Hey, I ain't trippin but the truth is really, you don't know me.

***If you haven't checked in this week, or checked in on Monday, there is a post below this one that I posted on Tuesday. At the top of that post, you will find a link to the last post I posted before that, if you need to refresh. This will probably be the last post for this week, as I have a paper due and two finals, as well as Eli's first birthday and first birthday party. His birthday is today - HAPPY BIRTHDAY ELI!!! :-) I'm going to try to get a post out next week, but since I don't know what/when my English final is due, it will probably be later in the week!***

I wanted to head out when I got my evening break – after the girls were supposed to be asleep, but not knowing the woods very well, I didn’t trust myself to search in the dark. I hated being a pansy about it, but if Cumulus was stuck or lost, I’d be no help to him if I got stuck or lost myself. I was breaking up a fight about the shower schedules when there was a knock on the front of the cabin door. I rushed down the stairs, wondering if one of the earlier search parties had found Cumulus.
Imagine my surprise to find Santana standing there.
“Everyone decent?” He asked. I nodded, and without being invited in, he entered the cabin.
“GIRLS! DOWN HERE ON THE DOUBLE!” He yelled. He turned to me. “Sorry to take over like this, but mind if I borrow you and your girls for a little bit?”
“Do I have a choice?” I asked. I was slightly annoyed – him being a jackass and then just barging in like this, but more than annoyed, I was curious. I wanted to find out what he was doing.
He studied me for a moment. “You always have a choice Ella.”
By this time, the girls were downstairs, eyeing Santana.
“Whatcha want Mr. Tana? I was just about to hop in the shower.” Infone said. She tried to sound annoyed, but I knew most of the girls had a crush on Santana – or Mr. Tana as he was often called.
“Where’s the dog?” He asked, calmly. Now I was really annoyed. Did he think I hadn’t bothered to ask? Or did he just figured since he was a badass and I was just some suburbian white girl that they’d be honest with him and not me?
Jaleesa sighed, and rolled her eyes. “This again? Seriously, we already told the lady, we didn’t touch her stupid dog. Do I look like I want flea bites?”
Santana crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back on the door. “You all talk so much about being real, and being grown, but when someone asks you to be real, and asks you to be a grown up and own up to what you did, you back down, and you lie. Lying isn’t real, and it’s childish. I’m going to ask you one more time, and if you are so real and so grown, you’re going to answer me with the truth. Where is that dog?”
It fell silent. The girls stared at Santana, but he didn’t seem phased, he just looked right back at them. His face didn’t look angry, or annoyed. It was stone – cool. Still. The quiet lasted for so long that I was about to throw in the towel. That’s when Jaleesa spoke.
“Infone had some potato chips. We used them to get the dog to follow us. Then we bolted.”
I was seeing red, I was so angry. I was about to go off when Santana spoke, so quietly I thought I heard him wrong.
“Go get dressed. All of you.”
“Why Mr. Tana? We need to go to bed.” This was from one of the younger girls – Ebony.
“You guys are going to show me where you took him. And if he’s not still there, we’re going to look for him. And while we’re looking, I want you to think about being alone, out in the woods, with no food, no water. Lost, cold, tired, hungry… This isn’t some object that you stole – it’s a live being. If you had beef with Ms. Ella, you should have taken it up with her.”
Jalessa opened her mouth to protest, but Santana shot her a look. She rolled her eyes, but she backed down.
“Again, it goes back to being real, and being grown. This is not how grown people handle their problems. They talk about things, they work them out. And if they can’t do that, then they leave each other alone. If you girls put this much effort into something productive, it would be amazing what you could do with your lives. But instead you’re hell bent on being hoodrats who destroy everything they touch – including themselves. Go get dressed. I would advise you dress warmly, and wear comfortable shoes. It might be a long night.”
I expected a protest. There were some under breath mumbles and grumblings, but the girls turned and marched upstairs.
“You don’t have to do this.” I said.
“I know.” He was quiet for a moment. “I expected you to quit the first week.”
“Why?” I asked, truly shocked.
He shrugged. “Like I said, I’ve seen your type. They don’t last long here.”
“Do you even know my background at all Santana? Do you have any idea why it’s so frustrating to me to hear you say that?” I sighed, and bent down to pull on my own hiking shoes.
“You don’t have to come with us. I can take the girls.”
“They’re my girls, and it’s my dog. I’m coming.” I snapped.
The girls headed down then, and we headed out, Jaleesa leading the way, much like she led Cumulus away. Nobody spoke for a while, we just walked, breaking the silence by yelling for Cumulus. The girls were a little ways ahead of us – trying to speed this process along, but I was dragging behind, waiting a few moments to see if I could hear him bark. Santana decided to fall back with me.
“What is your background?” He asked. I peered at his face, trying to gauge if he really wanted to know, or was just making conversation. It was hard to see him in the dark, so I let it go.
“You were right about two things. I am white. I did grow up in a wealthy suburban neighborhood. When I was in eighth grade, we had to take this class… They basically lumped everything they needed to teach you but didn’t have a place to do it in this class. Sex ed, home ec… We also had to do volunteer work, and one of the units was on poverty. To make it ‘fun’, we had this game, and we were broken down into families. We had money, but then we also had things taking away from our money. Gas or other transportation bills, childcare, food… We’d have to draw these cards and sometimes good things happened. More often than not it was a problem that we’d have to come up with a solution too. It was just a game to us. We came up with all these crazy schemes that wouldn’t work in the real world. It taught us nothing. But, at the end of that unit, we had to take a tour of the inner city neighborhoods. It shook my whole world. You hear about kids without food, or without homes… But when you actually SEE it… I decided then that was my mission. Those kids. I worked with an agency for years, went to school for it. Now with the economy…” I paused, feeling like I was going to cry. So I just shrugged instead. “I hated leaving my kids for here, but I was starting to feel slightly burnt out, and I knew this would be a change of pace. I also knew practically it’d be good for a resume, if it comes to that. But the main reason I came is because they could stop paying me at the agency. Which bought them some time to hopefully come up with a solution. That agency… It’s all some kids have. I don’t know what they’d do without it. And honestly, I have no idea what I’d do without them.” I paused for a moment, to call Cumulus’ name.
“You know, Santana… I bet these kids get labeled a lot, based on how they look or where they come from. Hell, you might have experienced some of that too. But, it works in both ways. You looked at me and you saw one thing and you didn’t even bother to find out if your assumptions were true or not. I’m sure it happens to these kids a lot more than it happens to me, but it still doesn’t make it right. And even IF I’m just some white suburbian do-gooder, so what? Sure, these kids don’t need more people walking in and out of their lives, but at least someone’s willing to help out for a bit. Whether it’s for six months or six years, why does it matter? You said it yourself, it’s a war, but every war has it’s battles and every battles need soldiers.”
I didn’t bother to hear his reply, because in the distance, I could hear barking, and I took off after it.

Out here it's like I'm someone else, thought that I could find myself...

click here for the last post I fixed it so it should directly link you. Before you had to copy and paste.

I fixed it so it should directly link you to the post, the address I posted before WAS the post, but you had to copy and paste.

This is shorter than most posts - It just seemed like a good place to cut off. However, I already know what the second post will be, so it shouldn't take too long to write and I'm hoping that will either be up tomorrow (er... Later today I guess) or Thursday.

My situation was made even more frustrating when I realized I had no one to vent too. I hated to admit it, but I hated it here, and I wanted to go home. Not only did it sting that Santana wanted nothing to do with me, but his reasoning really hit me in my core. I had messed up a lot in life. My love life was in shambles and it was pretty much all my fault, my professional life was severely threatened, and I really had no friends. But I loved my kids. I had and would continue to fight for them, even if I was no longer employed with the agency. I still kept in touch and helped out camp kids who were no longer in the program. I care about the cause, I cared about the kids. So Santana flat out saying that I was just doing this for the bragging rights… Well. He was wrong.
I however, decided that I couldn’t do anything to change Santana’s mind. Telling him my accomplishments with my kids at home would just sound like I was bragging. I had to put my money where my mouth was – which meant giving my all to these kids here and now. I met them the morning they came back, full of big ideas… And I was knocked flat on my ass. These kids were different from my kids at home. They were slightly older, and therefore a little more jaded. And mean.
The ringleaders were two girls named Infone and Jaleesa. The other girls were manageable one on one, but that rarely happened, and the way they acted in a group was out of control. Within the first week, we had three fights (the first one I made the mistake of jumping in to break up, and ended up with a black eye and bloody lip.) We also had Infone attempt to sneak out and Cumulus barked and foiled her plan, and then on Friday Jaleesa stupidly tried to sneak two boys in. How they managed to get out of their cabin, I have no idea, but Cumulus was not letting them enter ours.
They also messed with my things. Nothing major, but they’d accidentally knock pictures over, or look at them and call Toni fat or her kids ugly. I had some make-up go missing. I was able to handle these things, and mainly tried to ignore them so I wouldn’t add fuel to the fire, but something happened in the middle of my third week there, and I ended up snapping.
One of the girls needed walked to the infirmary. She claimed she “fell” but it looked to me like someone hit her. I didn’t want to take all the girls with me, as it was dark and I knew one of them would try to slip out, so instead I called the security guard and asked that he do extra checks on my girls while I was gone. I also knew the girls were terrified of Cumulus for the most part, and I didn’t think they’d attempt to cross him.
I was wrong.
The girl ended up needing to go the hospital for some stitches, so there were incident reports to fill out and parents to call. I didn’t have to go with her, but it took me longer than I thought to get back to my cabin. I was beyond nervous when I saw that the lights were out and it was quiet. My door was also cracked open, which made my stomach flip. I bolted up the stairs and it was dark in the girls’ room as well. I was almost afraid to enter, but I needed to do a head check. I didn’t think they’d seriously hurt me… Right?
I used my flashlight and counted heads. All the girls were there. Even Infone and Jaleesa. There were no extra heads. I searched under beds and even in their bathrooms shower stalls. I acted like I was headed downstairs and listened outside their door. Nothing. They were asleep, and they were alone.
Something still didn’t sit right with me, but I couldn’t place my finger on it. It was quiet. Cumulus was gone, but he often went outside at night. It made me nervous the first couple times he did it, but he always came back, so I had gotten used to it. My stomach was still in knots and I didn’t know how to settle it down, so I decided to break my vow of silence and call Jason.
“Hey there stranger.” He answered.
“Hey, how are you?”
“Good, you alright? You sound funny.”
“Just…” I sighed. Homesick. That’s what it was. The jumble in my stomach was homesickness. “I wanna go home.” I blurted out.
“Aw, Ella…” Jason said. I knew he felt badly, but I also know he didn’t know what to say.
“It’s OK. It really is. I’m just a little homesick tonight. I feel like I have no real friends here, no one to talk too. The girls hate me, and the feeling is pretty mutual. I just… I didn’t think it’d be this hard, you know? I mean I didn’t think I’d come in and fix everything like super woman or something, but every second of every day is such a struggle with them. I miss my kids, I miss my house, I miss Ohio.”
“So leave. Nobody’s forcing you to stay there.” His words may have sounded harsh, but his tone was kind – he thought he was offering a great solution.
“I can’t do that. I can’t give up.” Santana was in the back of my mind, but I wasn’t going there. “Anyway. I’ll get over it. How are you? What have you been up too?”
“I’m at home actually.” He said, chuckling. “In Illinois.”
“Lucky.” I teased. “What are you doing there?”
“Drewbie’s Dad needed some help on the house. I had some time and Mom’s been bugging me to see me, so I came home to hang out with him for a bit and see her.”
It took everything I had not to ask about Drew, but I bit my tongue, and instead asked about his Mom and sister. We chit-chatted for a while, and by the time we got off the phone, the pit I had at the bottom of my stomach was almost gone. Jason had made me feel better, and it also made me feel good that we were starting to be able to talk like true friends.
I got up to get changed, and realized Cumulus still wasn’t back. That was starting to get unusual. While he liked his night strolls, he usually didn’t stay out this long. I peeked out the front to see if he was camping out on the porch. No Cumulus. I called his name a few times, and heard nothing. I decided to read for a while. I felt stupid waiting up for a dog, but the homesickness was starting to creep back in, and I knew I’d feel better if I could cuddle up next to my one link to home that I had here.
At some point, I must have dozed off. I woke the next morning to sun streaming in the window. I bolted upright and looked on my floor to see if Cumulus had come in. No dog. I tip toed across the cold floor to see if he was on the porch. No dog. I paused for a moment and then bolted up the stairs, flipping on the girls light.
“What did you girls do with my dog?”

I swear, every time I tell you guys I'm going to try to get a post up, something happens. So I probably shouldn't say this, but I am going to try my damndest to get a post up by Tuesday. I have a paper due Friday, but I plan to work on it tomorrow and Thursday, and I think that should cover it for me(and my professor has given us an extension on EVERY assignment we've had in this class, so it would not shock me at all if he bumped this one back as well.)

I had totally planned on having one up before Thanksgiving, but Saturday Jeremy started complaining of not feeling well, and by Monday morning he had full blow... I don't know. Everything. Jeremy very rarely gets sick, but when he does, he gets hit really hard. He was down for three days, and while I didn't get it anywhere nearly as bad as he did, it did touch me, so I was taking care of two kids and a sick husband while feeling crappy myself. Luckily we had no homework due.

If something horrible SHOULD happen, I take my final on the 3rd and then classes are over, so it'll be up for the next week.

You guys have been more than patient. I hope that it wasn't all for nothing.

I also wanted to say - I don't think I've deleted any comments unless they were spam. I know a comment or two got deleted last post - I didn't do them. I just wanted to say that because I know a few people alluded that someone said something mean and that's why I deleted it, but if someone said something snarky, I didn't see it.

ETA: Whoo-hoo, I may regret saying this, but I just got my paper done except for citing, which shouldn't take me too long at all (I just have to plug things into easybib) My kids are being insanely good today (I may regret uttering those words) so I should def. be able to post Tuesday - possibly even later tonight!

So you asked for an update

Please understand that I am saying this with no harshness, it's just the truth.

I did and do still have every intention of coming back. Yes, I said I can't stand when things are in boxes, and so moving would be easy - I apparently was full of crap. Moving with two children was insanely difficult and stuff still isn't unpacked. The re-model company who re-modeled our place didn't do several things right. So, even though I had internet when I first moved in, I had no outlets because out of all the outlets in our place, only three were grounded (meaning they were only two prong outlets and I couldn't plug in either computer) This caused me to get behind on school work and I actually had to drop a class because of it. I've also been dealing with the apartment people coming in and out to fix things (broken front window that was broken when we moved in, broken back window that was broken when we moved in, broken dishwasher that was broken when we moved in... There's been more, but I won't bore you) Then, the power in my living room blew for no reason (and yes, we tried to fuse box) so I had to deal with a BUNCH of people coming in and pulling out all my outlets to try to figure out what went wrong.

I already mentioned school, but there have been two tests since, and two papers - and that's not including what I attempted to do in the one class I ended up dropping. My husband started a new job, and he's now gone a lot more, meaning I'm alone with the kids a lot more and a lot more exhausted at night.

We've also been dealing with an issue with Eli - we started to switch him over to milk and he's having a bad reaction to it. I won't go into the messy details, but there's been a lot of carpet cleaning going on.

I know that these sound like a bunch of excuses - and they are. You guys wanted reasons, these are it. I totally understand wanting a response, an explanation, a time frame, but at the same time I can't always do that. I like the blog. It's fun for me, but right now fun often comes last. There are just too many other things I have to take care of. I know some people argue that I made a commitment to this, and therefore I owe it to at least end it, and I understand that. But, as I've said before, I don't get paid for this. It isn't a priority. I wish it could be, but it's not and it can't.

I do plan on keeping it going, but I can't promise when posts will be. Right now school is breaking for Thanksgiving, so all I have due this week is a discussion board. Soon, school will be over for the quarter and I won't be going back until January. I should have a lot more time - but it seems like every time I say that, something horrible pops up. I have Eli's birthday at the end of the month and his birthday party beginning of December, but I'm hoping over our Thanksgiving break to pop out a post. No promises.

Sorry if this makes you angry. Sorry for letting anyone down.