Welcome to my Asylum!

A place to empty my head of the random musing and mumblings that populate it on a daily basis.

Thursday 11 April 2013

She's growing up....

Freyja turned 8 yesterday.

I remember being 8. I felt like I was growing up faster than my friends, and a year later I started my period and pretty much decided that all those childish things were too immature.

Freyja has always held on to her childishness tightly, she hasn't wanted to grow up. This week though, for reasons we had no control over, my baby has shown just how mature she is becoming in some ways.

On Monday we found out that the victim of the truck crash last week was the Dad of one of her best friends. Lee and I had met him several times, and I have to say he was a lovely man, always smiling and joking, clearly a devoted father and husband. It was terrible finding out that the victim of that awful scene was a man we knew, and especially for Freyja, that it was her friends' Daddy.

Monday evening she cried lots, as did I. She worried about me and her Daddy dying in an accident. But mostly she worried about her friend. "How could it be her Daddy?" she asked "I just don't understand Mommy, why would God take such a nice man away from his family". "How will M manage without her Daddy? How can I make her feel better?"

So many questions that I just didn't have the answer to.

Tuesday she went to school and there was a grief counsellor there for the kids to talk to. She talked, she listened, and when they said that there should be 2 kids to meet her friend when she came back to school, Freyja put her hand up and said she had to be one of them, because they had known each other the longest and she knew her friend would need her help.

Wednesday, it was her birthday. She turned 8. She went to the Aggie Days with school. She opened presents and we all had KFC for dinner at her request. It was her day.

Thursday, today, her first thought was again for her friend. She comes back to school today. Freyja disappeared as we were about to leave the house and came back with a favourite stuffed dog. I told her stuffies weren't allowed at school.

"Its not for me" she said " Its for M. She comes back to school today and I think she will need something to hug sometimes, so this is for her to keep, so she can hug it and feel better and know I love her".

Only 8 and so grown up......

Wednesday 10 April 2013

Happy Birthday Fidgetty Widget!

When I was pregnant with Freyja, my sister-in-law was expecting at the same time, and the baby who would become Charlotte was known as "Bean".  As "Bean' was no longer a family option for a nickname for our bundle to be, we started calling 'it' "Widget".  This soon became "Fidgetty Widget" as that little baby on board never kept still.  She's been the same ever since.

Today, my little tornado turns 8!  At 4.04pm GMT (9.05am here in Calgary) my little girl moves that step closer to being a woman, and I'm scared!

Its been quite a week in our house, good and also, pretty much as bad as you can get.  At the weekend, she went off to Brownie Camp.  I dropped her off Friday night, and barely managed to get her to stop chatting with her friends long enough to say goodbye to her sister and I, a sign of how grown up and independant she is getting.  When I collected her on Sunday though, I got a huge hug and "I missed you" whispered in my ear.

While she had a great time at camp, impressed the leaders with her enthusiasm and her behaviour, she also missed her family and even had a little cry at night.  While I hate that she was upset, a little part of me is happy that there is enough child in there to still miss a night time hug and kiss.

When she came home on Sunday, she told me how she had been worrying all weekend that I was going and never coming back, that something was going to happen.  Nothing did happen, of course, but my sensitive little girl was maybe picking up something in the cosmos.

On Monday, I got a call from the school asking me to collect Freyja as she was not feeling well.  I left work, went and got her, much to her surprise as she had expected her Daddy, and took her home.  She had a tummy ache that wouldn't go away, so we went through all the questions.  Did you eat your lunch?  Did you eat the fruit or just the bad stuff?  Did you eat properly at camp this weekend?  Did you drink enough water at camp?  How about at school?  Did you go to the bathroom at camp?

The answer to the last question turned out to be 'No" so I figured I had my answer and promptly ordered her to the bathroom with a book to "give it a try".  Success, but still a tummy ache that persisted.  I dutifully set her up in my bed with a glass of water and the TV remote.  I then began making phone calls to find out which of her friends was coming to her party this coming weekend as I hadn't had RSVPs.  "I don't think M is coming" she says as I'm about to call.  I make the call and her Grandma answers, not her Mom, and sure enough M isn't coming.  I tell her she was right.  "I thought she wouldn't because K said today that M's Dad died in a truck accident last week"

Oh My God !!!!!!

There had been a horrific accident involving a tractor trailer on the main route near our home the week before, but it was Easter week, the kids were off school, I hadn't had a chance to read the details and Monday had been their first day back.  I got out my phone, Googled his name, and there it was, an obituary and the date of the crash......

Now I knew why my baby had a tummy ache.  She had been holding that to herself all afternoon, not knowing what to say, or if it was true.  We knew M's dad.  Not well, but enough that he and M's Mom had once come to our house and had food before we all set out Trick or Treating together one Halloween.  We'd see him at school dances and Christmas shows and chat. He was a truly nice, good man, and a wonderful father and husband.

All Monday night, Freyja would ask for hugs and squeeze tightly, she didn't want to go to bed, but finally, after an hour of cajolling, she did and amazingly she slept soundly for a few hours, not waking until around 2am.  I lay with her another hour then, and I am not sure who needed it more, me or her.  She fell asleep again, and slept till morning, waking in that resiliant way that kids do after bad news. 

She went to school Tuesday and I called to tell them we knew what had happened and was told a grief counsellor was going to be with her class that morning.  I wish I'd had one myself as I was a wreck.  We weren't close, but I knew him, I knew the horrible way his life had ended, I knew the confusion and sadness I was feeling were the same feelings my poor girl had, and like me, she was likely imagining "what if it had been her Daddy".

My big girl came home yesterday without mentioning her friend or the grief counsellor, so I mentioned it to her. "Yes" she said "it helped to talk about it. M is coming back to school on Thursday and they said two of her friends should be close to her all the time and go to meet her at the door.  I told them I should be one of them as I have known her longer than anyone, and I knew her Daddy, so I think I will be able to be a good friend and help her feel better."

Only 8 today, off to 'Aggie Days' with the school to see the animals, she will be a kid having fun again, but tomorrow, she will be that mature girl, the shoulder to support her friend.  Saturday, she will be the kid again, enjoying her party, but I know part of her will be thinking about the friend who isn't there, the friend who is at home missing her Daddy. 

My baby isn't a baby any more.  She has kept telling me she didn't want to grow up, and I kept telling her it happens to everyone, but I thought the biggest thing threatening to bring the end of childhood would be the onset of puberty....  I never thought my girl would have to deal with such big issues so soon in life, and I am so proud of how strong she is being, and how her first and continuing thought is how she can make her friend feel better, feel happy, even if just for a moment. 

What a wonderful person she is growing up to be, my sweet, kind, loving, feisty, argumentative, creative, all singing, all dancing, Fidgetty Widget xxx

Wednesday 3 April 2013

Easter

Easter came early this year.  It didn't feel like Easter in the weeks leading up to it; snow on the ground; ice in the air; stir crazy children in a stuffy house; but the weekend of Easter the sun shone brightly, the snow melted and the windows were opened to welcome in the spring air.

Normally we don't get much of a chance to 'celebrate' Easter as it usually falls around Freyja's birthday and I am madly scrambling to finish the preparations for a party and wrapping gifts.  This year, it fell a full two weeks before her party weekend, and this coming weekend she is at Brownie camp, which gives me time, and a much more relaxed run up to her birthday as well as a much more relaxed family Easter.

It didn't exactly go to plan of course, it rarely does!  Friday was a busy day of house cleaning, with the idea of getting it all out the way so we could spend the Saturday and Sunday relaxing and doing family things.  Sadly, our neighbours, a houseful of young men barely into their twenties, still brimming with energy and lacking in consideration, decided to have yet another party until dawn.  This resulted in very little sleep for me and my better half, a restless night with nightmares for both kids, and a very groggy household as Saturday dawned.  It also resulted in a phonecall to the neighbours landlady and her saying that they had been warned "no more parties" so they are being given the boot.  Which may upset one of the tenants more than the others, as it is her son!  Better behave next time lads - this lady takes no sh*t, especially at 3am when my family can't get sleep.

So Saturday ended up being a brief foray to Home Depot to order a washing machine since ours finally lost the will to spin, and then back home for naps all round and half hearted completion of the cleaning.

I managed (amazingly) to stay up late enough on Saturday night to allow the Easter Bunny to make his entrance and leave some goodies (just some small chocolate eggs and some stickers in this house - none of the gift cards, toys and dvds here thank you!)

Easter morning began later than expected, and yet still earlier than I like, with Freyja barrelling out of her room, finding an empty basket by her door.  She charged into Rosie's room and woke her, bouncing like the Easter Bunny himself in impatience to get started.  For some reason, probably lack of sleep, I was in a crappy mood that morning.  I was getting irritated that Freyja was flitting back and forth with no method, and so was missing half the eggs.  Some eggs were missing too as the cats had decided to play with them.  Lee told me to take my tea, make my Sunday morning call to my parents, and keep out the way.  Twenty minutes and I was all better and ready to make the most of what was left of our Easter.

Lee stayed home to cook the Easter Feast as the girls, Dan and I headed to church.  I have only just returned to going to church these last few months, and I am still not completely comfortable with it.  Right now, I am there mainly for the kids.  Freyja is in a Catholic School, Rosie will follow suit, and really they need to be attending a church (though we don't attend a Catholic church).  Both girls are actually attending the Sunday School, rather than the church.  Rosie wouldn't do it for the first couple months, but now heads in to play with the other kids with barely a backward glance.  Its one of the reasons I go... to build her confidence with kids and new situations.

The church is huge!  Its an auditorium really, with classrooms surrounding it, a coffee shop, a gymnasium, a library and book shop.  It is easy to remain anonymous in there while I assess my feelings on the church, and on God.  Dan is new to the whole church thing.  He was not brought up as a church goer.  Some months before he moved over to live with us, he 'found' God.  He was baptised in the UK then, but still didn't really attend church.  He was eager to find a church which was a good fit.  I had been to this one a few times with our Landlady, and found it welcoming and not too 'preachy', so I took him a couple of times.  He really liked it and chose to be baptised again there a few weeks ago, and the kids love it, so I am attending it more in the capacity of driver right now while I enjoy an hour kid free, drink a cup of free coffee and enjoy some uplifting music and a (usually) amusing sermon.  All in all, it fits us as a family well, and I do not feel like a 'Bad Catholic'  like I do in the Catholic church which is small, so I stand out as being the person who has no idea what she is supposed to be saying or doing.

I'm still not convinced I'll ever be a 'God-Fearing Church Goer' but at least I am getting out there, working things out, and becoming part of the community.  I may not believe in the organised religion side of things, but I believe in kindness to one another, charity (not only of the financial kind, but also charity of heart), treating others with respect and in a manner you wish others to treat you.  So while I may not be joining the church properly, I think my children will be learning some good lessons in life, as I did attending Sunday School as a child, and later, they can make their own decisions on their beliefs.  After all, Free Will was one of the things given to us, so I hope they learn to use that to be good and honest and kind.

Thursday 28 March 2013

Food for the soul....

This is my first foray into the 'recipe blog' area, and hopefully people will like it.   I always loved to cook as a kid, especially baking cakes and cookies.  It was one of the activities my mother and I shared where hormones rarely got in the way and caused arguements.

When we moved to Calgary, I was rather devastated to find out that the success I had in making cakes in the UK did not transfer.  Basically, the UK is wet, winter or summer there is moisture in the air, we generally cook with gas ovens, and the altitude is pretty much zero.

Calgary is pretty much the opposite in baking terms. Everyone cooks with electric ovens, the atmosphere is pretty much always dry, even when we have 2 foot of snow outside, and we are at pretty high altitude.

My light and airy cakes which rose up and above the top of the pan in the UK barely rose at all in Calgary and frankly were more like frisbees (hard ones).

So you can imagine my joy at dicovering what appears to be somewhat of a North American staple, Banana Loaf.  And I found a great little recipe for it too, which, with a few gentle tweaks, has become a favouorite in our house.

You can find the original recipe here http://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/banana_bread/ which is just fine as it is, or you can follow my version, or do your own.

I tend to triple the recipe, or at very least double it, as we are never short of bananas in our house.  My youngest loves them, as does my oldest, but if she doesn't eat the one I put in her lunch bag, it gets bruised, or horror of horrors, gets brown spots in the skin, and therefore is clearly inedible (at least by the standards of my fussy eater seven year old).

You can chose to use the banana's fresh and mash them in the usual way, or you can freeze them and use them later.  For those of you who don't know, freezing bananas pretty much causes them to mash themselves in the skin.  When they defrost, they are mush and ooze out in a way children love into your mixing bowl with no mashing required.  They also go a rather horrible shade of brown, but, when made into banana loaf, they result in a darker, richer looking loaf than the fresh ones produce.

Ingredients (makes 1 loaf)

3-4 bananas (mashed or defrosted)
1/3 cup melted butter
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 egg, beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon baking powder
pinch salt
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour.
1 tablespoon dark molases

A couple of notes on the above.  You can use white sugar, but I find brown better.  If you have the same issue I do because of the altitude and dry air, and your sugar dries out, melt your butter and put the sugar in there.  The moisture and heat from the butter softens the sugar and you get a paste which is easily mixed in.  The original recipe called for 1 full cup sugar and said you could easily reduce to 3/4 cup.  I never use more than 3/4 and have occasionally used less.  I added the molases, which gives the loaf a darker colour and a slightly stronger taste.  Again you can adjust the quanity of that to suit tastes in your family.  I have made this with and without the molases and everyone prefers it with, so I don't argue with the majority.

As regards the flour, I have used white, wholewheat, and the kind which looks white(ish) but is actually wholewheat.  You can't really tell the difference once its baked, but with kids its good to get the wholewheat in them where you can.

Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C). Put your bananas, butter, sugar, egg, and vanilla in a bowl and beat together,  sprinkle over the baking powder and salt and stir through evenly then add the flour.

You should end up with a good gloopy mixture.  If you made it with fresh bananas, it will be quite light in colour, darker if made with frozen bananas.  Add your molases if you want to at this stage according to taste and how dark you want the loaf.


   

If you have made mixture for more than one loaf, this is where you should separate it.




I always add stuff to mine.  Freyja is incredibly picky and will only eat banana loaf with chocolate chips, Darling Hubbie prefers peanut butter chips or butterscotch chips.  I prefer fruit and nuts (though I won't say no to choc chips either, truth be told).

Last night I made three, using fresh mashed bananas, so the loaves are relatively light.

The one on the left is the choc chip for Freyja.  The middle one is peanut butter chip for my husband.  The one on the right is an experiment which I have yet to taste test.  Christmas  results in left over dried fruit in my larder and I discovered I had half a bag of dried cranberries in the back of my cupboard so I added them (probably around a cup), half a teaspoon of ginger powder and one and a half teaspoons cinnamon.  (It turned out pretty good).


Put in prepared tins* and bake for between 50 minutes and an hour (I find 50 minutes does it here in Calgary).

Cool (if you have patience and will power) and once cool, slice.  It freezes well whole or in slices and is great in lunch boxes.  As you can see below, my daughter didn't have patience and a slice was already gone from the choc chip one before I had a chance to take a photo of the finished article.



*A few words to those who are not bakers;
- disposable loaf pans work just as well as the
   proper ones for this
- spray oil is your friend - don't worry about messing
  about with butter and trying to cover your tins with it,
  use spray oil, easy, fast and no mess!
- once your tin is sprayed, put a little flour in the tin
  and dust the sides with it.  It will stick to the oil (or butter) 
  and let your loaf come out easier.  Do the same when
  making cakes, but maybe use icing (confectioners) sugar
  for white cakes and always use cocoa for chocolate cakes :-)

The Judy Blume Project

I follow a blog by Dana, entitled The Kitchen Witch.

Dana has recipes, some very funny stories, and an ability to write and draw people in so we feel like we have known her forever.  She also has some bloody funny people who follow her and write comments that crack me up.

A little while ago, Dana made a post about Judy Blume, which then spiralled out into comments about peoples memories of Judy Blume books they read as girls.  It kept on spiralling out until it became The Judy Blume Project. The Kitchen Witch - Judy Blume Project (you can get to the original and best courtesy of the Kitchen Witch herself here.).

Anyhow, I decided to write a piece, and here it is, for better or worse. (Thanks to Dana for the review and edits)




Dear Judy Blume….

Have you ever visited England, Judy?  Or I should say did you ever visit England in the 1980’s?
That’s when I was growing up in the North East of England.  If you’ve ever seen Billy Elliot, it was kind of like that, but with less people breaking into song and dance routines (unless you count 11.30pm as all the pubs close). Believe it or not, there really were some very talented singers listing up those streets around midnight, with their newspaper wrapped fish and chips, ink-stained fingers reeking of vinegar.

England was not the home of Judy Blume books in the way that the USA was, in fact, I only ever remember one of your books making it to my village by the sea.  That book just happened to be “Forever.”  Oh yes indeed, THAT BOOK!!

In class one day when I was 11, several of the girls at the back of the classroom were giggling over a book.  Guessing that they were not giggling over Beowulf,  I sidled towards them on pretext of sharpening my pencil. And there it was, my introduction to sex.  Now don’t get me wrong, my mother had been very informative whenever I asked a question, and I’d watched enough Dallas and Dynasty in my formative years to get the general gist, but this was different, this was from the perspective of a girl…. like me….

Sadly, the giggling  also alerted the English teacher and the book was swiftly confiscated  and banned. He was less than impressed with our choice of reading material.

Off I went to the library in search of this Holy Grail of Enlightenment, but alas, it was not available to anyone with a child library card (under 14 years old).
Thankfully, whist I was 11, I looked about 16 (scary, I know) so, the following Saturday, when my mother took a trip to the neighbouring town to do the grocery shopping, I went with her and asked if I could peruse the bookstore next door while she bought the food.  Thrilled at the idea of shopping in peace, she let me go.

The bookshop had a rack full of “FOREVER” books with a large sign saying ’14 years and older only’.  Now, back then, ID was not something many people carried unless they were driving, so the shopkeepers based it on the age you looked, and whether they knew your parents.  They didn’t know my parents (Ha!).  I procured a book.  I did the same the following Saturday…. And the Saturday after that… Then they recognised me and shooed me out the shop for good.
But Judy, those three books, dog eared and worn after their travels, made their way around to every girl aged 11, 12 and 13 in that school…  They educated all and surprised many.  They also shocked a couple of mothers who never spoke to me again, thanks to the quick pointing of fingers from their daughters.

We finally had a Sex Ed class in school when we were 12.  Had we relied on that, we would all be wearing enormous Dr White’s Sanitary Towels each month, and have a weird fascination with the sex lives of chickens, not to mention the belief that all people looked like something out of a 60s Swedish Porn Movie (all hair and beards, and not necessarily only in the facial area).
FOREVER is remembered with fondness by us all, and you were responsible for showing a generation of girls then, and many more since, that we were normal.  Our hopes, our fears, and ***whispers*** our desires, were no longer causes for shame.

 And yes, we all wondered whether the boy we’d surrender our virginity to would call his ‘thing’ a name…. Thanks for that too!!
By the way, I never did get those books back.  They were passed on to a new group of girls at the end of the year. I like to think that they are still making their way, torn and taped, educating a new group of girls, shocking their parents, being confiscated by teachers.  I like to think that they are the gift that keeps on giving.

Yours, ‘forever’,

Lisa

Monday 25 March 2013

Don't Panic! Don't Panic! (But I can't help but panic...)


If you ever watched the classic British BBC comedy, ‘Dad’s Army’, you will remember Cpl Jones running around shouting ‘Don’t Panic, Don’t Panic’ every time there was an air raid siren, or any other problem for that matter, being the very definition of panic.

Outwardly, these last few months I have not been any different to usual, but inwardly, I have been very much like Jones of the Home Guard.  The world is changing, and right now, it is becoming an increasingly scary place, not for me as a person, but for me as a parent.

Screw Afghanistan, Iran, Libya and the like (though North Korea scares the crap out of me sometimes for sure), my biggest fear is the good old US of A.

Now I was born and bred in the UK, and I now live in Canada, so why would I be bothered about the USA?  They are our neighbours and friends, right?  Well, yes, they are…. And that is why I am scared….

I would love to take my kids on vacation to the USA, but right now, as a UK citizen, living in Canada, I am worried about getting through border control either way without a barrage of questions, delays and tears (some from the kids, but mainly from me).

But if I get over the border, what then?  My chances of dying increase simply by stepping foot into the United States.  Why?  GUNS!!!

This last year has seen a run of shooting incidents, a mall, a movie theatre, and most terrible, an elementary school.  When I heard about the shootings at the movie theatre and the mall, I was horrified.  So many innocent lives taken from people just going about their daily business just didn’t seem possible, but at the same time a thought goes through your head, “well that is the US for you, free access to guns and a shoot now, talk later mentality”.  There was a certain level of desensitisation, because this has happened before, in other malls, in colleges, in high schools.

But then, just a few days before Christmas, came Sandy Hook….. Elementary school kids, aged 6 and 7, the same age as my eldest girl, shot down in class by a young man who had serious mental health issues, but whose mother had been a survivalist, owning several guns, which she kept at home, where he lived with her.  She died that day, so did her son, all victims in their own ways of a society that has become accepting of gun crime almost as the norm.  This was a quiet town, a town with a friendly neighbourhood, low crime.  This wasn’t big city, gang crime.

It seemed like people all over the USA woke up that day, started to speak up, started to say that enough was enough, and the President, Barack Obama was one of those speaking out.  He was speaking, I believe, more as a father of young girls, than as the President.  He was imagining, as I and countless other parents were, “what if that had been my children”…

Changes were in the air, a new, safer USA was seen in the near future, but here we are, 3 months later, and unbelievably, it seems that the talking is quietening down.  The only people still talking loudly seem to be the NRA.  For those who have been living in a cave or an ashram somewhere, the NRA is the ‘National Rifle Association’, an organisation for those who love all things gun related.  They believe that every American should uphold their “right to bear arms” as the Constitution says.

So why did it take me three months to comment?  Well, Sandy Hook rocked me to my core.  For days I cried at news reports, at Facebook posts, at blog posts, but kept quiet.  I wanted to scream, and I did inwardly.  I cried when I looked at my daughter and her school friends and saw those beautiful children that had been ripped from their families.  I cried when my children opened their gifts on Christmas Day, and thought of those gifts in Sandy Hook that were sitting unopened, the parents who would be trying to hold it together for the siblings of the kids they had lost.  I cried at night when I couldn’t sleep, thinking of the empty beds in those houses, the toys discarded on the floors of those rooms by children rushing out to school that morning.

Why did I comment today? Several things have sparked this in my head again this weekend.  Yesterday, as I sat playing a board game with my eldest girl and my youngest was napping, I had the TV on in the background for a political debate by the contenders for the leadership of the Liberal Party here in Canada.  As I am soon applying for citizenship, I am trying to become more politically aware.  We were enjoying our game and hadn’t noticed the debate end and the news begin.  I looked up from the game while shuffling the cards and saw a news story about a young woman who had been mugged by a boy last week.  The boy appeared to be about 15 years old, and was with another younger boy that she assumed was his brother.  The boy had pulled out what she believed to be a fake gun.  The boy shot at her, grazing her head with a bullet, and shot and killed her young child, a toddler, not much younger than my baby girl.

The shock of this story, the baby being shot, the ‘gunman’ and his accomplice being only children themselves left me breathless, crying, desperate. My daughter broke me from the spell.  She too had looked up and seen my face, looked to the TV, and while the story itself was done, the ticker still showed the details.  She’s a good reader…

She took the remote and said “I think we need to turn this off now”.  She held me close as I cried, asked why I was so sad for people I didn’t know.  I told her that I was sad because the baby had been killed and it made me fear losing one of my own children.  I told her that I was sad because the people who did it were only children themselves.  I told her I was sad because the world was a scary place and I worried for them and their future.

On my way to work today, another spark lit the fire;  A news report on the radio about the NRA dropping flyers in Sandy Hook homes, encouraging people to fight for their right to bear arms.  Dear God, these people just don’t get it do they!!  Really, believe it if you must, but don’t drop flyers in the town which is still in deep grief for their lost children!!

And then I got into work, and there was the last thing to fire it up.  A blog post from one of the ‘crafty moms’ I follow.  You know the ones.  Cute pictures of kids and clothes they have made for them, quilts, recipes etc.  And today was another piece about sewing.  How can sewing get you angry about guns?  Well, today’s piece was “How to make a gun holster for the inside of your safe”.

I’m not talking about a little holster for a handgun here.  I’m talking about a full on piece of organisational kit, covering the entire door of a gun safe.  The safe in question was pictured, a few hand guns, and several rifles, at least one of them high powered, along with the assorted ammunition required to use them.  Well, at least they have a safe for them you may say. 

My argument would be, why should anyone NEED a gun safe that big, containing that many guns, in their bedroom closet (the picture showed it surrounded by hangers of clothing).  If you are a member of a gun club, can you not keep your guns there?  And why does anyone NEED that many guns?

She went through the details of the how to, with pictures, featuring her handy helper, her baby boy, around the same age as the youngster shot and killed last week.  He was sitting in pictures with the fabric laid out, playing with the scraps etc.  Now usually, my biggest worry is that he may stick himself with some of the numerous pins in the fabric, but then there were pictures of the same fabric, in the same place, pinned in the same way, WITH THE GUNS AND CLIPS IN PLACE!!!!  He wasn’t in those pictures, but when you see them in context it is pretty much a reasonable assumption that he was still in the location where she was working.

Now, I understand, you need to see that they fit, but my first thought is “What the f*** Lady!!”

Guns and the US have a long history.  The right to bear arms was important when the Constitution was written.  You needed to be able to defend yourself against invasion by humans or animals in rural and wild regions of a new land.  You had to be ready to bear arms as part of a militia in case of uprising.  They did not, I am sure, envisage the NRA and its requirement 200 years later for people to be allowed to have their own private arsenals of weapons in their homes capable of taking down a small army (or a class of Elementary School children).

I think what concerned me most about that blog post was the first sentence “First off, if you are not a lover of guns, I don't need to hear it... just skip ahead onto the next post or the next blog. Okay? Thanks!”

And that, in a nut shell, is the biggest issue with America and Guns.  Those who see the issue, see the problem and want to make changes are willing to talk about it; are willing to discuss the subject; are willing to compromise to some degree; are willing to listen to the others point of view even when they do not understand it.  But those who are supporters of gun carrying just “don't need to hear it”.  They don’t want to hear what might happen.  They don’t want to hear that maybe next week it will be their baby that they posted pictures of that is killed in the street by a kid with a gun.  They don’t want to hear that maybe in ten or fifteen years, their kid is the one with their face all over the news for having taken the guns from their parents closet gun safe, and shot random people in a mall or a theatre, or shot up a lunch room full of kids at their high school, or walked to the elementary school down the street and taken the lives of a class of innocents because he believed the world was collapsing and he was saving them.

They don’t want to hear it…. Because it might just be true….. Because they might just be wrong….