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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.