Terre Pruitt's Blog

In the realm of health, wellness, fitness, and the like, or whatever inspires me.

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Archive for the ‘Helpful Hints’ Category

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Not All Certifications Are the Same

Posted by terrepruitt on September 19, 2009

This is a bit of a continuation of my CPR, AED, First Aid Training post. Things to think about and figure out:

1 (first and foremost) You have to figure out what you need. Do you need CPR/AED AND First Aid? Or just CPR and AED? Do you need Professional certification? Child CPR? There area lot of certificaitons out there, so you want to make sure that you get the one you need.

2 Find out if the places you are planning on working (if that is why you are getting it) take only certain certifications (Red Cross, American Heart Association, etc.) Most gyms that I have seen will NOT take certifications received online.

(Yes, you can get CPR certified online. Go figure.)

3 Find out how long the cert is good for. If you find one class for $50 and the cert is good for a year and another class for $75 and the cert is good for 2 years, you’d save yourself $25 by taking the more expensive class. Not to mention the time.

4 Does the training facility have dummies that you will get to practice on? Do they have AEDs that you will get to practice with? If you are going for a certification for child CPR does the facility have “child” dummies?

5 How long is the training? I have seen two hour ones and eight hour ones.

6 Does the training include information to take home? The first time I was certified I got a couple of booklets and posters and all kinds of information to use as reference material, I got something tonight too, but one of my classmates, who has been certified a few times said she had never before received anything. It is really great to have reference material to look at later.

7 Is the instructor just an instructor or has sh/e been an actual rescue work experience?

NOT ALL CERTIFICATIONS ARE THE SAME, neither are the instructors. Do your homework. Do research online, talk to people who have taken courses, talk to rescue workers—they will have opinions on which course they like best. Its your money and your time and if it is for your job or business it pays to do a little bit of checking first.

Posted in Helpful Hints | Tagged: , , , , | 6 Comments »

CPR, AED, First Aid Training

Posted by terrepruitt on September 15, 2009

Wow.  There are different types of training.  I am not going to get into all of the different types because you need to determine what you need yourself, so you’ll need to do a bit of research.  Once you know what you need, shop around and find out the best one that will work for you.  I just want to share with you some information that you might not think about when shopping around.

I took my first CPR/AED/FA training a year ago.  The certification for CPR/AED-Adult lasted one year.  That certification for the Standard First Aid lasts three years.  I think it was an excellent course.  It was long, it was 7 or 8 hours.  But the instructor had been doing it a long time and he was very good.  He was entertaining and injected just the right amount of humor so as not to let the class be boring or to have us falling asleep.

I would recommend this long, extensive class for anyone that is getting certified for the very first time.  It was very detailed and we did a lot of practical practice.  We used dummies to do CPR, plus each group practiced with an AED.  Then we practice basic first aid on each other.

I also liked this class because it was really close to my house in San Jose.

This latest class I took was CPR/AED and the certification lasts for two years!  Yay!  I love that!  It will be perfect timing because that is when I will need a recert in First Aid.

This was the perfect re-cert class.  It moved much more quickly and there was not as much practice on the dummy.  Right now the ratio is 30 compression to 2 ventilations performed 5 times in two minutes.  Doing that three or four times is enough.  It takes a good amount of pressure to get that dummy’s chest to click.

With this class I think I got a little bit of a different idea about the whole thing.  The first class I took was with an instructor.  I don’t think he actually ever performed CPR.  Tonight the teacher was a fire chief (I think that is what he said).  He had a long list of in the field experience.  He had even worked as an EMT. He has actually done CPR and used and AED.  So a few of the questions actually made him pause.  You could tell he had an answer, but he was not going to just blurt out the truth, but he wasn’t going to lie about it either.

Both teachers were great, just in different ways.  It was just really interesting to get information from someone who had actually performed CPR and used an AED.  I honestly don’t remember my last instruction including the information that it would be “crunchy”.  The amount of pressure required to compress someone’s chest to get the heart to force it into pumping blood just might break bones.  He  said it probably would and it was ok.  I thought that was really important to hear, because I think I might have backed off from pressing as firmly as they are now saying you need to, if I had not been told that bones will break.  I thought that was invaluable information.  Need to know kind of stuff.

CPR/AED/FA training is one of those things, like insurance, that you hope you never, ever, ever need.  I hope it works out that I never need to exercise my knowledge.  It is good to have it, I just don’t ever wanna use it.  Are you certified?  Do you have any stories to tell about a certification class you have taken?

Posted in Helpful Hints | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

Terre’s Cruising Rule

Posted by terrepruitt on May 16, 2009

Oh my, one of my favorite things to do is go on cruises.  I have talked to several people that are going on cruises in the near future and so it made me think that I could share my rule with you.  I have implemented a rule for myself on cruises.  NEVER take the elevator.  When we first board we take the elevator because there is usually a glass one and we like to see it.  But then that is it.  I never take the elevator again.  The last two cruises we went on our cabin was on the 9th deck.  When we went on excursions we disembarked from the 1st or maybe the 2nd deck.  But we always took the stairs.  I will tell you that this is not easy after walking around all day we usually came back with extra weight in the backpack from all the goodies we bought and the hubby would whimper as we passed the elevator  because sometimes the legs didn’t want to carry all that extra weight  up the nine decks, but we did.

Honestly, I remember once I used my arms to drag me up the last set of stairs, but I did it.  There are way too many extra calories that are consumed on cruises.  That can barely be helped because, for me, even if I didn’t eat more, the food that is served is way different than what I eat at home.

Anyway, I just thought I would share that simple tip with you in case you ever find yourself fortunate enough to be going on a cruise.  I would advise that you make the decision before you go to NEVER use the elevator.  Then tell everyone what your plan is.  Really commit to it.  All of these things will help you stick to it.  It really helps especially if your cabin is very far away from all of the activities.

Oh yeah, and no cheating just because you get lost!  That is even better, you add to the calorie burning equation if you end up on the wrong deck at the wrong end of the ship.  Yay!  Think of it as a blessing in disguise and just get back on the stairs and go to the correct deck!

Safe Travels!

Posted in Helpful Hints | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments »

Refrigerator Cleaning

Posted by terrepruitt on April 18, 2009

I was in my refrigerator the other day and I noticed that both of the vegetable drawers were empty. That in itself is NOT a good thing, but what it lead to, is a GREAT thing. It reminded me that I had had a conversation with my mom about this so I thought, “Heck, maybe it would be an ok blog.” My mother actually couldn’t believe that I don’t clean my refrigerator.

Well, to be exact, I don’t empty the entire thing out and wipe it down as often as you might think. What I do, is wipe empty drawers and shelves. I HATE emptying out the entire thing so when there is an empty spot I wipe it. If there is a shelf with hardly anything on it, I put those things on another shelf and wipe the now empty shelf.

Veggies are always leaving remnants of themselves in the drawers so I tend to wipe (and dump) those out more often.

There are a lot of great things about the wiping-an-empty-spot method. For one, you don’t have to take everything out and deal with it—-I so hate that. Another thing is, if you are trying to put the few items from one shelf on another so you can wipe an almost empty shelf sometimes that “forces” you to throw away an outdated something rather. I have a tendency to keep things because I hate being wasteful, but when I have an almost empty shelf and I just need space to move one or two things but there is an outdated item in my way—-great time to toss it.

And a BIG HUGE benefit is guests. They come in your house and go into the fridge and they say, “Wow, your fridge is so clean.”  When in fact it might not be sooooo clean, they are just focusing on the empty spot—-because that is usually what they are in there in the first place, they want to put something in there. And they see the empty spot which you just wiped so they think the whole thing is clean. AND in reality, it IS cleaner than it would be if you actually only wiped it out when you took the time to empty the entire thing.

What do you think? Do you think my wiping-an-empty-spot method is good? Might it help you out? Well, my mom liked it.

Posted in Helpful Hints | Tagged: , , , , | 6 Comments »

Would You Take Two Minutes To Health and Wealth?

Posted by terrepruitt on April 7, 2009

Well, would you?  Do you?  Do you floss?

First let me say, although you might not have noticed, my blog is late.  I went to the dentists today.  I go to one in Milpitas even though there are probably hundreds in San Jose that I pass to get there, but EVERYONE there is so nice and pleasant.  I like my dentist office.   If you don’t like going to the dentist, you are going to the wrong one.

Anyway, back to my ramble about flossing.

If you want to feel great and aid in the prevention of numerous health issues, floss.  It takes less than two minutes (for most of us) and it can add years to the life of your teeth and gums.  I heard someone say, “Only floss the teeth you want to keep.”  Ha!  I thought that was pretty good.

But flossing is about more than just keeping your teeth.  It is really helps with your overall health.  It seems like more and more, studies are showing that dental health is connected to overall health.  Hmmmm, imagine that?

Basically everything in the body is connected and that is one of the things that makes being healthy a bit of a challenge because everything needs attention and care in order to keep the body running properly.  But one of the EASIEST and FASTEST things you can do to assist in your health is floss.  In addition to making your mouth feel great, sometimes you end up with that I-did-something-you-didn’t-do-attitude (just like you get when you do your workout in the morning)  since you know most people don’t floss.

Now what’s this about wealth?  Well, if just the fact that you will be healthier does not encourage you to floss, what about saving money?  Oh yeah, the healthier you are, the less money you will end up spending.  Hmmmmm, imagine that?  So investing a few dollars and a few minutes in floss is just the thing to assist you in saving your money* for other things.

So why not give it a shot?  There are so many types of flossing products that I am sure you can find one that makes it safe and easy for you to get your floss on.  What do you say?

*06.06.20
Sometimes links go dead so “saving your money” has been replaced with a different link.

Posted in Helpful Hints | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments »

Zheng Gu Shui

Posted by terrepruitt on March 28, 2009

My husband took Jujitsu for a little while.  Martial Arts are amazing because from what I have heard most of them are not just an exercise class or a practice, a lot of them involve other “things” and in the case of my husband and his Jujitsu class, it involved potions and lotions.

Since in Jujitsu you use your body a lot and it can sustain damage, part of what he was taught was how to heal that damage or at least minimize the time frame of healing.  One thing he brought home was Zheng Gu Shui.  Oh how I love my Zheng Gu Shui.  If I even THINK I hurt myself, I put this stuff on and —BAM!—it is gone sooner than not. 

Ok, I have to admit sometimes I forget about it, but here is what had me wanting to blog about it.  I recently strained something in my neck changing the sheets.  Oh yeah, BTW, I usually don’t injure myself working out or exercising it is usually  while I am doing normal everyday stuff.  So I flicked the sheets like you do when you are putting them on the bed.  And –twang!—I hurt something.  That night I woke up four or five times because when I went to change sides I couldn’t turn my head without pain.  In the morning I tore my closet apart looking for my bottle of Zheng Gu Shui.  I put it on from my shoulder all the way into my hair because that’s where it really hurt.  Then I went about my day.  After one application I was able to move my head, but I still felt a twang.  So every once in while I would remember that I had hurt my neck so I would put more on.  I applied it maybe four times.  By the evening if I really put my mind to it I could still feel the pain, but I was able to completely move my head.   The next day, I was asking my husband if I could blog about Zheng Gu Shui and it dawned on me, it was 7:00 pm (I ran to the clock to check) and I had not THOUGHT about my neck ALL day because it was better.

According to many websites Zheng Gu Shui means rectify bones liquid.  I use it when I think I am going to bruise or feel that I have strained a muscle or something.   What it does is promote circulation.  This seems to allow the issue to resolve itself faster than it would on its own.  It is very strong smelling and it will tingle to the point of burning on tender spots (didn’t feel good on the back of my knees) and it might stain clothing, so use it with caution.  Always follow a products instructions.  It is awesome.  And it is VERY affordable.

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