This Poor Woman

The Story of Terri Schiavo

You may or may not know that I worked in various nursing homes during college. I have seen many things with my young eyes. I have stumbled upon my favorite resident dead in his wheel chair. I have held the hands of family members watching their loved one slip away. Shared in the tears of sorrow and happiness for they are suffering no more. I have seen a young man, not much older than I, lie there in a coma never to wake up due to a prescription drug overdose. I bathed him and talked to him and watched him survive because of a feeding tube. That is not a life that is an existence.

What I do not understand about the family of Terri Schiavo of Florida is this: Why? Why prolong her life? Why not send Terri to a better place? Why put her loving husband through this? Her husband has been there through all of this and loves her just as much as you. Why spend more money on the healthcare? Why would you want to put yourself through this?

I just don't understand. This story makes me want to cry. I love my family with all my heart! I love Josh more than life itself! But I would not want them to have to watch me go through what this poor woman has gone through. It is just causing strain for her family. The family cannot close this chapter of their lives. What good is visiting her empty shell of a body? That is all that it is. She looks around but cannot process what she sees. It is selfish of her family to prolong her life! They are only doing this for themselves, because she cannot be getting anything else out of this. I understand that she isn't being kept alive by machines for breathing, just the feeding tube. She could live for 50 more years on that feeding tube. If she didn't want to live this was respect her wishes. That is the best thing that you could do for her.

What I want my family to know is this: If I ever become "a vegetable" or have to remain on life support to continue on let me go... I have lived my life, there isn't anything that I would change. Remember the good times that we have shared. Remember that I will always be with you in heart and soul. I am not a religious person, but I know that I will go to a better place. I want to be united with the people who have passed on before me. We will be happy and wait for you to join us when your time is through. Honor my memory, respect my wishes.....

**Sidenote: I am sorry that this is such a somber post but this issue really touches a nerve with me. I was outraged when I first heard about this story and just thought that I would share my point of view and see what you think.

Sad Time of Year?

Since being introduced to the wonderful world of blogging by my friend kmoka I have become an avid blog reader. I have developed quite the blog roll in my favorites folder in explorer. I have found wedding blogs, dating blogs, political blogs, and just blogs.

I have for some reason been sucked into several blogs that deal with the emotions dealing with the experiences of trying to conceive and fighting infertility. I don't know why I am reading them. Maybe deep inside I am fearful that I will have to go through this. Maybe it is so I truly appreciate the miracle of life. Maybe it is because I am a bleeding heart. Two of the women have just failed another round of IVF. What is next for them? As sad as their story is I can't wait to see if they can have a baby, if they chooses a surrogate. These women are so sad and both at the same time.

Then my dooce has been struggling with post partum depression and anxiety. It was so severe that she checked herself into a mental institution for several days to help to balance out her life. Part of the balance was to find a drug cocktail that she can live with. More tears.......

What is it with all this sadness? Is it because it has been a colder than usual summer? Why have I chosen such somber reading materials?? Will the world ever cheer up???

The Wedding Countdown

I found this cute little counter online. I cannot believe that our wedding is in 54 days yikes!!! So much to do... So much to pay!! Enjoy the counter.

Country Girls Part II

So here we are sitting in the biker bar. Because T and I both drank so much Friday we had 1 and 2 drinks respectively. A had 3 Mike's Hard Lemonade's and it was bar time. A drove back, again taking our lives into her hands. This girl flunked the drivers test so many times. A half blind, deaf, mute could drive better than A. We got home without event and went to sleep.

We got up about 9 am Sunday Morning so that we could be checked out by 11am. We threw on clothes and went down the elevator for the continental breakfast. By the time we got down the there were a few of those mickey's donuts left, cheerios, raisin bran and some english muffins. T dished up some raisin bran, I grabbed a donut and an english muffin and A grabbed a muffin as well. I went over to the fancy dancy toaster to toast my english muffin and stood by the counter. Then A came over and put her muffin in the other side of the toaster. We were standing there in a daze. All of the sudden we hear "EXCUSE me girls" in a nasty tone from behind us. I turn around and there is an old man we say "yes...." He then proceeds to tell us we were rude for standing in front of the toaster. We explained that we were waiting for our muffins to toast. He says that we are in the way of the supplies, when in fact we weren't. I told him to say excuse me and we would move. He said : I and you didn't" I was so pissed. We were already creating a scene in the little room. So I really didn't want to tell him that he should stop being such an asshole, there is no need for that that early in the day. But I was REALLY close to it.

We go back to the elevator to shower and get dressed to be ready by check out. We were patiently waiting by the door behind these two black guys. They were talking about drinking Hennessy and smokin' blunts. I know what you are thinking HIGH class hotel huh???? The younger of the two guys notices that there are 3 young women standing behind him. He slyly turns around and says "I didn't know that the Miss Minnesota finalists are staying her. Miss Minnesota 1, 2 and 3. " I was still annoyed from the asshole old guy now this...? So I simply said "Oh it is too bad that we are from Wisconsin." Hoping that would shut him up. He proceeded to ask us where we were all from. A the dingbat says "Oh well I am from Minnesota, they are just here visiting". The elevator arrives. This guy starts hitting on A like there is no tomorrow. T and I are just ignoring him. The elevator arrives on our floor and wouldn't you know it it is their floor too. We start walking out of the elevator, practically running to our room the guy is calling "Miss Minnesota, Miss Minnesota come back." He kept pursuing A so fiercely that we had to slam the room door in his face.

We get ready to go without event. A asked us if we knew how to get out of where she drug us to. I said that we would look at a map. So you would figure that when we got to the car she would point out where we should go. She didn't so we looked at the map thought that we had it figured out. We didn't. We got on the Interstate and just as we got on I realized that we needed to be in the far left lane to get where we were going. Oops. We made it out of the city alive with a lot of things that we learned.
1. Get directions!!

2. Don't ride in car with crazy braking girl ever again.

3. Pick a bar close to your hotel.

4. Pay a little extra for a decent hotel room....there was a holiday inn just up the street.

5. Just let us pick a hotel next time.

6. When a sketchy guy starts hitting on you do ANYTHING to blow him off.

7. Don't assume the hotel room is being split three ways.

Country Girls Part I

I have never ever been ashamed of being a country girl. This weekend my roots began to show. My friend A had a baby about a month ago. She decided to give the baby up for adoption. She decided to go with a non-traditional adpotion and had an open adoption. For those of you who are undure of what that is it is when the birth mother is able to know the family and be a part of the baby's life. The involvement is up to the adoptive parents and the birth mother. So being the good friends that we are my friend T and I adventured to the big cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul. So I thought that I would share the follies of the weekend with you.

Friday night I drove to T's house which is an hour and a half away. We decided to leave on Saturday morning for the cities. She lives by LaCrosse we would be a little closer and I wouldn't have to be stuck in the car for 6 hours on friday night. I arrived at her house at about 8:30-9:00 pm after a hellish drive home and a packing frenzy. I do usually pack the night before but I was so tired. We decided to go out to a "hick bar" in town. Note: That is the only type of bar in her town. Most of the people in the bar didn't know about the advances in dentistry. They were missing teeth and proud. We were only going to stay out for a drink or two. But, the bartender started giving us shots. First we were too quiet and needed to liven up. The second shot was given for the same reason. The third shot was because her feet hurt and we weren't quite rowdy enough yet. The forth and final shot was just for the hell of it. We had all of those on top of the 5ish drinks we had. Needless to say cookies were tossed from both parties that night.

Saturday was an adventure of a lifetime. First of all we were as hung over as hell and didn't crawl out of bed until 9am. We had 2 sets of directions, 2 maps and two heads to figure it all out. We started going out of town the wrong way first of all. The signage for the turn onto the interstate was awful we had to turn around. The construction in Rochester, Mn was awful. I swear they were working on that back in 2001 when we went through for spring break. Did you know in Mn they have stoplights in a 55 mph zone and you are actually expected to stop. Crazy mud ducks. Then where our highway we needed to take split there wasn't correct signage due to a construction zone, so we made our way across the city by map. We got to our friend's house and went to eat at McDonald's . She then took us across town to a hotel. I swear we drove for 20 minutes. She said that she would get one near her house. Not even close. The hotel was so sketchy I am not going to even tell you the hotel chain.

After checking in we drove out to the adoptive family's home to meet the baby. A VERY cute baby. He was so good while we were there. He did nothing but sleep. T and I figured that we would only be out there 1.5 hours or so. But we were there for 4 count them 1, 2, 3, 4 hours. It got the point with the "oh we need to eat hint" which A didn't pick up on she just invited us for supper. T and I said that we had other plans of taking A out for supper. Luckily there was a Red Lobster near our hotel. I LOVE Red Lobster. We ate a wonderful dinner and I had 2 Lobsterita's...mmmm lobsteritas......mmmmm.

We went back to the hotel and got ready to go out. We were trying to find a place to go out near to the hotel so that we didn't have to worry about driving. Well we had trouble finding a bar. I went to the front desk to return the iron I had borrowed and found that they had a phone book just for the Roseville area. I found a bar in there on my way back up to the room that was on the same street as our hotel. Granted it was a sports bar but we could still go and get a drink. By the time I got back up to the room A had found a bar she knew where it was and was about 20 minutes away. She completely IGNORED my suggestion that was close to our hotel......

So we pile into her car to drive to this bar. I sit in front along the way. I find out that A has a stop sign stopping deficiency. She does not stop at the stop line or the stop sign. She stop HAF WAY INTO THE INTERSECTION!!!!! I feared for my life the WHOLE way there. We get to where the bar is "supposed to be" but she cannot find the street. I am thinking "oh great we are lost." We passed a bar I along the way. By which we almost hit a passle of people who were drunkenly walking home from the bar where we were probably supposed to be. The people were in the cross walk but imagine walking home and you see a car screeching to a halt right at your feet would you pee your pants? I would. So we can't find the bar, So I suggested why don't we go to the bar we passed on the way. So we turn around and head to the bar. Know you think we would have realized the establishment we were about to go in when there is a sign about the city ordinance banning firearms in the bar. But we went in anyway.

It was like being in a hick biker bar in Arena for crying out loud. You either had to be a drunk or a mental patient to frequent this bar. There was one lady talking to herself the whole time. There was a guy with the balding mullet going on. You know the ones who have gone bald on top and have the long hair in the back. The people were sketchy as hell. Here we were 3 young girls all gussied up they must have thought that we were nutty.

Stay tuned for a future up date. The amount of things that I have to write about this weekend could take a week to write.