'Tona blog 8

Do you remember your first car? You know, the car that you paid for with your own money. I remember mine. It was a 1988 red Dodge Daytona; it was and is my dream car. I loved it even though it was old and starting to fall apart. It wasn’t a beautiful thing to look at, but that didn’t matter. The driver’s side door would not unlock with a key if you unlocked; the passenger side door didn’t open from the outside; and if you accidentally locked all the doors, you had to crawl in from the trunk to open the doors. It was great. How I got it is an interesting story. My mother actually bought it for her window-washing business. When I saw it then, I was instantly in love with it. It was that cheap car that was actually in fairly good condition; well eventually she got to the point where she wanted a truck because it would be easier to tote everything around in. So the vehicle went to my brother and me so that we could drive to school. We paid, mostly me, the gas while mom and dad paid the insurance.
It was also at this time that we were working at the RCA Dome concession stands to raise money for the band and the winter guard. Since my brother had a job, and was working all the time; I got “volunteered” to ALWAYS work at the dome. At first it was fun but after the 30th time you work there, you start to dread it. So as a way to make it up to me, mom and dad decided to give me the car. They said that since I was always working at the dome; I had earned the five hundred dollars they had spent on it.
Now you know this story doesn’t have a happy ending because this is all in past tense. Well it was the morning of my graduation open house; I was on my way to pick up my boyfriend. He was going to help us set up the chairs, balloons, pictures, etc. I was driving along to go get him; when at the intersection next to Pizza Hut and 47, in Crawfordsville, this girl ran the red light. You have no idea how hard a hit is at 30 miles per hour unless you have experienced it. Well she T-boned me on the passenger side, bent up the wheel well, and officially totaled my car. I was so upset that I cried, but I also felt a queer sort of pride because the SUV that had hit me was completely totaled, more totaled than my ‘tona. That was the end of her but I someday I will own another ‘tona. A red ’88 Dodge Daytona, my dream car.

My Parents: Blog 1

My mom is the person in my life that means the most to me. She is the person that I can go to if I need anything at all. She will do anything for me to make my life easier. I admirer her for every thing she has been through and for the compassion she shows my sisters and me. She will sacrifice her happiness to make us girls happy. She became a mom at the very young age of seventeen. Although her and my dad had me at a very young age they stepped up to the plate and did what they had to do to raise their children. My mom had all three of us girls by the time she reached age twenty three. She was a great mom even though she was still a kid her self.
I have no idea how she did what she did. I could not imagine being a mother at my age, let alone having two kids by the age of twenty. Although you still see young mothers quite a bit today, a lot of them seem to push the job of raising the baby on someone else. That was not my mom’s case at all. Her and my dad did it all on their own, with out the help of anyone else or even money from the state like a lot of people do these days. They had jobs and sacrificed things in their lives to be able to take care of our family by them selves. They both have great paying jobs and with out their hard work I wouldn’t have the things I have today.
I wouldn’t be able to go to college and have a nice house, or clothes on my back with out good parents. They are relatively strict parents, and it used to drive me crazy, but I wouldn’t be the girl I am today if they would have let me do what ever I wanted. I wouldn’t be a goal oriented person that wants to succeed in life if it wasn’t for my mom and dad. They push me to do the best that I can and to do good in school so that I can one day fulfill my life goal of becoming a nurse. If my parents had not of taught me to work for what I want and that for every action there is a consequence, then who knows what type of person I would be today.
I want to succeed in life so that I can make my parents proud. To show them that every thing that they have done for me paid off in the long run. I know that I will make them happy they day I become a nurse. Me succeeding will make them feel as if they did a good job at raising me. And ill be the first person to tell them that they have.

My Pets

At my house we have three dogs, two cats, and ten horses. That is a lot of animals! I personally don’t consider the horses pets, because I never mess with them. My parents on the other hand absolutely love the horses. I am more of a dog or cat person. I don’t know why I don’t like horses a lot, but I think the main reason is that they aren’t very loving animals. Horses usually don’t even learn their names, and they never seem happy to see you unless you have food for them. Dogs and cats on the other hand are always at the door ready to greet you when you walk in.
My cat Charlie is the pet that I’ve had the longest. I've had him around eight years or so. Charlie is orange and white with the biggest belly you have ever seen on a cat. I bet that cat weighs at least 20-25 pounds. He is huge. Charlie is the typical lazy cat. He loves to sleep, eat, and be rubbed on. Sometimes I wish that I could be Charlie for a day. He definitely has a nice and easy life. Mama cat on the other hand is a barn ct we have. She ended up living in our horse barn one winter and has never left since. She is a black and white cat. You can really tell she is an outside cat. She used to be scared to death of people until we started feeding her. She lets us pet her now, but she isn’t as loving as Charlie. Neither one other cats like the dogs.
We have three dogs that stay inside. Daisy is a golden retriever, Springer is a boxer, and Maddie, the newest addition to the family, is a rat terrier. Daisy is a laid back dog that loves the water and playing fetch. She also likes to chew up all of my socks. She loves water so much sometimes she swims in the horses' water trough. That really pisses my mom off because she gets hair in the water. We used to breed golden retrievers and Daisy was our main female. Springer was a what I call a hand-me-down. She was given to us by a former cop. Springer is our guard dog. No person would ever walk foot in our house by themselves because Springer would tear them up. She may sound like a mean, viscous dog, bit actually she is probably the most loving dog I have ever had. She acts like a person. She sits on the couch like a person, and even sleeps under the blankets on a pillow. Springer is also one over fed beast. We had to put her on a diet because her joint were beginning to go out on her from being so over weight. Maddie is the little rat terrier I bought myself for Christmas. I fell in love with her when I saw her at the pet store. She was the smallest dog that I’ve seen. She could fit in my sweat shirt pocket. Now that she is older she is still fairly small. Maddie weighs around 5 pounds. It’s funny to see her next to Charlie. She is by far the most hyper dog of the bunch

The First Time It Snowed

The first time that I ever remember seeing snow I was probably 4
years old. I know that I was pretty young but, it seems like it was
only a few days ago. I was at my mom and dads house. I don't remember
everything that I saw, but I do remember how pretty the snow was. I
remember how excited I got at the thought of going outside to play in
it. I think that I was watching TV. I usually got up before my parents
when I was four.
We had this big sliding glass door right next to the kitchen. My mom
must have got up and started to cook breakfast. She then told me to
come over to her because she had something to show me. She said it was
snowing outside, and that there was snow all over the ground. I got up
and ran as fast as I could over to the big sliding glass door. All of
these pretty white things were falling out of the sky. I immediately
fell in love with this snow, and wanted to go outside and explore for
myself. My mom later told me that I stood at the window until she
finally gave in and took me out.
Once I was able to finally go outside I did not know what to do with
myself. My mom and I walked over to this hill. She was carrying this
big red plastic thing that she said we could sit down on and ride down
the hill. We made it to the hill and lay what I know now as a sled
down on the ground. I climbed in first, and then my mom sat behind me.
I was really scared to go down the hill, but I told my mom I was ready
anyway. She gave us a little push and we flew down the hill. I
absolutely loved every second of it, and could not wait to drag my
tired mom up the hill as many times as I could talk her into.
After we got done playing outside, we walked back to the house. When
we got there I realized just how cold I really was, and how much I
really did not care. My mom then made us some hot chocolate. After we
drank that my mom bundled me back up and let me go play in the
backyard. After that day I could'nt wait until it would snow again. I
would always ask my mom when was it going to snow, and when it did I
was always outside.

Writer's Block

I have writer’s block. Throughout this semester I have been able to sit down and write without much effort except for this last blog. With all the other blogs I have either read something than wrote about it or thoughts just came to me, and the words would just flow. This has not been the case this time; I have stayed awake to see 3:00 a.m. for days now worrying myself sick over the ending of the semester. I have been challenged with trying to balance school, my three boys and everything their lives intel, and trying to conquer my deep fear of computers. The hardest part has been trying to keep myself from going into neither a depressant state nor a manic state; this has proved to be impossible. Getting out of bed and going to school has been a rollercoaster. I am sometimes so excited, I can’t wait to arrive at school and get that feeling of knowledge and accomplishment. Then there is the other end of the spectrum. I could lie in bed forever and forget I am trying to reach a goal and in this state I could careless. Both are very extreme feelings. I have been told by people when I am in a manic state to slow down. I would begin on my homework and continue doing it for days without sleeping or eating. I would read and reread assignments and try to commit things to memory, but in this state of mind most knowledge does not stick. I have written one thing after another and then come back later to find the writing doesn’t make since. I sometimes do extra math problems because my anxiety gets out of control, and I worry that I won’t remember the processes of how to do them when it comes time for a test. The down side is being depressed. I consider this to be a more difficult mood to stabilize or maybe I just like being full throttle in a manic state. During depression all I want to do is sleep and forget the world around me exists. My school work piles up. I start to become extremely overwhelmed, and then I curl up in ball. It takes an outside person to help me out of this. I have to be forced to eat, forced to get up off of the couch or bed, and then finally forced out the door. I have found this to be the only way to start functioning on my own again. I would like to say I have periods of normality, but being that they are so few and far between I can’t say much about them. All I know now is that my writer’s block is gone.

Being Aware

April is Child Abuse Prevention Month, so I decided to look into the child abuse problem we have in Montgomery County. I called The Division of Family and Children to find out how the department works. The supervisor’s name is Amy Wals. She first explained what happens when a call is made to them reporting child abuse. If it is a serious report, the case is assigned to one of our only 16 caseworkers. If the report is made about a child being neglected, the caseworker then has up to five days to begin an investigation. I realize that procedures are procedures but a child could easily die in this amount of time. If the report comes and it is an accusation of a child in immediate danger, the caseworker has 24 hours to just make contact with the family in question. This disturbed me greatly. The child is in danger and is waiting to be rescued and all they do is call ahead to warn the family in question. Between the months of January 2007 and December 2007 there was an average of 88 reports made each month. The supervisor did not have record of exactly how many children were actually removed from their homes. Another large problem we have is the fact that there are approximately 40,000 people in Montgomery County, yet there are only 14 foster families. Of these 14 families most are either full or no longer accepting children. It takes only about four weeks to become a licensed family, but it takes a big heart and hard work to open your house to children in need. In the case that a child would need removed from their home and there was no available placement, the child in question would then be transported to a different county. Unfortunately, other neighboring counties have the same problem we have, no placement. With the lack of foster homes in this county or should I say state, you would think Indiana would have some type of solution. I thought the state might possibly have some children’s shelter for these innocent victims to await proper placement, but no. There is only one in the entire state called The Guardians Home and of course, it is full. I believe politicians don’t care to spend money for children because children don’t vote so therefore, they don’t count. Politicians mostly address inner city kids because that is what they directly see. These children at least have a little advantage over abused country kids. The inner city kids might be able to make it to a soup kitchen or get to a police officer. In the country there is no one around to hear the screams.

First Deer

One of my favorite memories to look back on is the first time I ever killed a deer. It was very early in the morning and it was very cold out. At least that is what my dad told me when he woke me up that morning. I rolled out of bed and began putting on what seemed like ten layers of clothes. When I was finally dressed I could barely move my limbs. We loaded our guns up and the other supplies we thought we were going or might need that day, and headed for the woods. I fell asleep on the drive out there. I woke up when my dad shut the truck off and asked me if I was ready. I jumped out of the truck and we started our mile hike to the ground blind we had set up a few weeks earlier. When we got there it was still dark outside so I just sat there for a while. I was only 12 years old and was bored out of my mind. When the sun finally started to come up the forest came to life. All of the birds started to sing and every once in a while you would see a squirrel on the ground. After a few moments we started to hear gunfire in the distance. It was not that far away so I was getting excited. We sat in that same spot all day. It was going to be dark in about an hour when I saw the first deer. Then I realized that there were two of them. I looked over at my dad and he told me to shoot the bigger of the two. I took aim and fired my first shot. The deer that I did not shoot at was still just standing there so I shot her too. About fifteen minutes later a buck walked in front of me. I looked over at my dad again and he told me to shoot him too. I could not believe it. I was about to shoot my third deer of the day. I aimed as carefully as I could at the heart of the deer. When I was good and ready I pulled the trigger. Nothing happened; I realized that I was out of ammunition. I looked over at my dad and lipped what the problem was. He did not have any bullets for my gun either, and did not have a buck tag. I had to sit and watch my first buck get away from me.