closer hopefully the grocery bill will go down.

I love to cook and I'm not complaining about that, I just wish it wasn't such a huge expense to get to bring a family together for a nice meal and to be able to socialize.  I hope all have a HappyThanksgiving and get to spend it with those you want to.

just another day

It's just another day, one less that I have to work and one less blog I have to post.  The day started out with an emergency at the clinic early this morning and the animal past away and then I hurried home to get around for school and went to tutoring and then class and back at work that was crazy busy with animals that would be better off taking care off themselves for no better care than the owners take of them.

I love my job and the animals , I just don't like seeing what some of them have to go through.  It is hard and sad but rewarding at the same time. 

It's just another day.

The Friday Blahs

It's Friday and here I am writing another blog and don't know what to say.  I have been sick all week and as you may or may not know I am a kidney donor in a the paired program and the person that I am trying to help is in renal failure and will not do what she should have done months ago and went on dialysis.  I have been doing some research because some of the things that she tells me isn't making much sense to me so I went online to the National Kidney Center to look up information on renal failure  and found out some very interesting things that I didn't know and neither did she. 

I believe that there are people who are very strong in their faith but when your life is put in jeopardy because you believe that God is going to heal you and you refuse other treatment, then I think there is a problem.   I have gone though extensive testing for this for her and have even put my grades in jeopardy which right now really pisses me off because I work very hard to get the grades I do and I don;t miss class even when I am sick, but she needed me to get my testing done, so the only time I had available was during midterms because she didn't want to wait a week and she reminded me that her kidney function was an 11(already in renal failure) so I went and missed a mid-term exam and screwed up my grade and now Im digging myself out of a hole.  Now don't get me wrong I am glad that I am going to be able to help her get a kidney, but now her kidney function is a 5 and she doesn't find it necessary to go on dialysis...are you kidding me. 

Needless to say, I got upset and called her and let my concerns be known but I don't think that it did any good she feels that she is doing great. Who does that?   I just don't get it.

I seem to have lost my train of thought because thinking about it makes me that angry.  Help those who help themselves..whoever thought that left it open for argument.    

Friday Blog

Here it is once again Friday and time for a blog and what do I have for this one, "nothing".  I have been very preoccupied with work, finances, registration for classes, homework and trying to keep it all together , not to mention being on alert always for a call that I need to go to St. Louis for the transplant and now with the holidays coming on there is that much more to think about and I am just flat overwhelmed.  I've got myself in a financial jam and can't seem to get out and that stresses me out to the max....I think that is my biggest worry, how to handle the mess I got into and how to get out.  I am working on a solution but I don't know that it is a promising one or not, though I would like to think so, you know they call that "wishful thinking", but it's all I got right now.

I want to be caught up on all my bills and all my school work and be able to look back on this ugle situation and say that I was able to get myself out.  I just need people to work with me a little and not keep harassing about money that I do not have.  How do you tell someone that your hours got cut back from work because it is the slow time and therefore you are not making as much but they think you should still be able to pay the same amount regardless, even when you do not have it....ridiculous I say..hello, do the math.  I want to pay, I can't pay or at least not that much ,but when I get back up on my feet I will pay more.  Why is that so hard to understand. 

I go to school to better myself and to get a degree so that I can make more money, but that won't happen for a while and I can't work a full and part time job because then I couldn't go to shool and the full time job won't pay all the bills, but I don't want to give up school...I wish people were a little more sympathetic to the issues at hand.  I would be, they must have lots of money and not have problems, I bet that's it, so lets crap on the people who are on the poverty level and falling fast.  That would be me and thank you and have a nice day to you too.

The need to relax

Once agin I am flying by the seat of my pants and once again at trying to get my blogs in on time and once agin I missed the due date.  My weeks are so busy, not to say that we all don't have busy weeks.  There has been so much going in my life that I can't even find the time to relax and there doesn't even been time to even have the thought to relax. 

My employer thought that it would be a nice thing for him to have a massage therapist come and give us all massages for 45 minutes and I was reluctant because I have never had one and I am not real fond of a stranger rubbing her hands on me, but it was kind of nice even though the whole time she is trying to massage my muscles she is telling me to relax..I said "RELAX" what is that?   I don't know how to relax and I never have.  I have such a hectic life and I always find that it is hard for me to do.  I am a very tense uptight person and relax was never something that I have ever been able to do and I don't think that it is going to get any better in the new future.  The holidays are coming up, finals are coming and new enrollment and then of course there is work and it busy because of the holidays and lots of animals to take care of and then there is the possiblitly that a kidney recipient may come up and I will have to go and donate my kidney to some needy person and then that has to be worked into a schedule, a phone call for that can come at any time and any day and tha really puts alot of stress on me because I have to line up so many things in order to go to St. Louis and even though I get to pick the date there is still recovery time and that has to be limited so that I can get back to work and school, so if you are like me, there is contant worry of getting things done and that leads me to the point that ..I need to relax. 

If there is a solution to this I am open to suggestions, because just for one day, I would love to know what it feels like to just "relax" if even just for a few minutes.  A time when there is absolutely nothing to do and for the most part, nothing to think about doing or having to do. 

Anyway to all of you out there who would love to give me some ideas, I am all ears or eyes, since I will have to read about it,

Mid-terms

I don't know about the rest of you but I am gld that mid-terms are out of the way and I can get my grades up to where I want them and put  together a new study plan and move forward.  I did this last year and it seemed to work out pretty well but I spent any and all free time that I had doing homework, but that is what it took and if it takes that again, then, homework here I come. 

I am not looking for this to be an easy semester just for the fact that I have alot of commitments that I have made and the biggest challenge that I will face will be getting them all done.  I am pretty organized about things but I do hate giving up what little free time that I have but in the long run I feel that it will be worth it.  I guess you have to put one foot forward first to be able to start out on your journey in order to reach your destination, so why not jump in with both feet right off the bat.

It has been a long week and the week to come could be filled with a surprise that I am not yet ready to take on but I will let you know how the week plays out.  I have to cut this blog short, I have been sick and trying to catch up on all my assignments and I thought that something is better than nothing so I got at least on in for tonight and will work on the other one tomorrow and maybe get a few points for the effort.

WOW..What a week

This has been quite a week and I am still trying to catch up on all of my homework and get caught up at work.  I started my week by attending class first thing Monday morning and then I went straight to work and worked  until 6:00pm and from there I went home changed clothes and was on the road to St. Louis by 6:30 and arrived there at 11:00pm and had to be at a Dr. appointment at 8:00 that was going to last for four hours and then had to have another one that lasted one hour and then had two more appointments the following morning which is now Wednesday and I should have been in my Bio class where I missed two quizzes and the lab that was going to be on my midterm test on Friday.  Then drive home on Wednesday and go to work on Thursday where I worked my regular shift then was on-call for the clinic which then required another 5 hours at the clinic for three emergencies and now it is Friday and I have my Bio test which was first thing in the morning only for me to see my graded posted on blackboard showing that I had done horrible which then reflected in my mid-term grade. 

So needless to say this has been a rough week and this is the only blog that I will get in this week which is still not over..I don't know if I will make it to the next blog..this week can still kill me.