I've been trying to think of a way to start this post. One: because I don't want to write just for sympathy because I did not personally know the fallen officer and two: how do I start a post about someone who has been killed?
I was at work when I heard my colleagues talking about the tragic incident and couldn't believe that someone has killed another cop. And he not only killed this cop but he shot another one several times. The officer who was killed was running after the suspect who should have still been in jail from previous violations and somehow slipped through the system. The suspect had no regard for life when he continued to shoot the cop after he was already down. The officer was shot a total of 14 times. No one should have to die this way. No one.
So there I was sitting at work thinking about how dangerous a city this is that I work in and that I want to get as far from it as possible when I get a phone call from my mother. I asked her if I could please call her back, but then I heard that dreaded tone in her voice and I immediately knew something was wrong. At first I thought something may have happened to my younger sister because she isn't living in the best of situations right now. However, in that dreaded tone my mother told me that the cop who has just been killed was my stepfather's nephew.
WOW, I didn't know what to say...what could I have really said except that I was terribly sorry. I knew how close with his nephews he was and both he and my mom watched the football games with his nephew's parents every Sunday. He was not just "any cop" to my stepfather; this horrible death happened to his sister's son and they had already lost their oldest son several years ago. Where has the respect for authority gone? These men and women are police officers and they are here to protect and serve, they are here for US. It hasn't even been a month since the last time a cop was killed during a pursuit in this city.
I just pray for the men and women in blue and for their families. I pray for my stepfather and his sister and her husband and their daughter who has lost their son, brother, and nephew who was much more than that to his community. I also pray for all the men and women who serve this country and protect the people who live in it.

(correction made)

Scrapbooking Shopping Trip

Scrapbooking can be a very expensive hobby! AC Moore has a great selection of scrapbooking products and sometimes a beginner like me can get lost within the aisles. My eyes light up at every new item and my mind imagines different layouts for my scrapbooks. The stickers and stamps are my favorite items right now. I also love finding great background pages that go great with the themes that I plan out. At the moment I am putting together a scrapbook of my fiance and I that will turn into our guestbook for the wedding. I have a maroon colored album that has a wonderful family frame on the cover that I started to use for our book. However, I realized that our wedding colors are tealish blue and white. So I had to make a shopping trip to AC Moore to find a new album and a few more embellishments that would make our pre-wedding scrapbook complete! I found a beautiful white album with a frilly design embedded into the cover with a picture cutout frame like the one I had at home. Of coarse it was in the wrong place on the shelf and had no price tag on it. Customer Service called the assistant manager over for me and we both tried to figure out the correct price being that it was the only one left! Now was it $32.00 like the other albums of the same brand that were boxed, or was it $21.99 like the albums of the same brand that were not boxed? They were all of the same brand, however they had different description labels on the covers. At first he thought it was $32.00 like the other boxed albums and asked me if I still wanted it...no! But as he read the descriptions he figured that it was probably $21.99...thank you AC MOORE assistant manager!!

9-11-08

At first I was surprised that the images of 9-11 are still being printed and shown on television. However, the victims and their families will always remember that day and they will always be remembered by others. When I saw pictures of children at the ceremonies for yesterday's anniversary I suddenly realized how small my emotions from that day were. These children couldn't be any older than 9 years old and they probably either never met their fathers or have little remeberence of them. But instead of remembering how their fathers lived their last day, I'm certain their family members are helping them celebrate how caring and loving these men were.

No one could have known or even thought that these two buildings were going to fall. Even after the first one came down the firefighters were still going back into Tower one. They gave their all to rescue anyone they could have. And now the volunteers are giving their lives because the debris is causing cancer and other illnesses in their bodies.

9-11 happened on one day and we hold vigils on that one day every year. But 9-11 is not just recalled on that one day, it is thought about every single day. When the date comes around each year we think about where we were on that day and the thoughts that were rushing through our minds. And we may think that it doesn't effect us every single day, but in the backs of our minds we know that it does.

Hope

As I looked at the news photos of hurricane Gustav I just hoped that everyone made it out alive. I also hoped that the government has learned from their mistakes and that the local people who wouldn't leave during Katrina were smart enough to leave this time. I wish that there were better places for Americans to live than in the path of a hurricane or tornado. Why are we building in the most dangerous areas? And why do we countinue to rebuild in the same area that has been knocked down before?