Busy Update for Spring

There was some Easter kissing and tie-jewelery matching...

Admiration for living room framed photos at a book club friend's home...

A sweet orchid gift from a friend!  (notice mint green paneling above fireplace, it will change this month)...

Another DC temple trip...

Sam went to Mormon Prom (another tie matching dress example!)...

Roxie went to a bereavement camp for children 8-16...

Tying a note she wrote to Max onto a pink balloon she chose for him...

Standing with her camp buddy for the weekend:  1 counselor per child ratio.

Then more presentations, the youth told their favorite part of the camp (Roxie said riding the horses was the highlight) and love stones with a word the counselor noticed about the youth (Roxie's was strength) and then a word of hope for them and their future (Roxie's was Love)...

Beautiful, amazing program, good practical advice, good therapy, good new friends.

And my favorite:  monarch butterfly launch, each child presented with an envelope...

And a quick picture from wedding shower I hosted last weekend-notice the paneled wall, needed a different color to highlight the banner, so a quick pink coat.  Yes, I paint for parties.

Suzanna is a Missionary! And it is not all about me, this blog...

All photos from Sister Landbeck's companion's mom's blog!  They look like they get along well, smiley and  huggy.  Her companion is a twin, who is also learning Portuguese, but going to Brazil.

I wonder if Suzu can tell them apart?  Kind of cool that they are serving at the same time!

Things going well here.  I added more to the sobriety trees, some bright oranges that glow in the rainy weather we have been having.  As soon as the redbud blooms I will take more photos.

More shots in the back today that should help back pain, and I am doing the sleep study tonight.  No lotion, no hairspray, bring my pillow, but not John to hospital.  I have a horrible bruise on my hand from IV from last week's colonoscopy.  Busy round of tests and medical updating (nothing can make a mammogram a good experience, but I was thankful for it being shorter than I remembered...).  Emma turning a quarter of a century same year I make it to a half.  I am thankful for good medical attention and expertise. 

One of the nurses this morning asked how many children I have--answered her "six" and told her about Emma being a high school chemistry teacher, Stewart in college, Suzanna going to Portugal on a Church mission, Sam a firefighter & welder, and Roxie and her brilliance.  "That's five."

And about losing Max last summer to addiction consequences.  But bearing testimony simply that I am confident we will see family we have lost.  That was what the holiday last weekend was all about, what Easter means to me. 

As the nurse shuttled me out to the car in a wheelchair (hospital policy, I was walking fine) she told me how much she had enjoyed our time together this morning.  Little Gospel sharing moments.  She knows my religious preference (one of the standard questions). 

I CANNOT TAKE A NAP, trying to stay awake and busy so the sleep study tonight is accurate...or at least as much as I can make it.

Relationships

(Suzanna is doing well in the Missionary Training Center, from everything we read in her emails!)

I have a solo drug sobriety presentation to make today, 15 minutes.  Lots of thoughts rolling around my head, and I need to organize them.

When John and I speak together, one of my favorite things he says is that using drugs hurts your relationships.  Losing trust, alienating you from each other, the distance, the pain, the fights.  Head butting.  Trying to persuade each other to change (Max did try to get us parents to get high with him so we would understand how he felt.)

I wish I knew, really knew, why our son was so susceptible to drug use.  Why did he get involved in them?  What could we have done to protect him more?  How could we have given him more information or help to resist the offer to use?

Scare tactics?  Exposing him to the consequences?

How do some kids make it through high school unharmed and safe?  With brain cells and health intact?  The stereotype--and the joke in films, sitcoms and computer memes, is an introverted, nerdy, no-friend, uncool, naive, socially awkward, boring, clue-less dressing sad virgin NEVER drinks or gets high.  And the opposite:  cool, popular, edgy, fun-loving, relaxed, world-wise, great clothes, good jokes, all the money they need and gets high and drinks but never gets caught, never endangers their friends, smokes a little pot to have more fun at a party, gets all the love-action they want...

I just spent an hour looking through drug humor memes.  Very depressing.

"What does pot give you?" ask the interviewer.
"I become more aware of how beautiful everything is," replies the movie star.
"And what do drugs take away?"
"Using drugs gets rid of the boredom, lonliness, pain..."

"Remember kids, if a stranger offers you drugs...say 'thank you' because drugs are very expensive."

This is the world we live in.

I remember Max's drug use made it hard to trust him.  Hard to believe if he was telling the truth or not.  He lied, he was sneaky, he told us he quit when he really just got better at hiding his use.  He stole grocery money to buy drugs.

Two weeks ago a PTA mom asked me what I wish I had done differently, in hind sight.  I told her I wish I had been tougher right at the beginning and called the cops and turned him in to the system, scared him, let him deal with the consequences when he was still 17 years old.  I wish I hadn't tried to protect him.

Would it have damaged our relationship? 

His making bad choices didn't make him a bad person, but what he was doing was wrong.  Illegal.  Scary.

John:  no matter how poorly you have behaved or how much you have disappointed your family, or how cynical and hard to the world, remember you are precious and your life has value and should be protected.  The world is better with you in it.

I don't want to come off as scolding.  Or judgemental.

Talking to drug abuse strangers I have to be open, bold, honest.  Praying for that.

Free T-shirts with a Promise & Committment to be Safe & Sober

Best news ever:  One of my daily seminary early morning Bible School students reported seeing someone wearing a Defiance t-shirt at his school, two days after our presentation there!  I asked my student if he talked to him, said anything, or if he would recognize the student again to talk to him about sobriety, and explain he has a matching shirt....?

As part of my grocery budget $ I buy 100% cotton dark t-shirts to bleach through my stencil.  Thanks to my sister Laurajane for cool idea!  Below is a t-shirt gift she made.

Laurajane used nametag sticky rectangles to cut out letters and bleached around.

After spraying bleach--which will continue to bleach and eat away at the fibers, immediately put shirt in sink or bowl with water and a cup of vinegar or lemon juice to stop the bleach chemical reaction.  It will make the t-shirt last longer.  Then wash normally to take away vinegar smell.

When we give the Don't Do Drugs presentation at schools, we have been giving away Defiance t-shirts, either giving them to PTA organizers for door prizes, or my favorite--throwing them out into audience after we speak.

The best source of the t-shirts:  thrift stores.  Goodwill has 1/2 off sales last Saturday of the month, so 6 shirts for $5.00.  My favorite thrift store in Edgewood has 1/2 off certain color tags every day, and I look for solid dark shirts there.  A nice cashier asked what I was doing, so I explained my spiel about Drugs & Defying them, and by the 2nd shopping trip he asked for a finished one and said he would wear it once a week at work to help get the message out, explaining every time someone comments on his shirt what it is all about.  Encouraging sobriety.

Home Decorating note:  Brilliant daughter Roxie positioned this IKEA rug in our hallway lined up with North!  She did get in to the Science & Math Academy, so her dreams of rocket ship building are that much closer. 

One More Week

Our daughter, Suzanna, is leaving for the Missionary Training Center next week!   She will be studying Portuguese in preparation to serve as a missionary of The Church of Latter-Day Saints in Portugal.

We made her a birthday cake (9 months early) and tried not to giggle about the timing.

We've been studying Preach My Gospel as a family to help her prepare.

We will miss her, but are excited for her new adventures!

Sobriety Talk @ Fashion Show Friday Edgewood High School

Everything has a price…sometimes the price is too high--you can't afford it.

As you are looking at the dresses tonight, adding up limo rental or gas for your beater car, flowers, the dance tickets, dinner---I want you to think of your future beyond high school.  It is going to be over soon, less than 4 years, but some of the mistakes you make during these years will affect you the rest of your life-or end your life too soon.

If I were a wealthy philanthropist with $ to burn, I would pay teenagers to be sober.  Every 2 weeks you pass a clean pee test, my dream sobriety program would put $ in an account for you so that by the time you graduate you have enough for a brand new car--that freedom that you crave, and need to grow up, be independent…

My son Max was amazing-he didn't do homework, but he took tests well, horrible grades, but made it to graduation and into a good university, but after his freshman year, he blew it all away.

We all have secrets.  Maybe he started earlier, but when Max was a senior in high school I was cleaning his bedroom, throwing out the garbage when I smelled that sick-sweet smell of pot in his garbage can.  I poked around, found a homemade bong, found a bag stash of marijuana in his desk drawer.  To give him the benefit of the doubt, I asked him, calmly, if he was holding it for a friend.

He had been taking long showers with the fan on, trying to disguise what he was doing.  What should be the consequences when you are caught?  Jail time/community service?  You know it is against the law.  Smoking and drinking for minors is protecting you, but the laws against using drugs, it's not just about being old enough to do them.  Do you ever wonder why?  What is the big deal?

I have watched the life of a smart, funny, talented young man with a future waste away to a hunched, sad, husk of himself from drug use.  He caved into peer pressure and said yes to pot, and then it was easier to say yes to alcohol.  He picked up cigarette smoking from an AA meeting.  And all the hopes and dreams for his future were blown away.  Instead of trying to figure out what to major in, he was trying to get a job and keep a job; we didn't trust him to drive our car, changed the locks on the house because he was stealing grocery money for drugs.  We kicked him out of our home because he had younger siblings and was using in front of them.  He got kicked out of aunt & uncles home, grandparents after he blew chances over and over to stop.

I know your life isn't perfect, everyone has something they are dealing with, and it is hard, but please, look for help.  Stay sober, and don't use drugs and alcohol to escape dealing with reality. 

Drugs wasted my son's life.  I miss him.  You would be missed, because you are loved and valued.  Whatever mistakes you have made, however much trouble you think you are in, please ask for help.  I promise you it can get better.  I care about your safety, your happiness and success, and invite you to choose right now to say NO when someone asks you to party with them.  Do it for Max, do it for your future.  Be sober.

People ask all the time if DEFIANCE really is his middle name--and yes, it is.  We gave him that name with the prayer that he would defy the bad stuff in the world and that he would stand up for what is real and true.  If you remember nothing else from what we say tonight, know that you can show DEFIANCE of the complacency and acceptance of drugs.  Drugs hurt you.  They hurt my son.  Again, I invite you to be sober.

Be Glad...while Sober!

We skyped with Emma in California after the kids opened up their Max quilts, wrote letters to him (what we would say to him today) and took pictures in front of the yarn bomb trees.  There are 4 (!) in front yard now.  The tree with lights is the black & white yarn bombed one.

They are all very different-Roxie's has a bunch of "Roxy" brand t-shirts I have saved over the years for her, Sam's includes some of his school shirts, Stewart a GEMS program shirt they were both in, Suzu's foot and hand print hot pink shirt, so they know which one is theirs.

I yarn bombed the red bud tree this morning, after doing a neighbor's tree after she said her little boys had been talking about our yarn and wouldn't mind being yarn-bombed for sobriety....her tree was so big and wide around the trunk that I couldn't reach around it, had to run around wrapping the t-shirts and got dizzy!

We opened birthday presents today, too, (Mom, thanks for the shiny sparkly purple hat!) and my mom's good advice to "Be Glad" is a theme for me, a reminder.  I am glad for these amazing children, their laughter, and support and hugs and tears.  They are stronger, more sensitive to suffering and distress of others having gone through this hard summer of losing a sibling. 

Emma is waiting for their Santas to wake up before she opens her quilt, and I hope she posts a photo, because I forgot to take one of completed quilt before I sent it off to her.

QUILT construction detail:

(these-above and just below-are from Emma's quilt in the making, auditioning position of squares) Smooth out t-shirt on cutting mat, use 12 1/2 clear cutting acrylic cutting square to cut front AND back of t-shirt.  Sandwich a same size flannel square inside; sew X from corner to corner; determine order of blocks and sew generous 1/2 inch seams to FRONT of quilt; clip with scissors to create fringe.  Remember to sew around perimeter to secure/stabilize outside edge of quilt.  They were heavy with just the flannel "batting."

Back of Roxie's quilt, smooth edges on this side, fringe on front which looks better after each washing.

I didn't wash these yet, they still smell like Max a  little.  It was very emotional to make them, surrounded by the memories of him wearing the shirts, thinking of him, missing him, but glad for the project to give the other children a memory to hug.