So, I've made some changes on my blog including the URL. I'm focusing on mindfulness and freethinking. You can find that blog here: http://themindfulfreethinker.blogspot.com/

Not sure what I will do with this blog, if anything. I just wanted to have a place for all of my old posts since The Mindful Freethinker will have posts starting from late 2012 on.

It's been a year of changes, with more on the way!

Since August of last year:

We got a new car and had it for six months. In February, we got into a car accident that totaled the car but fortunately, there were no severe injuries other than my suffering a cracked rib. It took a couple of months but we were able to get another car, this time a van. The girls still miss the car though.

In October, we took a trip up to Fond du Lac, WI to see my mom. It was the first time I had seen her in 9 years and Natalie got to meet her for the first time as well. I didn't take Isabelle since I wasn't sure how she would react to the surroundings. It wasn't too bad but it was kind of hard to see how different my mom was in some ways. Yet, she didn't really look that different at all.

Also in October, we were finally able to leave our roach infested apartment and move to a very nice neighborhood into a duplex. While we lost a bedroom (went from 3 to 2), we gained a laundry room and I feel the trade was a sufficient one as I no longer have to wash clothes once or twice a month. We did have to leave a number of things behind in order to avoid bringing any bugs with us but we've been able to replace most of it since then.

John quit his job at the local call center just a week before our car accident. He had finally heard back from a job he had been waiting a number of months for and decided just work at that one job instead of working at both of them. It never did come through as he planned, only giving him 35 hours a week when he was working 40 hours plus overtime at his other job. He lost that job (as a debt collector) in June and was unemployed for a month. Now he's working a night audit job at a local hotel (one of the best hotels in town where he actually has to dress up in a suit).

I've now completed a full year and a half of dialectical behavior therapy and I'm looking at graduating to stage 2. This program has been extremely helpful for me in terms of giving me the skills I need to keep my emotions regulated.

During John's month of unemployment, I looked into returning to the workforce. However, I quickly realized that being out of the workforce for nine years really put me at a disadvantage and decided instead to return to school. I start Monday as a student seeking an Associate's Degree in IT (Information Technology): Network Systems Administration at the local technical college. I'm very excited to be going back to school and while it's going to be a challenge, I really think it's going to help me a lot in terms of self-esteem and self-reliance.

John also returned to school. Back in April he started working on his Master's in Education degree. He is going through an online university so it's been a very interesting challenge for him as he learns the ins and outs of technology he had had no experience with the last time he attended college.

Both girls are doing well. Isabelle just turned four last month and is a bundle of energy. She has also inherited her father's build which makes finding clothes for her rather interesting. She can still wear 18 month shorts. Pants that size would be a little short on her but regular 3T pants tend to fall off her bottom. Natalie seems to have the opposite problem. She needs a larger size (especially in jeans) due to her waist but can't quite pull it off because of her height. She's not short but it just doesn't quite add up. Knit pants tend to fit her better (now I think I know why my mom rarely bothered buying me jeans when I was her age).

We joined the YMCA earlier this year and the girls have both had a chance to take some lessons. Natalie and Isabelle both took swim lessons and Isabelle also took some gymnastics lessons while she was waiting to get back into swimming. Both of them had a lot of fun and did very well. We're taking a small break right now until I can get our schedules all figured out but I hope to get them back into lessons before too long.

Natalie attended summer Bible camp for the third year in a row through her local church. As always, she had a blast and can't wait to go next year. It was a little bit of a challenge since it was during the month John was out of work but we were able to get a scholarship for the camp and made do with the things we already had.

I'm sure there's more I'm forgetting to mention, but those were the big things in the last year as far as I recall. This next year will be quite interesting as I work my way through college and juggle family and all the other things that are bound to come up. I look forward to the challenges though as I know that they will make things easier for all of us down the line. At the very least, we won't have to keep relying on just one family member for employment.

So far 2014 has been uh, interesting, and not always in a good way.

The end of 2013 really seemed to be a turning point for all of us. We were able to get financing for a car that we all really liked and one that would be dependable for us. We were able to find a new place in a MUCH nicer neighborhood and moved there without bringing too many bugs with us (SO nice to have an apartment that wasn't crawling with roaches!). John had a dependable job with hours that gave us the money we needed and we were able to get a few things with the tax return.

Then we get to February. A job John had been waiting to hear from for some time finally became available. The original plan was to add this to the job he was already working in order to bring in more money to cover some of the extra expenses that came up from moving and owning a car. Somehow though, he had forgotten this and instead, quit the full-time job he had, just one week before starting the new job. The day before he's to start the new job, we're heading home from a friend's and get into a car accident. Our car is totaled. Insurance covered it but it takes a couple of months before we get a new car and that's a price increase. The new job, while paying more per hour, offered fewer hours. He got, at the most, 35 hours a week. We get the rental renewal notice for our place (original lease was for 8 months) and that went up $20/month to cover the water bill. Just over two weeks ago, John lost his job. They gave him the option of quitting instead of being fired and he took that, not thinking that at least if he was fired, he could have applied for unemployment.

It's been a rough couple of weeks and I'm pushing myself to get out there and do what I need to do to get back into the workforce instead of waiting for John to get another job. He doesn't seem to be all that motivated to do so this time around because in April, he started classes for his Master's degree online. His assignments seem to take up all his time now, even without having a job with it. I won't lie; I'm kind of disappointed in him but this is nothing new, unfortunately. What's different this time is is that I don't have a newborn or even a toddler dependent on me. My youngest will be 4 and has been weaned for awhile now. I'm trying to take this as a sign that it's time for ME to step up and do what needs to be done for the family.

It's not going to be easy though and I'm looking into all my options as far as assistance with job searching and what not. I've been working on getting my driver's license and I may look into going back to school as well. At 33 years old, I'm finally really working on my independence. I wish I could rely on my husband. His religious beliefs do seem to stem from an idea that the male is to be the provider for the family. But lately, I've been seeing that restlessness in him, that restlessness that brings us trouble. There's only so many times I can go through this before I have to decide that enough is enough, that the way things are being done currently just is not working.

So, I'm working on it, I'm trying to figure out what I want to do with my life and figure out how to make my OWN life a life worth living because really, I can't just keep following him around and watching him live his life the way he wants. I need to figure out what I want out of my own life and then do what it takes to get that life. It's a scary thing. It's all too easy to just sit there and watch life go by but I'm not happy with how this year is going and I can't keep waiting for it all to get better without doing anything to make it better. I have to push on and do what needs to be done.

I don't know what that is going to do to our relationship. I've been so dependent on him for so long that I think changing things around the other way will be a challenge. We'll see, I guess.

So here I am, almost a year later.

Where did the time go? It's June again and rather than wait until the week of the anniversary to deal with it, I'm trying to prepare and deal with it now. Not sure what that is all going to entail but distracting myself and trying to forget about it certainly didn't help. It happened and while the anniversary is nowhere near as bad as the event was itself, there are still a lot of emotions bottled up inside, emotions that are very much like a sealed and shaken bottle of soda, just waiting for the moment someone unsuspecting opens the cap.

There's still a lot I have not dealt with. Other than a few cards, I have not spoken with my dad since the impact statement I made in November of 2004. I talk to my mom fairly regularly as she calls me (collect but at least it's not too expensive). Part of the reason for this stems from our very rocky relationship when I was growing up. He was never an easy person to talk to, he was often volatile, and you just never knew what would set him off so it was just easier to avoid him which really was a shame because we're very much alike in our interests. When he did take the time to actually talk (as opposed to venting about my mom or older sister), he had a lot of knowledge and is a very intelligent person but very very often unapproachable. His constant anger and dislike of people and the world eventually drove us all away and so, in the years since the murder (which, as far as that goes, wasn't all that surprising a thing to have happened considering how volatile he was), I never really talked to him. A big part of that has been that fear of rejection as he had rejected me so many times while I was growing up. It had always been easier to control the relationship I have with my mom (especially now) but I never felt that way about my dad.

There are a lot of difficult and conflicting emotions to wade through and for the most part, I'm alone in that journey. For many, it's easier to just move on and forget about it but really, it's not that easy or that simple. It may have been almost 11 years but the impact of that day is still there. The loss of parental units (even if that loss is incarceration and not death) is still a loss and it was at such a time in my life where that loss was very acutely felt. I was 22 years old and still in need of some parental guidance. Since that time, I have been more or less swimming the waters of adulthood alone with no one to really get any advice from. Eleven years later and I'm still having trouble accepting that I'm pretty much on my own.

Lots of stuff going on these days and I don't see that changing anytime soon.

John and I both have student loans. John's are from way back when (though some of mine were combined with his just after we married) and I have a small loan from when I tried to go back to school for a semester. I did well but got pregnant before the semester ended so never went back. They ended up in default either during or shortly after our time in Korea and we've been spending the last year working to get them out of default because one issue with having student loans in default is that you don't get your tax returns; they go towards the student loans. So, we finally get them both out of default which meant being able to file our tax return (late but we did get them done). We got the return and we've been using the money to catch up on bills, set aside first month and security for a new apartment, and we used a good chunk of it to put money down on a car and then financed the rest of the amount. So now, we own a car and it's a pretty new car (for us as the newest we had previously was 1996). It's a 2005 Mercury Sable. It's been very nice to have a car again and makes life much easier to not have to totally rely on public transportation. Not to mention, having a car means not having to rent one in order for John to attend the Feast next week.

With the Feast of Tabernacles looming on the horizon, we've been preparing for that. Well, I haven't been too much myself because I'm not going with them this year; I'm staying home and getting a mommy vacation. But John is going down to the Dells with the two girls which means a bit of preparation needs to be done. He needed a new suit, haircut, new glasses, new shoes. The girls needed new tights and new shoes as well as clothes. They will be gone for 9 days so there's a bit of packing that goes into all of this which makes life a lot of fun during this time but once they are gone, I will have this nice week plus to get some things done around the house and in general, be able to pretty much go where I want without having to rush home for one reason or another. I will also get to drink my coffee and eat my toaster strudels in peace and have full access to my Kindle Fire HD without two girls fighting over who gets it next. They will get Daddy all week, stay in a hotel that includes a pool and even a kiddy water slide area, and be able to go to parks pretty much everyday (or other places) while they are done there. So, it will be good for everyone. They leave Wednesday and again, there's just a lot to get done.

We're also trying to find a new place to live. The situation in our current apartment is not improving. The landlord is not keeping on the bug situation and that's been getting worse again after they were almost eradicated. It's frustrating dealing with roaches in various places along with the general lack of maintenance that is done here in general. He's not a very good apartment manager at all; he cares more about getting his money than on maintaining his apartments. Sadly, because these are three bedroom apartment and they're cheaper than other 3 bedroom apartments in the area and he's willing to take just about any kind of pet, this place will be in demand even though again, the lack of maintenance done here is just atrocious. I mean seriously, we've been dealing with roaches here for close to two years. I'm done. And if that didn't do it, the fact that my husband's bike was stolen off the deck right in front of our apartment pretty much seals it for me.

The side of town we live in is the pits. It's the side of town that isn't dealt much with because it's the poorer end of town and it's not where the college students live. The college student area is the one that is always getting the attention and the focus and that's frustrating. It just seems to me like the town cares more about the college students, the kids who come and go, than about families who actually want to stick around. So more families are moving out of the city and into surrounding areas which is what we're looking to do. Hopefully we'll find something and we won't have a hard time getting a place to move to even with the lousy landlord (he hasn't been real big on giving his tenants decent references).

It's kind of frustrating because this is the only place we've lived since returning to the US 3 years ago and I really wish I hadn't moved here because of my sister. There were other options I could have looked into and I was pushed to find something quickly because she was getting kicked out of the place she was staying. And then she didn't even stay; she moved out as soon as my husband returned home.

So yeah, lots going on and lots to do and definitely never enough time to do it.

VocabularySpellingCity Premium Membership Review

SpellingCity has been a great way for my seven year old first grader to learn her spelling words in a FUN way! When I tried to do spelling with her earlier this year, she hated it. She didn't like having to sit down and take the practice test, she didn't like the worksheets she had to do, and she just didn't find it very fun. It didn't help that she had to do a lot of writing which is not something she overly enjoys doing either. And yet, she was always asking me how to spell words. She's done it so much that my three year old has started to ask how to spell words too!

This website has been a great teaching tool for her. The games make it fun so that she actually WANTS to do her lessons. We have been using the Summer Program word lists and there have been a good combination of easy to spell words as well as harder words. And because the assignments differ with each list, it keeps her from getting bored. And because she types for the tests, she can focus more on the spelling of the words than on how she's writing them which is a big thing when you have a child who still wants to do a lot of writing in all capital letters. I definitely plan to stay with this program for the upcoming school year.

One thing I do want to note and it's something I notice particularly because this was something I had to deal with when I was in school. I'm hearing impaired and one thing I had to learn to do in order to adapt and be able to take my spelling tests was to learn to lip read. This helped me with beginning and endings of words because I specifically had trouble hearing consonants. So, something to keep in mind if this is being used with a child who is hearing impaired is that adaptations may have to be made since the tests are given orally over the computer speakers. A hearing impaired child may have some trouble so something to consider may be to, as the parent, read the word out loud as well with the child facing you. It's something I happened to notice when listening to the tests and so wanted to point that out.

Outside of the tests, everything else is reading based with simple instructions and my daughter had no issues navigating through her assignments independently. I'm very glad I had a chance to review this program because it has become an excellent spelling resource for us.

The Vaccine Debate is NOT Black and White

This is one debate I'm getting a little tired of. Along with breastfeeding/formula feeding, vaginal/cesarean birth, homeschool/public school, stay at home/work, it's become quite the top of dissent among mothers. The idea here is that there is a right and wrong answer. Now, what that is depends on who you talk to, of course. But there are definitely two sides: you either do or you don't.

There's this idea that those who don't are selfish parents who not only do not care about their children but also do not care about the children in their community. Their unvaccinated children will bring about the very diseases that doctors worked so hard to eradicate. These children should stay at home, never play outside, never go to school until their parents get their heads on straight and do the right thing for the whole community.

There's also this idea that by vaccinating your children, you are poisoning them, chancing that they will have a horrendous reaction, chancing autism which has to be the worst thing to strike a child outside of death.

Both beliefs, I think, are a little crazy. Sadly, I've been dealing more and more with the first one since joining a number of secular/non-theist type groups. I think science is great. I totally believe in the whole idea of finding evidence for everything out there, especially for the various religious beliefs. HOWEVER, I also believe that there is more than one side to the story.

Yes, a number of diseases have been decreased, some even totally eliminated (like small pox). However, at the same time, we're seeing an increase in auto-immune diseases. Is the one related to the other? Were diseases decreased solely through vaccinations? What part does changes in sanitation/water/food have? What part does better access to food and medication have? At the same time that many of these vaccines came about, other medications arrived too including antibiotics. We learned, in general, what caused diseases and how to prevent them and stop/slow their spread. We learned about handwashing and good hygiene. We cannot simply ignore the part these things played in the decline of diseases because they are just as important! In fact, it's because some of these things are not in place that I think vaccines are still needed in many parts of the world. It is due to these other things that vaccines ARE still needed.

However, to condemn parents for deciding NOT to vaccinate, to go so far as to say that parents are SELFISH for not choosing a certain medical treatment, for looking at both sides of the vaccine issue, I think that goes too far. Deciding whether or not to vaccinate is not an easy decision in some cases. In other cases, it is. For most parents here in the US and other developed countries, who have access to clean water, sanitation methods, ways to wash their hands, and access to medicines such as antibiotics, it's not a black and white decision. Both decisions do carry risks (just as there are benefits and risks to ANY medical treatment). We are not facing life and death situations on a daily basis like we did at one time (back when many children did not live past the age of 5 or even 1). Outbreaks of these diseases ARE rare and if an outbreak does occur, the diseases CAN be treated. Not to mention, if there was a wide scale outbreak, many parents probably would reconsider vaccinating and in some cases, there is even time to do so even in the middle of an outbreak. For example, you can get vaccinated for the chickenpox if you had recently been exposed to it. I'm sure it's similar for other diseases.

I'm not one to say that parents should not decide to vaccinate because it's not my decision to make. It's a decision that each family should be able to make based on their unique circumstances and their own beliefs about vaccinations. Doctors should be willing to sit down with families and have a full conversation about vaccinations including what situations puts a child more at risk for certain illnesses, potential complications from the illness as well as potential complications from the vaccination itself. Doctors should also be prepared for the fact that outbreaks CAN occur in fully vaccinated populations and should be on the lookout for symptoms of diseases children are vaccinated against both in vaccinated and unvaccinated children. Doctors should be on the lookout for reactions to vaccines as well and do everything possible to work with the parents to get to the bottom of those complications as well as make a full report on those complications instead of trying to sweep them under the rug. In other words, there should be full disclosure from everyone involved with vaccination from doctors all the way up to the CDC. Because really, without that full disclosure, without people being upfront about EVERYTHING related to vaccines and diseases, the sense of mistrust will continue and vaccinations will continue to be a hot button topic.

In the meantime, parents will continue to have to make the best decision they feel they can make based on what they know and everyone else really needs to just have and show more respect to the decisions that parents make for their children. Until that happens, there will be many more cases of groups blasting each other over this very contentious topic.