Wednesday, May 25, 2011

For A Person Threatening Suicide

First off, sorry I haven't been in here for a while. I had stuff come up, let me put it that way.

Anyway, aside from some other drama that had been going on lately, someone in an online book club that I'm involved in has been going through a lot lately. This morning, it came to my attention that they want to commit suicide and have asked for painless ways to go about it. Those of us who answered her post on that have said get help, don't kill yourself, etc. I don't know this personally know her, but the thought of losing someone who is part of any of the things that I'm part of scares me. If she were someone I knew from church, I'd bring it to the pastor's attention PDQ. (I asked her if she was afilliated with a church or something and if so could she get ahold of the pastor or person of a comparable position.) But this person lives so far away, and it seems really silly for me to ask for her phone number in order to check up on her. I might ask if someone else in the club has her number and can check on her.

The thread on the aforementioned subject matter brought to my mind a scene from the movie "Yes Man". I haven't seen the movie per se, I've just heard of it and seen this clip. I think I can imagine myself, the suicidal person, and some other people in the club re-enacting the scene, except I don't play the guitar. (I did leave the link to the clip for that person the next time they were on the club site.)  In that scene the guy with the guitar hadn't stepped in, the guy on the ledge probably wouldn't have made it.

If someone threatens to commit suicide, either help them out in whatever way you can or find someone who can. You might save a life.

Monday, January 31, 2011

Bringing Something In To Help

At the thrift store where I volunteer, we had been running low on tags, and ordering new ones hadn't been feasible. (Besides, there's also no promises as to when stuff like that will come in.)  As the task of pricing clothes had been delegated to me over the last two weeks, someone else had been tagging the clothes instead of me. As we were low on tags, the other people tagging had no choice but to use tags that had been written on. They ended up having to scratch out whatever was writtien on said tags. Unfortunately, it didn't look very professional.

So, I came up with an idea. I brought some white-out at home and started using that on the tags that had been written on. That way, whatever price was orginally written on wouldn't look as obvious, and there wouldn't be the sloppiness of the scratch outs. Supposedly, I inspired a new policy, which is that we'd take the tags off of stuff after we sold it (if we remembered to take the tags off) and reuse that tags as much as possible, and it would save some money.

It sometimes helps those around you to be resourceful. It may inspire another idea.

Sunday, December 26, 2010

Their Convenience Before Mine

There will generally be one day out of the week when I will do my laundry. Normally, that day would be Thursday. However, my stepdad has that day off, and there's no telling if he will want to do some then or not. He's also off on Tuesday (another day that I have off from my volunteer work), and that may be the day that he will want to do laundry. However, his schedule has him at work from 12 to 9. So, I'll just do my laundry tomorrow when I get home.

Out of principle, my laundry is one of those things I try to reserve for when I have the house to myself. For all I know, other people in the house may want to do laundry as well, may want a shower at some point, or may want to do something else with which my doing laundry might conflict. I've had that happen one time. It was on a Saturday. Because of the problems we were having with our washer at the time, I could only do the laundry in small loads. I rarely, if ever had the house to myself long enough to do laundry at the time. The Saturday that I had done it turned out to create an inconvenience to my mom. That night, I was told in no certain terms that I needed to check signals with her from then on out. There were times when I had to let my laundry pile up on account of no convenient time for me to do laundry without having to seek permission to do so.

I'm more or less the same way with showers. I restrict mine to a time that won't create conflict for anyone else. There were times when I would take my shower at a time that was later than was appropriate and had been reprimanded for that. These days, if it's after a certain time, and I haven't had a shower because of the dishwasher running, I have gotten distracted with something, or for some other reason, I simply take a pass on the shower. If I'm lucky, I might take one in the day, but for the most part, my showers are taken at night. (If I do a daytime shower, it would have to be when I have the day off and nobody else is home.) If it means going multiple days without a shower, so be it. I also remember one time when I was living with my dad when I was in the shower, but because it turned out that he needed to use the bathroom, I had to hurry up and even cut some corners with said shower. (And as I was often homebound due to a combination of needing to be more or less available to him and not to mention the "schedules" of busywork that he and I were both doing at the time, I was lucky if I showered more than once or twice a week.)

In closing, I feel that what's convenient for me conflicts with what's convenient for someone else, their convenience should take precedence.

Friday, November 26, 2010

Keepin' It Quiet, Or Trying To Anyway

Today was  Black Friday, so my stepdad was at his job at Home Depot, and I had my volunteer work at a local thrift store. The latter opened two hours than it normally does. My mom, on the other hand, had the day off, so she had license to sleep in.

Given this, I tried to be as quiet as I could this morning. The dishwasher was waiting to be unloaded from last night, but I decided I'd wait until I got home if it wasn't already taken care of by then. (I still can't do it now because my stepdad's sleeping.) As of earlier this fall, I've taken to going about my morning business in slippers while otherwise dressed for the day and putting on my shoes when it was time to go and wearing them from my bedroom out. However, with my mom sleeping and our house having almost no carpeting to muffle the sound of my walking, I decided to carry my shoes to with me to the front door and put them on there. (And as we generally store footwear in the bedroom, I had to take my slippers off in my bedroom and walk to the door in my socks.)  If there was a way to make my door quieter, I would. (The thing squeaked on me. Grrr!)

As long as someone is asleep or trying to sleep, the less noise that those awake make, the better.

Thursday, October 28, 2010

A Couple Of Announcements

In the last week or so, my sister asked me if I would babysit her kid both tomorrow and Saturday night. As I had no known plans for that time, I accepted. Normally, I'd be doing volunteer work on Fridays. However, my sister plans on coming to get me late in the afternoon if not sooner. In order to ensure that I will be ready when she arrives, I am taking tomorrow off to pack as well as be present at home whenever she does arrive and is ready to go. (I've already cleared it with the manager to take tomorrow off.) The underlying principle here is to be prepared to work around another person's schedule whenever necessary.

On an unrelated note, as of tomorrow, I will be posting a series of posts called Miss Scissors: Reading is the Key on my reading blog, RAB-PIA. I will be sure to inform you as to when I have posted updates to said series. Hopefully after I finish said series, I will be in a better position to publish more posts pertaining more to the nature of this blog.

Friday, October 15, 2010

Giving Up Something I Don't Need As Much As Someone Else

The thrift store that I volunteer at has been running low on hangers for shirts, dresses, etc. The last day that I had worked there was Wednesday, and I ran out of available hangers off and on and therefore had things I couldn't hang up.

Today, I'm giving up some of my hangers that fit the kind that are normally used at said store. (They normally used colorful plastic hangers or the kind that turn at the head.) I have more hangers myself than I can fit in my closet, which is at least part of why sometimes a blouse will share a hanger with a skirt or pants. When/if more of my "closet clothes" wear out, and provided I don't have more coming into my wardrobe, I'll have more hangers freed up that I can donate. If it means most of my own clothing is put on wire hangers or another kind not used at that store, so be it. For my own personal purposes, a hanger is a hanger.

What about you? Do you possess something that you'd be willing to give up if there is someone who needs it more than you do? If so, can you, for your own purposes, substitute in something else for the item that you don't especially need but someone else does?

Thursday, October 7, 2010

Got My Stuff Done; I Wonder If I Could Help Someone Else

I play this game on Facebook called Cafe World, where one can run their own virtual cafe, cook and serve certain dishes, and visit the cafes of their "neighbors".  The more "cafe points" you get, the more you can level up. When you level up, you have more dishes, another stove, and/or another counter available to you.

One of their latest features is catering, where you have a "catering" order where you serve certain dishes a certain number of times. If you have enough "cafe cash" though, you can get around some of this. Depending on how soon you get the order done, you can get a three-star rating (the best), a two-star, or a one star. The three-star and two-star ratings qualify you for the next order, but the one-star one does not. (That's okay because you can always try the order again.)  You can also enlist the aid of your "neighbors" who can cook some of the dishes you need as well, and said dishes will count towards your order and theirs (if they have the same order).

One of the most recent orders I had was for the anniversary "party" for Cafe World. After I finished that, I re-activated an order for a certain number of serving plates, pots and pans, and steam trays. This one I either have to "buy" said items or ask my "neighbors" to send some. The last time I did it, I got a one-star rating. Unless I get at least a two-star one, I can't do any more orders. Since I don't have enough "cafe cash" and have to wait for people to send me the things that I need, I decided that in the mean time, I'd help some of my neighbors with their orders.

One of the catering orders was a dinner party order that someone was catering. When I was done catering the anniversary order, I "cooked" and "served" what was left of some of the angel fruit cake and jumbo shrimp cocktail that the person had left to get done. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to help them in time for them to get a high enough rating for them to qualify for the next order.

Another catering order was that of my sister's, which was for a birthday party. The dishes that had to be cooked and served were bacon cheeseburgers, triple berry cheesecake, and clubhouse sandwiches, I was able to help with the cheesecake, the sandwiches, and most of the cheeseburgers. The assistance I was able to give was enough to get the order done this afternoon, give her a two-star rating and thus qualify her for the next order (if she chooses to accept it).  I don't know if the order would've gotten done if I hadn't stepped in.

Finally, an order that I'm helping with now is that of someone catering a BBQ for which some BBQ chicken, chocolate cream pie, and voodoo chicken salad served a certain number of times.  I have some BBQ chicken cooking that should be ready by tonight after which I'll cook either the chicken salad or the pie. (There are three rounds of it to go on the latter.) Hopefully, I will be able to help the person in time for them to move on to the next order.

Here's my point with all of this: if you've finished a project of yours (in a game or in real life) or you've come as far as you could with your own project, see if you can help someone else with theirs. After all, it could be your assistance that helps the person get done what needs to get done.