Gang activity at Arizona Border

Happy Monday!


Here is another column about trouble at the border -- this is such a sad mess for the children involved. However, we must protect Americans by developing laws and protocols for welcoming anyone to the U.S., no matter how much our heartstrings are pulled, or we will more resemble the countries these kids are fleeing than the country we now love and enjoy.

Here's the piece: http://lapostexaminer.com/gang-recruiting-flourishes-border-crisis/2014/07/28

Central American children flood across U.S. border

Below is my latest column about the influx of Central American children across our borders. This is a hard one to write as a mother, because I would do anything for my kids, and I can see the difficult choice some parents are making when sending their kids alone to cross into America. But many more are sending their kids due to a loophole in our policies, not due to imminent danger.



So, read on, and develop your own thoughts on the topic:





Central American children flood across U.S. border

Where Is Your Happy Place?

Welcome to my happy place. This is the very large screened-in porch at the back of my house, and it is here that I work, play, think and say my prayers, many days. It is a place that has a lot of "me" in it -- with a family of men, I have "called" this room, so to speak, as my own. (they can come in to visit, of course. I'm not crazy...most days.)

This room was added to the home by the previous owners. Apparently the husband who raised a family here had roughed out a much smaller porch, and when his wife saw the plan she said, "If you are going to do it, DO IT!" I thank her every day for that foresight.

When the Marathon bombings occurred in Boston, I was sad and didn't want to watch television, so I decided to paint this porch. It took 30 hours, but it got me through that time and was transformed from dark brown wood walls to light blue and white. We bought the couch in the discounted section of Jordan's Furniture, and the tables are Target. The trunk is a Civil War trunk I bought on Ebay (my one and only purchase -- I didn't account for shipping from a Philadelphia antiques dealer for this piece -- I almost drove down to get it myself.) Lets just say that shipping was more than the trunk itself!

I sleep on the porch some summer nights -- it is a lifesaving antidote to hot flashes and sleeplessness. And rainstorms? From my porch I have seen lightening storms, heard strong winds buffet its exterior, and have fallen away from consciousness to the sounds of steady rain on the roof. In the morning the birds in the backyard wake me up, and breezes blow the gauze floor-length curtains from their rods and they curl over the couch and recede, like waves. I have hosted girlfriends here (Holla, Longfellow Ladies!!) and we have had guests gather here during cook-outs and birthday parties.

Is there a television out here? Yes. I love watching TV out here, and the sounds of the Red Sox (come on, fellas! What is UP with this season??) drift into the yard from our porch. We watch movies out here, and I watch "The Bachelorette" here alone every Monday night, with my husband and son drifting in and out asking, "So who is left?"

Everyone needs a place to call their own. Even if it is your car, your attic, your bathroom or your patio, everyone deserves a place to "be." A place that asks nothing (except maybe a weekly cleaning!), and is as dependable as the moon and stars. Well, my porch isn't that dependable -- it can be torn off the house in a tornado, and will someday, like most things, be gone -- but the feeling it gives me I can take with me. You know when you are nervous and you remind yourself to "go to your happy place?"

I go to the porch.


P.S. Baby, our "little old lady" rescue poodle, snuck into this pic -- I am her "porch" -- she follows me everywhere!