American society, though I'm sure someone could argue all society, has crumbled into a state with an acute lack of kindness.
I read another blog post recently by a woman new to conformation dog shows who credited the lack of kindness among competitors as the main contribution to it's slow and what seems inevitable demise.
This past weekend I worked as the Obedience Steward for a small regional Labrador Retriever Specialty in Charlotte, NC. I worked this show last year in the same position and both times I've had a wonderful time with the Obedience and Performance competitors. It was very nice to see some faces again I hadn't seen since the year before and it was great to see how far many had come with their dogs in a years time. We laughed about the goofy things they did and triumphed their successes.
The judges both days wanted to keep things moving as we had a pretty robust entry of obedience and rally dogs and didn't want to have things dragging on too long. The judge the first day opted to go straight through lunch, the judge the second day took a 20-minute break to get food, use the bathroom and get back to the ring to get things set up for Rally. Shortly before the break, the Chief Steward informed us the food truck was taking 10-15 minutes to get orders out, so they suggested that we order our food, use the restroom and stretch our legs and then pick our orders up. I walked out the door to a line of at least half a dozen conformation competitors in front of me in line. I stood and waited and realized the line was going nowhere fast. After several minutes of standing in line, another one of the stewards ran out with the judges meal ticket and passed it along to me with what he wanted for lunch. I continued to wait and was starting to feel anxious as I could feel my short break ticking away. Around this time the Show Chair came outside and I asked her if there was any way to get our orders in due to our short break so I could get back in time to get the ring running again. The Show Chair asked the conformation ladies in front of me if they would graciously allow me to put the judges and my order in as our ring was scheduled to begin again in 10 minutes. They hardly acknowledged our presence or the very polite question posed to them and after several seconds of awkward silence, one of them said, "we're trying to get on the road...".
Mind you, Winners Dog had just completed, Winners Bitch had yet to be judged, same with Best of Breed at this point. If their goal was to leave and get on the road as soon as possible, they could have done just that and had a multitude of places nearby to grab a quick bite to eat; their reason was nothing short of downright rudeness and selfishness.
I had no response that would not be snarky or rude, so I kept my mouth shut and thanked the Show Chair for her attempt. I got our tickets in and she graciously volunteered to bring our lunches to us so I was able to get back in time to set the ring up. She brought our lunches down which we ate as quickly as we could between classes and ring changes but I'll never forget the lack of kindness of the conformation competitors there.
We live in a time where more and more people are moving into large cities, the population is exploding, infrastructure can't keep up, frustration and intolerance builds. Technology is constantly shoved in our faces which compounds stress in our lives. Remember when you ran errands, came home and checked voicemails and then returned calls? Now those same people get upset if you don't immediately return texts, even when you are driving. The entire attitude of the population has changed and not for the better. Is there a breaking point? What is it?
For the last couple of years I've been tinkering with the idea of changing to off-grid living and the more and more this tension builds the more and more I consider it.
I think one thing is for sure; how long can society take this pressure cooker before it's all too much?
Monday, February 15, 2016
Monday, July 2, 2012
Making your own pre/probiotics!
A few years ago I went on a search for a probiotic that didn't use sugar or milk as the starter or carrier as both sugar and dairy can feed and start yeast in dogs and humans. Without sharing all my lengthy research with you, I also discovered that any probiotic worth it's weight needs to be refrigerated. Of course this poses a problem with mass production and distribution, they also cost more because of the additional refrigeration & transportation cost and it costs more to keep it on the shelves in stores.
Then I ran across a great article on Whole Dog Journal about probiotics called It's All In How You Make It. It speaks at length about using lacto-fermented vegetables in your dogs diet, and it's good for you too! Rather than using a sugar or dairy based carrier I learned that you can use unrefined sea salt! The unique thing about lacto-fermented vegetables is they qualify as both a prebiotic and probiotic and they are cheaper and easier to make then you think.
I purchased my crock from Cultures for Health.
I purchased the unrefined sea salt from Vitacost.com. When I first bought these they came in a 6-shaker case, but I'm already on my 3rd or 4th shaker. Now it looks like they come in single bottles. It's also now purchasable in 1 pound bags.
May 6, 2015 Edit - The Lima Unrefined Sea Salt is no longer available through Vitacost, I found many reasonable sources of unrefined sea salt on Amazon.com.
I use cucumbers because of their ease to purchase, grind and crush through my juicer and how quickly they are ready to use. I go through a batch in a little over a week, they only take two hours to adequately ferment , but I leave it mine for 24 - 48 hours, then store it in the refrigerator in a seal-able container. Each dog gets a couple Tablespoons scooped out daily with their dinner. They will lap it right out of the bowl by itself, they are quite tasty! The batch pictured below is from 6 large cucumbers and I used 2 Tablespoons of unrefined sea salt as the starter per gallon. The valve on the top of the crock lets air escape without letting air in. I left the skins on because I grew these cucumbers myself, but I peel those I buy from the store.
If you want to read more about yeast in dogs, you can read this copy of the WDJ article titled Canine Candida.
Then I ran across a great article on Whole Dog Journal about probiotics called It's All In How You Make It. It speaks at length about using lacto-fermented vegetables in your dogs diet, and it's good for you too! Rather than using a sugar or dairy based carrier I learned that you can use unrefined sea salt! The unique thing about lacto-fermented vegetables is they qualify as both a prebiotic and probiotic and they are cheaper and easier to make then you think.
I purchased my crock from Cultures for Health.
I purchased the unrefined sea salt from Vitacost.com. When I first bought these they came in a 6-shaker case, but I'm already on my 3rd or 4th shaker. Now it looks like they come in single bottles. It's also now purchasable in 1 pound bags.
May 6, 2015 Edit - The Lima Unrefined Sea Salt is no longer available through Vitacost, I found many reasonable sources of unrefined sea salt on Amazon.com.
I use cucumbers because of their ease to purchase, grind and crush through my juicer and how quickly they are ready to use. I go through a batch in a little over a week, they only take two hours to adequately ferment , but I leave it mine for 24 - 48 hours, then store it in the refrigerator in a seal-able container. Each dog gets a couple Tablespoons scooped out daily with their dinner. They will lap it right out of the bowl by itself, they are quite tasty! The batch pictured below is from 6 large cucumbers and I used 2 Tablespoons of unrefined sea salt as the starter per gallon. The valve on the top of the crock lets air escape without letting air in. I left the skins on because I grew these cucumbers myself, but I peel those I buy from the store.
If you want to read more about yeast in dogs, you can read this copy of the WDJ article titled Canine Candida.
Thursday, June 21, 2012
Facebook is evil
I still remember a few years ago when my sister in law said something about me joining Facebook. I vehemently refused! At that time my only real exposure to social networking was MySpace, who I felt for the most part was full of a bunch of immature, self-involved children and I had recently deleted my profile there because I just didn't see the point.
I finally gave in the day before my birthday in 2008. Hard to believe it's been that long and imaging the amount of time wasted in Facebook at this point just depresses me. I started with a profile, added friends from various parts of my life and soon after created a fan page for the dogs titled, Desta Rhodesian Ridgebacks. Privacy soon became a concern and I stripped the fan page of everything except a few photos and links to reference people to my "dog" profile. It was a huge undertaking to separate things, but now I'm glad I did.
Fast forward to today! I'm sure an entire book could be written about various aspects of Facebook and social media in general. Social media seems to be the norm today; but it doesn't come without a price. It's used and abused in so many complex ways. Companies who refuse to keep up with technology are suddenly finding themselves with missing and diminishing business. 15 years ago, how often did we go online to search for reviews on a product, hotel, business? Today consumers constantly search for online reviews and content about products quite frequently before purchase; there's been a huge shift from word of mouth to online word. But here's the catch 22, we are taking advise and feedback from strangers. Word of mouth comes from people we know and trust it's an interesting shift. Retailers without an online presence are suffering. Several years ago with all the Black Friday hysteria Cyber Monday was dubbed, and now for the last few years along with special Black Friday deals there are now special Cyber Monday deals. The internet isn't going away folks and it will continue to evolve and shape our communities and the way we interact with each other.
I have a variety of friends and personalities that I interact with. I enjoy different viewpoints and love seeing people's hobbies. Being active in the AKC conformation world with my 2 youngest Ridgebacks it's introduced me to many wonderful people, some of whom I never would have met otherwise and been sorry I never had. However it's also introduced me to the complete opposite as well. I realize there will never be a day the entire dog fancy gets along. But I sure think a lot of people could try a lot harder at it!
We all encounter mean nasties and bullies in our lives, the world seems to have no shortage of them; but it's how we respond to them that makes the difference. The peacemakers out there will tell you to turn the other cheek, which I mostly agree with; I believe at some point there is a line you have to decide you will never let them cross. No matter how much someone should contribute to the general getting along, there is absolutely no excuse to abuse someone in any manner, directly or indirectly. My viewpoint is to peacefully stand up for myself. I stay calm, collected, use common sense and a tone of voice that is confident but otherwise devoid of emotion.
Bullies will use whatever tools they have to belittle, dominate, ridicule or otherwise make the lives of others miserable and one great tool they have is Facebook. From obvious outright attacks to thinly veiled pseudo-anonymous jabs at someone or a group of individuals. I've seen attacks go as far as creating some over-dramatized false account of a situation and encouraging everyone to publicly roast this pseudo-fictional person to creating imagery that supports one side or another to vaguebooking in attempts to stir up their connections of "what's wrong??!" and make it looks like other people drug the information out of them when it was their ultimate goal in the first place. I've tried very hard in the last few months to mitigate my exposure to this behavior. Some individuals I've outright unfriended, others I've removed their commentary from my news feed so I just don't even see it. It seems to circulate around the same people over and over. I'm never going to say I haven't participated or had my moment where my head and emotions haven't felt my Mount Saint Helens about to blow off my top. Feeling and expressing emotions is a healthy behavior, my concern is each generation seems to be less capable of coping with their experiences and emotions in a healthy manner and Facebook just is not a healthy outlet. Several years ago when feeling pent up angst for one reason or another, I used to drive out to my parents property, saddle up my horse and go blazing through the forest and quite literally, ride out my frustrations. My mare was an Arabian and she was always more than willing to do this with me, she loved to run. I gave her away to a family that lives near state land before I moved to North Carolina so today my outlets have to be modified a bit. Go outside, lay in the grass and get mauled my happy licking Ridgebacks, if you don't walk back inside laughing and wiping your face off there's something wrong with you!
As I said before, Facebook is a great way to connect with people you otherwise would not have had the opportunity to meet. I know that many of the people I've personally met in the last almost 4 years, I will be friends with for years to come, some a lifetime. We'll cheer and laugh together though good news and cry together through bad news. Every tool out there can be used for good or evil purposes and social media absolutely falls in both categories. It's the individuals using it for over-frequent shameless self-promotion or for various means of negative impact on others that had me considering completely disabling my account. However, I don't want to miss out on the opportunities to celebrate the successes and commiserate the disappointments to those people I've connected with. I think the solution lies in setting limits. Before you verge into the social media arena you need to decide in advance what you will share, how you'll share it, who you want to share it with and set limits on what you will allow others to do to you and what you will participate in. You can't control others, but you can control how you respond to it.
I finally gave in the day before my birthday in 2008. Hard to believe it's been that long and imaging the amount of time wasted in Facebook at this point just depresses me. I started with a profile, added friends from various parts of my life and soon after created a fan page for the dogs titled, Desta Rhodesian Ridgebacks. Privacy soon became a concern and I stripped the fan page of everything except a few photos and links to reference people to my "dog" profile. It was a huge undertaking to separate things, but now I'm glad I did.
Fast forward to today! I'm sure an entire book could be written about various aspects of Facebook and social media in general. Social media seems to be the norm today; but it doesn't come without a price. It's used and abused in so many complex ways. Companies who refuse to keep up with technology are suddenly finding themselves with missing and diminishing business. 15 years ago, how often did we go online to search for reviews on a product, hotel, business? Today consumers constantly search for online reviews and content about products quite frequently before purchase; there's been a huge shift from word of mouth to online word. But here's the catch 22, we are taking advise and feedback from strangers. Word of mouth comes from people we know and trust it's an interesting shift. Retailers without an online presence are suffering. Several years ago with all the Black Friday hysteria Cyber Monday was dubbed, and now for the last few years along with special Black Friday deals there are now special Cyber Monday deals. The internet isn't going away folks and it will continue to evolve and shape our communities and the way we interact with each other.
I have a variety of friends and personalities that I interact with. I enjoy different viewpoints and love seeing people's hobbies. Being active in the AKC conformation world with my 2 youngest Ridgebacks it's introduced me to many wonderful people, some of whom I never would have met otherwise and been sorry I never had. However it's also introduced me to the complete opposite as well. I realize there will never be a day the entire dog fancy gets along. But I sure think a lot of people could try a lot harder at it!
We all encounter mean nasties and bullies in our lives, the world seems to have no shortage of them; but it's how we respond to them that makes the difference. The peacemakers out there will tell you to turn the other cheek, which I mostly agree with; I believe at some point there is a line you have to decide you will never let them cross. No matter how much someone should contribute to the general getting along, there is absolutely no excuse to abuse someone in any manner, directly or indirectly. My viewpoint is to peacefully stand up for myself. I stay calm, collected, use common sense and a tone of voice that is confident but otherwise devoid of emotion.
Bullies will use whatever tools they have to belittle, dominate, ridicule or otherwise make the lives of others miserable and one great tool they have is Facebook. From obvious outright attacks to thinly veiled pseudo-anonymous jabs at someone or a group of individuals. I've seen attacks go as far as creating some over-dramatized false account of a situation and encouraging everyone to publicly roast this pseudo-fictional person to creating imagery that supports one side or another to vaguebooking in attempts to stir up their connections of "what's wrong??!" and make it looks like other people drug the information out of them when it was their ultimate goal in the first place. I've tried very hard in the last few months to mitigate my exposure to this behavior. Some individuals I've outright unfriended, others I've removed their commentary from my news feed so I just don't even see it. It seems to circulate around the same people over and over. I'm never going to say I haven't participated or had my moment where my head and emotions haven't felt my Mount Saint Helens about to blow off my top. Feeling and expressing emotions is a healthy behavior, my concern is each generation seems to be less capable of coping with their experiences and emotions in a healthy manner and Facebook just is not a healthy outlet. Several years ago when feeling pent up angst for one reason or another, I used to drive out to my parents property, saddle up my horse and go blazing through the forest and quite literally, ride out my frustrations. My mare was an Arabian and she was always more than willing to do this with me, she loved to run. I gave her away to a family that lives near state land before I moved to North Carolina so today my outlets have to be modified a bit. Go outside, lay in the grass and get mauled my happy licking Ridgebacks, if you don't walk back inside laughing and wiping your face off there's something wrong with you!
As I said before, Facebook is a great way to connect with people you otherwise would not have had the opportunity to meet. I know that many of the people I've personally met in the last almost 4 years, I will be friends with for years to come, some a lifetime. We'll cheer and laugh together though good news and cry together through bad news. Every tool out there can be used for good or evil purposes and social media absolutely falls in both categories. It's the individuals using it for over-frequent shameless self-promotion or for various means of negative impact on others that had me considering completely disabling my account. However, I don't want to miss out on the opportunities to celebrate the successes and commiserate the disappointments to those people I've connected with. I think the solution lies in setting limits. Before you verge into the social media arena you need to decide in advance what you will share, how you'll share it, who you want to share it with and set limits on what you will allow others to do to you and what you will participate in. You can't control others, but you can control how you respond to it.
Tuesday, June 19, 2012
An Introduction
Today someone asked me where I saw myself in 10 years. I was at quite an impasse, I certainly didn't see myself where I am today 10 years ago. No - where - even - close. I assumed I'd still be married, raising a couple of children, living the 'American dream'.
10 years ago I was what I perceived to be happily married, though I'd learn later that I was simply blind or ignorant of the warning signs that things were about to implode on my tender life. I had a wonderful 18 month old Rhodesian Ridgeback named Tuvok who was such a delight, I lost him a month ago, a hurt that still makes my heart ache to this very moment. We were fortunate enough to live 2 doors away from his litter brother Nytro and the boys played at regular intervals alternating yards.
Those who are over 30 know it's a huge understatement to say that you change a lot between 20 to 30 years old. I got married just before I turned 23 and was divorced soon after I turned 26. Looking back at those ages and the experiences I went through almost takes my breath away. At the time I felt like I was an adult and that I could handle the pressures of adulthood, today, I realize what a child I still was. My sister is 27 and I just can't imagine her having gone through all of that already in her life, it simply boggles my mind.
I will never regret the experiences of my tender youth, because I wouldn't be who I am today without having gone through such a tremendous amount of pain during that time. I know there are still hard times to come and there have been some since, but I go through them differently now because I've already been to Hell and back and I know I can survive it.
But despite the devastation of my 20's I realized many years ago that they are experiences and that they in no way define who I am. Time and again I hear women introduce themselves by their experiences; "I'm a divorced mother of 3", "I'm a single business woman", "I'm a college student", etc. Well, I'm Andrea Williams. What you see is what you get. I'm kind, generous, intelligent, capable and if you wrong the ones I love you will meet a creature of such fierce vengeance you will wish you'd never crossed my path.
10 years ago I was what I perceived to be happily married, though I'd learn later that I was simply blind or ignorant of the warning signs that things were about to implode on my tender life. I had a wonderful 18 month old Rhodesian Ridgeback named Tuvok who was such a delight, I lost him a month ago, a hurt that still makes my heart ache to this very moment. We were fortunate enough to live 2 doors away from his litter brother Nytro and the boys played at regular intervals alternating yards.
Those who are over 30 know it's a huge understatement to say that you change a lot between 20 to 30 years old. I got married just before I turned 23 and was divorced soon after I turned 26. Looking back at those ages and the experiences I went through almost takes my breath away. At the time I felt like I was an adult and that I could handle the pressures of adulthood, today, I realize what a child I still was. My sister is 27 and I just can't imagine her having gone through all of that already in her life, it simply boggles my mind.
I will never regret the experiences of my tender youth, because I wouldn't be who I am today without having gone through such a tremendous amount of pain during that time. I know there are still hard times to come and there have been some since, but I go through them differently now because I've already been to Hell and back and I know I can survive it.
But despite the devastation of my 20's I realized many years ago that they are experiences and that they in no way define who I am. Time and again I hear women introduce themselves by their experiences; "I'm a divorced mother of 3", "I'm a single business woman", "I'm a college student", etc. Well, I'm Andrea Williams. What you see is what you get. I'm kind, generous, intelligent, capable and if you wrong the ones I love you will meet a creature of such fierce vengeance you will wish you'd never crossed my path.
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