#I also had some mild issues with a car tire not keeping pressure

[vulgarmaw]

Not to be that person, but I'm gonna vent on here. My last 2 weeks have been frustrating to say the least.

S/O and I split, it was mutual, but like that's still a connection with someone that's been changed.

Someone tried to get me fired from work by lying about me, I got it situated, but it's still irksome.

My mortgage company is saying my payment went up by 200, but it shouldn't have and I wasn't warned about the payment increase meaning they're trying to catch me with late fees.

Mortgage company is also saying that I missed a payment, I have the paperwork stating that I didn't miss a payment.

If you hear about a bunch of random people getting round house kicked straight into oblivion, just know they deserved it.

[sugarandice3]

Self Destruction

AN: So this is one out of (hopefully) three chapters for a slenderverse-inspired fic I began a long time ago. Truthfully, I would love to continue it, but I am in college and leisure time is hard to find so just a little encouragement would be welcome. Also, given my lack of beta readers, this will probably resemble more of a rough draft than a polished piece, so constructive criticism is more than welcome. But, without further ado, my fic. Self Destruction.

Warnings: Mild horror and mental health issues.

Word Count: ~4K.

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Chapter 1: Homeward Bound

The road stretched onward for miles across flat Montana earth, only stopping when it met the wakening horizon. Glaring light filled Keres’s vision, searing the image of the sunrise into her eyes and obscuring the abandoned highway. With a groan, she flipped up the useless sun visor and reached across to fumble around her passenger seat for the pair of sunglasses she had tossed there yesterday. Her fingertips finally brushed against the beat-up aviators as the tires buzzed against the boundaries of the road, warning her of the vehicle’s drift. Keres quickly slid the glasses on, returning both hands to the steering wheel and correcting her wayward car. Glancing at her rear view mirror, she looked through the dust covered glass to make sure that her brother’s little black truck was still behind her. Oliver was farther back now than he had been earlier, but in the early Montana morning on this empty stretch of highway, the greater distance didn’t matter. It only made her feel better that he probably hadn’t seen how far into the other lane she had drifted during her quest to block out the blinding sunrise.

Sweeping unbrushed auburn curls back behind her ear, Keres turned her brown eyes back on the monotonous pavement and focused on keeping her eyelids from lazily sliding half-closed. It was only day one of a three-day road trip back home and Keres was already exhausted. College had not been kind to her. 

“College is never kind to anyone,” she mumbled, correcting the self-pity that seemed to be more incessantly tainting her thoughts lately. Just because she wasn’t able to handle the pressure doesn’t mean that classes and being away from home were harder for her than they were for anyone else.

Rubbing her leg, Keres adjusted her grip on the steering wheel and checked for her brother one last time. She sighed again and reached for her phone to turn on some music. It was going to be a very long couple of days.

The red Toyota pulled into a silent motel parking lot, gravel and grit crunching under the tires. Orange street lamps shone weakly around the wings of the building, giving spots of haunted color to the monochrome of the lightless evening. The car came to a slow stop in front of a worn motel door and after a moment, the engine cut off and Keres stepped out.

“We definitely could’ve picked a better place,” Keres muttered, taking in the patches of wind-peeled paint and the withered grass filling the cracks in the pavement. 

It definitely wasn’t a 5 star motel, but Keres and Oliver had known that when they made the reservation. What they hadn’t known was that the reviews had been extremely generous.

The motel sat on the outskirts of town, bordered by derelict, trash-strewn roads. Eerie silence pervaded the area, occasionally broken by a passing car, but nothing more. Even in the patchy lot, there sat only a handful of vehicles and Keres wasn’t even sure that most of them were guests here. At least, she hoped that the van emblazoned with the name of the pest control across the street wasn’t here for an extended stay. 

The sound of tires spraying gravel announced the arrival of her brother, prompting Keres to cease her critical assessment of the place. It was just one night after all, and it wasn’t like a good night's sleep would cure her exhaustion anyway. Letting out a heavy sigh, Keres turned back to her car to retrieve her backpack while her brother pulled into the parking space beside her. 

“Well, this place certainly isn’t gonna win any Google maps awards,” Oliver said grimly, keys jangling as he hopped out of the truck. 

“It’s just one night,” Keres said, to remind herself just as much as him, “And  the less time we spend awake in this place, the better.”

Keres pulled on the dusty handle and opened the door, pushing away all the stuff that had shifted during the winding drive through the hills of Montana. With a grunt, she pulled her backpack out and swung a worn strap over her shoulder, settling the weight more comfortably as she straightened. 

“Well, we should probably go check in,” Oliver sighed, leaning over the front of his truck and running his hands though brown curls in desperate need of a trim.

Keres leaned back against the car as she turned to her brother and replied, “I’ll take care of it. Why don’t you look up some places to eat while I get the room key?”

Oliver nodded, pushing off of the truck and walking around to fetch his phone from the passenger seat. The old door gave a grating creak as he opened it, sharply breaking the heavy silence. Both siblings froze, an unnatural apprehension taking hold of the two. The night air seemed to condemn them for the desecration of its quiet, a palpable threat riding the echoes of the noise. For a moment, Oliver and Keres stood there, both of them pretending that they didn’t feel that shiver up their spine or the nervous buzz of a mind on edge. Several beats of silence passed before she stopped holding her breath.

“Roomkey,” she breathed carefully. 

Her voice broke through the miasma, the unease beginning to dissipate like a bad dream the moment her words left her mouth. Oliver straightened, as if surprised, and glanced at the door handle his hand was still resting on. He thought for a moment then slammed it shut with more force than needed, rebelling against the irrational anxiety that had almost faded away. He half-turned to her and nodded his agreement. 

“Right.”

Keres glanced at her own door, shut it gently, and turned away from her car, ready to follow her brother. Then the two moved together, passing under the orange street lamps like a pair of ghosts, all color washed away in alternating gray and orange. They slipped past door after door, all of them so quiet that it seemed as if the entire place was vacant. The slightest noise echoed under the overhanging roof and washed loudly into the parking lot, making it feel as though anyone nearby could eavesdrop on their presence here. The feeling was slight enough to easily be ignored, allowing it to twist uncomfortably in their subconscious without their hindrance. 

As they made their way to the brightly lit office at the end of the wing, Keres became puzzled at the hollow and oppressive feeling of the place. Yes, the reviews weren’t glowing, but they didn't mention anything about the place feeling unsafe in any way. Pinching the bridge of her nose, she shook her head tiredly and lagged a bit behind her brother. They were just tired, that was all. She and Oliver had been driving by themselves all day, creating the perfect conditions for mental exhaustion. Stress and sleeplessness was putting them on edge.

A few paces ahead of her, Oliver called to her.

“Come on.”

Keres looked up at him and realized that they had reached the end of the wing and that he was holding the door to the main office open for her.  

“I’m coming,” she replied, lingering a moment longer before walking the building.

A current of cold air blew past her as she entered, unexpected after standing in the dry heat outside. Keres smoothed her hair back and walked up to the reception desk in the far corner of the lobby. Although the consistent lighting of the room was something of an improvement from the scattered lamps outside, the unsettling feeling of the whole property continued even here. She looked back at her brother as he let the door swing closed behind him. He stood stiffly, strung up to his full height with his shoulders drawn tightly forward, noticeably on edge. Keres looked around for an explanation to the feeling they both shared, something that she could blame for the uncanny nature of this place. 

The room decor was as lifeless as the rest of the building. Chairs that were clearly hardly used but were worn down all the same, plastic plants potted in dust, soulless paintings that Keres somehow felt were outdated despite the generic abstract pattern. Everything seemed out of place, yet she somehow knew this is exactly how everything was meant to be. There was a purposefulness about it, something that she couldn’t contribute to the sleepy manager who just stumbled from the room behind the desk and was trying to pretend she had been there the whole time. Oliver and Keres walked over together, but Oliver stepped forward to talk to the woman, temporarily shaking off his stiffness to put on a warm smile. Keres took a position a step behind him, flashing the woman a small smile as well, but she went unnoticed while he was the focus of the manager’s attention. Oliver was always a charmer, so that didn’t surprise her. Keres usually left the social interaction to him anyway. Having no interest in the small talk going on, she paced over to the window on the other side of the room. Looking through the streaked glass, she vaguely wondered if she could’ve also been capable of easy charisma like Oliver. It didn’t feel impossible, but there were walls that would have to come down first and then learning how to see people the way they wanted to be seen. 

“Alright, thank you so much! Have a good night Mia.” 

The closing of the conversation broke Keres from her ponderous staring, prompting her to turn and look at the woman waving goodnight to her brother. Mia looked out of place here, merely because she was alive in a place that only pretended to understand what that meant. Other than that, her appearance fit what you might expect of someone who ran a shabby motel. She had shaggy brown hair with grown-out, trashy highlights pulled into a messy bun and jarring makeup gave her face an unnatural business that was entirely too much to look at this late at night. Keres didn’t necessarily think less of her for her entirely avoidable appearance, but it did make her curious. What did people see in that? What did she see in herself? What did she see in others?

Once again, Keres was absorbed in her thoughts, her brother’s wake pulling her out the door and back into the heat of the night. 

“She seemed nice,” she mumbled, walking behind her brother.

He counted out the numbers they passed each door, searching for their room. She watched the back of his head, curls bouncing as he nodded and replied, “Yes, she was nice. A bit odd, but I don’t think you could expect normal in a place like this.”

“A place like this,” Keres repeated thoughtfully. 

She was still trying to figure out what that meant. What was this place like? Because what she felt here was not like anything she had felt before. It was unique. 

They stopped in front of a door near the end of the row, thankfully close to where they parked. Oliver slid the dull key into the lock and attempted to turn it, but the old knob was loose, twisting and jostling with the key. Her brother heaved a sigh and muttered something under his breath as he leaned closer to the door and began delicately messing with the troublesome apparatus. While he struggled with the door, Keres turned around to scan the sagging fence that bordered the parking lot. As her eyes roved over it, she wondered how it was still standing. The fence was caged by the brittle remains of whatever short-lived vine decided to weave between the rotting boards and it rattled like old bones whenever the hot breeze blew against it. She couldn’t see beyond the fence, even though she knew there were buildings out there. Cocking her head, she squinted at the darkness. Even though there weren’t any buildings close by on that side, there should still be some light, some glow that she would be able to see outside the perimeter of the fence. Keres took a few steps into the lot, searching for any shape or light outside of the area.

Something was there.

Keres froze, tendrils of terror constricting her chest and locking her limbs in place.

There was a figure standing beside the lamp post, just behind the fence. And it wasn’t human. Nearly as tall as the pole next to it, its form was grotesquely stretched, thinned and elongated beyond any natural capability. The head, thin and elongated like the rest of its body, was completely featureless and sickly white like deadman’s flesh. 

Yet somehow, without any eyes or expressions to tell her so, Keres knew that it was looking at her. The ambient world faded away, leaving her no familiar comfort while she faced this figure. Blood rushed in her ears and her ragged breathing came quick and shallow. She knew that it was looking at her, but there was more to it. It knew her. She could feel it in her bones, the invasive knowledge of her mind that it possessed. 

It knew. It knew everything.

Panic buzzed on the edges of her vision like static and all she could see was that face. That expressionless, featureless face. 

Keres suddenly couldn’t breathe anymore. Choked by her own fear, she wanted to crumble under the sightless gaze of this thing because standing under the weight of her own shame was too much. 

Her knees buckled and she hit the ground. The collision jolted painfully up her spine and the rush of blood in her ears climaxed to a shrill whine. She could not move, she could not look away, she could not speak.

“Keres!!”

The word echoed faintly around her, holding no meaning as it faded away and became part of the static hellscape. 

“Keres!!!” 

Firm hands grabbed her shoulders as her name rang out again. 

Everything stopped. The shrill whine of bloodrush, the black dissolving the edges of her vision, the fear-locked limbs, all of it stopped as her mind was slammed back into the reality she didn’t know she had been pulled from. 

Free will suddenly coming back to her, Keres desperately drew in a breath, filling lungs that had been too constricted by fear to act on their own accord. She keeled forward onto the crumbling pavement, catching herself on her elbows as he coughed roughly and sucked in air. The hands on her shoulders provided a steady pressure and banished the spell of isolation from before.

“Keres!! Can you hear me? Keres, answer me!!” Oliver shouted, voice gripped tight with concern. His fingertips dug into her skin, almost as terrified as she was. 

“Where did it go?” she gasped.

She lifted her head to scan the fenceline, and upon not seeing the figure, another shock of fear lanced through her body and her insides roiled violently with adrenaline. 

As she twisted to find the phantom attacker, Oliver caught her by the shoulders once more and spun her to face him. 

“Keres, what are you talking about?” he snapped, using one hand to make a large, sweeping gesture around them, “There’s no one here!”

That made her pause, staring back at her brother with hunted eyes. She saw her own fear reflected and magnified in his eyes, clearing the racing thoughts the residual panic was flooding her mind with. Traces of fear still remained, but it was now hidden away out of sight, festering until it could be triggered later. 

She took an anxious glance around them and whispered, “You didn’t see it?”

Oliver shook his head. Some of the tightness left his shoulders as he carefully let her go now that the urgency of whatever fit she was having had passed. 

“There was no one there,” he replied carefully, “I just turned around and you were kneeling on the ground, but you weren’t breathing and you just kinda went rigid.”

They stayed silent for several moments, each looking intently at the other as if they could find the answers underneath the fear in eachothers eyes. While Oliver’s face was struck by concern, Keres’s remained a mask and showed only what she could afford to express. How could she explain what she had seen, what she had felt? It was built on so much that she had kept hidden that to talk about it would require her to bare her soul, and Keres couldn’t do that. If she wasn’t convinced before, now she was. That other being had known her and all she felt was judgment and shame. She was almost crushed by the weight of that knowledge, of the stranger that showed her how revolting her true nature was. How much harder would it be to show that to someone who she cared about? To reveal the twistedness inside and still ask to be loved? It wasn’t possible. As things were right now, at least she was able to pretend that she was faking just as well as everyone else. 

Drawing in a long, steady breath, Keres finally crushed what was left of the fear and met her brother’s eyes with a firm gaze.

“I’m okay now,” she said, “I’m sorry I scared you.” 

However, Oliver’s fear would not simply be brushed aside. He had not seen the being, he didn’t know that this was something personal.

He shook his head in response and said, “I think you had a seizure or something. We really should get you to the hospital-”

“No,” she cut him off. The last thing she wanted to do was be stuck in a hospital for hours, only to be told nothing was wrong with her. Keres knew that the problem wasn’t physical.

“I think I just locked my knees,” she lied, “I’m fine now, really. Let's just get into the room so I can sit down.”

Conflict visibly flickered across Oliver’s face. Keres was too drained to argue, however, so when he didn’t make any move to insist on anything contrary to her wishes, she reached over and took the key from his limp fingers. Slowly, she turned her back on the fence line, now shadowed with a dull city glow, and stepped up to the motel door. The knob rattled loosely in the door, but it let her in, stale air drifting past her as the door swung inward. Keres didn’t look back at her brother, whose eyes she felt on the back of her neck, and went straight to the bathroom. She rested her elbows on the greasy, discolored linoleum for a moment, rubbing at her temples. 

“I’m fine,” she chanted to her haggard reflection, “I’m fine, I’m fine.”

The girl in the mirror solemnly shook her head in response, the lies rolling off the glass like water droplets. They both knew that wasn’t true and hadn’t been for some time. Frustrated, Keres stared into blank eyes, tears welling up and clinging to her lashes. Why couldn’t she make that true? She looked down, unable to look at the lies the reflection showed her, and turned the worn faucet. The water gurgled out and splashed in the stained basin, swirling hypnotically around the slow drain. Cupping her hands beneath the flow, Keres brought the cool water to her face and washed it over her skin. She let it trickle down her neck and drip off her nose, grounding herself in these sensations as she tried to find any emotion left inside her after what had just happened. Like the sink, she numbly wondered if all the emotions had drained away, leaving her a stained shell. Everything would come back, it always did, but somehow she knew that she wasn’t in charge of the faucet anymore. 

Straightening, Keres spared one last look at her reflection, at her hollow face, and left the bathroom. Oliver was laid out on one of the beds, watching something on the TV. His face wasn’t quite relaxed, his whole demeanor seemed troubled, and more so when he heard her exit the bathroom. He tensely sat up a little, watching her with apprehension. He opened his mouth to say something as he swung his legs off the edge of the bed, but Kere held up a hand to stop him. 

“I’m fine,” she said, the lie coming easily after so much practice. Drawing some power from the dregs of emotion in her gut, Keres offered him an easy smile as she sat down on her bed. 

“I’m sure I’ll feel better in the morning.” 

Oliver nodded and returned her smile with a relieved grin of his own, the tight lines of worry in his face easing a little at her false assurance. 

“I’m glad,” he responded quietly, “You really scared me back there.”

Keres looked into her brother’s eyes and saw the pools of fear her episode caused that haven’t yet drained away. Nodding, Keres smiles at him again, lightening her expression so that she won’t be able to see fear reflected in his eyes anymore. 

“I’m sorry I scared you. I don’t know what happened, but I’m sure you won’t see it again.” 

He smiled at her and laid back down, loudly yawning as he settled back against the mattress. The springs groaned as he moved and Oliver winced in disgust at the sound. Keres mimicked him, laying down on her own lumpy bed, and stared at the buckling popcorn ceiling. The two laid in sleepy silence for quite some time, food forgotten now that both of them were too tired to have an appetite.  

Eventually, her brother got up and got ready to go to bed, flicking on lights as he went. Keres closed her eyes and sighed, pushing herself up to a chorus of squeaking springs and slid off the bed. She felt like a mimic, an echo that followed behind Oliver’s actions as he went through his evening routine. It felt strange, but she couldn’t bring herself to care about it. 

In a few minutes, everything was done and they were both ready to go to sleep. The two slid into bed, and Oliver clicked out the light after wishing a goodnight to his sister. Keres hummed in response and lay in silence, listening to her brother’s breathing slow as he fell asleep. The darkness pressed in on her, thickening until it was almost palpable. It wrapped around her like a bad promise and fear resurged within her as it writhed around her. Huddling under the blankets, Keres closed her eyes and submitted to the fear, allowing it to crash over her until she fell into an anxious half-sleep

[pizza-soup]

Sorry I've been missing in action.

Long story short I got very injured at the labs, but I've been making a fast recovery. For the more detailed, graphic version, you can read below. Warning: Mention of hospital, blood, car accident.

As I mentioned, I got really injured at work beginning on February 21 at around 9 PM. It was during a routine check at some of the sites, one in particular needed our higher clearance because there had been a breach at a fence that past week, so I, and two other guards went to check out any tampering of the fence again. They say it might be vandals but a lot of them say it was some kind of large animal. The road to those sites are a single path through the woods, lit with a few lights, no curves, just a flat road with a hill on one side. It hadn't snowed that week either, so no fear of ice or anything. It was just a routine jeep trek.

It happened so fast. Our vehicle was knocked over, I'm not even sure how, but we were rolling in the dark down a hill, hitting trees. I remember the shouting, holding fast, and the glass. I remember crawling toward a tree and trying to sit up against it or maybe I was put there by the other guard, Dolores, I remember her telling me to stay awake. I asked her if I was dreaming. It didn't feel real. I asked what was happening to me because I couldn't move right, everything felt so slow and muffled. I passed out by the time they got us into the medical ward. I don't remember them putting me in a gown or putting in an IV. I woke up later, I buzzed the call button out of fear and pain. My whole left side was throbbing. A nurse was relieved I finally came to. She gave me pain meds and called the doctor in.

I was told there had been an accident, that much I already knew, but no one was killed, just injured. I lost a lot of blood, my uniform was soaked in it and they had to cut it off me. Part of the metal from the door frame folded in and pieced my left shoulder and I had minor cuts on my hands and arms from the glass. My blood pressure dropped so low they were scared my heart might've stopped. I was given blood, hooked up to a lot of things and I would have to stay under watch for a few days. There was a lot of tests they needed to do to figure out just how bad my injuries were.

For the next few days I was just sleeping, I couldn't sit up without feeling dizzy. I had to lay semi flat, my blood pressure was still very low. My left side was still throbbing and the stitches itched. A lot of bruises developed from being tossed around like I was, mostly on my arms because I was shielding my face and head. My minor glass cuts stung while batheing. Nurses came in every few hours to check my vitals, help me use the restroom, shower, help me eat, ect. I got so tired from the smallest things. I couldn't call anyone, my phone was in my locker. I finally got someone to help me call my brother to tell him what happened. My brother was naturally scared, he thought something happened to me and he was sad to know he was right. He wanted to see me, but he couldn't, I was in the medical ward on lab property. He wanted to call our mom to tell her but I told him to wait, there was a possibility that I might be transferred to a local hospital where they can visit me, and I didn't want her panicking and trying to drive up here in bad weather. It's best she waited til things cleared up.

After the first week I was transferred to a local hospital after getting a bunch of tests done. No brain trauma, no broken bones, no blood sugar issues or thyroid problems. I could sit up in bed by then and eat on my own. I still couldn't walk very well without feeling really dizzy, again, low blood pressure. A lot of minor bruises were fading away. I never had my anemia officially confirmed, but they confirmed it and had me take daily iron and placed on a blood building diet in the new hospital. I was tested for covid, I came out clear.

My brother and mom visited me daily, and the other doctor said I was recovering really quickly, that gave us a lot of hope. I could be out of there by a few days, though my blood pressure was worrying her. Seems it wasn't so much the blood loss, but that it might have been an underlying condition already linked to my untreated anemia. She would get the in-house dietitian to include a bit more natural sea salt to my iron rich diet, as well as tell me what I should eat at home and that I need to drink a lot more water than I normally did. This is a problem I've had for awhile, I forget to drink enough water. The doctor warned me I better remedy that immediately especially with low BP. My mom was already taking notes. She really wanted to just take me home already. I really liked her being there, I'm not that shy about my body, but I honestly felt better having my mom bathe me and comb my hair instead of strangers doing that. She was also a lot more gentle around my stitches and bruises.

Eventually I did come home, I still needed a lot of rest and help getting out of bed. I had to fight the urge to clean house, help with groceries, ect. I'm so used to being self sufficient. I felt so frustrated that just walking around the room would tire me out, when I'd hike for miles just a few months ago. I was tired of sleeping and sitting down. But there wasn't much else I could do. I did a lot of origami, my bro got me a coloring book, I watched a lot of movies, took my iron -which is nasty btw-, ate meals that were saltier than I normally would prepare but my taste buds would have to adjust. I was happy my new diet included a lot of fish though.

I did have some close calls. I really thought I could stand up in the shower instead of sitting, and wound up calling for my mom to help me up after collapsing. I collapsed again when I was trying to cook dinner for myself. My face, according to my mom, was drained of color and my breathing was shallow. I felt so dizzy and nauseated. She nearly wanted to call the hospital again. My bro said I was pushing myself too hard and I always had a problem with not asking for help. That I needed to learn to stop being so damn stubborn and rest. To anyone else, that sounds harsh, but he knows me way too well, probably better than our mom. I do have that problem, I do push myself too much. After that, I decided to be more patient with myself. I was sick and might be sick for awhile.

This week I'm doing a lot better. I can do my daily things now, I even went to get groceries and take a little walk to the river. But I can't over do it, I can't stand up or walk for too long, and I can't lift anything heavy, otherwise I get bouts of dizziness and need to sit down. The pain isn't as bad on my back anymore though it's still very sore, my arms, especially my left side, have a dull pain. I can't sleep on my back and left side, only my right and on my stomach. A lot of the cuts on the back of my arms and hands have scabbed over, minor bruises are gone but major ones on my shoulder and neck are still pretty dark and tender. I'm still finding glue spots on my chest and stomach from the medical tape and the EKG patches they put on me, but a bit of lotion is taking it off. My stitching, according to my mom, is definitely going to leave a pretty bad scar above my shoulder blade, but it's fine. My body has a lot of scars here and there from close calls, but I consider them ' Marks of Life'. They're proof I survived and thrived.

It'll take time for me to really feel like I'm back to normal. My mom refuses to go back home until I make a full recovery. She hasn't tended to me like this for a long time, mainly because I rarely get sick. I trait from my dad's side. We don't get colds or flus for years, no history of cancer, heart issues or diabetes, and his family usually remain active to their elderly years, not to mention our graceful aging. My dad used to say it was our native blood, we're just built tougher. The only thing that could kill us is getting injured like this. God, he'd be so worried about me though. I remember how he'd fuss over me when I skinned my knee as a child or got my allergies. If he was alive, he'd probably refuse to let me do anything out of bed, but then that's exactly what I should be doing anyway.

I got a report on the other guards health yesterday. Dolores and Elijah. She was the least hurt out of all of us, just a dislocated arm, mild whiplash, and some really bad glass cuts on her chest and arms, she's home recovering with her husband and kids. Elijah was the driver and got knocked unconscious with a bad concussion, his entire left arm was sliced by glass and metal, he lost a lot of blood like me and is recovering just as slow as I am. He opted to stay in the lab medical ward because he doubts his roommate can care for him at home, he's on a lot of pain meds, so he sounded distant on the phone. I think out of all of us, he's going to take the most time to recover. I told him I'd pray for him and if he wants, I can visit. He appreciated that a lot. I thanked Dolores for helping us that night, she was the one trying her best to keep us alive and sent the distress signal on our ARK devices so they could find us in the dark. Without her, I think we would've bled to death.

God, it feels like a distant nightmare. I still can't figure out how we were knocked off the road like that. Something hit us out there and it was strong. I felt the impact in the backseat, but I didn't see it. Dolores says it looked like a bear, but bears aren't that strong. Eli says he saw horns, so maybe a bison. Bison are that strong, especially against a little jeep. The incident is still under investigation. The lab is also very concerned about how this happened. It's possible the same thing that hit us, has been tampering with the fence.

One less thing to worry about is the hospital bill, the accident happened on lab grounds, everything is taken care of through them, probably because they don't want to get sued. They are giving us another two weeks before we report back in to the doctor for another round of tests and physical tests, as well as check to see if my stitches were still secure. Our return to work solely depends on our results, we may not be able to come back until late April. They really want to be sure we're okay. Because I'm an 'Ophanim' aka Tier 3 guard, I'll also be given a mental test before being hooked back into Selene. They just want to be sure there's no cognition issues and I can sync properly to her. I may have to do a refresher since I've been away for so long, but I'll worry about that when it comes.

Well, if you read this far, thanks. I hope I didn't scare you all too much. I am doing a lot a better though, I promise. I'm getting stronger everyday, though activity on this blog will be slow. Send me some prayers, good vibes, whatever. I'd really appreciate anything. Hope you've had a good month, better than mine hopefully.

[justpeachyartistry]

How Lore Olympus Should Have Ended

Hi everyone! I wanted to share my idealized version of how Lore Olympus would find its ending. I guess this would count as a fanfic, but there will be a mild trigger warning surrounding Asspolo and Minthe. You have been warned!!!

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The drama of Olympus has racked up the tabloid section so severely that it comes to Demeter's attention. She forces Persephone back to the mortal realm to get the honest truth out of her. She knows her precious baby isn't a whore, but she does know that Persephone has been in contact with the King of the Underworld. Persephone is crushed by the pressure of disappointing her mother. She can't spit it out. Luckily Hera appears to diffuse the situation.

Hera and Persephone have a bond stronger and healthier than anyone else in the cast.

Bound by empathy and magic, Hera coaxes the truth out of Persephone. Persephone explains that Apollo forced himself on her, that she thought it was her choice but regretted the act. How Apollo had been following her, abused Artemis' trust to enter her home for sex, and threatened her scholarship by siccing Hestia on her to punish her for refusing his advances. Apollo had sworn her to secrecy under the guise of protection, but it had really been a prison. She's sorry that she made the mistakes. She's sorry for the worry and pain she caused everyone. But most of all-

Hera cuts her off as Demeter is struck with tears. "Sweetheart," she says as the hugs the pink cinnamon roll close to her chest, "you've been raped. You've been violated while in the care of a drastically flawed protector. You've been blamed for the mistakes others have made. But none of this is your fault".

"I-I-I've been.... But I thought-"

"I never should have let you leave the realm", Demeter whispers. "Those heathens have desecrated my beautiful baby. It seems I have trusted delegates to do a mother's job!"

Hera stands between Persephone and Demeter. "Let's not be drastic, Demeter. One issue at a time-".

"Govern your own hearth, Hera! And let me tend to mine. Persephone, I will fix this. We will never see Olympus again! " and with that, Demeter whisked herself and Persephone to a deep alcove of their forest. It was there Persephone would be deemed safe.

..................................................

Demeter and Persephone tended to their flowers within the greenhouse. They hadn't left each others' side for the past few weeks. Persephone began telecommuting to all her classes in a compromise to Demeter, but it just wasn't the same. She also had to give up her internship in the Underworld. She was safe, sure. But Persephone was lonely. The flower nymphs that populated the realm were yesmen, and didn't allow for the same degree of conversation she had with Hades, Hera, Hermes or even Tori.

Demeter beamed with pride with her daughter's return, even as the latter was as morose as a hurricane. Are being safe and stilfled or endangered and freeflowing the only choices in her life? Persephone couldn't be sure. All she could be sure about was that she horrifically saw Apollo knocking on one of the greenhouse's windows. He was wearing an ancient Greek robe and black crown similar to Hades' war attire. He also came bearing a Narcissius flower bouquet.

Demeter sensed the despair in her daughter's heart as she faced her abuser's twisted courtship attempts once again. The elder goddess fazed herself into the open to face the young man himself. As always, Apollo had a line. "Good morning, Lady Demeter. I come bearing offerings for the lovely Persephone. I trust that you have heard of our secret love affair?," he chatted in poorly translated Ancient Greek. Demeter's stance didn't budge. The false Romeo continued, " I'm not normally one to kiss and tell, but I have come to publicly declare our romance official. Allow me to wed dearest Persephone, and in return I shall make an honest woman of her".

"My daughter is already an honest woman. The only dishonest person here is you, Asspolo!," Demeter bellowed as red thorns sprouted from her head. The ground shook beneathe their feet, as Hades let out a mighty anguish groan. Persephone couldn't marry Apollo! She would flounder under his shittyness! She wouldn't grow into her own person with that manipulative twat ruling her life! He had to get to the mortal realm. Immediately. Hades began to search for his car keys when Minthe jammed her hands in his pockets.

"I can't believe you're actually going to answer a domestic dispute! Is this really what the big blue king is going to do with our date night?!," Minthe snidely remarked. Date Night, or what you could call it, was a relaxing evening shopping on Romulous Drive, followed by dinner at the Olympeon and dessert at Minthe's place. Hades broke from her grasp,"She needs help, Minthe. I can't sit idley by while-"

"Oh, yes you can! We are exclusive now. Exclusive to me! Not to the pink titty flower baker! She has her own problems, Hades. Don't make her one of mine again, Hades."

"Minthe, this isn't about us, or what we are calling us! This is about a young scared woman being battled over without giving her say in the mat-" "Oh please! She survived getting tangled up in my Tartarus map! She'll survive anything!"

The room fell silent as both parties digested what Minthe had just revealed. The growls of seven dogs loudly rose throughout the house as their master stormed out of the house fuming. "You have no respect for hospitality. You have no respect for human decency. And you have no respect for me. We are done, Minthe!". Minthe ran after him in an angry panic, only to be stopped by JP and Mushroom holding her dress at bay. She held up the car keys in her hand. "Good luck getting to your toddler bride now," she said with a smirk. Thay smirk turned to a frown as Hades hopped on Cerberus' back and the duo ran towards the portal cave leading to the mortal realm. Frustrated and hurt, Minthe found herself surrounded by angry dogs ripping up her expensive new trinkets.

Back on the mortal realm, Apollo continued to make his case to the irate Demeter. "I control the sun. I control the healing properties of your plants. I even control the music your nymphs use to make your flowers grow bountifully. I can easily snuff all that out with just a snap of my fingers. All I'm asking for is Persie's beautiful hand in exchange for keeping the realm in check. I've already made her my girl. She wants to come with me, but she hasn't admitted it to herself yet."

Persephone screamed, "No I don't! I never have, and I never will! You're a horrid manure of a being!"

Demeter: "Persephone, stay in the greenhouse!"

Apollo: "I'm getting damn tired of these games, Persie! Get in the car!"

And with that, Persephone raced into the woods. She fled from her mother, Apollo, the nymphs, anyone who chose to dictate her life as they saw fit. Tears streamed from her eyes as she saw that Apollo drove vigoursly after her. His arm streatched outside the driver's side window, he was still holding the Narcissius bouquet in a desperate attempt to make her love him. The whole truth about the assault had sullied Apollo's reputation on Olympus. If this had been about some mortal woman or a nymph being raped no one would have cared. But the fact that he had chosen to atrack and harass a new goddess was too much for even the other gods to handle. Apollo was determined to come out on top in some way. And if that meant Persephone than so be it.

Persephone panicked as Apollo managed to scoop her up in his arm. She cried out for the one person she thought could help her. "Mphm- Hades! Help! Stop the car!"

"I'm the only man you need so calm yourself! We just need some prac- ," Apollo yelled, before swerving into a tree to avoid a giant black paw. The ground had opened to reveal Hades riding Cerberus like the mighty warrior king he was. Hades dismounted and electricuted the car with his sacred weapon until Persephone was freed from Apollo's grasp. She ran into Hades's arms and wept with joy. Cerberus jumped his pink mommy with joy before tearing the tires off Apollo's car.

Hades: "Shush shush, it's alright now. It's alright."

Persephone: " (sniff) You're watching my cry again. 5% scoundrel. (Choke) for the first time in six weeks, I can breathe Hades".

A hush falls upon the forest, peppered only by the occasional rasps of life expelling from Apollo's body curshed against the steering wheel.

Hades: " I can take you back to your mother, if you would like. You'll be-"

Persephone: "Safe. Safe and miserable. Even as a goddess of spring, under my mother's thumb I miss so much about life"

Hades twiddled his thumbs momentarily before answering. "Where would you like to go? Somewhere you feel the safest. Where you feel the most powerful. Where no one looks down on your self authority?"

Without hesitation, Persephone blurted out, "The Underworld! Please. The underworld, Hades," as she looked up at him batting her blueberry teared eyes. Calling Cerberus to their side, the three rode back to Hades' home to reconvene.

Hades: "So, about that baklava..."

Persephone: " I gave it to Minthe to share with the staff, but I think she threw it in thr trash. You've earned another one."

Hades: "We're earned another one. We can bake it when we get home, but I have to warn you-

(Both) My neighbors are super nosey! "

Persephone: "Do you have any deviations from the recipe in order?"

Hades: "How do you feel about pomegranate seeds, Kore?"

Persephone: (Beat)" 20% scoundrel!"

As they galloped through a cave, Minthe crawled out from under a rock next to Apollo's car. Damn. She had missed them! The pink titty goddess ran off with her man and they're going to make ... Dog treats or whatever. "I've lost him. I've lost him for good this time." As Minthe let out a rage induced cry, Demeter ran to the scene of the crime.

Demeter: "Nymph! Nymph! Where is my daughter?! Have you seen where she went?! She's in danger outside of my sight!"

Demeter looks over at Apollo struggling to get our of his crushed sports car without vomiting blood, before healing himself again in a sickening cycle. "I applaud you for taking care of the manwhore." Minthe's heartbreak broke into a vengeful scowl. If she couldn't have her man, she could ruin the honeymoon period. So she put on her best wounded woman act, with her best fake tears gushing down her cheeks.

Minthe: "Why yes, powerful Demeter. The dreaded Hades snatched your precious daughter clean off this Earth by the ruse of (looks down to see the scattered Narcissus flowers around the crack) that accursed flower! Why, I bet that he has plans to make her his bride by now. How terrible! What horror befalls the precious goddess now?!"

.....................................................

Persephone: How did we start with Baklava and end with Moussaka? We must be really lucky.

Hades: I don't know. Beats the Museli outta me!

{End}

[collintcyv653-blog]

Kingsdown Mattress

"Congratulations, you're pregnant! Through all the delight and anticipation you're feeling, there may be some apprehension. What type of stroller and safety seat is best? Where to purchase a baby crib and how to embellish the baby's space? While purchasing and registering for these items can be exciting, it can also be tiring. You wish to do finest by your child however all the research you're doing attempting to choose out the finest product has your head spinning. On top of this, you may be on a budget (who isn't these days?), having a little shower, or not having a shower at all.

Do not fret! Here are 10 things you can do to get everything you require, save money, and feel great about offering your new bundle of happiness.

1) Craigslist is your friend. There are lots of things you require or desire for your baby that you'll only use for a couple of months. You can get these items at half cost or less on Craigslist. Examples are a Bumbo seat, vibrating baby bouncer, Exersaucer, Child Bjorn and so on. There is no need to buy these products new and by purchasing them used and passing them on, you're assisting to conserve energy and waste.

2) Wait till you understand your baby much better to run out and purchase something. You might feel like you require to have a space equipped loaded with everything for the first year, however you truly do not. My child enjoyed her vibrating bouncy chair and it put her to sleep like a charm, however the mild rocking swing did absolutely nothing for her. You do not need both and perhaps you got one at your shower (if you had one) so see if what you already have works. We didn't even think about a walker for her since she hated being restricted or strapped down

3) You don't require a wood baby crib and a Pack n Play. I utilized the Load n Bet my daughter and it worked splendidly. It included a bassinet she slept in for the very first 3 months, a raised pad, and an adjustment to floor level. I then purchased a personalized comfy bed mattress for the bottom (this was well past susceptible SIDS age) for about 40 bucks and put a natural cotton sheet over it. It also included a removable changing table that tidied up quickly and was excellent for midnight diaper changes. They come in stylish designs and have to do with $150. Compare that to buying a bassinet and different traditional baby crib.

4) Avoid the crib completely and co-sleep. This might not be for everyone, but if it works for you, purchasing a baby crib is not an issue. The pros and cons of co-sleeping warrant a different post, but there is a lot of totally free literature on the subject.

5) Look for out baby swaps. Some are totally free or charge a small charge and they can be a cash cow of carefully utilized clothes, books, and toys. Again, there is nothing incorrect with getting utilized stuff for your child! She or he won't know the difference and will be finished with them in a couple months anyway. I got one of my child's preferred toys at a swap and of course, this toy also has actually become old news.

6) Do all you can to make breastfeeding work. I do not say this to pressure you or make it appear easy, because the very first month is draining. Nevertheless, as soon as you and your infant have it, it's rewarding and FREE. You will conserve a ton on formula, not to discuss it's better for your baby and for you. You reduce weight much quicker when breastfeeding - extra incentive!

7) As soon as your baby begins consuming solids (around 6 months) make your own infant food. It's more affordable and MUCH healthier. Cook a great deal of one vegetable, for instance sweet potato or squash, puree it, put it in ice cube trays and freeze.

8) Do not go to the shopping mall while on maternity leave. That's just asking for trouble. Maybe it's hot/cold or you wish to leave the home. Go to the local complimentary public swimming pool, neighborhood center or coffee house. You know the establishments in your location. Also, wait as long as you can to buy brand-new clothing. You may keep diminishing, especially if you're breastfeeding!

9) Use the library instead of buying new books. This provides your child excellent range.

10) Don't purchase or feel the requirement to purchase a brand-new car. I see numerous new households sporting lorries they can't pay for since they feel it's ""safer"". If your current car runs well and is safe, you do not need something new and glitzy. Paint is dull or has a damage? Your infant will not understand the distinction and will value the lighter mood due to less financial stress.

The essential thing to remember is that the better you are, the better child is so don't sweat the little stuff and enjoy your time with your child as much as possible. You'll remember those valuable minutes far more than the designer diaper bag or top of the line stroller."

[the-black-dragons-den]

this is in response to this post where Louis C.K. talks about why it’s important that we work to be able to talk about suicide more openly. i have a lot of experiences to share in this regard and it’s important to me to express them but i didn’t want to take up all that space on the original post so i put it here.

“and you’re like ‘no’ because if i say yes, you’ll press a button and folks will run in, 'HOLD HIM DOWN!’“

 this makes me want to cry for so many reasons. let me tell you something. 

i knew i was depressed at age 3. knew it. the suicidal thoughts came later, but easily before my teens. it wasn’t until i started having problems in school (having always been a model straight-a teacher’s-pet student) and a teacher e-mailed my parents saying that i was “hurting the class dynamic by not participating”  [and neglecting to mention that the other students were bullying the shit out of me] that my parents finally took me to the pediatrician to see if I was depressed. i was about 13 so my mom was in the doctor’s office with me. and of course the doctor asked if i had had suicidal thoughts. and damn right i said no. and yeah, part of it was the fear of being locked up then and there. and part of it was the shame. depression was not something our family talked about. mental illness was not a topic of discussion. stories of people who had committed suicide were met with cringes and distasteful looks. and every day in school and in church on the weekends we would hear about how sinful this act was, to destroy a piece of god’s creation, and that these people would certainly not be allowed to just go to heaven. so when that doctor asked me that, with the eyes of my mother and this doctor boring into me, i said no, that i had not thought about suicide. and i always wonder how telling the truth right there might have changed things.

i was diagnosed with possible “mild” depression and prescribed a low-dose of prozac, which i was never allowed to take. my mother, well-meaning but poorly informed, attempted to pursue a natural or homeopathic cure for me. i eventually developed a pattern of self harm and two years later, had my first hospitalization due to a suicide attempt. 

at my first psychiatric unit, it became clear very quickly that this was just like school - they didn’t really care too much if you really knew or understood the material, they just wanted you to be able to give the right answers on the test. understandably, it’s hard to take a group of 20 adolescents at a variety of ages and with a variety of different issues and counsel them in a way that will be helpful to all of them. but i was put on medication [good i needed it] and then was taught “coping skills”. basically, this meant a list of ways to distract yourself if you’re upset. music, drawing, hands in ice water, etc. i tried to explain to my counselors that i was tired of “coping” with my life and that i wanted to “enjoy” my life. and while some of them were compassionate, it was obvious that they couldn’t do much to help me. i knew i was costing my parents money by being there, and one of the counselors used that against me, telling me, “don’t you want to get out of here?” and making it sound like that was the goal - not getting better. so i shut my damn mouth and started smiling like i’d been taught through years of conditioning that children should be seen and not heard, and i acted like i didn’t want to die and i gave the right answers and i got out.

the second time i was hospitalized for a suicide attempt was about five years later. surprisingly the first psychiatric unit hadn’t cured me and my mother had made the, once again ill-informed but well-meaning, decision to take me off my meds. being no longer an adolescent, i was taken to a different psychiatric unit. and i told myself to try. to not just work the system. to try to listen, and learn, and figure out how to get better from these people because they must know right? and then they brought in the ice water and i realized it wasn’t any different. no one had a response for me when I said “I don’t want to cope with my life, I want to live and enjoy things.” some people tried to remind me that there has to be suffering to be good times. i wanted to scream that my childhood had been ripped out of my clutching hands by the shadow of a demon in my head that no one would ever believe me about. i wanted to tell them, “i have been suffering for 18 years. i have not known a single day without this depression in my head. so you tell me how long keeping my hands in this ice water is going to distract me from the crushing weight of reality. tell me how many pretty pictures i have to paint, how many poems i have to write, how many times i have to snap that rubber band on my wrist before i get one day without a suicidal thought?” at the end of my 72-hour psychiatric hold, i was committed without any knowledge. it wasn’t until i brought up my release that I was informed that my psychiatrist had deemed me “unsafe to be released”. and at this place, i lived in fear. shift changes meant new rules because they weren’t written down, and different nurses had different ideas with what was allowed. my anxiety was on constant alert because i could get in trouble for things from one nurse, while the same thing was totally fine by another nurse. i got yelled at for wearing a sleeveless top (the top i had come in in, which i had worn many times without incident), and for playing the piano quietly while someone else had the tv on very loud (something that the other patients had told me they didn’t mind). i was harassed by other patients (who were dealing with their own problems - not bad people, just also struggling people). and it was not uncommon for the staff to wear no identification, refuse to identify themselves, and simply loiter in our rooms. so once again, i shut the fuck up and started acting like this had changed something and got the FUCK out of there.

nowadays, i am receiving outpatient treatment at a building that is part of the same hospital, is right next door, but isn’t part of the psychiatric unit. for the first week, including my introductory appointments, i couldn’t go into the building without having tears streaming down my face. i had meltdowns in the car before the first two appoints, tantrum-like anxiety attacks at the thought of being near the place. because all i could think was, someone here is going to pull some strings and they’re not going to let me leave. i suspected my parents more than once of trying to bring me here to just commit me and be done with it (unfounded fear, my parents would not). and though i don’t cry the whole time anymore, i still have severe anxiety about going to these appointments every day. i spend the rest of the day feeling anxious and my boyfriend comforts me, telling me i’m safe and that no one’s going to take me away, because deep in a corner of my head, i’m always so scared of that.

that fear of being taken away and locked up, that is so fucking real, so present, and so overwhelming sometimes. so of course people are going to be scared of admitting how bad things really are.

but i’m sorry, i’m not finished yet. the flipside of this is that i often have to convince people that i’m depressed. you see, because of my upbringing and the pressure i faced to perform well in all areas of my life, i learned to hide that depression. no talking about it, no being sad, no letting anyone see the tears or the self-harm marks, i learned to hush up and do good in school, sports, theater, church, my social groups, any other activities. i never drank or did drugs, i wasn’t having sex. 

and in college, things got bad again. i was getting As, on two scholarships, and self-harming more than ever. i would power through my work, self-harm to calm down, and repeat. someone told me, “you’re basically writing essays with your own blood.” so i went to my academic counselor and told her that i believed i would need to leave school because my depression was getting too bad. this was not a decision made lightly. honestly, the idea of not succeeding in school and not graduating made me want to die even more than the idea of staying. but death was pretty certain if i stayed, and if i left, i would have a more safe place and less obligations so i would be able to seek help. she did not agree with me wanting to leave school when i explained about the depression. i reiterated my mental pain many times to her before finally explaining that school was making me suicidal. at that point, she literally would not let me leave her office until one of the school nurses escorted me to the dean’s office. i was not allowed to be alone. finally, i was able to push through my withdrawal, and was then promptly banned from the campus because they didn’t want me to “be a distraction to the other students” who, you know, were my pretty much only friends and support at the time. and yes i understand that this is all legality bullshit because they have to cover their asses and they don’t want me to kill myself on their property. but that’s what it’s come to.

that if i’m not suicidal, people believe that i’m not depressed enough for it to reasonably impair my day-to-day functioning, but if i do mention that i’m suicidal, i will be treated either like a toddler who only gets safety scissors, or i will be escorted to the nearest facility “equipped to deal with” people like me.  

fuck the way our society views suicide and depression. we need to be more open about this shit. so many people will never get real help if we don’t.

[ladystylestores]

Hong Kong, Stimulus, Huawei: Your Thursday Briefing

The U.S. is considering slapping tariffs on exports from Hong Kong — the same as those applied to goods from mainland China — in response to Beijing’s plan to enact new security laws and tighten its grip on the city.

A strong police presence prevented the protesters from surrounding the city’s government offices. Demonstrators who chanted slogans in malls were quickly rounded up and herded onto police buses.

The police appear more determined to quash the protests and better equipped to do so, our correspondents report. This raises questions about the future of Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement, which has relied heavily on marches and outdoor rallies to drum up support.

The National People’s Congress, meeting in Beijing today, is expected to adopt a resolution calling for the new security legislation, which democracy advocates say will target dissent.

Dive deeper: Here’s a guide to the protests, which have increasingly become a direct challenge to China’s ruling Communist Party rather than to the territory’s leadership.

The Japanese cabinet approved more than $1 trillion in stimulus funding that includes a combination of subsidies to companies and to people. Parliament is expected to approve the measure next month.

In Brussels, the European Union’s executive arm said it wanted to issue bonds in capital markets to raise 750 billion euros, or $860 billion, to finance the bloc’s economic recovery.

The fund will distribute €500 billion worth of grants — free money that will not be added to national debt — to all 27 member states, with Italy getting the largest slice, followed by Spain.

Related: The main partners in the world’s largest automaking alliance — Renault, Nissan and Mitsubishi — announced a plan to survive the coronavirus’s devastating impact on the car industry. Under the new arrangement, Nissan will be the dominant partner in Japan, China and the United States, while Renault will take the lead in Europe, Russia, Africa and Latin America. Mitsubishi will be in charge of the rest of Asia.

Huawei executive is closer to U.S. trial

A Canadian court ruled that prosecutors had satisfied a critical legal requirement to extradite Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer of the Chinese technology giant, to the U.S., where she would face trial on sweeping fraud charges.

Mrs. Meng will have another chance to fight for release at a June 15 hearing on the argument that her rights were violated during her arrest.

She was arrested in Vancouver in December 2018 at the request of the United States and indicted the following month.

Background: The case has thrust Canada into the middle of a diplomatic struggle between the U.S. and China: over trade, theft of technology secrets and whether Huawei’s efforts to help countries build 5G mobile networks present a threat to national security. The court decision is expected to further strain Canada’s own relations with China.

If you have 5 minutes, this is worth it

A Michelin-starred chef feeds the poor in India

The Michelin-starred chef has overcome logistical hurdles, corruption and unwanted marriage proposals to send food packages and hot meals to those in need in his home country.

Here’s what else is happening

SpaceX launch: Two NASA astronauts are scheduled to blast off from U.S. soil to the International Space Station, the first U.S. launch of a crewed mission in nearly a decade. Liftoff is scheduled for 4:33 p.m. Eastern at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Wednesday (that’s 6:33 a.m. today in Sydney).

Anime studio fire: Shinji Aoba, 42, recovered enough from the injuries he suffered in a fire at an animation studio in Kyoto last July to be arrested on suspicion of setting it. The attack killed 36 people and injured dozens more, and further shocked Japan for its targeting of a symbol of the country’s popular culture and a major soft-power export.

Locusts in India: With coronavirus infections steadily rising, a heat wave in the capital, and 100 million people out of work, the country now has to fight off a new problem. Scientists say a locust invasion blanketing half a dozen states in western and central India is the worst in 25 years.

Trump tweets: In a first, Twitter has added information to refute inaccuracies in some of President Trump’s tweets, after years of pressure over its inaction on his false and threatening posts.

Snapshot: Above, the Quai d’Anjou in Paris during the coronavirus lockdown. Our photographer Mauricio Lima has followed in the footsteps of Eugène Atget, an early 20th-century father of modern photography who shot an empty city, getting up early to capture Paris’ architecture during a moment of stillness.

What we’re reading: This essay by Marilynne Robinson in The New York Review of Books. Steven Erlanger, our chief diplomatic correspondent for Europe, writes, “The author of ‘Gilead,’ one of the best American novels, tries to think through what this virus shows about the United States, and asks what kind of country we want it to be.”

Now, a break from the news

Watch: “Douglas” is the new Netflix special by the comedian Hannah Gadsby. The Times Magazine interviewed her about life on the autism spectrum, online trolls and how trauma plays into comedy.

Listen: Here are seven works of music that speak to the coronavirus time warp, in which days creep along but months vanish in a flash.

And now for the Back Story on …

A reporter’s tips on recovering from Covid-19

Maggie Astor, one of our political reporters based in New York, and her husband became sick with Covid-19 in late March and managed to recover at home.

Maggie wrote about the ordeal and shared some valuable advice, especially on how to maintain a healthy state of mind during the illness. Here’s an excerpt:

Having Covid-19 is intensely stressful. It’s not unusual to feel depressed or anxious, or to have panic attacks. Don’t be embarrassed to talk to your doctor about your mental health — it’s just as important as your physical health.

It’s also OK to not be OK. You don’t have to handle this “well,” whatever that means. You just have to get through each day. So go ahead and cry, binge Netflix, do a jigsaw puzzle, reread the entire “Animorphs” series — whatever gets you through the day.

Some people have mild symptoms for the first few days and then suddenly get sicker. Some have fevers that go up and down repeatedly. Some are sick for two weeks straight, then have a few symptom-free days, then relapse. Some have lingering symptoms for months.

This is both maddening and very common. Give yourself as much time to rest as your job and financial situation will allow. For me and for several colleagues, that meant nearly three weeks of sick time.

Since tweeting about my experience last month, I’ve received many emails from people in the “this will never end” phase. I share the same screenshot with all of them: a text I sent to a friend on April 5.

“Why do I even bother giving good news when it’s only going to last a few hours?” I wrote. “I’m just so tired of this. I don’t know how to keep dealing with it.”

Every day, more people will hit that wall — and every day, more people will find their way past it. They will feel alone, but they won’t be.

That’s it for this briefing. See you next time.

— Carole

Thank you To Theodore Kim and Jahaan Singh for the break from the news. You can reach the team at briefing@nytimes.com.

P.S. • We’re listening to “The Daily.” Our latest episode is about the threat that the coronavirus is posing to the U.S. Postal Service. • Here’s our Mini Crossword, and a clue: Prize for Malala Yousafzai (five letters). You can find all our puzzles here. • Jeffrey Gettleman, our South Asia bureau chief, recently appeared on CBS News to talk about the coronavirus in Mumbai.

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[itsworn]

Hollywood Stars Align With Racers and Rodders at 1958 Motorsports Events

Starstruck.

It should come as no surprise that photojournalists chasing interesting people, places, and things would lead interesting lives, themselves. Some of their shared experiences were documented on film that no Petersen staffer expected to ever be seen outside of the photo lab, recorded for internal entertainment only. Six decades further down the road, however, such outtakes glisten like gold amongst familiar, published negatives. Often, what determines whether or not such a nugget is selected for these pages is the story behind it—or lack thereof. We strive not only to identify who’s in a shot, but also why the credited staff writer or photographer deemed the particular scene worthy of fully 1/12 of that roll of medium-format, 12-shot film. Perhaps only that one person can say—or would’ve said, had we gotten to him in time. Those roving reporters were mostly in their mid-to-late twenties or thirties, already. Add 60 years, and it’s easy to understand why a tempting image might be rejected today only because its shooter either can’t remember or, more commonly, took that inside information to his grave. (Prime example: Fully half of this installment’s photography is the work of the late Eric Rickman, whom historians haven’t been able to pester since 2009.)

Luckily for HOT ROD Deluxe and y’all, Spence Murray and Bob D’Olivo are still around, able, and willing to suffer dumb questions about obscure images that neither had seen since their film was processed and proofed in 1958. The irony of using modern technology to digitize, share, and identify ancient negatives that belatedly appear here as black dots on paper—same as ever—is not lost on either nonagenarian. Though Rod & Custom‘s founding editor has been physically slowed by strokes that hinder typing, wife Carolyn expertly transmitted Spence’s memories of building, driving, touring, and crashing the Dream Truck. The same month he crashed into a Kansas ditch, D’Olivo bumped into Jill St. John at Riverside Raceway. Along with Bob’s four frames of the actress, we noticed Motor Trend‘s main photographer was shooting some 35mm film, instead of the larger formats used almost exclusively by Robert E. Petersen and his hirelings since the start. Mature readers will recall that the smaller, lighter, single-lens-reflex (SLR) design was as nearly as revolutionary in its time as Apple’s camera phone became. For this issue, the longtime Petersen photographic director listed the advantages of 35 mm for race coverage.

Another thing that this latest round of archive research uncovered was an unprecedented number of entertainers and other celebrities not normally associated with our hobby. Stateside interest in sports-car racing was booming, especially now that underdog Corvettes and Thunderbirds dared to challenge European exoticars. Entertainment figures had been associated with hot rod shows since the very first one, in 1948, for which young Robert E. Petersen lined up some B-list beefcake to lure wives and girlfriends to the Los Angeles Armory (while Pete peddled the Jan. ’48 HOT ROD outside). Relationships created during and after his postwar stint as a Hollywood agent would increasingly bring those worlds together in Petersen-produced magazines, promotions, indoor shows, and special events. Thus does his incomparable photo collection contain a unique combination of show-biz and automotive milestones, along with mug shots of the employees who documented them. Many more examples await discovery. We can hardly wait to peek behind the curtain at 1959’s outtakes, next, before blasting into the ’60s.

Of approximately 3 million black-and-white negatives in the Petersen archive, this one was surely among the most mutually painful for an editor and his audience. Through five years and four custom iterations, Rod & Custom readers were encouraged to submit suggestions for modifications that would be performed in the magazine, then seen in person at the 47 car shows across America that featured the Dream Truck. Its 48th would’ve been Iowa’s 1958 International Motor Sports Show, had the tow vehicle’s left-rear tire lasted just 60 more miles. Editor Spencer Murray and helper Jim “Buzzie” Blair escaped uninjured. The new-model Chevy Fleetside with custom Barris grille and paint also survived. In fact, after a wrecker yanked the shiny side up, Spence drove it the rest of the way to Des Moines at the request of a nervous show promoter whose patrons were expecting to meet the editor and see a customized California pickup. (If any of you attendees took pictures of the damaged pickup on display, we’d love to share them in HRD.) Murray briefly referred to the October 21st incident in his Jan. and Feb. ’59 editions—the last two installments of a series that established the formula for long-term magazine projects. The Dream Truck appeared in too many R&Cs to list here, starting with Sept. ’53. (Also see Mar. ’58 HOT ROD; July & Oct. ’58 Motor Life.) The pre-crash ’58 Fleetside mild custom got a spread of its own in R&C’s Jan. ’59 truck issue.

If you young ‘uns ever wondered why the last inside page is consistently missing from Grandpa’s old Car Crafts, it probably went someplace his mother did not. Carol Grace’s turn in CC’s monthly “Coming Attraction” department teased in more ways than one, pointing (sorry!) young readers to Ted Long’s F100 custom and the upcoming truck issue. (See May & June ’58 CC.)

Richard Boone stood a respectable 6-foot-one, but the Have Gun, Will Travel guy looks like a giant in a toy car. Bob D’Olivo rushed a few shots for a May ’58 Motor Trend piece allegedly penned by “Paladin” himself (no byline, but written in the first person). Therein, we learned how Bill Devin—whose fiberglass Ferrari Monza knock-off came in 27 sizes and wheelbases from 75 to 100 inches—adapted this miniature model to the 80-inch wheelbase of a hot Porsche Speedster that Boone had crashed on location.

Hot rodding’s most-famous trophy was still jointly awarded for America’s Most Beautiful Competition Car and America’s Most Beautiful Roadster. Oakland’s big winners were Romeo Palamides’ canopied fueler and Richard Peters’ radical ’29 roadster pickup. The Ala Kart, destined to repeat as 1959’s AMBR, was built by George Barris (seen in the background—for once!). (See Oct. ’58 HRM; Dec. ’58 CC.)

“Have Camera Will Travel,” read the headline of a May ’58 HRM “house” ad, followed by the subscription pitch: “A man of action, our photo editor Eric Rickman is everywhere! You can go, too, by keeping your subscription to HOT ROD up to date. GO, MAN! $3.50 year, $6.00 for two.” We prefer this outtake because it shows more of Rick’s famous Corvette—here in recovery mode, following a single-vehicle street crash—and also because his camera case’s cool decals were “airbrushed out” for publication. We asked his longtime boss, photographic director Bob D’Olivo, about the hardware. “At the top is my personal Eastman Kodak 4×5 view camera,” e-mailed D’Olivo. “Coming down, one item looks like nothing I’ve ever seen, a small camera on a strap. Never saw him use it. On the bottom is my 4×5 Graflex Pacemaker Speed Graphic. The company had no equipment like this when I started there in August of 1952; we used the stuff that my wife and I brought from New York in my ’40 Ford Deluxe tudor when we moved to California in 1950.”

Four years before Carol Cox singlehandedly pressured Wally Parks into accepting the first female participant in NHRA-produced events, Rickman got this ironic pan shot of her and hubby Lloyd’s family car at sanctioned Inyokern Drag Strip. (See Aug. ’58 HRM.) The couple alternated driving at the drags and El Mirage dry lake—where Carol initially broke an unwritten rule against women racers by disguising herself in Lloyd’s overalls and signature hat until she was accepted. In 1962, Carol would wheel her daily-driven ’61 Ventura to SS/Automatic class wins at NHRA’s only two national events (Pomona and Indy).

What the heck were sprint cars doing on Riverside Raceway’s road course—running in the wrong direction, yet? All we knew was that Rickman submitted a few rolls identified as “CRA 500” for processing on June 2. Curators Jim Miller (American Hot Rod Foundation) and Greg Sharp (NHRA Motorsports Museum) each came through with details about a 500-mile California Racing Association show during the track’s official grand-opening Memorial Day weekend on May 30. The $10,000 purse was considered huge (equivalent to about $87,000 now). The course direction was reversed to counterclockwise for oval-track drivers accustomed to turning left. Some teams installed oversized fuel tanks to minimize pit stops.

Riverside winner Bud Rose was congratulated by a virtually unknown, 21-year-old trophy queen named Dyan Cannon. The hunky dude stepping on the tire is John Smith, soon to become famous on the Laramie series. Rose (whose given name was Harry Eisle) prevailed in the same, ancient Offy that he’d stunt-driven for Clark Gable’s action scenes in 1950’s To Please a Lady. Afterward, Joe Gemsa bought the roadster from the studio and named it the Clark Gable Special. Rose/Eisle was obviously a dead ringer for the movie star. (During filming, Gable supposedly told his double, “You drive the race cars, and I’ll take care of the broads.”)

You’d look befuddled, too, if your boss fired off a flash bulb first thing one morning—particularly if he was Wally Parks, not exactly a major prankster. HRM tech editor Ray Brock was probably sharing this Indianapolis motel room with Parks and possibly another staffer for Memorial Day weekend (note rollaway cot and partial person in foreground).

Would you believe Shirley MacLaine, queen of the 500? She was 24. The popular actress stayed through the race that opened with Pat O’Connor’s fatal first-lap crash on a restart to reward Jimmy Bryan with three big kisses in the winner’s circle.

A rare, unposed portrait of Parks was taken from telephoto range by colleague Tom Medley during the Indy 500 weekend. It’s no wonder the guy often looked worried while juggling simultaneous responsibilities as HRM Editor, editorial director of Petersen’s automotive titles, NHRA president, and drag-race promoter.

Another Medley photo from the crew’s Indy trip is a self-portrait that not even his son had seen. Gary Medley is a chip off the old block, continuing to publish new/old artwork featuring the adventures of his multitalented parent’s alter ego, Stroker McGurk. (See strokerbymedley.com.)

Although Backstage Past prioritizes unpublished outtakes over pictures you might’ve seen in the magazines, we’re making this exception partly to address HRM’s inexplicable failure to attach any caption to Tex Smith’s classic action shot in the Sept. ’58 issue—a rare showdown between the most-controversial dragsters of the preceding season: the California car that ignited the 1957-1963 fuel ban by running 166.97 versus the Florida fueler that reportedly reached 176.40 the previous November. HRM readers might’ve been informed that Wichita Falls was the farthest west that Don Garlits had yet traveled; that a $450 guarantee was his first-ever appearance fee; that he reset both the strip and Texas state records to 9.12/163.33; that the runnerup (far lane) was Kansan Loyd Davis in the former Cook & Bedwell fueler.

Four months before the Dream Truck’s crash, R&C’s editor posed at home with the fourth-and-final version of a ’50 Chevy that was first customized in 1952. A who’s who of custom shops contributed body modifications (e.g., Barris, Metz, Winfield, Valley Custom). Now 91, Murray’s memory is intact. Via e-mail, he answered all of our questions in detail, except one: Asked to identify the lovely lady in his driveway—twice—Spence curiously suffered amnesia, coming back with “Just a friend” and “One of my exes.”

Near-simultaneous exposures by HRM’s Brock and Parks accidentally produced mirror images of Pikes Peak champs Nick Sanborn Jr. (Stock Car), Bobby Unser (Championship Car), and Ak Miller (Sports Car). Both staffers can be seen in the opposing backgrounds. Brock (wearing backward ball cap) appears to be climbing some poor schmuck’s shoulders to get the high-angle, forward-facing composition that happened to include his boss (behind Miller in the sunglasses and white Mobil sweatshirt).

All we know about this intriguing frame is staff photographer Colin Creitz’s three-roll entry in the photo lab’s film log: “Art Center School.” The assignment was issued by Motor Life, but our incomplete collection failed to produce a related article. Experts’ predictions and artists’ impressions of Detroit’s upcoming compact cars were newsstand staples in the late ’50s. The clay models seem to hint at future Chrysler products. The custom-looking pickup makes us wonder why Dodge never produced an “El Dart-o” to compete with the so-called “car-trucks” introduced by Chevy and Ford for 1959.

Various closeups of the Scotty’s Muffler Service Special and team from this August photo session were published in tabloids as prerace publicity for NHRA’s Nationals. What’s unusual about our outtake is the absence of Wally Parks and the appearance of a full camera-and-sound crew, possibly outside its studio. Car-owner Charles “Scotty” Scott (behind seat) was joined by 9-year-old Billy “The Kid” Scott, his future Top Gas and Top Fuel prodigy, and mechanic Cub Barnett. Both Scotts are gone. Barnett still builds race motors and campaigns one of nostalgia racing’s winningest roadsters. As for Miss HOT ROD, a caption printed in Drag News—likely written by Wally himself—reveals that “Hollywood starlet Christine Callas was chosen by more than 70,000 hot rodders throughout the nation to reign over the 1958 National Championship Drag Races in Oklahoma City, Labor Day weekend. She is auburn-haired, blue-eyed, with 36-24-36 measurements.”

This may not be the first pair of rails ever to pull side-by-side wheelstands, but Eric Rickman’s example is the earliest we’ve noticed on archive film. The state-of-the-art California cars of Tommy Ivo (far lane) and Jim Nelson were tangling for Top Eliminator at Santa Ana. What seems like a sizable holeshot might’ve been calculated caution by Ivo, who held a half-second advantage. Earlier this Sunday, his Kent Fuller frame and injected Max Balchowsky Buick combined for a shocking, all-time-record e.t on gas, 9.50 seconds (at 141.68). The Aug. 23 Drag News ran a similar photo and reported that Ivo’s A/Dragster beat the carbureted-Chevy B/D by two lengths. Nelson sat in the second chassis built with Dode Martin. Dubbed the Drag Master, the car’s name would be merged into one word when the pals launched Dragmaster Co. with a handshake. (See respective car features in Feb. ’59 and Mar. ’59 CC; Apr. ’59 HRM.)

No, your old eyeballs are not seeing double, nor did Photoshop exist to fake us out 60 years ago. At the opposite end of this radical custom, a second pair of headlight housings was installed in the leading edge of the hood. CC Editor Dick Day brought the weirdness home from the World’s Fair Auto Show in Springfield, Massachusetts

Another of Tom Medley’s great portraits captured Bob D’Olivo with one of the earliest 35mm cameras used by his photographic team. “It’s an Asahi Pentax 35mm SLR (single lens reflex) model,” he tells us. “It had a no-return mirror, meaning that after the shutter is released, you see nothing until film is advanced. At least, it was a beginning. I also used a 35mm Nikon rangefinder model with a couple of lenses. Nikon SLR cameras did not exist yet. The advantages of 35mm equipment were compact size, higher shutter speeds, motor drives, wide-angle lenses and longer-focal-length lenses for racing, and getting 36 exposures in a small cassette [versus 12 frames per medium-format roll].”

Utah mechanic Athol Graham drew quite a crowd when his homemade streamliner lumbered onto the salt for the first time. Starting with a B-29 belly tank and a surplus Allison V12, he’d invested 12 years and about $2,500 in the project. An oil-pressure problem forced Graham to abort his first-and-only shakedown run, slowing to 84 mph. In the push-off photo, HRM’s Ray Brock approaches with a camera. Graham’s speed would improve the next year to 344 mph—shockingly close to Mickey Thompson’s 364-mph record in Challenger I’s debut. Shooting for the first 400 in 1960, he’d be killed after the left-front wheel reportedly snapped off, flipping him end over end. Nevertheless, the City of Salt Lake was rebuilt twice, raced at Bonneville by two true believers, and still exists.

Among the mysteries raised by this round of archive research is why such a killer Rickman shot of the season’s most-important match did not appear in extensive NHRA Nationals coverage in Petersen monthlies. Absent the late photographer and Wally Parks, who oversaw all automotive titles as PPC editorial director, we can only guess that the obvious darkness influenced rejection by a safety-obsessed boss whose other job was running—and protecting—NHRA. Parks had already convinced two slower quarterfinalists to bow out, eliminating one daylight-eating round of Top Eliminator. Ted Cyr (near lane) received no cash for beating Al Eshenbaugh in 10.04 seconds and earning 1958’s national championship, though he and partner Bill Hopper won the keys to a new Chevy Fleetside pickup. The California team had entered two rails in NHRA’s second gas-only Big Go, hoping to unload this older model here, plus an A/Altered coupe that Hopper drove. Amazingly, all three could’a, would’a, should’a competed in the quarterfinals that never happened, had Hopper’s class-winning Fiat not been one of the two cars prematurely dropped by darkness. Ted drove both dragsters in the semis, where only a sideways launch in the new car prevented an all-Cyr & Hopper final round.

You won’t find Barbara Livingston’s name in any 1958 mastheads, but backstage, the former HRM secretary and future Mrs. Wally Parks remained involved as unofficial proofreader and fierce protector of Petersen and NHRA publications; too involved for editors and contributors who resented her outsized influence and interference (e.g., she and artist Pete Millar waged a running battle over the “butt cracks and flies” that Barbara faithfully erased from his illustrations). All PPC editors seemed to be go-kart enthusiasts. Wally’s twin-engined model rode atop an entry-level Delray sedan delivery thought to be NHRA’s first official vehicle, subsequently lettered and assigned to ex-HRM staffer Tex Smith.

Sporty-car fans’ favorite two couples could not have been more different. For starters, garage operators Max and Ina Balchowsky drove their homebuilt “special” the 60 miles from home to Riverside for USAC’s inaugural U.S. Grand Prix, while Lance Reventlow’s large crew was delivering not one, not two, but all three of the existing Scarabs on fancy trailers. Reventlow, whose supportive mom was Woolworth heiress Barbara Hutton, got rear-ended on the first lap and spent the day spectating alongside already-famous actress Jill St. John, his future wife. Team mechanic-driver Chuck Daigh salvaged their day by winning the main event in another Scarab. Meanwhile, Balchowsky ran near the front until a broken Jaguar gearbox—reportedly the only “foreign” part in his entire car—restricted Old Yeller to high gear only and a seventh-place finish. (See May ’58 ML; June ’58 & Jan. ’59 HRM; Jan. ’59 MT; May ’16 HRD.)

After aging out of the Mousketeers, child-stars Annette Funicello and Tommy Kirk might’ve been practicing a magic trick or how to slow dance without swallowing a playing card, for all we knew. Our historical sources were likewise stumped until Margaret Simmons, a bride of 1958, recalled the “Suck-and-Blow” party game played by teens of the time—with one key difference: Instead of positioning the card vertically, for transfer by the lips, these crazy kids used their teeth. (No sucking and blowing allowed by Disney, apparently.) Later, they costarred in cheesy, teen-romance films such as Pajama Party, in which Tommy plays a clueless Martian who gets wooing lessons from Annette.

Spence Murray had the wreckage trucked back to L.A. as freight. He was not compensated personally for the Dream Truck’s loss, and George Barris’s $1,000-plus repair estimate left no practical option to stripping and selling an old, badly bent body and frame that nobody expected to see again. The custom made its final magazine appearance in the HOT ROD Mart classifieds in 1959 and was presumed lost for the three decades before freelance photojournalist Michael Lamm spotted it on a Stockton street. Bruce Glasscock tracked the truck down and started a restoration before selling to Kurt McCormick, who completed the job, and still has it. The body retains a surprising percentage of its old steel, including the signature fins that Bob Metz installed (now reattached to replacement fenders).

We can see why fuel economy wasn’t the main concern of folks shopping for new cars this fall. Sorry about ruining your next trip to a corporate filling station, though Mohawk’s pricing isn’t all that great, adjusted for inflation and modern technology: In today’s money, we’d be paying only $2.20, but that gallon wouldn’t take a ’59 Studebaker nearly as far as any modern gas compact. Motor Life averaged just 16.1 mpg testing a 90hp Lark that needed 20.7 seconds to reach 60 mph. (See Feb. ’59 ML.)

Had Mickey Thompson and Fritz Voigt dragged their dual-Hemi, 4WD monster directly to Oklahoma City’s NHRA Nationals this summer—as previously planned—rather than detouring to Bonneville for a test run of new Bob Sorrell bodywork, the overweight, second-hand dragster probably would’ve been footnoted in history as an early round Top Eliminator victim of much-quicker gas dragsters. Instead, they ran 242 right off the trailer, on gasoline, before borrowing some nitro and deciding to stick around for record runs. Eight passes later, the two drag racers had America’s fastest car, claiming both the unlimited streamliner record (266.204 avg.) and Top Time of Speed Week (294.117). Nobody we asked (including Danny Thompson) knows whether the Feb. ’59 HOT ROD Mart ad resulted in a sale, or where the car went. Greg Sharp suggests that the early image is an illustration, possibly commissioned for sponsor pitches (evidently unsuccessful, in the case of a cam company whose name never appeared on a car that ran Isky’s stuff). (See Nov. ’58 HRM; Nov. ’58 & Feb. ’59 MT; Dec. ’58 R&C; Dec. ’58 & Aug. ’59 CC.)

The post Hollywood Stars Align With Racers and Rodders at 1958 Motorsports Events appeared first on Hot Rod Network.

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Hello, My father is planning on buying me a a car when I get job to pay for my own insurance. I was wondering how much car insurance would be for me. I am 16. How much would it be if I'm also on my parents plan ? You don't have to give the exact price, just a price range. . . And the car would be a regular nissan or economy car.""

Car insurance/tax when buy a new car?

i have only had one car since i passed and im looking to branch out and get a new one,so wot happens if i get a new car after ive taxed my current one for say six months and insured it for a year but monthly paid for the insurance??""

""Planning on buying a newer car, wondering how much my insurance will go up or if it will at all?""

Right now I have a Ford mustang, and i'm paying about $800 every 6 months, i'm planning on getting a 2006 Grand Prix so since it's not a sports cr but it's newer will my insurance rate stay the same? Will it go up? Or am I lucky and will it go down?""

Car insurance in America?

Im just curious, seen as how there are very few small cars in America compared to Europe, does the size of a cars engine have a big impact on your insurance, as in the bigger the engine the higher the insurance cost?""

Looking for Maternity Insurance?

We're wanting to get preggers in the near future. We're trying to look at our financial options for insurance. Currently we don't have major medical insurance (I don't need any comments on this, it's not what I'm asking about). I'm hoping to get a type of maternity insurance that will cover a couple thousand dollars. We're also planning on home birthing (again, this isn't my question, so I'm not interested in opinions on this matter). Does anyone know any carriers that I could get some maternity insurance from for the states of Utah and/or New Mexico?""

How much do you think my car insurance will go up???

I got caught speeding in a school zone. The speed limit was 20mph and i was going 37 mph. that is 17mph over the speed limit. i already have one speeding ticket on my record and have doubled one to get it taken off. i talked to a lawyer and to get it dropped down the prosecuter wants me to tripple the fine, take a driving class, and go on diversion for a year. That would cost me at least $800. so i am thinking about risking just paying it and seeing how mush my car insurance will actually go up. the fine on the ticket is $165 and i am a 18 year old male. SHOULD I RISK IT or not???""

How much would car insurance be under my dad's policy? Or by itself under my name?

I'll be 21 in September and I'm getting a car really soon. I just have no clue how much the premium is going to cost me. I'm getting an older car. 100,000+ miles. So ...show more""

Cheap car insurance with dui in california?

i know drinking and driving was dumb and dont drink anymore for a year. i need car insurance where can i find the best deal something cheap for a whole year for liabilty for my shitty car.

Low Cost Health Insurance?

I am contemplating quitting my job and going full time to school so that I can have a fresh start with a new career. It would be fine if it was just me, but I have 2 kids and I am single. With school I would work about 40 hours/week doing clinicals at the hospital plus my school work, so I wouldn't be able to work as well. I know I could get state assistance with medical but I did that before and it was the absolute worst healthcare I've ever experienced. They treated us like we were scum. I want my kids to be well taken care of for the few semesters that I would be out of work. I will be getting all of the student loans that I can to pay for basic expenses and hopefully some sort of sliding scale healthcare...Any ideas?""

Health Care Insurance Costs are soo high!?

My wife is 28 years old, I'm 29 and non of our employers offer health insurance benefits. We're forced to pay for our own at $300 a month! That's $3,600 a year... it's too much for us considering we only visit the doctor once a year. I'm tempted to discontinue it but then again its tough not to have any health insurance at all. Any suggestions???""

Health Insurance Now and Later?

I am married going on 2 years. We have decided that we do want children. I am looking at health insurance for myself and I was wondering if I just get health insurance including dental or do I need to go ahead and apply for pregnancy insurance before we even start trying to get pregnant? Are there any insurance companies who are better than others?

What kind of business insurance is needed for a small business retail store?

& on average, how much does it cost (it will be in Brookly/NYC)""

What to do about insurance?

Is there any way to find insurance that covers a pregnancy? (after you have been pregnant) Even if it is a pre-existing condition, is there an extra amount of money we can pay? I have been using my college's insurance plan for the past 2 years. It is now summer and I no longer have insurance. Unfortunatey my due date is before the fall semester starts so I can't renew it until after the baby is delivered. We thought I would be able to just get onto my husbands plan but they wont cover the insurance AT ALL because he signed some waver years ago (before we were married) saying if he were to get married the insurance doesn't have to cover his wife. (It didn't bother him at the time since he didn't know he would be getting married... he has had the same insurance for nearly 5 years now and he forgot all about it) What should we do? I don't mind finding an insurnace that makes me pay a high premium so they would cover my pregnancy. I just don't know how insurance works!""

My son's car was totaled and the insurance company offered us a very low price?

My son was rear ended at a high rate of speed. He was pushed 6 feet into the car in front of him. The guy had to really be moving when he hit my son. He was driving a 1999 Chevy Lumina LS. The blue book value according to NADA is $5000. It only had 78,000 miles onthe car. No rust on the body and overall in excellent shape. The insurance company offered me $3600 for the car. I can NOT find a replacement car in that shape for that price...""

How much do you pay for car insurance?

I know that you cant tell me exactly how much car insurance would cost for me so I am asking how much you pay for car insurance? If you are around 18 years old and drive and older car and have good grades how much do you pay per month for car insurance?

Reasonable health insurance in CA??

My step-daughter, husband and I are currently insured trough Blue Shield of California. The Deductible is $7.500 annually and we are paying $520 a month. Whenever we are going to get my husbands prescription drugs, we have to pay 100% out of pocket, whenever my husband has to go to a doctor we have to pay %100, whatever we do, we have to pay 100% ourselves, when does the insurance come in??? Every year, we have to pay $7.500 out of pocket till we can expect the insurance to even consider covering anything, who has that much money to spend every year on health insurance?! Recently my husband started having kidney pain, hernia, heart problems... but we can't go to a doctor because after paying the $520 a month to the health insurance we are simply left with nothing. I have not been to a doctor for 8 years, now I am very frustrated, I really need to take care of my husbands health but every insurance is just a ripoff. Can anybody help me with some advice...or a good insurance with low deductible or none at all (if that even exists).""

What is good insurance for teens?

Can I have some good companies? I want the basic insurance package. im 17, male, senior in HS""

Insurance on car group 3?

I'm 17 and only just started driving, i'm looking into buying cars and I can't afford a high insurance price i'd say my top price would be 1800 pounds, i'm looking for buying a car with insurance group 3. Is this to high? will the insurance be through the roof? i'm not very experienced with this so all help would be welcome.""

Looking for a very rough estimate on insurance costs for an 08' Lambo?

I'm a 21 year old woman. The car has just over 10k miles on it It's an 2008 Lamborghini Gallardo Spyder It's listed for $150,000 I'm in school with no income I have money (idk if this is required for an estimate, but w/o getting specific, i have money) The car would be a rental (yes strange i know, but bear w/ me here) I live in a metropolitan area. Never been in an accident (but again idk if this matters since it's going to be a rental) Umm... that's all i can think of that would be required. If i'm missing anything let me know. And again i know you can't get very specific, but if you could give me a general range that insurance would be per year that would be wonderful. Thanks!""

Car insurance went DOWN after accident?

I was involved in a one vehicle accident and had a failure to control and hit a guardrail. I called today to get my insurance back and its lower ?? I thought it would go up? Also I ...show more

How would i get health insurance with no income?

with obama care about to start, how can I get health insurance, I don't qualify for Medicaid because I don't have any income, I'm 37, single female, I stay with friends when they throw me out I go to homeless shelters, I live in south carolina, I won't be able to pay fees for not having health insurance""

How much would car insurance cost for me?

i'm a male, 17 years old, live in nj, no accidents/traffic violations, vehicle is a jeep wrangler from the 80s or 90s, i have state farm now""

We were just in a no fault car accident and we're uninsured?

How should we proceed? Our Insurance has been canceled and we were just hit by another driver while driving. I have heard that you have less of a claim when you're uninsured even if you're not at fault, but I just wanted to get some advice... Can anyone help?""

What can happen if you don't list all of your tickets on an online insurance quote and buy the policy?

For instance I have a spectator to racing ticket when a friend of mine attempted to outspeed a car that sped by him on the highway, he got pulled over and charged with street racing, and I received a citation for being a passenger in the car. (ridiculous I know) Now since I was not the driver, nor was my vehicle involved, should I still have to list this when filling out an online insurance quote? and if I don't what can happen if they find out later? Will they raise my rates immediately? Drop my policy? Or is there anything more serious they can do than that?""

Insurance Question!Can ya help?

If i have a 2002 isuzu rodeo with 100k miles on it and i pay $150/month for insurance, how much would my insurance go up or if even at all, if i got a 2001 Audi A6 with 100k miles on it? Plus do you think thats a good car trade :)""

Greensboro Indiana Cheap car insurance quotes zip 47344

Greensboro Indiana Cheap car insurance quotes zip 47344

Will i lose my health insurance?

i am a full time college sudent, 17 years old. i have HIP health insurance derived from my mother. (i have it since im the child). if i change my mailing address to be different then hers, will the insurance still cover me? thanks.""

Vespa Insurance Help...!?

So I've just got a new Vespa LX50, 2009 - I'm 16 and have a provisional license and CBT. Does anyone know who the cheapest/best insurance providers are for scooters for young people - all the price comparison websites say different things, and that's no good. I'm looking for answers based on pass experience. If you're a young person and ride a moped/scooter - who do you use?? Thanks!""

Car insurance total loss?

I own a 1997 dodge intrepid std 4 dr sedan 6cyl gasoline 3.3 liter 4 speed in fair conditions cd player no rust with 197,242 miles. My car was was in a hail and tornado damage where the hood has a dent and the driver and passanger side have dent and the trunk. I have full coverage insurance and they telling me that my car was total last i love my car and i spent alot of money fixing it and it drives great no problem. So I was trying to get some help from some one that could tell me how much is my car worth so they wont give me less money and if they offer me less what could I do. I am not trying to bew greedy but i do love my car and spent alot of money on it. I would rather get it fix . PLEASEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE HELP ME""

""17 year old learner, got my own car - Do I just need learner insurance for now?

I'm a learner driver with my test next month and I now have my own car. I want to practice in my own car up until my test and I'm not sure whether I just need learner insurance or if the car itself needs to be insured as well? Learner insurance is around 80 for the month and for 'proper' insurance then it's around 2000. Any help?

How much would motorcycle insurance be for a 17 yr old female?

hi. im 17 years old and live in glendale arizona. i want to buy a honda rebel 250. but im kind of worried about the insurance costs. i get average grades and am a good driver behind the wheel of a car and behind handlebars. how much do you think theyll ask of me?

What is the easiest way to have insurance?

My unemployed mom spoils my 12 y/o little brother everyday and I only work 14 hours. I've tried applying to 30 stores but my AA diploma is worthless.

Will this be covered by insurance? i damaged the radiator didn't realize it kept driving and engine overheate?

A little over a week ago i bought a 2006 honda civic from a honda dealership. While driving i hit a rather large pothole that i guess put a hole in the radiator. I got out to check for damage didn't see anything no smells, didn't see anything leaking figured i would continue to drive home. While on my way the car was driving completely normal but stalled out. Apparently the engine overheated and now when the car starts it sounds horrible and stalls if you put it in drive. The car is under the most protection the insurance company offers but someone said that they wont cover the engine because I continued driving on it even though I didn't know that there was something wrong. After further examination The radiator actually got dented and hit one of the fans for the engine but theres no way to tell that unless you lift the car looking at it with the car being normal you cant tell it ever hit anything.""

Lawyer or insurance broker?

Lawyer - job offer, 35 000 as a trainee, but 6/7 months in advance doing course for it earning nothing...so pro rated less - after 2 years goes up to 70 000. It involves researching, managing documents, photocopying, proof-reading, filing in and submitting forms and paperwork, dealing with clients, managing their expectations. 9:30-8pm job. Insurance broker for a very big firm - job offer, 30 000 straight away pretty much, will go to about 50 000 after two years. Involves speaking to people over the phone negotiating risk on insurance products pertaining to companies, war, politics etc. Liasing with underwriters. Trying to get the best deal for clients. Less intellectual, more numerical, more oral than written communication. 9-7 job.""

What is the average yearly cost of landlord insurance?

Let's say the place is a newer (built after 2000) duplex in Texas and has a $1,000,000 liability policy as well. Can someone give me a ballpark estimate?""

What is the cheapest insurance group?

I'm 17, girl, doing my driving lessons and am planning to get a car soon. Not bothered which car, i just want a cheap, affordable one. I've been hearing about insurance groups recently which is confusing me because no one around me can adequately explain it. So, i just would like to know what the cheeapest insurance group is and if you could also please explain a little more on insurance groups so that i'm a bit more informed.. thank you""

Car insurance and 18?

I live in mn and my car insurance is going to be 300 and some for liability and full is going to be 600 a month Is that good or high I do have not a good driving record and i drive a 99 s10 blazer

Looking for a car insurance commercial.?

In the commercial a guy is using a marshmallow treat to simulate a wrecked car and to fix it he sticks it back together. I believe the commercial is trying to say the insurance is fast at fixing your car. I think there was some sort of frog/toad in the commercial too.. Help?

How to calculate california disability insurance?

How to calculate california disability insurance?

Bikers: Which cheap bike(125cc?) would be suitable for a new rider who just wants cheap travel and insurance?

I've also been advised to avoid sports bikes where you need to be bent over with your head on the handle bars! I'll be using it for commuting rather than racing and looking cool!

How much roughly would moped insurance cost for a 16 year old in the UK?

i am thinking of getting a moped when i am 16 , i am going to get a 50cc 2 stroke supermoto of some kind. was just wondering how much insurance and tax would cost per year? please can someone help me out""

""Where can I find affordable dental insurance, that I can use immediatleywith no waiting period???

Im in the State of VIRGINIA :)

What kinds of life insurance should I have?

I'm 30 years old, and my love is 39. I have an AD&D insurance policy from work listing him as the beneficiary. What other insurance should I purchase? We do not have any children. Do not say we're going to hell, or that we are sinners. If you've read the bible and truly believe in it, then you should know about judging others and casting stones.""

Insurance payment to the Hospital.?

Hi, 4 months back, i had been to US from India nd during the stay there, i had to go to Emergency of one of the hospital 4 times. I was carrying the Insurance and the hospital claimed it against the Insurance. After I came back to India, am hearing that the Insurance has rejected the claim ( still dont knw on what basis). Since the travel was business related, my company has taken the insurance for me. Now I am trying to chase the insurance to see why the payment was rejected. Could any 1 please let me know what will be the consequences if the insurance doesnt pay it soon?? Thanks Joe""

Is the auto-insurance claim information shared if I switch the insurance company?

Hi! I am with auto-insurance company X right now and due to few number of insurance claims that I had made, my insurance is going up. I am wondering if I try to switch to some company Y, will X share my claims information with Y? Thanks!""

My car insurance company is screwing me over?

I was just recently in a car accident. my front end recieved some harsh damage. The hood was folded towards the windshield, transmitiion was busted, the front lights were busted and the front frame was pushed back to where i could not get my front doors open. My insurance company is saying that it is a complete loss. However the garage where i took it to said that it was fixable. My car is a 2001 neon. They want to take the car and probably give me 2000 dollars for it, and they wll fix it and sell it for more. My question is should i just hand it over to my insurance company and take the 2000 dollars? or does anyone have any suggestions?""

Refund for one month not using health insurance?

So, my dad is enrolled in Empire through the affordable care act for the effective date of Feb. We did not receive any card until around late feb-march. They did not have any member ID for us during Feb because it did not even generate it yet at that point. My question is are we able to ask for a refund for that month? We did not receive any card or number during that month and did not even get to go to the doctor's. Thanks in advance!""

Can a 17 year old get very cheap car insurance in Ireland?Anone have a good car insurance company?Thanks in ad?

Can a 17 year old get very cheap car insurance in Ireland?Anone have a good car insurance company?Thanks in ad?

Can I alter a car insurance quote after just a few months having paid an annual premium?

I have a provisional license and I receive my first car in a few days. I want to get insured to drive it and I've entered that I only have a provisional license on the quote. I want to pay an annual premium to get the best deal, however I'm going to have a full UK license in just a few months time. I'm happy to stick with the same insurers for the next year, but can I alter a quote after a few months having paid an annual premium?""

Does it hurt my credit score when I ask for quotes for auto insurance?

I just turned 25 and I'm tired of getting hosed on my premiums. I want to start shopping around but I know that the insurance companies check your credit score. What's the best way to go about getting quotes?

WHo LOVES Mercury Auto insurance and the alien commercials? lol Whats your favorite commercial?

Mercury Insurance rates are soo low that they are run by Aliens from the planet mercury lol This model simulation represents the facility and their landing site lol How about the Comcast Commercials? lol I was super high one time and saw the Turtles and was hellaaa freaked out lol.

Greensboro Indiana Cheap car insurance quotes zip 47344

Greensboro Indiana Cheap car insurance quotes zip 47344

Cancelling car insurance for 5 months?

HI: I just moved to San Antonio for a 6 month project and the company decided to pay for my car rental. I'm thinking about cancelling my own car insurance for the time so I can save some $. Any thoughts on what the cons can be? I don't want to cancel it for months and then have to pay extra to get back in. my car registration is in Dec and I'm from California and I have Geico. Any inputs are appreciated. Thanks! Mike

How long is a quarter period in insurance?

My insurance says: Family coverage: $2,213 per quarter So how long is that? 3 months or what?""

What are the other things do I have to pay for besides the car and insurance?

Okay my budget for my first car will be 1000 pounds insurance will be about 4000 or even more...whats MOT and Tax? what about breakdown cover? I'm thinking about getting breakdown cover because I dont really have anyone to call if i'm in trouble...it would save me the embarassment...

""If someone hits your car and you don't have insurance but you weren't driving it, will they still pay?""

If someone hits your car and you don't have insurance but you weren't driving it, will they still pay?""

""Is a Ford Mustang, Chevy Camaro or a Dodge Charger good for a first car?

My friend is 18 and goes to college and he has a Ford Mustang. I know its a sport car but is it good for it to be a first car?

Will the insurance company cover my accident on a rental car?

What happen if i rent a car in my friends name and take it out of state but use my dad's insurance card? I am only 19 and live with him. I am not adding my name as the secondary driver at the rental place. If i get in a accident in a different state will my dad's insurance cover the accident. And i can't rent in my dad's name. So that's out of the option. I am renting in Georgia and going to Florida. Thank you

Looking for a health insurance coop in California.?

Anyone know of one not related to working at a company or for the government?

Can you sue someone if they hit your car and you don't have car insurance?

I was in kroger parking lot and a lady backed out and hit my car. we both got out of the car she ask me if i wanted her insurance and i said yes but would this do me any good if i don't have any insurance? She said we'll just send me the bill. She gave me her address and phone number. But when i called her to tell her the estimate she said she was not paying for it. it happen on private property so can i sue her even if i don't have insurance?

Mom discovers $9 car insurance trick. What kind of scam is this ?

Mom discovers $9 car insurance trick. Auto insurers are scared you will learn this too.

Appeals for insurance company?

i was wondering on average how long does it take for a car insurance company to process appeals if someone knows it would be greatly appreciated

Need help with auto insurance!!!?

Hello everyone. I'm from Sacramento/Elk Grove, California. I'm currently insured with Bristol West Auto Insurance for the past 3 years. I'm planning to switch auto insurance because it's really really hard to get a hold of customer service. And when you do, (after 1 hour of holding) they'll put you on hold some more, or even tell you they'll call you back. Which they never will. My point is BW customer service is very very crappy. I need help choosing an auto insurance company that's reputable but yet affordable. Considering the fact that I have an SR22 on file, low rates is my main focus. The lower, the better. I'm planning to insure 4 vehicles (1 is temporary until car get smogged) and 3 drivers. We all have good driving record, inspite of my dropped DUI case. Three of the cars are years '91 and under. Mines is a '98. If anyone have any information (site/link/etc.) or knows any good auto insurance company, please do let me know. Thanks in advance and any input in greatly appreciated.""

Car insurance cost of 94 Cadillac devill?

Car insurance cost of 94 Cadillac devill?

How much is car insurance usually?

thinking about buying my first car soon and im just trying to figure out my financial situation. i know the price can vary but an estimate on how much car insurance is would be nice. thanks

How do I find really cheap legal insurance for my superbike?

I have been licensed in the U.S. for only 3 months, but I have been riding motorcycles for over 20 years outside the country. I am in the process of buying an expensive superbike, but the insurance quotes from major companies are way, way, way to high for my liking. What are the alternative methods?""

How much does it cost to KEEP a car like range rover?

ive never had a car, but i know that expensive cars are also expensive to KEEP, with all the insurance, gas, and idk what else, (if u could list it that be nice too) so how much does it cost to keep a car like range rover (per month)?""

If I put a 1 million dollar life insurance policy on myself then I pay for 3 months then get hit by a car?

Alright so if I get hit by a car after 3 months of having life insurance and I die does my beneficiary get the 1 million?Or will that person only get how much I have payed with the payments?

I need braces on my teeth but i dont no have Insurance that cover it what can do do help?

i really need braces for my teeth and my health insurance wont pay for it. i am 21 and my teeth are crooked and is in my way. i do get SSI but i wanted to know what can i do because Braces cost to much money.

Has anyone used Young Driver Insurance ? With CO OP?

Im searching for cheap car Insurance, I came across CO OP Young Car Insurance, Been Quote 1700 with my 1 years no claims and been driving for 4 years. Without CO OP insurance confused website I did the same search was quoted 2500. Has anyone had CO OP young Insurance can you tell me the Pros and Cons of this Insurance Company, Also if I was driving at 35MPH in a 30zone would I banned from the Insurance company.""

Help with approximation on how much an 18yo would pay per month (or year) for motorcycle insurance?

Ok so I really want to get a motorcycle (I dont even have my drivers license yet just my permit and will get my license within a month or so). I may be getting a full time job and want to make sure I can afford the motorcycle. I have factored in everything except insurance. I plan to get a Standard (since sports would probably cost me more on insurance) bike with about 1000cc. Also I will be taking a safety course (AT LEAST beginners but ill probably take more than that). I live in California. The bike will be used. So about how much will insurance cost meA?

I dont have car insurance?

Currently i dont have a car. I drive my sister car and she added me to her car insurance. If she rents a car for me would her insurance cover in case of accident if i am in her policy?

Car insurance - Seonnd driver ? How does it work?

I have just got my full UK driving license. I am looking to buy a car. I know that if I buy car the insurance right now will be high as I am 23 years old new driver. I was told to put the car on my auntie's name and get insurance as second driver. But does that mean that my auntie will have to pay for her insurance too as the main driver?!? She already has her own car & insurance will she have to pay another insurance if I do put the car on her name and be second driver? Please let me know Thanks K

What if i bought a used car and didnt get insurance? ?

what would happen if i got into a wreck?

Is driving a motorcyle dangerous? and will it raise my insurance prices?

is a motorcycle more dangerous than a car what are the pros and cons. i am considering it for the good gas millage i am 18 yrs old (clean record) -- will it increase my insurance costs

How much does the sr22 insurance in California???

any websites or cheap places to get it?? how much it cost?

Does my insurance background disappear when i cancel my insurance premium?

What i mean is you know how some insurance companies give you a little discount if you havent gotten into an accident or received any tickets or any sort for a year? Well say After one year you cancel your insurance for about 7 months, and then you want to get re-insured, would that discount still be available? Or canceling the insurance would mean your background is gone? I plan on leaving for basic training for the Army and ill be gone for 7 months. Ive been driving since i was 17 and almost have a year in clean record and wouldnt mind the good drivers discount?""

Greensboro Indiana Cheap car insurance quotes zip 47344

Greensboro Indiana Cheap car insurance quotes zip 47344

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/pink-slip-yet-can-i-insure-my-car-california-also-needs-noah-coleman/"

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New Post has been published on FlexEasy Liquid Glucosamine Chondroitin MSM

New Post has been published on http://flexeasy.net/index.php/2017/08/27/adrenal-fatigue-how-it-affects-your-life-and-how-to-heal-it-2/

Adrenal Fatigue: How it Affects Your Life and How to Heal it

80 % of American society is afflicted with adrenal fatigue at some point in their life yet most are unaware of the problem. They simply know they don’t feel well or perhaps symptoms lead them to explore other disorders; we do know that often symptoms denote multiple possibilities and sometimes overlap disorders. Do these symptoms apply to you?

♠ Weight gain, especially in waist or stomach, and it stubbornly sticks to you

♠ Fatigue ~ lack of energy ~ lethargy

♠ Insomnia

♠ Brain fog ~ concentration difficulty

♠ Morning sluggishness ~ need for stimulants to get you moving

♠ Constipation

♠ Nervousness ~ anxiety

♠ Mild depression

♠ Dry skin and hair

♠ Arthritis

♠ Pain in upper back and neck

♠ Unexplained hair loss

♠ Cold hands and feet ~ or just plain cold

♠ Allergies ~ both inhalants and food

♠ Low body temperature

♠ Reduced sex drive

If you said “yes” to several of these symptoms there is a strong possibly that you are experiencing adrenal fatigue. If you said “yes” to half or more, your adrenals are fatigued.

What is adrenal fatigue?

Adrenal fatigue is simply the allowance of stressors to influence and perhaps take control over your life. Stress is a big issue in most people’s lives and all too often the person has no idea how to deal with the stress. The result is adrenal fatigue as well as many other imbalances within the body, mind and spirit of the individual. Stress has many faces such as:

Anger ~ fear ~ guilt

Not enough sleep ~ chronic fatigue

Chronic illness

Chronic infection

Too much exercise

Improper diet

Gluten intolerance

Worry ~ anxiety ~ continually focusing on negative aspects and events

Exposure to large amount of toxins

Surgery

Caffeine

Excess sugar

Digestive imbalances

What happens when your body becomes stressed?

Your adrenal glands are located directly above the kidneys which are found in the back of you right above your waist. In this tiny gland is the most abundant hormone in your body – DHEA. Cortisol (often referred to as the hormone of death) is also found in your adrenal glands. The adrenals main purpose is to be a stress regulator. Here’s an example.

You are traveling down the road and someone pulls out in front of you. You slam on your brakes, maybe say a few choice words, and are grateful that you avoided an accident. In the meantime you had probably stopped breathing momentarily, at the very least you only took shallow quick breaths. Your heart probably began racing and felt like it would pop out of your chest and maybe even your head started throbbing. What you probably don’t know is that your cortisol also shot up to accommodate for the demand put on your adrenals. This is what we term flight and flight, and it is beneficial when something like this occurs. However, when our life becomes a continual fight and flight atmosphere, we can easily develop adrenal fatigue. The adrenals kicking in for a sudden trauma is meant to be temporary. From the stressors already mentioned, it is usually a combination of various stressors that create this syndrome for you.

As a result of continuous stress to your body, your cortisol remains elevated and thus the symptoms begin. It is very likely that at the same time your DHEA is declining, and if you are 40 or older, it is doing so naturally. We know that hormones do decline with age, but if we are stressed they will decline more rapidly. All of this not only tears down your health but ages you faster both internally and externally. And who wants to age faster!

As a result of experiencing adrenal fatigue, most individuals reach for stimulants to get and keep them going – coffee, sodas, pills, alcohol, chocolate, nicotine, etc. They are masking their problem and it continues to grow worse without their awareness due to the cover-up.

Here’s the importance of cortisol.

It normalizes blood sugar ~ When a stressor occurs the cortisol increases the blood sugar level in your body, working with the pancreas to provide enough glucose to provide energy for your cells. Continuous increased blood sugar levels creates a blood sugar imbalance which can lead to multiple physical disorders such as diabetes.

Anti-inflammatory ~ Cortisol is a powerful anti-inflammatory agent. When trauma happens to our body the cortisol is released to reduce the swelling and repair the injury. Too much trauma produces too much cortisol. There are many disorders associated with inflammation such as arthritis, fibromyalgia, osteoporosis.

Immune system supporter ~ Cortisol influences most cells that participate in your immune system’s regulation. Chronic high levels of cortisol suppress the immune system allowing an individual to be more susceptible to illness, especially to viruses.

Stress balancer ~ Cortisol helps to balance your stress reactions, but if stress becomes chronic then it can no longer maintain the balance. The result can be weight gain that is difficult to reduce, high blood pressure, estrogen dominance that can lead to uterine fibroids and even breast cancer, and much more.

So you can see how easy it is to find yourself in the throws of adrenal fatigue and yet suspect other disorders. I personally believe, as do many health practitioners, that it is imperative to repair your adrenals no matter what illness or disorder you have because the adrenals will always be affected if there is imbalance anywhere in your body.

Steps to repair your adrenals

1. First of all understand this. Traditional medicine testing cannot detect adrenal fatigue unless it has become severe. That’s why so many physicians tell their patients – and you may have been one of them – to go home and relax or give them a prescription drug for anxiety to help. That’s simply a band-aid approach and resolves little if anything, and it definitely doesn’t cure the problem.

2. However, there is a saliva test that holistic practitioners and doctors are using that has excellent results in measuring your cortisol and DHEA levels. It is called the ASI, or Adrenal Stress Index. Although nothing is ever 100% accurate, this has very high accuracy. The reason is that your saliva is part of your tissues and can relate to the lab technicians what is being absorbed within your body as well as the level of your hormones.

3. Realize that all physical disorders have emotional cores. You may be able to “fix” your adrenal problem temporarily by making some lifestyle changes, but if you don’t release the negative emotion that underlies your stress it will simply come back again, perhaps in another form. We are multidimensional beings and it requires a balance in all four areas to be healthy. One tire on your car can cause quite an imbalance if it loses enough air. So it is with your body and health.

4. Remove your stressors. You might be laughing right now as you’re thinking I don’t know what your life is like and what you’re going through. You might be surprised just how much I do understand. And yes, you can successfully become stress free. You see, I’m a recoveree of adrenal fatigue and had been experiencing it for decades but didn’t know it. I gave birth to and raised five children, worked all through those years, was driven to succeed in my work, began having big health challenges, divorced, experienced major financial struggles for several years, found myself in a potentially destructive business arrangement from which I finally detached, and so on. We all have our stories but you don’t have to stay in them. I left my old story and created a life free from stress and its affects on me. You can do it too! The key is in how you respond to the stressors. If you want to know more about how to live stress-free, click on my website http://www.drcarolynporter.com on the home page, and order my free eBook entitled Stress Free Living. There are many other products and services listed on my website that may help you as well.

5. Get enough sleep! This can be a real problem for many people. So many come into our health store begging for something so they can sleep. Insomnia often accompanies adrenal fatigue yet it is most necessary for repair. 7-8 hours or more are necessary for healing and the adrenals repair most from 11pm – 1am. (some say the repair begins at 10 pm) So that means that you night owls might need to make some changes. I had to do this as well. Melatonin, 5HTP, herbs, magnesium, warm baths, reading before retiring, working with a coach to learn new ways to respond to your stress, listening to soft music, are all possible was to help you sleep. It is also essential to clean your liver and digest your food well to sleep well. Guides for this are mentioned below.

6.Change your diet. Follow these guidelines to allow for adrenal repair:

♦ Eliminate sugar, caffeine, and alcohol – these fight against adrenal repair

♦ Consider adding salt to you diet – but only Himalayan or Celtic types

♦ Consume many organic vegetables, at least 6 every day

♦ Consider juicing veggies several times a week for cleansing your body

♦ Drink 1 mug of warm water on empty stomach every morning with ½ organic lemon squeezed in it – cleanses the liver easily and naturally

♦ Exercise, but only moderately at first. Rule of thumb is to stop if tired.

♦ Eat regularly, at least three meals per day – may benefit from 5-6 small ones

♦ Eat plenty of good protein as amino acids found in protein help restore adrenals

♦ Progesterone cream – promotes healthy adrenals and thyroid glands, helps to

balance estrogen overload ♦ Supplementation – this is an individualized process – there is no one protocol that works for everyone and what works for one can be toxic to another. Below are some suggestions but please do your own research and seek the help of qualified practitioners for your repair process.

Note: When your adrenals are fatigued the immediate craving is for sugar, yet ironically it is the worst thing you could consume as it furthers the adrenal fatigue. Individuals who crave sugar or carbohydrates often find that adrenal fatigue is a root cause of their cravings.

Adrenals will be better served with organic vegetables, the darker and brighter the better, plenty of good quality protein to ensure enough amino acids, plenty of water and the inclusion of beneficial oils like refined, organic extra virgin coconut oil. This kind of coconut oil can actually cause weight loss and provide the good fats necessary for the conversion of ALL hormones in your body.

Supplementation that can support adrenal repair:

♦ Vitamin C and bioflavonoids – 1000 mg to 5000

mg daily, divided doses

♦ B-5, pantothenic acid, or panethine gelcaps – 1000 – 1500 mg daily, divided

♦ Vitamin E, mixed tocopherols – 400 iu’s

daily, one gelcap

♦ Magnesium – citrate good form, 500 mg or

more daily, powdered form good

♦ Natural progesterone cream – men can also

benefit

Also may be beneficial:

♦ B complex, 50 – 100 mg 2 x’s daily

♦ Multi-vitamin/mineral – once daily

♦ Antioxidants

♦ DHEA – be careful with this, especially

women, as only a little is needed to help

♦ Natural hydrocortisone – caution here as

well – prescription only

Additional suggestions:

Since most individuals with adrenal fatigue have compromised digestion, it is vital that they can digest food and supplement intake properly and have a good intestinal flora balance. You might want to include the following in your daily diet to assist in adrenal restoration:

♦ Probiotics – 2 – 3 times per day

♦ Digestive enzymes – with every meal

♦ Eating raw fermented vegetables – daily

Note: Often less is best, at least to begin. If your body is not functioning optimally, it may be necessary to introduce supplements and changes slowly so as not to “shock” the body or overload it. Of course, in the case of serious disease, it is often beneficial to saturate the body quickly to detoxify and ensure healing. Baby steps do best and know that adrenal restoration takes time, from 3 months to as much as two years, according to the severity of your adrenal fatigue.

Here are some websites that provide lots of good information on adrenal fatigue and a healthy lifestyle…

http://www.Mercola.com

http://www.themakersdiet.com

http://www.adrenalfatigue.org

http://www.drlam.com

Source by Carolyn Porter, D.Div.

[sartorialatlantan]

When Traveling to Plattsburgh

This has to be said about Plattsburgh, New York. Unless you live close and I mean close, within a handful of hours tops, take a plane. This is not an easy town to get to. You cannot fly directly there. You have Montreal as an option; get your passport updated though. You can fly into Burlington, Vermont and take the ferry over. I think there's a ferry ride from Montreal too. I wouldn't know though. I drove. I drove with my wife and two daughters, 3 years old and 1-year-old from Atlanta, Georgia. Alpharetta to be exact, which is a touch north of the city. We left early, 5 in the morning, and started our two-day journey. My kids hadn't ever been in a car this long so this was definitely going to be interesting, an experiment in patience for us no doubt. We bought a Jeep Grand Cherokee a year prior for the occasion, something large and spacious to make the trip as comfortable as possible. It's no "land yacht" but it's big enough for two adults and two small children. We were scheduled to drive through several states on day one. We would make our way out of Georgia and into both the Carolinas and into West Virginia and not stop for food or real rest until we hit one of the many "burgs" of Virginia. To my surprise, the girls were doing quite well. It's amazing what a dual screen DVD player will do for your sanity. They had a regular rotation of their favorite movies and my oldest had mastered the art of interchanging the discs; only after the end credits, of course, she likes the music that plays while the words scroll up the screen.

Our first stop of any notable length was for lunch at southern roadside staple Cracker Barrel. I felt fried, eyes burning, stiff back, mild headache from too much caffeine and not enough sleep. You can go to bed as early as you like, it doesn't mean shit when your one-year-old is teething. When you've been driving for 7 hours and finally stop you're literally buzzing. We ate lunch with my wife's parents. They were on this trip with us riding in tandem from this point on. After the meal, I told my oldest daughter she could have something from the restaurant's general store. So naturally, we left with our bellies full and a pretend waffle maker. Waffles, butter, and syrup included. The plan from this point was to press on to Hagerstown, Maryland. There was no alternative, the town of Hager had to be our destination; our hotel reservations for the night were in said town. We would not arrive on time though. We weren't on the road ten minutes after leaving the Cracker Barrel parking lot when the tire pressure light came on. A little backstory on this tire…this damn tire. The low-pressure warning light had been coming on for weeks, maybe a month. My wife drives the Jeep and would routinely stop for air, only every time she'd stop and manually check it, the pressure would read normal. We figured maybe it's a bad sensor in the tire. Days before leaving, just to play it safe, we take it to the service center. They check it, do whatever it is they do and give it a clean bill. Must be a bad sensor… As it would turn out on the trip, there was a nail in the tire. Thanks to the Internet, and the scattered Jeep dealers up the east coast, we were only delayed one hour and back on the road, free of charge. It meant arriving well past dinnertime, but we made it.

The second day we covered all the New England ground. I guess it was NewEngland. It's all a highway blur at this point. From Maryland we were back into West Virginia then into New Jersey, then Pennsylvania, or was Pennsylvania first, then New Jersey? Then finally we crossed into the state of New York…with an eternity to go. I haven't checked this on the map but from what I can tell Plattsburgh is the farthest tip north on the right side of the state and we drove straight up the side. I feel bad for people from New York State because, well, the rest of us just assume if you say you're from New York, you mean the city. I'm here to tell you, New York State is huge and open and full of country. There are hillbillies in Plattsburgh that could be from deep South Georgia just based on looks alone. But I'll get into that later. After a nine-hour second day drive, we arrived. And here I thought I felt fried the day before.

The whole time leading up to this trip my mother-in-law had been warning me to brace for an ugly town. "It's not a pretty town, it's old and rundown, but the lake is nice". She was really selling it (he said with jest.) She wasn't wrong. The town is old and rundown, but there was a certain charm to it. The house we stayed in was on Lake Champlain; if it weren't for the islands in view you'd swear it's an ocean, and I'm told that it's not even as big as the Great Lakes. The house is on the same street my wife's father and his six siblings grew up on. This is their hometown, and what an interesting hometown to have. The lake is gorgeous, and with it still being early June at this point, it's still freezing cold. I swear there must've been an un-thawed layer of ice down deep out there still. Nevertheless, we got in, we meaning my three-year-old (a child who has no issue with freezing temperatures apparently), me, and my soon-to-be brother-in-law. My daughter didn't go every day, but I did. My future brother-in-law Drew and I would routinely do shots of tequila and then carry a plastic bag full of beers down to the water; it's a classy look. You can get day-buzzed all you want but when you go waist-deep into 58-degree water, you sober right up. These day drinking lake days gave way to a food run that can only be done in this town.

Clare and Carl's. You've never heard of it, and that makes sense. Clare and Carl's is a sinking hot dog shack. Well, from what I could tell it's made of white bricks, maybe cinder blocks, but it is literally sinking. The ass of the store is literally going into the ground. I didn't look but the lore around the bathroom is that the rim of the toilet bowl is now ground level, like something out of Eastern Europe. I'm sure whomever I heard that from was exaggerating… then again it is possible. Naturally I asked, "Why not fix it?" but apparently, the shack owners don't own the land and have to "play it where it lies" so to speak. Clare and Carl's is famous, at least with my in-laws who no longer live in the town, for their Michigan's. (Michigan Red Hots as they're known.) I cannot describe the bun, I have tried and the closest I can come is that it looks like a miniature bread loaf that's been hollowed out in the middle, only the edges resemble something closer to a piece of white bread folded in half. But that's not really accurate either. I don't know what that damn thing was, but it was good. The Red Hot is a hot dog, and it is RED. It did not look like any dog I'd had before. The standard Michigan comes with meat sauce on top with raw diced onions. If you want to sound like you know your shit you order them buried. I would routinely order a brown bag's worth of "buried" Michigans. The onions go underneath the dog, meat sauce on top. The meat sauce is close to a no-bean chili sauce; only the meat has been ground and pounded into almost a paste, like wet sand. Delicious wet sand. I cannot recall now, but I believe they're finished off with a stroke of yellow mustard. They're individually wrapped and rolled tight in wax paper and off you go. They're locally known as Michigans, I call ‘em Plattsburgh Heroin; I ate a lot of those. Beer-fueled and hungry we would venture there routinely, about mid-day, warming up after a lake plunge. I never went over my head, Drew, and cousin Ben, did, they even swam out over their heads. I chose to keep my heart above the water line. Did I mention how cold the water was? A Michigan Red Hot will warm you right up.

There is not a lot to do in this town, aside from drink, swim, and eat. I'm told the locals, more so in the old days, also fought. I think that's common in isolated places, particularly hockey towns. You eat, drink, play and fight. I've never been so bored that I wanted to fist fight a stranger, or a friend, but I could imagine in the dead of winter in a town like Plattsburgh, you do what you need to, to pass the time. The military used to have a big presence in the town. Two branches I believe. I heard stories of the blue collar locals giving the Air Force guys shit for one reason or another, routinely causing fights to break out. There's a SUNY college in the town, I think that's what keeps it going now. The literal town was usually lively and buzzing with young people out to eat and drink. I'm sure there is more to do than what I experienced though, I don't want to seem like I'm putting the town down. We were there for a wedding. In this family, weddings also function as an excuse for a full family reunion. It's never quite everyone, but this visit only left us short three cousins. This being a reunion of sorts for my Irish-Catholic family-in-law, there was drinking, usually by lunch, and dancing, and socializing and eating and also drinking, did I mention drinking? No one gets out of hand, there are too many small children to look after, but the beer and wine flows.  

Everyone in this family is unique. They've all got interesting lives, and do interesting things. Some more than others, but everyone's got a personality for sure. Everyone inevitably breaks off into groups for doing various activities. Drew and I routinely break away when we're in the same place. He and my sister-in-law live on the west coast. On one day, early into the trip, he and I decided to venture into town for liquor and cigars. The tequila was easy to come by, but we had to go into the old city for the cigar hunt. We first wandered into a smoke shop. Smoke shops, ironically, no longer specialize in smoke. It's just wall-to-wall vape accessories. The pipes and water bongs are on display in glass cases like relics from the past. Do you want to feel old? Get a conversation going with a young millennial about how they take in grass or nicotine. They're into some space-age tech. They don't even carry lighters. We quickly realized that this was not where we needed to be and proceeded down the street to a real cigar shop. We were not prepared for how real it would be. The buildings in this town are old, really old, and this cigar shop was the ground floor of one of the many old buildings. I don't know if they had a ventilation system for the air, but if they did it must've been broken. I like cigars, I like the smell of cigar smoke, but this…this was awful. You couldn't breathe. The air was brown. There were 4 or 5 old men sitting in a circle just puffing away, I guess they were used to not breathing. Our eyes instantly watered, I caught a buzz within seconds. I was taking short shallow breaths, trying my best not to cough and look like a total wimp. We quickly escaped to the humidor, the only smoke-free safe haven in the store. It was here where Drew said, "I don't think I want one anymore…" I was in agreement, but I knew both A. that I didn't want to leave empty-handed, tail between my legs and B. that I would want one at the wedding reception the next day. We made our selection, took a deep breath, then headed back into the store; we did our best to make little to no small talk at this point. That smell stayed with us and on us the rest of the day. You would have thought we rolled in tobacco leaves in a burning barn. Nevertheless, I smoked mine at the reception. We would later share the other near the end of the trip, late at night sipping tequila and whiskey, talking about David Foster Wallace with Ben and the advantages of Fresco wool in the summertime. (That last part was all me.)

When we weren't having a family hang at the rental house, we were out eating. One or two nights after the wedding a group of us, about 7 or 8, went to the famous Monopole dive bar. A place I'm told was home to many fights back in the day, the kind of bar where elbow room is a luxury no one can afford. On this particular night, it was dead. Some of us were buzzed, the rest were getting started and we were there to eat pizza and hot wings. The pizza was decent, a Sicilian-style pie, mostly bread with some sauce and cheese on it like an afterthought. But the wings, my god the wings! The sauce the majority of us agreed on was the Stoner Sauce. A spicy, honey mustard-based BBQ style sauce, holy lord was this good, so good that Drew and I ordered a second basket. They were so good, Drew and I returned the next night to get more, 40 or 50 more to take back for the group. There were too many family members who had not gone on the trip the first night, too many relatives who didn't know what they were missing. Even my father-in-law's brother Mike, who said he didn't like hot wings, ate and enjoyed them. Outside of my favorite wing establishments in Atlanta, these were the best wings I've had in a long time. I ate very many. I will again when we go back.

Another food-related highlight of the trip was the cold cheese pizza, again with Drew. Naturally, we assumed we were being pranked when cousin Mathieson told us to order a large pie with a side of cold cheese from Pizza Bono. It was 2 in the morning, and as drunken luck would have it, they were still taking delivery orders. Getting the order placed was a bit of a chore. I don't think the girl working the phones knew how to use one, or to talk to people, or take food orders. She damn near hung up on us before Drew even gave her the address. He said she seemed very confused when he asked for a side of cold cheese, (put off even) like she suspected we were pranking her, when in reality if this was a prank by Matt, she was a 3rd generation prank victim. We decided to wait out front for the driver, it was now past 2 a.m. and we didn't want to wake the whole house with a pizza delivery. There was an ongoing uncertainty as to whether or not this food would arrive. The way the order went, the suspicion that the whole thing was a joke, the time of night, the general deadness of the small town we were in. We hoped for pizza, but I think we were prepared to go to bed hungry. It was a very happy moment indeed when the driver pulled up, large pie in one hand and a take-out container filled with thick shredded fresh mozzarella cheese in the other. Turns out, this was no joke. You sprinkle a heaping pile of cold fresh mozzarella on your slices and go to town. It doesn't add anything noteworthy to the slice, but it's great. I recently had this confirmed by a native Upstate New Yorker who cuts my hair, that yes, cold cheese pizza is indeed a thing and it was no joke. You could probably get this anywhere; you just might get looked at funny. Try it though if you're ever in Upstate.

One of the first things that struck me in Plattsburgh is its overall lack of air conditioning. I'm southern, Atlanta southern, I hate humidity and heat and deal with it far too often. Plattsburgh, though, is lucky to get six weeks of summer before it's jacket weather again, so AC is not a priority. This was an issue for me. To keep from sweating I need a cool, dry 72 or below. Anything above that and I start to melt. Fortunately for me, our room had a spot cooler, so it stayed relatively cool in there. Everywhere else though…I was bordering on miserable. I was alone in this though, I usually am. The lack of AC made my trip to local grease trap, Homestead, interesting. The food there was superb. I just had to eat while simultaneously wiping my forehead. This was basically a Yankee Waffle House. The crowd though could've easily been transplanted from Griffin, Georgia. I saw teased-up bangs on a woman that I haven't seen since my late 80s childhood. It's a total head scratcher to see red necks with northern accents. I was with my father-in-law, who has always said they were from a red neck town, turns out he was being serious. We both ordered the corned beef hash and eggs. I don't love corned beef hash, I generally like it, but this hash blew my mind. It was so tightly minced and just about over-fried, crisp and connected on the outside and soft and delectable in the middle. That, with some buttered toast to dip into my sunny-up eggs, I was in heaven, sweating and ready to leave, but heaven all the same.

I have to apologize now to every in-law relative who didn't get mentioned. There was a lot more on this trip and I could go on for pages and pages, though there are some things best left out. This was my first trip to their hometown and while I didn't love the drive the destination was great. I'm not pushing people over to go back tomorrow, but I will go back, maybe when my kids are out of diapers and my pockets are deep enough to afford the airfare. Funny enough, some of the selling points for visiting didn't even happen. You're an hour from Montreal; you can day trip to another country for crying out loud! We didn't make the journey though, no passports for the kiddos. Then, there's all of Burlington, Vermont, the Ben and Jerry's factory too. We didn't do any of it, just talked about it and ultimately decided to relax on the porch instead and have another beer. So when visiting Plattsburgh, New York, take a plane and go on an empty stomach. If you find yourself desperate to do something to occupy your time, there's great food, great beer at Valcour Brewing, you can swim in Lake Champlain, even if it's cold, and I guess if it comes down to it, head to the Monopole and pick a fight with one of the many grizzled, pickle-nosed regulars. You'll probably lose the fight, but oh what a story you'd have.

[pcrozier87]

Just over six weeks ago, I gave birth to my amazing baby girl. I know everybody’s birth experience is different, but I want to share mine–not because something went wrong or I have this horror story to tell,  but because it’s my story and it’s something I feel people might want to know.

This pregnancy was challenging. I had pregnancy-aggravated hypertension and borderline glucose levels that almost put me in range of gestational diabetes. I had swelling in my feet, legs, and hands, and I suffered from pregnancy-induced carpal tunnel syndrome. I also had severe heartburn/indigestion from the very beginning. While I thankfully never suffered with morning sickness, suffice to say I had my share of issues. Maternity triage is no fun. It’s scary, especially when preeclampsia is still a concern of the medical staff. Add sleepless nights and a full-time job, the need to clean and nest, and all of the projects and tasks I needed to accomplish, and I had a full plate. I was making it, though. We sat in triage for a few hours one evening around week 35 and everything came back normal, so we felt good about how things were progressing. I was on blood pressure medicine to keep my levels normal, as well as a baby aspirin every day and low-sodium and low-carb diets to just make it to the due date, which was May 5th.

On the morning of April 22nd, I woke up knowing that I had a doctor’s appointment and that having the baby early was a real option if my levels came back high or abnormal, so I loaded up my hospital bag and made sure I had what I thought I would need just in case.

That day was crazy busy. I had errands to run, a trip to Wal-Mart to make, I cleaned my classroom, I dealt with student irresponsibility and excuses, and I walked waaaaay more than I should have. At my appointment that evening, my blood pressure came back higher than the doctor felt was acceptable, so back to triage I went. Now, last time my husband was with me while we waited, but he had all four wisdom teeth removed a few days prior to that appointment, so he wasn’t quite up to driving on pain medication yet. Fortunately, Mother was already almost to my house with the intention of helping organize baby stuff and get things ready for when the baby finally arrived when I was sent over to be observed. She met me at the hospital and we waited. Every single bed in the entire ward was full. All three triage beds were taken and all 20 labor and delivery beds were occupied, so I waited in the waiting room to be admitted to triage so I could be observed. Thankfully, my doctor is awesome and she checked my blood pressure, told me to take another dose of my medication, and sent me into a larger waiting room to see how I responded. My pressures came down and she released me to go home but I was put on bedrest for the remainder of my pregnancy. We scheduled my induction for the following week, planning on having her arrive the day before my 30th birthday because, well, it was poetic in a way, since my niece was born the day before her mother’s birthday.

You know how we make plans and God just laughs?

Mother and I made plans as we left the hospital to stop by a local restaurant for supper before heading home where I would be banished to my bed or the couch to do a whole lot of nothing while my body finished its work on my sweet baby girl. We pulled into the parking lot (packed, as usual for supper, even though it was a Thursday), and I felt an odd sensation. Almost like I needed to go the bathroom, but I’d made a pit stop before we left the hospital, so it seemed unusual, even for a very pregnant person like me. After determining the 15 minute wait time was acceptable, I left Mother to wait for our table and I went back to the restroom… and there was a gush. Like someone had poured a cup of water into the toilet. I suddenly realized that the unusual sensations and subsequent gush could only mean one thing: my water had broken! Like in the movies! Now, I know we see it on the big screen regularly, but the reality is that only about 10% of women actually experience a rupturing of membranes (water breaking, for those not in the medical field). I was floored! And a little panicked, honestly. I went straight out to Mother and explained the situation, we left the restaurant and called the hospital. Thankfully MY doctor was on-call, so she told me to come back in and prepare to have the baby TODAY. We went home, told my husband what was going on, loaded up in the cars, and off we went.

Now, remember how I said before that the maternity ward was packed? It still was. Thankfully, a bed in triage was available. We got signed in, got settled, and waited. They monitored vitals, got me all hooked up to everything, got me an IV going, started antibiotics (I was strep-B positive, so it’s a normal precaution), and then I started signing stuff. I swear it feels like I signed 50 different pages just to clear them of liability, but we were finally done. They started a low pitocin drip, and we had to sit tight, hoping a room would open up before my body kicked into real labor.

We moved into a different triage bay as the night went by in the hopes of me being able to sleep a little, but I was excited and nervous and too keyed up to do more than doze. My parents and husband were all either at the hospital or a few minutes away at our apartment getting some sleep over the course of the night, and, even though it was slow, the night did pass.

Around 1 PM the next afternoon they finally got us into a labor room, which was a relief. My sister-friend Amy had come to take pictures and be my labor cheerleader, since I knew Mother and Daddy wouldn’t be in the room with me and I wanted Michael to have some help when I inevitably snapped at him during the hard pains of labor. By this point, I was feeling mild contractions from the pitocin, but none so severe that I couldn’t talk through them.

As the afternoon progressed, I experienced harder contractions and an ever-increasing level of pitocin via the IV drip, but I was dilating and effacing slowly. After over 27 hours of letting my body do the work, the doctor came in and delivered the ultimatum: either I dilated past a 4 by the end of the next two hours or we would have to have a cesarean. They were concerned with infection because of the ruptured membranes, and I was honestly getting tired. By this point, I was famished, having eaten nothing for over 24 hours, and subsequently cranky. I caved on the no-meds route and got an IV-fed painkiller some time that evening and slept blissfully for a bit while they cranked up my pitocin drip, then got one more dose around the time the doctor gave me the news of my 2 hour deadline.

My nurses, every one awesome and friendly and so incredibly kind, went above and beyond to make this work for me, especially since I wanted a vaginal birth as natural as possible. The night shift nurse helped me switch positions, move around, and try to really induce dilation, but to no avail. When the time limit was up, around 2 AM Saturday morning, after having been in labor for 30 hours with ever-stronger contractions thanks to the pitocin, I spoke briefly to the anesthesiologist and proceeded into surgery. For the record, I was NOT calm. I was panicking. Where was my natural birth? Why was my body not cooperating? Would I be okay? I hadn’t prepared for a cesarean section birth! How do I cope? How hard will it be to recover from major abdominal surgery? What if I don’t make it?

Thankfully, my amazingly supportive husband, parents, and sister-friend were there to remind me that I wasn’t just giving up, that my body had done its level best and this was what was best not only for me but for my baby girl, too.

They prepped me for surgery, poked me in the back with several needles, and I will admit I was still slightly uneasy as the fiery numbness swept down into my legs, but they finished their preparations and sat my husband by my head with the suction straw ready in case I got sick. Which I did. Three times. Apparently only one produced anything, which made sense because I had consumed nothing but ice chips in 27 hours. I can’t describe the feeling, though. When you normally vomit, there are muscles and spasms and all sorts of icky feelings involved. This was numb, disembodied sensation that I knew was my sensation-less gag reflex. I don’t know if it was from the medicine or them actually moving my stomach around, but it was a very odd experience.

Anyway, after fishing around in my abdominal cavity for a bit, the doctor used the vacuum and got my sweet girl out of her cozy cave and into the world at 3:19 AM on April 22nd. She was cleaned up, suctioned out, and cried the sweetest cry in the world, and then apparently pooped all over the receiving blanket. I was still on the table having my uterus cleaned out (which, according to the doctor, looks great!), so I’m just going by what my husband reported. A few minutes after, he brought her to me and laid her on my upper chest, where I gazed into the sweetest face I’d ever seen.

Her first cries

Our first meeting

A little while after, as I was drifting in and out of awareness, they got me all closed up. I was a bit alarmed because I could feel sensations again, meaning the spinal block was wearing off, but they got me all finished before it was pain rather than just pressure and slight pinches. They lifted me on the “hovercraft” and moved me to the recovery bed, which was slightly more comfortable than my original delivery bed had been. To explain, the hovercraft is an inflatable mattress type setup that allows air to lift the patient from the operating table and makes moving an entire body easier than lifting by arms and legs. I rolled from side to side while they removed the air matress, and they covered me in blissfully warm heated blankets for the roll to recovery.

In the recovery room, I learned my parents had seen the baby and headed out when they learned I made it through safely. They hadn’t slept and were mentally and emotionally exhausted, but would be back soon.

You never know how much you rely on your core until it hurts to engage your abdominal muscles. The first couple of days were rough, but I was able to recover relatively quickly and was up and walking as soon as they’d let me. The rest of the hospital stay was uneventful, surrounded by friendly staff, and pleasant because of visitors and wonderful nurses. We worked on breastfeeding, got some help from a few nurses on latching techniques and the best way to hold her for feedings, and generally enjoyed ourselves. My doctor told us the next week when we went in to get the wound-vac and staples out that the nurses were all really impressed with me and my husband. Apparently we were polite and kind and that’s sadly not a common occurrence around there.

While I was confined to my little hospital room, my mother had worked miracles and cleaned and organized my house, which was what we had originally planned on doing before my water broke. I came home to peace and cleanliness. We’re almost finished with the rest of the reorganization, too, and she has been a God-send for the preservation of my sanity.

Now, six weeks and a few days later, I am sitting here in the middle of the night because my husband is back at work and scheduled from 9 PM to 6 AM. Our schedules work, though, since my darling daughter sleeps for good stretches and has stints of wakefulness spaced far enough apart that I can keep up and take a nap when I need to. She’s already grown so much from her original 8 pounds 1 ounce, 20 1/4 inches, and I cried when she made the 1 month mark. I’m already begging time to slow down. She is beautiful, and sweet, and cuddly. I’m enjoying being her mother. We struggled with postpartum depression for a bit, but that’s being treated and I count my blessings daily for this healthy, amazing little angel.

Her first day

Sweet little feet

Her Pawpaw is the fire chief

The baby and her big sister

  Baby O’s Arrival Just over six weeks ago, I gave birth to my amazing baby girl. I know everybody's birth experience is different, but I want to share mine--not because something went wrong or I have this horror story to tell,  but because it's my story and it's something I feel people might want to know.

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Adrenal Fatigue: How it Affects Your Life and How to Heal it

80 % of American society is afflicted with adrenal fatigue at some point in their life yet most are unaware of the problem. They simply know they don’t feel well or perhaps symptoms lead them to explore other disorders; we do know that often symptoms denote multiple possibilities and sometimes overlap disorders. Do these symptoms apply to you?

♠ Weight gain, especially in waist or stomach, and it stubbornly sticks to you

♠ Fatigue ~ lack of energy ~ lethargy

♠ Insomnia

♠ Brain fog ~ concentration difficulty

♠ Morning sluggishness ~ need for stimulants to get you moving

♠ Constipation

♠ Nervousness ~ anxiety

♠ Mild depression

♠ Dry skin and hair

♠ Arthritis

♠ Pain in upper back and neck

♠ Unexplained hair loss

♠ Cold hands and feet ~ or just plain cold

♠ Allergies ~ both inhalants and food

♠ Low body temperature

♠ Reduced sex drive

If you said “yes” to several of these symptoms there is a strong possibly that you are experiencing adrenal fatigue. If you said “yes” to half or more, your adrenals are fatigued.

What is adrenal fatigue?

Adrenal fatigue is simply the allowance of stressors to influence and perhaps take control over your life. Stress is a big issue in most people’s lives and all too often the person has no idea how to deal with the stress. The result is adrenal fatigue as well as many other imbalances within the body, mind and spirit of the individual. Stress has many faces such as:

Anger ~ fear ~ guilt

Not enough sleep ~ chronic fatigue

Chronic illness

Chronic infection

Too much exercise

Improper diet

Gluten intolerance

Worry ~ anxiety ~ continually focusing on negative aspects and events

Exposure to large amount of toxins

Surgery

Caffeine

Excess sugar

Digestive imbalances

What happens when your body becomes stressed?

Your adrenal glands are located directly above the kidneys which are found in the back of you right above your waist. In this tiny gland is the most abundant hormone in your body – DHEA. Cortisol (often referred to as the hormone of death) is also found in your adrenal glands. The adrenals main purpose is to be a stress regulator. Here’s an example.

You are traveling down the road and someone pulls out in front of you. You slam on your brakes, maybe say a few choice words, and are grateful that you avoided an accident. In the meantime you had probably stopped breathing momentarily, at the very least you only took shallow quick breaths. Your heart probably began racing and felt like it would pop out of your chest and maybe even your head started throbbing. What you probably don’t know is that your cortisol also shot up to accommodate for the demand put on your adrenals. This is what we term flight and flight, and it is beneficial when something like this occurs. However, when our life becomes a continual fight and flight atmosphere, we can easily develop adrenal fatigue. The adrenals kicking in for a sudden trauma is meant to be temporary. From the stressors already mentioned, it is usually a combination of various stressors that create this syndrome for you.

As a result of continuous stress to your body, your cortisol remains elevated and thus the symptoms begin. It is very likely that at the same time your DHEA is declining, and if you are 40 or older, it is doing so naturally. We know that hormones do decline with age, but if we are stressed they will decline more rapidly. All of this not only tears down your health but ages you faster both internally and externally. And who wants to age faster!

As a result of experiencing adrenal fatigue, most individuals reach for stimulants to get and keep them going – coffee, sodas, pills, alcohol, chocolate, nicotine, etc. They are masking their problem and it continues to grow worse without their awareness due to the cover-up.

Here’s the importance of cortisol.

It normalizes blood sugar ~ When a stressor occurs the cortisol increases the blood sugar level in your body, working with the pancreas to provide enough glucose to provide energy for your cells. Continuous increased blood sugar levels creates a blood sugar imbalance which can lead to multiple physical disorders such as diabetes.

Anti-inflammatory ~ Cortisol is a powerful anti-inflammatory agent. When trauma happens to our body the cortisol is released to reduce the swelling and repair the injury. Too much trauma produces too much cortisol. There are many disorders associated with inflammation such as arthritis, fibromyalgia, osteoporosis.

Immune system supporter ~ Cortisol influences most cells that participate in your immune system’s regulation. Chronic high levels of cortisol suppress the immune system allowing an individual to be more susceptible to illness, especially to viruses.

Stress balancer ~ Cortisol helps to balance your stress reactions, but if stress becomes chronic then it can no longer maintain the balance. The result can be weight gain that is difficult to reduce, high blood pressure, estrogen dominance that can lead to uterine fibroids and even breast cancer, and much more.

So you can see how easy it is to find yourself in the throws of adrenal fatigue and yet suspect other disorders. I personally believe, as do many health practitioners, that it is imperative to repair your adrenals no matter what illness or disorder you have because the adrenals will always be affected if there is imbalance anywhere in your body.

Steps to repair your adrenals

1. First of all understand this. Traditional medicine testing cannot detect adrenal fatigue unless it has become severe. That’s why so many physicians tell their patients – and you may have been one of them – to go home and relax or give them a prescription drug for anxiety to help. That’s simply a band-aid approach and resolves little if anything, and it definitely doesn’t cure the problem.

2. However, there is a saliva test that holistic practitioners and doctors are using that has excellent results in measuring your cortisol and DHEA levels. It is called the ASI, or Adrenal Stress Index. Although nothing is ever 100% accurate, this has very high accuracy. The reason is that your saliva is part of your tissues and can relate to the lab technicians what is being absorbed within your body as well as the level of your hormones.

3. Realize that all physical disorders have emotional cores. You may be able to “fix” your adrenal problem temporarily by making some lifestyle changes, but if you don’t release the negative emotion that underlies your stress it will simply come back again, perhaps in another form. We are multidimensional beings and it requires a balance in all four areas to be healthy. One tire on your car can cause quite an imbalance if it loses enough air. So it is with your body and health.

4. Remove your stressors. You might be laughing right now as you’re thinking I don’t know what your life is like and what you’re going through. You might be surprised just how much I do understand. And yes, you can successfully become stress free. You see, I’m a recoveree of adrenal fatigue and had been experiencing it for decades but didn’t know it. I gave birth to and raised five children, worked all through those years, was driven to succeed in my work, began having big health challenges, divorced, experienced major financial struggles for several years, found myself in a potentially destructive business arrangement from which I finally detached, and so on. We all have our stories but you don’t have to stay in them. I left my old story and created a life free from stress and its affects on me. You can do it too! The key is in how you respond to the stressors. If you want to know more about how to live stress-free, click on my website http://www.drcarolynporter.com on the home page, and order my free eBook entitled Stress Free Living. There are many other products and services listed on my website that may help you as well.

5. Get enough sleep! This can be a real problem for many people. So many come into our health store begging for something so they can sleep. Insomnia often accompanies adrenal fatigue yet it is most necessary for repair. 7-8 hours or more are necessary for healing and the adrenals repair most from 11pm – 1am. (some say the repair begins at 10 pm) So that means that you night owls might need to make some changes. I had to do this as well. Melatonin, 5HTP, herbs, magnesium, warm baths, reading before retiring, working with a coach to learn new ways to respond to your stress, listening to soft music, are all possible was to help you sleep. It is also essential to clean your liver and digest your food well to sleep well. Guides for this are mentioned below.

6.Change your diet. Follow these guidelines to allow for adrenal repair:

♦ Eliminate sugar, caffeine, and alcohol – these fight against adrenal repair

♦ Consider adding salt to you diet – but only Himalayan or Celtic types

♦ Consume many organic vegetables, at least 6 every day

♦ Consider juicing veggies several times a week for cleansing your body

♦ Drink 1 mug of warm water on empty stomach every morning with ½ organic lemon squeezed in it – cleanses the liver easily and naturally

♦ Exercise, but only moderately at first. Rule of thumb is to stop if tired.

♦ Eat regularly, at least three meals per day – may benefit from 5-6 small ones

♦ Eat plenty of good protein as amino acids found in protein help restore adrenals

♦ Progesterone cream – promotes healthy adrenals and thyroid glands, helps to

balance estrogen overload ♦ Supplementation – this is an individualized process – there is no one protocol that works for everyone and what works for one can be toxic to another. Below are some suggestions but please do your own research and seek the help of qualified practitioners for your repair process.

Note: When your adrenals are fatigued the immediate craving is for sugar, yet ironically it is the worst thing you could consume as it furthers the adrenal fatigue. Individuals who crave sugar or carbohydrates often find that adrenal fatigue is a root cause of their cravings.

Adrenals will be better served with organic vegetables, the darker and brighter the better, plenty of good quality protein to ensure enough amino acids, plenty of water and the inclusion of beneficial oils like refined, organic extra virgin coconut oil. This kind of coconut oil can actually cause weight loss and provide the good fats necessary for the conversion of ALL hormones in your body.

Supplementation that can support adrenal repair:

♦ Vitamin C and bioflavonoids – 1000 mg to 5000

mg daily, divided doses

♦ B-5, pantothenic acid, or panethine gelcaps – 1000 – 1500 mg daily, divided

♦ Vitamin E, mixed tocopherols – 400 iu’s

daily, one gelcap

♦ Magnesium – citrate good form, 500 mg or

more daily, powdered form good

♦ Natural progesterone cream – men can also

benefit

Also may be beneficial:

♦ B complex, 50 – 100 mg 2 x’s daily

♦ Multi-vitamin/mineral – once daily

♦ Antioxidants

♦ DHEA – be careful with this, especially

women, as only a little is needed to help

♦ Natural hydrocortisone – caution here as

well – prescription only

Additional suggestions:

Since most individuals with adrenal fatigue have compromised digestion, it is vital that they can digest food and supplement intake properly and have a good intestinal flora balance. You might want to include the following in your daily diet to assist in adrenal restoration:

♦ Probiotics – 2 – 3 times per day

♦ Digestive enzymes – with every meal

♦ Eating raw fermented vegetables – daily

Note: Often less is best, at least to begin. If your body is not functioning optimally, it may be necessary to introduce supplements and changes slowly so as not to “shock” the body or overload it. Of course, in the case of serious disease, it is often beneficial to saturate the body quickly to detoxify and ensure healing. Baby steps do best and know that adrenal restoration takes time, from 3 months to as much as two years, according to the severity of your adrenal fatigue.

Here are some websites that provide lots of good information on adrenal fatigue and a healthy lifestyle…

http://www.Mercola.com

http://www.themakersdiet.com

http://www.adrenalfatigue.org

http://www.drlam.com

Source by Carolyn Porter, D.Div.