All Hallows Eve To Remember

This Halloween season seems like it has flown by.  October has been an insanely busy month for the Doxey household.  At work I have had a couple major projects that I have been finishing up.  Ash has been Mrs. creative and decided to make our costumes this year.  And the youngest Doxey has had enough of sitting around and wants to be pulling up, standing, or practicing walking.

My favorite highlight of the season was being in charge of the Broadbent family spook alley. My Cousin, Aunt, and I put our heads together and came up with a plan. We decided to do a zombie theme and each of us would be trapped inside my grandpas barn. We designed a maze so no one could see what was around the next corner and added strobe lights, a fog machine, and music to set the environment. The results were priceless! We made people cry, tons of screaming, and I got punched in the nose.  I had a blast and I hope we didn't cause too many nightmares. I just followed my moms awesome legacy of scaring people senseless.

Halloween has always been one of my favorite holidays of the year.  It is awesome that for a day you can pretend to be anything you want and won't get made fun of for it. Also my family goes a bit over board with making sure it is a time to remember.  My mom puts together an amazing dinner and show off our costumes before hitting the streets to get some CANDY.  That is the whole reason we have this holiday isn't it? Well, I hope everyone has a good all hallows eve and make sure to be safe.

P.S. on another note, when my daughter came through she laughed and instantly recognized me.  I think we have another Halloween lover on our hands.

Opening My Eyes

In my high school days I messed up my shoulder playing football.  At the time they told me it was my rotator cuff and I needed to do physical therapy to get it healthy again.  I went and did my time and got my shoulder strong enough so I could play football again.

In the last 2-3 months I have steadily having more and more pain in my shoulder and couldn't figure out why.  I went to my family doctor and he found that there was something going on with my shoulder again.  He put me on a medication treatment that lasted seven days that included exercises and heating/icing.  I did the treatment and the pain was still there burning in my shoulder. The next step was to get a MRI done to find what exactly was going on inside my shoulder. The results show a tear in my glenoid labrum which is leaking fluid out of my shoulder joint which is causing a cyst. The tear has caused the ligament to start folding back from where it was attached causing the tendons around it to also become inflamed. I went to a Orthopedic doctor and my options are either I manage the pain until I can't anymore or get surgery to fix the tear.  I asked him if there was any way it could heal with time or physical therapy and he said it wouldn't because of how the tear was.

Many of you don't know me but my family and I have not had the best experiences with the medical field.  Because of this I am very very very hesitant to do surgery because once it happens there isn't any going back. I feel like I have been weight both the options and both Ashley and I have talked it about it in great length on what I should do. Right now the plan is to move forward and schedule surgery, if anytime before something doesn't feel right cancel it. I am open to opinions, recommendations, experiences, or advise if you have any for me.  I want to make sure I go into this situation with my eyes wide open.

Sleep

I feel like any minute now my body is going to revolt against my brain and shutdown.  I have not slept very well the last couple of days and my body hates me for it.  Now I have to do my daily free write and it might overload my motherboard and I will be toast.  To prevent my body and brain from going completely into emergency mode I decided to write a Haiku about sleep.

I'm very tired
No sleep makes Devin grumpy
Naptime anyone?

I hope that touch you all to your very souls.  Sleep is important and I will get some tonight!

Chocolate

Yesterday I heard some disturbing news that the worlds chocolate supply is threatened by the cocoa crisis. There have been some bad years in the cocoa field with serious drought hammering them pretty hard. After hearing this horrible news I hopped on my handy dandy computer and started frantically researching how to prepare for this catastrophe. I know that back in the day chocolate was only reserved for royalty for special occasions. I don't think my relation to William the Conqueror would secure me the top spot of the worlds chocolate supply.

Discovery reported,"The price of cocoa, the raw ingredient for chocolate, has been skyrocketing in international markets. Demand for chocolate, especially for dark chocolate which uses more cocoa, has helped fuel price increases." What does this mean? Would chocolate chips disappear from the shelves? Would twist cones stop twisting? No more no bake cookies? Snickers? Or children with chocolate rings around their mouths?

I was freaking out about this cruel injustice happening to the world. When I was young, a wise man once taught me that if I fail to plan then I plan to fail. I needed a fool proof plan to keep that sweet goodness for generations of Doxeys to come. This is what I propose to the world to help curb this crisis. I call it 5 Steps To Sweetness.

The first step is to hire some experienced vampire hunters to put down Count Chocula. He has been a loose cannon for years in the chocolate industry and he has showed no signs of restraint.

Second, eliminate the fund raising option of selling chocolate bunnies for high school teams. I can't tell you how many thousands of pounds of chocolate are wasted on this. Also who likes eating cute hollow bunnies anyway? I always thought they should have been filled like Cadbury eggs, they would have sold better if they had been.

Third, outlaw chocolate fountains everywhere. I know that they have been a staple for the wedding industry for years but the amount of wasted chocolate isn't worth the risk during this crisis. Other viable options for wedding parties are Nacho Cheese, Ketchup, or even Marshmellow puff. We all need to make sacrifices until we can get this crisis resolved. Sorry Willy Wonka but your chocofall has got to go.

Fourth, start a chocolate budget with your families. For years food storage experts have recommended that you setup chocolate rations for your family to help get you through the inflation of chocolate prices until they lower. They recommend getting at least a years supply of chocolate and cocoa for each person in your family. I believe the average intake of a chocolate eating adult is 1-2 lbs a day. Adjust your budget according to your needs.

Fifth, make sure to pay attention because I can't stress this enough. Read the dates of the articles you are using to write a post. After writing this post I realized that my two references where written in 2007 and 2010. That really puts a damper on the validity of everything I have been saying. I guess the chocolate isn't really in crisis but in other news the sky is falling!

New Assignment

I, Doxey, just had my yearly review at work and one of my goals this coming year is to become a better writer. I currently work at Techmedia Network which is a online media company that produces a ton of written content for the masses. Many of my coworkers are either writers or editors so I thought I should capitalize on the opportunity to learn from them. The first assignment I have is to free write for 15 minutes every day. When I received this assignment immediately I flashed back to high school English class doing my "daily journal." In my mind that ranks up there with putting bamboo shoots under my finger nails. If you can't tell by my last comment, I am not a huge fan of this English thing. I love reading and love how I am be transported anywhere. But when it comes to the nitty gritty of having to write and put myself out there to be scrutinized, that isn't enjoyable to me.

On top of never being confident in my writing I am fluent in another language which messes up all my grammar. Half the time I use Portuguese grammar rules and the other half is a mix of troll, alien, Yiddish nicely wrapped in English.

Now that I have committed to becoming a better writer I have to bite the bullet and get over myself. For many of you that know me I can be one stubborn mule at times but I know this is for my own self improvement so why not. Why not become a better writer? Why not learn how to communicate better? Why not leave something for future generations to look at and know for a fact that this blonde haired blue eyed boy from Utah hated writing but decided to change? My goal is to write a couple times a week on this blog with my musings and random ideas that I can see proof of my growth. I thank you all for your patience and look forward to this experience.