By M.A. Fuller, Reiki Practitioner & Stress Management Coach Worrying, never-ending to-do lists, thinking and re-thinking events from the day and how things could have been done or said differently… sound like those noisy thoughts in your head when you are trying to unplug or drift off to sleep? According to the Center for Disease Control, insufficient sleep is a public health problem. If you are among the 88 million Americans who report poor sleep because they are trying to remember or thinking of other things, then try out these four pillars of getting better sleep. Pillar 1: Prepare A…
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In my years as a paramedic/firefighter, I responded to my fair share of heroin overdoses. The amount of the drug taken and the time of our arrival after the overdose had everything to do with a good outcome versus a bad one. Though it was a problem in my days of riding an engine, ladder, or ambulance, heroin overdoses have become pandemic, in our day. We live in a society where people have cocooned themselves in their homes, oblivious to everything happening around them. My wife read me a story from Huntington, W. Va., where 27 people had overdosed on…
Hello, and welcome back to the wonderful world of the Dogpound. There are a lot of things going on these days, I mean there are the big ones like the big main circus event “Trump vs. Hillary,” and there are a lot of little things that just keep things from getting a tad boring if you just open your eyes to them. For example, I am on the treadmill at the gym and there is a female gazelle runner next to me. You know…the kind that can run for 30 minutes without working up a sweat, while I am doing…
It’s the middle of August and many varieties of perennials have finished blooming for the year. One species in our area, however, is still forming flowers. Rudbeckia hirta, commonly known as Black-Eyed Susan or Gloriosa daisy, is thriving in home landscapes. Let’s explore this landscape workhorse further. The Black-Eyed Susan is one of four native Rudbeckias to Virginia, although many cultivars have been developed. It thrives in full sun (more than six hours of direct sun), tolerates heat and dry periods well, and does not require rich garden soil. In other words, this plant will thrive in more situations than…
In determining what caused a fire, firefighters and investigators cooperate to piece together the puzzle. Fires are investigated to determine whether the fire can be tied to an accidental cause or the fire was set. A fire is deemed suspicious when certain things are either present or absent; here are a few of those things: No accidental causes in the vicinity of a fire’s point of origin The presence of accelerants in a place where they should not be The presence of other crimes that may have been covered up by a fire When all accidental causes are ruled out…
Hello and welcome back to the wonderful world of the Dogpound. I had an interesting weekend…I went to my first body building contest. Whoa! Better back up before you bust a gut…I did not enter the contest…my middle daughter did…I was just there for moral support. She has recently gotten back into getting into shape and some people at the gym were urging her to enter the physical fitness part of the bodybuilding show that was being held in her home town of Knoxville. So she got a coach and really got into it; special meals…gym at 5am in the…
Growing older can be rewarding and also depressing. As we grow, we experience so much joy watching our children grow, seeing friends and family succeed, and enjoying the world as it goes through each glorious season. On the flip side, we start to experience more aches and pains, gray hair and wrinkles, and health issues. I have just experienced my first “health” problem and it was eye opening and terrible at the same time. Last fall I started noticing that I just didn’t feel like myself. I was having stomach pain and nausea after eating and was just not feeling…
By M.A. Fuller, Reiki Practitioner & Stress Management Coach Do you find yourself often using the excuse “I don’t have time” for things like exercising, planning your meals, or tracking calories? In a recent Facebook survey, I asked participants a series of questions including why they are not currently managing their stress. The number one reason was, you guessed it: “no time.” Giving yourself relief from stress does not have to become another stressor because you don’t know where to work it into your day. Here are five beautifully simple things you can do in less than five minutes a…
Most of the articles that I write are for the benefit of the readers, but every once in a while, I write to the men and women that put on a firefighter’s uniform and report to duty at their respective station. Firefighters are required to know a great deal about building construction and the effects that fire can have on a particular building. A common type of construction, in my day, was ordinary construction. This construction type is defined as masonry or brick walls, with a wood floor and roof. In fact, my house is built this way. Early on…
Hello and welcome back to the wonderful world of the Dogpound. As a faithful reader, you know I come down pretty hard on customer service, not to be mean, it just seems that companies have forgotten one of the most important golden rules of business. That rule is: “Every person that interacts with your customer base serves as a salesperson for your company.” It takes a long time to get a customer and sometimes only a few minutes to lose one. So when they farm out this service, as many companies do these days, there is no real invested interest.…