We live in a country that has a Federal Minimum Wage of $7.90 as of 2015, in the state of Massachusetts (where I reside that minimum wage is $9.00 per hour.) To be clear the Federal minimum wage takes over if you reside in a state that does not have a minimum wage. I don’t know of anyone that can survive on $9.00 per hour, never mind $7.90 per hour. That money needs to pay rent, a car payment, insurance, groceries, a cell phone. It just isn’t feasible.
     There is a current movement to raise the minimum wage to $15.00 per hour. With this comes an uproar that customers won’t be able to afford the fast food and other commodities produced by minimum wage employees. Basic economics proves that is wrong, all wages along the spectrum will increase and the curve will balance.
     The other complaint is that an Army Private does not make $15.00 an hr, why should someone flipping burgers make that. An Army Private takes their life in their hand, a McDonald’s worker does not. All those arguments are perfectly valid. But there is one that is missing, an Army Private lives in base and is fed in a Mess Hall. He or she does not need to pay for food or housing out of that wage. Therefore theirs goes much farther. I support our troops, in every way shape and form, but using them as fodder in this argument is just wrong!!
    Apples and Oranges people, if you all want to complain about a raise in Minimum Wage, at least use a valid argument. Not one that just fits your ideals and preconceived notions.

    

      On the way home on the radio I heard a story about a man who caused a ruckus outside a Starbucks Coffee Shop in the Tampa Florida area. Mr. Rowan berated each and every customer that parked in the designated handicapped spaces, without proper license plates or hang tags to do so.

Telling them that those parking spaces were designated for other people, who were indeed handicapped. (Mr. Rowan’s son-in-law suffers from muscular dystrophy and he is well aware that finding a handicapped spot when needed can be difficult)
     Starbuck’s Management told him to leave the premises, stating “he was disrupting their customers”. In the mail about a week later he received a piece of mail from Starbucks Coffee. Thinking it might be an apology he quickly opened it. Instead it was a written order barring him from entry into any Starbucks Coffee Shop within the US!!!! (After getting a public backlash Starbucks has lifted their forever/everywhere ban.)
     My mom has a Hugo Walker, the kind with the big wheels and a wheelchair as well. I am a proud defender of those handicapped parking spaces. They are meant for people who are truly handicapped. Not those who just need to get their Latte’s and cappuccinos and half cafs, and hibiscus refreshers quicker and with less fuss than the rest of the customers.
     I applaud Mr. Rowan for his public actions, I have been known to glare at people parking in the handicapped spots, when they hop out of their cars and sprint to the store. Those spots are for people who need them, and by Starbucks choosing to allow their customers to break the law and park in spots that they aren’t entitled to. It gives this New Englander more reason to be a Dunkin Devotee for life. This girl runs on Dunkin!!!
    

    

It has been at least 3 years if not more since we have taken any sort of family vacation. All parts of life have gotten in the way. Tournament baseball, work, illness, just too much going on to try and plan some time off. This year planning, time and all of Neptune’s Moons aligned and we were able to take a 4 day family vacation.
     Kyle’s amazing girlfriend Kacie, and yes she is truly amazing. Her dad Nick owns a beach house. He allowed us to use the bottom floor for 4 days, while he and his family where on the top floor. He also entertained us, and fed us the first night, all of us. Kyle and Kacie had some friends from school that came to spend the night. Nick made dinner for all of us, Pasta, Taco Salad, Burgers, Soda for the kids, Beer or Wine for us Adults.  I was blown away. At 10:15 the town set off fireworks from a barge in the ocean, right in front of the house. Like they were done for us!!🎊🎊
     The next day we all spent the day basking in the sun, and the 2 days that followed, we did more of the same. Beach, eat lunch, more beach, walk by the ocean, have dinner, walk to the center get ice cream, walk home, go to bed. It was a glorious 4 days and completely worth the wait!!!!

As you probably know from my previous blog post. Franklin County Massachusetts is in the grips of a Heroin addiction. An addiction so strong that it is killing our young people, or condemning them to a life with a monkey on their backs.  Getting help for this addiction has been also hampered by our geographic location. Until now the addict had to travel to Springfield, South Boston or Framingham. Therefore there are no services available for detox in Franklin or Hampshire Counties. There are also a severely limited number of beds in those facilities, with a growing number of addicts fighting for space.

The State of Massachusetts and the City of Greenfield have chosen to put a detox/rehab center in the former Lunt Silversmith Building on Federal Street. This Center would kill the proverbial 2 birds with 1 stone. Bring a much needed detox/rehab facility to the area and make use of a building that has been vacant for many years.

This has caused the typical “Not in My Backyard” debate. That by putting this detox/rehab center in Greenfield it will cause the following:
1.  More Heroin Addiction
2.  More Crime
3.  That Building could be used for something else.
4.  We don’t want a building full of junkies in the middle of town, put it somewhere else.

Answers and rebuttals to those complaints:
1.  A heroin detox/rehab center does not cause more addiction, any more than an alcohol detox/rehab center causes more alcoholism.
THAT ARGUMENT IS INVALID
2.  A detox/rehab center will not invite crime to Federal Street in Greenfield. The patients will not be wandering the neighborhood at night. It will be in effect a hospital.
THIS ARGUMENT IS INVALID
3.  This building has been vacant for many years and off the tax rolls. Leaving it any longer will allow it to fall to further disrepair and it will enter the realm of the Greenfield Forgotten Buildings.
THIS ARGUMENT IS INVALID
4.  It all boils down to this, well the problem lies within the heart of Greenfield. So therefore that is where its solution should be.
THIS ARGUMENT IS JUST AN OPINION.

This was best said by my 18yr old last night. “We are the last large town on the Heroin Highway before the runners reach Vermont, we have a huge problem and it is only gonna get worse if we don’t address it. Greenfield, and the surrounding towns are being lost and overrun by heroin, we need to fix this, before there is nothing left to fix”  Therefore put the Center in the Lunt Building, use that building for good, put it in My Backyard, because my yard is the one with the weeds that need to be cleaned up.

     In the past 2 days I have seen a story about parents who locked there child outside the house and made her sleep in a tent approximately 1/4 mile from the house. For the offense of eating a Pop-Tart!!!  A Pop-Tart I say, this teenage girl all of 14 years old was banished to a tent with a roll of toilet paper, and a whistle. She was told to report at a certain time of day to get her food. If she wasn’t there, than she didn’t get fed. These parents have lost their minds, someone finally figured out what was going on, reported them to the authorities. That young girl was placed in DSS custody, her 4 siblings were placed with their grandparents and the parents were transported to jail. Exactly where they all need to be.
     Shortly after viewing that story I saw another one that was even more disturbing. A 22 year old man in CT jumped off a bridge into the CT river, which is traumatic and terrible all on it’s own. What makes this even more tragic is he had in his arms his 2 year old son. The 22 year old survived and was transported to a hospital. His toddler son was not so lucky, they found his body today, approximately 5 miles downstream from where his father plunged them into the river.
     Both of these stories have left me confused, shaking my head and wondering. Did these people think their children were commodities, things, possessions?  Did they not view them as human beings, to be loved and cherished? I truly do not understand some of my fellow humans sometimes.

I am really tired of seeing Blog Posts and articles about “You are Enough”, “Or How to Draw the Line”. I realize many of them are about how not to run yourself ragged on over crafting and over doing for your children and everyone else in your life. That part of being “enough” I get. I retired my hot glue gun a long time ago. It only comes out on special occasions when I truly want to make something look pretty. The part about being ENOUGH that I don’t agree with is this. I am an every changing being. I am always evolving, I will NEVER be enough for me, I always want to be a better version of ME. I want MORE education, I want to know how to do things BETTER. 

I am still plodding away on the on-line CPA refresher courses, that is something that I do for ME, last weekend I took a bread baking class with my sister-in-law. We learned to make baguettes, the scale is not happy, but oh it was so much fun. Those are things I do for me. I get my hair done every 6-8 weeks, to keep the grey under control, because no matter how lovingly you tell me those are strands of glitter growing out of my head. They are still wiry strands of grey hair. I know I worked hard for those grey hair, but I much prefer the red/gold/blonde combination that my stylist can create out of them. I try to get my body to the YMCA at least once if not twice a week and swim 1-2 miles. It is as much for my strength, and my health as it is for my sanity. No one can talk to me for the hour that I am in the pool. With my goggles, ear plugs and bright pink swim cap on. I am locked away from the world in my own cocoon of watery peace.

These versions of “enoughness” and yes I just created that word, it sounds pretty good. I do for me. My version of ENOUGH is to make me happy, not the rest of the world. I do a crap load of the other kind of that, dinner prep, laundry, kids to sports, and someday I know I will miss it when it is gone. So I intersperse their ENOUGH with MINE to come up with a BALANCE that makes my life work.