Therapy for Depression

Major Depression
This is a good article about major depression. A good reminder when working with people who suffer with a depressive episode. Also, Utah has one of the highest rates for depression. We are reminded with this article how to be understanding with a different outlook on the reality of depression.

Good reminder!

this one is for me so I can remind myself to have a great day!

Friends!

I just loved this little picture of these two little friends. I am a fan of therapy (I am studying to become one), but when you can call a friend, use a lifeline, it may be the difference between rescure or despair. In order to have a trusting friend like this, the key is to make sure you don't drain the pool of friendship, keep it full. Being a friend first and being there for someone when they need you is one way to keep the pool flowing. It may take time, the pool may be large and deep. Don't give up! Be grateful for relationships, tell them often, trust others and they will trust you.

Good article

Good article, I want to keep about how to over come childhood abuse!
When one has experience abuse from the one and only people that are to protect them, it changes everything. As an adult, these trials follow into struggles of abandonment and sometimes depression. This article talks about how it is essential to seek a professional therapist to come to understand how withholding emotions is not healthy.

Happy New Year 2014

"Becoming more fully human includes expressing and transforming the pain we felt, and still feel, from what happened in the past." -Satir

Cake Pops

 I began my journey in learning how to make cake pops when we decided that we wanted them around our daughter's wedding cake and then serve 80 to all the guests while they cut the cake. We tried several different methods and found the perfect one. Because these little cake miracles are the best tasting treat, I have had requests to show how to make them, I have finally put together these pictures.
Through practicing, this is what I have found works the best---

4-8 steps

1. Make a regular cake, white, yellow, or even red velvet.  I even make mine in the microwave in my Tupperware cake pan--done in 8 minutes. 2. Let the cake cool and then crumble it into little pieces in a bowl. 3. Add a half of can of chocolate icing or chewy brownies to the crumbled cake until it is easily mold-able.
4. With a small ice cream scoop, form a ball and roll together into a smooth ball. 5. Put cake balls in freezer for at least 30 mins. or over night.  6. Heat dipping chocolate, which ever color you want. You can buy this at any craft store or where wedding cake supplies are sold. Put dipping chocolate in small glass bowl and microwave for 30 sec. Twice. Stir. I leave it on low on my cook-top stove so it stays warm without overheating. 7. Get your pop sticks and dip it into the dipping chocolate and push  in cold cake pop about half way in. 8. Put all of the pops back into the freezer for at least an hour.

9. Take pops out of the freezer and dip in melted bowl until fully covered. Lightly tap cake pop so extra melting chocolate drips off.

Extra Wedding Pops

10. Quickly sprinkle or decorate pop before cooling. 11. Put pop upright to cool. Now this can be tricky. My husband drilled holes in a platform board so I could let them cool and he also made a round wooden platform for the cake base that had drilled holes around the edge to hold the cake pops. Or I found my cooling rack that sits about 4 inches off the counter worked to hold the cake pop while cooling.
I have made these pops for a Halloween party, 80 extra for kids at the wedding after the cake was cut, and for Christmas or birthdays. You can make these just for any occasion and are a yummy hit. These are so fun to make for any occasion.  ENJOY!

Halloween Pops on Forks

Halloween Pops

Christmas Pops

4th of July

Birthday Pops

What's Your Thing in December?

Monday December 23rd- Family and a Movie-

How I love to go to the movies. It is a time to escape the outside cold and get lost in the big screen. Whether with my husband for date night or the whole family I am forced to put down the phones and sit tight together. The holidays are no exception to hitting the theater more than usual and gorging on buttery popcorn and a chocolate candy bar. I am one to really appreciate a clean, enticing flick. I have realized why I enjoy the movies so much.

     As a child, walking down town to the Huish Theater (owned by my great aunt and uncle) was my escape and thrill for the week.The old reel and curtain opening screen was ultimately cool. I usually got in free and I usually went with my younger brother, my best friend. The big screen gave me a glimpse into the outside world, as I could only imagine scenery or a big city skyscraper out of Utah. My home town did not even have a traffic light until I was in high school. I relied on imagination of fantasy that someday I would visit something different than my reality. This brings me to another point. Being a foster parent for many children and teens, I loved taking them to the movies to escape the reality of their unpredictable, horrifying life. Can you imagine having your siblings and parents taken from you because of neglect or abuse due to the hands of the one and only that are supposed to protect you? Everything you know, everything you have, everyone removed and put with completely different people, home, and school. For a short time, referred to the “honeymoon phase,” a child may be happy to be given three meals a day, new clothes, their own room with a new pillow, yet it fades into despair and loneliness most of the time. Foster children have a hard time trusting, attaching, and fitting in with new peers. In my experience most are not too appreciative of a new family, food, clothes, they just want to be with their own family no matter how good or bad it was. It seems this connection takes them back at 18 or before, if they don't get adopted. These return to their parents or any family that they have left. So I ask, Is the system working? Is the system of removing children and putting them in a foster home a researched proven method that works?

"Our nation's public schools reported a record 1.2 million homeless children and youth in 2012, and the weak economy bears much of the blame. Since the beginning of the recession, the number of homeless children in America's public schools has increased 72 percent."http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gary-stangler/homelessness-at-the-holid_b_4474800.html Most are former foster kids. 

      At this Christmas season, on Christmas Eve, Eve. I think about all those kids out there going to bed without their family, without saying goodnight to their parent, grandma, or brother. I say, goodnight to you, may God grant you wisdom, strength, and hope to do better, to be better and to sleep tight. May all the children be granted a chance to be safe? I hope so, but most of all, know that they are loved.