Gaining Perspective

Mar9

It has been a little while since my last post. My internet connection was down for a while from becoming behind on payments for reasons involving roommates and it took some time for us to make up the difference to get it back on, but all is well now. Also, I have been quite preoccupied for the past 3 weeks. On Feb 17th while Dayne and I were at work at Target, he was in a potentially fatal accident. A pallet of heavy tables were stacked on top of each other  on a shelf above where the freight truck docs when we unload, which was something the corporate had recently done. He was lifting the truck door open with a crown and since he was not used to anything being above it, part of the crown had pushed up the shelf and the pallet slid down, aiming down directly on top of him. As I watched this happened, I tried to yell for him to get out of the way but the noise of the crown was too much for him to hear me. Thankfully he heard the sound of it falling just in time to move away, but it had partially hit his back, arm, and landed on top of his left foot. I was standing about 20 feet away when all of this happened,  as was another guy we work with, and I would estimate the pallet of table to have been around 400 lbs. Somewhere between 3 to 5 hundred lbs coming down on him. He went down on his front side and I rushed over to see if he was ok. He was fully conscience but he wouldn’t move much. I was pretty panicked at this time, and the other guy ran to get our boss. When our boss came back and we all realized how serious this was, she called the ambulance and our store manager who rushed over and went to the ER with us. It was a long day at the hospital, but x-rays were taken and his back and arm were not injured, just pretty bruised up. His left foot however was suffering from 6 breaks, most of which were on the top of his foot which definitely needed surgery. Our store manager drove us around trying to get everything taken care of about about 10 hours that day and making sure this went through on workman’s comp.

Like I said, I saw this happen and it could have easily killed him if he hadn’t moved out of the way just in time. It’s a really scary thing to watch happen and to think about. If it would have been someone small like me, I would definitely not be here. His surgery was on Tuesday. It went well and he has been in and out of pain. He has been moving around only a little, on crutches and a wheelchair, but mainly just to take showers and I have been trying to be a good nurse to him. It can be stressful trying to make sure he has everything he needs and is comfortable as can be, but I can’t complain because it’s him that is doing the suffering, and it’s hard to watch someone you love be in pain and not be able to walk. He is looking at about a 6 month recovery, and I can only do my best at being his caregiver and helping him through this. His family has been a big help as well. :)

Signs Of An Abusive Relationship

Feb12

The following questions ask you about your relationship. If you are not currently in a relationship, these are signs or “red flags” to assist people in identifying a potentially abusive person.

  • Do you feel nervous around your partner?
  • Do you have to be careful to control your behavior to avoid your partner’s anger?
  • Do you feel pressured by your partner when it comes to sex?
  • Are you scared of disagreeing with your partner?
  • Does your partner criticize you, or humiliate you in front of other people?
  • Is your partner always checking up on you or questioning you about what you do without your partner?
  • Does your partner repeatedly and wrongly accuse you of seeing or flirting with other people?
  • Does your partner tell you that if you changed, he or she wouldn’t treat you like this?
  • Does your partner’s jealousy stop you from seeing friends or family?
  • Does your partner make you feel like you are wrong, stupid, crazy, or inadequate?
  • Has your partner ever scared you with violence or threatening behavior?
  • Does your partner say, “I will kill myself if you break up with me” or “I will hurt/kill you if you break up with me”?
  • Does your partner make excuses for the abusive behavior? For example: saying, “It’s because of alcohol or drugs,” or “I can’t control my temper,” or “I was just joking”?

You do not deserve to be abused. Create a safety plan or call someone to talk about your relationship. You may also want to contact the police or a local domestic violence center or call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at (800) 799-SAFE.

Source

Facebook’s Timeline

Feb11

It seems that a few of the major social media that most of us use are changing their designs lately. Most of us are aware of Timeline. If we haven’t switched our facebook profiles to it yet, many of us are awaiting the day that it becomes mandatory for all users. I haven’t changed mine yet. I was not a happy camper when I was first introduced to timeline either. I thought it looked too busy and I saw nothing wrong with how facebook profiles have looked before. Then I decided that this was probably going to be the beginning of the end of facebook, because this is exactly how myspace went down…when all these changes came about to the site’s design. I know of a lot of people who have timeline or have seen it and they hate it, and I mean I personally know at least lots of people who claim they will delete their accounts on the day it becomes mandatory.

Not only this, youtube has changed their site’s design as well. I changed it for a day, realized I hated it, and switched it back to the old version, but like facebook this new design will be mandatory for all users on a certain day. I have also noticed that google is playing around with different looks too.

Now let me go on a personal rant here for a second.  I am starting to get irritated because they seem to paint it up like these changes are for the purpose for making it user friendly, but is it? Highly doubtful. In the past week, I started noticing youtube being plastered with flashing and moving ads all over the place, as if ads and commercials in the videos aren’t bad enough. I started digging and sure enough I found articles about how the changes are really because they are trying to figure out ways for better ad placement (more in your face ad placement, easier for them to make money).

Reading the comments in these articles are usually never surprising with comments like “Do we really have a right to complain when these sites are still free? Running ads are what keeps it all free for us.”  And yeah, I totally get that. I’m not saying that should be completely done away with, but sometimes I honestly feel I would rather pay a small fee to browse a clean page free of ads than to have to fish for the content I am looking for  in a pool of ads. They can only go so far before people will stop using the site all together.

What do you think of the changes being made to facebook and youtube? Do you like the changes and do you care about the ads they run? 

 

 

Hooping: Making Progress

Feb11

It’s been a little over a month since my post about hoop dancing. Since then I have been relatively consistent in trying to learn some basic moves. I have been watching a lot of youtube tutorials and demos and discovered some awesome hoopers, a couple of which are just outstanding and constantly keep me inspired to bundle up and practice out in my garage every day, even when it’s 12 degrees like today, which by the way I can’t wait until it gets warmer so I don’t have to wear bulky clothes or freeze by butt off. Anywho I’ve learned a few basic things like I sloppily demonstrate a small bit of it in this video.

It’s not much but I was proud of that at the time. That was Jan 29th and I have learned a few new things since then and I will probably be continuing to do videos at least once a month and track my progress as I learn and then hopefully I will begin to develop my own unique flow and style while incorporating music and dancing into the mix .

I have realized that learning a lot of these things is harder than it looks. Timing, technique, and patience is huge while hooping, as well as having adequate space and wearing the right clothing. Right now I am just learning to maintain patience as every new hooper drops their hoop a lot. It can be frustrating but I have noticed that I am learning at a rate of about 3 days with every new trick so far. It takes me 3 days to nail it if I practice to about an hour each day. There’s a saying in the hoop world to “Love the process” which is always uplifting. It’s fun and rewarding when I learn something, and often times I have found that I can learn a lot by just playing with the hoop, feeling the hoop, and and letting go  and see what happens.

A circle is the reflection of eternity. It has no beginning and it has no end – and if you put several circles over each other, then you get a spiral.

 

Call For Indiana Teen Contestants!

Feb5

The Miss Teen Indiana International Pageant is currently seeking interested contestants for their 2012 title. If you or someone you know is a resident of Indiana and between the ages of 13-18 and wants more info on how to apply, please contacts me via email at AshleyBPariseau@gmail.com, or in the comments section below and I can send you an application. The girl selected for this title will represent Indiana for the Teen division at the Miss Teen International in Chicago this July.

About Miss Teen International system:

“Beginning 23 years ago, the Mrs. International Pageant® was developed to have higher standards than other pageant systems. The focus behind Miss Teen International Competition® is to showcase teens who are 13 to 18 years old, by July 1st of competition year and are a resident of the state or a citizen of the country they represent. Each contestant competes in Interview Competition valued at 40% of their total score, Evening Gown valued for 20%, Fitness Wear for 20%, and Fun Fashion Wear 20%. Each contestant has the opportunity to select a platform of her choice that she spends the year promoting.”

 

This is a wonderful opportunity for young girls! For further informational on this event, visit missteeninternational.us .

Body Memes

Jan30

I’m noticing a trend lately on facebook, blogs, tumblrs, etc of “This body is better than that body” and “When did this become hotter than this?” What it has become, is annoying.

I see…

null

And

null

And I’m like

null

And then I saw

null

And it made me

null

Disclaimer: I know story memes are like, so 2011, but this was my first attempt at it, so…

null

Is Poetry Dead?

Jan21

I have always been a fan of poetry. I started writing poems when I was little, not long after we moved to Indiana and got settled in to a house outside of Albany, so  I was 6 or 7. I wrote poetry off and on pretty much ever since. I rarely showed my work to people though because I always felt like my stuff was unfinished and could be improved and I didn’t want to show it to anyone unless I felt it was the best that it could be, but I undoubtedly always had a knack for writing and a love and appreciation for the art of it.

However poetry is not as popular as it once was, or at least it doesn’t seem like it is. The only poetry I ever see these days exists in the form of song lyrics, and even in that the quality of poetry in lyrics seems to be dwindling, especially in mainstream music. The lyrics of most popular songs these days rivals the quality of stuff I wrote when I was 10, so what does that tell you?

I don’t know, maybe I am just not looking in the right places. Maybe there is still a community of poetry fans out there. If so, where are they?

Do you enjoy reading or writing poetry? Do you think poetry is dead? 

Oh, The Miss America Organization

Jan15

Ok so I love the Miss America Pageant and everything their organization stands for.  After having watched the 2012 broadcast last night, I was disappointed to see how much they are trying to turn it into a reality show. I understand that for the past few years, they have been trying out different ways to tweak the show and make little changes to improve and boost their ratings, but I don’t think that doing contestant “saves” and “vote outs” are the best way to go. All it did was cause humiliation to some of the contestants. It was actually kind of distasteful how certain things were done. I guess they think that is what the public likes, but I think they missed the mark.

In my opinion, if they want the general public to become more interested in the organization and annual show, they should put these contestant and winners into the mainstream and really showcase what these women do with their reign all year round. As soon as these women win their local title, they are out there doing events, appearances, promoting a platform and I think the organization should focus more on the women and their accomplishments rather than just what’s going on in the show that one night only. The public doesn’t understand how Miss America is relevant in today’s society, and that’s because they don’t actually see it and that is because the organization doesn’t put much effort into showing anything other than the live broadcast of the new winner. There’s SO much that goes on after the winner is crowned, let’s see it!

On that note, congrats to Miss Wisconsin, Laura Kaeppeler!

What did you think of the show last night?

Taking Suggestions & Ideas

Jan11

This is just a quick note to let readers know that I am up for taking suggestions and requests for post ideas. It can be anything, a crazy news story, a topic you want me to cover, something you want to do my thoughts on…anything! Just send me an email at AshleyBPariseau@gmail.com and I’ll take it into consideration, thanks!

Dubstep & Female Vocals

Jan8

I have become quite drawn to dubstep music within the past year. I love the different sound and slower paced beats. I have noticed that I tend to most like the tracks with women vocals in them. I’m not trying to downplay the ones with male vocals or no vocals at all. I just think there is something so beautiful and hypnotizing about dubstep + female voice that takes me away to a new place and time.

Ok so here is a list of some of my most favorite ones, and most of these happen to be remixes of already popular songs (many are even better than the original in my opinion).

If you have any suggestions of dubstep tracks, post them!