Manhattan Declaration

I found this link this morning while browsing. It is a Christian site to help Christians stand up for liberty and religious freedom. There is a new button on my blogg that says "Manhattan Declaration". It is an ecumenical declaration that our government will not be allowed to take away our religious freedom.

If you care about issues you can add your signature to this document. Who knows, it may not matter, no one might pay attention to it, but God will take into account your signature.

The Appleseed Project

This weekend I went to "an Appleseed". What is that, you ask?

An Appleseed is a shooting event sponsored by http://appleseedinfo.org/
which is a nation wide group of people who are dedicated to two things: making sure that every American that wants to learn can safely shoot a rifle; and teaching every American they can the true history of the American Revolutionary War, and our founding RIFLEMEN...the brave, freedom loving people, ordinary folk just like you and I, who; two hundred and twenty-four years ago on April 19th, decided they had had enough taxation without representation and enough tyranny.

The course is FREE for women in 2009. I received two days of instruction using my 0.22 caliber Marlin rifle. I learned to shoot prone (lying down); sitting, and standing. I learned to quickly load my rifle magazines and change them out. I learned to follow military shooting commands. I learned to shoot standing, then sitting down, then standing again, then lying down.

Our targets were for 100, 200, 300 and 400 feet. If you could shoot accurately at all those distances within certain time frames for each shoot, you qualified for the AQS (Army Qualification Score). (I didn't do that, for me this weekend was about improving hitting the paper part of the target...but I improved, so that was good!) There were a troop of Boy Scouts there, high school aged kids. It was heartening to see them there. They were very polite, saying "yes Ma''am" and helping all us older folks with things. There were 3 of those young folks who qualified AQS this weekend!

Then there were two young men who are entering the Marines this year as soon as they graduate high school. How my heart applauded them!

Then there was Brooke. She stole my heart. She is 9 years old and she has her own little pink rifle and her dad brought her out here so she could learn to shoot. She did really well. She is like our ancestor's kids. Our ancestor's kids knew that the only safe gun was the one you knew how to load, shoot and unload safely. They knew guns were necessary for both protection and to get food for the table. They knew that guns were dangerous only in the hands of the wrong people, and that they weren't bad in themselves. They knew that the Bible said "Thou shall not kill" but they also understood the responsibility to defend those who could not defend themselves, and to protect....are you ready for this?.....

LIFE, LIBERTY AND THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS

I have joined the Appleseed project. Its members vow to become riflemen and to teach others to be. If this seems like something you could do, check out the link!

(Plus, I met some really nice people, and it was really FUN!)

Was he locked in the room?

I went over to the house today...my daughter Heather is cleaning it up. There were roaches in the dials of the oven. There were so many roaches in the refrigerator and freezer and works of same that the refrigerator caught FIRE last night. There is a pink painted bedroom in the house (Jamie Beths) that we now think LeighAnne was locking Jason in. Because it was obvious from the smell that someone had urinated in the closet hundreds or thousands of times. We aren't sure we will be able to get the smell out.

The kitchen cabinets are totally ruined and all the appliances and counter tops are going to have to be replaced. Several sections of floor in the back room and bathroom (Jimmy's computer hideout) are so roach infested and eaten that they are going to have to be replaced too.

Sad, very sad.

Saw my grandkids today

Today was the day that my mom and dad came to town to inspect the house that my stepson and daughter inlaw just moved out of. It's a long sad story (see the posts "Dirty House" for some background). My stepson's kids Jason, age 11, and JamieBeth age 8 months now, were moved to their uncle David's home temporarily because of extreme dangerous filth in their home. The Children's Protective Services have removed Jason from the home 3 times now. Once, age 2, when I came over and found him sitting on the floor with a dirty unhealed cut on his foot with roaches crawling on it, eating a piece of pizza with roaches on it, with bags and bags of rotting trash everywhere and dirty diapers stuffed under the couch. Then, when he was five, another removal, this time for the same conditions. Jason has ADHD and supposedly, some form of autism....however, everyone in the family has noticed that when he isn't around his mother, he gets more and more normal all the time.

His mother is extremely invested in Jason being handicapped. Once, at a belt test at the karate school (he used to go to karate with me) she announce LOUDLY to the whole place "THATS MY SON AND HE HAS AUTISM!!!!" Jason is no fool. He's a lot smarter than his mother, that's for sure. He got mad and started whaling at one of the other kids, and I went and held him until he calmed down. The other parents in the karate school and the other kids, were appalled. Mother takes him to Special Olympics this and Special that, but Mom is the Special one. Everything revolves around her. She made great news of the fact that, after 10 years saying she could not have another child because Jason was too much for her, having Jamie Beth. She got pregnant with JamieBeth because she found out that my stepson David's wife Jamie, was trying to get pregnant.

Jamie my 2nd daughter in law, is taking really good care of the kids. They get to live in a clean house for awhile, with an uncle and aunt who put clean food on the table and give them a routine, baths and clean clothes, who don't scream at them all the time. The baby is eating food instead of Ensure and ice cream and french fries, and she is learning to roll and crawl and giggle and make faces, because she can play in a secure house with a clean floor and no cockroaches crawling all over her.

Jamie and David aren't rich...he works in a call center and Jamie has a kindergarten teacher degree and, like many teachers, has had a bit of a tough time finding work this year. But tonight, as we were eating dinner with them, we noticed that Jason made conversation, real conversation, and wanted to please others at the table, and used some manners. And we noticed that the baby is calmer and happier than we've ever seen her.

I pray that these children do not ever have to go back to their mother. It sounds harsh....but we recently found out that LeighAnne cannot read above third grade level. She was visiting Jason and JamieBeth and trying to read "Hank the Cow Dog". She was not able to read it. And that's the really sad part....that this girl's best way of coping with life is to get pregnant the day she graduates from high school (unable to read but amazingly cunning, streetwise and able to tell people what they want to hear) and for the next eleven years, makes life a living hell for the kids she brings into the world, all the while pretending to be the pillar of the Handicapped Children's Mom's Club.

Sigh.

I am at a loss for words. Oh, and, by the way everyone in the family has tried over the years to help my stepson Jimmy and his wife LeighAnne. We have paid utility bills, paid for car repairs, given them cars, bought them food, given them deposits to rent houses every time they were evicted for filth; and then two years ago my Dad bought them this house and hoped that they could use their rent to own status, and the idea that the house was theirs, to give them enough pride of ownership to take care of their home and yard and kids. We have all learned some hard lessons. We don't know yet what's going to happen to the kids. We pray they don't have to go back to LeighAnne. We pray that Jimmy gets help so he can get some self esteem and take some responsibility, but he's 33 years old....how much is he going to change? Can he change?

Karate Belt Test

Tonight was a milestone. For the past 3 years and 9 months I've been studying tae kwon do. That said, one tae kwon do school is not like all the others. Some emphasize fighting. Some emphasize forms, some have self defense and all are very individualized depending on the system (there are hundreds of different martial arts in the world and all have similarities and differences). My school or dojo is Texas Karate Institute. It is part of a 40 year old or older Texas group of schools founded by some of the people who began martial arts schools in the US back in the sixties and 70s.

My school prides itself on tough fighting arts, street-level self defense training including against weapons, and formal forms of martial arts such as kata (forms or in Korean, poomse) and controlled "one step" sparring.
Students advance in ranks by colored belts: white, yellow, orange, green striped, solid green, blue striped, solid blue (both green and blue have separate tests for striped and solid, involving advancing levels of forms, self defense, kata, controlled one step sparring, and free sparring); brown four stripes, three stripes, two stripes and finally, no stripes, then red belt, and finally black belt. Beginning at black belt, the martial artist can then advance by adding stripes from one to 10. This takes years, and years, and years. Most of the black belts in my school have been martial artists for 20, 30 and 40 or more years.

That said, tonight I tested and passed the fourth level of brown (solid brown). I had to do ten katas, 6 one steps, a self defense circle in which members of the circle took turns attacking me including with knives (rubber ones of course), sticks (padded ones) and fake guns (really thank God)! and then I had to fight everybody that was there once with breaks between for air and water, and finally, what is called "The Line". In the line, the students are lined up from lowest to highest and the one testing fights them all without a break, one at a time, until the Sensei says "end". I had to fight the 6 black belts and two other students, orange and yellow belts in this case, three times through. In my school, if you pass all that and get to the end, and you can't finish the fights, you flunk the whole test and have to do it over. I passed tonight. I am 50 years old, and I passed. I had trouble with a couple of my katas. I knew them at 5 pm before the test. I have done them all before, and everybody knew I knew them. Nonetheless I messed up two of them and I'll have to do them again for the instructors at some point; but, I have passed the test and I will advance to red belt next. If I pass that one, then I will be eligible to test and train for my black belt test. I hope to do that one of these days, I really do!

This test personally, for me, was about not making excuses for anything anymore, and continuing to grow in telling myself the truth about myself.
I offered it up for those veterans who have fought beyond their endurance and their lives to give me my freedoms as an American. I also fought for the unborn, the handicapped and the elderly, who have no one, in many cases, to fight for them in this land of abortion and euthanasia and the culture of death. I offered this test for all those people in states and countries who are not allowed to defend their homes and property, especially England, where one cannot even defend oneself in one's own home, with a knife, against an intruder.

I continue to pray for our nation with my mind, body, heart and soul. May God have mercy on us. Amen.

Supplement to Previous Post/Dirty House 2

Some people may ask "why did you not take the kids in" (teach them to clean, cook, parent etc) well, we are of the opinion that you raise your children and when they choose to leave home, make adult decisions (like the decision to impregnate their girlfriend and have the baby) then, the kids are saying "I am an adult" (all evidence to the contrary notwithstanding). It is then time for them to learn the lessons of life by reaping the sometimes grim consequences of their actions. Adults do not learn anything when they are bailed out, on welfare, or constantly given handouts. When Jason was first removed from the home when he was 2, I tried to go over and help LeighAnne clean. I could not do it. I got sick. It was too filthy. I could not pick up things off the couch or floor, and have 100 or more roaches swarm out of them, without running away. LeighAnne, I might add, did not even seem to know the roaches were there. I cannot take the kids in, because I have agreed to follow my husband's leading and direction, and he honestly says he does not have the patience or energy to raise another generation of children. I know that there are a lot of people who are raising their grandchildren because of situations like this. I admire them. I wish I had their guts, patience and everything it takes to raise grandchildren. But this situation is going to have to be resolved differently. My husband and I did the best we could.
If you pray, pray for the kids.

A Dirty House

Three weeks ago, my grandson age 11 and my granddaughter, age 6 months, were removed from their home by Children's Protective Services (this is the third removal for my grandson) and placed with their aunt Jaime and Uncle David temporarily. Their house had 2 inches of living cockroaches, over 20 bags of un emptied trash, dirty diapers stuffed under the couch, hoarded old dated food and months or weeks of dirty laundry and undone dishes. We are not certain how long this has been going on. Three years ago, my father bought this house (paid cash) and has been renting it to own to my son and daughter in law. He has decided to evict them from the house, because they signed a legal agreement to maintain it and keep it clean and they have not done it. My Dad paid the pest control guy monthly to come out and spray, and 9 months ago LeighAnne stopped letting him in. Did she think my Dad did not have to pay him???
My son is 32 years old. He has worked part time in food service since he was in high school. Once, my mom gave him $1300 to go to college with. He took the money and bought a new gaming computer and video games. My daughter in law comes from a family that is very poor and her father is an alcoholic. She has always said "I don't clean house because Jimmy (my son) doesn't help me" (which is true, he doesn't). It always seems to be someone else's fault.
Monday night at 5 pm Children's Protective Services did a psychological evaluation on my son, my daughter in law and my 11 year old grandson to determine if they were competent to be parents, since this is the third removal in 10 years. It is always the same problem: filth and neglect. We haven't heard anything yet.
I should mention that in the 3 weeks since my grandson and granddaughter left their home, Jason has learned to tie his shoes, and seems to be communicating better. JamieBeth, my granddaughter, has learned to crawl and does not have to be held all the time crying. We think she was afraid to crawl, what with all the trash and roaches... poor baby!

We live in interesting times. And, no, my son was not raised to live like this....his dad and I taught him to clean his room, keep up with things and generally help around the house. He married LeighAnne at 18 after dating her from when he was 15 and she was 13, and she had told us for 3 years that she was going to have his baby. It is a very sad, sad situation.

Over Committment

I realized today that I have once again over committed myself to projects. I realized this while in the middle of a coughing spell while getting up this morning. I came down with bronchitis 2 weeks ago, and my doctor told me it has now turned into pneumonia, and put me on a different antibiotic.

So what am I overcommitted to, you ask?
Work 40 + hours a week seeing sick college kids
Karate at least 4-6 hours a week
A very complicated Celtic quilt top that I started on the spur of the moment about 3 weeks ago
An upcoming signing day for my illustrated book
Trying to get the last of the pumpkins out of my garden
Writing a Baptism lesson for the high school youth group at church
and, as if all of that is not enough:

I have agreed to illustrate a 540-picture graphic novel for a friend of mine. I've never done a graphic novel before, although I have wanted to for a long time. But it all feels like too much.

I will get as much done as I can. Then I am going to start saying "no".