My Darlings who are so far away, I miss and think of you everyday. Your little hands I used to hold your precious laughs take away the cold. Yesterday may be gone and time can move so fast, understand though that for you my love will always last.

Just yesterday it seems since I held your hands, but life doesn’t always follow the plans. Your happiness is all I wish to see and in the end when all is said and done I hope you know I did what sometimes painfully must be done……

The more news articles I read about about incidents in public schools, The happier I become that my son is no longer attending a regular public school. Anymore it just seems like it’s the faculty against the kids. The thing that really gets me is how schools seem to think the practically own the kids. I recently read an article about some kids who were suspended from school for pictures they put on myspace. I don’t know about any one else but as a parent I would have been fuming had my childs school tried to pull this.

Granted everyone should have an education, but I really don’t think that regular school is the way to go for everyone, and as long as the system continues to go downhill, and be at war with our kids less of them are going to be happy and/or succeed at school. As a parent I never really liked the idea of sending my kids off to complete strangers for 8 hours a day, having them become lost in the in crowd of the ever increasing size of classrooms. How can one teacher manage to help each student on any kind of personal level with they have a new set of 30-40 kids every hour to deal with? How is it that some kids excel at school while others stumble the whole time and it’s always just a bit late whenever somebody takes notice and tries to do anything, at that point the child is already lost.

Having no other option for the longest time, my son did attend public school. Always it seemed like the same cycle every year; he would start the year great, then half way through his grades would collapse. My son is now a student at an online public high school. He takes his classes on the internet, a few times a week he has “Live Sessions” where the students and teachers interact through whiteboard. The rest of the time he takes his classes through the schools website. Working on assignments/projects at his own pace. If he’s really into science, he doesn’t have to just stop working because the bell rang, so he can move on the next class. He just keeps on working on it, until he’s done. He’s teachers call him (yes on the phone) and discuss his grades or a current assignment, or even just to see how he’s doing. His counselor calls on a regular basis to give encouragement and to make sure he’s happy in his classes. He can still play sports through his local school, and this school regularly organizes pizza parties, outings and school events. He will have a prom, as well as a regular graduation just like all the other students in public school.

As a parent the upsides to his attending this school for me have been, the ability pin point struggling points early on, so that we can face them together. The fact that both myself and my husband can be very involved in his learning experience. If he’s reading about economics, we can have a discussion about it, and know what he’s being taught. If he’s really into art class, we can decided well let’s take the day off today and head to a museum. He can then write up a report on the trip and that counts towards his grade. The biggest concern most people seem to have when they find out about his schooling has been “well what about His social Life” and to be honest he has a great social life. Most of his friends already attended different schools then him anyway, and if I remember correctly school isn’t supposed to be about having a social life. The last time my son attended public school, I clearly remember the handbook stating kids can not hold hands, kiss or even hug for that matter. Kenzie doesn’t have any less of a social life then any of his other friends who do attend regular school. He still goes to the mall, the movies, the skating rink and other places just like other kids. The only difference is that I know he’s actually learning something and getting an education that is sticking with him. His first semester just ended and we asked him if he wanted to stay in this school or return to regular school, without so much as a pause he quickly replied “I want to stay in this school”, and when we asked him why he said “because here it seems like the teachers actually care”.

I don’t know why I didn’t think of this before, but I have 2 hard drives in my system, all my music & videos are kept on the second hard drive which I mount to /storage up until last night I hadn’t been able to figure out how get actual links to the folders in my home directory without dolphin file manager opening in a new window. Then last night out of the blue it hit me that I all I had to do was create symbolic links to all the files in the folders in my home directory. So I ran these 2 commands in terminal:
ln -s /storage/Music/* /home/angel/Music
ln -s /storage/Videos/* /home/angel/Videos
the * is a wild card and means that anything in those folders will be linked to. But I knew this and really felt it was a “Duh” moment on my part…..lol

When the night is darkest and it has been my longest day, you are the light that helps me find my way. The strength you have shown me and tenderness you give are what makes my life so much easier to live. I wish for you life’s happiness and all the kindness that can be found, for no more is your path a lonely one that walks on solitary ground. My hand I give to you when feel you can not walk on, my heart I give to you when you feel that all is gone. Life has shown us travesty’s and pain no one deserves but in that pain we found a strength that no man can bring undone.

I love you Mark and I hope you have a wonderful birthday and I look forward to spending many many more with you!

~Prologue~

My name is Angela, my family calls my Angie, my husband and friends call me Angel. I”m 34 years old and the words that follow I attest to being my life in so far as I can recall it. I write these words more as way to cleanse my soul then as any act of revenge or rebellion. I grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio and so my experience”s with certain systems will reflect those institutions. It”s my hope that someone with the proper knowledge and access to proper avenues will read my story and that it will help them to better understand  and maybe even help some other child.

~The End of the Beginning~

I remember well the first day I ever set foot inside a courtroom, though now the exact details of the incident that lead to my arriving there are bit blurry, but I was thirteen years old at the time. The courtroom itself smelled of old wood, the courthouse must have been at least one hundred years old. I remember there was a wooden separator in the room which kept those attending court separate from those that were actually running the courtroom. Rows of chairs lined the room, and lots of people had filled them up.

The judge called my mothers name and another man read the charges. I don’t remember exactly what the charges were but I knew she was being charged for not sending me to school. A charge of course that was ludicrous as she had sent me to school, I simply chose not to go. As such my mother had decided the only way to protect herself was to go to juvenile and charge me with what they call incorrigible charges. She told the judge she had done so and the charges were dropped against her.

The next few months after this are a bit of blur, I seem to have a lot of those, lapses in memory or fuzzy memories in my youth. I do know I was lost, confused, and very angry as a teen. My mom was twenty years old when I was born, Most of my early memories in life are of Family gatherings, or parties, most of those parties included lots of people as I have a very large family, there was also lots of alcohol. I have to admit that most of my memories of life prior to leaving home are not happy ones. I”m the oldest of four girls, the youngest two being twins.

Somewhere around the age of five Somebody, whom I believe to be an uncle, molested me. The problem is I can only remember flashes of this, I don”t remember the face. My reasons for believing it was this certain Uncle were because he was the one who had the opportunity. I only began to remember the event after hearing a speaker tell her story of being molested, at which point I think maybe nobody really believed me, at the age of 15 I was known to tell a few tales. My mom claimed to believe me she says this is why at age five she took me to a counselor, but as far as I know the visit only happened once. I never truly dealt with it, it’s just there.

A few random memory”s of those younger days stick out in my head but I don’t actually recall details of most things. My father, though I’m sure he loves me and always has, was never a big influence in my youth, he was there as my parents are even now still married, but he was never involved very much. My mother ran the roost, and still does.

After those early years my next big memory is the one of which I wrote about already. That first courtroom introduction, was just the beginning of a long road and  many, many, courtroom visits. Most of the time I was charged with

Today I will walk away and forget the pain you burdened me with for so many years. For years you asked me what was wrong, and for so many years I didn’t know either. But, now I realize I was always striving for that impossibly high bar you set, and just when my fingers reached it you would raise it ever higher.

What was wrong with me, was that you never protected me, you never said “It’s okay I love you just as you are”, and when I tell you this is the reason, this is what is wrong, you say I never let you. Well my job was not to let you my job was to be a child. If children had their way parents would never put out any stops.

When you felt the job wasn’t worth your time anymore, you decided to have the state pick up the slack. Do you have any Idea what it’s like to be a child who feels alone and forgotten. Locked in a room, far away from home a child who feels like the world is looking at her like some tainted soul. I was locked up with murders, and armed robbers, There we’re girls I new well who, started fire’s that accidentally killed people inside, and for what? Because you couldn’t deal with me? Because you washed your hands of actually being a parent to me?

I have spent years hating myself because you told me I wasn’t quite right. For years you tried to convince that I must have some “mental issue” that prevents me from being normal. But I know different now. I know that to be normal is to be different, to stand up for what I believe and to stand up for how I feel, different is normal it’s what makes the world the place it is.

For years you blamed me for not being the parent you should have been, and the only time you said you were sorry was in a flurry of drunken tears. You asked me to be honest and when I was, then you told me I was wrong. When I wanted to be and express myself, you looked at me through disapproving eyes. I spent my life looking for your approval. Well today I won’t do that anymore.

You asked me to trust you, but never gave me a reason to. You asked me to be there for you and tend to your feelings, well I’m your child that’s not my job. You say you love me, but your actions say you only love me if…. I may have been a difficult teen, but I was not as difficult as some have been. I didn’t do drugs, I didn’t drink, I wasn’t a horrible person. Just a young person trying to deal with her feelings.

Today I refuse to allow you to have that control over me. I will no longer hope for you to see me for the person I am. I will love myself, I have so much to give. I will not parent my child without the same guilt tactics that you used on me for so many years. I will instead encourage my child to identify his feelings and be okay with them. I will encourage him to stand up for what he feels is right, and I will tell him he doesn’t have to work to please me, because honestly I’m pleased with all my children being just who they are. I don’t expect them to be anything other than who they are.

Today I am strong, and I will live my life in the manner in which I choose, today I will not compromise who I am to bend to your or anybody else’s will. I may have walked the road alone for quite a while, but I know now that I am worthy of love, that the worth of my life is not the value which you put on it.

You told me that you loved me, but then you turned away; you taught me that what I felt was important then you would not listen to what I had to say.

Years I spent trying to define, whose fault it was & all the while it made no reason and I only pretended better with time. Feelings are okay you say and yes you can cry, but when I tried to truly feel you didn’t understand why.

I never meant to cause pain only to understand, yet somehow still I’m caught up in this madness that only you seem to be able to follow.

I just finished installing Kubuntu 9.10 and it’s absolutely amazing.I didn’t have any of the issues that occurred when I installed Jaunty, my sound worked great right out of the box!

Aside from not having any sound issues, the new notifier is great, even my gtk apps have kde style pop-ups. I even found a new extension for Thunderbird witch uses libnotify. In jaunty, firefox and other gtk apps looked like gtk apps, however even firefox looks very beautiful in kubuntu karmic. I’m assuming the that means gtk-qtcurve has been updated in some manner. Speaking of firefox; kubuntu karmic now has a nice installer for it, that really made things easier. kopete now surpports facebook which in my opinion is a plus. Karmic is faster, I suppose that’s because I’m now using the ext4 file system instead of ext3. Overall I would say Kubuntu karmic just feels nicer. It’s not clunky or resource consuming. The over feeling you get is one of comfort. The only downside I found was for an application and can’t be laid at kubuntu’s feet. The new version of amarok has removed the shoutcast plugin due to some licensing problems.

Well I spent last night adding another bill to our long list of medical bills we can’t pay by paying a visit to the emergency room. Lately My legs have been itching a lot due to dry skin, well it turns out that I have what they call Cellulitis It’s a bacterial skin infection. Cellutitis is pretty common and they gave me some antibiotics to treat it. But I really had to wonder about the doctor. Actually he was a Physicians assistant whatever that means, he wanted to keep me overnight for my heart arrhythmia that my cardiologist told me I would probably have for the rest of my life. Well I already hate hospitals, and I have no medical insurance to speak of since Mark got laid off . The state told us we make to much money for me to get medical assistance of any kind. So I told that doctor that I was leaving, and not staying. So they gave me the antibiotics and I left AMA (against medical advice). So here I am. My legs look better already, aside from the itching, I’m applying cortaid, but it still itches, and I’m doing my best to ignore it.

So we decided to get rid of cable as a way to save money on bills, and so far, I have no complaints. In fact I would say I watch more television programming now, than I did before. Here