Sunday, August 26, 2012
Change your diet, help the economy.
Fossil Fuels are cheap. Fast Food is cheap. Fossil Fuels are known pollutants. Fast Food is unhealthy. Fossil Fuels make We make choices everyday which harm our planet and our bodies all in the name of cheap convenience. Sometimes we need to listen to our planet and our bodies. They are telling us they are hurting. Our planet is warming, storms getting stronger, more frequent droughts and floods, higher insect populations due to milder winters. Our bodies are talking also, besides the obvious obesity, our diets are factors in 4 of the top 5 leading causes of death in the US. The only one without a dietary impact is Chronic lower respiratory diseases, which is most commonly from smoking(I don't need to explain the obvious negative here).
We all have the ability and resources to live a healthier life and have a healthier planet. It is not too late for either. What most of us lack is a will to do it. We need to take a step back and look at what's most important. Some people will have an easier time than others, but if we strive to work towards eating and living in harmony with our planet, we will all make progress.
If you've got time and you're not going far, walk. Instead of buying that Starbucks coffee, spend that $4 buying the better hormone-free, antibiotic-free chicken. Eat vegetarian at least once a week, not only is it healthy, but it will help the budget make up for the times you do buy the higher quality meats.
The more people that do these things, the cheaper they will all become. The more people that lower their energy use, the cheaper it becomes. The healthier we are as a country, the lower our healthcare costs become. I used to think the dramatic rise in healthcare had to do with technological advances and greedy insurance companies. Well, the insurance companies are greedy, but the biggest reason our healthcare premiums have skyrocketed is the number of people having more and more procedures. We are an unhealthy society, and we all pay for it, no matter how healthy we are ourselves. As a society, we need to maintain personal freedoms while promoting healthier lifestyles.
I'm not asking for everyone to boycott all fast food and fossil fuels. I like to indulge occasionally in fast food, and I have two vehicles and a home, all of which is powered by fossil fuels, but we can cut back and conserve. If everyone makes small changes, we can make a big impact and save more money, TOGETHER.
P.S. I am in no way perfect, but I try to make changes when I can. As I said, if we all pitch in, it won't take much to have a big impact.
Tuesday, June 26, 2012
The Plan
First of all, let me say that I do not intend to brag in this post. It has been awhile since I have posted anything, and for a long time I've wanted to tell our story. The story of how I got to where I am and where my family is. Some have found our story inspiring and that is why I feel a need to share it in this manner. With our current situation in the United States, we must find our own inspiration. We must challenge ourselves and persevere. Do not quit and do not give up. Be the Change.
THE PLAN:
Back in 2007, Aimee and I had been married for 4 years, we had a 3 year-old son, and a daughter on the way. I was working for an Air Medical Transport company as a communication specialist, I had an EMT-B certification in the state of Kansas, but had stopped short of obtaining an associates degree as a paramedic. I had a steady job, but not a lot of room for advancement. I had no college degree and as the only decent air medical company in the area, my best case scenario was to get the job of my boss one day, some day. This was not something I really wanted. I wasn't sure exactly what I wanted, but I knew it wasn't where I was and that I would need to return to school to have more options.
My wife and I would talk for long hours about what we wanted. We rented a house in Wichita and had thought about buying a house in Goddard, a nearby suburb. My wife had just a few years of college and no degree either. She was working with a local eye doctor and was thinking about what would happen after the birth of our daughter. My wife also had a steady job and the optometrist she worked for was amazing. He was and is a good man. My wife is ambitious, though, in a good way. She did not want to settle. She convinced me to not settle either.
Aimee's experience in the eye care clinic had convinced her she wanted to continue her education and become a nurse. We talked many nights, many hours. We started figuring out how it could work. How could we afford to send Aimee back to school full-time and still get by with two children. We agreed it would be tough. Tough on each other, tough financially, tough on the kids. On the other hand, we saw the light at the end of the tunnel. That light was too bright to ignore. We wanted a better future than the path we were on. We decided that when Katelynn was born, Aimee would not return to work. She would stay home with the kids as she had for a year after our son was born. The following fall, she would return to school and start the process of becoming a nurse.
This plan would not have been possible if it weren't for the help and support we received from our families and friends. Aimee began taking classes in the Fall of 2008. She tried to get accepted into the nursing program with the highest admitting standards, a two year program with a great reputation around the Wichita area. She did not back down. Even when she ended up with her TEAS test scheduled the day between two big tests in her other classes due to a scheduling change in her classes about two weeks out, she wanted to take it. (You are only given a small number of chances to take the TEAS test) She knew that even if her score wasn't high enough to get in her first chance it would give her an idea of what it would be like when she retook it. One of her teachers had advised her to skip it and take it over the summer, this would have pushed back her getting into nursing school til the spring semester for sure. This made her more determined. She took it and did amazing, as well as maintaining good scores on her exams in her current classes.
She got in! First chance! The first big obstacle was down. She would begin her nursing program in the Fall of 2009 with expected graduation in May 2011. As for myself, I continued to work and pick up any extra duties and ways of making a bigger paycheck over the years. Aimee and I continued our talks, continuously updating and tweaking our plan. The two big topics of conversation were what was I going to do when my time came and where did we want to be for the long term. This was an ongoing conversation over the years. As for what I would go back to school for I had considered finance or accounting. I was good at Math and my father had made a great life for his family with an accounting degree. I also considered engineering, as I knew a few people in that field also. I had a friend who was an engineer, my father-in-law was an engineer and many other relatives on my wife's side were either engineers or in school to become engineers including Aimee's sister. Engineering is a science. It's evolving, problem-solving, challenging. I found this very appealing. I also knew that I could make a decent living as an engineer. Earlier in life, I had sometimes shied away from challenges and risks. I usually only attempted things I knew I could do.
I grew up in Kansas. My wife grew up in Kansas. We had both lived our entire lives in Kansas. There is/was nothing wrong with that. We wanted something different. A "change of scenery" we like to call it. Don't misunderstand my next statements, I loved growing up in the Midwest and there are so many great things about Wichita and the state of Kansas. We talked a ton about this. We wanted to strike out on our own. We wanted to forge a new path and have an adventure. We began by talking about if we could live anywhere in the US, where would it be? We talked about Arizona, Colorado, but most of all, we talked about the Southeastern US. (Arizona was a bit dry and CO a bit too much snow) We talked about the east coast, we talked about climate, we talked about oceans, we talked about mountains. We talked about the things we wanted to be able to do just short drives away. We didn't want to live so close to the coast that a hurricane would force us to evacuate, but close enough to make extended weekend trips there. We also wanted to be close to the mountains, but not in them. We preferred a climate that had less cold winters than Kansas. So that pretty much left North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia.
Aimee continued through nursing school and I continued to examine what type of engineering would I enjoy making a career of. I had thought mechanical engineering would be a possibility, but I was beginning to be more eco-conscious and thought that maybe I could help things be more efficient to save energy. I looked around and considered environmental engineering and chemical engineering. Both were options at Kansas State University and that would be a possible temporary site for our family. We loved Manhattan and both had previously spent time there. I was leaning towards chemical engineering as the environmental engineering program at KSU was largely agriculturally based, which makes sense at an Ag school. Both degrees offered many of the same job opportunities after graduation.
Our talks continued and our tweaking of our plan got a big tweak. We considered that it might be easier to move once instead of twice. Easier on us, but most of all, easier on the kids. Asking Caleb to relocate and leave friends behind once is tough, having him do it again three years later would have been real hard. At this point we had decided on Georgia. It just felt right, mountains on the north, ocean to the east, warmer climate and a mix of people. We just didn't know where in Georgia. The big city of Atlanta? A suburb? Somewhere else? This debate would go on for awhile. So I considered going to school in Georgia. I looked at waiting a year to get residency so as to not have to pay higher tuition. I looked at Georgia Tech and UGA and what kind of degrees they offered.
The Summer of 2010 made big decisions seem real. Aimee was halfway through the two-year nursing program with a year left to go. We were still weighing the options of when to move out of state. We took a tour of the Southeastern US. We drove from Kansas and headed east. We saw Jess in Asheville, NC, then went down to Savannah and Tybee Island on the Georgia coast. We then spent 3 days in the Atlanta area before heading back west.
It was quite an adventure. We had been convinced. Sooner rather than later was the new plan. We needed to figure out where exactly we would plant ourselves. To do this successfully, we needed to be somewhat close to Atlanta or Athens for school and also be close to somewhere Aimee could find work and somewhere the kids could get a good education as well.
We looked at suburbs of Atlanta some more, even taking a quick flight to Atlanta to look at apartments and scout out the potential towns to get a feel for them. The trip was initially delayed by a snowstorm (not KS, but GA) for three days. It just didn't go as well, and we realized that maybe the suburbs weren't for us. We began to look at Athens more closely. It had been an afterthought for most of our planning, but was now looking very appealing. Smaller college town, lots of stuff to do, but still close enough to go to Atlanta for day trips or flying out of ATL. The schools checked out for the kids and UGA had an environmental engineering program that seemed to be exactly what I had been looking for all this time.
There were two hospitals in town and Aimee began applying and looking for work. In March of 2011, we left the kids in Kansas and drove all night to get to a round of interviews in Athens for Aimee. Our first trip to Athens. We were pretty tired, but tried to take it in. We walked around the UGA campus for a bit and it was gorgeous. Everything about the trip was a positive.
In May, just after Aimee finished her finals we drove back to Athens. More interviews, more positive feelings, another short, but good trip. We also found an apartment complex that would be our future home. We returned to Kansas and Aimee attended her pinning ceremony as the Vice President of her nursing class.
She later received two job offers from one of the hospitals and let the second hospital know she no longer needed to be considered and was accepting a job at another facility. We had done it.
She later received two job offers from one of the hospitals and let the second hospital know she no longer needed to be considered and was accepting a job at another facility. We had done it.
One of the hardest things I've had to do in my life so far was to get to the place I wanted to be. I had to tell my parents (who I think were holding out hope that we would change our minds and stay in Kansas) that we were leaving to go to Georgia, half-way across the country. Possibly more importantly we were taking two of their grandchildren with us. My parents had been so involved in their young lives and the kids enjoyed seeing both sets of grandparents on a regular basis their entire lives. I was not really close to my grandparents for reasons I'm not going to get into, but my kids were and I appreciated that.
Fast forward a year, and the kids are great. We love it here. Aimee is starting a new/better job as a nurse on a floor that is all cardiology. I will start classes this fall towards my degree and we just bought our dream house 11 months after moving to Georgia. The transition hasn't been easy, but it's been the most adventurous years of our lives. It hasn't been without its stresses, but as far as our marriage, it's never been stronger and I believe that working towards our common goals has played a part in that.
It's still an uphill climb, but the adventure continues..............
P.S. We have had help in our journey. We couldn't have done all this without those that love us. We had help financially and emotionally from many sources. We had help from family making a down payment on our new home; we had help from extremely low interest rates and low home prices. We had help from government grants and loans to go to school. We had help from some family who encouraged us to take the chance, make the leap. I have a brother and a sister-in-law here on the east coast that have helped more than they know.
It's still an uphill climb, but the adventure continues..............
P.S. We have had help in our journey. We couldn't have done all this without those that love us. We had help financially and emotionally from many sources. We had help from family making a down payment on our new home; we had help from extremely low interest rates and low home prices. We had help from government grants and loans to go to school. We had help from some family who encouraged us to take the chance, make the leap. I have a brother and a sister-in-law here on the east coast that have helped more than they know.
Wednesday, February 1, 2012
Change your mind
Change, it's the theme of my entire blog. Change can be scary. Change, for most people, is not easy. We get comfortable in the status-quo. We resist change, we find comfort in habits and we are creatures of habit. Most habits are harmless: waking up, showering, eating breakfast, going to work or school. These are all good habits to be in during your morning. Where habit gets dangerous is when it enters our minds. Our thought process should always be changing and evolving. We do this by accepting new challenges. Any good student goes through this each day. He is obtaining more information and deciding how important the information is, then storing it for further reference or a future discussion.
Sometimes change isn't just learning something new. Sometimes change involves hearing something that we disagree with or had previously thought to be false. The other day I was getting the kids ready to go to my son's cub scout meeting and my daughter told me it was raining. I told her that it wasn't. My perception was that the forecast had called for only a 10-20% chance of rain that day and it hadn't rained all morning or afternoon. I also did not hear water flowing down the gutters, so, in my mind. This was good enough to correct my daughter. I did not look out the windows or open the door to check. Now my daughter is 4 years old, mind you. I just assumed a simple mistake on her part to say it was raining because she had probably seen the gray clouds that were out or something.
So we walk out the door and immediately I sense it. I smell it. Rain. Not a downpour. It was a light rain, just barely more than a mist, but it was rain. I had not believed my daughter based on outdated and insufficient data. I assumed that my daughter didn't know what she was talking about. I took a morning forecast that was about 12 hours old and not hearing rain over what my daughter very well probably saw with her own two eyes out a window. I was wrong. I told her that she was right after all and we put on weather-proof jackets and went on about our evening.
I made one mistake, but not two. We all make mistakes. My first mistake was not believing my daughter or checking outside to verify. I could have made a second mistake though. I could have told her that I was still right because she couldn't prove that it was actually raining a few minutes before when she said it was. I would be a horrible parent for doing such a thing, but what if the situation was different. What if we're talking about two adults. Is it that easy to admit you're wrong to someone. It's not. Admitting you are wrong about something can make people (men, especially) feel that they have failed or are liars. I wasn't lying to my daughter, I truly didn't think it was raining, but when proved wrong, I admitted being wrong. My daughter didn't do a dance and make fun of me for being wrong, she simply smiled and went about our evening as well.
At some point as we grow into adults, the ability to change our thoughts and ideas becomes harder and harder. We think that if we change our view on something, that people will think less of us or make fun of us. We have taken this to extremes when we deny facts presented by experts and ignore the evidence that we are wrong about something. So, instead, we dismiss the facts and experts as having hidden motives or agendas to their results, even when an entire community of experts has agreed. We cling to people who are not experts who place unfounded doubt on a subject's facts so that change can be stopped. We can remain in our current way of thinking. No reason to change if the facts aren't there. It hasn't been proven.
But sometimes it has. Sometimes the proof is there. We can change. I will not make fun of you. I will help you if needed. I have been there. I have to change to. We all make mistakes and we can all change, young and old, liberal and conservative, college educated and dropouts. We are all human. We share the experience of life. The experience of change.
P.S. Check out this song... it's called "Be the Change" by Kat Edmonson (Pause or mute the music player on the side before pressing play.)
Sometimes change isn't just learning something new. Sometimes change involves hearing something that we disagree with or had previously thought to be false. The other day I was getting the kids ready to go to my son's cub scout meeting and my daughter told me it was raining. I told her that it wasn't. My perception was that the forecast had called for only a 10-20% chance of rain that day and it hadn't rained all morning or afternoon. I also did not hear water flowing down the gutters, so, in my mind. This was good enough to correct my daughter. I did not look out the windows or open the door to check. Now my daughter is 4 years old, mind you. I just assumed a simple mistake on her part to say it was raining because she had probably seen the gray clouds that were out or something.
So we walk out the door and immediately I sense it. I smell it. Rain. Not a downpour. It was a light rain, just barely more than a mist, but it was rain. I had not believed my daughter based on outdated and insufficient data. I assumed that my daughter didn't know what she was talking about. I took a morning forecast that was about 12 hours old and not hearing rain over what my daughter very well probably saw with her own two eyes out a window. I was wrong. I told her that she was right after all and we put on weather-proof jackets and went on about our evening.
I made one mistake, but not two. We all make mistakes. My first mistake was not believing my daughter or checking outside to verify. I could have made a second mistake though. I could have told her that I was still right because she couldn't prove that it was actually raining a few minutes before when she said it was. I would be a horrible parent for doing such a thing, but what if the situation was different. What if we're talking about two adults. Is it that easy to admit you're wrong to someone. It's not. Admitting you are wrong about something can make people (men, especially) feel that they have failed or are liars. I wasn't lying to my daughter, I truly didn't think it was raining, but when proved wrong, I admitted being wrong. My daughter didn't do a dance and make fun of me for being wrong, she simply smiled and went about our evening as well.
At some point as we grow into adults, the ability to change our thoughts and ideas becomes harder and harder. We think that if we change our view on something, that people will think less of us or make fun of us. We have taken this to extremes when we deny facts presented by experts and ignore the evidence that we are wrong about something. So, instead, we dismiss the facts and experts as having hidden motives or agendas to their results, even when an entire community of experts has agreed. We cling to people who are not experts who place unfounded doubt on a subject's facts so that change can be stopped. We can remain in our current way of thinking. No reason to change if the facts aren't there. It hasn't been proven.
But sometimes it has. Sometimes the proof is there. We can change. I will not make fun of you. I will help you if needed. I have been there. I have to change to. We all make mistakes and we can all change, young and old, liberal and conservative, college educated and dropouts. We are all human. We share the experience of life. The experience of change.
P.S. Check out this song... it's called "Be the Change" by Kat Edmonson (Pause or mute the music player on the side before pressing play.)
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