 Photo by James Wheeler ~ SPRING ~ Seasons of life, like seasons of the earth flow predictably, though not necessarily peacefully, one to the other. The sun rises and the sun sets, and hurries back to where it rises. The wind blows to the south and turns to the north; round and round it goes, ever returning on its course. There are seasons in life that souls, like the sun, must fatefully rise to meet whether they want to or not. There are circumstances that blow in on the wind and leave the landscape lastingly changed; sometimes for better, sometimes for worse, and sometimes like a sweet spring breeze, simply marked for the memory of it all. What has been will be again, what was done will be done again. Every season has its own notable nuances and yet there is nothing truly new under the sun. Is there anything of which one can say, “Look! This is something new.”? It was here already, long ago. No one remembers the former generations, and even those yet to come will not be remembered by those who follow them. Maybe there is nothing new under the sun. Maybe all life, all story, all seasons are simply recycled from what once was. But within the cycle of same there is a season of new that always, inevitably comes. Like blossoms on orange trees after the visit of bumbling spring bees, something new always comes. There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens. There is a time when one must say goodbye to the old, dead and lifeless things of the past and greet new life and new experiences. The time is spring. The season is new. Leaves, small, weak and timid at first, slowly stretch, reach and eventually emerge on the branches of their host. The temperature warms and daylight dawns earlier and lingers longer. They know not of the leaves and seasons before them, only that this is their life, their flower, their season to be fruitful. The bees buzz, the flowers bud and the leaves grow and explode into a springtime eruption of of lush, lively color that beautify and nourish the world. It is in the springtime seasons of life that souls shed what once was, that dreams melt away and make way for new life. It is a time to be born and a time to die, it is a time to weep and a time to laugh, it is a time to search and a time to give up. It is in this strange season of new life and letting go that a sum of certain souls find themselves inexplicably intertwining. It is in the springtimes of their lives that this story begins….  Photo by Pixabay ~ SUMMER ~ Summer waxes hot and long in Central Washington parts and in sullen or smitten hearts. So hot it dries sticks and logs and grass until everything is ready and waiting to burst forth in fury and fire and flame. So long that everyone wonders if the heat will let up before a ground fire ignites the forest. Summertime on The Big Y is also known as fire season. Arid and dry, the threat of forest fire weighs heavy on the minds of ranchers, orchardists and residents alike. After every thunder and lightening storm wary eyes watch the horizon for the slightest hint, the faintest sign of smoke. Ranch hands scour the acreage for sleepers, the kind of fires that smolder in the needles for days or weeks after a strike before popping up and wasting countless acres of land. As much as man fears the flame, he knows it also serves a purpose. Sometimes some fire is good. A scorching purification of the land, clearing out that which can erupt into a raging firestorm if not burned off gradually. What’s more, some seeds actually need the heat to come alive, to sprout and grow. Still the imminent danger that any summer fire can develop into something too large and unmanageable and devastate and destroy the land keeps all on edge. One spark lit on the dry grass of desperation or ember felled onto a heart of hope deferred and a firestorm may ensue. Once lit, field, forest or the fiery spirit of man can rage until there’s nothing more to consume, until all that’s left are charred remains and devastation. It starts so small. A sneaky, low-flying fragment fallen to the ground still hot. At first nothing more than a hint of smoke, the impression that something more immense might emerge. It smolders; simmering, lurking, laying, ready for the right wind to blow in and set ablaze the fury waiting to ignite. Then the light and the heat will rage, demanding and devouring all that there is, filling the air full of foul fumes and insufferable smoke. The same heat that makes the coldest of nights more manageable, the same light that illuminates the darkest path, can utterly destroy, land, life or a dream. Summer simmers all the things that can take the idea of danger and make it real with all the things that life needs to thrive. Sometimes the fire smolders, sparks and sets the hearts and souls of men ablaze, to purify and cleanse, to bring seed to life, or to rage and ravage anything in its path...  Photo by: Tyrese Myrie ~ FALL ~ With the coming of autumn to the Big Y Ranch comes also a grand and glorious battle between the living and that which will soon lay down to rest or to die. Some call it a miracle of transition, this shushing of the earth to sleep. Like a child resisting rest, the lively earth wages a futile war against its mother, Nature and father, Time. There is no hope and no way to stop that which must come to the animals and acres. The Big Y ranch spans eleven hundred acres of hearty and robust Cascade Mountain foothills, meadows and plateaus in Central Washington. A world unto itself. Nestled into the heart of the Pacific Northwest, the area is known for its sharp seasonal contrasts as much as it is for its orchards and apples, pears, cherries and wildlife. If spring is the season that takes the world from death to new life, and ushers in the warmth and vitality of summer, autumn is its inverse counterpart. The season comes to pull the world away from heat, light and life toward the dark, bone-chilling days of winter. The ranch knows well the turning of the seasons and of all of them, rages against the dimming of the light, the coming of the fall the most. The splendor of summer shakes itself off, stripping away the layers of bounty and beauty, leaving the world with hardly a trace of what once was. Naked trees rob the animals of fall of their easy camouflaged covering. That which once fed on the summer’s nourishment become the hunter’s prey as a bounty of a different kind is stealthily sought. The calendar marks the days and the ranch fills with eager sportsmen, looking to fill their tags and claim their trophies. There is a time for everything, a time to live and a time to die. Dying comes to the ranch with raucous celebration of sought after rewards. Maybe there is nothing more to the melancholy season than one lost battle after another. Or maybe it’s simply nature’s reminder that all things change and all things die. Nothing, no matter how glorious or grotesque, will remain forever, save God. As the leaves fall to the earth, as the animals fall to the ground, as the fires finally take their rest and die out, so everything that has breath will come to an end. Not all change is fresh and new. Not all death is mourned. And so their stories, like the land and the leaves, transition; each life losing and letting go of what once was whether they want to or not…  Photo by Pixabay ~ WINTER ~
Within the snow blown acres of the Big Y Ranch, winter’s wonder abounds. Furry ground squirrels that scurried to store their stashes all summer long, chirp, chirp a comical alarm if anyone or anything ventures too close to their secret stores. Little brown snowshoe hares slough off their earthen coats in exchange for white ones in time to blend in to their new white world. Still cautious and careful, they forage for the fruits and berries that refused to be taken to the ground at season’s change. Always at the ready, they flee with lightning quickness from hungry predators not prone to hibernation. Their scuttle, like the flutter of winter birds’ wings, is muted by the snow’s acoustical magic. Needing no camouflage from the hungry coyotes, the big, burly bison bundle up inside dark woolly undercoats that began to grow in timely response to the first of autumn’s winds. Neither the coyote, nor the cold will be their undoing. Even more than the animals, the land itself sings a wonderful winter song. Snow falls in the night or from white day-light skies. A frigid frozen glitter shaken out onto everything that once was, covering it and making it clean. Its weight blankets the land shushing and settling the madness of autumn’s melee. Its covering puts the confusion and chaos of change to rest. The ragged, ravaged worn out land becomes a bare and blank canvas that, when painted by the sun, flashes its cold, quiet glory in a million pinpoints of splendid sparkling light. A landscape that ought to be dreary and dead bursts forth in beautiful brilliance. In spite of autumn’s assault and despite the darkness of winter there is yet hope. Winter is unmistakably an end, but also a promise of a fresh start. Once the old has been cleansed, purified and washed with white snow, the days begin to stretch themselves awake earlier and earlier. The sleeping things rouse and rise up from their rest. The cycle begins again. All the hushed wonders of winter promise that though everything changes and every living thing eventually comes to an end, all ends are not necessarily bad, and life still finds a way even in the darkest, coldest of nights. It was in the dark and dismal, yet hopeful winter of 2014 that the souls aforementioned in the preceding seasons finally collided. Their paths, already crossed, suddenly intertwined and fused together. On this night the time was right and the season was upon them to begin to understand the unanswered questions, to walk out of the past and to look into a future that could bring the hope and healing each of them craved. And the night went something like this…
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 Seriously... where has the summer gone?! I'm so busy, it's flown by!
There I said it. We’re busy. You’re busy. I’m busy. The whole world is busy. But is it good? What’s your busy all about? Have we as a society always been busy? Is this new, and has it come from the information age? Or is it “just life” and I’m now to the age where things are going faster than my slowing body and mind can keep up with? Maybe it’s a little bit of both. I don’t know, but I know we’re all so busy it consumes our descriptions of our lives to the point where whole conversations can be had about how busy we are. Busy has been on my mind a lot lately, so has my newest book, another non-fiction. The two combined lend themselves to looking into busy facts. I’m not attempting to fix anything here, but I want to call it out. What are the facts of busyness? On second thought, are there any busy facts? Like, is there an Institute of Busy that gathers data on how busy society is and how it affects our lives, relationships and mental health. I can answer that. There is no Institute of Busy; I have Googled it. There are however a handful of insightful studies on busyness. You’re probably too busy, but if you have a sec, read on! What even is busy anyway? According to an abstract I pulled off the National Library of Medicine, busyness is “the perception of the density of events and tasks to perform in one’s daily life.” So you get to quantify your busy and I get to quantify mine (but there is a questionnaire for it to make sure all busy is busy – I couldn’t find it but the abstract says it exists so it’s somewhere… maybe somewhere in HERE??). There you have it, according to the super science-y experts busy is all about perception and, according to the abstract, not necessarily bad. The first sentence says busier people tended to perform better on thinking tasks than non busy counterparts. I find this especially interesting considering busy kinda makes me feel harried and out of sorts. A 2019 Harvard Business Review article by Brigid Schulte supports my “feelings” and warns that busyness can actually lead to burnout and lowered IQ! For real! One article says busy can help you think better and another sites research stating too much to do dumbs you down. Schulte’s article goes on to blame the corporate world for most of our busyness. She indictes the work culture of constant emails and 24/7 access to portals to do work for the feelings of busyness. Of course bosses and supervisors who do not take breaks perpetuate the busy cycle. Interestingly, this busyness doesn’t necessarily lead to better ideas or productivity for supervisor or worker bees. It leads to mental exhaustion, think hamster in the wheel. What’s worse, this busy, busy, busy mindset cultivates an affect known as tunneling. Tunneling occurs when one’s vision narrows. Too much work leads lends itself to a scarcity mindset... not enough time. When we think we’ll loose something, we’re absolutely right. We lose focus on the bigger picture and narrow down to saving what we might lose. As far as work goes, this doesn’t necessarily lead anyone to do the most important work, but just any work to try to get something done because everything always needs to be done right now and there’s never enough time! Schulte sites an article that reports tunneling is actually proven to lower IQ by up to 13 points. It’s interesting and while I agree busy tends to burn me out her arguments seemed very blame-y. Personally, I can keep myself plenty busy outside of work as much as I’m ever busy at work. Which brings in the work-life balance and how do we ever achieve that?! Ohhhhh yeah! Retirement, unless you’re a retiree, because though they seem to be less busy than the younger generation, they’re still moving and shaking. Ok so where are we at? Oh yeah, we’re all busy all the time. Ladies and those in their 30s and 40s tend to be the busiest but why? Why are we so stinkin’ busy all the time? I think my favorite answer for why came from, believe it or not, a wildlife management study on why their workers weren’t producing quality information. Evidently they were too busy to do good work! Yeah! Their study found four main reasons for lackluster output and all stemmed, somehow, from busyness. First, somewhere along the way busy had become a status symbol. Doing more, even if it was substandard, was better than less even with excellence. They found it could also be attributed to a lack of resources. Without proper tools, funding or staff one must do more to achieve the same result as could be achieved with proper resources. Interestingly, busy was also found to be a form of opposition. Busy might, just might, imply they don’t want to do what you want them to do because what they’re doing matters more to them. “Sorry, I’m so busy” might actually mean, “I don’t want to do your thing right right now. I’ll get to yours if there’s time, but gosh, I just don’t know if there will ever be time...” Finally they found busyness might be simply attributed to human nature itself. According to this wildlife study, we are pack animals. We need to fit in with our tribe. If everyone is busy, it’s prudent for oneself to be busy too. If one tends to be the alpha in the room, family or organization they must obviously be the busiest of them all, right?! So, we’re busy because everyone else is busy and if we’re not busy we may be perceived as a non-contributing part of the tribe and therefore at risk. I buy into those four reasons. So what do we do about it, this busyness that is plaguing us? I found a few things we can do to curb busyness (if we don’t like feeling so busy) and came up with a few of my own. First of all, remember according to the extensive Google research I did ;) busyness isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Take some time to simply notice if busyness is a bad thing for you. Right now. Close your eyes and think about your schedule, your days, your weeks and the density of activity in them… Come back in a minute or two for the rest of this. Seriously, STOP READING! Do you feel energized by your busyness or exhausted? When someone asks how you are doing is your answer something like, “sigh I am so busy. I can’t catch my breath.” or “I don’t even know if I’m coming or going anymore.” If there is a negative ring to your thoughts or answers about your personal busyness. It might be time to put some of the anti-busy hacks below into play. If, on the other hand, busy feels fine to you, as far as my unscientific research uncovered, you do you Boo! (I would caution you to check-in with your people. Work and busy can turn into an addiction of sorts. The #1 step for addicts is to admit that their life has become unmanageable and they are powerless over their addiction. If your busyness is causing significant relational problems, I would challenge you to go back and re-notice how busyness is affecting your life and relationships.) A simple way to make space in life is to allow the space when it opens up. Don’t fill in schedule holes anymore. I have a habit of replacing a canceled event with another. If a friend can’t make a lunch date, I tend to find someone else to invite. I’m not going to do that anymore. I’m going to allow the space. Yes, there are a million other things I could do, but I can take the time alone where we intended lunch, or somewhere else and allow the space. It goes without saying a calendar is a great schedule hack. Fill in your calendar with some free-time. Like canceled time, simply allow it. The challenge for me is I don’t know what to do with true free-time. I’m not much of a sitter. I’ll find something. What I like about this idea of free-time is I can make it whatever I want it to be. Need to clean out a cabinet? Great! I have the free-time to do it. Did a friend come into town unexpectedly? Great! I can invite her over for a cuppa something to sip on. The idea behind busyness is your perception of how full your day is. Even if you “fill” free-time with something, the idea that you had the time to spare can reduce the scarcity of time and calm your weary soul if busy is bothersome for you. Take your breaks!! Do NOT work through your lunch break. Do NOT work through your 10 or 15 minute break. Take it. I suggest something other than mindlessly scrolling social media on work breaks too. Read a book. Call a friend or family member. Take your lunch to the park (or at least outside) and enjoy it there. Allowing this brief space at work will open the day to more than the density of the work you’ll never finish anyway. This article on Simply & Fiercely has some more great hacks and tips. If you have a little more time you might want to read it. As for me I won’t take anymore of your time. May your busy be blessed not burdensome and life be lovely! <3 Lucy  As a long-time foster mother, adoptive mother and guardian to many children and volunteer teacher and helper to even more, Anna Kagley also deserves recognition.
Anna Kagley is single-handedly responsible for turning my thoughts about being a foster parent into action. I met Anna at a retreat for families of kids with a combined vision and hearing loss. That was nearly two decades ago. Meeting her seriously changed the trajectory of my life. She taught me that a full-time career and an already full house and life are not reasons to keep you from finding ways to help kids in need. Simply put, listening to a woman like Anna takes away all the excuses. She challenges you to really evaluate yourself if you’re not involved in some kind of child-safety advocacy. Anna's involvement with children has run far longer than our relationship. She and her husband, Robert, have tried to help the children in his family since they first got together. Robert is Native American and sadly, as is the case for many Natives, addiction issues ran strong in his family. He had several siblings caught in addiction that couldn't take care of their kids safely. Even though they didn’t engage with any state or private services, they helped out on a casual basis with them for years. When Anna got pregnant with her first born son they got a call about their nephew Gage. Anna and Robert had sheltered and helped Gage’s parents when they were younger, and now the state was involved. They were nervous to help because of how unstable the family was but later on, when they got a call about Ethan, Robert's nephew, they just couldn’t say no. Ethan’s mom was a severe drug addict and he was born addicted to drugs and dramatically delayed because of her use. Additionally his vision, hearing, motor control and cognition were all damaged. He needed care and Anna and Robert stepped in and loved and cared for Ethan until he passed away in February of 2021. They took Ethan in, and like my interaction with Anna fired me up to child safety advocacy, their family interactions with him sparked the flame for them. Anna and Robert and their whole family have participated in countless advocacy opportunities. From Deaf-Blind sensory disability services, to fostering and lobbying, Anna’s done it all and then some. She helped to organize and operate a Foster Closet in Snohomish county to provide clothing, toys and supplies to foster families and parents living in poverty. Anna has lobbied congress at our state level for better services and rights for foster parents and people with special needs. She has helped with Walk Me Home events and public school co-op science classes. Their family has been a foster home to over 2 dozen children and they’ve adopted children as well. It is a tireless, and often thankless endeavor. Though there have been regrets along the way Anna is still a huge advocate for helping kids. As she put it, “On the Pollyanna side of things, I think my kids are more appreciative of their own parents because they've heard and seen what abuse is. It has built compassion and empathy for others in them. They’re not just sympathetic, they really know and feel what these kids go through. I don't think many kids their age have that strong empathetic response the way they do.” Anna’s proud her kids can celebrate even the smallest successes in other people’s lives and links it, as well as their understanding how poverty influences poor choices, to seeing it first hand, reflected in the kids they’ve taken in over the years. On the negative side she’s regretful that the exposure has taken away her own children’s innocence. She knows the choice to shelter and foster abused and neglected kids introduced them to a level of trauma they wouldn't have otherwise known. Anna believes strongly that home should be a safe place and worries that her desire to offer sanctuary to some kids actually took it away from her own. The other challenge and strain on foster families is the lack of stable respite. She goes to far as to say it is crippling to the foster care system. Foster families of even normally functioning children get burned out, for those with special needs kiddos the attrition is even higher. Good stable respite would go a long way to helping keep up the number of foster parents. She postulates, and I concur, that making foster parenting a respected profession of its own would probably help too. Even with all the emotional pain her service has caused her family she’s quick to point out that for all the bad examples there are so many good ones too. She uses the example of her adopted son Kian. He is a treasure to their whole family. Kian was born with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, is developmentally delayed, and deals with a slew of symptoms. He is also an overcomer and amazes them every day. When he masters a simple task or goal it's a celebration for their whole family. He is not a bitter or angry adolescent, he embraces each day with joy. Anna says, “Kian is the reason I get out of bed every morning.” Even Ethan, who could give nothing back filled her up with no strings attached. Anna encourages everyone to please, please somehow get involved. Do something to help stop the cycle of childhood abuse and neglect. She will be the first in line to tell anyone that fostering or adopting isn’t for everyone and shouldn’t be attempted without serious thought and family discussion but each of us can do something. There is so much need and so many areas where one can advocate. The obvious is to “be” a safe person in the lives of abused and neglected children. Whether that’s fostering, adopting, or even just showing up at their school for a lunch visit regularly, being a safe person can positively impact a child for life. People can vote to support more mental health services, early intervention services, parenting skills services. You can volunteer time or offer financial support to organizations helping kids. I personally appreciated Anna’s admonition to Pro-Lifers. She feels strongly, as I do, that if ease of abortion is taken away, child abuse and neglect will skyrocket into an even bigger social scourge than it already is. If we do not allow abortion as an option then society, and especially the pro-life sign holders and financial contributors, must also make the time and energy commitment to keep kids who would otherwise be aborted safe. All in all, given the ups and downs, the sadness, tears and treasures in between, Anna continues to be a giant in the child advocacy arena. She has my respect and always inspires me to be a better, safer human! ANNA’S STATS: Last book read: Understanding Methods of Fish Biology – for work Braiding Sweet Grass - leisure but she said she didn't love it. It was too touchy-feely for her. Current books: Understanding Jane ~ Ruthie Rayburn TBR List: All Creatures Great and Small w/Kian ~ James Herriot A Planet of Viruses ~ Carl Zimmer Book recs for us: Apple: (Skin to the core) ~ Eric Gansworth Brainstorm: The power and Purpose of the Teenage Brain ~ Daniel J. Siegel Parasite Rex ~ Carl Zimmer  April is Child Abuse Prevention Month. As a SPED (Special Education) teacher and mother of two children adopted from foster care I'm highlighting Jeanell Climer as one of Lucy's Ladies of the Season!
Jeanell Climer has been near and dear to me for years. We met because of our work with children and in many ways children have kept us connected through the years. Not just our own children, but school children and children in foster care. Jeanell is all about the children (I like to describe her as a Mama Duck, she just watches over the children like a sweet mama duck!) so there's no better person to interview this season and this month. Her faithfulness to the Lord and kids in special need is so inspirational and admirable. Jeanell truly makes the world a better place and daily helps to keep kids safe! Without further ado, I give you an interview with a child advocacy queen: When did you first know you wanted to work with/advocate for kids? I don’t feel like there was ever an “aha moment” but rather I often found myself talking to or helping the underdog. I do recall being a secretary at a high school and often having conversations with a young lady about all kinds of things. She was struggling with things at home and she often shared things with me when she stopped by to say hello. As the year progressed, her visits increased. At one point, she noticed a special cross necklace that I had on. It opened the door for us to talk about church, and she asked a lot of great questions. I was always very careful talking about my faith in a public school, but the memory of those conversations have stayed with me 18 years later. What made you hone your focus onto SPED? There are two things that come to mind. The first is the first high school I worked at, we had a sunshine group that would celebrate birthdays and other special events. A teacher thought the life skills class students might want to share in the celebrations. A conversation happened, and I was the lucky one chosen to work with the students, and their teacher, to have them participate in celebrating birthdays. The second thing that made me consider SPED is a former neighbor. Her son, who happens to be six months younger than my oldest daughter, is on the spectrum and her stories always made me smile. (Our house was called the three girl house because he knew we had three daughters, and he was FASCINATED that the garbage truck came every week to take the “stinky trash” away - he would watch them come down the street and giggle as they picked up at each of the 20 houses.) What sorts of advocacy for children have you participated in throughout your life and career? I was part of the iFrosh team at Wenatchee High School, which gave me some great conversations with kids and parents. I had the privilege of being part of JAG (Jobs for America’s Graduates) when I worked at Wenatchee Valley Technical Skills Center. My husband and I helped with the Special Olympics ski team for a few years. I was the “lodge mom” so I helped the head coach with paperwork, and kept attendance for each practice. I was a volunteer with Girls on the Run for two different seasons. The first year I was a running buddy for a student in Chelan. I was able to run a 5k with her. The second time I volunteered, I was one of three coaches at Sterling. How did you find yourself the mother of two special needs girlie girls adopted from foster care? This was totally a God thing! The girls were students of mine during the 2019-20 school year. I tell the story that on the first day of school, I came home and told my husband that I have new students – twins – and there is something special about them. Little did I know how special they would be! As a teacher, I want my students to know that I am a safe person and they can tell me anything without judgment. I want to help them find solutions to things that might be a challenge. The girls each shared things they were struggling with. Based upon the things they were telling me, I ended up having to contact their DCYF Case Worker to report things. During these conversations, there was a hint on both our ends regarding the possibility of my husband and I becoming foster parents. My husband was not on board. I also knew that if we were to do this, we had to commit to the long-haul as these girls had been in multiple foster homes in a short period of time. There was a big incident in January 2020 that resulted in my husband deciding he could commit to bringing the girls into our home with the goal of adopting or being their foster parents until they aged out. We started the process at the end of January and then the Covid shut-down happened, which delayed things. We received a call on April 16, 2020 that the girls needed to be moved that day, and asked if we were ready for them. We were, and the rest is history. Due to their disabilities and all of the changes happening (we were their seventh placement), the girls needed extra time to process all the things. The state wanted us to begin the adoption process after six months, but the girls were not ready. We officially adopted the girls in November 2021. What is life like now? Life now is interesting. Texas has been something we have talked about off and on for many years. My father-in-law was born in Texas. We talked over the years of moving to Texas, but the doors were never opened for us. There was always a big obstacle that blocked the idea from moving forward. In mid to late September 2021, a friend of mine randomly called me and asked if we were still thinking about Texas. I told her it would probably always be something we would dream about, but that was it. She suggested we consider it. I laughed and told her I would pray about it, because that would be a BIG move. Random (more like God winks) conversations started happening that all tied back to Texas. In early October, we started looking at the possibility of relocating to Texas when the school year finished. By the end of October, we decided we should probably go visit Texas to make sure this was something that could work for us. We decided to spend Thanksgiving week in Texas. During the month of November, God laid it on our hearts that we should move before the school year ended. As a teacher, I was freaking out. We trusted that He had a better plan than we did, so I started to apply for positions. We made plans to visit five different areas, but when the trip actually happened, God had other plans. We only went to one area - Bryan/College Station which is near Texas A&M University. We came back to Washington with a house offer in the works and I had three virtual job interviews scheduled that week. I accepted a job offer one week after we returned from Texas, we put our house on the market, and we moved 2,100 miles away from all our friends and family to an adventure in Texas six weeks later in early January 2022. We adopted the girls in November 2021, the week before we visited Texas. They are juniors in high school. I am currently working as a special education teacher in College Station ISD, but I will be moving to a smaller district next school year, which I am really excited about. I will be moving to a self-contained classroom, which is very much like my first two years of teaching. Remember that friend who randomly asked me if I wanted to move to Texas? Her family bought a house in the same neighborhood we live in. She works in the same small district I will be working in next year. God had a much bigger and better plan than I could have ever dreamt. What inspiration/encouragement do you have for others who may be interested in advocating for abused and neglected children? When I reflect on this question, I think it is important for people to know that you need to do what is comfortable for you. There are a lot of programs that are seeking volunteers to help abused and neglected children. For all kids (and people), knowing that someone is in their corner is a HUGE thing. With my adopted daughters, they knew when they came to school every day that my classroom was a safe place, and a place where they could tell an adult anything. I tell my students all the time, you are safe at school and you can tell me anything and I will still love you. They all know there are some things they share with me that I have to share with others to keep them safe. For some kids, it is knowing that someone is going to show up at school to eat lunch with them. I would say if you feel like you want to volunteer in this area, make some phone calls and find the place that fits you best. Big Sisters/Big Brothers is a great option in bigger cities. Many schools have a Lunch Buddy program. The CASA Program is another amazing opportunity to show up and show love and kindness to kids in need. JEANELL’S STATS: Last book read: The Maid by Nita Prose The Kiss Quotient by Helen Hoang Current books: The Light in Hidden Places by Sharon Cameron TBR List: His & Hers by Alice Feeney The Nature of Fragile Things by Susan Meissner The Bride Test by Helen Hoang Reccomendation List: In addition to ACEs (Adverse Childhood Experiences) training, four books that have helped me as a teacher, and now as a mom of twin girls on the spectrum, are: Population: One by Tyler McNamer Lost At School by Ross W. Greene, Ph.D. Eyes Are Never Quiet by Lori L. Desautels, Ph.D. and Michael McKnight, M.A.  This week I'm prepping the blurb and title for the new book. All along I've had one sub-title in mind:
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