This is for all you East Texas girls out there. Not to build on my / our (as I have discovered) fears. Just wanted everyone to be aware. This was an email that I received today. Apparently it was reported in the Marshall News Messenger on July 21.
As I understand it, this occurred a week ago Saturday night, July 19, on Hwy. 449 between Hallsville and Marshall, approximately 5 miles from the loop in Marshall. A 17 year old girl was returning home from a babysitting job in a subdivision in north Hallsville. I'm not sure what time, but judging from the boldness of the attackers, I would think it was late. For those of you who don't know, 449 is a curvy FM road, with a scattered population of homes, and most are back off the road. There are stretches that are pretty desolate. The young girl stopped because a car was completely across the road, blocking her way. Immediately two other cars came up behind her, one in each lane parked at an angle, in a V shape, blocking her from every direction. The Black males literally pulled her out of the driver's window, forcing a "date rape" pill down her throat and viciously tried to assault her. Something spooked them and they fled, but not before they had torn her shirt and bra off, broken her arm, and pulled patches of her hair out. Other injuries were mentioned, but I was too stunned to remember all the details. It's obvious what their intentions were, but they got distracted, thank GOD! She drove herself to the hospital in Marshall, still without her clothes. What a tough little cookie she was! I was told there was only a very short article in the Marshall paper, with not much attention given to it at all. Harrison County is handling the case. Just wanted to alert all of you who travel some of these back roads at night (like I have). We never think it will happen to us. This type of crime could target anyone, young or old, so pass this along to your mothers, daughters, sisters, granddaughters, nieces, and anyone who might need a wake up call like I did. It sounds like the attack was well coordinated, probably by cell phone. My guess would be that one probably passed her and got far enough ahead to block her, and the other two were probably talking back and forth to him, following her all the while.
By the way. Thanks to those of you that have commented on my "Fears" blog. It makes me feel a little more normal with this fear and Christopher is realizing that I'm not as crazy as he thought!
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Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Fears
Sunday night at our small (actually very large) group Clay asked the question “What is your biggest fear?” We’ll I didn’t share mine, but I will now. My biggest fear, being attacked/kidnapped. This is a fear that influences many decisions I make on a daily basis. Today for example, while going to get candy to teach my CPR class to little kids I parked so I can walk straight to my car upon leaving the store and can see if there is someone around me in or under my car, the pool sounded like it needed water but it was already dark and I didn’t want to go and turn the water on in the dark. That’s not too bad for me, only 2! Usually its like 4 or 5. Sometimes I feel like this fear, almost obsession, is out of control.
A few of you know that I used to not take a shower or dry my hair if I was at home alone. If those two things are going on how will you know if someone breaks into your house? I would rather hear them coming. I a parking lot I have to park where I can walk straight to my car, no walking around for this girl, seriously, I’ll circle the parking lot for 15 minutes if I have to. This started after a girl was kidnapped from a Wal-Mart parking lot while she was about to get into her car. This use to not be as big of a fear, but a few months after that incident happened I was walking around my car and there was a man walking towards me and was by my door. I started backing up, he assured me that everything was okay and all he just needed some money for gas. I didn’t have any cash, I hardly carry cash, so he went on his way. I watched from the middle of the driving isle until I felt like it was safe to return to the car. Really, who would approach a women that is alone for money in between cars… CREEPY! I also won’t go run by myself anymore, not even on the running trail in Longview. I have to be where Chris can see me and would know if something were to happen to me. That’s the other part about my fear, if I know that someone knows where I am or if there is sort of a timeline for the day, I’m okay.
This drives Christopher absolutely bonkers! I really don’t know what and how to change this. Once when I decided I was going to brave it pushing Addison on the running trail Christopher was on his way back ,from the end of the trail, and caught up with me and asked me if I was scared and I said yes, but I just prayed for bravery the whole time, it worked.
I really have no idea why I’m like this, where it came from, or when it started. I think that I have a pretty detailed imagination and it can start to go wild sometimes with things that could happen in certain situations. Almost to the point that I feel like it’s real and that something is about to happen. I used to watch crime shows and somewhat scary movies. Can’t do that anymore, it only feeds the imagination and things that could happen. Christopher and I used to watch criminal minds, loved that show… not now, it only makes it worse.
Well, there you go… I spilled one of my secrets. I guess that I’m hoping that writing this all out is going to be a healthy, helpful step for my fears. Not sure what to do with this next…
A few of you know that I used to not take a shower or dry my hair if I was at home alone. If those two things are going on how will you know if someone breaks into your house? I would rather hear them coming. I a parking lot I have to park where I can walk straight to my car, no walking around for this girl, seriously, I’ll circle the parking lot for 15 minutes if I have to. This started after a girl was kidnapped from a Wal-Mart parking lot while she was about to get into her car. This use to not be as big of a fear, but a few months after that incident happened I was walking around my car and there was a man walking towards me and was by my door. I started backing up, he assured me that everything was okay and all he just needed some money for gas. I didn’t have any cash, I hardly carry cash, so he went on his way. I watched from the middle of the driving isle until I felt like it was safe to return to the car. Really, who would approach a women that is alone for money in between cars… CREEPY! I also won’t go run by myself anymore, not even on the running trail in Longview. I have to be where Chris can see me and would know if something were to happen to me. That’s the other part about my fear, if I know that someone knows where I am or if there is sort of a timeline for the day, I’m okay.
This drives Christopher absolutely bonkers! I really don’t know what and how to change this. Once when I decided I was going to brave it pushing Addison on the running trail Christopher was on his way back ,from the end of the trail, and caught up with me and asked me if I was scared and I said yes, but I just prayed for bravery the whole time, it worked.
I really have no idea why I’m like this, where it came from, or when it started. I think that I have a pretty detailed imagination and it can start to go wild sometimes with things that could happen in certain situations. Almost to the point that I feel like it’s real and that something is about to happen. I used to watch crime shows and somewhat scary movies. Can’t do that anymore, it only feeds the imagination and things that could happen. Christopher and I used to watch criminal minds, loved that show… not now, it only makes it worse.
Well, there you go… I spilled one of my secrets. I guess that I’m hoping that writing this all out is going to be a healthy, helpful step for my fears. Not sure what to do with this next…
Friday, July 25, 2008
Two weeks worth of... FAMILY!
another two week (or more) update.
Friday, July 4
We went to the fourth of July celebration that our church has every year. It was fun! Addison wasn’t sure what to think about the fireworks. Here is what she did during the fireworks: thought they were neat, then was surprised, then clapped for them, then bored and wiggly, then played with the people behind us, then thought they were funny, then tried to go to sleep, then played with Amanda sitting next to us, then watched them again.
Can’t remember right now what happened the next week. That’s no good for keeping tabs of Addison. At some point, I don’t have my calendar for the date, she started taking a few steps. She’ll only take 2-3 at a time; she’s more interested in talking.
One of my new favorite pictures of us. We are ready for the fireworks, like the firecracker bow I made her?
Saturday, July 12
Christopher’s birthday!! His friend from ACU, Neil Chadwick, got married so we went to Dallas for the wedding. I stayed with my Nana and Papa while Chris went to the wedding and stayed with some of his friends. We all had a good time. Nana and Papa really enjoyed getting to see and play with her! Several things she did with her great-grandparents: played in the pool (in her cloths, she decided to sit while we were taking pictures!), walked down to the creek, sat in the swing with Papa, laid in the hammock, played in pots and pans, took a bath in the BIG Jacuzzi tub (Nana really wanted a picture of this since I was the first grandchild to take a bath in that tub when I was 8 but I didn’t get one), played with all the toys, and last but not least threw up! That last one… awesome… I was worried since she had been on real formula for two weeks at that point and that is when Dr. Neff said she would start showing signs if she were still allergic. It went all over me and kept coming. The next day Addison must have decided that she left bad for throwing up all over me so she decided to grace Christopher with her “baby juice” while we were at Taco Bueno after church. So we went back to the Neutramgen.
The next week when I went to work I had her checked again for the milk protein allergy... NEGATIVE. Those two were just coincidental throw ups! YEAH!!! So she has had a few new foods this past week that she loves: yogurt, ice cream (thanks Tony), shredded cheese, Gerber yogurt bites (these things are NASTY, but she LOVES them!).
Tuesday, July 15
Christopher’s parents and Mimi have a HUGE garden and we get to reap the benefits of the extra harvest. We had purple hole peas in our refrigerator for a week and finally decided to shell them. I usually don’t like Ranger games so I told Christopher that if he would help me shell the peas I would watch the game, not knowing at the time how long BOTH would last. We started watching the game in the 7th inning 2 ½ hours later both were still going, close to over, but going. Oh my, I didn’t realized how long it would take to shell all those peas. Of course, the competitiveness came out in me and Christopher and half way through we decided that we were going to measure our bowls at the end to see who shelled the most peas. He won, 9 cups to 8. We both had sore and purple fingers for a few days.
Wednesday, July 16
Addison and I left for Ft. Worth to stay with Melissa, Mary Beth joined us also so we had some sister / aunt and niece time! It was fun. We swam, went to Target, Olive Garden, the mall, went for a walk around the canal and Addison had the most fun playing with Melissa and Mary Beth on the air mattress. It was high enough that she could easily crawl up on the couches and then back down, she was all over the place!
Helping Aunt Melissa do what she likes to do best, read magazines about famous people and as you can see by Mary's face in this picture she loved watching Addison play!
Thursday, July 17
We made a trip up to Callisburg to see Tony, Carol, Brad and Jacob Strickland. It was a fun trip! Tony had seen Addison before but Carol and the boys hadn’t. This family is so very special to me and I’m sad that I don’t get to see them as much since my parents are no longer in Callisburg so it was great to see them! The boys are so grown up. I hope Addison doesn’t grow up as fast as they did… I’ll put a picture on here later of Brad holding Addison. I met Brad when we was about to turn 6 and he used to sit in my lap and we would watch wrestling… now he just graduated from high school?
Friday, July 18
Mark had a horse show in Athens so on our way back home we stopped to see Uncle Mark! Addison says “dog” when she sees a dog, so she said “dog” when she saw a horse. It was funny. At first she wasn’t sure what to think about them and didn’t want to pet them, then once Melissa got her to touch one of their faces she just wanted to pet them. Later Mark was sitting on one and we put Addison up there with him and she LOVED it! She would lean forward and touch the mane and try to grab the reins too. We took her down and she did not like that. She literally was trying to climb up the gate to get back up there with Mark. He had so much fun with her! I got some really great pictures of that! There is one picture in particular that I know that my dad is going to LOVE, she is on the horse by herself, with Mark holding her, and she has perfect riding position, its great!
Told you she naturally had perfect form! I know my dad is so proud!
Friday, July 4
We went to the fourth of July celebration that our church has every year. It was fun! Addison wasn’t sure what to think about the fireworks. Here is what she did during the fireworks: thought they were neat, then was surprised, then clapped for them, then bored and wiggly, then played with the people behind us, then thought they were funny, then tried to go to sleep, then played with Amanda sitting next to us, then watched them again.
Can’t remember right now what happened the next week. That’s no good for keeping tabs of Addison. At some point, I don’t have my calendar for the date, she started taking a few steps. She’ll only take 2-3 at a time; she’s more interested in talking.
One of my new favorite pictures of us. We are ready for the fireworks, like the firecracker bow I made her?Saturday, July 12
Christopher’s birthday!! His friend from ACU, Neil Chadwick, got married so we went to Dallas for the wedding. I stayed with my Nana and Papa while Chris went to the wedding and stayed with some of his friends. We all had a good time. Nana and Papa really enjoyed getting to see and play with her! Several things she did with her great-grandparents: played in the pool (in her cloths, she decided to sit while we were taking pictures!), walked down to the creek, sat in the swing with Papa, laid in the hammock, played in pots and pans, took a bath in the BIG Jacuzzi tub (Nana really wanted a picture of this since I was the first grandchild to take a bath in that tub when I was 8 but I didn’t get one), played with all the toys, and last but not least threw up! That last one… awesome… I was worried since she had been on real formula for two weeks at that point and that is when Dr. Neff said she would start showing signs if she were still allergic. It went all over me and kept coming. The next day Addison must have decided that she left bad for throwing up all over me so she decided to grace Christopher with her “baby juice” while we were at Taco Bueno after church. So we went back to the Neutramgen.
Look at all those candles...
sweet picture of Papa and his first great granddaughter
this was right after she sat in the water, I love this face "what have I just done"
The next week when I went to work I had her checked again for the milk protein allergy... NEGATIVE. Those two were just coincidental throw ups! YEAH!!! So she has had a few new foods this past week that she loves: yogurt, ice cream (thanks Tony), shredded cheese, Gerber yogurt bites (these things are NASTY, but she LOVES them!).
Tuesday, July 15
Christopher’s parents and Mimi have a HUGE garden and we get to reap the benefits of the extra harvest. We had purple hole peas in our refrigerator for a week and finally decided to shell them. I usually don’t like Ranger games so I told Christopher that if he would help me shell the peas I would watch the game, not knowing at the time how long BOTH would last. We started watching the game in the 7th inning 2 ½ hours later both were still going, close to over, but going. Oh my, I didn’t realized how long it would take to shell all those peas. Of course, the competitiveness came out in me and Christopher and half way through we decided that we were going to measure our bowls at the end to see who shelled the most peas. He won, 9 cups to 8. We both had sore and purple fingers for a few days.
Wednesday, July 16
Addison and I left for Ft. Worth to stay with Melissa, Mary Beth joined us also so we had some sister / aunt and niece time! It was fun. We swam, went to Target, Olive Garden, the mall, went for a walk around the canal and Addison had the most fun playing with Melissa and Mary Beth on the air mattress. It was high enough that she could easily crawl up on the couches and then back down, she was all over the place!
Helping Aunt Melissa do what she likes to do best, read magazines about famous people and as you can see by Mary's face in this picture she loved watching Addison play!Thursday, July 17
We made a trip up to Callisburg to see Tony, Carol, Brad and Jacob Strickland. It was a fun trip! Tony had seen Addison before but Carol and the boys hadn’t. This family is so very special to me and I’m sad that I don’t get to see them as much since my parents are no longer in Callisburg so it was great to see them! The boys are so grown up. I hope Addison doesn’t grow up as fast as they did… I’ll put a picture on here later of Brad holding Addison. I met Brad when we was about to turn 6 and he used to sit in my lap and we would watch wrestling… now he just graduated from high school?
Friday, July 18
Mark had a horse show in Athens so on our way back home we stopped to see Uncle Mark! Addison says “dog” when she sees a dog, so she said “dog” when she saw a horse. It was funny. At first she wasn’t sure what to think about them and didn’t want to pet them, then once Melissa got her to touch one of their faces she just wanted to pet them. Later Mark was sitting on one and we put Addison up there with him and she LOVED it! She would lean forward and touch the mane and try to grab the reins too. We took her down and she did not like that. She literally was trying to climb up the gate to get back up there with Mark. He had so much fun with her! I got some really great pictures of that! There is one picture in particular that I know that my dad is going to LOVE, she is on the horse by herself, with Mark holding her, and she has perfect riding position, its great!
getting some love from Uncle Mark
Figuring out the reins! It was a tough, notice the sideways bow!
I think she's got it (love her curly hair in this one!)
sitting on the gate, wishing she was riding instead of watching
Told you she naturally had perfect form! I know my dad is so proud!I'm pretty sure that only my family will get this. Title for this picture is ...
"She's coming... and she's standing in the saddle!"
Saturday, July 19
Russ’s Birthday. Kallen and Kelsey came in so Saturday morning Christopher and Kallen went to play golf and then we all went to Elysian Fields. We had fun playing Wii and just watching Addison play. It was a good end to the week. Addison got to see ALL her aunts and uncles within a 4 day span, that’s impressive. Russ enjoyed his birthday, I think. Kallen and Kelsey got him a new bible, large print. I asked him if that’s what he needed since he’s getting so old… he just gave me a funny look. Hey, I thought it was funny! I’ll have to take a picture of what I have him to put on here. I think that it turned out really good. It was a picture thing of Addison, Christopher, him, Mimi and Great-Granddad. We drove to Austin to take these pictures when Addison was just 5 weeks old since we were sure how much longer Great-Granddad would live, I can’t remember the date but I think that he died less than a month later. We are so glad to have those 5 generation pictures. Those are memories and pictures that you can never get back, so I wanted to make sure that Russ had something with those in there since his grandparents we so special to him.
Okay, I think that’s long enough for now. I’ll update this post with pictures later.
Friday, July 04, 2008
PHASES
So I go through phases. I’m either a good blogger or a good bow maker; I’m not good at doing both. So since Jill bought me some more ribbon and I have to have those 4th of July bows completed by today I have been slacking on my blogging. Sorry to any of you out there who have been waiting. I’ve been bow making, chasing Addison and working. I also finally emailed someone at Camp Sweeney and got the login information to look at all the kids this summer. I started writing about Sweeney and it turned into a book, that will have be to another post.
Thank you to all of you who responded to being a blog stalker. Aimee, I promise I’m going to email you. When I got your comment I raised my hands in the air and looked at Christopher and said “That made it all worth it right there. All the aggravation, but I got Aimee’s email!” He laughed and said “I’m glad!” I had originally planned on leaving that post on there for a week to see who all would respond. I didn’t mean to leave it for 2 weeks. Sorry. Nadine, thanks for calling me out. What, you think that now that you are a resident you can just tell me what to do and I’ll do it… I guess that you can, it worked!
So what have we been up to the last two weeks, sorry this is so long. I like to keep it for my information too… stick with it. There are some cute pictures.
Wednesday, June 18
Kanyon finally came over to play again. I can’t believe it, but neither Jaymie nor I took any pictures. Kanyon just hung out in Addison’s jumper and Addison just moved around trying to get as close as she could to him and played with everything he was trying to play with. The funniest thing, when she would start to get close to him he literally would growl at her. Seriously, he did it twice.
Thursday, June 19
We have a park close to our house and Addison loves to swing. This time I actually took pictures.
Saturday, June 28
We drove to Mansfield to see Kallen and Kelsey (Christopher’s brother) and their new house. It was fun. Addison enjoyed the openness of their house and being able to push her toy around everywhere. She also enjoyed climbing the stairs. On Sunday she climbed them at least 3 times (this was also an attempt to get her tired so she could sleep the whole way home. My sister Melissa came for a little while on Sunday. I was glad that we got to see her for a little bit. I was supposed to get to see her on Saturday but it didn’t work out. Having a baby and having to go by their schedule and not your own and mess up a lot of plans. OH well, that’s what it’s all about right! Sacrifice.
Thanks to those of you who are still reading! You’re troopers!
Thank you to all of you who responded to being a blog stalker. Aimee, I promise I’m going to email you. When I got your comment I raised my hands in the air and looked at Christopher and said “That made it all worth it right there. All the aggravation, but I got Aimee’s email!” He laughed and said “I’m glad!” I had originally planned on leaving that post on there for a week to see who all would respond. I didn’t mean to leave it for 2 weeks. Sorry. Nadine, thanks for calling me out. What, you think that now that you are a resident you can just tell me what to do and I’ll do it… I guess that you can, it worked!
So what have we been up to the last two weeks, sorry this is so long. I like to keep it for my information too… stick with it. There are some cute pictures.
Wednesday, June 18
Kanyon finally came over to play again. I can’t believe it, but neither Jaymie nor I took any pictures. Kanyon just hung out in Addison’s jumper and Addison just moved around trying to get as close as she could to him and played with everything he was trying to play with. The funniest thing, when she would start to get close to him he literally would growl at her. Seriously, he did it twice.
Thursday, June 19
We have a park close to our house and Addison loves to swing. This time I actually took pictures.
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Friday, June 20
Addison is going to be in the newspaper! She is the newest model for Good Shepherd Medical Center – Marshall! Long story but it ended with Rand and I deciding that Addison needed to be the model for the add instead of a random baby that we didn’t know and wasn’t born at our hospital. So we had to have a little photo shoot! Here is the add (it wouldn't upload) as well as my favorite pictures that came from our mini photo shoot!
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Saturday, June 21
Addison finally decided to walk while pushing her toy. We’ve been working on this but she never showed any interest in it until then. I was fun to watch. Now she’ll push it all over the house. If she runs into something the growls with frustration, it’s funny. I know it’s a noise that I make that she’s picked up on. She also enjoyed watching herself walk.
Wednesday, June 25
Ever since Russ let me borrow his great camera Amy and I have been trying to find a way to get together so that I could take pictures of Mallory and Blake. We made a plan ahead of time this time and went to take pictures at Letourneau University. I thought that it would be nice and pretty grass, flowers, buildings… I was a little disappointed in the scenery that we had but it worked out and we got several good pictures. (I tried to pick different ones than Amy posted, so you can go to her blog if you would like to see a few more!)
Saturday, June 28
We drove to Mansfield to see Kallen and Kelsey (Christopher’s brother) and their new house. It was fun. Addison enjoyed the openness of their house and being able to push her toy around everywhere. She also enjoyed climbing the stairs. On Sunday she climbed them at least 3 times (this was also an attempt to get her tired so she could sleep the whole way home. My sister Melissa came for a little while on Sunday. I was glad that we got to see her for a little bit. I was supposed to get to see her on Saturday but it didn’t work out. Having a baby and having to go by their schedule and not your own and mess up a lot of plans. OH well, that’s what it’s all about right! Sacrifice.
Wednesday, July 2
We had our 9 month appointment. She’s was 6 days short of 10 months actually. Everything was great! 18 lbs. 12.4 oz. 28 inches long. She was 50 percentile with weight and 75th with height. What… where did the height come from? Since we were in Marshall I had made her a nursery appointment for the LlifeCenter so I could work out after her Dr. appointment. I was able to run! I ran for 20 min. that might sound like not much to some, but it’s the first time that I’ve gone that far in about 2 years! My knee never hurt (I injured it training for a ½ marathon 3 years ago) and I felt really good running!
We had our 9 month appointment. She’s was 6 days short of 10 months actually. Everything was great! 18 lbs. 12.4 oz. 28 inches long. She was 50 percentile with weight and 75th with height. What… where did the height come from? Since we were in Marshall I had made her a nursery appointment for the LlifeCenter so I could work out after her Dr. appointment. I was able to run! I ran for 20 min. that might sound like not much to some, but it’s the first time that I’ve gone that far in about 2 years! My knee never hurt (I injured it training for a ½ marathon 3 years ago) and I felt really good running!
That should catch you up. I’m still working on catching up on other blogs. Christopher is beating me to them. Cassy-Chris called today and said “wake Addison up, she’s got to start walking, Cohen is walking, he can’t beat her.” I thought it was funny. Incidentally, she did take her first step on her own today (before the phone call).
Thanks to those of you who are still reading! You’re troopers!
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