Traveling

Matt, Ryland, and I are off to Maryland this Friday. The bummer is that Matt and I will be on separate flights. Matt has an airplane voucher that he had to use and I used my airline miles so Ryland and I will be flying first class. I am so so so nervous about flying with Ryland right now. It has been the hardest two weeks with him. He has been cranky and fussy and fidgety. So I am really not looking foward to this. We will be traveling for almost nine hours and we have a three hour layover in DFW that hopefully will help because Ryland will be able to crawl around in some little dirty corner of the airport :-)I am hoping this is something that I do not look back on as a really difficult experience.

thank you to candace????

so i am going to participate in the "tag your it" thing-a-ma-bobby and list the 7 songs that are shaping my summer. i recently received notificiation that i was listed on candace's blog as a hostage participant! :-) what an interesting question and at first, really no songs were popping into my mind so i had to really ponder......

1. Jimmy Eat World: Let It Happen. I went to my fourth Jimmy concert this summer and once again I thoroughly enjoyed the music and the show and seeing my friend. I guess I am a true groupy!

2. Hillsong United: Mighty To Save. I love hearing Matt do this song on Sunday. This is one of my favorite worship songs right now.

3. Jennifer Knapp: Jesus Loves Me. Ryry's top lullaby pick right now. I sing this to him every night :-)

4. Linkin Park: What I've Done. Big fan of the group and love their new music.

5. Matt Redman: Never Let Go. I went through some difficult stuff at the beginning of summer and this song resonated with me and helped me to get through some stuff.

6. Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova: Lies. This song and group speaks for themselves!

7. Jimmy Eat World: Hear You Me. I always thought there must be an amazing story behind this song and I learned what it is this summer and yes, it is an amazing story!

Birthdays!!!

I am so at a lost trying to figure out how to navigate the world of first birthdays. I have no idea what to do. Ryland's first birthday is August 21st and all I know is that it is soooooo hot in August. So that really leaves no other option than a pool party if I want to have more kids over to help celebrate. Plus it seems really easy for these things to get way out of hand and the spending spree can begin. I mean for a first birthday that they wont even remember. So do I have a pool party? Do I not....do I do something just with family.....do I try to invite all of my friends with kids and those without kids that love ryry.....uuuuuhhhhhggggggg......this is only the beginning, huh?

I LOVE this man!!!!

I secretly turned 30 a few weeks ago. It was a secret because Matt and I snuck away to Jamaica for it to happen. Matt and I got to go on our second honeymoon and it was AMAZING!! We were kids again, oh ya...we left the little one with grammie and pappa and I am sure they had fun. For seven days we slept on the beach, read on the beach, drank on the beach, played on the beach. I just gotta say, my man rocks for giving me the best birthday present ever...a whole week away with him.

One Amazing Spring!

Tongue Ring

(my first post trying to type and holding my son at the same time). so i work very very part time for a christian organization and i have been told that i cannot wear my tongue ring to work. when i asked why, i was told....well what if one of your clients says to theirparents, i want my tongue pierced because my therapist has their tongue pierced. my response was...that is a great chance for that parent to do some parenting and say...well when you get to be her age you can get your tongue pierced, or to just simply say no. i was then told that this is not how this agency wants to represent itself (so that is the real reason). then it becomes a personal challenge for me. do i want to work somewhere were i need to represent something that i am not? people come to see me and i expect them to try to be truly who they are and to be as open and honest with me as they can....at the same time, i cannot be...because it is not what the agency wants to represent. i have been working in such a different reality for so long i forgot about places like this.

Home Sick

Well I have found something that does not change much even when you are a mom. I am home sick. When you have a job you get to stay home sick and even when you have a baby you get to stay home sick. My mom and Matt have been balancing taking care of Ryland so I dont get him sick. At this time I am also very frustrated. My in-laws came to visit and they came sick. I guess I assumed that people know you cannot be sick around an infant, especially a preemie who has a weakened immune system. But no, not everyone knows that. So we got to visit and catch up and one of them got to play with the baby, we told the other one they could not, because they were sick. And the morning they left I was stuck in bed with the shakes and a 102 degree fever. So I am very frustrated and trying to let go of it and move on. There are people in our lives who just seem to make things more difficult when they only desire to make things easier. It just doesnt seem to work out.

Mommyhood

I think I am going a little crazy and I am just going to put it out there. Being a mom is so freakin hard. I thought I had a hard stressful job but there is a part of me that just longs to be able to go back to work. And yet my "mommy" job is not stressful at all. It is just NEVER ENDING. I dont get lunch breaks. I cannot shut my office door and turn off the phone to get work done. I dont have the weekends off. And when I am tired from a long days work, I dont get to turn in early and catch up on some much needed sleep.
Having a preemie during cold and flu season has not made things easier. I have to keep Ryland away from people and especially from little kids. So that means during the day, the only people who are home are stay at home moms, but I cannot hang out with them because they have kids and the women who do not have kids are away at work. And then at night, when I can get out of the house without Ryland, all of my non-mom friends are too tired to hang out from working all day. It is amazing to me how every day I can love something so much and dislike something so much. I didnt know being a mom was so amazing and so lonely.
That is the one word that sums up so much of what I am feeling right now, very alone. I dont have many friends that are moms and the few I do went back to work which is incredibly ironic because I use to watch a few of them stay at home with their kids all day and wonder how they do it but knew that once I did at least I would have some good company.
Complain complain complain. I know that is all I am doing while having a job that many women long for. I am just trying to find MY place in this new life.

Baby Came Early

Pregnant = Scary

Being pregnant is scary. It's funny that you never think about that when you are trying to get pregnant. I have been to the hospital twice this week. I went in Tuesday at 1am because of a horrible headache. They tell you that if anything is above and beyond normal, call the doctor. So while I was there, the headache was no big deal but the contractions I was having were. Unfortunately, I could not feel the contractions. Tuesday, I decided to go to work and got a call from my doctor and was told to go back to the hospital so they could monitor the contractions that I was not feeling. Things seem ok and they are a little worried about my blood pressure and hypertension problems. Its just scary that this was all happening and I didnt even know it and would not have known it had it not been for the very unimportant headache I was having.
Ultimately, the hard part is not being in control. I have very little control on what is happening inside me. I can control what I eat, working out, taking it easy, taking vitamins and that's about it! Everything else, God is doing inside of me. There is nothing I can do beyond that. I am seeing the doctor again today and I am a little worried about bed rest. It is hard to not stress when all I do is listen to people's stressors. So we'll see :-)

Baby Baby Baby

My Baby Boy's Hand. He must be waving hi to mom, dad and the world :-)

May 6-12, 2007

It is Children's Mental Health Awareness Week.

*It has been estimated that almost 21% of US children ages 9-17 have a diagnosable mental or addictive disorder associated with at least minimum impairment.

*With early detection and appropriate treatment, chances are excellent that most children with mental health needs can recover and lead healthy lives.

*The treatment success rate for children's mental health disorders is 80%.

Baby News

We are having a BOY!!!!

Coming Back???

So I have been gone from the blogger world for awhile. And the reason is.... most of the blogs I would read and participate in are theologically based. When I first came home, I was very into the debate since I was fresh out of Seminary and had oh so much wisdom to contribute (ha ha ha). Now, my day to day world is focused so greatly on psychology and counseling. After awhile, I felt I did not have to much to contribute and many discussions and articles were hard for me to follow and I felt so out of the loop. I also did not know what to write about. Do people really want to know what it is like to work with sick children? I have much to complain about when it comes to meth-addict parenting. Who really wants to hear about my grumblings and frustrations with government based mental health programs? But in reality, that is what I am about right now. I would love to have free time to read some of those books I didnt get to in Seminary. Or some of the recommended books on people's blogs. But when I have free time I read about child-centered therapy, or working with difficult families. That is where my heart and passion is, that is where my free time is going to be focused. For me it will be fun to share a little part of my world, because kids are amazing to work with. They remind me that I need to approach christ like a child would.

Well I'll be....

This is a partial transcript from "The O'Reilly Factor," April 18, 2006, that has been edited for clarity.

BILL O'REILLY, HOST: Two Duke lacrosse players have been arrested and charged with rape among other violent crimes. They are free on $400,000 bail. As you may know, the students attended a party where a stripper hired by the lacrosse team said she was raped. With us now civil rights activist Reverend Al Sharpton. Is this a racial issue?

REV. AL SHARPTON, CIVIL RIGHTS ACTIVIST: I think that there are certainly a lot of racial factors. Whether it is directly in the case, we'll see, because some reports said that there was racial language used. But I think that when you look at the racial atmosphere, when you look at the fact that there again were the allegations of racial statements, when you look at a lot of people feeling that they have been treated differently, where this girl has basically had a character charged in the media, there is a lot of racism that's in the air. Having said that, I commend a lot of the blacks and whites who stood vigil and to come together in that community to stand up for this girl. So I think in the midst of this, there is some good.

O'REILLY: Why are we standing up for the girl if there is the possibility, based upon evidence, that the girl may have fabricated the story? Why don't we all pull back and let the authorities investigate and let the legal system work?

SHARPTON: Well, first of all, the authorities have charged there was a crime, so they are not saying that at all. Second of all, people on any side of an argument have the ride to advocate on behalf of who they believe. Thirdly, I think that when the prosecutors went forward, they clearly have said this girl is the victim, so why would we be trying the victim and not the...

O'REILLY: I don't want to try anybody, but there is enough evidence that has surfaced here. We have evidence that DNA doesn't match the kids. We have evidence that ABC News uncovered that there is a recording made by a security guard who looked at the victim after she said she was raped and said there was no problem and we have a police officer who found the victim drunk in a car in a 7-Eleven who phoned it in before she went to the hospital. So when you have three elements like that, I say there is reasonable doubt right now. You know what the grand jury proceeding is.

SHARPTON: Absolutely.

O'REILLY: It's a one-sided proceeding.

SHARPTON: But I think that all of the facts that you have laid out the DA had — and I know this DA is probably not one that is crazy. He would not have proceeded if he did not feel that he could convict. So it tells me that all of what you said is either not true or he has convincing evidence that would certainly knock that out and no one is not letting him proceed. You know, a lot of those community leaders down there, pro and con, wanted a lot of people to come in. I know for a fact asked Jesse Jackson to come, we said we don't want to be (INAUDIBLE)...

O'REILLY: So you didn't go down, Jackson did go down. I don't want what happened to Amadou Diallo, remember Amadou Diallo.

SHARPTON: Oh, absolutely.

O'REILLY: He was the African immigrant who was shot by police, shot dead here in New York and there were demonstrations. You were out there demonstrating and all that. And then when the trial came, the jury, which included African-Americans said not guilty.

SHARPTON: No, you jumped too far. They moved the trial out of town.

O'REILLY: Doesn't matter.

SHARPTON: It matters a whole lot. If that trial had happened in New York where people were very clear on that street crime unit, the results would have been different. The case this reminds me of, Bill — let's talk about the case this parallels.

O'REILLY: It does.
SHARPTON: This case parallels Abner Louima, who was raped and sodomized in a bathroom like this girl has alleged she was. That's the case and just like in the Louima case, you have people here saying she fabricated it. They said he fabricated it — two guys in jail right now for that.

O'REILLY: And that was fine. I'm all for that.

SHARPTON: And we marched there.

O'REILLY: Here's my point. The jury system worked in the Louima case, OK.

SHARPTON: The jury system worked after we were assured by our protests there would be a jury. I don't think...

O'REILLY: Would you say the jury system worked in the Louima case?

SHARPTON: Ultimately.

O'REILLY: And I would submit the jury system worked in the Diallo case as well.

SHARPTON: No, I wouldn't.

O'REILLY: Because you didn't get the verdict you wanted.

SHARPTON: The change of venue.

O'REILLY: So what? That's what they ruled.

SHARPTON: Even then we accepted it as something we disagreed with. Nobody is burning down New York. Nobody is burning down Durham. I think, what I don't accept is for people to act like this young lady, no matter what her profession — and I think people need to know she is a mother, a divorced mother of two and a student, that we ought to be putting her on trial rather than these two that are getting indicted.

O'REILLY: She is going to be put on trial, you know that.

SHARPTON: The one charged with the crime is the two that paid to go home. Is she charged with a crime, Bill?

O'REILLY: No. If you were the lawyer for the kids whose lives are in the balance here, you would certainly try to tell the jury that this witness had a questionable past, did some things that weren't up and up.

SHARPTON: First of all, they better be prepared to see if she is the only witness. You don't know what other people are going to testify. You don't know what other evidence they have. So let's not get ready to discredit the girl until we see the whole passage. That's what happened with Louima. We had more than Louima, so let's not assume just discrediting the girl will work this time.

O'REILLY: Let me be clear. Your stance is let the system work.

SHARPTON: My stance is that Reverend Bob of the NAACP and others down there are advising a lot of the community what happened, we're in touch with them and we're going to work and advise through them. We'll do whatever is necessary or not necessary.

O'REILLY: All right, but you don't know yet, You, Al Sharpton, don't know what happened.

SHARPTON: I don't know yet and I think that the proper thing to do is to support those that want justice
.
O'REILLY: All right. I'm all for that. I support justice. Always a pleasure. Thank you

Exciting News

Matt and I are going to be parents this October 15th. YEAH!!!! So maybe now I will have tons of fun pregnancy stuff to blog about :-)

Gilbert

So I was driving in Gilbert yesterday and I passed a huge orange billboard that said "CLOWNS HATE TANGELOS." Yah, thats it, that was all. Any ideas?

Where? Apache Junction

Hello, my name is Adrienne and I work in Apache Junction. Yep good 'ol AJ. For anyone who has been to Apache Juntion, you are probably wondering, why the hell would you get a job out there? For anyone who has not been to AJ, count yourself lucky and stay far far away :-) Aj is such an interesting place. You take the 60 East until you pass all signs of civilization and then you are almost there. I started working out here in October, so at that time it was a mix of meth addicts and snow birds, which is a very weird combination. Now that it is 120 degrees plus, all the snowbirds are gone so what does that leave us? Meth addicts. I also get to really reach out to the culture because I meet with my clients in their home. For many of you, we grew up going on mission trips and the best part was if you got to do a homestay, my job is a cultural experience in home stays. I work in RV's, trailers, duplexes, and apartments and every once in awhile a home. Most places I visit have on average at least four animals. Some homes have dogs that will kill you. The most common smell is cigarrette smoke mixed with cat urine. Sometimes I get to come home with this smell. It may sound like I am totally dogging on AJ or my job, but in all actuality - I LOVE MY JOB! There is no other place I would want to work. When I get to AJ in the morning, all I can do is smile and sometimes laugh a little.

In Need Of Some Prayer

To all you people who have been complaining about my lack of blogs :-( Here we go.... I guess I havent written because I feel like all I would do is get on here and complain and I dont enjoy complaining but really my life right now is focused around some hard to deal with situations. What I feel would really help right now is some prayer. I dont want to be taken advantage of and I dont want to take advantage of anyone else. I wish people would step up to take responsability of their fault. I am tired of the game, "it's not my fault!" Innocent bystanders are the people who get hurt and have to pay for the damages when people want to play the "not my fault" game. Please pray for me, that I would not let this problem consume me. Life does go on, even if we cannot make people be responsible. In two or three weeks this problem will be gone and I will have moved on. We will be able to finish our kitchen and live wonderfully in our new house. Please pray that I will only say things that I would want spoken to me. Pray that these people are concerned for the damage they have caused. Pray that this sistuation will go away! Thank you so much for reading this!

Professional Sports

The world of professional sports boggles me. Maybe it is the state of our society that bothers me more, but because professional sports is the perfect example of what is wrong with society, they are the perfect thing to lash out at. Professional athletes get paid an outrageous amount of money to play a sport. I understand that at times it can be difficult, you can even get seriously injured doing your job. Many professional athletes are A-holes who cant manage their money and usually screw their lives up with it. I work in a field that is extremely underpaid, all the while meeting people who work in different agencies that are trying to shape and change our future. These organizations are usually understaffed and underpaid. Society makes shelters for abused and neglected children to feel better about themselves and yet dont pay attention when these shelters close because of lack of funding or the people who work there are not committed to it in the first place and are only working there to get a pay check. The people who have the experience and patience to work with this population are out trying to find the higher paying jobs so these CPS workers, shelter workers, Case management positions are being filled by inexperienced workers (mostly) just trying to get the next paycheck. If our society cared as much about its future as it did about its entertainment, then the people who are trying to save the future should be valued more that the people who just entertain us. I cannot sit in front of a TV and watch these bafoons tramp around in an arena or on a field the same way anymore. By supporting it I feel like I am saying it is ok. It is not ok for children to fall through the cracks of a system that no one is paying attention to. These shelters never have enough beds. Workers have to fight to get referals from the money-source to get kids out of abusive home and into shelters because they dont want to pay the prices of puting this kid up in a shelter. Most atheletes will make more than I could even dream about this year and I work in a system that has to fight for funding to get a child into a safe place. Because these places pay so pathetically, these places arent even really safe anymore. Take a kid out of an abusive home so they can go to an abusive shelter? What is wrong????