So after an epic injury in August 9 days before ironman Mont Tremblant, bi weekly ART appointments and trips to western massachusetts to see a special physical therapist to work on my limitations and weaknesses I have begun my journey back to health and getting back on my bike. I still haven't gotten on my bike since 9 days before ironman and in just a few short days I'll be riding him again ( all be it easy and probably for short periods, but I'll be riding again.).
Since my injury I was able to slowly get back to running and swimming was never an issue so coach Pat decided to ramp up the swimming for awhile and once I started feeling better to ramp up the running and hope to get in a fall marathon. Based on my current fitness he wanted me to aim for a race mid november so after some researching and chatting via facebook with some other Qt2 teammates they mentioned a local marathon that was being held in Plymouth mass on Novemeber 18th for the first time. There wasn't much mentioned on the website about the race, no course profile at the time, minimal knowledge about the course but none the less I signed up. Over the following few months more information came out and it mentioned the course would be hilly with some descent climbs splattered throughout, some off trail/ dirt/sand, rock for a bit ( and did I mention hills).
Water stations every 2 miles with powerade at miles 5/10/15 and 20, Gel at mile 17. Sounded ok to me but even better I got to travel less than an hour to a race and pay only $50, couldn't beat that.
Training went well, no real issues to be had with training, I lost about 5lbs in training and I stopped drinking diet coke over the last 2 months. I've kept up with my physical therapy and I continue to get ART to my left hip and lower back twice a week. Based on my training numbers I knew I could possibly have a good race but since I've only run one marathon back in 1999 ( Chicago), in just under 5hrs, I had no real knowledge on how one would feel. Now I have done ironman Lake Placid twice but I can't say what I did after the bike was anything about running so this was going to be interesting.
I drove down to the race with my new friend John Young who is just an amazing person and a true inspiration when it comes to how to live life to the fullest. He is a challenged athlete who has taken himself from 193lbs a few years ago to a svelte ( i think he said 160) and he is the first short statured person to ever do an olympic/ 70.3 triathlon and I think marathon. Just amazing. We left real early in the morning so John could start in the early group at 7am. I felt honored to be apart of John's first marathon, it was a special moment in the morning we he set off.
Anyhoo, the morning was no biggie, there was no big hupla, just a group of runners getting off a bus, sitting around on the ground waiting to get started. It was about 500-600 runners and relay runners ready to go by 8am. The timer yelled go at 8am and we were off. Before setting off I did bump into some Qt2 peeps, Jessie, Rich and Russert and we all wished each other luck. Of course none of us knew what lied ahead of us.
Quick and to the point: The course was up and down, up and down, up and down. My calves, quads and hamstrings felt the burn towards the end, it was a brutal course. I wish I could say there was some flat areas but since there wasn't much I won't. The course besides being hard was nice, minimal traffic throughout the majority of the course since it was inside miles standish state park, cranberry bogs, little ponds, trees, volunteers were out and with the really runners we definitely had packets of areas were there were lots of people cheering for us and for such a small marathon that was nice.
If I had one thing negative to say about the race it would be that where we had to park to take the shuttle buses to the race start was about 1/2 mile away from the finish and after completing a marathon in the cold and having to have to walk all the way back to my car really sucked, and I was alone, at times I didn't think I was going to make it my legs hurt so bad. Other than that the race was very nice and if your interested in doing a very hilly, low maintenance marathon, local and cheap this would be a good one.
Anyway, 3:55:40, 8:55 pace via my Garmin, a 53 minute PR from my Chicago marathon in 1999. I am very happy with the performance, I don't have any negative things about how I performed, my nutrition was spot on, heart rate was spot on and I was able to get my HR up the last mile ( not hard to do when your going uphill again.). Anyway, it was great to end the year on a positive note and looking forward to the next season. Thanks coach Pat for believing in me and knowing that I could be a runner, it means a lot.
Tuesday, November 20, 2012
Thursday, November 1, 2012
Apologies are hard
Having a child apologize for a wrong can sometimes be a challenge but I feel it is so important to teach these life lessons for our kids. The short of it was:
Last night we were invited to go to a friends house who also has 4 kids to go trick or treating with a group of parents and other kids. All of the kids know each other and are friends and of course the parents are good friends. We started out with a walk/run to the elementary school for pizza and glow sticks and then out to the crazy neighborhood for trick or treating. AFter 1 1/2 hours of glorious fun we went back to my friends house for a light dinner and some candy trading amongst the kids. Everything was going well when I started noticing my 9 yr old getting a little out of control, candy and being so overstimulated for this one is not a good combination, I was counting the minutes that we had left before something would happen. I had to speak to him several times to settle him down he was just so excited.
Anyhoo, a parent came out to talk to me to tell me that he was throwing candy on the lawn and not listening to her, I went out to speak to him and he stopped, however I knew something wasn't right. Low and behold come to find out when we were about to leave the candy that my son was throwing on the lawn happened to be the hostesses sons bag of treats. The little boy had no candy left in his bag and he was really upset. When I approached my son he told me that he didn't realize that it was the boys candy and thought it was a bowl left out for trick or treaters, I said, " did it matter" you were throwing candy that wasn't yours. I had my child go back to the little boy and give him some of his candy, actually two big handfuls and then my daughter graciously gave him two big handfuls as well, I was hoping that we could replenish most of the bag that he lost. The little boy seemed ok with the gesture and we apologized and went home. For the next hour my son had a major temper tantrum regarding losing his candy, not understanding why he had to give up his hard earned candy that he walked for almost 2 hrs for, it was awful. He just didn't get it. However, he was exhausted, he was coming down from a major sugar high, it was just time to go to bed.
AFter a very long day for me, 8 hrs in the classroom, and 5hours of halloween trick or treating and tantrums I just needed to go to bed. I didn't want to talk about it and realized that we would discuss it in the morning. In the morning we discussed it a bit and I said we needed to come up with a plan, that he really needed to understand what he did and why it was important to give the little boy the candy. After school he said he thought about what we talked about and realized that what he did was wrong. He realized that if he ended up with no candy he would of behaved 1 million times worse then anyone else in that situation and by giving him the candy it was the right thing to do. We both decided that he needed to write him an apology note and bring it to him this evening. After several minutes of standing by the car and being afraid to go to the door, he walked and knocked on the door and asked to speak to the little boy. After apologizing and handing him his own hand written note they both high fived and started to laugh. At that moment he knew he did the right thing. He came to the car excited and said, " Momma, did you see him high five me, he is happy now mommy".
It was a hard lesson for him but I think he understood in the end what he did wrong. I am so proud of him for coming to the realization ( all be much later than I hoped but he still got there) and apologizing in person. Life lessons are hard, I wouldn't want to be 9 again if you paid me. Anyway, lets hope everyone is happy in the end.
Last night we were invited to go to a friends house who also has 4 kids to go trick or treating with a group of parents and other kids. All of the kids know each other and are friends and of course the parents are good friends. We started out with a walk/run to the elementary school for pizza and glow sticks and then out to the crazy neighborhood for trick or treating. AFter 1 1/2 hours of glorious fun we went back to my friends house for a light dinner and some candy trading amongst the kids. Everything was going well when I started noticing my 9 yr old getting a little out of control, candy and being so overstimulated for this one is not a good combination, I was counting the minutes that we had left before something would happen. I had to speak to him several times to settle him down he was just so excited.
Anyhoo, a parent came out to talk to me to tell me that he was throwing candy on the lawn and not listening to her, I went out to speak to him and he stopped, however I knew something wasn't right. Low and behold come to find out when we were about to leave the candy that my son was throwing on the lawn happened to be the hostesses sons bag of treats. The little boy had no candy left in his bag and he was really upset. When I approached my son he told me that he didn't realize that it was the boys candy and thought it was a bowl left out for trick or treaters, I said, " did it matter" you were throwing candy that wasn't yours. I had my child go back to the little boy and give him some of his candy, actually two big handfuls and then my daughter graciously gave him two big handfuls as well, I was hoping that we could replenish most of the bag that he lost. The little boy seemed ok with the gesture and we apologized and went home. For the next hour my son had a major temper tantrum regarding losing his candy, not understanding why he had to give up his hard earned candy that he walked for almost 2 hrs for, it was awful. He just didn't get it. However, he was exhausted, he was coming down from a major sugar high, it was just time to go to bed.
AFter a very long day for me, 8 hrs in the classroom, and 5hours of halloween trick or treating and tantrums I just needed to go to bed. I didn't want to talk about it and realized that we would discuss it in the morning. In the morning we discussed it a bit and I said we needed to come up with a plan, that he really needed to understand what he did and why it was important to give the little boy the candy. After school he said he thought about what we talked about and realized that what he did was wrong. He realized that if he ended up with no candy he would of behaved 1 million times worse then anyone else in that situation and by giving him the candy it was the right thing to do. We both decided that he needed to write him an apology note and bring it to him this evening. After several minutes of standing by the car and being afraid to go to the door, he walked and knocked on the door and asked to speak to the little boy. After apologizing and handing him his own hand written note they both high fived and started to laugh. At that moment he knew he did the right thing. He came to the car excited and said, " Momma, did you see him high five me, he is happy now mommy".
It was a hard lesson for him but I think he understood in the end what he did wrong. I am so proud of him for coming to the realization ( all be much later than I hoped but he still got there) and apologizing in person. Life lessons are hard, I wouldn't want to be 9 again if you paid me. Anyway, lets hope everyone is happy in the end.
17 days till Marathon
Untitled by donnafurse at Garmin Connect - Details
my runs are getting there. Slow but surely my HR is responding and my times are getting lower. It was a great day to run.
my runs are getting there. Slow but surely my HR is responding and my times are getting lower. It was a great day to run.
Thursday, October 25, 2012
Track Day, OMG so nervous
I always look on my schedule on Sunday to prepare myself for the week and I knew their were two workouts that made me nervous, Tuesdays 1hr 25 minute run with 2 x 15 minute Zone 3 efforts on the road and todays, 5 x 1 mile repeats at the track or road. I haven't had to do much speed until recently and it hards mentally for me to wrap my brain around it. Tuesdays workout was ok, I wasn't completely stoked about my performance on the road, I got my HR to the bottom of Zone 3 but I couldn't get my legs to turnover faster, their was a good headwind and some nice hills/inclines so I know my times were affected by this, still I was hoping the 15 minutes would be faster. I recovered well, ate what I needed and tried to rest, wednesday was just TRX and a short swim to help prepare for today's mile repeats. The last two times over the past two weeks I had to do them it was 4x 1 mile repeats of which I did on the treadmill at a 0% incline. My speeds were good, my heart rate got up to a max of 171 but the averages were low 160's, I was proud of the times I was getting but I'm never too sure how the times on the treadmill would convert if I did them outside or on the track. However, I would be lying if I didn't say the treadmill relaxes me I feel safe and in control of the elements. That being said today was a day I needed to embrace both mentally and physically, I needed to do this outside on the track or on the road and I decided the track.
I drove to Gordon College and sat in my car for awhile, staring at the track, I decided I would run a few errands first and then come back. Eventually I decided to just get it done, suck it up, enjoy the suck as MACCA likes to say, just do it. I love to run but it humbles me everytime I do it. It likes Yoga to me or pilates, it looks like it should be so easy but it really isn't so I'm always in awe of the people that can do these forms of exercise and do it well, just like running.
Anyhoo, I decided to run my warm up in my Zr pace and man did that suck, it was slow and I was already battling the I'm going to run these repeats 4 minutes faster, ok, sure Donna. But I told myself to snap out of it and just do it. I decided not to look at my watch for the first mile, run by feel and just see what happens. Well 7:02 happened. Man that sucked, ok, lets do this again, 6:57, 6:55, 6:55, 6:57. I did it, I Pr'd my track experience, I've never done mile repeats in the 6's anywhere, I worked for everything I had out there. I know these times are not the quickest but for a 44 year old mother of 4 I was so proud of myself that it could of been Kona for me today. I don't even know what to say but I was real happy and I want to thank all my friends on facebook who encouraged me to make the track my bitch today and to give it all my heart and I did. Thanks to Pat for telling me I could do it and hopefully the mental block with running will start to fade now. Anyhoo, off to kids activities. Thanks for the support guys.
Thursday, October 11, 2012
Busy, Busy times
So life has been busy since the last time I wrote. I ran a half marathon at the end of September which was successful, a PR by about a minute, not huge by any means but still going in the right direction. Recovery from the race was good which hopefully means my fitness is returning after the big taper into my " didn't do ironman".
With regards to my injury things have been going well, I have been receiving ART twice a week ( thank goodness its covered by insurance) and once a month I travel to West Boylston, Mass to see Mike Roberts PT guru to keep me heading in the right direction. As of yesterday things are looking really good and he has advanced me on my exercises except that he has put a kabosh on some of my TRX exercises because of my poor form and that it was probably exacerbating my pelvic instability. He tweaked those exercises and gave me ones that did the same thing but didn't cause issue with my already existing issue. Anyhoo, things look good and hopefully we will be on the bike shortly.
Training for my 2nd outright marathon is much different then when I trained for my first, I think my longest run at that point was 16, which I did on the treadmill at a speed of 5.8mph and I was sore for like a week. I barely broke 5hrs at the Chicago Marathon so heres hoping for a much better finish this time around. The Miles Standish Marathon/Relay is new this year and there isn't a lot of information regarding the course the support, etc. but its local and convenient, its a measured course and thats all that matters, I don't need the pomp and circumstance. Anyhoo, its going well and I'm hoping to stay injury free for a long time.
Times are crazy now and things have gotten really busy with the kids regarding school, sports and everything else they do, trying to be the mom who is class parent, class volunteer, driver, homework supervisor, food maker, discipline person, etc.. is tiring but I wouldn't have it any other way. Life is busy for everyone and I'm no different then anyone else. I like to bitch but only for the cathartic nature that it allows me to have, I am blessed in so many ways for my great family and friends who support me and my crazy family.
Anyhoo, today's my birthday, not my typical " OMG its my birthday days" but I'm 44 and well life goes on and there is a lot to do today. I was able to get my swim in which was nice and i'm hoping to get a little run in later while the sun is still shining, we'll see. Anyhoo, time for a doctors appointment for my daughter and pick up for the kids and then the sporting activities ensue. See you soon.
With regards to my injury things have been going well, I have been receiving ART twice a week ( thank goodness its covered by insurance) and once a month I travel to West Boylston, Mass to see Mike Roberts PT guru to keep me heading in the right direction. As of yesterday things are looking really good and he has advanced me on my exercises except that he has put a kabosh on some of my TRX exercises because of my poor form and that it was probably exacerbating my pelvic instability. He tweaked those exercises and gave me ones that did the same thing but didn't cause issue with my already existing issue. Anyhoo, things look good and hopefully we will be on the bike shortly.
Training for my 2nd outright marathon is much different then when I trained for my first, I think my longest run at that point was 16, which I did on the treadmill at a speed of 5.8mph and I was sore for like a week. I barely broke 5hrs at the Chicago Marathon so heres hoping for a much better finish this time around. The Miles Standish Marathon/Relay is new this year and there isn't a lot of information regarding the course the support, etc. but its local and convenient, its a measured course and thats all that matters, I don't need the pomp and circumstance. Anyhoo, its going well and I'm hoping to stay injury free for a long time.
Times are crazy now and things have gotten really busy with the kids regarding school, sports and everything else they do, trying to be the mom who is class parent, class volunteer, driver, homework supervisor, food maker, discipline person, etc.. is tiring but I wouldn't have it any other way. Life is busy for everyone and I'm no different then anyone else. I like to bitch but only for the cathartic nature that it allows me to have, I am blessed in so many ways for my great family and friends who support me and my crazy family.
Anyhoo, today's my birthday, not my typical " OMG its my birthday days" but I'm 44 and well life goes on and there is a lot to do today. I was able to get my swim in which was nice and i'm hoping to get a little run in later while the sun is still shining, we'll see. Anyhoo, time for a doctors appointment for my daughter and pick up for the kids and then the sporting activities ensue. See you soon.
Wednesday, September 12, 2012
Mental demons in the pool
Just a quick post tonight. So my triathlon season ended after I completed an olympic at the end of July, I was hoping to go to IMMT and then do the Pumpkinman sprint but the hip and lower back said no. I am on the mend with some great people and we are working on getting me back on the bike which should be next week. In the meantime I am running and swimming, and swimming, and swimming. The running is good and getting better ( I think, right Pat?). I'm running without pain and unfortunately not doing much speed but at least I can get in a lot of zone 1 work with a little zone 2. I have a 1/2 marathon coming up and then a full in November as long as things stay the path they have been going. I'm excited to run a marathon, I've only run one in my life, Chicago in 1999 in a whopping 4hr 56 minutes. I don't count my ironman marathons since I literaly walked both of them.
The swimming is keeping my aerobic base high since I can't bike, but its so hard when your not doing a triathlon to push hard on the swim. I spend a ton of time during my sets saying to myself, " oh, just go easy, its september, you don't need to push right now, you don't have a race", its brutal, I spend the whole set bitching to myself about why I'm working hard, but then I do it and I'm happy about it in the end. But I tell you, I spend a good 5 minutes in the hot shower before going out to the pool contemplating my swim set and getting nervous. I never do this with my runs or bikes.
Which brings me to today, the miles of misery, a good swift warm up and then 2 x 1600 with 2 minute recovery in between. The goal is not to go slower on the second and to hold a good pace. I always think I can go faster, or should i say I wish I could go faster than I do. I did a poor job on the first one, landing at the wall in 25 minutes flat. I was like, " what, that sucked, WTF", then I only had 2 minutes to rest and it was time to go again. Now during this last 1600 I had to convince myself to swim hard to hold pace to not give up to believe in myself that it was going to make a difference even though I wasn't doing a triathlon for another few months, it was crazy stupid, I was more mentally exhausted at the end of the set then I was physically. 24:56, awful, suck, suck, suck, suck, suck.
I think if I stop talking to myself when I swim I might swim faster. What the hell Donna, get a grip. My goal is to get in the low 24's on both 1600's we'll see how that goes by the end of the season.
The swimming is keeping my aerobic base high since I can't bike, but its so hard when your not doing a triathlon to push hard on the swim. I spend a ton of time during my sets saying to myself, " oh, just go easy, its september, you don't need to push right now, you don't have a race", its brutal, I spend the whole set bitching to myself about why I'm working hard, but then I do it and I'm happy about it in the end. But I tell you, I spend a good 5 minutes in the hot shower before going out to the pool contemplating my swim set and getting nervous. I never do this with my runs or bikes.
Which brings me to today, the miles of misery, a good swift warm up and then 2 x 1600 with 2 minute recovery in between. The goal is not to go slower on the second and to hold a good pace. I always think I can go faster, or should i say I wish I could go faster than I do. I did a poor job on the first one, landing at the wall in 25 minutes flat. I was like, " what, that sucked, WTF", then I only had 2 minutes to rest and it was time to go again. Now during this last 1600 I had to convince myself to swim hard to hold pace to not give up to believe in myself that it was going to make a difference even though I wasn't doing a triathlon for another few months, it was crazy stupid, I was more mentally exhausted at the end of the set then I was physically. 24:56, awful, suck, suck, suck, suck, suck.
I think if I stop talking to myself when I swim I might swim faster. What the hell Donna, get a grip. My goal is to get in the low 24's on both 1600's we'll see how that goes by the end of the season.
Tuesday, September 11, 2012
Guilty on all 4 counts, finally.
Well, its been a long time since this event happened and I haven't been able to talk about it legally until the other day, I stewed for awhile about whether or not to write something about it but felt in the end it was important even if it just helped one person, so here it goes.
Last October we hired a babysitter to help me from 3-7p Mon-Thursday, mainly to help with driving the kids to and from activities and dinner if I'm unable to get home on time with the other kids. We have had a number of sitters over the years and they all have been very successful and wonderful and we have found them through various sources. This time I found her MS I'll call her on sittercity. I didn't have a lot of responses given that the job wasn't even considered part time and the others weren't the best even though for college students it should of been fine, but MS was good, she was energetic ( to a point) eager to work and had a good resume of working with children. Her background check with sitter city was good and her references checked out. My husband and I interviewed her for over 2hrs and the kids met her and liked her. She was able to start fairly quickly after leaving another job but said the family was aware she was looking for more hours and was actively looking to leave. Needless to say ( I'll cut to the chase) for the 5 weeks MS worked for me she took a total of 8 days off for various reasons, she was incompetent from the day she started and I fired very quickly. I could list all the things she sucked at but it would take forever, she made my life harder and the kids and I didn't really like her. Enough said. 3 days after I fired her I noticed that all of my jewelry was stolen, except for a few things I wear on a daily basis everything was gone.
I filed a police report the next day and within a few days found out indeed it was her that had pawned all of my jewelry. It took several weeks of talking with her and the police and her working with them to have her finally admit her guilt and be arrested. She was arrested on 3 counts of felony larceny and 1 count of obstruction of justice.
After MS left my employment she actually found another job in Peabody with another family as a babysitter through sitter city and stole from that family as well, she was arrested within 2 weeks of employment with that family.
It took over 10 months but finally the court system prevailed and we went to court last Thursday and she pleaded guilty to all 4 counts and was given 3yrs of strict probation and multiple things she needed to abide by ( I won't get into it). We did find out that drugs were an issue and was probably the main reason for her stealing but in her very short time with me I wouldn't of thought that yet on hindsight her behavior was definitely conducive to a drug addict.
Anyhoo, I was a little bummed she didn't get jail time for her crimes given the amount of money she stole from us but because it was her first offense the judge was a bit lenient, however if she broke probation in anyway she would go to jail for a long time. That made me feel better but I still felt that she needed to know how she impacted all of our lives and that I didn't think that her behavior was going to change unless she went to jail. Oh well, that wasn't going to happen.
I left the courthouse last week feeling okay about the results but still pissed off that she didn't go to jail.
Well, only a little time passed when I got a phone call today from the assistant district attorney who said she was arrested today 9/11/12 for shop lifting in Peabody, for a measly pair of $40 earrings. She will be held in jail for 2 weeks until her hearing. Can you believe it, it didn't take her even a week before she committed another crime, if that doesn't scream out " help me" I don't know what does. I hope she goes away to jail for a long time.
What I learned:
1. I thought I did all the background necessary when hiring her. I should of asked for her most recent employer that she was leaving no matter what the circumstances. Otherwise there was nothing else I could of done to prevent seeing this happen to me.
2. Thank goodness she didn't hurt my kids. If she indeed was doing drugs who knows what could of happened. I'm just grateful nothing happened.
3. I will never go through an online service again. I feel absolute guilt that I couldn't tell the other family what happened to me, I couldn't get her off sitter city in time to prevent something like this from happening. She wasn't convicted yet and if I went to sitter city I could of been slapped with a harassment suit or something worse. It wasn't until after the Peabody incident that we were able to get her off sitter city. She also went through craigslist to get jobs, it was crazy, who patrols these sites. If your a parent you need to do thorough background checks and have multiple references before hiring anyone. At least now she has a criminal record and she is in the system, she hopefully will never be hired again by a family.
Its over now and hopefully we can move on. I have felt completely betrayed and I've felt that I put my children at risk, never again. Momma bear is on the prowl and I will never have anyone watch my children that I don't know personally, if ever.
I will keep everyone posted on the outcomes of her court date in 2 weeks, I'm hoping she gets the maximum from her case with me which is 12 years.
Last October we hired a babysitter to help me from 3-7p Mon-Thursday, mainly to help with driving the kids to and from activities and dinner if I'm unable to get home on time with the other kids. We have had a number of sitters over the years and they all have been very successful and wonderful and we have found them through various sources. This time I found her MS I'll call her on sittercity. I didn't have a lot of responses given that the job wasn't even considered part time and the others weren't the best even though for college students it should of been fine, but MS was good, she was energetic ( to a point) eager to work and had a good resume of working with children. Her background check with sitter city was good and her references checked out. My husband and I interviewed her for over 2hrs and the kids met her and liked her. She was able to start fairly quickly after leaving another job but said the family was aware she was looking for more hours and was actively looking to leave. Needless to say ( I'll cut to the chase) for the 5 weeks MS worked for me she took a total of 8 days off for various reasons, she was incompetent from the day she started and I fired very quickly. I could list all the things she sucked at but it would take forever, she made my life harder and the kids and I didn't really like her. Enough said. 3 days after I fired her I noticed that all of my jewelry was stolen, except for a few things I wear on a daily basis everything was gone.
I filed a police report the next day and within a few days found out indeed it was her that had pawned all of my jewelry. It took several weeks of talking with her and the police and her working with them to have her finally admit her guilt and be arrested. She was arrested on 3 counts of felony larceny and 1 count of obstruction of justice.
After MS left my employment she actually found another job in Peabody with another family as a babysitter through sitter city and stole from that family as well, she was arrested within 2 weeks of employment with that family.
It took over 10 months but finally the court system prevailed and we went to court last Thursday and she pleaded guilty to all 4 counts and was given 3yrs of strict probation and multiple things she needed to abide by ( I won't get into it). We did find out that drugs were an issue and was probably the main reason for her stealing but in her very short time with me I wouldn't of thought that yet on hindsight her behavior was definitely conducive to a drug addict.
Anyhoo, I was a little bummed she didn't get jail time for her crimes given the amount of money she stole from us but because it was her first offense the judge was a bit lenient, however if she broke probation in anyway she would go to jail for a long time. That made me feel better but I still felt that she needed to know how she impacted all of our lives and that I didn't think that her behavior was going to change unless she went to jail. Oh well, that wasn't going to happen.
I left the courthouse last week feeling okay about the results but still pissed off that she didn't go to jail.
Well, only a little time passed when I got a phone call today from the assistant district attorney who said she was arrested today 9/11/12 for shop lifting in Peabody, for a measly pair of $40 earrings. She will be held in jail for 2 weeks until her hearing. Can you believe it, it didn't take her even a week before she committed another crime, if that doesn't scream out " help me" I don't know what does. I hope she goes away to jail for a long time.
What I learned:
1. I thought I did all the background necessary when hiring her. I should of asked for her most recent employer that she was leaving no matter what the circumstances. Otherwise there was nothing else I could of done to prevent seeing this happen to me.
2. Thank goodness she didn't hurt my kids. If she indeed was doing drugs who knows what could of happened. I'm just grateful nothing happened.
3. I will never go through an online service again. I feel absolute guilt that I couldn't tell the other family what happened to me, I couldn't get her off sitter city in time to prevent something like this from happening. She wasn't convicted yet and if I went to sitter city I could of been slapped with a harassment suit or something worse. It wasn't until after the Peabody incident that we were able to get her off sitter city. She also went through craigslist to get jobs, it was crazy, who patrols these sites. If your a parent you need to do thorough background checks and have multiple references before hiring anyone. At least now she has a criminal record and she is in the system, she hopefully will never be hired again by a family.
Its over now and hopefully we can move on. I have felt completely betrayed and I've felt that I put my children at risk, never again. Momma bear is on the prowl and I will never have anyone watch my children that I don't know personally, if ever.
I will keep everyone posted on the outcomes of her court date in 2 weeks, I'm hoping she gets the maximum from her case with me which is 12 years.
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