Of Piercings and Magnets by Konnie Enos

Not too long ago I saw something online about ear piercings closing, even after decades of wearing them, if the earrings were out for more than a few hours.

There were multiple reasons given including reacting to the metal used or the method of piercing. Apparently, there is a difference between the piercing equipment used in most places that pierce ears and tattoo parlors. For whatever reason, the equipment tattoo parlors use is more effective at making permanent holes. Another option was really good at healing.

The reason this caught my attention is because I have always had issues with my piercings closing over if I didn’t keep my earrings in other than cleaning and changing them.

I couldn’t tell you why as all the reasons given could fit.

I have never been to a tattoo parlor.

I am hypersensitive to some things, and I’ve always had to use hypoallergenic earrings, even then my ears can get irritated now and again.

Since they can close within a couple of weeks, it could be really good healing.

I originally got my ears pierced as a young adult. I’d thought about it for years but had never gone through with it until after I’d spent a year at college and a clueless roommate gifted me a set of earrings without noticing I didn’t have pierced ears. By the time I went through with it, I’d lost those tiny earrings.

After I married and became pregnant with my first daughter, hubby and I were discussing weather or not to pierce the ears of our daughters. He was opposed to ever doing it. I pointed out that I had pierced ears so we could not tell them no period. We compromised with having them wait until they were old enough to take care of them themselves.

Sometime after this I went through an extended period where I didn’t wear my earrings only to discover that my holes closed and I could no longer wear them. I eventually had my ears re-pierced. That event would have been over three decades ago.

For the last few years, I’ve noticed that getting my earrings back on after cleanings was not easy, mostly because I could never find the holes, but also because I found it difficult to get those tiny backs in the correct position. I began relying on my daughter to put them back in.

Then this year, I started having difficulty even getting them off. No matter how hard I tried, I could not get the backs off. So, whenever I needed to clean my ears I needed my daughter’s help to get them off, clean them thoroughly, then put them back.

Finally, a few months ago, I began having issues with just wearing my earrings. My lobes just always hurt but cleaning them yet again did not help. What did help was leaving them out for a while. I got in the habit of leaving them off for a few days at a time.

The issue could be me reacting to the metal, or it could be my headphones because I had the most issues when I was wearing them, which I do most days.

Because of my schedule, I was at least wearing them on weekends.

Than two and half weeks ago I took them out, but for one reason or another I did not go anywhere, not even to church, and did not put them back in.

Yes, one hole is already completely closed and the other is almost so.

I went to church this last Sunday without earrings.

Now, of course, I was already tired of wearing earrings all the time between my headphones hitting them, and needing so much help from my daughter just to wear them it was no longer appealing to me. I started researching options that did not include the sometimes painful clip-ons of my younger years.

In the process of looking for options, I found something amazing. Magnetic earrings.

Several years ago, because of similar issues with needing my daughter’s help to wear any of my necklaces, I either added extensions to my chains so that I could slip them over my head, and/or I added magnetic closures to them.  I can now deal with my necklaces on my own.

So, after thought and investigation, I got me some magnetic earrings.

They are easy to put on, and just as easy to remove. While I can feel them, they don’t pinch as much as the old clip-ons did.

The one drawback is the selection of magnetic earrings does not seem to be as complete as that of clip-on earrings. And admittedly clip-ons do not have the selection and variety that pierced earrings do. But at least they are available.

Smile. Make the day a brighter day.

 

My Pet Peeve by Bonnie Le Hamilton

Pardon me while I go on a little rant.

This is absolutely my major pet peeve.

The other day, while scrolling through social media, I came across an ad for a TV series or a movie (so purportedly a professional job) where they said it was about “two twins.”

Now first, let me point out that a good writer should write concisely, or in other words, they are expected to convey their message with as few words as possible, and most decidedly are not supposed to use two or more words together that mean the same thing.

This is redundant, and something to be avoided.

One would think that professionals would know this. I, myself, took a college course entitled “Concise Business Writing” which was on this very subject. Though I have to admit, I was better adept at being concise than my classmates were as evidenced in the incident I have previously mentioned about being assigned to reduce a four paragraph quote from Howard Cosell to as few words as possible and I managed to accomplish the feat alone while none of my classmates, who all teamed up to do the task managed it.

Let me reiterate that I condensed that massive quote to just four words. Cosell was known for being bit wordy, and most certainly is someone writers are encouraged not to emulate today.

(For you youths who are too young to remember or know who Cosell was, and what he was like, a good example of him is an old Disney movie from 1973 titled "The World’s Greatest Athlete.” A really good movie and Cosell plays himself.)

Point two, the word “twin” shares a root word with “twain” and both mean “two,” which is to say that anyone saying, “two twins” is actually saying "two two.”

Yeah, that doesn't make any sense.

However, I find this phrase so annoying, not so much because it is redundant, but well, I am a twin. As such, I know what twin means, and yeah, that is just plain senseless to me and most irritating when I find people who are supposed to be professionals using this phrase.

And the most disconcerting thing is this isn’t the first time I’ve come across this exasperating phrase in a published work.

I previously found this phrase in a book blurb about twin girls, now this was about twin boys.

How can any self-respecting editor allow this error to get past them? Or are they so uneducated that they don’t know that “twin” literally means “two?”

I certainly can’t imagine that I am better versed on what the word means simply because I am one, so I can’t see how any other adult in this world doesn’t know this fact.

It is such simple word.

Then again, I have heard people say things like “three triplets, or four quads,” which is exactly the same as “two twins!”

Yeah, I do get that saying, “two twins” is fewer words than saying “a set of twins,” but why can’t they just say, “twins” or, in this case, “twin boys, or twin brothers?” In this way, they would not have committed the faux pas of redundancy and still gotten their message across.

And, after all, the job of a writer is to get their message across and concisely and eloquently as possible. Excessive wordiness is not concise or eloquent, and frankly, in this case, asinine.

Can it possibly be that the editors in these published cases are so ignorant they simply don’t know the meaning of the word twin? I mean I knew the meaning of the word before I even entered school, and I’d honestly have assumed everyone by adulthood would know the meaning, but maybe I am better informed because I am one.

Except I can’t imagine any scenario where no one would be aware of the fact that twins means two! I mean it is in reference to a couple of people born at the same time to the same mother! How could anyone not know it means two? Just how?

So, let’s make this clear, twins means two, triplets means three, quadruplets mean four, and quintuplets means five, etc. Please refrain from using the corresponding number with these words!

Though now that I’ve seen this mistake get past more than one editor, I find myself wondering what will happen when Konnie or I publish one of our novels, which features twins, and have an editor insist we should write “two twins.”

I mean, we are twins, we know what it means, so you won’t find it in any of our manuscripts, period.

And now I have gone on too long about something that should never happen but unfortunately does. Here’s hoping more people have now learned better.

Happy writing everyone!

Of Rushed Mornings, and Small Miracles by Konnie Enos

A few days ago, I was sitting on my bed trying to get a few necessary things done, like dispensing pills for the week for both my husband and me. Knowing we had someplace to be at noon, checked the time.

11:02

Not good.

I’m still in my pajamas. I haven’t taken my blood sugar or eaten breakfast or taken my pills. Part of this is because I forgot about dispensing pills until my husband reminded me. It was after 10 when he did that.

I can get dressed in a matter of minutes, but taking my blood sugar and getting breakfast so I can take my pills is going to take far more time than we have. Not because of the meeting we have to get to, which is about a 15-minute drive away, but because we have to take a slight detour to pick up a friend which can add as much as 15 minutes to the drive. A good chunk of that waiting for him to get in the car.

To make sure traffic doesn’t overly delay us, we leave about a quarter after eleven. So obviously, I have less than 15-minutes to get about 45-minutes of stuff done.

The first thing I needed was a trip to the bathroom. It was while I was in there that I realized the fastest way to get out the door would be for me to get dressed immediately, take my blood sugar, then get a quick bite of something so I could swallow my pills while I threw some more snack/convenience food into my purse that I could eat while in the car (as a passenger).

Husband and I were flying out the door at precisely 11:15.

He is impressed with how fast I could get ready, and I’m reminded of a former roommate who could not get on with her day without doing ALL three hours of her daily routine. It didn’t matter if we slept in, It didn’t matter if we were missing an appointment because of her tardiness. All that mattered to her was all three hours to bath, dress, do her hair and make-up and read her scriptures. I told him I learned how to cut out the unnecessary stuff when I didn’t have enough time for it all.

Then we got to friends house. Dear hubby can’t find his phone so gets out to let friend know we are there. He finds his phone while he is getting back into he car. Then we wait for our friend to get in the car. Once he is buckled in, we are on our way again.

Somehow we hit all the lights just right that we are at our destination and parked almost exactly half an hour after we left the house. So, early by some miracle.

It does not bother me in the least.

While sitting and waiting for things to start, a friend comes up to me and asks if I would be willing to give a ride home to a lady who had to live closer to me than she did. (It would have been completely out of her way to take the lady home.)

We googled the address. This lady and I live near the exact same major cross streets. So, kind of around the corner from me. Even taking our other friend home, it would not be an imposition, or out of our even very far out of our way, to take her as well.

Our friend left halfway through, which he does quite often so, not the least bit surprising.

After the meeting, we drive this lady home, and I know the address and the general area, but assume it’s an apartment complex and that she’d have to give us some directions when we got to it.

I assume this nice lady is close to our age, but I start to reassess that assumption when she mentions her grandson, adult grandson, living with her. Said grandson is about the same age as my two boys.

Then we get to the last corner on the street where she lived. As hubby turned the corner, and before I could ask her for further directions, I discovered it was right there on the corner, including the building number in extra-large hard to miss numbers right on the front. It appears this nice lady is living in senior assisted living.

Okay, so older than I thought.

Then she freely tells us her age, which is about three years older than us. THREE!

My kids were absolutely not kidding when they said they had classmates with grandparents about our age. And yes, I did know it was completely possible because we’ve got cousins who are near our age who have adult grandkids.

Smile. Make the day a brighter day.

 

News on the Homefront by Bonnie Le Hamilton

 

There isn’t much to write about this week. The most dramatic thing that has happened to me in the last month is needing to change my Wi-Fi carrier. I’d been having connection issues for quite some time, and at first my old carrier said it was my router. They insisted I needed to replace it.

I did, but that didn’t fix my issues.

Then things got worse and finally I had to call my old carrier to let them know I had no service at all.

This time, they diagnosed an issue they’d have to come out to fix. The only problem is that once their technician finished and insisted, they had fixed the issue – I still didn’t have coverage.

They suggested I go to a certain website to determine what the issue was.

How? I had no Wi-Fi service and due to data limitations on my cell phone, getting any website to open was impossible! And as hard as I tried, they just kept insisting I go to the website to fix my issues.

I wasn’t sure how I could fix the situation since money is tight for me.

Then I received word that I’d finally paid off one of my bills, giving me wiggle room in my budget. I arranged for a different service provider to install their equipment at my place and called my old provider to ask them to cancel my service.

Now typically, providers tend to try hard to retain customers, but the lady I spoke to didn’t even ask if there was anything they could do to fix the reason I was cancelling the service. I was surprised but it felt as if they were glad to get rid of me.

I could be imagining things. However, the deal I had with them to keep my costs down was only good for as long as I had the service. I get the feeling they no longer wanted to provide their service at that low cost.

It just seems weird that they didn’t even attempt to get me into a higher cost program.

But anyway, now I no longer have any wiggle room in my budget as my new carrier is more expensive, though I now have faster speeds than I remember having in a long time.

And, of course, Konnie is happy about this because I am now able to post without any issues.

I should point out that my last post went up simply because I went over to my sister-in-law’s place to use her Wi-Fi to get my post up. Which was a production in and of itself because my car is still not working, meaning I had to find a ride to go over to her place as well as ask her if I could visit for that purpose.

I guess I should be thankful one of cousins not too long ago returned to town, though at first, I didn’t ask him for rides because he is one family member who smokes, and I knew full well I wouldn’t be able to handle riding in his vehicle if he did.

Things changed when he let me know he never smokes inside his vehicle. He also shares my opinion that family helps family.

When I did have a working car, I was giving my sister-in-law rides to her appointments and for shopping, now my cousin is usually the one doing that for me.

I say usually because he does have a life. Just this week I had to ask my neighbor for a ride because he had a doctor’s appointment. Not a hard thing to do, my neighbor is always willing to give me rides too, it’s just for shopping, his vehicle is larger.

To say the least, getting that much shopping into her tiny car was interesting, especially since her entire passenger side is smashed in and inaccessible through that side and her trunk is so small it barely had room for my walker. That was oh so fun!

It was even more fun when her son called and requested, she not forget to stop by pharmacy to pick his prescription up.

Luckily, they use the pharmacy I use, and quick look at my text messages told me I had a prescription waiting too. We didn’t forget one.

Actually, I have been incredibly lucky on that front because my cousin uses the same pharmacy too and we’ve more than once picked up both our prescriptions at the same time.

I have also, finally, managed to save up hopefully enough to get the parts needed to fix my car and have arranged help between my retired mechanic cousin and a friend who is currently studying auto mechanics, to get my car fixed.

I might even have it fixed by my birthday!

Anyway, happy writing everyone.