@Totalanimefan: Hello my love! It's been a little while, thought I would stop by and say hello! I also wanted to send you a little something for being so awesome and for literally being the only person on here who bothers to keep me company when I stumble on all the time lol. I do really appreciate having someone from way back when to talk to who still remember who I am haha
Enjoy your presents!

@Totalanimefan: My husband. and i could probably ask my roommates, but i probably won't since we really don't have a lot to pack. Mostly clothes and then our books and board games, our dishes (only a few.), and a few other misc. items that just seem to collect on the couch/ coffee table. Most of out stuff is already packed from the last time we moved, so it shouldn't be too bad.

@Mandy Amour: i am in love with your avatar!

@Aisukohi: ooh exciting! I hope it's soon, but also before i find a job so i can devote more time to being active lol I have noticed that the EIs are pretty nice. It's pleasant that Voltra makes such good ones too!

@Mandy Amour: Thank you! I had the theme "dreams" in my mind when i made it. I think i change my avatar a lot, actually. I have loads of ideas for it, and i like changing it often. Also, just about every time i get a new item i try to make an avatar with that item incorporated. I've recently discovered the gradient backgrounds, and i've been low key obsessing over how well they tie everything together. Even as i made this avatar i had an idea for another one, but i try to wait a little bit between each change so i have to wait a few more days until i change it again. I really like the versatility this site has with items.

@Totalanimefan: i know that feeling. that's what Tyi and i had before we moved to Daytona. We downsize a lot when we move, so hopefully this time we won't. i'm actually hoping to obtain more stuff once we've settled in and his mom has moved out.

@Mandy Amour: i have started a few avatars that i ultimately end up scrapping because i don't have the right item. Either they don't exist yet, or i just don't own them since i'm still relatively new here. Before i was here i was on menewsha, where i had a similar issue, but the last time i was active there was in like 2016 or so. And then things just went downhill in 2017 i guess, so when i logged back in it was a ghost town, which was a bummer. Then i found a few people on there, such as Ruby and Kent, were now on here, so i made the switch. i couldn't be happier though, because everyone here is so nice, and i get that excitement back when a friend is online or i get a reply. It really gets my brain to make those happy chemicals that it doesn't normally create.

@Mandy Amour: Oh! i was on both of those websites! I LOVED Crysandrea. I was also pretty bummed out when Crys shut down. it was a great community. i was active on there maybe the last year it existed. I was on roliana and one other site, but i don't remember those too well because i never found a true home there. I totally understand the long shifts. It's rewarding work, but the long hours can be tough. (i used to be a caregiver before i moved across the country and worked long hours.) I appreciate the random acts of kindness, even if they aren't directed towards me, because i think the world could use the positivity. I totally get losing friends due to inactivity and finding when you come back that not many of the friends you made in the past are active anymore. That's what Gaia feels like to me nowadays, actually. I don't go on there anymore because the forums there felt weird, and i never really found somewhere to call "home." I was in Towns a LOT when i was a teenager though, and that's actually where i met my husband!

I'm always looking for friends, btw. And i don't expect people to be active all the time either. I tend to stick around to chat with whomever, so by the time people i started talking to a while ago come back, it's like meeting an old friend at that point, even if the encounter was brief <3

@Mandy Amour: i think i was on gaia starting in... 2004? maybe? i think i was 12 when i started there. either 12 or 13, so 2004 or 2005. Gaia... turned into something completely different the bigger they got, i think. I was around when they introduced Rally and the other towns like hang out thing, and when they introduced towns 2 it was like they felt like the original was too buggy to fix or something. I had a ton of fun in towns with my friends. I actually just recently reconnected with them because i logged in one day and a girl i used to think was kind of annoying messaged me and said to add her on facebook. So i did because years ago when i left i added two of them on facebook and found her on one of their friends lists, and then they made a group chat, so that was cool. But Gaia itself... i'm never on anymore. it's too weird. I was Alorrena on Crys, but mema4 on gaia and roliana. i had a few friends on Crys, but i can't remember anyone's usernames unfortunately.

I've pretty much made this thread my home. It helps that Total and Z and Aisu are quite active, and there's always something to talk about here. I think when i first started on Voltra, i was pretty shy since i was out of practice on talking to people. It's really nice when people are active regularly and you can recognize them by their usernames. I think i lurked for less than a day before i made my new member thread, and then total said hi and it went down hill from there, and i ended up here! She's pretty awesome and i doubt i would have felt as comfortable here if it weren't for her and Z (Z started around the same time as i did actually. And then because good people bring good company, i've been able to befriend Aisu too. So i'll be here if i'm not at work or sleeping or playing a game elsewhere.

Yeah, caregiving comes pretty naturally to me, probably partly because my oldest sibling has several mental health issues that require a caregiver/24 hours supervision. I did a lot of it in Idaho because in order to be a caregiver you just have to have a CPR certificate and take a class that's like 6-8 hours long to be able to pass medication under a nurse, and the companies send you to the class. In Florida, from what i've found, the most basic caregiving positions available require home health aide certification, and that's i think a 40 hours long class, and i think it would be out of pocket. So far i haven't found any jobs that will pay for it, which is unfortunate because it really was one of the best jobs i've had. In idaho i worked mostly with individuals with developmental disabilities, and occasionally they had physical disabilities too. I think people who work in healthcare at all are awesome because healthcare jobs are so mentally and emotionally taxing. They're sometimes physically demanding too, but not always.

My last caregiving job i actually worked at was in the community living program that worked with TBI patients. In that environment, even night shift (which i was), you really get close to the clients you work with. That was probably my favorite job i've ever had, actually.

@Mandy Amour: I totally get that. Inflation on gaia is terrible. i remember before i went inactive that it was starting to get bad. I also remember when they started selling cash shop items. That was along time ago. I went on the other day and saw what the marketplace looked like and it blew my mind. Like, if you're going to have a currency become so inflated that you have to have a new name for bigger amounts in a way that is common, you should just make that your normal, and get rid of the previous values, or make a site wide reduction in the value of items. idk. i think there's a better way to have handled the inflation issue than i can think of, and a much better way than they handled it.

I totally get what you mean by having the items be used rather than collecting dust in an inventory on an unused account. I still have all my items on gaia because of how the marketplace is. it's a bit rediculous, but also if i ever completely quit gaia without any intentions of logging back in, i'd just send all my items to Tyi because he still gets on once in a while. more often than i'd expect, but i don't think he's active on the forums and i know he's not in any of the chat rooms. i think he gets on just to be nostalgic and to change his avatar.

Speaking of changing avatars, i changed mine because i couldn't resist not changing it with the new items you gave me! <3

Yeah, from my understanding a PSW is basically a home health aid. What i was doing in idaho was basically a watered down CNA. i could still administer oral medications (there was a very specific way to do it, and the medication was in bubble packs anyway, so it was easy enough to tell if it had been tampered with or if there was missing medication), and basically just cooked and cleaned and hung out with the clients. Every month the supervising nurse would come to the house and check over all of the books and make sure the medication was being stored properly.

I was surprised that they don't pay for the classes here , too, actually, and that it was so strict for caregiving. There's virtually no basic care giving positions like a PSW here, and the lowest position of care giving jobs is the HHA. google says "To work as a Home Health Aide in Florida, you will need a 40-hour HHA certificate, a 75-hour Home Health Aide certification (certificate), or a diploma as a Home Health Aide through an approved post-secondary school." Which every job i looked at said that you had to already have the HHA certificate prior to employment.

My first care giving job was actually with 8 residents, all of which were mentally disabled adults with various different issues, ranging from one having swallowing issues, so she couldn't take pills (we had to crush them up and put them in yogurt) to being able to have a part time job cleaning tables at the high school i went to (ironically i didn't really meet him until i started working for that company.) he was my favorite cause he was easy to care for. He basically did everything himself, but he couldn't cook for himself or remember to take his medication on his own. That job was basically picking the 7 others up from their adult daycare programs, taking them home, hanging out with them, shaving the guys on occasion, cooking dinner, cleaning up after dinner, and passing medication, and waiting until bed time. Then the one that had her pills crushed would be a struggle because she never wanted to get off the couch. I utilized one of the other residents that she reaalllly did not like (he had personal boundary issues, he liked to touch and squeeze) to try and encourage her to go to her room instead of sleeping sitting up on the couch. And then when they were all in bed i'd write my daily notes, make the sandwiches for their lunches the next day (they all had their own preference for what went on their sandwich, but they ate that every day except saturdays and sundays), clock out, and go to my side of the building (i was also overnight staff, so i just lived in the building, but i had my own 2 bedroom 1 bath apartment area that shared the kitchen.) I had a pager that would go off if i was needed, but i was never needed at night. And if i was, i wasn't paged, i got a knock on one of my 3 interior doors. it was a good thing i was a night owl haha I actually hated that job because that was a lot of people with that many different disabilities for one (non cna or nurse) person to care for. i think i would have enjoyed it a lot more if there was at least one more person working with me so it wasn't so stressful.

@Totalanimefan: When I had covid back in 2020 when this all started, It took me a total of three months to finally get back to what felt like "my old self". I was on light duties at work for some time, I just didn't have the strength to lift that much, to move as fast as I had before and just didn't feel up to all the demands they expected of my body. Luckily my doctor understood and believed me that I wasn't feeling myself still and gave me the time to get better. My work constantly tried to get me to do things I couldn't and made me feel bad when I said no. I hope you feel back to your old self soon love, I know how stressful it can be for sure!

Yes I do believe I may have xD which is nice. Gives me more opportunity to chat when I do come on :)

@Alorrena: Oh I like it! so glad you liked the items, honestly Id rather see them appreciated and used then sitting there. Besides, I don't need as many as I have for one person. I was lucky that when one of my old friends left this site, Panda, I got quite a bit of that inventory too so I want to be sure to do the same and share with newer members to keep the items in rotation :)

Yeah that's crazy, in a hospital setting here and psw is responsible for 10-14 patients during the day, and 19-20 at night. Day shift is easier though because you also have their nurses to help you along with clinical externs hired for experience but who can only do the same things as a psw because they haven't graduated the nursing program yet. So really its not too hard most days because you always have the few who are independent and who only really call maybe once or twice a day and that's just for more supplies they might be out of or need. Nights is busy for the first few hours, getting everyone ready for bed and changed, but once they get final meds at 10/11 they fall asleep, then its just doing your rounds, making sure everyone stays dry and is basically still breathing.

Based on what you've done, you would be considered a psw here for sure, we don't let anyone unqualified tend to people in that extent without a psw certificate, or a DSW which is someone trained to handle those with one or more dissabilities or cognitive impairment. Though a PSW can also look after them as well, the DWS just has more direct training working with that population than the PSW who usually works with those who are more physically disabled and less mentally.

All in all, any healthcare is a great job, like I said it takes a special kind of person for sure. Im sad to hear they don't help with funding for those programs, from the sounds of it you are a wonderful asset to that field