I spent the last 2 days in a very interesting training for Girls Circle. I hope to be leading a Girls Circle in the near future through work. It really helped that the 2 trainors were great! Women from all over the county attended. I laughed so much during the last 2 days!! Girls Circle is a structured support group for girls to help foster self-esteem, help girls mainttain connection with peers and adult women in their comunity, and counter trends toward self-doubt and allow for sel-expression thourgh verbal sharing and creative activity. Girls are allowed to voice their opinions in a safe enviorment with a facilitator guiding them. this model has been used in juvenile probation, schools, peer led leadership, schools, athletics, pregnacy prevention, gang prevention and any where girls come together. I am very excited about this!!

We were shown some scary statistics on children.
93% of youth sexual assault victims knew their attackers, 34.2% were fammily memebers,58.7% were acquaintances. only 7 % were strangers.
Girls are 3 times more likely than boys to have experiences sexual abuse, which is often an underlying factor in high risk behaviors which lead to deliquency.
Girls show signs of depression at a rate of 50% higher than that of boys. in 2000, suicide was the 3rd leading cause of death among 10-24 year olds.
42% of girls who were victims of violent crimes were victimized by other girls.
1 of 10 adolescent girls report an incident of dating violence in the past year.
roughly 1 in 50 youth injure themselves by deliberatley cutting their own skin, most of them are girls.
Girls are the fastes growing segment of the juvenile justice population.
girls account for 33% of arrests for assault
3 out of every 5 arrest, for running away from home are girls,
66.7% of young women in CA. Youth Authority reported ongoing physical abuse and 44.7% reported sexual abuse.
32% of children reside in single parent households.
34% of births are to unmarried women
Single mothers households comprise by far the poores demographic group
16.3 %(that is more than 11.5 million) of children live in poverty. of that percentage African Americans 32% and Hispanice 28%.

when I don't feel well, I just want to be left alone to sleep and just rest...don't bother me!! When one of the kids is also home with me , and they don't feel well, it drives me nuts when they have to tell me every 5 seconds that they don't feel well. I know they don't feel well. I don't feel well either. You don't see me bothering them every 5 minutes to tell them I don't feel well.
What do they want me to do? Go suck a cough drop if your throat hurts? You don't like the taste of this kimd, then try the other kind? You don't like that kind? I am sorry , we don't have any others here. Your hungry? Make some chicken noodle soup. You want ramen? then make the ramen. You don't like beef ramen? Well, I am sorry but I am not going out when I called into work for running a 102 fever...
I think next time I am sick I should just go into work, I might get more rest there!!

I haven't posted in a while....I have been working hard. I had a wonderful week of training and then ame back to a week of rough times at work. I have learned more this past week than I learned at the week of training! Sadly, I learned it at my expense. It is kinda a long story that I really can't go into here. My feelings were hurt and I am trying to put it behind me but it is very hard.

My wonderful husband had a dozen red roses sent to me at work on Friday.....with a card that said I was his heart and soul...he dropped Teen and Son off at a friend's house. They were going to a Camp retreat. He then dropped DQ at my mother's. When I came home, I was greeted with a ard, a ute little teddy bear, and a trip out to dinner and then a night alone!!!! Then next morning he took off for a chess tournament...and DQ ame home!!

I went to pick up Teen and Son tonight...Ern gets home sometime tomorrow....then the house will be back to what has become normal!