#1: Ethan’s farm job is going well, overall!
Let’s see, he has officially worked a total of…4 full days now. (2 days on, then a week at camp, then Monday was a holiday, then they got rained out on Wednesday this week.)
Today will be Day #5. Oh! And he got his first ever paycheck this week (just for the first 2 days….. over $150!! Woooo! He can’t wait to get a check with a full week’s pay on it!)
Tuesday was a bit of a drama filled workday. I was working myself, just after 1 pm, when I got a call from Ethan. I picked up, and before I even said hello, I heard him frantically saying, “Mom! Mom! I cut myself! I cut myself!!!”
Of course, my mind immediately went “there”, and I was picturing either a lobbed off finger or like, a huge, deep gash into some extremity.
For his sake, I’ll spare all of his reactionary details, but let’s just say “cool, calm and collected” were not words that described him in that moment. 😉 I DID stay cool, though, and kept saying, “Ok, calm down, calm down,” while I tried to find out what exactly was happening.
In fairness, it turns out that the sharp tool he uses to slice the corn somehow slipped out of his hand as he was walking, causing him to drop it and cut himself on his neck. (When he first said “neck”, I thought- jugular. lol. But no, it was really lower, just above the clavicle area.)
I guess it was bleeding profusely, as even small cuts can do. He was wearing a white shirt, and it ended up covered in red. He couldn’t actually SEE the cut though, given the positioning- so he just knew he had a) cut his neck and b) he was gushing blood. This prompted a freak out in the middle of the farm field. (Hence why he called me immediately. In his words, “I thought maybe I had cut something vital!!” I get that. That could be scary. He said he instantly yelled for help and used his shirt to apply pressure. A solid response, so that was good.)
The adult/ team leader got on the scene quickly and checked everything out. Turns out, it was a very small cut, and nothing vital had been sliced. 😉 It was just a bloody one!!
They did have me go pick him up, in part because he was FULL of blood, very shaken up and also the cut was gaping a little. They weren’t sure if it needed stitches or not (I decided no and just placed a couple steristrips after cleaning it up. It was only 1/4 inch long and not overly deep.) He is all up to date on his Tetanus shots, and they assured me the tool was not rusty, either.
Here is a pic he sent me yesterday, of the tool in question.
The HR lady called me to discuss the incident and said that if I did need to take him to the clinic for any reason, we should make sure to list Workman’s Comp! Ha. 4 days on the job and claiming workman’s comp already. Fortunately, wasn’t necessary.
The cut is healing up nicely now and all is well. 🙂
#2: People Pleasing
I’ve seen several incidences in the past few days of people being sort of “attacked” online for basically not doing things the way someone else thinks they should.
I’ve always known this to be true, but the phrase “you can’t please everyone” seems more and more accurate. No matter WHAT you do in life, it will simply always be wrong to someone.
Last week I saved this image and it’s such a perfect depiction of this issue:
Daily Gratitude:
I am grateful for my garage door opener. I feel like I’m in and out of my garage a million times a day. Really glad I don’t have to manually open the garage every time…
GRATEFUL KAE 
Nurse mom to the rescue! It is crazy how much some areas of the body will really bleed. I am glad the cut ended up fairly minor and didn’t require stitches. I get it looked pretty gory, especially since he was wearing a white shirt.
That donkey comic is so great! Summarizes life/criticism so perfectly. I saw your comment on SHU’s blog – and I think you give a balanced view of the good in life but sharing when things are difficult/challenging/overwhelming. I mean, your blog title has grateful in it so of course you will have a focus on an attitude of gratitude, but I feel like we get a pretty full picture of your day to day life.
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Without understanding any context of the donkey, I scroll on the internet.
A real life example though, relative is late to everything and skews plans. She’s older and two years ago she told me she’s never going to change. I now have to ignore and smile for the rest of my life. 😦
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Love the donkey image for how it summarizes a fundamental life truth.
As Lisa mentions above, I think you do a GREAT job of balancing things on the blog. Hopefully everyone understands in reality everyone has ups and downs. Some people focus more on positive vs. negative things, but if someone is ALL about the positive or ALL about the negative, that is rarely going to be the true reality of a situation.
I ebb and flow on my blog because…sometimes things feel genuinely easier/harder than other times. The whole reason I blog is to process the good and the bad and I’ve mostly tried to just post what I feel compelled to post and, since my blog gets relatively little traffic, no one seems to care much!
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Oh, no! If I got a phone call like that, I would not have held it together like you did. I would have just panicked. Ha! It was so great that they let you know workers’ comp was an option. I have had to make a workers’ comp claim once and I was impressed at how easy it was! I hope his job continues to be okayish.
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hat must be a scary incident.. glad that it was not that bad and you were so calm and collected. I would be so scared.
I’m so not people pleasing!!!! hahaha… because it’s an impossible task and pointless anyway. love the quote.
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Phew, I am so glad the cut just turned out to be a a bloody wound, but nothing more. That must have been scary there for a moment. (But woohoo for Ethan’s first paycheck!).
And I absolutely agree with #2… opinions are like a**holes, everyone has one… LOL and whatever happened to “live and let live”?
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