Double edged sword

Ever get yourself into a situation where you are damned if you do and damned if you don't?

We're in one now. It's a small one - not a very big deal, but yet, we're in one.

We were a two-dog household. Our chow-chow came up to Michigan shortly after Aaron did in 2002. He was fine being the only dog. But we had to go and mess everything up, and get a second dog in 2005. Mackenzie. This ridiculous idea was discussed that we should be a two-dog household. I was younger and stupider then. I had no firm grasp on how reality dictates that we all have limitations to our capabilities.

Anyhow. Hurley, our beloved Chow, passed away last October. He was 16 years old. This is ancient for a Chow. Evidence of a good long life.

The addition that hit the household in 2005 has not recovered. We gave her weeks, then we gave her months. She's a Shepherd. A herding dog. Who had never ever to our knowledge been the "only dog" in her household before Hurley died. If we leave for too long? And she's home alone? Diarrhea for four days minimum. If we leave twice for too long in that four days? Diarrhea in the house.

She's 140 lbs. Imagine the mess.

There are so many things that have come to pass and given way to an easier, less stressful lifestyle. We no longer have to watch Kenz when she goes outside, despite having no fence. She never leaves. In fact, if you forget about her out there, which I often do, she'll whine at the back door and eventually make her way around to the front, hoping you might notice her there.

She has no desire to wander, only to be where her humans are.

And here's the problem. I need to go back to work the minute someone gives me an offer. I'm hoping to go back to school in May for a doctorate. Aaron works full time, of course, and also goes to school full time. In a matter of months, we'll be in a situation where we both have 14+ hour days, with stops home in the middle of work and school, and every time we come home, there will be a mess to deal with. Also, our dog will be miserable.

Sounds like an easy problem to solve, right? Get her a friend. I wish it were that easy. We are finally in an amazing place, where our one single dog fits in the back fo the jeep. We not only can run off and go camping, but we have extra seats in the vehicle too, for friends, or stuff, or eventually a carseat. Another dog changes all of that. We may have no choice but to put a fence up, stat. And that costs money. Food costs money. Vet bills cost money.

So we either take the financial risk and get another dog, or we take the risk of making our poor dog more lonely and more miserable and ruining our laminate floors. Getting rid of Mackenzie is not an option. She's family, and we love her.

Of the choices we have it seems best to get another dog, although I use the term "best" loosely. And, if we are going to introduce a new dog into the family, best to do it while someone is home all the time. How would we possibly change direction and bring home a dog when we are both working and going to school? That wouldn't work. We'd be in a world of trouble if we got to that point and didn't have things resolved somehow.

So over the weeks we've discussed that a dog will find us when the time is right. Someone who needs a home and fits into our family.

We went to the St. Patty's Day parade downtown, and Aaron was enamored by the Wolfhounds. He used to have one named Bob. A mix, actually, but quite a bit of him was Wolfhound. He really did have a fight with a real wolf at one time, and won, but that is a story for another day. Bob was a great dog. One of Aaron's favorites for sure.

So Aaron got home from the parade and spent some time over the following days reading up on the breed and whether or not there is a rescue spot locally that takes them when they need to be adopted out to new homes. There were none locally. No special rescues he could find. And, they only live approximately 8 years. The loss of Hurley is so fresh still that the idea of only having a dog for half the time that he had Hurley is inconceivable. The Wolfhound idea was put to rest.

And then, out of nowhere, an e-mail came in about a dog that needed a home. We get lots of these, and try to facilitate and pass this info around as much as possible. But this one sounded really interesting. This dog is a runner. He has his own champion chip. His owner runs 10K races with him. It's a male, which works, because we have a very alpha female, and another female would surely be problematic.

This dog is about Hurley's size.

And, it's a wolfhound mix. It has the same wirey fur and frisky look to him that Bob had.

He's been to puppy school and graduated. Fully trained. Knows over 25 commands. Two and a half years old - so he's still got a bit of puppy in him and will be resilient to the move.

Aaron brought it up somewhat gently. I thought it would pass. But he talked about the dog for two and a half days. I finally called. We're going to meet him today. His humans are moving back to Europe, and this guy can't go with them. He's free to a good home.

We're packing Mackenzie up in the Jeep and taking her out to meet this dog. They don't live close. We're all going to have a nice walk and see how the two animals interact. I have a feeling it will go very well, and we'll end up with this dog. It's a risk. But so is leaving Mackenzie alone and going back to work eventually. If the dog works out I'll just have to pray extra hard that I get a job sooner than later. Or, even better, that the darn condo sells in the next couple months. I can't ever remember having this much to pray for at one time. It's exhausting.

Spring winds of change

A friend said to me yesterday, "you can't save the whole world."

I've heard this before. And each time I've heard it, I've had the same immediate response resonate through my mind. "I'm not trying to save the WHOLE world, just a piece of it." And I moved on thinking that I was just misunderstood.

But I happened to have been reflecting back on much of the past year in particular at the time of this conversation, and all the sacrifice and difficulty that has been caused by many of my efforts to save just a piece of the world were front and center on my mind. And it hit me yesterday. My friend didn't misunderstand anything. Neither had anyone who had come forth with similar messages before her.

When I try to play too many roles for too many people, no matter how hard I've tried, I can't play all of those roles very well at one time. When I was a full time student and full time employee, I missed many family activites. So the role of daughter, sister, grandaughter, neice, etc. suffered. When I'm trying to be a foster parent to a child who's behavior should have landed her out on her bum months and months prior, and the screaming and throwing things and general tantrums make my home miserable for everyone, I'm too drained to be a good wife, or anything else for that matter.

My priorities have always been dictated by who or what needed my attention most urgently. You could call it a "fire fighting" approach. Foster kid melting down? Handle it. Dog whining? Run and let her out. Birthday party in 20 minutes? Run to Target and get a gift and a bag to stick it in. Husband seems like he wants my attention? Run from laundry machine to sit with him awhile, fold towels while I do. This reactive method of living isn't really living. It's just "getting by." It's tiring, and it makes you feel terribly exhausted and unhealthy.

Meanwhile, all the priorities that are important to me but not screamingly urgent never get taken care of. I don't do anything for my church anymore. I hardly visit my grandparents. For years, most dinners came out of a restaurant's kitchen because my reactive state of being finds the shortest path to rectify a problem rather than calmly plan and execute. Believe me, when you take on too much, there is no time to plan meals, grocery shop properly, and cook.

And then there are the PROJECTS! The dozens of projects that I've either wanted to do or signed up to do and I never get to. I told my grandmother I'd redecorate her kitchen years ago. I still haven't done it, but I swear I haven't stopped moving since. I still need to finish unpacking, clean and organize the basement and garage, etc. etc. And of course, there's the whole "getting back in shape" thing that always seems to go by the wayside because there are too many other issues demanding my time.

New priorities. I'm a wife, daughter, sister, granddaugher, neice, neighbor, friend, member of my church, and homeowner. I'm going to try to focus on just that for a bit and see if I can catch up and get things together. This isn't going to be easy. I find myself still checking e-mail three times an hour hoping the kid is okay, and thinking about whether or not to consider fostering someone new soon. But I have to get my life in order again before I can be of much use to anyone.

I have to learn to be a little bit selfish with my time and take better care of myself, and to focus on the tasks that have gone undone for far too long. I'm starting with giving up the computer ENTIRELY for a four day weekend. And when I come back here to this place on Tuesday, I hope I'll be able to say that I've caught up and I'm on track. Then I hope I can stay there, and not continue to take on far too much and struggle.

Fostering

I was just thinking about a comment from CJ. She mentioned that she "missed fostering." And it got me thinking.

We weren't really fostering.

I mean yes, we have a license, the kid came via the foster system, caseworkers, therapists, licensing teams, and heaven knows who else were in and out of our home constantly. But yet, our situation wasn't a real foster situation.

When we met this kid, she was 16, emotionally underdeveloped, deeply scarred, scared of everything, but sharp as a tack (or so it seemed.) She had a 4.0 GPA, and wanted to go to law school. She and I had so much in common as far as interests go, that it was FUN to work with her. Her situation was so unfair that we had to do something about it. We actually looked into adoption first, even though she'd be an adult in only two more years, because she so obviously needed a family. But we found out quickly that fostering was faster, free to us, and offered her far more support than the adoption system would. Literally, she would LOSE many benefits from adoption. She gets this special tuition incentive plan, certain things covered in her life through Youth in Transition funds, etc. etc. Foster wasn't the intent, it was simply the tool to acheive the means, which was to get her in a safe home.

I didn't deal with any bio parents or visitation. I didn't run her to the DHS office across town on a regular basis. We didn't have any of that, because she's a permanent court ward. There was no fear she'd disappear, because there was really noplace to disappear to, and no parent(s) out there to suddenly get his/her/their crap together and get her "back." She was intended to just become family, settle in, and stay forever. Somedays she wanted that, some days she didn't, and some days she had no idea what she wanted. I can understand some of it. I explained to her before that when you marry into a family? It takes months if not years before you really feel at home there. While she felt at home in our house and with just us, she felt awkward around the whole clan. She felt as if she didn't belong. And that is the theme of her life. She feels as if she doesn't belong anywhere. She was not willing to give it time. One of her biggest and most frequent complaints was that she felt nobody accepted her. Now in fairness, I'm not sure what she expected from anyoen to feel "accepted." Because our families were incredibly gracious to her. Nobody missed giving her a Christmas gift or a hug or an opportunity to be part of whatever was going on.

I wonder about true fostering. About the process of opening your home to a TEMPORARY situation, and caring for an innocent one until he or she can go back home again or forward to a "forever family" that will adopt. Of course the county has already asked us about it now that it's public knowledge we have an empty house. They need help. But I'm not sure about this right now. I'm exhausted, and my life is in shambles. This was way more work than I ever expected. I think we just need a break from everything whether we go back and do anything more with it or not.

Makin Babies

No, not us. The Internet. Because Amy shares ideas that are more fun than laundry.



Make your own babies at www.makemebabies.com

Accountability

It seems to be such a black and white situation. People either have it or they don't. A few of these kids I've come across have a fairly firm grasp of it. Some have none. The one who just flew this coop had none.

Everything was always someone else's fault. And when she did take responsibility for something in her heart, and speak about it, it was never anything of value to take responsibility for. For instance, she felt horribly guilty for seeking help when she'd been sexually abused. She took full responsibility for "causing" the state workers to intervene, and she took full responsibility for "causing" a court hearing and all sorts of other activities. She can hardly talk about it, the guilt is so thick.

But then we have even the simplest things that she can't ever seem to stand up and own. Her chores were the dishes and running the vacuum. Not a bad gig for a girl her age, eh? But she'd avoid it like the plague. That part I understand. Often I avoid chores like the plague. We all probably have those times. But then a time would come when someone was coming over, or even might come over, and if she was nowhere to be found, or moving slow, I'd have no choice but to step in and take care of it. This wasn't confrontational. I just got it done and expected she'd step in next time and do her thing. If you knew how much turmoil this kid caused, you'd understand we really avoid the nitpicky stuff becoming any sort of issue. I don't want to hear her whiny crap about dishes when I have to deal with her deciding that since she's possibly only 6 months or so from bagging a new boyfriend, she should probably get on birth control so she's ready. There were certainly always bigger fish to fry. Anyhow, on those occasions that I'd step in and do the dishes? So they were done? She'd feel some guilt that it was obvious she had not taken care of her responsibilities and she had no way to blame the situation on anyone else. See, if I hollered at her about the dishes? She'd be too busy seething with anger that someone dared yell at her. So she wouldn't care about the fact that she hadn't done what she was supposed to. The only thing of issue would be that someone got angry at her for what she felt was no justifiable reason.

She failed a few classes her first semester of college. The reason? She decided the online format of these classes was too much work, and was unfair. Nevermind that she quit doing the work three weeks into the eight week class. It wasn't her fault.

She got a job when she was 16, and needed a bank account. I told her why she should use a credit union, and how it would benefit her in the long run. I got papers for her, and in the meantime, she ran and opened a checking account at a bank. How she managed to do this at 16, I don't know, because a 16 year old cannot be part and parcel to a contract of any sort. Every check or swipe of a debit is a contract. The agreement between the bank and the account holder of a checking account is a contract. But I digress. I asked her several times how she was going to maintain her checkbook and balance her account, because she had no access to a computer, could not receive mail from a bank where she lived at the time, and was spinning out of control with this newfangled debit card. She insisted she'd be fine. But when she overdrafted countless times, and the bank finally closed her account, it wasn't her fault. They should have TOLD her the rules, not just showed them to her on a piece of paper she had to sign.

When she lived here with us and decided she might need a credit card, I told her she should not apply for anything while she has the checking account problem on her credit, because it will cause another hit to her credit, and a denial, neither of which help her situation. Sure enough, only a matter of months go by before Chase sends a letter saying thanks for her interest in their platinum mastercard, but no thanks overall. I ask her why she deliberately did exactly what she was told not to do, and her response? She didn't seek out the offer - it came right to her e-mail box. So it isn't her fault. All she did was fill it out. This particular one I couldn't even respond to. I was too busy thinking, is she this stupid? Really? I hollered at her good for not following directions, a skill that most six year olds can master but she struggled with daily at 18.

She ran into the stop sign at the end of our street. We reminded her you have to drive according to the conditions outside. She insisted that no matter what the weather, you should be able to drive 25 in residential. It wasn't her fault. It happened because there was too much ice, not because she drove too fast on it and couldn't stop.

She hit a parked car in an parking garage. It wasn't her fault. They parked too close to her car, so she "had" to hit them in order to get out and leave.

Our microwave broke recently. She's being told constantly to watch how much money she's blowing daily, and save some. (Which she simply cannot do.) When several days went by, and she was running out and spending money on at least two meals a day from drive thru windows, we reminded her that it costs a lot of money to do that. She replied that it wasn't her fault she had to buy food at fast food places because our microwave broke, so she couldn't "cook." I suggested a turkey and cheese sandwich, or maybe eating dinner with us as I'd asked her to do a few times and saw no interest, and she just left the room.

Nothing can ever be her fault.

Without a doubt, even her choice to run away will somehow in her mind be our fault, or the "system's" fault. Maybe both. But definitely not hers.

Packed

The foster kid's stuff is packed and ready to roll. That was a heartbreaking task, really.

Now on to catch up the rest of the house....

Brownies & Coffee for Breakfast

The struggles that have been going on in my life are starting to come to a close. Most, if not all of them, I could not discuss openly on the Internet.

But here's a synopsis.

My mother lost her job. It was a very unfair situation. She had a mock grievance process available to her, and she used it. She is not represented by a union, unfortunately, and the grievance process they have does not typically reinstate people who are discharged wrongly. In her case, it was so blatant, that she was reinstated with full back pay, and an apology. But, going through the process nearly killed her, and thus broke my heart in the process. If anyone reading this thinks unions have "had their time" or actually are a detriment to society, I have two things to offer to you. First, you are almost guaranteed to have never been part of a union that you needed. Second, you are almost guaranteed not to have a firm understanding of exactly what the union was formed to do, and the purpose it has served for people who now work in the NON UNION PRIVATE SECTOR. Like me. (Well, when I'm actually employed, that is.) Big business has put many stigmas out there that people believe, and those people don't realize how they are hurt by the whole deal. I beg you all to question this, and seek answers for yourself. I have formally studied labor relations in a non-partisan program - simply because it fascinated me. I was a believer that unions were becoming "old news" before I went through this program and was enlightened. That, with a better understanding of how an "economy" works, changed my personal view, and then made me angry that the media and businesses have the power they do to change the stream of information to the public. This is America, and it's supposed to be home of the free and the brave. Not home of the censored and belittled.

Anyway, she got her job back.

My sister came to me with a legally charged issue that she needed help with, and I was able to give her some help. That issue isn't fully resolved yet but I believe it is very close. She's not in any trouble. It's really one of the stupidest things I've ever heard of. So that is close to resolution.

I've been in the midst of struggle with our foster child. This has been the biggest strain on me for some time now, and the biggest cause for my being pulled away and not being able to write what I needed to write on here. She ran away on Thursday, and is staying in an undisclosed place with a "friend." One of the details in this situation has rendered her beyond our trust, and she will not be allowed back. For any of you who know anything about this particular young person and what we've gone through on her behalf, you know that's a big deal. I have kept a basic paper journal over the course of time. That information will likely get published at some point.

The therapist who is hired to do in-home therapy with the (former!) foster child came over this morning - he was far more worried about us given the situation than he was worried about her.

So here I am in my home that I love beyond measure, with only my husband and our pets. Relieved from the hardship and struggle that has been so prevalent in our home. Relieved from the worry about my parents' financial status. Peaceful. Happy. And not sure if we want to do foster anymore, or at least for a while. We need a break. And yes, breakfast is brownies and coffee. Life is good right now.

One request - please visit www.momentswithmoriah.blogspot.com (sorry I can't remember how to link) and leave love for this family if you have time. Now, I'm off to visit all my favorite blogs and see if Amy has started painting. Ciao everyone.

Wordless Wednesday

Apology. And a robin.

I've been MIA from writing for days, which should be a rarity if ever an occurrence at all. It's partially due to being very busy trying to help Aaron wrap up the tail end of his semester here. (I should say midmester - his stints are 8 weeks long each.)

But more influencing than busy days around here is a lack of anything positive to think about or write about. It's been a time of serious fear and worry. It's not as though these problems and fears are so personal that they can't be shared. It's really more that there is no humor or hope found in their descriptions. It isn't worth the time to write them and risk spreading dread. Also, it's not even as though I'd want to reflect back on those words later on this blog. I can promise you that when this time passes, most of it I'll prefer to forget the finer details of.

I know that's vague, which might be annoying to readers. I'm sorry for that. What I will say is that we're an entire family, all of working class people, and the economy in the Detroit area is really, really bad. Going through some of this myself is one thing. Watching my parents get touched by it is something else. It's devastating. And right now, every one of us is in fear of one kind or another.

And then right behind the fear and worry is the guilt that we are all still living under roofs with running water, heat, and electricity. The news this morning showed footage of these various "shanty towns" where newly homeless people have moved into tents. Tents! This took my mind driectly to a family I've known for a very long time with three young children who just lost their home. They live about four or five miles from us.

Just now I peered through tears into the backyard and saw the first robin of the season! Spring is here 11 days early for me.

I got a picture of it. I'm not sure if it's really visible in the picture or not, but it sat there while I snapped a shot.

Isn't it funny how little messages of hope come right when you need them the most?

Wordless Wednesday

A Raise!

Fellow unemloyment draw-ers, I got a fancy letter today advising that we all get a $25 a week raise!

The sad part is, I'm sincerely excited about it. I used to do $25 a week to any given charity and not blink an eye. Now that little amount a huge help with bills.

Thanks Obama. I appreciate it. Now on to the rest of your stimulus plan.... A job would be good....