My computer sucks

Soooooo.
Again my computer wants to be a pain in my butt. Apparently, I need a new battery.

I never thought about downloading the Blogger app onto my phone until now. So my updates can be more regular than before.

Stephanie, feel better! :) My roomie is sick and needs her rest! Kaiden and I are staying at my parents tonight and watching the Red Wings game.

Well here was a quick update! Be back again soon!

Changes in my life

Hey all!
So it's been awhile since I last updated and I did on PKU and a little about their diet. I was thinking last night about other things that would be considered important for others to know and be aware of. So I've decided to add one more thing to talk about with Asperger's Syndrome and Phenylketonuria.
Congenital Heart Disease. My paternal grandmother passed away due to congenital heart failure in February of 2011. She was and still is very important to me and someone that I admire.

Posts on this will begin soon.

I've been pretty busy working lately and updating my Red Wings blog with preseason games. If you follow that blog, another post on there will be up tonight as the Red Wings take on the Bruins at the Joe Louis Arena.

I've decided it has come time for me to leave the gas station. I haven't officially put in my notice...I'm waiting until my manager comes back from vacation. It's looking like I will be done there in mid-October. I will be working full time for my dad and it will bring less stress and better schedule.

I don't feel like I'm moving anywhere within the company at the gas station. I was supposed to be covering for my manager while she is on vacation, but the higher ups wanted someone else instead of me and I'm tired of waiting around for an opportunity when it feels like excuse after excuse is being made as to why I can't at that time. Although it hasn't been said, I feel like very, very few people really has any faith in what I can do and how I can handle management. Nobody will ever know unless they give me the chance to show and that's not available to me.

So I spoke with my dad about fulltime and he finally has enough for me to do. He needs me more than the gas station does and I know that he will appreciate the hard work that I will be putting into my job with him. At the gas station, there is a salary cap that a cashier can make and I have reached that and have no other way of making more money than moving up.

The sermon my pastor gave last Sunday reminds me of this situation. He was talking about how when your back is against the wall and all options are exhausted, you just gotta move on. I really feel that this applies to me right now. I don't want to be stuck in a job that I make so little with so much stress and bullcrap that I have to put up with.

This is probably one of the best moves for me to do, no matter how hard it will be. I've never quit a job before. I got fired before, yes. But I have never voluntarily walked away from a job. Almost 2 and a half years with a job, knowing that I'm one of her best workers, knowing that she appreciates me...that's what's going to make it hard to do. But I know my manager will understand. She knows being a cashier is not a career.

I'm a single mom. I have to do what is best for my son and I.

Remember to always smile and I hope you are looking forward to my next post! :)

PKU- Food Post #1- Low Protein

Hey all my patient readers!
Finally here is the first post about food that someone with PKU cannot eat.

A low-protein diet is usually prescribed to people with liver or kidney disease, or people with metabolic diseases such as Phenylketonuria. People with PKU need a low-protein diet because of the lack of enzymes that break down the protein within the body. Since protein is needed, a Phenylketonuric gets their protein through powdered mixes. The state of Michigan provides this special mix to my brother for free, a very fortunate thing. These mixes are pretty expensive!

Foods a PKU-er can not have are obviously the high in protein foods such as meat, cheese, eggs, milk, yogurt, peanut butter, etc.
My brother never eats cereal with milk and I always forget when he comes to stay the night. One time, I even poured the milk in his cereal, gave it to him, and he just looked at me like I was crazy. It's normal for me to have it, but not for him.
He doesn't always stick to his diet, though.
Max loves cheese and likes to sneak it. My mom will be cleaning the living room one day and find wrappers from Kraft American cheese single slices. Not just one, but many. It's hard to help him control his diet when his impulses take over and he sneaks foods he knows he shouldn't.
He never eats meat. He has eggs once in a while, but very much or very often. If my mom allows him to have eggs, other foods have to be watched to make sure he doesn't have too much phe in his system.

It is very important to track the amount of phe a PKU-er has a day. This helps ensure he or she gets just the right amount of phe each and every day. Too much or too little of phe can cause major mood swings and changes in behavior. Too much phe can also cause brain damage in a young child. That is another reason why it is very important to start the low-protein diet as early as possible.

I hope this was a good start to understanding types of foods that my brother and others like him can't have. I know it's not much, but that's why it's called a start. ;)

Remember to always smile! :)

Racist?

Hey all.
Soo the good news is that my computer is back up and working! Therefore, more posts will be coming! I still have yet to start on the newest PKU post, again I apologize! Life has had me pretty busy the past few days. Today was my day off, however I was kept busy with getting things done before the trip and seeing one of my best friends and my niece from up north.

My post today is about what happened to me on Thursday at work. It was probably my breaking point at the gas station.
Over two years ago, a neighborhood woman (let's just call her "M") had gotten banned from our store for stealing. This was before I started working there, so I have never met her. She plays a lot of lottery numbers everyday and seeing as how she wasn't allowed in our store anymore, she would have her boyfriend, daughter, daughter's boyfriend, friends, etc. come down to play her numbers.
Well, her boyfriend played them early last week and went to pay for them with his debit card. Well, the card got declined and he said he'd come back to pay for them after work. He never showed and we couldn't cancel the tickets because the drawing had already happened and clearly these numbers were losers or they definitely would have come back to get the tickets.
So my manager decided that we would NOT run any of their numbers until these ones had been paid for. $62 worth!

My manager was at a manager's meeting this day and M's daughter E came in with her boyfriend C. When they came up to pay, I asked if the numbers C wanted me to run was M's. He said yes, and that's when I told them that I was told not to run the numbers.

Wellllllllll. That didn't turn out so well. E got very defensive and started calling me and my coworker Libby racists and that we were discriminating. E and C are black and Libby and I are white.
That wasn't the point whatsoever in this ridiculous argument. I kept saying, no it's not and E kept saying that it was. This goes back and forth until she said, "Ohh you better shut up before I slap the shit out of you."
My manager told me right then and there that I should have called the cops for being threatened.

In the end, the cops were called after being continually harassed by that household and there is now a "No trespass" order put on E. If she came into the store, the cops would instantly be called and she could be arrested. It had gotten that out of hand.

It just irritates me when there are arguments between black people and white people, the word "racist" is just thrown out there. At least in my experience, this is what I have seen. Not all black or white people do this, I know. I just have seen too many situations and have too many experiences with it. I used to work around the "ghetto" type of people who like to argue with the words racist, racism, and discrimination.

I feel that not enough people are actually educated in the definitions of these words.
Racism/Racist: The belief that race accounts for differences in human character or ability and that a particular race is superior to others.
                              (http://www.thefreedictionary.com/racism)

Discrimination: Treatment or consideration based on class or category rather than individual merit, partiality, or prejudice.
                              (http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Discrimination)


There was absolutely no racism or discrimination going on when I told them that I would not play the lottery numbers for M.
As I kept telling them...just pay the money owed and you can play the numbers again.
Really not that hard.
It really didn't have to go as far as it did.

Situations like this just made me decide not to go for management.
Situations like this just make me lose even more faith in the human race and today's society.
It was absolutely ridiculous.

Well, there's my rant for tonight.
40 hours until we are on our way to VACATION!

Remember to smile. :)