Life is what you make of it.

No real news

2012-02-11T22:44:00.000-07:00

Well it most certainly has been to long since I lasted posted something. As I last posted we did end up opening our home to more children. A sibling group of a 4 year old girl and a newborn boy. The little boy is now 2 months old. He is a very cute and sweet little guy. He never really cries, however he is fussy a lot and just does not seem to ever be comfortable. He will out grow that soon. In our experience around 3 months or so they begin to feel better.

The big sister does have a few little issues. We are currently working on 2 items at a time and once we accomplish those items we will move on to addressing less serious issues. She does not care for her brother much. The green monster consumes her most days. For the most part it is funny, yet sad she feels she needs to be the center of attention at all times and will go to any length to get that attention.

Our other little guy will be 9 months this week and seems to be doing something new every day. He is such a ham and yet so emotionally unstable and a momma's boy all at the same time. He is beginning to be more about Alan. His first word was mama but we rarely hear him use it unless he is crying. Now, saying dada we hear at all times all day long.

I did interview for a few job positions recently but it just seems that I have been out of the work force for to long or people are not willing to take a chance on someone with kids. I am still looking and have not given up hope yet.

We had a great day today. The kids were all so good for me. Alan is out of town this weekend working. He was also out of town last weekend for half of it and will be out of town again this coming weekend. My friend and neighbor was able to come over with her two little ones and play for a few hours. It was nice to have them over for some much needed play time for both the kids and for the mommy's.

Taking on a new little one

2011-12-15T14:38:00.002-07:00

Well, I was going to post about the puppies we currently have. How they got here and how I am like Cruella DeVille and don't like them.

But I need to get myself ready around the house for a new baby. We did end up opening our home up to more children. We now have a 3 day old that we will need to get from the hossy later this week. Things are changing and I only hope it for the better.

This is an addition to the post. I told Alan that as soon as we open our home up to more children that is when the job offers come. How true that was! Same day! We were offered this new little guy in the middle of the afternoon yesterday and around 7:30pm last night a friend of mine called saying her brothers company was needing a person to do Escrow Tax. I have never done that kind of a thing before. But I am a quick learner. I can run a business and have for most of my adult life and it has benefits. I have no clue what the pay is AND it's about a 45 min drive each day each way. But it's a chance at a job.

Now the problem will lay in if I can juggle a baby that can not go to a day care AND take this job. The job is more important than the baby. A relative could be identified for the baby at anytime and then that leaves me where? So for now I have to push forward with the job and hope during the day the baby can go to some type of in home day care that does not require first shots.

Change is in the air. Please Lord let it be a positive change!

Broken

2011-12-01T20:25:00.001-07:00

Everyday at some point in the day I wonder how much longer am I going to be broken. How much longer will my life be broken. My life is still there just in bits and pieces. None of it is exactly whole anymore. As if the pieces are polar opposites like magnets and opposing ends. No matter how much I try to put them back together, they fight me. It's all so very strange.

Today, there was a slight glimmer of something good. Nothing to get excited about by any means. Nothing to get my hopes up or something that could be trusted in anyway. Never the less it was a glimmer. A glimmer that there might be a change on the horizon.

Then something else happened that did not change this glimmer of something good. That glimmer is still there but it overshadowed it.

Every week we get called by the children's department here to take kids. Not just once a week, sometimes multiple times in a week. Sometimes multiple times in a day or even in the same hour. I know us being a home licensed for 6 kids and the state not being able to place them with us is just killing our children's department. Honestly, were not trying to punish the children for what happened. We are trying to make a statement to our children's department however. That is not why we are not taking kids anymore.

The title says it best..BROKEN. I am broken. My life, family, marriage, hope, faith, patience, everything, you name it, is broken. Every time the state calls to place a child/ren regardless of how many times we have stated to them that our home is closed it breaks my heart to say NO. Not because I feel bad for the children, I know they will have a home. That is not why I feel bad. It breaks my heart wondering if that child/ren could become our forever child/ren. What if I am turning down a chance at a forever child/ren.

Of course we will never know. We have to take a chance to find out the answer to that. I am willing to take the chance to find out, my husband is willing to as well. The problem is that I just do not have it in me to foster another child right now. I just don't. I wish I did, but sadly I do not. Today's child was only days old. A very good prospect of being available for adoption giving the situation. Alan told me to call the social worker back and tell her YES we would take this newborn baby. I hemmed and hawed and talked it over with myself in my head and in my heart. I wanted to say YES to taking this child but my Cons out weighed my Pros. I did call to tell the department YES we would take this child. My Cons were a mile long and my Pros...well there was only one Pro. "what if this could be a forever child". By the time I called an hour later they had placed the infant with another family. I gave it up to FATE and thought "if it was ment to be it would be".

Alan, did not feel that same way. He was upset at me for saying NO in the first place without consulting him. (for the record we had agreed to not take children anymore AND for me to get a job) You can't put a brand spankin new baby into a daycare. Plus, I keep looking into the eyes of the baby we already have and began to have mothers remorse. How could I take myself away from this little guy already. He is not ready for me to be putting him on the back burner to care for the new child. He needs more of me still. The timing was just not right in my opinion. To Alan...I gave up our chance at a possible forever child. Alan is mad, I am sad. What's new.

I am not blogger savvy. I do not know how to put a song to play on my blog. But if I figure it out one day. This is the song I would have playing.
Ross Copperman - Holdin On And Letting Go Lyrics

I often get asked..

2011-11-29T17:52:00.000-07:00

I have often been asked...HOW DO YOU DO IT? Meaning, how do you juggle the kids, the home, the husband etc. Well, I can tell you as of right now. I'm not juggling anything. I am at a complete stand still, or so it feels. I will be honest. One kid is like having no kids at all. It's like using your hands or your legs. You don't think about it. It becomes second nature.

Of course when I started this journey in foster care. I did not have the skills I have now. I was new to it as a FULL TIME job. I have always been around children all my life. I have babysat since I was 10 and I was still babysitting well into my early 20's. I have helped my sister with my nephews and my brother with my nieces. Going to nursing school comes in pretty handy as well. My first foster son was a heroin baby. A difficult heroin baby who happened to get colic around 7 each night that lasted till around 9:30. I remember feeling sense of in-adequateness. I knew how to take care of a baby, I just could not stop this one from crying no matter what I did. A few months passed and the crying passed too. It was not that bad. It seemed bad at the time but it was really nothing. Especially, when I look back on it now. That first foster child was a cake walk compared to some of the others we have had. Yet, looking back on those kids. It was still easy.

This little guy was not a hard one. However, he was a challenge, I will admit that. He had night terrors from about 3 months old till the present, he is 2 1/2 now. I look back on those sleepless nights of him screaming, clawing, thrashing, kicking, panicking and the terror in his eyes and think..that sucked. Yet, really it was not that bad. It felt bad at the time, only because I was so sleepy, but my body adjusted to 2 hours of broken sleep a night. We survived.

When we decided to add a 4th child to the sibling group last summer. I wondered how well this was going to all work. Piece of cake from the very first day. The entire 6 months this little girl was with us I was breezing it. It actually made life easier for me! More playmates ment more time for me to accomplish things around the house.

By the time we decided to add this little girl to our mix wondering if we could balance it all was not something that crossed my mind. She was a perfect baby. Could not have been more perfect than she was. Fit right in, was a joy to have and sweet as can be. Once again, still breezing it with 4 kids.

This little guy is when I stopped breezing it. Not because I now had 5 kids. 2 under 3 months, 1 under 2, 1 3 year old and a 10 year old. No...that is not why my smooth running household came to a screeching halt. This little guy had problems. He cried 24-7 non stop for the first few weeks he was home from the hospital. We almost asked them to take him to another home. He kicked my booty those first few weeks. Now, he is such a good guy, to have the other 4 back in the home, I would be breezing it again.

I sit around with other moms, biological, adopted and foster moms. They ask me HOW DO YOU DO IT? I don't know? It just comes easy to me. Sure we have challenges here and there but it's just easy. This is not a hard job by any means. Being a parent is not a hard job. Does it come with it's own set of issues..sure. But it's not hard and when you look back on the hard times after they have passed, you think..well that really was not so bad after all. I would do it again in a heart beat!

Thanksgiving 2011

2011-11-25T10:03:00.000-07:00

This Thanksgiving we have decided to not spend with our families. Alan's family is just to far away for a day trip like that. Plus, Alan did not want to go anyway. He hates leaving his parents alone for the holiday but it really serves no point in being there either.

We had the option of going to my parents for the holiday. But neither one of us wants to do that. It never feels like Thanksgiving anyway. Everybody stuffs into my parents living room on with TV trays and my mothers burnt food. They all watch football and talk about racing. Alan does not like either and I don't care to spend hours with my family anyway. It's just pointless to be there.

So this year we are going to spend Thanksgiving with our neighbors. So much better! We feel welcome being in their home, it will feel like a real holiday and of course we can come home when we choose to and not drive for hours to have wasted hours in the day being somewhere we are not welcome or just don't want to be.

Our other neighbors put turkey's in the ground every year the night before. This is always so much fun. A huge and I mean huge bonfire. Great food. Great people. Not to mention the moistest turkey you have ever had!

Alan and I are having a hard time with the holidays. I knew we would. I originally did not want to even celebrate them. However, since we still have a child in our home and this would be his first round of holidays we r forcing ourselves to celebrate. We would kick ourselves if by some chance he became ours and we did not have those first memories. The kids families never really care that we document their lives while they are with us. I know for a fact some of them have thrown out the scrap books, refused them, etc because it's a reminder WE had their child/ren and they did not. They don't want their kids to remember our home or us. I guess I understand that, but it makes me sad at the same time.

I wish I could add pictures of the day however we can not due to HIPPA reasons. I see other blogs posts with pictures and it makes me sad we can't share that kind of stuff.

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!

3 Years

2011-11-11T09:48:00.000-07:00

So a little over a week ago the little boy we still have in our home finally started sleeping through the night! YIPPIE! My husband a few days ago also said to me "how long has it been since you slept through the night without having to get up with 1, 2 even 3 kids in a night?" So we started counting though our children we have been blessed to come into our home. Counted how long they stayed with us and we came up with 3 years.

I have not slept though the night in over 3 years. For the past 3 years we have always had at least one small infant, one with night terrors, medically fragile that needed to be woken up randomly or had multiple children that still woke up in the middle of the night. Then of course you have teething children, ones with colds or sick. For those mom's, have you ever noticed that the sound of a child puking in their bed is like an instant alarm clock? That sound can wake you up from the deepest of slumbers!

I have spent the last 3 years straight not sleeping though the night. Granted I have spent more sleepless night with children prior to this. I have been a foster parent for almost 6 years now. 3 years straight is just the longest stretch of sleepless nights I have ever had.

It took me a few nights for my body to adjust to this new found activity. I woke up the first few nights at the normal feeding times and had trouble falling back asleep. Thankfully daylight savings time saved me and for some reason when the clocks changed I was finally able sleep through the night without waking up!

Culinary Invention????

2011-11-04T11:09:00.000-06:00

So yesterday I am pulling out some hamburger meat from the freezer for dinner. As I am doing this I think to myself, "ya know we really need to get rid of some of the older items in the freezer". We have a beef steer we are feeding out at the moment and are going to need the freezer space soon. My little Sebastian is not so little any more and will get a bundle of new names, like ribeye, t-bone, brisket,etc by the end
of the month!

Last year we got a really strange hard freeze early in the year that lasted all of one night and we returned to higher than average temps for the rest of the fall and winter. An old lady neighbor had 3 apple trees just dangling with apples she was trying to get off in time. My mom and I went over to help her and she allowed us to take as many apples as we could. My mom and I spent the rest of the day peeling, cutting and putting apples in freezer bags.

I still have bag after bag of gallon size bags of apples in my freezer. I decided to was going to make some applesauce. I use to make it for the little kids in the sibling group all the time. I made mostly homemade baby food for the kids when they first started eating anyway.

So, I set a bag out to defrost in the morning. Later in the afternoon I put the apples in the pot, poured a cup of water into the pot, sprinkled what I thought was cinnamon in the pot and began to turn it on to simmer. All this with the baby on my hip. No biggie. I don't keep a baby on my hip while I actually cook but to get things started sure! After it's already and the stove is on the smell hits me. What is that smell? Are the apples bad? No way, how could the apples be bad? I put the baby down and take a deep whiff. I know that smell. What is that smell? How do I know that smell? Suddenly, it hits me! CUMIN! I put cumin instead of Cinnamon on the apples! I grabbed the wrong bottle out of the spice cabinet!

I rinsed the apples off for a very long time. I could not smell the cumin anymore so I thought I would give it a try. The worse that could happen is they taste bad and I feed it to the chickens. NOPE! Tasted great! Maybe the best applesauce I have made yet actually. I can't taste the cumin or smell it at all. I even let the baby take a little taste to see what he would do. He loved it!

The moral of the story is this...Put the baby down and pay attention to what your doing!

What Happened

2011-11-01T13:30:00.000-06:00

I have held off on blogging again for a little while mainly because I did not want to just post nasty stuff. Not because I have to worry about offending anyone, being judged or just plain looking like a negative person. More because venting that type of anger only made me more upset or angry. Originally, I thought it would help me with the pain and anger in my heart. Nope! It fed those emotions.

I never posted what happened or even much back ground. Some of it was due to confidentiality issues. When children are in your care you are bound by HIPPA. I am not really bound by that anymore and I would like to get the back story out of the way so I can move on with new stuff. Hopefully more positive stuff.

The short story: 3 children, Lisa 8, Kathleen 23 months, Jeremy 3 weeks when they came to live with us in March 2010. A sibling group with the same mom but not the same dad. The mom Molly shacking up with Kathleen's dad. Lisa's dad deceased and no contact with her Dad's family. Jeremy's dad in Idaho and never in the picture except for the first 3 months of Molly's pregnancy with him. Molly cheated on Kathleen's dad with Jeremy's dad. Kathleen and Jeremy's dad both 10 or more years younger than the Mom Molly.

Molly an alcoholic, drug user etc. Jacob, Kathleen's dad the same but also still a teenager and violent. Jacob beat Molly up time after time, while she was pregnant with Kathleen and Jeremy. Not just hit..but BEAT. Broken bones..etc. Molly has 4 other kids from previous relationships that were removed from her by the fathers of those children or by the state department by force. Molly has no contact with her older children or grandchildren. Lisa, Kathleen and Jeremy all born with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder. Which gives them developmental delays to some extent. Kathleen by far the worse! Kathleen and Jeremy both born with Meth and Marijuana in their system too. Kathleen severely neglected, which accounts for a large amount of her delays. Kathleen had also be abused sexually.Jeremy was late with a few things but for the most part on track since he had been with us from birth almost. Lisa, has learning delays and is slow to process. Weather this is from neglect or drugs it's to late to tell but I will say it's a good combination of both.

Molly and Jacob visited the kids some times on their scheduled days. They would show for a visit then they would not show for a few. Off and on. Sometimes they were ripped out of their minds and bouncing off the walls, other times they were barely able to hold their heads up. Provided that they did not act inappropriately towards the children they got to have their visits. Skip to May/June 2010 we took a family vacation. When we returned from our vacation the children had 1 visit upon return home on June 3rd. Then Molly and Jacob stopped showing up and disappeared for 6 months to the day. December 3rd 2010 after no contact with the children, state department, their attorney's etc. The state filed to terminate their rights. We were in court at 10:15 the morning of Dec. 3rd. Molly and Jacob showed up at the Children's Department at 9:34am wanting to get their children back. Molly is pregnant again.

The judge is not nice to them. The plan for the children was for them to be returned but now the judge has granted the plan be changed to adoption. No relatives are listed as suitable. Alan and I are listed as the to be adoptive parents. The children's department now file to terminate the rights of the parents with the courts. We are given the INTENT TO ADOPT papers to be signed, we are now given a adoption social worker. March 1st the paperwork is completed and submitted to the courts. Molly and Jacob with their attorneys fight it. May 2011 we are in court again. The judge once again refuses to change the plan back to return home for the children we will continue with the plan for adoption. Again we are named as their adoptive parents. (at this point we had finally let our hearts fall) A termination of rights trial is set for Aug 26-28 2011.

During the summer Lisa went from a really good girl for the most part,(she always hated her siblings and was jealous of them, sometimes violent towards Kathleen hurting her badly) to a not so good girl. Not listening, not doing as she was told, lying a ton! More lying about everything, making stupid stuff up type of lying. She was in trouble a lot during the summer. Mid may we agreed to take a 3 month old girl on top of the sibling group. June we also agreed to take a 2 week old boy with severe drug addiction issues who was medically fragile. ( Alan and I have a special license to take children that are very sick or need medical intervention). We honestly did not want to take the baby boy but they had no where for him to go. I now have 5 kids. 4 under 3. 2 under 4 months. I am breezing it with the 3 month old little girl. Piece of cake. The boy comes home on Lisa's birthday and her birthday went to poop. This is when it all began.

The boy cries non stop. Nothing works. Does not sleep. I am having trouble for the first time since becoming a foster parent. I have had those types of drug babies before and never in my life experienced this type of child before. Not colic says the doctor. All drug affects. Dealing with the boy affects everything and everyone else. The summer to be filled with Swimming, Zoo, vacations, fun stuff goes down the pooper. Going in public anywhere with the boy is traumatic to everyone! Lisa who is now 10 is put on the back burner. She went from doing tons of fun stuff last summer to being stuck at home with me with all those kids and not getting much opportunity to do much. We think this is what caused her behaviors.

August 4th Lisa gets in trouble for lying and hurting her 19 month old brother. She gets grounded. Her therapist has a visit that day. Lisa tells the therapist we are verbally abusing her and physically abusing Kathleen. The therapist tells the children's department the morning of the 5th. The afternoon of the 5th without any notice all children are removed from the home. The children's department won't tell us why or for what. 2 weeks to the day after they were removed they call us and ask us to come into the office. The tell us why for the first time, what is happening and give us a date to tell our side of the story but won't tell us anything else. At that point they also tell us we can pick up the little girl and little boy from a local daycare they are being returned to us.

We now have the infants back home but not our siblings who we sincerely miss and want so badly! We have the big pow wow with the Children's department. Lisa does not want to come back. They admit Lisa claims to have made it all up. We knew this already. They won't break the kids up even though they have a relative for Lisa to go live with and Lisa wants to go very badly. We try everything to get them back. Governor,Head of children's department, Attorney, etc. Courts wish to give the kids back but because Lisa says no courts decide to listen. Although, the law states that Lisa must be 14 years of age to decide for herself. (side note the social worker for the case has hated Alan and I from the beginning, she is always rude to us in our home, nasty comments and we had recently filed a complaint against her for referring to us as RICH WHITE FOLKS, for the record the social worker is African American.)

Skip ahead past all the heart ache, pain, anger, marriage going down the pooper, me needing to find a job quickly so that we can afford to keep our home and pay bills. Blah blah blah...bad stuff.

The foster home the kids were moved to when they were removed from us is a millitary family and the kids have to be moved out of that home by the 6th of October. Kathleen and Jeremy have a unsupervised visit with Molly and Jacob. Kathleen gets sexually abused during this visit. Jeremy bruised horribly. Criminal charges filed. Kids to be up for adoption again soon but not yet. We are going to once again see if we can fight for Kathleen and Jeremy and break the little ones away from Lisa.

In September, the little girl we took in May is moved to a family members home. We just have the little boy we brought home in June. He is now 5 months old. Still a little turkey but not the cry baby we brought home from the hospital and is getting sweeter by the day.

Our hearts still hurt badly, we are both beyond sad, marriage rocky, still I have no job, the children's department calls us weekly for children and we turn them down. That is pretty much bringing you up to date without all the extra details, drama etc.

Let's move on from here....Shall we?

Title

2011-09-07T09:15:00.000-06:00

I look at the title of my blog. Life is what you make of it. What does that even mean? I use to believe that, you make your own life, your own bed. You are in control of it all most of the time. At one point I thought God was in control of it all. I don't believe that anymore. I don't think I ever really believed. But I wanted to. That's a post for another day.

I look at the positive message that reads after my title. Learning to dance in the rain. Where is the good in all of this? How is damaging not one but three little lives a positive thing? Where is the good in losing our home that we worked so hard to build. Where?

I keep getting stupid comments from family and friends. "Just think of how much you will be able to get done now that your not so busy" Seriously, are you kidding me. Just look at how much you will be able to get done now that I have decided to disown you as my grandparent. "Remember when I had to run that old boyfriend off, you were so hurt, your heart hurt so badly. But you got over it". Your kidding me right? You want to compare 3 children I have raised for almost 2 years, that I was in the process of adopting to an old boyfriend. A boyfriend that was over the age of 18 when I was only 15. One that for years was raping me at gun or knife point, one that every time I tried to get away from he would threaten to kill my family, my friends. You want to compare the two pains? How is this for pain. You just lost your daughter! let's see what your pain feels like! Tell me about please! "Don't worry you guys will be happy again, you will have so much time for yourselves, your going to be so thankful this happened, you will see." You are going to be so thankful that you said that to me in a text message and not to my face. Let's see how thankful you will be that I am no longer your sister. You will see how happy you will be now that I am not your sister. Prepare to be thankful!

I don't get it? I don't get people. I just don't. There is never going to be any good from this. NEVER! Will we move on? Maybe we will. Maybe we will die of a broken heart. Is it possible we will be happy again? Maybe or maybe not. This will always be in our minds for the rest of our lives. FOREVER!

So yes, life really is what you make of it AT TIMES. We can choose to sit here and wallow in our misery or we can move on. Are we going to forget? NO! NEVER! Are we ever going to heal? NO! Not completely.

Kind of hard to dance in the rain when the rain is falling so hard your flooded and your head is below the water surface.

It's Over

2011-09-06T09:39:00.000-06:00

Nobody reads this. I'm not worried about anybody reading it. I am in search of an outlet and I am hoping blogging gives this to me again. So here I sit.

We are giving up on being foster parents. Our hearts, minds and possibly even pocket book can not take it anymore. There is no justice for these children. Everyone tied to the children in these cases lies and cheats in hopes of ruining these children's lives. Children's departments are suppose to be there to help the children. I have yet to see that in the 7 years I have been doing this. More so since we moved to a another county.

Don't bother advocating for these children. That only causes more problems for YOU and for the kids involved. You can hope and pray that everything turns out right for these children. It rarely does. You can try your hardest to have faith in the system, in God, in fate itself. After so many times of it all going wrong and never going right for these kids. You lose faith in all of it. You stop believing good can somehow come from all of this. I have not seen it. I have not heard of it in real life cases. I hear about it in books, on tv sometimes. Does not matter. It is not real. These kids are not just unlucky. Our children's department goes out of their way to make sure the children are damned. Seriously!

Did you know that helping these children, actually helping them takes more work than it does to not help. What a concept! So in the end it comes down to laziness. These kids get the bum end of the deal because people are lazy. Amazing isn't it.

So where does that leave us? No where. Empty. Empty hearts,minds,home,bank accounts. Empty. Lost? What do we do now? Where do we go from here? What is our next step? Do we even bother? Do we even want to find out or figure it out? No not really.

Survival mode....were in survival mode.

Torn

2011-03-14T12:46:00.000-06:00

I am a bit torn today. Maybe I should say unsure instead of torn. The childrens department where we live is having a hard time placing children right now. They are out of foster homes, but more importantly they are out of foster homes for small children. The childrens department here requires that homes who take children under the age of 5 be willing to adopt the kids in their home if they become available for adoption. There are very few homes who are willing to do that. We have more homes that are willing to just foster and willing to foster small children, just not willing to adopt.

We are one of those homes who can take all ages and are willing to adopt all ages. At this point with the three we have in our home, we would only want to take an infant. An older child just throws the balance of our home off.

Our three we have currently have a new sibling that is due any day or might have even been born already for all I know. The childrens department is not sure if they will be taking the baby or not. We are holding our last spot open for this new baby in the event of it being taken into custody. However, if they really do not plan to take the new baby into custody we might as well be open to other placements. So far we have turned down a 4 month old, 2 day old, 1 year old and 4 year old.

If we take another child into our home and then the new sibling comes into custody then what? Even the department does not know what they will do? Most of the kids coming into custody are sibling groups anyway and we could not take more than 1. We don't have the beds or the car space.

Decisions, decisions. Or as Winnie The Pooh would say..."think think think".

Two days in a row...WILD I tell ya!

2011-03-13T21:23:00.003-06:00

So this was a fun day! Well, not really. More of a busy one shall I say. First of all, I remembered last night that we needed to turn back the clocks, but somehow forgot to actually turn them back. Hmph! This morning I woke up to the sound of the baby in his crib talking to himself, rolled over and realized it was 8:30 and not 7:30. The baby happened to have had a diaper blow out, so this made for an early morning bath and a load of laundry. For some reason this threw my whole morning off.

I took the horses to get shoes this morning. Alan stayed home to work on the yard with the older kids. I took the baby with me. While I was waiting for the horses to finish, I was holding the baby and he had fallen asleep. He was whining a bit, but I just thought he was having a hard time falling into a good sleep. Not so! He then proceeded to puke on me. I turned him over, while he continued to get sick exorcist style on the ground. During this time I am thinking, "well this is a good thing we are outside, so much better than if this had begun at home.

I had to call Alan, who then came over and waited for the horses while I took the baby home. Thankfully, I had the 9 year old with me now. She was able to hold the baby's head forward while he continued his exorcism all over the car. We also don't live far from where the horses where getting shawed. During the car ride, the baby was also getting sick from the other end of his poor little body. I gave him a quick bath to clean up the major part of the mess, stuck him in some jammies and took a seat on the couch with a bucket, towel and a Dr. Pepper.

My friend Rosie/fellow blogger made me laugh at her comment a few days ago about being such a mom. I just had to laugh when I said the same exact thing today when I was able to sit next to a bucket of exorcism, a baby who was sick to his tummy from the other end but was sound asleep and I did not have the heart to wake him up to change him and still drink my Dr. Pepper. The smell of the situation was awful, but I was just so thirsty.

So needless, to say I did lots and lots of laundry today. With exorcisms and diaper blow outs I was a busy girl. Alan took the 9 year old out on a trail ride today when he got home, so it was just me and the little ones. Oh, and of course I had to clean up the car and car seats. Yes, I say seats cause the car ride affected both the baby and the 2 year old's seat. Not to mention all the Lysol wipes and spray I used on everything in hopes of killing any germs that might cause any of us to get sick. MORE LIKE ME! Last year around this time all 4 kids and Myself got sick with a tummy bug for about 2 days. Everyone but the husband had it at the same time. I had to take care of all 4 kids and myself alone. By the time the husband got it, he was bedridden for over 24 hours straight. He was amazed that I survived being that sick and took care of all the kids. His exact words, "Wow, I just thought you were being dramatic about how sick you were to get out of taking care of the kids". Yes, because I frequently make up having fluid come out of both ends of my body for fun! Dork!

Now, I am just hoping we don't have a repeat of last spring and we all can avoid a bug if that is was the little guy caught.

Return of the lost blogger

2011-03-12T08:39:00.004-07:00

Wow, it's been so long since I last did this. I am not sure I really remember how. So much time has passed and so many things have changed it seems. I will do my best to catch who ever is reading this back up to speed.

Since I lasted posted we had a pair of teenage foster children living in our home. They have since moved on and were returned home to their family. That was over a year ago. At the time we also had an infant living with us. The infant lived with us for just over 10 months and was sent to live with family members who have since adopted him. That infant will have been gone from our home for a year next month.

Shortly after the teenagers in our home left we were blessed with a sibling group of 3. An 8 year old, almost 2 year old and a 3 week old. For the first month and a half the sibling group was here we had 4 kids. 8, almost 2, 9 months and 1 month old. Honestly I thought it would be difficult to care for that many little ones, but surprisingly it was actually easy. More time consuming don't get me wrong, but not difficult by any means. There were a few challenges here and there. For example when the older baby who had night terrors would scream and wake up the little baby. Having both of them awake at the same time made for a noisy household in the middle of the night.

The sibling group has now been in our home for over a year now. We are in the process of hopefully keeping them. It's never up to us or even the children's department. It up to a judge and a judge only. We shall see. Hopefully soon we will know something.

I am still staying at home to take care of these little guys. We are awaiting the arrival of another infant any day. We are hoping this new baby will be the final addition to our home and we can get out of the system. If not, we will just keep fostering till we find one more to stay.

As sad as it makes me, I am also looking to go back to work soon. Hopefully I will find something soon that will work with my hours to accommodate the kids.

I think that might be enough for now. No need to get to crazy my first time back into action.

DOOM DOOM DOOM

2009-10-01T08:28:00.003-06:00

I write this with a heavy heart once again today. I hate having a heavy heart. It's just not me and I don't like the feeling.

A couple reasons for this doom today. First my heart is heavy for the 2 children we had to turn down. Today is their brothers funeral. There is one blessing to this sadness however. The children are now with their grandparents. Praise the Lord these precious children had family members that were actually worth a darn to go to and they are no longer in foster care. Another praise to this situation is the Grandparents are very well known and upstanding citizens in our community. That is praise because so often children are turned over to family members and they are no better than who ever was abusing them in the first place OR the family members knew of the abuse and just stood by and watched it or let it happen.

That is something I don't think I will ever figure out. Why would you allow somebody you knew to be abused? Why would you do it? I know that often times the abuse is not seen and you would never have guessed there was abuse taking place. However, more often family and friends knew the child/ren were being abused and they were just to scared to say something because they did not want to loose a friendship or a relationship. I can promise you if I found out someone I knew was abusing their child or wife or husband or dog or whatever. I would do something about it. I could care less if your my sister, brother, friend or neighbor.

In this case the Mom's new husband did the abusing and they were already being investgated for the abuse.(side note: all this information is already in the news here so I am not breaking any rules by posting information) According to the news the Mom already knew the husband was abusing her children. For one I would never have remarried or entered another relationship with another man if I had Children, however that is not here nor there. But I can say if you abused my child/ren I would kill you.

Next my heart is heavy and DOOM nears because baby"I" will return to visiting his mom today. It's been since the end of July that there has been any contact with his family members. His mom is out on bond right now and due to Federal laws the Childrens Dept has to allow her to visit him. Soon, his visits will begin with the Dad again as well. Why with the Dad I have no clue when they will be terminating his parental rights due to jail time he is facing. What is the point? I can not go into further detail. I am just upset about him visiting with them again.

My heart is also heavy today because of a post I read recently. I know this persons pain of NOT KNOWING and JUST WANTING TO KNOW so badly. Although I really do not know this person very well, I still know her hurt, her pain, the questions in her head, her heart and even some of the blame she might be placing upon herself wondering, IS IT ME? I hate to see people feel like that.

Well, enough of this heavy post. The teen girl is home still today. She looks terrible and I feel terrible that she feels terrible. I need to call the school and have them give her brother the school work she is missing from being out all this week. Over the weekend she should be able to catch back up so she does not feel so far behind on Monday.

We have some big home/land projects this week. Alan is ready to paint his office this weekend! YIKES! We have had the paint for it for over a year now! Scary huh? As well, as we need to get the land ripped up and ready to be planted again this next week. So what is easier for me, the painting with the baby or the farming on the tractor with the baby? I have choose the tractor. I can put the booger in the baby carrier and drive, drive drive.

"I" just went down, so I better scramble to get a few things done.

Good Times, Good Times

2009-09-30T08:59:00.002-06:00

Two posts in two days! Madness I tell ya!

So I have a sick kid home today. Well, actually yesterday as well. The teen girl came home Monday with flushed cheeks and a fever. I have her some Advil and she claimed to be all better. Yesterday morning she got ready for school, did not have a fever and felt fine. In one of her classes the teacher told her to go to the nurse since her cheeks were so flushed. Sure enough, she had spiked a fever again, 102.4.

The school nurse does not want her back to school until she is able to go 24 hours fever free without medication. So that at least keeps her home today, maybe even tomorrow.

Sadly, the poor child has to be some what isolated to her room right now. I just can not have her around the baby and take a chance of him getting anything. To double this sadness, last week the teens little brother came down with high temps and due to his cooties was taken to the doctor in his foster home. The doctor choose to test him for Swine Flu. Because of this, the kids were not able to have visits with their parents or with each other last weekend. The place the family visits at would not allow it.

Well now with the teen girl getting the cooties, which I am watching very carefully for swine flu. They can not visit again this week. The teen girl does not seem to upset or at least does not show it, but the teen boy, you can tell he is depressed about it. There is of course nothing I can do. It's a safety precaution. A cootie like this could take a whole building full of people down.

According to the school the kids go to, NO swine flu has been reported but there is a regular flu of sorts going around. On Monday alone they said there was over 100 kids out of school due to a cold or flu bug. Yesterday, they announced there would be no school lunch and the kids were instructed to bring lunches. Why? Because the kitchen staff was out this week due to the cooties and 1-2 ladies could not do lunch by themselves! Yikes!

This past weekend we kept the teens cousins again for their foster family. My kids really love having them here. On Saturday I needed to go to Walmart for a few items. Took the teen girl, Baby "I" and the littlest cousin. Baby I was crying/fussing in the back seat and I asked the cousin to sing to him, make faces or tickle his toes and "I" would just love it.

So from the back seat we hear "Rubber ducky your the one, you make bath time oh so fun, rubber ducky, do do do do" Over and over and over! I thought it was cute, baby "I" was calm and from no where the cousin says, "trish, if you were thinking of paying me for this I am sure only 2 dollars would be enough".

The teen girl and I busted up laughing. I assured him I was not thinking of paying him. However, I was very thankful for his help and so is baby "I". So this became our running joke for the rest of the weekend. When I made dinner and he asked to help I commented "if you are planing on paying me for this...etc". Of course he had no clue what we are all joking about.

Off to Walmart once again, were out of laundry detergent. A never ending battle. I wish we had a Target in this little town we live. I would be so much happier!

Wanting but just have not...

2009-09-29T09:22:00.002-06:00

I have been wanting to blog for some time. I actually have subjects to blog about, but then when I do have the time, well I just don't feel like it. Is that weird or what? It never fails when I want to blog that happens to be a moment that I can not, and when I have time to blog, I have nothing to blog about!

So I am going to make my best effort at blogging again. Most of what I might blog about is surely going to be boring and it might be short. HOWEVER, I see my blog as a way to document things. Things I will other wise forget and maybe not remember to write down later. Things like....

On Sunday baby "I" laughed for the 1st time. Not just a "HUH" type laugh, which he has been doing for some time, but an actual chuckle! One in response to something that Alan and I were doing! It was fantastic! I laughed so hard I cried! What made it that much better was that it happened to be one of those big MILESTONE firsts that working parents miss and usually never experience while together. It was such a joy and blessing for Alan and I to be able to experience that together.

Last night baby "I" also had his first night time diaper. I had been feeling pretty good about the fact he had never pooped overnight. Makes life much easier not having to do that night time diaper change. Thankfully it was already after 5am and he had been asleep since 8 last night. It was kind of funny though. I was giving him a bottle in bed. There was so much force behind this thing it actually pushed my hand away from his bottom and woke Alan up! Knowing he would only be asleep for another hour tops, I was tempted to just put baby "I" down with the dirty diaper, but he was having none of that. Not to mention this diaper was so explosive it blew out the sides, all over him and ME! The diaper change and clothes change and clean up caused quite a screaming fit and woke the whole house up! Oops! Thankfully nobody was awake to much earlier than they normally would. Of course just as were all waking up, baby "I" was peacefully falling right back to sleep in clean clothes and a dry diaper! Little Turkey I tell ya!

My heart is heavy today. Really heavy. I know I made the right choice yesterday but I still feel terrible. About 4 yesterday we got the call asking if the Childrens Dept could place a 6 year old and a 18 month old with us. I had to decline. My car is not safety rated for 3 car seats. Not to mention it will not fit that many car seats anyway in the back seat. We have tired all combination's of seats and it did not work no matter how hard we tried. Plus, there is no way I could ever drive with all those kids space wise. My car would not fit all our kids. 5 kids in a 5 passenger car does not work out. So I turned them down. Then last night on the news, I saw their story. At the time of the call I had no idea about their abuse. They had a 3 year old brother, he had died earlier that day due to his injuries. Broke my heart. It's heavy on my heart. I did the right thing, there is nothing I could have done to take these kids in without a bigger car that same day, which was not going to happen but still. My heart is heavy. I have been thinking about these poor kids all night. I have been praying for them all night.

I know we can't save them all. I honestly am not trying. But as Ruthie as said: As foster parents our hearts are bigger than our brains.

Till next time. Were off to a Fall Festival.

5 teens eatting me out of house and home!

2009-08-22T08:42:00.003-06:00

Well, we have the cousins again today. Not a bad thing by any means. It does make for a very loud day, it makes for lots of questions, re-directing, tons of messes (my kids pick up after themselves, the cousins get picked up after in their home so they don't have a concept of picking up after yourself) and last but not least keeping them all fed.

Alan ended up having to go to work today. I feel bad because I had told my teens they could ride the horses today since Alan would be home. I can not safely watch kids on horses who don't understand or know horses without help since I have "I". 4 kids on horses with a baby in my arms. Not a good idea. There is no way I could get a horse under control or rescue a kid fast enough in the event of a fall.

Thankfully my other neighbor said she would help me with the kids on the horses. Thank goodness for a great community. I just love the community we live in. They say it takes a village to raise a child and where as that may not be entirely true, it sure does help and my kids love having all these other adults around them. Adults, they know care about them and want to help them get the best start in their life as possible.

My teens have 2 brothers. 1 older and 1 younger. They are in custody in another county. Since the children have came into custody the state has wanted us to take the other brothers. We have declined due to not having a vehicle that could transport all the kids. We are licensed to have 8 kids on our home. That's a lot of kids huh? The kids attorney has asked us a number of times if we could take the boys and due to me not working we can't afford a car payment on a vehicle that would allow us to transport this many kids. We would have 5 in our home if we took the brothers.

Well, the judge is now requesting us to take the kids. It's very possible with the payments we would receive from the brothers we could scrape by on a car payment to transport this many kids.

I have mixed feelings about this. The brothers are special needs, they all are actually. However, the oldest brother is really special needs. In my mind I know I can handle it, but at the same time I think I am afraid to go into un-chartered territory. Does that makes sense. It would be a brand new thing for me.

On the other hand maybe Alan would not have work 60 hours a week so I can stay home and take care of the kids like we are right now.

So that is our life as of the moment. I better get ourselves ready so these kids can ride before it gets to hot.

Have a great weekend everyone!

It's about to get bumpy!

2009-08-19T08:58:00.002-06:00

Things are just wild right now in our home. The kids starting school. Which is not going well might I add. Tons of appts for the kids, with the kids etc. Dealing with drama with the families of the kids. Trying to keep the house picked up, clean and not smelly.

Talk about good times!

Hopefully today should be a mellow kicked back day. Hopefully!

The baby aspirated this morning and we were not off to such a good start. However, things have calmed down for the time and I am actually getting enjoy some coffee while my precious sleeps.

Last weekend we had the teens cousins for the day on Saturday. My teens enjoyed it. I don't think the cousins did however. They have tons more freedom than my kids and can't do the same things. The cousins wanted me to take them to the mall so they could go hang out with their friends like they always do. Well, first off, your foster family lives about 4 miles from a mall. WE LIVE about 34 miles from the mall ONE WAY. Two, we all can't fit in the car to go to mall even if it was close enough. To this they replied, well if you get somebody to watch our teens then you could take us, so why don't you just do that? Uhh..NO!

The teens were taking care of our neighbors chickens this weekend while they were away at the lake. The teens have done this a number of times in the past few months. They can be trusted to go over by themselves, feed and water, then collect the eggs. Saturday they took their cousins with them. Shortly after they left they came running back in the house. Something had gotten the chickens. Torn them to pieces, heads were missing, guts were were everywhere. It was a chicken massacre!

We determined it was a Bob cat that had scaled the fence. The tracks clearly showed a large Bob cat as well. I felt terrible for our teens, for the cousins seeing this massacre and for our neighbors.

I hope everyone is having a great week so far!

Come in out of the rain

2009-08-14T08:25:00.002-06:00

In the middle of the night it had begun raining. A good steady rain. I had failed to mention that on days like rain and snow I would take the teens to the bus stop. Since I was not out of my room when they were ready to leave, they just assumed they had to walk in the rain. Details Details!

So my teenagers left the house while I was sitting on the potty a whole 5 minutes earlier than they needed to leave in a down pour. I sat there for a moment when I heard the door open and close and I thought, they are just checking to see how hard it's raining. These are the kids that when they first came to us were scared to death of all bad weather. I mean scared. Rocking on the floor in fetal position scared of bad weather. So the likely hood of them walking in this was slim.

Well, they proved me wrong and showed me up. I came out of my room with my robe on and called for them. They were not here. I quickly jumped in my jeep and drove down the road. There were my two kids soaking wet standing in the middle of the road arguing if they should turn around and go home to get me. LOL!

I brought them home, told them to change clothes quickly and off to the bus stop we went. Me in my robe and barefoot and them in dry clothes but sopping wet hair. What a sight to see we must have been.

Yesterday visits for the teenagers were adjusted to meet school schedules and I got to meet the teens parents for the 1st time. Normally, in foster care you meet the parents much sooner than this, however the teens mom is completely off her rocker and dangerous to boot. So needless to say there were no meetings prior to this. I can say it went badly and it went well. Just depends on what was happening in the meeting.

The teen boy is already having difficulties with his classes and the school work has not begun even. For a kid who can barely read and write, I just don't feel he should be main streamed in 7th grade. I am hoping he can prove me wrong.

The baby, well all heck has broken loose here. I do know that a aunt is going to try to qualify for becoming a foster parent so that she can have the baby in her home. Normally I am happy to see the kids go to a family member. In this case I just am not. Nobody in this family can tell me they did not notice the abuse. So it saddens my heart to know that they knew about the abuse or possibly were the ones doing the abuse, that has not been ruled out and yet they are going to allow the baby to be turned over to a family member. Sickens me I tell ya! I hope all the back ground checks come back bad. The state allowed the baby to be turned over to a family member the first time there was abuse and that family member allowed the parents to take the baby away from them. So who is to say this won't happen again? Part of the system sadly. It's the way it goes all to often.

So the baby and I are enjoying a nice rainy morning in our Pj's drinking bottles and coffee. What a Friday I tell ya!

Let the games begin!

2009-08-12T09:14:00.003-06:00

Well today was the first day of school for the teenagers. Fun stuff huh? NOT!

The school did not have schedules ready until today for each of the kids. So they had no idea what classes they had. Yesterday, we did do a tour of the school and let them walk around to each building to see for themselves. I think or let me say I THOUGHT it went well.

The oldest teen is a girl. She did great this morning after we got her schedule. We sent her on her marry way to her classes. For the boy, well he had to do a orientation of sorts first. I think he was nervous cause his head went up his butt completely. He was not listening or paying attention at all. It was kind of funny to me as a parent sitting far away and watching to see what he would do or handle the situation.

I can't remember if I ever mentioned on the blog that these kids have never been to school EVER in their life. So this was an extremely new experience and scary for them as well. Considering they are teenagers, never been to school, barely home schooled and are being tossed into main stream classes. I think were all in for a bit of an adjustment.

Granted I was sad and proud at the same time to be sending my oldest babies off to school. Sounds weird I know, they are not my kids but I was happy and scared for them.

Little baby "I" is doing amazing! Turning into a happy chubby baby. "I" has also returned to a normal sleep schedule again. Praise the lord! The hossy really threw this baby off course and tossed me along with it. Sleep is good ya know!

On another good note, Baby "I"s parents have finally been arrested for the abuse. God is good! It has been bothering me for quite some time that a month has passed and no arrest has been made and they have been allowed to visit with "I". The system can really be messed up sometimes.

Time for some tummy time around these parts. I hope everyone is doing well!

Tax Free Shopping

2009-08-08T10:33:00.002-06:00

Shopping. That's a word I love and hate all at the same time. How is that? I really do like to buy stuff but I hate shopping for it. Does that make any sense?

Today, the kids and I off to go buy back to school clothes and supplies for them. Sadly, the school they will be attending requires a dress code. Not such a bad thing really, but I am truly not looking forward to spending the money it's going to take to purchase all these clothes. The state gave us 100.00 a piece for each kid.

Now you try to buy 6 pairs of pants and 6 shirts plus supplies per child on 100.00. I mean, I am a budget shopper and I can find deals and sales like the best of them, but that is pushing it a bit don't you think?

Last night we went to our neighbors house for a birthday party. Their son was turning 1 years old. We had a good time and our gift was the hit of the party! We bought him a little cars trike that makes tons and tons of loud noise! The baby liked it, maybe not so much his parents but hey, that's what being annoying neighbors is all about right?

Well off to get in the shower while baby "I" sleeps so we can get shopping and back home. I promised the teenagers they could ride the 4 wheeler today.

We plan to surprise the kids and take them to the mountains for a picnic tomorrow. One last hoorah before they start school for a little while.

Hope everyone is having a great weekend!

We made it home...

2009-08-06T07:56:00.002-06:00

Well, here it is Thursday morning. Baby "I" was released out of the hossy on Tuesday evening. What a relief I tell you. The whole going back and forth to the hossy daily was really becoming a pain in the butt. Not to mention the gas going back and forth.

At the last vital check before they released us. The medical tech called "I" her little party animal and said that "I" stays awake all night long and watches TV with her. Great is what I'm thinking. I gave them a baby that slept through the night and in only 5 days they reversed days and nights.

I really thought I was going to be in for a rough ride that first night. NOPE! Thank Heavens! "I" slept from 10:30 to 5am and then only woke for a bottle and was back to sleep till after 7!

Last night, was not that easy. "I" never really woke up, but "I" never stopped with the whiny cries from 2am on. Finally around 8 this morning "I" went to sleep. Of course I should be sleeping too now, but I have my teenagers awake and tons of stuff to get done while "I" sleeps.

Yesterday I got the teenagers registered for school. This is going to be a big change in our household for all of us. The teens have never been to school in their lives before, they are behind educationally and the school is going to just main stream them rather than get them tested to see if they can even handle the curriculum. Scary! I foresee long nights at the kitchen table doing homework in our future!

We were also told the kids started school on the 20th of this month. No so, they start next Wednesday and have a dress code. SWEET!!! So this means we have to take the kids shopping this weekend for clothes for school. Just what I wanted to spend my weekend doing. Shopping, which I hate and forcing these kids to wear clothes they otherwise would never wear.

Well, I guess 1 hour was the max sleep time for "I". Off to get my little one from the crib.

Have a great day everyone!

I think I shall blog

2009-08-03T07:42:00.003-06:00

Hi, for anyone still checking this thing. Thanks for hanging in there with me.

You know, I would love to say that life took over and got busy due to the children that reside in our home. However, that is not the case. It might sound weird to say, but I still find this easy so far. Sure the constant phone calls and scheduling of these kids can be annoying. They have Dr's appts, Psyc appts, Visits with their Social workers, Visits with their parents, etc. Juggling it all has been easy for me. Maybe I just think it's easy but to someone on the outside it looks out of control? Maybe to others it would be more difficult? I don't know?

I look at it like this. Is the house clean daily? YES. Is there a good meal on the table each day? YES. Do I have plenty of time to myself? YES. Matter of fact I get bored during the day. Seriously! I have so much time on my hands most days it's not even funny. I get comments from people all the time about it being hard, getting things done,etc. I do my best not to make them feel bad, but in my head I am looking at them like their crazy. How is this hard to do? Maybe when the baby gets more mobile it will be a little bit more difficult?

Anyhoo, the baby had a few episodes of vomiting where it aspirated(inhaled vomit). Baby "I" turned dark red and blue and needed to be suctioned before "I" could breathe. No, big deal to me. It happens. You do have to be quick to respond. You can't panic like a school girl. But it happens. The complex part comes when after "I" had aspirated, "I" gets a bit pale, limp and lethargic then goes to sleep. To the Pedi at "I"s 6 week check up, this might have been seizures.

Can I just say I hate this Pedi. I have dealt with her on numerous occasions and she is just OLD and DUMB. Seriously! She decided she wanted to have "I" admitted to the hossy. I tried to fight it, but was unable to since "I" is not my child and "I"s social worker was present at the appt. I did however fight with this doctor politely. Every medical excuse she gave me for the vomiting, I shot it down with and backed it up medically! It was hilarious! The nurses and other doctors were all on my side too. I won't go into further detail, but let me just tell you guys this. Quiet, silent seizures don't cause vomiting. It just does not happen. GRAND MAL SEIZURES that cause extremely violent shaking will cause vomiting. I think I might have noticed the violent shaking since 2 of the episodes I was holding "I".

So "I" got admitted Thursday, had 2 EEG's, tons of blood tests, CT scans, swallow studies and a MRI. NOTHING was found. Even a tiny itty bitty seizure would have shown residual activity on the EEG. The Neurologist, who by the way, wrote the books on Child Neurology that most Neurologists use around the world. Finds this hospitalization "STUPID". His exact words not just mine. So now the hossy is wanting to keep "I" there in hopes of catching an episode. They have yet to catch one, It's now Monday. They already changed his refulx meds to something that is "ment to be prescribed to children versus a medication that is proven to not be effective in children. " Again, that is "I"s GI doctors exact words. Let's pull our heads out of our butts people and use our brains shall we?

So today, Monday I will bring "I" back home. Thankfully! Nobody can figure out why he was admitted in the first place. Only his pedi thought it was a good idea. Needless to say, were getting a new pedi! GRRRRR!!!!

Over the weekend I had a 2 year old boy, a 57lb 2 year old boy for respite(babysitting). He was a pretty good boy. We rode horses and 4 wheelers for most of the day yesterday. My older kids needed to exercise the horses. We have had so much rain in the past 2 weeks, so barely any ridding has been done. The 2 year old and I tooled around on the 4 wheeler while the kids rode the horses. Then at the very end the older kids took over the 2 year old for me so I could finish a proper workout for the horses.

Overall it was a good weekend. Would have been a bit better if we had "I" home rather than in the hossy. But a good weekend. I am looking forward to a normal week this week. I hope that the kids and I can do some fun things now that the older kids are out of their summer program.

I hope everyone that is reading this is doing well!

Torn

2009-07-08T10:47:00.002-06:00

I'm having some troubles today. I have a new infant coming into my care that is currently hospitalized. I went to see baby "I" yesterday just to get a feel for "I" and the Social worker at the hospital encouraged me to come and stay as much and as long as I could so "I" could get some positive touch.

Well I know better than to wake a sleeping baby yesterday. So I just let "I" sleep and adjusted monitors, cords and the blanket as needed.

Now here is where I am torn! Those 3 little boys I had for a week got me sick! I mean, real sick! I have the head cold from HE*double hockey sticks. I feel fine this week actually. It's just this darn cough. A little tickle in my throat and BOOM, I have a full out coughing fit that causes me to gag. I can barely speak without causing one of these fits. I had one while speaking with the social worker yesterday and I was so embarrassed. I really, really do not want to get this baby sick. Seriously, this poor child has been through so much in it's short 3 weeks of life. I just can not bare to cause this child more harm by giving it a cold.

However, I feel in my heart this child needs to be held and loved on. To have a voice there that is not a doctor, nurse or social worker. To hear my voice, the voice it will come home listening to each day and night. I felt so badly the 3 hours I was there yesterday, "I" was alone when I entered the room and never checked on by any staff the entire time I was there.

I'm on the fence post about this. Do I clean up and go to the hossy and just stay in "I"s room, at least look like I am the caring parent even if I do have a cold that could get people sick? I could wear a mask. They already require gloves and gowns. Maybe by being there I can learn more to help me take care of "I". Or do I not risk it? What to do? What to do?

Big 2 Days

2009-07-01T09:52:00.004-06:00

It's going to be a big 2 days in our household. Today and tomorrow the parents of my older foster kids are going to court. This will determine if the kids stay in custody or not. To give you an example of how intricate and complex this case is, court is scheduled from 9am to 4pm today and tomorrow. Normally, court hearings for this are scheduled for a single 45 mins. Not spaced out over 2 days and all day.

So my kids are quite nervous. They of course want to go home. I don't blame them. Do I feel they should go home? NO, I think for their own sake they need to stay in care for at least a little while, they need Psychiatric help, as do their Parents. They have been so isolated for so long, their minds brain washed and so far behind educationally, for their sake, I hope they stay in care. NOW, I do wish they find a foster home that all of the kids can be together and not separated. This would be better for my kids brothers who are autistic and having difficulties being away from my two.

Today is SWIM day for my kids. At Parks and Rec today they are going on a field trip to a local pool. Then later this evening is a FOSTER KIDS NIGHT OUT at a different pool. My kids are going to be little prunes all day long! LOL! I guess this really is a good thing. It will keep their mind off of their parents being in court today, as well as wear them down so they will sleep good hopefully instead of being awake thinking about what happened in court today.

Tomorrow the 54lb'er arrives. My older kids can't seem to roll their eyes enough at the thought of this big guy coming back. They crack me up, cause they both say they hate little kids, but you better believe they are the first ones to get down on the floor and play with them! Little Turkey's I tell ya!

Here's a little visual pleasentry for you. My hibcus plants are doing so well. They just looked so pretty this morning. Doesn't it just make you want to head to Hawaii?

Meet Justin

2009-06-30T13:39:00.004-06:00

I thought I would start introducing you to the members of our house.

Let's start with the Furbaby, Justin. Justin is a 2 year old Jack Russell terrier. Contrary to
popular belief about Jack Russell's being hyper-active. Ours is not! He is narcoleptic. Don't get
me wrong, the dog can play for hours on end without losing a bit of energy, but when it's time to sleep, he sleeps! He sleeps hard! It's very funny!

As I mentioned in my little profile piece, Justin does not know he is a dog. Seriously, I do not believe he does. He very much thinks he is human in every way. This is him sitting at the table in our travel trailer, patiently waiting for dinner to be done. This was his seat of choice while meals were being made and being ate. He was quite disappointed when we finally moved into
our new house and he was no longer allowed to sit at the table.

Justin loves the water. I mean really loves the water. Justin can not have access to bathroom while your showering or taking a bath because he will join you! I don't know how many times he has jumped into the tub with my foster kids. Of course they love it, but it makes 1 more thing I must dry off when it's time to get out. We live in an area where we can irrigate our pastures, so this means we have water in our ditches from March till August. You better believe the second that water is flowing he is in the ditch and muddy. All summer long!

Justin loves rocks! I mean loves rocks! He will find any rock and push it with his nose, pick it up in his mouth and make the most absurd squealing sound you have ever heard with this rock. It sounds like a chicken being tortured or something! I wish I could find a video of this. I know we have one somewhere!

Justin is a Momma's boy as well. It was not ment to be that way either. He is technically Alan's dog, but picked me as his owner for some odd reason. He is very protective of me. He does not like having Alan or anyone else for that matter near me when he is sitting on my lap or laying down next to me. He will growl and show his teeth at you, saying..Hey..Back away from my Momma or I am taking an appendage! In this picture he is still a puppy, it started early on in his life.

Justin is also the Stud for my MIL female Jack Russels. So he thinks he is pretty hot stuff with his girlfriends. You can ask him if he wants to go see his girlfriends and he will jump up and down and bark at you!

I guess this is enough for the day, seeing as how I just took an entire hour to find some pictures and post all of this. What a lazy loser I am today! LOL!

2 Weeks, No Way!

2009-06-29T14:23:00.003-06:00

I am ashamed to admit that it has been 2 weeks since I last blogged. Good Gravy that is a long time! You would think for some one unemployed I would have more time on my hands. Not so! It seems I have less and less each day. It's amazing how much of my day is consumed by everything else and I still don't get everything acomplished I wanted to. Just amazing!

A good thing has occurred since my last post. I was able to obtain all my paycheck money from that stupid man I worked for! Yup! Every penny! I was calling the bank daily to see if funds would clear. Each day they said NO. Then on Friday the 19th I was in town having lunch with Alan and doing some running around. I decided to call the bank to check funds. To my surprise the lady said, "not at the moment, but at 3pm the funds will be available for all 3 checks". I about peed my pants and ran off the road in pure Joy! I was inline at the bank, all checks and forms of ID ready at 2:58pm. I got to the counter and the lady was ashamed to tell me I had to wait 1 more minute for the funds to clear. WHO CARES ABOUT 1 MINUTE, I have been waiting WEEKS, so 1 minute is a drop in the bucket! I told the person behind me to go ahead of me. They did and at 3:03pm, I withdrew my entire 3 paychecks and overdrew his account by $100.00. WHOO HOO!!!!!

Now, if I can get my 401k money and unemployment until I can find a job that would be great. The labor department says since I quit I can't get unemployment. I see it as I had to quit cause I was not getting paid and by him not paying me, he was laying me off, so I am untitled! Whatever! I am fighting them and that's that!

Since last Tuesday I have had 3 little boys in my care along side my other foster kids. These boys were 24, 22 and 13 months old. The 24 and 13 month old were brothers. The 22 month old, get this...54lbs! I kid you not! I about flipped out when the foster parents who had these kids in their care pulled him out of the truck! 22 months and 5T clothing. The kids were a bit difficult to wrangle at times. They happened to all be sick as well. Fevers, boogers, coughing and a double ear infection on the 24 month old who also had tubes in his ears to begin with! Thankfully, they slept 7 to 7 each day and took awesome 2-3 hour naps daily! The 24 month old did wake up a few times each night towards the end of their stay, usually crying and grabbing his ear. I expected it every 4 hours as the Tylenol wore off. He would fall back asleep in minutes though so that was a blessing!

Sadly, I was called to have a long term placement of a 4 month old little girl born 3 months premature the same day I got these little boys. I was so upset I had to turn this little girl down. I really wanted a baby to round out these two older kids. The social workers have been telling me she is the cutest little girl too! Rub it in you guys, just rub it in!

I have agreed to take the 54lb'er again this week. They wanted me to watch all 3 again from Thursday till Sunday but I declined. They asked if I could take just 1 and I agreed. Every year we have a huge 4th of July party and taking all 3 boys and putting on a 4th of July bash for almost 50 people might have sent me right into divorce court or the loony bin!

I guess that is my update for now everyone. I hope all is well with everyone out there.

My First Day Unemployed

2009-06-15T07:36:00.002-06:00

Would y'all believe that on my first day of unemployment I would be sick? I have a sore throat and a runny stuffy nose. Can you believe that? Grrr....! I have not had cooties in years. No cold for 2 years this past winter. (knock on wood) I don't feel bad, not really. Yes, my throat is sore and that's annoying and the nose blowing, but I feel alright otherwise.

I type this from my bedroom as I listen to one of my kids coughing and sniffling. So there is no doubt where I got it from. These kids have been isolated all their lives, not being allowed to have contact with other people. Sending them to Summer Recreation, even when the cootie potential is lower brought this on my kids and of course I too have been exposed.

I would like to take this moment to announce that "I love coffee". I love my coffee even more when it's nice and cool outside, the birds are talking, the sun is shining and I am in bed watching Good Morning America and blogging. I wonder if I could get paid at least 40k a year to do just this? Not likely huh? Bummer Dude!

Well, let's get to those last day details. I would have blogged about this over the weekend, but I can promise you my dirty mouth and angry words would have flooded the page. Not exactly what I want you guys all to read. Not that it would not have been the truth. However, I just did not want to blog when I am that angry.

Friday when the time came. I gave him what keys there were to give. Showed him the checks I had been holding from clients, made him sign my checks and the building owner check. I told him that I would be depositing these checks and they were enough to clear out my payroll and that was it. He said nothing, he was almost happy. He asked about the accounts, the computer pass words, all the accounting status and weather I would be available by cell phone to answer questions. My answer, "NO, when my 401k is deposited and all my checks have cleared I will give you all pass words and answer some of your questions, but not till then". He said..OH OKAY.

It was really odd. Very odd! I was lucky enough that the kids social worker still had the kids and said for me to take my time picking them up today. This gave me time to go right to the bank and make the deposit and try to cash my checks right then.

Here is where it turns BAD. The bank was not able to cash my checks until the deposits cleared and became available at MIDNIGHT. Great! I knew this was a possibility but I was hoping for the best. So what do I do? I have to deposit them to get the money. I have no other choice. However, this leaves from 12:01 till 9:00 am that the money would become available and the owner can take all that money out of the account. I took my chances hoping he was to stupid or would be an honorable adult.

NOPE!!! At 9am I was waiting for the bank to open to cash those checks. The teller had this look of fear and dread in her face when she pulled the account up on the screen. He had taken it. Taken it all. All but 19 cents. He cleared it all out over night. Between ATM's and TRANSFERS to another account, he took it all.

I was so mad on Saturday morning I could have committed a crime. I had to stop my husband from committing a crime that morning too. He was going to my work to see if Dan was there. He was armed!

I called the building owner and he was not able to do much about it at the time. He had been hospitalized and was stuck, his exact words. I told him, I had a lock that could not be cut by bolt cutters, if he wants me to, I can lock Dan out. He did not want me to do that.

Moments ago the building owner called me, asked me to call the business owner and tell him, he is depositing the check at 9am, if it does not clear, he will be locked out. I have yet to call my business owner. I think the building owner needs to do that. However, the building owner might be my only chance to get my money. I think I will just let the business owner be blindsided. I will say, HEY I CALLED, I LEFT A MESSAGE. Not my fault your to stupid to check voice mail.

Our unemployment population is out of control here. Our unemployment office is so busy they have phones open on Saturday to file unemployment. Now, I am not exactly proud of getting unemployment, but I have paid into it for many years and I deserve to get something until I can get a job. Which hopefully is sooner rather than later. Talking to unemployment on Saturday only made me more angry. Yes, I quit him, but only because I was not getting paid. So as far as I am concerned, he laid me off/fired me when he quit paying me. Not to them. It's quiting. I don't qualify. I am going to appeal it. I am going to go down there and appeal it face to face with them. I asked them about him not paying me and their answer was, "It happens and were seeing it more and more but there is nothing we can do about getting you paid if he has no money".

I could spit nails. I spoke to ERSA on Friday about my 401k, they said if he has no money there is nothing that can be done.

Each of them told me my best bet would be to take him to court. LIKE I HAVE THE MONEY FOR THAT! Stupid people! Makes me cranky!

So here I am, my first day of being unemployed since I was like 20. I have a ton of things I can be doing today. All those things that pile up over time that you say, I WISH I HAD JUST 1 MORE DAY to do it all in. I have about 2 weeks worth of that stuff. Where to begin, where to begin? I guess looking for a job is the most important thing, 1st and foremost.

I will catch you guys later, gonna take my kidlets to Summer Rec. They said they feel fine so off we go!

Ready for battle

2009-06-12T11:50:00.002-06:00

I feel like Rocky Balboa getting ready to fight the Russian. Today is "D" day. How much money will I get? Will it end up being all the paychecks that are owed to me? Will it be some of it? Or even none of it, if the boss does not sign the checks. Anything could happen. It's any ones game right now.

Oddly, I don't think the boss has a clue he is getting ready to head into battle against me. I do believe he is well aware he is going into battle against the owner of the building this company resides in. The owner of the building gave him until TODAY to come up with the rent for May and for June. $4000.00 to be exact. Some how, from some where the boss told the building owner that he would be getting a check for $5000.00 by Friday. I still have yet to figure out where they 5 grand is coming from. We don't have just one client that owes us 5 grand. Maybe he was thinking a total/tally of various clients that owe us? Who knows!

My thought is this. The building owner needs to LOCK him out. This is going to be the only way to get his money and even the money that will still be owed to me. Everytime the building owner says he is going to lock him out. My company owner cries like a big ol baby and the building owner gives him a few more days.

The building owner and I are in constant contact. He could be my next employer. The building owner is also aware of the money this company has received so far. I am currently holding about $3300.00 in checks from clients in my purse. This is just enough to get my payroll covered, leaving the business owner about $1.06 left over if I only pay myself through the end of the day yesterday and not for being here today.

The building owner has talked about us just splitting that money. Well, as rude and selfish as this might sound. I don't want to! I want to keep all that money for myself. I have NO LEVERAGE against the business owner to collect on my money owed to me. NONE! At least the building owner has leverage and would get his money if he locked the business owner out. Does that make sense? Does that sound wrong of me to want what money I can get. The 401k money I will do my best to go after legally.

Either way, today is the final day. I am not coming back again. It's my final day and this is the final count down. I have no respect for this man, I can't stand to look at him and I just can not take chances working here not knowing when and if I will get paid because he has taken money from the bank accounts for Liquor, Drugs and Hookers. I just can't do it!

So here we go. The clock is ticking. I must leave today at 3:30 to get my kids from their Summer Rec program. I have 3.5 hours left before almost 8 years of employment goes down the tubes.

Scary!

Corn Fused

2009-06-09T15:00:00.002-06:00

So I am a bit confused with blogger right now. So if any of you are blogger guru's it would be awesome if you just happened to know the answer to my problem.

At first I found a back ground on CUTEST BLOG ON THE BLOCK that I really liked. I followed the directions and put it as my back ground. Well, then I found another one that I liked even better and it happened to have a header that was my exact title to my blog. Sooo...I deleted or so I thought I had my old back ground code and pasted the new back ground code in.

Well, for the life of me I now have 2 back grounds. If you look at the little Cutest blog on the block button in the upper left hand corner, there are 2 buttons and they over lap. I have went in and deleted everything I could, tried to get rid of all the back grounds, cleared everything I could out of the HTML, deleted gadgets etc. NOTHING! The orginal back ground just sticks. I have went to CUTEST BLOG ON THE BLOCK and looked for answers on what to do and turns out I have already done all that.

So why is it that I can't get rid of the 1st back ground. What am I not doing or doing wrong?

I really don't have the time to be playing with it so I thought by chance if someone is reading this they might happen to know the answer.

On a much lighter note. It looks like I might be able to recover some of the money I am owned by the moron I worked for. Hopefully! I am not putting all my eggs in one basket just yet, but I am praying like a Nun who just commited her first sin.

I hope everyone is having a great week so far!

Beep Beep Beep...Back up!

2009-06-08T12:05:00.002-06:00

Shame on me. Yes, I said shame on me. I don't want to do cry baby, rant type blog entries. Yes, I am struggling with getting a job and money right now. But so are lot's of people, so no more whiney cry baby entries from this girl if I can at all help it.

We had a good weekend. I am sure it was more interesting and fun for me than for the Foster kids, but there is nothing I can do about that. They are included in all activites and if they choose to sit and stare into space, well that is by their choice.

I did get to take the kids horse back ridding yesterday evening. The kids had been looking forward to that all weekend long. They are both chomping at the bit to make their horses trot and go faster. But let me tell you, they are not ready for that at all. They need to learn to balance and feel more comfortable on the horse before they do that. Crawl before you walk type of a deal. You get the idea.

We spent a good portion of the morning Saturday picking mullberries from our tree in the front of the pasture. Saturday evening we went to the neighbors house for a get together with all their friends. There were tons of people there, the food was great, the weather turned out nice and I enjoyed adult conversation. However, I had been up since 4:30 that morning and by 9:30 I was plum tuckerd out. I went right to bed when we got home! That is not like me at all!

Sunday was spent cleaning/sweeping out the garage, gardening, laundry, the kids cleaning their rooms and bathroom and just being lazy. I enjoyed it!

This is going to be an interesting week to see how life plays out. I hope everyones Monday is off to a good start so far.

Bring On The Rain

2009-06-05T14:38:00.002-06:00

As some of you have read. I am struggling here at my job to get paid. No money, means NO PAYCHECK. It will be 5 weeks at the end of today since I last got paid for my time. 5 weeks! Plus, the owner has not made my 401k payment I had withheld from my checks back in 2007. That is over $4,000.00 dollars right there that he owes to my 401k alone.

I have been sitting on the fence weather to just leave and throw my hands up in disgust knowing if I walk away the possibility of getting paid EVER might not happen. Or, staying, as I have each and every day, in hopes if the boss has to see me and deal with me daily, when and if some money that the company is owed comes in, I can get paid. I am torn. I have given this to God a long time ago. I have asked for him to guide my decisions and actions. I have done my best to listen hoping the Lord would move me, one way or the other. I'm stuck. What do I do?

I have been applying for jobs left and right. Just part time jobs, not even full time jobs. Although if I could pull a full time job off with Foster kids that would be fantastic! I don't see that happening. This was the dream full time job. I could do my job with kids here in the office with me. I could come early, leave early, work some weekend hours, etc to make up time as needed if needed. It truly has been the perfect job for the last 7 years. I am torn. I know I can not work here anymore. But do I leave and risk never getting money ever or do I stay and hope for the best?

Today the Foster Parent Liaison called and asked me about doing some respite care for Foster kids. Respite is where the kids are already in a Foster home but the Foster parents need a baby sitter for a short time. It might only be a few hours or it might be for a week. This at least pays me some money. I can take the kids they are needing care for. All of them are little. 2 and under which is awesome. I just love the little itty bitty guys, they are such fun!

My husband and I have talked and talked about me being able to stay home with foster kids. We would need about 6 kids full time, that means all month long no breaks in between for me to even break even with what I had been making job wise. That's a lot of kids! I know I can handle that many kids, that is not the issue. The problem is transportation. My car will not transport that many kids. In the event we all needed to go somewhere, well... we would need to take 2 vehicles. Buy a new car? Uhh.. NO! We don't have any car payments now, so taking on a car payment would over load the finances.

So here I am, the last few minutes I have left in my day before I need to leave my office. I am all prayed out, cried out, pleaded out, stressed out and just plain pooped out.

So Bring on the Rain Lord. I can take it. I can handle it. I welcome it.

I'm Invisible

2009-06-04T10:54:00.002-06:00

Somebody sent this to me recently in an e-mail. I really enjoyed it and it truly made me feel better about all that I do each and everyday. I hope you enjoy it too.

It all began to make sense, the blank stares, the lack of response, the way one of the kids will walk into the room while I'm on the phone and ask to be taken to the store. Inside I'm thinking, "Can't you see I'm on the phone?" Obviously not; no one can see if I'm on the phone, or cooking, or sweeping the floor, or even standing on my head in the corner, because no one can see me at all. I'm invisible. The invisible Mom. Some days I am only a pair of hands, nothing more: Can you fix this? Can you tie this? Can you open this?

Some days I'm not a pair of hands; I'm not even a human being. I'm a clock to ask, "What time is it?" I'm a satellite guide to answer, "What number is the Disney Channel?" I'm a car to order, "Right around 5:30, please." I was certain that these were the hands that once held books and the eyes that studied history and the mind that graduated summa cum laude - but now they had disappeared into the peanut butter, never to be seen again. She's going, she's going, she's gone!

One night, a group of us were having dinner, celebrating the return of a friend from England . Janice had just gotten back from a fabulous trip, and she was going on and on about the hotel she stayed in. I was sitting there, looking around at the others all put together so well. It was hard not to compare and feel sorry for myself as I looked down at my out-of-style dress; it was the only thing I could find that was clean. My unwashed hair was pulled up in a hair clip and I was afraid I could actually smell peanut butter in it. I was feeling pretty pathetic, when Janice turned to me with a beautifully wrapped package, and said, "I brought you this." It was a book on the great cathedrals of Europe . I wasn't exactly sure why she'd given it to me until I read her inscription: "To Charlotte , with admiration for the greatness of what you are building when no one sees."

In the days ahead I would read - no, devour - the book. And I would discover what would become for me, four life-changing truths, after which I could pattern my work: No one can say who built the great cathedrals - we have no record of their names. These builders gave their whole lives for a work they would never see finished. They made great sacrifices and expected no credit. The passion of their building was fueled by their faith that the eyes of God saw everything.

A legendary story in the book told of a rich man who came to visit the cathedral while it was being built, and he saw a workman carving a tiny bird on the inside of a beam. He was puzzled and asked the man, "Why are you spending so much time carving that bird into a beam that will be covered by the roof? No one will ever see it." And the workman replied, "Because God sees." I closed the book, feeling the missing piece fall into place. It was almost as if I heard God whispering to me, "I see you, Charlotte. I see the sacrifices you make every day, even when no one around you does. No act of kindness you've done, no sequin you've sewn on, no cupcake you've baked, is too small for me to notice and smile over. You are building a great cathedral, but you can't see right now what it will become."

At times, my invisibility feels like an affliction. But it is not a disease that is erasing my life. It is the cure for the disease of my own self-centeredness. It is the antidote to my strong, stubborn pride. I keep the right perspective when I see myself as a great builder. As one of the people who show up at a job that they will never see finished, to work on something that their name will never be on. The writer of the book went so far as to say that no cathedrals could ever be built in our lifetime because there are so few people willing to sacrifice to that degree. When I really think about it, I don't want my son to tell the friend he's bringing home from college for Thanksgiving, "My mom gets up at 4 in the morning and bakes homemade pies, and then she hand bastes a turkey for three hours and presses all the linens for the table." That would mean I'd built a shrine or a monument to myself. I just want him to want to come home. And then, if there is anything more to say to his friend, to add, "You're gonna love it there."

As mothers, we are building great cathedrals. We cannot be seen if we're doing it right. And one day, it is very possible that the world will marvel, not only at what we have built, but at the beauty that has been added to the world by the sacrifices of invisible women.

I'm Free! I'm Free!

2009-06-03T14:26:00.000-06:00

Well I guess that statement is not entirely true. I am only free for a few hours. But a few hours is like THE BEST THING EVER!

I am sure you are asking yourself, "What is she talking about"? Well, all of our Foster kids have been coming to work with me on a daily basis. All 3 at one point in time. I had been looking for the older ones some type of summer camp program. I found 1 that still had openings left. Most of these camps fill up months in advance, so finding one for their age group that still had slots available was exhausting to say the least. However, yes there is a BUT in there, the cost was WAY over what the Children's Dept was willing to pay. If I had enrolled the kids in this program, Alan and I would have had to cough up $400.00 a month of the cost. The rest of the $900.00 the state would have taken care of. With my job not paying me and me not any closer to getting a new job. That just was not going to happen.

So daily they came to work with me. Now for the most part they are good kids. Still, kids they are and brother and sister at that. So they pick on each other. Say odd, funny, slightly rude things to each other, etc. The chatter is constant and non-stop, from sun up to sun down. Talk, talk, talk. Now, don't get me wrong I did mind it at all. I was happy to have them to talk to and to listen to the silly things they would say.

Monday I found out about a Summer Recreation program offered at a local Community Center. WHOO HOO! Tuesday, I went and got them registered, after I discussed with the Director of the Program the Children's circumstances. I wanted to make sure this was going to be alright that the Children would come and go at times due to appointments and visits etc.

Best of all, the program is FREE! Yes, Free! SOO HAPPY I COULD PEE MYSELF! It may not be as fancy as the other program I was hoping to put the kids in, but it's better than them coming to work with me each day and just watching movies on my laptop or sleeping.

This morning after I dropped them off and got a little ways down the road, I realized how quiet it was. Oh my goodness, I had missed the silence! A few moments later, I realized I could listen to the radio! Holy Mole, I had not been able to listen to the radio for weeks. You better believe I cranked that puppy up and sang the whole way to work!

Praise the Lord for Free Summer Rec Programs!

NOT ME MONDAY

2009-06-01T12:10:00.000-06:00

I have missed a few NOT ME MONDAY'S recently. But hopefully I will be able to stay on board every Monday. I truly enjoy and look forward to this post each week. Here goes! I am NOT blogging instead of doing my work for the stupid company I work for. I certainly am NOT! I did NOT look and apply for jobs earlier today instead of doing what little work I need to get done today. I am NOT thinking..Why even do any work when you have not got paid for over 4 weeks and the possiblity of you getting paid what you are owed most likely will not happen. I am NOT thinking my Foster Son is 90% liar and making up extreme lies to his mother trying to get myself and my husband in trouble. I did NOT walk off and forget to pack bottles of water for the kids and I to drink with our lunches today! I most certainly do NOT need to vacum and mop my floors in my house. There is NO way I would ever go more than a week without sweeping and moping. That is just NOT something I do! I always sweep and mop weekly! I do NOT need to go grocery shopping for food that we are running out of very quickly because I have not been paid for weeks and have no money. I am NOT stressed out in the least about not having any money and having to support Foster Kids with no job and no income! NOT STRESSED, NOT AT ALL! I am NOT thinking that the State is going to have to remove these children because we can not provide for them with me not having a job. I am NOT having trouble finding a new job because all of the jobs I do find are not willing to work around my life as a Foster parent. I am NOT wondering if I made a mistake in becoming a Foster Parent again and to teenagers at that! I am NOT so sick to my stomach over all of this I have barely eaten or kept food down for days! I guess I will end this here. I see My NOT ME's are turning into rants and that can't be good! Everyone enjoy your Monday!

1 more makes 3

2009-05-23T07:29:00.000-06:00

I am not really sure who is reading this or if anybody at all is reading this. I have yet to inform the people from my OTHER blog of my new blogging status here. Of course there are very few people who will get that invitation. I kind of see it as OUT WITH THE BAD in with the GOOD.

It's 7:30 on Saturday morning and I actually have a little bit of time to myself. Amazing in the fact that Alan and I now have 3 foster children in our care as of the moment. 1 kidlet is 3 and came around 1am Thursday night/Friday morning. Then around 9:30 last night we got the 13 year old sister of our other foster child. So one more makes 3! Yay me!

Actually, the 2 older ones are going to be a piece of cake. The older kidlet we already had in our care has been easy breezy. Praise God, cause most kids that age, OH DEAR LORD. They have attitudes and mouths on them. I was hoping the sister we got last night would be as super sweet and polite as the first kidlet and so far, so good. I could not be more relieved!

On to this 3 year old. He does not listen or maybe he just does not understand when he is told to stop something or not do something. I am sure this is typical of most kids, I guess I am just not use to it. Any other foster kids we have had or even nieces and nephews you can tell them, things such as NO DRINKING ON THE COUCH only at the table. Once you tell them, they don't do it. This kidlet, you tell him, something like that and he does JUST THAT. Patience and repetition is what I am hoping will win this battle. I guess only time will tell.

To make matters worse the little one speaks jiberish. I understand about 10% of what comes out of his mouth. I am sure this will change once I get to know to know him better, but it can make things more difficult at times.

I hope everyone has a wonderful Memorial Day Weekend!

Life Happens

2009-05-21T10:33:00.000-06:00

I am a bit upset at myself. I began this new blog and have yet to really keep up with it. I deeply would like to be able to keep up with it, but Life Happens. Weather it be a problem with my computer at work preventing me from getting online or something else, I just have not been able to give this blog it's needed attention.

Friday rolls around and I think, OH OH, I can maybe post on WHERE YOU LIVE FRIDAYS from Kellys Korner, then Life Happens and that goes right down the tubes. I have no time to take pictures, let alone post them into a blog entry. This saddens me cause I really would like to do these things. Monday's, MckMama's NOT ME MONDAY'S, I have been a bit better at this post, however I am still lacking weekly. My every minute is consumed by something else.

My husband and I have been really struggling with out latest Foster Care placement. Our kidlet is absolutely awesome and is quite a joy to be around. HOWEVER, the kidlet's Mom is really causing some problems. SERIOUS PROBLEMS! Each day since this child was placed in our home we have prayed for guidance. For the Lord to guide our words, our hearts and our actions. Each day we have prayed for this kidlet's family and for the kidlet. Just when it feels as if we are making some progress, BOOM the Mom does something that shoots us right down to square one.

It is very frustrating for us to know in our hearts we are doing the right thing and following God's will to help others, but our hands are being tied and we are not able to do much in helping this child to heal. Breaks my heart!

Life happens, it is what it is and we will do our best each and everyday.

Not Me Monday

2009-05-18T14:31:00.000-06:00

Well here we are again with another episode of NOT ME MONDAY. The day we don't admit to anything! How cool is that, to NOT be responsible for any of the foolish things we did or said and certainaly never admit to any of it! I am NOT craving adult converstaion this week after spending the entire week last week from 6am till 10pm with a new foster child I have in my care. No need for adult converstaion..what is that anyway? I most certianly did NOT try to feed my new foster son HAM forgetting that HAM IS PORK. How could that have slipped my mind. Ham comes from a pig. A pig is pork. He does not eat pork. Pork is Ham. Ham I am. Huh? I would NEVER have my new foster son sit outside in the wind with strom clouds brewing to the West when he is scared to death of Tornados and was convinced one was coming. Just so I could watch my brother and brother in law racing. NOT until 1am in the morning either. I am a responsible foster parent I really am! I did NOT lie to my foster son and tell him that the 45mph winds were really only about 18 miles an hour so he would be less scared. I do not lie! I'm not admiting that I have no idea what we are going to eat for dinner tonight and have gotten nothing out of the freezer to thaw meat wise. I always plan my meals out in advance. I most certainly am not sitting at work right this second typing up a long over due blog entry instead of getting the mountians of work I need to be doing done. That must be some other slacker were talkng about cause it can't be me! There you have it. Let's see what your NOT ME MONDAY is all about!

Show Us Where You Live Friday

2009-05-08T14:49:00.000-06:00

I wanted to jump on this band wagon last week with the kitchens. But ran out of time. I did not have time to take new pictures of my living room this week. I was hoping to, but life took over. Oh well! So these are pictures from when my husband and I first moved into our house. Long before I was able to decorate or even get fully un-packed. But you can get the idea from these and because we have a Great Room Style of living room, you can even see a itty bit of our kitchen in these pictures.

This is looking into our living room from the edge of the dinning room. Our front door is to the right. My old coffee table looks so small sitting there.

Another view looking into the living room from the Kitchen. Amazes me to think of how bare the living room was when we first moved in. Our old TV looks so tiny compared to the new one! You can even see a tiny bit of our Furbaby Justins behind. Haha! Our couches, full suede! My husband picked them out for his apartment when he first moved to the town I was living in. Needless to say, those puppies stay covered up at all times unless we have fancy guests coming over.

Looking towards the Kitchen and my husbands office from one of the sliding glass doors. We have bar stools at the bar now that my husband made. He's so talented!

Looking down the hall towards the guest bedrooms and 2nd bathroom. The entry way to the left goes to the powder room and master bedroom.

I guess that concludes my living room tour since those are the only pictures I have of my living room on my computer here at work. I wish I had the time to get on the computer when I am at home, but I simply don't. I am lucky if I make it to bed by 1am each night. So many things to do and so little time to do it all in. I need to win the lottery!

I hope everyone has a great weekend. I look forward to seeing my living rooms on Monday when I am back at work. ~TRICIA~

Blogging History

2009-05-05T10:42:00.000-06:00

I should admit that I am not new to blogging. I have been blogging for years now. Since 2005 to be exact. I have been a frequent blogger on MSN SPACES. One might ask, why am I blogging here then if I already have a blog set else where?

There's an easy answer to that question, but it was a diffcult choice for me to come here. You see, when I started blogging on MSN I was single. I was dating my now husband at the time. However, I was not able to have the most serious realationship with my husband since I was a foster parent to a sick infant. Only so far that realationship could go and I did not see it going very far at the time.

When I first began blogging on my other site, I was still bitter over 2 failed relationships in my past. Some of my blogs were rants. During the times I was not placed with a child in the system I would hang out with my best friend and we would get just plain silly. All of these life experiences attracted some great blogger friends. At least at the time they were great.

Now, my life has changed. I am no longer bitter. I no longer have rants the way I use to. These blogger friends are still at the same point in their lives. They are sad, unhappy, unfortunate and miserable. Misery loves company right?

I have nothing to post about on my old blog anymore. I try posting about great things with my husband and I somewhat get BOO'd if you will. Comments like.."OH YUCK" or "Leave the romance novel out of this". Hmph!

My ex-boyfriends sister reads my blog as well. Where as that is not really a bad thing. I love her lots. However, I really don't want some of what I would like to post about out there for her to share with my ex-boyfriend. In all honestly I know she does not share most of what we talk about. Regardless, why risk it right?

There are tons of things I know I will blog about over time. Life that I will record on the world wide web. But one subject in paticular I can not blog about over there has brought me here.

After reading so many blogs about infertility and knowing I could not blog about that stuff on my other blog, I contemplated coming over here. Starting fresh. Finding people who could understand me. Who could relate. Who was willing to listen and not give me nasty feed back. Had I blogged about this stuff on my old blog. Those that follow me would never have understood.

So there it is. Here I am. To start fresh. To put words to paper so to speak. What's next, we shall see!

Not Me Monday

2009-05-04T09:52:00.000-06:00

I have been waiting for a good moment to jump in to my blog here on blogger. I almost jumped in on Friday for Kitchen Tours with Kellys Korner, but I did not have time to take pictures of my kitchen. So here I am today, jumping onto the MckMama band wagon. Let the blogging begin and tomorrow I will post about me and who I am!

I dyed my hair Friday night, from a box no less. THE HORROR! Rules of box color say go 1 shade lighter than the color your trying to achieve. I did that, so my hair is NOT JET BLACK instead of Dark Brown. Nope, I don't look like a freak out of a goth movie at all!

I can promise you I DID NOT decide to work outside last night in the yard instead of cleaning my very very dirty, visable dirt on the floors house.

My husbands brother had to spend the night this past week at our house cause his truck broke down. I hate his brother with a passion. I surely DID NOT pull the dirty sheets out of the laundry hamper and put them back on the guest bed cause it would take to long to wash them at 11 at night! I would never ever have my guest sleep on dirty sheets! NOPE..NEVER!

It most certainly is not in my personality to be listening to praise music, singing along to GOD YOU REIN and then suddenly start dropping F bombs because of a stupid driver. OH NO! NOT ME! I do not use that type of language! NOPE!

I guess that does it for me for today. Short and sweet hopefully. Today's blog was brought to you by the letter "B".

Tricia