Too young.

I lost a friend of mine last month. He was only twenty two years old. He and his girlfriend were driving home, late one night,ran off the road and flipped their car multiple times. Neither one of them were wearing their seatbelts. My friend was already gone by th etime the paramedics got there and his girlfriend had to be airlifted to th ehospital she was injured but has since recovered physically. The police have no real reason for the accident. The road conditions were fine and my friend was not drinking. The last i heard  he the police thought maybe a deer ran out in front of the car. I think th e saddest part is what his family has to be going through. Loosing a child has to be the hardest thing to endure. He was a good person, and his ife was cut way to short he will be missed greatly by family and friends alike. R.I.P.  J. Staub

CHRISTMAS

IT'S ALMOST HERE!!! Man it's crazy every year it's a shock tp me that it's so close. But here it is. The crazy women shoppers out at midnight waiting i n lines for hours for "deals". Kind of sad actually that all the material crap has become more important than the religous or family aspect of the holidays especially christmas.  uut that has how it is then again at twenty eight i don't remember a tim that it wasn't. May be when i was a tiny child and milk and cookis foor santa annd the excitment of the idea of christmas was more satisfying than the gifts. Snow on christmas. now that swhat i remember as a child at christmas. waking up and going sledding on christmas morning. i hope my son gets to see some snow this year. It will be the first christma sthat he even can understand presents and santa an dcookie baking! So lets all get together with as much family as possible and have some fun remember what's important people

owning a home

My girlfriend and i bought our first home about six months ago. We were so excited the price was right and it would actually be ours. Well now it is ours and all that work i thought would be exciting to do and make theh home ours. It all costs money. I knew that before we bought the house i just think the excitment got the best of us and now reality has sunk in an now it just seems like a ton of work which it is. All my girlfriend can say is oh it's not that bad but thats coming from the person taht won't have to do any of the manual labor. She gets to pick out colors and shop and i get to rip out walls and paint install bathtubs and replace flooring. But i guess i should still be feeling lucky that we own our own home. And i am it's just all a little overwhelmng sometimes. Dos anyone esle feel this way or am i just crazy? Well on the bright side of thing this semester is almost over and that means one down four to go for me. Headed in the right direction. On my way to a job that i can support my family with. My girlfriend can stay home with our kids which makes her very happy. Life has a funny way of working itself out.

Lead poisoning in children

Last month my girlfriend and I took our two year old son in for his annual vaccines. While there the nurse had us fill out a lead screening form. The form consists of a series of questions,for example is your home built before 1975? Do you have chipping paint in your home? Does your home have plumbing containing lead?If your answer is yes your child is at a higher risk of lead poisoning. They also suggests a simple blood test if your answers are yes. In our case all the answers are yes,so we had the blood test. Our son's blood test came back too high. The next step was to have our home testes by a "lead risk assesor" this is a trained professional who specializes in lead testing in homes. Unfortunatley these companies want a minnimum of 1,000.000. In our world a thousand dollars might as well be a million. I mean think about it the testing would only tell you your risks that doesn't even begin to FIX the problems. So instead of having a risk assesor come on we decided to research lead poisonong and it's sources. From this research we learned that lead can get into the body by ingestion, breathing lead dust in through your lungs,and by direct contact with the skin. Which means it could be the paint in our house, it could be our soil outside, or it could be the plumbing in our house. So we started by buying a lead paint test kit off the internet and sening th esample off to a lab. Then we called a plumber to inspect our pipes and take a water sample. In the mean time i started to call goverment agencies to find any and all information on any assistance they might offer families that cannot afford the cost of lead removal who have small children at home. I called the monroe county health department, the illinois department of health, the EPA, and a parents cohalition for children suffering from lad poisoning. They all said the same thing no one could help until a child was showing clinical signs of lead poisonong or their blood lead level was a ten or above. Our son's is a five. Some of the effects of lead poisoning include growth abnormalities,speech problems, behavioral problems, seizures, and ireversible permanent brain damage. Yet there is no one out there to help before those things begin to occur. The bottom live is there is not enough money. I feel like in our wourld today it almost always come back to money. you either have it or your out of luck.