last blog

Blogging, essays, peer reviews, citations, smarthinking, MLA. What do these things have in common? Up until a few months ago I didn't have a clue about these topics. English is still a struggle, but I have learned a lot and will hopefully retain the information to be able to use it again someday. Organization is the key to this class. If I kept on top of due dates and assignments I felt it wasn't too bad to handle. Smarthinking was so helpful, honest and clear with the feedback I received. I was very glad to have peer reviews as well. Having extra eyes checking your work is like having answers to a test!

spring break

Spring break this year was full of family and fun in Wisconsin Dells. My family along with my mom, my siblings and their famly rented a condo at Glacier Canyon. We were there only three days but enjoyed each others company enven though the flu ran through over our condo! yuck! Our family is conciously making more of an effort to spend quality time together. We played laser tag, spent time at the water park, shopped and drove go-karts. With my dad and brother being gone it has really bonded the rest of us together. Family is a word that has so much power and comfort. everyone is so busy in their life and making geniune efforts to spend time together is very important in our family.

college leap

I had always dreamed college but never thought I could handle it or afford it. My parents had only experienced community college and never encouranged us kids to go. If we wanted to go we would have to figure it out on our own. I am a hard worker and have had a lot of experience working with children as an assistant teacher or an aide. I aways wanted to be the lead teacher, elementary teacher or any other higher up educator. I now am a highly successful child care provider that makes more money than most elementary teachers, but I work very hard and earn every penny! My own children are 10 1/2  and almost 15 and last summer I was having serious thoughts about what I am going to do when they graduate. I would have no reason to stay home anymore. Although I did take post scondary classes and do have other child development credentials, I would be starting at the bottom if I went out into the early childhood field. After running my own business that would be extremely difficult. My friend is also a child care provider as has been working on her higher education for the past 8 years while her children were young. She will gaduate will her master's degree soon and will be able to get a "real" job in the early childhood field a few years before her kids graduate. For me, taking 5 courses a year, I will graduate probably the same year as my youngest son. That's fine for me, I want to enjoy my boys while they are young and I do enjoy my job on most days!

RESEARCH PAPER

It's kind of ironic that I am taking an on line class and writing and English research paper on E-waste using my some day in the future electronic waste computer. BUT, I'm not a hypocrite! I have properly disposed of our out dated tv's and computers at Best Buy for a small fee, which now I read that they take old electronics for free. It was really interesting doing the research for electronic waste and scary at the same time. I found tons of pictures of people in developing countries sifting through electronics to melt down toxic metals that they can turn into money. It can be 10 times cheaper to send the old computers to China, India and nigeria than for countries like the US to take care of it themselves.
Why can't countries be more responsible and accountable for their own crap? When my garbage is full I don't go over to my neighbors and put it in theirs? Sounds just as rediculous, doesn't it?

Makeup commercials are so fake

The makeup industries makes a fortune brain washing women into thinking their makeup or lotions will make them look ten years younger, elliminate line and wrinkles, etc.  Of course they have super models wearing their makeup, who probably have had some sort of corrective surgury to begin with. Second the commerical company can "fix" the flaws the model does have. I rarely see regular women on the commercial wearing the makeup or lotions. 

autism

        Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a range of complex neurodevelopment disorders, characterized by social impairments, communication difficulties, and restricted, repetitive, and stereotyped patterns of behavior. Experts estimate that every six children out of every 1,000 will have an ASD. Males are four times more likely to have an ASD than females.
The hallmark feature of ASD is impaired social interaction. Children with ASD may fail to respond to their names and often avoid eye contact with other people. They have difficulty interpreting with others are thinking or feeling because they don't understand social cues, such as tone of voice or facial expressions.
          Being a daycare provider is a challenging job by itself. Then add 2 children who are autistic and the challenges of my job amplifies by 100. Dealing with autistic children takes patience and an understanding of the child's challenges and delays.  These kids also bring out the best in the children around them. The other children tend to help the autistic children with games or art projects.  With love and patience, autistic children will thrive and develop at extraordinary rates.

The Glass Castle......Hard book to put down.

The book was amazingly written with such detail you could picture each scene as if you were watching it in person. Jeannette and her family each had their own struggles with life and how to deal with each other to make them function. They would always have each others back in tough situations. This book is very inspirational and encouraging and I have already recommended it to my friends. It truly illustrate resilience is key to becoming successful in surviving a dysfuctional family. 

tattoos and piercings

I like tattoos and peircing to a certain degree. For me it's away to express myself, stand out just a little and signify a certain event or person in my life. I think some people go to extreme measures with what they do to their body and will most likely regret it later. I think that's why tattoo removal procedures have become so popular.  This is my latest tattoo. I love it. The butterfly was my first tattoo and it symbolized two seperate events. It expressed the freedom I felt from my divorce being final. I had it done the day my baby sister turned 18 which the butterfly also symbolized her freedom from childhood. She also had a tattoo done that day.  A few weeks ago marked the 3 year anniversary of my then 26 year old brother taking his own life. I wanted to commemorate this with a positive rather than a negative. The tattoo artist refreshed my butterfly and added clouds to symbolizing my brother is free from depression in heaven. I had him add the saying " Live for today.....tomorrow is not a given." to represent the true meaning of life and how precious everyone around us really is. Today might be my last day or tomorrow. I don't know.  Have I really lived? Have I told everyone how I feel? Do I have regrets?

Family.. Ahh.. gotta love them!

I think every family has some dysfunction going on from time to time. It's whether or not people want to admit  it.  Some families are very dysfunctional, but to them, everything seems normal. I think society put a lot of pressure on people to obtain a perfect family. Exactly what is perfect?  Who is judging that? There are some obvious attributes to dysfuction: drugs, alcohol, abuse, mental illness,etc.
Often time dysfuction keeps trickling down from generation to generation until someone gets professional help or something drastic happens.

live for today... tomorrow's not a given

This is great quote I recently ran across. Too many people are caught up in the he said she said crap in life and forget that life is so short and precious. We need to cut bate on things, jobs and relationships that are weighing us down and clogging our minds. If you live for today and think today could be your last, your perpection on the small stuff would deminish. Be thankful for the people who are here and try not focus on the people that aren't. Be thankful for what you have and not so much on what you don't.

The Fake Generation

From what I have witnessed from Facebook, I am not a fan at all. I'm sure to many there are lots of reasons they love to stay connected to Facebook, but in my opinion it has many negatives. People often use Facebook to say "Look at me, look at me!" They neeed some justification of who they are, what they have, and who they are dating. My 14 year old son has a Facebook page so I have snooped around to see what all the craze is about and I am disappointed as to how a lot of people behave. I feel Facebook is a way to stay connected to people without staying connected to people. People are too busy for a phone call or to write a letter or even a personal email to someone they care about. They feel they can justify it by adding you as a friend. I have had many instances where someone says "you didn't know?" "well that's your fault, you should keep up on their Facebook page". Really? Is that how I need to find out information about my close friends or relative? As far as my son's Facebook page, all I see is insecure, angry teenagers that like to talk smack about other people, or pictures of themselves posing like a model with skippy clothes and lots of makeup.  They use Facebook as a weapon against enemies or groups that have isolated them a well. This is not a healthy way to live. Would they behave like this if face to face with someone? Probably not. It just adds fuel to an evergrowing bullying problem in our schools today. I agree with Alice Mathias, it is very much a three ring circus.

crazy winter

The warm sun beamed my face as I watched the children play outside after lunch. My outside thermometer shows 37 degrees. Cold by many standards. Warm by Minnesota winter standards. Last spring when the snow started to melt, we had floods that damaged so many homes and business. This spring we will be in a drought from the lack of snow. What is going on? Does it really have to be one extreme or the other?

My dad

My dad was a tall, thin, good looking guy who had a grin that you wondered what he'd been up to. He was always young at heart, arguing with us kids about what tv show we were going to watch or who was going to wash up first for dinner. Sometimes acting more like a kid than we did. He would get real quiet and sit byhimself if any of us kids were catching more fish than he was on a hot Sunday afternooon. He would be quick to say that it's time to go home after he hadn't caught anything for awhile. Dad loved to plays his drums any chance he could and well, the whole neighborhood knew it too.  Going on vacations was quite a treat even thought dad would engage in an arguement with anyone in the care every few mile just to prove to my mom that we should have stayed home because the kids were misbehaving again. My dad past away from brain cancer at the age of 44 . As time has gone by, I will laugh to myself about how irritating and immature he would be at times. I think maybe he was on to something. Maybe we act too serious. Maybe we should race our kids into the bathroom to wash up for dinner. It could keep us young at heart like my dad.

favorite quote

"When the winds blow against you, do not resist, be an eagle, spread your wings and let the wind blow you above the storm"
My brother loved bald eagles, when he committed suicide almost 3 years ago, we found he had a huge collection of statues and pictures of eagles. He was dealing with depression and obviously felt the eagle had a sense of freedom and peace about them. He just couldn't see above the storm.
This quote is so powerful to me, it tells us if we just have faith, we will get through anything. Life is full of obsticles, but every obsticle has a purpose and a higher meaning. It is often hard to see above the storm when the wind is a tornado.  If we surrender and say "alright wind, I will accept what is happening, blow me in the direction that I need to be so can get through this" often times it make things alot easier to deal with.

My Future.....

Making life make sense is half the fun. I took post secondary child development classes from RCTC in my senior year of high school, but never finished the degree because I didn't have the funding or confidence to finish. I worked as a teacher's assistant in a child care center for a few years until the center closed. The nursing home that owned the center offered us all jobs. I worked in the housekeeping/laundry department for 2 years until was promoted to the manager position. I loved my job since the elderly are like big little kids and being the manager gave me business skills, more responsibility, and power to make positive changes, but I still yearned to get back to my passion of taking care kids.
When my 4 year old was diagnosed with severe seperation anxiety, it really pushed me to switch gears since he seemed to be falling apart at preschool and daycare. I had to make a change. So after 12 years working at the nursing home, I started my own daycare out of my home. I have been open for almost 6 years so far and have seen so many children that have special needs of some sort, whether they have mental issues, behavior issues, emotional issues, physical limitations or a combination. My own children have been diagnosed as well, my oldest has ADHD and my youngest has Generalized Anxiety Diorder and ADD. I have learned so much about about their conditions and found it very fascinating. Seeing that the need for special education is on the rise and will probably continue to be as time goes on, has convinced me that this is my calling. I decided to go back to college to achieve my Associates Degree in Liberal Arts and Science to then transfer to WSU to complete my Bachelor's Degree in Early Childhood Special Education birth -age 6. Since I am a child care provider, I qualify and have received a T.E.A.C.H scholarship which pays for 80% of my tuition and books up to 15 credits a year until my degee is complete! It will take me 5-6 years to finish, but that is when my youngest will will be a junior in high school and when I originally planned to switch jobs anyway.

I truely believe things happen for a reason. At the time when things happen, good or bad, a person often says' "What the?!, why am I led down this path?" or "Why did this have to happen to me?" but as I've gotten older and started reflecting on my path, I totally see that the things that have happened to me have actually gave me the skills to be a better, stronger and more confident me. Seeing how things have evolved so far, only make me more excited about the future.