Big Banks? No Thank You

During my early 20’s my best friend from junior high school who still had family here in Sacramento lived out of town.

One day while visiting she asked me to deposit some money she was leaving behind into her local bank account which she had not transferred over to her new location.

Being the helpful good friend I had no problem running this errand for her. This was a few hundred dollars we are talking about here maybe two or three. This woman knew me. I have never tried drugs. I do not like to drink. Our relationship is not built with mistrust and disrespect.

I went to BOA. I stood in line and handled my transaction like any other patron. I got a receipt for the business I was doing mostly as a formality since it is what I do when I bank. The teller and I had a pleasant exchange. I knew I was on security camera.

So nothing could have prepared me in the coming days for my friends’ frantic phone calls. The bank had no record of her money being deposited. 

I could hardly fathom this idea. It was not like I dropped the cash in the ATM. I had dealt with a live employee.

It also was not like something that has happened a few times at my small local bank where the computers are not up to speed so a hand written receipt is given. 

No, I had in my hands computerized output showing the transaction had taken place. This was only slight consolation to my friend as she spent days wrangling with BOA to clear up the problem.

I was just floored that a bank could lose cash. Call me naïve but that is not a mistake I want to wrap my head around. 

Not only was that off putting but then my friend and others would tell me: when these kinds of mistakes happen then their mega predators do not reimburse for fees or anything.

It took a few days and many phone calls to clear all this mess up. Had I not gotten a receipt or my relationship with my friend been more volatile this could have been a disaster. 

I know when she first called me in a panic she fully believed her bank. 

Initially she just thought I had not gotten around to making the deposit. Next I am sure it was driving her crazy being out of town having the best friend say one thing and her bank saying something so opposite.

Unacceptable. Not at all worth having a branch on ever corner and ATM’s by the dozen. 

It is much more soothing to bank where they know your name and treat you like a person. I know some people get involved due to auto or home loans. The rest of us have much more choice. 

Find a local bank. 

Find a credit union.

I Need A Parental Vacation

My daughter has just left the house and that is ok with me.

I have been feeling like a parent recently where I have to put up with non sense and lay down the law because that is what parenting is all about.

Oh I cannot wait for the homeschooling conference that will be here early next month. There will be some respite for teen parents I am sure.

I am teaching her as much as I am learning myself. As creatures we respect the authority that is held before us. Nothing much more or less. She says I am getting meaner. No I just know she has gotten older. The stakes are higher.

I have been telling her for years that as her mother I am watching and taking note of the things she does. Sometimes it seems I am being hard on her over something minor but when it has become a repeated habit or is part of a bigger trend that is the reason. Not just some mood swing or negative attitude I picked up for the day.

I was having another conversation some place else about teenagers and curfews that pulled something else up out of me. Anger about my childhood or young adult years. I can see Jesus but I can also see my mother LOOMING over me. What I can't see is my father and that is just as much a problem as anything else.

It took me about as long to realize this, as it did for my daughter to verbalize she was mad at me for the way her life is, my father neglected some of his duties which negatively affected my up bringing.

Where was he to reign in my mother and let me spread my wings a little??? Silent and unaware. sigh

Be ware when something seems so one sided especially relationship feelings. They really should be shared equally among the responsible or involved parties.

At least I am wearing a fun summer dress I got cheap for the season. Even painted our nails yesterday. I do not think there is a color of the rainbow we are not wearing between the two of us. LOL

I even still have brownies left over from Wednesday baking.

We were going to run errands but now I am home alone with the cat and she is off doing her community service hair braiding. She has a good heart that kid. She does hair and child care for free.

Her dad and I both ask...."Are you getting paid for this?" and she just looks at us like who what??? hahahahaha

Nesting or Latch Key Parenting

I read an interesting post on the New York Times web site recently.

How Divorce Lost It's Groove

For the purposes of this conversation I just want to focus on one idea mentioned. It is the title of today's blog. 

Nesting or Latch Key Parenting

It stands for parents moving around back and forth, while enabling the children of divorce and relationship break up to stay in their respected homes. 

Now it might seem a little creepy to have another couple...using your bed when you are not home. Especially if that couple is your x and their new love. Other wise if things are peaceful I think the idea has a lot of merit.

Being from a broken home is hard on a child. Going from one house to another is stressful. School is stressful. Life is stressful. Some stress is good for us. Most of it will not kill us. Still it has an effect and should be taken into account when looking at behavior and attitudes, especially in children.

Children need both biological parents. Biological parents fill a role no one else can ever fill in our children's lives. They need to see and be involved with us regularly. 

Many children also really appreciate routine and the comfort of home and school. In an ideal situation children have friends in the neighborhoods they live in.

Having parents understand of all these things and make the sacrifice of being a little uncomfortable for the sake of the children when relationships fall apart sounds divine.

The thing I have always loved about being a grown up is the opportunity to craft my own amazing life. I told my x once he started coming around that there really was no normal standard we had to try and emulate. 

Caring for our daughter would take whatever form we could agree upon. We were never in a position to want to house swap. We did however think that living in the same area of neighborhood would be ideal for us. 

A few years ago that is just what happened. When I ended up living with the crazy meth addict it was 3 miles from my x with the Jr. high school our daughter went to right in between us.

It was like a yellow brick road opened up. I said to him it looked like we finally had an opportunity to fully share custody. 

Before this we were living on opposite sides of town. Even with our daughter not being in school this meant he usually only saw her on weekends.

 
When we lived within walking distance of her school she could walk home to his house with her step siblings or I could pick her up and bring her home with me as was our custom. 

It really grew their relationship and blessed his life. We did things like every other three days or whatever she wanted. 

There is freedom in being able to communicate, compromise and share.

Surviving My Life & School

My life has bounced me around to the Hagginwood area when I finally began to realize I might have to enroll in college. Silly me I thought this would curb the bouncing around. I found a new roommate who happened to live in the Foot Hill Farms area. I knew this was a sign that I should look into Epic then called Trinity.

My roommate turned out to be a meth addict. 2 months of that bounced me to the Meadow View Pocket area. I bounced to Antelope road where we lived for two months and then we lived off Kirkby* for 7.

Lily Mar for a few weeks, Greenholme about the same. Across the street on Madison*, for a few weeks. Citrus Heights* and Granite bay* a few days each. Natomas for 6 months. Nowhere for a month. Rocklin for the summer and finally ended up back on my own, off Hillsdale close to Trinity, sans car.

Being car less is as miserable as being homeless and I can only be comforted in the fact that these dual disasters have not befallen me at once.

* Students, Alumni and former students included in this list.

I am not sure what all God wanted me to get out of both these adventures and all the schooling going on around them. Anyone knows that cramming in information at the rate it takes to graduate in less than half a decade is not really primely conducive for depth or even retention. Nomadic living due to other desperate circumstances can unorganize even a Felix or a Monk. It was very unsettling to say the least. Heaven only knows what will be next. I can be glad things are on pace and have not been hindered.

I know other people are dealing with things that I have or worse. I can look forward to the seemingly so ordinary things I have never had. Marriage, a house, a car I get to choose on my own, and some type of career or business.

We sincerely appreciate the friends and contacts that provided us safe harbor. I have had renters and house guests so I understand the adventure that represents. I was recounting in a note all the places the young one and I have lived since the upheaval of 04. It shapes out like a greater Sacramento map.

Makes me feel like I might never leave here which is fine since there is no place I really want to go. If it were up to me I would have bypassed both legs of this journey. People are so busy off in their various directions. I wonder what it is really all about. Nothing really stands out yet.

I like to look at it as on the job training in the trenches. I know living through some things have honed my gift of discernment and talents for human administration.

I spent two whole days attending middle school. It was almost as harrowing but it's our right as parents to show our faces in the schools we send our kids to.

If I have seemed to be in shock or walked around a little traumatized well oh well. I wouldn’t wish what we have gone through on even someone who thinks them self to be my worst enemy.

My Daughters Faith

It has been a long and winding road raising a daughter of course. Gramma started weaving in faith from the very beginning. She took her on weekends almost from birth and of course this meant they attended church.

When I finally came back into the fold I took over. We attended church together but more importantly we talk about faith and prayer around the home. She would see me doing my devotionals in the morning over coffee and Christian television on the tube.

I switched our radio listening to Christian music and talk as well. To help get her on the right track in more ways than one I wrote a morning prayer for her to say which we did from like ages 6 to 9 or so.

When we were at a church that did Awanas the idea of having a prayer journal was presented to her and she embraced it some what. When we hit Ravelry she created a Christian Teens group although she was still just a pre teen herself.

We were contentedly living life without school or curriculum until the unsettling moment when through multiple mediums, people and circumstances God let us know He was sending her to public school. It was after she got sick with a fever. When it broke and she was perked up enough to talk she told me she had a dream. It is among other things she was holding a baby that said "Consecrate yourself...". I told her sounded like God was inviting her to get closer to Him.

As soon as she was enrolled in school she made friends with a girl who's mother had passed away. I knew young as my daughter was God had sent her on the mission field for ministry. He blessed her too with horse volunteer work and riding lessons. These things I explained to her as not just life's happenstances or accidents but gifts of the Lord.

We moved and she made a new friend as she entered junior high school. This girl was also a neighbor of ours. She happened to be a child in an interracial adoption who's adoptive parents had gotten divorced. One day my daughter called me from school so panicked I could barely understand what she was saying.

When I did the first thing I was thinking was why in the world did she call me and not get a member of the school staff involved or call 911. She told me she had discovered in the school bathroom that her new friend was covered in black, blue and purple bruises. The friend was claiming her adopted mother was abusing her and afraid to go home.

My daughter was calling to ask if we could shelter the girl for a night. I assured my daughter that if nothing else could be done before the end of school we would of course at least do that much. Instead when she got off the phone she discretely went to a vice principle and got her friend to come and tell. 

When I arrived to speak to the school staff about all that had happened; social services had been called and made it over to pick up the girl and get her a place to sleep in the system for the night and were on the case of investigating the situation in the girls home. 

The schools vice president could not stop raving about what a supportive blessing my daughter had been sitting with her friend trying to comfort her and keep her calm while they waited for authorities to come and get involved. 

A couple of summers ago we went to Tahoe with her current best friend and a church group. The two of them went hiking, alone and then decided to get off the trails... (things to make a parents hair go grey in no time flat eh?)

When they had walked, fallen, gotten lost and realized things were not getting any better and it was late she said "Mom I prayed Lord send us a ride home." Then she got into the first vehicle that stopped for them after that and indeed the people drove them back to our camp site miles away.

Oh my, oh my the teachable moments: 

Do not just get in the car with a stranger. 

NEVER get off the trails when hiking alone with no supplies as an inexperienced youth in unfamiliar territory! 

Prayer works! 

Amen

Take A Spiritual Gifting Test

We should all know our spiritual gifts. If you haven't taken a test or assessment lately take this one now and feel free to share your results.

Sometimes some of them ebb and flow. Other times things develop that seem to come out of no where or because of a trial or situation.

Hospitality

Faith

Teaching

Writing

Poverty

Leadership

Wisdom

Administration

Pastoring

Encouragement

Knowledge

Discernment

Giving

Music

Exhortation

Helps

Prophecy

Apostle

National Appreciation

I am proud to be a half first generation American.

I was born here and so was my father but my mother was not.

To just add more flavor to the mixture that makes up me my parents both joined the military. My mother was only in for a short time but I remember her days working in dress blues.

We lived in town and so except for medical visits and the occasional errands our life looked like every one else’s mostly.

I was in air planes before I ever went to school going with my mother across the country to visit back home. She is from the Bahamas.

Mean while my very full life has centered here in northern California. I love my country and I am so appreciative of all the soldiers living and not who signed up or went to help defend it.

Early on I told myself I was not interested in ever checking it out from basic training to a life on call nothing ever sounded appealing about signing up.

God has blessed us I wish more people (especially Americans) would open their eyes and really see this. Yes there are problems evil and corruption, yes mistakes have been made. 

Still there is no place in the world I want to go and stay. We’ve been set high on a hill visible for all to see. It makes us a target it causes people to hate and misunderstand. Glory is not a human thing is it spiritually discerned for full appreciation.

I am kind of disappointed because my daughter seems to have a more jaded view and opinion of it all. I think she hasn’t lived enough or seen enough to know how fortunate she really is. She is so feisty she does not care. (lol) It is ok she is still young. I can’t imagine her leaving either.

I still do not understand my mother who retains her other world citizenship. When I found this out I almost fell over. I couldn’t imagine how a country could let you join their military and not be a citizen. 

Now that I am older it makes sense that a country appreciate a soldiers allegiance and resolve.

By my recall it would seem I have visited even if only by drive as many as 46 states. We never got to WA, HI or AK for sure. There might be one or two others we missed. 

In my childhood we flew to FL, drove to MI and OK. I went on a school trip to NY and to visit an aunt in the PA, D.C. area. My mom, brother and I took Amtrak some where for something maybe that is how we got to the northern east coast.

There is no place like home (the only place where people do not talk funny) but it’s enriching to get out and see the greatness of the nation in every day scenarios.

Thank You Veterans from an Air Force BRAT