A Woman's Wealth

If a woman's wealth were measured by the love her family has for her, I hope I would be counted among the richest of the world!

If a woman's wealth were measured by how much love she has for her family, I know I would be at the top of the list.

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

The Civic Minded Police force of Carson City

Tonight we were heading to our church building to participate in our annual Halloween Trunk n treat activity. Which by the way was super fun. Maura and the girls (in their cute costumes) cam down, mom and dad where there with their scary decorations (AWESOME), and the kids looked good in their costumes, especially JadaLynn as Yoda and Alexander as Luke Skywalker when he carried Yoda around during training.

Anyway, on our way to the church we have to drive by the high school. Eric pipes up and says "I drive by here every morning on the school bus on my way to school". I said "yep, you sure do". Then he says "sometimes the police officers are out here teaching the high school students. They even show them their guns and everything". Alexander and I looked at each other and worked very hard not to laugh. Then I said "Buddy, that is really nice that our police officers are so civic minded they teach the big kids". He said "yep, it sure is nice of them".

So, the next time you come across one of Carson City's finest, please take a minute to thank them for taking time out of their day to teach the high school students. :~)

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Yay for Eric!

Eric got two awards today!!

One for Citizenship for getting 3's and 4's on his citizenship conduct. He also got an Excellent Attendance award. That one you get when you have not missed, nor been late for, more than 1 or 2 days for the semester.

Yay Eric! We are proud of you!

Thursday, October 21, 2010

Abstinance by any other name...

So, again, as you know, I work in a prison. One of my duties there is to teach a series of classes called "New Beginnings" which is a life skills class. We go ever things such as communication, decision making, goal setting, money management, healthy lifestyles and time management among other things.

Most of the time the Healthy Lifesyle class is broken into 2 parts with me teaching the eating/excercise class. Our infectious disease specialist teaches the diseases portion with includes STD's, TB, HIV/AIDS and so forth. However, my teacher was not available for this class so I got to teach it.

During the class I talked about how to keep from contacting STD's. I went over the importance of condom use and had to state that you must use a laytex condom to reduce the risk of catching one, you cannot use natural condoms because they do not create a barrier against an STD and HIV/AIDS. The I stated "However, abstinance is always the best way to eliminate the risk of contracting an STD because abstinance it the only 100% foolproof way". Now mind you, I have 17 men in this class and they are all over the age of 30. One raises his hand and says "Ms. Crounk, how you spell that? And where do I find those?". I said "What?" So he repeats himself. I looked at him and asked if he was talking about abstinance. He said "Yeah, I need to know where to get those kind because that is the only ones I want since I know I won't get nothin'. Oh, how do you spell it again because I need to get some when I get out". So, I spelled it for him and told him that I thought it was really great that he was going to use abstinance. He says "Oh yeah, I been in here 10 years and I know my woman gots needs so I don't know where she been or with who so I want to use these until we get all tested to make sure we don't have anything". I thought that was a very mature attitude and commended him on it. I also told him that I really believed in what he was saying so I wanted him to make sure that he did not have sex until he found the abstinace condoms. Then and only then, should he feel safe enough to have sex. He says "Yes ma'am, you can believe there ain't nothing happening until I have some of these". All the other inmates in the class were "on board" and really encouraged their classmate not to do anything, that he HAD to use only Abstinace! It was great.

My husband asked me if I let the poor man in on "joke". I said no. I think he is a good candidate for promoting abstinance.

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

The Blessing of a Rough Start

Okay, so this morning started out a bit rough. Nothing dramatic just a rough start. I decided that having a rough start is a blessing. I can make a choice to let it go down hill, or I can make the choice to improve it.

If the day started well then I have no choice and I just go with the flow and possibly take it for granted that my day is good. If my day starts out bad and I don't make a choice to improve it then I have a sucky day....and probably everyone around me will too :)

Did my day automatically get better? Absolutely not! Things went awry pretty quickly here at work and some at home. But, I chose to make it a good day. If not for my self, then at least those around me.

By the way, my rough start costed to the tune of $1200 today for a timing belt. The good side, we had the money set aside for Christmas. Gues what everyone gets for Christmas this year? That's right, the opportunity to know we are driving around in our car with the working timing belt. :)

There is always something to be thankful for.

Monday, October 4, 2010

Fall is in the Air!

Yesterday was on the colder side and was grey and drizzly. Just the way I love it! I had gone to the movies with a good friend of mine Saturday night and we got home around midnight. Then we sat out in the car for an hour and chatted, like we were in high school or something! It was fun. I got up early with the kiddos and then when Orey got up he sent me off for a nap. It was a little before 8 so I figured I had an hour before conference started. Imagine my surprise when I woke up at noon!

I got up and the weather was still drizzly and wet and grey so I did what I like to do in that weather, I baked. I baked french bread for dinner and chocolate chip raisin oatmeal cookies. Alexander said the house smelled like Christmas. I was feeling satisfied inside because this is what I do.

Eric and Gabriel played outside bundled up in sweaters and using umbrellas.

My parents came to dinner and brought a bounteous and beautiful salad which I totally enjoyed (even though I am not supposed to eat salad). I ate a lot of avacados and tomatoes which were really yummy. Then we had apple and peach pie for dessert. JadaLynn enjoyed her spaghetti and definitley had to take a bath. Actually it was her second one in 3 hours. Right before G&G got there, she discovered how fun the toilet water is.....YUCK! Then she discovered impromptu sink baths :)

Three of the kids went walking in the rain, one went to bed early because he had to work in a few hours and the little ones went to bed at 7:30. All in all it was a nice fall evening with a lot of snuggling in under the blankets.

I LOVE THIS TIME OF YEAR!!!

Friday, October 1, 2010

Day of Colors

Yesterday was a day of colors.

Early in the day Marina J and I went on a tour of Herlong Federal Prison through a conference we were attending in Reno. Interesting place. If I every get caught committing a crime, I want it to be labled a federal crime because that was one, nice prison. In Nevada you are not allowed to wear blue in the prison because the prisoner's wear blue. In Herlong, everything was brown and beige. Even the buildings and grounds. Ironically, I did not hear a lot of colorful language which I usually do in that environment.

Yesterday afternoon we were driving by the park on our way to a function. I got to enjoy looking at the trees because they were taking on the fall colors. Very beautiful.

We (mom, dad, Bean and me) went to Red's for the Think Pink breast cancer awareness event. Lot's of pink everywhere! That was fun. On our way in my dad carried my mom's purse for a minute. He had a comment to make about that so I told him not to worry, it matched him perfectly. The purse is black and dark brown. My dad was wearing a black shirt so he was black and dark brown too :)

On our way home from Think Pink, we drove down main street. The Capitol had the pink lights strung up in honor of breast cancer awareness. In case you did not know, the Capitol often color coordinates with whatever awarness event is going on.

After we got home, my sweet and wonderful husband was kind enough to help me cage the skunk! One of the reasons I refused so long to color my hair is because I hate the "skunk" look that starts coming out when my hair starts growing. Everyone said it was not that noticeable and I believe them, but to me I feel like a big fat zit in the middle of my face would be less noticeable (although I would rather not test that theory). So, here we are in our bathroom that is barely big enough to squeeze 2 people in, trying our best to color my roots without making me look worst. I loved seeing my husband in his green non-latex gloves (courtesy of Disneyland and Alexander)with a hair dye paintbrush in his hands, working magic in taming and caging the skunk. I will have you know that he did a really good job!

So that was my colorful day.