Easystand Blog/Shopping Experience

Hi everyone.

In past posts I have talked about standing in my new Easystand Evolv standing frame. I found out recently that Easystand has a blog. It is very informative and interesting. They also have personal stories of others using their Easystand stander. I was interested in sharing my story with others so I e-mailed someone who could help me get a post on the Easystand blog. Through e-mail, I was able to send my post over to her and I just found out that she put it on their blog earlier today. If you would like to see my personal story titled, "The Air is Better up Here-Jenni's Standing Story" click here.

I went shopping today. I just felt like I needed to get out of the house. Why I chose to go to the mall I don't know. I always get exhausted from being at the mall with all those people who can never make up their minds on what to buy and just stand there looking lost. I'm claustrophobic; it comes with the territory. When I'm in situations where I can't just get up and walk around those people or all of the clothing racks packed tightly together, it makes me feel claustrophobic and a little frustrated. However, today wasn't as bad as when I went four days before Christmas.
On my shopping spree, I bought two pairs of pants, some more of that underwear from Victoria's Secret that I got for Christmas and love so much, and a journal. I know what you're thinking, "why would she buy a journal if she isn't able to write?" I thought the same thing when I was buying it. My idea was to type up all of my quotes and poems and paste them in the journal. That way I will have a keepsake of them all in one place, voice typed by me. Or I guess I could just have someone else write them in there but that's not the same.

Jenni

The Seed

The seed cannot know what is going to happen; the seed has never known the flower. And the seed cannot even believe that he has the potentiality to become a beautiful flower. Long is the journey, and it is always safer not to go on that journey because unknown is the path, nothing is guaranteed.

Nothing can be guaranteed. Thousand and one are the hazards of the journey, many are the pitfalls - and the seed is secure, hidden inside a hard core. But the seed tries, it makes an effort; it drops the hard shell which is its security, it starts moving. Immediately the fight starts: the struggle with the soil, with the stones, with the rocks. And the seed was very hard and the sprout will be very, very soft and dangers will be many.

There was no danger for the seed, the seed could have survived for millennia, but for the sprout many are the dangers. But the sprout starts towards the unknown, towards the sun, towards the source of light, not knowing where, not knowing why. Great is the cross to be carried, but a dream possesses the seed and the seed moves.
-Osho (Chandra Mohan Jain)

I think we should all be a little bit more like a seed.

Jenni

Fun Day

Hi everyone.

We went to the Science Museum of Minnesota today and did the interactive special exhibition CSI: The Experience. It is made up of three separate crime scenes, although you only get to do one per time. When we went through, we first spent five minutes at a crime scene collecting evidence. Then we went into the crime lab and they had all the evidence laid out at different sections. We pieced together the crime until we finally solved it and figured out who was the murderer.

The exhibition is based off of the hit show CSI. With 67 million viewers a week, I guess they thought they ought to build something that people can interact with and solve crimes as well. They actually had the characters from CSI on video throughout the exhibition. It was really fun and I would definitely go again, minus all the people.

I forgot how much fun the Science Museum actually is. Next time I go there I'm going to go to the Omni theater and see either Mysteries of the Great Lakes or Grand Canyon Adventure (which one I will see will depend on when I go). Or maybe I will go twice and see both of them.

Jenni

New Series!

I wanted to let everyone know that I'm going to be starting a new series of posts called: Life As a Quad. I will probably do one post a week about what it is like to be a quadriplegic. It will contain information about quads, my feelings and progress, videos and pictures, and detailed information about what I go through in my day-to-day life. If anyone has any questions during this series of posts, feel free to comment and post your question and I will try to answer it either in the comments area or my next post in the series. I'm not sure how many posts I will do to make up the series, but I promise it will be enough so that people will have a better understanding of what it's like to be me.

Jenni

Christmas in the Home

Merry Christmas everyone!

We had some family over for a Christmas Eve dinner last night. We are also having other family over today in a little bit. We already exchanged gifts this morning. I usually ask for things that I need, not want. This year I received new toothbrush heads for my electric toothbrush and new underwear (sorry if that's too personal for some people, but I don't mind sharing it). I also got a hat and scarf and some gift certificates from various people.

The last couple of Christmases, I've kind of been bah humbug about the whole thing. Not because I don't like Christmas, but because I don't like what it has become. I have learned over the years what Christmas is and is not about. It's not about how many gifts you give or receive. It's not about trying to top last year's gift. It's not about the decorations and the flashy wrapping paper. It's not about Santa Claus and his reindeer landing on the top of the house, him coming down the chimney in the middle of the night, eating the cookies left out, and leaving loads of presents behind. I know it is fun to receive and give and decorate and wrap and believe in magic. But it's about the real meaning of Christmas. It's about family and getting together and celebrating the birth of Jesus. It's about the love and passion and the praise that we give and receive on this one day. It has a special meaning to everyone and I think more people need to find their meaning. For those of you who celebrate Christmas, I hope this year you all can find the true meaning of Christmas in your hearts.

Jenni

Grades Online

My teacher finally finished putting in all of our points online that we got in class which means I now know my final grade. For points, I got 185/122 and my percentage is 83.33% which is a B! I got 45/60 on my final test (75%), which is extremely good compared to what I thought I got and better than the average percentage of the class which was 57%.

Jenni

Standing Again

Today I stood for the first time since the week before my recent surgery on December 2. Everything has finally healed and I was able to stand for 28 minutes (14 at 70° and 14 at 90°). Normally, when a person stands after not standing for a while, their blood pressure will usually drop and they will not be able to stand for very long. That's exactly what I thought would've happened to me. I went in the stander expecting the worst and got out feeling great.

My normal blood pressure is usually around 100/60. The lowest my blood pressure got today was 68/43. That is extremely good for me considering my lowest so far in the stander was unreadable (yes, I did almost pass out). The lowest readable blood pressure was 44/31. That's when my eyes start to go black. Probably not a good thing. I am very excited to be standing again. I hope my blood pressure stays where it's supposed to.

Jenni

"The present is the ever moving shadow that divides yesterday from tomorrow. In that lies hope."
-Frank Lloyd Wright

Temperature Too Low for Me

Yesterday it was 5° outside and I went Christmas shopping at the mall. Today the high is 6° and I decided not to leave the house because of it. It's a bit cold out for me. I know I have been talking a lot about the weather lately, but if you think your city is cold, you haven't been to Oymyakon. This village is considered the coldest town on earth. Here is a quote taken from this website about Oymyakon:

"The village has a population of around 800 and is located 690 meters above sea level and lies in a valley between two mountain ranges (the reason for the low temperatures). The name Oymyakon means "non-freezing water" because of the natural hot spring close to the village.

The temperature this week is pretty low and the temperature tomorrow is a chilly -63C which based on the stats at Wikipedia equals the record low for December."

I recommend watching the video below. These people are crazy to live in such frigid conditions. Now I don't think Minnesota is all that cold.



Jenni

Snowfall in Minnesota

Here is a picture of my backyard at this time. We are experiencing a lot of snow in Minnesota. You can't exactly see the snow with the still photograph, but it's been coming down all morning. I think it's finally starting to slow down. Although, it's probably going to snow more later. This picture makes me question why I live here. I'm not a big fan of the cold, however, I think the snow is a wonderful site. Minnesota is one of the only states where you can get all four seasons in one day. I was going to go out today, but looking at the weather I decided not to.

We live on 1 acre and most of it is wooded area. Our property backs up to a reserve/park, which is nice because then we know that no one will build behind us. We also have a marsh to the left of this picture. Right before this picture was taken, I saw some people snowboarding down the hill in the background. Crazy I know. There is a path at the top of the hill that I go down when it's nice out. Hope you enjoyed seeing the outdoors from my point of view.

Jenni

What is Life?

WHAT IS LIFE?
Life is an Adventure ... Dare it
Life is a Beauty ... Praise it
Life is a Challenge ... Meet it
Life is a Duty ... Perform it
Life is a Love ... Enjoy it
Life is a Tragedy ... Face it
Life is a Struggle ... Fight it
Life is a Promise ... Fulfill it
Life is a Game ... Play it
Life is a Gift ... Accept it
Life is a Journey ... Complete it
Life is a Mystery ... Unfold it
Life is a Goal ... Achieve it
Life is an Opportunity ... Take it
Life is a Puzzle ... Solve it
Life is a Song ... Sing it
Life is a Sorrow ... Overcome it
Life is a Spirit ... Realize it
-Anonymous

Jenni