Sweet, Sensitive Boy

Heaven help the little boy who quietly cried himself to sleep tonight, grieving because at the tender age of six-and-a-half he has realized that he will outlive his doggie, that their time together is finite, and that even the next 10-12 years will not be long enough.

Peeking Princess

Today, when Ellie's therapist took something she was playing with, the princess peeked out of the tower long enough to say "Hey! Give it back!"

Daisy!

Today we welcomed home a new family member: Daisy, a tri-color Pembroke Welsh Corgi with one blue eye! She turned 2 in June and is a rescue from a backyard breeding operation. She's AKC registered but not show quality because of her blue eye. She's never had a toy :( But now she'll have toys and love and children to herd!

The Ghost in the Room

Here I sit
The ghost in the room

I don’t fit in
So ignore me
I speak
Kids laugh
Adults ignore

I know you see me
I know you hear me
But I don’t exist for you
Because I am unquantifiable

I don’t fit into your categories
Your philosophies
Your shoeboxes
Your pigeonholes

I am something more

You don’t understand me
Comprehend me
Include me
So you ignore me
Hoping I will fade

Good little ghost
Fade away


-Laura Brumback, August 8, 2012

Ellie's 10th Birthday

Ten years ago today, God blessed me with a daughter, and forever altered my life, my beliefs, my values, my priorities, and my identity - He made me into a mother. I can honestly say that I am a better person than I was, than I ever would have been, before the gift of Ellie - challenges and all.

Unpopular Standpoint: AIDS/HIV: The Only 100% Preventable Epidemic

You read the title right. AIDS/HIV is 100% preventable. We could destroy AIDS/HIV entirely in one lifetime, wipe it off the face of Earth, completly eradicate the disease. It's so simple it seems stupid-crazy:

1. STOP HAVING UNPROTECTED SEX

2. STOP WHORING AROUND (that goes for both genders)

In the modern world there are only two ways to be infected with AIDS/HIV:

1. Have unprotected sex with an infected person
2. Be born to an infected mother

Don't try the "blood transfusion" excuse, we've screened all donors for decades now and any infected blood that might've been donated in the 1980s has long been used or discarded.

So, if people have only protected (barrier method) sex, there won't be any more babies born to infected mothers, because the women won't get pregnant in the first place. I'm sure that no infected woman would want to purposefully get pregnant and doom her child to death, right? And if they only have protected sex, the infection won't be spread to the next person.

Don't know if your partner has AIDS/HIV? Simple: DON'T F### THEM! Don't whore around. You really, really want to? Use a barrier method. He says he's clean? You want to bet your life on it just to get your itch scratched? Use the f###ing (irony there) barrier!

That's it. It's really that simple. AIDS/HIV is a self-inflicted epidemic. We've spread it through stupidity and bravado ("Can't happen to me," "Just this once, it's really not that likely," "But it feels so much better bareback"). We can stop it through education and just the thinnest slip of prevention.

Wear a barrier - save yourself!