Shame on DSHS

The xyz DSHS office is being sued for $22 million. This is the same office that placed the girls with us.....

They really are so pathetic. On the news they showed scenes from court. The prosecutor asked the SW why she didn't pick up on the kid's starvation. She said, "I didn't know I was supposed to look for starvation". Oh dear Lord............

Please email me if you would like the news link to the story. I will send after we return from Disney World. Email to sweetangelplus4@yahoo.com.

Today we are off the a kids engineering fair at my alma mater. Tomorrow, off to the happiest place on earth.

WEAR A HELMET!

A friend of my middle schooler, was riding his bike, and hit by a mini-van. This boy went thru the windshield. His femur was broken in four places and he got a concussion. He WAS wearing a helmet. I really don't know how he could have come out of this positively had he not worn the helmet.



He is in a wheelchair, and recovering from surgery.



In other news, my alcoholic friend really appreciated my emailing her. Melissa pointed out to me that I should have called her or spoke in person (I think that's what you said Melissa). I totally agree that this would have been the best course of action. However, this gal has reacted to that sort of thing with being belligerent, barraging my phone with messages while screaming & swearing, and/or had an emotional crying/screaming breakdown. Sooooooooooooooo, I thought I'd avoid all that crap, and email her. But I'd just like to say that since I've known her forever, anyone like that I would normally communicate with in a medium other than email for grave issues. Anywho, she and I got together today for coffee. She is clean & sober (she says), but dealing with some serious issues. It was great to communicate.



We are off to Disney World Saturday. We couldn't be happier.

Wish Me Luck

Well, I just sent my alcoholic friend (mentioned in prior posts), an email about my concern for her behavior. She has many issues, so I tried to keep it short and to the point. I included the fact that she and her husband both seem high on drugs, or drinking when it's not appropriate. I did take the time to explain how her behavior affects others, including her children and mine. Perhaps she's so high she's never noticed how she hurts others. And she embarrasses her own kids (which I mentioned).

I imagine she'll call me excessively, and email excessively, ranting and raving into my computer and answering machine. Truly I had to get to the point where my health & well being are higher on the priority list than worrying if we will still be friends.

Email was the form of communication I used, but not to chicken out of a real conversation. Seeing as I know her pretty well, if I communicated with her over this in person & phone, she'd either go psycho on me, or give me the "I'm FINE!" routine. This way, she can go back and read what I wrote as many times as need be, think, and respond if she feels like it. I really don't care if she responds (which I indicated), but I'm obligated to myself and family to be honest with those I love.

Wish me luck. I think I'll go unplug the answering machine, so she can't rant, rave, and scream into it, as she's done in the past.

Giving Back

I'm still in the process of looking for a job. I applied yesterday to a corporation that is hiring 4 coordinators for various programs. Hopefully I'll hear something back. I highly respect this corporation, and they have a good reputation. They've been around for about 100 years, so I know they are a stable to company to work for.

On giving back: my husband had a great idea for me. Since I like to cook so much, and I'm a giver, nurturer, he told me there is a Battered Women's Shelter in a local area that I could volunteer at. I'd never heard of this one, so I'm really interested. I could cook and donate baked goods once a week (or something). I'd be happy to keep women company, help in any way, and give back to the community. I do have personal experience with this as well, being that I lived in a ridiculously abusive home growing up. We finally got out. It was extremely hard. We had to wait for a night where my dad just didn't come home. We left in the middle of the night, packing and moving all thru the night. My dad came home as we were making our final trip out the door. He had been bar hopping all night, and made this absurd scene in the front yard crying, screaming, and swinging his arms around at my mom, as we were trying to leave. Fortunately there were a couple families from church there helping us move, and they got us out of there safely. This topic really touches me to the core, and I would like to help at a place like this, helping women help themselves.

Other than that, nothing too exciting around here is going on. The weather is driving me crazy! It snowed a couple weeks ago, and was in the upper 80's last weekend. Fortunately we got a ton of yard work done in that nice weather, seeing as it's snowing buckets today. ARGH! what on earth is up with the Pacific Northwest weather? I'm ready for spring!!!

To entertain myself lately, I've been looking at sewing & cross stitch blogs. If you know of any favorite sewing, cross stitch, scrapping blogs, please forward them to me. I love crafts.

On a final note, I decided to cease contact with the girls foster parents. We have been in touch via email regularly. Until this week, they were really nice. Then this week they were dishonest with me, and I really don't need that crap in my life. Too bad for them and the girls; we would have been happy to have been a resource for all of them down the road. I had to come to the place where I saw that staying in contact was giving me more grief and anxiety than what it was worth. They are on their own now. As for us, the governors office & the state head of DSHS are in regular contact with us about the investigation against the girls SW & that DSHS office. So I may receive updates or info there. I really only want a geographic approximation of the girls home now, so we can avoid that area. And visa versa. My husband fears the older girl will grow up, turn 18, and try to locate us: to shoot us. She is really a dangerous disturbed child. Hopefully she will get the help she deserves, for her safety as well as those around her.

The only adventurous and exciting news I have to share is that we are taking the kids to Disney World next week, for 10 days. It should be heaven on earth. As an added bonus, Don & Be are going to try to get together with us while we are in town. Looking forward to meeting in real life with more of my favorite bloggers!!

The Girls Moved

The girls have moved to a new adoptive family. They are out of the area, but still in the same state. The foster parents are staying in touch with them. That's all I know. I will of course post updates as I receive them.

I asked to treat foster mom to tea or brunch. Hopefully we'll get together soon.

I wasn't sure how I would react to this sort of news, once it came. Actually I'm really happy. I'm happy the girls will be in a home with younger parents, younger than senior citizen age (like the FP's). That will be best for everyone. Also it will give the older girl, Sissy, the opportunity to have a real world experience (hopefully). The FP's love them dearly, but their solutions to problems were not what I would call solutions, so much as "baby-jail". For instance, Sissy is so highly difficult and dangerous to take in public. So the FP's just didn't leave their home with her. To me, this doesn't train up a child, but just serves as a holding cell. Additionally, the FP's kept her in daycare full-time so they didn't have to deal with her during the day. The mom-FP is a stay at home mom, yet she didn't want to be home with Sissy all day. She stayed home with Lovey though. So, not how we wanted to raise a family, but the girls were safe and loved.
And that is the most important thing. I'm grateful for every morsel of kindness they gave the girls.

Ring the Bell

OK, I'll keep blogging.

What are we up to? Sports, yard work, trips to the orthodontist, getting ready for the Disney trip, and job hunting. I'll have time to post more in a few weeks.

I did some quilting applique for the first time today. Scary to try new things!! It looks rather scrappy, which is probably OK on a country looking quilt ;o)

Our middle son loved seeing the Dahli Lama. Although, I don't think he learned anything about the seeds of compassion, as the Dahli Lama spoke on this. Our son came home and was an equal opportunity TURD with a capital T for the day. Oh well.

On a bell:
Without spelling out details, someone in my life rang a bell you can't un-ring. I'm deciding how to deal with this. What do you do when someone rings a bell that you just can't un-ring? I always forgive people. With that though, there are times when situations are really pathetic, and I just have to decide how I will approach things differently, give myself some time & distance, whatnot. I need to figure out my new boundaries and way of thinking, etc. Very hard.

News on the girls. The hospital keeps sending us the girls medical bills. Sigh. We have told everyone repeatedly to straighten this out. Sigh. Hopefully this will get sorted out soon. A friend of mine thinks she saw the older girl, Sissy, with a new family today. I wrote the foster parents to see if this is true, or if perhaps it's the girls older sister. There are actually three girls from those parents, but I believe the oldest daughter was adopted out before the next two girls (the girls we had) came along. To be continued...................

HUH?

The new job lasted 1.5 days. I quit.

In the interview process, the two owners told me multiple times that free services and discounted services was part of the deal. I worked 1.5 days and found out this is just not true. I have better things to do with my Saturday every week than work for minimum wage, on the busiest spa/salon day of the week, managing the place. Give me a break. Hope things work out for them (lol)......................

So let's see. I've been feeling depressed the last couple days, and nearly couldn't bring myself to even meet with a friend last night. Then I read a blog yesterday about a couple losing their child, and I thought, I really need to get out of the house. So I drug my butt out to dinner with a friend. I told my husband I'm really glad I did that. Seeing my friend made me realize there is always someone out there who has it worse!! My girlfriend has been in multiple car accidents in the last year, had a tumor removed from her back, endured a couple back surgeries, can barely walk, and she is in too much pain to have sex for the last year. I asked how that's working for her husband. She said he drinks alot.....too much, and it's a problem.

Glad I'm not them!

I've also been trying to figure out where to go with my blog, now that the girls are gone. Any suggestions? Anything you'd like to know about? Seriously I feel like my life is so boring, it's not worth blogging about. Let's see: we cleaned out the shed & garage this weekend, I put in some laundry this am, ya know, boring!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I have been interested in reading a bunch of new blogs on simple living, frugality, and the like. I'm really interested. I found a great homemade recipe for a deep conditioner. Now that my hair is highlighted, it's as dry as straw. yuck. So, this recipe is 2T olive oil, 2 tsp honey. Heat it, rub it thru hair, and leave on for 20+ minutes, preferably with saran wrap or hot towel around the head. This did help my hair. Although, now I have an ant problem in my bathroom from where I rinsed my hair in the sink. Guess they like the honey? I've washed the sink twice, and still have an ant or two this am. Hopefully they'll go picnic somewhere else soon.

Also I tried the detergent recipe. It works like magic! I did find the ingredients at Fred Meyer, thanks Nancy for the tip.

The Most Impressive Field Trip I've Ever Heard Of

Last night my son came home and we had the following conversation:

son: Will you sign my form for my field trip?

me & husband: Where is your field trip?

son: To see the Dalai Lama.

us: WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT?!

He proceeds to tell us that the Dalai Lama is coming to town, and his class WON a trip to see him. Hundreds, thousands, of school classes applied for the honor of seeing the Dalai Lama. And my son's class won. I'm still in shock. There will be other classes there as well. But since the location knew tickets would see out immediately, you had to apply to get in. I'm not sure if it was an essay writing contest, lottery, I'm still finding out details.

I asked if I could chaperone. Nope. No chaperones allowed. Only students and one teacher. Hmmmm, I'll have to send the camera with my son that day. It's on April 14, just one day only will the Dalai Lama see kids. I'll post a link to the blog if something shows up in the newspaper or Internet.

In more boring news, I caught two ladies shoplifting Maxi Pads at Target today. Geez, what is this world coming to?

Where?

Where can I buy Fels-Naptha Soap, and Arm and Hammer Washing Soda?

I want to make some homemade laundry detergent, and most of the "recipes" call for Washing Soda. They used to sell Fels-Naptha & Washing Soda just about anywhere. I actually already use Fels-Naptha on stains, and am almost out. A bar lasts us almost a year. I have looked everywhere this last week, and have come up with zilch. Of course I could buy them online, but them you have to pay for shipping.

Where do I find these? I've looked at Safeway, Walmart, the Dollar Store, Target. Nothing. Next I'll try Albertsons and Haggens.