The Writer's Block

Repent

2012-01-13T21:10:00.000-09:00

Do not guilt me with my own beliefs
Even G-d requires a contrite heart
Full confession is the place to start
Before your soul will find release

Your choices aren't mine under any condition
Do not lay them at my feet
The cross is where guilt and the Savior meet

If you truly desire the fruit of contrition

To say that killing yourself either now or later
Does not make up for perverted whims
Suicide doesn't pay the cost of sins
When you stand before your Creator

For what has mattered from the start
Does not lie in the cost of what you did
But in your acceptance to no longer keep it hid
Confess it all with a broken heart

Do not seek to run from the past
For it is already behind you
Accepting it is what you must do
For forgiveness that counts and will last.

© 2012 Gina Locke

Guilty

2012-01-13T20:30:00.000-09:00

The vile wind has stopped in place
Silvery raindrops hang unfallen
Your confession remains unspoken
And your silence fills this space

A space that time has left untouched
Unlike your once innocent victims
Their childhood broken at your hand
The pain of it now unhushed

How many wander through each hour
Gingerly dodging the frozen rain
Listening for the words you lack
Waiting release from your power

A power abused for too many years
To shroud your fiendish wants
Silenced by means of cunning force
By preying on childish fears

It is time to admit what you've done
To let the rain fall where it may
To cool the wounds of those you harmed
And give a fresh start to everyone.

© 2012 Gina Locke

Today's Glory (poetry)

2012-01-11T17:50:00.000-09:00

The time to love is now
To cherish without regret
Allowing honesty to flow
Now, because things are hopeless
And disappointments prevail.

So let the intangible remain
Because hopeless without love becomes hatred
Regrets of that cherished brings pain
And disappointment lacking honesty untrue.

So give to this moment true glory
Color it bright that tomorrow's reflection
Of yesterday's glory remains.

©2011 Gina Locke

An American Thanksgiving Day Meal

2011-11-25T10:56:00.003-09:00

For those who do not live in the United States, you may wonder what a typical, American meal is like for our Thanksgiving holiday. This year, I made a pretty traditional meal and decided to share it so others can see what it is like. Of course, Thanksgiving is a holiday that really focuses on food and being thankful for what we have, so it's usually the biggest, most grand meal of the year. In my family, there is enough food leftover to last for a few days. There are seven people in my home.

First, here is a photograph that labels what each food is. The cranberry sauce is not pictured. Underneath the photo, I will explain each food. You can click on the picture to see it much bigger and be able to to read all the labels.

Turkey: Let's start with the turkey.A turkey is a type of large bird. You can see what live turkeys look like at this link: http://www.self-catering-breaks.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/turkey.jpg Some places in the United States raise turkeys in ways that don't seem very nice and sometimes they feed them stuff I don't think is good for them, so I bought my turkey from a place called Organic Prairie. Organic means that the turkey was not given hormones to help make it grow and not given antibiotics. The turkey was fed good food, stuff turkeys like and that wasn't grown with pesticides and such.
I roasted my turkey in an oven. Before I did that, I soaked it in water for almost 24 hours. I put salt, ginger, garlic, and a couple other spices in the water. Before I put it in the oven, I made a glaze. I did this by boiling together maple syrup, ginger, molasses, a bit of water, orange juice, and a few other tasty things, then spread it all over the turkey. The turkey was around 13 pounds, so it took about four hours to bake at 300 degrees. However, I turned the over to 350 degrees for the last 45 minutes.

Stuffing: Some people fill the inside of a turkey with stuffing. That way they both cook at the same time. I don't like to do that, so I make the stuffing separate. There are many different types of stuffing. Some use corn, some use rice, some use bread, some add oysters...the list goes on and on. Last year, I made a stuffing with wild rice, almonds, and fruits. This year, the one you see in the picture is made with bread. I made it by drying out pieces of bread and cutting them into small squares. After that, I sauteed the bread with melted butter. Butter is made from the cream found in cow's milk. Some people in the United States use margarine, which contains more oil and water, so it has less fat than butter. However, I try to use butter since it is more pure and I think it tasted better, especially on a holiday! Now back to the stuffing. As I sauteed the bread, I seasoned it with salt, pepper, and a spice called sage. Then I took another pan and sauteed mushrooms, celery, and leeks. Leeks are like onions, but they have a more mild flavor. They look like this:CLICK HERE I mixed the bread, mushrooms, celery and leeks together in a baking dish, then poured some broth over it and stirred it just a bit, then baked it in the oven.

Sweet Potatoes: These are very easy to make! Sweet potatoes are just what they sound like: potatoes that are sweet. Some are more white inside, but I like the ones that are orange inside because they are a little more sweet and they are very creamy and smooth. All you have to do is bake them. A lot of people call orange sweet potatoes "yams," but that is the wrong word. A yam is very different and many people in the United States have never seen one since they are usually only sold in specialty markets. However, lots of stores make the mistake of labeling orange sweet potatoes as yams, so a lot of people make that mistake. So when you hear that lots of Americans eat yams on Thanksgiving or Christmas, the truth is that most of them are eating sweet potatoes. I simply bake my sweet potatoes and people can add what they want to give them some flavoring, but a lot of Americans either cut them up into squares or mash them after cooking them, then they add brown sugar, butter, and marshmallows and bake them a little longer. I've done that before, but that makes them very sweet and hides that good potato flavor so I don't do it much anymore.

Mashed potatoes: I made these too since not everyone in the family likes sweet potatoes. I used regular white potatoes, which are small and not sweet at all. They're also easy to make. You cut them up, boil them in water, then drain the water out. Then you use a potato masher to crush them up until they get smooth. I like to keep some chunks still in there so they have a nice texture. I add butter and cream to them and a bit of salt and some fresh ground black pepper. I only use cream in mashed potatoes during the holidays. At other times of the year, I add water or milk to make them less dry.

Green Bean Casserole: I don't know who first started making this, but it's very popular during the holidays. I don't think it's that wonderful, but most other people do and I want them to be happy, so I make it anyhow. You just take green beans and ruin them. HA HA HA! Okay, so here's how you REALLY do it: You buy condensed mushroom soup in a can. You then mix a can of that soup with some milk and add black pepper and mix it up. Then you add canned green beans and mix it up. Then you add dry, fried onions that are also sold in cans. Then you bake it. See? That's why I don't like it. Everything comes out of a can and you don't really do any work, and I feel like part of the holidays is working hard at making the food that will feed your family. It is a special time of year, so if a person is healthy and able to work, it's a great time to show people how much you care by putting extra time and effort into feeding them. A lot of Americans get pretty lazy in how they cook now because you can buy almost everything already prepared or partially prepared. That is nice for times when a person is busy, but unfortunately, it's becoming very normal for people to do this all the time and it means that it's getting harder and harder to find people who really know how to cook real food by themselves.

Bread rolls: I'm pretty sure everyone knows what bread is! These are simply little loaves of bread. They have rosemary in them. Rosemary is an herb. I grow it in my herb garden. It looks like this: PICTURE OF ROSEMARY

Apple Pie: This is a popular dessert in America. I like making it and my husband loves eating it. I make pastry crust and put it in the bottom of a pie pan, then slice up the apples. I add cinnamon, brown sugar, butter, and a little bit of vanilla to the apples, then put them in the pie pan. Then I cover it with another pastry crust and put holes in the top so the heat can escape as it bakes. A lot of people like to eat apple pie while it is still warm. Some people like to put ice cream on top. I don't see it a lot, but sometimes people will put a slice of yellow cheese on top and eat it that way. I think putting cheese on a piece of apple pie would taste yucky!

Pumpkin Pie: Most Americans can't imagine a Thanksgiving dinner without a pumpkin pie! Pumpkins are ready for harvest shortly before Thanksgiving, so it's the perfect time to use them. Pumpkin soup, baked pumpkin, mashed pumpkin...there's a lot of ways to make it, but everyone knows that if it is Thanksgiving, you use it to make a pie! The pumpkin is baked or boiled and then made smooth. It is mixed with the spices a person likes. Usually that includes spices like cloves, nutmeg, and powdered ginger. There is no top crust on a pumpkin pie, just a bottom one. Before it is baked, the pumpkin mixture is pretty liquid. After it cooks, it firms up and gets more firm as it cools. Pumpkin pie is best when it is served cold. Some people put a topping on it that is made out of cream. Most people buy the topping in the store, but I like to make mine. It is very easy to make. I simply buy heavy cream, add a bit of sugar and vanilla, then whip it, then whip it some more, and keep whipping it with an electric beater until it gets thick enough to serve with a spoon.

Pickles: Pickles are small cucumbers that put into pickling juices to preserve them. They are crunchy and sour. My oldest daughter and I like to use the rolls, turkey, and pickles to make turkey and pickle sandwiches.

Olives: We like both black and green olives, but this year we just had black olives. I think everyone knows what olives are, but if you don't, here is a website that talks about them: ALL ABOUT OLIVES

I think everyone knows what the rest of the stuff is, but feel free to ask me about anything you don't know about or about anything I've already written.

I hope you enjoyed this little insight into American culture. I'd love to hear from you if you live in another country and want to share what a meal is like for you on one of your country's major holidays!

© 2011 by Gina Locke

Abercrombie and Fitch: Apple MacBook Air Contest/Update

2011-08-11T20:28:00.001-08:00

Three of my children shopped at Abercrombie and Fitch at the mall the other week. They received cards to enter a drawing for an Apple MacBook Air and one of them won! This is perfect timing - she is an honors student and our computer is quite old, so it slows her down while doing schoolwork. We're sending in the proper paperwork and they'll ship her this awesome new product!

As her mother, I'm very grateful to this store for holding this contest. This is something I couldn't have done for her on my own and it will help her immensely in her studies.

Abercrombie and Fitch, thank you! My daughter is thrilled and this prize will really help her out with her studies for a while to come.

The computer arrived in perfect condition. The quality is simply amazing and it came fully loaded. We were all really surprised that such a small little thing is so powerful! Other than that, I can't tell you much as we rarely see it! She's very happy to have something so special all to herself. This computer is a DREAM for a school student. Fast, light, stylish, and has everything she needs to do her research, save her stuff, and type out assignments. Shoot, it would be a dream for ME!

Sure the free factor is great, but now that I've seen it at home and in action, I can and will honestly say that I think it's an impressive piece of machinery and I'd love to have one of my own some day. Although I write for pay, I'd not have looked twice at it as my impression of it prior to actually holding and seeing it at home was that it was more faddish and something to show off and just play on rather than functional. (I NEED functional!) Now it's my goal to actually get one of my own. I have some vision problems and expected to have some trouble seeing the screen, but it is bright and crystal clear to me. Two thumbs up!

OKC Zoo - Baby Elephant Video

2011-07-27T07:36:00.000-08:00

I put this as an i-Report and they put it on CNN.

The video is of Maylee, a newborn elephant at the Oklahoma City Zoo. Pictures of some other animals, along with some other photos that go along with the story about our heat wave, follow the video. The story is underneath the video and photos.

I'm still smiling over the experience of getting to watch this super adorable baby elephant splash in her pool! I don't know if I've ever had so much fun doing a story. While all we had to record with was an i-Phone, the quality of a video taken on a phone surprised me. I expected less.

ENJOY! Copy and paste the link below into your browser if it isn't clickable.

http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-640605

BTW, don't forget there's a PayPal donation button on this page. I'd love to get a video-cam and a decent camera as my poor camera is showing her age and it's tough to get a decent shot anymore. However, I recognize these things are extras in life now that I'm not working for pay for my photography, (although that would be nice, but jobs out here in that area are non-existent, especially for a newcomer) so extra money goes towards the kiddos and household. If donations come in towards the equipment I'll be more than happy, if not, such is life. Do as you feel led.

American Idol Visits Tinker AFB, Oklahoma

2011-07-20T05:35:00.001-08:00

*photos follow story*

Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma hosted an American Idol LIVE! Tour 2011 meet and greet today for members of the Armed Forces and their families. Fans quickly filled the Exchange Store, waiting for a chance to meet and obtain autographs from popular Idol performers. While some fans expressed disappointment with the extremely short amount of time allowed per person and restrictions such as not allowing one young girl to have her violin case signed, most were thrilled to simply catch a glimpse of their favorite Idol and exchange a quick hello or grab a signature.

Despite tight security, the always-exuberant Casey Abrams suddenly hopped out of his seat to meet the embrace of a starry-eyed teen who stepped up to him with unbridled enthusiasm, creating what undoubtedly became an instantly treasured memory for the young fan. Lauren Alaina bounced and bopped her way through the session, while Thea Megia graced fans with her effervescent smile as she expressed humble appreciation for each of her fans. Naima Adedapo brought her own unique sense of style and flair to the scene, right down to a pair of exceptional, beautifully designed earrings that perfectly complimented every part of who and what Naima is.

Despite the excitement, Jacob Lusk kept his cool and appeared to simply drink in the moment while seated at the end of the signing table. Stefano Langone sat at the opposite end, matching Jacob's calmness while still managing to exude the charming personality, occasionally flashing the quick smile that quickly gained him high status in the hearts of people across the nation during his time on American Idol.

Season winner Scotty McCreery got plenty of love from his followers. With a casual outfit and baseball cap pulled low on his face, he sat in the middle of his fellow Idol singers and signed off his autographs with a cool, calm and collected attitude.

Kudos to American Idol and their sponsors for giving their time to our service men, service women and their families. Tinker Air Force Base deserves many thanks for hosting this event, giving members of the military a rare chance to meet American Idol contestants for no charge. The look on the faces of the fans who crowded into the main base Exchange expressed just how much this moment meant to them and their families and will not be forgotten anytime soon.

© 2011 by Gina Locke

Jacob Lusk

Lauren Alaina

Stefano Langone

Paul McDonald

Naima Adedapo

Pia Toscano

Fans Eagerly Greet American Idols

Showing Scotty Some Love!

Christian Author Watch: Paul Zimmer

2011-06-14T21:12:00.000-08:00

The chore of finding authors with strong Christian principles often keeps believers pretty busy. Therefore, I find it refreshing to find people of God who refuse to write according to what people want to hear and instead write what we need to hear from those blessed with the gift of written communication.

Here's an author I think deserves some attention from the Christian community.

Paul Zimmer keeps a blog at the following link: http://prodigalpastorlogs.removethehaze.com/ This link also provides information on the books he authored.

To read an interview with Paul Zimmer and found out more about him and his books - Prodigal Daze, Thorn Daze, and Final Daze, please visit the following website: http://www.scribd.com/doc/56185880/Books-In-Sync-Author-Spotlight-Interview-With-Rev-Paul-G-Zimmer

I think you'll enjoy what you see. Visit the site, order the books and show some love to one of our own! I'm most interested in the concept of Final Daze. Check it out!

My Favorites Guide

2011-05-22T20:56:00.005-08:00

Occasionally people ask what my personal favorites are from what I've posted. Here's my top ten, starting with number ten and moving up to number one, along with a bit of explanation over the what and why of them, along with a link to each one's location on this blog.

Number Ten: "Still"
I wrote this poem while living in central Alaska. Sub-zero temperatures helped me recall Jack London's story titled "To Start a Fire." I wanted to mesh the spiritual and physical together as I struggled to stay warm and that's how this poem came to life. The photo I took and placed above the poem reflects the icy, eerie look of a full moon rising at noon in the grip of winter.
http://literaryworks.blogspot.com/2009/01/still.html

*For whatever reason, you may have to copy and paste the link to "Still."

Number Nine: "The Only Son"
Flash fiction rocks! I love the idea of putting out just a few strong sentences and watching people's faces light up as they start to find their own interpretation.
http://literaryworks.blogspot.com/2006/03/only-son-micro-fiction.html

Number Eight: "My Journey Into Fitness World"
Any woman who weighs more than two pounds understands the insecurity felt when surrounded by people with perfect bodies. I wanted to lighten that feeling with some humor pertaining to just what happened when an instructor forced me to visit the gym. Repeatedly.
http://literaryworks.blogspot.com/2006/02/my-journey-into-fitness-world-humor.html

Number Seven: "Introduction"
I was invited to share a poem and instead of introducing myself and then reading, I bundled both tasks into one. Yes, it's off the wall but you know what? That's who I am. "Introduction" is a pure piece of work and an unrefined, unpolluted look into me.
http://literaryworks.blogspot.com/2007/01/introduction.html

Number Six: "Storm"
Music, nature, and poetry. There's no better reason to make this a favorite than the simple inclusion of all three of these things!
http://literaryworks.blogspot.com/2008/06/storm.html

Number Five: "The Rocking Chair"
This essay seems to be a favorite with many readers and is probably the only published piece I put on this blog. It is real and speaks of sweet times spent with my children over the years. I miss that rocking chair but nothing compares to the memories created.
http://literaryworks.blogspot.com/2006/06/rocking-chair-rewrite.html

Number Four: "Grace in Motion"
Solemn reflection resulted in this poem. I wanted to capture the intensity of the moment in writing so here it is:
http://literaryworks.blogspot.com/2005/11/grace-in-motion-poetry.html

Number Three: "Blessing for Baby"
The deep love I hold for my children took me by surprise. Before their arrival, I never dreamed that love exists in such a beautiful form. I wrote this for my children.
http://literaryworks.blogspot.com/2005/11/blessing-for-baby-poetry.html

Number Two: "The Backwards Road"
This poem fluctuates in meaning. Take it as you will. Since this one came straight from the deepest part of me, I'm unable to explain the poem itself in words. The poem does the talking for me. I hope you find meaning in it.
http://literaryworks.blogspot.com/2008/06/backwards-road.html

Number One: "Worthy"
The God I serve is faithful and the only part of my life that remains 100% honest and true. How can I cease to be amazed and in awe of that? My Creator, who knows what I need before I need it. This poem is my way of sharing that thought with the world.
http://literaryworks.blogspot.com/2005/12/worthy-poetry.html

Now if you've got a sick sense of humor, here's the story for you: http://literaryworks.blogspot.com/2008/08/colonoscopy-read-all-about-it.html

Escape the Moment (poetry)

2011-05-11T17:55:00.000-08:00

Escape the Moment

The criminal becomes a bubble blown

at the end of a magic wand

He bursts and disappears into oblivion

Escape the Moment

Pain becomes the side-effect of joy

rushing through every nerve and channel

Until I click the off button on the remote

Escape the Moment

The leader who fails to lead

as dead spiritually as one in the grave

Count him out of the picture

Escape the Moment

The hopes, the love, the future

What should be and never can

Let them fade away as cut flowers

Escape the Moment

The insanity of needing to love

to care, to give your heart

The magic wand of childhood broke

and the bottle of bubbles lies empty.

To my fellow Americans: STOP! Think.

2011-05-02T05:51:00.000-08:00

Before you continue rejoicing over recent events, namely the death of a single man that supposedly avenges us completely for the horrific murder and terror wrought upon our citizens and nation ten years ago, stop and carefully think. Read the stories in the media. Read them from this country and from other countries. Think about the timing. Ask yourself "buried at sea?" Ask yourself about the timing. Ask yourself about possible motives for all the little pieces that just don't quite sound right.

Then ask yourself "do I really believe this?"

Reactive Attachment Disorder: A Reflection

2011-04-10T17:00:00.004-08:00

*Helpful Links at Bottom*

Dan Heymann of Bright Blue created the music to "Weeping" after the Apartheid regime drafted him into service. He later added lyrics which echoed his thoughts on the State of Emergency announced by the South African white regime. Josh Groben helps further the recent awakening of people who realize the horrors of unjust and oppressive forces of the past, present, and possible future through his revival of the song "Weeping," bringing the issues to life for all who hear the song's powerful lyrics.

You may be wondering how I plan to relate this to the topic at hand, which is something called Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD). You'll see the reason behind this as I thread the lyrics through this article.

The staff at Mayo Clinic describes RAD as "...a rare but serious condition in which infants and young children don't establish healthy bonds with parents or caregivers." This disorder most often occurs in children who have experienced trauma through the death of a loved one, neglect, abuse, multiple home placements, and other situations that prevent the child from forming a long-term bond with a safe, loving adult or become part of a situation that breaks such a bond. The child comes to believe they must fend for themselves emotionally and physically or attach inappropriately to strangers. They may exhibit behaviors such as stealing, pointless lying, poor life choices, hoarding, sexual promiscuity, self-abuse, abusing others, and a host of other undesirable behaviors.

My two stepchildren once lived with their biological mother and father. Their mother developed breast cancer when they were toddlers. This meant both children went through a host of caregivers while their father worked to support the family and help their mother fight the breast cancer monster. As the fight neared its close and their mother's health took a sudden downward spiral, the children were sent out of state to a relative's home while their parents got things in order before moving to the same area of the state so their mother could spend her last days with them.

These kids learned early on that life is painful and unstable. They seemed to take solace in toys, food, and power. The death of their mother only exacerbated these issues. They already knew that their demands would be met by well-meaning people who felt sorry for their loss and felt bad saying no to a single whim or demand.

When I married their father, I quickly realized the problems these children suffer from go deeper than kids who needed a stable environment and some extra love. They quickly taught me about themselves through behaviors such as theft, lying, manipulation, inappropriate acts, and destroying items around the house. One of the first things they did was set their clocks nightly for midnight or 2 am, at which time they would go to the kitchen and eat handfuls of sugar or whatever they could get their hands on, pour dish-soap in the dish-washing machine, and clog the toilets. All actions were vehemently denied and there seemed to be no signs of a conscience with either of them. I'll spare details on other behavior for the sake of propriety.

This went far beyond behaviors expected in a child who suffered loss. We took them to a therapist expecting to find help, but the therapist seemed to believe that the problem was our parenting. She also believed every lie she was told by the children, despite being told that they would lie and say the sky was purple and to always confirm answers with us. Since I managed to raise three other children and spend a good amount of time working with children and adults with mental disorders, her answers struck me as those of someone without much experience. At one point I had to control a rising giggle at the therapist's utter shock when my stepdaughter defied the therapist's request to stop playing with the items on her shelf. She had asked the child to stop, explained calmly how it made her feel to have someone else playing with her personal items without permission asked my stepdaughter if she understood. My stepdaughter said yes, and the therapist gave us a look as if to see "See how easy this is?" Ten seconds later, the child was at it again and the therapist looked very upset and confused." As tempting as it was to say "See what we meant when we said normal logic doesn't work with her?" I didn't say so, but we did started the search for a therapist with a clue.

I hit the books and the internet and finally came across the term "Reactive Attachment Disorder." We went through a few more therapists and the children chewed them up and spit them out. Finally we ran into one familiar with RAD and the children finally had a diagnosis. RAD along with OCD tendencies. Both exhibit some very different symptoms and some identical ones, yet they both fit the diagnosis perfectly.For example, the OCD tendencies manifest themselves in my stepson through counting dishes, hyper-organization of toys and obsessing over an upcoming event or flier for a program he will be attending. With my stepdaughter, the OCD tendencies show themselves through obsessive skin-picking when stressed and hoarding what other people would toss in the garbage, such as massive amounts of ripped paper and tags from clothing.

What does this diagnosis mean for them and us?

Nothing. We simply have a name for something we already figured out for ouselves and for behaviors we were using suggested RAD coping methods to treat. When our youngest child, a girl, seemed to be the most physically aggressive and acted out most, we made the mistake of assuming the squeaky wheel needed the most grease. It turned out we were wrong. While we diverted much of our attention to helping her, it turned out that her acting out was actually a good sign since it showed us she wasn't internalizing her emotions as much. We continue to see her grow, heal and show more signs of emerging from the cocoon she wrapped herself in for protection. While the road ahead still looms for miles and RAD is often a life-long fight, we now have high hopes that she will fully emerge from her cocoon strong, beautiful, and with wings that will take her straight down the path of freedom that leads to becoming the wonderful young lady she was born to become.

My stepson is a couple years older and more set in his ways. His quietness doesn't coincide with his inner storm.

"I knew a man who lived in fear
It was huge, it was angry, it was drawing near
Behind his house, a secret place
Was the shadow of the demon he could never face
He built a wall of steel and flame
And men with guns, to keep it tame
Then standing back, he made it plain
That the nightmare would never ever rise again
But the fear and the fire and the guns remain"

This RAD child appears to be very hostile inside. His publicly calm demeanor and superficial charm are attractive to others, who don't realize he's simply assessing them and figuring out how they may be manipulated at a later date. The violent tendencies at home, destruction of property, and outrageous behaviors gave us cause to install a security camera, alarm all windows, keep our doors locked at night, alarm his bedroom door at night, and provide 24 hour supervision for the safety of others.

People might wonder why a child with reactive disorder would do such a thing when they have love, attention, and a decent home. Well, he's making sure he's in control. He had no control when he was being moved from caregiver to caregiver. He had no control over whether his mother lived or died, and that meant that she died. That is a scary thing for a child to go through. That was his nightmare, and he's making sure that it doesn't happen again. He protects himself with a lack of empathy for others and a wall around himself. Anger protects people from pain. Most humans can understand that to a degree. Nobody wants to feel pain. It hurts. However, children with RAD take that concept to ridiculously high levels, often without realizing what they are doing or that it is detrimental to their own well-being. If a child with RAD is in control, he only feels the emotions he wants to feel. Typically, that means refusing to express any emotion towards others except anger, so he desperately clings to any tiny bit of control he manages to grasp. Children with RAD frequently use false charm to imitate love, but the adults in their lives quickly learn it is a ploy to obtain something the child wants or to cover for a wrong. He is coping with life by doing what he believes is keeping him safe and keeping the nightmare from rising again.

Inexperience with RAD leads to false hopes. With the help of studying, weekly therapy sessions, and interaction online with other parents of RAD children, we learned how to regain quite a bit more control with my stepson. His behavior improved with our constant vigilance and frequent discussions. We mistakenly interpreted it as progress. He picked up quite a lot of psychological terminology from his multiple visits to therapists and learned to use them appropriately, convincing us that he was truly becoming an attached child who wanted nothing more than to be a typical kid and have good times with his family.

"It doesn't matter now it's over anyhow
He tells the world that it's sleeping"

We sure wanted to believe him. No parent wants to feel like a failure, but almost every adult caring for a child with RAD begins to doubt him/her self at some point in time. I soon came to believe the RAD demon still roared inside him, cloaked in a mask of invisibility and only coming out when we were at our most vulnerable. For parents of kids with RAD, our most vulnerable time is when we let our guard down and allow ourselves to believe that all is well. As parents, we want our children to be happy and healthy. We buy them gifts, provide for their needs, and try to take them out when we can for fun activities. So often this backfires. A child with RAD may enjoy the attention and the outings, but we soon learned that anything good we do for our RADical children results in an explosion of bad behavior.

This goes against typical parenting. To help our children heal, we often must deny them the typical things of childhood until they can handle those things appropriately, then we introduce them into their lives at a slow pace. To an outsider, the family with a RAD child appears to be dysfunctional. I've yet to meet a family who didn't eventually become the target of an investigation by the Children's Services. When I first learned of this I wasn't sure what to think. Surely it would never happen to us! We do all we can for these children. When we first realized they had Reactive Attachment Disorder, we basically started them back from infancy, teaching them from the ground up. They learned the basics of life such as proper toileting habits, how to dress, matters of hygiene, the correct way to ask for and thank a person for an item, and how to discern between right and wrong. We work on teaching them how a healthy person responds to different situations.

My stepson learned the routines and how to appear to be responding appropriately, but we recently realized that none of it comes from his heart. I was so angry and frustrated at the wasted years and exhaustion we went through trying to reach him that I couldn't help but wonder if the child was simply a spoiled little brat with anger issues that might get resolved one day by a school-ground bully. Since he is small for his age and bullies others, there is no doubt in my mind that one day he will pick on someone who will not stand for it. I spent the next 1 1/2 weeks stomping about with my own anger issues, ready to give him up to someone who might be able to make a difference. We called numerous agencies and found that while all agree he needs in-patient care, none were willing to accept him and those that did refuse to take the insurance the military gives us. With costs nearing $1,000 per day of treatment, placing him in care became a non-option.

We couldn't think of what to do. We didn't want to continue living this way. I was too angry to be useful and simply avoided dealing with him. Then one day I sat down and tried to think it out. Why would he behave so poorly when he knew the consequences would not benefit him? The thought grew in my mind. As I worked to process that thought, we received another nasty surprise. My stepson told people we weren't feeding him. We quickly became initiated into the club of RAD induced investigations by Children's Services. Any concerns were quickly eliminated and the case was shut immediately.

Our stepson admitted he lied to about not being fed because "I felt like causing some trouble for you guys. I thought she [the social worker] would feel sorry for me."

Again, no conscience. He felt that causing others problems would be worth whatever hassle it may have caused him. He admitted he didn't think about what would happen apart from people feeling sorry for him, an emotion he loves to elicit from others. In fact, he pulled a similar stunt during Christmas. We took him to see Santa Clause and the child sat on his lap, put on a pitiful face, and told Santa "All I want for Christmas is a pair of jeans because these holey ones I'm wearing are my warmest ones and I'm cold." Talk about dirty Santa looks! We took the child home, threw away the jeans with holes, and he no longer could complain. He had three brand new pairs tucked away and never worn, because he wanted to convince people to feel sorry for him because "I like brand-name clothes." With him, nothing is enough. If he has three new pairs of jeans, he feels he deserved five. If he has five, he feels he deserves ten. Good grief, the child even decided he deserved a big house and we were being unfair by not owning a large house for him.

Lying. Destroying stuff. Hurting people and things. Writing hate letters and making up games with "I hate my stepmom" themes. Obsessed with the idea of weapons.

It SOUNDS like anger, doesn't it? It sounds like he's possessed by a huge, angry RAD demon.

"But as the night came round
I heard its lonely sound
It wasn't roaring, it was weeping
It wasn't roaring, it was weeping."

Is what he is experiencing true anger? I'm no longer convinced that this is anger. I'm convinced he feels anger and expresses what he feels as anger because it's easy and makes him feel as if he's in control when he is being cruel and angry, but the root of that anger is fear that took root in sorrow. This is his way of weeping, how he copes with sorrow born of fear.

That seed of fear became planted when his birth mother's cancer diagnosis took place. The multiple caregivers and lessening ability of his mother to care for him watered that seed and it blossomed.

Then she died and that fear became fertilized, branching out to become so overwhelming that to avoid being overcome by it, he put up his walls. He decided to do what it took to be in control of his pain...by any means necessary.

It's not working out too well for him.

We've learned to stand back. This is his own demon. All we can do as his parents is teach him he has the tools to fight this and then pray he chooses to engage those tools. We've had people tell us that we can "love this away." You cannot love RAD away. In fact, overwhelming a RAD diagnosed child with love may very well drive them to simply build higher walls to avoid having to deal with the emotions love brings. It goes against the natural feelings of foster parents, adoptive parents, stepparents and other caregivers who dedicate their lives to raising children with RAD to become independent adults with the ability to love others, themselves and survive in the world on their own and hopefully become assets to their future communities. Love must be demonstrated in small amounts and controlled environments in order for the child to feel safe accepting it. It may take weeks. It may take months. It may take years. It may never take at all.

Love also may mean needing to let go and allow that child to live in a home that is more suitable to their individual needs. Sometimes a child with RAD needs to be part of a home where they are the only child for their own safety and the safety of others they may lash out towards. Sometimes they will need to be in a group setting rather than a private home. This should not be viewed as a reflection on the family that placed them, but rather as an act of love. The rigorous attention and high level of need required for a child with RAD should be acknowledged, appreciaed, and supported.

Unfortunately, those on the outside without experience with Reactive Attachment Disorder have a tendency to become judgmental and suspicious when they see a child being raised in what appears to be a style different from the norm.

"And then one day the neighbors came
They were curious to know about the smoke and flame
They stood around outside the wall
But of course there was nothing to be heard at all"

The judgmental attitude and concern is understandable to a point, as many children with RAD appear well-adjusted and may often behave like angels in public settings such as church, parks and around acquaintances. Families like ours desperately need the support and understanding of others as often we are exhausted physically, emotionally and mentally by the intensive needs we must meet on a daily basis to provide balance and a semblance of normalcy into our home lives.

That is RAD. It is an unfair battle thrust on our children and thus upon us. Those on the outside peek in our windows and wonder who messed up. Our kids are in a moment-to-moment fight for emotional survival. The caregiveers are in a constant fight to not only help their children and families, but to defend themselves against outside forces that fail to take the time to understand the monster we're battling and wonder why these children aren't healing if they're honestly being provided with love and care. The answer is this: it's their choice to heal, not ours. It can be helped along, but never forced. When judgmental people choose to ask me why my stepson isn't healing, this part of "Weeping" comes to mind:

"I’ll be d*mned if I can see a reason to explain
Why the fear and the fire and the guns remain"

Nobody questions when a child with RAD heals, but some do demand explanations for those that don't. Since we have one healing and one not healing, the questions continue. Unless one is familiar with RAD, such questions are inappropriate when coupled with judgment. Nobody would dream of asking the parent of a child with a gaping wound from a car accident why they didn't manage to heal the wound and get rid of the scar as soon as it came about. Just as a physical wound takes time to heal, so do mental ones. Unfortunately, the mental wounds usually took years to build up, so it may very well be a lifetime before full healing takes place.

The Bible tells us in 1 John 4:18 (Darby Version) There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has torment, and he that fears has not been made perfect in love.

No human loves perfectly. I am convinced that the only way for this child to become "perfect in love" and have his fears cast away will be through God, and that may not even happen in this lifetime. The physical changes brought to the brain by mental disorders is real and there is no promise of physical healing in this lifetime, not by doctors, not by parents, not even by God himself. There is solace in knowing that our time on this earth is brief in comparison to eternity, so even if our children of RAD do not heal in this lifetime, one day God's perfect love will cast out that fear and our eternal Father's hand will wipe away their tears. As much as we may wish we had that power, we can only go so far. The rest is between the person suffering from RAD and God.

For those of you dealing with Reactive Attachment disorder in your family or who simply wish to learn more, here are some resources that may help you in that quest.

Mayo Clinic: Reactive Attachment Disorder Information
http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/reactive-attachment-disorder/DS00988

Support forum for RAD Caregivers: This forum is mainly dedicated to parents sharing information, venting and helping each other learn how to deal with the issues RAD brings into our lives:
http://www.adsg.org/forum/index.php

*HIGHLY RECOMMENDED* FFCMH: Scroll down a bit and look on the right to enter your state to find the nearest place to contact. This organization will help you advocate for your child, help you find resources, and help you build a strong support system:
http://www.ffcmh.org/

Recommended Reading: Parenting with Love and Logic. I found this book helpful for dealing with all of my children, whether RAD, regular, or in the classroom.
http://www.loveandlogic.com/ecom/c-79-featured-selections.aspx

Weeping: The Story Behind the Song http://www.weeping.info/index.html
Weeping: Josh Groban with Vusi Mahlasela
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LnB2fZkLAI

I will be ordering the following book. If anyone else read it or does read it, feel free to share your thoughts on it:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0970352522?tag=kasoftsoftware0c&camp=14573&creative=327641&linkCode=as1&creativeASIN=0970352522&adid=1VG4H6X1TG04HWFB3W6V&

©2011 Gina Locke

The RAD Report - February 2011

2011-02-22T09:10:00.002-09:00

Life remains...interesting.

Adult time alone continues to shrink. One of the last remaining ones consisted of time spent with other adults in Sunday school. Now this is gone too. Our 9 yr. old RAD daughter often steals sweets so that part wasn't new. The new part came when her junior church and Sunday school teachers gave her cupcakes, juice, and a box of chocolates. She managed to gulp it all down before we picked her up. This goes against the very specific list of "not allowed" items we requested in the form of a letter, which we remind them of when we find it not being followed, but this was ridiculous and a very obvious, knowing, and blatant disregard for what we requested. The items listed were "sugar and dairy." We explained why and that she does receive those things, but they are limited to home so we can have a little control over them because of how those things in her diet affect her.

"Parents appear hostile."

That's one of the main sentences you'll run across when looking up reactive attachment disorder.

I WONDER WHY!

Her father spend the next two days unclogging the toilet. Not only does sugar and dairy affect her behavior, those items cause her severe constipation, the type that sometimes requires more than just a couple minutes with a plunger. Think flooding and hours and toilet snakes.

We've now pulled her out of junior church and Sunday school. It isn't worth the trouble it causes to have an overly emotional child the rest of the day followed by two days of unclogging the toilet after she spends long periods of time doubled over it in pain. You'd think she'd consider the consequences first because this happens almost every time, but that seems to be a part of RAD. You can admit it wasn't worth the consequences, but the behavior still repeats. And repeats. And repeats. It gets more and more difficult to feel sorry for her each time. Yet we do, and continue to repeat the same lines in the hopes that one day it will sink in.
"Was it worth it?"
"Do you think that someone who sneaks you stuff that hurts you like this really cares about you more than we do?"
"You knew this would happen but you did it anyhow. Next time, stop and think first. Remember how this feels and ask yourself if you want that way again."
Experience says the behavior won't change. Hope says one day she'll "get it" and stop doing things that hurt herself later.

Thank you, those who knowingly violate our very simple dietary rule of no sugar or dairy outside the home...thanks for deciding what was best for our family. If she was a diabetic, she'd possibly be dead right now. Our child now no longer has the benefit of being with kids her own age on Sundays and her parents now appear even more hostile and angry because they moved backwards with their child and on top of that, they have lost the little bit of precious alone time they once held dear. That really helped.

The issue of lying can be comical at times. We understand it's a RAD thing, but really? The most recent one happened this morning. In passing she was seen taking a book from a neat pile of books , then walking across the room to put it in her backpack. It turned out to be her math book. Out of curiosity, why was the math book out when she doesn't appear to like math and had no homework? Kinda cool, maybe she decided to study on her own? The answer to that was "I didn't take it out of my backpack. I forgot to zip the backpack and it fell out and I'm just putting it back in."
At least she didn't argue after being told we just saw her take it from the pile. She just admitted it and when asked why she'd lie about something that really didn't matter at all, she shrugged and said "I don't know." So I teased her a bit. Asked her what color the sky was, what color the sun was. she answered that the sky is blue and the sun is yellow and I applauded her and said "see, it IS easy to tell the truth about simple things!" Then we walked outside and she said "Actually, now that I look at it, the sky is more of a gray color." It was hilarious! Sometimes you just gotta give up and see the humor in some of this, and that was one of those moments. I'm tempted to make green eggs and ham tonight and tell her it's pink eggs and chicken to see what her reaction is.

Nothing changed with our 11 year old RAD boy and it looks like that may be the final chapter. Nobody's giving up, but we're certainly not letting his issues rule the entire house anymore. He goes to therapy, we have our rules, but he seems set in his choices. His most recent things joy-inducing behavior included quietly throwing away some dishes he didn't want to wash. We had just started having him do dishes once a week again but now we stopped. It's not worth it. He's learned that if he does gross things to stuff or things such as throwing things out, we'll stop having him do the chore. And he's right. It's not worth it. We used to just supervise the entire time, but he already has to have 24 hour supervision so it was stressing us out too much. Too much stress and we become worthless parents and with four other kids, we can't put our entire focus on him 24/7, and that's what he's going for. In public, he's "the sweetest, most well-mannered boy we've ever had the privilege of knowing!" according to outside adults. What else can you do but smile and say thank you? The idea of whipping out a photo of him in the midst of unspeakable nasty behavior in the living room and asking if they still think the same thing has occurred,but that would help nothing, although the thought helps me keep smiling nicely while they pay these compliments. I guess it IS a relief that they don't have to see what we do though. That's a positive, and positives can be so rare with RAD kiddos.

Is this worth it?

They're still God's children. For some reason he saw fit to put them in our care. He must have thought we were capable. Far be it for me to question God but in times of frustration I do. Judge me if you must, but first come walk in my shoes if you dare.

Asiago: You can really eat it!

2011-02-21T09:20:00.002-09:00

Cheeses with long names are becoming more popular in my cooking as I learn to reprogram my brain to kick out thoughts of "smells like a locker room full of sweaty teenage feet" and replace them with "mmm, that smells nice!"

It's really tough. I'm trying to be open minded about trying ancient cheeses that are only new to me. Often, just the look of them makes me wish they were new to everybody.

Enter the Asiago cheese. I wanted to find the most mild version so I looked through all of them and found that the store only had one bit left. Aged over 12 months. How different could it be?

I opened it up at home and found out. YUCK! It's still sitting there just in case some someone from Iron Chef, for some odd reason, stops by my house and asks for directions. Then I'll impress him or her by pulling out that cheese that I just "happen" to have laying about, right?

I did find a milder version and must say that it was VERY yummy! I used it in two dishes and couldn't get enough of those dishes. Or at least the food that was on the dishes. You know what I mean!

The first was asparagus. I (yes, I did) peeled the asparagus with a potato peeler because I wanted medium sized stalks without the medium chewiness. Following the instructions seen on television given by "The Cake Boss" (why he was cooking asparagus I don't know, he may not have been but I had a fever, rolled over in bed, and found it highly amusing to hear someone say to try peeling asparagus so hallucination or not, I got a good recipe) I tossed the peeled stalks in a bowl to give them a light coating of olive oil. Then I put the asparagus on a baking sheet and seasoned the stalks with fresh-ground pepper and a bit of sea salt.
After a generous sprinkling of plain bread crumbs, I put the pan in an oven preheated to 425 degrees and let it roast until the breadcrumbs looked toasty. While that was happening I grated (on the small side of grater) some of the Asiago cheese. After pulling the asparagus from the oven, I gave it a light sprinkling of the asiago cheese and it was ready to wolf down. YUM!

The next was a potato dish. I diced potatoes into relatively small pieces and tossed them in olive oil. (sound familiar?) Then I added sea salt and fresh-ground pepper. (oh hush, this is a marvelous way to make most anything!) Then I put them in a baking pan and baked them in the oven at 375 degrees. See? Sometimes I switch up my recipes, right?! While they were baking I shredded the asiago cheese using the BIG side of the grater. Variety...ah variety. When the potatoes sounded very sizzly and looked quite browned, I removed them from the oven and gave them a generous but not too heavy topping of the asiago cheese. I'm not sure what they tasted like. I only got one bite before they were gone. Obviously this is a very yummy dish! The next time I made it, I waited until nobody else was in the house. It was very yummy!

Buy the Asiago as mild as possible when using them for the asparagus or potatoes I've described. The highly aged stuff is very smelly and has a bitter taste. I may offer it to the rest of the family to use on spaghetti when we're out of Parmesan, but I'm not sure if they'll get over the smell enough either, plus we're still really hopeful about a stray iron chef finding our place and wouldn't want to be caught with nothing to offer but some plastic wrapped Velveeta slices. We might get knocked out with an overpriced frying pan.

Ouch!

"She died in your tummy:" Miscarriages and Heaven

2011-02-20T10:17:00.001-09:00

"One day while Colton was playing he walked up to his mom, and out of the blue asked, "Mom, I have two sisters, you had a baby die in your tummy didn't you?"
Sonja was shocked and overwhelmed by what her little boy had just said. When she asked him who told him, he said, "she did Mommy, she said she died in your tummy."
Todd and Sonja had never told their son about the miscarriage Sonja had before Colton was born."

Link for this story: http://www.myfox8.com/kdvr-after-neardeath-experience-boy-writes-book-heaven-is-real-20110210,0,4865460.story

*all verses quoted are from the Darby translation of the Bible*

For parents who have miscarried, even for those who believe in Christ, some still wonder if that child "counts" and one day we will be reunited in heaven. I've personally wondered about it. Having some curiosity for science, including the mechanics of the human body, I've looked into fetal development and compared it with words found in Scripture. Those scriptural words aren't exactly clear. Many pro-life people use the verse Jeremiah 1:5 which says "Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I hallowed thee, I appointed thee a prophet unto the nations."
David's praise in Psalm 139:16 speaks of God seeing him before his body became fully formed. He knew David's substance.

The fact that the unformed body was known to God speaks volumes to me and strongly suggests that the unformed body is already owned by an individual, and without a soul and spirit, how can an individual exist?

Putting science and God's words together leads me to the conclusion that life begins at the moment of conception. Some say a fetus isn't a human until the first breath is taken and base that concept on Genesis 2:7 which tells us "And Jehovah Elohim formed Man, dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and Man became a living soul." I can't agree with that concept because the initial creation from dust is completely different than sexual reproduction. God created a body and breathed life (a soul/spirit) into that body immediately.

While Colton's story and similar accounts do not lead me to believe in one position on their own, they serve to comfort me and bolster my belief that whether our children died before or after birth, God knew them, knows them, and we will have the glorious joy of meeting our little ones in heaven. Since it appears that souls are timeless and ageless, I do wonder at what form people are in heaven. I tend to believe that whether our children died as embryos, fetuses, babies, toddlers, tweens, teens, young adults, in middle age, or in their elder years, the body they and we will be given for eternity will be the same perfect type of young, strong, adult body God created for Adam and Eve.

I enjoyed reading Colton's story. As a human, I sometimes doubt myself or forget my original reason for hoping all parents and family members of children who died before birth will become reunited one day. Running across this story, and so unexpectedly, blessed me today by making me look back at what I have read. It helped dispel some of the doubts that quietly creep in when a person doesn't take the time to remember the sweetness of Christ's words. I had to look them up today to remember. That shouldn't be, but it was. I hope that my little journey back into the specific Scriptures and thoughts I put together so long ago also bless you. It is said that the morning stars sang for joy at the creation of earth and Christ's birth was met with the singing of a choir of angels. Won't it be beautiful to hear them sing again when we are free of this world's cares, when we finally meet our Savior face to face and are able to finally, for the first time, wrap our arms around the little ones who went to be with the Lord before we had that chance?

Imagine that.

2011 Gina Locke

"A Minute for Madeleine"

2011-02-19T10:33:00.001-09:00

Watch this video: http://www.ceop.police.uk/Minute-for-Madeleine/
This little girl's disappearance and the implications of having her stolen by a pedophile ring is nothing less than horrific.
Reports suggest she may be in the United States.
Please look at the video and try to memorize her face. The "teardrop" in her one eye makes it easier but I imagine it could be kept hidden if someone tried. My daughter has a similar issue with her eye and nobody notices it until I point it out.

I urge everyone to be more aware of their surroundings. Most of us become so involved in what we are doing that we'd fail to notice a child standing there holding a sign marked with the words "HELP ME!"

Watch this video: http://www.ceop.police.uk/Minute-for-Madeleine/

For those who don't bother to look because they think maybe the parents did it: What if you're wrong? Is it worth the chance of overlooking the child and years later reading you were wrong? What will you do then? Shrug your shoulders and exclaim "Well what do you know! It wasn't them!" Don't let your presuppositions block the road to finding Madeleine McCann. This isn't just a name or some strange child. This is a little girl and what happened to her and how people react is a reflection of us as humans.

Make that reflection a good one. Look for her. If you have this child in your possession, take her to the proper authorities. Don't keep her. Everyone needs to do something right in their lifetime. Maybe this is your time for that.

Again -- watch this video: http://www.ceop.police.uk/Minute-for-Madeleine/

RADical Changes

2010-12-29T06:07:00.001-09:00

Just when things seem set and steady, a new twist comes along.

We now have one RAD kid starting to heal and one making no progress at all. The first has minor setbacks but is impressing us with her progress despite, while we're looking for in-patient treatment for the older one upon the recommendation by his therapist. Not that we don't agree...we've thought it best for a while but the therapist just now met with everyone else in the family and it seems to have struck him that the child's behavior is a threat to everyone here and will destroy this family without further help.

We started both RAD children on the same rules and behavior expectations. Now one has more relaxed rules and is trusted with less supervision. That is nice and it's awesome to have hope. However, it's also quite interesting. We have three teens with different personalities that all have different emotional needs and styles of parenting. I never knew you could have more than two and still have opposites at all three angles! Then we have the youngest child doing better and having different rules. Then we have the next oldest up still needing the extremely strict rules with constant supervision.

I'm so glad God is real! Otherwise I feel as if we might have filled a swimming pool with coffee and xanax and jumped in by now. It definitely sounds more logical than the weird things and rules we have to live by with RAD kids in the house.

The RAD Report - December 2010

2010-12-01T18:12:00.000-09:00

Frustration and anger thrive in our household at this time. After a full year of seeking counseling, therapy, and other types of help for our son (OCD, RAD) and one of our daughters (RAD) progress remains elusive.

After we decided the suggestion to use medication made sense and may help bring the children some much needed help and ourselves a bit of sanity, openings for a prescribing psychologist do not exist.

So here's the deal: after more than a year these children

1. Have no medication
2. Remain wait-listed for day therapy
3. Still have not progressed in a positive way, we've simply learned more techniques to prevent negative behavior, which typically includes a strict schedule and complete supervision at all times.

The child with OCD and RAD has behaviors that worried us enough to discuss him living elsewhere. Apparently the problem with getting them help isn't our insurance, which is Tri-Care. The therapist told us the lack of psychologists able to prescribe medication coupled with being in a highly populated area is the trouble.

What makes this more frustrating is that if the children were adopted from state custody, we would have the help we needed in a heartbeat, along with free respite care.

Alas, that is not our situation. I'm just a stepmother to these two kids, working at a job to pay for their needs, trying to get them help that's non-existent, and my husband and I? Well, we're supposed to deal with all this calmly and rationally, keep our sanity through the defiance, the stealing, the lying, waking up to fecal matter smeared around, and things that can't be mentioned for propriety's sake.

I've read statements that suggest a country can be judged by how they treat their children and the elderly. I used to disagree with that, since it is the job of citizens to care for children and the elderly, not the government.
However, now that I've found that despite the fact that I work for and deal with these kids and their behavior 24/7 I'm still considered nothing to them legally, and now that I've discovered that despite the best efforts of my husband and myself we still cannot access the help the kids need to have a chance at being mentally healthy which would keep the parents mentally sane and make us better able to parent them, I have to say that now I understand that. This country STINKS when it comes to the everyday, working class family.
Now if I quit my job we could get all these kids on state medical and get in the door of a doctor's office much faster. If I divorce my husband, his income won't count and I could get my housing paid for and move next door to him and we'd have much more room. I could go on food stamps and not have to budget money out for groceries, which means the car could get the new tires it so desperately needs.

Who's stupid? People like us or people who actually try to raise our kids decent and actually have a work ethic, or the people who stay home and have more time to be homemakers and spent more precious hours with their kids...and do it at the expense of those who are working?

I've been on welfare. I needed it in the past. I haven't needed it in the present.

Or do I?

The only thing stopping me is a stupid sense of morals and pride. Another month or two of living this way and I may toss both morals and pride out the window in order to get these kids some help and maintain my sanity.

The ironic part? I mainly work with special needs kids in the school system. I know how this works, and I know my children and my family are getting a raw deal simply because we are doing things right by being married and by accepting responsibility for each other's children. Because we think that's right. Because we love each other. Because we want to help our community, not help drain it.

And this is the reward we reap.

Thanksgiving Meal 2010

2010-11-28T11:06:00.005-09:00

This year I put the turkey in an experimental style brine, not following an exact recipe. I simply used what sounded delicious!
Vegetable broth made up the base. Sea salt, white pepper, black peppercorns, diced fresh ginger, brown sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg mixed together to add depth to the flavor of this brine. While the mixture cooled, I put paper cups filled with water and placed them in the deep freezer to make blocks of ice.
On Wednesday (the day before Thanksgiving) I placed the bird into the brine in an act I have christened "Baptizing the Bird." Mr. Turkey soaked on the counter in this liquid for around 8 hours with ice blocks added to the cavity every so often to keep him fresh and cold.

Before bedtime I dumped Tom's bath water down the drain, rinsed him off a bit, then placed apples, chopped leeks, butter, and a sprig of rosemary inside. After coating the outside of the turkey with canola oil, I sprinkled on sea salt, a touch of thyme, bits of rosemary, and fresh ground black pepper.

After spending the night uncovered in the refrigerator (leaving it uncovered helps dry out the skin, making the skin crispier and much more tasty!) the turkey sat on the counter losing a bit of his chill. After adding apple cider to the bottom of the roasting pan, I placed Tom in the preheated oven where he roasted a short time at 400 degrees to seal it up, then I lowered the temp to 300 degrees to ensure soft, tender meat, then shortly before taking it out of the oven, I bumped the temperature back up to 400 to give the skin a bit more crispness. Everyone proclaimed this turkey outstandingly DELICIOUS!

While turkey and pickle sandwiches are traditional in our home, not everyone enjoys filling up on them so a spiral cut ham glazed with brown sugar and spices also graced the table.

While traditional style stuffing typically remains untouched by anyone in our household, everyone really seemed to enjoy an unbaked version. To make this I simply sauteed diced leeks and celery in butter, seasoned the mix with salt, pepper, and a dash of sage, then sauteed cubed, dried bread into it all and added a bit of chicken broth for moisture, but not enough to make it stick. After placing it in a glass dish and covering it with foil, the steam added just the right amount of liquid to finish it off, leaving us with a buttery, lightly flavored mix that everyone enjoyed.

There's another traditional food I tweaked for this meal - cranberry sauce! I boiled the cranberries in orange juice, added some sugar and cornstarch, and let the mixture cool. Once it cooled I shredded fresh apples into it and bits of diced, fresh tangerines. It turned out incredibly tasty with a perfect balance of sweet and tart.

One of my children can't handle the holidays without pumpkin pie, but I cheated and used a frozen, ready made pie crust by Marie Callender's. I occasionally use frozen pie crusts but this my first time using this brand and it left quite an impression! This brand gives a thick, quality crust and comes in a very sturdy pie pans that can easily be reused. Of course nothing beats homemade, but Marie Callender's sure comes close!

A couple other sides and goodies helped us enjoy the day, such as fresh veggies, mashed potatoes and apple cider gravy, rolls, crackers and brie, and a cranberry-apple pie. Different items were laid out throughout the day, with the main meal served in the early evening.

While everyone enjoyed different things throughout the day, a little voice inside me says my husband most enjoyed the blueberry pancakes I made for breakfast!

I hope everyone enjoyed their Thanksgiving and that perhaps you found some ideas for your own table for next year through this post. Last year's post still gets quite a few views, and I love knowing that some people take inspiration from seeing the pictures. Here is a link to the photos of dinner from last year: http://literaryworks.blogspot.com/2009/11/thanksgiving-dinner-photos.html and here is a link to the wall decorations from the kids last year too: http://literaryworks.blogspot.com/2009/11/pre-thanksgiving-fun.html
This year only one decorated since I didn't get out there shopping until everything to do with Thanksgiving disappeared! I do look forward to each kid decorating a wall again next year though.

I also look forward to trying new ways to make traditional foods! As my oldest daughter says, "Thanksgiving, I wait to greet you with many teeth!"

© 2010 by Gina Locke

"I Bid You Goodnight"

2010-11-22T08:25:00.002-09:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7rzMhwYaus&feature=related

This is a beautiful rendition of a song my children fell asleep hearing me sing on a regular basis.

The memories are sweet but their time of infancy far too short.

How I miss tiny hands wrapped around my finger and warm little bodies snuggled against mine as we cuddled in our big wood rocking chair.

How I miss the rapt attention as they gazed at me, little eyelids closing a bit more with each verse of the song.

But how I love the beautiful young ladies they have grown to be.

And how I look forward to watching them transform even more over what I know will be a very short couple of years until they fly away.

If I miss them this much already, how will I stand it?

© 2010 by Gina Locke

Meet Him There (song lyrics)

2010-11-18T00:02:00.001-09:00

Meet Him There

It may be when you're grieving
Or your heart is filled with care
It may be from the mountain
Where there's joy enough to spare
When the Father calls meet Him there

He may want to work through you
You may have gifts to share
Though it could be a sacrifice
To not know when or where
When the Father calls meet Him there

It could be in great brilliance
Or when shadows fill the air
Don't ask a time or reason
Or sink into despair
When the Father calls you meet Him there

Meet Him in the dawning
Or the midst of noonday sun
Meet Him in the evening
Or when the race is nearly run
When the Father calls you meet him there

Meet Him there.

© 2010 by Gina Locke

We had a singer come to our church and sing a partial song he wrote called "Meet Him There." The only line I remembered was "When the Father calls you meet Him there" and went off that.

He asked if anyone was interested in writing it so I did and emailed it but he never answered. Since this blog mostly contains my unpublished stuff, here it is...my first purposeful attempt to write song lyrics.

Autumn Parenting

2010-10-25T13:11:00.000-08:00

What parents REALLY want to do when their kids misbehave, but they'll never admit it out loud:

AT&T Final Update

2010-10-16T07:49:00.000-08:00

I put a story up a short while back, explaining some problems with AT&T. After a lot of time, hassle, and a better business report, a lady from AT&T gave me a call and worked hard to resolve the issue. They offered an explanation, an apology, and upgraded our phones.

I was a bit hesitant to update until I received the next bill since the contract was renewed and I was concerned that the contract might not remain at the same rate, although that's what I requested.

And it didn't! There was a slight increase because of the type of data plan needed on one of the upgraded phones, but I expected that.

AT&T completely resolved my issue and went above and beyond the expected to fix mistakes that were made. I will continue to use and appreciate their high quality wireless services and great rates! I've looked and not found a better deal with the same areas we call too covered, so I'm very thankful to have this problem resolved and will continue to recommend this company to others.

(Especially over Sprint, the company that, unlike their contracts states, refused to end my contract when I moved to central Alaska, where Sprint service does not exist.)

Strength of Eagles

2010-10-06T15:12:00.003-08:00

"but they that wait upon Jehovah shall renew [their] strength: they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not tire; they shall walk, and not faint." Isaiah 40:31 Darby Translation

Eagles represent strength, dignity, and freedom. Despite the true fierceness and power of the eagle, some still feel the need to make up false stories to encourage people who need lifted up. A recent concocted story speaks of eagles having to go through a renewal period, during which time when they must claw the feathers off their face until they bleed, while knocking off their beak and stripping off their talons. This leavs them grounded, unable to hunt, and vulnerable to prey. The rumor claims other eagles drop food for their suffering fellow birds.

Though oft repeated, the rumor is false. Despite false attributions, the eagle remains a desirable symbol because of the truth of their positive features.

However, both eagles and humans share the possibility of victimization.

Like any human or other living creature, an eagle suffers when injured. The eagle in this photograph resides at the Oklahoma Zoo with another eagle. Both eagles suffered traumatic injuries, one shot in the wing and the other hit by a semi-truck. Both lost the ability to fly and now depend on humans for survival.

So what happens when people lose the ability to soar through life's challenges?

While different things may leave you grounded, thriving is another matter. Injured, frightened, and thrown into new circumstances, anything under the sun that has breath must go through an adjustment period when changes strike. Sometimes survival means becoming dependent on others or learning to step outside your norm to find new ways to keep life meaningful. Self-preservation doesn't mean giving up who you are, but it may mean it is time to change your goals, your desires, and everything you thought you knew about this world and your evaluation of how it pertains to you and others.

The choice to soar or remain grounded may not always be yours to make, but how you handle it definitely reflects the strength of your character.

Choose wisely.

© 2010 by Gina Locke

Reactive Attachment Disorder: The RAD Report

2010-09-26T07:56:00.000-08:00

Our family continues to work with what God, life, and our choices blessed us with, which includes mental disorders in our two youngest children. So far both are diagnosed with RAD, one coupled with OCD, and testing will conclude next week. The testing gives us a better idea of the depth of these issues and which ones we need to pay more attention to.

How is school going and other life activities? All of the children received their report cards. The list starts with the oldest and ends with the youngest:

1. Straight A's. National Honor Society. Some advanced placement classes. She tested out of high school when she was eleven years old, but I felt being with her peers took precedence. Although I'd love her to test out now, this state is rather low on the learning scale and staying in high school gives her time to be in NHS and have more charity, club, and other volunteer work to list on her college applications.

2. A mix of grades. She received her first F, and it was in creative writing. For the record, while I encourage my children to receive an occasional F (some tend to be overachievers and need reminding that it isn't the end of the world to not be perfect) I didn't expect it to be taken this far and received for an entire semester! She told me she did it after the teacher told her she had high expectations of her because of the work her oldest sister accomplished and because mom is a professional writer. This is a very independent child who loves her individualism, so she decided to make a point. The point is now made and she is doing great in the class!
She continues to play violin under the tutelage of a well-known professional group. Her new violin is amazing! She is the sole violin player in our church's orchestra and is also a member of the drama team at the same church.

3. Advanced placement classes, straight A's and her writing skills amaze the teachers. She is a member os the drama team at our church and receives private flute lessons from a young lady majoring in music at the college. We are seeking out a cardiopulmonologist for her and having some difficulty finding one. There may not be one in the area so we will seek further advice on what type of heart doctor to take her to. There is some concern for her hands as the circulation in them becomes very poor and leaves her at risk for tissue damage. We now have her on nitroglycerin cream to help that issue, but as her blood pressure is very low, we can only give her a minute amount. Thankfully that minute amount does wonders! She now wears contacts and glasses together, but one of her eyes does correct to a reasonable level.

4. This is our RAD/OCD child. He brought home a report card filled with excellent grades, all straight A's and his teacher claims there have been no behavioral issues at school. He used to detest reading but the library had a wonderful program this summer that peaked his interest and he is now an avid reader. (perhaps my praise of his little sister for reading even better than he could helped a tad bit too, one of those little side things moms do to encourage these things!)
Unfortunately he doesn't do so great behavior wise if he isn't watched and he can't be trusted alone in a room with other children. This has presented a problem in our sleeping arrangement as he was sharing a bedroom with his sister. Although the door is alarmed and a security camera is present, we still felt it wasn't enough and have moved him to the living room. Unfortunately, he can't be trusted alone in the living room at night as he has gotten up at night before to get into things or destroy stuff and also has threatened to run away, so my husband sleeps in the living room with him at night. While this is not ideal for us as a couple and neither of us are enjoying it, parenting often means putting the kids needs first. On a positive note, it definitely teaches us to highly appreciate the times when the kids are at school and I'm not at work. It does happen on occasion! It would be nice to have a bigger place to live, but right now it wouldn't be worth the drastic change to pick up and move, and any home in our price range that does go beyond a three bedroom in our area either doesn't exist or doesn't allow five children, let alone a dog to boot! Until more healing and more savings happens, we do not plan on moving, let alone moving to a place that causes us to change schools.

5. RAD kid. She received great marks on her report card as far as her studies go. Her reading level is very high for both her grade and her age. Her marks in behavioral categories weren't as great, but we didn't expect them to be. There has been a lot of improvement in her behaviors. While her brother seems to have improved behaviorally only because he is being watched vigilantly, hers seems to be a little more real. At the moment she is regressing. This started when we moved her brother out of the room at night. Change is apparently a major trigger for her behavior. Positive or negative change doesn't seem to matter. If it varies from the norm, she's going to react. One thing we've done a little of and hope to do more is origame. So far, one of the older girls has been the one teaching it. This was done on purpose to try to foster a stronger bond between them. After they gain more expertise I'll post some pictures of their work! Her birthday is coming up and we bought her the game Perfection. I think the game will be enjoyable for her and help maintain her concentration. Perhaps it will even give her a sense of accomplishment and pride in herself as she gets better at it, and that is desperately needed.

The grandmother from Hades situation and the rest of that side: Their maternal grandmother (their birth mother is deceased) caused quite a bit of trouble for us with the children as she seemed intent on doing whatever was possible to destroy my relationship with my husband and the children. Some of the things she did were outright evil. We ended up stopping the visits she had with the children after a number of attempts to work with her and under the advice of the kid's therapist and common sense. We notified the rest of that side of the family of the situation. We gave out links to information on reactive attachment disorder, let them know what we were doing, informed them of the most basic rules we had set down, and let them know they were welcome to call and set up a time to come visit or take the kids for a bit. Unfortunately none of them have so much as called. We spoke to the therapist about letting the grandmother know that if she wants to see the children, my husband will take her to the children's next therapy session where she can talk to the therapist. If, after they talk, the therapist agrees it would be beneficial or at least neutral for her to see them, then they can visit. However, I highly doubt he will recommend visits alone to her. While my husband may not see it, I've worked with Alzheimer's and dementia patients and she appears to be in the early stages of dementia. Her husband has Alzheimer's and she is caring for him. She also battles with repeated incidents of skin carcinoma and frequently has parts of it cut off of her. I do not feel she is physically or mentally capable of being alone with children or trust around them without supervision. For that matter, she shouldn't be home alone with herself either, let alone bear the responsibility of caring for her husband.
Hopefully the therapist should be able to realize this right off the bat and will know of some ways to get her some help.

Husband and Self: We're making it. It's definitely an interesting ride! With my chronic illness I am unable to drive, so we are dependent on him to take children to school, pick them up, take them to therapy sessions, doctors appointments, then there's music, drama, church, shopping, and whatever else comes up! This knocks out the idea of him taking on a job, which means I'm the one working. It's both productive and counter-productive. The cash is great, but my health suffers for it. Catch 22. My doctor changed my medication and what I'm on now doesn't cause as much drowsiness as the old meds so I feel a little more mommy-like and wife-like since I can take advantage of better days and do different types of housework during those times.

This is our life! While I do resent not being able to have a bit more of a typical family, all of this is teaching me that more than ever, grab hold of the little things in life that are good and cherish them. The deep purple morning glories climbing up the patio wall are gorgeous. I'm able to fill our home with the scent of fresh baked bread on a regular basis. My oldest daughter still gives me kisses and hugs no matter who is around. My husband is the official coffee maker and most mornings I wake up to a fresh cup of coffee with the perfect amount of cream. He also sings in the choir with me and I love the way he looks in a choir robe! I know that every morning when I walk out my bedroom door, the doggie will be sitting in front of it and start doing doggie cartwheels the second I open the door.

God loves me. My husband loves me. The teenagers tolerate me and the two youngest haven't made any known attempts to kill me. As long as I have food, the dog adores me.

Until next time, we remain...

Your average racially, emotionally, and mentally all mixed up RADical American family.

Genetically Engineered/Modified Foods

2010-09-20T06:20:00.001-08:00

Years have passed since I learned the concept of genetically modified seeds. My shock and horror remain in full force, yet the people of our nation still haven't stepped forward in strong enough measure to stop this mess.

Thus it continues and progresses. Thanks to greedy companies and ignorant consumers who either do not know, do not care, or are too lazy to act, may I present to you....

*drumroll please!*

GENETICALLY ENGINEERED FISH!

Are those cheers I hear?

Yes, it's true.

You're not stupid. You know food is vital to life. You know that sterile seeds mean you cannot plant your own food if the need arises. You should be able to figure out that people who own the patent on those seeds control the distribution and prices of those seeds.

Now we're going to have genetically engineered critters on our plates? Is that healthy? Is that normal? Is this okay?Are you aware that children in America are now hitting puberty at ridiculously young ages? Denial reigns, but logic, knowledge, history, and experience tell us that feeding our children products that contain growth hormones contributes to early puberty and a host of health problems for them and all others who consume this garbage.

Human beings should consume foods that grow naturally and the bulk of this food should grow in the area where the consumer lives. The food should remain as close to its natural form as possible. Plants that produce sterile seeds and meat from animals that have been fed growth hormones or foods that make them carnivores when God created them vegetarians should do more than raise eyebrows, it should send you screaming foul and time out. That's just common sense. On the other hand, at least medical expenses are going to be paid for by the government. With the money we hand them from our paychecks.

Think about it.

Then do something about it.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/09/20/genetic.engineered.salmon.hearing/index.html?iref=obnetwork

Triangulation and Reactive Attachment Disorder

2010-09-18T07:32:00.001-08:00

"Triangulation means that a third person either within the family or someone from outside, is brought in and selected as a way to protect the integrity of the family by ending any perceived threat to the system. Part of the way triangulation works is that it occurs without any direct verbal communication between the threatened member or members and the individual viewed as posing the threat."

Definition by Dr. Allan Schwartz http://www.mentalhelp.net/poc/view_doc.php?type=doc&id=29045&w=5&cn=289

This is a very common problem in families with children dealing with reactive attachment disorder.

My family is no exception. While both RAD children claim they want a mother, our son, whether he will admit it or not, does all he can to drive a wedge between myself and my husband.

Does it work? Occasionally. This morning came close to an explosive situation. It started with our son choosing a negative behavior, done in an inappropriate place. I woke up to the discovery, already exhausted and in physical pain, so my mental coping skills were nil. I handled it by turning to my husband and expressing my thoughts on the situation. They were not pleasant thoughts at all.

After choosing to quietly disagree, I handed him back his ring and walked out the door. An extreme reaction to something we deal with on a regular basis, but I'd finally had enough. We ended up having a discussion and since both of us have read quite a bit about RAD and discussed it at length at the multiple therapy sessions we attend in order to help these kids, we were able to recognize that this was another attempt at triangulation and the child was winning.

How will we handle this? I don't know. Right now he has the children out at the library. I needed some books for research and we needed to be apart from each other for a little while.

One amusing thing I run into over and over in my research into this disorder is contained within the list of symptoms and in one form or another states "parents appear hostile." For an example of this, scroll down to the last item on the list of RAD symptoms posted on this page: https://attachment.org/pages_what_is_rad.php

Generally I like to appear non-hostile. Ambiguous at most, caring and loving at best. Even more, I'd love to feel that way 100% of the time.

But guess what? That isn't the case when you're dealing with this disorder. In all I've witnessed in my life, this is one of the most relationship destroying disorders on the face of this earth. How many other mental disorders can you find that actually list symptoms seen in those who are part of the ill person's life?

As always, prayer is appreciated and often desperately needed.

Chocolate Crisps

2010-09-13T15:07:00.000-08:00

So it isn't the best photo-I took it with my ATT Slide Phone, which only works when it wants to in my continuing ATT saga.
Forget them though, let's go with the delicious simplicity of this recipe!
It requires two tablespoons each of cocoa, flour, and butter, a dash of salt, one egg plus one egg white, and sliced almonds.
For that little bit of ingredient I generally get twelve of these potato chip-thin little slices of joy! When a child of mine suggested putting whipped cream on one, she quickly became my favorite and the entire family experienced what can only be related to you, dear reader, as a temporary rapture into paradise.

The Passion Butterfly

2010-09-06T14:52:00.000-08:00

Common Name: Gulf fritillary
Scientific Name: Agraulis vanillae incarnata
Order: Lepidoptera

Whenever I grow weary of city life, something in God's creation comes along and lifts my spirits. This butterfly caught my attention with her magnificent coloring, so I took the photograph and then looked up a bit of information, finding that it is often referred to as a Passion Butterfly. These beautiful bits of creation appear to thrive in natural habitats, but when they find a source of nurture, they also thrive just as well in crowded cities.

I guess it's all in how you use your resources. If you have none, you will die. If you don't use the ones you have, you will die. If you use the ones you have, wherever you are, whether you're a human being or a butterfly, you have the capability to not only survive, but thrive.

Cool critters God made, every one of us!

AT&T : Rethink Possible? Consumer Complaint: Updates: 3

2010-08-13T21:10:00.005-08:00

My dealing with AT&T over the last year leads me to believe that their motto of "rethinking possible" is, indeed, a wonderful motto. I have found this with this company, the meaning of possible becomes subjective.

The issue started out quite minor. I moved to North Pole, Alaska, where Sprint does not offer services. When I realized the problem, I drove to Fairbanks and opened up an account with three additional lines. This meant I four phones, four phone numbers, and one zillion problems.

The first issue turned out to be a problem with the battery. My telephone battery drained even with the telephone not in use, and the telephone itself would turn heat up to an uncomfortable level while charging. Between it being the month of December and I being brand new to the area, taking a drive from North Pole to Fairbanks meant making sure the car was plugged in properly (temperatures in winter can reach below negative 50 degrees), bundling up children, and taking what could very well be a dangerous drive down a road thick with ice and occasionally blocked by moose.

By the time I felt comfortable making the trip back to Fairbanks to fix the problem, the phone had been in my possession for 20 days. I found an AT&T store, where they told me they could not help me. Instead, they told me to return to the kiosk in Sam's Club, where I originally purchased the telephone. At that time, I did not have the directions to Sam's Club memorized, so I returned home. Eleven days later I again made the trip to Sam's Club, where I was told that they could not help me since the contract only gave me 30 days to do so. I was one day late. Being in interior Alaska, most places understand how difficult it is for people to make trips during the deep days of winter, but AT&T was unwilling to work with me.

I wasn't happy, but rules are rules, so I purchases a new battery pack and the problem improved, but did turn out to be a problem with the telephone, not the battery.

The following June, I moved to Oklahoma and visited and AT&T store to change my telephone numbers to local numbers. At that time, I added my husband's i-Phone account to my existing four accounts. The customer service representative was a doll and extremely helpful. I told of my problems with my primary cell phone, and she informed me that the phone was still under warranty. She gave me the address to the AT&T warranty store in my area, where I promptly went and received a refurbished replacement phone. The replacement phone had a 30 day warranty. Thirty-five days after receiving the phone, it started automatically shutting itself off whenever someone sent a text message and often did the same thing in the middle of conversations. I called the warranty office and explained the problem. They told me that replacing it again couldn't happen because the warranty had passed, but did kindly explain that I was free to go online and "purchase a new device."

In other words, their suggestion, worded ever so politely, was "you're screwed, but the problem will be fixed if you just buy another one of our phones."

I then became quite upset. I have five lines, one being an expensive i-Phone account with all the bells and whistles, another with online service, and I also pay for extended nights and weekends for the four phones that are not i-Phones, along with unlimited messaging and the Smart Limits feature. I wrote to customer service and told them about the issues with the main phone line, my dissatisfaction with the quality of one of the other phones, and what I felt was the lack of decent treatment for a customer who not only gave them good business, but recommended them to others for their ability to keep us connected no matter where we were. I still believe that to be their one redeeming quality: whether I was in North Pole Alaska or traveling through across the United States, my cell phone service remained available in almost every location. I received a response stating they were sorry for the problems being experienced. They said they could offer me the option of purchasing a new device. They didn't even offer a discount on the new device, but did give the impression that they were doing me a favor by offering this option.

In other words, they simply repeated what I had been told earlier: "you're screwed, but the problem will be fixed if you just buy another one of our phones."

To my relief, the time finally came when, per my contract and per AT&T offers, all four of the non-i-Phone cell phones could be upgraded for free should I choose to sign another contract. I figured that the past was the past, and AT&T still had decent prices and at our local store, the customer service seemed quite friendly. So I made my way back down to our local store with all four phones, excited at the prospect of seeing new phones and finally having a primary phone that would stay on and allow me to access all of the extra features I had been paying for but unable to use.

It turned out that in order to get the free phone upgrade, I had to do it online. It was a wasted trip, but didn't seem too big of a deal. Besides, they had some neat phones online that weren't available in the store. We all gathered around and spent a good deal of time looking through the telephones and choosing which ones we wanted. After this I called customer service, and they told me that I had to do it in the store. A few days later, I went back to the store and told them what customer service said. They told me that in the evening, a lot of customer service reps do not know what they are doing, and recommended I call them back in the morning. I did so, and they told me that my account showed I wasn't eligible for an upgrade until a few months into the year 2011. I explained that my contract was nearing an end here in 2010, and that it made no sense that I would not be eligible for an upgrade until months after the contract was over. They then told me that it must have been a computer error at the store I lived near, and to go to the store and talk to them.

So guess what? I went back to the store. They looked up my account and found that although the contract date was correctly entered, someone, either in their store or in customer service, messed up the date I became eligible for upgrades on four of the lines. They took the blame, and said that sometimes when a customer moves, the person on the computer accidentally resets the upgrade eligibility date. They told me the problem could be resolved by simply calling customer service and asking them to change the upgrade eligibility date.

When I called, they told me that customer service is unable to do this and that I'd have to go to an AT&T store. When I told them that my local store told me they could not do this, they said that was because it had to be a corporate store, and gave us the address to a store around 30 minutes away from where we lived. That store seemed surprised and told us that they cannot change eligibility dates, that it can only be done through customer service. However, they offered to send customer service a note to confirm the fact that I had indeed done nothing that would change the eligibility date, and that it was simply a computer error on the part of AT&T that needed to be fixed. He told me that I could expect to see the change on my account within a week.

Would it surprise anyone to find out that one week later, it still wasn't done? I called customer service back. They sent me back to my local store. I went yet again and spoke with a customer service representative who used to work in customer service. By then, she knew me by name the minute I walked in the store. She sympathized with the problem, and did all she could to help. She even contacted customer service herself and wrote them a letter asking them not only to fix the upgrade date, but to change it so I could come into their store and upgrade my phones so I wouldn't have to spend more time on the phone dealing with customer service. She told me it could take up to a week to see a change, and to contact her if it didn't happen.

A week later, it hadn't happened. She told us that she received contact back that denied her request, and the reason the gave her was that she had given them an "invalid CSP number." She told me that they told her all of them have the same number, and since hers was different, they could not accept her request. She told me that wasn't true...since she didn't work in the call-in customer service center anymore, her number was different. She then gave me her CSP number and her cell phone number and told me to call customer service, give them her CSP number, and ask them to put us on three way so we could resolve the problem together.

Once again, I went home and called customer service and told them the situation. They told me they were sorry, but I would have to go to my local store to resolve that problem. I then told them what I had been told at the store, and asked them to do a three way call. I explained that the representative there had given me her CSP number and was willing to talk to them to help resolve the issue, but the customer service representative flat out refused to do so, telling me there was nothing that could be done by customer service at all, it could only be done at the store. I then begged him to tell me the truth. I explained that I'd been being sent back and forth for weeks upon weeks, and asked if this was a joke or if customer service reps were being told to do this to customers as some type of cost saving method. He assured me that was not the case.

It was once again time to pay my bill, which I do every month in our local store, so I figured that while I was there, I'd give the whole deal one more shot before taking my complaint public. I paid the bill at the bill pay kiosk inside, gave my name, and waited to be called. While waiting, my husband went next door and got us drinks. Thirty minutes later, my daughter went and got more drinks and some cookies. We spent the time alternately getting angry, singing songs, inventing poems fitting for spending our time on a 105 degree day sitting on a hard bench in the middle of an AT&T store with floor to ceiling glass windows.

We never did get service before I became too frustrated to stay and walked out.

I could give up and simply take my business elsewhere, but this is now a mission. I will no longer be calling customer service, visiting our local store, visiting the warranty store, or calling or visiting any corporate stores. I am now voicing my complaint on line. Tomorrow I will be writing a letter to Randall Stephenson at corporate headquarters and seeing how he feels about this. If I find that the man could care less, I'll chalk it up as a loss, but somehow I get the feeling that he is unaware that in this national time of financial crises and with so many companies having to fight to keep profits up, he just might be displeased to learn that loyal customers are not just being treated a little shabby, they're outright being lied to, manipulated, and treated as if they are stupid by offering to resolve the problem by having the customer "purchase another device." Then again, maybe my measly five lines isn't enough to make me more than an annoying speck of dust to this company. The response to my letter will be telling.

I'll keep you updated. In the meantime, feel free to comment on any similar problems you have experienced with AT&T. I'll be more than happy to point them towards the comments on this post, which show up after I review and approve them.

Gina Locke - a customer who recently learned just how easy it really is to "rethink possible."

Update: After reading online about the purported treatment of another customer who tried to go to the top (allegedly the customer receieved cease and desist communication) I decided to instead register my complaint with the Better Business Bureau. Today I received notice from the BBB of my complaint number and the email states the business has until September 23rd to respond to my complaint. After the 23rd I can call the BBB to find out the status of my complaint.

Update: 9-13-10 Today I received an email from a customer appeals manager. I really hope this will be a happy resolution for all involved. Unfortunately the email is because, apparently, I do not have a home telephone number listed. I am highly amused, since I have a total of FIVE, yes, FIVE, AT&T telephones. Four of the phone numbers are sequential. I am the holder of the account. They are all wireless. My complaint is about four of the telephone numbers.
I called back six minutes after receiving the email telling me to contact the person at my earliest convenience, but I received a recorded message. I left a message which listed all five phone numbers and twice repeated the telephone number which I wanted them to call me back at.
Despite the bad omen of them not being able to figure out how to contact me by phone, I'm gonna chalk it up to a "duh moment" on their part and give them the benefit of the doubt until I talk to the person on the telephone. I have plenty of duh moments myself, so they are understandable and forgivable.

Update 9-13-10 For good measure I followed up my telephone message with an email to the same customer appeals manager, giving her the best phone number to contact me at, just in case aliens came down and erased the recorded message. You never know what could happen when you're dealing with ATT. You gotta "rethink possible." For sure!

I'm trying to keep a positive attitude about this. After all, people make mistakes, and then they make some more, and then a few more, followed with a few more. True, it's not always that a company makes so many that you feel the sudden urge to wash down a bottle of xanax with a bottle of Captain Morgan spiced rum after two minutes of trying to use logic with them...them being the people you're paying hundreds of dollar for services, but they're going to fix it. Right? Of course right.

Update: 9-14-10 I must say I am pleasantly surprised! My husband was driving me home from an appointment with the eyedoctor when the cell phone rang. It took my dilated pupils a moment to seethe phone number belonged to the ATT customer appeals manager, then I took a deep breath and answered the call. I'd just gotten poked in the eyeball repetetively (thanks to a previously detached retina they were checking out) so things couldn't get much worse, right?

RIGHT! They did NOT get worse. YAY! They got better. The manager was kind. She was pleasant. She was...dare I say it? Helpful! She had taken the time to research the problem and traced the issue down to a problem with a representative not entering certain information into the computer when I moved to my new state. This meant the computer identified me on as a new account even though my contract remained the same, and everyone knows how hard software can be to work with.
Does it make it right that this issue took so long to resolve?
Well, this manager appears to be doing all she can to resolve my complaint, and part of that includes free upgrades for all four lines. Isn't that part of what the company should do anyways? Well yes, certain phones, but she seems to be offering me COOL phones. The types of phones I need for my work, the types I can use with jet engines flying overhead and soccer balls flying at my face, the types that can stand up to the supersonic speed typing of teenage girls and snicker and say "is that all you got, girlfriend?!"

That's the kind of thing that covers a multitude of sins. The kind of thing that makes me think they care, that they're honestly concerned that this was an issue and that I can sign a new contract with them with confidence instead of fear. That makes me happy. Especially since they cover central Alaska and those crazy little bits and valleys in Oregon that other companies just can't seem to figure out how to connect with.

So it appears I don't have to turn into a raging substance abuser with a strange urge to street mime about dropped calls in order to get a decent phone and an honored contract after all. I'm very happy about that, although I was rather looking forward to figuring out how mimes get out of those glass boxes.

Excuse me while I go call my therapist to let him know his services are no longer required. Thanks AT&T!

Reactive Attachment Disorder: When Love Isn't Enough

2010-07-31T23:37:00.001-08:00

*Author's Note*
This story is meant to share our story and provide encouragement to those caring for children who display symptoms of or have been diagnosed with Reactive Attachment Disorder. Many thanks are in order to those who have shown us the same encouragement and support as we navigate the strange new world we find ourselves in. Any successes we have would be much less possible without the love and support of family and friends.

Parenting Kids with Reactive Attachment Disorder

Our Story

Marrying my husband made me the automatic new mother of a ten year old boy and an eight year old girl. At the time, my primary parenting concern consisted of how to successfully handle my own three teenage girls. Teenagers are notoriously difficult to raise, and I worried this would be the toughest part of married life. A ten and eight year old should be a piece of cake, especially since I'd already raised three through this age range, right?

Boy, the shock sure set in quick! These two precious little ones lost their birth mother to cancer a year before they came into my life. Their father and I married after a brief yet intense courtship, and suddenly there we were, a ready made family of mix-n-match kids.

I knew the little ones came with issues. What child could witness their own mother go through years of serious illness, be passed to other family members while mom fights for her life, then lose her forever, all before they even reach double digits? Instinct told me to hold, love, and cherish my new son and daughter. Certainly they needed a mother, and my heart wanted to fully accept them with no reservations.

Those reservations have a way of slamming you upside the head when you're holding a ten year old boy in your lap as he tries to writhe from your grip, scratching, screaming, and biting. The cause? I tried to pick some of his toys up off the floor and put them away in a closet, after repeatedly requesting he pick them up.

Although a number of incidents foreshadowed the need for professional help, that particular day solidified my fears. Unfortunately, these behaviors weren't isolated occurrences, and the sibling pair wreaked havoc in our homes and our lives. Sometimes we woke up to find regular dish liquid squirted into the dishwashing machine. They would get up at night and pig out on sugar, granola bars, and other treats.

Their room became a place to stash candy, and eventually we found stolen items there as well. They broke the glass out of the pictures we decorated their room with and refused to eat anything that wasn't coated in salt, sugar, or grease. The lies were constant, and the only time they made eye contact was during a lie. They wrote about how much they hated me, and played something they called a hate game. One threatened to run away. They were violent with each other, kicking each other in the stomach or face, punching each other in the chest, and my son told us he couldn't wait until he was old enough to murder his little sister. Personal hygeine was a daily fight. More than once, we found toilet paper laden with feces strewn on the bedroom floor.

We worked on the problems with limited knowledge of technique, but these children required 24 hour attention to keep everyone and everything safe. We started seeking a counselor whose experience could meet our needs. Therapists bounced us back and forth for months, but one day, between internet searches and multiple counseling sessions, the phrase "Reactive Attachment Disorder" came about. The symptoms fit perfect. I didn't know such a thing existed, but when I read the definition, I couldn't help but wonder if my kids walked out of a textbook. I began searching for other parents of RAD kids to see how they lived and how they felt about their children's diagnosis.

How did I feel at the time? I felt overwhelmingly guilty. I didn't understand how I could raise three wonderful girls with such ease, yet every attempt to help my two RADishes failed miserably. I dreaded waking up and seeing them, and began isolating myself in my room more and more. A pattern started: I would go and do my best, be calm, patient, and loving, and it would gradually disintegrate into anger and frustration. I'd remind myself of their situation and try to put myself in their shoes, but I could not understand why they didn't respond to love. I began to feel not only that it might be impossible to love them, but that it might be impossible for them to be part of a family. Before they arrived, our home tended to be a quiet, calm place. Activities such as gardening, listening to classical music, and reading, so integrated into our lives, gave way to simply trying to survive the insanity.

Finding others with RAD children sent me into a state of amazement. These parents and caregivers felt and said things that mimicked my own feelings and ideas. Their children behaved the same way, and we shared the same hopes, doubts, and fears for them, other family members, ourselves, and our relationships with our spouses. Finding an online support group became a way to not only blow off steam, but learn invaluable tricks and techniques.

What a relief! Absolution from guilt sat in front of me and hope became more than a fleeting dream. Simply knowing others lived the same live gave me the power to lift my head up and regain the desire to deal with my new life and all the twists, turns, and roadblocks this disorder throws out at us.

One major roadblock turned out to be the children's maternal grandmother, the parent of their deceased mother. My husband and I allowed her to see the children often, not finding out until later the depth of her hatred for the woman who wanted to raise her grandchildren. To her, I was the epitome of evil, simply because my husband married me instead of remaining a single father. We found out she told the children not to ever view me as a mother or stepmother, and to only call me by my first name. This woman, who I had only met twice, told them she hated me, and forbid them to speak my name in her presence. She refused to cooperate with any of our requests for helping them eat healthy, and she instantly replaced items we took away from the children as part of teaching them to take care of their toys. She mocked the haircuts we took them to salons for, and took them to get new ones without our permission.

For a mentally healthy child, this behavior would be very difficult to tolerate. For a RAD child, it is devastating. They started coming home from visits in tears. They didn't tell us what she was doing at first, but slowly it came to light. My husband tried to work with the grandmother, but she would only become vicious and turn the conversation around to place blame on my husband for her daughter's death from breast cancer, which in no way, shape, or form could ever be an accurate statement.

While my husband felt terribly guilty for having to do it, we stopped the visitation with their maternal grandmother, as dictated by common sense and encouraged the different therapists. We set up a series of expectations for the children. Since they displayed zero appreciation for their possessions, we have them choose out some special toys to keep, a few more to put away, and we packed up the rest. Then we talked about who might appreciate them most. The kids accompanied us to a store ran by a domestic violence shelter. Before they went in, I spoke to the workers and gave them a brief rundown of the situation and requested they let our children know there were kids out there with nothing, and that their donation would make them VERY happy. The kids enjoyed doing this. Rather than being disappointed, they seem relieved as they are no longer overwhelmed with the responsibility to care for more personal items than they can handle. In fact, the only person who seemed pretty saddened by it all was my husband! He thought the kids would be devastated, but they did quite well, and when the domestic violence shelter workers allowed them each to pick a new toy from the shelves, both the kids had a blast finding a new stuffed critter to care for. We decided to call the new pets car critters, and they now live in the vehicle as an incentive for the kids to follow the car rules in order to be able to play with the toys.

So what are these car rules, and why do we need them? Anyone with RAD kids probably knows how a typical ride goes. In between giving us driving directions and demanding to be taken certain places, they would spend the rest of the time taking off their seatbelts, hitting each other, fighting, shoving food into crevices, and painting on the windows with juice. Food is now banned in the vehicle. They get in the car, put their seatbelts on, put their hands on top of their heads, and remain silent for the duration of the ride. If they feel words coming on, they may place their hands over their mouths. Do they actually do this? YES! I'm not sure why that isn't a fight, but I am very inclined to believe that the clear expectation and very specific instructions make them feel great about themselves, as they are easy to follow. Eventually, we will relax these rules a little at a time as they continue to show they are capable of knowing, remembering, and following car safety rules.

Screaming, crying, and fit throwing over food needed to stop. We offer healthy foods, limit dairy and sugar, and if they don't like a meal, it gets put away until the next one, when they are hungry enough to appreciate it. This is now an extremely rare problem, as they quickly learned that an empty belly is simply no fun and no amount of fit throwing makes us give in to demands for special order meals.

We put a stop to midnight rampages with a simple alarm. If they open the bedroom door, a siren goes off and wakes us up. Their bedroom window is also alarmed. Because of the threats of violence, other members of the house lock their bedroom doors at night. Scissors, pencils, and other sharp objects are used under supervision.

Is this worth it?
So far, most definitely.
Is this easy?
No way.
Will it get harder?
Probably.
Will it still be worth it then?
I don't know.

But this is reactive attachment disorder, and this is what caregivers face.

The symptoms of RAD vary in intensity from child to child. Some caregivers find that caring for a RAD child in house is not worth the damage it does to other children in the home. Others find that the violence and lies aren't worth it, and for their own safety and sanity, put kids in alternative care. People who look at RAD kids without understanding it often see an uptight parent and an unhappy child. Too often they are quick to point the finger at parents and other caregivers. What they do not realize is how these children often behave in private. From urinating on parents to setting house fires, these children do not respond to typical parenting efforts.

Love isn't enough for the child with reactive attachment disorder. In fact, most of these kids live in fear of what will happen if they open their hearts, or simply do not know how. My own RAD kids could not have a great time with me without suddenly showing extremely angry or adverse behavior immediately after. Being prepared for such behavior and having a plan of action for how to handle it is crucial to the healing of RAD children and the sanity of RAD parenting. When well meaning but misguided people try to intervene with the discipline and order parents and caregivers set up for RAD kids, the damage may take weeks or months to repair. Thus the common fear many adults face: "do I get a well-deserved and very needed break away from the kids and create more work and heartache for our family, or do I try to keep going like a machine in order to maintain progress?"

That is a tough decision, and the common lack of resources for the children of RAD means many parents only option is to choose whether they want to deal with physical and emotional exhaustion immediately, or in the near future.

Personally, my husband and I are lucky to have found out what is going on this early in our children's lives. We are lucky to have older children who understand what we are doing, and one especially who offers to give my husband and me a break by babysitting so we can go out alone for a meal on occasion.

At this point in time, these children are receiving intensive therapy from their counselor and here at home. This means we provide nearly constant supervision. One child will steal anything not bolted down, and dumps all the shampoos, soaps, and conditioners down the drain at home and everywhere she visits. Rather than hide everything or keep her away from other homes or public places, she must be supervised at all times. Until her brother learns anger control, he cannot play with friends without supervision, as he has been caught bullying other children and cursing at them. Neither are allowed to touch the family dog until we can trust them to treat her right. Television is not allowed unless it's a movie night, and all other electronics are banned and replaced with reading, fresh air, and exercise as much as possible.

The more they progress, the more relaxed the rules become. We have found that these kids basically needed to start all over and learn how to handle one thing at a time. Emotionally, they are younger than their physical age, so we can't overwhelm a ten year old body with the expections of someone with a five year old mindset. What seems overly strict to others is actually mentally healthy and neccessary for RAD kiddos to learn and grow.

So what's the good part?

There IS progress, believe it or not. In RAD land, small victories become major achievements, and major achievements become pricesless. Our little girl who got kicked out of her school in kindergarten made it through first grade without any major incidents. The boy who wanted to run away now reaches out for hugs. Both were given the choice to call me some form of the word mother or to call me Mrs. ______ as a matter of respect. They chose to call me mom, and even seemed to use it repeatedly just to hear themselves. With the fear of their grandmother's reaction taken away, they are showing some major progress in their attitude and interactions with me. Since they no longer spend Saturdays at the grandmother's home, they participate in Family Day, which we hold every Saturday. This special day always includes spending lots of time together doing things such as going to the zoo or staying in for popcorn and a movie.

Both RAD children show signs of taking responsibility for their actions. This is progress too. We're still looking for signs of a conscience with the little girl, but at least she seems to understand that a lot of her actions aren't worth the consequences, and instead of verbally blaming me or her father for a punishment, she will say that the consequence resulted from her actions.

Why do we bother to keep going when we know reactive attachment disorder is a lifetime fight?

We keep going because we choose to. Our task as parents is to equip our children to go out into the world with the ability to take care of themselves and be decent human beings. For some RAD parents, that means realizing when they have given all they can, and then putting the child in a place where they can try to heal under different circumstances. We pray our own little RADishes never become violent enough to warrant such drastic action.

We keep going because every new step they take gives us joy. For families like ours, little things like our children remembering to brush their teeth or saying thank you for a meal is cause to rejoice.

I am currently considering the benefits of adopting these precious children. I want them to understand the depth of my commitment. After they were told I wasn't their mom, I sat them down and told them that a real mom is someone who loves them and takes care of them. We talked about mothers, and how some kids are lucky enough that when one mom goes to heaven, God sends them another one, and then they get to have two in their lives and be loved double.

Now it's up to me to live up to those words. Most RAD parents out there have, at some point in time, said something similar to their own little plants. We watch our RADishes grow and we take pride in every new little tendril we see, then cry when they seem to dry up and retreat from us. Forward, backwards, up, down, that's their life, and it can be painful to watch. Painful to feel. Painful to realize...to realize that our dreams for their future are fragile, that one day we'll have done all we can and we have no promise it will work out okay for them, painful to pour our love into children no guarantee often very little hope that they'll ever understand or appreciate that particular emotion.

So for now, it's lots of coffee for us, and lots of learning to enjoy the brief moments when life is peaceful...along with trying not to become paralyzed with fear over what is causing that moment to be so oddly quiet!

© 2010 by Gina Locke

The Struggle (poetry)

2010-06-19T10:25:00.002-08:00

When eagerness is lost
and God seems far away
When hypocrites surround you
and each hour lasts a day
Who will arrive to catch you
as you fall between the psalms
In a genesis of apathy
with urgency and qualms
What will be the answer
to how one finds relief
After losing sweet communion
while retaining old belief
Where are the disciples
leaders of the chosen lost
Those sent to build the Christian faith
regardless of the cost
Bring back the strength of victors
from persecution made so strong
The voice that none could silence
that fought against the wrong
Let us find our champions
in our own generation
Through restored hope in God alone
to conquer earth's damnation
Refresh our spirits, hear our cry
and let us glimpse your face
To give us power to run anew
until we've won the race.

©2010 Gina L.

For Fun: How Oreo Cookies are Made

2010-06-19T05:50:00.003-08:00

People all over the planet enjoy eating Oreo® cookies. Many also wonder just how Kraft Foods makes these popular treats, including the process of getting the filling into every single cookie.

Chocolate Oreo® cookies start out with flour milled at the Nabisco Company's own flour mill. Dutch cocoa, pure chocolate liquor, and sugar make up the bulk of further ingredients, which machines mix together.

A rotary mold forms the cookie dough into the correct round, flat shape and size for each cookie. An oven that measures 300 feet long then receives the raw dough for baking. After cooking, the cookies cooled and stacked on their edges.

The Oreo® cookies make their way down a conveyor belt, heading for the icing depositor. Half the cookies remain on their edges, reserved for use as the top part of the familiar sandwich cookie. The other half lays flat and ready to receive the icing, otherwise known as "slurry." The icing depositor distributes the slurry onto each cookie, then the cookies move along to be given their tops.

Inspectors check the Oreo® cookies, making sure to remove broken, cracked, or otherwise imperfect cookies. As many different flavors and variations exist, the cookies then move on to various types of packaging, ready for distribution.

Kraft foods is a global company, and Oreo® cookies sell across many different areas. People buy 9.1 billion Oreo® cookies each year. That's 25 million per day, and that only includes the chocolate variety, making this particular brand the most popular cookie since 1912. That's a long time!

Many thanks go out to Kraft Foods for the time they spent explaining the process to me! Makes me want to go out and buy a package of double stuffed and a gallon of milk. YUM!

©2010 Gina L.

Repost: You Mother is a Criminal!

2010-05-27T08:20:00.002-08:00

I saw this in the earlier pages of this blog. Life changed so much since those years, and now this story seems even funnier to me since the time it first happened, because the fear is now gone.

Woe to the American citizen who steps on the toes of "the man." My lesson in the school of hard knocks came one balmy summer night as I sat outside my door, on the stoop of the apartment complex in which I lived. True, it was low-income housing, and most poor people are viewed as criminals in the making, if they haven't already reached that lofty label. However, I still held hope that somehow I was different, that I would be viewed as outside the norm. I didn't WANT to do illegal things, and I hated where I lived. Chance and circumstance had thrust me into needing such housing, and I wasn't planning on staying. Shouldn't that have counted for something?
Thus it came to be that I was sitting on the stoop that night, the very action of which can be viewed as that of a poor person's. People in better situations have porches, and moving on up the classes, you'll find people sitting on patios and decks. However, my company was not typical. I had a middle class visitor, an officer on leave. It was shortly after 9-11 occurred, and we were discussing the movement of security forces into Bahrain, a military strategy that had not yet been made public. A neighbor joined us in the cool night air, and we drank coconut milk and continued discussing current events.

Suddenly the door to the complex slammed open, and a tall, muscular, police officer burst through the opening. The noise caused me to turn just as he was coming through the doorway behind me, and I accidentally yelled out a curse word. My two friends stared at me in silence for a moment, and then giggled as I regained my composure and said hello to the officer. I assumed he was in pursuit of a criminal, and I was more than willing to point the way towards a few.

We made some small talk, and I realized he wasn't in a rush to get away. I finally asked him what had brought him to our stoop that fine night, and he replied that he had received a complaint of "loud laughter." This struck me as highly amusing, and I laughed and asked, "And you came?" It was slowly sinking in that *I* was the criminal he was looking for, and I worked to control my laughter. The officer looked highly offended, declaring that it was 9:30 pm and that laughter at such an hour was inappropriate. I didn't quite believe him; perhaps it was a joke set up by one of my friends! I mean, police don't really rush out to the scene of a laugh, do they? I decided to play along and asked him if he was sure it was laughter that was against the rules, or if he'd confused it with chuckling.

He ordered me to stand, and I quickly realized that this was no joke. I was angry and confused. There was marijuana smoke billowing from a window beside me, and I pointed that out and asked which was the bigger crime. He told me that he hadn't received a complaint about that-he'd received a complaint about laughter.

I may not laugh when I discuss politics, but I laugh when I get nervous. My shoulders shook with uncontrollable giggles as I tried to explain that we had NOT been laughing, that we had been engaged in a serious conversation, and if I HAD laughed, it had been a calm, polite laugh. I couldn't believe I was even having this conversation. He then asked for my social security number. Panicked, wondering what would happen to my children (who were inside sleeping) if I got arrested, and if my pastor would believe me if I called him from jail to say I was arrested for laughter, I spouted off the first number I could remember, and he began jotting it down. About half way through he tossed his pen down in disgust and asked me if I thought this was funny.
I had been giving him my phone number. By this time my two friends were howling with laughter, trying to cover it up. I apologized, picked up the pen, handed it to the officer, and explained that I was nervous. He looked at me warily, then asked for my social security number again. About half-way through the next number, I realized it was my husband's social security number. I doubled over with laughter, gasping out my apologies and letting him know it wasn't my real social security number.

I was about to turn around and just let the man hand-cuff me, but instead he began to lecture me on how tough of a job was his, and how humiliated I made him feel. He was red-faced and angry, and I didn't know what to do. This was my first time being a criminal. He threatened me with a $200 fine if I laughed again, extolled the virtues of noise ordinances and laws that kept people quiet after 9 pm., and stomped away.

As he left, I resisted the urge to call out and let him know that I'd heard someone guffaw in the next building over. Instead, I went inside and laughed until it was out of my system, then went and checked on my sleeping kids. They were all still in diapers, but I tried to imagine sitting with the at the dinner table in 10-15 years, explaining to them how one summer night, the lack of air conditioning drove their mother outside and almost made them into the children of a hardened criminal. Thank goodness I was never caught laughing after 9 pm. in that town again!

© 2003 Gina Locke

Rock Island

2010-05-09T17:14:00.002-08:00

"Well if you want to ride you gotta ride it like you find it
Get your ticket at the station of the rock island line" -- Pete Seeger...maybe!

Reclaiming Writing and Photography

2010-05-05T14:19:00.003-08:00

I'm gonna go ahead and delete the non-writing/photog related posts on here, and save this blog exclusively for writing.
Time to get back into it, right?!

To All My Friends:

2009-12-22T13:16:00.003-09:00

from the bottom of my very amused heart!

(I took this photo last night in downtown OKC)

Thanksgiving Dinner Photos

2009-11-27T06:52:00.013-09:00

After a very rocky beginning to the morning, life calmed down and we ended up having a great day. Here are photos of some of the items. You can click on the photos to see them in a larger size. We also had some other dishes and desserts, but I didn't want to photograph everything. I may have been shot if I'd held off on serving it any longer.

We had

TURKEY and STUFFING: The stuffing is wild rice, almonds, and an arrangement of fruits.

VEGETABLE TRAY: I love colorful veggies! This was the "We're all going to die if you don't get dinner on the table NOW" salvation.

ROLLS: Who doesn't love fresh, hot rolls with dinner?

PIE! Caramel Apple with a Walnut Streusal Topping. We also had traditional style pumpkin pies, and we made a pan of brownies.

A Few of the Tired Out Turkeys, hehe

Pre-Thanksgiving Fun!

2009-11-25T19:16:00.008-09:00

I gave the kids some crafty stuff to decorate the house with. Each picked a section of the living room or dining room, and the results from each kid range from impressive to disturbing. LOL They were given no advice, help, or ideas. Enjoy the photos!

Picture one: This is the handiwork of the 14 yr old. She definitely has a major creative streak in her!

Picture Two: This is the 13 year old. I could not get the entire archway, but this is part of it:

Picture Three: This is the 12 year old. I'm not sure whether to call the psychologist or not! ROFL!

Picture Four: This is from the 9 year old. He added all of our names around this in glitter glue after the photo was taken.

This if from the 8 year old. She didn't get to finish as she (smart kid) picked the wall at the end of the kitchen....GREAT place to be when I'm busy cooking yummy stuff and in and out! She had a blast, but after what we shall call "the sugar incident," she got kicked out for good until tomorrow. Take a look at the pilgrim she made...VERY cute!

Thyroid Surgery: Day Four

2009-11-14T16:07:00.004-09:00

Day Four After Thyroid Surgery

Things are improving very much! As you can see, there is still swelling, but I felt pretty good by this evening. For some reason the inside of my neck hurt pretty bad this morning, but the meds helped, the pain in my legs has improved, and I think this will probably be my last post on this until more healing has occurred or unless something significant happens.
There is still bruising and the muscles are hard (and probably will continue to be for a while) but all in all, the worst is over. I originally planned on just taking this week off of work, but also took off this coming Monday and am working half a day on Tuesday to see how I feel.

Looking back, there were a couple surprising parts to this surgery. Here they are:

1. I didn't expect to be so tired. I am sleeping a LOT and when I do feel good, I tire out very quickly.

2. I expected the inside of my throat to be very sore. Except for the tube down my throat, the inside of my throat didn't really hurt at all. I could swallow stuff that wasn't even soft. This is because, despite appearances, the inside of the throat isn't touched at all. The swelling you see in the photos mostly goes outward. Only on a few times did I feel as if it impacted my breathing, and that may be in part because I am claustrophobic.

3. I didn't expect to be sent home from the hospital just hours after the surgery. No matter what, nobody who undergoes general anesthesia should be sent home the same day in my opinion, and especially not after having half a body part removed.

4. I thought that because of the thyroid gland's function, I'd have issues with having it chopped in half. For example, I expected to have a hard time with stuff such as heart skips (I'm on meds for irregular heart beat) and flushing and that type of problem, but I haven't had those issues at ALL. I'm starting to wonder if the nodules were playing a part in those. My heart hasn't skipped a single time since the surgery, and I've not had any flushing. HMMMM Nobody has called yet to say whether it was cancer or not, and now that it's a weekend, I'll have to wait until at least Monday.

I really hope it's not cancer, because even though this wasn't as difficult of a surgery as I feared, it still wasn't a walk in the park and I definitely would be very stressed out if I had to do it again. (they said I would have to have the other half removed if it does turn out cancerous)

Thyroid Surgery: Day Three

2009-11-13T10:12:00.003-09:00

Day Three (about 70 hours after surgery)

I am feeling a LOT better! The redness has lessened quite a bit. The swelling is still obvious, but has decreased quite a bit. I finally napped for a little bit while laying down in bed, although it was still painful to find a comfortable position. When I woke up that evening, my darling husband had gone to the furniture store and brought home a big comfy rocker/recliner type chair! We went out for coffee and when I got home, I jumped in the chair, went to sleep, and didn't wake up again until around 3am. When I stood up, I felt tremendously rested and my pain level was nearly gone. I went to our bedroom and slept again until around 7 or 8 am, and felt so good when I woke up!

The neck area is still tight, but it's hardly painful at all. There's some surface stinging and burning, but that's just the skin pulling because of the swelling. There's itchiness, which is awesome because it means I'm healing! I felt so great that I went out with my husband, feeling all chipper and wonderful. After about an hour my body was screaming "GO BACK TO BED!" I'm getting ready to do that right now.

Oh, I almost forgot...my calves are very very sore, as if I'd jogged for miles and miles. I looked it up online and saw that this can be a reaction to a muscle relaxant given during anesthesia. It should go away soon, but I need to let the anesthesiologist know before I have surgery again, as they can use another type of muscle relaxer that hopefully will not have this side effect on me.

Thyroid Surgery: 36 Hours Later

2009-11-12T03:23:00.003-09:00

After 36 Hours

I went to the ER because of severe pain. The swelling and hardness was pretty bad. They believe it's infected.
I was given IV antibiotics, zofran, and a couple doses of delauntin. They sent me home with percocet and I have an appt. with Major Stierlin tjorow at 2pm. GOOD NIGHT! I'm very sleepy.

Thyroid Surgery: 28 hours later

2009-11-11T16:30:00.003-09:00

28 Hours Later

The surgical area is swollen, hard, and warm to the touch. I'm now completely convinced that not only did I pull the muscles, but there's a possible infection.
I just drugged myself up enough to knock me out for at least a few hours until it kicks in. Right now I'm dog tired from it being too painful to lay down, even propped up, so hopefully the meds will give me some rest until I can get into the doctor's tomorrow. He isn't available today because of it being veteran's day, and can't prescribe any pain medications because the base pharmacy is closed.

GREAT! I'm crabby, I'm angry, and it hurts. All I want to do is lay down for a while, but it hurts to much to sit for too long in any position except straight up with my back somewhat arched.

Thyroid Surgery: 24 hrs later

2009-11-11T11:53:00.002-09:00

24 Hours After Surgery

There is swelling and hardness in the area of the surgery. After having to get up rapidly around five times last night because of almost vomiting while on my back, I believe I may have pulled the already sore muscles. The base clinic is closed, as is their pharmacy, so the doctor can't call in any stronger pain meds. He said he can see me tomorrow after 2pm. The burning and stinging are definitely worse as the area is much tighter because of the swelling. I'm considering whether or not this warrants a trip to the ER, as the paperwork does say to go if this happens. However, I did take motrin on top of everything to try to help things, and don't know if they'd do much more at the ER. Besides, from what I've seen at that ER, it would probably be around 2pm tomorrow before they saw me anyhow if I went in now!

I did go out and go shopping to try to get my mind off things. It did help, especially since laying down is pretty rough, as is standing up from the couch. Right now I'm in a tall, straight-backed padded chair. That seems to work best for me. From what I hear, having this much pain isn't typical, but like I said, I think I messed things up by having to get up so rapidly so many times during the night.

Thyroid Surgery - Day One

2009-11-11T04:17:00.005-09:00

Fifteen Hours After Surgery
Partial Removal: Right Lobe

It was different than I expected, that's for sure! It was day surgery, and although they said they would most likely keep me overnight, there was a possibility of getting sent home the same day.

The history: Between 2 and 3 years ago it was recommended that I have my entire thyroid removed because a mass had been found on the right side. At that time I asked if they could remove only one side, but the doctor said no. I refused the surgery, as having a complete thyroid removal means being on medication for the rest of your life. This may not seem like a big deal to some (in fact my husband had his fully removed, is on the meds, and is fine with it) but I personally like to keep as much/many of my body parts as possible!

I moved to my new state and while in the hospital for a heart issue, was referred to Major Stierlin to discuss my thyroid. Stierlin saw me and appeared to be very knowledgeable and compassionate. During our discussion he let me know that it was totally possible to remove only one side, and that by doing so, it would most likely eliminate the need for any medication afterwards. He did warn me that if the mass turns out to be cancerous, he will need to go back in and remove the rest of my thyroid. I agreed to the surgery.

The surgery itself: I arrivedat 11:30 and was in a rather nervous state of mind. This was compounded by the area to which I was taken. The rooms were tiny with no personal bathrooms and not much privacy. I was put in a paper-like gown with a plastic layer inside. Apparently the point of this is some new-fangled deal where you can connect a hose to the gown and have warm or cool air blow between the plastic and the gown. It was itchy and uncomfortable, along with being humongous, so after complaining, they gave me a good old-fashioned worn out hospital gown made of cotton and strings. My husband was with me and kept the door almost closed to maintain privacy, but cracked a bit because I am claustrophobic.

Stierlin had another operation, so around noon I was told it would be 1-2 hours before they took me back for surgery. I asked about anti-anxiety medication and was told the anesthesiologist might give me something, but not until he came to see me right before surgery. It crossed my mind to just leave...I wasn't dealing well with the stress of having my neck cut on, but they hooked me up to an iv and then I couldn't leave. Sometime in there my pastor came by to chat and pray with me and my husband.

Eventually the surgeon came by and marked my neck, reassured us that everything should be a breeze, and left. He had an extremely gentle and caring manner about everything that made us both feel at ease and comfortable with the situation. I probably would have let him do a heart and lung transplant and thought nothing of it. The anesthesiologist came back and we chatted. He was very nice. (I had one experience elsewhere where the anesthesiologist was a jerk, so this one managed to further ease any concerns I had) I had an iv put in and "leg squeezers" put on my legs.

I did begin to panic slightly as they took me back for surgery around 1:30 pm, but tried to focus on good thoughts and on my husband as I was wheeled back. I asked the nurse taking me back to make sure she went and talked reassuringly to my husband, as his previous wife passed away and I knew he was nervous about me going in, although he did a semi-decent job of trying to hide it.

In the operating room they put straps on my legs and waist, apparently to keep my from moving or being pushed off the not-so-very-wide bed. They put me arms to my side in a crucifix position, and that reminded me to pray. I prayed for my husband to have peace and for my children to not be worried about me. They hooked up a blood pressure cuff to my left arm, and checked the iv in my right arm. The anesthesiologist told me I'd be going to sleep. I felt a little odd, saw the big round light start to get bluer and fuzzier, and that's the last thing I remember until I was being wheeled into the recovery room.

That was by far the worst part. My first thought was "knock me back out!" My throat was very dry and I felt as if I wasn't able to breath all the way. My oxygen levels kept getting low, so they stuck an oxygen mask on me and had me breathe in and out a few times. That did NOT help the claustrophobic feeling. My oxygen went up and they took it off. It kept going back down in the eighties, so they finally just put regular oxygen on (the kind that hooks across your ears and just has two little thingies aimed at your nose) and left that on. It was much better than the mask! My throat was so dry that I found it hard to swallow, but it was twenty more minutes before they said I could go back to the room and have a drink.

I tried to close my eyes and pretend that 20 minutes wasn't happening, but it was very bothersome. Finally the time came, and they wheeled me back. The ride made me a little nauseous. I got there and finally got my drink! Ice cold sprite. It felt soooo good, but I hated the feeling of something in my throat. Perhaps it was the swelling, but I didn't like it at all! They asked me my pain level, and I told them a 4 just so they would give me meds that might knock me out and make me not think about the claustrophobic feeling I was getting from feeling like something was stuck in my throat. I tried to cough big, but it hurt. They gave me demerol which made me relax and took the edge off, but didn't quite knock me out.

My husband was picking up our five children from their various places at school, so he wasn't there right away. He showed up as soon as possible, bearing a pink gift bag. I saw the bag but was too busy trying to focus on staying calm that I didn't care. The nurses all seemed surprised that I was being sent home...they had me set up to stay overnight but the doctor said I did so great that I could go.

So I left around 6pm.. By then I was very much panicking over the claustrophobia feeling and couldn't wait to get there! As soon as we walked in the door I took a double dose of xanax, one of the Vicoden they'd prescribed, and two Benadryl's. Since I'd apparently peed the bed when they knocked me out (they changed the sheets but didn't clean me off at the time) I jumped in the shower. The closure on my neck is glue instead of stitches, so I didn't have to worry about getting it wet, although I used a lot of caution and kept it dry anyhow. My oldest brought me a cup of warm beef broth and that helped me cough, which made my throat feel a little clearer. The xanax did its work and between that and the shower, I calmed down a ton! The church had said they'd bring dinner, but they forgot or came while we were gone, so while I was in there one of my daughters made spaghetti and meatballs for everyone but me...I had been told I *could* eat, but a liquid diet was recommended for the rest of the evening.

I also got sleepy, which I hoped I would, and managed to pass out for a few hours. I woke up around 10:30 pm and was hungry! I hadn't eaten since midnight of the day before. I had a microwaveable breakfast deal and a "bomb" popsicle, which have been a favorite of mine since childhood. The pink gift bag I mentioned earlier was sitting by me, so my husband opened it for me (it was from him) and it was an adorable bean bag kitty! It's pink and you can play with it online. He knows I adore kitties!

The night was definitely not fun. Every time I woke up I felt a little more sore, and ended up taking a shower to try to relax. I've taken more xanax and more pain meds, but it is very painful to lay down or to turn from side to side once I'm down, so right now I'm sitting up. The swelling has increased so that it now feels as if there is a long hard lump across the incision. There is stinging and burning, which is normal, but the swelling and degree of pain concern me, as I feel I may have pulled the already-tender muscles as I woke up in the night. Oh yeah! I kept waking up trying to puke, which means I got up very very rapidly a number of times throughout the night, each time holding my neck but knowing that moving would be painful. It is now 8 am the next day and those muscles are VERY sore.

However, my throat, while still more sore than yesterday, does not have that swelled up feeling inside. The swelling going on is stuff I can see and seems to be swelling of the muscles right under the skin rather than anything affecting my swallowing. I laid off the xanax for now since I feel I can breathe, but may take it again soon just so I won't panic if it starts feeling like that again.

So that was day one. I'll take pictures and update as I can, hopefully once a day until healing is almost complete. I had the surgery yesterday (Tuesday) and I took off work through Friday. (work in the school district, so don't need to go back until Monday)

I was told the results (cancer or non-cancerous) would be available in a few days. He also said he was extra glad he did the surgery, as he found a second mass in there (thankfully on the same side) that they hadn't seen during testing.

The Canned Caterpillar: Guess Which Brand?

2009-10-19T17:25:00.003-08:00

Having dinner is supposed to fun, right? Apparently, it's not as much fun when you're eating your peas and pull a caterpillar out of your mouth!

This happened to my daughter. I was in the hospital during the incident, but she saved the can, some of the peas, and the caterpillar. The company has been notified and sent a picture of their "product" in front of the can it came in, and I'll let you know what their response is! The evidence remains stored in my freezer.

Eat your peas, boys and girls! heheheheh

Stuffed Peppers! Recipe Included, sort of!

2009-10-18T10:44:00.004-08:00

Sure, this is supposed to be more of a writing blog, but cooking and taking pictures is fun too. Here's a photo of the stuffed peppers I made last night. Delicious!

Ok Grammy, I'm editing this to add the recipe, but I'm not sure on the measurements as I didn't follow a recipe. (how new, right? LOL)

I kinda made it meatloaf style, with no rice. I used four peppers...two red, one yellow, and one green. (I cut them each in half after they were cooked)

There was approximately one pound of ground beef. I seasoned it with salt, smoked pepper, smoked and dried red peppers, garlic powder, and a bit of paprika. I mixed in two eggs, then added freshly diced tomatoes and up two pieces of fresh bread ripped into itty bitty pieces, threw in a handful of freshly grated parmesan cheese, and mixed it all up. After removing the tops and the seeds of the peppers, I then stuffed them whole with the meat filling, leaving enough room to pour in about 1/4 cup of sauce into each pepper to finish filling it.

The sauce? I didnt do much to it! It was simply a mix of fresh diced tomatoes and canned tomatos that I bought whole and peeled and then cut up and added to the fresh ones, along with the juice from the can. I flavored it with some salt, pepper, and added just a tiny bit of olive oil. The sauce got poured all over the peppers after they were put in the baking pan.

One thing to be aware of is to buy ground meat that has a low percentage of fat. You can buy the more fatty kind, but the stuffing will shrink a lot and the whole product will be more oily.

I put them in a glass pan, covered them with aluminun foil, and baked them at 350 degrees for about 20 minutes, then turned it down to 300 for about 45 minutes, then turned the oven to warm and they sat in there for about one and a half more hours. Stuffed peppers can be tricky. If you cook them too fast, the peppers will not be soft. If you cook them for too long at a very low temp, then the peppers will be soggy and mushy and too much bitterness released. Of course, your oven and the type of pan you're using will also make a difference. I prefer glass for stuffed peppers.

The Virgin Lasagna Maker

2009-10-15T15:51:00.006-08:00

Recipe at bottom of this post.

It's true. I've never made a lasagna until tonight!I looked through a ton of recipes and decided not to use any one in particular. It tastes fantastic! The pictured square is made with meat...I made half of it without meat as some of us prefer to eat our food without ground animal parts. That's not to say the ground animal part wasn't yummy - I tried it and have to admit there is something delicious about sweet Italian sausage! I typically find Italian food disgusting, but am beginning to realize that the only real style I've had has been processed, boxed, and doesn't honestly represent the deliciousness found when such meals are prepared at home with the freshest ingredients possible. With a name like Gina, it's a relief to find out I was mistaken, and to fully embrace all the goodness of Italian style food!

Here's how I did it:

I didn't make the noodles myself. I know, I know, but I was nervous enough with this being my first time and all. I bought boxed, dry lasagna noodles. Wait, you probably want at least an idea of what you'll need to have on hand, right?

1. Lasagna noodles
2. Big old tub of Ricotta cheese
3. Mozzarella cheese
4. Fresh Parmesan cheese - do NOT buy that dried powder trash in a can or I will hunt down your email address and sign you up for every cheesy, annoying spam email list in existence!
5. A couple eggs. Doesn't matter what size.
6. Sweet Italian sausage. If you can only find the links, go ahead and buy them and just take the skins off. For half a recipe I used three fat links (the Bratwurst size ones). For a full one, use about five since they're usually sold in packs of five and it would be dumb to buy a whole extra package.
7, 8, 9, or whatever. Garlic or garlic powder, some parsley, salt and pepper, blah blah. I'm sure it would be fine without the garlic and parsley if you don't have any. It just adds that tiny extra bit of flavor. You can add other stuff...you'll find that out as you read on.
10. Tomatoes. You can use fresh ones, paste, diced, crushed, whatever. Not that I ever have in a lasagna recipe since I never made one before this, but my vast cooking experience tells me that whatever I have can be made to work. I love stuff that tastes fresh, so I'd only use paste if you have to. If you use canned, try to find some that has olive oil in it.
11. Olive oil if you use fresh tomatoes. Which I suggest.

How much extra spice you add depends on your taste. Don't be afraid to do stuff on your own! You don't need a recipe to tell you how much spice you like. If you love basil (which I don't) add basil. Etc..

So what do you do with all this stuff? Well, first you start making the sauce. Begin with cooking the Italian sausage, unless you're not using meat. If you're not, just start with the next step, which is adding your tomatoes. If they're fresh, add a few tablespoons of olive oil in your saucepan first. You're making the sauce now. Personalize it! Add whatever form of tomato you want, season it with the garlic and other seasonings of your choice. Stir it all up and keep tasting it to see if it tastes like you want it to! If it's too thin, tomato sauce can thicken it. If it's too thick, a bit more fresh tomato will add some juice. Try not to use water. Yuck. You want flavor bursting out all over the place, and adding water dilutes flavor!

So now ya have sauce. Whoo-ho0!

The next part is easy. I almost feel stupid telling you. I took the ricotta cheese (somewhere around 3 cups) and mixed in some parsley. Why? Because it looked pretty. Try it! Then I stirred in mozzarella. How much? I dunno. It depends on your taste. I think it turned out to be about two cups. I love cheese! Some people don't add the mozzarella to the ricotta...they buy slices of mozz and just add it when they do the layering. So anyhow, I mixed the ricotta, parsley, mozzarella, and then ate some. Ah man...talk about a tease! YUM! Then I added two eggs to the cheese and then I couldn't eat anymore unless I wanted to risk salmonella poisoning or whatever the danger is with eating stuff with raw eggs in it. Actually, I've heard it only takes one small lick of raw egg to contaminate yourself if the egg has it, and I accidentally licked my finger so if I die shortly after posting this, at least my recipe will live on!

Now here's the easy part. The box itself said you don't have to boil the noodles. A lot of the recipes I read said you don't have to boil them first. Some said to. I compromised and par-boiled them. That was fun! After they were partially cooked I took drained the water and then rinsed the lasagna noodles in cold water. I had semi-floppy, semi-stiff noodles to work with. I couldn't help but note that this is probably why the noodles didn't break as I spread stuff on them and layered it, which I did by...

First putting a layer of sauce on the bottom of my glass pan. The pan I used held four noodles across and was the perfect length. I don't know what size that pan is, but all you have to do is put a noodle in a pan you're thinking about using to see if the pan is about the right size.

So there ya go. Put sauce in the bottom, add a layer of noodles. Take your cheese mix and spread it over the noodles. Add a layer of sauce over the cheese mix. If you want, add some of the Parmesan. I personally didn't add any Parmesan inside the lasagna, choosing instead to just load a bunch on top of it. Again, it's your lasagna, and your choice!
Then you just repeat that until it's done. I ended up with three layers, and then I had a layer of noodles on top of it all. To that top layer I only added the tomato sauce mix and the Parmesan cheese.

I covered it with aluminum foil and baked it at 350. I puffed the aluminum foil up on top so it wouldn't touch the top layer, and I never took it off. How long? Shoot. I forgot. I think it ended up being cooked for a good hour. You know...a good hour is usually defined as a little over an hour. So why don't people call a little UNDER an hour a "bad hour?" I don't know. I just know it was an awesome lasagna, everyone loved it, I'm very happy, and now I guess I'm a lasagna maid. Hmmm. Life is good.

© 2009 Gina Locke

HSLDA: Chris Klicka

2009-09-28T13:32:00.003-08:00

http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/chrisklicka/guestbook

Please take a moment to visit this Caring Bridge page. For those familiar with HSLDA, you will know what a wonderful impact this man had in the world of homeschooling.

Today, while our world may seem a bit more bitter, heaven is a little sweeter. Happy homegoing Chris, and thank you for the wonderful testimony you gave and the influence it had and continues to have on your family and many others.

My Child

2009-08-03T00:55:00.002-08:00

As the urge for poetry struck the other night, I asked one of my daughter's what I should write about. She said "what about me?" It was bedtime and she wanted to read it first, so I did a rush job and here's what came.

My daughter's like a lotus flower,
Delicate to look upon
Yet blossoming with fragrant power
Bringing joy to each day's dawn.

My daughter's like a classic book
Each page turned, a new-found thought
Yet familiar as love's gentle hook
A theme time never forgot

She brings me peace and happiness
And causes me to smile
As we walk through each gifted day
With Christ to guide each mile.

© 2009 Gina Locke

Saved!

2009-08-03T00:49:00.001-08:00

Sweet becomes the promise
When we heed His voice
So beautiful the blessing
That leads us to rejoice

By listening to wisdom
As through the ages heard
We learn about our Savior
And what His love endured

How when is sin we faltered
Christ the Living Word
Brought to us God's salvation
The cross our debt incurred

No older is the story
How by God's own choice
Sweet becomes the promise
When we heed His voice.

© 2009 Gina Locke

Belated

2009-07-31T07:12:00.002-08:00

When did I start to forget
The person I never quite knew
Mysteriously blond and rail thin
When the heroin addiction kicked in

Otherwise plump and lethargic
The caring young mother of two
Trying to make it but then
The addiction grabbed her again

Another marriage as rare sunrise
Second chances afforded like rain
Clean, sober a while till when
The cancer was found-she grew thin

No more chances or reason for hope
Just a life interrupted fast fading
A cruel prank, April 1st came, that's when
Death's next victim-a blond and rail thin

Years passed, now I fight to remember
The mother I never quite knew
Wondering what might have been
Had the heroin never kicked in.

© 2009 Gina Locke

If (poetry)

2009-04-14T21:32:00.003-08:00

If you were a story
I'd be wrapped in your words
Roll you off my tongue
In an echoing voice
Read every part of you in the night
As you lay beside me
Falling asleep with you in my mind
Hang on your every word.

If I was a painter
I'd paint you in my dreams
On swirls of amber and blue
Brush your arms around me
In a forever embrace
Beneath a sky of fire
While we stand in the shadow
Of a weeping willow.

If I was an ocean I'd probably drown you
And that wouldn't be good.

HA!

© 2009 Gina Locke

(see...passion and humor CAN exist side by side!)

Hand in Hand

2009-02-25T20:53:00.005-09:00

With my Savior
For now and eternity
The past, the now, the after
All melt into one with Thee

Hold me oh Holy Spirit
You of the trinity
Whose gentle embrace surrounds
To uphold and comfort me

My Father, who I adore
In glory and wondrous fear
For who and what you are
I simply ask you to be near

And take me to the river
Where your mercies ebb and flow
Forever your child, you honor me
With more than even I know.

© 2009 Gina Locke

Still

2009-01-10T20:30:00.002-09:00

Still

Though Spring has yielded to Summer Sun
And Summer to Autumn's harvests of grain
Though Winter has put on her frosted coat
Still you, my Savior, reign

As snow sparkles on this frozen desert
And Sun strives to warm this land in vain
While searching I wander yet do know
Still you, my Savior, reign

The iron grasp of Cold now hugging fierce
Threads through dense forest and icy plain
Breath is frozen and chill runs too deep
Still you, my Savior, reign

Look to the sky with just one final breath
Iced hands in silver have my body slain
Her claim untrue, I rise to you because
Still you, my Savior, reign.

© 2009 Gina Locke

All Through the Night

2008-12-28T21:07:00.003-09:00

When in quiet times I pray
You whisper back in shades of white
And I know that you are near me
All through the night.

When in troubled times I call
You answer back in blue so bright
That all I feel is your hand on me
All through the night

When my soul is on the altar
Then you come in crimson's might
And I feel your pierced side near me
All through the night

When this world in her cursed glory
Fades to black in heaven's last fight
Then I'll know no darkness near me
All through the night.

© 2008 Gina Locke

Christmas in North Pole, AK

2008-12-28T20:56:00.003-09:00

Christmas is here! Even though it happens every year at exactly the same time, these words still send thrills of
happiness through me. This year is more exciting than ever as I'm living smack dab next door to the man in the big red suit. Is that a look of doubt on your face? It's true! I moved next door to Santa Claus and I've got the pictures to prove it, along with friends who will confirm that yes, this mama was crazy enough to pack up her family and belongings in order to head out to North Pole, Alaska, just one day before winter hit with a passion. Technically it was just flurries, but I came from Grants Pass, Oregon, where light flurries are cause for residents to rush out into the streets screaming with arms flailing while vehicles head straight for ditches and schools shut down faster than Santa's reindeer can fly...

*******

The remainder of this story I wrote, along with the photographs taken, were on CNN after I submitted the whole deal on I-Report. You may read the story and view the photographs at this link: http://www.ireport.com/docs/DOC-167902

Chasing Glory

2008-12-06T20:48:00.002-09:00

This is what I offer:
My heart, my soul, my desire
Body, mind, and spirit.
There's just one catch.
It's framed in humanity
Frail, weak, responsive
To lusts of the flesh
Thoughts of the illogical
That which you hate.
You created me human
With divine expectations
I will never fulfill
Cannot fulfill
While breath is in me
Yet this is your command.
To believe is to obey
So I rise to your challenge
Only to fall to the earth
Once again part of the dust
As was before life was formed
Is it more natural to return
To the terrestrial or to yours?
The struggle drags on
You the spotless lamb
I the black sheep, your shadow
Finding merit only through you
Who veils himself invisible
Calling yourself light
While I follow in the dark
My grasping thoughts pursuing
The unattainable glory of you.

© 2008 Gina Locke

Alcohol

2008-11-25T20:51:00.002-09:00

In my holiness I tried to save him from himself
Told him of his position in Christ
Guilted him day and night for days
Hoping to help him change his ways

I felt triumphant on being woken up
Smiled and took the half-empty bottle
He handed to me while saying "you win"
I looked to see which alcohol was his sin

It never occurred to me that it was mine
Fifteen years gone since I'd touched it
Drained of any notion of holiness in myself
I went and put it on my bedroom shelf

I'd wondered how I didn't know sooner
Had only thought he smelled wonderful
Opened the bottle, inhaling sweet sickness
Myself and my pride and my weakness

Trembling I took it into the kitchen
Why not just one for memory's sake
No, I tossed the remains into the sink
Watched the water wash away the stink

And hated myself and hated him
For making me face honesty
I'd forgotten that on my own I'm weak
Without leaning on who I told him to seek

G-d, keep me a witness
I understand why this happened
In your own way you draw me near
Sometimes by forcing my own fear

Thank you for showing me I'm no better
Not even different save for your grace
I take no ownership of it but Father
Show me how to share it with another

Effectively and with no pride
Knowing who I made myself inside
Be my strength, you who I once denied
Remain my Savior and only guide.

© 2008 Gina Locke

Colonoscopy: Read all about it!

2008-08-13T15:20:00.002-08:00

Yes, I had one. Before I did so, I went online and looked up stories written by others who have had them done. They mostly said "it was no big deal, and the only really uncomfortable part was the cramping from the laxatives."

While they all discussed the procedure and assured others that it was no big deal, I am here to tell you the truth. My first reaction was this:

OH MY EVERLOVING SOUL!

Here's how it started.

The doctor said I needed a colonoscopy. I skillfully avoided the topic until the doctor looked at his chart records one day and said "did we ever do this?"

We? Was I supposed to help?

It was scheduled for the following week.

The nurse kindly gave me my bag of goodies. It included medication and instructions: do not eat any solid foods after midnight Sunday. After that, you may have clear liquids until four hours before the procedure on Tuesday morning. At noon on Monday, take the four tablets, which are stool softeners. At 2pm, mix the entire bottle of Miralax with two quarts of a clear liquid of your choice and drink at least 8 ounces every 20 minutes.

So where was I at noon on Monday? I was at the church. It was my turn to clean it. That was my excuse, but the honest reason? The toilets flood at the house where I'm staying, and I didn't want to deal with it. I figured I would take the medicine at the church, continue cleaning, and just use the potty there until it was all over.

The little pills had no obvious effect before 2pm, at which time I began drinking the Miralax solution. The solution didn't have any effect that I was aware of. I blissfully went on with vacuuming the carpets, then felt something odd. It wasn't cramping or pain, just a little something that said "Gina, why don't you go sit down on the commode?" Thankfully, I listened to the voice.

I had hardly taken up what was to be my throne for the next four hours when it happened. It was forceful. Thought I was going to be launched through the roof, but at least it was painless! I finally felt nauseous and couldn't drink anymore of the solution. I wanted to go home, but I didn't know if I would make it that far. I would get up occasionally, go lay down, then have to rush to the bathroom again.

Enough was enough. I decided to go home, breaking every speed limit on every road while sitting stiff as a board.

At around 8pm, I went to the kitchen in search of clear liquids. Chicken broth was allowed, but we had none. I decided to risk it, and dashed across the road to the small store. They had no chicken broth. My next choice was jello. They had no jello. My next choice was popsicles. They had popsicles, but they were red, orange, purple, and blue. The instructions said "no red, orange, purple, or blue colored liquids." I left the store VERY disappointed. As I walked out, I felt the need for a bathroom, so I dashed back home.

As I walked up the steps, my gut decided it just wouldn't wait anymore. I went to the bathroom and stood there in shock. Did that just happen?! YES! OH MY EVERLOVIN SOUL! God, if you're up there, please tell me you don't really see everything we do, because this is just wrong!

And so it went on. My body gave me no hint of having to go, it just went. I stuck a diaper on and went on with my life, which consisted of periodically leaving my bed to go back to the bathroom.

I took myself and my diaper to the hospital at 9:15 sharp. I checked in and was told to go to the waiting room. I walked in and every head turned. They knew. They knew that I was there to be violated, and they were disgusted. I left and went behind a corner. That's where the nurse found me when she came to take me away. I had planned that they would call my name and I'd step out, but it turned out to be someone I went to school with, so she just walked out and started looking around for me. I was so embarrassed that I started laughing, then I ran into her when we walked around the corner. That made me laugh more, and you do NOT want to laugh with a gutful of Miralax!

I was ushered into a curtained room and told to change into the gown. They emphasized that the opening of the gown should go in the back. Excuse me, I know where my own butt is and think I could have figured that one out! I put on the stupid gown and flounced down onto the bed when all of a sudden..... RRRRRRRRIIIIIIIIIIIIIPPPPPPPP!!!!!!

I jumped about ten feet. There were three other patients, all male. The noise came from none other than the guy across from me, who just HAPPENED to be someone I knew and was more than happy to hear blowing out more hot air than a locomotive. I quickly sobered up when the other two men were wheeled in, laying on their left sides, half out of it, tooting like there was no tomorrow. I knew I'd be next. However, there was consolation in knowing I was the last patient, and that I'd be alone when I returned.

I was given an IV. I was given a magazine with pictures of delicious food. The nurse was obviously bored, because she came in and we chatted for almost the entire last 15 minutes of waiting.

Then they came for me. The anesthesiologist recognized me immediately from 4 months ago, when I had my appendix out. Now you have to understand...I'm a smart alec. I'm a joker. There was NO WAY I wasn't going to harass the doctor, nurse, and everyone within sight. They got me back, and I refuse to tell you how, but THEY ARE GOOD!

It was time to being the procedure. I was relaxed and confident, knowing I'd be knocked out. However, I didn't count on having to get "positioned" first. I had to properly present my rear before they would knock me out. I protested. I groaned. I moaned. They told me to turn over and smile for the camera.

As I muttered and spluttered and smiled for the camera, my head started to tingle. They had put the anesthesia in my IV without even telling me! I was back in the sixties, which was really trippy man, since I'd never been there in the first place unless you count the half of me that used to be an egg.

I woke up with my doctor saying something. If I remember right, it was "Ms. Lochtcz, evyething doxedri odtrhthg sh zzzzzzzzzzzzzz elgitn." I gave him a serious nod, told him thank you very much, and passed out.
When I woke back up, the nurse was standing over me. I looked at her and passed back out again.
I finally woke up long enough to ask her why I was taking so long to wake up. She told me they had ended up taking a few biopsies, and thus had given me a lot more anesthesia than had been planned. I told her thank you very much, and passed out once again.
I woke up screaming NO MORE APPLE JUICE!
Then I passed out again.
When I woke up, the nurse was sitting next to me. I felt nauseous, so they put something in my IV. I went back to sleep.
When I woke up, I felt better. I drank some ice water and got dressed. I tried to leave, but they told me I wasn't allowed to leave until someone came to pick me up.
That ruined my plan. I had figured on walking around, getting some lunch, waiting for a few hours, and then taking myself home. I'd had that type of anesthesia before, and knew I'd be ok. However, rules are rules, so I followed her instructions and called someone and told them I couldn't go home without someone to take me.
Then I walked around, got some lunch, waited for a few hours, and uh...had my friend drive me home.
Then I went to bed. It was SO nice! I woke up starving, and couldn't find anything I wanted. I went to the store and got two grocery bags full of food. I ate a little bit of everything, but didn't really want anything. I had a few bites of a caramel apple. I had a few almonds. Three bites of a stuffed pepper. A couple chips. A piece of a Twix candy bar. A few grapes. Then I felt nauseous again and had to take Phenergan. The doctor was kind enough to have ordered it in suppository form.
Then I went through the papers given to me when I was released from the hospital.
There among them was a set of pictures. The first three were perfectly normal. They were photos of my insides. Nice! I always wondered what it was like in there. Apparently it's pinkish red and a lot smoother than I had figured on. I expected weird protrusions and unidentifiable little life forms, maybe a few Twix bars that never digested properly, perhaps a steak or a hamburger. I've heard that everyone has about five pounds of undigested raw meat in their gut. I didn't see it. Then again, I think the Miralax took care of anything in my body apart from vital organs, and I'm not so sure one or two of them didn't sneak out during the mayhem.

Then I got to the fourth picture. OH MY EVERLOVIN SOUL!

I shall exact my revenge one day when I'm rich and famous and can afford to do it properly.

Today is Wednesday. How do I feel? Not so hot. I'm a tiny bit nauseous, I have a bit of a bellyache, and I'm still a bit gassy and having some cramps, which they told me would happen anyhow because of the biopsies.

So I'm not going to be one of those people who post on the internet and say "What are you afraid of? I had it done and it was a breeze!"

Go ahead and have it if you need it, but it's not quite the breeze they say it is. Hello, I had to wear a DIAPER! You will have to lay there and bare your butt for everyone in the procedure room. Then you will go back into your room singing loudly from the wrong end, and everyone within five miles will hear you. Until you sing, your belly will hurt.
You may feel a bit nauseous. The next day, you may not be up to par.

No, it isn't open heart surgery, but it also isn't going to be as simple as getting your teeth cleaned, as so many make it sound in hopes of getting you to make that appointment.

My advice? If you need it, go get it. It isn't the end of the world. It's not horrible, but it is a bit uncomfortable and it is humiliating if you're not the type of person who enjoys angling your nekkid rear end towards a doctors face or passing gas in a not-so-private room. I was very grateful to be the last patient and only have the nurse for an audience to this undignified end of the procedure. You may not be so lucky. However, if it's a matter of suspected cancer or other conditions, definitely do not put off having it done. I worked as a nurses aid and cared for a man who was dying of colon cancer. His last days are something I still sometimes see, hear, and weep over. If going back and having this procedure done ten more times, in front of a thousand people, would spare one of my friends from meeting the same fate as that man, I'd do it in a heartbeat, but I can't. You have to do it yourself. I can tell you from having seen both sides of it now: it's worth a couple days of discomfort.

© 2008 Gina Locke

A Bad Day, with all the Works

2008-08-07T17:47:00.000-08:00

The course of the last 24 hours has had more twists and turns than my small and large intestines combined! Speaking of which, part of those 24 hours included the set-up of an appointment so I can be personally violated by my own permission via what is called a colonoscopy. The cruel initiators of this even had the gall to request a signature from me which releases them from any and all harmful effects I might suffer from being knocked out and then having a camera, which will be attached to a roll of tubing, (which has been used on countless numbers of other people, some of which may even be my enemies) shoved into an unmentionable part of my anatomy.

I would have called someone to complain, but my cell phone was shut off by an anal provider. I think they might be related to the colonoscopy folk. When I called them two days ago to see how much money I should send in, the full amount was sixty dollars and due by the next day. I didn't worry, as I never pay it on time. I pay it one week later. That's how I roll. I live on the edge like that! This time, they shut it off. I called them. They said I owed them $333 and to add insult to injury, thirty-six cents. When I mentioned that I paid them $140 less than thirty days ago, bringing the account up to date, they explained it to me clearly.

"Here's what happened Mrs. Grant. [I am neither a Mrs. nor a Grant] Your bill is $60 a month. Last month, you were a week late. When you came in on July 4th, you paid $140. This more than covered your bill in full. However, your bill was late at that time, and you owed $60 more. I realize it wasn't on your bill. Your next bill came on July 5th, and you wouldn't have known that. The store wouldn't know that because our system no longer allows our stores to see your bills or know how much you owe when you go in to pay them. Then your next billing date was August 5th. It isn't due until August 30th. By the way, we didn't shut off your phone because of any past due balance, we shut it off because you're over your spending limit. We'll turn it back on. We know we made a mistake and overcharged it when our systems were down, but we're giving you a week to pay this and then you have to or you'll incur a $25 late fee and charges to reconnect."

By the time he was finished, my eyes had glazed over and I started thinking I'd rather be having a colonoscopy than trying to understand the words coming out of his mouth. I didn't know what to do, so I just started crying and left. While I sat in my car crying, an elderly gentleman got out of his car. He struck my car door with his car door and kept walking. I was too upset to get out and say anything and I was determined to finish my cry. Just as I got over it and began wiping my face and letting out the last final puffs of extra air before I started driving, the elderly gentleman returned to his car and did it again! This time, he did it harder, then looked at me doubtfully, looked as if he had decided I wasn't going to say anything, and got in his car. I stepped out and started walking over to the passenger's side to see what it looked like. He backed out and left - right as I saw the scraped paint and dent.

I was so disturbed by all of these events that I got confused and lost on the way back home, and I use the word "home" loosely, as I technically have no home at this point in my life. However, I have a good job prospect that may allow this to change. This morning I left my resume with the lady who holds my dream job in her hand. She seemed quite pleased and told me she would be calling sometime between three and four p.m.. I looked at the clock. It was four in the evening. They'd shut off my phone at three. I just kept driving, trying to recap the day.

1. We're mounting a camera on a ten foot pole and shoving it up your rear
2. We're cutting off your current source of work by cutting off your phone line
3. Your car is now scratched and dented and the culprit wasn't even good-looking
4. You're lost

Well! I decided to just keep driving. I went the opposite way of what seemed right, because I've learned things about myself. Things like "whatever you think is right, you're wrong." So I went the wrong way and found myself in the right place. I stopped at the store for a gallon of milk. I reached for my wallet, and a shock of horror gripped my stomach. I clearly remembered the moment when I set the wallet on top of my car to look at the passenger side door.

Unfortunately, I still have a few hours until bedtime. That's why I'm sitting here telling you about my day. I'm afraid to get up.

Snowflakes at Christmas

2008-07-31T16:01:00.000-08:00

Snowflakes at Christmas

The snowflakes I hold are made of lace
Crafted by Mother's own hands
We place them on our Christmas tree
In my memory she still stands

With pinpricks on her fingers
A small smile on her face
This tiny lady dressed in cotton
Overwhelmed our tiny place

With homemade jams and pumpkin bread
So much love from such a small frame
Now that she's gone I hope to live
In a way that honors her name

Though now this holiday has come
With all its hope and cheer
I hold this snowflake and I find
I miss my mother being here

But now I know she's home and free
From the pain of her last years
That made her wince while sewing
These snowflakes I find so dear

Her lifetime taught me how to love
To cook and clean and sew
So to my children I pass on
Her love and by God's Word I know

That when the day comes that He calls
Me home I'll find my mother
Waiting patiently and once again
We'll be home with each other

Her loving hands I'll hold in mine
No arthritis, from pain she'll be free
And held in our Fathers hand as tenderly
As I hold the snowflakes once made for me.

© 2008 Gina Locke

This poem was inspired by a photo from a friend. The first thing noticeable in the Christmas photo were the snowflakes on the holiday tree. She mentioned her mother had made them.

Pharmaceutical Economics

2008-07-30T15:26:00.000-08:00

The economy of my life is snowballing
Loaning time from cleverly named pills
Keeping heartbeats in time and nerves intact
Swallow this at two, at three insert this WHERE?
Are you nuts?
And who do I call if I crash?

This one if I wake up
This one for when I can't sleep
But don't forget to wake up for that one
My life runs on medication time
Tricking mother nature
Who looks oddly like a man

I take them because I don't want to
Because I have obligations
If I die, who will pay my past due bills?
But more importantly I have children
They remind me to take my pills
Though they don't know why
Or what might happen if I don't

My heart wears me out
Nerve pain welcomes the grave
Is this survival mode or living?
The hour of the wolf
I wake with tears already flowing
Choking in horror at the nightmare
Before realizing I wasn't asleep

So it's time for the pills
The ones that end the nightmare
For a few brief hours of dreams
Where I run under the mountains
And come out floating over a valley
The children ask if I died nobly
And I say no, I went out whimpering

Then we laugh because they were wrong
We all die our own ways
And God loves us nonetheless
Even more so for our weakness
So I glory in my infirmities
Not because it's in the Bible
But because it's how I am
Though maybe it isn't what Paul meant.

But did they have pills when he said that?
I don't think they did.
They died with dignity
Hearts still beating strong
The strength to speak until the bitter end
And sound so very heroic
Now technology has weakened the economy

Strength is no longer an option.

© 2008 Gina L.

The Problem with Caring

2008-07-05T19:49:00.001-08:00

I used to think things would be better if I didn't care about them.

I tried not to, but the Christian lifestyle doesn't allow for that type of thinking.

These last few weeks have been odd, to say the least.

A good online friend passed away unexpectedly.

Another person is dying of cancer. I didn't know her well, but after a few years, it still hits you hard and the fact that it's in her spine and she doesn't have long hits too close to home at this point in my life.

The worst though has been the issue with my children. It appears I have been the victim of a four year scam, and today, the people they called Gramma and Grampa for these last years even took away the Christmas present they gave them the other year, leaving them in so much pain and so many tears that I wanted to physically harm those people who call themselves Christian, but have pulled so much garbage on over the last few weeks, I'm surprised they haven't been hauled away.

This is the problem with caring. It hurts. Yet, there is a peace and comfort in being in the will of God. There is security in that. I could quit caring, but to do that, I'd have to stop living, and I'm not ready for that just yet! When the Lord does take me home, it isn't going to be as a stranger, it's going to be as a child who visited with him every moment possible.

I like this problem!

Storm

2008-06-28T22:12:00.001-08:00

A fierce storm played outside my window in the key of E
With all the clash and pomp of a Tchaikovsky symphony
Still safely nestled on my couch I through the window saw
The oak tree shiver as he bowed his branches down in awe
While pebbled hail stones rained on earth an eerie noise was heard
As nature's wind called wildly yet uttered not a word
Then suddenly the ending came to this great overture
Silence was the only sound my weary ears could capture
I stayed wrapped in my blanket with its softened satin edge
While waiting for the rainbow to remind me of God's pledge
That never will he cover up creation with a storm
He'll hold us fast until the day we take our final form
Forever living with the One who knows our every care
Who bottles every raindrop of our grief and hears each prayer
Until that time He keeps me safe while in the key of E
The fierce storm plays around me in a crashing symphony.

© 2008 Gina Locke

The Dresser

2008-06-23T17:48:00.001-08:00

I forgot my keys and had to go back in the house for them
Once retrieved I went to the car and remembered I hadn't taken my pills
Life's like that
One moment leads to another meaningless moment and between them
I write poetry
Not the type of poetry carefully measured
The kind you need a dictionary for
Where the words weigh heavy on even heavier paper
Speaking of woe
I prefer what is before me
The bug clinging to a leaf of my rose bush
The way the washing machine rattles if I put too much in it
Or my dresser
The dresser which holds nothing I like
Because I keep gaining or losing weight
And the clothes encase me like a sausage skin
Or hang about my shoulders like loiterers
But I keep them
One day I'll lose weight, or gain more.
But the dresser mocks me, holding my past
Taunting me with hope for the future
The dress I wore on Easter, which fit perfect then
And gets stuck up above my fat arms
The pants that made my rear look great
Even if I say so myself, and only I
It mocks me
And I fight back by saving it all
Thin hope for what might fit again soon
And sad reality for what most likely will
So I kick it
And the dresser still sits there
As if I'd done nothing at all
As if it wasn't the root of my anger
Maybe it isn't.

© 2008 Gina Locke

To Billy Collins, Because I like Your Style and Your Way of Titling Poems in Non-Traditional Fashion

2008-06-22T22:13:00.002-08:00

What if they made a statue of me
A five second statue, like the flash of your life story
Just before you drown in your suicidal vision
It would flash before their eyes
The time I tried to ride a bike and fell
The moment I thought I found true love
When the night sky covered the lense of my dreams
And I saw Christ on the cross staring at me

Let's not forget the time I stole the can opener
Because I had cans of food and was hungry but broke
Then later, the blind stupor and sirens
A lame attempt to be where I'm going now
Failed, as with most things because it's obvious
I'm blessed with the opposite of the King Midas touch

And the voice from the heavens declaring me saved
Followed by the normal things in life
The husband, the children, the Toyota minivan
Slapped around here and there like any good wife
A few years of college and minimum wage
Then back to the beginning, but this time with responsibilities
That never end and never forgive but are worth every moment
This statue might not need five seconds
It's no different than yours if you look at it from the right angle.

© 2008 Gina Locke

Blessed are They

2008-06-09T17:45:00.000-08:00

When they went in the footsteps, it was meant to be in the example. The vision was there, as was the promise, but the little things got in the way. It was just so difficult when people bled and complained that they couldn't stand the sight, and requested dark towels rather than the white ones. Then the lady used a dark bed cover - cut it up with scissors and gave it to the dying man. Right after we'd spent so much n the Christmas decorations. A nursing home could go broke with such women working. There was no reason the man couldn't do with our normal white towels. If the blood bothered him, he shouldn't have looked. It's that simple.
Then there were the clothes. 100% cotton is what they were bringing in for families. How to hold back the hatred? True - it was Christmas and a time to celebrate the love of God and to feel good will to our fellow humans, but they know cotton shrinks! Polyester blends are best, and they don't wrinkle as much.
Blessed are they that bleed on white towels without whining. Blessed are they that purchase polyester. Blessed be the name of the Lord.
We will walk in His footsteps - except for the times when we are slightly annoyed by doing so.

© 2008 by Gina Locke

*Author's Note*
This is a random gathering of thoughts from a true story. I worked in the laundry room of a nursing home, and a dying man requested dark towels. He was bleeding out, and well aware. We had none, so I took a dark blue cotton bed cover and cut it up for him so he could be a bit more comfortable during his last hours.
I was severely reprimanded for doing so, and the boss cited costs as the problem. I was in awe that someone could be that callous. It was during the Christmas season, and they'd just spent quite a lot of money making the place look nice and buying personal gifts for each resident. Yet they would deny a dying man a blanket because of costs.
Amazing.

The Backwards Road

2008-06-09T16:40:00.002-08:00

When you find yourself on an unknown road
Headed to where you once were
Through blackberry brambles
And the harsh stings of bees
Through echoing memories of her

Looking forward to find your way back
To her cool, energetic embrace
To the hair warmed with sun
And the words of her song
Wrapped in the depths of her emotionless face

Will she still have the strength you still lack
To fight back your old demons once more
Or has chance stole the moment
You found in those days
And from what you have run from before

No rhyme to the season
No song for the harm
That steals from the shadows again
To rob of her soul what was stolen in youth
Only leaving that cold, bitter charm.

© 2008 by Gina Locke

Garden Song

2008-05-30T17:54:00.001-08:00

When the frosty nights are gone,
and warm spring rains begin
I'll take a shovel and my hoe
and plant these rows again
With sugar peas and pepper plants
with beans and sweet tomatoes
Three mounds for melons, two for squash
and one patch for potatoes
Then watch the rain fall from the clouds
enticing sleeping seeds
To wake and send up toward the sky
their tender, sun-warmed leaves
And when the harvest time has come
I'll fill my pantry shelf
And give to those whose shelves are bare
part of what earth gave of herself.

© 2008 by Gina Locke

Morning Storm

2008-04-30T23:34:00.001-08:00

Morning is waking, and in front of my eyes
Everything bows to an April storm
Far beyond where my life's path lies
Is somewhere that I need to be

The driving wind points the distant way
Scattering leaves before my feet
Telling me here is where I cannot stay
There is somewhere that I'm meant to be

The perfume of new earth is rising
Giving hints of what lies beneath
And I wonder if tomorrow's devising
Plans for where I should be

Copyright 2008, Gina L.

Oh Sing All Ye Faithful!

2007-12-13T21:14:00.000-09:00

They were nervous and excited, these two lovely daughters of mine. Tonight would be their Christmas choir performance, and we danced and sang around the house to help release the excess tension.

I'm not sure if I drove the car to the school or if the children bounced it along. Either way, we got there and they wriggled into their beautiful, newly tailored, diamond studded dresses. It took my breath away. The oldest wore high heels for the first time, and as we stood at the same height for the first time, the sparkles of the dress reflected in her eyes. The look on her face was quizzical, the result of not being able to understand the look on mine. I almost wept, while at the same time stifling a giggle. She couldn't know how she looked standing there. I wanted to grab her and keep her from walking out there on those wobbly heels...enjoyed and hated the looks she got when we did. She's too young for boys to look at her appreciatively! On the other hand, I was younger than her when I had my first date.

The second child was easier to deal with. She looked wonderful, but at least she remained herself, wearing sensible non-slip shoes and letting her bangs half-hide her face. One day she'll realize she's a beautiful young lady, but until then, I'm happy enough to allow her these pre-teen insecurities. In barely more than a year she'll join her sister in teenagedom, and then I'll have more to deal with than I care to think about at this point in time.

The singing was magnificent. Something untouchably pure happens when a child joyfully sings to our Lord and Creator. Suddenly, the horrors of this world... war, disease, and pain are triumphed over - forced to take a nondescript back seat as young voices march forward and magnify the love of Christ for all to hear.

Please don't let this holiday season go by without having taken the time to hear children sing.

They Said (Fiction)

2007-12-06T19:38:00.000-09:00

They said she didn't love him, but they lie without understanding.

She walked away from them.

What is love?

Had she not prayed for him daily? Wasn't that love?

Had she not stayed with him while he was sick, despite how painful it was to see him get a small taste of what his eternity after this life would be? Wasn't that love?

Had she not devoted herself to caring for his children? Wasn't that love?

Had she not hand washed clothing when he chose to spend money on alcohol and gambling instead of the family? Wasn't that love?

Hadn't she refused to speak ill of him to the children, never letting them know that he had caused her to bleed, bruise, and break? Wasn't that love?

Hadn't she refused to date after the state divorce, keeping herself pure on the small chance that he might change? Hadn't she for the biblical reason for divorce to become apparent before she considered it real? Wasn't that love?

What is love? Candles at midnight for when he gets home from some secret place? Starry eyes when he drunkenly demands a different meal? Twinges of desire in the pit of one's stomach when he suggests selling a child for money?

No, she hadn't loved him in the typical fashion.

She had loved him according to biblical mandates.

They said she never loved him.

As far as normal definitions went, she agreed.

Was it worth it?

Not in this lifetime. This type of loves demands death as its final judge of truth, the moment when one stands before God for an honest assessment.

She stood in front of the mirror.

Older.

Wiser.

Not ready to love again.

Free.

Angry.

She pulled out a bottle of scotch and set it next to her bible.

Choose.

Which is stronger?

She took a little of both, and they were equally bitter. The scotch burned her tongue, while the bible spoke of destruction.

She grabbed her keys and God didn't stop her.

They said the semi did, but they lie without understanding.

© 2007 Gina L.

24

2007-11-27T10:28:00.000-09:00

awake
shower
heart meds
drive
report
ramen
email
remember
type
store
pick up kids
mail
cook
cry
dishes
pain
sign letters
write
pray
laundry
water
say goodnight
vomit
sleep

Who We Are

2007-11-20T07:56:00.000-09:00

Watch them, they'll escape
Feed them, they're hungry
Wash them, they're dirty
Forget them, they're old.

Care for them, they have no family
Close the front doors, the morgue is here
Open the back door and let her out, she's dead
Close the room doors, the others will know.

Smile, they want you to be happy
These are their last days, let's make them pleasant
We're understaffed today, just keep them quiet
We're overstaffed, let's keep them happy.

Plain and simple, this is America
Too busy for the elderly, too understaffed
Or are we overstaffed today?
Who left the back door open? We're escaping!

Unfinished

2007-11-10T22:01:00.000-09:00

Take this life and let it be
An unfinished masterpiece for Thee
I stand alone, defiled and worn
With no true place to call my home

Take this heart and let it be
Unfinished in its rhythmic symphony
Still young, still full of life and yet
Overflowing with the pain of yesterday

Take these hands and let them be
Unfinished with the tasks you gave to me
They're tired Lord, and long to hold
Your own and thus perfected be

Take this soul and let it be
The one part that binds You to me
Bought by your self with bitter price
Though pitiful and unworthy

Take myself and let me be
Unfinished in my misery
This gift of life comes at great price
The cost more than my mind can pay

I hope this unfinished piece left you unsatisfied. It was meant to. No, I do not plan on finishing it.

River's Edge

2007-11-06T19:18:00.000-09:00

It was astoundingly ordinary. The noise of gentle waves washing over pebbles worn smooth by time, an occasional fish jumping, the brisk wind of autumn, and many other oft used phrases hovered in the air.

One might argue that a writer must have such an extraordinary grasp of language that such an occasion will be described in fresh, vivid new language so that the reader may feel and taste the experience of standing on a river's edge in such a new way that they will immediately be overcome with the desire to jump into their vehicle, head to the park, stand on the river's edge and try to feel what you have expressed, despite that out the corner of their eye, they can still see their car, and there is a park attendant placing a ticket on the window because there is now a three dollar charge to park in the parking lot and enjoy such splendor.

I beg to differ. Rather than seeking out yet another rarely used words to tickle the fancies of readers bored with the zillion and twenty-seven words available to them, I'd love to see people enjoy the one's we have.

What is old and stale about the wind? Are people so caught up in the stiffness and propriety of using proper grammar that it is impossible to thoroughly enjoy a story about the river's edge without having learned a new word? Do four syllable descriptions lead the mind to recall personal experiences more vividly than the more commonly used two syllable descriptives?

Horsefeathers! Tommyrot! Balderdash! Many other words from the thesaurus that describe the adjective form of "garbage"!

Put on a smile and dream of winds whispering over waves. Forget grammar and think of how a pebble worn smooth feels between your fingers. Remember how the small circles made by the jump of a fish widen out over the water until they finally fade away, but you still stare at them a moment longer. Taste the wind. Touch the sky. Feel the invisible fingers of the chilly waters reaching towards you. Listen to the oft used phrases hovering in the air, and know that we are gifted to have this ordinary experience available to use every day we so choose to realize it is there.

© 2007, Gina L.

Symphonic Distress

2007-11-05T14:55:00.000-09:00

It's 3:57 pm, Monday, November 5th, and the year is 2007.

I'm not sure what time I left work last night.

I don't remember half of what happened during work.

I do remember my blood sugar was low, I was shaking, and I was wondering how I would get my car back to the house if I died. I remember talking to the doctor on the phone, and the nurses poking my finger to check my blood sugar. I remember eating peanut butter and drinking orange juice and feeling better for a while, but everything got foggy again and when I woke up this morning, there was a half-eaten bowl of noodles beside me.

It forced me to admit to myself how sick I really feel lately, and that this tiredness isn't something I can overcome simply by ignoring it. Instead of going to biology class, I went to the disabilities office on campus and asked them for advice. I then went to the counseling department, and through tears I decided to withdraw from everything except physics and my time at the art gallery on Wednesdays.

It hurt.

I'm still in shock...shocked that I did it, shocked that instead of relief, it only compounded the feeling of failure. I went to my biology class to collect my latest graded work, and the perfect score on my quiz and the 8 out of 10 on my labs only made it worse. I'm glad to pull out with decent scores, but in a way I'd rather have failed out. It would make this all seem much more logical.

I'm still fighting back tears. I really enjoyed the biology class. It was challenging and very rewarding when I did well. I love to learn new things!

I have a doctor's appointment on Wednesday to discuss the problems with my blood sugar being so low, and my body's inability to keep it up.

My head hurts.

My heart aches.

Yet, life is good.

How crazy is that?

These are the times when my faith is reinforced, because the Holy Spirit draws nearer and comforts me. It doesn't ease the sadness, but it increases my joy.

For that - I am thankful.

At This Moment

2007-11-01T22:53:00.000-08:00

It is 11:33 on a Thursday night.

Nothing is as it seems, and therein is the reality.

I look at my homework with disgust.

In my thirties, going back to school, thinking I had the brains to pull it off.

Why do I continue to think so highly of myself?

Sitting here breaking my dietary rules, drinking a pepsi. I can feel it slide past the tumor at the base of my throat, and in a moment of defiance I don't bother to fight the choking. Let this be my psychotic moment of the night. Not even that is granted me. The pepsi simply gets stuck on the tumor, forcing an automatic swallow, and the moment ends with a frustrating lack of drama.

What will the next few years bring?

Will I be able to break into the writing world?

Am I willing to try my best to do so? I think I am, but it does sound very daunting. To sell your writing is to sell your mind. What is my mind worth? If it isn't worth a two year college degree, why will it be worth a living?

Will I be the only person on the President's list who cannot get a degree? The answer is yes and that is a clear yes, but it still confuses me. Why can I do perfect work in practically every subject, and not be able to do simple math? More frustrating is that people don't understand this. I could try to explain it...explain how my brain completely goes blank, how my palms sweat, my heartbeat rises, and the numbers blur into meaningless splashes of ink and float on the paper, taunting me with the fact that crack addicts are sitting next to me and breezing through this with no problem. How I hear my elementary teacher accusing me of not trying, how I feel the burn of a belt across the back of my legs as punishment for my bad attitude. How I find it appalling that as an adult, I am still being told it is a lack of effort or the result of a bad attitude, how it brings back the memory of being called stupid and being punished for something I could not control.

I still can't control it. My mind doesn't work when it comes to straight-up math. I can do it in flashes, in insane moments where I suddenly come up with the answer to a complicated question, but it happens rarely and when it does, I cannot go back and show myself or others how I knew that answer. It's just plain weird.

So here sit I, drinking my pepsi and having a love/hate relationship with who I am at this point in time.

There is so much that is good. Nothing can take away the beauty around me. There are stars across the night sky and I can hear their screaming laughter as they dance and flash over trees that shiver quietly in the autumn cold. The jumping spiders have spun silvery strands across my back fence, and the light of the moon reflects on them in such a way that one can imagine tiny fairies using them as roads to the sky. All this and more, and here I sit inside my bedroom, sipping a pepsi and pushing aside a crumpled up Taco Bell wrapper that has been sitting on my desk and will continue sitting there until I put a new garbage bag in the trash can.

Reality and illusion both strike me as fascinatingly enchanting on this Thursday night, particulary now at 11:33 pm.

© 2007 by Gina L.

Falling Short

2007-11-01T22:24:00.001-08:00

Two roads diverged in a wood and I...I didn't take either one.

Poetically speaking, where would Robert Frost have ended had he chosen to turn around and go back home? Would it have been to a place where trees became unbent in the overgrowth?

I'm not much for metaphors lately. They leave me feeling as if the road I've made for myself might not have been forged because it runs along a dried up stream bed overgrown with thin, tangled branches that whip across your face as you try to push your way through.

Ah...sarcasm. Let those understand who will.

Review of Carolyn Porco Lecture

2007-10-26T18:35:00.000-08:00

This lecture was given as Southern Oregon University on 10-25-07.
Carolyn Porco is a scientist and heads up the Cassini Imaging Team.

This lecture title sounded as if it would be fun and informative. "The Cosmos and Life: The Greatest Story Ever Told" led me to believe that (although I already knew Carolyn is an atheist) a somewhat intelligent alternative explanation for the origins of life would be presented, with cutting-edge discoveries about science being presented from information found due to the Cassini Mission.
Unfortunately, it turned out to be a rather ludicrous and ill-formatted attempt to indoctrinate the listeners with her personal belief system, which was that science should replace God in people's lives, and an encouragement to begin teaching this to children.
As a person deeply interested in the cosmos and in science, I found this lecture to be a waste of time. I could have stayed home and received this information from a variety of online websites. As a scientist, I expected Carolyn to speak about science. As the leader of the Cassini imaging team, I expected her to present new findings and photographs from Cassini, rather than blown-up and enhanced images which are already widely available on the internet.
Thus, I really cannot give an opinion on the science she presented, since what was given was a personal opinion on the role of science in our own personal lives. If you'd like my opinion on that, continue reading.

Science and religion can be separated. In presenting science, it is entirely possible to give one's findings and theories without involving personal opinions on the origins of such. However, I find that science and religion tend to blend together quite well. Every religion and culture has a story about the origins of life, the geological history of our planet, and what has happened with the stars in the heavens at various points in time. These stories are fascinatingly similar. These consistencies lead me to believe there is some truth behind the myths and religions of our world.
I personally hold to the Christian viewpoint found in the Holy Bible. The science contained within is amazingly accurate. For example, when the book of Job was written, humankind had yet to discover the telescope, let alone one which could discern the workings of the heavens. Yet, the Lord is recorded as speaking the following in Job 38, ver 31: "Can you tie up the cords of the Pleiades, or loosen the belt of Orion?" (The Complete Jewish Bible) This type of knowledge was unknown to man until hundreds of years after this was written. How can that be explained from a humanistic point of view?
The Bible also states, numerous times, that in the beginning, God stretched out the heavens. Again, these scriptures were written long before man's concept of the Big Bang came into being. In the grand scheme of things, science has only recently caught up with this concept of a Big Bang, which interestingly enough somewhat mirrors the biblical account of what happened in the beginning. One might ask how this is so. Look at it this way: the Big Bang refers to a sudden expansion of what we call the cosmos. Based on new technology, science is now looking into the plasma theory, which indicates initial plasma filaments formed cosmological structures based on sound waves. Does the phrase "God spoke and it happened" sound familiar?
I personally find that the more we learn in science, the more in awe I stand of the Creator. It strikes me as vastly prideful for a scientist to make new discoveries, find the intense richness and order in the design of the cosmos, and rather than be astounded by the working of it all, they gloat in their own intelligence at being able to find them. That just amazes me.
While I understand that my viewpoint is in the minority, I do not expect, neither do I appreciate, any one person standing before me and stating that my views are worthless and should be cast aside in favor of theirs. I do not do it to other people, and from a scientific point of view, I find it unprofessional. It is certainly a topic worthy of debate, but the discussion should be respectful and most certainly, such a person of Carolyn Porco's intelligence and education shouldn't offer a scientific presentation that turns out to be an anti-God agenda-driven rant with a couple small scientific bones thrown in to justify it.

@2007 by Gina Locke

Morning Traffic

2007-10-24T15:40:00.000-08:00

The reporter's voice whipped into action.

"Traffic is now backing up along the freeway. There has been a nasty accident! A tractor trailer appears to have swerved, knocking the car in the lane beside it off of the road. This is a mess folks!" She told us a body had been thrown from the vehicle.

Moments later her voice informed us that traffic safety officers and ambulances had arrived on the scene.

Sitting in the long line of backed up traffic and holding my breath, I waited for news on the status of those in the wrecked car.

The lady reported on traffic in other areas of the city, then stated that her helicopter was returning to the scene of the accident.

I leaned forward and turned up the sound. The ambulance crew was moving a body onto a stretcher. I heard the reporter's voice state in disgust "Why is this taking so long?" I assumed she was frustrated with the amount of time it was taking to get the injured off of the road and to the hospital, but her comment was followed by "people need to get to work! They should have this mess off the road already!"

She then continued the traffic report.

The mess?

When another human, bleeding and mangled, becomes just another "mess" blocking your way to work, please take a moment to try to remember what it felt like to care.

Humanity's Representative

2007-08-24T18:02:00.002-08:00

Enveloped in visible form, what would most accurately represent humanity? Would it be a ballerina, strong and delicate, balancing to reach the invisible, yet content with just the dream?

Consider the panther, black as sin and beautiful to view, ever waiting for an opportune moment to tear the flesh of victims and lap the blood.

What of the deer longing after water - but ever wary of the unknown and quick to flee?

Where do we stand as humans? What is, or ever could be, an appropriate comparison for this ever changing, unstable sector of life whose only historically stable emotion has been the fearsome joy of triumphing over itself at frightful costs?

Humankind is all of the above and so much more. We are a marvelous balance of brute force mingled with fragility. A creation that pants after a creator, but balks at the revelation of a genesis. Painfully sinful, remarkably relentless in the pursuit of finding ourselves, and dangerously close to doing just that. Perhaps if we weren't so enchanted by the dream, we would.

Until such a time's arrival, this mass life form remains as it has and is, and in the midst of it all, humanity's representative waits patiently for its completion - the end of our symphony.

© Gina L.

Introduction

2007-01-30T17:05:00.000-09:00

You know what I look like so here's what I think
If a person gave birth to a cat in a human body I'd know
I'd feed it people food but buy it cat toys and if it meowed?
I'd pet it and say "good kitty" and glare at everyone
Because they'd look at us strange
And I want to shake my fist at the sun and watch it shrink in fear
Punch through brick walls and feel shards of my own bone and blood
Because I was breathing air when my child couldn't
I think you should lie to me and say she'll be ok
But that would make you uncomfortable.
Would it surprise anyone to know green shag carpet brings nightmares
That I lived to 21 despite myself but on occasion...just on occasion
I sit by the Rogue and wonder what it would be like to drown
That I find Christianity ripe with passion and want it fully
That I prefer a good book on physics or poetry in my bed more than a man
Would anyone stop in their tracks if they knew I'd rather have
A blade of grass than a gift of cash
But it doesn't matter, even that I eat food in the shower sometimes
Or hover in public toilets and that astounds me
Because for all it matters to me it won't fix my daughter
Or feed starving children in Africa.
Strange.
Strange that to be considered extraordinary we must be ordinary.
That what really matters in life is to learn a few things
Then bring home a paycheck and paint your house
Yet we all strive to be common, grasp for it eagerly
And work to tame what makes us unique.
Maybe in the next life I'll be a cat instead.

©2007 Gina Locke

The Cheater's Way (micro-fiction)

2006-08-14T21:24:00.001-08:00

It had become a way of life, and whether she was hiding from reality or facing it head on was something not even the bravest among us would want to be the judge of.

From the beginning of her life, she knew she was different from the people around her. Instead of speaking, she listened. What she heard pained her tender heart, and tears would come in the silence. Nobody understood why she chose to be alone so often. Her parents were dismayed, believing her to be cold-hearted and snobbish. They would force her to be in their companionship, chide her for her quietness, and whip her when she didn't respond in the way they expected. However, the child would only stare at them, and they would look on with incredulous gazes and accuse her of wearing a mask. Her stare was disconcerting, and then they began to believe that perhaps she had a demon.

Nothing could have been further from the truth. She simply had no fear of them, of the pain they inflicted, or of their anger. She didn't believe they understood the depth of their wrong, and on a rare occasion her explanation of her faith only incited their rage. They didn't understand how one could remain calm and happy at all times, so they tried all they could think of to make her angry, to bring out any type of negative emotion.

It is said that every child has a guardian angel. It is also said that one a person is old enough to make a choice between God and Satan, the guardian angel of childhood is relieved of his charge. This seemed to be the case with the girl, for when she realized that there must be a choice, the spirit of calmness and understanding departed from her. No longer did she find excuses and reasons for the behavior of her parents, and no longer did she have faith that God would one day answer her prayers for them or for herself.

It took twenty years for her to return to the faith of her childhood, but the pain and frustration of those younger years always haunted her. She still chose to stay silent and listen, and she found the hearts of most people were still the same. When she looked in the mirror and found she was no different, it pained her to no end. Sometimes it became unbearable, and when it did she would grasp a razor blade and slice at her skin, the drops of blood becoming a short-term release for the pain that haunted her inside. Each cut opened up a closed wound inside and allowed her to deal with it, but the wounds inside were many and she knew there had to be a better way, but she couldn't seem to find it.

She wonders where she'll be in twenty more years. A person can only carry so many scars, both inside and out. It is said that God has the power to comfort and heal, but that He also will choose who this is offered to, that sometimes a person is allowed to suffer in order to accomplish some great good within their soul.

The girl who is now a woman believes in this possibility, but she also wonders at the scripture that tells her people will not be given more trials than they can bear. One only escapes a trial by reason of insanity or death. Otherwise, they must bear it, and she wondered it insanity and dying were not also trials.

Perhaps the ending of that verse was left out, so she made up her own but then decided that was blasphemous, so she threw it away and simply turned out the light and went to bed.

© 2006 by Gina L.

Modern Moses (micro-truth)

2006-08-04T17:10:00.002-08:00

She parked the car and disappeared along a stone path. Her dark hair was pulled into a pony tail and her casual jeans, plain blue shirt, and faded black sandals gave her an air of belonging. A few children playing on the banks of the Rogue River stopped to look curiously in her direction, but soon they lost interest and returned to finding smooth pebbles to collect.

She kept walking until the voices faded and she was alone. This was her refuge, ripe with the scent of flowers and heavy with dark green vegetation. Bird nests weighed down the slight branches of newer trees, while butterflies and cabbage moths fluttered aimlessly around the tall grasses.

A clear rocky area gave her a spot to relieve herself. Here she was one with nature and didn't consider the lack of proper restroom facilities. The sound was drowned by the rushing of the river on the other side of this secluded area, and when she was finished it beckoned her. The woman let it draw her near until finally the small waves crashed around her feet.

She took off her sandals and stepped in. The rocks that composed the river bed shifted under her feet as she began to walk the shallow waters along the shore. The sharp ones cut, but still others were smooth, slimy with green wavering mosses and scum. The gentle ones acted as lord of oils, cooling the bruises and scrapes that were collecting on her feet.

Tears rained down her face, but still she made her way along the banks. It had to be done. Every gash was a death, and every smooth stone the healing. Every drop of blood and each tear mixed with the rushing water to be carried away by its strength. Five was the number of times that her feet slipped, and on the fifth she almost didn't try to keep her balance because it would have been easy to let herself fall, to lie still until the river rose to carry her away.

She had almost drowned in a small lake when she was nine years old, and had found it one of the most serene experiences of her life. When the water began pulling her down she had looked up at the white clouds and the blue skies and simply stared, letting it all happen. The moment was violently interrupted when her brother jumped in and disturbed the tranquility, pulling her to what he thought was safety, not understanding that it was safety she had almost found.

All of this came back to her in the split second she started to fall, but she shook it away and regained her footing. It had to be. The hardness of her traveled feet continued to soften. The welcome idea of stopping came, but she was a woman and she was strong, and she kept on walking until the last aching part of her was dead, until the hardness was replaced by raw and softened flesh, and then the river no longer desired her. She threw her sandals on the shore and stepped into them. She didn't turn around to look, only heard the roar of the waters fade as she began the walk back to her car.

There was only one giant left to face but that one would be a lifelong battle. She knew now that she could face it, that eventually that too would die. The madness of the false prophet would be revealed. She longed for it, but it had to happen in its own time. Now she could accept that.

© 2006 by Gina L.

Sheet Ride (humor)

2006-07-31T09:52:00.000-08:00

Because they had crumbs and because they were grimy, the sheets had to take a ride in the washer.
They protested, clinging with double stitched seams to the top of the washer, draping their static-clingy corners over the sides.
The pillow cases were much less dramatic. They were tossed on top of the sheets, towards the center, and their weight slowly pulled on the fitted sheets until their shriveled edges caused the whole cotton lot to sink into the spraying drum of the machine.
They sighed and gave up as the soap suds rose over them. Finally the top of the washer was slammed shut and then the fun part started as they began to be twirled and tossed about until they were so dizzy and entangled one with the other that they giggled and shook their quiet screams greatly. They did not remember why they had so protested in the first place.

© 2006 by Gina L.

John's Life (micro-fiction)

2006-07-30T19:42:00.001-08:00

Death brings beauty. Watch a shooting star falling from its place in the heavens. Touch the crimson leaves of autumn that have fallen to the ground. Inhale the rich dark earth that the dew has moistened and the sun has warmed, heavy with the decomposed flesh of animals both wild and tame.

Death brings sorrow. Wipe away the tear of a friend as he stands over the newly dug grave. Place your hand on the heart of a grandmother as she takes her last breath and feel the weak, final throb. Hear the wailing of a nation as they mourn their war ravaged cities.

Death brings hope. Read the story of the resurrection of Christ. Listen to voice of one in pain as they long for the sweet release of their soul. Feel the spirits of those who have gone on sing their songs of encouragement for those still in life's grip.

But as for John, he saw the white jackets of the medical team, felt the harsh piercing of the needle as it entered into his vein. He took one last deep breath of air tainted by the scent of rubbing alcohol and hand soap and found no beauty, and neither sorrow or hope in his coming death.

© 2006 by Gina L.

Who Am I? (poetry)

2006-07-29T21:09:00.001-08:00

Leave me in my solitude and turn your face
I'm just another Christian whose lost my place
After walking dark paths I long for sweet rest
Imploring to be restored to His breast
And if I a glimmer of hope could see
I'd grasp it and to His safety flee
But now this road I walk alone
Replaying sins for which I can't atone
Knowing my only trust should be in His blood
Yet losing sight of it in this dreadsome flood
Drowning myself in my own tears
At the same time ashamed of all my fears
Feeling to worthless to plead His grace
I'm just another Christian who's lost my place.

© 2003 by Gina L.

Trial by Fire (poetry)

2006-07-29T21:07:00.000-08:00

A trial by error, a testing fire
We pass through the flames of burning desire
A step at a time through the furnace we go
The fire is so hot and our steps seem so slow
Lord give us strength as it gets hard to stand
Against that which tempts us in this strange land
We cry for peace, for you to come instill
In our hearts and our minds, your just, perfect will.

© 2003 by Gina L.

The Narrow Way (poetry)

2006-07-22T20:31:00.000-08:00

Something went right but it's still wrong
It's still not easy to feel very strong
Or to feel you belong
You gotta be crazy to keep on going
To walk these streets of sharp stone
In barefeet, bleeding, walking alone

Crying hard just to keep on going
Trying to figure out if life's worth what it's throwing
Or if you can be strong
And now you're scared to take that next step alone
In bare feet, bleeding, walking this road of stone

You want to learn to live without fears
Or how not to have to hide from your tears
That have been falling so long
And now you lay down on this bed of stone
In bare feet, bleeding, and sleeping alone

Praying to God to give you the strength to get up
To take from your lips this trembling cup
And your desperate song
But still your path is made of stone
And you rise up bare foot, bleeding, and still alone

You prayed for cool water and it came from a storm
Leaving your wounds softened, still tender and warm
And it all is still wrong
But you rise and continue to walk on sharp stone
Welcoming the bare feet, the bleeding and being alone

Because there is something inside that won't let go
At the end of the road there is something you know
Somewhere that you belong
So for now you continue, sore and alone
And make your pillow on this sharpened stone

© 2006 by Gina L.

The July When They Weren't (micro)

2006-07-22T17:28:00.001-08:00

It was a month of endings for her.

It was on July 21st that her mother's birthday once was. In an odd twist of fate, she was taken on April Fool's day, but anyone who knew the story would say that life began on April 1st, and death was first tasted in July, because that's when we all became invisible.

It was on July that she walked the streets of New York, the heat and weariness battering at her until one of her twin children was ripped from her stomach, and not knowing what the pain meant, the tiny child slipped away from her suprised hand in the restroom of a an Asian restaurant she'd dashed into.

It wasn't the first July that death had torn a child from her. Years before as a young, bewildered, teenager she had lost her first, but then there had been no pain. At least not physical. It happened calmly and quietly and in a way she was glad that it happened, happy to know that there was one less human to be handed over to this world's cold claws.

But this July, they all whisper her name. She falls asleep and hears her first, her son named Benjamin, call her mommy in a calm, dignified way and she knows he forgives her.

She glimpses her second child, Gloria, in grocery stores, and looks for her in the family photos before she remembers she is no more.

But her mother...her mother comes in rages, in fits of remarkable anguish that her daughter can feel, hold, taste their bloody savageness, and in this bond they are the mother and daughter that never were when she was alive.

It's a relationship the daughter doesn't appreciate, but cannot let go of because it would take her away with it and she isn't quite ready for July yet- and sometimes still wears April's white shoes.

© 2006 by Gina L.

Rantings of a Lunatic

2006-07-22T14:47:00.000-08:00

They couldn't comprehend what it was like.

To see what they couldn't see.
To hear what they weren't open to listening for.
To feel more than they had ever dared to open themselves up for.

Yet it couldn't be helped. She was born that way, with the voices of the angels singing in her heart and the demons of hell battling for her soul.
Being left alone made her happy, but it isn't mete for the spiritual to keep quiet its refrain.

Calling on the power of God to carry her through was an oft repeated theme, and one which carried her over many ravaging fires and sheltered her against the desolate winds that gathered from all four corners.

Finding that her soul was secure, they then attacked her body and mind, for the physical is destined to be abandoned to the forces of nature and darkness except in covenented circumstances of which she had no part.

There was no refuge.

And through it all, they kept on trying to reach her, not knowing that she could never return, for once the reality of the unseen has been revealed, the curtain is drawn no more.

They did not comprehend the blessings, nor could they fathom the curses that came with this. They stood with dull eyes and did not see what was being sung to their hearts or whispered in their ears, yet they reacted to it as if obeying stone commandments.

© 2006 by Gina L.

When Pain Turns Red

2006-07-20T22:28:00.000-08:00

People handle emotional pain in a variety of ways.
Some call a friend and talk it through.
Some take medication.
Some see red, because they cut themselves when they hurt.

She was the kind of girl who saw red.

Her family said she wasn't good enough, and she saw red.

She left her family, and didn't know how to live. She wanted to see death, but she only saw dark red and a week in the hospital.

Then she saw her first born, and suddenly life became precious.

She saw pinks and whites and smiles and ribbons.

Life went on, and then the pain returned.

And she saw red.

She wanted to see death, but life was precious.

And like the button in Truman Show, "how will it end?"

In the end, who will care? Are they all in it for the entertainment, or will one rise who has faith in her?

Or has he already risen?

© 2006 Gina L.

When (poem)

2006-06-29T22:35:00.000-08:00

An unfinished poem, to be completed when I feel it's the right time.

When death runs out of measured time
and sin of its polluted crime
Then this will be found in the end
That I didst try to be your friend

When all the mountains cease to rise
and earth's last infant holds her cries
May it be said I was a friend
who loved you through the very end

But thou-immortal, free of time
who sinless walked in nature's rhyme
Forever be it praise to Thee
that ere I knew you, you loved me

Before earth rose to meet the sky
or warm breast hushed the infant's cry
You made it known that you loved me
and turned my faithless heart to Thee

© 2006 by Gina Locke

Father's Day Poem

2006-06-18T20:44:00.001-08:00

Sometimes its what you do not do
Sometimes its what you say
Sometimes its simply knowing
You're here on each bad day

Sometimes its what you do
Sometimes its what you do not say
Sometimes its simply knowing
You're here on each good day

But always it is who you are
That makes me want to say
Thanks for being family
And Happy Father's day!

© 2006 Gina Locke

Written under sudden inspiration on Father's Day while signing his card.

The Rocking Chair (rewrite)

2006-06-15T09:41:00.000-08:00

This is a rewrite of "The Rocking Chair", which was posted earlier on this site.

Preparing for a move across the country had left me with a number of decisions to make. One of them was what to take along. We were flying to our new location and didn't wish to take along more than we could carry, so we began to choose out the items we valued the most.
The rocking chair was going to be the only exception. It had been purchased a few months before the birth of my oldest daughter. I had sat in that chair and tried to imagine myself as a mother. It seemed very unreal. When my first daughter was born, I was totally unprepared for the wonder of it all, and was amazed to find I had it in me to love without reservation. That baby had my heart the second I laid eyes on her, and we spent many long hours in that rocking chair, singing lullabies and gazing at each other. A special moment in my life came as I held her in that chair and told her I loved her, because I had never said that to anyone and meant it with my whole heart.

The next two years brought two more daughters, and many more hours in the rocking chair, nursing my babies and singing to them.

Over time the children grew out of nightly lullabies and feedings and into story time. It was the place to run to for comfort over a skinned knee, a torn stuffed toy, or one of "those days" we girls seem to claim exclusive rights to. By night, the rocking chair became a place where children were transported into fairy tale lands of gentle giants and blossoming candy trees as they listened to their bed-time stories.

However, the kids kept right on growing. We all did. My lap got shorter and the girls legs got longer, but once in a while we'd still curl up in the chair and sing. Those moments greww further and furhter apart, and eventually the rocking chair got pushed into another room to make way for desks for our homeschool. It gathered some dust, but nobody really seemed to notice...until we started packing for our move.

A few short days before we left, the girls and I started talking about the chair as we moved it over while cleaning the house. We laughed at some thing, smiled at others, while yet other memories caused us to hold back sniffles. Suddenly, I realized that it's not the chair that's important; it's our love for each other that counts, along with the memories. That chair could break or get burned in a fire, but it wouldn't change anything in our lives that was or would be.
Instead of keeping with the decision to take it with us, I called our Pastor's wife at church and asked it they could use the rocking chair in their nursery. They gladly accepted. I hung up the telephone, and felt a little empty. Had I made the right decision?

I will be glad to know that other babies and mothers will get some use out of it. I can only hope that in the moments those moms spend with their babies in that chair, there will be at least one time when they look down at their little child and become overwhelmed with the sense of pure love and blessing that can only come from the heart of a parent who realizes what a wondrous gift the Lord has allowed us to hold and cherish.

© 2006, by Gina Locke

Weeping Willows (poetry)

2006-06-06T19:56:00.002-08:00

This is a translation on images provoked in sound.

Weeping willows on the banks of a river glorious
Telling tales of ancient woes that of past befell us
When you see their branches hang over waters flowing
Know where souls of old have gone remember where you're going.

© 2006 Gina Locke

The original is Omar Khayyam (not to be confused with the ultra cool Khayyan, hehe)

Rubai

Tongi-ye may-e la'l kh'aham o divani
Sadd-e ramaghi bayad o nesf-e nani
Vangah man o to neshasteh dar virani
Khoshtar bovad as mamlekat-e soltani.

Want that in English?

I want a jub of ruby wine and a book of poems
There must be something to stop my breath from departing, and a half loaf of bread
Then you and I sitting in some deserted ruin.
Would be sweeter than the realm of a sultan.

The original language is a rubai (art form in which 1,2, and 4 should ryme), and I didn't stay true to that in my translation. I may give it a shot sometime soon.

Con Los Ojos Cerrados

2006-05-27T08:18:00.001-08:00

Translation of part of Con Los Ojos Cerrados, without the translation. Confused? We take a poem and turn it into English, but the translation is based on sound, idea, or rhythm rather than language.

I'm working on it on here, so if you see it changing or see it a few times, just relax and enjoy watching the creation process. When I think it's half decent I'll erase the drafts. Or not. Maybe people enjoy seeing the process. I'll come back and mess with it over the next few weeks when I have time.

( Con los ojos cerrados iré tras de él
con los ojos cerrados siempre lo amaré
con los ojos cerrados yo confío en él
con los ojos cerrados yo le quiero creer
Con los ojos cerrados iré tras...) -- Trevi

********

In the eyes of small children
Innocence is freshly fleeing
Cast out for a new generation

Night comes too soon for too many
Lives are ravaged before they've begun
Reflecting the sins of a nation

The entropic nature of humans
Is made so unbearably clear
For the eyes of our children show fear
***********

We see in the eyes of our children
Innocence freshly fleeing
Being cast out for a new idea

Night comes too soon for too many
Lives are ravaged before they've begun
It mirrors the sins of our savage nation

The entropic nature of humans
Is made so strikingly clear
When the eyes of our children show fear.

********

Innocence flees from the eyes of our children
As childhood is cast out for new ideas
Night comes too soon for so many
Their lives ravaged before they'd begun
It reflects the sins of a savage people.

The inner goodness of humankind
Is only imaged, but once it was clear
Before the eyes of our children showed fear

**************

With our eyes let us see the night
Surrounded by a thousand stars

With our hearts let us know the right
Shining through the misdeeds

With our minds let us remember the child
Still there in that time-aged mask

With....
*****************

We see in the eyes of a child
Freshly fleeing innocence
Being pushed out by new ideas

Night comes too soon for so many
Lives ravaged before they've begun
It reflects a savage nation

The damage of human nature
Has been made terribly clear
When the eyes of a child show fear.

© 2006 Gina Locke

Sestina (poetry)

2006-05-26T15:49:00.001-08:00

This was my first attempt at a sestina. My goal was not to write a great poem, but to get the rules of a sestina down on paper! It was quite difficult, and made me feel somewhat confined, but it became easier after the third stanza.
For those who haven't heard of it, a sestina is a style of poetry in which you create six stanzas consisting of six lines. The last words are repeated throughout the poem in a perscribed order, and the order stays the same, but is repeated from the stanza immediately proceeding. A B C D E F, F A E B D C, C F D A B E, and so on and so forth. The sestina concludes with three lines which incorporate all six words, but now they are placed at the middle and end of each line in this order:
B E
D C
F A

Perhaps now you can understand why I felt it so difficult and confining. Here is what I wrote. Soon I will begin the task of turning it into something more palpable. For now, I'm just glad to have written one and done it in the proper order! Or maybe I won't. Maybe I'll try another style. Or this one, with another theme. It's so fun to have a choice, isn't it? (smile)

Walking along the roof of hell,
I find this earth a tragic comedy
filled with incense now corrupted
by the ruined thoughts of men.
That which was pure calls quietly -
ignored by the ones who should hear.

What can the open minded hear
when listening to the sounds of hell?
The voices veiled, they sound out quietly.
A never ending twist of comedy...
the throes of those who once were men,
their souls now forever corrupted.

But those not sent to be corrupted
but saved for certain ones to hear;
the pure in heart who once were men
send out their echo not from hell
but blended with them still is comedy
for it is still sent out as quietly.

When that sound so quietly
mingles with the sounds corrupted
it justifies the idea of comedy
for those who will stop and hear
and wonder which one is of hell
and if heaven's the hell of all men.

If the incense is the prayer of men
ascending to heaven so quietly
what perfumes the roof of hell,
and why is the call corrupted?
Do the mingled calls that we hear
Make up this sickening comedy?

The tragedy of this comedy
is in the hearts of all men
who walk on this earth and hear
their futures call to them quietly.
In confusion they hear the corrupted
but is it from heaven or hell?

Walking on hell's roof go all men.
In this comedy they go quietly
and being corrupted cannot hear.

© 2006 by Gina Locke

The Writer's Block

Repent

Guilty

Today's Glory (poetry)

An American Thanksgiving Day Meal

Abercrombie and Fitch: Apple MacBook Air Contest/Update

OKC Zoo - Baby Elephant Video

American Idol Visits Tinker AFB, Oklahoma

Christian Author Watch: Paul Zimmer

My Favorites Guide

Escape the Moment (poetry)

To my fellow Americans: STOP! Think.

Reactive Attachment Disorder: A Reflection

The RAD Report - February 2011

Asiago: You can really eat it!

"She died in your tummy:" Miscarriages and Heaven

"A Minute for Madeleine"

RADical Changes

The RAD Report - December 2010

Thanksgiving Meal 2010

"I Bid You Goodnight"

Meet Him There (song lyrics)

Autumn Parenting

AT&T Final Update

Strength of Eagles

Reactive Attachment Disorder: The RAD Report

Genetically Engineered/Modified Foods

Triangulation and Reactive Attachment Disorder

Chocolate Crisps

The Passion Butterfly

AT&T : Rethink Possible? Consumer Complaint: Updates: 3

Reactive Attachment Disorder: When Love Isn't Enough

The Struggle (poetry)

For Fun: How Oreo Cookies are Made

Repost: You Mother is a Criminal!

Rock Island

"Well if you want to ride you gotta ride it like you find itGet your ticket at the station of the rock island line" -- Pete Seeger...maybe!

Reclaiming Writing and Photography

To All My Friends:

Thanksgiving Dinner Photos

Pre-Thanksgiving Fun!

Thyroid Surgery: Day Four

Thyroid Surgery: Day Three

Thyroid Surgery: 36 Hours Later

Thyroid Surgery: 28 hours later

Thyroid Surgery: 24 hrs later

Thyroid Surgery - Day One

The Canned Caterpillar: Guess Which Brand?

Stuffed Peppers! Recipe Included, sort of!

The Virgin Lasagna Maker

HSLDA: Chris Klicka

My Child

Saved!

Belated

If (poetry)

Hand in Hand

Still

All Through the Night

Christmas in North Pole, AK

Chasing Glory

Alcohol

Colonoscopy: Read all about it!

A Bad Day, with all the Works

Snowflakes at Christmas

Pharmaceutical Economics

The Problem with Caring

Storm

The Dresser

To Billy Collins, Because I like Your Style and Your Way of Titling Poems in Non-Traditional Fashion

Blessed are They

The Backwards Road

Garden Song

Morning Storm

Oh Sing All Ye Faithful!

They Said (Fiction)

24

Who We Are

Unfinished

River's Edge

Symphonic Distress

"Well if you want to ride you gotta ride it like you find it
Get your ticket at the station of the rock island line" -- Pete Seeger...maybe!