Category Archives: Uncategorized

February 12, 2013 · 3:41 pm

Justice Needed For a Loving Family . . .

When someone has already been cleared of child abuse charges by their state’s child protection agency (here in NM, that would be CYFD, or Children, Youth & Family Department), and all of the criminal charges dropped, I believe it is an abuse of power to do what the Prosecuting attorney in a specific case here is doing.

A journalist for the ABQ Journal has now written and published two columns about this family and this case . . . the links to both columns are below.

http://www.abqjournal.com/main/2013/01/07/opinion/difficult-questions-over-child-discipline.html

http://www.abqjournal.com/main/2013/01/21/upfront/rio-rancho-family-run-through-wringer-again.html

Here is the Kuckartz family . . .

Do these children look unhappy or abused?

It is my opinion that when given the facts that CYFD has closed the case, returned the children, and from what I understand, some of the CYFD workers involved in the case have even apologized to the family for what they have put them through, the judge ruled the children should return to the family, and both the judge and CYFD have ruled that the child’s injury was accidental, that this should be over and done with. Further, as Ms. Krueger points out in her second column, all criminal charges were dropped.

I believe that it is absolutely prosecutorial vindictiveness for District Attorney Lemuel Martinez to take the cases before a Sandoval County grand jury within the next month to seek indictments on these parents — again, as Ms. Krueger has stated in her second column.

These parents have done every single thing required of them by CYFD. Their children have been returned to them, quite some time ago.

I believe, as has been stated on the following website:

http://www.seekingjusticenow.org/

that what this prosecutor is doing is not seeking justice for children. No, I believe what he is doing is trying to make a name for himself on the backs of this family.

It’s time to stop. It’s time to stop holding this family hostage. It’s time to stop terrorizing these children with the threat of taking their parents away and destroying their family. They have been financially and emotionally devastated by all of this, and now are being stalked and threatened by complete strangers to the point that it is difficult to even go out grocery shopping with the children, as they then are recognized, followed and threatened. It’s time to stop.

Whatever your beliefs are regarding corporal punishment, or (as in the case of some people I know) any form of punishment at all, the facts are that these parents have been legally cleared of child abuse. It is wrong for the prosecutor to do what he is doing. It is time to stop, and leave this family alone. I would even go so far as to say it is time for the prosecutor to apologize to this entire family, especially the children, for what has been done to them even after they’ve fully complied with everything required of them by CYFD, and after the children have been returned and all the criminal charges have been dropped. It is time for this to end.

I ask you to pray for all who are involved in this case, this family, in which the children are so loved and cared for, the grand jury, that they will see this for what it is, and the prosecutor, to just stop, and leave them alone. This is a good, loving family.
It’s time for this to stop.
Now.

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December 21, 2012 · 11:47 am

Once More to the Stores…

Well, I knew I was going to have to go back out again today, because I needed to wait for payday to get the last of Christmas shopping done. However,I discovered last night that I misjudged sizes for new pajamas I bought for the kids, so I’m now adding Target to my list for today, as they actually have pajama sets on sale in sizes that will fit both twins (they are different sizes), and will return the ones from Walmart. Oh, well!

I also need to stop back at Sam’s to get one of those electric roasters, because our Walmart didn’t get any, and I didn’t get the one at Sam’s, thinking it would cost lessat Walmart! Maybe I’ll check Target first?

I still need to get two kids their big gifts, my oldest, who only asked for Batman stuff and legos, and my smallest twin, who wants Thomas the Train things. Plus, I think this year, I’m getting stockings for my husband and myself, too, not just for the kids. The stockings are fun! 🙂

I need also to pick up a few groceries for Christmas breakfast casserole and a few things to round out Christmas dinner. Then, the shopping will be done, and I can hide away in our room to wrap! I hated having to buy wrapping paper, I haven’t in several years because I had a sizable stash, but it was one of the things I let go of when we moved across the country. Guess I’ll have to start another one!

Hope you are all close to done with Christmas prep, but if not, I hope it isn’t too crazy for you!

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December 20, 2012 · 1:04 am

As Usual, Not Ready For Christmas!

I FINALLY finished writing out Christmas cards today, so they can be mailed tomorrow, while I’m out Christmas shopping. I have a little money to do some tomorrow, and then my husband gets paid Friday, so I can get out and finish.

We’ve been working for the past few years to transition the kids from asking for tons of toys to accepting that they may get one or two, plus things they need at Christmas. We are making progress on the whole “Christmas is about celebrating the gift that Jesus gave to us, rather than focusing on what all we can get from others.”

This year, I want them to have meaningful things. My stepson, who is a wonderful artist, will be receiving all of the art supplies and books that my mother bought before her death, thinking she would learn to draw. I think it will mean a lot to him, as he loved his grandmother, and she loved him just as much as her non step grandchildren. In fact, in our family, we don’t even use the term step when referring to children. Period. He also wants Hero Factory bionicles.

One of my children is desperate for something called a ripstick. We can’t afford it at this time and told him he’d have to wait for tax refund time. He’s been praying every single night that God would let him have one for Christmas. I was given one from someone on freecycle, by someone who had gotten it for their daughter, who then used it maybe 3 times, and then didn’t want it anymore. It’s in like new condition, and he will love it, and it will strengthen his faith, something he really needs at this time. And he wants legos and/or bionicles.

My oldest son, who has fetal alcohol syndrome, mental retardation and is somewhere on the autism spectrum, has always has the gift of showing true gratitude no matter what he is given. All he has asked for is Batman things and something from legos. He’ll be getting that, and I know he will be thrilled.

Our youngest loves anything Thomas the Train related, and legos. I think I can manage that. 🙂

So, they will all get at least a couple things they really want, and then things they need, too. They all need socks, and the two who are teens have been sponsored to the teen winter retreat our church does to a ranch in Durango, CO each year. They go right after Christmas for three days. There are somethings they need to take with them that they don’t have, so they’ll get them for Christmas if I can manage it.

This is our first Christmas in NM, and I think it will be good. We all have our salvation, we have become part of a wonderful church family, we have each other. My husband was finally able to have his much needed spinal surgery, and is recovering nicely. Al in all, I think the move to NM was a good one. 🙂

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Aside

Something new!

I’m sure that at sometime in this blog I’ve talked bout the fact that we homeschool. Well, now that we’ve gotten at least partially settled here in New Mexico, the kids are asking to do some school-ish things. They really want to do a Route 66 unit study, because we drove on part of Route 66 during our trip here, and because the original Cars movie was based on it. I think we can manage to do that soon. 🙂 

I’m hoping to get more followers here, because I’d like to apply to be on the Old Schoolhouse Review Crew for the coming year. To do that I need a bumch more followers of my blog. I will be blogging about what my kids and I are learning, along with other journeys in my life. Now that we’re here, and at least partially settled, I should have more time to write. 

So far since being here, we’ve been to the International Hot Air Balloon Fiesta, where we learned about flying hot air balloons, and also learned some interesting things in the Nasa tent about how the pressurized space suits protect astronauts. In the demonstration, they used marshmallow peeps to represent toe astronauts. We also learned that in space, the boiling point is at a much lower tempurature than it is on our stovetop! 

At home, we’re learning how different it is to cook here than it was in Port Huron, MI. We are nearly six thousand feet higher here,  so cooking is different because of the altitude. 

The weather here is amazing! Our friends ack home are running their furnaces, wearing jackets, and ladies are pulling out their tights to wear with dresses, whereas here, we are still in summer clothes, and I’m wearing sandals. 🙂 I’m liking the weather so much! 

It’s very beautiful here, in a different way than the beauty of Michigan. I think it’s going to be a wonderful place to homeschool, there are a bunch of different museums here, which I’m told are very kid friendly, and as soon as I have time to change my driver’s license to a NM one, the kids and I can get library cards, which will also help a lot. 

Well, as I said, this is a new journey, homeschooling in New Mexico. We’re looking forward to it! 🙂

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October 20, 2012 · 11:08 pm
September 18, 2012 · 3:25 pm

Celebrating Womanhood, & what being a woman has meant to me…

When my friend Amanda let me know about this blog hop, at first I just thought it would be something I’d want to read, but I’ve come to realize that perhaps I might have something to contribute to the conversation as well… 

When I was young, I decided I was going to be a famous author. I used to write stories all the time, and I majored in journalism when I went to college. I lost my idealism for journalism though, when I realized that professional journalists are not objective at all, the way we were being taught that they were supposed to be.   I still occasionally wrote stories, but never really went any further than that with creative writing.

I worked for General Motors for several years, first at Buick, in Flint, MI, then a transfer to Pontiac Motors, in Pontiac, MI, until I became ill and began having black outs with no warning, that not one doctor over several years was ever able to diagnose. By the time it was dignosed as a serious thyroid problem, necessitating major surgery, the assembly plant I worked in had been closed during a time of severe downsizing, and I no longer had a job at General Motors.

In the meantime, I had gotten married, at age 32. So, now I was no longer having blackouts, was healthier, etc., and I knew that what I wanted most of all was to be a full time wife, homemaker, and mother. The problem was that we just could not conceive a child. We did realize eventually that the most important thing for us was that we become parents, not necessarily that we conceive, and I give birth, and so our adoption journey began… we quickly discovered that private, newborn infant adoption was not going to be for us. It’s quite costly, at least it was then, and it just didn’t feel right, either, to us. We found out we could adopt a waiting child in foster care, but I knew I couldn’t be a foster parent. I couldn’t handle having to give the kids back over and over while waiting for a child to be available for adoption. Later, though, we found out that we didn’t have to be foster parents in order to adopt, and our first son came to us when he was just under the age of two. He has special needs, fetal alcohol syndrome, mild mental retardation, and is on the autism spectrum. And he is a joy to our lives (most of the time!) 🙂 After his kindergarten year in public school, my life took another turn, and I became a homeschooling mom, something I never thought I would do, ever. I began with straight Abeka, a curriculum for homeschool in a box, with teacher manuals to tell me day by day what to do, which worked well for the first couple of years. After that, we drifted into more relaxed homeschooling, with me putting it together from many different sources, rather than a curriculum in a box. We still use things from many different sources, but we are very relaxed about it, halfway between relaxed homeschooling and unschooling, and my kids are learning so much more now than they did before! 

When my stepson finished kindergarten, he came to stay with us for the summer, and he’s still here at age 15! He loves the way he is able to be educated, learning according to his own passions, not according to what a specific curriculum says he must learn at a specific age. So do his brothers. His older brother, our first child, is now age 19, and still learning, so much more than he would have if he’d been left in a school. His younger brothers, our 11 year old twins who were adopted at age 8, have also learned so much more than they were learning in school while they were still in foster care. Homeschooling has turned out to be one of my best life choices.

My life, like everyone’s life, has been a series of journeys, and choices. I made the choice, with my husband, that I’d be a full time homemaker, then later added being a full time at home mom, then a full time homeschooling mom. I’ve had times when it was not an easy road by any means, for a number of reasons, but honestly, I wouldn’t be anything else. it’s the best feeling in the world to know that I am the person who taught my kids how to read, how to write, how to do so many things. 🙂 

And maybe, just maybe, one day I’ll try writing again, and maybe I WILL be a famous author! Or, maybe I’ll just write, no matter what comes of it, no matter if nobody ever reads it except for me…

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September 11, 2011 · 11:18 pm

September 11, 2001…my memories

Today, i have been watching, between church services, television coverage of 9-11, then and now. Much of it was coverage I’ve never seen. I was away on a two day trip to Shipshewana, Indiana with a bunch of ladies from church. We’d just finished breakfast and were preparing to check out of our B & B to finish our trip with a day at the big flea market. I think someone had turned on the TV to quickly get some weather, which is how we found out our nation was under attack. We spent some time praying, and continued on, checking out and continuing our plans. Of course, we did not have televisions to watch after that, but all day at the market we did hear snippets of coverage when vendors had radios going. I saw the best in some that day, and the not so good in others. I saw people letting strangers use their cell phones to call family. But as we left town I also saw gas stations raise their gas prices to rediculous, gouging prices. Coming home, we drove through Flint, MI, the city where I had grown up. Driving past the area where Bishop Airport is was so eerie. You don’t know what you just take for granted as background noise that’s barely noticed until it’s not there at all. There was absolutely no air traffic. The silence was so strange. Arriving home to find the Blue Water Bridge, an international border, closed, even though expected, was just another reminder that things would be different now. Within 24 hours, my mom was calling asking that we come to Flint for the day. She wanted the family together, so we did. She said she wanted us to move home, she was scared about us living in a border city. Churches were filled after the attacks, patriotism was very high. Sadly, that is not the case anymore. So much has changed since then. We can’t just zip over the bridge for dinner, or to go to a park/petting zoo we liked, we have no passports, which are required now. Now that I think about it, I’m grateful that I wasn’t able to see the coverage as it happened. I do not have the image burned into my memory of watching people live, as it happened, make the choice between death from the fires, or death on the pavement below, and choosing to jump. I remember that while still in Shipshewana, after calling my own family, I called my friend Terri who at that time lived in New York, and whose husband worked at pne of the airports as an immigration inspector, because I was worried about them. She & I have never met in person, we met through a computer crafting group on the internet. Yet, we were good enough friends that I was compelled to check on them and be assured they were OK. Tney were. I’m lucky, I did not lose anyone that day. So very many were not so lucky. Ten years ago today, our nation was attacked, and I believe the fight to keep this kind of war outside of our borders, to fight them somewhere else so we won’t have to fit them here, is not going to end any time soon, if ever.

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July 2, 2011 · 1:32 am

Canada Day

Tonight (well, ok, last night, since it’s now after midnight) I took the children down to the St. Clair River to see the fireworks Canada was doing. Had a pretty good time! I wanted to do it because we have plans on the fourth of July that interfere with going to those fireworks. It’s neat living in an international border city, we can have this option! Some years, we go to both.

So I can now wear a size 16W in many things. Not in jeans, they still have to be bigger, but I don’t really wear them that often, so no big deal.

On another note, the city has our street all torn up, so we are having such fun wondering from day to day if it will be difficult to get in and out of the driveway and/or street. And who knows how long that will be going on, though one of the workers claims it’ll just be a couple weeks. We’ll see…

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January 25, 2011 · 7:30 pm

One more day…

Well, it’s finally almost here!  My final pre-surgery weigh in is tomorrow, and my surgery is the next day. I’m so excited to finally be at this point! Tomorrow will be day 7 of my pre-surgery clear liquid diet, with the first six being allowed to add protein powder. It’s been a tough week, but it’s nearly over. It looks like we’ll have decent weather for the drive, anything bad should be holding off until after we are home from the hospital, so that’s a good thing.

We’ve spent today with last minute errands, straightening the house, and laundry, so that I can come home to it being already .

All that’s left is to finsh getting together everything they want me to bring to the hospital, and get a good night’s sleep!

More after surgery….

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December 1, 2010 · 12:36 am

Been a while…

So, it’s been a while since I’ve put anything on here. I often don’t really feel I have anything very interesting to say, so I neglect to come and just write.

It’s just past Thanksgiving, and we had a nice time. My cousin Kathy and her little boys came for the holiday, as is becoming a very nice tradition. Instead of doing all the prep and cooking, etc, my husband suggested I take it as a less stressful day and just order a pre-made meal from one of our local stores, so I did! It was very good, cost considerably less, and reheating everything took a total of two hours (turkey, spiral sliced ham, loads of sides). I’m thinking this may become a nice tradition, too!  I even bought foil baking pans for everything to help with clean up.

As I feared would happen, though, I have regained part of the weight I lost before my surgery consult, so I now have to get back on the wagon and be tough on myself. I have until January 26, 2011, which is my pre-surgery weigh in to get it back off.  I can do it, I did it before, it’s just tough. I’ll need to dump about 14 pounds. I’ll be doing the meal replacement protein bars and protein powder, lots of fruits and veggies that are mostly water, drinking tons of water, being careful again about my portion sized, etc.  And I need to get back on the wagon with the exercise DVD’s. It’s getting close. I’m nervous, but excited.

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June 29, 2010 · 12:51 am

Home again…

Well, we got home yesterday from our quick trip out of town for our niece’s graduation open house. I thought the open house went well, and she had a real good turn out!  It was a VERY hot and muggy day, but at least the rain held off for the day. We did go through some bad rain storms on the way home, though.

We stayed in a little motel in a residential area that turned out to be surprisingly a good choice.  It was far less expensive than the bigger chain places we’d stayed at during other visits, and much quieter and more roomy.

It was so nice to spend time with family we don’t get to see all that often.

Today, I went to amazon.com and ordered the 5 DVD set of Sweatin’ to the oldies. As I said in a previous post, this is the only thing I’ve found for excercise that I can actually do without giving up.  So, when they come, I’ll be incorporating them into my day as often as possible.

My appointment to schedule my surgery has been moved from August 13 to August 20, because the Surgeon is going to be on call on the 13th, so now I need to check to see if the friend keeping my kids can switch to the 20th as well. We do know the actual surgery will not be until after the new year because my husband is totally out of time he can take off, with the exception of the one day for my scheduling appointment. I’ve lost just about half the amount the surgeon wants me to lose before scheduling, so I’m on track.

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