National Teacher's Day!

Today is National Teacher's Day so I would like to send a huge THANK YOU to all the amazing teacher's out there.  I have never been a great student.  I did not enjoy doing school work and I struggled in school.  People find it amazing that I had a better GPA in college, especially after I got married, but I had someone (Censie) pushing me to do the best that I was capable of.  

I was thinking today on who one of my favorite teachers was and it was an easy decision for me.  David Nykirk at Rangeview High School was probably the most influential teacher in my life.  Sadly I saw that he just passed away after a long battle with cancer this year.

Mr. Nykirk made me laugh and made learning fun.  I had him as a teacher for several classes and his sense of humor was amazing.  He always made a rule at the beginning of his class that if he had a heart attack to pick him up and carry him out of the building before trying to resuscitate him because he said that he didn't want to die in the school.  He also was my teacher for Greek Mythology and he would not let us say sex because we were in school so we had to say that the gods were holding hands.

Not only was his humor amazing but also his ability to push me to succeed.  I remember I turned in a paper to him and he read it and then gave it back to me laughing.  He told me that I had no reason to turn in a piece of shit like that because I was capable of much more.  For some reason that struck me because he didn't sugar coat it he just had higher expectations for me and wanted me to meet those.  

So again today to all my friends and family who have been teachers I say thank you and please continue to push our kids to do the best that they can.  I cannot wait to see how teachers are going to handle our kiddos!  Be prepared!!!  

April is Child Abuse Prevention Month

Did you know that April is Child Abuse Prevention Month?

Here are some shocking statistics from the CDC report from February 2012

• A report of child abuse is made every ten seconds
• More than five children die every day as a result of child abuse.
• Approximately 80% of children that die from abuse are under the age of 4.
• It is estimated that between 50-60% of child fatalities due to maltreatment are not recorded as such on death certificates.
• More than 90% of juvenile sexual abuse victims know their perpetrator in some way.
• Child abuse occurs at every socioeconomic level, across ethnic and cultural lines, within all religions and at all levels of education.
• About 30% of abused and neglected children will later abuse their own children, continuing the horrible cycle of abuse.
• About 80% of 21 year olds that were abused as children met criteria for at least one psychological disorder.
• 14% of all men in prison in the USA were abused as children.
• 36% of all women in prison were abused as children. 

These statistics are shocking aren't they?  This is something that I see and work with every day of my career and they are saddening to me.  Most of these children do not have a voice or an advocate for them.  You can be that person.  If you feel that abuse or neglect is taking place you can contact the local authorities or Department of Social Services to make a report.  

I think that it is fair to say that there are many friends or maybe even family members that you have had contact with that were victims of abuse or neglect in some way.  Do not assume that it cannot happen within your family or even your community because it can.  

Remember that when a child is brought up in an environment free of Abuse and Neglect that they are more likely to thrive.  When a child is brought up in an environment of Abuse, Neglect, constant stress and unhealthy relationships this affects the child not only physically but can have life long mental and emotional impacts on the child.  

Please continue to educate yourself, your neighborhood, and your community about Child Abuse and Neglect and what we need to be doing to help these children.  It takes a village to raise a child!  If you want a great website to go to get information about child abuse and how you can help please go to www.childabuse.org

Secret Subject Swap!

Welcome to a Secret Subject Swap. 17 brave bloggers picked a secret subject for someone else and were assigned a secret subject to interpret in their own style. Today we are all simultaneously divulging our topics and submitting our posts. 

 

 

Here are links to all the sites now featuring Secret Subject Swap posts.  Sit back, grab a cup, and check them all out. See you there:

 

www.BakingInATornado.com                             

 http://menopausalmother.blogspot.com/ 

http://lifeonthesonnyside.blogspot.com/

http://suburbiainterrupted.com/                             

http://www.bigaandlittlea.com                               

http://ibddaddyandme.blogspot.com

http://stacysewsandschools.wordpress.com/

www.3monkeysandamartini.com

http://sadderbutwiser.wordpress.com/

http://www.somethingclever2point0.com/

http://www.themommyref.blogspot.com/

http://rushingforbagels.blogspot.com

http://gocheapgohome.com

www.rebekaches.com

http://mooreorganizedmayhem.blogspot.com/

http://slackermomof4.blogspot.com/

http://www.mommyunmuted.com/

                

My subject is Share a bloggy goal that you hope to achieve this year.  It was submitted by http://www.bigaandlittlea.com . Here goes: 

So my goal this year is to tale over the Daddy blogging community (insert diabolical  laugh at this point).  No really I want to be able to grow my audience and share with other fathers and also others dealing with IBD and after Wednesday now dealing with an Ostomy.

This has been a major change for me over the last couple of days and actually I am in the hospital as I am writing this.  I have a permanent Ileostomy on my stomach so I will be blogging about how the surgery and the recovery goes. 

I am pretty new on the blogging scene so I am just starting off so I have a lot of goals. I think that I keep coming up with new goals everyday.   I think that there a lot of daddy blogs out there but I feel that there are several that control the whole scene and I would like to infiltrate that tight knit group and bring in a fresh look and also a armature approach.  I am not a professional writer, I actually suck at writing but I am not going to give up.  Thank you so much for everyone for letting me be part of this blogging post.  I will try and type more as the pain meds wear off but thank you again!

Nominated for a Liebster!

I am so honored and humbled I was nominated for The Liebster Award by Photography by Beverly! What is a Liebster? Well, it's a shout out to blogs with less than 200 public followers, who are interesting...quirky...awesome to read.

 

 

The Rules 

- Each blogger that is nominated must post 11 things about themselves

- Answer the 11 questions that the blogger who nominated them asked

- Nominated blogger creates 11 new questions to ask the bloggers they nominate

- Choose 100 bloggers with less than 200 followers to nominate, link them in the post

- Notify the nominees of their award

- No tag backs!

And away...we go!

1. I just started blogging this year and am hoping that I can get my blog to grow and help others.
2. I am honored to be a father to my son Jude who is 2 1/2 and my daughter Teagan who is just over a month old.
3. I have been married to my wonderful and extremely supportive wife Censie for over 9 years, we will be celebrating our 10 year anniversary in August.
4. I am a huge sports nut, I enjoy watching almost any type of sport but Baseball is my favorite sport.  I am a huge Red Sox Fan.
5. Music is an essential part of my life and my daily routines.  I enjoy all types of music but classic rock is probably my favorite.  I am a huge Beatles fan if you can't tell by my son's name.
6. I started going to school to be a youth pastor but changed my mind and have been working as a social worker for the past 5 years. 
7. I am currently surviving a diagnosis of Ulcerative Colitis, this has resulted in three hospital stays in three years and now we are looking at possible surgery to cure this illness.
8. I have recently started getting back into making art and had an art show in August at a Denver Gallery, I have also opened an Etsy shop The Eccentric Mind. 
9. I love watching the Food Network and have a dream to be an awesome cook.
10. I have 11 tattoos and am in love with this type of body art, if I could have many more I would!
11.  I have been diagnosed with depression and moderate social anxiety, these are challenges that I also must face every day as a person, a husband, and a father.

Here are the questions that Shannon challenged me with!

1. What is your favourite holiday tradition? My favorite tradition is putting up our Christmas tree, it has been something Censie and I look forward to doing every year.  I am excited to start building more traditions with my family, taking Jude and Teagan to go see Santa is also amazing. 
2. What is your favourite movie from your childhood? This is a hard one for me!  I would have to say that my favorite move as a child was "Never Ending Story"
3. Do you have any pets? How many? What are their names? We have two cats Pun-kin and Sophie.
4. Do you consider yourself *green*? What do you do to be eco-friendly? I do as much as I can but it has been hard but we do as much as we can to recycle and not cause extra waste.
5. Do you love your home? I love my home immensely.  It is my favorite place to be because it is full of laughter and love. 
6. What is your go-to night-on-the-town outfit? Hmm I don't really get dressed up to go out but usually just a dress shirt and jeans.  Nothing special. 
7.  What is your favourite appetizer to serve guests? I don't really have guests over but I would say that chicken wings are the best to give to people.
8. If you could have a dream vacation, where would it be? For me my dream vacation would be taking my family to Disneyland or Disneyworld.  I have never been there so I am excited to share the excitement of going for the first time with my family.
9. Where did you go on your honeymoon?  Censie and I went to Meadow Creek Bed and Breakfast in Pine Colorado.  We have gone back several times after!
10. Do you believe in paying it forward? I do I think that we as humans should always step up and try to help out someone else that is not in our position. 
11. What was your first ever blogpost about? My first blog post was about an introduction to myself and about being a Daddy.


Whew this has taken a while!  Good thing I am just sitting in the hospital so I could complete this!

Here are my questions for my blogs that I am nominating!

1. What is your favorite Season of the year?
2. What is your favorite book?
3. Why did you start a blog?
4. What is the one thing that you can always go and do to relax?
5. Who is the most influential person in your life?
6.  What is your favorite type of food to eat?
7. If you were given one million dollars what is the first thing that you would do?
8. What was your first car? Did it have any special meaning?
9. Do you have any daily routines that you would consider to be weird?
10. Why is blogging important to you?
11. If you could have dinner with any person in history who would you have dinner with and why?

Want to know their answers? Go check them out!

1. http://theheartofahomemaker.blogspot.com/
2. http://ihaveulcerativecolitis.wordpress.com/
3. http://stolencolon.com/
4. http://mywifemykidsmydogs.blogspot.com/
5. http://www.idads.co.uk/
6. http://forcefamilyjourney.blogspot.com/
7. http://www.thecrazychaotichouse.blogspot.com/
8. http://www.bloodpooptears.com/
9. http://readbradthedad.com/
10. http://www.lifeonthesonnyside.com/
11. http://itsadomelife.com/

Whew!! I hope you made it this far, and if you did...two big thumbs up!