9/11- My memories.

As I sit here on the tenth anniversary I am struck by the changes in our country. Some were positive, some not so much. The younger generations learned real fear that day. We learned that no matter how great we thought our country was we could still be brought low on our own soil. We learned that the big scary terrorist was real and angling for us and our loved ones. We learned that war could be fought in our yards.

We also learned how to band together and fight back. We learned that our strength comes shining through when we put the politics aside and rely on one another. We proved to the world that we can band together in the sight of catastrophe and help each other.

Some of the repercussions have been the memory of those strengths. Those deaths taught us to fight back, fight hard, and win. They taught us courage and to never give up, they taught us passion for our country. The other side of the coin has been this giving up of freedoms though in the pursuit of safety. That part has crippled us I think and it breaks my heart. I think it is a part of what the terrorists wanted. A divided superpower is no longer a super power. In our efforts to find a way to protect ourselves we created more and more laws to regulate every detail of travel and of safety to the point where we fight over it. We look for things that could be unsafe and sign away rights in the hopes we will become more safe. That breaks my heart. Yes we need to be vigilant. We need to fight back. We need to stay strong. Giving up our freedoms does not accomplish that.

The morning of 9/11 I was very pregnant with Bug. I was very sick my entire pregnancy and we were living with my husband's older sister and her family. I had slept late due to being so sick and when I got up it was to find the tv turned on to the attack. The first plane had hit and it was still just a plane crash. Even then I was scared. My uncle was a pilot for United and often flew into New York and I was so scared for him. Then the second plane hit and we realized there was no way it could be a simple plane crash. I was glued to the screen the whole day and was so glad when I got word that my uncle was on a different route that day. I will never forget the worry and the fear and the sadness. Even now remembering makes me hurt. I ache for the families. I hurt for those who responded with selfless devotion and were repaid by loosing their health and even their own lives. That day needs to always stand as a reminder that we are not perfect, we are not immune, we are not the vaulted nation. We are at risk and every day we spend fighting and divided is a day that the enemy wins.

Communicating after EMP.

So I am editing my second completed book. I am over 20k words in and well on track to finish on time as planned. I have a new thread to add in after my first read through that will help push my word count over the 70k mark like I want. I am very pleased with that.

On to my other creation. North has helped me get my basic Apocalypse event figured out. My series is going to take place about 25 years after the event I think. So civilization is trying to rebuild but it isn't great. The event is man-made and natural. Basically a large scale EMP prevents the world from stopping an asteroid. The event also has the effect of boosting the paranormal/magic on the planet. I am kind of combining multiple genres here, hehehe. Soooooo anyway here is where I need thinking. The event destroys all things electrical and the asteroid hits in the pacific taking out a large chunk of the west coast. We are now 25 years later. Obviously things are rebuilding but when you wipe technology out pretty much back to the stone age and take a giant chunk of population with it building back is slow as molasses. So I am having my main character be a cop. Federal though I am not sure yet how that will look. I am thinking the entire continent may become one country.  Obviously basic power was the priority so cell communication is still going to be down. I want communication ideas. Maybe not a way to go nation wide though, more of a relay type system. Not sure really. My girl is going to need to be able to get info from all over but not very easily. Travel is also going to be slower than normal. Which is part of why her job is going to suck.

So ideas? Thoughts?

We aren't alone!

Over the recent long weekend my handsome other half had a birthday and his older sister and her husband came to visit and play for the weekend. Brother-in-law J brought up the topic of TEOTWAWKI and preparations. I think he was a bit surprised to learn exactly how much we are trying to do and how much we continue to do. He also would like to join in those efforts. So our group has risen and I think their focus will be on food preps while we continue with the gun and ammo side for the moment though I am going to be broadening that. I am making lists of a lot of things as well as going to really look into areas of retreat and possibly grabbing that land we want. I think now more than ever expanding this to the rest of the siblings will be wise. The other sisters all will have need and can contribute to things so i think I am going to really formulate a plan here in the next bit to present to them as we are supposed to be together in October. Adding to the capable men is a good thing I think.

Books on my shelf?

The book theme is all over today. Brigid, Murphy's Law, and North have all done it! I decided to follow suit. I kind of have to being the book girl. Granted my collection is not as wide ranging or as vast as some listed. I am a fiction junkie. I am also 29 and prone to moving regularly so I have to purge books a bit regularly. It makes me sad. At our last move i cried over the boxes of books I donated. *sniff sniff* I digress, my current collection has a lot of Louis L'amour. Husband is a fan but I sneak them when he isn't looking. I also love Clive Cussler and Dan Brown. The Adventure type action books. Faye and Jonathan Kellerman are great. I love paranormals so I have Laurell K Hamilton, Kim Harrison, Kelley Armstrong to name a few. Romance is also a love of course so Nora Roberts, Johanna Lindsey, Stephanie Laurens, Catherine Coulter both romance and FBI, Julie Garwood. I have a ton of favorite writers and know I am missing a bunch of them but honestly I have so many I am just listing what pops into my head. When we moved in here I had 12 boxes full. Hubby actually drove my books down himself rather than have the movers take them simply because of the weight. I have added quite a bit since then though now I have my Nook Color ereader and I try to put books on it rather than buying the bound versions in an effort to save space, hehehe. Poor husband wants to throttle me. My book cases are stacked to the gills 3 rows deep and up. Makes for heavy book cases! ;)

I am looking to now expand my collection into books we will need in a SHTF scenario. Medical info, food, living off grid, guns, things like that. If you guys know of good refrence books that I should have in a hardcopy form for a TEOTWAWKI life I would be very appreciative!

Where's the gun? Ehhh a knife will do!

Seriously I get this junk too often and all locally. It is depressing. This one is especially upsetting because the victim was a young teen, a child really, still in the first blush of her life. There is outrage here thank goodness. I just wish other people were as tired of this violence as I am.

Suspect in Custody in Teen's Murder

A 19-year-old man is behind bars and facing charges of murder and sexual assault in the death of 15-year-old Alyssa Otremba.The missing teen's burned body was discovered over the weekend in a desert area near her home in northwest Las Vegas.
Metro police say Javier Righetti was arrested less than a mile from where Otremba's body was found Saturday near U.S. Route 95 at Oso Blanca Road and Grand Teton Drive.
Police believe the murder was random. They say Otremba's body showed signs of blunt force trauma and multiple stab wounds. Otremba was reported missing Friday night after sending her mother a text message saying her cell phone was dying and she was walking home. The girl never returned.
Righetti is set for a court hearing Wednesday on charges including murder, sexual assault, kidnapping and robbery.

I am glad that the area is pissed about this one. They should be. I like the comment on the story and would like to know the answer as well. So sick of all the crap here. I look forward to moving on.

Texas Fires

I spent a lot of my growing years in Texas. Summers and holidays were spent with my grandparents on their  large spread outside of Bastrop. Right now the area is burning. So far it seems the family and other people I love have been lucky. Fire has come close and is licking at the boot heels but hasn't burned anything of ours yet but some reports say that half of Bastrop is gone and that it is going to get worse before it gets better. With Katia steaming up the gulf winds could pick up and the largest fire is at 0%  containment. So please everyone pray. Pray for those hundreds of families who have lost their homes, pray for those evacuated, pray for those at risk, and I selfishly ask for an extra little prayer for my family. While my grandparents are no longer alive to see a city they loved and raised their sons in burn we do still have family there and they are at risk and need that love.

Thanks guys!

A labor day of no labor at all!

We got up this morning before the sun to avoid the heat. The guys had loaded up the toys yesterday so it was just about getting everyone dressed and out. A co-worker of my hubby was going to join us with his little boy and it was going to be the first time the young one had shot so we kept it to the small toys. .22 rifle and pistol, my 9mm for me, and then because both boys needed to play with their new toys we had the shotguns and the Circuit Judge. The easily put a few hundred rounds out each and loved it. The new little shooter absorbed the rules well and proved to be a natural shot. His aim was crazy accurate. Then we went to trying the new shotgun on some skeet. You guys were very right. That thing kicked my trash. I am going to go old style and learn to shoot from the hip with it until we can get me one more taylored to my needs. Youch. Even the boys had marks on their shoulders. Of course they loved it. Hehehe. Men. The Circuit Judge is interesting. Nicer to shoot for me than a normal revolver. Crazy accurate. Brother in law put a scope on it but I am a lefty so it was a titch awkward so I used the regular sight. Blew apart a water bottle and had very little kick. I actually enjoyed it.

I realized I needed more range time with my 9mm. I would scare off an attacker and wound them sure but my accuracy is not great. Honestly a huge part of that is my eyesight. I can't see very well with the astigmatism. I really need to get this fixed soon.

Overall it was a fabulous day of shooting. I needed it. The dance in the rain and the glorious nap after were ice cream on the cake!! ( Yes I mean ice cream not icing, hehehe)

Where's the gun?- Let's try a vase instead!

Oh this lovely area of the world. I can almost keep up with Weerd and I am sticking to local area stuff. Yuck!!

Police: Woman bludgeoned friend with vase, cut her throat

Disturbing details are surfacing in a woman's alleged rampage that ended with another woman dead in a bathtub.

Police say 23-year-old Stephanie Kirby broke into an apartment and attacked the victim while she was sleeping.
It happened at the Canyon Point Apartments on Harmon near Boulder Highway. Kirby reportedly called police on Thursday morning, admitting she had done something wrong.
Documents say Kirby confessed to bludgeoning her once friend with a vase. She then allegedly ordered her to get in the tub where she cut the victim's throat.

Kirby denied having the intent to kill.
Police say Kirby stabbed her victim a number of times with a kitchen knife. She allegedly admitted to discarding the knife, the vase and bloody clothes in a dumpster near where the murder happened.
Kirby is being held without bail at the Clark County Detention Center on a charge with murder with a deadly weapon and a probation violation. She's due in court on Tuesday.
The Clark County Coroner's Office said Friday that Tiffany Batteate's cause of death was multiple blunt and sharp force injuries to her head and neck. Batteate was 24-years-old.

 

 

Lovely!! So basically chick claims she meant no harm but just happened to stumble into the vase to smack her victim after breaking in, then kills her by cutting her throat and stabbing her! Lovely. Won't count because she forgot her gun though right?

Mind numbing fear and the blessings that come with it.

Lately a few of our fellow bloggers and real life friends have been having health fun. Health issues are never fun or easy. Some talk about it and some don't. Both ways are fine. Watching people i care about struggle has brought up some memories and so I thought to share some feelings as a show of support and a reminder than even when it feels overwhelming you are never alone in your fear.

When we first moved here my amazing guy decided it was time to push me to really figure out my health. I was tired all the time, bruises took days or even weeks to heal, I looked just plain sickly sometimes even though my weight stayed the same and higher than I would like even though I ate little. Nevada is a specialist state. The rate of lawsuits here are so high that your primary doc handles little stuff and passes you on for big stuff so she sent me to a hematologist. He discovered something odd. While my white blood cells are in the normal to sometimes low count range the percentage of them that are lymphocyte cells are very elevated. He tested again and again and always got the same results. Elevated lymphocytes. Well this can be a fluke or it can be a big deal. Two big deal options were cancer. One would kill me very fast and one may never kill me at all. So while we waited for some very extensive testing results and time between tests to check for accuracy I felt like my life was in this horrible holding pattern. 6 weeks of wondering about my life, my future, my children and their future. I have never been so freaking scared. I rarely slept. Every bruise was a new reason to worry. Every time I had a migraine I was terrified. I researched until I was blue in the face.

Then the results came back. Not cancer but no clue why you have the abnormality. My bruising was chalked up to being so fair. So it was on to more tests, this time to the endocrinologist. I was tested for everything he could think of. More waiting and worrying. Luckily most of his tests wouldn't result in a fatal diagnosis.

Once again I was healthy. I was the healthiest sick person they had ever seen. Sure my blood had weird oddities but nothing that pointed to a specific diagnosis. Then came the rheumatologist. The guy was a complete jerk but was sure it was FMS. And so I had an answer.

Of course sometimes answers don't feel like comfort. The answers can be scary and life altering. They can feel like an awful weight pressing down on our world and forever changing things. I tend to be grateful for answers even when they suck because I would rather know what battle to wage than stand on that bleak precipice and hope I jump the right direction to flee the demons chasing me. It truly is in how you look at it.

So if you are facing challenges please remember that you are not alone, you are loved, and the worst result you can ever get is "Inconclusive". Test on. Push on, fight on. Get your answers and know that whatever the outcome you won't face it alone.

Trash pickers.

This morning due to a lovely batch of events I was out with Bug and Monkey long before Bug needed to be to school. We had some time to kill before I needed to drop Bug off so I bought us all a Mickey D's Sausage Biscuit and a milk and went in search of a park to hide at. While I know our major streets and they run in a basic grid some smaller ones are pretty convoluted. I like to just explore these sometimes. Brother-in-law is looking to buy a house around this park I had in mind so I thought to check things out and follow the twisty way to the park. On my adventure I saw a truck in front of me just loaded down with metal. Twisted heaps of it. To my total amazement the truck stopped at a house with a pile of trash not in a can and two Hispanic men jumped out and began to dig through. They then crossed the street to a similar pile, pulled apart a dresser for the metal tracks and tossed them into their pile. Wow.

The pile was huge. So it made me think. In all the time it took to steal all that metal (Yes it was trash but they didn't exactly ask the owners if they could scatter their garbage to pick through it.) they could have looked for honest work. Even if just going door to door asking to wash windows or clean lawns. Something. Ugggg.......