personal

Kindle is great for an avid reader.

/ Jo Redd / Leave a comment

The older I get, the harder it is for me to find time to sit down and read a physical book. I don’t know if it’s because I feel like I have so many other things I need to be doing, but it had really started to bother me. I love to read. Reading was my main hobby behind watching baseball and playing softball as a kid. I have always loved to get lost in a story, and a good fiction book always left me wanting a sequel. When I was growing up, the Harry Potter series was being released, and I always had to have the book the second it was on the shelves. I was inspired to start writing because of some of my novels as a child.

I bought a membership to Kindle and initially didn’t use it very much. Now though, I love to open the app and scroll through the endless number of books at my disposal. You can find literally any genre you’re interested in. If you’re not looking to invest in a membership, the prices for books on Kindle are very reasonable. Almost every title you find has a deal applied, so you’re never paying the total cost, and frequently there is the added perk of being able to get the audible version at another heavy discount.

I have been on a non-fiction kick the last few years, and it is always interesting to dive into memoirs or other recountings of current events. Recently I decided to travel back in time and give the federalist papers another try. I highly suggest anyone wanting to better understand the founding of this country <a href="http://<iframe style="width:120px;height:240px;" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" src="//ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&OneJS=1&Operation=GetAdHtml&MarketPlace=US&source=ac&ref=tf_til&ad_type=product_link&tracking_id=joredd311-20&marketplace=amazon&region=US&placement=B075173F15&asins=B075173F15&linkId=e923534a08aa197730f28af910d59d8a&show_border=false&link_opens_in_new_window=false&price_color=333333&title_color=0066c0&bg_color=ffffff"> reads this book.

I’m starting to notice a trend.

/ Jo Redd / 3 Comments

Three of the last four items I purchased on Amazon have gone missing somewhere throughout the shipping process. After the first package went missing, I attempted to order items together to ensure the box was more prominent and, therefore, harder to lose. However, Amazon still broke my order up into different segments. Now both of those items are missing.

I love shopping online, and in particular, I’m usually pleased with my purchases on Amazon. Nothin irks me more than when things go missing, though.

Almost one month into the new year.

/ Jo Redd / 2 Comments

Just wanted to do a quick update because I said I would.

I have not opened the Noom app in almost three weeks.

I love the Coursera website, even though I am not a massive fan of bookkeeping.

I am officially done with my job on February 3rd, and that date cannot come fast enough.

My would is ready for winter to be over and the sun to feel warm again.

I have almost completed a transcription program and hope to find a job through the program.

My mission to set up a home office is complete, and I’m impressed with the space I utilized.

My last day at work is on the horizon.

/ Jo Redd / Leave a comment

I am taking the plunge and leaving my current job for a new one that I can do from my home office. It isn’t freelance work, but this is the kind of change I need to have happened in my life.

I read an article the other day that talked about switching lanes in your 30s, and I realized that I have hit many of the points brought up. Rather than continuing to loathe the hours I’m away from home, I’m going to start working on my next career move.

Will Spring Training start on time?

/ Jo Redd / Leave a comment

Edited 2/10/2022

The owners are set to meet up today, and hopefully, they will change their tune and come to the table with a new offer once this group of meetings is completed. We have progressed to a spot where the owners want to turn to federal mediation, yet the players are not interested in that route. The players have come down from their initial numbers a couple different times, and now it is time for the owners to come up with their offer. This has been dragged on long enough, and it is beginning to look like the 2022 season will not be starting on time.

I watched an interesting video the other day from the guys over at Talkin’ Baseball and they explained in detail why the players rejected the call for federal mediation. I’ll never be able to do their segment justice, so head on over here and watch the video.

Photo by Rachel Xiao on Pexels.com

It’s been nearly a week since the meeting between the owners and the player’s union of the MLB. There seems to be no second meeting on the calendar, and the world of baseball remains silent. The fans are beginning to get restless. Again. While we all knew the talks that began last week weren’t going to come to an immediate conclusion, I think everyone expected there to be something happening. Trades aren’t being made, players aren’t able to work out and use the sports complex athletic trainers and other staff. This entire shutdown to the world of baseball is so detrimental to the sport itself. It felt like baseball was just gaining momentum again, and here we are, putting the emergency brake on.

Generally, at this time of year, talk is ramping up with the arrival of pitchers and catchers for spring training. Fans would be getting ready to make the trek to the various sites to get the first glimpses of their team in action. Sure the preseason games don’t matter, but it’s still fun to watch baseball. It is so gross to go look for the start date for baseball and see nothing but TBAs marked by all the teams.

The fans want baseball to come back. It’s already a long enough time from the last pitch of the world series to the first one the following season. Can we please just come to an agreement already? I don’t understand why the owners want a shortened season just so they can cram the postseason full of teams, and I don’t know why the two sides want to argue over numbers. Let’s be honest, if you have enough money to buy a baseball team, you have enough money to pay the taxes too.

I hit 50 likes!

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I realize that 50 likes are nothing to be excited about (for some people), but I need to take advantage of every small success I get. I’ve had this blog for a while now, and until recently, it hadn’t received much attention. To be fair, I wasn’t really dedicated to writing a blog post a day, so it’s no one’s fault but my own that my blog wasn’t growing.

I’m trying out several different writing website systems, and eventually, I will review them, but for right now, I will continue to make this blog a priority. Thank you for reading the different entries and for the likes you’ve given me.

Work is stealing my soul.

/ Jo Redd / Leave a comment

I only work four days a week (ten-hour days), and I still feel like I have so little time to myself. I have an hour’s drive there and back, and by the time I’ve arrived at my house, I don’t feel like doing anything. I struggle to make dinner for my son and me, and then I attempt to use the rest of my evening hanging out with my kid. Once it is bedtime for him, that’s my cue to also fall asleep. It is next to impossible for me to do anything that I consider a “hobby.”

I feel like all of my coworkers are suffering from burnout. We do our work in a small clinic, and there are only so many patients that we can see in a day. We’ve never had the number of staff we need to accurately assess 50 patients a day, but we do our best. We have a new clinic being constructed, which can’t come fast enough.

With the surge in cases, we see a higher volume of calls from people who are afraid that they have covid. Although many of them have been vaccinated, the second someone sniffles in their household, they are convinced that it is the virus. I wish the media would report each night that if you think you have Covid, you need to take a deep breath and treat it as you would influenza. I’m not saying the two viruses are the same. I am merely being honest in admitting that there isn’t much we can do to treat Covid.

I am ready for the world to go back to normal. I don’t think that’s ever going to happen, but I’m hoping to at least find a new, less stressful career because Covid has made the world of healthcare unbearable.

Life in the Midwest

/ Jo Redd / Leave a comment

We are always privy to videos like the one below whenever the snow shows up. Thankfully, this kind of snowstorm didn’t show up until halfway through January. This is a common occurrence, typically, early on in December.

Life in the midwest is impossible without a snowblower. A big snowblower. When there isn’t anything to catch the snow, it sure does pile up fast. The first big snow can be the last one if mother nature deems it so.

Coursera: what is it? Is it worthwhile?

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I’ve always had a slight interest in bookkeeping, and since I’m looking to one day have my own business, I got the idea to take a course that would teach me more about the subject. After researching, I noticed many different websites recommending the course offered by intuit. With tax season quickly approaching, I thought now would be a great time to dive into the topic. I went to sign up, and it offered me the chance to sign up with Coursera. I decided to try it, although the stiff price of $40 a month made me almost reconsider.

I’m one week into the class, and I really do like it, even if I still feel like the subject isn’t for me. I know that I will never do someone else’s bookwork, but I also realize that I will need to do mine because there is no way I will make enough, in the beginning, to pay someone else to do it. The sections are broken up into small chunks, making them easier to digest. I also like the discussion portion because tons of people seem to be taking the course simultaneously that I am. I don’t typically see anyone replying to others, but people’s responses to the initial question are fun to read. I look forward to getting deeper into the details. As with all topics, once you get past the surface information, you begin to get into the fascinating

information.

Coursera is impressive because it has so many different classes that you can take. While I went there looking for the bookkeeping course, I found a ton of other avenues to investigate. I just enrolled in a class called “Inspiring and Motivating Individuals,” offered through the University of Michigan. All these courses are self-study and, while you’re encouraged to set a weekly goal for completion, you can always change your plans to fit your schedule.

For $40 a month, you get access to many top-notch courses offered by some of the elite universities in the county. Most of these courses are a part of some certificate that you can eventually obtain. I love the access to learning, and I love that all these different courses are available without going to a single one of these schools.

I will definitely be checking in periodically with updates to this product because it seems to have a lot of promise, and I want to share that with everyone.

If you’re interested in checking something out, use this link: here.

#Iowanice doesn’t exist

/ Jo Redd / Leave a comment

As someone who grew up in Iowa and eventually came back to Iowa in adulthood, I can tell you that #iowanice is no longer a thing. When I was a kid, you could expect to have every passing car wave at you, we knew the goings-on of our neighbors, whether good or bad, and everyone was willing to stop and help a car stalled on the side of the road. Back in the 90’s people truly wanted to live up to the expectation that Iowans were more admirable than the citizens of other states.

Before turning 18, I was a rebellious child, and I fled the state for a more southern itinerary: Missouri. I thought I could find something great in the show-me state, and I was eager to prove that I was a hard worker. After ten years of trying my hand at everything I could find (and striking out at everything), I decided to return to Iowa.

The belief that Iowans are friendly is antiquated, and after years of young flight, the people left are rude and unhelpful. Take today, for example. I was able to free my vehicle from the confines of the snowdrift in my driveway, but upon entering the alley, I found myself stuck again. I was right in the middle, people couldn’t miss me, yet no one would help me out. All I needed was a push. One tiny little push on the back of my car, and I knew that I would be able to reach the road and I would be free. For an hour, I sat out there and watched as the cars rolled past. I live next to the post office, and it was pretty fun to watch the cars pull up, drop off their mail, look at me in the rearview mirrors, and then take off down the street. I watched a car pull into the other end of the alley, notice my vehicle stuck at the other end, and they turned around and went back out.

Finally, after admitting that I would not get my car out without assistance, I called my parents. They rescued me like they have countless other times. Family is where you can find excellent, helpful people. The idea that our neighbors are willing to help is no longer accurate, which is quite a sad revelation.