The end is near

So many things seem like they're coming to an end: school is almost over (can you believe we have a paper due on Dec 29?), our time 'working' at CITD is over, the pregnancy is almost over, the holidays are almost over, and football season is almost over (Go Gators!).  It's crazy to look back and remember this year, it has definitely been the most up and down year I can remember... so much has happened it is almost impossible to believe it was all in 1 year!  Started with Christmas/New Years Eve in Florida, then the two trips in the spring to be with the family as we let Nannie go be with the Lord, then the infertility stuff and the treatments, the layoffs at work, new pastor at church, the pregnancy,  saying goodbye to M&M, having like 10 foster kids in 2 months, J&B moving in and moving out, having A&R move in, the Psych eval and becoming a certified candidate in the UMC, the house being robbed.  Yikes, big year.  On top of that, I have been doing my darndest to stay on top of school and the house and still be involved in the family and the church.  Ttthhhhhhhhhhhhpppppppptttt.  Almost too much to imagine.  

Oh well, I guess that is life.  It's interesting to try and remember what life was like when I was younger, college aged or younger I guess.  I have always felt like I was super busy, like the crush of life was almost too much to bear.  The funny thing is, when I look back I can't believe I wasn't bored out of my mind then!  It's amazing how much pressure a full time job puts on you just from the perspective of time.  Having to get up and squeeze what feels like a full day of 'stuff' into the hours before you go to work and then again in the hours after the kids are in bed is crazy - but it is just you do when you're an adult.  Blargh, it sucks sometimes though.  Sometimes when I just veg out and watch football or a move I feel like I'm wasting so much time; it's so hard to remember that you absolutely must have down time.  

So, to add to the randomness, I'll talk about a movie I watched last night (between 2am and 5am while I was up suffering from a terrible sick stomach), "Forgetting Sarah Marshall."  First of all, it wasn't a great movie.  I think the gross out jokes have been done better and with more finesse but whatever.  It did get a lot better towards the end and I'll give it a thumbs up because I've been a sappy romantic of late.  As I was laying on the couch after the movie ended (trying not to poop my pants), I realized that the movie sort of touched me because it was similar to the story of how I fell in love with Aimee.  I know this is crazy, but I sort of had my own Sarah Marshall (though not nearly as attractive or wealthy as Veronica Mars and much, much taller).  I realized this when I heard the line in the movie where one of the guys described his relationship with Sarah Marshall as 'time served' or something like that.  I was totally whipped by my ex and it took her throwing me away to really free myself from her.  When I was recovering but still in love I met Aimee and she was totally the 'cool Hawaiian chick' from the movie.  Like the characters in the movie, we just sort of accidentally fell in love with each other and before I knew it I couldn't imagine life without her.  I'm not really sure what my Vampire puppet opera was but I'm sure I could come up with something if I tried really hard.  Either way, in the end I found my Aimee and there couldn't be anyone better for me :)  

Alright, have to go read about Indian immigrants - I can't wait to be done with school!

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Posted in: church,family,florida,foster care,friends,hobbies,home improvement,pregnancy,school,work

Prop 8 and its ilk, Foster Care

I can't stop being shocked and amazed at the passage of the various 'family protection' amendments in the recent election.  Whatever their opinion of the 'gay lifestyle' or homosexuality in general, I can't believe that anyone really believes that homosexual couples are dangerous to children.  Seriously, there are so many things that are really dangerous to children (Divorce, for one) that I can't imagine that anyone really believes this is the issue we should be pouring our resources into.   I feel like I have some right to speak on this issue because of the time I have spent caring for children that have been abused physically, mentally, and emotionally by good 'ole heterosexual couples (1 man AND 1 woman!).  What really drives me over the edge is the way that children are used as pawns in the game small-minded people play  in banning homosexuality.  The commercials that were aired during the campaign were disgraceful, showing pictures of children talking about how confusing it is to have two same-sex parents or equating homosexuals with pedophiles.  More disturbing than the amendments to ban marriage by homosexuals was the one in Arkansas that had the effect of banning homosexuals from being foster parents or adopting.  On the surface, these laws only prevent 'unmarried' people from serving in this manner, but the subtext is clear.  Stop thinking for a minute about homosexuality, what reason could there possibly be for preventing a single man or woman from adopting a child or serving as a foster parent?  I can't imagine how insulting this must be to single parents.  I have heard arguments that single parents or homosexual parents give children the wrong image of what a 'parent' should be.  Let me hit you with some knowledge.  Foster kids already have a wrong image of what parents should be.  'Parents', if they have any idea what that word means, are the people that hit you, the people who lay on the couch stoned while you starve to death, the people that let leave you at home alone with no water and no electricity while they go about their business.  If a foster parent, gay or straight, can get a kid to the point where they are ready to discuss ethics or sexual morality, they should be praised publicly and rewarded handsomely.  The fact that people who don't think it's appropriate to have homosexual parents taking care of foster children have obviously never even spoken with foster children.  Kids are too busy being amazed that they have food everyday, that they get to take showers (and that the water is hot!), that they might go through an entire day without being hit or being covered in their own feces.  This is reality folks.  Can you imagine the narrative of a child that pees their pants when they hear a door slam or asks you if you're coming back every time you walk out the front door.  How about someone that eats until they vomit because they have never been exposed to the concept of 'full' or 'enough'?  

I'm not saying every foster kid is like this, and we have certainly been lucky with what we have had to deal with.  What I'm saying is that unless you have had one of these children as a part of your life you had better shut the hell up.  Leave them out of the argument and thank your lucky starts that ANYONE wants to take care of these kids.  What do you think happens to the kids that 'age out' of the system at 18 never knowing anything other than emptiness? 

Alright, time to holster the soap box.   Here is a link to the Arkansas amendment on Ballotpedia and here is an article from someone that spoke at a civil rights march in protest to these types of amendments.

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Posted in: america,foster care,politics

Process Discipline

So, today I realized what my life has been missing. I think that this has come to me because I have started getting a taste of it and have begun to realize how important it is to me. Discipline. When I think back, the times when I have been healthiest, happiest, most productive; I have been the most disciplined. Disciplined with what I put in my body, what I do with my body, just how I live my life. At work we might call this process discipline. It's interesting when I think about how easy it is (relatively speaking) to take in foster kids and turn their lives around with just a little bit of discipline. I'm not even talking about discipline in terms of punishment or whatever, though it is amazing how a little dose of the time-out chair will turn children around. What I am talking about is the regular discipline of bathing, eating, brushing teeth, hugging, speaking, all of the hundreds of little things that we take for granted in life. Going to bed at the same time, having a set amount of time to eat dinner, feeding the dogs every day, these seem like such small little things but when are disciplined about doing them every day they can have a transformative effect on your life, or the life of your children. I hate to make this comparison, but I think children aren't that much different from dogs in that they crave structure and discipline. Having to feed the dogs every morning seems like a chore that you would regret but for children that have never been responsible for anything or had something they can count on every single day it can literally turn their whole life around. Children obviously learn so much faster than dogs and they pass through the phase and move onto greater challenges but I think that the comparison is valid for a certain stage of life.

At any rate, this is something that I am missing in my life.  Maybe instead of referring to it as discipline, I will refer to it as living an intentional life.  It's interesting to me that this is the terminology that we use in seminary and also the same that we used in Aikido.  Aikido is really what got me thinking about it.  I was the healthiest I have ever been when I was practicing and I have been missing it lately.  I don't think it was solely the physical activity, I believe that a big part of it was the intentional manner in which I went through my daily life when I was heavy into practice.  Taking off my shoes when I enter a house and placing them neatly against the wall instead of just lumping them into a basket.  Having a regiment of movements and exercises that I did at different times during the day.  I had a class in seminary that required a certain amount of this effort as well, and it produced similar results which leads me to believe that it is not solely physical in nature.  Waking up every morning and spending a short period of time in reflection.  Having a meditation that I performed every night before bed.  I have started modifying my life to be more intentional over the past month or so and I believe it has already caused things to turn around.  Simple things like the pill box I put together has gotten me on track with my medicine and vitamins, a simple evaluation of my spending every night has resulted in us having more money, with no noticeable change in lifestyle.  Riding the bus has introduced a regularity of schedule that has caused me to be more productive at work, I think.  All in all, I am going to be looking for more discipline (intention) in my life.  I hope that I will be able to share some of the benefits with family and friends...I am notoriously lazy so I hope I can maintain.  Hopefully writing here will only help things.  

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Posted in: exercise,foster care,hobbies,school,work

Thanksgiving Day et al

Well, we had an interesting Thanksgiving. Work leading up to the holiday was sort of ridiculous, so many crazy things were expected and they were pressuring us to do things on production even though we had a 'code freeze', which really just means we're not supposed to do anything on production. Anyways, who cares about that - let's talk turkey! Heh, I went out to a few stores Wednesday night because I was afraid I didn't have enough peanut oil. I knew that Wal-Mart would have it but I hate that store with a passion and normally do everything I can to avoid. This night, though, it couldn't be avoided. So I went to Wal-queda and it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. I think I have figured out how to shop there. Wear headphones. If I can avoid hearing people and just pretend that I'm in a foreign country where people don't obey the same rules of etiquette and personal hygiene that I am accustomed to I can manage to get in and out without going nuts. So I got the stuff I needed and headed home. Thursday morning I got up early and baked bread, made a nice breakfast with some young fried brown eggs-yum. Got the turkey fryer set up and spend the early morning cleaning up the house and back yard. After frying the turkey, we wrapped it up and went to our friends' house. I brought some of the little 'cocktail-smoky' pigs-in-a-blanket that my mom likes to make and they were a huge hit! Everyone loved my turkey, I got zero leftovers...they demolished that thing! It was a fun dinner, I really like the Wassons and family, they are such good people and so nice to invite us into their family. They're pretty close to my age too, which is nice for a change. After that we went over to Mike and Emily's new house, they are already decorated for Christmas(!) and it was so cute. We played some games and stayed until about 9:30, then headed home. All in all it was a fun day. Unfortunately, I woke up in the middle of the night coughing up a lung. For some reason when the weather turns I can't stay well. I had a hard time breathing and sat up for a couple of hours trying to calm down. I watched 'Wanted' during that time, which was a surprisingly decent movie. Then I went to sleep on the couch. I am so scared that I am going to get Aimes really sick. Then we had to get up early this morning for a visit from CPS and so I did some dishes and helped straighten up the house. Then, it was off to bed again - I slept until 12! I never do that ... so I guess I'm really sick. Then I got up, watched some football (Boy LSU sucks this year) and went out to work on my truck. Bad news, the alternator checks out so I have no idea why it is eating batteries. I guess there is a short somewhere...ugh. If it isn't one thing it's another. I wonder if life is always going to be like this? Always behind the 8 ball.

Anyways, I am home now, resting, and hopefully about to eat dinner. Hope you all had a happy Thanksgiving!!!

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Posted in: family,foster care,friends,work

Well I'm home sick today

Blargh. I feel like crap. I hate that every time the weather changes I get sick. Hopefully I'm addressing the situation though. I don't know if I wrote it on here yet, but I got some pretty unsettling news from the doctor about my cholesterol. I'm not sure how to react to it, because it doesn't make much sense to me. I'm not a doctor so I don't know exactly what it all means but my overall cholesterol wasn't too high, but my bad cholesterol was really high and my good cholesterol was kind of low. I don't know what that means overall other than I need to exercise more :) So, I am exercising more. I used to be a cardio fanatic but I have fallen out of it in the past few years so I am making the painful transition back into regular exercise. It is shameful how hard it becomes when you let yourself go. I used to pride myself in the number of sit ups I could do and how far I could push myself on the exercise bike - but now I am a pathetic slob. So, I'm back on the 'elliptical' (which I do not like as much as the bike but it's what Aimee wanted) 20 minutes a day and walking to and from the bus quite a bit. I am also doing yoga again in hopes that I can start to limber up. It's interesting what a difference I notice in myself as far as calmness and ability to really feel...I don't know, grounded?... when I'm moving and sweating. Maybe if I get to the point where I feel a little better physically I'll find some place to work out up on this side of town (like - judo or aikido or tai chi). I don't know if I'll ever forgive myself for quitting the dojo where I used to go. Ugh.

Anyways, I'm home sick. I have been taking vitamins too, which is a long time coming, and trying to be more disciplined about my medicine. Now that I actually have a doctor I am going to try and stick to the regiment he has given me. He thinks he can help me treat my allergies (hah!) with a regular dose of claritin and the stomach thing with a regular dose of prilosec. We'll see, those two plus my blood pressure meds make for a delightful cocktail every day. Throw in a multivitamin and some extra vitamin c and you can start to imagine my dilemma. I mean, I can barely remember to brush my hair every day (which is why I clip it extra short) so I am horrible about my meds. Enter - the wickersham plan:

So, as depressing as this is I had to at least make it a little nerdy. Enter, Velcro:

And yes, if you look closely enough you will find the combination to our pool locks. Please don't tell the kids, I don't feel like blurring them out before posting this. I'm sick, remember?

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Posted in: doctor,exercise,foster care

Foster Parent College

Oh my goodness, talk about a waste of time. We have to do 'continuing education' for our foster license and Aimee found a site called fosterparentcollege.com that counts towards this requirement. We took a Communication in Marriage class and it does videos and 'interactive exercises' to teach. I think the software is pretty good, they've done a good job pin presenting the material. But the material stinks! I mean, it is so silly. Anyway, that is all...I am finishing a paper for school and 'learning' about communication in my marriage. Fun times.

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Posted in: family,foster care

Craptastic

Well today capped off a pretty freaking rotten week. I'm really not even sure how long I have felt like things sucked, and there have been periods of time when it was great, but overall it has been the suck. I have been behind in school and it feels like things just pile up around the house. Aimee hasn't felt well either so that just compounds everything. Ugh, I don't even know what to say other than I just wanted to freaking write on here and say ugh. UGH. My truck also broke down today. I took the last half of the day off of work since I worked this weekend and put in a 12 hour day yesterday. Oh well, thank goodness for valleymetro. It is nice to just be able to jump on a bus and get where I need to go.

Oh well, I'm done - I didn't even rant, I just wanted to UGH at you. UGH UGH UGH.

In other news, Tim came over last night and we ate chili. It was grand.

UGH.

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Posted in: foster care,friends,pregnancy,school,work

We're going to the faaaaaaaair...the Alachua Maricopa county fair

Well, we went to the fair Friday night. I'm not a big fair person, but we got free tickets from foster care and they were only good friday night. I was exhausted from a long week and had a raging headache, but it was for the family so off we went. It was a fairly (hah) good time, though it cost a bundle. It was worth it to see the little ones light up though. They definitely didn't enjoy the animals like I did, but they flipped out over the rides. Who knew! They are such wimps I would have figured they would hate the rides. I got to ride on one ride with them and it was a blast...if you've been there it was the big boat that rolled back and forth in what you can only describe as a skateboard ramp while it was spinning in circles. Fun fun fun. The rides were expensive though, I think most rides were like 5 'tickets' (though you didn't have any tickets). It was like 10 tickets for 5 bucks so you can do the math but your dollar sure didn't go very far. Aimee is pregnant so it didn't seem too fun for her, she loves rides and couldn't go on any. She did get her nachos though :)

OK, now the shiny-happy part is over. Now begins the part of this blog where I point out how stupid everything in Arizona is. When you think 'State Fair' what do you think? Farm animals, big midway, gangs, crowded city streets. Of course, me too! So Phoenix is smack dab in the middle of a huge desert. Arid wasteland for miles and miles and miles in every direction. The city is surrounded by suburbs which are in turn surrounded by huge farms. So where would you put the state fair, keeping in mind that almost the ENTIRE STATE OF ARIZONA is composed of rural, small-town communities. Downtown! Of course, I'm SURE there will be plenty of parking and there won't be any unsavory types lurking around to spoil the experience for people who have driven in from the wild country up north, south, east, or west of us. In fact, we should try and cram the entire thing in the middle of a residential neighborhood-and by middle I mean a very tiny piece of that neighborhood. Seriously, whose dumb-ass Idea was it to have the fair at Grand & McDowell? There isn't ANYWHERE else in the ENTIRE STATE that can handle a fair ? If you're from Florida, let me try and paint you a picture. Imagine the way Church Street Station used to be. Remove the city parking. Remove all of the street lights. Break beer bottles everywhere. Add 3 million people. And then drop half of the Brevard County Fair right on top of Rosie O'Gradies. That's right, half, because that's all you can fit into THE MIDDLE OF THE CITY. I'm not sure which was more sketchy, the dimly lit parking lots managed by homeless people or the gang task force patrolling the fair. We had to leave pretty early because we didn't want to be walking around the city with our kids late at night (you know, like after 8). When we got back to the parking lot where we left our car, we saw two young ladies that had parked right next to us on their cell phone. This was just after I caught a glimpse of our van and sighed with relief. I asked the girls if they were ok and they said they were waiting on the police because their car along with 3 other ones right next to theirs had been broken into. Awesome, good thing we paid 15 to park in a 'safe' lot. I almost had a heart attack as I walked around our car feeling the windows but luckily we won the state fair lotto and didn't get our car broken into. I was really looking forward to that phone call to my mom, "Hey remember how our house was robbed 3 days aga? Guess what-our car got broken into also!!"

I'm sure there is a lot more I can say, but I guess I"m good to go after the parking lot thing. On a positive note, we did see some really cool chickens, and the biggest freaking cow I have ever seen in my life.

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Posted in: family,florida,foster care,sarcasm

Update

Well, I went to the doctor Friday. It was a nice long visit and I had a whole list of things to share with him. He scheduled me to come back for a full physical (incidentally, why is it so hard to find a doctor who knows how to give you a physical?) and in the meantime he thinks that my stomach problems probably arise from a acid production problem. Actually what he said was, "Well, what we got here is a problem with yer proton pump." I don't know why, I thought that was funny. So I'm going to try and treat my acid problem more aggressively and he also wants me to go on a regular dose of claritin for my allergies. Also, he didn't tell me that I'm too fat. I told him that I had gained a bit of weight recently and that I hadn't really been exercising much and his response was that it was probably difficult to have much motivation to exercise when you have diarrhea 9 times a day and always feel like you have to poop. I like that.

Finally, I got a tetanus booster shot and apparently I'm one of the minority of people who reacts poorly to it (surprise surprise). I woke up Saturday with a headache, unable to move the arm I got the shot in, and spent the whole day sleeping and feeling like I wanted to vomit. I always get a little nervous when we get new foster kids and I get sick right away...I am always afraid they're going to call us one day and say, "Oh, and we forgot to tell you they have TB" or something like that. Anyways, I was somewhat comforted by the sore arm because I figured it was from the shot. I asked them at the office before they gave it to me, "Is this the one that makes your arm really sore?" and they said no...it makes me wonder if I have always reacted this way to immunizations and they just make MY arm sore.

Well, other than that it was a good weekend. I'm starting to bond with the girls, I didn't know if it would happen very quickly with these girls. They were so closed off when we got them and can barely talk (they're missing most of their teeth :( ). But, a few days being comforted by the fact that Aimes and I are going to care for them really opened them up. Aimee had youth group last night and I was alone with them and we have a great dinner, bath, and bed time. This morning they were off to school and I'm actually kind of missing them.

I'll keep ya posted, take care friends!
Chris

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Posted in: doctor,foster care

Well...

We have foster kids again, all is right with the world. It's a fascinating story and I will share it with you all someday. I'm excited to say two beautiful, brilliant, and bilingual young women now live with us and we had a very fun evening. Aimee is so good with girls, no matter how they are feeling about moving in with us a shopping trip turns them into BFF. We had our first interaction with the Phoenix public school system today...that will be interesting. Fun quote of the night - "You kind of look like the King of Queens". Fun activity of the night - Fuego en la Sangre

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Posted in: family,foster care