Andy in Europe

Our son, Andy, is in Europe. He had wanted to be there, in his original plans, for a year. He left in October 2009 and should be home sometime early in February. He bought a Euro-pass so that he could ride trains around for three or four months to different countries. I can't even tell you where all he has been. He started out in France, I believe in Paris. He has been to Morocco, Italy, Venice, Austria, Germany, Portugal, Spain, and Greece, to name some of the places where he has been. He is, as I am writing this, waiting to board a ferry in the first leg of his trip to Croatia. The ferry ride alone is 15 hours. The trip will last around 48 hours. I just Skyped with him briefly, and, let me just say, he doesn't look anything like these two pictures of him. He has not had a hair cut or maybe even a shave since he left Bloomington, Indiana, in October.

I have always been a practical person. I am very conservative in most issues of life. I must confess that the adventurous nature of the trip that my son embarked upon has served to make me very nervous for his safety. But, as the weeks have passed, and he has been safe, a fascination with what he has done and the places where he has been has captured me. I would never have done what he has done, which is basically been backpacking from place to place, staying in hostels with strange people, who have become friends. He has experienced sights, sounds, tastes of other cultures and beautiful places. I can hardly wait until he comes home and tells us of his travels. He has written things on Facebook that alarmed me, things about being drunk in Berlin and wondering around in the dark, for instance. He told of a couple of encounters with a young pick pocket. But, for the most part, he has had a great experience. I think it has been just what he was looking for.

I do not know how this whole trip will have affected him. I know he was already thinking that he would like to live in Europe, or even anywhere except in the US. Don't ask me about that. You will have to ask him. But, I think, on the whole, it has been a great adventure for him, and he has grown as a person. I admire him for going.

His trip has affected me. I never really wanted to leave the US. To me, I like it right here, thank you very much. I had no desire to go to Europe. But now, I can imagine going there and liking it. I would see all the things that I have only seen in pictures, and they would become more real to me. I'm going to go someday. And I have Andy to thank for that.

Skiing

We got to go ski for the first time this season on Martin Luther King Day. It was expensive, and I sort of felt guilty about spending the money. In fact, I sat down and had to think about it after we had driven up there to Swiss Valley Ski Area and found they were charging the holiday rate. We have been at zero cash flow, or nearly so, up until Friday. Jay got a check for a bid that he had worked on last year, or there would have been no way we could have even driven up there. At any rate, we decided to go. I needed some fun in my life, and we needed the exercise.

I love to ski. I want to be a very old lady and still able to ski down those slopes. It isn't like skiing on mountains here. There really aren't anything close to mountains around here within a few hours driving distance. So we ski on hills. It's okay. I still enjoy it. The thrill of abandoning caution and really speeding down the hill, it's almost like flying. I like getting out there and watching the other skiers, too. It is very therapeutic to be out on the snow and challenging myself to do better than the last time I went.

I would really like to ski on a real mountain someday. I promised myself that I would. So, one of these days when we are out of this financial slump, I am going somewhere with real mountains for the purpose of skiing on a REAL MOUNTAIN!

Memories

Have you ever tried looking back as far as possible into your childhood to try to see what may be the earliest thing from your life that you remember? Every once in a while, I play this game. The problem is, I am not sure how old I was at different events from my past that I remember. It kind of helps that we lived in several places while I was growing up. I know what the progression was in our living in different places, and I can attach certain memories to certain places.

I was born in Elwood, a small town in Indiana. Mom and Dad were buying a house there when I was born. I have no memories of living in that house at all. I only knew that house from later on when Mom and Dad sold it. My first memory was of a house where we lived in Tipton, which is where I grew up and went to school. I would have to check with my Mom about details, but I remember a sandbox in the back yard and one of those play balls; the inflatable, vinyl kind. For some reason we moved from this house when I was very young, maybe when my brother David was born. We moved to the Oyler farm. (Mr. Oyler was the landlord.) I remember a lot about the Oyler farm.

At the Oyler farm, I remember the dogs. My dad raised beagles. I don't have any memory of dogs before the Oyler farm, though we may have had them before then. But I remember Lil, Queeny, Shotgun. I remember we kids used to play in the barn, but we shouldn't. I remember we got Uncle Steve's bicycle, which was humongous, but I learned to ride it anyway. I remember one day deciding to run away together with my little brother, David. Our older brother, Larry, ran after us and begged us not to go. I remember Larry was a bully back then. He was the first one who ever sucker punched me in the stomach, and that, too, happened at the Oyler farm.

Funny the kinds of things you can pull up from your childhood. What was your earliest memory?

Thyroid problems

I went to the company clinic to have a Health Risk Assessment. This is required of all County employees once a year. If you don't comply, they will raise your insurance premiums by 15%. So I went back in December. The first step is they take a history, take your blood pressure, weight, temperature and they draw blood. My blood tests almost all came back within the normal range. No high cholesterol, no blood sugar problems...mostly good. There was a little elevation in some count involving my liver. But the real trouble was with my readings regarding my thyroid. The levels are high. After two more blood draws, just before Christmas I found out that my anti-thirogobulin count was 262. The normal level is from 0 to 40. The person who reported this to me was not allowed to "interpret" the results, only to report them. I go back to the Dr. tomorrow morning (January 8) to see what the "interpretation" of this might be. Still, I think he won't be able to tell me anything conclusive and will probably be ordering more tests.

I did some internet searches, and I really think I may be in for a long haul just from the information I learned. It is all so odd. If I had not had to go for the health risk assessment, I would not have known anything was wrong. I really don't have any of the hypothyroid (low functioning thyroid, which is what they say I have) symptoms. I should be fatigued, dry skinned and losing hair, constipated (sorry if this is too much information). I don't have these problems. Oh, and I should have unexplained weight gain. I might have heart palpitations. So, I am not experiencing any of these in a noteworthy fashion.

I am experiencing difficulty in swallowing and I seem to always be coughing. I have been attributing this to the fact that I seem to always have acid reflux. If I were concerned about anything, it would have been that. Now, I find out, this could be symptoms of thyroid cancer. Yuck. Cancer. Really don't want to go there, ya know what I mean, Vern?

I will keep you posted.

Global Warming

How many times have people thought that Global Warming is just a hoax, possibly meant to be used by super powers to advance Global Governance? So many times I have heard the comment, "So much for global warming" when it is unusually cold here in Indiana; summer or winter. Perhaps it is a ruse being used in the aforementioned ways. But, if it is real, or even a possibility, should you just shrug it off? Are there things that individuals can and should do to contribute to a resolution?

I studied global warning about this time last year as I was writing a paper to test out of a college course in Communications I. I was able to test out of the class and learn more about the subject. See, I believe that Global Warming is a problem that affects us all. We hear these terms "green house gases, CO2 and Kyoto Protocol," and we go on our merry way, pretending like they don' t really matter to us.

According to Shasta Gaughen in the book "Global Warming: Contemporary Issues Companion":

Approximately two-thirds fo the energy earth receives from the sun is

absorbed by land masses and oceans and is then released into the

atmosphere as warm, long-wave radiation. The atmosphere of earth

is full of so-called greenhouse gases such as water vapor, carbon dioxide,

ozone, methane, and nitrous oxide that act like a blanket, trapping some

of the heat radiating from the land and oceans and preventing too much

energy from escaping into space...The trapped heat keeps earth at a

comfortable average temperature of about sixty-three degrees fahrenheit.

This process is known as the greenhouse effect (7).

Now we need the greenhouse effect, but the problems come because recently, with the industrial revolution, man has been releasing more and more CO2 (carbon dioxide) into the atmosphere. More greenhouse gases are being trapped

in the atmosphere, meaning more heat, ''...leading to higher temperatures around the globe and the potential for global climate changes (8).

The "potential" is the word that really causes a lot of fuss in the scientific community. Some scientists do not agree about the cause and affect. But if we err, shouldn't we err on the side of caution? It seems prudent to me to do so.

When we talk about warming of the earth, just how much warmer are we talking? "The Rough Guide to Climate Change" by Robert Henson suggests:

Independent teams of scientists have laboriously combed through

more than a century's worth of temperature records (in the case of

England, closer to 300 year's worth). The analyses all point to 0.8 C (1.4 F)

in the average surface air temperature of earth over the last century...(3).

The International Panel on Climate Change (a panel "of scientific experts assembled by the United Nations") (Gaughen 7) released a report in January

of 2001 warning that: "The panel found that the 1990s had been the warmest

decade on record and predicted temperatures will rise anywhere from 2.5 to 10.4 degrees (Fahrenheit) around the world over the next century..."

Maybe this does not sound alarming to you, but in some warm climates, it can be devastating. And the warmer air brings all kinds of problems into the weather patterns everywhere.

One of the most interesting and middle-of-the-road books I read on this subject was "Cool It: The Skeptical Environmentalist's Guide to Global Warming" by Bjorn Lomborg. If you only read one book on the subject, read this one. Bjorn Lomborg is really an economist more than an environmentalist. He raises some rather interesting skepticisms to some of the extreme views of, for instance, Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth: The Planetary Emergency of Global Warming and What We Can Do About It". One of the most insightful things that Lomborg says is this about the Kyoto Protocol:

...Even if all countries had ratified it (the United States and Australia did not),

and all countries lived up to their commitments (which many will have a hard

time doing)...the temperature by 2050 would be an immeasurable 0.1 degree F

lower...it surprises most people to learn how little its {Kyoto Protocol's}

adoption would actually change the future. (22)

Still, there are things that all of us can do to make our "carbon footprint", (the carbon dioxide we emit daily) smaller. One thing that is suggested is that we buy locally grown, organic produce as much as possible. Any fruits or vegetable grown locally do not have to be shipped long distances in a ship or truck or other mode of transportation. We are purchasing eggs, some cheese and as many vegetables as possible locally. This time of year, the vegetables aren't as readily available, but you may still find potatoes and other root crops at the Farmer's Markets.

Other things, suggested from Robert Henson's "Rough Guide to Climate Change" are:

use compact fluorescent bulbs for lighting,

wash clothes in as cool temperatures as possible

plant trees

buy fair-trade label coffees and other imported foods (Henson 318-321).

Fair-trade purchases will assure that you "reduce the risk that rainforests are being chopped down to support your tastes" (321)

I am convinced that Global Warming is a real problem. Let's do what we can to be part of the solution.

Works Cited

Gaughen, Shasta. Introduction. Global Warming: Contemporary Issues Companion

Henson, Robert. The Rough Guide to Climate Change: The Symptoms. The Science. The Solutions.

Lomborg, Bjorn. Cool It: The Skeptical Environmentalist's Guide to Global Warming.

Happy New Blog

One thing that I really want to do this year is to start blogging. I want to do this for the simple reason that I love to write, even if no one reads what I write. I think blogging will be a great way for me to log what is and maybe what isn't happening in my world.

Today I was depressed. Sometimes I get into these dark holes and I don't quite know how to get myself out again. I feel disconnected and insignificant to everyone, even God. I believe that God is, let me firmly establish that. I just feel somehow forgotten by him. I think that, right now, this has to do with the uncertainty that I have about my recent discovery that I have a "thyroid condition". My anti-thirogubulin reading was 262. I was informed that the normal range is between 0-40. I am not sure what all of this means yet. I will find out more on Friday, January 8. I searched a bit on Google, and did not like some of the explanations that I found there.

I get this feeling that, right now, life is just happening all around me. I am not really living life, the way I'm meant to. Instead, I am just being swept along. Even the house that we are living in right now reflects this. We are renting a very nice house, I like it fine, and am very thankful for it. But it is not my house. I don't ever really feel at home here.

My husband, Jay, being out of work for so long is another thing that adds to the disquiet in my soul. We are struggling so, and sometimes I feel like he just doesn't understand. I leave for work on Monday mornings. Sometimes, if he is up, he stands in the living room and bids me good-bye. When I walk away and then look back at him as I go out of the door, he looks like one of the Lost Boys from Neverland. I wonder if he is ever going to seem employable to anyone.

So, anyway. Here I am. Blogging. It is a step for me. I hope that I am able to grow throughout this year. Maybe someone will even read this and be able to share in my experience or offer helpful suggestings.