Posts

Ping Pong Politics

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  I’ve  sat in the neutral zone listening to countless political rants for many years; now it’s my turn, so please hear me out. Also please note my personal political rant has little to do with actual politics and a whole lot more to do with human decency or to be more specific, the lack thereof.   This babbling comes after many months, if not years, of watching both sides lob their opinions back and forth, like opposing sides engaged in what seems like the world’s most horrific Ping-Pong match, played with words that hit like grenades rather than friendly teammates.  Back and forth my head has shook from side to side trying to follow the backhand, wracking my brain trying to figure out what each participant thought they were accomplishing with this aggressive way of playing. As quietly as possible I’ve sat on the sidelines wondering if there would be anyone left standing with their integrity in tact in the end.  While I never want to live in a world where people feel the need to censo
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What about the kids?

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What about the kids? It's a question we hear often, a question we asked ourselves repeatedly before starting this process 3 years ago, when our bio kids were just 6 & 8. They have handled this all so beautifully so far that I almost want to quip, what about them? Obviously that wasn't our initial attitude, in fact we were quite concerned, concerned they may feel slighted, concerned they'd get attached and then have a hard time grieving, concerned we'd be introducing some tough topics into their little hearts and brains. So concerned that we almost didn’t do this, that we almost missed this and I cannot tell you how sad that thought makes me now. Like so much in life we quickly realized we worried for nothing, kids intuitively get vulnerable love, it's us grown ups that screw it up. Plus if you never afford your children the opportunity to feel slighted, to get attached, to deal with loss, to deal with all the heavy stuff, aren't you real
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Marriage is hard.........our expectations make it harder.

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I’ll never forget my 22 nd birthday, it was the day that I thought to myself, “Yes! Thank God! Now I am old enough to get married.” I know what you are thinking because now I am thinking it too, ‘Wait what?!? What did my dumb self just proclaim the young age with the high enough level of maturity to get married?’ Only that wasn’t exactly what I was thinking at all because truly I was too naïve to ever question what maturity had to do with marriage. I was already engaged to be married at that time and I just thought 22 sounded like a better age to be making such a large life choice than just 21 did. I mean ‘who could take a 21 year old seriously?’ is what I was projecting . I knew I was not going to prove to myself or anyone else around me that this 21 year old girl, the age that’s basically the poster child for drunken irresponsibility, was mature enough to know what she was doing. I was truly thankful that I turned 22 in May before our wedding in June. I thought that month
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Guest Blog Over At A Door Of Hope's Page

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My thoughts on the idea of becoming "too attached" and that fear keeping people from fostering.  http://www.adoorofhope.com/blog/
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Guest Blog Post - Print the photos, pray for the children...

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A little piece I wrote about a very special girl and the place she holds in my heart and on my wall. https://eckerd.org/2017/10/18/mom-decorates-home-pictures-entire-family-including-foster-kids/
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Guest Blog - Hurricanes and Childhood Trauma

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A couple of months ago us Floridians went through Hurricane Irma together. At that time I was struck with the parallel of the trauma of that experience and what a child in foster care must experience regularly, you can read more about my take on that here: https://eckerd.org/2017/09/18/guest-blog-life-foster-care-can-never-ending-hurricane/
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Our Sick World

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I think that all of us have had the same thought at some time or another this week. What a sick world we live in. Our world is sick. So very sick. No amount of cynical or inspirational posts with #lovemorehateless or #PrayForVegas will change that. I can hardly process it all, I just keeping thinking of how sick our world is. I feel stuck on that point, and as it goes round and round in my head my mind wanders to how we got here. Lately I've been thinking perhaps we've become sick because we've lost touch with the effort it takes to remain healthy. Just like the human body cannot maintain health simply with good intentions or a quick fix but rather requires sustained quality care, we must recognize that our society is a living-breathing organism that requires consistent care.   We became complacent, gave up or hyper-focused on ourselves somewhere along the way. We now find ourselves enduring horrific symptoms of neglect. It's brutal out there
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