January 14, 2016

There were 3 posts published on January 14, 2016 (this is page 1 of 1).

What does spanking teach kids?

A friend posted this graphic on his Facebook feed recently:

spanking-whipped-my-butt

It reads:

I have to laugh at people who are against spanking. My parents whipped my butt like there was no tomorrow. I didn’t hate them. I didn’t have trust issues with them because of it. I didn’t fear them… But I darn sure respected them! I learned what my boundaries were and knew what would happen if I broke them. I wasn’t abused, I was disciplined… Repost if you got your butt smacked and survived… This is why kids nowadays have no respect for anyone!

This kind of thinking makes me sad. I am reminded of what Sheriff Andy Taylor said on The Andy Griffith Show. Though Sheriff Taylor is fictional, the quote rings true:

When a man carries a gun all the time, the respect he thinks he’s gettin’ might really be fear. So I don’t carry a gun because I don’t want the people of Mayberry to fear a gun. I’d rather they would respect me.

Yeah, yeah. It’s true that we don’t live in Mayberry but respect is still worth more than the threat of violence.
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This is why you probably shouldn’t wear shoes in your house | Clark Howard

Yuck.

Unless you have a special circumstance, you probably wear shoes inside your house.

But several scientific studies suggest why that’s a bad idea — and the reasons are pretty gross.

Why you probably shouldn’t wear shoes inside your houseThough some bacteria is good for us, if you’ve ever gotten a stomach virus, you’ll know that other kinds of bacteria are not. A study done by the University of Arizona found an average of 421,000 different bacteria on shoes. Coliforms, a bacterial indicator of the level of sanitation of foods and water (and universally present in feces), were detected on the bottoms of 96% of shoes. In addition, E. coli was detected on 27% fn the shoes, along with seven other kinds of bacteria, including Klebsiella pneumoniae, which can cause urinary tract infection, and Serratia ficaria, which can cause respiratory infections. 

Source: This is why you probably shouldn’t wear shoes in your house | Clark Howard

Highlights of 2015: investments in health

Waiting to get my septoplasty

Waiting to get my septoplasty

After returning from Jamaica in August 2014 with muscle twitches that wouldn’t seem to stop I decided it was time to take my health more seriously than I had been, so last year I decided to invest more in my health. I began daily walks at lunchtime at work, doing a circuit around N.C. State’s Centennial Campus for about 20 minutes a day. I installed a fitness tracking app from Google called Google Fit to help me keep pace. My goal was an hour of activity per day and I’m proud to say that I regularly exceeded this. Not only that, but I continue to exercise daily. My current job puts my office a little over a mile away, so I frequently walk or bike to work. I love doing this!

2015 was also the year I took advantage of my health care coverage from the Veteran’s Administration. I had several tests done to determine the cause of the twitching (so far nothing definitive, though several baddies have been ruled out). I have to say I’m impressed with the VA. It gets knocked quite a bit but the people are courteous, I’m always whisked back to see the doctor during my appointments, and the quality of care is good or excellent. The only real concern I have is that the majority of useful appointments must take place at the Durham VA hospital. Raleigh has a VA medical clinic but cannot perform most of the most useful tests or procedures.

Driving to Durham for VA appointments is not convenient for me. I can only imagine what veterans with fewer resources have to put up with.
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