Tragedy Strikes Again

Another day, another tragedy. I'm so sorry that the world is such a tough place.


I can't fill you in on the whole story because I don't know it all and it's really not my story to tell. I just hurt so much when others hurt. What I can say is that there was a very nice high school boy who felt that he had few options last night. Something happened, the police followed him and he eventually ended the pursuit by using a gun on himself. He's currently on life support.


I knew of him but didn't know him personally. Brittney knew him because he had a locker near hers. Our young friend Suzanna was his girlfriend. Our friend Ron was his teacher and confidant. They are struggling.


I'm reminded of a short time ago when my friend Eric committed suicide. There are no words.
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Just Another Day

So yesterday, lots of phone calls, lots of meetings set up, school concert skipped by our whole family. The good news is, I was only blindsided once. By a call from a police detective. Wasn't expecting that one. Now I'm off to a school. I hope it's the right thing to do.

What I Have Discovered

I have discovered that if you're open, honest and vulnerable about feeling overwhelmed and needing help, you get reported to social services and nearly a trip to the psych ward. Yikes! So I believe I shall go back to my old ways of carrying the world on my shoulders and not letting anyone know how hard it is. Although the looney bin would probably be more sane and relaxing than my house. Maybe I should go!  :-)

Complicated and Messy

This is one of those weeks where, if you happen to see our family, we would look perfectly normal. But inside, we are not ok. I'm not talking about Steve's and my relationship. We're fine. I just mean that there are things going on right now in our family that are really complicated and messy. They're so messy that I can't even write about it. Once the dust settles, and I'm still hoping that it does, I can probably give a little more information. Just know that we are into some very intense parenting right now and have a specialized therapist involved, but very few other people. If we seem to be 'closing ranks' as a family, don't take it personally, just know that we have issues that we need to concentrate on for the time being.


It's terribly ironic that just when I've really started writing again, something so complicated comes along that I can't even write about it. I'm one of those people who usually hate facebook for that very reason. I think it's ridiculous when people post really vague things and then when someone asks about it, they say that they don't want to share. It seems more like an attention getting thing to me. 


I'm NOT intentionally trying to do that. I DO think it's important that my friends know that we have stuff going on right now. I need a few days or weeks to figure out some things and the next steps we need to take. As I have more information and feel like I can share, I'll try to share more.


I was reminded a few weeks ago at the conference that when I write, people not only get an unexpected glimpse into our life, it also helps others not to feel so alone when they face some of the same types of challenging issues. I'll try to bring you along on some of our journey as soon as I safely can.


So tonight, instead of a track meet and swimming, a few of us will have a late evening consultation with a therapist who has re-arranged her already demanding and hectic schedule to accommodate us.


Then we'll see what tomorrow brings. I'm hoping it brings a massage because my shoulders and neck are so tight from stress that it's giving me a headache!


On a positive note, our new insurance will finally start on Friday and, for the past two uninsured months, we haven't had any serious medical issues! Yet................
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All Nations Festival

I'm not sure if it's called the All Nations Festival or the World Outreach Festival. Either way, we had a booth for Guatemala. We made Chicken Tortilla Soup, horchata  and banana cake.

Brittney's Prom

It's amazing how quickly life can change.

Brittney's been looking forward to prom for months and I almost had to miss it. 

Our life has been thrown into severe turbulence once again

 but thanks to an amazing friend, 

 I was still able to celebrate Brittney's big night with her

and Brittney wasn't even aware of the chaos going on at home.

It got us through yesterday.

So this morning, I choose to spend a few minutes being in awe of my beautiful daughter

and pretending like life is normal.

The Great Iron Incident of 2004

Today is going to be quite a marathon day. No. I'm not running any kind of real race. Ha. Haha. I don't run anymore unless someone is chasing me. Even then, I'm thinking I'd probably just let them catch me and be done with it.


It's just one of those days where a lot of things need to be accomplished. So of course, I'm sitting here at my computer at 6am. Soon, I'll be heading to the kitchen for a cup of coffee. I'm a little afraid to go in there and make any noise because so far, no one else is awake and I'd like to keep it that way.


I'm back with my coffee. Mission mostly accomplished. One sleepy child woke up but quietly parked herself in front of the tv. She's only interrupted my typing twice so far.


Today's three important missions include: cooking Guatemalan food at our house for the all Nations Festival tomorrow, Riley's baseball and then all the 'prom stuff'. Have I mentioned lately that I'm not a fan of prom? But Brittney is excited so I'm trying to be excited too.


I'll post lots of pictures of her all dressed up because it seems to be required. because everyone LOVES scrolling through all those prom pictures other people's kids. because she will look beautiful and I'll be proud of her.


Since I mentioned it the other day and I don't think I've ever written about it, The Great Iron Incident is as follows:


I was scheduled to graduate from SDSU and we were going to have a big party afterwards at our house following commencement. At some point before the ceremony, Taylor, who was about 21 months old, somehow managed to open the door to our hall closet, maneuver herself up the shelves and reach the second highest shelf. I don't know if it was her original intention or if she was just struck with a grand idea after she arrived at that height, but either way she decided to grab the box with the iron. Which was still in it's original box because even then I only ironed when it was completely necessary. And I can pass off a lot as not really being necessary!!! I think it only came out of the box once a year during VBS when the kids brought home those darn adorable iron-on decals for their shirts. At that point, I was still able to be peer-pressured into taking the time to iron them on so that they weren't the only kids not wearing the theme shirts. Peer pressure has little effect on me anymore. So long, iron-on decals!!! Hello sad kids!!! FYI: Turns out they didn't really care anyway.


I totally digress. It's because I've been typing instead of drinking my coffee. I'd better get back on task because I've already had another kid poke his head in the office door so my time is limited. Just saw a third kid. Plus, people are coming over at 9am to help cook. Better finish my story. Have you ever noticed that my actual stories aren't really that good? I just take forever to tell them. I continue to be surprised that anyone reads these at all.


So back to the original story. Tiny Taylor drags the iron-in-a-box all the way downstairs. It's a tribute to our wonderful parenting that no one noticed the two year old with an iron. We can only guess at the thoughts running through her cute little brain at that point. I think she wanted to iron like mom. Someone should've let her know that's not really what I do!!!


She managed to get the iron out of the box, plugged it in and set it face down on the carpet.


Some time later, I think I smell something burning. I proceed around the house doing the smell test. You know, wandering around sniffing everywhere, trying to figure out what the smell is and where it's coming from.


I finally discovered the iron downstairs. I'm honestly shocked that it didn't start a fire. The iron was on it's hottest setting and had been there awhile. When I quickly picked it up, I discovered an entirely melted iron-shape that went all the way down to the cement! I doused the carpet with water and then watched it carefully for a while to make sure it wasn't still smoldering. I also may or may not have screamed at the offending toddler because I was mad about the hole and scared about the possible fire.


Looking back, I probably should've been more concerned about Taylor getting burned but all I could think about was that we were having people over for the party and now we had a big hole in our nice carpet. Ironically, it wouldn't even faze me now. I'm not sure if that's because I'm a better mom and more concerned with the big picture or I've just been through so much worse than a large hole in the carpet or I don't really care what anyone thinks anymore.


I ended up buying a rug to put over the spot and eventually forgot about it...........until we sold our house. Guess our memory is someone else's problem now.


Thus concludes the telling of "The Great Iron Incident of 2004".
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I'm off to mediate a fight going on in the kitchen!