Now I know where they get them

You’ve seen the kids in their funky clothes these days just like I have. In fact, my kids have been asking for some of them but I have never seen a rave clothing store until I found this one online at beatdropscloset.com.

Now I know where they find all those things they wear. I must admit I do like some of the things the girls are wearing like the furry boots. They remind me of Cher when she first started with Sunny. Pretty neat if you ask me. Some of the clothes I’m not that crazy about so the kids will just have to be happy with what I get.

Important day in history

I am a bit of a history buff and just found out that today is a day to be celebrated in history.  See, today marks the celebration of the ACLU  anniversary of the US Supreme Courts decision on student free speech.  Here’s how it started:

On Tuesday, the non-profit organization the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) released a video and press release commemorating 40 years since the landmark Supreme Court of the United States decision involving freedom of speech in the case Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District. The Tinker case was decided on February 24, 1969. The case involved students in Iowa who chose to wear black armbands with peace symbols in protest of the Vietnam War – in violation of a recent school board policy. In their statement, the ACLU compared issues of freedom of speech in the Tinker case to a more recent case, Gillman v. Holmes County School District, where a school district in Florida forbade students from wearing rainbow symbols in school in support of LGBT rights.

In the Tinker case, John and Mary Beth Tinker and another student decided to wear black armbands with peace symbols to school in protest of the Vietnam War. The school district heard of the students’ plans and decided to ban armbands in school. The three students case were represented by the ACLU of Iowa, and in a 7-2 decision the Supreme Court ruled for the plaintiffs.

Supreme Court Justice Abe Fortas wrote in the Opinion of the Court: “It can hardly be argued that either students or teachers shed their constitutional rights…at the schoolhouse gate.”

Unfortunately there are too many young people today that think there’s nothing they can do to make a difference.  Well these kids did just that.  They made a difference.  We all can make a difference if we do it right.  There should never be violence when we feel something needs to change.  There should only be peaceful means to make the changes we feel are important.  Violence never makes a positive change.

Working hard!

Well I have had two sessions with the online counselor and I am working really hard to do what they have suggested.  I get up in the morning and look in the mirror and tell myself that I am worthy and I deserve only the best and that’s what I will have.  I can’t say I believe it yet but it sounds good anyway.  I can easily look at my children and say they are very special and deserve the best and can have anything they want if they work hard enough but I’m still having trouble believing it for myself.

I know it’s going to take longer than a few days.  I’m not stupid enough to think there’s a quick fix out there.  Its going to take a lot of hard work on my part but my children are worth it.  It’s more for them than me.  That’s why I’m doing all of this.  I owe it to them for bringing them into this hard world we live in I believe.

What if I can’t do this?

I suddenly find myself so full of self doubt that it’s almost paralyzing to me.  What if I can’t do this?  What if I mess up the best chance I have ever had to not only be a good mother to my children but to better my own life so there’s can be better too?  I’m so full of what ifs that I can’t hardly function.  Life has been hard for me and my children and then this blessing falls right into our laps and I don’t know how to take it.

I have found a great web site online for counseling.  I am hoping that they will be able to help me stop thinking so negatively about myself and restore my faith in myself.  The counselor is supposed to be one of the best there is so that gives me hope.  Hope, that’s a very strong word.  In fact, it’s one of the strongest I know.  Hope is what they are offering to me and best of all, it’s online and I don’t have to face a group of people I don’t know and whine about my life.  I can’t do that.  Maybe if you need help too, you should check out online counseling.  It has given me hope just knowing something like this is out there for help.

Well I’m all signed up

I filled out all of the necessary paperwork and found out that there is a waiting list for radiology but they said I could take all of my electives, Englishes, and other classes until I finally can get into the actual radiology curriculum.  A lot of the electives are offered online too.  That’s wonderful.  Even if I can’t get into it very soon, I could still take classes that I might be interested in anyway like Spanish so I could help more people by being able to speak Spanish.

Charlie, there must be a very special place in Heaven for people like you.  I only wish I could thank you personally but I know the best way to do that is to honor what you have done for my kids and I by taking this opportunity and making something wonderful for my children and I.

I think I’m going to go to college

I have to admit I hate my job.  I have to work nights sometimes and weekends almost all of the time.  Holidays, well most of them too.  That’s the worst part of working retail.  My mother is a nurse and she has wanted me to go to college to be a nurse like her for as long as I can remember.  She says that she’ll always be able to find a good paying job somewhere no matter what the economy does.  She’s right too but I’m just not the nurse type. It takes a special person to be a nurse and I’m not that person at all.

I have decided to check into being a radiologist.  I could do x-rays.  They get paid good too.  Charlie fixed it so that I could go to college and he would pay for it so tomorrow I’ll go by the local college and see what I have to do to get into that program.  I’m also going to be checking online to see if I can do it online.  That would be great if I could take it online.  I think some of the courses are online at the local college anyway but we shall see.

Went to the lawyers today

I decided that I needed to go to see the lawyer today.  The last thing I want to do is lose the money Charlie left us or blow it on stupid things.  I need to know what is expected of me to keep the money coming in and not make bad decisions that would lose any of the money.  I have never had much of anything so I have to be careful.  In other words, I need financial advice.  When the lawyer was reading the will, I was more or less in shock and most of what he said went in one ear and out the other.  Well I had him to sit down and explain it to me again and make sure I fully understood.

From what I got out of what the lawyer said today, I get so much a month to take care of the kids and I.  The kids each have a trust fund for college that they will get if they go to college to pay for college.  If they don’t go to college, then they don’t get the money until they are 25 years old and then they get a monthly allowance more or less to help them get a start.  When the kids are all moved out, I get to stay in the house but if I decide to move, then the house is sold and the money divided between the kids and I and it goes into our respective trust funds.

If something should happen that I would need a lump sum of money say for medical reasons, then there is a fund set up for that too and I can get the money through the lawyer with proof.  Charlie thought of everything and made sure that none of us would ever want for anything again.  The monthly allowance I get, I can spend it on myself and the kids or I could save some if I wanted.  All of the household bills are taken care of so there’s no reason why I couldn’t save some of it for a rainy day.

The kids are over the moon

I finally have a minute to write a blog.  The kids are absolutely over the moon.  They haven’t slowed down long enough to hardly sleep since they opened all of their presents and Santa came.  I think this has been the best Christmas they have ever had.

There was absolutely nothing they asked for that they didn’t get.  In fact, they got more……….much more than they asked for.  Nothing does a mothers heart better than to see their children happy on Christmas.  I am truly blessed to have my children and the people around me that have filled my life with so much love and joy.  I only hope you have the same.  God bless you each and all.  Now on to a new year!!!!

Haiti

Haiti is such a poor country with so much poverty that we Americans could not imagine.  We think we have it bad, we live like kings compared to the people of Haiti.  They suffer every day and then something as horrific as this happens.

“Three days after the concrete building suddenly collapsed during a children’s party, killing at least 94 students and adults and severely injuring 150 more, Capt. Michael Isetan of Fairfax County, Va., said the chance of more survivors was remote. He also said the death toll won’t likely go much higher. U.S., French and Haitian firefighters used sonar, cameras and dogs Monday in the search for victims at a collapsed Haitian school, but as the stench of death rose from the wreckage, they no longer expected to find anyone else alive.” was written on November 10th.

What an awful tragedy. They are not even sure just how many people were in the building when it collapsed, though the school is believed to have had about 500 students. Haitian officials said some had time to escape when it began to fall. Some students weren’t at the school during the collapse because La Promise was holding a party requiring a donation of about 50 cents that poorer families could not afford, said Deputy Steven Benoit, who represents the area in the Chamber of Deputies.

That was one time that being poor probably was a blessing to some of those people because at least their children are still alive. My heart breaks at the thought of all of those children being trapped and killed in a building that should have been the safest place for them to be and yet it turned into a living HELL for the whole community.

What a shame

Did you hear about the man that came from Ohio to Atlanta Georgia for his fathers funeral and was shot and killed while in Atlanta?  That was absolutely awful.  Someone apparently tried to carjack him and killed him in the process.  Now the poor family is not only mourning the loss of a father but also his son.

What is wrong with this world?  What evil has taken over so much so that innocent people are killed for their vehicle?  Is it drugs or just plain old evil?  I wish I knew the answer so that something could be done about it.  There are so many people suffering because of violence that is senseless.

There was a 10 year old boy that went to a door on Halloween, the light was on so the child thought they were handing out candy.  His parents watched as he knocked on the door and the man inside shot through the door 28 times with an assault rifle thinking someone was trying to break in.  Can you imagine the horror these parents felt watching someone shoot 28 times at their son, killing him instantly.  They don’t want the man put to death, they want him to have to live with what he did to their child.  I can’t say as I blame them.