"The road to a friend's house is never long"

I received a gift I didn't want for my birthday! I don't ask nor do I need anything. I awoke to an infection in my forehead that has swollen into my left eye! I'm not sure the cause. Possibly a bug bite. Never in my life have I had any facial deformities but on my 38th Birthday I do! My Mother told me back on January 10th, 1973 we had lots of snow just like today. It reminded her of my birth. Today I basically stayed home accomplishing my typical duties of keeping a tidy house. While my littlest son played in the snow I was able to read another few chapters of Second Wind. It's a great book. 2011 is becoming a reading year. My second oldest daughter bought me a book another friend suggested, "Three cups of Tea" One mans mission to promote peace, one school at a time. A quote Tom Brokaw made was, "Thrilling.....proof that one ordinary person, with the right combination of character and determination, really can change the world" It's about a man that builds 55 schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan mainly for girls. So I'm really excited to start this book after finishing Second Wind. My precious children awoke this morning and one by one wished me a Happy Birthday. One of our sons wrapped up his white fluffy teddy that looks like our dog Wilbur and gave it to me. When I opened it, I smiled and gave him a big hug. When I was alone I had to smell the stuffed dog to make sure that the brown marks were indeed chocolate! I placed it nicely on my bed. My twelve year old son who I referred to before spent his own money and bought me a CD and hair clips. He didn't want to wait, I needed to open the present before he went to school. It's really cute witnessing your children being so excited to give something which makes it so meaningful. Moments like these I breathe in deeply because it really doesn't last long. I might not ever again receive a chocolate covered white stuffed dog so it's important to savor these moments. Just like watching our littlest son play in the snow, he looks so small in his snowsuit but yet acts so big. During my afternoon I decided to make cupcakes, iced with little heart flakes all over to celebrate with our children. From there I had a nice dinner with a friend, with my oldest daughter followed by a movie. It was a good day. My friend that I've known for twelve years gave me a very thoughtful gift, a silver plated book mark saying, "The road to a friend's house is never long" That's true. I will drive any distance to visit a good friend. It's becoming a regular drive heading South! For now, I need to ice and take ibuprofen for my unwanted gift and send it away!

"We try BUT life isn't fair"

My husband seems to be really good getting our children to fall asleep during a story. I wonder if that's because he has a lack of enthusiasm? He's definitely a great father. He's outside right now bombing around the yard dragging our children on sleds while I fold endless laundry! I know the snow hills are packed full of people so pulling sleds on our property sounds more realistic for us! Our children are having a great time. It reminds me when we take our children tubing or wake boarding in the summer, except knee boarding on snow behind a quad. There is only one issue with our children that seems to surface on a regular basis. I know and understand this is normal for siblings. It's always not fair according to someone. For one of our sons to him, it's never fair. It doesn't matter if his turn was first or if he gets many turns, it's just not fair when he's not getting a turn! It's a no win situation. It's interesting because my husband and I can spend whole days with different exciting events for our children but still at the end of the day, someone isn't happy. Life isn't fair! An argument will break out about how many turns he had compared to someone else but the funny part of this, he wasn't even counting. Usually our one son that's hard to please always has the most turns, always has the most attention and it's still not good enough. My husband and I recognize that our energy is always directed to our one son. With stating this, this doesn't mean anyone is left out but if we drafted on paper the percentages on time with each child, our one son is at the top of the list! Of course he doesn't see it that way. So I'm starting to think about different strategies. Trying to be sensitive to his needs because he wants to be validated with any of his thoughts. Even if most are elaborated stories! For our son, I recognize that he spends most of his time attention seeking, usually with negative approaches. I also have noticed bullying, manipulation and deception behaviours. He avoids accountability's for his actions at all cost and usually passes blame onto others including my husband and I. While I write this, our son also exhibits compassion, thoughtfulness and giving. He shares, honestly I can say he loves and cares for everyone in his life. He is really awesome with younger children. Very helpful and has many excellent qualities. He has come a long way since we adopted him! He shows us affection and rarely do we hear, "You don't care about me!" anymore. Our first year with him we were not his family, we were a family. We were A family that didn't care and slaughtered animals in the backyard! I'm proud now to say we're HIS family that wants to move to China. So we've come a long way. See, I am a thinker. With all of our children, I think about what we can do differently to change what is. Now I'm thinking about how to improve negative attention seeking......I know if we proceed to involve ourselves with the negative behaviour, our son is getting exactly what he wants. So we need to attend and recognize the positives more and ignore the negatives. I keep reminding myself a saying I heard at a Seminar last year, "Don't jump on their train" I know that we're guilty sometimes for overlooking their efforts. Acknowledgement is important. I think it takes practice to learn to acknowledge when a child is being good, so noticing and commenting everyday about their good behaviour should change the bad. This must work with attention seeking, if we acknowledge the positive ways he's seeking perhaps the negative way will diminish. I'm really not convinced this would change the "It's not fair" attitude after a days fun but it's a step that everyone should constantly be aware with raising children. As a thinker, it affects me in negative and positive ways. I should always catch myself and turn any negative thinking into a positive outcome. I speak of positive energies a lot which I completely believe that if you awake with a positive attitude and focus, usually your day will be productive with positive outcomes. I know with raising teenagers that if I approach them negatively with their issues, it's a recipe for disaster. Instead of asking, "What did you do that for?" I have been sensitively approaching suggesting, "Maybe you should try this instead of" or I will say, "When I was your age, I did......" Power of suggestion instead of putting their ideas or what they did down will receive better results. "What do I know?" I'm not always right either. I'm learning as their Mother to try different strategies, different approaches to each and every one of them in hopes that I can curb some negative attention seeking. To develop a feeling of fairness regardless how many times one will have a turn or how long it was. I guess for me, like writing, it's about reminding myself everyday on how to deal with what's presented to me. On how I deal with it will hopefully change their response. We'll see, life is a learning curb for all of us and every path leads us to new directions, new attempts to make life fair.

"Deep fried chocolate bar soothes the stress"

Here I am after an interesting week of events contemplating all the scenarios that laid down before me. Unfortunately the court case has been adjourned onto its third day sometime in the future. I heard we'll get a phone call about the next date. By the end of the first two days I was feeling pretty good. My feelings had nothing to do with what was going on in Court. It was how our side was reunited, these are individuals that were once my neighbors and just amazing people. Nothing about being in Court is soothing to ones stress. It's truthfully a tenseful atmosphere. During the breaks we were able to remove ourselves from this intensity, walk and just enjoy each others company. It was really nice to reflect back and reconnect again. During one of our walks we found this little place that deep Fry's everything! It's absolutely NOT healthy but definitely satisfying to your taste buds. I was hesitant in trying anything. So between five of us, we shared (that consisted of one bite each) a deep fried Mars bar! Exactly like this picture above. It looked disgusting. It was one of those items that you just spooned up with whipping cream and opened wide not looking at it! I tried it for the experience to say, "I tried it" Honestly, I might try a bite again. Although I will always remember the experience because it was with people that I used to know, people that shared the last few days and we support each other. So am I looking forward to a third day in Court? "Yes" because I will get to have another days opportunity to give another hug, to reunite and to support. My wish is for everyone involved including the woman fighting to save her beloved dogs, peace and understanding to be able to move on after the decisions are made. I personally believe it's very clear the outcome but everyone deserves a day or years in Court. ( I think ) Just like everyone deserves at least one bite of a deep fried mars bar! A bar battered in batter that is typically used on fish and other battered products. Sounds yummy huh?! Perhaps next time we'll try the Snickers bar smothered in ice cream and butterscotch sauce! Until then, I'm back home eating healthy and once again realizing everything happens for a reason. Even a summons to appear in Court can have positive results!

Death Row Dogs Retrieved

Dogs on Death Row

In the matter of.......

The first week of the New Year has brought me back to March 2005. I can't write and share all the details although my New Year has been meeting with Lawyers, sitting in a Provincial Court room testifying as a witness to a complaint I made to the SPCA back in 2005. (Above are already published News clips of the case I've been summoned to witness at)Last year I was summoned to court, (thought it was over) then with the application against this certain individual she won an appeal, that lead to another summons to court on New Years Eve, starting my New Year in a stuffy, stressful and interrogating situation. It's nice when you're advised that if you do not attend as required, an application may be made to a Judge of the Provincial Court to issue a warrant for your arrest. This case has been going on for years against a certain individual, not only am I a witness, there is more then six others! Two SPCA complaints that were horrific and this individual is definitely intelligent and representing herself. Because she's representing herself, she also cross examines every ones testaments. I found this ironically bizarre. Today, all day I developed many different emotions. Feeling my heart flutter into panic, asking for water because I didn't correctly name the exact part on my little multi poos body was enough to send me into a slight argument reasoning why I called it what I did. Too feeling like I messed up my whole statement while being clearly confused on multiple pictures that I had to remember from six years ago. The case? The accused is trying to save her three dogs from being euthanized from incidences (attacks) that started back in 2003. Two attacks that were horrific. My story. (Which I am allowed to explain) Our family lived in a different area that we do now, I used to run around this 2 km loop in our old neighborhood with our two dogs. Our two older dogs now deceased. Fritz and Chester. Fritz was my Multi poo and Chester was our chocolate lab. During this one incident, these three dogs came running out of her property barking and one of her dogs bit the back of my Multi poo. I immediately picked him up, yelling at the dogs to go away while the owner smiled from her fence line. This is the call I made to the SPCA that puts me where I am today. On another incident, she was out on the road with her dogs and her horse. Her dogs were off leash. I again, immediately picked up my little dog, trying to walk past her. That's when she approached me with her horse near my face, I asked her to back off with her horse. She then told me to stay off the street or she'll sick her horse on me. From then on, I ran the other way. In the court room today she cross examined me with pictures, with statements from last year, with the initial complaint report from 2005 and to proceed for approximately an hour asking me about the size of my dog that isn't irrelevant to the attack itself. Waving a stuffed dog in comparison on the size of what a multi poo should be. Her possible point was multi poos must of looked like rabbits to her dogs. (Not sure) As I was listening to the other witnesses at points I cried. The mauling, blood, broken bones and trauma the owners and their children experienced is horrific. A traumatic experience they have to re-live in the court room yearly after winning appeals. This I couldn't understand. Here is a owner protecting her three dogs that have been labelled vicious, they have torn apart other peoples pets and she's cross examining us? This case has made the news last year, it's located all over the Internet and hopefully is coming to a close. When reflecting back it made me remember how terrifying dog attacks can be, how helpless you feel, the intimidation to run the other way. Now I as only one witness is facing hopefully justice. Hopefully these other families can have peace while still living in the same neighborhood. I was initially upset being summoned again but after a long day today, I realized I needed to be there for these other people that have suffered and still suffer the reality of these remaining issues. While watching this woman representing herself, I had feelings of "Wow" a strong lady, a lady that truly loves her three dogs to go to this extent to save them but while dressed in a Buddhist robe, holding prayer beads - she doesn't represent compassion. Compassion is showing compassion to all, today there was no compassion about our injured pets or how we were feeling. Clearly in the right frame in mind we eventually if not right away take responsibilities for what's right and wrong. As much as it's sad that the outcome should be the euthanizing of her dogs, it's the right choice for the continued protection of that neighborhood. Another day in court might answer that question. In the meantime, tomorrow (Friday) I'm back to the court room in hopes everyone can relax with some sense of peace. Some closure. Then I need to dispute my violation notice because I exceeded my parking time where there was no visible signs stating my time frame of where I parked! Always tickets issued in Emergency or Government parking lots! "Mmm..." I even parked a couple kilometres away to avoid what they placed nicely on my windshield and I'm still smiling because this is going to be an excellent 2011!

"Oprah - you go girl!"

I took our children to Cyber City today. Three hours of climbing around in a hamster cage while I read Oprah. Oprah starting January 1st has started her "OWN" network. (Oprah Winfrey Network) In her magazine she was explaining that to fill the time 24/7/365, you need close to 9000 hours! She so far has 600! So as she stated she has a lot of work ahead of her. I admire people that can take leaps. I believe those leaps are the ones that makes someone successful in anything they decide to do. A quote Oprah said that she knows for sure was, "Once you clarify your purpose for doing something, the way to do it becomes clear" She's an inspiring, intelligent, compassionate, successful woman. When I do watch any television, I will tune into her network. From what she explains she wants her network to have meaning, inspirations and life lessons. One of her premiere shows starting in the spring is called, "Kidnapped by the kids" This series will teach that the children want their parents quality time, it's not about the time away working to get items the children want or what the parents might of never had. Children need to feel loved. Oprah is hoping that this show will be life-enhancing for children and parents. It was an interesting read while I thought, "Wow, why not start the New Year with your OWN network teaching others about love and compassion" I love Oprah! If anyone making millions (billions) it should be Oprah! Another section in the Oprah Magazine was about a higher love. About a woman with only a months preparation to trek to the base camp of Mt. Everest! Not only did she accomplish it, she accomplished it with her daughter. This is a place I've based my dreams around. Trekking through the Himalaya's, visiting Kathmandu Nepal is really only one destination I would love to accomplish before I can't. Our home decor and the word "Namaste" comes from this part of the world. In my bedroom I have two panoramic posters given to me from a First Aider that hiked to the top of Mt. Everest. He called them, "The world from the summit of Mt. Everest" Not only did he get to experience this largest Mountain in the world, he also adopted a little boy from Nepal. It's really exciting hearing stories and being able to communicate somewhat with their Nepalese language. People have told me that they've thought I've already been there - unfortunately a dream that I incorporate into our lives at home. From learning the history, reading the stories, learning the language and learning to prepare their food helps me with my dream. Dhal bhat a seasoned lentil that you pour over basmati rice is one of their main foods in which I prepare. I'm always inspired about stories that involves Nepal and Mt. Everest. An inspiring quote this woman explained in her article was "For some people, trekking to Everest base camp is not a prize, it's a punishment, but some of the most powerful and rewarding experiences are the things you probably hated the most when you were doing them" When I was reading this I was thinking again, "Wow, that's a powerful and completely honest statement" As Oprah, success doesn't come easy, we all have to take risks, we have to reach out of our comfort zone and push ourselves to better ourselves. January 2nd reading in a noisy hamster land with children everywhere, I reassured and enlightened myself with another "AH HA" moment thanks to Oprah. These aren't just stories, these are stories that can be our lives. With focusing our energy positively, making the proper steps forward (even if their out of our comfort zone) we all can become successful with what we want for ourselves within the future. Of course I'm a Mother of many, I won't be trekking Nepal anytime soon but I'm a Mother with a mission. Which is making a difference in children's lives. Not only making a difference but hopefully directing our children to be successful with theirs. Don't let fear hold you back, whatever you want in your life, you can do it. For example, I never thought I could pass my practical exams in first aid. I have had many written and years ago when I had to fully package a code 3 patient within 15 minutes and of course stabilize breathing by inserting an OPA (Ora pharyngeal Airway) teach another to breathe for my patient while splinting a broken femur and stop deadly bleeding was completely stressful. Stressful because I was being examined! I didn't want to be where I was, I swear I had the worst case scenario! As tears ran down my face my examiner asked me, "Carrie why are you crying?" I explained to him I failed. He looked at me with a smile and said, "You passed 100% and will make an excellent First Aider" That moment in my life I cried like a baby, a moment I still remember fondly because it taught me to believe in myself. Yes it was hard, I hated every minute but years later, I can now challenge the course. You just have to believe, hurdle through those moments that you might not want to do, take those risks and success will be at your finger tips. Just like Oprah! Reading is inspiring, another book I want to purchase is "Second Wind" about a woman with a midlife request to run seven marathons on seven continents. She decides to take up running for therapy, a quest to find herself. She's not physically fit but she's living proof that even those who tend to stay at the back of the pack can still be winners - K. H. It sounds like a great read, my next read in fact for 2011! Let's race towards life, challenge it and accomplish all odds! I have many ideas including sprucing up my grammar and writing a book someday!