The Train Station...(aka The Bridal Diaries)...Prom has arrived.

Life at the bridal shop this winter had an early boost in business with the unexpected early arrival of spring.
This fact was reinforced with shipments of new spring bridal gowns and the anticipated fashions of Prom 2012.

Since early February, eager teenage girls have been coming in with one goal in mind: to discover that singular "holy grail" of dresses that will set them apart from every other girl on prom night.  Whether it's slinky, puffy, dramatic, or classic in style, these girls want to be adorn in red carpet fashion.

The dilemma is that mothers are all for the glitz and the glam but have no idea of the price they'll pay for it.
OK ladies, let me hit you with some helpful information: don't go into Neiman Marcus expecting to pay JC Penney prices.  By remembering this tip, you will avoid the ghastly gasp of horror when you finally look at the price tag of the dress that your daughter absolutely loves and in which she looks absolutely gorgeous.

I know that this moment has happened when I hear "oh, gees" or "holy crap."  I'll peep over at the prom section and see a girl in a beautiful dress and her mother standing there, frozen, holding the price tag in her hand.   No ma'am, that's not the style number but the actual price of the dress.  Shall I help you get your jaw off of the floor?

Moms, you need to remember that you are in a bridal boutique that sells couture prom gowns, hence the ridiculously priced dresses.  But no, you'd rather act like you're at a flea market and ask for a discount on the dress.  That's when I let the owners take over, because it can get ugly when mothers hear that there is no discount on new gowns.

Listen, I know that times are tough right now, economically.  That's why I advised you on not going into Neiman Marcus when you can't afford it's prices in the first place.  And for heaven's sake, look at the price tag before you daughter even steps into a dressing room.

My girls got their prom dresses at the shop because the owners were gracious enough to give me an employee discount, one that involves them taking a loss instead of me.  They know that there's no way on earth that the man (aka my husband) would ever spend that kind of money on a dress unless it was a wedding dress.

Moms, don't blame the owners for the high-priced merchandise.  They don't set the selling price; the dress companies do.  The owners are under legal contract to sell the gowns at the set price.  If the owners lower the selling prices, they violate this binding contract and forfeit the right to sell that company's line of dresses, plain and simple.  We need your money to make our money.

So, if you happen to make the investment and buy one of our lovely prom dresses, let me remind you of what you are getting besides the hefty price tag: the guarantee that no other girl will attend your daughter's prom in the exact same dress.  Now there, don't you feel better?

As I pointed out in last year's prom blog, having two girls showing up to prom in the exact same dress is apparently a major disaster of epic proportions.  We here at the bridal shop, are committed to preventing that horrific mishap from ever happening to your daughter during one of her life's most sacred rites of passage. 

But until Jesse J's business model works for the shop, it'll cost you.

The Train Station...(aka The Bridal Diaries)...I Shouldn't quit my day job.

What brought me to the bridal shop was not a desire to work in one.  Having grown weary of being an RN for 20 years, I had decided to look into pursuing my childhood dream of working with animals.  

Ever since I can remember, my family always had some kind of pet.  My sister had a parakeet named Kazoo.  My brother had a gerbil, chameleons, an iguana, various tropical fish, love birds and a parrot.  I always had the furry cute pets like guinea pigs, rabbits, mice and rats.  We always had a dog.

Me, Mouse and our dog Jack @ 1974

Having a dad on active military duty meant that my mom was busy running the house and raising three kids by herself.  My brother and sister were older so they had the priviledge of going off with friends.  I got to stay home and entertain myself, all the while staying out out my mother's hair.  I think it's safe to say that my nanny was the family dog.

I played with barbies and dolls as well as with other kids, but you could often find me in my room, wearing my mom's red cross uniform, playing vet.  I'd read, announce and then check off the name of one of my animals (real or stuffed) and then perform a thorough exam on them.  The stuffed animals always made the best patients, but my guinea pigs, rabbit and dog didn't give me too much of a hard time.  They were used to be  "girl"-handled.  I was a natural with animals and was going to have a happy career as a vet when I grew up.

  



Me, Pig, and Jack @ 1974

How I ended up a nurse and not a vet amazes me.  It was a money issue.  Vet school is very expensive.  I don't regret my decision and have enjoyed being a nurse to people for most of my career; however, I just got to a point where I didn't want to be a nurse any more.  I wanted a change.

A career with animals was the most likely new step in my life...and I was going to prove it when I got the chance to horse sit for my neighbors last summer.  Last fall I had already shown them great potential when two of their horses got loose from their pen and I wrangled them back up to the barn all by myself using a lead as a leash.  I thought if Cesar Millan could handle a pit bull with a $.35 leash, I could do the same with a 2000 lb. animal.  I just had to never let the horses see me sweat.  I showed those horses who was boss and I was prepared to do it again.

That's why I was devastated when all seven of the horses had gotten loose overnight (while I was suppose to be watching them) when their owners went away for a weekend last June.  I had just finished working 11-7 and was on my way home.  I checked my cell phone and was stunned to hear a message from my (very groggy) neighbor stating that he got a call from the horse vet (from down the road) who noticed a group of horses at the elementary school across from her and wondered if they were his horses.

Holy crap.  By the time I got to the barn, the owner's brother had all the horses back in the pen.  He assured me that everything was OK and the horses were fine.  Fine?  I'm left in charge for one night and the horses escape, gallop through growing crops and then wind up on the school's playground, swinging on the swings and messing up the sandbox.

And lets not forget the mounds of manure they left everywhere.  Seven horses, gallivanting around for hours, make a lot of poop.  You should have seen the barn.  Hay bales and bags of grain ripped open and thrown everywhere.  Bins of food tipped over.  Horses aren't supposed to have a lot of grain.  They could get blocked up and die.  And mounds and mounds of poop, everywhere.  All for me to clean up.  And me without my inhaler or sleep for 24 hours. 

Four hours later, the barn was swept and cleaned and all the horses were back in their stalls.  By the way, we did get a Christmas gift from our neighbors last year, but the horse incident was never mentioned nor was the possibility of me caring for the horses again.

A month after my failed horsesitting stint, I had the opportunity to dog sit for our other neighbors for a couple of days.  The challenge for me was to manage three beagles; a mom, a dad, one of their grown puppies and eight beagle puppies from a new litter.  This job consisted of feeding and walking the three older dogs, cleaning out their pens, and then feeding the puppies and cleaning up after them. 

I ran into trouble the very first day.  As I was latching the leash onto the older male, he got a whiff of something and took right off, the younger male following right after him.  I just stood there with my mouth open, watching as they disappeared into the field of wild grass beyond the property.  Did I mention that they were trained hunting beagles?

They both came back eventually.  When I finally got the nerve to tell the owner about the mishap, he laughed and said that they always come back because they were trained that way.  Well, that would have been nice to know, before I spent an hour traipsing through high dewy grass, yelling my lungs out for them.

I think if I had been younger last summer, I would have chalked up the horse and hound mishaps to rustiness and just been happy for the experience.  Rather, I suddenly found my desire for a career with animals dwindling.

I had been working at the bridal shop for a couple of months already when I decided to play pet nanny for my neighbors.  I was beginning to accept that maybe the bridal shop job was just enough of an escape from my RN duties so that I wouldn't have to leave nursing completely.   

For some reason, I'm meant to be at the bridal shop and not working with animals right now. Perhaps, I'm meant to still be an RN; I do love my job and the people with which I work.  I think that the job at the bridal shop helps me to better like being a nurse when I have to be one. 

What ever the case may be, it is obvious that I'm not suppose to quit my day job.

 

The Train Station...(aka the Bridal Diaries)...Hello Douglas.

Being newly diagnosed with fibromyalgia this past summer, I was forced to abandoned my personal training sessions due to the widespread muscle pain I was having.  It was a big blow to my plan to better myself last year, but it was something that had to be done because the exercise was actually making my pain worse.

In a way, though, I may not have sought treatment for my pain if I hadn't started working out with Zach.  I thought that the body aches were just normal because I was so out of shape.  However, that was not the case, and I ended up with a condition in which my muscles are constantly tense and cannot relax.

So, farewell to Zach (and those ice blue eyes) and hello to my new friend, Douglas.  He's my acupuncturist.
He has nice eyes, but even a greater smile.  And he's calm...very calm.  I guess that's a good thing since he's delicately sticking little needles all over my body.

I had read about acupuncture being effective for the treatment of pain and had heard positive things from friends that have tried it with success.  I knew that I did not want to treat my pain wholly with just modern medicine alone; I didn't want to be reliant on any more pills for the treatment of my pain.  Since I had read that acupunture could help, I thought that I would give it a try.

One thing I really appreciated about Douglas during my first visit was how much time he took just interviewing me.  And he was calm and soft spoken with an even tone to his voice.  No, is isn't Chinese, if you're wondering. 

Prior to beginning my treatment, he didn't take my vital signs but rather "listened" to my pulse.  He felt for my radial pulse, moving his finger around my wrist.  He told me that he was checking for the strength of my pulse, which over the course of my treatments, has strengthened, which is a good thing, in acupuncture.

He also always looks at my tongue.  I guess there's a lot that the color of the tongue can tell about the wellness of a person, according to the Chinese.  I remember Douglas telling me once that the tip of my tongue was red, which meant that I was dealing with anxiety.  Yep, every day of my life, Douglas...every stinking day of my life.

I am also amazed to find out the correlation between where I react and what I am experiencing in my life at the time.  Usually, a reaction consists of an irritation of the skin which could be redness or temporary itchy feeling at the needle stick site.  I will feel the stick (often I don't) and then heat.  The sensation does subside quickly, usually.

Douglas will also make mention of a scant amount of bleeding at the site after he removes the needle at the end of a treatment.  Now, this doesn't happen all the time.  When it does,the Chinese believe that there is a "blockage" of energy or build up of heat in that energy pathway, causing blood to be released.  This is a good sign, and will help Douglas in his next course of treatment.

That's were the amazement comes in.  I usually have these kinds of reactions in areas that relate to anxiety.
I always react to treatment on the right wrist near where the radial pulse would be taken.  That area relates to anxiety of the mind...of the spirit.  It has to deal with what the heart/spirit wants...a question that I won't allow myself to answer.  Or ponder for that matter.  Recent past events have frozen me in a bitter realm of reality which keep my feet firmly planted on the ground for now.

Any way, I tend to bleed after removal of the needle right between my eyebrows.  Douglas informed that this area relates to anxiety of the mind.  I told him that I'm surprised that blood doesn't gush out like a geiser!

Douglas has proven to me to be very knowledgeable in the treatment of fibromyalgia.  He always knows where all the tender points are and is also mindful of the other symptoms that plague a person with this conditions such as insomnia, restless leg syndrome, chronic pain, fatigue, headaches, anxiety and depression. 

Since starting with him in August, I noticed that I had more energy and clarity of  mind overall.  My headaches have subsided as well as the pre-menopausal-like hot/cold flashes that I had been experiencing over the summer.  I've been sleeping better too, which has made a big difference in my life.  And sometimes, I'm not even aware of my pain.

I think awareness has been the greatest benefit from acupuncture.  Finding out about how much anxiety has taxed my body, mind and spirit has helped me make important changes in regards to my life.

I've also discovered more about God through my experience with acupuncture. At first I thought that it would conflict with my christian faith, but the more I continue with my treatments, the more I see how God is using them to help me.  Christian friends, who have meant well, have told me during my dark time to "be still," to "let go and let God."  When you are dealing with anxiety, that's a concept that is hard to understand.  At least for me.

I believe that God felt that it was a time for an object lesson.  When you're lying on your back, stuck with needles all over your body so that you look like that character from "Hellraiser"(no, not true) and soft mellow chinese music is chyming in the background of a dimly lit room, you really have no other choice but to be still.  Plus, it will hurt if you move during your treatment.

All I can do is lay there, focusing on calming my mind and re-learning how to breathe.  I'm forced to be in the moment, totally trusting in my practioner and God to not make my life suck so much.  It's being aware that I honestly have no control over things I have no control over, so I need to decide what's worth worrying over and what's not.  Actually, it's more like knowing there's a difference.  That's the biggest challenge for me...giving up control and trusting the help of others. 

Douglas himself, with his calm demeanor and perfectly pressed shirts and pants, combined with my tazmanian devil-like personality, is making for an interesting pit stop on my journey to a better me.  He even came and spoke to the pain task force at work (at my real job as an RN).  He educated staff on acupuncture while I spoke about my treatment.

The seminar went so well that Douglas and I have decided to go on the road together...like a vaudville act.  No, just kidding.  (But we should.) 

I'll leave the work to Douglas and his acupture skills, where sticking it to me never hurt so good.