Doing What We Can

Saturday was my March for Babies walk. It was the first time in years that I had done something for a cause and it felt SO GOOD!

I used to do a lot of stuff for causes. It started when JimmyEW and I founded a student group in college called Take a Stand for Kids (TASK). It was a child abuse awareness group that focused on getting college kids to volunteer their time with the kids at Domestic Violence Shelters and Big Brother's Big Sisters. I just continued on from there. Any worthy cause around me I tried to participate in.

Since leaving my last social work job (for by brief stint as a city dweller almost 2.5 years ago) I haven't done anything. I was used to marching, protesting, organizing, counseling and networking with people to make the world a better place. And suddenly it just stopped and I really missed it.

But Saturday the amount of fulfillment I felt for raising over $300 and actually walking really surprised me!! I realized I was right about what I had thought all along. I can work my corporate job that I love and do the stuff that matters on the side. And it will fulfill me!!

Sometimes it's hard to find a way to give back. Many times it seems like you just don't have the time or money to do it. When my Best Friend FOREVER sent an email that she was walking, I thought about donating $20 to her but decided I'd like to walk instead. It didn't really occur to me until later, that me walking was going to be so much more beneficial. Instead of giving her my $20, I was able to raise $300!

And the only time I spent working on it was the time spent writing a few emails and a blog asking if people would donate. And of course I had to show up and walk for a few hours on a Saturday... in the FREEZING COLD. This was a good way to give back without a lot of time or money involved (btw, thank you so much to those who gave through donations and/or prayers. they were welcomed. And Mel, it did not rain, so thanks!)

And speaking about giving when you don't have the money. Sister HB has written before about Compassion International in this post. But what she really wants is for everyone to click this link to read about how simply writing a letter to a child will mean the world to them.

Read the blog article and see the comments to learn how you can write to a child who is already sponosored by someone but doesn't recieve coorespondance from them.

This second Compassion International Blog article is also a good read and pulls attention to how globalism and free markets impact people living in other countries. It talks about letter writing in reference to a young woman and the inspiring letters she recieves from her sponsor, an American college student. You can see how much a written letter means to a person struggling to survive in a third world country.

Its not always about giving money, but just about doing what you can with what you have. Thats really the best we can do sometimes. So, please click the links to learn how you can help, and have yourself a happy Monday!
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Undercooked Babies

This weekend I'm going to be doing a 6 mile walk for the March of Babies, previously known as The March of Dime's Walk American. I'm sure you are familiar with this organization, its all about keeping babies in the oven long enough to cook and keeping them well if they pop out too soon.

For some reason, women in our society have huge rates of pre-term labor and complications as compared to other industrialized countries.

rate of preterm birth in the United States far exceeds the rate in other industrialized countries: 12.3% in 20033 compared with 7.7% in 2003 in Canada,4 7.9% in 2003 in Australia,5 6.2% in France in 1998,6 7.4% in the Netherlands in 1999,6 6–7% in 2001 in New Zealand,7 7.3% in 2000 in Scotland,6 and 6.4% in 2000 in Sweden.

Suggestions as to why often go along with certain risk factors but some camps feel that there is a pretty strong link between our lack of medical benefits and preterm births. I read in one article abstract that France cut their preterm birth rate in half over 15 years in part due to increased maternity leave. However, I can't link to that article unless I want to pay $30, so you'll just have to take my word for it.

You might be wondering why I'm showing pictures of Kiki throughout this post...well, it's because I experienced a very scary pregnancy with him.

Let me say first, if you're currently pregnant with your first child stop reading, I don't want to scare you. ...ok, you gone yet? Now that the new-moms to be are happily worrying if they should name their baby Apple or Coco, I'll tell a quick tale about my pregnancy and the birth of Mighty Kiki (his nickname).

All was well in Sassyland, no problems to mention aside from the chronic puking that occurred early on. I think I was around 26, so not too old, no real risk factors. But around week 34 or 35 (sorry, it's kind of a blur) I noticed some swelling. Every women gets swollen during pregnancy, I'd heard stories about rings and shoes not fitting...so I wasn't alarmed. I just elevated my feet and didn't think about too much, even though I knew HB had swelling while pregnant and had been put on bedrest a few different times . I'm invincible, right?

Then, one day while in a meeting at work I thought I was going to pass out. I excused myself and immediately went to the couch in the Developmentally Disable classroom and laid on my left side. Thankfully there were no clients in there at the time.

My wonderful boss got the blood pressure cuff and checked me. She was alarmed. I don't remember the number, but she was on meds for high blood pressure so if she was alarmed, I should be alarmed.

I called my OB with my blood pressure numbers and she told me to have JimmyEW pick me up immediately and take me to the hospital. She was ordering a stress test. Kiki was ok in utero but she put me on bedrest and noted that I was suddenly measuring small. She told me that my baby would probably have to spend some time in the NICU.

I was terrified. She ordered stress tests every three days to keep a close eye on him. Kiki always passed each stress test and I was at ease for that day and usually the next, but the day after that, the day before my next stress test, that was always the worst. Thank god for the fetal heart doppler we had or I would have been a mess.

I was so afraid he'd die in utero, something I was sure would break me if it happened. I would pray to God and to Kiki that he poke a hole if he got in trouble so we could know to get him out.

When I was at week 36 I went to my appointment and my blood pressure wouldn't go down, I had no protein in my urine so my OB hospitalized for monitoring. While I was in the hospital I felt a little pop and started leaking fluid, Kiki poked a hole.

Through the next day nothing much happened, they gave me pitocin, the bane of all laboring women, to try to help the labor along. Then my water completely broke and I was in a world of hurt. I asked for an epidural, they gave me one and then everything went downhill from there. My blood pressure dropped really low, Kiki's heart rate plummeted, JimmyEW nearly passed out he was so scared. The doctor called for a c-section STAT and I was wheeled out.

They cut me open and pulled him out in what seemed like a matter of minutes. JimmyEW and I waiting for our baby...I began to cry and say "I don't hear him crying, why isn't he crying." They took him to a little table and the nurses began massaging him and using a little bag to try to get him to breath. Finally...finally he cried.

He was 4 lbs 12 oz and 18 inches long. See the photo of him below.

He spent 2 weeks in the NICU, mostly for being stubborn and not eating, but he finally came home. When all was said and done, the bill came to over $23,000!! Thank god I paid extra for some great PPO insurance and I didn't have to pay a cent. Nothing! Not even a co-pay. Wish I had that insurance now...

Clearly he's healthy now, in fact he is playing his first soccer game ever after my walk. He did get hit with RSV as a toddler, but other than that he's smart, polite and beautiful. He says and does things like:

Making Valentines Day cards for God...no clue where he got that idea.

Being a mother hen to Boogs, often chasing him around trying to put socks on his feet.

And super funny, like when I said I smelled like a boy because I used Jimmy's deodorant his reply was, "mama, you smell like poop?"

And one interesting tid bit about him is that I swear there is a face in his ultrasound picture. Not his face(eye roll), but a woman with long white hair. Freaky, huh? I got his picture and stared at that woman's face for 3 days before I finally asked someone else to look at it, my boss. I didn't show her where, I just said..."do you see something weird in this general area". She saw it right away and spooked her a bit too, but the face is there crisp and clear. I like to think it is his angel.

So, please understand what I'm about to do...it's a shameless ask for support for the March of Dimes. As I mentioned earlier, we're walking this Saturday and every dollar helps. I just thought I'd take a minute to explain why this cause is important to me. If you feel so inspired to give, click on the little badge to the right and you can donate directly through March of Dimes. If not, no worries. If there is one thing I know, I'm great at the Sell, but I suck at the Close.

Enough Already Mom!

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Bossland Diaries: Internship from Hell

Last night I received no less than 2 texts and one phone call from Honey Bunch asking for me to please find her another job. She's on the road and doesn't have a Blackberry so that leaves me to do her bidding. As much as I am her Svengali, I declined, opting to snuggle with my darling husband who I hadn't seen all weekend long. But she got me thinking about some crazy work experiences we've had, and I've decided to share one of my more awful ones.

Currently I love where I work (the picture to the right is me working in my basement dwelling). I work for a technology company which has absolutely nothing to do with the degree I have. I have a Masters in Social Work which I got from a very prestigious school (that was way over rated in my opinion) and paid about a gajillion and five dollars for it. But while working on my practicum, and after starting my career in Social Work, I came across three of the worst bosses I've ever had in my entire life. I guess I should put out there that one Boss had nothing to do with social work and was just a crazy woman someone gave a job to. I'm not kidding.

My wonderful supervisor during my second internship placement would say that social workers are either people who really do want to help and make a difference or they have been very hurt themselves and tend to lean a bit toward crazy. They are often wounded birds. I think she was on to something there.

Anyway, one of my bosses was my first placement supervisor, and this woman was in charge of a school based program in inner city Detroit. She was a very overbearing woman who had a degree in engineering but apparently found her calling doing community work. That is all fine and good except that she had absolutely no social skills at all when it came to lording over supervising her slaves student workers. She is the cause of one of my most horrifying experiences.

A Christian Jordanian woman (I'll name her S) came to the school seeking shelter after her husband beat her up. Evil Supervisor takes pictures of her bleeding and bruised body then suggested to me that this woman, who had just fled her home with her children, should PAY for the development of the pictures as "a way to empower her". Could I roll my eyes any louder? I nixed that fast, but that should have been my first warning about Evil Supe.

S had no place to go, spoke very little English and since I used to work at a domestic violence shelter while in undergrad she became my sole responsibility. So S goes into hiding while I spent much of my time trying to assist her as best I could with the meager resources in the community. I drove her to her appointments and spent a million dollars in cell phone minutes calling her cousin who could translate for us. It was exhausting and draining being her sole advocate and attending grad school so I made it my goal to locate an agency that she could go to that would help her better than I.

One morning I got an email from Evil Supe telling me she's made an appointment for me with S's battering spouse at 1pm. Ok, its bad enough that she's making an appointment FOR me but making it with a batterer when I am his wife's advocate...that was another thing. It's near 11 when I read this and S had planned to come meet me at the school to fill out some paperwork. Well, guess who shows up at 11? Yep, Batterer.

So I'm freaking out because she's there, the kids are there and he's there! Well chaos ensues, he gets a hold of the kids and I ended up playing a pretty good game of liar with him while my fellow students sneak S out of there. But now she doesn't have her kids and for the most part I'd like to thank Evil Supe for that.

Later, I had the displeasure of meeting Batterer in court while trying to get a Personal Protection Order for S. That was terrifying! He was in my face shouting at the top of his lungs and two armed guards had to intervene. Did I mention I'm only 5 foot zero and no match for a large angry man? He even had a lawyer with him. Thank god his lawyer was a jack ass and pissed the judge off, that worked in our favor.

After chaos happened I decide to have a boundaries conversation with Evil Supervisor. Her answer to what happened was this.

"Sassy, Sassy. You have to understand, I meant to hit 11 but the #1 key sticks and it only typed one of my 1's. "

She said as if I would say, "Oh? Well alright then. As long as it was just a sticky key..."

However I said back, "Evil Supervisor. You should NEVER be making any appointments for me with the batterer of a woman I'm advocating for. EVER EVER EVER. You just don't do that in Domestic Violence. He could have talked to any of the other slave students you lord over supervise."

"Well Sassy, I don't have the experience in DV so I didn't know."

"I understand Evil Supervisor, but when you don't know you ASK FIRST!!!! Oh, and I'm leaving and never coming back."

Ok, that wasn't exactly what I said. I'm sure I was meek and terrified when I explained what was wrong with what she did and why I was leaving. And I wasn't the only student who left after her awful treatment. Just before I left another quit after she verbally abused him in front of all of us.

But telling her I was quitting was one of the scariest things I've had to do. The look on her face made me want to flinch because I swear I could see in her eyes the desire to hit me. I cut out of there so fast and never looked back. That woman scared the ever loving spit out of me and it became terribly obvious when, a few weeks later, I had a dream that she tried to rape me. Awful huh? It was terrifying and I guess it just spoke to how awful she made me feel while I was working there.

After I left I still worked with S until I found an organization that would be able to help her. She cried when I handed her off and to this day feel like I didn't do the best of job passing her along as I could have. Another skeleton in my closet. I often wonder if she made it to Florida where she had family, if the kids were ok, if he ever found them. I worry she went back. I worry about a lot of the people I've run into through my course of working in the social work field. Are they ok, are children safe, will the girls grow up strong and the boys grow up gentle or will they all repeat the cycle they've been exposed to. All these questions, no answers...only hope for them.

During this brief experience I think God sprinkled people around me to help me, like the Victims Advocate at the court who went up on our behalf to talk to the judge and the Parking Lot Prince who, not only let me park for free, but gave me a Ten dollar bill to give to S (I told him what he puts out there will come back to him three-fold so the next time I went there I tipped him $30). Those of you who think there are no good people in the world, or in a city like Detroit, I beg to differ.

Image provided by this guy. I have taken this same picture however it was with my film camera so I had to borrow his.

So, do share your most awful work stories in our comments. Lets make HB feel better about working for a lying liar who lies.
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The Amazing Nap!

It is amazing what a good nap will do for you. Simply amazing! I feel (and I know I've read there is a connection) there is a relationship between lack of sleep and depression. I especially think its huge for post partum depression. I saw this play out in me when I was a stay home mom in Chicago after Boogs was born. I was depressed in general, because life was pretty sucky, but on days I was tired I was miserable. Just miserable.

Well, I've been tired the last couple of days, really tired. And I've been really on edge with the kids and crabby in general. I've even had a low sneaking suggestion of depression creeping up my shoulder. And I look at JimmyEW and apologize for being harsh, critical, crabby and what have you, then just shake my head and tell him I don't know why. I suggest one thing or another, but nothing concrete. I was in a funk. Then today I took a glorious nap. Sweet beautiful nap of maybe an hour and a half. And I'm feeling good, energized, happy and like I'm not a monster mom anymore. Not to mention that I woke up and found a beautiful email from kspin, who I adore, in my email. Go read her amazing blog!

So now I feel good and happy in spite of the odor of a poopy diaper assaulting my nose. I'm taking the boys for a short walk in the brisk cold and then making cookies! What are you doing today?

I leave you a picture of my boys for your viewing pleasure. No offense to Reepicheep for stealing his memorial post.

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42 lbs of What??

found above image here

This week I read that as a country we each on average ingest 42 lbs of corn syrup a year. I read this after I drank my corn syrup laden lemonade and thought about how gross that is. Here is the link to the article I read while I waited for the dentist to tell me I'll have the joy of having a root canal. Corn Syrup: 1 Sassy: 0.

FOURTY.TWO.POUNDS. Of Corn Syrup! Each year on average. That's disgusting! What does that even look like? I don't know, I couldn't find a picture of it but lovely Jane was sweet enough to email me this picture she just happened to have...for... I don't know why. But thanks anyway Jane!
Just thought I'd share that with y'all. Pretty gross huh? I guess that's why as we start exercising we should really judge our weight loss in inches rather lbs (or stones if you're Fish, who of course is beautiful as she is. Not that I've seen her...that isn't me outside her apartment with the binoculars, really...I swear). When I was running last year I only seemed to lose 10 lbs but I got much trimmer. Now I can totally see why. I'd always heard muscle weighed more than fat but just look at how much smaller it is!

So back on topic, what are good alternatives to all the corn syrup? I don't know but I learned its not table sugar. But it goes beyond sweetening all our foods, corn is in everything and fed to our beef supply which may be causing some of cow issues. Something about it makes them need antibiotics and increases an certain type of Ecoli. I guess there are different kinds. But really, didn't we always learn that cows eat grass, am I right? Apparently not these days though. Where is Ree when I need her? I also understand the grass fed beef is yummier too. If I had all the money in the world I would buy only free range eggs, chicken, and beef. It was how they were meant to be. Sorry, I'll get down from my box now.

Now I'm stepping onto another. Sorry, JimmyEW said to add this part. Aside from corn having some not so great health aspects there are economic aspects to this crazy corn cultivation (that, my friends, was alliteration) that are considered negative to both the country and the farm industry. It involves the subsidy of the corn, and over production that drives down prices that increases subsidy which increases production with drives down prices and so on and so forth. Seems like a circular problem to me but I'm no corn or economics professor...do they have corn professors? Probably Agriculture ones, but I digress.

This problem of corn consumption and cultivation impacts more than just the produce and can goods aisle. To understand this issue from someone who actually knows what they're talking about read here and here. Just thought you'd like to know how much junk we keep eating, I don't have any tips or anything. Someone smarter than I can maybe post a comment telling us what to do. And in case you think I'm pointing fingers everywhere but myself click here.
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My Night at the Homeless Shelter

I'm sitting here at my desk listening to freezing rain as it hits my window. We are in for quite a storm tonight. While the world outside my window is dangerous and wet and cold with blowing and drifting snow, I am warm and cozy inside my home. My fire is lit, I'm wearing my favorite snugly robe and I just finished a delicious homemade dinner.

Others are not so lucky. I met many of them a couple weeks ago when I had the privilege of serving at our city's homeless shelter.

When people think of Traverse City, most people imagine the beautiful beaches, Cherry Festivals, Sleeping Bear Dunes and unique downtown shops. They don't consider that we also have our own homeless population.

While Traverse City has a homeless shelter, it doesn't meet the needs of our community. To solve that problem, a group of people developed a program called Safe Harbor that provide sanctuary to the homeless. Safe Harbor rotates among a network of local churches each week from November until May. Each participating church recruits members to prepare meals, visit with the guests, clean the facility, serve meals and spend the night to ensure the safety of all.

The night I spent was eye-opening. I learned that people are the same no matter their circumstances. They have hopes for their future, they dream about a better life. They follow sports and news. And they listen to a little ZZ Top. Like Disco Don.

When I arrived, Disco Don came up to my car listening to his ipod and doing a little dance. (And, yes. I said ipod, because everyone needs their tunes.) Disco Don offered me his ear buds so I could enjoy the song he was boogieing to. I politely declined, explaining that I could hear it just fine from where I was. He then said to me, "You know Ma'am. I love Jesus. And I like my smokes. And I love God, but I like to drink." I smiled and said that I also love Jesus and enjoy a drink every now and then and he danced happily away.

I also met a man and woman who are planning to get married in April. They were talking about the details of there wedding: who is going to be Best Man, what kind of dress she wants to wear, hoping their friends will be able to make it. Why had it never occurred to me that homeless people meet, fall in love, and plan a future together? Just like you and I.

Then there was Philip. Philip has nicely trimmed hair, white, straight teeth. He's smart as a whip and very well-read. He discussed the primaries, gas prices and shared his opinions on many other subjects. His clothing was clean, brand-name and he was very well-mannered. And yet, he has no job, he has no car, he has no home.

I met Carol who was certain all of the women at the shelter were conspiring against her. She refused to sleep in the same room as them because she feared for her life. Instead she made up a cot outside the parish library and stayed there all evening. Even to eat her meals.

When I sat down to talk to her, she asked me about the business I am in (real estate) and proceeded to tell me how standards and practices of the real estate and mortgage industries need to change. She explained in great detail how she knew there is a recession around the corner and offered her suggestions as to how it can be avoided. And yet, she is homeless.

I met mothers and father. Grandparents. A young gentleman who works hard every single day but just can't seem to get ahead.

Another of the guests goes out every night around 10pm and spends three or four house collecting beer and pop cans to return for money.

I met very young adults who have family in town. And yet, they are homeless.

As I sat in my chair during my "awake" shift in the early hours, I listened to the quiet (and sometimes loud) snoring of these men and women who through some bad habits (drugs and alcohol), poor choices (drinking under age, not paying tickets) and other more complicated reasons (mental illnesses) do not have the blessings that I have.

It is my belief that our purpose in this world is to serve others. Whether it is our own families, a depressed co-worker, a sick neighbor, the homeless. We can"buy a man to fish" or "teach a man to fish", we just need to get that guy a fish.

Our challenge is to touch people's lives. In whatever way we can, every single day. And then go home and shake our groove thang like Disco Don.

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