I took a break...so shoot me :)

Finally I passed algebra! Now I can study for the licensure test and after 5 years of struggle and deprivation maybe I can go do what God put me on this earth to do...serve. I have to pass the test first :) I hope all of you had and continue to have a great holiday season and didn't let the commercialism get to you. :)

I've told you all about my friend Amerah before. She sends me stuff from time to time. Some of it makes me cry, some makes me laugh, some make me think and some of it is just plain worth sharing. This one is worth sharing. Click here.

Also my friend Alex over at A Copywriter's Blues has paid me the highest form of a compliment on his site and has given me one of the greatest Christmas presents I have ever received. If you are into the blues go check out his site. It is an awesome video collection of all the greats...even some international greats you might not know about :) While I was on his site I started wondering if there was a site that compared blues styles so you know me I started looking for links and found a great one, The Sutton Blues Collective. It has much information that I've never seen on a site before. The information is also written in a short and to the point manner. The link is for the homepage, just scroll down and click on Blues Styles to find out about all the different types and styles of the blues.

The next two (maybe more) posts will be me trying to make some money with this blog before I get evicted and don't have a place to write anymore...so please bear with me. I don't intend to get away from the original focus of this blog but...oh, well sometimes ya gotta do what ya gotta do :) Have a great day and as always Happy Searching!!

It's Saturday Night and I Have the House to Myself!

The first thing I did was turn the blaring football game OFF! Next, I turned the finetune player up fullblast. The Yardbirds "Train Kept A Rollin" came on first, then George Thorogood "Bad To The Bone". WOO HOO I'm liking this!
The boy went to spend the night with a friend of his and from there will go to mass and then to youth group. This means I have the house to myself until three or four tomorrow afternoon. Whatever shall I do??? The hot water is already running...complete with bubbles and all the smell good stuff I can find :) Might even shave my legs :) Once I soak for an hour or so then I think I'll put on clean sweats and make my plan for tomorrow.
Because the economy is so bad and groceries and gas are so high I think I must revert back to doing the sale paper Wal-Mart thing. Usually it doesn't pay me to do that because we live a good way from Wal-Mart and I hate the crowds and the fact that it is merchandised to make me purchase things that I normally wouldn't. If I stick to my list and don't look up I think I'll be alright. It's like a test of wills when you go to that place. Besides my theory is if you just pick a store, any store and learn it really well (like when they have sales on what you use) you can do as well there as at Wal-Mart. Plus if you shop there all the time then at this time of year they send you little thank you incentives. Mostly, I shop at Kroger. It's the right size...I don't have to walk the equivalent of two football fields to get what I need, then another to get to my car pushing the loaded buggy. Last year, Kroger sent me several coupons for money off my entire grocery order. It seems like it was $16. It seems like the total for the entire holiday season was around $60. Now, to me, that's pretty good. This year it's not so much. I guess the economy has hit everywhere. But it is still substantial with the other coupons they send and the regular double coupons.
Some of my friends freaked when I told them I was moving to this part of town. I moved here because at the time I was on foot. In fact, I found this duplex complete with laundry room, two bedrooms, a yard for the boy and the cats and a covered carport when we were two days from the sheriff coming to throw our stuff out of where we were living. I thought God had directed me to this place. This apartment is a block from a bus line that is as frequent as any in town. There are two grocery stores, a drugstore, a convenience store, a Fred's, a Roses, a cleaners, a laundromat and many fast food places right within walking distance. I thought I had moved to heaven when we first moved in.
It was a real fluke finding this place. It was November and still hot. I had taken the bus over to check on a complex type apartment and the jerk that was the manager condescendingly told me that they would check my credit. A foreclosure, I assumed, would not allow me to get that slum apartment, so I just started walking back up to the bus stop when I noticed what seemed to be a neighborhood much like where were living and even had "circle" in it's address...it was too much of a coincidence so I decided to go see if there were any vacant houses that might be for rent. I walked around the entire circle and only saw one that looked like it was in the process of being renovated and not finished. So I kept walking. The circle has two cut through streets and I had already been through one of them and was starting to get really tired, not to mention really sweaty. The little voice said "go on and check out the other cut through street". I had to force myself to do it. I got to the end of the street and there it was. It looked like it might be a duplex and I've always liked duplexes...only one close neighbor :) It was a really pretty blue and it looked well-kept and best of all the carport looked empty. I remember thinking...now if someone lived there surely something would be in the carport, pack rat that I am. I went up to the front apartment and knocked on the door. A surprised black man came to the door...even more surprised when he saw me, a big 'ole red-faced sweaty white woman :) I asked him a bunch of questions and he stopped me and said if I could wait about 30 minutes or so that the landlord was on his way over and I could ask him all that.
Hughey, the landlord was sent to me directly from God and I know that to be fact :) He let me rent the apartment without a credit check, he let me have my cats "I'm not going to tell it and if you don't mention it, the owner will never know", wink, wink. Hughey did so much for me and I will be forever grateful to him for it. He let me slide on the rent until I got my first financial aid check from school. He gave me rides when I needed to go to DHS. He would even consider property in lieu of rent sometimes, if he could use it :) I could not have asked for a better apartment manager. Then he had a falling out with the owner over the owner not paying him for work he had done to the owner's other houses. The owner got another manager, Sandy... another Godsend. He was just the sweetest man, in fact his entire family was that way. They all took care of me with whatever this old house needed.
Now, I tell you all that to tell you this...about two years ago the owner decided to get out of the rental housing business and he sold all his properties. WOE IS ME :) It has been s**t ever since. But the last management company was pretty good. At least they understood that I was a single female with cats and a kid and they were careful who they rented the front apartment to. Now the new owner has changed management companies because he wanted to consolidate all his properties into a management company that could handle all his properties. To make a long story short, we might get evicted right here at Christmas. I could tell when I went to talk to the woman that she wasn't going to lift her hand to help me and she didn't. Even though the former management company told me that the owner was pretty easy to get along with and would probably cut me some slack since I had to put $1300 worth of new steel doors on this house so we would be safe in here. That's another story for another day though. When she called me back to tell me that he said to go on and start the eviction proceedings I could tell by her voice that she was taking some delight in telling me that. I doubt she even told him about the doors. I know it is time to move away from here but we can't do that until I get out of school and get a job. Hopefully this will happen soon :)
Anyway, I said all of that to tell you why you now see the Smorty widget on here. It was never my intent to make money from this blog. I just wanted to make a contribution to the field of social work and help my fellow students. From time to time I will be reviewing non-socialwork related sites to try to bring in some money from this site. I ask for your tolerance and your prayers :) We'll be alright...I know God did not bring us this far to let us fall now. :)
It is always very draining for me to write about my personal stuff so I think I will go enjoy my bubbles now :) Have a great weekend and as always Happy Searching!

Please take the poll on the left hand side of the blog

Some of you might be wondering why I never posted about the meeting I went to where I was invited to represent the underclass for the new website design of my university's social work website. Before I get to it...yes, I am the queen of the run-on sentence :) I went to the meeting the day after we got back from the blues trail excursion...which was great, by the way. So I was kind of dogged out and admittedly not very coherent. It seemed to me that they were not at all interested in or impressed with what I spent the entire summer working on. It seemed to me they were only interested in getting it done the easiest and quickest way possible, even though I offered to go sit with the IT people and learn how to do the coding. In all fairness I can understand the mindset...not having an on staff programmer would make you opt for the quick, easy and simple route. But the reason why I haven't posted about it until now is that in the course of the discussion one of the instructors from the PhD program said that my site promoted plagiarism. Ouch! Punch me in the gut why don't ya :) Now, I cannot for the life of me see how providing links to valuable resources promotes plagiarism so I have stewed on it and gone through all the grief stages about it and have finally decided to put up a poll to see what my readers think. According to sitemeter there are about a thousand or so of you out there. It would be great if I could get a few of you in here to respond to the poll before I lose my mind over this :) Thanks so much!

Yeah!! A Cold Snap! Finally We Can Move Again, Here in the Deep South!

Finally the first cold snap! I was beginning to wonder if it would ever happen. Here in the south one of the things we think about doing when the weather turns cold is cooking. We love to cook and we love to eat. I thought it would be interesting to find out what other people like to cook. I started a thread last year in a forum I visit regularly and got many great recipes from it for holiday dinners. So I will start it off on my blog this year. Anyone is welcome to post their recipes here in the comments. This recipe also makes great cupcakes, just put a hershey's caramel kiss on top while still warm for the topping. :)

Better Than Sex Cake

1 butter recipe yellow cake mix
4 large eggs
1/2 cup oil
1 1/3 cup water
1 small pkg instant vanilla pudding
1 8 oz container sour cream
1 bar german chocolate
1 cup chopped pecans
1 cup shredded coconut
1 cup semi sweet chocolate chips

Topping

1 large bag Rolo's candy
1 - 2 tablespoons milk

preheat oven to 350. grease and flour large bundt pan. In large bowl combine cake mix, pudding mix, oil and water. mix until well blended. add eggs one at a time blending well after each. place german chocolate in small nonstick skillet and heat on low until in a soft melt state. mix into cake batter. fold in sour cream. fold in chips, coconut and pecans just until evenly distributed. pour evenly into bundt pan. bake for approximately 55 minutes. check at 45. may take longer. cake is done when inserted knife comes out clean. allow to cool in pan for 15 to 20 minutes. invert onto coverable cake plate and allow to cool completely. cover tightly and let sit for at least two days, if you can wait. if not, it's great warm. but the waiting allows the flavors to mellow some. in a large nonstick skillet unwrap rolos and place the candies big side down add 1 tablespoon milk. heat on very low heat stirring occasionally. add milk until just able to stir and no more. if it's too thin it will run right off the cake. allow to cool then pour evenly over cake. i usually use a 2 cup glass measuring cup to do this. makes it easier.

I was about 25 when I discovered this recipe and was experiencing a particularly long "dry spell" and at that time I had a really hard time trying to say that it was not better than sex

Today I Want to Talk About---Billary....

You cannot imagine the weariness that overcomes me whenever I hear yet another person making my home state the butt-end of a point they are trying to make. It used to make me violently angry in my youth. Seems that it is so easy to just use Mississippi for any analogy from taking a dump over the state to proving your point about backwardness. I just wish people would realize that it was only a select few that sealed our fate many years ago. It was not me. I come from a long line of people on the other side. People that did not agree with the politics of the day and stood up against them. Newt Knight was my great grandfather on my mother's side. If you want to read a glorified, fictionalized account...the one I grew up believing, read Oh, Promised Land and then Tap Roots by James Street. There are three more in the set but these two give you the gist of it. Mr. Street died of a heart attack the year I was born. I wish I could have met him to thank him for giving a little girl something to be proud of in a world that hated her on many levels.
The first hatred I experienced was because my mother was a single parent in the fifties. I had to be a bastard and she had to be a whore. We were neither. My mother was a voracious reader, devouring everything she could get her hands on until the day she died after finishing the New York Times Sunday Crossword puzzle, an award winning critical care nurse and made more than most men of that time. My father was a bohemian artist too free to be held to the responsibilities of family life. Ventana Abierta gives a very good description of the bohemian artist on her blog. I understand my mother more than I ever did, now that I have raised my own child alone.
The second hatred of me was because I was an overweight child. People could be so cruel back then. It's funny now...you don't get that so much, now that everyone else seems to be catching up in the weight department. :)
The third hatred I experienced was because I was caucasion. Until I was seven or so I lived in ignorant bliss, happily playing with whomever I pleased. I was never told I could not socialize with people of different races. Maybe I should have been. I know it would have saved me quite a bit of heartache if I could have remained forever blissfully ignorant. That was not to be the case.
The Freedom Riders (the short version), for a more complete history (the legacy of the Freedom Riders) came to town when I was seven and for the first time in my young life I saw fear in my mother's eyes. Can you imagine being barely 30, a single parent, working nights so you can get your child to school and not knowing if the place you lived was going to go up in flames like what was happening in Alabama? If you've never lived under Marshall Law then how can you understand?
From that point on, how I approached my life changed. I sought out people of other races to talk to and learn from and learn I did. I've been very fortunate to have known and been understood by many people of other races. I've always thought that I was born with an old bluesman's soul because that is where I am most comfortable and people that really know me understand that and relate to it on that level.
Getting back to "Billary." Speaking of "backward" just the very idea that she would use Mississippi in the context that she did shows the world her very own backwardness. I think she should go here and answer the questions posted in the comments. When she can give reasonable and creditable answers to the questions posed in the comments of this article I might reconsider her as a candidate. Yes, I was considering her as a candidate, as I think a lot of women voters were here in Mississippi. More apparently than her numbers were telling her, but she probably cured us of that consideration by her comments.
I am so tired of being called "backward" I could just scream.... so for my readers that aren't from here and can only judge by what they've read I have found some links for you that will tell you some good stuff about Mississippi, if you're willin' :) They can be found on the left sidebar as always.

Trail of the Hellhound

Tomorrow my son and I will be heading up old Hwy 61 in search of The Hellhound and the Blues Trail
The plan is to leave Jackson about 10 am(snerk :)), drive over to Vicksburg and head north on Hwy 61 from there. We are going to stop at the Onward store about 30 miles north of Vicksburg, where Teddy Roosevelt did not kill the bear, for one of those awesome cheeseburgers and some conversation. Then we are heading on up to Clarksdale. We will wander around Clarksdale all day searching for the crossroads where Robert Johnson reportedly sold his soul to the devil for his dazzling guitar technique. Once we leave Onward we should be able to tune into 1450 AM WROX and rock on out to some blues on the way up. In Clarksdale we'll go to the Delta Blues Museum where we can see Muddy Water's cabin and interesting photo exhibits. Then we'll eat at Madidi, Morgan Freeman's restaurant that's supposed to be fancy smancy. Hope they'll let us in without a tie and dress up clothes :) (just called for a reservation, the lady that answered said "just wear some clothes...we'll be good" :)) After the meal, to wake me up enough to drive out to the woods I think we better go over to Ground Zero Blues Club for an hour or so. I want to try to find the authentic rural juke joint Po Monkey's Lounge *near* Merigold reportedly after turning left on the main road immediately there is a fork in the road take the left fork and then take the first gravel road on the left and it's on down in there somewhere. If I'm never heard from again just know that I died happy....wallowing in the blues. Hopefully we'll make it on into Memphis following old Hwy 61 so we can visit Sun Records, BBKing's Blues Club, the Orpheum and the Peabody to watch the march of the ducks on Saturday.
This is the first "vacation" my son and I have ever had and hopefully all of you will have as great a weekend as we are going to have! I still can't believe my 18 year old son suggested that we do this :) I guess raising him on gospel, spirituals and the blues from the cradle did some good. I always hoped it wouldn't warp him and of coarse it didn't. :)

The Busiest Time of the Year for a Student :)

Today I have added yet another blog linking to this main page. It is not complete so please bear with me. This one includes criminal justice, juvenile justice and child welfare links to resources. With the addition of this one there are now six separate blogs that link to this main page. Cool, huh?
Because of my work on this blog I have been nominated to be the undergrad representative to work on the committee that will re-invent my own university's School of Social Work page. More about that later, when I know more. I have also been asked to create one for the Criminal Justice Department. So much to do..so little time....I'm lovin' it :) Have a great day!! Happy Searching!!

Abortion

Tough subject to take on, right? Today I saw the man that spearheads the anti-abortion protests of the one abortion clinic we have left here in Hades where I live. He was overseeing the "worker" landscapers and from what I could hear, was being very respectful to them. I felt as if I was in a parallel universe...a place where everyone treated everyone else with respect and courtesy. This has not been my experience with this man and I do believe he recognized me but could not remember from where. While waiting on my son to get off from work I had about 15 minutes to observe him and observe him I did. You see, I truly despise this man and everything he stands for. As I watched him I could not believe what I was seeing....a seemingly gentle, caring human being. I almost felt as if I were being transported back to when I used to disassociate to block the sexual abuse I suffered most of my life. It felt as if I needed to leave reality to comprehend that this very same man that had harassed me and every other woman in this town who had made the excruciating decision to end their pregnancy, could possibly be a nice man. The lengths he would go to, the tactics, the language were some of the most horrible forms of abuse I have ever witnessed.
I have never understood how a man can justify taking up the fight against abortion. It is my belief that if 100% of men were to accept 100% of their responsibility for the children they father then there would be no need for abortion, except in cases of rape or for medical reasons. I would be willing to take a guess that 80% of abortions would be eliminated. Yet, you see them out there, protesting with such vehemence. They stand outside abortion clinics yelling terrible things to women who are about to go through one of the most traumatic events of their lives. What purpose does this serve? Don't they know that they cannot say anything to us that we have not already said to ourselves? Does showing us gruesome, blood and guts, pictures of partially birthed fetuses really serve a purpose? If so, I want to know what purpose that is. Is the purpose to make us never, ever have another good night's sleep? Is it to make sure that we carry guilt with us about the decision we had to make until the day we die? We already do that. Rest assured you can not punish us or make us feel any more guilty than we already do. Again I ask, what is the purpose? Who gives you the right to abuse us in that manner? Certainly not my God. My Father loves his children and when we are ready to be forgiven will open His arms and welcome us to be forgiven.

So I was Wrong :)

In the spirit of professionalism...the music player will not start automatically from now on. You can still play it by hitting the play button. I want my readers to come here to discover the wealth of information I have uncovered on the web. If the music offends them or scares them away before they have time to do this then I have not truly done my job. So, for those of us that can not live without music to work by, it is still there to enjoy. Now the reader has a choice as to whether or not they want to listen. :) Have a Great Day and Happy Searching!

I'm Wondering....

The sitemeter widget at the bottom of this page tells me hourly who has been to my site, where they came from, how they came in and what they clicked to go out. The MyBlogLog one gives a different set of details but not until the next day. I don't know which one I like the best but the one thing that they both tell me is that most people are only visiting my first page.

If you come here for the links to the information that you need and don't see them, I'm sorry about that. There are five (soon to be six) other blogs attached to this first page. The links to them are done by category and are listed under the music player on the left-hand side. Click the link that says, for instance, University Archives...this will take you to the page of all the wonderful university sites I have found for my readers. Most of the time it will take you directly to the page you need for social work related material. My sole reason for doing this was to save future students of social work time. I have tried to keep this in mind with every link listed for you. Rest assured I have been all over every site I have listed for you. This is why you rarely have to go to a website's homepage and figure out how to navigate from there to get to what you need. I have also searched at least 10 search engine pages, sometimes 20 or more, so you won't have to waste your time searching. As always suggestions for improvement are always welcome!

The music can be turned off by clicking the green button on the bottom left corner of the player. I am leaving it at the top of the column so this will be easy for you to do. The main reason it is on the page is that there have been many requests for me to expand my profile. There are 120 songs on the player and I think it is a pretty accurate representation of who I am and where I've been. I could write you my story about every song in the player, but neither of us has the time. In case you haven't noticed I am not a blogger that likes to tell you all the gory personal details of my life. I guess I just think if you want to be a social worker or you already are then you know the understanding of human nature that it takes to be a social worker. You can not have understanding without experience. IMO "Nuff said. Thanks to years of therapy I got rid of the baggage years ago and don't intend to pick it up and start carrying it again. If I think it is relevant then I will bite the bullet and write it. Don't look for it very often though.

Have a Great Evening and Happy Searching!

A Heartfelt Thank You!

This morning before I head off to be taught how to access the dreaded online algebra course I'm taking this semester, I want to take a little time to acknowledge the people who have helped me the most. I have gone from staring at a blank page and not having a clue as to how to put anything on it, to being able to enter information and widgets with ease. This was beyond the realm of my comprehension just two short months ago.
First, I must thank Optional and Cathangela over at the ACC forum for their invaluable and ongoing support. Were it not for these two I would have given up within the first week. It was their encouragement and expertise with coding and the like that kept me sane :) Thanks guys for letting me pick your brain! Thanks also to all my buddies over at ACC for the support and especially for not laughing at me when I began this endeavor :) I am also adding a link to one of Matt's sites here because I left him out when I did these thank you's...I'm so sorry Matt...If it were not for you working with me I would have thrown my computer through a window or something....thank you for all the countless hours you spent with me helping me keep this ole piece of junk working :) I hope you know I just plain forgot about you because you weren't involved in the set up of this blog...again I'm sorry...I should have thanked you first because if it were not for your expertise I wouldn't even have had a computer to blog with...sorry I was such an idiot...
Next, I must thank Tobi Shane webmistress of The Social Work Cafe for the ongoing, almost daily (sometimes two and three times daily) support. She has listened to me, provided me with exact, in real time, technical support for problems, made suggestions, provided uplifting conversations and provided my first place for outside exposure! For this I will be eternally grateful. I am truly proud to call Tobi my friend now and hopefully for many years to come!
Thank you also to Dr. Rob for letting me have the healthcare blogger widget, thereby validating my belief that social workers are indeed a viable resource in the healthcare field. Thank you also for having a blog that provides me countless hours of enlightened entertainment.
I believe that all my readers are well aware of my feelings about Andrew, webmaster of Mutual Aid Based Groupwork. He has changed my view of social work completely and made me finally understand the importance of all those dreaded "group assignments" in my courses at school.
Lastly, I would like to thank all the sites that have considered my little blog worthy enough to be added as a resource to their site. It makes me proud to be a part of the social work online community.

Andrew's on Wikipedia!

Andrew Cicchetti has a new entry on Wikipedia
Andrew has the site Mutual Aid Based Groupwork. You can find the link under social work on the left sidebar of this page.
I cannot begin to tell you here just how invaluable this information can be to the social worker. You must go read for yourself. Andrew's writings have given me an entirely different perspective of just what social work is and what it should be. His entry on Wikipedia is a smooth, easy to read, cohesive compilation of his site. The following is an excerpt from Wikipedia:
"Mutual aid as group work technology can be understood as an exchange of help wherein the group member is both the provider as well as the recipient of help in service of achieving common group and individual goals (Borkman, 1999; Gitterman, 2006; Lieberman, 1983; Northen & Kurland, 2001; Schwartz, 1961; Shulman, 2006, Steinberg, 2004; Toseland & Siporin, 1986). The rationale for cultivating mutual aid in the group encounter is premised on the following beliefs: 1) members have strengths, opinions, perspectives, information, and experiences that can be drawn upon to help others in the group; 2) helping others helps the helper, a concept known as the helper-therapy principle (Reissman, 1965) which has been empirically validated (Roberts et al, 1999); and 3) some types of help, such as confrontation, are better received when emanating from a peer rather than the worker (Shulman, 2006). The use of mutual aid based group work has resonance with the needs of a variety of populations. For example, in substance abuse treatment groups mutual aid has been observed to both strengthen self-esteem and affirm the value of a sober network of peers (Cicchetti, in press).
Please do go check it out when you have the time to read and absorb...it is so worth it! :)

Finished!

The changes to the site are complete...for the moment anyway :) Now I can devote my time to searching for reputable, reliable and free links. I hope you find it is easier to navigate around in here. In the future I will probably add more blogs to the list. I still want to devote time and energy to several other subjects within the social work realm, youth-at-risk and critical thinking are two that come immediately to mind. There are many areas in social work I have not covered. As you are reading through the site, thinking of areas you wish I had covered, that I have not, please feel free to leave me a comment and I will do my best to see what I can find. I will tell you this though...except for what has already been included, criminal justice, as a stand alone subject will never be covered. I refuse to compromise my computer by clicking on criminal justice links. In case you haven't noticed every time you click a cj link you are bombarded with ads for online schools and all kinds of other c**p that you can never get off your computer. Good luck with it though! Have a Great Day and Happy Searching!

Changes

Today I will be making changes to the blog. It will no longer be just one. It is no secret I have never been happy with the way this blog navigates and I don't have the time, nor the inclination, to learn html coding, so I have decided to use a simple layout and have separate blogs with two categories each. This will allow for ease of navigation on this site as well as allow extensive room on the other blogs as I find more and more interesting links for you. This will be a time-consuming transition and more than likely will not happen overnight so I hope you will bear with me. I think it will be worth it in the end. :) Have a Great Day and Happy Searching!

:)

Ok, I know I've been playing for a week or so. It's time to get back to business, school starts back in less than a week and I have to go face Algebra for the umpteenth time :(
I want to add links for the elderly and links for the homeless before school starts back. Then I think I will be finished with the different categories and I can just add to them as time goes along. I will try to add one or two to each, every week or so, but my main focus will be algebra and studying for the licensure exam. It is paramount that I finish in December...no more financial aid...kid's grouchy...etc. :-)
It has always been my goal to give my readers/fellow students a great stepping off point. If you've been reading since the beginning then you remember I only promised you great places to start searching. I have thrown in some obscure links that you might not think of, mainly because the very discovery of their existence excited me and I thought it might do the same for you.
I will be adding the links for the elderly today. So far I've not been happy with what I found. This is not a good thing. It tells me those working with the elderly are not publishing websites with their own resources listed. You can imagine how this irks me. I did find one that I personally plan to use...regularly :) The Elder Wisdom Circle. I've taken this excerpt from their "about us" page.
The EWC is a place for people in their teens, 20's and 30's to connect with a Cyber-Grandparent for anonymous personalized advice. Elder Wisdom Circle is organized as a IRS 501(c)3 non-profit association. Most advice-seekers are 14-35 but we reply to everyone. We are based in the San Francisco Bay Area with Elders all over North America. We are one of the largest providers of personal advice anywhere. The mission of our association is to promote and share elder know-how and accumulated wisdom. We also have a goal of elevating the perceived value and worth of our senior community. FREE Advice: Our Elders can help with most any problem providing a personalized reply to each and every request. Our service is totally confidential and easy to use. To seek advice, click [ here ].
Isn't that cool! I've been reading their advice for awhile now and feel truly blessed to have stumbled on this one!
The last category I will be adding will be links for homelessness. I add it last because I've been trying to avoid it altogether. I have so many mixed feelings about the subject, having been so very close to being homeless myself and having had a husband that preferred to live under a bridge with his alcohol over his precious and beautiful son...well, I think you understand. I understand that I would be falling short of my goal to help my fellow social work students were I not to include it. So I will.
As always Happy Searching and Have a Great Day!

LastFM

Hey, you can probably tell I added the LastFM widget today. :-) I have it set to start automatically. Most people would never guess this about me, but, I Love Me Some Blues!!! If by some weird chance, you don't and it's really getting on your nerves, you can click it off by clicking that square button in the top right corner of the widget. Happy listening to go along with your searching!!!

Affordabook.com

Today I want to tell you about a pretty cool place I found. At least it's a pretty cool place for struggling students. When I first heard of it I doubted anyone could beat Amazon for cheap, quality textbooks. I was wrong.
Affordabook.com is unique in that it gives you a comparison of up to 15 different booksellers and surprisingly Amazon was not the cheapest. I was really excited to find this site since it is my last semester and I need to re-purchase some textbooks to study for the licensure exam and don't want to spend much.
It also amazed me that Affordabooks.com had upwards of 300 entries when I typed "social work" into the search bar. I found the older version of Zastrow's Understanding Human Behavior and Social Development, which is the one I used for my class, for $7.83. Amazing! Oh and in Amazon's defense this one was at Amazon. The newer version could be found at AbeBooks for $56.17.
I mention that price at Abebooks because that was one thing I found wrong with Affordabook.com. It was not a bad thing and was probably just an Abebooks updating thing but when I got to Abebooks the price that had been listed as the lowest price was wrong. There were 2 cheaper than the listed price of $61.27 and there wasn't one for the listed price of $61.27. Like I said this was not necessarily a bad thing, just a bit surprising.
Overall I found Affordabook.com easily navigable and the only thing that bothered me other than the aforementioned price discrepancy was the way the books were listed. They were listed 10 to a page and in no particular order. If you had the ISBN number this would not be a problem. It's only a problem for those of us that like to browse and are pretty lazy about it. I would like to see an option for choosing how you want to view the list, either with all the pretty pictures or just by author/title. There are no book descriptions either. If you want a book description then you have to click the link to the site with the lowest price which is not good for a person pressed for time. I would also like to see in the future an "if you like this book then you might like these" or an "other people that purchased this book also purchased x-y-z books" section. I guess if you want that you can do it at the bookseller's site. I only mention it because my site is dedicated to saving social work students time. All-in-all it's a great time-saving site and I would recommend it to everyone out there trying to save a buck on textbooks.

Theories

OK, I know it's been nine days or so since I last posted. The last one and the birthing story were time consuming and yes, the former was traumatic. Reconstructing/reliving that time in my life just to write about it deserved some respite, so I gave it some. It's done and I'm glad it's over.
Hey, do you like my Healthcare Blogger Code of Ethics widget? I'm so proud of it. I don't want to get into the "is social work a healthcare profession" debate because this post could go on for days and possibly turn into a free-for-all, just let me say that Dr. Rob agreed with me and so I have my widget :-). Please check out Dr. Rob's site "Musings of a Distractible Mind" Since I haven't figured out how to put a link into a post yet, the link for it is in the sidebar under "Other Sites/Blogs of Interest". There are great links to other valuable medical blogs on his site.
Sometime today I will be adding the links for Psychological and Social Work theories. I am adding these links because good information on theories is hard to find, especially for the beginning student. I will start with what I have right now in the bookmarks and as I go through that eternally growing stack of papers beside my desk I will add more. Happy Searching!

Domestic Violence

This is my touchy subject. Feeling compelled to include the links here on this blog does not compare to my need for privacy or for my need to keep the memories buried, swallowed, hacked to pieces, regurgitated and re-swallowed. Now, that having been said, I will share some of my story. For instance, the reason for my inclusion of Al-Anon in the links. Al-Anon was my salvation. It was during my first meeting there that I first heard the words "Let go and let God." There are no words to describe the way I felt when I first heard those words. I had no other choice but to do just that very thing. Were it not for those words and the fact that not long after that, during a particularly violent episode, I looked over at my screaming 18 month old son and realized that if I did not get myself together and do something to get us out of that situation then that beautiful, innocent child I had prayed for since I was 10, would one day grow up to believe violence against women was acceptable behavior. I knew in my deepest soul that God had not forgiven me for all the abortions I had (another story) and given me his most precious gift to have it destroyed by a violent man with his own issues. With that realization I found new strength to do what I had to do. Until that point I fought back, I argued, I was just as angry as he was and while not an alcoholic I was still drinking. Al-Anon showed me the way to deal with the relationship until I could get out. I'm not sure if this would work for everyone but this is what I did. I quit drinking and I shut down every emotion I had for that man, by this time it was easy to do. Nothing he could say would provoke me. I was one cold, empty bitch. Believe me, he tried his very best to provoke me...I would just look at him or not and keep my mouth shut...no matter what he said or did, I did not say a word, fight back or even roll my eyes. I showed him no emotion of any kind. I knew that eventually he would screw up on his own and then I would have my out. I prepared myself for the wait. Luckily, I did not have to wait but a short two months. He came home one afternoon and proceeded to tear up everything in the house because I wouldn't go inside with him (so he could beat the crap out of me in private). The neighbors heard it and called the police. They put him in the van and loaded him off to jail. The story does not end there but this was the beginning of the end and soon I found another place to live and we moved. I went to our post office, took a picture of him and made them swear that they would not answer any questions he had about my new address. It must have worked because he never found us. That was 17 years ago and today I have my beautiful glorious son with his innocence still intact. There is another saying that I want to share with you today courtesy of my friend Amerah: "If He brings you to it, He will bring you through it" If you can just know this one thing, you will find the strength to do what you need to do. The past 17 years have not been easy but I like to think of it as the path I took in order to become a social worker. I believe by traveling this road I will be a much more empathetic soul than I would have been had I not. In providing these links for you I hope that I have provided you with a valuable place to start when dealing with your own issues or with someone else's.
One last thing. We would never have survived in those first days had it not been for Supportive Living Services. In my opinion this is the one most underrated, most useful programs out there today. Some states don't even utilize it, my own being one of them. Luckily, I was in one that did when I needed it. Please search for it if you have the need. It can be found through your local mental health office. I have included a link that will tell you all about what it does and who it serves. This program paid my rent for 3 years, provided transportation, assisted me with medications, applying for assistance, and sent me to school. Their only requirement was that I go to therapy and keep up with my treatment plan. With programs such as this utilized in a more overarching fashion, I believe that there would be many more "survivors."

Researching for the Disabled

Today I will be adding the links I found for researching for the disabled. These include job links, information sites, work from home employment opportunities, the Small Business Administration link for person's with disabilites, products to aid in employment, etc.
I also need to apologize for neglecting this site. I am trying to transfer everything over to a Bravenet site, with hosting, a subdomain name and the whole nine yards a website offers that a blog doesn't. It is going very slowly....looks good but it is very tedious work. I suppose the more I do the easier it will get. :-)