10 Random Things for a Friday

1. I want to learn to play the ukulele. This is solely so I can play "Love Shack".
2. I spent most of Wednesday sitting at my desk crying off and on. I wonder if days like that will ever stop.
   
3. The Babe is going to be gone all next week. Is she really old enough to be staying with someone else for an entire week?
   
4. I have no idea what I am going to do with myself for a whole week with no Babe.
   
5. While not always G or PG rated this blog makes me LAUGH!! It did however about give my husband a coronary when I left it on on his computer and he came home to the sex words on his screen.
   
6. Fritz the Cat is in the animation category on Netflix. I about died when the Babe turned it on. Yes, my 4 year old can run Netflix on the TV. That said, did you know there are no parental controls on Netflix?
7. My sister and her family just came back from a cruise. I am WAY jealous. I need a cruise.
8. I bought a powerball ticket for Wednesday's drawing. I haven't checked it yet. I should probably do that. Maybe I can afford a cruise!
9. I have been looking at a lot of pictures of fireflies this week. Did you know there aren't many drawings of fireflies other than ones that are just lights?
10. I have to go drive to Des Moines. I hate driving to Des Moines. But I figured out that I have made the Omaha - Cedar Rapids or Omaha - Des Moines trip nearly 80 times in the last 9 years. That's pretty nuts. Does explain why I hate driving that way though.

OK Kids. We are off to the zoo week. Emotional week. The one where I often crack. Let's see how much Ativan it takes to get through it this year. Anybody want to start the bidding?

Teenage Runaways -- Someone Safe To Talk To

I'm sure I am going to take heat for this one but I really don't care.

Kids run away. Every day. Most of the families I have talked to over the years had kids that were missing because they ran away. Kids have problems. Sometimes HUGE ones. Sometimes little ones. What may seem insignificant or minor to us as adults may be seen by a teenager as life ending or insurmountable. Their parents "don't understand". And honestly? we often don't. Not from a 15 year old perspective. As hard as we try, we don't really remember all of the disaster that we and/or other teenagers felt when we were teenagers.

Please make sure that your teenagers have someone safe to talk to. Someone that you trust and that they trust. Someone that you both agree is someone they can go to no matter what. As much as we want to always be that person in their life, we won't always be.

There will always be something that you can't tell your mom or dad. Think about it. You had them too. You probably still do. Things you still feel like you can't tell anyone. Your kids, they feel that way more often than we would like them to. So that person that you and your kid both trust? Your child needs to know that there is a "safe" adult in their life. And you need to be OK with the fact that they will tell them things that they don't want you to know about. Not now. And maybe not ever. And you need to be OK with that. It is REALLY hard but it is essential.

I firmly and undeniably believe that Erin did NOT run away. I've know that with my heart since day 1. But I used to wish that that was the reason she was gone. It seemed so much better than the alternative. At least if she had run away this whole thing would have been her decision. That she could pick up the phone and call and say "come get me." or "I'm OK." I'd give anything for that phone call even today. I'd love to be proven wrong. But most missing kids are runaways. The statistics are undeniable. Please don't let one of them be yours.

National Missing Children's Day 2011

Today is National Missing Children’s Day.

I’ve been trying to figure out all morning what to say about about it on Facebook. I can't seem to figure out the condensed into a "however many characters fit in my status" message.

• Please take the opportunities today to hug the children in your life.
• Take a few minutes to talk to them about safety.
• Make sure you know what your kids are doing on the internet. Help them know what is safe and what is NOT. Learn for yourself what is safe and what is NOT.
  
• Say a prayer for those who can’t do the same today -- those who have missing children. Those who have children that have been abducted and murdered.
• Take a look at the pictures of the missing kids in your area on Missing Kids.com -- Kids come HOME because of people that see their picture and recognize them and get involved.
  
• Take a "mugshot" kind of picture of your child. Do you know how long it took me to find a good full front picture of Erin? We hadn't bought school pictures that year. We didn't have the money. The one we ended up using for all of the posters was a picture the school took for her school ID.
• Go read this about runaways and one BIG thing you can do to help prevent it with your own kids.
  
• Hug the kids in your life again.
  

But most of all..... Please pray, send positive energy, send angels (whatever it is that you do or believe) for all of the kids that are still missing. The ones that are with people that are supposed to love them and keep them safe but that are keeping them from the parents or guardians that they are legally supposed to be with. The kids that are out there and are being held against their will. The ones that think will never be able to go home. The ones that are stuck in a human trafficking situation. The ones that are being abused. The teenagers that thought that running away was their only option and now they don't know what to do. Please pray for the kids that just want to GO HOME.

Now how do I summarize the above into a status update?

10 Random Things for a Friday

we won't talk about how long it has been. OK? OK. thanks.

1. Tomorrow the Babe graduates from preschool. This is going by too fast.
2. I have been craving lemon bars. But I'm the only one in my house that likes them so I haven't made them. It wouldn't be good. But man, do I want these lemon bars.
3. Golf. I was guilted into taking up golf again. Went to the driving range for the first time in something like 9 years. I still suck but I had fun!
4. I bought a new pair of shoes today at the Goodwill. But then I started thinking about the fact that someone else had their feet in these shoes. And now I'm not so sure. But they are Josef Seibel shoes. So I need to get over the temporary icks and just wear them. They are cute for heaven's sake.
5. We've eaten WAY too many clementines in the last month. the Babe loves that she can peel them by herself.
   
6. The Babe wants a fairy party for her birthday in July. I'm now obsessed with looking up fairy stuff on Etsy.
7. Calvin and Hobbes: Hobbes originally had pads on his hands and feet but Bill Waterson (the creator) found them too distracting and removed them.
8. I got up too early today.
   
9. Picking out tomato plants will be the highlight of my day today. Yeah me! No really. I am excited about it!
10. I'm going to walk around tomorrow singing "It's the End of the World As We Know It."

There it is. A random 10. YEAH!!!

The Muppets: Ode To Joy

The Muppets: Bohemian Rhapsody

A Peek Inside My Brain -- DNA

So today they found 2 bags of bones inside a warehouse in Dows, Iowa. I read it online on KETV.com. My head immediately goes to the idea that it could be Erin in those bags. I mean, really? What are the chances of that being true? Slim to less than none. But that is where my brain goes. To Erin. to the possibility that she is somewhere. even in Dows, Iowa. You know this is going to bother me until they identify the remains. Better hope that happens soon. DNA match if it is just bones.

When Erin disappeared, no one told us we should keep her toothbrush or her hairbrush. She was just a teenage run away you know. We wouldn't need to identify remains a decade later or anything like that. So we didn't save anything.

So instead, about a month ago, the county sheriff came and took a DNA sample from Jim (Erin's dad) and Amber (Erin's sister). The can use that DNA to reconstruct a DNA match in the database. The DNA database is in Ft Worth, Texas. They are working on matching DNA in missing persons' cases to known DNA samples.

I'm not holding out hope for a match. Because that would mean I no longer have any "hope" that Erin will be home.

And I'm not ready for that yet.

Remember Me?

Hello. It is me. The one that you thought had abandoned you. I didn't. I was just on a hiatus. Can't remember exactly why now. I'd still be there except I have something I need to b**ch about for a minute. And that is what the blog you are reading was started for. A way to bi**h/whine/moan/complain/rant/yell/vent or otherwise deflate my overwhelming sense of whatever the h3ll this is. That said: Top 10 things I "want to post on Facebook but people would not understand it out of context and would elicit a string of comments that I really don't want to deal with right now".

1. Get over yourself. I don't care. Neither does anyone else.
2. Cryptic? Yes, you are. But that's OK with me. Just don't get pissed when people start asking you invasive questions afterwards.
3. If you post a link to it with no comment to the contrary, people are going to assume that you agree with it. If you don't? You should probably re-think the general idea of your link/post/tag.
4. Quit taking pictures of yourself in the mirror. No one looks good that way. Especially when we can still see the camera IN THE PHOTO!!
5. No. I didn't get a nap today. What is your point?
6. I don't care what animal pooped in the garden in your Country Farm Town Life today. Can you please shut off those postings? Yeah. Thanks.
7. I don't play Country Farm Town Life. You can send me ALL of the requests you want. I still won't play.
8. I didn't see your post/invite/cause request. It isn't personal. It was just buried in my "Country Farm Town Life" requests. It will only hold 99 of them you know.
9. No. I wasn't on here all day. My computer just thought I was because I forgot to close the tab. That said... how would you think that I was on her all day if you hadn't been on here all day to SEE that I was ON HERE all day?
10. I didn't want to talk to you before we graduated High School. Why would I want to talk to you now?

Facebook sucks by the way. The fact that I am on it daily does not take away from that. I just now feel obligated to get sucked on more inch into the virtual world. I'll let you know when my last toe is replaced by nano-prob-y things. I'll beep at you in morse code at least.

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