Oh what a lovely time we had in Helen!

This year, for my birthday, we took a day trip to Helen, GA, and 2 of our grandkids met us there for the day.  I managed to persuade them to have their picture taken ... don't they look good?

We had an awesome lunch at the Troll Tavern, we sat outside right by the river so I could listen to it bubbling over the rocks, and watch it just rolling along.  Waterways like that calm me and are an added health bonus for me, with my high blood pressure.  A natural remedy! The food was excellent, hubby and Dylan both had a Reuben, Nicolette had fish and chips (the fish was the length of the plate, and some!) and I had a Chef Salad without some of the usual components, so as to keep within my sodium limits. We all thoroughly enjoyed our meal and plan on eating there the next time we are in Helen.

I'd wanted to watch the 3 of them tubing, but - unfortunately - the places that did tubing didn't open for the season until the next day, so that idea went down in flames.

Next choice was for them to go ziplining ... but we got there too late.  It was 4pm but they said they weren't doing any more tours that day. It's on the "to do list" for the next time there.

Third choice was a treat, they went on the Georgia Mountain Coaster and had a blast.  Their only complaint was that they wished it had been longer.

We did a nice little walkabout (with me on my trusty electric mobility scooter) and hit up 2 of my other  favourite places there. 

One is the Hansel and Gretel Candy Kitchen and it seems I'm not the only one who loves that place! Here's a video from another chocolate lover from her visit to the candy kitchen. We made our own assortment of truffles ... raspberry, orange, lemon, mint ... and I treated myself to a red candy apple.  It's been a long time since I'd had one of those and I savoured every mouthful.

The second is Betty's Country Store, where I always pick up my German pickled cabbage with apples, and this time, a jar of German pickled carrots, since I love that too! It's the only grocery store in Helen, so is perfect for those who are camping, or staying in a cabin, and wanting to prepare their own food and have staples on hand to make sandwiches or cereal for the kids.

We love Helen, it's one of my "peaceful places". Just sit me by he water and I am happy.  When we've stayed before, we have picked hotels with balconies overlooking the water and I've taken my elliptical cycle with me, and had hubby set it up on the balcony so I can pedal while listening to, and watching the water, and the people tubing on it.

I'd definitely recommend it as a place to go.  There are a lot of fun things to do for families, including a water park and putt putt golf.

My one word of warning would be the sloping streets - if you have mobility issues and use a stick or a walker, some places will be difficult to get to. I tried to walk it before, and it was too much, hence the mobility scooter this time.

#ontheroadwithroseandmark #whoisrosedempsey #HelenGA #visitingHelen #daytrip #familyfun #asliceofGermany #tubing #ziplining #handmadechocolates #GeorgiaMountainCoaster #theTrollTavern #beautifuldayout #childfriendly

April, 30 Minutes A Day Reading Challenge for St Jude's

I read.  More than that, I love to read. I learned early, and became a bookworm as soon as I had mastered the art. My childhood was riddled with The Secret Garden, The Narnia Chronicles, Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, Lorna Doone, and all the Dickens volumes ... and, back in those days there were no paraphrases.  I was 7 or 8 and reading original unabridged versions ... if I didn't understand a word, that was what a dictionary was for.

I now read when I'm pedalling my elliptical bike, or the Intellistride machine at the gym.  I get lost in the story and time just flies by.

This past week, I finished another Kristin Hannah book, Magic Hour.  I honestly think this is my favourite of hers, although I've enjoyed all of the ones I've delved into so far. I also finished another Thomas Perry, The Burglar, and that kept me on my toes, as always, trying to feel where he was taking me and not wanting to cheat and check out the end to see if my ideas were correct.

They are 2 authors that I have been binge reading the past few weeks, 2 totally different genres and styles of writing, and yet both weave tales that I find myself caught up in and unwilling to put their stories down.

I am still needing sponsors for the St Jude's challenge.  Even if you could only spare $1, if I had 100 people simply donate $1 that would give me $100 towards my goal.  It's such a worthy cause, they do so much and there's never  a charge for patient care ... something that many of the parents would not be able to afford anywhere else.

Please share my blog post and share the challenge website (on Facebook )for me, donate if you can, it truly is a worthwhile cause.

Thanks for reading!

Alternate Medicine and Me

So, this weekend was the weekend that my hubby and I enjoyed our Christmas present to ourselves - a massage and facial at Studio Rejuvenate in Greer - with Roger (my favorite massage therapist ever!) and Hannah who made me feel like a million dollars with a wonderful facial.

As always, conversations began, and discussions of alternate therapies happened. My massages are an important part of my health plan. They help relax me, the lymph drainage ones help the swelling on my legs, and the reflexology lets me know sometimes of issues that I wasn't aware of. 

I have been a fan and user of alternate therapies for many decades, and as my health has deteriorated with age, and I have an inability to take many drugs, I am thankful for the knowledge I have accrued over those years.

My "go to" for pain is an essential oil blend, which - when massaged on hips or back - alleviates it. To relax, and to help me sleep, I have lavender oil and a lavender pillow spray. Aromatherapy has also been a mainstay, has different fragrances provide different moods, some uplifting, some soothing.

My "go to" for colds and flu, since so many over the counter products are unsuitable for people like me with high blood pressure and heart issues, has always been Vicks vapor rub. It goes on the soles of my feet, along my sinuses, under my nose, around my throat, and on my chest and back. I have been a Vicks fan since my childhood, and have sometimes have even used it as a rub for pain when I have not had any essential oils to take care of it.

I also use foods to help with various issues that I have. I eat plenty of fruit, which helps lower blood pressure. I drink cherry juice or eat cherries, to help my arthritis. I add lemon juice to my water, and sometimes cucumber, as they are natural diuretics for the body. In moderation, I use sunlight to get my vitamin D. When my heart goes really slow, I will eat something spicy as that helps boost metabolism. Since I don't usually drink any caffeinated drinks, when my heart rate drops below 40 I will often have a couple of sips of my husband's soda to help boost it. 

I also pedal on my elliptical bike to help raise it longer term. Most days, every couple of hours, I will pedal for 10, 15, or 20 minutes, just to keep it at a reasonable rate. The exercise is obviously also helping me to lose weight and tone up the muscles that my immobility leave slacking.

There are certain drugs that I must take basically to stay alive, but for most of my other ailments and issues, I stick with the natural. And another way that I lower my blood pressure, something that I find soothing, is to watch water - rivers, waterfalls, and streams. They provide me with my peaceful places that help to calm me.

With everything that I deal with, my doctor says that I am still one of her healthiest patients. I guess I must be doing something right.

Very Frustrated Right Now

 As those of you who follow me know, I have a myriad of health issues that prevent me from working a regular job anymore. 

Since becoming disabled in 2006 I have had an AVON business that has provided me with enough money to stay home and build that business, in order to contribute to the family Kitty. I have had business pages and groups set up on Facebook during that time but suddenly it seems I have offended the Facebook gods because they have unpublished one of my pages and shut down one of my groups, and right now are not allowing me to post in the groups that I admin. This is very annoying as two of them are for other representatives, one of which is for my team members,  for encouragement and training , and at the moment I am unable to work in them. 

I take my job very seriously, I am not the sort of person who harasses my team members to produce, produce, produce, but I try to be there when they need me, and to provide information that is useful to them which they can either choose to use or not. I see my job as being there to support them in their vision of how they want to run their business. 

I do not understand why Facebook would find this threatening in any way or claim that it goes against community standards.

I do share a lot of things, and sometimes they go to two or three groups at a time because I need the people in them to have the information. With my business advertising, there are only a couple of groups that I post in other than my own private groups, so it should not bother them that I am posting in them because people have chosen to join those groups and are expecting there to be advertising in there. 

Friends have suggested that maybe it is another representative who is jealous of what they perceive as my success. My business has suffered, like a lot of other peoples, during COVID and then these hard economic times, my income now is about 1/3 of what it was a few years ago. I do not claim Social Security disability, I have chosen to support myself as best I can with my AVON, so it actually hurts my feelings that somebody might do this to me and be reporting things that I post, as they could only be in one or other of the groups that I administrate. It also hurts me to think that somebody would be that petty within the Avon family. Over the years I have helped so many people who are not on my team, I have spent hours explaining things on the telephone, sending emails and sharing information with people I have never met and whose businesses do not help me in any way, but that did not stop me because I see a joy in helping somebody else succeed. I do not believe that not being nice gets you anywhere. 

As somebody who is disabled - and works around that disability to the best of my ability - it always annoys me when people feel they have to score over somebody like me. I have a neighbour who, when he moved in began causing me issues, and I feel bad that somebody is so weak and such a sad person that the only way they can make their self feel better was to harass somebody like me. I have no respect for him. I had tried to be a good neighbour when they moved in but now choose to have nothing to do with them. 

Likewise, Facebook. The page that they shut down and unpublished, they were quite happy taking advertising money from me for it a couple of years ago and changed my audience to a different country so that the leads that I was getting was from South Africa and not the USA. At the time I did not realise this period it was a few months later after i had commented to people that I was getting an awful lot of inquiries from South Africa. I had gone onto the page to promote another ad and wanted to put it to where it was shown to people within a 50 mile radius of me and I got an error message telling me that I could not post this because it was in the wrong country. Although my audience choice showed the USA, the map showed South Africa and no matter how I tried to change it it kept telling me that I couldn't post in the USA. At that point I realized why I had had all the inquiries from South Africa, and so I stopped boosting posts from that page since I could not change my audience to my local area. but they had taken my money for quite a few months, which was a waste to me as I was trying to help people in another country get started in their country and was not helping my business at all, which had been the point of my advertising. 

The other thing being that there is no way to argue with Facebook, they do not respond to any disputes that you may have or any complaints.

It is all very frustrating to me and sadly, because of my blood pressure issues, it affects my health. It also disappoints me and saddens me because I feel like I am letting my team members down when I cannot keep them abreast of everything, and they go to the group to check on stuff because they don't check their emails.

It is times like this that I do get resentful of my inability to do things that I used to, if I could still walk normally I could canvas local areas and talk to people more. If I could still sit for longer periods of time, without my legs swelling and my blood pressure going up which is weird that is what happens if I sit too long, then I would still be able to go out and do events, and if I could walk and climb stairs I could still go do house parties to promote my wares. Unfortunately all of those options are now unavailable to me which is why I have spent a lot of time building my business online these past 16 years. So at the moment I cannot do anything in any of the groups or on my business pages and they shut the one down on me totally and the one group so they are gone forever. It is frustrating, unfortunately with it being a free site they rule the roost and can persecute whoever they want. Not sure why somebody thinks that it's great to score points of somebody like me but Oh well I guess, this world is full of all sorts of people and entities.

We Had A Busy Weekend

 

It was a busy one, and we got a lot done. Hectic but very satisfactory. Hubby got on with insulating his shed, along with decluttering junk out of the other one. We delivered some AVON,I did a load of training for my new business - Paw Tree - and handed out some AVON brochures as we did all of our running around. It was all good, and after the storm passed through the weather was lovely. In all honesty, we got very lucky with hurricane Ian, because by the time it hit  South Carolina it was a tropical storm, and it hit on the coast so we were on the western side I'm really got nothing more than a few hours rain and a blustery day beforehand.

Today has been pretty productive so far, I've finished some training online, I fed all the animals, I pedaled for 20 minutes, and then did one of my leg lymphatic treatments. I have a business meeting online at noon, and after that I guess I will have some things to work on for the new business. I also have to do some AVONing, especially with all of the new Christmas stuff that's coming up in the brochures. It's an exciting time. I do love Christmas.

Brunel the puppy is growing in leaps and bounds, he is getting to be quite a heavy little man. He won't like me at the end of the month as he will be going into the Greenville Humane to be neutered, but I am a strong advocate of spaying and neutering and I honestly believe it is healthier for animals.

I have a new chiropractor and our relationship is going well, he likes you to do exercises on a rubber cushion to help align your spine and get your muscles working correctly. Today I put it on my exercise chair and was watching the dogs while I was doing the exercises, and I scooted my butt and the cushion shut out of the gap behind the seat. I was laughing so hard my neighbours would have thought I was a crazy woman had they have heard me.

Well I hope everyone has an awesome day. And this being the beginning of a new week, may we all have a productive and successful one.

Am I Getting More Sensitive In My Older Age?

Being disabled is no fun, and is humbling after being able bodied for most of your life, but it seems there are some who don't realise that we don't choose to be disabled, that it is something that happens that we can't control, and that we don't need to be penalized for it. Maybe I am just getting more sensitive to criticism and innuendo in my older age, I'm not sure, I do know that incidents play on my mind a lot more. When I feel discriminated against it messes with my head and keeps me awake at night, especially when I try to resolve issues with places and they seem to make more excuses and treat me as though I'm ridiculous for feeling that way.

Take for instance a recent visit to a place where it is supposed to be a first come first served non appointment alternative healing office. They have a scanner that you pop your key ring card up against when you enter, which then puts you onto the computer so that you are in line to see the practitioner.

We had arrived early due to finishing our other running around sooner than we expected to, so ended up waiting about 25 minutes outside for the location to open. We'd been there maybe 10 minutes or so when another lady showed up, and about 5 minutes after that the practitioner arrived.

We continued to wait and 2 more gentlemen arrived. Finally, just before they were due to open, the receptionist arrived. When she opened the door I was the first one in and I scanned my key card, she looked at me and told me to sit and wait. Next the lady who had arrived after us scanned her card. The receptionist told her to go on back and then did the same with the two men, leaving me sitting there.

I had been needing to hit the restroom before my treatment and my husband said "go on back and use the restroom" and I said " no she told me to wait here. I've waited 25 minutes I can wait a few minutes more" at which the receptionist threw me a filthy look. Finally after the lady and the two men had gone back she told me to go back.

At that point I had asked the therapist whether there was an app that people used to check in ahead of time, because I honestly thought that the other three people must have used one outside while waiting and that I just didn't know about it. The therapist said she did not know of any app and told me just to message through the website, which I did. The response originally was that no there is no website, at which point I questioned what happened that Saturday morning. Their response made no sense.

To start with. they claimed that it was a computer error and that the computer did not put me in, which would be fine except that the receptionist was there and had seen me scan in, and if it had not gone on the computer surely she  would/should have had me scan again? And obviously she knew I was there because she had told me to sit and wait. For them to claim that the computer missed me until it had put the other three people in ahead of me kind of doesn't make sense. Are they also saying that the receptionist had forgotten that she had told me to sit in the 30 seconds before the second person scanned, and again in putting the two men ahead of me? My husband said that they probably thought that the three able bodied people would be in and out quicker than I would and that it made sense just to put them ahead of me . When I questioned this I basically was told that I was being accusatory in claiming that the receptionist discriminated against me. I did actually tell the manager who called me that I was not stupid because they basically tried to tell me that when she looked at me she wasn't looking at me, I just caught her at an off moment and maybe she was already having a bad day. The general consensus seems to be that I'm lying and unfortunately there is no way of proving that I'm telling the truth because the only person who witnessed it was my husband, I don't know the names of the other three people who went ahead of me and because of the privacy issues I'm quite certain I have no way of finding out who they are. I had hoped there would be security cameras so that I could at least prove that I was telling the truth, but no, the ones outside are only down by the supermarket in the Plaza, and there are none inside, so basically it's my word against the receptionists and obviously the company takes the receptionist's word over mine and I have just misjudged everything that happened that day and there was no discrimination meant.

This has hurt my feelings and, as ridiculous as it sounds, it plays on my mind and actually wakes me up at night. In all honesty I would never have thought years ago that something like this would worry me so much, I would have thought I would have just blown it off. I guess I've just got more sensitive in my old age. Added to which I have always been the person that doesn't jump ahead in the line, because I have been raised that if somebody else was ahead of me that they go before me.

I hate being this sensitive, and I have had to consider things deeply. I've been scheduling my visits when other receptionists are working, because I am a straight person, and when I've got something to say I will usually say it. I'm not somebody that can be nice to your face and talk about you behind your back. So basically, I'm trying to prevent an incident happening in the office that would probably embarrass and upset the receptionist and possibly end up with me being hauled away to jail which is not something that I want to happen. I am now considering cancelling my membership there because of this. I think it's far better to just walk away and find another therapist and get my treatments there, without the bad feelings I have every time I approach the front door of this building. It is definitely not helping my health when it runs my blood pressure up worrying about it. 

I have always tried to be a nice person and treat people decently, and yet it does seem that since I've become disabled I have noticed that's some places do treat you differently. I guess I should be thankful that I do not experience as much ridicule as some, and can usually laugh at some of my afflictions.

Update:  I decided that my mental health was more important then allowing me to continue to stress over something that was not going to get resolved. I cancelled my membership of The Joint and now attend 100% Chiropractic.

Tuesday Tidbits

Good morning beautiful people. Here's hoping your Tuesday is already starting to be terrific.

Mine has started well, I made it to the gym, that always makes me feel good. I indulged myself twice in the massage chair as the hydro massage bed was out of action. Afterwards I went to Publix and grabbed supplies for a nice sandwich and salad for dinner tonight, because it's so hot out I really don't feel like cooking nor eating something hot, and after working out in the heat all day I doubt my hubby would like a hot meal either. I even picked him up a nice parfait for dessert, because he deserves it.

I got some more soft pate canned food for Precious that I can mash down with extra liquid and the high calorie supplement, so as to keep him fed and keep him hydrated and his body fat reasonable. At 19 years of age he is doing very well but we just have to make sure that he gets enough nutrition as his dementia often means that he forgets to eat or drink.

I've been plodding along with my modelling, I look and can see how far I have come since Christmas with all the different buildings and accessories, but still so far to go I still have not laid any track to run the trains on. Waiting on hubby getting all of the base done for me so that I can then actually begin to put things where they go. We had a change of plans which is what brought everything to a halt temporarily. We got hubby a new garden shed so I am reclaiming what used to be my Avon building and that will now be my model building. It means extra work for hubby because I will have double the space, which will also mean that I can devote a greater area to his urban industrial and that between the two we can turn round and have some Magnorail vehicles moving as well, to make it more realistic in ways.

I also need to spend some time adorning the Manor farmhouse with the ivy, like a lot of old English houses have growing up them. It looks very realistic, but obviously is tiny and needs some meticulous positioning to make it look real.

Hope you have an amazing day. I'm hoping mine will be productive.