Not So Fun Fact Friday

I was in awe of the response to my post about my suicide attempt. Your comments and stories were nothing short of moving and heartfelt. More than one your stories or comments brought tears to my eyes.

I was amazed at how many of you had been directly affected by suicide. It seems such a taboo topic, you don’t realize how may people it actually affects. I apologize I haven’t written the next part of the memoir yet, life has been getting in the way. Hang tight its coming though.

I thought I would lay out some actual facts on suicide for you.

In 2006:

- Suicide was the eleventh leading cause of death for all ages.

- More than 33,000 suicides occurred in the U.S. This is the equivalent of 91 suicides per day; one suicide every 16 minutes or 10.95 suicides per 100,000 population.

- Males take their own lives at nearly four times the rate of females and represent 79.0% of all U.S. suicides.

- During their lifetime, women attempt suicide about two to three times as often as men.

- Suicide is the seventh leading cause of death for males and the sixteenth leading cause for females.

- Suicide rates for males are highest among those aged 75 and older.

- Suicide rates for females are highest among those aged 45-54.

- Firearms are the most commonly used method of suicide among males (56.0%).

- Poisoning is the most common method of suicide for females (40.3%).

- Among young adults ages 15 to 24 years old, there are approximately 100-200 attempts for every completed suicide.

- In 2007, 14.5% of U.S. high school students reported that they had seriously considered attempting suicide during the 12 months preceding the survey; 6.9% of students reported that they had actually attempted suicide one or more times during the same period.

- Suicide is the second leading cause of death among 25-34 year olds and the third leading cause of death among 15- to 24-year olds.

I could go on, while it is rare for children to commit suicide it does happen. The chances greatly increase after the age of fifteen.

This my friends, is why I am vehemently against firearms. All of them. I think handguns should be completely illegal to purchase, and I think all rifles should be kept under strict lock and key. I am not looking to start a debate here, it is just my opinion.

I can honestly say with 100% assurance that if my parents had owned a gun and it was readily available to me, I would be dead.

I can not urge you enough to lock up your firearms, and put your medications in a safe place. Once my boys get older (like 10) all of my medications will be locked up, due to the type I take and the toxicity of them.

While my parents knew there was something awry with me, they had no idea, nor would they ever have envisioned the magnitude of my depression.

Thank you so very much for all of the support and the stories shared. I was so hesitant to share my stories, but after the countless thank you’s, and I have been there’s, I know I made the right decision and I will continue to share more.

Beach Day

This last weekend was a busy one, I got to photograph a wedding on Saturday and then on Sunday my husband wanted to get up and drive to the beach to see the sunrise, which we missed despite getting up at 5:30am. It still was a great time, the boys were on their best behavior. They gathered tons of shells, some of which are now in our aquarium.

Look how big Ro is, when did he grow up so fast! I can’t believe he will be five in 2 months. They played in the sand. The weather was a little chilly…only because it was 7am though. However, it did not deter Rowan from going into the water, he is fearless at the ocean. Its scary.  It started out innocent enough, feet and legs only. Until a wave took Ro under, and there he was in a soaked sweater. Thankfully my husband was brave enough to get his feet wet. Although we missed the beautiful colors of sunrise, the sun was still just coming up, which made for some great shadow pictures. My husband took this one of me….love it. Love pictures of Cons, I told my husband we are going to start traveling the world and take pictures of my Cons everywhere…...someday. Proof I was actually at the beach.

It was a memorable time for all of us. Cancer has taught me many things like slowing down and spending quality time with my boys, and making every moment count. We only get one life here.

Happy trails to you. Until we meet again.

He’s Back!!!

After 2 weeks of a really angry sad little man, we finally have him back.

He went from this a week ago to….

this. My happy sweet little boy. I couldn’t even get him to go outside when he was on the steroids, it causes him a lot of leg pain.

This week we went outside and played with bubbles, and we laughed, and squealed. My eyes welled up on more than one occasion this week. I don’t think I can put into words what its like to have your son stolen from you and made into a completely different person.

And then the feeling you get when you get him back.

Yes, he really is that pale. But the sparkle is back in those blue eyes!

On Monday we start the 2nd half of Delayed Intensification, this part is supposedly the hardest. I have been told blood and platelet transfusions are common.

On Monday we go to the clinic and will be there for the vast majority of the day (pray for our patience and serenity.) Then that Friday he will have another spinal tap with chemo. We will be in the clinic every day for 2 weeks …. yikes. Will update Ezra’s blog as we go through these next 2 weeks. Please keep us in your thoughts and prayers.

Bad Hair Photo Contest

Here I am in all my Aqua Net glory. I don’t even know what year this was taken, 1989 perhaps. I sure had some blonde hair.

I know my mom braided my hair the night before to get the “crimped” look, a small mouse must have made a nest in my bangs while I was sleeping. I really like the one side of my hair clipped up and the other made into a wing. Wow. Thank god the 80’s are over.

To play along in the contest go here to read the rules and prize.

Can’t wait to see yours! Lets face it, bad hair happens to good people.

Bad Hair Photo Contest

(Image from Google Images)

I love looking at my old pictures, especially the school pictures. I managed some pretty awesome (ly bad) hairdo’s. I thought it would be fun if we shared a picture of ourselves from our youth with a bad hairstyle, I know I personally have 4-5 pictures I have to choose from. It will be hilarious to go through and look at everyone’s pictures. If you don’t have a scanner and can’t do this you can share a recent one of yourself or your child.

So here is how you can play along and what you can win.

To play: Break out your old photos, and your printer’s scanner. Scan in an awesomely bad hairdo pic from your past. And come back to my blog tomorrow and leave your link to your post with your picture of your bad hair. I will leave the contest open for a week, so you have plenty of time to find a pic and make a post. So all entries must be received by midnight on Wednesday the 28th.

My husband and I, and another guest judge (let me know if you would like to guest judge) will pick a winner and announce it on my blog. Winner will be announced on the 30th.

What you will win! I know most of you know my financial situation stinks, so I can’t buy a prize, but I can offer my services. You will win a custom blog header and button, designed by me!  I just did my new design, and have been learning a lot about blog design lately. I figured it would be a great first prize.

I would love to do more photo contests regularly, so any of you Etsy artists (or any one else) wanting to offer a prize and get your shop featured please email me at manicmotherme@gmail.com.

I look forward to seeing what you all come up with! Please tell all your friends about the contest.

Happy Early Halloween!

Remember when I showed you those pictures from that quaint little town? And I mentioned I found myself in a most peculiar place? Well that place…….

A very old cemetery…in case you can’t read that, it was established in 1826. Like a fly to honey I found myself traipsing through this cemetery before I even knew it.

No, cemeteries don’t freak me out. Halloween Horror Nights? Yes, that freaks me out, I almost wet myself several times.

In fact I have always been fascinated by cemeteries.

I was that odd goth teen with think black eyeliner, and Doc Martens, that hung out in them when I should have been in class.

I just thought that maybe if I posted these pictures in October, you may think I am a little less quirky.

I did it for the sake of your Halloween enjoyment. Not at all because I find cemeteries fascinating, and oddly serene.

  Because that would just make me come across even more insane than I already do.

  Someone had lined these fallen gravestones along the base of a tree. Look at how small they are.

 

Some of the gravestones said the neatest and well oddest things.

I am not even sure what to make of this one….apparently this woman was just waiting to die.

That’s neat too, I wonder if they came up with there own sayings?

How sad, Agnes was only three. It makes me wonder what she died from, than it makes me thankful for medical advances. Because in 1917 there was no cure for Leukemia.

This picture right here is my absolute favorite. It is my computer’s wallpaper…it makes me smile every time I see it. Go ahead grab it make it yours too, it will make you smile. Well….maybe not, if your freaked out by cemeteries.

That is all it said on the gravestone GRACE period. I realize they meant grace in the biblical sense, but every time I see the picture I think of grace like this “elegance or beauty of form, manner, motion, or action.” Mostly grace of manner and action, because I need a whole lot of that in my life right now. So every time I see this it reminds me. Grace.

So early Happy Halloween from me to you!

New Blog Design

I have been dabbling in blog design lately, I have designed 3 for friends. I figured it was time I redid mine!

Its not perfect..but close! I realize its not November yet, and that it has a Thanksgiving theme. But, I wanted to do one for Halloween and didn’t get around to it, so I put this one up early!

I may try to do more blog design on the side once I completely hone in my skills, and if there is any interest. If that is something you think you may be interested in shoot me an email.

Adding a meta-tag to your Blogger blog

I know many of you are probably saying meta-what right now. Let me explain.

Go to Google and search for your blog by its name, once you find it, look underneath the title of your blog….what does it say? If you haven’t added a custom meta-tag chances are it says something about your last post. Since I figured out how to add a meta-tag, with the help of this amazing friend, mine now looks like this.

 

So it now has the full title and a little description to it. Are you wondering why you would do this? Well lets say someone randomly stumbles upon your blog, through an unrelated search. Chances are they are more likely to click on your blog if they know a little bit more about it. Basically it helps for SEO (search engine optimization) which is a whole art form in itself that I don’t claim to know much on.

Anywho, hear is how you do it. Go into your blog’s layout and click edit HTML. Back up your template if you are leery of messing with HTML. You should find yourself at a place that looks just like this.

 

Look for this line (it will be right at the very top of your HTML..or at least it should be. ) -

<b:include data='blog' name='all-head-content'/>

Directly below it add this:

<meta content='DESCRIPTION HERE' name='description'/>
<meta content='KEYWORDS HERE' name='keywords'/>
<meta content='AUTHOR NAME HERE' name='author'/>

Fill it in with your blog description, keywords, and your name. See mine highlighted in pink.

I always like to hit preview first before saving to make sure I didn’t completely destroy my blog, assuming all looks good and you are not getting error messages, hit save template.

If you are getting error messages, check your apostrophes, and make sure HTML is exactly the same.

Now the catch is it won’t show up right away when you go to search for your blog. So to make sure you did it right check it with a meta-tag analyzer.

Just insert your blog address and the code and hit submit, it will then tell you if it finds a meta-tag.

Your meta-tag should show up whenever you post something new to your blog, because then Google will have updated it. So after you post something new, go back and search for your blog again, hopefully you will find your new meta-tag!

Guest Blogger from Diaries of a Coach’s Wife

This is one of my dear blogging buddies, Kim, she is crafty and since I have little to no time for crafts right now, I enlisted her help! Here is her post:

It has been a long time since I have done any craft projects with my kids and what better time to do something fun than for Halloween! I found a cute idea on Family Fun.com and thought it would be fun to do with the kids or I should say FOR my kids since they really weren’t interested in helping. That’s okay though because it was great fun for me!

Pumpkin Tee’s

What you will need:

-white t shirt (cotton, prewashed works best)

-rubber bands

-orange Rit fabric dye (I used 2 boxes for 5 kids sized tees)

-large pot (for dye)

-fabric markers or paint in black

What to do:

First -take small (2-3 inch) pieces of fabric and wrap rubber band around each one so that when it is removed you get just a circle

-repeat this as many times as you like all over the tee

Second-mix Orange RIT dye in a large pot as instructed on package and insert tees

Now, just wait wait wait on your tees to color! I waited about 30-45 minutes until my tees appeared to be as bright orange as I could get them.

Then- Make sure you are near a sink!! Carefully take the tees out of the pot and rinse with cold water until the water runs clear. Grab your scissors and pop off those rubber bands.

Now all you have to do is hang them to dry. Once they are dry you can make any kind of jack-o-lantern face on all the little pumpkins that you want. I used fabric paints and a brush but you can use any old way you wish to paint them!

And if you like the finished project but don’t have time or want to fool with making these you have a chance to win one!! I have 2 up for grabs. They are a kids size small (6-8). All you have to do is visit my blog and mention that you saw me here on Manic Mother! You can also earn extra entries so be sure to head over to my blog.

I heart faces - Excited

  I know most of you have seen this pic but when I saw this weeks theme, I thought I would share it again. I love it.

Thought Provoking Thursday

 

Ok, for those of you that are new (hello), I used to do Thought Provoking Thursday every Thursday. Obviously its been awhile. The basis of TPT is I ask a question that doesn’t always have an easy answer, (hence, thought provoking). So I can’t say I will have one every Thursday again but I will try to do it more often. Without further ado. The question:

If you could ensure your kids never have one experience that you have had, what would it be?

My Answer: I don’t ever want my children to know self doubt. I want them to love themselves for who they are, imperfections and all. I have struggled most of my life with self esteem issues, and really don’t want them ever to know those feelings.

Leave your answer in the comments or ask and answer the question on your blog (button in sidebar).

Amethyst

When I went and photographed this darling family I was at the Botanical Gardens and came early to take pictures of plants, flowers, etc. Here are some purple ones for you…pink ones to come later!

All of the water lilies were in bloom….amazing.

I really loved them…… I may actually print some of these!

Purple berries on some sort of tree/bush.

I love this picture, only the very tips of the petals of the flower are in focus and the rest is blurry, but it makes it look like a painting. So, don’t always erase those not so in focus pics. they can be great too.

Gingers were all in bloom too, its fun to go there different times of the year to see what is in bloom. When I went in April it was a totally different place.

 

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