In my quest for being healthy I'm always looking around for the latest news on items that will be beneficial for me. My blood pressure has been the bane of my existence. One of my first blog entries was a boring but important entry tracking my blood pressure readings. High blood pressure has been something that's plagued me since as far back as 2005 and I'm sure much earlier.
I remember going to the ER because of it a couple of times. I remember feeling faint like I was going to pass out. But somehow over the years I've dodged being prescribed blood pressure medication. Both of my parents had been taking blood pressure medication for more than half of their lives.
I've tried so many different things for it with marginal results. Apple cider vinegar, grape seed extract, l-citrulline, ubiquinol, miracle greens, magnesium, cucumbers, watermelons, hibiscus, green tea, garlic, and onion among other things. But there hasn't been that magic elixir.
So I was checking out Dr. Bobby Price's latest video where he was singing the praises of okra water. I do like okras so I was definitely intrigued by what was being said. The heart of okra water is the mucilage which is a mucus like substance that the okra secretes. That mucilage is said to have many health benefits. These include improved digestion, reduced blood sugar, reducing inflammation, boosting energy, immunity, promoting weight loss, and flushing kidneys.
Hearing about all those benefits made me curious to try it. I decided to check other videos which touted a lot of the same information. So I decided to buy some okra this past weekend.
The benefits of blood sugar is particularly something that could benefit Dom since he has type 2 diabetes. Dom is old school though and isn't one that looks for alternatives. So I knew he would not be open to trying it. Whenever I try something unorthodox, he always says "why do you hate your body so much"...LOL.
So I prepared the okra water as instructed the evening before. By early morning the water became an icky mucus like substance similar to the videos. I slowly drank the water and I will say I felt full after drinking it. I'm not sure I felt any more energetic than normal. I actually felt a little more constipated so not sure it really helped me with digestion. I noticed my poop became light green as well (almost the color of okra itself).
I drank it for two more days and then as I was doing more research, I found a side effect of drinking okra water that stopped me in my tracks. One of the side effects is that it could cause kidney stones. This is because the mucilage is high in oxalates. Folks that have had kidney stones (like me) are highly at risk for developing them.
I guess everything has it pros and cons. But I don't want to do anything that could cause kidney stones. Those are no fun to deal with. Consequently yesterday evening I was feeling the urge to pee a lot with hardly anything coming out. That of course got me freaked out that I may have blockage already. I guess I need to drink some more barley water...LOL.
So it's back to the drawing board. The one positive is that my going to the office 3 days a week gets me a little more exercise. My numbers still aren't where I want them to be though. The quest continues.
Tax time has creeped in again. With the way the Orange administration has been wrecking havoc on the Federal government, it's a wonder we still have a tax system. Dom decided to do his taxes in early February in case Orange did something to mess up refunds. He also already had that money spent on his favorite hobby. I managed to finish my taxes in early March. My refunds are not nearly as high as they used to be when I lived in Illinois. Then again my property taxes are not as high as they were when I lived in Illinois. Unfortunately though property taxes in Indiana have been steadily creeping up since I moved here. I need to think about opening a separate saving account to deposit enough money to pay the property taxes once I finish paying off the mortgage.
So far I'm still on track to have the mortgage paid off by June or July of 2026. I'm definitely excited about that one. I'm peeved because the oral surgeon that I'm having my wisdom teeth removed requires me to pay the entire balance of the surgery which will run me $2100. Apparently I will get it back from the insurance in two weeks (they claim). It's such a racket that the surgeon gets their money and I'm the one that has to deal with the insurance. Luckily I am also getting a bonus from work this week that should cover the $2100 I have to pay up front. I just need to notify my credit card of the upcoming charge so they don't put a freeze on my card.
My original plan was to use the bonus as an extra payment for the mortgage but I'll need to wait till I get the money back from the insurance company to put it towards the mortgage. I should have some more of the bonus available, it may come out to around $4000 (apparently the company had a great year). So I can still put the remaining amount towards it.
My surgery is scheduled for Cinco De Mayo. As I mentioned the oral surgeon is a lady and her staff are all women as well. There's nothing wrong with that of course. But they couldn't hire a guy or two...LOL.
I'm nervous about the procedure but I know it needs to be done. I probably should've taken the other two out when I did the first two. I just never got around to it. Of course the oral surgeon was already trying to sell other products to me. I was thinking I'll be damned if I get anything else since I have to pay for that upfront too. I'm annoyed that my dentist chose this oral surgeon but she seems to know her stuff so I'll have to put faith that it'll all work out.
I pray that everything goes well with the surgery. Dom will be taking the day off school to take me to the surgery. I'll be knocked out during the procedure (I don't remember if I was knocked out when I had my first wisdom teeth removed). But I already put in my time off for work and decided just to be safe to take the whole week. They mention limiting your physical activity that first week.
In other news a member of my current Church family received some bad news today healthwise. He was on a journey to ditching his CPAP machine for good and was in the final stretch of confirming that he could use Inspire as a mask-free solution. He had to lose more than 20 pounds to be eligible and along the way had to deal with health issues. He lost the weight and was in the doctor's office taking a test to see if he would be able to tolerate the device. While they did a CT scan on his throat, they found a 6mm mass on one of his lungs. He will have another CT scan on Thursday on his lungs. I feel so bad for him and pray that he doesn't get dire news.
Mitch has also been on my mind lately. He's reached a new milestone. He officially has less than 3 years left in his prison term. I've been meaning to write to him but have been so busy with life. I'm hoping that he's hanging in there. He's made a few strides in preparation for life outside of prison. By the time he gets out, he'll be 65 years old. He was able to find a new home that his children will be living in while he does his remaining time. He pretty much will be at retirement age but he may look to do some part-time work.
Whenever I complain about my lot in life, I always find myself reminding myself that at least I do have freedom. I pray that Orange and his cronies don't take that away from us. It truly is a scary world out there. I shudder to think where this country will be not just in four years but even another month from now.
When I think of home, I think of a place Where's there's love overflowing I wish I was home, I wish I was back there With the things I've been knowing Wind that makes the tall grass bend into leaning Suddenly the raindrops that fall, they have a meaning Sprinkling the scene Makes it all clean
Verse 2 (When I think of home) Maybe there's a chance for me to go back Now that I have some direction (Maybe there's a chance I'll get home) It sure would be nice to be back at home Where there's love and affection And just maybe I can convince time to slow up Giving me enough time, ooh, in my life to grow up Time be my friend And let me start again
Verse 3
Suddenly my world's gone and changed its fate But I still know where I'm going I have had my mind spun around in space And watched it growing And oh, if you're listening, God, please don't make it hard To know if we should believe the things that we see Tell us should we try and stay or should we run away? (Should we run away?) Or will it be better just to let things, let them be, oh Living here in this brand new world might be a fantasy But it's taught me to love, oh yeah So it's real, it's so real, it's real to me And I've learned that we must look inside our hearts to find A world full of love like yours, like mine
Outro Like home Like, like home (When I think of home) My friends smiling down on me Giving me their energy, oh (When I think of home) I think of a peaceful world and joy all around me, yeah (When I think of home) And love that we share can never, never, ever be taken away from me, yeah, yeah, yeah (When I think of home) I just sit down and think And gets on down in my bone, bone, yeah (When I think of home) I can hear my friends telling me "Stephanie, please sing my song" I wanna sing, I wanna shout I wanna tell you what it's all about, yeah (When I think of home) Yeah, yeah, yeah
For better or worse I think of the place in Detroit where I grew up as home. The story of my childhood home began when my Dad immigrated to the United States in 1957. He lived with the man I knew primarily as "Uncle" in that home. Home was a duplex with two three-bedroom units downstairs and two three-bedroom units upstairs. I believe our home was built in the 1870s.
Uncle at the time owned the house and was a landlord renting each of the bedrooms in the house to different patrons. My Dad would end up renting the room that at first would later be my first bedroom as a small child and later Trina's bedroom when Tasha wanted independence from sharing a room.
My Dad would say how he got his first job and would save money so that he could paint his bedroom. He spoke with pride how he got his own Encyclopedia set. Papa said Uncle had an Encyclopedia set but became upset if my Dad held on to a specific volume too long. That was when he decided to get his own set that he stored in his room. All of my Dad's possessions were in that room.
I'm a little hazy on the history but at some point my Dad moved out of our home and was living in another home with my "Grandma" in a place that was nicknamed Mt. Elliot. There may have been other people living there as well. That part was not clear. I'm guessing it may have been around the time he got his job working at a Sherwin Williams plant. That job would be a blessing and a curse for Papa.
My Dad with his new wife, my Mom, would come back in 1976 to live in our childhood home once again. Uncle by then was no longer a landlord and was in his last years of living. The story was that Papa purchased the duplex for $6000 from Uncle. With the way home prices are today, it's crazy to think homes used to be that cheap.
One of the few early memories I had as a small child was running with Tasha around the side of the house. I believe both of us may have been excited by the extra space and we did what kids do. My grandma (who was really my Dad's first cousin) would end up living in one of the upstairs units with her husband who I don't have any memories of since he died when I was 6.
Growing up in our childhood home had it's good and bad times like any home. Since it was just the six of us living in the home (Trina would come along two years later in 1978), we all had free range to venture anywhere in the house.
As I mentioned my early years I had the bedroom that Papa used to stay in. I later ended up moving to another bedroom in the back unit of the duplex. I would wind up being by myself in that back area though we all used that space to live in as well and it was the path we took to go into the backyard and then the garage.
We had questionable neighbors that lived around us. Our next door neighbor to our left also had a similar style duplex that was owned by a man I knew as Mr. Wick (changed the last name slightly for privacy purposes...LOL). Mr. Wick also rented out parts of his home as well and some of those patrons were questionable. There was a harmless guy named Hobo who spent his days sitting in the front porch just randomly laughing to himself and drinking alcohol. He clearly had mental issues. He was harmless though compared to Mr Wick's nephew Streek.
Streek was evil incarnate. He along with his cronies broke into our home sometime in 1981 when we were at church one Sunday. We returned home to find the front door wide open and chaos everywhere inside. I remember feeling violated after the fact and I know it upset the rest of the family. After that happened Papa hired a company to install bars on all the lower level windows. It was the beginning of the end for the neighborhood as a whole.
Streek wound up going to jail after numerous other break-ins and spent close to a decade in prison (though I don't know the exact timeframe). He was released from prison in the early 1990s sometime. His next foray was selling drugs on the block. We would be witness to random shootings that would happen between rival gangs.
It seemed the police was in on the drug drama as nothing would be done to get rid of the bad element. Sometime in 1997 there was a shootout on the block with Streek ending up being shot to death right in front of our home.
I had moved out in August 1995 and had just moved to Chicago from living in Washington D.C. for a new job. I remember Mama calling me to give the news and how it traumatized them. I felt so bad for them.
A new gang took over the drug trade after Streek was killed and the neighborhood continued its decline. They even went so far as to loiter in front of our house and hiding drugs under our welcome mat. Many of the neighbors moved out and my parents ended up being one of the last remaining residents until another shooting this time specifically targeted at our house happened in 2013.
For years my sisters and I implored Mama and Papa to move and find somewhere safer to live. My Dad decided to find a place on his own. It was a two bedroom apartment in a senior citizen apartment.
Despite the issues with the neighborhood, it did serve as our home and we had many memories there. For example, I smile as I recall how I used Papa's encyclopedia to do various book reports (even though the data was outdated seeing that the set was from 1960...*LOL*). Various extended family members visited us over the years as well. We had many family dinners in the kitchen and dining room. We celebrated birthdays, holidays, and other life celebrations as well.
Since my parents moved away, the home became abandoned and was destroyed by both human and nature. Papa still paid the taxes on it for a few years but decided he didn't want to deal with that anymore and gave the home to Tasha. Tasha was not able to pay the taxes on it and the home eventually was taken back by the city. Before that happened she tried putting it on the market but there were no takers.
The thing about home ownership that trips me is that even if you pay off the house (which Papa did when he bought it in 1976 for $6000), you truly do not own it free and clear. You can still lose the home if you don't pay property taxes on it. It's even worse when you live in a condo with association fees (like I did for 16 years). If you continue to pay the mortgage and do not pay the association, the association has the right to take the home away from you. That seems so unfair.
So the house was on my mind and I decided to check out Zillow to see what they have listed for it. I was on the train on my way to work last week when I did this. I was surprised to see that the home was no longer standing and now it's a vacant lot. Ironically Mr. Wick's long abandoned duplex is still standing. The lot currently is on sale for $25,000.
It feels surreal seeing that the home I once grew up in through thick and thin is no longer standing. I don't recall Tasha or Trina mentioning that it was torn down. Then again they may not know either. But it truly is an end of an era. Next time I'm in Detroit, I may do a quick drive-by to check the area (if it's safe).
So one of the things my job has been pushing for the last year or so is for our team to pick up on their AI skills. We've been required to take a lot of training so we could keep abreast for any issues customers may be experiencing. I saw the writing on the proverbial wall during my company's quarterly all-hands meeting in April 2023 when the predominant topic was all about embracing Artificial Intelligence in our day-to-day lives. I studied to obtain Salesforce's AI Associate certification and was able to achieve it in September 2023.
When I got that cert, I was ahead of the game with our team being one of the first to obtain it. Almost a year later, they required everyone of the team to have the AI Associate cert. In addition they wanted us to get the next level cert of AI Specialist which is having a name change to be Agentforce Specialist in conjunction to Salesforce's rebranding of Einstein GPT. They required both AI Associate and AI Specialist by the end of 2024. I studied to obtain the AI Specialist and was able to achieve it in November 2024.
Now there's a push to have our team get the current highest level AI Salesforce cert of Data Cloud Consultant. I'm scheduled to take my first attempt at this cert on 03/22. To top it off I'm taking some additional training on learning about Email Deliverability troubleshooting and I still have to handle existing cases and probably still assist in other engineer issues.
It does seem like there's a lot left for me to learn as I continue through what I call my 2nd and final act in my working career. I wish I could just lay low and collect my check. But if I want to keep my job, I need to stay open to learning more and more. Even that of course is no guarantee that I won't be laid off from my current role down the line.
It is interesting reading up on the history of AI which has its earliest mention in the 1940's. It started with the creation of the first digital computer which of course was a humongous machine. There was a workshop at Dartmouth College in 1956 where the future leaders in the research of AI were in attendance. But it seemed the next couple decades proved to be a challenge in any advancements from the U.S.
The Japanese took the lead in AI advancement in the 70's which reinvigorated the U.S. Investment in AI hit the billion dollar mark by the 80's. Investment continued to boom and one of the first real cumulations of it came in the form of ChatGPT in 2020.
I've actually used ChatGPT to research various topics and it's interesting the responses that I receive. Of course ChatGPT is only as good as the information that gets fed into it. Who better to ask how ChatGPT gets its information then to ask ChatGPT itself?
I asked ChatGPT the following question: "How does ChatGPT get the information to be able to answer any questions we may have?"
It's answer: "ChatGPT gets its information through a process called pretraining, where it learns from a vast amount of text data, including books, articles, websites, and other publicly available written material. During this process, it learns patterns in language, concepts, facts, and general knowledge.
However, it doesn’t have real-time access to the internet or any proprietary databases after training. So, while it can answer a wide range of questions based on the knowledge it learned up until its training cutoff (which in this case is September 2021), it doesn't "know" things that have happened after that time, unless provided with that new information during the conversation.
In short, ChatGPT’s answers come from the knowledge it was trained on, which covers a huge range of topics, but it's not always up-to-date with current events unless it's connected to specific tools (like a web search) or if you give it the latest info. Does that answer your question?"
It's crazy how AI has taken over the fiber of our world. There is a fear that AI will be the cause of a lot of tech workers losing their jobs. I will admit I do have that concern sometimes. But I am open to learning what I can about it. I do hope it's enough to keep me employed while I continue to work towards my goal of financial independence. We shall see.
Last month I posted about one of my favorite girl groups of the 90's En Vogue. The world learned that former member Maxine Jones was returning to the group effectively having 3 of the 4 original members back together again. A lot of folks myself included wondered if the 4th member Dawn Robinson would also come back. But I figured that bridge had been burned long ago. For now it still is.
There were no comments from Dawn regarding Max's return to En Vogue. But last week Dawn was back in the news herself. She announced that she's been homeless and living in a car for more than three years.
She mentioned that she made the choice herself to do car living after researching it online. Prior to living in her car, she was living with her mother. She said that they had a disagreement and wound up moving out. When watching her video, it was interesting to hear she had a dog named Max who passed away. Max of course was her bandmate in En Vogue. So that was interesting she used that name for her dog.
It was sad hearing how someone who was once part of the most iconic girl group of the 90's now finds herself living in the car. Dawn definitely has had drama over the years with the two groups she was a part of. She was my favorite member of En Vogue (still is) so it crushed me when she departed just when the group was blowing up. I do agree in principal that if they truly weren't getting paid what they deserved, all four of the members should've been fighting more. But that ship has literally sailed and prior to Max's announcement, the remaining members Cindy and Terry have been keeping the En Vogue name afloat though not with the success they had in the 90's.
A small part of me couldn't help but wonder on the timing of Dawn's revelation. Could she have announced this to put rain on her former group members and stop any momentum from the reunion news? The natural inclination is for the media to ask the remaining ladies how they feel to hear Dawn's news and whether they should reach out to try and help her. It'll be interesting to see if there are any new stories of the other member's reaction.
There has been quite a reaction to the news as well from the celebrity circles. Her ex-husband Dre Allen was said to have offered Dawn a job. No word yet whether she accepted or not though I'm guessing she won't. She did say she was living in her car by choice. It sounded like she had someone who was giving her money for a hotel to stay at and they were teasing her about an apartment but she got tired of being strung along which led her down her current path. Jermaine Dupri expressed skepticism about Dawn's story stating she had an assistant working with her. Interestingly enough Dawn did mention she was documenting the experience and I imagine she would be open to selling her story to the highest bidder so it can be made into a documentary or reality TV series. So Dupri's skepticism could hold merit. I read that Kandi Burruss of Xscape fame was also asked about the situation but she quickly changed the subject. I can't say I blame her as she has enough dealing with her own group's issues.
Whether the circumstances it is sad to hear the news. It will be interesting to see what comes next for her. She has the world's attention for now. But social media is a fickle character so she better take advantage while she can. Looking at the comments from her video, she does seem to have a lot of people that want to help her. Whatever happens I hope she can turn herself around.
Dom completed part one of his carpal tunnel surgery last Wednesday on his left hand. The hospital needed to reach out to him prior to confirm on his medications and previous health conditions. Since he works at school (when he goes), he's not able to answer his phone. So I had to make time to take the calls in the midst of my work fun.
I felt horrible because I wasn't able to remember every detail of the different surgeries he had and why. I mistakenly said he had a gall bladder removed when it was actually his appendix. He also had the turp for his enlarged prostate which led to him post-surgery having blood clots that affected his breathing. I needed to remember all this and felt frustrated when it didn't come to me right away. I had remembered the clotting but forgot that happened because of the enlarged prostate surgery.
One of the things I loved about my Mom was her uncanny ability to remember every medication and surgery that my Dad had over the years. She did this even through dealing with her own health issues with Parkinson's. I was not measuring up at all. I love Dom because he was so forgiving of me.
Dom and I started discussing the possibility of having a "younger guy" be part of our family in anticipation of myself eventually having more health issues. Dom worries he wouldn't be able to take care of me like I have for him. Of course it would have to be the right person who is there for the correct reasons. I worry about someone trying to take advantage of the situation. It would be nice if they exclusively were with us. If sex is on the table I wonder if Dom would watch us or even participate. As I've mentioned before, Dom and I haven't had sex in almost eight years.
Where would we find this person? Are there websites that cater to this kind of arrangement? I already have a regular thing with Anthony. But Anthony is around Dom's age and he has his own health issues here and there so he wouldn't be ideal. Midas falls in the same scenario as Anthony. He's two years younger than Dom.
Doug would be ideal. He's a year or two younger than me. But unfortunately he's shown that he is not dependable at all. It's going on four years since we last met up. The times I've tried to meet up with him he claims to be so busy. Dom and I had some rearranging we wanted to do in the house. I tried to see if Doug could come over and help with that and by proxy introduce him to Dom. But he did not commit to a time to do this so my trust in him is broken. Another strike is that he has a dog and we're not dog people.
Maxwell, the younger black guy that I met a couple years ago would be a potential. But he moved to Indianapolis for a job. So he's out. But I haven't chatted with him in awhile. I should message him to see how he's doing.
But is it fair to get a third just for the potential of having someone to be a caretaker? Is it fair on that person? Dom and I do not have family nearby as well so we're a bit isolated. It's a sad situation to think about. Plus if we get a third person and they live with us, our house needs to be decluttered in a big way so the third would have room for his stuff. I have some things to get rid of but Dom has the majority of the crap in the house. The sad thing is the house is pretty spacious with 4 bedrooms and 1 1/2 baths with a semi-finished basement. But every inch of the house has junk in it. How is that possible?
Just last week I posted about my lazy co-worker Roni and his latest antics at work. He has caused lots of havoc in the team with how he handled cases and his lackadaisical way of working. It's been quite the morale buster seeing how he got away with a lot of things. But I know my manager has been documenting everything that he's done whether it's been his lack of responses on cases or his lack of participation in some of our team building activities. I noticed too that his name was not on any of the new trainings that were being offered to the team.
I ended up with one of Roni's nightmarish cases because he was supposedly studying for a Data Cloud certification and couldn't concentrate on that and his existing cases. I was complaining about it to one of my colleagues and imagine my shock when my colleague mentioned that Roni's account was deactivated. I was on the train on my way home when we were communicating by phone so I didn't see the deactivation right away. I didn't believe it at first since this same colleague who I'll call Alvin and I joked that it would be another five years before he was let go.
We were disgusted because several good employees were let go last month and we couldn't believe that Roni was still there. But maybe that may have been the catalyst that set things in motion for his firing. I knew my manager was documenting everything when she asked me to make a public comment on our work channel to mention that Roni did not reach out to me to meet after I tried to schedule a meeting with him. With that said I don't wish ill-will on Roni. I just wanted him to do his fair share of work. As I said before, he definitely bought all of this on himself. I do hope he learns a lesson from all this and if he's given the opportunity again, he makes more of an effort in his next role.
As for the nightmarish case, I unfortunately have my hands cut out for me. The documentation left on the case has been lacking. The customer on the case has been complaining almost non-stop about the lack of support received. Roni created an investigation but unfortunately didn't leave much information and sent it to the wrong team. That team wound up rejecting the investigation and I'm left starting at square one. To top it off Roni lied to the customer and said the investigation is being reviewed still. I will probably have to call the customer to introduce myself and get clarity on some examples I can share. I no doubt will have to hear the customer complain. But this too will pass. The silver lining is that my manager said if the customer leaves a bad review, that she would be able to absorb the rating. I got this.
