14 Years Later

I was torn about what to write today but I felt that this, being the 14th anniversary of Columbine, was what it should be. Also, considering what just went down in Boston I felt that I couldn't avoid it.

I moved to Colorado from Massachusetts in December of 1998, the middle of my senior year in high school. Four months later Columbine  happened. I remember we were at Safeway getting our lunch. I overheard one of the cashiers talking about what was occurring 20 miles away, just down the canyon from us. I panicked. I got back to school and ran into the security guard and asked him what he knew. I asked him if what I had heard was true. He confirmed that I had heard correctly. At this point, nothing had been said at the school and he told me that they weren’t planning on announcing anything until school was over for the day. I thought that was BS and so I grabbed my sister (a freshman at the time) and we went home where we watched the news all afternoon. I later heard that they did announce it and then put the school on lock-down.

At one point we heard that the people who attacked Columbine were on the way to our school. I had never been so glad that I went against school policy to sneak my sister out of school. As details unfolded I remember being in shock. I remember wondering why anyone would want to hurt their fellow students. I remember being so angry that this could have happened. I remember being very wary of kids wearing trench-coats and dark sunglasses. This was not like me. I have always tried to be friendly with everyone, whether we were friends or not, and here I was judging based upon appearances. I didn’t like what I had become but it happens when your world is changed in such a big way and you find yourself questioning what might have been. Eventually I stopped worrying about it, which I guess is a natural outcome. I didn’t live the attack and it didn’t stick with me like it would have if I had been there.

Until Monday, April 15th, 2013, when it all came rushing back. All of the feelings and all of the fear and all of the unknown. I heard about the bombs in Boston and flipped out. You can read about my reaction to it here. Now, five days later, it is the 14th anniversary of Columbine and it seems as fresh in my mind as if it was the 1st anniversary. I was not in MA on Monday, not even close (way out here in Wyoming…hi…) but I am still close to Colorado. My old city and my almost-most-recent one. Huge, horrible things happened to both of them in the same week 14 years apart. One when I was barely into adult-hood and one where I am fully entrenched.

There is one thing I know about both of them and one that I know will happen whenever we are faced with tragedy of a huge magnitude. They overcome. WE overcome. People join together and hold each other up and help one another. They let the evil of the world know that it can’t get to them. Whether memories are 14 years old or 5 days old, we will overcome. We will not forget but we will move forward and become better people. There will always be bad and evil in this world but it won’t win in the long run. We will stand together and support one another until atrocities like these fail to exist because they no longer serve a purpose.

New post about stuck and marriage:

http://lobotomyplease.com/2013/04/18/stuck-and-marriage/

Enjoy!

I've Moved!

I am the proud owner of my very own URL! I can now be found at lobotomyplease.com. If you would like to keep following me I will be found there. I will continue to post links to the other blog on this site so you can continue to read all about my adventures if you prefer to stay here.

Here is my newest post about a new recipe we tried:

http://lobotomyplease.com/2013/04/17/bacon-wrapped-breakfast-cupcakes/

I want to thank everyone for reading and supporting me while I was on blogger. It's been fun!

~Lauren

ARD Featured Piece - in Bloom

My best friend (and business partner, Heather) and I have been working on a new idea for our company Abby Rose Designs. It’s something we’ve had on our minds for months and it has finally come to fruition. We will be doing a Featured Piece of the Month and it will showcase a new piece of jewelry in limited quantities every month. For our first piece we created a necklace that has a rose quartz pendant in the shape of a rose. We found it quite fitting for the first month given the name of our company, obviously.

I must say, we have had a lot of fun with this endeavor! We started brainstorming ideas and it all flowed together so nicely from there. Our photo shoot was amazing and there were lots of laughs while we traveled around Evergreen, CO with our fabulous model, Krystle. Here are some pictures of our jewelry as well as some behind the scenes shots. Enjoy!

(Pictures won't upload and I am really frustrated!)

You can view and purchase the necklace here. It is available until 4/26/2013. Additional pictures are here!

Boston

Like everyone else I was horrified by what happened in Boston yesterday at the marathon. I lived in Wenham, MA, for two years in High School and I have always considered Boston my city. I moved around A LOT while I was growing up but MA made my heart feel home. Maybe it’s because my family had been in MA since the Mayflower and only left in the 1920s or maybe it’s that something about the state just calls to me. I don’t know the reason but my heart broke when I heard about the bombs at the marathon. Like a bunch of other people, I knew people at the race and I know people that work close to where the explosions happened. I was shaken, and the fact that I am in Wyoming made it much harder to handle the news. I wanted to be there so that I could be with the people that I care about and know first-hand that they are OK. I am so, so sad for the people who were injured or lost loved ones. It sucks that this happened in my favorite city. It’s selfish of me to have wished it happened somewhere else but it is what it is and I don’t think that I am alone in the sentiment wherever terrible things happen. Human nature, I guess.

The bombing was a senseless act of terror, plain and simple, and it is not ok. One thing I know, when the dust settles and people start to recover, is that we will all stand together and get through this. The people of Massachusetts are some of the nicest, most caring people I have ever met. I may not stay in touch with my old friends like I should but  I do know that if something were to happen they would be there for me. People may have preconceived notions about what Bostonians are like but the majority (because let’s face it, there are some bad apples everywhere), despite the sometimes gruff and sometimes brutally honest exterior, would give everything for someone who is suffering. I think that spirit was shown yesterday when the bombs went off and instead of running away so many went back to help their fellow citizens or continued running to donate blood to the victims despite just having finished a freaking marathon! Not just the people of MA but people from everywhere around the country and the world pitched in to help the wounded.  What a testament to our resilience!

Whoever committed this act will hopefully be found quickly and brought to justice. On the off-chance that we never figure it out, those who did this should know that those of us in this country DO stand together and support one another. We WON’T be torn apart because of senseless acts of violence. It didn’t work on 9/11, or during any other act of terror, and I pray that it won’t happen because of this or any other things that may be hard and that may happen in this country. The terrorists, whether domestic or foreign, will not bring us down. I hope we can stand united against the forces of evil in this world and move forward in a supportive way that helps our fellow man. I think we can prove to any terrorist that they can’t beat us no matter what they try.

Travels in Texas

I have been trying to figure out how to write this post for a couple of weeks now. I’m trying to be sensitive to all sides of the story while at the same time being honest to my experiences. I went down to Texas to hopefully get some work in oil and gas as it has all but dried up in Wyoming and Northern Colorado. I also needed a change of scenery and that felt like the best idea at the time. I took Yaya out of school and we spent a week at our “Kansas House” before heading down to Dallas. Once in Dallas I tried to enroll Yaya in the local elementary school. That was a pain in the butt. I had brought her birth certificate and immunization records as that is all that I ever needed to enroll her in school in Colorado and Wyoming. It turned out that I needed her physical Social Security Card as well. Once I had that in hand I was able to register her at the local school.

Here is where I might begin to sound like a bad person but if you will hear me out I promise to try and redeem myself. Please refrain from judgment until the end. If you think you can’t hold out, please stop reading now.

The kids and I were staying with my mom. She lives in a suburb just north of Dallas. I thought that the school district would be an ok one, given the location, but I guess I wasn’t prepared for the clientele that was served in the area. Mind you, there is nothing wrong with the clientele, just the education, from my humble point of view. The process to get Yaya into school took hours. Half of the forms were in Spanish and I had to use my very rudimentary knowledge of the language to answer the questions. My mom and I were both participating in it and it still took forever. Finn was about to lose it when I finally finished and Yaya and I got to speak with the school counselor. She, fabulous woman, had toys to occupy Finn for the final portion of it and he loved it.

Her school in TX required uniforms and, after a frantic search of Target and a raid of the extra clothes at the school, we were finally ready. The sign when we walked into school on her first day read “Today’s language is English.” I didn’t really think anything of it – I really want both kids to learn Spanish as I think it is very beneficial in this day and age. Yaya even took before-school Spanish classes when they offered it at her old school. I did get a bit offended at being forced to register for free/reduced lunches. Talk about a blow to my pride. They wouldn’t even let her enroll until I filled it out. But enough about my pride – we didn’t need the service and I wasn’t about to take it from students that actually did need it. We are in enough trouble financially in this country without trying to take from people who deserve it and need the breakfast/lunch program to build strong bodies and brains.

Everything was going fine until Yaya brought home her first homework assignment. I was shocked. It involved verb endings that Finn could have answered if he could read (which I think he can but he fools us really well just like Yaya did at his age). Then I found out that Yaya had missed recess because she hadn’t finished her assignment from the night before. I completely understand that, I missed it in her homework folder as well, but the homework was a joke. Math was fine but (and here’s where you will think something is wrong with me until you let me finish) I feel like the English homework was work for the parents and not her classmates. Every single one of those kids that I met was super sweet and spoke English very well. I couldn’t believe in my soul that the busy work was for them. I may be wrong but that is how it felt to me. I had enough trouble myself during my own school days with homework that was way too easy; I didn’t see the point in the busy work and that bit me on the behind enough times that I know I don’t want Yaya going down the same path at such a young age.

When I was growing up we moved to Switzerland and later to Germany.  I know that if the native speakers had brought home the work in German that Yaya brought home in English there would have been an uprising. I did go to International Schools where the primary learning was taught in English but we did have German homework. At the time I was going to school there, late 80s and early 90s so it may have changed, students entering the local school system were required to take intensive German classes, so much so that they would be held back if their German wasn’t up to par. I didn’t face this task because I was in the International School System but one could risk being a year or even two behind if you couldn’t grasp the language.

I don’t fault the school district or the teachers - they are doing the best they can with the curriculum they are given - but by golly… I wasn’t going to let Yaya end up a year or two behind because of the schooling and my chance at trying to find a job. I guess my eyes were opened wide on the little sojourn I took. I certainly won’t take education for granted again. Also, as a side note, I spent more on school supplies for the second half of the semester than I have ever spent on an entire year at any of Yaya’s schools. There is something to be said for funding public education and I’ve never voted against raising taxes for our students. Something has to give to give these kids the best chances in life. I can’t begin to even pretend to know where they should start.

Working Out With Wind

Haha! With a title like that you thought this would be off-colour, didn’t ya?

Sorry to bust your bubble.

When I was nine years old we moved to Switzerland. My mom spent the better part of four months before we got there teasing me about some of the changes we were going to be experiencing when we arrived. One of my favorite examples of this special sort of bonding is when she told me that all of the cows in Switzerland have one side of their legs shorter than the other due to grazing in a circular motion around the tops of the mountains. I didn’t know a whole lot about mountains at that time - I had spent most of my life in the Midwest up until then - and didn’t realize that mountains are huge and not every single one of them has a farm at the way tippy- toppity of it; where cows continuously walk around in circles like they have some weird sort of mad cow disease. To my nine year old mind it made perfect sense that the cows would have one side of their legs shorter. I was scared to death and I vowed to make sure that I walked equally up and down the streets. I think I was fairly successful because both of my legs are still the same length. Score!

Yes. They wear bells. And yes. It is awesome!

I was reminded of the short-legged-on-one-side cows when I walked out of a building today in Cheyenne. It was windy. Not just the blustery-and-you-deal-with-it kind, but the full-blown 35 mph gusts that alternate between forcing you to practically crawl along the pavement in order to keep moving forward and then knocking you over when it swirls behind you and you haven’t recovered from the stooped position. It was really fun.

I imagine this mode of transportation would be infinitely more dangerous here...

Everyone always says how windy Wyoming is but I hadn’t really experienced it because the summer was so pleasant, so I guess I didn’t really (want to) believe them. I wish I had a video of my odd zombie walk back the car. I tried to keep my arms down but they kept wanting to pop up to keep me from bashing my face in on some cement.

When I got back to the car I noticed that my muscles were sore, as if I had been working out. I’m not really a fan of that whole ‘working out until your muscles hurt’ stuff so this certainly perplexed me. It was then that I realized that by being forced to keep all of my muscles tensed so the wind couldn’t sneak up on me I was getting a bit of exercise. Totally my kind of exercise – totally the only kind worth doing. Or not doing, as the case may be. You don’t even have to think about it and you’re getting fit! It reminds me of Couch Tai-Bo that was totally the craze between me and some of my friends in High school. It obviously counts because you are exercising. Anyone remember “Sit and Be Fit”? I digress.

Like this, but with kicking and punching instead of towels, or whatever those are. Oh, and old people. None of that, either.

I have a new one now: ‘Working Out With Wind’. Do what you will with that one... I plan to do it every day for the unforeseeable future.