Blog Against Child Abuse - September 2011 Change Edition

Welcome to the September 2011 Edition of the Blog Carnival Against Child Abuse! This month our theme is change. We are headed towards fall, and I am ready to see some changes in life.

We got submissions that have inspired me and made me think about change in new ways, and lots of great submissions in our regular categories. I hope you are blessed as you read through them.

Change:
-Sandy Heppel from Sanative Scribe submitted, I Can Change How It Goes From Here
Sandy shares about a season of change in her life and how, as fall sets in, she is ready to celebrate the new season, because sometimes change is good.

-Brittany P from Butterfly Closures submitted, Inching to Change Perspectives on Our Worth After Child Abuse
Brittany shares her plans for some healthy changes she will make to help herself feel more consistently present throughout each day this fall.

-Mike McBride from Child Abuse Survivor submitted, September's Theme - Change
Mike shares how big changes in his life have affected him, and what he has leaned about change.

-Tracie from From Tracie submitted, Glimpses of Change
I share my feelings on change - how I long for it, how I hide from it, and how hard it is to find.


Healing and Therapy:
-Rose Smith from Phoenix submitted, Falling Back In Love With Myself
She wrote: "Child abuse has left me with a very poor picture of myself, this is something I'm working on changing."

-Lynn Tolson from Beyond the Tears: A True Survivor's Story submitted, Tolson 4 TEARS On Change
Lynn shares her journey of learning about change, and realizing that it isn't an all or nothing event, but rather a step by step process.

-Patricia Singleton from Spiritual Journey of a Lightworker submitted, You Deserve Your Own Love Guest Post
She wrote: "The best thing that I ever did for myself in healing from incest was to learn to love myself."

-Julie from Poetic Princess Keeping it Real submitted, A Message of Hope and Forgiveness
Julie shares how she went through spiritual healing after a childhood of abuse and gained understanding about forgiveness.

-Rick Belden submitted, Healing Is Not for Wimps
Rick shares how sometimes pain and grief can be agents of growth and healing in our lives.

-Patricia Singleton from Spiritual Journey of a Lightworker submitted, Dialogues With Dignity: Progress Over Perfection
She wrote: "A discussion between four friends about progress over perfection. When you give up perfection, healing can start."


 Advocacy and Awareness:
-Patricia Singleton from Spiritual Journey of a Lightworker submitted, Interview of Nancy Fox-Kilgore, M.S., Sibling Bully Activist
She wrote: "Nancy Kilgore's book, Girl In The Water, is about her own story of being a sibling abuse survivor. Nancy is an advocate for those who have survived sibling bullying."

-Patricia Singleton from Spiritual Journey of a Lightworker submitted, Humanity Founded Upon Abuse of Children
She wrote: "This post and the article that it highlights are not easy reading. Child abuse has been around as long as mankind has been on this earth. Some statistics show that incest is the most prevalent form of child sexual abuse."


Poetry:
-Tammy Taylor from Here We Go submitted, Silent No More

-Kath from KathleenFreeman submitted, Legacy For a Two Year Old/Slouching Beyond Two 2011
She wrote: "You walked away: a poem of hope and recovery."

-Tammy Taylor from Here We Go submitted, Making My Way Back

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The Blog Carnival Against Child Abuse is a monthly event. The purpose is to raise awareness about the serious issue of child abuse and to share important posts with others who may not be frequent readers of an author's blog, and expose one's work to a wider audience. There are so many wonderful bloggers who are contributing to the cause of ending and recovering from child abuse. If you, as a reader or author, know of other blogs that you find helpful, please encourage them to submit to an upcoming issue of the Carnival Against Child Abuse; and please bookmark that page so we can continue to receive high quality submissions from a wide swath of bloggers.

Many thanks to all of you who shared your hearts and stories with us, and to all of you who read the submissions and show your support. You keep this carnival, the awareness, support, and healing going each month.


To provide another way for you to stay in contact with the blog carnival, and make sure you don't miss any updates; you can like the Blog Carnival Against Child Abuse Facebook Page. 


If you are interested in hosting an edition of the blog carnival, please send me an email.

Thank you for raising your voice and speaking out against child abuse! 

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Lunch Wars

Reading Lunch Wars by Amy Kalafa made me think about school lunches from my childhood. My elementary school lunches were pretty healthy, but by high school I was eating pizza or candy and chips out of the vending machines every day. My teen lunch experience is exactly the kind of situation the author is hoping to end.

Statistics like this speak to a need for change in our children's food:
-Only 2 percent of school-age children eat the USDA's serving recommendations for all five major food groups.
-Half of America's schoolchildren eat less than one serving of fruit a day.
-Nearly 30 percent of American children eat less than one serving a day of vegetables that are not fried.



Lunch Wars is not a fast read, but that is due mostly to the subject and the amount of information Amy Kalafa shares. She wrote this book in response questions people asked after watching her documentary Two Angry Moms.

The subtitle, "How to start a school food revolution and win the battle for our children's health" is completely serious. Lunch Wars  is part book, part instruction manual.The author included samples of letters, surveys, forms, and even lesson plan resources you can use in your quest to reform the food system in your child's school.

I thought it was interesting to read stories from different schools across the country, and see the big and small changes that are being made. I was impressed by all the schools that are growing some of their own food through school and community gardens.

As a mom who homeschools, it definitely made me think about the easy, convenience lunches that we often eat at our house (peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, anyone?) and I felt inspired to make some changes of my own. It would take just as much time for me to put some fruit on yogurt as it does to squeeze chocolate sauce on ice cream.

Do you know what your kids are eating at a school? 
You can join in the conversation and read an excerpt from Lunch Wars, at BlogHer.

*This was a paid review for BlogHer Book Club, but the opinions expressed are my own. I was not required to say nice things. 

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Glimpses of Change

Tonight I found an old song that I loved, but it had been rerecorded when the artist formed a new band. It was the same, but different. It had been changed.

Recently, I reached for a book that spoke to my heart. I was looking for the emotional attachment and inspiration experienced the first time I read it. I kept the book on the left side of my book drawer, because I knew I would need it again, but I felt emotionally removed from it this time, at the very moment my heart was longing to make a connection.

It had been a year since I spent time with someone, and when we got together again, I saw the changes. Different. Unexpected. I have a hard time forgiving these changes, much less embracing them, as if I think that person should stay the same for me. And I pull back, a whisper telling me I don't fit in this new world that has been created.

In one day I hear myself declare, "I want this situation to change!" and in that same day I feel this, "I am scared of change. I don't know how to do it." and I sit in the same place, overwhelmed.

Something hit my heart, solidly, like a brick. I vowed to remember, to count that lesson, to record the change. But the next moment I was distracted, and walked away. I forgot something which had, just a second earlier, been so clear.

I reach out for a connection. Something to move my heart. Something to move my mind. Something to give me direction to a change I so desperately want. And I quickly hide from those thoughts.

Again I hear myself declare my desire for change, and I sit, unmoving, my hands tied.

I am listening to this song that I have loved, and I wince at changes I am not open to hearing. And then I laugh, because at the heart of the song, I hear a message about running away and standing still, a message about change.

And for just a second, I see the glimpse of something clearly...and then it changes, and the glimpse is gone.

Do you have this change thing figured out? 
Do you embrace change, or hide from it?

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Nearly the End of Summer

I'm ready to dump summer for my true love - fall. I know Florida doesn't really have fall, not the way it happens in the north, but I believe in the spirit of fall. I have already had my first pumpkin spice frappuccino of the year (a sure sign that fall is nearly here) and I have been looking longingly at my sweaters and jackets....but it isn't quite time yet. Even though the temperature dropped a couple of degrees last week, summer is still here.

So today, I'm choosing to look at the ending of summer as its own special time. 

I'm thankful for pink flowers

and I'm thankful for yellow flowers

and I'm thankful for cool water on a hot day

and I'm finding that, in the ending of summer, there is happiness.

What is making you happy today?

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Facebook Killed My Newsfeed

We woke up to a whole new facebook this morning. Some of the changes, like pictures showing up larger in the news feed, are nice. Other changes are annoying.

You no longer have the "Most Recent" option to see updates in chronological order in your news feed. Instead, you have "Top Stories", the things facebook considers to be the most interesting.

The other new edition is what I like to call the Stalker-Ticker. It is on your right sidebar, and shows updates of EVERYTHING your friends are doing on facebook - a little scary.

This is my solution:

At the bottom of the left sidebar, click on Lists. This will take you to the a screen with a list of all the lists you have created (including the new lists that facebook added recently). I think that is the most times the word list has been used in one sentence.

Click on Create a List and give it a snazzy name:

Once you name your list, you will see this screen:

Click on Add Friends, or use the pull down menu on the right to manage your list.

Your box of friends will pop up:

Click on ALL of your friends (hopefully they look less pixely than mine) and click the blue Done button.

You will then find yourself viewing the recent updates from everyone in your new list. If you would like to add the pages you have liked, click on the Manage List pull down and choose Add/Remove Friends: 

When the box of friends pops up, use the pull down on the left side of the box, and choose pages. Select all your pages, and click the blue Done button. 

You are almost finished. 

To make it easier to get to your list, go back to the list page and click on the little edit pencil by your new list, and add it to favorites. This will make it appear near the top of your sidebar. You can see that I have several lists that are set to favorites, and they always show up. 

I am bypassing facebook's news feed and using my News Feed List instead. This ensures that I see everything being posted, and that they appear in chronological order, without any of that top story silliness. 

There is one more big bonus. When using a list to view your feed, the new Stalker-Ticker does not show up!!

Of course, you may not want to have every person and every page show up in your feed. That is your choice. You make your lists as large or small as you like. But if you want the option of seeing everything in order the way the old Most Recent setting worked, this is the best way I have found to set it up.

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