Fainting 101

Some of you out there may have never, and will never experience fainting. Consider yourself extremely lucky. Others, comparatively, do it on a regular basis, and can’t be described with such words. Fainting is random and diverse, where one family might not even know what this is, there is another family that carries smelling salts in their purse and/or pocket at all times. It’s also genetic, so those that have it in their blood are more or less screwed.

Moving on.

This class is for everyone! Because lets face it, there’s nothing more traumatic then finding your wife in a chair, passed out, eyes open, and shaking. And…for no apparent reason.

So here are the Do and Do-Nots, for those of you not falling to the ground helpless.

Do not move them. Unless they are in a dangerous situation let them lay there until they come around. A dangerous situation would be when your five-year-old falls into a pile of stacked chairs. A not dangerous situation would be when your eight-year-old falls on to a pillow on the floor.

Do check their pulse. This is pretty much a given.

Do not take advantage of the situation and draw on them.

Do not do any of the following: shake them, kick them, hit them, put them in front of spaghetti, freak out, run into the hall screaming, and throw water on them.

Do keep a portable fainting couch with you at all times.

Do find them something to eat, and let them get out of school/work/piano lessons/church/whatever early.

Do not cover them with a blanket. Thanks, but no thanks. It’s not really harmful, but it also isn’t helpful, and we’d rather have you by our side when we come to, then off searching.

Do elevate our feets. Get that blood back to our heads.

Do be courteous. If the fainter has fallen on to you, don’t push them off. Or if you see them falling, catch them!

Do not laugh. Fainting is like dying, we no longer have control over ourselves, things happen. It’s also terrifying, when they wake up some will want to cry, let them.

Now those that know my family know that we have a history of fainting. We’ve got the genetic variety, passed on by my uncles (thanks). Three of the five kids in my family faint on a more regular basis. Two of us average once a year from before we can remember. You can say we’ve learned a few things:

The ground, be it covered in carpet, grasses, a rug, or tile, is hard. And it hurts.

Putting your head between your knees doesn’t always cut it. A) You can still fall, and B) it’s sometimes too late. Just drop to the floor if you can, it saves on bumps and bruises.

Putting your head on your desk/table never works. It’s not far enough down. Upside though: the person in the next desk is softer then the floor.

When you find out one of your triggers commit it to memory instantly and avoid it like the plague. Even if you’re considered freakish or un-cool, or you have to interrupt somebody in their heroic tale of how they saved Christmas.

Known triggers: Stress, blood, needles, piano lessons, pulling teeth, talk about knee operations, talk about any operations. Gross injuries on anyone in a 5-mile radius, gross injury on yourself 100% effective. Gruesome pictures, gruesome anything really. Lack of food, earring being ripped out of ear, intense temperature changes, passing the sacrament, knee locking, riding on the swings at Lagoon for the first time, Primary, Killer Bee documentary. Um… I think that’s it.

Lying down in a lazy boy, couch, doctors chair, while comfy, doesn’t stop it.

Lying down at all is still no guarantee.

Let those who it will concern know about the tendency. Especially if you faint with your eyes wide open and you shake.

When in doubt, don’t. Or if unavoidable tell the person in charge or any person really that the likelihood of you passing out is mid-to-high and they should take precautions. This will either lower the "unavoidable" scale to "probably avoidable" or said person will gird loins and be ready with the fainting couch and smelling salts.

Smelling salts are an unknown quantity, I’ve never had them used on me, or anyone I know, I haven’t a clue if they work. You can test it if you want, I sure as the dark underworld am not.

If I’ve missed anything please let me know. This is just from my experiences as well as my families. It’s a constant fear of ours that we will faint. However we have learned tricks and things to stop it when we can, and have thus slowed the instances. Allysen and I faint the most by far, Jacob has done it often enough though. The other two siblings haven’t to my knowledge. A year or so back we got a new member to our club. My cousin Abbie has joined the fainting ranks, I’m sorry Abbie, I was hoping it missed you guys. Granted it was your dad that shared the gene, so I suppose it was inevitable.

I actually want one of these.

The Simple Things In Life

This is all it takes to make Amber happy. She is too cute. She couldn't put this snow globe down!

It's my Party!

Actually it was Grants party. It was Grants 28th Happy Birthday party!!!


And I tell ya what, he ages well. I'd definitely say he's a fine wine. :D

No one could ask for a better friend and partner. He puts up with a lot, and helps our little family thrive. He even pets the cat before we go to sleep at night. If that ain't love I don't know what is.

His celebrating began latish on Friday with the arrival of Jason, and the significant absence of ME! I had a final dress rehearsal I couldn't miss, so the boys partied on without the wife.

Luckily for me, not so lucky for them, their chosen place a eats, Happy Sumo, had a looooong wait. And they only just sat down when my rehearsal ended!! So I rushed out of hair and make-up and made it to the restaurant before our food arrived!

After sating their dead fishy-needs, we went home for some video gaming, and sleeps. Good night well spent!!

The next day Grant was selfish or selfless, we aren't sure which it is, by inviting our favorite nephews over for some baking! Our cute little Bennett LOVES to mix, and bake, and do all that necessary in a kitchen. and Ashers just a bundle of smiles and is by far the best fetch player I've ever seen (thats throwing a ball for Dagger to get, which is another story all by itself.)

I was away trying on dresses, so Grant had the boys by himself. Wheres the hidden cameras when you need them, right?

I came home to a house full of cakes, and frosting, and cookies, and flour, and Bolt, and balloons and new flowers. It was the best home coming ever. Grant I think was having more fun then Bennett, (Asher was napping though he had his balloon!) but it was apparent that a good time was being had.

After a pizza dinner and some Wall-E, Grant and I set out on a drive. Because we like drives. We went through Weber canyon, past Morgan, into Park City, and back through Salt Lake to come home. It was fun! We sang show tunes, and resisted getting soda pop, and saw the beauty that is nearly spring in Utah.

Everything culminated on Sunday, which is his REAL day of birth, with a family party, where the yummy goodies he and Bennett had made were eaten, and where he finally was given the gun he's been talking about for months. (Hurray, guns and swords. Thieves you've been warned.)

I'd like to end by saying "HAPPY HAPPY GRANTY BOY!!" XOXOXOXOXOXOX

Sizing it up.

So I'm a little confused.

I went out bridesmaid dress shopping with my sister and soon to be sister in-law Saturday. Despite it being 9 in the a.m. it was a lot of fun. So these dresses were for Sisters wedding as I am making mine for the Sister in-law.

Anyway Sisters color is navy, so she pretty much pulled every single navy dress from the shelves and made us try them on, paying no attention to sizes. Not that that would have mattered anyway. We entertained that dressing room, I'll tell ya what.

In one morning I buttoned, zipped and slipped on, sizes 1-14. The reason I say that sizes wouldn't matter is at one point a size 3/4 and a size 6 would NOT fit me, but a size 1 did. Seriously!! And to make its more confusing, the pattern size for the dress I'm making is a size 12.
I don't know if I should be depressed or excited/worried (unless you are a real petite person size 1 red flags you for an eating disorder.)

I know I can just measure myself (which I have) and find out my "proper" size, but that doesn't mean it's going to fit me. All designers vary, which is inconsiderate.

Though I have to say, I couldn't stop grinning about the 1, even though I know I shouldn't.

The Failed Test.

So I've been conducting an experiment for the last 5 days, and so far it's not working.

See I'm a big, "do whatever I want" advocate. This leads me to do.. whatever I want! Dressing, eating, saying, doing, what have you. If I feel its funny, I'll do it, even if it means embarrassing myself. I do, however, usually have to pump myself up before going out in an interesting outfit, or doing something out of my normal shy characteristics.

Anyway, I've always wanted to wear, just one earring. One dangly one. Never have because.. it's not done. At least not outside of FF games and Anime. But I have recently acquired estranged earrings. One resides in the depths of one of my jewelry boxes, while the other is displayed hanging from a heart on my work monitor. (I'll have to post a picture of my monitor, it has a lot of stuff on it.)

I saw the one in my jewelry box, and the lighting bolt struck home. I put it in. Now, I didn't want to get the "Amber, you've lost an earring" reaction, so I put in a small stud on the other side.

Anyway, my fashion has been thus for the last few days, and no one has said anything. I've been with family, friends, church and out on the town. I'm now at work and I've yet to be confronted.

I'm finding it terribly amusing. I know that if someone has noticed, they haven't had the guts to tell me. Or bring it up, or say ANYTHING at all about my obsure fashion sense. So either they shake their heads and think I'm a loon (and they'd be close) or I'm a terrifying person.

.. um.. Grr...

This, that, and the other thing.

Have I told you all yet that my baby sister is getting married? She IS!! It's exciting and very, different. I haven't been able to really sink my teeth into the seriousness of it all yet. It was a whirlwind courtship, and then next thing you know, BOOM! And to add to the Boom, JULY boom, and then Juneboom, and possibly Mayboom.

It's all happening so quickly, but I'm doing my best to catch up and help. I love her and her soon to be hubby, and can't wait for them to experience the wonderness that is marriage.

At this point in time I'd like to apologize to all those who have wanted me to come hang out, or to a candle party, or shoe party or scrape booking party, or game night. I'm sorry, and I'm even sorrier to say, please don't plan me for anything until after June. I have two weddings to be apart of and help with, a play, two classes, a nap I need to squeeze in somehow. Two dresses to make, big acrylic crystals to track down, a husband that needs love'in and honey the list goes on and on.

It's been crazy fun, but crazy nonetheless and I'd like to just keep it at easy to deal with stage.

So.. there are new pictures up on the Veggie Villain blog from our quasi-performance last Tuesday. The one that I missed my come on cue by like.. 2 minutes. They had me run from one end of the church to practically the other to change.. I was lucky I could run in my hussy skirt.

Apparently there is a top secret changing room I was only informed about until after I had to run the costume change marathon. It's in the kitchen that is directly off the stage.. ya, useful.

Luckily the villain is a theatre veteran, and was able to add lib until I was "found" and pushed out onto the stage where I also pulled out miraculous wit and covered up my late entrance.

The best part of it all, was I didn't forget my lines!! Sweet peas, it was an exciting night.

Oh well, one more unfortunately timed, and dated Dress rehearsal, practice, and then three days of performances. And it will all be over. I think I deserve a cookie.