Epicjourneys

Wow- has it really been since August that we last posted?  Life has been crazy since then.

We are all moved into our condo and mostly unpacked.  We are enjoying our new space, especially being able to do with it whatever we want.

Dwight is surviving the stress of his job at the seminary.  They are going through some rough times in the IT department, so it has been stressful.  For right now he is surviving.

Jacob is doing pretty good.  He started 3rd grade this year and is still doing online school.  He is just wrapping up another soccer season and will be playing indoor soccer during the off season this year.  He is doing amazing on his medication.  He is just on Risperdol  now for the mood disorder and not on any antidepressants.

I have a new job now.  I am working in the same field, residential treatment.  But instead of adolescents I am working with children ages 5 to 11.  It is growing on me and I am enjoying it.  I miss my old job simply because my fellow staff and I were closer, but as Dwight pointed out that took time to build.  I am not working overnight shifts anymore either, which I have to say is nice.  I work Friday afternoons and all day Saturday.  This frees me up do be home with Jacob.

I think that is all from an update standpoint.

So life here has been pretty hectic lately.  We are weaning Jacob off of Prozac, which is going well.  From research on Bipolar that we have done combining an antidepressant with a mood stabilizer can make the cycles faster and the rage more intense.  So far Jacob is a lot calmer in between cycles.  Hurray!!

We are closing on a condo at the end of this month.  This is a huge deal for us.  In almost 9 years of marriage this will be our first home purchase.  We are very excited about actually being able to paint our walls something other than white.  Jacob is excited about the pool and the tennis court.

 Dwight is settling in to his computer job at Denver Seminary in between franticly trying to finish the new Harry Potter book.  I am in process of looking for a new job so that I can be home during the day to do Jacob’s school instead of sleeping during the day. 

My grandmother goes in on Friday for surgery to check the blood vessles behind her eyes for clots.  She had a stroke behind one of her eyes that is causing shapes to float in her line of vision.  She also found out that her kidneys are failing and she has a chronic lung desease, probably due to her Lupus.

My sister is having surgery to have a cist removed from her uterus tomorrow.  I am babysitting all of her daycare kids while she has this done.

Needless to say, life is a bit busy.  Being used to chaos, however, this seems pretty normal to me.  However, it is zapping my energy to come up with a creative blog, so this is what you get for now. 

A friend sent me this:

Some people have preconceived ideas about ex-con addict/alcoholics with no job, but let me tell you: It also has its dark side.

(Jerry L. Embry)

I can relate on so many levels.

For that do not know, the media is not reporting this story that I have been following on several online newspapers, but it looks like there is a bill being formed right now to impeach the VP of the country by 7 Dems, with more to follow.

For more on the story click here.

How about a possible contempt charge for the president? Read this here.

What the hell do you do when your eight-year-old son is standing on the couch with his hand on a sword asking you to make a choice whether he lives or dies?  When you know he is on his way up to a manic cycle and you are trying to give him ways out to calm down and he is refusing because he wants the fight?  I suppose all you can do is wait for what you know is coming and pray that it is not as bad as the last time around.

I have often wondered if other parents of bipolar children go through days like this.  The constant unknown- waiting for that which you can manage but not control.  The agony afterwards where you break down in tears and wonder if  you really are doing everything you can.  The sadness of watching your child interact with others knowing he will never be like them.  The constant wishing you could just make it all go away.  

This is worth the read, and the laugh from Time. It also shows how the internet is being used to get the young vote.

Time Article

For those that know me you have probably heard me question a lot of the global warming crap that is coming from people now a days. I have been speaking about the fact that our data is incomplete and we are only studying some ice formations in certain parts of the world but not other parts only miles away or on the other side of the continent. Anyway I have been talking about the fact that we are probably in a global cooling pattern, not a global warming pattern because of certain papers (also scientific) that I have been reading. But it all started because of the book State of Fear by Crichton.

Anyway here is an excerpt that I found from a paper that looks at soil under water that has not been disturbed in thousands of years so they can get a great idea of the temperature and the way temperature works on the planet Earth, something that no one really understands since the science of this is still in infancy.

Solar scientists predict that, by 2020, the sun will be starting into its weakest Schwabe solar cycle of the past two centuries, likely leading to unusually cool conditions on Earth. Beginning to plan for adaptation to such a cool period, one which may continue well beyond one 11-year cycle, as did the Little Ice Age, should be a priority for governments. It is global cooling, not warming, that is the major climate threat to the world, especially Canada. As a country at the northern limit to agriculture in the world, it would take very little cooling to destroy much of our food crops, while a warming would only require that we adopt farming techniques practiced to the south of us.

Meantime, we need to continue research into this, the most complex field of science ever tackled, and immediately halt wasted expenditures on the King Canute-like task of “stopping climate change.”

Here is the link to the full article, it is worth the read if you enjoy this stuff.

I was having a good conversation last night with a friend and they wanted to know if there was any proof of Abraham, Isaac, and/or Jacob’s existence. The short answer is that outside of the Bible there is very little proof of any Biblical figure’s existence. Even those for Jesus are written about what his followers say not about the man himself. Josephus talks about those that follow Jesus and then purports what they said, as do other ancient authors, who are later than Josephus. What we do not have is a record of who was crucified on what days or anything from people during the time of the Jesus’ life about him. The same can be said about many of the others, except for possibly some of the apostles.

Regardless, there isn’t any hard proof of the existence of many historical people when put under the same scrutiny that many put the Bible under.

Instead of trying to answer everyone’s doubts, I make them prove to me that I should have those same doubts.

There are two philosophical modes of thought on this issue. The first one states that a sound argument must not be doubtable so people in this camp take painstaking amounts of time and energy to prove things beyond any doubt, hence the study of apologetics.

The other method of thought is to believe what you do until you come across information that makes you want to rethink some of your old thoughts.

In the above instance, say somebody doubts the existence of Jesus. So in the first example it would be your job to convince them that Jesus did exist. In the second example you would ask them to give their reasons for not believing in the existence of Jesus and if their arguments were moving to you, you would state that and begin to wrestle with them. If they weren’t you would just state that those were some interesting points but not enough to convince me that Jesus didn’t exist.

The gospel in the first example is presented usually by cold hard facts (or what are called facts, anyway) and would include things like Roman’s Road, or the four spiritual laws or the bridge analogy. The second example looks like, “I had an experience with Jesus that I couldn’t explain in any other way. And believe me I have tried numerous times (especially if it is me saying this).”

Then they have the opportunity to engage in my experience and they can share experiences with me and we can have a friendship/dialog.

The first way normally leads to a debate, at best, and a knock down drag out fight, at worst (believe me).

Well, after the first week on the job I am loving it, even though it is primarily training so far (although I did start a project on Friday that should be finished this morning that they have been wanting to do for several weeks). I should be able to complete my training this week and will look forward to begin playing around with some of the software that I will need to learn.

I came back to three members of the team (out of 6 not including replacements for those people) leaving this week or in a couple of weeks. I am sort of replacing one person, though not really and we have hired a replacement for one of the other people. Then we added a Windows System Admin (I work closely with this guy and he is cool and easy to get along with). So we are looking for a replacement for the Linux System Admin now.

This of course meant that a lot of things were in flux so that was hard but things are calming down (at least on my end).

My son had to be told that I was leaving to make more money not because of his behavioral issues. We have not told him what we suspect with mental illness, though he is conscious of “I need to take pills to help me control myself.”

My car died a while ago and could not be resurrected (tech humor: we have a server that is pretty unstable and resets itself for no reason. We named it Lazarus and made it as stable as we could), so I went out on Saturday and got a pretty nice used car from a dealer that only works with credit unions, that both my credit union has been recommending for 9 years and that family has used and recommends. It was very painless. 3 hours start to finish, no haggling over the price, the interest rate (6.25% btw). Then I put in some security features to protect my car since Denver has a very high theft rate and my car is one of the top ones stolen. It is a little 4 cylinder and when I filled it up from a quarter tank yesterday (actually R filled it) it was $20 at 3.02 a gallon. I also put a 4 year replacement/repair on it for everything but the parts that are wear and tear (i.e. brakes, hoses, belts). It only had 25,000 miles on it and is an 04 Dodge Neon. My payments are less than 300/month.

So I am very happy with it and my job and the benefits from that job. R is going to see if she can make COVA (J’s school) work given her current work schedule. We have people lined up to watch J while she is asleep from her overnight job.

Overall, things are going well. I will be getting some great skills on the job and have the opportunity to learn some programming languages because they encourage not just doing your job, but in growing in IT however you want and spending work time to do just that, especially if you have your job done first.

I got the job and start on Tuesday at a higher pay rate than what I was originally promised, so I have no complaints. I will be very busy trying to learn everything I need to know and am a little anxious about trying to overcome learning all that I need to to be good at the job. There is a lot to learn and I am good on many parts of the job, but there are other parts that would require a lot of learning and understanding for me to be good at them. That is not a shame cycle or anything like that, but I know what I know and what I don’t and the difference between the two and I do not know Linux and Mac OS and that is part of the job. There are a couple of other parts that I would need training on and they are willing to provide that so it is not as huge of a deal as it sounds as they will train, but it will be a steep learning curve.

Thank God that school is over and we are pretty much done with SOA (one more closure meeting, so no in-depth sharing) and then a celebration dinner the next week. One of my friends said, “Maybe it is taking longer than you think it should because God is protecting you so that other things in your life can close or begin to close down so that you can dedicate the needed time to learning and keeping your new job.”

Great wisdom from a great friend.

Well last night I had a pretty horrific dream. I usually don’t remember my dreams and when I do it takes several hours (if not all day) to get through them. So I guess one would say they are not dreams but nightmares, but they are more real than that. I have full use of all of my senses and there is little to distinguish between reality and the dream, which is why it take so long to get over. Afterward I was reminded of an interview that John Stewart did.

JON STEWART: On a more personal note …I don’t even know if it’s appropriate to broach it … but we in this country we have a very tragic situation occur at one of our universities and, it really has taken the country aback and there’s a real grieving process that we’re going through, And going through it mourning and learning about the victims and-learning about it and showing our support, you know, I hesitate to say, how does your country handle what is that type of carnage on a daily basis? Is there a way to grieve? Is there a numbness that sets in? How is that?

ALI ALLAWI [former Iraqi official]: Well, I think the scale of violence in Iraq is really inconceivable in your terms…

JON STEWART: Right.

ALI ALLAWI: We have, on a daily basis, what you had the other day in Virginia Tech. I mean massacres of that scale. Practically on a daily basis and it’s very hard to grieve. Most of the-most of the way that people do treat this is just to leave the country. We now have a very large external refugee problem. Nearly two million Iraqis have left the country and internal refugee problem also, too many people displaced.

But the scale of violence and its continuity is such that it really numbs you. And in my case for example I had 6 people whom I had appointed at various positions in the government killed, including my office manager. We had this suicide bomber walk in to my contingent of guards. It’s quite a-quite a serious psychological problem that’s going to be one of the legacies of this terrible crisis.

JON STEWART: Yes, and I truly, I cannot fathom it and I just recall, you know, there’s been so much information and I was becoming wrapped up in our grief and then I saw the headline today of literally 150 people killed and–it just sends an awful dagger to your heart … like I can’t imagine how they deal with it.

Of course that hints at what the dream was about.

I highly recomend the interview that I saw this interview in. It was from Bill Moyers (I love anything that man does. He does some great interviews on great subjects) and can be found in transcipt and video here (opens in new window).

Well as of 10pm my time my grad school program was officially over. I am making a good solid “A” and only lost a handful of points on journaling which I am not good at doing on a regular (she wanted three times a week) basis. I was doing good with the 1 to 2 times a week and she was graceful about the grading. So if I get an “A” on my paper then I have an “A” in the class, if not then I have an “A-” which does hurt my GPA a little (an A- is not a 4.0, but like a 3.85 or something).

Also I have applied to a job that I will hear about on Monday or Tuesday and have been anxiously waiting the two weeks to hear back from them but on Thursday was told that I should hear back on Monday or Tuesday from them. If that goes through then we are looking to see if we can qualify to buy a condo or a small house or something (probably a condo).

J’s school will be done on Monday (a spelling test, two art classes and a self portrait and he is done). He did very well, completing 100% of every subject (apparently 85% is the minimum to go onto the next grade).

R graduated and we are looking at some very exciting things money wise if the job goes through. We should be able to have all of our high interest debt paid off in 3 months (whether or not we move) and will be able to pay for my schooling out of pocket instead of with more loans. The other cool thing is that we will be able to pay off more of R’s loans for school (probably double, but maybe even triple a month) and save for J’s college, something that neither of our parents were able to do.

So a lot is going on, but a lot is coming to a close as well.

Another Memorial Day weekend come and gone.  This year was a great time of fun and fellowship with my son, Jonathan, and his adopted parents and sister.  We had a birthday party for Jonathan, who is ten, and went to Lakeside.  It was very good to see them again and connect with Jonathan at a more mature level than years past. 

The night of Lakeside as we were getting ready to go home Jacob had a full blown manic rage cycle.  For those of you unfamiliar with childhood bipolar, which is what Jacob seems to exibit signs of, the manic cycle is a rage cycle instead of the extreme happiness found in adult bipolar.  During this I reacted as I normally do, which is to isolate him and work to get him calm.  Just another day in the life of my family.

As I was sitting in church the next day I could not help but look over at Jacob and cry, wanting with everything to be able to take this away from him.  As our pastor was reading scripture, something out of Psalms, God really impressed on me that everything he created was good- as it was, no changes, everything was good- including Jacob.  This hit me on two levels- one, my son is exactly the way God wanted him to be and I am exactly the mom that God wanted him to have and two, I am good enough for God as well.  Growing up in a house where I never felt good enough this realization has been a slow process that God has to keep reminding me about. 

Often I would sit in church and never feel quite up to par.  Everyone in my life, pastors, teachers, parents, had expectations that I felt I never could quite live up to.  Several years ago I realized that I held that same view of God- nothing I would ever do would be good enough so why bother trying.  I have since come to realize that as I step out in my own calling and passions God steps up and uses my efforts in ways that I did not even know were possible.  In trying to get away from legalism and ritualism often times Protestant churches instead impose the idea that the “Christian way of life” is somehow becoming good enough for God to find you.  What would happen if church was instead a community of people who were good enough already?  If instead we told our children that they are exactly how God created them to be and did not have to become star athletes or straight A students?  I, for one, would have loved to have been told that I was good enough just the way I was.

Hey everybody,

For those out there looking for a good CD or two I would highly recommend the new Linkin Park Minutes to Midnight, much calmer than the other albums but still very good. You need to listen to it about four times so that it grows on you and you can cast the image of Linkin Park screaming into the mic, though there is one song like that on here. Good anti Bush stuff if you are into that as well, also very socially concerned as opposed to self concerned like the other albums.

I would also recommend One X by Three Days Grace as it as a huge AA bent to it (dark side of addictions and what lies beneath those). Every song is good except the title track, which happens to be the last track on the CD.

Hey all,

You have probably already heard this (Dr. Demento) but here is a flash animation of a typical D&D gaming session.

www.cybermoonstudios.com/8bitDandD.html