Who are the homeless?

When I say “homeless person,” what picture pops into your mind?

Something like this?

Would it surprise you to know that there is actually a much larger segment of the population that is homeless, but doesn’t actually live on the streets?

* These people (men, women, and children) lack a permanent, fixed residence.

* They are staying with successive shelters, friends, family, people from church, etc.

* They are couch surfing.

* They are bunking in an extra room or basement.

* They probably do not pay any rent or very minimal rent.

* Just because a person is homeless does not mean they use drugs.

* Many have jobs.

* Some have degrees from reputable universities.

* They might have been part of a round of “down-sizing” or the like, perhaps their jobs were cut to get rid of the higher salaries so the company could replace them with kids who don’t draw as high of a salary.

* Perhaps they even managed to stay in their homes for a while, until the money ran out and the bills caught up with them.

* They might have run from domestic violence.

* They might have been “stay at home” parents thrown out after divorce.

* They could be Veterans with or without mental or physical difficulties.

* They could hold two or three part-time jobs, since so many businesses are no longer hiring full time employees, so they don’t have to pay benefits.

* They might own a car or they might take public transportation.

* They might sleep in their car and pray the cops don’t come banging on the windows at night, sleeping only when the sun is down.

* When you live in your car or on the street, you have no place to shower, use the bathroom, or cook decent food.

* Often, a majority of their income goes to transportation and sustenance.

* Some refuse all government assistance.

* You cannot tell if a person is homeless just by looking at them. They do not always carry trash bags filled with their worldly goods or push their “stuff” in a grocery cart. Their car might be filled with plastic bins of clothes and food. They might have a small storage unit in which they keep their valuables, extra clothes, comfort type things and tangible memories they are holding on to until they once again have a place of their own.

 

As long as we continue in our prejudices and our assumptions, we can’t fight the issue. I don’t have the answers and I had to take a hard road to understand that this issue is much bigger than I ever imagined.

The people on the street desperately need our help. That is not in dispute. They are so often just walked past, overlooked, ignored…

But what about the other homeless? What about those spending a week or month here and there? Even staying for several months, but without any kind of security? Not knowing when they will be asked to leave? Making enough money to afford a place with a kitchen and a bathroom feels so far away for them. They are the unknown, unseen homeless.

Imagine the joy of putting their own name on a lease. Someplace where they can stay as long as they can afford it. A week-by-week economy hotel is not the same. They pray for a place where they can rest their head at night. They want a place that is safe from the bugs at night. Perhaps safe from vermin. A place where they can cook a meal or even just heat up a boxed meal. A place where they can sleep in pajamas and maybe stay in the pajamas all day on their day off and not have to explain to anyone.

I want to be completely open and share my heart with you in this blog. This is one of the hardest things I have ever had to write:

I am one of those homeless.

 

photo credit: <a href=”https://www.flickr.com/photos/benbeiske/5455821258/”>Ben Beiske</a> via <a href=”http://photopin.com”>photopin</a&gt; <a href=”http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/”>cc</a&gt;

How to Make Mom’s Everything Sauce

Mom’s sauce is awesome. Mom’s sauce isn’t fancy. Mom’s sauce is comfort and home.

See, I ran away from home once.

A picture of my son walking away

I think I was about ten and I’m not sure of the infraction that sent me to my room, but it was definitely unfair. I deserved a better life. I should never be sent to my room.

I threw a couple of stuffed animals, a book or two, maybe some clothes, into my pillow case and climbed out the window. I chose the one on the side of the house, not the front, because I didn’t want my mom to see me. So, I climbed out and dropped a way down (that window was higher because of the hill on which our house sat), along the side of the property to the street, and across the length front of the house. No way she ever would have seen me walking down the street in plain sight…

I walked the half mile or so to the front of the neighborhood and stood there looking at the four lane highway off of which our neighborhood resided. “Well, now what?” I obviously had not planned this very well. I sat on the curb and spent a few minutes thinking where to go or what to do. About that time, my tummy growled. I was hungry. My decision was made. I headed back home, slightly defeated. I climbed back in my window (the one on the front of the house, behind the scraggly bushes that couldn’t have hidden a cat), over the empty flower box, into my room.

I crept to my bedroom door and cracked it open just a smidge, just enough to see if anyone had steam coming out of their ears… and then it hit me. The smell. That heavenly smell. The smell of comfort. The smell of warmth. The smell of love. The smell of home.

I snuck out of my room and into the living room where my mom was reading a book with the tv on. I calmly slunk in and sat down and watched tv. No words were spoken. The world was once again at peace.

This is the recipe for THE sauce I smelled:

Between the asterisk lines is a cut and paste for the recipe she sent me. I added pictures of me cooking it this last time. I’ll tell you my updates afterwards.

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

Spaghetti Sauce

1/2 cup onion

2T olive oil

1 lb ground beef

2 cloves garlic

2-1 lb cans tomatoes (these aren’t 1 lb anymore)

2-8 oz cans tomato sauce

1-3 oz jar mushrooms

1/4 cup chopped parsley

1 1/2 tsp oregano or sage (I use 1 oregano and 1/2 sage)

1 tsp salt

1/4 tsp thyme

1 bay leaf

1 cup water

1 tsp Italian herbs (added this myself)

In large skillet, cook onion in hot oil till almost tender.

Add meat. A potato masher is one of the easiest ways to break up ground meats.

Mom taught me this: if the meat is too greasy, use your spatula and a paper towel to soak up the excess grease. Don’t pour it down the sink. It will eventually clog the drain.

Add in the garlic. I grate mine. Much easier than mincing by hand.

Add the cans of tomatoes and sauce. In my home now, I use crushed tomatoes, as no one else likes to “see” them in the sauce. Mom used to squish whole tomatoes for her sauce.

Add in your spices.

The Sauce!

Simmer uncovered 2 hours or longer stirring occasionally.

Remove bay leaf

Serve.

 

I just got tickled. When I wrote down this recipe, and I’ve never

noticed it before, instead of ingredients, I wrote agreements.

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

Can I tell you how much I love my mom? I love her notes in the parentheses, but especially the lines at the end. My mom is gone now and I will never forget her “getting tickled” at noticing her mistake 40 years after the fact.

 

Now, for my “UPDATES”

1) I start by browning sliced baby bella mushrooms and omitting the jar of mushrooms. Then, I add the onion and proceed from there.

2) I like to make it without meat quite often. This is how it turns into “EVERYTHING” sauce. Use it in lasagna, use it for eggplant parmesan for a vegetarian meal, use it on chicken or veal parmesan. Simmer it longer and let it thicken for a fabulous pizza sauce or baked mozzarella cheese stick dipping sauce.

3) I double or triple the batch and freeze it. It freezes exceptionally well and lasts a long time in there, always ready for a homemade meal, even when you are busy.

 

This is my mom’s spaghetti sauce recipe. She wouldn’t mind me sharing at all. She originally clipped this recipe out of a newspaper over 40 years ago. It got transferred to a 5×7 index card and stored in her gray, metal recipe box. I grew up with it. It’s nothing super fancy, just the smells and tastes of my childhood. You know, coming inside from playing and the whole house smelling like this sauce… I remember when I was six or seven, literally eating myself sick over it, I just loved it so much!

If you try this sauce, be sure to leave a note in the comments! I’d love to hear if your kids liked it. My family does.

 

Hey, Mom! Can’t Sleep? Read this…

Please, although children often fall asleep in the car, don’t try this if you are the one driving! LOL

Have you ever had one of those periods where you can’t sleep? It might go on for a week or more. You are slowly morphing into a zombie. Your speech might slur from the lack of sleep. You get clumsy. And there is NO reason that you can imagine for the insomnia! Maybe you are a little bit stressed, but it’s not like when the baby was waking you up every couple of hours… I have some ideas that might help. They have helped me immensely over the years. Remember, I am not a medical professional, I am just sharing what has worked for me over the years.

L-Tryptophan

When I was a teenager, I couldn’t sleep. Mom took me to some kind of “all natural doctor.” She’s no longer around for me to ask, but I’m thinking it was a Naturopath. He questioned me forever. I don’t remember blood being drawn, but they might have (it was a really long time ago). He recommended I take L-Tryptophan at least an hour before I wanted to sleep. Turns out, L-Tryptophan is an amino acid (it’s the stuff in turkey that makes you fall asleep on Thanksgiving). It improves your serotonin levels, which helps with melatonin levels, affecting your sleep. If you are deficient in it, you can experience problems falling asleep and even insomnia.

L-Theanine

After my daughter passed away, I didn’t have problems falling asleep, but I couldn’t sleep more than a couple of hours at a time. I woke up and simply couldn’t get back to sleep. I went to the health food store, intending to get L-Tryptophan. I spoke with someone there and she suggested I try L-Theanine instead. She commented that since I wasn’t having problems falling asleep, it was likely anxiety from having just gone through something traumatic. I got it on her recommendation and it worked! L-Theanine is another amino acid. This one is found in green tea, among other things. It is calming, can counteract the effects of caffeine (so great at bedtime!), and is documented to relieve anxiety and stress by improving alpha brain waves (Juneja et al. Trends in Food Science & Tech 1999;10;199-204).

Melatonin

Melatonin is a naturally occurring hormone made by your body for the express purpose of controlling your sleep and wake cycles. Light affects this production. Your body produces melatonin in late afternoon/evening and keeps the levels up all night, falling off by morning. When the days get shorter in winter, it confuses some people’s bodies. They produce the melatonin earlier or way later, often leading to Seasonal Affective Disorder. There are a couple of ways to get more melatonin. One is by simply increasing your exposure to sunlight during the day. A ten minute walk at lunch would be ideal. The other is to supplement.

Make it Dark

Conversely, make sure your room is extremely dark. Nail up blankets over the windows if you have to. Make sure you get outside in the middle of the day and get sunshine, as that will help reset your circadian rhythm. I went through a period where I couldn’t sleep much for about a month, before I discovered anything about supplements. Just going outside for a 10 minute walk at lunchtime reset my body’s understanding of day and night. Within a week I was sleeping normally. Seems that the sunshine on my non-sunblocked skin stimulated the production of melatonin and helped me sleep better! So, to keep your body from getting confused about day and night, block those windows.

Magnesium

Most of us in western culture are also severely deficient in Magnesium. Supplement. Magnesium is a muscle relaxer. Actually, it is vital in over 300 body functions. In super high doses, it is given to women in premature labor to stop contractions. Supplement with pills and dense Epsom salt baths. Think 1-2 lbs for a big soaking tub. Even Milk of Magnesia (a laxative) uses magnesium to relax muscles!  

Unplug

Turn off all electronics at least an hour before bed. They are mentally stimulating. You need to relax. Computers, cell phones, televisions all conspire to keep you wired. Turn them off. Better yet, keep them out of the bedroom. Keep the electromagnetic field out of your resting area.

Bedtime Routine

Establish a bedtime routine that signals your body that it’s time to sleep. Maybe it’s reading a book. Maybe it’s having a cup of non-caffeinated tea. Maybe it’s a long hot bubble bath. Maybe it’s all three together. Whatever it takes to relax you and signal your body that it’s time to sleep. It will be something you do every night. That, however, is not an immediate fix. It’s more along the lines of building a habit and training your body. It’s the same thing we all do with our kids at night.

Tense and Relax

Climb in bed. Breathe deeply for a few seconds. Hold it for about five seconds and release it in a controlled manner over several seconds. Also, my mom used to tell me to squeeze my toes tightly, then release them. Then tighten my calves and release them. Thighs, buns, tummy… working my way up systematically tightening and releasing your muscles to promote relaxation. I don’t think I ever made it to my neck. I was usually asleep by then. It’s called Progressive Relaxation and is actually a well-known technique.

Prayer

You might also try prayer. Praying before going to bed and laying your cares and concerns at the feet of someone else who can easily carry that load for you could help. Ask Him to give you a restful night.

L-Tryptophan, L-Theanine, Melatonin, and Magnesium are all available wherever vitamins are sold. Also, there are charts and lists easily discoverable on-line that can tell you which foods are high in each of these.

 

So, those are just a few examples of things you might be able to do, based on things that I have done, that might help you get to sleep and stay asleep. Try them if you need to. Let me know how they work for you. I’d love to hear!

I Love my Country!

Do you know why the flag is flanked by guns?
To protect it.

Happy Fourth of July. America’s Independence Day. A day when we commemorate the 56 men who signed a document that, if they had lost the Revolutionary War, would have made them traitors and gotten them killed for their courage. While it was primarily written by Thomas Jefferson, it was with the input of many others, and “lay on the table” for two days while Congress edited it and cut it down by roughly 25%. This document is, in my opinion, 0ne of the most eloquent documents in the history of documents. You can read the story of how it came to be written on the National Archives Website.

IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

It goes on from there to list their grievances against the British Government and it’s king.

The official signing ceremony was on August 2, 1776. Some of those who voted on July 4 to present the Declaration never actually signed it, either because they still wanted reconciliation with Great Britain or because they thought the presentation was premature.

The first signer of our declaration, John Hancock, signed his name exceptionally large, because he knew that King George III had poor eyesight and he wanted to make sure the King saw his name there. Now that took guts. For the record, the last signature was that of Thomas McKean of Delaware in November of 1781, over five years later.

While many states and localities would get together to commemorate the signing starting as early as 1777, reading the document out loud in the town square and following with a community picnic, our Independence Day holiday was not a federal holiday until 1870.

We now celebrate with parades, picnics and cook-outs, and fireworks (originally shot off in conjunction with our celebrations to recreate the “rockets red glare, the bombs bursting in air”).

I didn’t get to go to a parade this year, but I have some great pictures of a past parade in my tiny hometown in North Georgia and I thought I would share them in the spirit of the day.

 

From the parade: a fire truck from way back when that still runs!

 

The town is so small, if it weren’t for the Shriners driving up from Atlanta, we wouldn’t have much of a parade!

 

The pride of American and it’s troops shown in a small town. I love that place!

 

And always after the parade, when Main Street is shut down for the fun stuff, the Lion’s Club sets up their grill on a side street and makes some of the best meat you have ever tasted!

My son is out of town with his dad today. I am alone. I am sitting outside in 76 degree weather, brilliant blue skies, white wispy clouds, 15mps gusts of wind, and a peaceful mind. I am free to contemplate the blessings of living in the country I was raised loving. How did you spend your day? How did you remember our brave forefathers?

 

Let’s close this little post with a bit of trivia:

Did you know that Thomas Jefferson and John Adams (the first pick to draft the Declaration of Independence, who declined and suggested Jefferson) both signed it, both went on to become president of these United States, and both passed away on the 50th anniversary of it’s signing?