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Hot off the press

Alex has lost his job! Bonus: His phone is shut off!! It's a prepay and he didn't pay it. We don't know any details yet because he has hid from us. There wasn't any contact from Friday to Sunday morning.

My son did hint around the fact that the grocery store hired new people and rumor was they let ya go at the 90 day mark. We don't know if that was a way to ease us into it because he hasn't returned to works since.

I don't know how we are going to handle this. Truth be told. If he is going to live with me as an adult I need help getting the house payment paid. We never talked about charging him more than the 40 a week assuming he earned 40 hours and the minimum we were going to ask for was 20 a week.

make over

One thing that I wanted to get out of the retreat was to get some makeup tips from one of the Mom's that I hung out with last year. I like makeup and want to wear it but just felt clueless. It was suggested that I bring some and my sister helped pick some out.

Make up is expensive and thats probably another reason that I am not very experienced with it. I did have kids young and when your buying kid stuff first make up is the last thing on the mind.

I learned a few things. I need a concealer for the dark circles under my eyes. I havent bought any yet cause it's my broke week from taking time off. She also suggested purple eye liner and I havent picked it up yet.

I did get somewhat expensive eye shadow and lip gloss so for the most part it is staying on. I put it on most days and dont feel as experiences but maybe with more practice.

The apron I am wearing is part of the recipe for sucess theme they had going on for us. We had to pick up a pattern and this really nice lady sewed the pattern on to the basic white apron. We then got to decorate them. Some of us did both sides but I just stuck with the butterfly side.

I think this picture makes me look bigger but oh well.

A recipe for sucess

A recipe for sucess was the theme for the retreat that I went to this past weekend.

We were all asked to email a recipe and they were all printed out and shareed with others. It's kind of neat because I have been into cooking new meals. I been slacking a little bit because I been feeling burned out.

My biggest mistake going into the retreat is thinking that it would be the same. It really wasn't a big deal but now I know that the retreats can vary and it's okay. I figured we would have stuff from bed, bath and beyond on our bed. We didn't.

We had a pot, some herbs, a chocolate bar and an plain white apron that I would later learn was so we could decorate it. I will post pictures soon but for tonight I am too tired to deal with any of that.

The only other spot of the retreat that I was shocked that it was different was there wasn't any smores at the campfire lol

This was my second weekend retreat and I would have to say that even with the few things I mentioned different that the weekend was better than the first. I know it was hard to top it but it was.

I didn't have the nerves because I knew the Mom that I hung out with last year would be back plus I would see other faces that I am friends with either in real life as in seeing each other or we have connection on facebook.

I felt like facebook made the conversations flow even easier because we see a window into each other's life thru the internet that we otherwise wouldnt have seen.

This year, I didn't see the horses at the ranch. I really wanted to concentrate more on the talking to the other Mom's and the manicure. I missed out on it last year.

I was a little worried that I could possibly feel stretched as in not enough of me to go around to talk with all the Mom's but I didn't. Of course, I couldn't talk to every Mom but I did have enough of the few that I did speak to.

At one point, I found myself chatting with two Mom's about blogging and the subjected changed to adoption when I mention that I blog from the perspective of a Birthmom. It was ironic that all three of us were connected to adoption and not one of us were the same. Meaning one was adopted, one adopted children and of course I placed a child for adoption.

One Mom actually reads my blog and it was a little odd talking to someone in person who said, I remember when you wrote about that" ect. Giving the blog address to people in real life is stepping out of my comfort zone but that is cool cause it means steping more out of the closet.

The other Mom, the one who adopted, I shared my blog address and not sure if she has checked it out or not yet. Well, anyways, she had adopted several kids. I am not sure how many. She rocked at understanding the connection to the first family.

The end of the retreat is the white elephant gift exchange. One of my friends told me about her crazy gift and let's just say hemroid medication was just part of it. LOL I actually picked it and she asked why did I do that.. But she never told me what her package looked like.

The funnist thing is that some Mom close to be stole the crazy gift from me. I like to think that she took that so I could have the chance at a nice gift. LOL

I did get a couple frames, candle and some body wash and lotion. Much better.

I will try to post pictures of me wearing the apron and make up. One of the Mom's helped me with make up so I wanted my picture taken.

This blog post doesn't really do the weekend justice. It's really comforting to be around so many other strong Mom's that deal with special needs children day in and day out.

We get spoiled with massages, nails and little gifts. I really enjoyed the downtime of not being responsible for kids and not going to work. They had someone come do zumba so I got to still get an workout in.

This past week has been a hard one. My son had a really hard time coming home from his Dad's and cried that we are mean. He has these major meltdowns that I can't really tell how long they last. Probably not as long as they feel. He has taken to pounding his hand and now wants a hand brace cause his arm hurts.

Wednesday was my husband and mine anniversary and his kid's twins birthday. I got my feelings hurt when he told me that he was going to his son's house while I do zumba. He didn't think about birthday or it being our anniversary so it never occurred to him to invite me along.

Once he invited me, I felt like I was unwanted. I guess it's a self esteem issue for me. I hate feeling jealous. I don't know if any my emotions and tears came from watching October baby the night before.

We did go to his son's and celebrated the twins birthday and I had a nice time. I am glad I went. We didn't take Stephen since we didn't think kids would be there. We asked my sister to watch him and my son had a little hard time with it. I think it's been years since we used a babysitter.

I have been taking it easy. I feel so burned out that I just haven't had it in me to do zumba. I worked all day and evening on Thursday and today (friday) after Stephen left for school I went back to bed.

Then, we went down to the court house to get child support coming out of their father's checks again. He said he would do it on his own but then told me to do it.

The rest of the day, I just took it easy besides taking a 30 minute walk through the woods with my dog.

I hope to get to the Y tomorrow and do zumba. I might have to rethink my 3 to 4 times a week to 2 to 3 times a week.

Kids Crisis Center

Thanks for the suggestion on the fake name for the center. I want to respect privacy and figure this is the best way to blog about my experiences with the nursery and not risk sharing too much information.

Monday was my second time volunteering for Kids Crisis Center and I am even more sure that this is the right place for me.

Location wise allows me to give more time due to them being a 5 minute drive so that is really nice.

There were three different children there this week. I want to write about the twins that were there. I am going to call them Sam and Sally. I was told that Sam has autism and Sally has some behavior issues and really tries to protect Sam and will bite Sam and others.

I didn't see anything that said autism to me when I seen Sam. Not to say he doesn't have it but the thought did cross my mind as there is nothing wrong with him. Then, I told myself.. Who am I to judge? What do I know after 3 hours? Yes. I see behavior issues but I don't know this kids history. It's a reminder to remember that this is the kind of thoughts I get upset with when it comes to people question my son's DX.

Sally didn't do any biting or hitting but it was known by her calling out for Sam when he was upset that she looks out for him.

At the nursery,after lunch, they have quiet time. They put cots on the floor and put on a movie and the kids are to lay down and hopefully sleep. This next part might make you go awwwww

Sally wasn't wanting to lay down. She was just sitting there and you could tell she wanted to get up. I got down on the floor and layed down near the cot and talked her into laying down. I started rubbing her back. She then got off the cot and layed right up next to me. We were cuddling and I was rubbing her back. It was a little bitter sweet for me. It's the first time that I can recall that I actually layed down and cuddled with a girl.

She went to sleep right next to me. I did grab her pillow so hopefully she was comfortable. Sam was the only child who didn't nap at all and they ended up just laying him play to prevent him from screaming and waking the others.

The more time I spend at Kids Crisis Center the more that I know that this is the place I want to donate my time to. She told me that the twins parents have two other children and they encourage them to drop them off.

I would think "crisis" would mean an emergency or something popped up that they needed care. However, it seems like the workers see that they can help families so much more than that. They can help avoid a true crisis by giving the family a much needed break.

The part that I haven't shared yet is that Kids Crisis Center is actually connected with the adoption agency that gave me the free counseling for adoption loss.

Help me out with a little something

I would like to be able to blog about the nursery that I am volunteering for but have decided it would be best that I give them a fake name on this blog.
This nursery is a safe place for children birth to six years of age.

Anyone have any suggestions on a name to give it. I would like it to still imply that it's a crisis place for kids but not use their real name.

Cooking with chicken

I cheated and used a 3rd book for recipes and I want to share one with you from a Book written by Betty Miranda and it's called Top 20 Delicious chicken recipes.

I actually took last week off from cooking new meals to just being short on groceries and needing to use what we had and not run off to get more food.

So this one we cooked about two weeks ago and it was a hit with my family. It's a great thing to cook especially for young kids.

Baked Chicken nuggets:

You will need 3 skinless and boneless chicken breasts
1 cup Italian bread crumbs (with Italian seasoning
1 teaspoon of salt
1 teaspoon of thyme
t tablespoon of basil
2 tablespoons of melted butter
3/4 cup of Shredded Parmesan cheese

Preheat oven to 400 F
Cut chicken into nuggets about two inches in length.
Put a bowl and combine crumbs, salt, cheese amd dried herbs

Dip nuggets and bread crumb in melted butter.

Lightly grease a cookie pan, and space nuggets evenly

Bake for about 20 to 25 minutes.

This will make about 30.

Just for the record I found that I only used about half of the breading so when I make it again I will cut the cheese and breading in half to save dollars.

Retreat

If everything went smoothly I will be checking into the retreat center when you read this blog post from me. When I say smoothly I mean that my kids StepMother picks up my boys for the weekend. It's Dad's weekend but Dad has a new job that keeps him away from home so it's the whole debate thing on is she obligated to take care of our sons'

I guess if my husband is obligated then so is she. I don't know if that's the right word to be using though. I think if the stepparents married "us" then they have a moral responsibility to help raise the children up. Their StepMom isn't going to ever be doing a whole lot of raising of them but if she has them for a weekend it gives us a much needed break to be better full time parents.

The whole reason I am writing about the moral or obligation is due to the last time she was suppose to get them she didn't show up and didn't call my husband but texted me and they got the kids the next day.

Stephen has Rec night and my husband plans on having a quiet weekend without children. If she screws up and there was some talk about her being sick I know I will still be checking into the retreat center and my husband will see to it that Stephen gets to REC night and home. It's just the kind of husband he is to me.

He may grumble and bitch and raise hell but he will take care of the kids.

I am really looking forward to this retreat. I had such a great time last year and met a lot of nice women who can relate to special needs children. It gave me some things to think about and I think it changed my outlook on life. Yes. My child is special needs with autism and add and let's admit it obsessive traits that drive me silly. However, my child has a normal life expectancy and their were Mother's who children had beat their life expectancy.

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What to do??

What do you do when your teen is spending all his time with friends, girlfriend or work and barely coming home to sleep. We have had to put our foot down and threaten to lock him out of the house if he isn't home by midnight.

what do you do when they lose or break everything they own? My son has lost his IPOD, Kindle. He had a nice xbox but it's gone with a shady story. He somehow got a cheapy IPOD and dropped it on the stairs and it shattered.

This is a lot of things we bought him or family has gotten him and it's all gone.

Now he is breaking our crap. We forgave him for breaking the screen door and the railing to the downstairs. We repaired it out of our money.

He hasn't been coming home for dinner and sometimes he is at work but other times he just always has a "perfect" excuse as why he didn't make it. Most days he doesn't even ask for food unless he knows we have gotten pizza out or something. We have refused to let him eat it when we have given him a specific time to be home for dinner.

We are wasting a lot of food because we cook for four and he isn't eating. Sometimes, we actually cook for more than that based on the recipe and that sometimes gives me lunch for work.

The latest thing he has "broke" is that he asked to use my husband 25 feet cord for outside when he had a few friends over for a bon fire. The cord magically was set down by the bunny cage and they chewed it up. We explained to my son that he has to replace it and he swears he didn't put it there but admits he left it in the back yard. It's possible my black lab dragged it to the sun porch but I really don't think so.

We are just so frustrated. It's all the little things that add up big time. I handed him a trash bag to take out and where did it end up? Would you guess in his brother's room? Yep! isn't that the place you take trash?

The truth is that I think my son is afraid to be alone. If he isn't working he is looking for people to hang with. He rarely sits with us anymore. My husband doesn't care for kids in the living room all day but nothing says he can't sit with us and there is always dinner time together as a family and out outings ect.

Just for the record, I am talking about my son who will be 18 in less than two months.

He is still working but the early morning shifts if we don't wake him up he won't get up. Up until about two weeks ago, my husband seen to it that he got up and I don't think it's fair that we have to sleep less for him to go.

So, twice in a matter of a couple weeks he was late for work twice. We noticed that he isn't getting the early morning shifts and he has less hours.

We haven't charged him rent yet. The plan is to start once he is 18 years of age. I am not going to pay his way in life so he can "party"

He is being cheap. He has yet to buy himself a stitch of clothing for work or otherwise. He needs things and for once I agree with one of my Mother's parenting styles. I am not buying clothes for him when he has a job.

If you read all this. Thanks for reading my major vent.

The last couple weeks I have been finding myself missing my daughter a little bit more than normal. I often find myself jealous of the interactions between her and her Mom and wondering why I don't pester her all the time to make sure she is safe.

The last couple times, I have tried to connect with Izzy on facebook she hasn't responded. Recently, I posted a picture of her scrapbook open and put it on her wall. Nothing. Today, I wrote her that I missed her and so far she hasn't wrote back. I know she is working a lot but I still miss her.

I guess the answer would be that Izzy isn't trying very hard to talk to me so I won't be sending texts daily to check on her. I breathe easier when I see her posting on FB because I know for that moment in time she was breathing. If I had to put a number on how often I text her I would say about twice a month.

I am trying to get working on her scrapbook more often. I didn't stick to my goal of spending ten a week on supplies and photos. However, we created space in the living room with a table for me to have a place to work on scrapbooking. I am happy to finally have a spot to sit that doesn't involve the kitchen table or me sitting on the living room floor at the level of a coffee table. I did spend almost twenty bucks on prints and want to try to get a few new things for scrapbook paper.

I might bring scrapbook supplies to my retreat but not sure. I don't want to spend too much time on my own as this is a great event for hanging with other Mom's.

Tomorrow, I am taking the day off from work. I asked nicely if they could try and cover my shift because my best friend is really sick in the hospital. She is sick and scared and cries a lot. I didn't want her being alone all day.

I can't offer much and it's only one day. Most of her stays in the hospital are at least a week long but it's something.

I hope she can manage to sleep while I am there. I know she has a hard time sleeping when alone. This illness has been so hard on her family and her husband doesn't really stay by her side as much as I think he should.

My first day on my non paying job

I stayed pretty busy today. I was getting ready to go volunteer and my best friend called me asking for a ride to the hospital.

I didn't know if I could get her and get to my volunteer job on time so I had my husband drive. We picked her up and dropped her off. I felt bad but with it being my first day that I would have felt bad calling in.

I went to the volunteer place. They do emergency care for children newborn until six years old. There were three kids in the activity room. Two girls were sisters and a boy who wasn't related.

I sat and played with them and then the workers got them lunch. They ate but there was this one baby that cried quite a bit cause she wanted to be held. The employes told me not to hold her and just try to direct her to play.

After they ate, I washed up the dishes and took in my surroundings. It has all the postings that employers have to put up about health department stuff and also had stuff about nutritional facts about healthy eating. I swept the floor and then they asked me to clean the upstairs bathroom and vacuum. Let me tell ya this is the hardest that I have worked in a while. LOL I don't have carpet at home and I only vacuum my clients floor about twice a month when she goes out to dinner on my shift.

After cleaning, I talked to one of the workers for a bit and then they asked me if I would help file paperwork. I never got around to filing it but I had to put it all in order by ABC's. This was never a really strong suit of mine. So, in my head.. I am going ABCDEFGHIJ lol with each letter I had to do it again.

It ended up being past my time to go so I let them know that I needed to go check on my friend and she told me not to feel bad if something comes up and I can't come in.

I really feel like this is a good fit for me. It might be more cleaning that I really want to do because what I want to do is more childcare but if it's for the benefit of the families then I will do it. Assuming as long as they don't get crazy.

A male volunteer showed up and I guess he does a lot of the outside work. That is good cause I just don't think I could handle being told to rake or even shovel.

I love how this house is very close to mine. The drive time is 5 minutes tops!! I feel that allows me to give more of my time because with my other volunteer time (hour and half per week) I had about an hour of driving time.

I love how they tried to feed me even though I declined. It shows that they appreciate the help and willing to give a little bit back.

I haven't for sure decided if I will make volunteering a weekly thing for me or biweekly. I am really on the fence. Also, on the fence if I want to give up a few hours on Monday (my only day off without obligation) Or Friday during the day. ( I work second shift) As for right now, I signed up for next Monday for the same three hours.

After volunteering, I went back to the hospital to get my friend. She is having an awful time with diabetes and as been in and out of the hospital for months. She hasnt been able to hold food down for the most part and occasionally gets good days.

I picked her up chicken broth, made her some hot tea and she confessed how miserable she is and no one seems to be able to help and how her family is getting tired of her always being sick. I didn't leave until her Mom came and her kids got home from school. I picked up a prescription for her and when I came back she was sleeping.

I hope she gets better soon. It's really taking a toll on her family and I know she is sick of being sick and tired.

Book Tour

I was asked to get involved in a book tour of Open Heart, Open adoption. I joined right up and I am going to put the book on my kindle. I love to read about adoption and I read just the beginning cause I downloaded a sample of the book and I think it's going to be a great book. I think just from the title of the book that these adoptive parents rock at being an adoptive parent and I will be reading about open adoption.

To learn more about the book tour check it out here.

This blog will explain it much better than I can. Happy reading!!

Volunteering interview

My husband helped me get to the crisis nursery place. I am such a goof. I don't know directions and I tend to panic and can't think too well for myself.

I was a little surprised that it was actually an house. I was greeted by the volunteer cordinater. She was very friendly.

She had me fill out the paperwork and the paperwork didn't ask "why you want to volunteer" and neither did she so I ecsaped the issue do I give the short version of why I want to volunteer or the long one.

She seem impressed with my background with MELD and didn't seemed turned off by us ending on bad terms. She remembered that we had spoke on the phone last week. She seen that I work for the church babysitting.

I mentioned that I had a child on the autism spectrum cause she mentioned most kids are "normal" but they have a brother and sister on the spectrum.

She explained how they can only have five kids at one time and only one volunteer can be there at once. She said that the special needs kids count as two kids based on high needs.

She showed me around the whole house. It was a lovely set up. They had a common area where the kids probably spend most of the time in. Also, another room where they will eat and I can imagine maybe crafts or puzzles cause it's a nice table.

She told me that if I was there at meal times that I would be welcome to eat with the children. I won't be responsible for changing diapers ect. She did mention that when the volunteers on there that they try to leave the child care to the them because honestly that's what we want to do. She did talk about other things that we might be asked to stay busy shall we not have children. This included picking up trash and yard work. I hope that is never asked of me. LOL Trash not so bad. Raking of shoveling!! Hello!! I don't do that at home and if I get caught doing it for free I am in trouble.

I had imagined it in my head that I would tell her that I want to volunteer every other week but before I got that far she explained how it works. Their is a scudule and basically I sign up for the hours that I want to be there.

I love that idea. It feels less of a commitment. I know that might sound funny but let me explain. I don't have to be there at a certain on a certain time every week. I could volunteer on my day off here and there but if I know I need the time free for kids or hanging out with friends I just don't sign up for that day.

With all that said.. I am not sure if I am going to stick to only going twice a month or weekly. I signed up for this Monday from 11 am to 2 pm and they seemed happy that it was during lunch time. If I remember right they take volunteers from anywhere from 7 am to 10 pm. They provide emergency based care 24/7 Monday thru Friday. (that is if I remember right) The nights don't really apply to me.

I loved the upstairs. They had an infant room with about five cribs and toddler room wtih five beds. They said the bedrooms are only for over nights due to having to clean them if a child uses it even for a minute.

I am really happy to get started with them. I hope this is enjoyable for me. I think the smaller amount of children will work in my favor as it will give me time to give quality care and teach through play compare to just manage the children at MELD.

Wish me luck!!

Retreat

Next weekend, I am going on my retreat for Mom's of special needs children. You can read all about my fears and some of the plans that was going on here.

I remember getting dropped off and not quite sure what to do or feel after I dropped my stuff off at my room. I met one person and she was friendly but I felt like if I stood and talked to her, while she talked with others that I was a 3rd wheel. I guess I felt that way due to them knowing each other and I was new.

I ended up spending most the weekend with two other newbies and that was a relaxing and fun experience. None of us had any expectations going in and were just as alone in the deal.

I remember unpacking and thinking what did I get myself into and sort of feeling lonely. I opened my suitcase and there was a note written from my husband and it made me cry.

It didn't take me long to start feeling at home and have a really good time. I just wished it came along more than once a year. However, I do get that a lot of fundraising and work goes into planning it.

A lot of the things that we have to do to prepare for it is the same. We are to bring a picture of our kids, a book to leave for others to read and a white elephant gift to exchange. I haven't totally decided yet but the joke is to bring a "funny" gift but it's not a requirement. I am leaning more towards bring something nice like a homemade gift basket of things for a Mom to pamper herself with.

There are doing zumba this year and I am excited that I still get that option to work out. They feed us really well so good to know that I shouldn't have a set back in the weight loss from it. Actually though, I wouldn't count a setback as anything but a gain. I have gone into losing weight so easy minded that not losing one week isn't a major let down. I am also more educated and now know the amount of calories it would take for me to eat over maintaince for me to really gain. This way if I am retaining water for whatever reason I don't panic cause I know I didnt eat calories in that amount.

Back to the retreat. I am not going to go to the horse ranch this time. It took up three hours of the time and I just don't want to do the exercises that will make me search deep within myself and cry. No thank you!! LOL

I have arranged for one of the Mom's to help me learn how to do make up but I have to buy makeup. So as long as I can pull off spending money for makeup that's on the agenda to do.

I plan on bringing some scrapbook supplies to possibly work on Izzy's scrapbook but on the fence about actually bringing the book.

The day of the retreat my sister and I are going to the hair salon and get our hair done. She is getting hers cut short and plans to donate it. I am getting mine cute and layered like I did last time. But I am going to try to go shorter cause the shorter my hair the more it curls and I love it.

I am going to try to leave my phone alone so I can focus on the people and having a good time instead of what's going on online. I don't have to borrow my sister's camera because for Christmas she gave me the camera because she got a new one.

I hope I have as much as fun and very grateful for the chance to go again. It was a really eye opener and it's something that I never realized how badly I needed to know that I wasn't alone.

Dinner time

Dinner time is important to us. We all live such busy lives that it's the one time all four of us can sit down, share a meal and enjoy each other's companies.
I work full time, go to the Y about 3 to 4 times a week and about once a week or once every other week it's important that I get out with one of my friends.

My husband doesn't work outside of the home at the moment. However, he babysits our grand daughter full time, cooks about half our meals and does the majority of the cleaning ect. He is also home with the kids when I can't be.

Stephen goes to school full time. He comes home and has homework. He goes to the Y with me about once or twice a week. He goes to counseling every other week. His favorite thing to do is watch tv. He has little chores like unloading the dishwasher, setting the table. We have recently started involving him in helping feed the dogs and clean up after the animals boxes. That is basically him coming out with me and opening the doors and garbage can.

Alex works about 3 to 4 days a week. It's early mornings, afternoons and late nights. There really isn't much of a pattern to it. He gets paid weekly and we don't have a clue what he does with his money. We made him get his own phone due to him flying thru the minutes on the phone. He doesn't have any other bills. He has a new girlfriend and tends to spend a lot of time with his friends and also a neighbor of ours.

Between Alex's job, girlfriend and friends it seems as if he is never home to eat with us. We figure we should save him dinner if he is working but if we give a specific time on when we are sitting down to eat and he isn't working. We sort of expect him to grace us with his presence.

Last night, he was at work and we saved him dinner and he didn't eat. Today, we were pinching pennies and actually had to take out a small payday loan and grabbed us a couple cheap 5.00 pizzas since Stephen had a counseling appointment and it ran late.

Alex was told what told about what time we would eat and he even called me and I told him we were picking up pizza. I joked that we were going to eat it all if he wasn't home.

We had to get two pizzas compared to one if we knew Alex wasn't going to be home. We just find it very rude and been feeling like he is treating us like a hotel. He came home an hour after we ate and we wouldn't let him eat the leftover pizza. I notice if its a home cooked meal he is more likely not to ask about the leftovers unless we specifically show him it for him to eat.

We were not totally mean and didn't feed him. We let him make himself a couple PB and jelly sandwiches. If it was a matter of him working we would have allowed him the pizza. However, if he is going to ignore dinner time due to hanging out then he isn't going to come home and eat and run.

Maybe, we would feel different if we weren't not kind of broke. We have been struggling lately and it seems hard to catch up. My children's father didn't pay his child support and when I asked about the job name and address to send papers to for child support he asked for me to please let him handle it. I know my husband doesn't agree with it but I am going to at leave give him the chance. I can only wait another week or so though.

We plan on charging Alex rent but can't really agree to really go through with it at the moment since he is under 18 years of age. In November, he will be 18 and no longer going to be on child support ect. I know some people might not agree with charging rent but we are just not in a position to let him live here for free.

I really hope Alex comes around for dinner more often. It took me a while to get into the swing of things for cooking for 4 people compared to 3 and adult or not.. I think meal time is family time.

Cooking class 101

I am still at my cooking new meals but I am little behind at posting my favorite recipe of that week.

Taste of Italy Chicken Sandwiches won the contest!!

You will need:

3 lbs boneless, skinless chicken sandwiches
1 tbsp. Olive Oil
1 packet of Italian dressing mix
1 cup Pepperoncini jar juice
1 jar of Pepperoncini
6 slices of Provolone Cheese
6 sub rolls

Instructions
Heat Olive oil in skillet over medium/high heat, then brown the chicken in the skillet on both sides. Add the chicken to the slow cooker, then add the rest of the ingredients except the cheese and sub rolls. Cook for 8 hours on low or 6 hours on high. Then shred tge meat with a pair of forks. Serve on a sub roll topped with provolone cheese.

This was very good and it even got an keeper status from my 12 year old who wouldn't have ate it should he had seen the peppers. Good thing, I do the crock pot cooking after he leaves for school.

Volunteering

I spoke with the organization that I blogged about. I was up front and honest about my time with MELD and how we butted heads at the end over the Mom's bringing in wet and hungry babies. She told me to expect the same thing with them but the limit is five kids.

I had to explain myself better. It wasn't just about the Mom's not being prepared but MELD wasn't doing anything about it. As in how am I suppose to take care of a hungry wet baby if I dont have a bottle or diapers. It's not that all the Mom's came in unprepared or MELD never had diapers and wipes available but towards the end the supplies just were not there.

This new place assured me that supplies are not an issue. Parents will drop off dirty childrn and we would be expected to go as far as bathing them. This doesn't bother me and I am getting excited about volunteering again.

From what I read they do quite a bit. They seem to be a resource for special needs children. It looks like they are connected with an adoption agency and it happens to be the one that gave me free counseling twice even though I didn't place thru them.

I go in Friday for a 30 minute orientation on volunteering for them. They are pretty close to where I live. It will be so much easier to drive the 5 minutes or so compared to the 25 to 30 minutes it took me when I volunteered for MELD.

I don't know if I should bring up my reasons on why I feel called to volunteer babysitting for children. I could give the generic answer is that I take care of the elderly, have a pre teen and a almost grown child and I just love the change of pace of being around young children.

Or my long version, that I got involved with MELD shortly after I connected with my daughter on FB that had been placed for adoption as a newborn and I believe in parents having the resources to give them a chance at raising their child. No offense to my adoptive parents pals on here.

This is a place where parents in emergencies can bring their children to get care while they deal with whatever brought them to need the care. I find it ironic that I found this agency just weeks after a young Mom of 19 years of age who had an 11 month and a 3 week old baby staged a kidnapping and left her child in a ditch and reported her missing. This wasn't in my city but close enough for news to spread.

We also have the baby Crystal case of the Mom who left her child to freeze to death in the papers and my husband and I have discussed that there isn't enough places where people can get help. He wasn't justifying the Mom's reasons for leaving her newborn in a ditch but guess could relate to being out of her mind. I really can't relate to it.

I don't plan on going weekly but haven't decided how many hours at a time. Not sure of what the requirements will be in a situation where they have child care available 24/7

Possible new adventure for me

I wanted to find a post to link back in this blog about MELD. Go here and this post is sort of the beginning of the end for my days volunteering for them.

I have been missing volunteering for MELD but don't have any regrets for speaking out which is what resulted in them excusing me from babysitting weekly.

I been wanting to dip back into volunteering but didn't know what to do. I maybe selfish in saying this but I want to play with babies and get back into doing what I think I was meant to do.

I just didn't know where else to go so I haven't done anything.

Today, after zumba, I seen a girl wearing a tshirt of a place that I have heard of before. I don't know a lot about them but I believe they provide emergency care for children should an event come up and the parent needed a safe place for her child.

I asked her if they took volunteers and she said that they did and I should call and talk to someone about it.

I plan on calling tomorrow. I don't know if anything will come out of this but it would be nice get back into babysitting little kids. I don't know what kind of requirements they have as in hours ect. I am thinking I really don't want to get into volunteering weekly due to working full time and just being busy. I can see myself volunteering a couple times a month for a few hours at a time.

I just feel that I belong in an organization that helps families stay together. I don't just want to be the girl behind the blog. I want to help someone when they need it. I want to maybe the difference in the child's and parent's life that hopefully help keep them together.

Zumbathon was hopping out of this world

The Zumbathon was tons and tons of fun. I did remember the building very well but of course they had most of it blocked off. I rememered the gym pretty well and nothing looked different except that they had bikes and treadmills ect in the upper part of the gym. I was very much aware that I had been there before but didn't really have any memories popping up. I don't recall any horrible memories in the gym anyways. It was the year that I finally realized that it was easier to just dress for gym than come fully dressed and not be allowed to participate. It's not that I wanted to do "gym" stuff but if your the only one not in uniform you sort of make yourself stand out and I did enough standing out with the baby belly in the beginning of the year.

It was 3 hour event but with only two of it being zumba. It was loads of fun and the gym was packed. The excitement and energy in the room was out of this world!! It was a little more high impact and energy that I am used to. They had people come from Chicago I believe and hope no one takes offence to this but the African American dude there could dance and it was hard to keep up with him. Also, not quite used to zumba instructors doing the Micheal Jacksons Crotch grabbing move. LOL

They had a little Subway there and a few other snacks that had been donated and tons of water for everyone. It was nice.

I should probably mention the whole event was to raise money for bully preventtion in schools!! I didn't buy anything so hopefully others did.

The last little bit of time was the fun things that I think my son would have liked had he been there. It was B Bop dancing competion. Hope that's the right way to say it. They called calling them B boys.

There were tons of children there but I don;t regret the decision to go on my own. He would have been pretty bored the majority of the time. Some of the children were doing zumba but from what I could tell most of the children doing it were girls. I think there maybe were a total of five men there in total actully doing it.

I was amazed that I lasted the two hours but in reality I didn't think I wouldn't. Don't mean to say that it was easy. It was a challenge and glad I made it.

The church I work for happens to do zumba too and gave few coupons away and I gave some to my office and now one of the office girls wants me to go with her. I have never hung out with them or talked a whole bunch with them due to I am out in the feild. HAHA I love saying that. I am in the homes of the elderly so we don't know co workers or the bosses as well as some might know.