BOOK REVIEW: The Hard Count - by Ginger Scott

Synopsis of the book:

Nico Medina’s world is eleven miles away from mine. During the day, it’s a place where doors are open—where homes are lived in, and neighbors love. But when the sun sets, it becomes a place where young boys are afraid, where eyes watch from idling cars that hide in the shadows and wicked smoke flows from pipes.

West End is the kind of place that people survive. It buries them—one at a time, one way or another. And when Nico was a little boy, his mom always told him to run.

I’m Reagan Prescott—coach’s daughter, sister to the prodigal son, daughter in the perfect family.
Life on top.
Lies.
My world is the ugly one. Private school politics and one of the best high school football programs in the country can break even the toughest souls. Our darkness plays out in whispers and rumors, and money and status trump all. I would know—I’ve watched it kill my family slowly, strangling us for years.

In our twisted world, a boy from West End is the only shining light.
Quarterback.
Hero.
Heart.
Good.
I hated him before I needed him.
I fell for him fast.
I loved him when it was almost too late.

When two ugly worlds collide, even the strongest fall. But my world…it hasn’t met the boy from West End.

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Review:

Dear Ginger,

If you're going to continue to write FIVE STAR books that do things to me like make me cry, make me root OUT LOUD for your characters, and make me suffer a FIVE STAR book hangover, begging for more, then I'm going to have to THANK YOU for every heart-tugging word you put on every page!

Thank you, Ginger, for giving Nico and Reagan to the world. For allowing them to know who they are and for making them willing to overcome their own fears, to go against the grain, and to fight for themselves and for each other.

Thank you, Ms. Scott, for tackling the issues of racism and classism with fearless abandon, a tender hand, and at the same time, without being preachy. The careful grace and excellence you've availed in this book is unmatched.

Thank you, fearless Head Ninja, for making it close to impossible to pick ONE favorite of your books. After finishing The Hard Count I have decided that ALL of your books are my favorite, each for a different and specific reason.

Thank you, Ginger, for giving readers this priceless piece of art and for pouring your heart into it with reckless abandon. It's absolutely obvious that you poured your whole soul into this.

Congratulations Ginger! You've penned the quintessential YA novel.

With love,

Your "always here to read, blubbering like a baby, nose-blowing, ARC reading" chick from Philly,

T~

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About the Author:

Ginger Scott is an Amazon-bestselling and Goodreads Choice Award-nominated author of several young and new adult romances, including Waiting on the Sidelines, Going Long, Blindness, How We Deal With Gravity, This Is Falling, You and Everything After, The Girl I Was Before, Wild Reckless, Wicked Restless and In Your Dreams.

A sucker for a good romance, Ginger’s other passion is sports, and she often blends the two in her stories. (She’s also a sucker for a hot quarterback, catcher, pitcher, point guard…the list goes on.) Ginger has been writing and editing for newspapers, magazines and blogs for more than 15 years. She has told the stories of Olympians, politicians, actors, scientists, cowboys, criminals and towns. For more on her and her work, visit her website at http://www.littlemisswrite.com.

When she's not writing, the odds are high that she's somewhere near a baseball diamond, either watching her son field pop flies like Bryce Harper or cheering on her favorite baseball team, the Arizona Diamondbacks. Ginger lives in Arizona and is married to her college sweetheart whom she met at ASU (fork 'em, Devils).

Social Media Links:

Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/GingerScottAuthor

Twitter: @TheGingerScott

Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/thegingerscott/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/GingerScottAuthor

Google: https://plus.google.com/u/0/+GingerScottAuthor/posts

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/GingerScott

Website: http://www.littlemisswrite.com

Book Review: "God Chose ME to Carry THREE" by Lisa Frances Penn and Aaron Madison Penn

Title: God Chose ME To Carry THREE

Authors: Lisa Frances Penn and Aaron Madison Penn

Genre: Non-Fiction, Faith-Based

Where to Buy: Click Here To Purchase NOW!!!!!

Dedication:

I have never done a dedication on a blog post/book review before. Mostly because I wasn't sure if people did that. Then I decided I didn't care what other people do. So, I dedicate this blog post/book review to the following people:

1. To my 12 angels. I will see you again someday.

2. To my beloved, late friend and brother of the author, Todd Christopher Jones. Without Todd, I wouldn't have met Lisa. All things come together for those who love the Lord. The Lord took you home but gave me Lisa. You are still missed my CAPA brother.

3. To the author herself, Lisa Frances Penn. The feat of being able to read your beautiful book finally settled the question long in my mind that I can read about such miracles without being in pain over my own losses. If you didn't write the book, I may have never known. Thank you so much for writing it and sharing this part of your life with me.

Review:

Imagine for a moment that you are a 40 year old woman and you have no children. Imagine you want children badly. Now imagine that you're concerned about having a condition in your reproductive system because your mother had it. Imagine having an ultrasound to check for that condition and you find out that you are not only PREGNANT, but that you are having TRIPLETS. No fertility drugs, SPONTANEOUSLY CONCEIVED TRIPLETS!

Now, imagine you're a man with a wife and your wife believes that she's got a reproductive condition that her mother had. Imagine that your wife is having an ultrasound to check for the condition so she can have it treated, if it can be treated at all. And because your wife is a NURSE, you have no reason to think she's wrong. Now imagine your wife comes home from that appointment and tells you she's pregnant. With TRIPLETS!

You have just received a fraction of a glimpse of what it's like to be Lisa Frances Penn and her husband, Aaron Madison Penn.

"God Chose ME To Carry Three" is the non-fiction story of The Penn's journey through learning about Lisa's spontaneously conceived triplet pregnancy, the duration of the extremely rough pregnancy itself, and what life is like raising identical triplets. 

In the interest of full disclosure, from January 2000 to December 2004, I personally went through fertility treatment and conceived a number of pregnancies. All were at least triplets. All of the pregnancies were lost. So, I have a total of 12 angels waiting for me in Heaven. 

So why in the world would I accept an invitation to read and review THIS book? Well, to see how I would feel reading about The Penns and Lisa's experience in particular. I also said "yes" to this book because when I met Lisa at her brother's funeral (he was a beloved classmate of mine) and subsequently got to know her on Facebook, I wanted to be a part of sharing this wonderful story with the world.

So, how did I feel reading this book? For starters, I was once again assured that God DOES still work miracles today. The day you doubt THAT, then read this book. There's no way one can doubt God and His ability to perform a miracle after reading this book. My own losses never really became an issue while reading this book. I didn't feel badly for ME. Faith restored, mission accomplished.

At certain times I felt badly for Lisa. Even though my pregnancies were all high-risk and Lisa and I have that in common, my experience still was not the same. After my first pregnancy failed, I was on bed rest immediately with all of the other pregnancies as soon as the tests came back positive. Lisa's bed rest experience was nothing like mine. She actually made it to having to be on bed rest in the hospital for months.

What was it like to be taken into the world of Mrs. Penn as she went through this journey, primarily left on her own by all of her doctors and nurses, with only her hard-working husband to support her emotionally? For starters, my head spun reading about it. There was a point closer to the beginning of her hospitalized bed rest where I kept finding myself in disbelief. The nurses who cared for Lisa, upon finding out she was a nurse herself, didn't tell her anything. I kept wondering things like "why didn't she push harder?" or "why not seek out a patient advocate inside the hospital?" And then my thoughts flipped. Maybe it was because I'm a nurse as well. But I began to wonder, "what the heck were these nurses thinking?" or "what was wrong with these nurses?" A woman stuck on bed rest, in a hospital during the winter, who can't even get out of bed to go to the bathroom while pregnant with triplets, has to be going NUTS. The hormones alone would make her brain more scrambled than the eggs on a Denny's Grand Slam Breakfast. Would she be thinking about pushing harder? Probably not. She's thinking about the three babies in her belly, right? 

Who should consider not reading this book? If you are a primary infertile woman who is still going through treatment, this may not be for you. If you've been through a lot of pregnancy loss and you haven't moved forward, may not be for you. Overall, if you're a female who hasn't dealt with your own inability to conceive and/or your losses, then this isn't for you. I felt I was far enough past my own losses to read this book and I was happy to find out I was right.

Now, if you do fit into any of these categories and you think you might enjoy reading a true story of someone else's good fortune, this book is definitely for you. There are those who fit into these categories who feel that reading about others having success in this area whether via spontaneous conception or, by assisted reproductive techniques (ART), makes them feel more positive. They receive a positive outlook and some feel better overall. So if you can read this type of book in order to build your own self-confidence, especially when the trying becomes difficult to handle, I would highly recommend that you read this book. It will emotionally uplift your spirit.

For everybody else, this is one of those non-fiction books that reads like a fiction novel. The story has suspense, it has some scary parts too. It's got joy. And, it's got some pain. It will most certainly get YOU. Once I got started, my picky self only stopped reading because the need to sleep won out. The only thing I wanted to see more of in the book early on was more of Aaron's point of view. However, the further I got, the more I felt that Lisa carried these three miracles and the amount that is Aaron's point of view was actually just right.

"God Chose ME to Carry THREE" is every bit as exciting as any good fiction novel. The story just happens to be true.

Reblogged: Ebola, A Nurse's Perspective (Please, Take This SERIOUSLY!!!!!)

This is reblogged from: 

http://dtolar.wordpress.com/2014/10/01/ebola-a-nurses-perspective/

After I sat and read this, I realized that this is how I'd try to explain it to people. So in the interest of not taking up hours to type the same ideas, I've decided to reblog it here. This is submitted exactly as it was written. There are no edits. The goal is for people to LEARN, to take this SERIOUSLY.

So a few months ago the country was enthralled with the idea of a few patients, infected with the Ebola virus, coming to the United States. Up until this point, we had been safe from Ebola due to the fact that bats can’t fly over the Atlantic. Some people were completely indifferent, while others had seen Outbreak one too many times. Most were a healthy mix, somewhere in between, but what bothered me the most was both the lack of education and the poor information that was spreading more virulently than the virus could ever hope to.

First, I want to stress that I am a nurse, not a virologist, and hopefully throughout my post you will see that I am not pretending to be one. I have a Bachelor’s in Nursing and am currently a graduate student. I have worked extensively with Infectious Disease Specialists. I have been exposed to almost every infectious disease known to the modern world. I have taken courses in Biology, Microbiology, Anatomy, Physiology, Pathophysiology, Advanced Pathophysiology, Pharmacology, and an assortment of others. However, I am not and will not pretend to be an expert, just an experienced professional. When it comes to an epidemic of any sort, my first focus is on the patient, protecting and healing them, my second focus is on protecting the community. I don’t care about which strain does what, or what we can do with in lab. As a nurse, I concern myself with the current patient and future possible patients. I feel the first thing we should examine is Ebola itself. It is foreign to the US, both literally and figuratively. What it does to people and how it harmonizes with nature are both things that most westerners have little concept of. It is a virus, not a bacteria. This means that it is not its own organism. It is actually much smaller and basic than you can imagine. It is nothing more than a few pieces of DNA/RNA and some proteins. No cell wall, no cytoplasm, no metabolic functions. This is both their advantage and their downfall. Viruses require a host. For this example I will use the HIV virus. HIV gets into the human body and invades the host’s white blood cells, T4 cells to be exact but I won’t get that involved. The proteins help get the virus into the cell and those few small sequences of DNA/RNA write themselves into the host DNA/RNA. Now instead of the white blood cell attacking invaders, it is nothing more than an HIV factory. All of its metabolic functions are redirected at producing more of the virus, which pours out of the white blood cell like a sieve until eventually the host cell dies. This is why HIV infected patients have poor immune systems. The virus re-writes the DNA of the host cells. This is not something we can stop. New viruses are pouring out of the white blood cells at a rate of millions a day. We cannot filter them out. We cannot “kill” a little chunk of DNA and we don’t know enough about the human genome to correct the DNA sequences. This is why a lot of viral infections like HIV, Herpes, and Hepatitis are life long infections. HIV invades the white blood cells, Herpes invade the nerve roots, and Hepatitis invades the liver.

Now that we have a better grasp of viruses, we will focus on Ebola a bit more. In tropical Africa, Ebola naturally lives in bats. It is nice to the bats and doesn’t cause them many issues. It is rumored that there are many viruses humans carry our entire lives and have no idea because they show zero symptoms. Therefore, they have never been studied. If this sounds crazy, just remember that it was in recent years the we discovered there was a virus behind cervical cancer. A virus that men can carry and spread without ever knowing they have it. Where the problem arises is that in tropical Africa, people like to eat bats. Sometimes they get infected with Ebola and it spreads. This process is called Zoonosis and can be true of bacteria or viruses. Racoons carry Rabies, Armadillos carry Leprosy, Birds carry the Flu, Bats carry Ebola.

When I said Westerners don’t really understand Ebola, the primary aspect that I am talking about is the patient. We don’t ever see what Ebola does. Our media is too censored, we hear how many died, and see people in haz-mat suits. Speaking of suits, we’ve all seen the pictures. Rubber gloves are adequate for AIDS and hepatitis, a simple mask (N95) stops Tuberculosis, but this requires space suits, just keep that in mind when you think its no big deal. So here is what happens when you catch Ebola, I figure you’re getting bored with reading right about now, so I’ll spice it up. First the virus gets into your system, I’ll elaborate on that later. Then, it hangs out for a few days, even up to 21, growing, multiplying at a rate of millions a day, and guess what, you’re infectious. Now at this point it would pretty much require a straight blood to blood interaction so the only real threat here is for IV drug users who share needles. Just like with the flu or hand foot and mouth disease, you can be spreading it to others before you show a symptom*(apparently not many see the *, so please read the elaboration at the bottom). Remember, nurse mind set, protect the community. At first it’s not bad, little nausea, some sweating, diarrhea, much like a stomach bug. But then the virus really starts to build up in your liver and adrenal glands, after it has saturated your blood cells, the lining of your vessel, your skin, and bones. Hepatocellular necrosis occurs, which is fancy term for your liver starts to decompose.Your liver is what regulates blood clotting. This causes your blood either clot up and turn to jelly in your veins, stay liquid and bleed profusely, or a combo of both. The adrenal glands then do the same, causing your blood pressure to drop. This requires lots of IV fluids to keep your circulating volume up. At the same time inflammatory cytokines are released which causes vascular leakage. Cells don’t do a good job of holding things together so it all becomes a bloody goop. Anywhere in your body that blood vessels are shallow, like your nose, ears, gums, throat, GI tract, urethra, vagina, rectum, all start oozing fluids and bleeding because the tissues that normally keep it contained are disintegrating. So now you bleed from every orifice, including your eyeballs. Every time someone or something touches you, your tissue gets damaged which further the cycle, so a shot in the arm can turn into a massive blood blister. Those who survive are left with massive scarring. Since the adrenals cannot keep your blood pressure up, and you are losing blood and fluids, we have to put IV fluids in to keep you out of hypovolemic shock. This in turn reduces your blood concentration, lowering your oxygen carrying capacity, which causes your heart to race. So you lay in bed, oozing fluids from everywhere, all while feeling like you just ran a marathon, with bloody diarrhea, oh and did I mention pain? Lots and lots of pain, but you can’t have any pain medicine because your liver and kidneys have failed. This why it pains me when I see this outbreak ONLY has a 50% death rate, when in Africa it is up to 90%…ONLY 50%. That is literally worse than cancer, and people are blowing it off. Imagine if cancer was infectious, and you lived in a country with zero cancer, and someone thought it would be a good idea to fly a few people in. I think there would be a different attitude.

The biggest part of the discussion is how Ebola is spread. I will say two things on the topic, no, it is not airborne, and yes, basic hygiene plays a HUGE factor. But while on the topic of whether it is or is not airborne, the definition of an airborne contagion is one that can freely float in the air, survive lengths of time, and infect someone else. VERY few things fit in this category, most have been eradicated, Small Pox, Tuberculosis, Measles. Things that are also NOT airborne, are the flu and the cold. For the flu, you have to come into direct contact with the patients body fluids. How then, do you explain why people catch it and have no idea how. Well for one, people can spread it before they show symptoms, just like Ebola, and one other HUGE factor…droplets….let that word really sink in. The virus may not be airborne, but the droplets are. I’m going to digress for a second and get back to HIV and Hepatitis, while I let droplets dwell in your mind. Everyone knows that HIV and Hepatitis are spread by blood contact, and sexual fluids, I don’t mean a drop of blood on the skin, or even a mucous membrane, it has to get INSIDE of you. This is why only gloves are required. HIV and Hepatitis are not found in urine, stool (Some forms of hepatitis are, but you have to eat the stool to get infected) saliva, sweat, tears, or mucous. This is where some viruses are different. The flu gets into your mucous and other secretions, Ebola tends to stay in the blood, but remember, every one of your bodily fluids are full of blood now. So a person with the flu sneezes, and now millions of little droplets (remember those guys?) shoot out of their nose at nearly mach 1, all across the room, same for a cough, all it takes is a little microscopic droplet to land in your eye, nose, mouth, or the unlikely scenario of an open wound, and you’ve now been infected, because you came in CONTACT with their bodily fluids. I see the word contact thrown around a lot, but most people think of mass amounts of contact with blood, but what they don’t realize is that contact also includes microscopic mucous and saliva droplets, each one chock full of Ebola. Bacteria can survive for long periods of time without a host because they are their own organism. They can feed on just about anything and be happy. Viruses lifespan without a host is much shorter. Their goal is to infect, replicate, and spread, if they cant replicate, they die. Measles only lives 2 hours. But Ebola, depending on what data you look at, can survive for several days.

So with all this information, lets have some role play, so that you can see exactly what this means, to a nurse, in the real world. Imagine it as a cheesy PSA or lifetime movie. You go to see your doctor because its that time of year, you need some blood drawn and refills of your blood pressure med. You sit patiently in the waiting room, thumbing a magazine while your 2-year-old plays with her toys. Like all two year olds, she touches everything, and everything goes in her mouth, toys, pens, her own fingers. She is a 22 lb drool factory and you love her to pieces. You see the doctor, get your goodies, and go home. A week later your angel starts vomiting blood and within 3 days she dies because her heart raced so fast it finally gave up while trying to maintain a blood pressure. Her eyes are blood red and demonic, her skin falls off in sheets. What you don’t know is that 3 days before your visit, someone thought they had the flu. It is October you see and they sneezed while thumbing through that very same magazine you thumbed through. The same thumb you grabbed her pacifier out of your purse with in the waiting room. The people caring for Ebola patients wear space suits, and burn the bodies, yet it still spreads. Here in America, we have much better protocols, and much better hygiene. So if it spreads, it will be contained much better. Still, it spreads prior to symptoms and survives will outside the body, just like the flu. Despite vaccines and good hand washing, thousands still get the flu every year. But while the flu kills 1-2% of its victims, Ebola kills 50% on a good day, and spreads the same way. So please, do not write it off as hype. It is a real thing and it is here.

The case in Dallas has been confirmed. The patient had contact with five children and adolescents prior to admission. Those five kids attend four of the largest schools in Dallas. One sneeze and we could already have thousands of people, who don’t know it yet, infected.

Thank you for reading. Please feel free to comment.

Symptoms* I have had a lot of comments in regards to this. I picked my words carefully, but I never imagined getting thousands of views an hour, or my article getting picked apart, but I will try to elaborate now. I said spread, the virus, I did not say you were contagious. What I meant by this, was the summation of two concepts. To fully explain everything I could write a book, but this is meant to be short and sweet. The first concept is that of a fomite. We have established that the virus can survive for an unspecified amount of time outside the host, and we have established that sneezing/coughing is a perfectly logical method of transmission. So if patient A is infectious/contagious, they sneeze on patient B, but then patient B goes home and picks up their sisters 1 6 month old, who rubs his face, and licks all over your shoulder, he could very well have just orally consumed large quantities of the virus, therefore become patient C. Patient B never got sick, the virus never entered their system, yet they are responsible for spreading the virus to someone else. This is why the 5 exposed kids are so important, there may only be a 2% chance or whatever that they’ll get sick, but if they went to school, and each rubbed up against 500 kids in the hallways, you now have 2500 exposed kids, 50 of which will statistically become infected, 25 of which will probably die. No I do not have a source for the 2%, that is just an EXAMPLE number used to represent the relatively low likelihood of contracting the virus if exposed, granted the R0 factor of R2 is correct. Remember, heal the patient, PROTECT the community. The second concept of this is defining “symptom”. Lets assume it means anything other than your baseline condition. That means the first signs of being contagious, are also the more mild symptoms, sneezy, achy, nausea, flu-like symptoms. So who is going to wake up, feel a little under the weather, and think, crap, I have Ebola, better get quarantined, no, THAT’S how you start fear mongering and mass panic. Again, flu season is upon us, the initial stages of Ebola are like the flu, and its human nature to be in denial, so many people, if infected, would hope its just the flu and wait it out, they are not showing symptoms indicative of Ebola, but they ARE symptomatic of something, and therefore, by the CDC definition, would be contagious. Its also normal procedure for people to be symptomatic BEFORE seeking medical care, so technically, everyone will be contagious, BEFORE knowing they have Ebola. But like I said before, I omitted this lengthy explanation because I didn’t feel it was necessary for the point of the article.

ADDENDUM: Sadly, I feel the need to point out that the title of this blog is “Ebola, A Nurse’s Perspective”, not “A Nurse’s Guide to Surviving the Apocalypse”, or “How to Become an Ebola Expert in 15 minutes”. It could just as well be “Hamburgers, A Chef’s Perspective” and no one would be hounding me over grammar, a misplaced comma, or wanting citations as to why I say it should be on the grill 5 minutes per side of 7 minutes per side. The point is those things are irrelevant to the goal of the article, this is MY perspective (a particular attitude toward or way of regarding something; a point of view.) I don’t have to prove anything, the point of my article is to take what the uneducated (in a medical sense) journalists say, what the talking heads on TV say, and then let you know what the people say who are on the front lines. That’s like discrediting your grandads account of what happened when he stormed Normandy beach, because its not what your history teacher told you. Have I experienced Ebola first hand? Nope, have I experienced a WHOLE lot of other things that the majority of the population has not? You bet your ass I have, and I felt the need to take the time to hopefully help other people out a little. So please keep that in mind, I’m not perfect, but my experiences are my experiences, and I wanted to share them with you, to let you inside the head of a nurse for a minute.

phl17 PHILLY HOTLIST: Why YOU Should Be Voting For Raymond's Catering as Best Wedding Caterer!!!

VOTE HERE!!!!!

Here's what "Aretha Freak" had to say about Raymond's Catering:

"Raymond's Catering has two secret weapons that make them the BEST. First, they've got a CHEF that can cook anything and make it taste wonderful. Second, the OWNER is easy to work with and he'll make it so all you have to do is tell him what you want and he will make that happen for you. All you have to do is let them in on the day of your event!"

VOTE HERE!!!!!

"Musings Of An Aretha Freak" wanted to hear from Raymond's Catering themselves to find out what makes them THE BEST! So we sat down with owner Raymond Bibbo and told him not to hold back a thing. "Aretha Freak" found out the scoop and we're bringing it straight to you:

VOTE HERE!!!!!

MOAAF: In October 2012, Raymond’s Catering did the catering for the Philadelphia High School for the Creative and Performing Arts Alumni Association’s “Reunion of the 80’s Decade.”   One of the draws for me, in addition my friendship with Chef John Licata, was the promise of “no stress, no fuss, let us handle it all-so that you can relax in the confidence that your event will run flawlessly.” All I needed to do was tell you what we wanted and then let you in the door the night of the reunion. What’s your secret?  How do consistently manage to deliver a seamless, flawless and stress-free event over and over?

Raymond Bibbo: It's really simple. I am an owner operator. I would never go absentee! I stake my reputation on every job we do to fully satisfy the client! I hire good people and they know I accept only one thing: excellence in everything we do!

VOTE HERE!!!!!

MOAAF: Raymond’s Catering has a vast and diverse menu. And, you will move Heaven and Earth to get items that are off menu if the client wants it.  What are some of your favorite items on the menu to cook and which items are the most popular among your clients?

Raymond Bibbo: Of course ,we love to cook old school Italian dishes since we are all Italian. However, due to client needs we have learned many different ethnic dishes to satisfy everyone. We encourage variety among our clients, however, Raymond’s Italian Feast has always been and remains quite the popular buffet choice. Also, all our desserts are homemade by my mother, who has been baking for over 60 years!

VOTE HERE!!!!!

MOAAF: Chef John Licata has been with you since 1997. In September, he’ll be with you 17 years. Thinking about the age he started, he would have been considered by most in the catering business as an “inexperienced kid.” There must have been something extremely special you spotted when you decided to bring him into the business. What was special or different about Chef Licata at such a young age that you knew he was going to be different than anyone else?

Raymond Bibbo: Well, it was all by accident that I met John. I met him through his uncle at a job we did back in the day and he showed an interest in cooking. He was raw. But, he wanted to learn so I brought him on board and we started slow, part-time and before we knew it, he was here full-time and continued his eagerness to learn. Now he’s a vital part in the machine.

VOTE HERE!!!!!

VOTE HERE!!!!!

MOOAF: Why should we vote for Raymond’s Catering as Best Caterer in phl17’s Philly Hot List?

Raymond Bibbo: You should vote for us because we care about our clients. We always strive to do anything and everything we can to make our clients happy! Quality is our focus in everything we do. We won’t make something unless we know it’s the best! 

VOTE HERE!!!!!

For all of your catering needs, contact:

Raymond's Catering

PO Box 325

Eagleville, PA 19403

610-960-2074

RaymondsCatering@aol.com

http://www.RaymondsCatering.com

The Fibromyalgia Suffers' Creed

Feel free to substitute your ailment or the ailment of a loved one and please feel free to copy, paste and share.

1). I accept the fact that I have Fibromyalgia, a condition and disease that will limit my abilities in my everyday life.

2). While I will always have Fibromyalgia, some days will be good and some days will be bad. I will be thankful for the good days and TRY to make the most of them.

3). When I am having a bad day, I will TRY to remember that most likely it will not last.

4). When I am having a bad day, I will listen to my body, and get the rest that I need. I will let my family know that I am not feeling well, because they cannot read my mind.

5). I will NOT feel guilty about resting, because I will eventually begin to feel better, and in the long run, it will also benefit my family. They will not become malnourished if they eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for dinner.

6). I will NOT feel guilty or worry about the work that is not getting done while I am resting. The world will not fall apart without me, even though it looks like it already has.

7). I will NOT let anyone else make me feel guilty for taking time out for myself. They will never understand exactly what I am experiencing, the pain that I feel, and the exhaustion that I feel.

8). They will never understand the fear that I feel when my symptoms creep up on me, and land me flat on my back.

9). I promise not to feel sorry for myself when I am feeling bad, because there are a lot of people out there who are in worse shape than I am. I will not be sorry for what I don't have, but be thankful for what I do have.

10). I promise to learn a lesson from my illness, which is not to take life for granted. I will enjoy every moment that was given to me, and be thankful for the times that I can smile and laugh.

11). I will TRY to help others who also suffer from my condition. There are many confused and frightened people who need to hear comforting words from someone who has been there. There are many people who need me to take his or her hand and be pointed in the right direction.

12). Lastly, I will TRY not to ask, "Why me?" While Fibromyalgia has weakened my physical body, it has strengthened my heart, my soul, and my spirit.

Coming Soon! "And You, And You, And You…..You Never Loved Me"

NEVER UNDERESTIMATE THE POWER OF A CRAZY BITCH!

Minimize how I feel?  That ends now! I asked you nicely to never contact me again and your choice was to tell me I was just going to get over it. I just needed to "chew on that a while."

"I 'Blah Blah Blah' you because that is exactly what B*** A** did to me when I explained my absense was because I was embarrassed about my mental illness.  She was like "Whatever C******...that is stupid.....you see Theresa that what real friends do..... I laugh about it now.  Chew on that a while and I will talk to you soon.  It just boundries not a loss girl...…"

DID YOU SUCK MY ENERGY OUT OF ME TO THE POINT I HAD TO DUMP YOUR ASS?

"...they are very kind and generous. they just want to see me happy, get my own life, etc…it was hardest for me just to come to terms with myself by giving up my career."


Then why did you think it was YOU? And why did you get your daughter to email me about it instead of just asking me yourself? It wasn't about YOU. It's not always about YOU! Good-bye, you are DISMISSED!

WHAT MADE YOU THINK YOU WERE GOING TO SLIDE RIGHT BY, TELL ME NOT TO "TAKE IS PERSONALLY," AND JUST WALK AWAY CLEAN?

THE TIME HAS COME! YOUR ASSES ARE ON MY CHOPPING BLOCK!  I WILL REVEAL ALL I DID FOR YOU, EVERYTHING YOU NEVER DID FOR ME, AND EVERYTHING YOU TOOK FROM ME.

"R-E-S-P-E-C-T, FIND OUT WHAT IT MEANS TO ME….." DON'T KNOW?  WELL, YOU'RE GONNA LEARN!

**********

And now a sneak peak of "And You, And You, And You…..You Never Loved Me"

     At least once a week, I have a night at home by myself while my husband goes off to play poker with his buddies.  And every week on that night while he's gone, I have a nose draining cry fest and then go to bed before he even gets home so he has no idea that I've cried for three or four hours straight.  The reason for such waterworks, one might think, would be due to being in pain and crying is a good release for that pain.  However, it is extremely rare that those hours are actually used to relieve stress from pain on my body.

     No, the reason I cry for three to four hours on those poker nights is because of general sadness and malaise over complete and total failure to be able keep people from leaving me.  Granted, in the last 6 to 9 months, I have deliberately ended two friendships both over 20 years old. But that has actually lifted a burden OFF of me in the months after doing so.  However, the overall experience for the grand majority of my lifetime has been that people leave me. They just up and go.  Now I've had a birth mother abandon me and an adoptive mother abandon me. That right there would give anyone a complex of some sort.

     But me?  I can do everything right, be perfectly kind, and try to be the best friend that a friend could ever try to be and people just leave. High and dry. No warning, no particular reason.  Now I know that people come in and out of our lives for a reason, a season, or for a lifetime.  But me?  I'm a weird, off-brand sort of repellent.

     Just recently, I posted on Facebook. I basically said that I should probably do some friend cleaning since I have so many on my friends list and so few seem to interact with things that I post.  When I see my friends post a basic opinion, or photo, or article and those friends seem to ALWAYS get 30 to 50 people commenting (a lot of times more than that), and I get nothing, I must conclude that no one is interested in me anymore.  I can't say for sure that it's the stupid Facebook algorithm keeping friends from seeing it in their News Feeds because I'm highly participatory with all of those friends.  It's the only logical conclusion left.

     In less than the last year, I've said "good-bye" to two best friend relationships. One was a 20-year friendship and the other was a friendship that went back as far as high school, nearly 30 years.  Well, why would I do that? Because one went through a mental health crisis, put me through a massive amount of pain, and when she left the psychiatric facility, didn't contact me.  When contact was finally made indirectly, that friend would not hear of me telling her about any of the things she did during her psychotic break.  Things like:

• Calling my husband and leaving him a message that I was a lesbian who had been chasing her for years.
• Calling and screaming into the phone to stay away from her and her child.
• Sending me texts not to contact her because I was not the agent of the FBI and that she was the Mayor of Philadelphia's agent.

     The list goes on.  And then she told me I would "get over it."  She basically attempted to blame me for it all.  I finally had to tell her "never contact me ever again" and "I'm done with you."  So not only did I have to grieve for my loss while she was sick, I grieved the loss of my friendship.  When it finally came down to thinking it all through, I knew this could never be mended if she would never take responsibility for at least the irresponsibility of going off of her medications.  People DO still grieve even when they are the dumper.

     As for the other friend, she basically turned out to be just like the aforementioned friend. After taking stock of the 20-year friendship, what it all came down to was that she only ever called, talked or spent time with me when she needed something from me.  She never asked for money so that was never an issue.  In fact, she refused to ever accept help when I offered it to her.  But when she needed an ear to burn for 4 to 8 hours or needed advice about family matters and so on, I was the one she called.  Did I expect her to reciprocate?  Of course, if she was able to do so.  But if I went to her with anything from the simple to the dire, she was never there for me. She was unavailable or didn't call back. In the earlier days, she wouldn't come over or wasn't there for me to go to her. In the later days, she never visited me once. I always went to her. And the list goes on…it's way too long to even hit the surface of that here.

BOOK RELEASE DATE AND NEW VIDEO TRAILER! "How We Deal With Gravity" by Ginger Scott

RELEASE DATE: JULY 8, 2014

BY

GINGER SCOTT

     When her son Max was diagnosed with autism, Avery Abbot’s life changed forever. Her husband left, and her own dreams became a distant fantasy—always second to fighting never-ending battles to make sure Max was given opportunity, love and respect. Finding someone to fight along her side wasn’t even on her list, and she’d come to terms with the fact that she could never be her own priority again.

     But a familiar face walking into her life in the form of 25-year-old Mason Street had Avery’s heart waging a war within. Mason was a failure. When he left his hometown five years ago, he was never coming back—it was only a matter of time before his records hit the billboard charts. Women, booze and rock-n-roll—that was it for him. But it seemed fate had a different plan in mind, and with a dropped record contract, little money and nowhere to go, Mason turned to the only family that ever made him feel home.

     Avery loved Mason silently for years—until he broke her heart…completely. But time and life have a funny way of changing people, and sometimes second chances are there for a reason. Could this one save them both?

Reblog: "I SOMETIMES HATE THE LGBT COMMUNITY. AND I’M A MEMBER." by Amanda Kerry

"Recently, huge fights have spawned between different camps within the LGBT community. The fights are born around the use of certain words, different roles, opinions, outlooks, philosophies of life as an LGBT person, and quite simply wounded egos.

And I have had just about enough of the bullshit."

Read the rest at:  http://nihilismispointless.wordpress.com/2014/04/15/i-sometimes-hate-the-lgbt-community-and-im-a-member/

Wisdom and Lessons of Approaching the Big "4-0"

February 17, 2009 at 9:27pm

As I get closer to my 40th birthday, it occurred to me that there were two ways for me to enter this new decade of life: glide in nice and smooth-like or go in kicking and screaming.

Well, my claws are out and I’m going in kicking and screaming. And if I hear another cliché, I may have to claw out eyeballs.

I have lived more than one lifetime in these last 39 years and I don’t know if it gets any better solely because I’m entering my 4th decade of life. I guess that’s a wait and see situation.

One thing I have noticed now that I am getting closer to this milestone is in regard to what I think about what others think of me. Has the following happened to anybody else?

For more years than I can recall, I was always quite vocal about what others thought of me. I would proudly exclaim that I didn’t give a shit what somebody thought of me and I would also make it well known that I didn’t care if there was someone who didn’t particularly like me.

If this has happened to you, then you know that absolutely I DID care and I cared A LOT. I could probably guess which of my closest of friends were not fooled by those exclamations but if this is a surprise to any of them, then I’m a much better actress than I ever thought I was.

And then, something began to change. I didn’t hit on it until about a week ago even though it’s been brewing for the last year. Maybe it’s age or maturity or maybe it’s a newfound confidence that comes with this age change. Because now? I DON’T CARE! I REALLY DON’T CARE WHAT PEOPLE THINK ABOUT ME! I really don’t. I am finally LIBERATED! I can rattle off, by name, those real friends and family that truly do care about me, love me, like me and give a damn about what happens to me. And the rest can kiss my ass. ☺

This is who I am. This is what you get. This is how I’m wired and only those who have real love for me will be able to accept it. I do like to think there are more good things about me than not so good, but I’m a weirdly wrapped package with a funky kind of bow. But, God made me this way and God don’t make no junk!

I’ve learned that my past will always have an effect on my present and future. I’ve been to reconcile the horrible experiences so that I can speak of them without feeling pain but the simple fact is that because of these experiences, there will always be something from the past that will play a part in future decisions, future endeavors, and pretty much everything that comes down the pike for me.

Speaking of my horrible past, get over it, period. As I move into this new decade, this rite of passage has brought to light that if you are a part of my current life, you get the whole package, including the past. It’s made me into what I am today. I can’t make it go away, I can’t change it, and for anyone to those who told me to forget about it (yes, people have actually seen that as a viable solution for dealing with it all), frankly, you were a moron.

I am now realizing that I actually know who I am today. I’m more comfortable in my own skin, I don’t care (really, I don’t) if my ass looks too big in those pants, and I may be a late bloomer, but I’m now more free than ever to pursue what it is I want to do and to leave behind what I don’t want to do. I’m no longer willing to cave to the strong suggestions of others if I am convinced something is not right for me. “No” means “NO.” Please don’t take it personal.

Having said all that, I know who my real friends are. I have reevaluated all of my closest friends and have decided how much of a role they will play in my life in the future. Some will be faded away because I’m just not that into you anymore. The rest will go on and continue to grow with me, change with me, and celebrate life with me.

I hope life really does begin at 40.

Feel free to discuss.