Scammed

A little over a year ago, I purchased a Living Social deal (same kind of thing as Groupon) to The Homestead in Hot Springs VA. It was supposed to be for our anniversary. I didn't read it as closely as I should have. Fine print is such a nuisance.

I thought the deal had a year expiration like all the other deals I had purchased previously. So once our anniversary came and went without us finding the time to go, I tried to find it on my account listing. It had disappeared. I contacted the administrators and they said it had a 3 month expiration. But that The Homestead would honor the original amount I paid up to 2015.

I was bummed we missed the deal, but was glad the money would not go to waste. Now a year later, we decided to use the credit. However when I called today, I was in for a surprise. They would let me use the money, but only as a room upgrade. So, I could spend the regular room price with them, and they'd upgrade me to a suite. Great deal, huh?

NOT! I was furious. It makes zero sense to me how you can give a business money and they can basically steal it from you. So annoying. And once I started looking closer to the fine print, I saw that within the original deal of the three months, they had blocked out all the weekends. So if we had wanted to use it, we would have had to go during the week.

I did go ahead and book the room because the money was going to be lost nonetheless. I let the person I spoke with know that I was coming under duress and would more than likely not enjoy the stay with  such a shady business. Amazingly enough, she knocked off a few dollars from the room cost. But I still got the same upgrade. That let me know they are the crooks I was accusing them of!

I have heard great things about The Homestead. I'm sure it's a lovely facility. It definitely looks that way on their website. But everything in their spa is double the price of what we charge at my spa. And I guarantee it is NOT twice the quality. I will not be wasting another penny outside of the room costs at their facility, you can bet your heiney on that one. If I have to go to a grocery store and bring food in, I will. I will not go to their over priced restaurants and patronize their thievery!

The moral of this story is this. Please read the fine print of any transaction you make. It's small for a reason.  If a business has to have fine print, it lets you know they have something to hide. And please before you throw your hard earned money out the window in going to The Homestead, realize they are more than willing to steal your money!

Intervention

The events in Steubenville Ohio are a depiction of quite a few things that are wrong in our society. A high school football game victory turned into nothing but a nightmare for practically everyone involved. It's a shame that a happy event will now be tarnished forever.

In reading about the story, I have to keep reminding myself that it is a high school situation. That is truly the real tragedy. For anyone to behave in the manner in which these kids did is appalling. That they are so young is what is shocking.

A group of kids gather to celebrate a victory. Alcohol is available. Kids, well under age, are getting intoxicated. Severely intoxicated, to the point of blacking out. Liberties are taken, and lives are changed forever.

The first question I have is where we're the parents of these kids. Why were they allowed to congregate in a home with alcohol available. I'm not so stupid to believe that these things don't happen in my own back yard. But I am smart enough to know how to use the Internet and see what is transpiring. Some parent somewhere had to know what was going on.  Intervention number one failed.

Next, I want to know where this girl's friends were. They had to see she was drinking too much. It's a shame she couldn't be accountable for herself at 16, but why didn't they help her. Why didn't they stop what was going on. Intervention number two failed.

Lastly, I want to know why kids that are in high school get together and do this kind of stuff. I don't pretend to be an angel. I definitely did my fair share of wrong as a teenager. But we weren't destructive. We didn't stand by while someone was being taken advantage of. We didn't think we were above the law  because we were good athletes or made good grades.

I hold the media and our love affair with professional sports accountable for all of that. We have let rapists, murderers, and thieves get by with far worse than what these kids did in our sports world. Then our media goes and trivializes it through shows like CSI and Criminal Minds. We have become so accustomed to seeing this kind of thing happening on TV and in movies, we think it's acceptable.

But the whys of how this happened are unimportant in this particular situation. What's done is done. We can't change that. The judge has now ruled against the boys involved. Their freedom is gone, along with the girl's dignity. The town is in an uproar that their heroes will now be locked up vs scoring touchdowns this fall. It seems they have lost sight of the real tragedy this situation represents.

The boys parents want others held accountable, because surely their sons didn't operate in a vacuum. They console their sons as they realize their bright futures are now bleak. They cry and lament and contemplate "what if". 

But what lessons have been learned. Will students in Steubenville still celebrate wins at drunken parties this fall? Will they still drink themselves into a stupor? Will those around them still take advantage of the situation or stand by letting it happen?

Maybe not in Steubenville. But what about your hometown? What about your child? Will you as a parent reading this do what is necessary to intervene to prevent this from ever happening to your child or to someone else's?

Our country faces these sorts of moral dilemmas every day. It's time we stop standing by and letting abuse happen, of any sort! We need to start behaving morally and ethically again and stop asking what's in it for me.

I'm taking the pledge to stop standing by and watching. Will you?

One Month

One month. A day is understandable, maybe even a week. But a month starts getting into the range of hard to fathom. Time is such a deceiving thing. In one way, it seems like the events surrounding Eleanor's death were so long ago. But then it seems like yesterday when we were all together at Christmas.

The six weeks from the time she was rediagnosed to the time she left us flew by. The 65 hours from the time they told her there was nothing more they could do to the time she let go felt like an eternity. None of it seems to add up.

We have all gone back to work, to school, to life. While time marches on, our hearts still grieve. We have moments of remembering that bring a smile to our faces. We have moments of sadness when we remember that she's gone.  We see evidence that she's watching over us, but continue to wish that she were still here with us, healthy.

Today Jay came down to visit with Tony. I worked today so they got to spend the day Father and son. They didn't do anything special, just hung out without any plans. Reminiscing and making memories. That's the beauty of life. Memories are made in the living.  And it's through those memories made that our legacy continues.

Jay seems to be doing well. He's found a new respect for Eleanor by walking a few miles in her shoes as keeper of the house. He's looking forward to pretty weather so he can get outside. I think he likes garden work much better than house work. He says he's cooking and eating well. His clothes were clean, and I didn't see any bones sticking out, so I'll take him for his word.

The world is a different place without Eleanor McCann. She's been visiting me in my dreams the last three nights. I'm not sure what she's trying to tell me yet, but I'll figure it out eventually. It's always good to see her. My hope is that she's resting and enjoying her guardian angel duties. 

One month. Time may march on, but we will always remember and smile.

Pre-empty nest

Cass has spent most Friday nights somewhere else this year. I remember those days. I was usually at Kelly or Tammy's house my senior year. I can remember a lot of what we did. I sure hope Cass isn't following in those foot steps :)

Tonight, Tony had dinner and flowers waiting for me when I got home. It was a nice change of pace. We joked, bickered, and picked on each other like usual. I keep telling him the time has come to determine if we really like each other.

He's currently snoring on the couch, and I have my nose stuck in this iPad. We have some work to do for sure. It's been nearly 28 years of a work in progress. I'm sure we'll make it at least another 28. It's been a fun experiment so far.

Sidetracked

My favorite player was on the court tonight. I got home late from work and dinner with my "real" man. Rafa is just my tennis man for those of you that might wonder :) Anyway, he surprised me again with another victory. Some will say he beat an injured Federer. I will say, he won returning from an injured knee. It's amazing how the media continues to diminish the staying power Rafa has over Roger. The scoreboard says Rafa 19 matches to Roger's 10 in the course of their rivalry. They are both great tennis players that will go down in history. Leave it at that!

So I took a little siesta from my word assignment tonight. Hopefully I'll do better tomorrow!

Projects

I love thinking up new projects. And the beginning phases are always fun, too. But then comes the put it into action, or worse yet, the maintenance piece of the effort. I struggle when that phase sets in.

Today I caught up on a week's worth of entries in Cass' senior journal. I'm glad we text back and forth a lot. It helps me remember what went on each day when I get behind. It is a lot of effort getting her picture each day and finding interesting things to include in the daily journal piece. But I am so excited for the day when she calls me up after looking at it years from now and says "thank you". It will be all worth it then!

I have quite a few more senior projects left to do for her. The clock is ticking, and I need to get busy. A part of me feels guilty for being so much more involved in her last year than I was with Jennifer. But things were a lot different for all of us 9 years ago. I have to remind myself that I did quite a bit considering I was still in the crazy corporate world.

My daily word project has gone fairly well. I struggled to get back into the swing of things when Tony's Mom died. A part of me thought it would be disrespectful to write too early afterwards. But the biggest part of me was just sad. She was a big supporter of my writing, and I knew she  wouldn't want me to stop. So I'm glad to be back at it.

I haven't done anything yet on the BIG writing project I mentioned earlier. I haven't gotten my new computer yet, and struck out on finding a desk this weekend. I'm looking forward to seeing where that adventure takes me.

I'm thinking I need to finish some things before I get too many irons in the fire. I may be a tad too late in deciding that. :)

Stress Relief

Tonight I did a presentation on stress relief to a women's group. I've done discussions like this before for other groups. It's a topic I know a lot about as I cover it so frequently with my massage clients. When I taught yoga, I covered it a lot, too.

I'm a firm believer that stress kills. For some it's physical stress. For others it's mental. Some people roll their eyes and say whatever (my husband is one of them). But if you look at the body and all its systems, it's not hard to understand how operating it at full tilt without doing any preventive maintenance causes problems.

I often equate the body to a car. If you drive a car at 100 mph for days on end and never change the oil or get the engine maintained, the engine will blow sooner rather than later. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure that out. Then think about what you put in that car. If you fill it with gas that has water in it, that compounds the problem. And if you operate it in the desert with all the sand and dirt in the air, you have yet another problem.

In our society, we are always on. We don't sleep properly to let our parasympathetic system do the preventive maintenance it's designed to for. We eat food that is full of poison whether it is what they put in our food or the plastic that out gasses into it. And with all of the pollutants in our air, pure oxygen is a rarity for us to breath.

When you break down all of the stressors were exposed to, it's not hard to see why we have so much sickness in our world. It's frustrating to see, but virtually impossible to fix. We demand more and more of people and they depend more and more on convenience. Compromised immune systems are easy prey for pollutants and chemicals.

So the discussion tonight was about tools you have to depend upon to help you cope and manage this stuff because it isn't going away. Exercise, yoga, meditation, massage, reading, sitting by a fire. These are just a few of the tools that can help. It's about using the off button. About being present in this moment. About taking care of yourself because we only get one circle around this globe we call life.