Testing

I spotted this article from the NYT in my reading about Heath Ledger this past week, and it caught my eye:   “Last week I probably slept an average of two hours a night, I couldn’t stop thinking. My body was exhausted, and my mind was still going. He said he took two Ambien pills, which worked for only an hour.”

Then I saw this yesterday on Fox News about how Jack Nicholson had warned Heath Ledger about Ambien:

The 70-year-old Oscar winner was dining at the Wolseley restaurant in London when a photographer told him about Ledger’s death.

After saying, “That’s awful,” Jack added “I warned him,” and refused to elaborate.

Later, at the premiere of his new film “The Bucket List,” Nicholson reportedly said he “warns people about Ambien.”

“I almost drove off a cliff once. I don’t take sleeping pills but somebody said ‘take this, it’s mild.’

So these two things really hit home with me.  When Marshall was in the hospital recovering from MRSA, and after he got home, he was not able to sleep at night.  His sleep patterns were completely reversed.  They had him taking Ambien a little at the hospital and then sent him home with a prescription.  It was a very strange drug.  It would help him sleep for an hour or so, but then he would wake up - I don’t know - a little disoriented and crazy.  He tried taking a larger dose, but the same problem.  It didn’t help him get any more sleep, but just made his behavior a little more odd.  Marshall doesn’t react that well to some drugs - Morphine REALLY makes him crazy - so we sort of wrote it off, but got him a prescription for Lunestra instead.  Mucho better.  Since then, I have told several people to stay away, there is something most odd about what Ambien does to you, and I’ve heard similar stories from others. 

There is another interesting testimonial at Yahoo! Answers telling a similar tale.  And you can do a little Googling for plenty more stories like ours.  I guess the moral of the story is that even when you are prescribed something that is seemingly *safe* - check it out.  Learn more about it.  You would think that with our stringent FDA, that takes decades to release *safe* drugs, that things like this wouldn’t get through, but they do.  Politics, I’m guessing.

Ive read this a dozen times before, but it’s funny how really frighteningly appropriate things come through your email box (or into your life) at just exactly the right time. Man, I need some coffee with a friend right now. And maybe to grind a few pebbles into sand.

When things in your life seem almost too much to handle, when 24 hours in a day are not enough, remember the mayonnaise jar and the 2 cups of coffee..

A professor stood before his philosophy class and had some items in fron t of him. When the class began, he wordlessly picked up a very large and empty mayonnaise jar and proceeded to fill it with golf balls. He then asked the students if the jar was full. They agreed that it was.

The professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into the jar. He shook the jar lightl y. The pebbles rolled into the open areas between the golf balls. He then asked the students again if the jar was full. They agreed it was.

The professor next picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar. Of course, the sand filled up everything else. He asked once more if the jar was full. The students responded with a unanimous “yes.”

The professor then produced two cups of coffee from under the table and poured the entire contents into the jar effectively filling the empty space between the sand. The students laughed.

“Now,” said the professor as the laughter subsided, “I want you to recognize that this jar represents your life. The golf balls are the important things—God, your family, your children, your health, your friends and your favorite passions—and if everything else was lost and only they remained, your life would still be full.

The pebbles are the other things that matter like your job, your house and your car.

The sand i s everything else—the small stuff. “If you put the sand into the jar first,” he continued, “there is no room for the pebbles or the golf balls The same goes for life. If you spend all your time and energy on the small stuff you will never have room for the things that are important to you.

“Pay attention to the things that are critical to your happiness. Play with your children. Spend time with your parents. Visit with grandparents. Take time to get medical checkups. Take your spouse out to dinner. Play another 18. There will always be time to clean the house and fix the disposal. Take care of the golf balls first—the things that really matter. Set your priorities. The rest is just sand.”

One of the students r aised her hand and inquired what the coffee represented. The professor smiled. “I’m glad you asked.

It just goes to show you that no matter how full your life may seem, there’s always room for a couple of cups of coffee with a friend.”

I would definitely have to say 24 is optimal.

I hope you all had a wonderful and very Merry Christmas!!!

To help out the hubby:

This is the Flip Video Ultra, in PINK, of course. This is a small video camera that can take up to one hour of video and easily transfer it where it needs to go (YouTube, AOL Video) in minutes, rather than hours. I can keep it in my purse all the time and be ready for great candid videos, instead of missing great stuff because I’m not lugging around the DV camera. It is a mere $149 at Amazon.

This is the 80 gig classic iPod. Although the touch iPod is cool, I just want the classic. I have resisted getting one of these, because I just don’t travel around too much, nor do I feel the need to have my tunes with me constantly. Everyone in our family that needs portable tunes has an mp3 player. What I want this for mostly is videos and podcast downloads (FREE ones…lol), and for learning how to maximize my multimedia exposure, and so I can help teach other folks how to do the same. Plus they are cool. Suz says so (*mwah*). $228 at Amazon.

I would love a new watch, but I can’t find one. Well, except for that pink Aquaracer Tag, and this TechnoMarine Pink Ceramique but I’m not a proponent of spending that much money on a watch that I will wear day in and day out, through cow shit, boating, digging in the dirt and doing dishes, so I’ll keep looking. Maybe I’ll find something reasonable for my birthday - but for now, my old Wenger is working great. I am way too picky about watches. Oy.

And with the BRAND NEW ULTA right down the road from me (YEAH - now we need a SEPHORA in town to compete - please, Sephora??), an Ulta gift card would be MOST appreciated! Now, if only MAC would come to town so I didn’t have to drive to Houston. In my wildest dreams. And, as always, a gift certificate to my beloved TJ Maxx would be awesome. I am assuming they have their credit card security handled. If you are worried, thankfully there is a store right down Hwy 30.

This is the AeroGarden Pro - this grows my kitchen herbs year round. I need this because our Texas dirt and minerally water sucks for growing stuff, and I am not a green thumb - try though I might. Herbs are expensive as crap to buy from the store too. Plus its cute and would bring some much needed greenery and life into this dark house. BB&B only carries the regular one, I would like the Pro version - I think it is a little bigger and worth the $10-20 more. Bigger IS indeed better. $169 at Amazon.

Let’s see - what else. I need an external hard drive, as my laptop is already running short of gigs, but thats pretty dull for Christmas stuff, plus I want to buy that locally so I can return it easily when it croaks on me. And there is my truck. I think I need about a $2000 gift certificate from the Chevy dealer for new shocks, new door opening/locking mechanisms and a new windshield. And I would like to paint it black.

Hopefully that gives you some good ideas, and at least some of it can be classified as business expenses. Yeah, I love my job.

So, yeah, its been awhile. No rest for the weary. I have had tons going on, between lots of work, tennis and soccer season, I am on the move these days! And well there was that lost week in Vegas. I came home from Blog World Expo super-renewed though (thank God not super hung over and exhausted…LOL), and until a massive workload brings me back down to reality again, I am working hard on some special projects. The first one is video production.

I have been dabbling with this, but only to the extent of overcoming my fear of putting myself out there - and I guess I am officially past that now, so its time to move on to the next step. I spent some time in Chicago this summer at BlogHer talking to my dear friend Robyn about videoblogging - she is a pro, but unfortunately, she is a Mac fangirl (as opposed to a MAC addict, like me). So, while she was an absolute wealth of information on important things like lighting, she wasn’t able to help me much on software, which is the first thing I need to tackle. So I chatted her up again in Vegas last week, and tried to pry PC video software ideas from a Mac girl. Again. Not a great idea. LOL So, I have been doing some serious homework, and have tried out Sony Vegas (oy-confusing!), Cyberlink Power Director (worst. program. evah. to try to get off your computer, but easier to understand than Vegas, BUT it didn’t seem to like my Vista computer much), and Pinnacle Studio (I think I am going to like this one best).

My next issue is getting my DV video camera to talk to my computer. I can hook it up with good ol USB cables, but boy does that give me some crappy results. Ok for webcamming, not so good for actual video capture/transfer. It is time to upgrade. So, I headed out to the dreaded Best Buy for a FireWire/iLink/1384 cable tonight after work. Oy. $50 bites the dust, and after I cussed and fussed about not being able to fit the dern plugs into the holes, I finally got them in. Apparently this is a common problem for the first time you plug them in. So all is well there - I think.

So why do you care about this? You probably don’t, but I am really trying to encourage and help my fellow Beauty & Style bloggers to branch out into video blogging, so I thought that chronicling my adventures might be helpful. And if a PC video producer happens by, maybe they can point me in their version of the right direction.

So, tomorrow morning, I am going to try to shoot an actual little video and see what I can do with it. I look too rough today to shoot myself, but Marshall has long wanted me to get The Rock on the web, so tomorrow, he is going to be the star. The next step after that is to figure out where I want to post these videos - I feel the need to branch out from YouTube, I think. Stay tuned, and if you have any video advice for me, please feel free to give it.

(dance) I NEVAH win anything. Never. Well, I won $150 in a bar contest once, but I don’t really count that. Much to my surprise, I won a drawing from BlogHer, and just got this sumptuous looking cookbook from none other than the American Cattlemen’s Association! Eat mo beef - YUM!

Pity I am working my way through Jenny Craig at the moment, or I would be having that scrumptious looking steak taco there on the cover for dinner tonight. Soon, though - soon.

[9:13:34 AM] Marshall says: What does Momma want for our anniversary?
[9:13:36 AM] Christina Jones says: (party)
[9:13:47 AM] Marshall says: this is a BIG one…5 years! WOOHOO>>
[9:14:02 AM] Christina Jones says: a trip to vegas and to win enough money to buy me a $10,000 purse knock off ($250)
[9:17:09 AM] Christina Jones says: truly for our anniversary, I want us to get something traditional - for whatever anniversary it is (looking now)
[9:17:17 AM] Christina Jones says: (hoping its diamonds)
[9:17:18 AM] Christina Jones says: LOL
[9:17:22 AM] Marshall says: LOL
[9:17:34 AM] Marshall says: hoping its the “gun” anniversary
[9:17:40 AM] Christina Jones says: (rofl)

• @asyouwish That place is a mess, I was there last week - ugh #

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• been working on a big beautiful birthday cake all day long - the dog just ate half of it while I was mowing the lawn. #

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