At least hubby shoveled although yesterday it was a slush/water mix, that made for a huge mess.
Ugh enough snow already...I am a warm weather climate type...
at least it's about 30 degrees!
Soon this will be beautiful hostas! Hopefully my old house will get some paint this year!
I did play the mega million it's over 200 million...Lottery...dreams....that could buy me a whole lota warm weather!
I am a very hyper person....since I can remember my family has told me to slow down. I tend to freak out ask questions later. So this week has been one freak out after another, until I decided to stop myself mid-freak out. It's not easy, I've been this way for a long time...in my younger days I used to use alcohol to calm myself. I stopped doing that a long time ago when I realized it just made matters worse. I then tried therapy...groups, one on one. Now I know myself well enough that I know that prayer and a good brisk walk help a lot. I still experience symptoms of my stress, but I really do not want to seek out medication to calm me. Talking (I do that well), proper diet, prayer and walking seem to be working. Today I took a walk.
Things will take a long time to pass for my community over the crash. I have ignored rumors and have made my peace with this. I only pray for the driver she is young herself and has a long horrible road to go down. I think of how she is around the age of my children. I cannot say that they are angels either. We all must live with our choices.
At my job I have a midday. It's a route that involves taking home a group of preschool kids and then bringing in another group. Yesterday while I was dropping of a little girl, her mom came on the bus, she paused for maybe 60 seconds while the girl sat in a seat as she is a car seat for transport, they both departed my bus, the girl sat down on the ground this probably took another 60 seconds. As this is going on I still have my stop sign on the bus out. I usually check my mirrors to see if any cars are behind me. People have been known to be impatient and honk at me. Soon an older man approachs my bus screaming at us for holding him up. He told us that he did not think it was necessary to be "chatting" for 10 minutes. I told him we were dropping a child off, he preceeded to tell us that we were not and we were just talking while we held him up. Well, the mother screamed at him, my monitor nearly jumped off the bus to yell at him. ????? I was speechless, this is not the first time citizens have gotten angry with me for taking too long to load or unload little children. Jerk.
I was never so glad to see Friday. We are supposed to get an ice storm tonight. But on a happy note my husband is back to work!
Can spring be around the corner!!????
Thank you again for your prayers and thoughts & comments...I am truly blessed.
Liz and Dayton...my lights....my joy
This rollercoaster does not seem to end. Another child died Monday. He is the 5th. He never really was conscience. He woke up briefly to ask about the crash then did not wake up again.
Then today the newspaper reported that one of the two boys that are still in the hospital was downgraded to critical. I had heard he was fine, he was still injured but getting better, even giving the nurses a hard time like most 15 year olds do. Then the rumors, at my work, rumors by adults who know better. I complained to my kid, she texted me from school, "no mom, he's fine, his mom emailed the school, the newspaper was misinformed, your buddy's at work, they are wrong"
I come back in from my pm run, it takes me past the crash site, full of crosses, there's a new one, the 5th child, what do I see, another one, NO! I look closer, it's a duplicate, someone made another for K.
They still insist he's dead...another driver tells me her friend was going up to see him at noon, K's dad and his mom were going up to tell him that she was dead. He didn't know this yet....he was now well enough to get the horrific news...his friend is gone.
I turn the TV on, no news. Gossip, rumors...please no more death...please let the three survive.
Then this morning dense fog, another young one he's 21 runs a red light rear ends a semi, he dies at the hospital.
So much death. My heart breaks.
we must do better for the survivors, we must use our energy to help the ones who can be saved, the ones who think that running the streets at night, drinking, piling into cars with drunk adults thinking that nothing can touch them.
We must do something...
My fat boy Dayton!
The boys spent Friday night here and between my stepson, my husband and Liz they had plenty of attention. I had to get up with Jacob once in the middle of the night because he had a slight fever & Dayton who isn't used to sleeping here overnight got up at 2:30 am, this after going to bed at 8:30. He did sleep until 6:30 am though. He's a much better sleeper than Dakota was at his his age. Thank God Dakota who is two and quite the little man sleeps much better now, he yawns once, blinks his eyes and passes out. Not moving until morning. He used to roll around and moan all night, so much so I used have to hold him next to me in order to get any sleep myself.
Dakota and the back hoe library book. Every piece of equipment is a back hoe to him.
I did go to K's wake on Wednesday. Liz went with me. It was in a huge church thankfully as many kids attended and mostly stood or sat in little groups. I was so afraid of losing it when I saw pictures of that child arranged on a large poster board. I remembered the little princess outfit that I dressed her in to put her on the bus for Halloween. When I did speak with the family it was hard. The brother who is around 27 broke down in tears when he spoke to me. I gave him a huge hug, I imagine he sees his sister as a wee one when he sees me also.
There were news crews everywhere all week. I know they have a job to do, but it was very sad and a statement to what we have become. The police kept the news away from the high school but they were perched right outside the church during K's funeral. I did not go...but my midday route goes right by the church and the funeral ended as I headed to my pickups. The timing seem fitting. Many, many cars went by me. Such sadness.
I have hard that the girl was out of the hospital in time for the funerals, Liz's friend's brother is headed toward a rehab facility, and the 2 other boy's condition are not being released. The driver is still in the hospital, but will be in jail when she is released with a 5 million dollar bond.
My hope is that parents wake up, take action, stop being so afraid of disciplining their children. I looked back at what I did right when I was the guardian & mother of 5 children full time and 2 more on the weekends. I worked long nights every single day of the week to be home when the kids came home from school. My stepson Matt was the type that could have gone either way, when I married Mark he had just moved in with him. He came from a rough side of a big town.. One of his friends had just been killed in a gang shooting. Matt was a b.s.'er who thought he could con me. Little did he know that I took my mothering seriously and I was always checking and rechecking where my children were. I made Matt so paranoid, he got caught enough times not being where he was supposed to be that he pretty much gave up lying to us. When their friends started driving made sure they told me who they were with. Thank God as a few years ago 2 of my kids friends got very drunk, speed down a country road hit a pole and died.
By the grace of God my kids stayed out of trouble.
I hope these children did not die in vain. The dead are buried. Now it's time to learn the lessons that these things bring.
The view outside my door, I live on a corner lot. This is out the side door of my home.
This morning I got up jumped into the shower and afterward I decided to check my caller ID. Seems the automated school district line, along with my department called to say school was cancelled. Wow, when I got up I looked out the window and it didn't look too bad, but it was windy and the snow was blowing drifts making roadways very slick. Blowing the snow right over what the plows were plowing. I have a feeling the school district just wanted to let everyone have a break. Yesterday was bad, news crews everywhere, police staked out at the high school protecting the innocents.
I spent the morning sleeping, still trying to rid myself of a nagging sore throat, and just hanging out with my kid and husband. We shoveled the driveway and played catch with the dog. It was funny how he would lose the ball in the snow and then dig it out with his nose.
I checked out some websites regarding the accident, and then realized why one of the boys that died looked so familiar. I used to drive him 2 years ago on my high school route. He was a good kid.
More facts are coming out, the kids were at a party, K it seems was trying to get a ride home from some of her friends, and even walked to a house of a girl she knew close to the party and the girl told her she could not stay there. The boys she called wouldn't come either. They finally called her back at 2 am she was most likely dead by then. Tomorrow is her wake, I will be there, grieving with her family.
The four surviving kids are impoving. The boy that was supposed to be gone is not, he is also improving. Thank God. My daughter's friend's family set up a website to update his condition he is also doing well, but will need a lot of rehab.
I know my community will survive, we did back in 1973 when a high school girl got stabbed and murdered during the week of Homecoming. We have survived much. I just hope parents become much more aware of what their kids are doing. We as parents must do a better job with this next generation. Less stuff, more attention. God help us, if we don't. I appreciate this space my family of sick of listening to me...
I know tomorrow, at the wake my tears will flow
My weekend started out great, spent with this little one...Jacob. My stepson and his family all have been passing sickness back and forth. Jacob needed some grandma/grandpa time so he came over Friday until Sunday. I took him to his first trip to the library and we looked at monster trucks on the computer. We even went to my buddy's home school web site & looked at the pictures from her family's trips to the museum. Jacob loved the dinosaur pictures.
Until the sadness of yesterday. Followed by a difficult day today. I have no high school routes so I was spared the grief of the students there. Only one junior high girl talked about the crash & she also knew K and was deeply saddened. Most of them were annoyed by all the lectures they received by the junior high staff about drinking and driving, or the teachers crying because some of the students were former students.
I shared my pain with my supervisor we both knew K and gave each other a huge hug and shared little stories about her from when she was little throughout the day.
The facts of the event are beginning to emerge. It seems the children did not know the driver, she was someone who happened along these kids walking home from either a party or a bowling alley. Their ride had not come to get them, and some of them had told their parents that they would be at other kids houses. You know how kids do that, they tell their parents they are with someone and they go out and screw around. My kids tried that, but their friends were dumb and I had caller ID so they always screwed up and called looking for my kids. And when I ask, "I thought they were with you", they would always freak.
So the kids all piled into a 4 door sedan, 8 kids mind you, the smaller ones sitting on the laps of the bigger ones. Some how hit the driver skidded & hit a pole. Killing 4 children. 1 girl is fine, my daughter's friend's brother will be ok, although a few have rumored him dead, one boy will be ok, but probably will never walk, and the 4th child I have heard will probably not make it. The driver? She is a 23 year old mother of 2 who drove drunk and did an incredibly stupid act. One that has changed a community forever.
My town is a small one, we are growing, but our core is small town USA. This has hurt us, will it change anything? I doubt it, people will still not take responsibility for their kids, they will still let them do what they want and it kills me. I always, always beat into my kids heads to not be stupid. I educated them, I always knew where they were at, I have a huge, noisy personality so I always knew what was going on, or at least I made them believe that I would find out what they were doing.
My daughter is also upset. She said today was horrible. Kids leaving school and hanging out at the crash site. I find this very dangerous, it's on a highway, but I suppose it's necessary. They leave their trinkets and cry with each other. Such sadness, such a waste of live.
Thank you for your thoughts and prayers. I appreciate this place to let my feelings out. It's hard to hold it together. Here I can let it out. Thank you.
A few years back we used to have next door neighbors who had 4 boys and one little wee girl named K. K's family had issues, like we all do so whenever I could I pitched in and took care of her, giving her baths, brushing her long blond hair into two neat braids, I used to put her on the school bus headed to pm kindergarten. My boss J, who drove the bus, even remembers me from those days some 8 years ago. That was one of the reasons she hired me, I was always nice to K. K's family move a few blocks away and I never saw her again.
We heard some very horrible news early this morning...K now 14 was with a group of high school kids who did a very, very stupid thing. Eight of them got into a car with a suspected drunk adult (23) and she drove the car, slide it into a pole one mile from my home, breaking the pole off in two. K along with 3 other children were killed instantly. One of the injured boys is the brother of the girl my own daughter was with last night at a party at her home. Why were these kids out at 2:30 in the morning!!??? The mother of the friend of Liz's is someone I've known since high school. Maybe she didn't know where her 15 year old was, maybe she thought he was safely at a friend's house, but my God, what a thing to wake up to. I do not know if the other 5 will live or die. My heart just breaks, poor K she is just too young, so young.
This is my driveway in the rear of my home....my car, after only sitting a 1/2 hour during my break on Tuesday was covered in snow. The little building in the rear is my greenhouse with my little garden in front.
This year with only one very lazy dog we are planning on taking back our backyard and possibly planting a larger garden. My old dog Trooper, bless his little heart was a Brittney who loved to dig, and was constantly running around the backyard and wore a path. That dog was the best, but like me his owner very hyper. My other dog on the other hand is like my husband, content to just be...
I safely ran all my routes this week. We had an excellent week with all the frigid temperatures and snow. Our skills as a transporation department shined, I am proud to say I safely delivered all my little ones all week. Even yesterday afternoon when I developed a sore throat and was not in the mood to drive, I told my grade school kids I did not feel well and was not in the mood to remind them of the rules...soon I heard, "no Rose you can't call in sick tomorrow, the time you were sick the other driver forgot the little kids!". It was how they said it that made me laugh. I was much better today, thanks to a good nights sleep and some cough drops. Streph is running wild through my group, thankfully I have never had it. Lucky me, I only get wee bits of what's going around.
Tomorrow is Friday already and Saturday I have a trip, it's a drop and then I go back and bring them back to school. Gives me a long break in the middle of the day. Then we have 3 day weekend on the 16th!
If I hear one more person say "Go Bears!" I am going to scream. Unless they are handing me cold hard cash from the football pool of course.
Being from a suburb of Chicago and a family of mostly male sports nuts I have little choice but to watch the game Sunday. BUT it will be all snuggled up on my living room couch. I am not nuts you know... the weather forecast is for 3 degrees...and some nuts will be tailgating in the city in the cold parking lot of the Bears Soldier Field. No way.
That's just nuts. But the week has been fun ... the kids getting out all their Bear gear and even painting their hair orange and blue.
Oh yeah this guy did not see his shadow...Thank God, I am getting tired of my fashionable wardrobe of my kid's old snow pants, long underwear, sweats and 3 shirts and a sweatshirt, plus a coat...that's all fine until the hot flashes come...then I feel like I can melt snow just by looking at it.
Go Bears!
