Janet's Blog

At the present time, it is estimated that 20% of the children in any public school classroom have been diagnosed with a mental health disorder. 20%! That's five children in an average-sized class of twenty-five. This statistic doesn't include those children who, for one reason or another, have never received a diagnosis for their unconventional behaviors. As a former teacher, and as a parent of children with mental health concerns, I don't doubt this number at all. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if the number were higher. But, the question remains: Why are there so many kids with mental health diagnoses, like ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder), autism, depression, bipolar disorder, reactive attachment disorder, and numerous other behavioral disorders? I don't remember having any classmates who routinely disrupted classes when I was a child. Children with special needs were usually sent away to some kind of special school, but even so, there just ...

It was just a few days ago that I noticed them--cobwebs all over my house! They looked like they had been here for quite a while, in the corners and next to the ceiling. Now, this is both good news and bad news. First, the good news--I saw them! This means that, since my recent eye surgery, I am seeing details much better than I have in a long time! In fact, my surgeon indicated that my uncorrected distance vision is pretty close to 20/20 for the first time in thirty-some years, and my close vision should be correctable to 20/20 as well, at least in my right eye, when I visit my optometrist in a couple of weeks to get new glasses. But, the bad news--why didn't anyone else in my family notice those cobwebs and point them out so I could get rid of them or, better yet, why didn't my not-so-expert duster wipe them away? And why didn't eagle-eyed Levi, who hates spiders with a passion, make the connection that those prolific spider webs might indicate an excess of spid...

There I was, flat on my back, inside a tube, preparing for take off. 10, 9, 8, 7... It wasn't my first MRI, or even the second. I've had several over the years, just to monitor an anomaly in my brain that was discovered twenty-some years ago when my doctor was looking for something else. Nothing ever changes, but we have to check on it occasionally to make sure. So, there I was... According to  mayoclinic.org ,   "Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) is a technique that uses a magnetic field and radio waves to create detailed images of the organs and tissues within your body. Most MRI machines are large, tube-shaped magnets. When you lie inside an MRI machine, the magnetic field temporarily realigns hydrogen atoms in your body." It works differently from a CT scan (cat scan), which  " combines a series of X-ray images taken from different angles, and uses computer processing to create cross-sectional images, or slices, of the bones, blood vessels and soft tissu...

We didn't attend the reinvented Old West Balloon Fest in Mitchell this year. I love hot air balloons--who doesn't? But I don't care much for hoards of people and bumper-to-bumper traffic, especially before sunrise, and Bill wasn't available to go with the kids and me, so we stayed home. There's always next year--at least, I hope so, because I really do love hot air balloons. I've seen some awe-inspiring pictures of the balloons, and even some photos and videos taken by friends who reveled in their first balloon ride ever, this past weekend. I must say that this year's digital photos are much clearer and crisper than these photos I took twenty-some years ago, when Scotts Bluff County's Old West Balloon Festival began for the first time. Back then, Bill was privileged to be part of a chase team for one of the balloon crews, so our whole family got up long before the sun, and drove over to Scottsbluff to help inflate a balloon, and then follow it in th...

Hippie:   (especially in the 1960s) a person of unconventional appearance, typically having long hair and wearing beads, associated with a subculture involving a rejection of conventional values and the taking of hallucinogenic drugs. Synonyms: flower child, Bohemian, beatnik, free spirit, nonconformist I was never a hippie. For the most part, my friends and classmates were not hippies, either. I suppose we were a little too young, and a lot too sheltered, growing up in Fairbury, Nebraska, in the sixties and seventies. We knew a few people--very few--who were rumored to use LSD and other hallucinogens, and a few more who smoked marijuana. However, the drug of choice for teenagers in our part of the world was, and still is, alcohol. And I didn't drink. Plenty of my classmates did, for sure, but that didn't make them "hippies." Neither did the bell-bottom jeans we all wore, or the mini- and maxi-dresses the girls wore, or our beads and granny glasses, or the girls...

I was still in my twenties when I was diagnosed with corneal dystrophy, an often-hereditary eye disease that usually effects old people. But in my family, I was diagnosed first, then my mom, followed by my grandma a few years later. Since I've had the disease for such a long time, it was inevitable that I would need cornea transplants eventually. Mom has had three corneal transplants. The first donor-cornea carried a rare duck fungus, more common in much warmer places than Nebraska. Unfortunately, that hard-to-diagnose fungus caused her to lose more sight than she ultimately gained, even with a subsequent cornea transplant that "took." When my grandma was diagnosed, she was old enough that her corneal dystrophy didn't progress fast enough to require such drastic measures as a transplant. My own eyesight has worsened gradually over the years. I think my eye doctors originally expected that I would need surgery long before now. And, even this summer, my right eye ...

According to Wikipedia, "Kool-Aid was invented by Edwin Perkins in Hastings, Nebraska. All of his experiments took place in his mother's kitchen. Its predecessor was a liquid concentrate called Fruit Smack. To reduce shipping costs, in 1927, Perkins discovered a way to remove the liquid from Fruit Smack, leaving only a powder." And, as they say, the rest is history My generation grew up with Kool-Aid. Oh, we were expected to drink milk at mealtime, both at school and at home. But, Kool-Aid was the party drink of choice for kids all over the country. Every birthday party served Kool-Aid, usually red. Every church potluck and Vacation Bible School, every Girl Scout or Boy Scout event, wherever kids were gathered, there was a pitcher of Kool-Aid, along with some inevitable Kool-Aid mustaches. In the hot summer months, every family's refrigerator contained an ice-cold pitcher of Kool-Aid, just waiting to quench our thirst. And, if the pitcher was sitting, empty, on...