Search Results for: Voices for Children

Things I’m celebrating at the end of this week:

1. My health – my visit with the doctor last week went so much better than I’d expected and I’m celebrating (again!) the second chance I’ve been given to take proper care of myself

2. My parents are arriving tomorrow for a two-day visit – I love spending time with my parents! On the agenda is lunch with my “adopted brother” and work colleague, Tony, plus four tickets to the San Diego Padres game on Sunday

3. Financial solvency – today is the day bonuses are paid out at work. I am all too aware of the fact that lots of people don’t have jobs at all, much less bonuses, and I am appropriately grateful. Truly

4. My beautiful 19 year old – she was accepted to a great paid internship with the Events Office at her university and I’m so proud of her! Now if only she could be named one of the College Brand Ambassadors for Alesya Bags (she did apply). Come on, she’s a former foster youth, she won a national competition for her short documentary about the importance of keeping siblings together in foster care, she’s a member of the speaker panel for Voices for Children, and she’s an influential member of her sorority – isn’t that pretty much the demographic you’d want to put your luxury laptop bags in front of? Still keeping my fingers crossed!!!

5. My manager at work – yesterday was in the 90s outside but in the 50s inside our offices. Brrr. Anyway, my manager saw me grabbing my wallet and taking off my sweater, and she asked if I was going over to the coffee bar to get a latte. When I told her that I was, on my way to an outside meeting I’d booked with one of the data analytics team, she decided to tag along and “crash” my meeting. How many managers would just get up and do something fun/supportive like that? (Yeah, it was probably mostly about the latte, but still…)

What do you have to be grateful for this week?

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. When I was a little girl, it was all about Christmas and Easter because of the gifts and fun activities, but as I’ve grown older and the focus on gifts has faded, it’s the warmth and love surrounding Thanksgiving that draws me in. So, in celebration of my favorite holiday, I’ve decided to expand it from one day to an entire week – woo hoo! Each day this week I’m going to tell you something I’m grateful for and why. And then, at the end of the week, it’s right into the downward slide to Christmas, New Year’s Eve, and Hello 2011. (Maybe that’s another reason Christmas isn’t my favorite holiday anymore…it goes by WAY too quickly.)

Today I am grateful for my friends. I have been blessed with friendships that sustain and nurture me, without judgment. Friends at work. Friends in the Junior League. A friend from my work as a CASA. A friend from college. All of them listen to me and let me know that they’re here for me no matter what. It is such a wonderful thing to know that you’ve got that kind of support in your corner.

I remember so clearly back in the first week of April, 2003 when I started this journal. I was single, hopeless, and closeted in my little house with a small, uninspired life, and I didn’t know how to get from there to…somewhere, ANYwhere else. It took months before I received my first comment and, thanks to having switched comment systems like eight times since then, I can’t tell you who it was that commented first. I will tell you that Lori was the first one to give me the excellent advice that I needed to comment on other people’s blogs if I wanted to gain new readers for my own. There were others along the way, too, kind people who took time out of their lives to help me begin to live mine. Truly, that’s what this blog has done: helped me step out of my head and into the world.

In the nearly six years since I started writing here, my life has changed drastically in some ways (met and married a wonderful – albeit absentee! – man, joined the Junior League and learned that I have a voice and should use it, and became a Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) for a (then) 13-year-old foster child) and hardly at all in others, including:

1. I’m at the same weight I was when I started this journal (260ish) after having lost as much as 60 pounds at one time. I’m not necessarily upset about the weight because I’ve stopped hating my big stomach and we’re trying to be friends, but it’s still not much progress for quite a bit of effort
2. In the nearly 20 months since TCB* left, I’ve cut myself off from most of the world, shrinking my world down to first my condo and now our lovely new townhouse. Doesn’t matter how lovely it is, no friend is going to continue to make the effort to do things with you after the 10th refusal, Denise!

* Stands for The Cute Boy, a nickname I gave my (now) husband after we met…just in case there might be new visitors who weren’t around way back then

Much/most of the backsliding can be put down to the fact that I suffer from depression. Actually, make that Depression with a capital D because it’s not, “Oh, wow, I feel sad today,” it’s like, “Oh my gosh, getting out of bed today is more than I can handle but I have to get up and go to work anyway, so let me just throw some clothes on and shlep myself through the minimum day’s activities until I can come home and zone out with food and mindless TV.” Seriously, I don’t know that I will ever be able to adequately convey what Depression feels like from the inside. I know that it closely resembles Laziness from the outside and that I sometimes berate myself for it, too, but it’s an illness and I wouldn’t beat myself up for not being able to use my arm if I’d broken it, so why is mental illness any different?

Anyway, I’d considered medication to deal with the Depression and have decided it’s not for me. I’m the type of girl who doesn’t take cold medicine and rarely takes anything for a headache because, if it’s not going to cure whatever ails me, I won’t put some foreign substance in my body to mask the symptoms. Depression is going to be with me for the rest of my life in some way or another, so I need to understand that and work with it.

It also probably wasn’t the best planning to change my life radically through getting married and then send him off to live and work 5,000 miles away for two years, either. To make myself vulnerable to someone else after many years of living independently was no easy feat for me, and then we decided to buy a house and move – then merge – two households, all while he was gone. The resultant upheaval left me wondering where my life was and who this weak-willed woman who can’t even get the boxes in the garage unpacked after nearly a year was.

Enough. I’ve had enough. Enough tears, enough emptiness, enough loneliness, enough grief. Life is meant to be lived, to be savored like a fine wine, to be ENJOYED…and that’s what I intend to do again. I said at New Year’s that my Un-Resolution for this year was to cry less and enjoy life more in 2009, so, to that end…

• I’ve signed up for a Project Management course at UCSD Extension. It’s 9 weeks, will help my career, and will allow me to take the Project Management Professional (PMP) certification exam, making me far more marketable. It will also be a great networking opportunity!
• I’ve signed up for several volunteer shifts with Junior League projects that sound fun and will let me get out and do things with my friends, many of whom are members, too
• I’ve registered to walk 60 miles in Washington, DC over my birthday weekend to raise money and awareness for breast cancer, of which my mother and grandmother are both survivors. (Shameless Plug: Have you clicked on the little widget to the right to make a donation?) This will not only help me feel as though I’m doing something to fight breast cancer, it will also make me more physically active which should help restore my energy and general sense of well-being
• I’m volunteering with Just In Time, an organization dedicated to helping newly-emancipated foster youth thrive as they go out on their own into the world. This is a cause that I am passionate about and something that gives me great satisfaction

So, as I end my 1,000th entry, I am imbued with a new sense of hope, of drive, and an expectation that 2009 and beyond hold much promise and even greater joy for me. Cry less and enjoy life more, friends! The journey continues.

I’ve never written about most of the training I received to become a CASA. Some of it was legal (procedural). Some of it was related to communications (how to properly write a court report). Some of it, though, was gut-wrenching, and that was all about how to spot abuse, how to distinguish between abuse and non-abuse (here’s a hint: acceptable parental punishment does NOT leave scars or bruises), and just a general primer of the ways that adults can damage children. Those evenings were always painful and I generally came home and cried when I thought about Man’s capacity to hurt others who are weak (children, the elderly, pets, the disabled).

When I became Alcott’s CASA, I purposefully created a false name for him and knew that I would never post pictures no matter how adorable on this or any other publicly-accessible website. No, I don’t think that anyone would hurt my boy or his siblings based on pictures I post here, but I can’t say with 100% certainty that they wouldn’t and I just won’t take a chance.

Every day (it seems) I read or hear about someone who was taking inappropriate pictures of young, male athletes and posting them to a pornographic website. Or the disgusting excuse for a man who was going to child care centers to photograph children of both sexes on the playground. (And then posting them to a website promoting pedophilia.) There is no way on God’s green Earth that I would ever allow my children or any children I come into contact with to be exploited that way.

I don’t judge parents who post pictures of their minor children on their blogs or use their children’s proper names when writing about them…but I do worry. I worry that someone they don’t know will troll through their website, find a cute picture of their beautiful daughter in the bath, and do disgusting things with it. You haven’t seen what I’ve seen and you cannot comprehend the capacity of certain people to make evil out of innocence.

That being said, posting a picture of an emancipated 18 year old is a different kettle of fish entirely. Here’s a picture of Alcott’s oldest sibling who just graduated from high school. In the picture, he’s receiving a free laptop and printer from a fine organization dedicated to helping emancipating foster children who are going on to college. I have decided to volunteer with this group because this is my passion. Only 2% of former foster youth graduate from college in the United States: what are the other 98% supposed to do with nothing but a high school diploma (if they’re lucky)? In this economy, especially in California, you cannot survive on what you will make without a college degree and, it seems to me, we are leading these precious children who are, in reality, our responsibility, into a future of minimum wage jobs and paycheck-to-paycheck existence.

This young man and 16 others like him are shining examples of what we can achieve together. Each of them had assistance, both private and public, in getting to that dais on Saturday. Not from their parents, but from loving adults who give generously not only of their money but also of their time.

On my personal balance sheet, I know that the work I do on behalf of foster children through direct interaction, Just in Time, and my leadership of the State Public Affairs Committee outweighs any of the minor transgressions I’ve committed throughout the years. In my epitaph (to be written 50 years from now), I hope it will say that I put my money and my time (and my passion) where my mouth was concerning the plight of emancipating foster youth, and that I made a difference, even if only for five precious children.

In the meantime, the only thing left to say is that I’m endlessly proud of this young man. He has overcome obstacles to success that most adults wouldn’t be able to handle and has simultaneously maintained a sense of humor and a belief in the inate goodness of people. And now he’s in college, complete with laptop and printer and Big League dreams, and I can’t wait to see where life takes him next.

Today I shall make up for yesterday’s Debbie Downer of a post by listing things about me that are good.

• I am a good driver. (TCB should stop laughing and examine his OWN driving right now.) I like to drive, I find it soothing. Even in southern California. Even when the tourists descend (which is pretty much year-round).
• I work well under pressure. This is especially important given my inclination to procrastinate (see yesterday’s post). I have whipped up A+ papers for tough graders by waking up early the morning of the day they’re due. Truly. Honestly, upon further reflection, I’m not sure if this should be classified as good.
• I call my mother every day. (I call TCB’s mom about once a week. Unless I forget. But usually, once a week.)
• I give a lot of time and money to causes that I believe in. I love that Americans are so generous and giving of their money…I sometimes wish they were as giving of their time, too. (If you want to give time to something you’re passionate about, try volunteermatch.org – I found Voices for Children there.)
• I am a really good problem solver for other people. When something needs to be done in the middle of a firestorm, I’m your girl.
• I have good hair. It’s getting a few grays but, eh, it’s still good. It gets stringy and annoying when it’s long, so I just keep it short and life is good.
• I am a good cat mommy. Mostly. Sometimes I don’t remember to get crunchy cat food on the way home and they all have to eat wet food (only Dave, the eldest, is supposed to eat that) but usually, they have it pretty good.
• I am surprisingly good with technology. For instance, I hooked up the new Apple TV that TCB sent me with absolutely no assistance from anyone.
• I can find anything on the Internet in like two minutes or less. Seriously, I am the Master of Google!
• I make a mean omelette and other breakfast-type foods. Like breakfast potatoes. And fresh squeezed orange juice. Not that I do it very often, but I could.

OK, I think that’s it. Or perhaps it’s just that I’m fed up with where I’m at and want to go home before my haircut this afternoon to take care of things. (That’s code for “take a nap”.)

Hugs for everyone, kisses for everyone I’m married to!

p.s. What does everyone think about using these for our kitchen back splash and these for the undercabinet lighting? I sent them to TCB yesterday and got no comment, so I’m opening it up to my Internet peeps…should I order them for when he gets home???

Friday afternoon. Sorry I’ve been MIA, but I was a staff member for a four day, company-wide conference (hosted by our site here in lovely San Diego) and basically turned into a mole, never seeing the light of day until today. I slept 13 hours last night and am still yawning and exhausted as I sit here.

With all of that, I’d planned to just go home and go to sleep. Then I saw this. I understand that parents want to be the ones to make decisions about their daughters’ lives and that’s something I support, but $360 to protect your child from developing a rare but deadly (37% mortality rate in the U.S.) form of cancer seems like a very easy decision to make. We could virtually eliminate a form of cancer in a generation…why the furor? Those parents who say that their children will be abstinent until marriage are overlooking the small but important detail that those children could marry someone already infected with HPV. To those who say that $360 is too much to spend when cervical cancer is not wide-spread here in the U.S., I say that parents spend hundreds of dollars at birthday and holiday time on stupid electronic devices that will contribute nothing to their childrens’ long-term health and well-being, so why the objection to something that will absolutely do so? And then there are those who say that giving girls this vaccination will promote promiscuity…I cannot think of anything intelligent to say about that line of logic, so I won’t, but I think it’s hogwash. Girls (and boys, too, for that matter) have so many factors to think about when making decisions about becoming sexually active and I certainly don’t think that a cervical cancer vaccine is going to suddenly and radically turn that tide.

I want to “fix” the woes of the world and I know that’s not possible, but this one thing is so possible. I know that I have to focus on the things that I can control and let go of that which I cannot and that’s why I’m so glad that I have my CASA and Junior League work to help me feel as though I’m making a difference. And, as to wiping out a deadly form of cancer in a single generation, to quote Mr. Lennon, “You may say I’m a dreamer but I’m not the only one.”

Monday morning. I don’t remember who sings the song that contains the lyrics, “What the world needs now is love, sweet love – it’s the only thing that’s there’s just too little of,” but it’s just going around and around in my head. So many people want to argue about the holidays or a parking space or a Christmas tree or whatever and I just want to smash their heads together and tell them to chill out. Seriously, folks, life is too darned precious and all-too brief and there are no do-overs, so take some time to enjoy what you have.

For me, this weekend was all about love and joy. Friday night I enjoyed some nice red wine wtih friends at work and had to stay at work until nearly 8:00 p.m. so that the buzz could wear off. (What a lightweight!) Saturday morning I watched Alcott’s little brother bowl then swung by to get Alcott so that all of the siblings (plus both CASAs) could head off to the Voices for Children holiday party. They got lots of stuff, including $50 Visa gift cards, and we spent about four hours there before I took them home via Fry’s. I dropped the last one off at 7:00 p.m., 30 minutes after I was supposed to be at the VLSCI holiday party – oops. Fortunately, TCB was running late, and we finished getting ready at exactly the same time. After a lengthy line for the valet, we spent four hours at the party and lots of people that I work with got to admire his uniform (and my tiara – yes, I really wore a tiara in public). Yesterday we woke up, had breakfast, and then went out to get a tree for my condo. TCB left for home at about 10:00 p.m. and I turned out all of the lights so that I could admire the lights on my tree.

God, I am so lucky. I have kids who love me and who do what I ask without whining or begging even when it’s something “stupid”. I have good friends at work who I actually like spending time with outside of work. I have TCB who hauled the tree home with me and helped me put the lights on even though he had to be to work early this morning. I have my parents and Gloria and the cats and my warm, cosy condo and the Junior League and Gingerbread Lattes and so much more and I just want to sing from the rooftops.

This is what Christmas is all about…love and joy.

(p.s. Two people have told me how “cute” TCB was from the party just while I’ve been writing this. And he wondered if wearing the uniform was a good idea!)

Saturday morning. I’m posting this before I have to hop in the shower to get ready for a day of incredible heat at a Voices for Children event with Alcott and his younger brother. It’s supposed to be 96F out there today and I’m the girl who breaks out in heat rash when it gets over 80! Oh, well, such is life.

In other news, I’m just finding it far too difficult to fit exercise into my life, so I’m just going to give up. Um, not! What I am going to do is sit down and do some scheduling/planning so that I can figure out how to fit dinner in before working out (I’m ravenous otherwise) and still get it – and everything else I’m supposed to be doing before bed – all in. Note that I’m not beating myself up, though? Yes, I’m giving myself points for that!

Okey doke, time to figure out if the clothes that I need to wear today are dry yet (I’m betting they’re not) and then get in the shower. Oh yes, and TCB is sound asleep downstairs because his plane from Memphis got in last night at about 11pm Pacific (1am Memphis) and there was just no way he was driving 45 minutes to his house at that point. Hooray for having my favorite Cute Boy back in the Golden State!!!

Saturday afternoon. I sit here, planning what I’ll wear to the Junior League’s Island Divine party tonight and I find myself strangely calm and centered for a change. Let me see if I can remember everything that’s happened since last I posted…

1. Eating disorder group support – strange, but good. It was nice to hear someone talk about the urge to eat huge amounts of food, secretly and quickly, but it also feels as though I’m indulging in the disease…lolling around in it like a water buffalo and just getting myself coated in it. I don’t want to focus on the disease, I want to focus on finding a different way to be. Not really sure if I’ll go back.

2. Yesterday at work, I found out that a good friend and colleague “failed” his stress test and will be having an angiogram next week to see if they can clear the blockages that way or if he’ll need to have heart surgery the following week. As I heard it, I immediately thought, “Oh my God, that could totally be me.” That one moment of sheer panic was quickly replaced by, “Yes, it could be me, but there is still time to do something about it…still hope for me.” Hope. With Hope, everything is possible.

3. Had a great time at my Lighter Way class this morning. The teacher talked about how emotional eating (or any compulsive behavior) is in response to some trauma we’ve experienced, even if that trauma is self-inflicted. For instance, things at work have me stressed out, things with TCB have me stressed out, and then I get a call from my Voices for Children supervisor because things with Alcott’s family have gone badly – I reach my limit and start to panic. I panic and shake and feel the familiar rise of the panic attack just under the surface. What we talked about today was using the imagery of having a “strong me” available when this happens, to help and redirect me. The idea is that there’s this other me – strong, capable, self-assured – who can step in when the everyday me can’t handle something on my own. Sounds freaky when you write it down, but it really is pretty powerful.

4. Got to spend some quality time with Alcott last night and this morning. He played in his first Varsity basketball game today…and he’s only a freshman – you cannot imagine how proud I was as he scored his first two points on the Varsity team. Well, perhaps you can! I am just so proud of that young man and how he handles himself and that feeling just fills and warms me.

OK, enough procrastinating. I’ve got to be ready so that TCB and I can get to Island Divine by just after 4pm – there’s food and wine tastings just waiting for us at the VIP tent!!!