We have a manager at work who has been with the company about 5 months, three months as a manager trainee, two as a manager. He has about 15-20 yeas experience as a restaurant manager. I think he might come up missing soon and I will have to plea the 5th.
He is an "old school' manager who does not care what the crew thinks or feels, speaks to them in a way to intimidate them, has a 'it's my way or the highway' mentality and is generally out to get my hosts, who average the age of 17. 17 ye
When Patrick has his stroke last Feb, I knew he had siezure and stroke-like symptoms, but neither seemed possible to me. There had to be a different explanation, such as dehydration. (He had a hot shower running when he colapsed, and had just ran several miles on the treadmill.)
When the EMTs arrived, they asked me if I had a specific hospital I wanted him taken to. I couldn't think of which hospital was within our network, but I did remember the hospital which is listed on our worker's ac
While getting ready for bed last night, Patrick grabbed a small photo album that sits on our dresser and began flipping through the pages. It is filled with photos my mom had taken of our rehersal dinner and our wedding day. As he was going through each page one by one, he would smile, and I could see a look of wistfulness in his eyes. He was remembering what he was like pre-stroke.
He would find a photo of interest, and show it to me, saying a word here and there to give me a clue to what
I don't have alot of new information on Grandma, but here is as much of an update as I can give:
Grandma has been moved from the hospital to a nursing home. Aunt *B* still believes Grandma isn't "in there". Her eyes are "black holes" as she put it and she believes the hand squeezes are random.
Dad is going to fly back to see her next weekend, and luckily *B* will be in Florida during that time. Dad will be able to spend some time with Grandma alone, and he plans on seeing if he can ge
I am SO EXCITED! Patrick and I are going to go see Les Miserables next Thursday, (Sept 18th) for my birthday! Patrick had told me a few days ago that the show was in Denver so I decided that seeing it again would make the perfect birthday gift. I went to the website and tried to purchase the tickets online but was unable to get any seats except in the "value" section. I called the box office to see if they had any better tickets and it just so happened that they has just had four tickets returne
On Thursday, Patrick and I decided it was now or never to take a drive into the mountains and get some pictures of the Aspen trees in all their fall glory. I am so glad we did! The day was sunny and gorgeous and we were able to get some great pics.
We started up the mountain around 11am with our delicious lattes (sugar free, skinny vanilla, 1/2 the syrup...I am SO that person) and Peter Gabriel playing on the CD player. We drove the same basic route that we took last year. It starts in a qu
This blog is long and about the murder of my friend. I have chosen to publish it in order to own the event as part of my life, an event I had buried after the "in your face" media sensation ended. I apologize if this seems in any way inappropriate, this is not my intention.
I've been psychoanalyzing the life altering events of my life quite a bit in the last few weeks. Many of the events I can pin point exactly how the event changed me. Others, I am not sure exactly HOW I changed, I just k
It's not really Christmas unless...
10) I've seen my favorite Christmas movies,THE REF, and A CHRISTMAS STORY at least 5 times each. I also like to squeeze in CHRISTMAS VACATION and the original MIRACLE ON 34th STREET. Natalie Wood was such a cutie.
9) I've still got presents to buy on Christmas eve. Sometimes I think all I have left is stocking stuffers until I remember (hopefully) the presents I forgot to buy.
8) The lights won't come on on the Christmas tree and I have to go
Today is a day to mark on the calendars. It's a boy!!!
I haven't talked about it here until now because I didn't want to jinx it, but today, my husband adopted my son. He is 13 years old. Patrick and I have been together since my son was 18mos old, living together since he was 3, and married since he was 8. Patrick is the only "father" he's ever had. It's nice now to be able to drop the quotation marks. Patrick is his father, and that is that. I don't honestly think it will change the relati
Once again today, I heard the phrase that everytime someone says it to Patrick, sounds like nails on a chalkboard to me: But you're too young to have had a stroke!
I always smile, and stay positive, after all, they are merely expressing their ignorance of strokes and stroke survivors. Oh, I'm sorry- I said I 'stay positive'. What I meant to say was, they are just trying to say they are shocked someone who is not 'elderly' suffered a stroke. They mean no harm, so thats why I put on my colg
I have been working my butt off the last few weeks. The weekend before Valentines Day is always busy, and of course Valentines Day itself is nutty, and we have been short staffed. This does not make life any easier.
My last day off was last Thursday. I had to work 8 days in a row after that because I requested my days off this week to be Saturday and Sunday. I was suppose to start a vacation on Monday, so the weekend off before my vacation was stretching it out a bit longer.
Unfortuna
I didn't WANT to do it, I swear!!
Patrick and I decided to clean out the flower pots and flower bed today so that when we are ready to plant, the containers are also ready. They were full of dead plants and flowers.
The first few pots were easy, we just had to remove the dead flowers from the center of the pots, and we left the evergreen plants in there, as they are already starting to perk up for spring. We then moved on to the side of the house where the flower bed is. It is about
I need an attitude adjustment. I know it, and I can't blame it on hormones; genetics maybe. The women on my mother's side of the family talk about us all having "the streak". They say the streak has been passed down for many years, and they all referred to it long before I was around. The women in my family are usually polite to a fault. You can push your luck quite far before we snap, but when we are pushed too far, the streak comes out and watch out. You will probably have no idea what the he
I decided to call Patrick's parents, give them an "update" on tomorrow's plan, and ask his dad about the conversation with the professor.
He mentioned that he initially had concerns about Patrick becoming dependent on a speaking device or slowing his speech progress. After reading studies and literature about the different devices used, he understood the purpose of them for Patrick. He also had always believed that knowing Patrick, it would not be in his nature to use a device to replace
"I didn't sign up for this."
This is the exact phrase that ran through my mind at one point right after Patrick's stroke. It only ran through for a moment, and I immediately pushed it aside, ashamed I'd even thought it. But it was a real thought all my own, no one else to blame. I thought it.
It is very hard to explain to someone else how such a thought can even cross your mind. I tried to explain to a friend at work who had told me he admired how I was handling everything that had
Tonight I took home my step-son from his weekend visit. Actually, I didn't take him all the way home, we meet halfway most of the time, including tonight.
It began to flurry a bit which was nerve racking. I don't have the best night vision anyway, and seeing the snow look like it could come right through the windsheild did not help. To add to it, I get nervous on wet/slippery roads, especially when passing semi's and around bends in the road. The reason for the curve thing is because I was
But I dig "supernatural" topics. No UFO's... ghosts, ESP, and stuff like that. I have never had an experience that I believed to be from the other side, but I enjoy reading stories and watching shows on the topic from time to time . My sweet husband humored me on our last anniversary with my interest.
We have started a tradition of staying an overnight trip on our anniversary. Ususally, I plan the trip by looking for interesting places within a few hours drive and we plan it from there. I
It feels so incredible to be back after well over a month of NO INTERNET! UGH! It's so amazing how addicting and how much I depend on the internet for information. How many things I wanted to investigate, people to talk to....
Well here's what's we have all been up to:
We had a great trip going back to Iowa and Illinois last month. We put over 2200 miles on the car driving around to see everyone! Just call me the road warrior...
Patrick finally got his Bioness about two weeks ago and
It has been a while since I've blogged, so for anyone who is curious, here is an update in the Kristen/Patrick/Brandon household.
At the last blog, we had just taken Patrick in for an evaluation with a neuropsychologist. After five hours of testing the results were of no value IMHO. The doc, who was in his 30's and will probably never be a motivational speaker, told Patrick basically to accept where he is at now as "as recovered as he will ever be" . I hate that some people seem to think th
I have been trying to decide whether or not to blog about this, because I know what I saw can hit close to home with many of our members here. The thing is, it has been like a shadow of sadness on me since it happened Tuesday, and I hope by blogging it, I can let it go.
I realize that I have been putting in more time at work (I just started going back full time) and the extra day of work happenes to have started at the same time school starts (which ALWAYS means we are short staffed for a
Today we had a person from the Department of Human Services come visit us to determine if Patrick was eligable to have someone come in for a few hours while I was at work. They will make sure he takes his pm meds, make his dinner, and stay for a bit. They approved us for 3 hours a day, 5 days a week. That is good news for me, a little less stress on preparing meals. I hope this service proves to be helpful. I can hire someone myself to do it if I want, unfortunately, I don't have many friends in
I would like to personally say thank you to Robin and Trina for responding to my very drepressed blog entry shortly after my birthday. It DID help. I had to delete it though- I just couldn't handle looking at my own irrational feelings. I wasn't able to face them.
I have always been a stiff upper lip kinda girl. I don't know. Maybe not. Maybe I developed it in elementary school when I had such a hard time fitting in. I don't often remember those early years with much happiness.
At any
Miss Sue asked me to update my blog so she would have something to read while she was out running all over the Land of Oz.
I wish I could give an upbeat entry, saying how everything is coming together in my life, but I can't. It isn't all falling apart either, but it's full of frustrations and worries right now. Sometimes it feels like I have so much more to worry about than other people my age and it doesn't seem fair. But at the same time, I usually comfort myself by saying that although my
I had three days off in a row: Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday. That never happens! It felt almost like a mini vacation. I am also now convinced that if I could voluntarily never work again, I could find ways to keep myself happily occupied.
Sunday was a pretty lazy day, it took me forever to get motivated to actually get out of bed. I bet it was 1pm before I was showered and dressed for the day. OH WELL!!! Brandon had his cousin and a friend spend the night, so I did get up and make the whole
