Many of us can remember using sidewalk chalk as children. I remember drawing pictures on the driveway and the sidewalk around the house. My friends and I use to leave an array of colorful pictures that most adults would look and think is cute. One rain or a dousing of the house would quickly erase the drawings, a clean slate. Most would never even know it was there. Though in one neighborhood it is a fine worthy offense to use sidewalk chalk.
One six year old girl was doing what a lot six year olds do with sidewalk chalk. They color on the sidewalk. A neighbor saw and called and reported it as graffiti. Her mother receives a form letter from the Sanitation department saying to remove it or she’ll be fined $300. That is right a fine for sidewalk chalk, which is easily gone by water.
At least according to the Sanitation department’s rule: City Council passed local law 111 in 2005, which defined “graffiti” as “any letter, word, name, number, symbol, slogan, message, drawing, picture, writing … that is drawn, painted, chiseled, scratched, or etched on a commercial building or residential building.” This six year old girl is guilty of graffiti. I mean they really put a broad spectrum on graffiti. How about including the word permanent into this law?
I know we as a society want to crack down on crime but seriously sidewalk chalk is an act of graffiti. Also what kind of Scrooge would call the government on a six year old for sidewalk chalk? We want children to get outside and play more but yet when they do play their parents get a warning letter for innocent child’s play.
It is sad to say that with actions like this the government is losing their credibility with the people.
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I recently wrote a blog in tittled “My Inner Demons” and about my issues with my weight. I recently received this comment:
You think that’s something worth titleing inner demon? A meager weight problem? You…you have no idea what a true inner demon is like. The urge to hurt…and destroy. AND THIS is something you mock? Here I am searching for a way to remove mine, and YOU put THIS on here? Life has worse to offer child. Don’y bother responding, the e-mail is false. But remember this… title things more carefully…
First off I would like to say that I am over a hundred pounds over my target weight. That is more than a meager weight problem. I am not 20 pounds overweight. I am lucky that I do not have any health or physical problems because of it.
Secondly I made mention in the same blog that I suffer from emotional eating, which is a direct result because of the depression I have suffered since I was a teenager. Due to personal reasons I did not feel like divulging my entire life story in a blog. I assumed that by mentioning emotional eating and therapy would give readers a clue that I was suffering depression. Next time I’ll make that more clear.
What made me most upset about this comment is the fact this person did not bother to get the whole story before making comments such as this. They do not know me or what I have gone through in my life. They do not know what has and is going through my head. They don’t know how many times suicide has actually entered in my mind. They just made assumptions which were grossly inaccurate. They never even attempted to “walk a mile in my shoes” or even gave me a chance to explain further. Instead they choose to hide behind a fake email.
Also I was not mocking people who have problems because you know what I have my own share of problems, stresses, and yes, my own inner demons. Other people have them too. Some might have it better, some might have it worse, but that does not give anyone the right to belittle anyone else’s problems. I refuse to change the title of my blog. I have inner demons that need to be taken care of which is why I chose to write that blog. I am owning up to my inner demons.
We should always scratch beneath the surface and find out what is beneath. Find out the whole story before you make assumptions. You’d be surprised at what you could find. To go to an old saying: You know what the say about assumptions.
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A couple days ago I got off of work and walked to my trusty ten year old car. Underneath the windshield wiper blade was a pamphlet for Enterprise with somebody’s business card on it. Now my car if you look at her she doesn’t look so great. The paint has flecked off in places and there is some body damage. So no my car is not going to win any beauty contests but mechanically wise she’s still in great shape. So I am assuming that they slipped this trust Enterprise material because they think my car is ready for the junk yard. Which to be honest is kind of insulting. Either way I honestly do not like people touching my car nor do I like getting material unsolicited. I was a bit peeved but then I thought about how far advertising has gone.
Advertising is is a profitable industry. Why? Businesses want people to know their names and they will go to any lengths to make sure of that. I think many of us know the pains of unlimitless sales calls. I watched my parents struggle through it, getting sometimes up to 10-20 calls a day from people trying to sell them something. I’m sure many other people went through this same problem. Then people had to shell out more money just to get some peace and quite, including unlisted phone numbers. Luckily programs such as the Do Not Call list has helped curbed those unwanted sales call.
Except it doesn’t end there. As mentioned before there are people the stuff flyer’s in your mailbox, on your car, or in your hands to the point where many people have no solicitation signs just to once again get some peace and quite at your home. We see it all over the TV and radio. Watch your favorite TV show and see how many times a name brand logo is inserted in there.
Now I am not some anti advertising zealot. I enjoy seeing commercials for new products, reading the ads in my paper, and hearing about new stuff on the radio. I even enjoy getting free samples and coupons. Advertising does have its place in society but sometimes they do take it too far. I don’t like to be hounded to use someone’s product or services. If really wanted to use the product or service or even had the need I will seek them out.
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It was sadly announced that Geauga Lake is closing down. Geauga Lake has been running in Aurora, Ohio for over 100 years. I grew up going to that park sometimes 3 times a summer. It is sad for it to go.
Geauga Lake was that family style park. Yes it was not a thrill ride park but with Cedar Point so close it had to find its own niche. It did, until Six Flags bought it out. Six Flags attempted to make it compete with Cedar Point and failed. Cedar Point was just bigger and better which is why the original owners did their own style of park. It also seemed to drive out many of the other loyal customers as Geauga Lake seem to lose what made it great in the first place. Needless to say many of us Northeast Ohioans were please as punch when the company that owned Cedar Point bought out Geauga Lake. Except Cedar Point did not put forth the effort. They put quite a bit of money into the water park side but woefully neglected the ride side. They could have made that park the excellent family park it once was but they did not put any money into it.
So sadly a Northeast Ohio institution is closed and will be torn down (except for the water park side). I remember going as a kid to ride the rides and then going to Sea World next door (they closed up shop when Six Flags moved in). It is a bit sad to watch something that has always been there to go away.
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So I have had an interesting couple of days. A coupe nights ago I went to check my email. In my email I have messages from eBay users answering payment questions. Now I haven’t even browsed eBay in months let alone asked anyone questions. So I attempt to log into my eBay account. My password is denied. So I try the lost password route. Well I can’t get my information to ask. Finally I get to their live help and they reset my password and undo everything this person did. So I think sweet it is all fixed. I was wrong.
I get home from work yesterday evening and my email is prompting me for my password which I enter. Oh joy I get the error invalid password. I use the same password for everything and it is not an easy password to guess. So I try again, same thing. Once again I try the lost password and my information is not taking. So I had to wait until this morning to contact yahoo. I contact yahoo and get everything squared away.
I get into my email and sure enough someone has been messing around in it. Under my information, things were changed, there was an added folder, and message I haven’t read yet were marked as read. Once again this person gained access to my eBay account. Another conversation with live help and it was squared away again. I changed my password and set up the account to be deleted.
So two days later I learned a valuable lesson. It doesn’t matter that for almost four years I have used the same password and had no problems. All it takes is one hacker and it all goes to hell. So I have three new passwords for my many different accounts. I think I’ll start rotating user names as well.
I just don’t get the hacker. I smartly never stored any banking information. It just seems they wanted to use my eBay and email to contact people. There was only one item that had a bid on it which they canceled. So there really was not any financial gain. Which begs the question why do he/she/it do it? Most likely it was because they knew they could, not because they could gain anything from it.
I’m just glad my accounts are my own again.
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I am going to come right out and say it. I am 5 foot 6 inches tall and I weight 250 pounds. I wear a size 20 to 22 depending on the clothes. For me that is a big step. I still lie on my driver’s license my actual weight. I have no problem with being a bigger girl but this kind of big is not healthy. I know that I can never been 100 pounds and wear that size zero. I have a goal in mind. I wish to get down to a size 10 or 12. My weight goal is 150 pounds. I know that I can never be any smaller. This is ok because this will be a perfect weight for me.
I am not at a healthy weight. Continuing at the weight I am can cause further health problems this I know. So the first big step I took was setting realistic goals for myself.
The next big step is admitting my problem. I suffer from emotional eating. I’d wager to say I have the binge eating disorder. I binge eat to the point where I just keep stuffing food into my face and my body is screaming at me to stop. It is an emotional roller coaster that is tied to my periods of depression. When I am depressed I can’t control or resist eating. I just keep going.
When I was 19 years old I had my first boyfriend. During those initial six months of our relationship I went from 230 pounds to 185 pounds. I went from a size 20 to a size 16. I looked good. It was not because I had a man, it was because I had a renewed sense of self esteem. I felt good about myself. Eating once or twice a day was more than enough food and the weight rolled off with very little effort. This was compared to the sometimes 6 to 7 times a day I would eat.
The next big step I have to take is therapy. I have so much that is running through my head. I need someone neutral. Anyone else I seem to meet does not care to listen or wants to prove how their situation is so much worse than mine. I’m not denying that people have had it worse than me. That still does not mean I have to bury it inside my heart. That is my big problem I bury things. It weights on my soul.
I have a long journey ahead of me. It is one that I really want to take and complete this time.
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To many girls and women across the world body image is a big deal. How we look, what size we wear, and how men look at us mean a great deal. Plain and simple we as people always seem to place beauty up on a pedestal. We reward it and we long for it. It is for this reason why plastic surgery is such a lucrative industry and same goes for the diet industry.
We, as a society, have an unhealthy image of what is beautiful. We pick one image of what should be beautiful instead of really celebrating the different ways to be beautiful. The trendiest clothing stores, such as Abercrombie and Fitch, only carry clothes sizes up to size 10. You are considered plus sized in most stores if you are above a size 10 or 12. Also society’s tendency to look down upon people who are bigger does not help either. All sorts of factors lead to bad body image. This can lead to low self esteem and depression, sometimes even worse.
Beauty even goes further than just dress size. Even hair color is up for grabs. The blonde bombshell image is rampant. You see so many stars with gorgeous brunette, black, or red hair and they go and dye their hair blond. Not that I have anything against blonds but where does it say you have to be blond to be beautiful?
We could even take this one step with eye color and skin color. We as a society tend to view beauty based on eye and skin color. Blue eyes tend to be the color of choice as well as white skin. Why does society dictate that you have to be a size two blond hair, blue eyed, white skinned woman with big boobs in order to be beautiful?
We come in every shape, size, and color. We need to take a good look in the mirror and say that what we see is beautiful. We can also take it one step further and declare that it is not what is on the outside that makes us beautiful. It is what is inside that makes us unique also makes us beautiful.
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First off my name is Katie. I also answer to Kate. If you like to be formal you can always address me by my real name, Katherine. I am 25 years old and I live in Akron, Ohio, a city Southeast of Cleveland. I live with my boyfriend of 3.5 years and our three cats, Oreo, Peanut, and Squeaker.
I cashier as a way to make money but have bigger plans in terms of a career. I am going back to school to get a degree in business. I already have one in Education. While I still love working with children today’s idea of education is not the place for me. I enjoy doing in my spare time reading, writing, tv/movies, arts and crafts, internet, and spending time with family and friends. Some of these I have more time for than others. Well this is me now.
I grew up in suburbs of Cleveland, Ohio, mainly Brook Park. Due to the divorce of my parents when I was five and subsequent marriages and moves I ended up in four different elementary schools. Eventually my mom and stepfather settled in Brook Park when I was eleven and I lived there until I moved out of the house at age of 20. My parents still live there now.
I have a plethora of siblings. My only full blooded sibling is my older sister who is 26. I have four half siblings; two sisters, age 17 and 12 and two brothers, age 16 and 14. I also have stepbrother who is 22. After I graduated from high school in 2000 I continued on to college at the University of Akron. I loved the city and the surrounding area so I decided to move here.
So this is just a basic understanding of who I am. I plan to share more of myself, my passions, and my views in subsequent blogs.
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