Going Organic

So since we've made the change from conventional food to organic I haven't complained once because i know how healthy it is, but today I will make an exception. We spent $10.00 on half a loaf of bread and 12 slices of cheese! Wow! Ok, I'm done. Hopefully we'll always be able to afford to buy organic because now after everything i've learned, I can't imagine going back. And hopefully in a few years reading back on this, $10.00 for half a loaf of bread and 12 slices of cheese won't be considered inexpensive.

It is overwhelming to say the least to think about everything that is put in our food these days. It is so bad that now we even have to watch out for WHAT we cook our food with...unbelievable. The other day Sam and me were eating a steak and the taste of it reminded me so much of my moms cooking when i was young. That's because our little cow that our steak came from was completely free range and grass fed. Back in the day, (That sounds like I'm old but I'm not), that is the only way our cows were treated and the only way to sell and buy meat. These days, conventional meat tastes so different. It is injected with so many awful things, made to eat only grain in a feed lot instead of what they are meant to eat GRASS, and subjected to horrible living conditions. It's surprising how no one noticed or raised a fuss about how it seemed to change for the worse over night. People are too busy worrying about religion and oil to care about what they are slowly killing themselves and our planet with. It is frustrating and heartbreaking.

Considering conventional food and eating out is what Sam and I both grew up on, I'm proud to say that we have made the change to organic and cooking all our meals all with in a few months time. That also includes no more eating fast food! Yay! Thats a big step for two people who would do anything for a Whataburger. :). We are also slowly transitioning everything in our household to Eco friendly, organic, and natural products. Our toothpaste, deodorant, and shampoos were some of the first to be tossed. The new stuff is more difficult to acclimate to than the food. We've also purchased safe and Eco friendly storage containers to store left overs or our lunches in. We're in the process of doing some more research on what kinds of pots and pans to buy. We want to get this right the first time because pots and pans are pricy! Needless to say, this is a great epiphany that we'll probably never stop learning about. Maybe one day I'll be able to go completely RAW ! Right....

PhotoSeptiembre

Annette, my co-worker, had a photo exhibit yesterday downtown SA.  Sam and I attended and had tons of fun despite it being HOT in there!  This was also the VERY FIRST time Sam has EVER opened the car door for me!!  This is why I felt the need to blog about this. :) What?!  He has never done this!  When I asked him why he did that after 2 1/2 years he said "because the tree was in the way" lol.  Ok, i'll take it!  Here are a few pictures.  Oh, I forgot to mentioned, it ws an interesting night also because I learned a whole lot about myself through the eyes of Karen :) lol  Sam always told me so, but I didn't believe him.  I won't mention what she said, but I believe it now and it made my night. :)  Thanks Karen!

So today is also Aggie football day.  We're playing LA tech.  We're winning and sad we're not in Aggieland watching.  We'll hopefully be back in CS next weekend....and I'll get to see my little Evan Monster!! :)

Aggieland!

Eeekk....it is finally football season and time to travel to College Station for a few home games! The best part of this is that Amanda and Artie, and now little Evan, live in good ol' CS and I will hopefully get to see Evan monster at least once a month during the fall.  Oh, and I can't forget, my little cousin Kimberly now live in CS also!  She is a sophomore at A&M...WHOOP!  

My dad drove up to SA from the Valley to take care of the pups so that Sam and I could attend the first home game; A&M vs SFA.  So we drove to A&M Saturday morning, went straight to HEB to load up on some tailgating items, stopped by to visit with Amanda and Artie, drove to Kimmy's apartment to pick her up for lunch, went to a tent sale and bought a few things, then went to the mall to catch the shuttle for the big game.  We hung out at one tailgate before we walked over to Omar's tailgate for some food.  Game time is 6 pm so then we walked some more up the ramps for the game.  All in all i think we walked about 5 miles just being on campus!  I miss A&M terribly and just being on campus brings back wonderful memories.  It is amazing watching my little cousin walk on campus!  It is surreal.  I wished and hoped for 6 years now that someone in my family would attend A&M after me and FINALLY my wish has come true!  I am soooo proud of her.  She gets me now...she understands!  Now, I say "little cousin", but she obviously is not so little if she is in college, but to me she will always be my little cousin.  

Kim and Me

Our hope is to attend every home game, but realistically, because we have no where to leave our precious pups, we most likely will not be able to make it to every home game.  We may have a solution to that for next season though since Sam came up with a brilliant idea!!  He mentioned buying a house in CS!! How exciting is that!  We'll  not only have some place to stay when we visit but we'll also be able to bring Jake and Mia!!  We've started looking at some houses and next time we're in town we will drive by and check them out.  Hopefully Amanda and Artie will stick around for a while. ;)

The BEST band in the World...Fightin' Texas Aggie Band

Mia's 1st Birthday

YAY! Happy Birthday to our little one...Mia! She turned 1 on June 20th...5 days after Evan was born!! :) Mia celebrated her brithday with Mica and Prada. Beignet, Casious, and Bishop were not able to make it. It seems like just yesterday that we brought her home! She still looks like a pup to us so that's great. Mia had steak for her birthday dinner and a peanut butter-banana cake. :)

Equestrian Psychotherapy

Yesterday my unit and I visited Legends Equestrian Psychotherapy in Bergheim, TX. I set this up for our unit meeting as I have always been very interested in how horses relate to children with mental health issues. It was pretty amazing to see how the horse even responded to me, who is somewhat sane. :) I got to ride Cesar, the 1800 lb Belgium horse. He was the biggest one out there. We started off by being introduced and grooming him in order to build some kind of bond. The instructor said if I was angry or unstable at any point during this exercise, Cesar would have moved away from me and would not have allowed me to groom him. Then I was able to get on him. Any time I would collapse my stomach or stop breathing Cesar would stop walking as this to him is a sign of me being "unstable" or not comfortable or scared. Horses or should I say animals, are extremely in tune with humans' emotions and energy so even the slightest movement they will feel and interpret it the way we are thinking about it in our heads. So in this kind of therapy, Equine Facilitated Psychotherapy (EFP), the therapist is able to see the child and their emotions directly through the horse. The horse mirrors the child's or person's emotions both conscious and unconscious allowing the therapist access to unspoken information and the child's emotions are then unveiled. The horse is the direct connection between the child and the therapist. This kind of therapy is very successful in treating children with ADHD, PTSD, anger issues, autistic children, children with personality and children with conduct disorders. This was such a neat opportunity to see first hand. Below are some pictures of me riding Cesar.

28th Birthday

Sam decided to surprise me with a birthday dinner with some of our friends in San Antonio this year. I haven't told him, but I kinda thought he would do that this year. He chose a restaurant/lounge called Buddha Rok. Oh Em Gee, it was delicious!! This was perfect as it was very intimate and we were the only people there when we arrived. Tino and Mari were even able to bring Santiago and Daniel which is awesome. We had the whole place to ourselves for quite a while. There was even a DJ playing for us upstairs. Santiago loved that. I had the chile glazed chicken slate and substituted the mushrooms for carrots. Sam had the BBQ beef BLT with a fried egg on top. Everyone loved their food. The drinks are ummm...loaded I suppose could be the word. :) Needless to say, we must return.

Accupuncture Day 1

So after seeing so many doctors and them having zero answers or treatment for me other than medication and muscle relaxers I decide to take matters into my own hands. I set up my appointment with an acupuncturist. I didn't know what to expect but man am I glad I signed up. I was in there for about 1.5 hours if not longer and due to my extensive history with muscle pain and spasms I will be needing 5-6 sessions. Not a pretty penny once I am done but I have my eyes set on the end result. After my acupuncture treatment, Ms. Yen also performed "cupping". I remember doing this to my father when I was a child and did not realize this was still very common today. Both are working beautifully so far. I can actually feel the first layer of my muscles!! I am usually numb to any feeling (other than intense knots and spasms) but my "top" layers of muscles feel so...relaxed. It feels weird to be able to feel my muscles. Now, looking at my back, it does not look so good, but trust me, it does not hurt and it feels much better than when I went in. Ms. Yen has her work cut out for her though as I still need a lot of work done. Hopefully I can be restored to my young me (Junior High Years) because this started in High School...blah! Along with more sessions, she also gave me some herbal supplements. I will be taking 18 of those black little pills a day!

San Antonio, TX here I come

To make things super short, I bought my first house and signed 11/14/08, moved to SA 11/22/08, and Sam bought us a boxer puppy, Jake on 11/23/08. Below is the very first picture of Jake.

A few days later, we found out our baby Jake was deaf. Boy did he give us a run for our money. We both had no idea how time consuming it was to have a puppy, much less a deaf one who needs physical contact for redirection. Jake woke us up once every hour through the night to go potty for the first few weeks we had him then once every 1.5 hrs as he got older and the increments go by half hours from there until he was about 4 months. Jake hates being dirty and for some reason, had a hard time holding his business all night. He is fully potty trained now. :) Jake also is a picky eater...actually, that's a lie he just hates kibble because he knows he is not supposed to have it, so, we switched him to raw and LOVES his food. Here is Jake's first raw meal

Sam and I often feel horrible about leaving Jake home alone with no one to help him hear, listen, or key into his surrounding so on 08/20/09 we decide to get another boxer as a companion for Jake. Her name is Mia. Mia came to us infested with fleas and ticks and very skinny but we could not deny her as when she saw Jake, she nearly leaped out of my arms to be with and play with him. That is where their bond began and continues to grow every day. They LOVE each other! Here is Mia her first day with us

Here they are together


Needless to say, we put her on raw immediately. Here is her first raw meal

Why?

12/11/07
There have been many days and nights that remind me of why I am here, why I do what I do, and why I chose this job/career/path in life. Nights like last night and days like today are no exception. Although I have worked way past midnight many times and have had several 24+ hr. days, I did not think I'd have to sleep in my office on a hard table hoping and praying a secure and safe placement would be found for the child sleeping on the floor next to me in my office, but I did. I did not think that 30 hrs later, I'd be telling him he has to go to a new place, meet new people and sleep some where new and strange again, but I did. Tell any child w/a normal childhood to sleep on the floor on an air mattress in their own room and house and see what they do. Tell these children to sleep on the floor on an air mattress of an office they have never seen before with 2 total strangers and they gladly jump in to their "bed" with a huge smile on their face and ask, "will you be here when I wake up tomorrow?" That question nearly broke my heart. So here I was, sleeping on a hard table w/ crickets roaring in the background in an office and 30+hrs with out sleep or real food. There he was, this innocent little boy laughing at Madea's Family Reunion that was playing on my 17" screen laptop and did not complain one bit. Children now a days want cel phones at 9 years old, have 42" flat panels in their room at 5...yes 5, are tanning at 3-5 yrs. old, and have acrylic nails at 5-10 years old...what? Are you serious? So when my dad tells me, as he always does, "you can get a better job that that and make more money, you just graduated from a great university...why do you do that? (in spanish)" I tell him "yes, of course I can Dad, but will I be happy? No. I won't." Why?...B/c they are what makes me happy and I'm here to attempt to make even the slightest positive change in their life or put a smile on their face for even just one second, b/c that one second is what carries me through my 30 hr non stop work day/night full of court reports, placement disruptions, judges yelling, and psychiatric hospitals, and will carry me through any other unfortunate circumstance that will arise.

Here we are sleeping in an office...

Austin, TX here I come

10/01/06~Start date with my new position in Round Rock. My new supervisor is very sweet and super funny. I like her. I also like my new co-workers. I was in this RR office for a few months and then we got word that they were moving us to a newly built office in Georgetown. YAY! New offices, new carpet, freshly painted walls with no holes...awesome. My commute from my apartment to work right now is about 6 miles and my new commute will be 13 miles, not much further so I am ok with it.

Below is Lucien and I when he came to visit at the Round Rock office.

My very first Unit in Round Rock.

My very First adoption in Region 7

The Georgetown office and my unit become the best most coveted job in CPS. I LOVE my co-workers, which has changed even from just a few months ago. They consist of Jamayla Fenner, Susan Hill, Zannel Dorsey, Meghan Rizzotti, Trisha Slaughter, Jaclyn Klocker, Lou Brown, Linda Clynch, and our supervisor Suzie Tucker then Texas Flowers. Our PD was also housed here, Teresa Lockett. I miss this group SO much. I knew I had it great while I was working there but coming to work for CPS in San Antonio has not been fun for me. (San Antonio CPS is not fun and very micromanaging.) I was really sad when I had to leave Region 7. People warned me about coming to San Antonio and how horrible it was but I didn't really have a choice. If I wanted to be with Sam, I was going to have to make that sacrifice. I don't regret it because I am so happy with Sam and our animal babies, but I miss Region 7 every day!!

Above is our unit during a unit meeting at our supervisor's house. It was also our unit Christmas lunch. This actually felt like a family (which is what one needs working a job like ours) !!

Below are pictures of my new office in Georgetown and my cabinet full of pictures and art work from my kiddos.




This picture is from a trip Susan and I took to El Paso to place 3 children with their adoptive parents. This is the "Texas" sized margarita that some guys bought for us.











Here are some pictures of the 2008 Heart Gallery Gala where many of our children were featured. This is the most current workers in our unit:



Top from Left to Right: Texas Flowers;supervisor, Susan Hill,__________, Me, Meghan Rizzoti, Trisha Slaughter, and Clara Cyr our HST.

First Blog

Hello Me! After many failed attempts to keep a hand written journal, finally, I decided to try and keep a blog. I would love to have some recollection of my life in the future and thought blogging would be a nice way to help with my gold fish of a memory.

So, I want to start with 2005 when I started my first real world job, or should I say, my career of social work. June 24, 2005, is now known as my hire date. I am asked this every time I need to sign up for training. I can't forget it. I attend Basic Skills Development AKA BSD for about 6 weeks. BSD is held in Austin and Belton necessitating very long commutes away from where I am told I will be working, Bryan TX. After the 6 weeks of "training" we graduate having learned absolutely nothing about the important and life altering job we will be doing.

At this point after graduation, I don't have a supervisor or know if I'll be working investigations, family based services (FBSS), or conservatorship (CVS). Now, in 2010, new employees go through BSD knowing exactly what track they will take so they are able to concentrate on learning and being trained specifically in that area. Anyway, a few weeks later, I gain a supervisor, a specialty, and a new office location. What?! I am housed in Franklin, the middle of no where, TX. Great, a 45 mile commute from good ol' Aggieland. I visit my new "office" only to find out, it is not an actual functioning office! It is a tiny rectangular building with only 3 offices in it, bathrooms that don't work, and a break room. Two investigators are housed there along with me. There is only one way in and out of that building and we keep the door locked at all times while we are there. Leaving this place in the dark is not smart but sometimes couldn't be avoided. Now, most people would not have lasted 6 months working for CPS, much less in these conditions and in this dump of an office...geeeshhh. Did I mention we did not have a functioning fax machine or telephones for over a month?! It is impossible to do social work with out phones!

Needless to say, working all hours of the night, being on-call and going out on night investigations, driving all over Texas, being punched in the face, kicked, threatened by an angry mom who just shot a man at a bar, and trying to keep teenagers from running away, getting pregnant, and killing themselves is not fun or healthy.

I'm not exactly sure how long the insomnia lasted but it was dreadful. It does eventually go away. Why am I still doing this? By this time, I am hooked...hooked on my kids. I cannot bare to leave them in some of the conditions we found them in, but after 14 months of commuting not just from CS to Franklin (because for some reason Region 7 refuses to let workers fly), but what seems like all over Texas, I decide I am burned out and want to move to Austin, TX. YAY! I apply for only one job in Austin, the only one I want, as an adoption prep worker and start looking for apartments that I will feel safe in since this will be my first move to a bigger city on my own where I know no one.

I love this quote because this is EXACTLY what it is like...and exactly how I felt my first year with CPS...

"The caseworkers bitch and moan and make jokes and often try their best, which is rarely good enough. Their training is inadequate, and the number of workers is far too small for the number of families in trouble. Some of the cases would require a battalion of cops and doctors to handle; instead there are two kids fresh out of college with good intentions and a handful of forms."~Anna Quindlen

So this is what my very first office looked like. I was on the floor learning about a case or maybe filing, who knows.




Check out the Old School monitor!