Getting ready to return to Uganda. 5 more days until Mindy and I board the plane.
The IVO GO Teams went in shifts this year--Team 1 has already headed back and Team 2 just arrived. Part of the group I will be meeting--the Hintz family as represented by Sara, Louis, and Caleb--is on Team 2. They've already been to Sanyu this morning.
As a matter of fact, my brothers, I could not talk to you as I talk to people who have the Spirit; I had to talk to you as though you belonged to this world, as children in the Christian faith. I had to feed you milk, not solid food, because you were not ready for it. And even now you are not ready for it, because you still live as the people of this world live...
..For on that Day fire will reveal everyone's work; the fire will test it and show its real quality. If what was built on the foundation survives the fire, the builder will receive a reward. But if anyone's work is burnt up, then he will lose it; but he himself will be saved, as if he had escaped through the fire. 1 Corinthians 3:1-3, 13-15
Definitely need to use baby-talk here, but it's nice to know that even if I fail hard, it doesn't matter because I am saved anyway.
That was probably the hardest lesson of the last decade--that it doesn't matter how bad a Christian I am, that I've never had the emotional connection to Jesus Christ that I hear people talk about...I'm saved anyway because I sincerely invited Jesus into my heart on that Youth Retreat in high school.
It's one of those things that haunting self-doubt combined with my preference for brutal honesty made it hard to grapple with.
...Mindy just texted me that her cat pissed all over the clothes she had laid out to pack. *facepalm*
I've sent all my stuff into Arrow, the new foster agency I'm working with (Bair is closing its Houston office and offered to transfer my file to Arrow) except the pictures of my house. I even found a dentist that takes STAR Health Medicaid with just one (!) phone call. Wow.
Cut my hair this morning for the trip. It feels lighter and is doing the cockatoo curls already. Somewhere in Austin, Lady D has the sudden urge to yell at me and doesn't know why (she hates it when I cut my own hair).
I'm anxious to find out what has happened to Margaret and Olivia (two little girls at Sanyu Babies Home in Kampala) in the 11 months since I've seen them and to see Joy (older girl at Redeemer House) again.
Friday, January 18, 2013
Sunday, October 28, 2012
Behavioral Intervention
Yesterday, Mom and I attended Behavioral Intervention 3 and 4 (she wants to be my respite provider and also needs hours for her job as a preschool teacher). The material is all new as of October 1st, and I think they mixed Discipline 101 in with BI3, which means I've had it twice this year. *shrugs*
Differences between CPS and Bair--Bair actually taught us techniques to protect ourselves from things like hair pulls and choking. We are permitted to use two types of restraints--the Bear Hug and the Escort--if all attempts to deescalate the child has failed and they pose a danger to themselves or others. This, of course, must be documented (there's a Physical Restraint form) and will probably trigger a review of the child's individual service plan to see if there are other interventions that could be put in place to prevent future rages.
With CPS, the only restraint they would tolerate was a brief restraint (less than 1 minute) of a child under 5, which is basically grabbing a toddler to keep them from running into traffic.
I understand CPS is trying to phase out restraints all together because when done improperly, they can kill kids, but at the same time, I am inviting unknown and potentially volatile children into my home and would like to have methods to protect myself and anyone else in the household.
And I don't appreciate being lied to.
The other thing I like about Bair is the support they are promising (and really, I expect them to follow through with) for the foster families. We are encouraged to take respite (when my FAD worker asked how I would have dealt with my car accident had I had children in my home and I mentioned probably using respite days, she was clearly not happy with that) and to call our Social Services Worker for assistance. They have a foster mom who did have a child who did need restrained (and was eventually classified as Intensive and moved to a different agency to get the care he needed), and she would call her SSW after incidents to hash out what happened and brainstorm ways to improve her response next time. I always got voicemails and never a return call when I had a question with CPS.
It's not that I think that CPS is bad, but they are viciously overworked and underfunded (Governor Perry, I'm looking at you). As anyone who knew me during my years at my old job, you can only stay passionate about something for so long under those conditions before you burn out.
The fact that both Bair (about the half the Texas offices are on a placement hold until December, including Houston) and I have been getting calls from CPS asking if we have beds open probably means that their (and the judges') post-budget cut plan of sticking as many children as humanly possible into kinship care (care by relatives) is not working out as well as they had hoped. In some cases, it's appropriate, but kids were being placed with relatives who had felony records, who had histories of their own with CPS, etc.--people CPS would never in a million years approve as foster parents. Hebe and Thor were taken from my house screaming and sobbing because the father who had been granted custody was a "drug junkie".
Differences between CPS and Bair--Bair actually taught us techniques to protect ourselves from things like hair pulls and choking. We are permitted to use two types of restraints--the Bear Hug and the Escort--if all attempts to deescalate the child has failed and they pose a danger to themselves or others. This, of course, must be documented (there's a Physical Restraint form) and will probably trigger a review of the child's individual service plan to see if there are other interventions that could be put in place to prevent future rages.
With CPS, the only restraint they would tolerate was a brief restraint (less than 1 minute) of a child under 5, which is basically grabbing a toddler to keep them from running into traffic.
I understand CPS is trying to phase out restraints all together because when done improperly, they can kill kids, but at the same time, I am inviting unknown and potentially volatile children into my home and would like to have methods to protect myself and anyone else in the household.
And I don't appreciate being lied to.
The other thing I like about Bair is the support they are promising (and really, I expect them to follow through with) for the foster families. We are encouraged to take respite (when my FAD worker asked how I would have dealt with my car accident had I had children in my home and I mentioned probably using respite days, she was clearly not happy with that) and to call our Social Services Worker for assistance. They have a foster mom who did have a child who did need restrained (and was eventually classified as Intensive and moved to a different agency to get the care he needed), and she would call her SSW after incidents to hash out what happened and brainstorm ways to improve her response next time. I always got voicemails and never a return call when I had a question with CPS.
It's not that I think that CPS is bad, but they are viciously overworked and underfunded (Governor Perry, I'm looking at you). As anyone who knew me during my years at my old job, you can only stay passionate about something for so long under those conditions before you burn out.
The fact that both Bair (about the half the Texas offices are on a placement hold until December, including Houston) and I have been getting calls from CPS asking if we have beds open probably means that their (and the judges') post-budget cut plan of sticking as many children as humanly possible into kinship care (care by relatives) is not working out as well as they had hoped. In some cases, it's appropriate, but kids were being placed with relatives who had felony records, who had histories of their own with CPS, etc.--people CPS would never in a million years approve as foster parents. Hebe and Thor were taken from my house screaming and sobbing because the father who had been granted custody was a "drug junkie".
Monday, October 22, 2012
Ana and Tim
Psalm 34: 4-7
I prayed to the Lord, and he
answered me;
he freed me from all my fears.
The oppressed look to him and
are glad;
they will never be
disappointed.
The helpless call to him, and he
answers;
he saves them from all their
troubles.
His angel guards those who
honor the Lord
and rescues them from danger.
In other news, Hope and Hannah have both been profiled on SCH's 105 in 105 sponsorship drive, which means new pictures of my beautiful Indian girls.
Hannah (age 13) at the beach
Hope (age 14)
According to the Indian government, I'm too young to adopt and they are too old to be adopted, but that can't stop me from loving them from afar, can it?Fire inspection tomorrow--one step closer to be paper-ready!
Saturday, October 6, 2012
I come alive as summer dies
It is currently 82F outside, and I just came in from gardening with sweat rolling down my back. Can we be done with summer please? I much prefer the fall and winter. I grew up in the Midwest where the snow piled up from the end of the October into April. We had blizzards on my brother's May birthday some years.
This is the bush growing on the side of the garage. I'm not sure when it showed up...last time I paid attention, there were just some dead twigs there. A convenient place to dump bags of yard trash until I could fit them in the can. The morning glory vines have climbed into the backyard, making a rather ugly corner into something beautiful. I spent twenty minutes ripping them and the vines with the white flowers that creeping across the ground out. My poor garden globe wasn't working because they grew completely over its solar panel. I freed it and jabbed it in the ground where it will get to warm itself in direct sunlight for the entire afternoon.
Showers, when you are filthy and stink so bad you can smell yourself, are glorious things. Living alone means I can wander around the house in a giant t-shirt and underpants. Though I long for the days when I have people living with me again so I have to at least add shorts to the ensemble before leaving the bedroom/bathroom.
Joined a new church--Cypress Trails UMC. It's tiny and old and their attendance goal for the two Sunday services combined is only 150 people. It's usually me and 25-30 elderly people at the 08:30 service. It's good to sing the hymns I learned as a child again.
Working on my autobiography for The Bair Foundation. It's supposed to be 4-10 pages. I'm at 6, but that's with pictures added. There's so much I need to do--get my fire inspection done (by an actual inspector this time, not just a social worker), get fingerprinted, finish this mountain of paperwork. I've been running a little ragged these past two weeks, so there hasn't been much forward momentum.
I hate writing about myself. It's my least favorite subject, lol.
Currently, the dogs are curled up asleep in their bed, Leia snoring away (she had distemper as a puppy and the fallout was that she now snores like a bandsaw despite only being 20 lbs). You'd think they'd been the ones yanking out vines.
Turns out that I do get time off this year--two floating holidays and a week's vacation--it just isn't being reflected on my paychecks, which means another fight with payroll. (The company I work for is so large that payroll is contracted out.) I wish I had known sooner so I could have gone to work at Pine Ridge before Re-member shut down for the winter. Maybe next fall. Depending on when my KAM can squeeze in my week off, I'm thinking about flying up to Ohio. See Grandmom, visit Bowling Green, spend some time in a place where the backs of my knees won't sweat.
Sunday, September 23, 2012
He said love endures all things
So much has happened since my meltdown in June...
I bottomed out big time. Last year, I went to the doctor because my anti-depressant had lost effectiveness (I'd been on the same medication since I was 19, and at the same dose since I was 22, so that wasn't a huge shocker). What followed was months of misery as we discovered that Wellbutrin at high doses turns me into The Incredible Hulk...
And Pristiq made me so depressed I wanted to die. Finally, in September, we alighted on the combination of 200 mg/day of Zoloft and 75 mg of Wellbutrin. And it worked fine for 3 months, but since New Years Eve, it has been a roller coaster in my head. Add to that, the probable brain damage from the car accident in January, and I'm a right mess.
I've been getting extremely panicky when stressed or confused, and it had gotten to the point where I was scared to look at my work emails or answer the phone. I let a customer actually *bully* me into almost crying. I had requested transfer to several departments where my workload would be less stress-inducing, but my manager blocked me at all turns because he said I would get bored and was overqualified for the positions anyway.
So I somehow managed to find a new job and not bomb the interviews. I now work across the street from my old job doing the same basic job--air exports--but there is much less stress, I work 40-45 hours a week instead of the 50-65 I was working before, and I'm getting paid almost $7/hr more.
But I'm still panicky at the STUPIDEST things. And my meds aren't working. So I went through the list of psychiatrists on my insurance's website and cold-called a bunch of them and then made an appointment with the only one who bothered to call me back. I want a specialist to handle any medication tinkering that needs to be done. I want my semblance of a life back.
Also working on getting my foster care verification from The Bair Foundation, a private Christian agency. The training was a lot better this time around, and we did it all in two nights and one full Saturday instead of dragging it out for six weeks...during Rodeo.
Then I get home, and the mail lady brings me a package from CPS...it was my former caseworker returning my family portfolio. I need to re-do it, but it was good to have it back. I at least like how the binder looks.
And then I log onto Facebook, and Alicia is talking about going back to Uganda in February...hmmm....
I bottomed out big time. Last year, I went to the doctor because my anti-depressant had lost effectiveness (I'd been on the same medication since I was 19, and at the same dose since I was 22, so that wasn't a huge shocker). What followed was months of misery as we discovered that Wellbutrin at high doses turns me into The Incredible Hulk...
I've been getting extremely panicky when stressed or confused, and it had gotten to the point where I was scared to look at my work emails or answer the phone. I let a customer actually *bully* me into almost crying. I had requested transfer to several departments where my workload would be less stress-inducing, but my manager blocked me at all turns because he said I would get bored and was overqualified for the positions anyway.
So I somehow managed to find a new job and not bomb the interviews. I now work across the street from my old job doing the same basic job--air exports--but there is much less stress, I work 40-45 hours a week instead of the 50-65 I was working before, and I'm getting paid almost $7/hr more.
But I'm still panicky at the STUPIDEST things. And my meds aren't working. So I went through the list of psychiatrists on my insurance's website and cold-called a bunch of them and then made an appointment with the only one who bothered to call me back. I want a specialist to handle any medication tinkering that needs to be done. I want my semblance of a life back.
Also working on getting my foster care verification from The Bair Foundation, a private Christian agency. The training was a lot better this time around, and we did it all in two nights and one full Saturday instead of dragging it out for six weeks...during Rodeo.
Then I get home, and the mail lady brings me a package from CPS...it was my former caseworker returning my family portfolio. I need to re-do it, but it was good to have it back. I at least like how the binder looks.
And then I log onto Facebook, and Alicia is talking about going back to Uganda in February...hmmm....
Sunday, June 24, 2012
Done
Done chasing pipe dreams.
India is not happening. I'm too weak and let myself get shouted down.
I've requested DFPS close their file on me and remove me from the Placement database.'
It was stupid to think any of this would happen. Stupid.
Yes, my Facebook account has been deactivated.
India is not happening. I'm too weak and let myself get shouted down.
I've requested DFPS close their file on me and remove me from the Placement database.'
It was stupid to think any of this would happen. Stupid.
Yes, my Facebook account has been deactivated.
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