I’ve learned a new word today and I’ve been rolling it off my tongue constantly, excited about the concept as it buzzes right through the world I’ve inhabited all my life.

I have always been an anti-consumerist, a dumpster diver, but I’ve now learned about Fregans who are known as

scavengers of the developed world, living off consumer waste in an effort to minimize their support of corporations and their impact on the planet,... more

My family has severely been tested these past couple of years. I haven’t even written about several of the mind numbing events, it’ll take years until it is less painful than it is right now. I also prefer to wait until situations are resolved and feelings are not so tightly wound.

I have been through the wringer. I just hung up from talking to a grown son, telling him that I’m even more certain now than I was 20 years ago that I’m walking the road that God chose for me. I’m parenting the exact amount of children that I deeply believe were individually... more

I could not decide if I should write a post about our diminishing birds population since I’m a concerned environmentalist and I believe we owe it to our children to not mess up the world, or if I should talk about the number of my children who go out of their way to make it clear that they do not love me at times.

Nancy and several others have... more

A couple of times, when the kids are in bed, I’ve seen the TV show Intervention and I think it is a searingly true-to-life horrifying look at addictions and what it does to the family.

In nearly every case, the interventionist will ask the parents, “Why do you think it is OK for you to allow a meth using adult child of yours to live rent free with you while shooting up?” Different scenarios, same age-old problem of the co-dependent... more

One of the hardest things that a parent, adoptive or birth, sometimes has to do is to appear to ‘turn one’s back’ on their law-breaking children. To do otherwise would simply enable said child to continue a life of crime.

Many of us that are involved in the adoption of older children find ourselves with the unenviable task of teaching rules and negative consequences to children who’ve come out of criminal backgrounds, often their birth parents are in jail or prison, or have been there more than once.

Several of my children grew up in... more

Herb Greenberg and Patrick Sweeney wrote, Succeed on Your Own Terms, and they chose nineteen defining qualities that lead to success.

In the adoption of older children, I’d advise anyone to develop some, if not all of these traits.

They are perseverance, goal-oriented, self awareness, resilience, a willingness to take a risk, the ability to thrive under pressure, optimism, empathy, competitiveness, patience, persuasiveness, confidence, passion,... more

I apologize in advance that way too often my blog is personal rather than informative but all I have is experience, not necessarily any answers but usually an understanding or empathy regarding what others are also encountering in this tough world of raising older adopted children. This means traumatized children.

I’d had a hard weekend and it showed through in my posts.

I’d picked up an older Dr. Phil (2001) book, Self Matters... more

I was going to write about positive expectancy but I got waylaid by negativism this morning before church. I should be sitting in my Ladies Sunday School Class, absorbing the teachings of Miss Martha, always an uplifting and interesting experience.

Instead I dropped off all the other children and came back home to deal with a 12 year old rager who last split his bedroom door in half and who has punched holes in my walls. He’s again angry because I wouldn’t let him attack a ten year old who accidentally got a drop of water on him yesterday when they were... more

Piggybacking once again on yesterday’s post, I often do so as my mind tends to ruminate on something for eons, always trying to figure out The Answer, seldom actually doing so.

I have a daughter, now 18, who has just graduated from high school. Like her older brother, having only lived in a stable family for seven years, somewhat reluctant to grow up, she's feeling gypped over such a short childhood.

I have a niece also graduating, full of college... more

My almost 17 year old daughter, the one who ran away last week and is now serving out her restrictions, fights against herself. Give her a taste of success and she’ll sabotage it, deeply convinced that it is undeserved. Left unsaid by her is, “If I deserved good things, my birth mother wouldn’t have left me,” simplistic yes but, more so, very primal and the root of my children’s inner pain.

Slowly she’s learning that good things can and do happen to her. She’d been taken out of school, by me, for excessive fist-fighting. I home schooled her for the... more