Surviving the Lien Years

This is a post that I have not known how to write or whether or not I should actually write for ages.  Blogging can often a bit of a self-absorbing pastime.  I have made an effort to keep my blog very much like I keep my life, positive and always looking for the bright side or the silver lining.  That is not always possible to do in real life but I do my best.  In my blog, if I pound out a very negative post about a bad day, I usually wind up deleting it and focusing on the positive.

My quick tweets and posts about moving recently have prompted a lot of questions about where I am and what is going on in my life.  For my friends from THD (The Home Depot) especially, I want them to know what has been happening in my life.

With all that being said, I have decided to allow another part of my life to seen on my blog.    What is going on is that my life is in many ways a stunning example of what is seen on the news almost every night right now with regards to the recession and difficult economy.  My husband and I have filed bankruptcy, lost our house, and car.  We are starting over financially.  We started our marriage without much money and lots of debt from college loans, paid off the debt, purchased houses and cars, and built a financially strong company.  We are now renting a (smaller) house and beginning to rebuild our financial life.  This time as we build our finances, we have 5 year old twins for whom we are responsible and whom we love very much.

The current recession in America has many people scared.  It also has many people saying the government must provide and take care of everyone who is struggling.  The actions the US Congress and US Presidents have taken in the past 6 months have many others saying their actions are wrong and the government has no place in bailouts.  If you are a regular reader of this blog, you know from recent posts I tend to agree with government has no place  in bailouts philosophy.

While ours is not a story of purchasing a house too big for our budget or adjustable rate mortgages, it is a story to which many can relate.  We have many principles we have said we believe in over the course of our life.  Principles such as:  faith in God, self-reliance, gratitude, helping those less fortunate, and not relying on the government to bail us out.  We have now put our money (or lack there of) where our mouth is with those principles.

In this blog series, you will read the story of our married life, how we built up our finances, and the events that led up to our financial demise.  Hopefully, our story will give comfort to people who are in similar situations.  Hopefully it will answer questions regarding our move and what has happened in our life for others.

Introduction

Narrative History & Events

The Early Years
Our Maturing Careers
Life Paused
Risking It All
Learning Hard Lessons
Our Growing Family and Lee’s Growing Company
Betrayal and Deliberate, Harmful Machinations
The Worst Month Ever
Living on Faith

Lessons Learned

Forgiveness
Material Goods
Daily Bread
Friends Some Are Silver and the Others Gold
Trust After Deep Betrayal
Dave Ramsey Is Right, Right, Right
Accepting Responsibility
Evaluations
Networking and Resumes
Frugality
Honesty, Communication, and Acceptance in Marriage
You Are Not Alone

I have added this as a Works for Me Wednesday post because living by my principles works for me. Be sure to check out other Works for Me Wednesday participants.

In less than 2 weeks, I will be participating in the Ultimate Blog Party 2009.  How about you?  Have you heard of the Ultimate Blog Party, which is hosted by 5 Minutes for Mom? 

I participated last year and it was very rewarding.  I had a lot of visitors to my blog, which of course I enjoyed.  Who doesn’t enjoy looking at the their blog stats and seeing that graph spike up real high?  

The real benefit to me came from meeting new bloggers.  I was able to meet so many new bloggers and visit so many blogs that normally would not even cross my radar.  Some of them were also much larger bloggers but I still had not visited their blogs very much.  Some of my favorite bloggers from last year’s Ultimate Blog Party were: 

• Robin at Pensieve
• Tiffany at Snapshots of Life
• Wondermommy at Adventures of Wondermommy
• Janne at Janne’s Jaberwocky
• Mindy at MindySaid

So, how do you participate, you ask?  What is a blog party anyway?  The blog party post is the post people will land on your blog from 5 Minutes for Mom.  You write a post that tells a little about your blog and links to a few of your favorite posts.  Share a few pictures.  Maybe even follow the example of the twins at 5 Minutes for Mom and post a video celebration.  On March 20^th, link to your post using the Mr. Linky on 5 Minutes for Mom’s official Ultimate Blog Party post page. 

Now the fun part will begin.  Start hopping to several of the other partygoers’ blogs.  Read some of their posts.  Leave a comment telling them you stopped by.  Last year there were over 1,500 blogs on the Mr. Linky.  Obviously, you will not be able to visit every single blog posted.  Last year, I tried to visit 5 – 10 new blogs a day each day during the week of the party.  A couple of days I stayed up late and visited more than handful.  It was a lot of fun.  The blogs I especially liked, I added to my feed reader. While it is not required, it is traditional to link up to some of the blogs you really liked at the end of the week. 

I’ll certainly be participating.  I am thinking about what my blog party post will be right now.  I am even giving consideration to actually posting a video with my post.  I do not normally vlog so it will be a good exercise to stretch me out of my comfort zone.   I know I will be tweeting about it using the hashtag:  #ubp09.

So, are you participating in the Ultimate Blog Party?  Did you participate last year?  If so, what did you enjoy most about the party last year?  If you are participating this year, leave a comment so I can be sure to check out your party post.  Finally, be sure to check out other Works for Me Wednesday participants.

In my opinion this extreme Christmas lights display is one of the best free places to take your kids to see Santa Claus in the northern Atlanta suburbs. I hope you get a chance to try it out.

Merry Christmas!

For those who are unfamiliar with the case, Adam Walsh was a 6 year old boy in Florida. He was abducted outside of a Sears store in 1981. His mother had left him in front of a the Sears brand Atari video game console while she stepped a couple of aisles away to shop. The kidnapping happened in a matter of just a few short minutes. Later his head was found but never the rest of his body. Until today, the murder was officially unsolved. Today, Florida police closed the case by officially announcing Ottis Toole as the murderer. Toole died in 1996, in prison, where he was serving 5 life sentences for murder unrelated to Adam’s case.

As a child, the story scared me and made me appreciate my mother’s overprotective nature. It also helped me be much more careful when tasked with watching my younger siblings than I might otherwise have been.

The story had an impact on my mother as well. She never let me go into a video arcade without being supervised. In fact, in seventh grade, I won $20 worth of tokens to a local video arcade from my school for helping out with PTA. When I moved from the Atlanta area to Rome going into 9^th grade, I think I still had $19 worth of those coupons left. The Adam Walsh incident bothered my mom so much that she did not want me to go in the arcade very often.

Just so you do not think my mom went off the deep end because of a boy who was abducted hundreds of miles from our home, I should point out that around the same time that Adam Walsh was abducted, the Atlanta Child Murders were happening. Growing up in the metro Atlanta area, I vividly remember the Atlanta Child Murders. Some of the bodies were found near where I lived. I remember hearing the names of roads on the radio telling where bodies were found. These were names of roads I was familiar with. It was not until I was much older that I realized the “Atlanta Child Murders” were really Atlanta Black and Mostly Boy Murders. Race and sex were unimportant to me and were never discussed as a differentiating factor around my home. I just knew I was a child in Atlanta, lived near Memorial Drive, and my friends and I were frightened of it. I sure some of the Atlanta Child Murder hysteria played into my mom’s caution.

I do my very best to balance the fear I have of something awful happening to my children with not totally overreacting and protecting my children from everything in life. As the schools have taught them about stranger danger, we have done our best to explain it without totally freaking them out. The schools have actually freaked them out far more than we have so in that area at least we are reaching our goal.

As an adult, I cannot imagine the agony that his parents suffered. Also, I have so much admiration for John and Reve Walsh. In 1999 or 2000, I attended a conference where John Walsh spoke. His speech was moving. He took what is the worst thing that could ever happen to a parent and turned it into something positive.

Positive does not even begin to describe what he has done. He turned his son’s tragic and horrifying death into a legacy to help prevent others from going through what he went through with education. He invented the use of the “Missing” posters that are used each time someone goes missing in this country. “Missing” posters inspired using the same missing photos and information on milk cartons, in Wal-Marts, on unsolicited mail. He revolutionized the way police handle child abductions. If memory serves me correctly, he went on Good Morning America or the Today Show immediately after being notified that the police thought his son’s head had been found, to still ask for help in solving the crime. His example taught parents how to use the media to help find their missing children. His pursuit of justice helped start the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Schools are more secure today because of John Walsh’s activism. On the 25^th anniversary of his son’s murder, the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act, which categorizes sex offenders and established a national database of sex offenders, was signed into law. He has assisted countless families in attaining justice through his television show, America’s Most Wanted.

John Walsh is strength and leadership personified. Occasionally, right before falling asleep at night, I ask my husband how John Walsh and his wife have been able to do what they have done. Then I thank God that John and Reve Walsh were able to turn something so horrific into something so profound.

Tonight, I will be thanking God not only for the Walsh’s strength and leadership example but also that John and Reve Walsh can go to sleep this night knowing that their son’s case was finally solved and the book is closed on it.

**********************

Update 1: Several people have found this post searching for “Adam Walsh Sibling.” According to what I have read, John and Reve Walsh have 3 surviving children, Meghan, Callahan and Hayden, who were born after Adam’s death.

Update 2: John Walsh’s strength, perseverance, and leadership work for me and I decided to make this my Works for Me Wednesday post this week.  I hope his example might inspire others.  To see more Works for Me Wednesday posts, check out the official site. For those who are visiting from WFMW, since Christmas is only a few days away, if you would like to read about Christmas traditions in our home, you may enjoy these links:

• Make Your House Smell Like Christmas
• Extreme Christmas Lights, Part 1
• Christmas Crossword Puzzle for Kids
• Top Christmas Memories of 2007
• Santa Doesn’t Have to Pay for It
• What My Twins Have Taught Me About Selecting Toys
  
• Christmas Eve Dessert

If you’re in the market to buy Christmas Cards, my unique and unusual Handmade Christmas Cards will soon be available on eBay and in my Etsy store. Check back next week for that update.

HOW TO ENTER:

Get multiple chances to win my Handmade Christmas Cards by doing one or more of the following 3 things:

1.) Earn one chance to win 10 Free Christmas Greeting Cards (handmade by me) by leaving a comment on this post. *Be sure to leave your correct email address in the comment form.

2.) Earn one additional chance to win the Handmade Christmas Cards by subscribing to my RSS feed by entering your email in the “Sign Me Up!” box at the top left of this page just below the header, and following the instructions to confirm your subscription.

3.) Earn three extra chances to win my Homemade Christmas Cards by using the HTML code in the box below to link to this Christmas Card Giveaway post from a post in your blog. *You must comment on this post to let me know where to find your link so I can verify your extra entries.

The winner will be selected at 10:30 PM eastern standard time on Sunday, November 2, 2008. The selection will be made by assigning a number to each entry and then using a random number generator to pick the winner. The winner of the Handmade Christmas Cards will be announced on this blog on Monday, November 3, 2008 at 10:30 AM; and the winner will be notified by email.

First Time Visitors to JenuineJen.com should click on the First Time Visitors” link in the header at the top of this page to learn more about the site.

You may also be interested in:
Cool but Inexpensive Christmas Gift Idea
Christmas (Planning) in September
Christmas Through My Children’s Eyes
Christmas Activities in and around Atlanta

This post is part of Works for Me Wednesday. Be sure to visit the other participants for more great ideas. To see more blogs that are giving away free stuff visit BloggyGiveaways.com.