When we were little kids, we had a clear idea of what we wanted to become. Children are specific in what they want to achieve in life. They want to become doctors, nurses, artists, architects and engineers to name a few. As they grow older, their preferences are changed.

For a respiratory therapist, what are some of their reasons why they chose this career among the others? Does it have a special meaning for them? Are they inspired by someone? At times that their work is weighing them down and almost wants to make them give up, it is best to reminisce and remember the reason you become a respiratory therapist.

First Realization

How did you arrive at a decision that you want to be a respiratory therapist? I am sure there is an underlying reason for some people to choose this career. It could be a childhood dream, or it could be because of a death of a loved one due to cardiopulmonary disease that inspires you to pursue this career.

Inspiration

We become what we are because we have our idols and role models. Some people became respiratory therapist because they are inspired by someone. It could be a close family or a friend. Whoever it is, being inspired by a role model could help you decide to take this career path.

Fascination with Science

Most career in medical care deals with Science. It is more evident in respiratory therapy because there are different components needed to help a patient overcome the different cardiopulmonary diseases. If you are a person who lives and breathes Science especially the respiratory system then the most obvious choice of career for you is to become a respiratory therapist.

Concern for the Environment and Health

A respiratory therapist is not only after the treatment of the breathing diseases but they are also after the prevention. In fact, they preferred to prevent the diseases than treat it. What prompted them to choose this profession is the concern that the environment is the main culprit why some people have problems with their respiratory system. They want to make help make the world a better world to breathe in. This is the action that they will take in order to be of help to the society and the people in it.

Whatever is the reason why some people choose the field of respiratory therapy, there is one major goal at hand. That is to give patients a fighting chance to overcome their breathing problems.

I started my weight loss journey in 2012 after making a New Year’s resolution to shed some weight.

I was starting to develop symptoms associated with Diabetes and that scared me. My knees and hips hurt on a daily basis and it was getting hard to walk up and down the stairs.

Why I Gained Weight

I would say a lot of my weight gain had to do with inactivity. I work from home so I really did not have to leave the house. I was very inactive. Also during this time my husband was also out of work so it was a bit stressful. I did a lot of stress eating. I was eating at least 3,000-5000 calories a day with no exercise and burning less than a few hundred calories a day.

Here is what I did:

Sugar Detox

My husband came home from work one day and mentioned to me that a co-worker had lost an enormous amount of weight by simply removing sugar from his diet.

It is next to impossible to remove all sugar from your diet. Fruits and some vegetables contains natural sugars. Some simple carbs can convert to sugar in your body. The sugar he was referring to was white and brown sugar. I removed sugar from my diet.

I began to look at my diet and noticed that I ate a lot of carbohydrates (pasta, bread, rice, potatoes). I removed them from my meal plan. I also removed donuts, honey buns, cakes, cookies, ice cream, and pies from my meals. I wasn’t a juice or soda drinker so that was easy to remove. I also cut cheese and cows milk from my diet completely.

My Meals:

My meals consisted of: oatmeal, bananas, strawberries, eggs, turkey bacon, chicken, ground turkey, kale, collard greens, spinach, string beans,great northern beans, chic peas, broccoli, almonds, sunflower seeds. almond milk.

Water Intake:

I drank water half my weigh in water every day. This included green tea with lemon (no sugar, honey or agave nectar). Probably the hardest thing but I knew drinking water would help me stay fuller longer, help me stay hydrated and help flush toxins out of my system.

Exercising:

I walked 20+ minutes a day 3-4 times per week. I would walk everywhere. The nearest store was about 8 blocks. I did not care how cold it was outside. I was committed to getting as much exercise in as possible. I would make up reasons to have to walk to the store so I could get my steps in daily.

Bathroom Breaks:

Most people only release waste 2-3 times per week. I was eating 3-5 meals a day but releasing 1-2 times per week. I was beyond constipated.

Why is releasing waste important?

Cleaning your colon has the ability to assist in your weight loss. People have experienced up to 20 pounds lost over a month period. What a colon cleanse does is removes impacted food, parasites, worms and intestinal sludge from your colon. One of the many things this will do is it will help kick-start your metabolism thereby helping you burn fat faster.

I knew I had to do something so I began taking castor oil. That stuff is terrible and it made me gag but it did the trick. Within hours I was releasing but after I stopped the castor oil my system would not release so I had to try something else.

What I found is there are gentle detox tea’s that will give you the same results. I began adding this along with a liquid multi-vitamin to my diet and now I can go 2-4 times a day.

My Results:

As a result of changing my diet, increasing my vitamin intake and releasing more waste I lost 92 lbs in a 2 year period. I went from a size 18 to a size 10.

This was the plan I followed. I have been able to maintain my weight loss for the last 2 years.

For me this is not just a diet but a lifestyle change. I still enjoy the foods I like but in moderation.

Can this work for you? Yes. The question you must ask yourself is your current health worth it.

Across the globe there are thousands of interesting and appealing corbels. However, despite the appeal of these corbels, many people are unsure exactly what a “corbel” is ? Essentially, a corbel is a piece of stone, or possibly timber, which juts out of a wall to carry incumbent weight. But, corbels do much more than just this decidedly unsexy work, they allure and provide one with a brief yet detailed look into a buildings past. The name derives from a French word meaning crow, because of the corbel’s beaklike shape.

Corbels are most famous for appearing as gargoyles on the side of churches and cathedrals, namely Notre Dame in Paris. Norman (Romanesque) corbels often have a plain appearance, although they may be elaborately carved with stylized heads of humans, animals or imaginary “beasts”, and sometimes with other motifs. The corbels carrying balconies in Italy and France were sometimes of great size and richly carved, and some of the finest examples of the Italian “Cinquecento” (16th century) style are found in them. Throughout England, in half-timber work, wooden corbels abound, carrying window-sills or oriel windows in wood, which also are often carved.

A corbel arch is an arch-like construction method which uses the architectural technique of corbeling to span a space or void in a structure, such as an entranceway in a wall or as the span of a bridge. A corbel vault uses this technique to support the superstructure of a building’s roof.

The word “corbel” comes from Old French and derives from the Latin corbellus, a diminutive of corvus (a raven) which refers to the beak-like appearance. Similarly, the French refer to a corbel as corbeau (a crow) or as cul-de-lampe, Italians as mensola, the Germans as kragstein.

The technique of corbelling, where rows of corbels support a projecting wall or parapet, has been used since Neolithic times. It is common in medieval architecture and in the Scottish baronial style.

Many people use corbels in the 21st century as a way of decorating their house. Corbels provide a space and cost-effective way of making one’s house more presentable, and adds culture and style to a home. By replacing doorways with “corbeled archs”, one can make there house more spacious and more presentable.

Notable examples of corbels worldwide include:

* The Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris

* Maes Howe, a particularly fine Neolithic chambered cairn in Scotland.

* Gallarus Oratory, an early Christian church in Ireland, is built with corbel vaulting.

Corbels, while away from public limelight, ensure the stability and good-looks for thousands of buildings across the globe. They can be found on medieval castles, or modern-day homes. Corbels are all around us.

“Jesus answered them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, whoever commits sin is a slave of sin” (John 8:34).

The whole issue of the “Jews of John” is SPIRITUAL in nature, not physical. It is dishonest at best and deceptive at worst to attempt to turn Jesus’ words about spiritual slavery into some slanderous racial argument against the Jews!

Yet such is standard procedure among some hateful “Identity” groups that give all who understand and embrace the Israelite origins of the West a bad name. The vast majority of those who celebrate our Hebrew roots, who understand Joseph isn’t Jewish, are neither racist or anti-Semitic and includes a growing number of Jews, just as prophesied, exemplified by Brit-Am Israel.

Jesus acknowledged that Abraham is the father of the Jews physically, but not always spiritually (John 8:37, 39, 42, 44). The same can be said and is true about all Twelve Tribes of Israel. In fact, the commission of the Two Witnesses – in the spirit of Elijah – is to restore our relationship with our Fathers (Abraham, Isaac and Jacob) and thereby through their true religion reconcile us to our Heavenly Father (Malachi 4:6; Isa. 49:5-6).

Today, generally speaking, both Jews and Joes (Israelites) behave like Gentile bastards! (Hos. 2:4; 5:7). No wonder our nations will soon plead with God: “Doubtless you are our Father, though Abraham’s unaware of us and Israel doesn’t acknowledge us: You, O LORD, are our Father, our Redeemer; your Name is from eternity” (Isa. 63:16).

Those anti-Semitic salesmen like the Aryan Nations, who pitch slanderous hate literature against all Jews (failing to differentiate), are of their father the Devil who was a liar and a murderer from the beginning. The worst offenders are those who profess to love God and yet pollute the Name of Christ pretending to be Christians: “Whoever hates his brother is a murderer” and “if a man say, I love God, and hates his brother, he is a liar” (1 John 3:15; 4:20).

The frightening fact that some are so consumed with a blind hatred of Jews, espousing quack theories about Khazars, slopping swill about “the Serpent’s Seed,” and cooking up pseudo racial “science” (besides salvation is of grace not race), coddling up to Israel’s terrorist enemies and preferring a perverted “Palestine” over the Promised Land of Israel, aiding and abetting those who would dismember the prophesied Jewish Homeland, proves the existence of an irrational evil entity filled with bitter frustration and wrath!

“Although Satan hates every human being, he especially hates those descended from Jacob-Israel (the Anglo-Saxon and Jewish peoples). He knows they’re instrumental in his eventual overthrow. And out of Israel he’s targeted the Jews. They’ve born the brunt of his brutality. Why? Because:

1. Many of the top positions in God’s Kingdom (under the Fathers) will be filled with Jews! That explains the spiritual significance of the “Jewish conspiracy” theory. Satan’s feeding people with half-truths and grotesque exaggerations, poisoning minds against the Jews and anything “Jewish.” He sneers at their accomplishments and turns their praise into persecution!

2. The Jews are representative of all Israel, and they (not Ishmael!) hold the Promised Land in trust for all Twelve Tribes (Rom. 3:2).

3. The Jews have preserved the Bible (John 4:22), thereby retaining the knowledge of the true God and His Sabbath and Holy Days (and when to properly observe them).

4. The Jews are LIVING PROOF of God’s invincible plan!

No wonder Satan feels threatened by any Jewish presence and has repeatedly attempted to erase them from off the face of the earth!” (excerpt from Beyond Babylon: Europe’s Rise and Fall).

May God grant freedom and repentance to all Israel, both Jews and Israelites, and reunite us as One Nation Under God, a truly United Kingdom (Ezek. 37:22). Meanwhile may God help us to gather and not to scatter Am Yisrael (the nation/people Israel) as we prepare to meet our God!

Most of us know that we all need some levels of stress in life, this is called the healthy stress levels. It helps to push us to peak performance. BUT too much of it, and there is a very thin line, it pushes into the bad stress area.

All of us, are all too familiar with the experience of stress. The thing is stress can easily be managed, if we understand it.

For example, when we have a long to-do list, we may immediately experience stress because we are thinking of the amount of work that needs to be done. So my question to you is: is the thought of doing the work, or the actual doing of the work causing you stress?

If you ponder upon this, you will realise that it is the thought of it that is causing the stress.

Personally, I love to do lists, and this is what I do on a daily basis, to make sure that tasks are done and completed at the end of the day. Looking at the list no longer make me sweat because I have come to realise that the actual doing of the work is pretty easy and sometimes mechanical (depending on what kind of tasks and especially for tasks that are familiar and and repetitive). Some of the tasks can be performed as a form of meditation even.

It is the thinking of the to do lists, and the imagined stress that is causing the actual stress! Isn’t that interesting? In other words, we have worked ourselves up into a frenzy.

We imagine the worst, we imagine how things could go wrong, we imagine how we may make someone angry, we imagine losing a client, and so on. And we say we have no imagination.

So with these, our stress levels go up and we most probably fall into the bad stress area — we start to experience low energy, headaches, upset stomach (diarrhea, constipation etc), aches and pains, chest pain and heart palpitations, insomnia, frequent colds and infections, loss of sexual desire or ability.

Are you feeling stressed just by reading the above list?

We are so powerful in causing ourselves pain. BUT the good news is, we are equally powerful in causing ourselves joy, happiness and peace. It is a conscious choice we have to make but it does not happen automatically.

The method is simple to do, but it may be challenging at the beginning because we have lived a certain way for so long, re-learning is the challenge.

The simple method is this: When you think about your to-do lists, do not engage your emotions into it if you have trouble experiencing joy from the list. Simply look at the list as if you are watching the waves on the beach. And then go about doing what needs to be done — one at a time. Any time you feel the stress levels go up because you are starting to think about how much you need to do, or that it is unfair you are doing all these, or whatever negative thoughts that are not helpful surface, focus on your breathing and drink lots of water!

Now, there are also other types of stress — the type that has been embedded within our psyche from our childhood. It could be a bad experience, childhood trauma or even stress experienced by our care givers that we have absorbed into our own system. These type of stress has to be dealt with in therapy. The long term effect, mixed with our own imagined stress from modern living can turn the stress into high levels of toxicity and then manifesting itself as diseases. This is an entirely different topic but I thought I should acknowledge that this level of stress is real. Perhaps we will explore more of this at a later time.

So deep breathing and drinking water are the two easiest things to do. Do not under estimate the positive impact they have on us, physically, emotionally, mentally and also spiritually.

Q. My company publishes a monthly employee newsletter. My boss asked me to write a funny quiz. I’m not exactly a stand-up comic. Help!

A. Ah, the funny quiz. Lucky you! It’s not often that a company has an official sense of humor that they are willing to display for all to read. This is going to be a great assignment for you!

A funny quiz is typically one where the questions and answers have no real purpose other than to make the quiz taker laugh. Although almost anything goes, there are some taboo subjects. Off hand I’d say that anything that pokes fun at a specific person, or groups of people, as well as anything that’s anti-semitic, racial, sexual, political, or religious should be off limits. Remember, what one person thinks is funny can offend someone else. Even seemingly innocuous subjects like “hillbilly” or “redneck” jokes might not be funny to someone who lives in the mountains or the deep South (like I do).

You can think of a funny quiz as a series of one-liners with multiple-choice punch lines. Because you are writing for a company publication you have a built-in “affinity group” as there is bound to be some common subjects that are company related and could be made into something funny.

For example, if you work for a software development company then you might have a question that asks:

What’s longer: A CEO’s week or a programmer’s week?

If you’re not laughing then you have never had a programmer tell you that the project will be ready in a week.

You need to walk a fine line even when using subjects like this in your funny quiz. Say that your company just posted a 4th quarter loss because a new software product missed its launch date by a “programmer’s week”. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to determine that you are about to tick off a lot of people if you add that question to your funny quiz.

Try to avoid wornout jokes or cliches. A funny quiz should be funny, not lame. For example, still on the software train of thought, a question like…

Q. How many programmers does it take to change a lightbulb? A. None. They don’t do hardware.

…is older than the mystery meat in that Tupperware container in the back of the lunchroom refrigerator. No one is going to laugh at that one. No laughing = not a funny quiz!

The best thing to do is to keep an eye out for humorous, safe things to poke fun at and then write a funny quiz question. My advice is to start right now and don’t wait until one hour before deadline. The only thing that’s less funny than a lame funny quiz is no funny quiz at all!

The term pop music is most often associated with music sold heavily in a commercial way starting around the nineteen fifties. The term, of course, means popular music. Looking at this in a broader sense it could mean music that is generally popular among the people at large as opposed to some supposedly ‘serious music’ that is difficult to understand and only enjoyed by geeks in their ivory towers.

Let’s take, for example, the following snippet of lyrics from “Rock ‘n Roll Music;”

‘I have no kick against modern jazz

Unless they try to play it too darn fast

And change the beauty of the melody

Until it sounds just like a symphony’

Justified, in a way, I suppose because Modern Jazz was trying to be a ‘serious art form.’ But you get the idea; people like the simple beauty of a melody and don’t need all the complexity. There’s a lot more to it, as we’ll see.

Back in the day; the sixteen hundreds or before, say, the Church had its thumb on pretty much everything that went on and that includes music. Before this, in the dark ages, the church allowed no music at all. Then they allowed chanting. if you’ve ever heard a ‘Gregorian Chant,’ you might have liked it but you’d have to admit that it’s not quite rock and roll. The Church allowed no musical instruments for the longest time. One reason for this is that the instruments were Roman and the Church was having nothing of old Rome. More likely, the Church wanted nothing that would stimulate or excite anyone beyond a submissive, trance-like state of mind.

Fast forward to the sixteen hundreds and we have the Lutheran Church. Martin Luther was excommunicated by the Catholic Church. What was his heinous crime? He translated the church service from Latin into a language the people could understand. Prior to this, people came to church every week and had little idea of what was going on. The people could not read and the Church, prior to this, had no interest in teaching them to. Now the people were taught to read.

Music was flowering, so to speak, in the church, with the ‘High Baroque,’ a very ornate and complex music indeed, somewhat typified by the music of J.S. Bach. Now Bach had some famous composer sons and one got busy with the ‘new music,’ which became what we generally call ‘Classical Music.’

Classical Music is a greatly simplified music form, compared to the High Baroque. It took music out of the Church and to the people at large, although this was a long process with many vias. Shakespeare began writing history plays to educate people about what was really going on regarding the people who ruled them, and we have one of the more recent populist movements in our long history of suppressive governments and populist movements.

An unusually common phenomenon: the surreal experience. The death and life of a loved one. A traumatising event. An unprecedented moment. The first time we were overwhelmed beyond capacity of response. When we’re overcome… yes, until we are, we don’t recognise it as a possibility.

When we arrive at similar moments, we’re reminded of what was all too real. That trauma is an echo of its first intrusion. It has become us in those situations where we’re triggered. It’s very, very real. As I said, and it bears repeating until we understand, it was all too real, ‘unbelievable’ as it was. (I say ‘unbelievable’ because we, ourselves, are caused to question ourselves, and those who are unfeeling further complicate that fracturing of our experience from our identity.)

We must stop questioning ourselves… as much as possible. This is a crucial step in our healing.

We are in a position now, by God’s strength, to stand with those, like us, who had to learn to stand again.

We’re invited into the Great Knowing. If only the narcissist can admit they’re damaged deep down in their identity, they have a chance of recovery unto a contributory humanity. They, like us, must lose themselves to gain themselves. That seems beyond so many, for it requires a courage of honesty not many want to pay the price for. The Great Knowing is the knowledge of self, warts ‘n’ all. It isn’t pretty, but it is true. Yet, comprehend this, we’re loved as we are!

Times when trauma was so real, part of ourselves split off. Part of ourselves is now sensitive to the kind of stimulus that triggers. And all of us have triggers!

Awareness is our key, as we protect ourselves, being honest with ourselves, and therefore we have the capacity to live into the Great Healing, which spins out into the lives of others. If they know our weakness, and how we’re triggered, they’re invited into the Great Acceptance. Awareness of the pain we bear in our grief, for there is only healing as we meet that acceptance, to begin a journey by faith into healing.

Faith? Why? To go into pain in order to release pain. That requires faith. To believe it’s worth it… that healing is possible.

The Great Acceptance is the unconditional love that you and I both deserve, yet we must earn, through the other person’s choice of trust. We can only invite them.

It all starts with the reality, it happened. It really did!

It cannot be undone. What is, is. As we accept it, we no longer need to be in a reality of denial.

I truly wonder how many hurt people there are in society who make nothing of what happened to them, and then they disallow others calling truth on their pasts.

The greatest kindness anyone can do is allow another person their experience.

We cannot enter a process of healing unless we can begin to face our tyrant – the triggering event. Many times, the goal is not about becoming healed, for, as Christians at least, we believe that occurs in glory after we die. Yet, we can journey further in the Great Knowing, the Great Healing and the Great Acceptance.

For some reading this, the issue is present tense: it is happening. Hold on. You will make it!

The international Vinegar Museum is in Roslyn, South Dakota.

Here’s a list of interesting things that vinegar can do:

Use vinegar in a steam cleaner to reduce soap bubbles.

Mix vinegar with linseed oil and use it to clean your wood.

Clean eyeglasses by wiping each lens with a drop of vinegar.

Soak new propane lantern wicks in vinegar for several hours.  Let dry before using. The wick will burn longer and brighter.

A mixture of salt and vinegar will clean coffee and tea stains from chinaware.

To freshen vegetables, soak wilted vegetables in 2 cups of water and a tablespoon of vinegar.

Boil better eggs by adding 2 tablespoons of vinegar to the water before boiling.

Marinating meat in vinegar kills bacteria and tenderizes the meat. Use one-quarter cup vinegar for a 2 to 3 pound roast.  Marinate overnight, then cook without draining or rinsing the meat.  If desired, add herbs to the vinegar when marinating.

Vinegar can also:    

Kill grass on walks and driveways.

Increase soil acidity.  In hard water areas, add a cup of vinegar to a gallon of tap water for watering acid loving plants like gardenias or azaleas. The vinegar releases iron in the soil.

Freshen cut flowers by adding 2 tablespoons vinegar and 1 teaspoon of sugar for each quart of water.

An open dish of white distilled vinegar will help remove paint smells from a room.

Salad dressings, sauces, marinades, ketchup, mustard, and pickles are all made with white distilled vinegar.

Sooth a sore throat with a mixture of apple cider vinegar, water and honey.

Soak your feet in white distilled vinegar to stop athlete’s foot.

Drink a teaspoon of white distilled vinegar to stop the hiccups.

Pantyhose last longer when rinsed with water containing 1 tablespoon of white distilled vinegar.

Massage white distilled vinegar into our scalp, rinse, then was with regular shampoo and watch dandruff disappear.

Man’s main and natural source of light is the sun; the gigantic burning mass which produces illumination to the solar system, the earth inclusive; along with heat and radiation. Our awareness is in no doubt that the sun is central and stationary in the system. Also, the rotations on their own axes and revolutions about the same sun, of the Earth and other planets, would intuitively fluctuate the availability of illumination. Consequently, day and night emerged.

IN THE BEGINNING THERE WAS LIGHT

Thousands of years before science became organized, fire was discovered. It did presented “smaller suns” because of the heat and light produced. Fire, however, extinguishes if it means of sustenance drops or exhausts. Without doubt, a big problem with “artificial light” is its sustenance. Starting with many crude and localized materials, man began to find solutions to this problem; “artificial light” should last longer. There will no discussion on fuels here, mind you.

WHO DID WHAT?

Thomas Edison is often honored for his work on incandescent light. However, books of history have it that he did not actually invent the light bulb, but created the first commercially practical incandescent light. Many great scientists and inventors had worked on incandescent light before him. Edison’s interesting 1000-times trials makes his side of the history of “artificial light” more interesting than others. It was, and still, very motivational.

Sir Humphry Davy invented the “The Electric Arc Lamp”, using a glowing carbon; the light was weak and did not last long enough. That was the first “electric light” to be invented in 1802 with carbon as the filament. In 1840, platinum was used as the filament Warren de la Rue. It worked efficiently. In fact, longevity was improved, because platinum could be operated at high temperatures. But there was a major problem; commercial production was not feasible, because of the high cost of platinum.

THE PROBLEM IS THE FILAMENT

There is no argument in this, as getting the right filament was the real problem. The filament is the part of the devices that produces the light. When electric current goes through the filament; it glows. This glow is caused by the heat generated through the filament’s high resistance to the flow of the electric current.

There had to be an element that would fit in nicely by combining both the technical and commercial conditions. Carbon filament could irritatingly blacken tubes and did not last long. Platinum is not economical because of its high cost. Although, it could endure heat, a quality necessary for the production of light, the market price would never be friendly.

Edison and his team even improvised with carbonized bamboo filament that could last over 1200 hours. It was the beginning of commercially manufactured light bulbs and the formation of Thomas Edison’s company; Edison Electric Light Company, in 1880. The company marketed the new product. That was never the end of the story.

TUNSGTEN DID THE MAGIC

This is awkwardly interesting! Edison, himself, knew that tungsten would be good as a filament for incandescent light, but, he had no means of refining the element. Anyway, tungsten did the magic! Another company, General Electric, had one of their scientists, William David Coolidge, worked on tungsten and made it the best filament for incandescent light.

Why tungsten? Tungsten has a very higher melting point of about 3422 degree-Celsius. For a typical incandescent light bulb, the Tungsten filament operates at approximately 2500 degree-Celsius. Its boiling point is around 5555 degree-Celsius. Its density is 19.25 g/cubic-cm. In addition, it does not cost as high as platinum, which makes it commercially relevant.

Although, “artificial light” has moved on from that stage, nonetheless, the element-tungsten did the magic. It solved the problem of light bulb filament!