Come Walk With Me

Over the past couple of years, I have become an advocate for human trafficking. I have a BA degree in Human Services and Counseling and am working toward a M.Ed. in Counseling and Human Development. In 2009, while working on my undergrad degree, we were given a presentation on human trafficking and the needs of the victims that have been rescued. I live in a small, rural town in Kentucky & remember thinking “How does this affect me? That kind of thing doesn’t happen here”. I was wrong, very wrong. Cases of human trafficking (sex & labor; child & adult) have been found in every county in our state, and in every state of this country. It is under reported and perpetrators are hard to catch. It is in my nature as a counselor to immediately think of the needs of the victims (protection, clothing, shelter) and I developed a business plan for a project I called The Lifeline Project which would provide housing for victims who had been rescued as well as give them access to community agencies and organizations to help them either establish a new life in our country or to be returned home, wherever home might be. I presented my plan as a class project and received overwhelming feedback. I have communicated with local human trafficking task forces and hope to someday see this plan become a reality.

In researching for this project, I came across two foundations that I became interested in. The first is a foundation established by Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher called the DNA Foundation. You can find them on Facebook and Twitter.  The second is an organization called SCTNow (Stop Child Trafficking Now).  You can find them on Facebook and Twitter as well.

This second organization is the one I am currently involved with.  They actually come at human trafficking from a different position.  Instead of providing help for the victims, they go after the perpetrators.  The idea is that if you rescue a victim, you’ve saved one person.  If you catch a perpetrator you’ve saved countless victims from ever having to be perpetrated against.  While it is my nature to want to help the victims, and that desire will never go away, I love the angle that SCTNow is coming from.

SCTNow is a grass roots organization based in New York.  They literally started from the ground up working along with law enforcement to help where they couldn’t.  Three years ago they began a National Walk Campaign.  Last year I found out about this campaign about a week before the weekend of the event.  The event closest to me was a 3-hour drive.  So, I took it upon myself to find a way to get my community involved.  I am now a Community Ambassador for SCTNow.  I am now in a position to advocate for this wonderful organization and encourage community involvement.  Of course, the largest event is the walk campaign.  This year, I am coordinating a 5K Run/Walk to raise money and awareness for this issue.  The walk will be in Columbia, KY at Lindsey Wilson College‘s Raider Field on Saturday October 1st.

I would love for as many of my friends and followers as possible to get involved, whether it be by volunteering your time, registering yourself and/or a team, or by becoming a sponsor.  There is no registration fee and individuals and teams are encouraged to participate.  Every participant who raises $100 will get a free t-shirt.  There are other great prizes available as well.  To register or make a donation, go to events.sctnow.org/columbia.

For more information regarding sponsorship opportunities or if you have any questions, please contact me via email columbiaky@sctnow.org or on Facebook

I will add that it is a goal of mine to make this an annual event, bigger and better every year.  I want everyone to know that this is a serious issue.  This is my passion.  I hope someday to make The Lifeline Project a reality.  My dream is to present it to Demi & Ashton (so if you know anyone who can make that happen, I’d be forever indebted to you).

The Peanut Butter Punishment

Have you ever been so fed up with your child’s behavior that you are literally fed up? You’ve tried everything and nothing seems to work? Well then you understand where I was that day.

Tweenie (in 1st grade at the time) had been in trouble practically every day that school year for talking and/or not staying in her seat (not that she takes after me in any of those behaviors, mind you). The teacher would stamp a color in each student’s agenda at the end of the day to communicate the child’s behavior that day. Green = Good, Yellow = Some minor problems, Red = Multiple issues. My daughter was on “red” basically every single day. I had tried every punishment I could think of….time out, early bedtime, no dessert, no TV, taken away toys….nothing was working, she was still getting red dots.

So, I got creative. She HATED peanut butter. Ever since the first time she tried Reese Pieces around age 3, she has hated peanut butter. So I told her the next time she was on red for talking she was going to have to eat a spoonful of peanut butter, thinking surely that would deter her.

Needless to say, the following day she came home with another red dot. True to my promise (while she was kicking and screaming) I made her eat a spoonful of peanut butter then sent her into her room to do her math homework. The sobs and boo-hoos persisted for the next 10-15 minutes.

Little Tweenie: Mom, my throat hurts.
Me: Of course it does, you won’t stop crying. I’ll get you some water. Now stop crying so you can get your math homework done.
Me: Here, come get this water so you will calm down.

When she walked into the living room, the first thing I noticed was how red her face was from crying. Then I realized her face was puffy and swollen. “Are you having trouble swallowing?”, I asked, to which she replied “yes”.

Oh crap!! My daughter has a peanut allergy and I have just given her peanut butter!!!!

A dose of Benadryl and out the door we went to the Emergency Room. I am sure the doctors there definitely thought I deserved votes for Mother of the Year!

Kids Do The Darnedest Things 2

In my previous post I told you there were two embarrassing kid moments that stick out in my head.  If you read it you know all about Tweenie and her trip to Goody’s.  If you didn’t read it, check it out here.

Now I will tell you about the second incident.

I was (& am) a big Eminem fan.  I normally do not even like rap but for some reason I love Eminem.  I never realized how listening to him in the car coming home from work was going to influence by precious daughter’s ears.  Tweenie was about 4 at the time.  I had just put her in the cart to head into Wal-Mart.  In the parking lot there was a woman and two teenage girls.  These girls were dressed like they had just come off stage….the kind of stage where they’d have been counting one dollar bills.  As I am thinking in my head “I wouldn’t dress like that if my life depended on it” my daughter starts singing, at the top of her lungs, “Two trailer park girls go round the outside, round the outside, round the outside….”

They all glared at me as I hung my head in shame and continued walking into the store.  Apparently I was in no position to judge.

What embarrassing kid moments can you share??

Kids Do The Darnedest Things

Children will inevitably embarrass you at the worst possible times.  I have many stories of embarrassing kid moments but for some reason it seems that the majority of them happened with Tweenie after I left her sperm donor father.  I sometimes wonder if I was just more embarrassed by things because I was a young first time parent.  No clue why most of my stories involve her, but she has given me many.

There are two that stick out in my mind.  Here is the first one.

I believe Tweenie was 3 at the time of this story.  Her nickname back then was “Pumpkin”.  We were out having a Mommy-Daughter Day of shopping and running errands.  She was fully potty trained but hadn’t yet gotten to the point that she could hold it for very long.  If she said she had to go, she meant NOW.  I can deal with that, no problem.  The problem comes in NOT telling me she had to go.

We were pretty much done with our day, I just wanted to run into Goody’s real quick.  I know there was something specific I was looking for though now I have no clue what that item was.

I was standing there looking at a rack of clothes & Pumpkin had walked around to the other side.  I hear something.  ”What is that?  Did you spill your sippy cup?”  Then realizing she didn’t bring a sippy cup, I wondered what in the world this child could be getting into.  I walked around the rack to find my daughter standing in a puddle of her own pee.  I froze.

“Why didn’t you tell me you had to go potty???”

“I don’t know.”  (As a parent, I seriously wish this phrase had never been invented!!)

So while my daughter is standing there in urine-soaked shoes and shorts I pondered my options.  I can buy her new clothes and shoes (after all we are in Goody’s), clean her up and continue our day…..I can let someone know what has happened and just take Pumpkin home (I was pretty much done with my errands for the day anyway)…..or I can just calmly walk out of the store without purchasing anything and without saying a word to anyone.

I chose option 3.  I was a 24-year-old single mother and I was embarrassed.  There was no way I could face anyone and tell them my daughter had peed on their floor.  I grabbed her hand and out we went.

This Goody’s has now closed and something else is in it’s place.  I never once returned to Goody’s after that incident.  Now that there is a new store in it’s place I have been once.  But I still feel so guilty and humiliated.

What embarrassing moments do you have???

That Day…..

Lindsey Wilson College. August 1996. A day that will live in infamy…in my mind at least. It began with a phone call from my mother & ended with 9 college students riding 2 hours home from a bar in my Ford Tempo.

This is my favorite story from the time I spent at this college and for sure a day I will never forget. I was an RA (Resident Assistant) in one of the girls’ dorms on campus and had arrived on campus a week before the other students to prepare for their arrival. We had trainings, workshops, etc. in order to prepare us to be the best RA (& role model) we could be.

It was a Wednesday night. O’Malley’s Corner in Louisville, KY had 18 & Over Night. Since it was only RAs on campus that night, we decided to take a road trip. We had three cars of people. Cristi, Tabby, Vic and Pete in car 1. Taneem, Tanya, Alec, Mark and Lisa(?) in car 2. Me, Stefanie, Lynn, Danette and Angela in car 3.

While getting ready for this infamous night out, the phone rang. It was my mom. She was quite upset about something she had found out and she was yelling at me. I won’t go into details, that’s information for another post, but she had every right to be upset. At 20, however, I didn’t want to hear it so I told her I was getting ready to go out and needed to go. She informed me that I was not to go to Louisville. I hung up and finished getting ready. She might be my mother, but I was no longer living in her house. So, off we went.

We got to O’Malley’s and we were all having a great time until about an hour later when Pete was thrown out for drinking underage. We had driven almost an hour and a half to get there, so Pete just told Cristi he’d crash in the car til we were all ready to leave.

Another half hour or so goes by when I heard my name over the intercom to come to the office for an “emergency phone call”. I knew deep down there was no emergency. I somehow knew it was my mother on the phone, but I went anyway, against my better judgment.

I get to the lobby & they hand me the phone. My mom is still yelling and screaming. This was neither the time nor the place to have this conversation. She told me I needed to leave and that my grandfather would be coming to get me. I told her it wasn’t gonna happen, we’d talk about it later & I hung up the phone. As I headed back in to the club, I was abruptly stopped at the door by two bouncers who informed me I could not go back in. I tried explaining to them that I had just come out for a phone call but they asked me to step outside. The owner of the club was also waiting outside to talk to me. This can’t be good, right?

The four large men standing around me then explained that my father had called and had informed them that I was only 16 and therefore not old enough to be in the bar. I showed them my ID and tried convincing them that it was really me and I was really 20. I even told them I had a 16 year old sister, and thought maybe they were confused by the information they had received. Then they asked if my sister and I looked alike, to which I replied “we have the same parents, so yeah I guess so”. I realized at that point they thought I actually was the 16-year-old using my 20-year-old sister’s ID to get in. I seriously had no idea how I was going to convince these people that I was really me when it hit me. My mom was on the phone, NOT my dad. In fact, at the time my parents were divorced and I hadn’t spoken to my dad in months. When I gave them this info they got quite a surprised look on their faces. When they paged me to take the phone call, it was a man on the phone. I knew then it was my mom’s best friend, Norman. They were plotting to get me kicked out because my mom was so upset with me. I told them all about the fight with my mom. I told them that I came there at least once a week and they could go in and verify my identity with my friends while I waited there. The owner just told me since it was such a confusing situation that I should just “go home for the night” and come back another time. I am sure he thought me, my mom & all my friends were psycho at this point. But, I told him about our hour and half drive and the car load of people waiting for me inside. I then asked him if he wanted to be responsible for a single, 20-year-old girl sitting alone in her car until 4 am when the bar closed. He let me back in.

As I am telling my friends about this absurd sequence of events, Cristi gets paged to the front. Seriously?!?!? She returns a short time later and is quite pissed. While Pete was passed out in her backseat someone backs into her car. Thinking Cristi’s car was empty, the other driver started to just drive away. Out pops Pete who then called the cops. When they arrived, he came to get Cristi. She was too upset to stay so she decided to leave. Tabby felt bad and left with her. Vic wasn’t ready to go. I knew I had room in my car so I told him not to worry, he could ride back with me. The rest of the night was without incident….or so we thought.

The bars in Louisville close at 4 am in the summer and we stayed til closing time. Me & Stefanie head to my car to meet Lynn, Danette, Angela & Vic for the long drive back. After all, we have to be in RA training at 8 am. When I get to my car, there are about 10 people standing around my car. I knew something wasn’t right. “Taneem’s gone” one of them says. Umm, what do you mean he’s gone? Where is he? You all can’t fit in my car. We have to be back in 4 hours. What are we going to do??

Taneem did not have a cell phone (as they weren’t all that popular back in 1996) and no one had any clue where he might be. No one had seen him or Lisa in quite a while. After about 20 minutes of just standing around staring at each other, we decided we had to leave. I drive a Ford Tempo. 9 of us needed to get back to campus. We crammed ourselves in there like sardines. Five people in the front and four people in the back. Luckily the girls were all small, petite athletes. Two of the guys were about 6’4″ and the third guy was about 5’10″, 300 pounds. The guys sat in the back with Tanya across their laps. Stefanie & I shared the driver’s seat (safe, right), Danette & Angela shared the passenger seat with Lynn in their laps. Lynn’s feet were propped up between my steering wheel and my dashboard. We stopped about halfway there for a potty break and we looked like clowns falling out of that car. It was ridiculous!! But, we finally made it back safe and sound, and all in one piece.

We made it back to campus with about 2 hours to spare for sleep before training started. When Taneem walked into the meeting, his explanation was that he was confused on what time they closed because of the time change (college was on central time and the bar was on eastern time). Apparently Lisa had also been thrown out for underage drinking. Her parents lived in Louisville, so they just went there until time to head home. Needless to say, none of us were very forgiving or very understanding.

But in the end it made for a great night and a great story. I have never had 9 people in a car since then and I do not recommend it. But there were definitely great memories made that night. I hope the other people that were in that car with me that night remember it as well as I do and I hope that memory brings a smile to their faces each and every time!

Once A Cheater???

While looking through the Idea Bank that AKludgyMom has put
together, I came across the question, “What would you do if your
spouse cheated on you?”. My first marriage ended because my husband
was unfaithful. I left him because he brought a girl home from a
club and had sex with her on the couch in our living room while our
daughter and myself were asleep down the hall. That was his second
affair. I swore I would never put up with a cheater again. After
all, as they say “once a cheater, always a cheater”, right? This
post is NOT about my husband cheating on me. It is about the
opposite, in fact. This post is about my transgressions, my
mistakes. In this post, I am the cheater. And I am ashamed. Even as
I type this my stomach is in knots thinking about the mistakes I
made and the pain I have caused my husband. I realize most people
have strong feelings on those who are unfaithful to their spouses
and some of you will probably judge my character based on this
mistake and some of you will even stop reading here. I am not here
to justify my actions, I am here to publicly apologize and take
responsibility for my actions. Judge me if you wish, you aren’t the
person I have to answer to at the end of the day. I am not going to
name names nor go into any details, after all this is a very
personal topic. My marriage hasn’t been perfect, obviously. Far
from it at times in fact. My husband is my soul mate, best friend
and the love of my life. But we have had to weather some pretty
nasty storms in the relatively short time we’ve been married. The
biggest for me (until now) was his drug addiction. I took pride in
the fact that I stood by him and was his rock through his recovery.
I didn’t just walk away when my marriage got tough, I stayed and
dealt with it. At least that is what I was telling myself and
others. When the truth is, when things were at their darkest, I had
doubts and had actually decided I was done. I found comfort
elsewhere. I found someone who was saying and doing all the things
I needed at the time, things that my husband wouldn’t (or couldn’t)
do or say because of everything he was dealing with. My short-term
affair ended over two years ago, quite abruptly. While there was
still guilt, I committed myself back to my marriage, pushed
everything else to the back of my mind & got on with my
life. A few close friends knew the details and I trusted that they
would never say a word. A few months ago, Tattooed Dad and I decided to
separate for the simple fact that we simply couldn’t seem to get
along. We were fighting all the time, if we were talking at all. It
was stressful and at times his anger scared me. We knew we needed
to work on our communication, but living on top of each other
didn’t seem to be helping. So he rented a 1 BR apartment a mile
away and we split visitation with the kids 50-50 so we could work
on our marriage. This separation was never about divorce. It was
always about repair. I am not sure whether other people were
confused by that or not. But, the man from 2 years ago showed back
up in my life through a mutual friend. He had his drama and I had
mine and we agreed we needed to just be friends until all the drama
was sorted out. We went with another couple to a football game one
night, but other than that I didn’t see or speak to this person. We
didn’t even exchange phone numbers. For whatever reason, my husband
and this mutual friend also began talking. I have to admit, she is
a good listener and gives good advice, but I also know he was
trying to check up on me. How the conversation started I don’t
know, but it came out that me and this man had been communicating
through this mutual friend. Of course that upset Tattooed Dad and
when confronted I explained the innocence of what had happened,
without bringing up the mistakes of two years ago. Well now that he
had this information, he went digging around with all my close
friends to see if there was more to the story. He manipulated one
of my closest friends and she spilled everything she knew. Again,
when confronted, I told the whole story. Of course he was hurt, but
luckily for me, he is also forgiving. We are working through this
and I know that in the end our marriage will be stronger than ever.
I am not upset the truth is out. Now there are no secrets. We can
move forward. I am not upset that he used manipulation to get the
information he felt he needed. We all do things when we feel we
have been betrayed to get all the information we can. I am not
really mad at either friend who decided to divulge the information.
I am sure they (at least one of them) thought that by telling him
they were helping the situation, which I guess is true. But what I
am upset about is that someone that I had been friends with for
almost 20 years didn’t have the decency to come to me and tell me
that Tattooed Dad was asking questions. At least give me a chance
to tell him first. I would have had a lot more respect for her if
she would have said, “He’s asking questions. Tell him or I will.”
But instead she was giving him every little dirty detail (some of
which wasn’t even true) while emailing me telling me things like
“he already knows, you should just be honest” and “as your
friend…..”. I think I could have even understood better if she
had told him while the affair was going on. I will never ever
understand why she (they) felt a need to bring up something that
happened two years ago and was long over. What I do know is that
this has hurt my husband. I had never seen him so broken. It broke
my heart to see him like that. I didn’t even care that much what my
punishment was, even if it was divorce, because I knew I deserved
it. But I wanted his hurt to go away. I knew at that moment that I
was truly, madly & deeply in love with him because his
pain, anger, and hurt was more important than any emotion I was
feeling. It hasn’t been easy and we still have a long road ahead of
us, but our marriage is going to survive. We want to be married for
the rest of our lives. We are in the process of slowly
transitioning his things back into our house and out of the
apartment. After that we hope to find a larger house more suited to
the size of our family. But it is all a process. We have had some
amazingly good days lately, but I know there are going to be bad
days along the road as well. I am sorry, so utterly sorry for what
I did and for hurting the man I love. But I am also extremely
grateful for the bond that Tattooed Dad and I have, that is just
getting stronger and stronger every day.

2010 in review

The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health:

The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads Fresher than ever.

Crunchy numbers

A Boeing 747-400 passenger jet can hold 416 passengers. This blog was viewed about 1,700 times in 2010. That’s about 4 full 747s.

 

In 2010, there were 17 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 21 posts. There were 42 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 3mb. That’s about 4 pictures per month.

The busiest day of the year was January 20th with 57 views. The most popular post that day was My Award.

Where did they come from?

The top referring sites in 2010 were facebook.com, twitter.com, mommyisdating.com, theblogfrog.com, and diaryofanewmom.blogspot.com.

Some visitors came searching, mostly for pink toenails, tattooed moms, tattooed mom, pink coach purses, and cotton candy.

Attractions in 2010

These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.

1

My Award January 2010
8 comments

2

Meet The Family September 2010

3

Why I Hate Payday! January 2010
5 comments

4

My Life Story January 2010

5

About September 2010

Once Upon A Time…..Back To Blogging Day 5

Hello again!!  All this blogging this week has taken a lot out of me, but I do feel a lot better about how things are going and I hope that some of you will continue to come back and read frequently.  I am so glad I chose to participate in this Challenge with the SITS Girls. This is my first involvement with this group, but I am going to try to be much more active with this group of wonderful women.  If you, too, would like to be a SITS Girl, check out their blog, follow them on Twitter or “Like” them on Facebook.  So, I extend a big THANK YOU to this group for offering up this week-long challenge to help kick me in gear and get me on the road to being a better blogger.

Today’s assignment is to answer the question “Why do you blog?”

That’s an easy question for me to answer……because it gives a place to vent, tell stories & make friends.  It allows others to see inside of me and know more about who I am.  I have journaled all my life and always felt better after writing down whatever was running through my mind at the time.  For me, blogging basically accomplishes the same thing, but forces me to put it all together in a way that makes sense and keeps others interested, either by giving them a reason to laugh or helping them to see that they are not alone in this world…..someone out there shares your feelings, thoughts and experiences.  My blog is fairly new.  My first post was submitted on June 19, 2009 because I read something that made me go “wow” and I wanted a way to share it.  I was inspired by a friend and fellow blogger, Southern Fried Momma.  I always loved (and still do) reading her posts.  She is much funnier than I am, and her experiences are definitely one of a kind.  But she showed me that no matter what happens, someone out there is willing to listen and read about it.  I was already a regular on Twitter and reading a few blogs, and I was trying to find a way to relate on a more personal level and connect to the people I was tweeting with on a regular basis.  For me, blogging has helped me to do that.

I am excited about what the future holds for me and my blog.  I am looking forward to building friendships with people through social media and I am even considering a conference or two next year…yikes!!

Thanks for stopping by!

I would also like to thank the sponsors of the SITS Girls Challenge, Standards of Excellence, Westar Kitchen and Bath & Florida Builder Appliances for making this possible.  Winning Thelma & Louise wouldn’t be so bad either, right?!? Read about them at Electrolux.

Hey Music Lovers…….#b2sb2b Week 1

So, as most of you know, I am participating in TWO blogging workshops at the same time. Insanity, I know. But I am really hoping this forces me to start dedicating a set amount of time to blogging. I really want this to be successful.

If you’ve been visiting this week, you’ve probably seen my posts for the challenge I’ve been doing with the SITS girls.  However, I am also participating in Back 2 School, Back 2 Blogging with Gigi over at KludgyMom.

This week we are talking “widgets and plug ins”.  One person wrote “if you don’t know a widget is, you aren’t a blogger”.  So I’m guessing I need to learn quickly!!!

Our writing Task for this week is to find a cool, little-known plugin or widget to tell everyone about.  Well I’ve searched and found quite a few really neat ones.  I’d have to say the one I found that I love the most is the Pandora Widget for WordPress.  With this widget, you can display favorite songs, artists & stations.  You can even have a place where your readers can create their own station right from your blog.  I listen to Pandora a lot at work, so having this on my blog sidebar would just be another way of making my page more “me”.

But, alas…..I haven’t yet started to self-host my blog.  I am on WordPress.com and not WordPress.org.  Therefore I can’t use any of these cool widgets or plug-ins.  But I plan to make that switch after the first of the year, so I will keep you posted.

In all fairness, the assignment was to FIND a plugin or widget…..didn’t say we had to actually install it or use it on our blogs

If any of you already have Pandora on your blogs, or if you decide to add it after reading this post, please let me know what you think.  I’d love to get reviews before I get to the point of adding it to my page!!

Back To Blogging – Day 3

I’m baaaaack!! Have you missed me?  My guess is not really.  I know you aren’t used to this many posts from me in this short amount of time….but at least it is forcing me to focus on setting the time aside specifically to work on and update my blog.  I know these workshops I am doing are going to give me the tools to make my blog the best that it can be!

So, as you know I’m participating in the SITS Girls Back To Blogging Challenge.  Today is Day 3 and the assignment is to re-upload a post that had a title we felt was funny, creative or sentimental.  I must admit, I am lacking here.  My titles seem to be pretty straightforward and generic.  So I guess that is just one more thing to add to the list of things to work on.  *Mental Note:  Get creative juices flowing before settling on a title!*

But I still need to pick a post, so I am going with

Why I Hate Payday!

Things in my life have started to look up since I posted this.  I have found an awesome job (which I will tell you all about in a future post) and Tattooed Dad has decided to go back to work as well.  This has significantly improved our paydays and I don’t hate them so bad.  Sperm Donor still isn’t paying child support….but after 12 years I should be used to it by now.

I would also like to thank the sponsors of the SITS Girls Challenge, Standards of Excellence, Westar Kitchen and Bath & Florida Builder Appliances for making this possible.  Winning Thelma & Louise wouldn’t be so bad either, right?!? Read about them at Electrolux.