11 is a very important number in my life. Let me tell you why. I was born at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of the year, the 11th child of the 12 that my mother and father had in total. Of the 10 that had been born before me, only four were still living when I was born; four of the six who had died had not reached their first birthday. Of the four then alive, only two survive to this day. So out of 12 children, only the last four , including me, are,as at the time of starting writing this story in 2013, still living. And, as with most births at that time a ...continued...

Fun and cold day today. Woke up and made water (as usual) and got on our way as quickly as we could. We are still working on our personal space organization as a work in progress. Three of us in a small tent make for confined quarters for us and our gear. And, as many of us know Mike likes to spread his wings. I have the front corner of the tent and Mike explained the legal concept of a right of way easement in and out of the tent. Mike also discovered that it is not a good idea to talk to me before I eat breakfast. All he could say is how sorry he feels for the kids. Made great progress ...continued...

Hello, everyone, I am not a writer at all but its something i have been thinking about doing since i was 12 years old. i Have a story i want to tell. I dont want to tell it to make money or get famous. Its a story i want to tell everyone who is or have went through stuff an cant seem to get through it. to let people know everything happens for a reason something good always comes from something bad. The story i want to tell is about my life from the age of ten till the age of 20. From me being molested to me getting married. I think i could get to a lot of people. I want to do something good f ...continued...

Before starting this course, I thought that I was a pretty culturally competent or at least accepting individual. I come from a very small town where there is not much cultural diversity of any kind, but since coming to UWM, I felt that I had thrived on the diversity on campus and in the city and that I had become culturally competent. I could not have been more wrong. Certainly, living in the city of Milwaukee and experiencing diversity that I had not before exposed me to different cultures and many different types of people, but I still carried many stereotypes and prejudic ...continued...

In November of 1997 at the age of 24, I was diagnosed with Breast Cancer. Several months before I was diagnosed, I had given birth to my third child, a son. I was excited and so happy to have a full term and happy bouncing baby boy. One day I was lying down on my couch relaxing while my baby was having his nap, when I looked down upon my chest and noticed a lump protruding out on the left side of my breast. It was hard and not moveable. I asked my boyfriend at the time to look at it. He said should see the doctor right away. So called my gynecologist to sched ...continued...

Our blog is full of lots of posts about how Mark and I joke around to pass time on the dogsled. Not today. Today was brutal. Coldest day yet. It was at least minus 30 Fahrenheit and the wind was howling. There was very little talking other than to confirm that all of our fingers and toes were working. The ice was flat but if you rode the sled, you frooze. Our boots are rated to negative 145 degrees. It did not help. The cold brought a cease fire to the war for limited space on the sled because we had to take turns running next to the sled all day to stay warm. We covered 12 miles. It ...continued...

The first thing in that I can remember is sitting on a stool in my grandfather's house. We were gathered around the fireplace. The stool was a homemade affair, built square and a bout 24 inches tall. Which was about the same height as I was. The room was lit with kerosene lamps whose soft glow competed with the fireplace to light the room. It was about an even match. I was playing with a piece of kindleing about two feet long and about a half inch square. It had been split from a fat pine stump and was hard as iron. For what ever reason I decided to hit him on the head a ...continued...

North Pole ...continued...

http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/10459602013003003 The first source I chose was from a scholarly journal. I was able to find it on Sage journals, and considering it being scholarly, I know that it is a reliable resource. Google also let me know that many other people have used and cited this course as well. I believe this source can help people understand the importance of cultural competance. This walks people through the process on how and why we do what we do to ensure that clients will feel safe and comfortable. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/ ...continued...

Driving down the road on a beautiful pre-Autumn day, the large red sign catches my eye. "Estate Sale 50% Off"…. I am torn, yet curiosity draws my car to the curb. As an avid garage sale seeker, I often enjoy the victory of the bargains I find while rummaging through items no longer wanted by the owner. But the items of my garage sale victories are most often found outside on the hard cement driveway or garage…unattached to story, emotion or the life that shared its journey. This Autumn day I find myself entering the E ...continued...

GHOSTBUSTERS …If there’s something strange in your neighborhood, who you gonna call? If there’s something weird and it don’t look good, who you gonna call?…Ghostbusters. In the middle of the night my wife, Karen, heard a loud bump. She awoke to see a ghostly figure of a man standing next to the staircase. He was wearing a biker’s outfit with a yellow bandanna wrapped around his head. “Tom,” she shouted, waking me up. “What’s wrong?” I asked. “There is a man standing next to the stairs,” she gasped. ...continued...

My First Ozark Mountains Camping Trip by ROLLAND LOVE http://ozarkstories.com I was eight years old the first time I camped in the Ozark Mountains. Dad and I pitched our tent on a gravel bar on the Jacks Fork River. For dinner that evening, we ate fried squirrel and corn on the cob from Mom’s garden. I sat by the firelight and dreamed about the big fish I would catch the next day as red and yellow flames cast shadows that danced like ghosts at the edge of darkness. The full moon and so many stars made the sky look like a silve ...continued...

We are watching the entire United States, but particularly the border states of New York, Connecticut, Maine, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Washington, for any activity relative to banning pesticides. [Responsible Industry for a Sound Environment, 2005 (pesticide/fertilizer lobbying group)] What are the final pieces in America’s multi-billion dollar “grass” trade industry? Weed control ordinances started appearing in the mid-1940s, and over the next fifty plus years they arose in practically every metropolitan area of the U.S. Within a remarkable unif ...continued...

~~A BOOKWORM AT GIRL SCOUT CAMP In the 1950’s my family moved from a little Missouri town to the small town in Indiana where my father grew up. We lived with our grandparents for a few months while my father started a new job and we found a house to rent. My little brother and sister, ages six and five respectively, roamed my grandparents’ big back yard and the neighborhood, but I asked if I might read the old books I saw in the parlor bookcases. My grandmother, usually so strict about us not touching her possessions, gave me permission. I read from books that far exceeded my s ...continued...

Born in Grenada, Mississippi on March 26, 1996. I had always known that i was attracted to other since I was about 6 years old ...continued...