How was your day/week/weekend?

[CandyliciousLovah]

Okay, is it possible to "feel" like you're living in the land of Roswell? Because, now I feel like I am. There are two kids in high school, but I'm unsure of their grades, and you know what their names are?! Michael and Maria! I'm not kidding, it feels like I'm in an episode of Roswell!

Do they fight all the time? For me the only thing I can say is that about four years ago my cousin had a baby girl and they called her Ava

No, not really. I don't see them all the time, just in the mornings when I arrive at "work". I did pass an empty hallway and caught them talking. His arms were around her, like he liked her or something. I'm not going to obsess though, it's not my place

[killjoy]

Alabama beats Georgia to win SEC championship and to play Notre Dame for national championship !!!

[April]

Alabama beats Georgia to win SEC championship and to play Notre Dame for national championship !!!

And my hopeless Huskers now have to face George in the Capital One Bowl. Great.

I swear, with the exception of the Fiesta Bowl and the National Championship, these bowl games are a mess this year. But I'll probably watch as many as I can anyway.

Rod, you know I'll be rooting for Bama, though. Roll tide!

[jake17]

I wasn't going to write about this here but I just have an overwhelming need to tell you all about what's going on with all of us in Connecticut.

Of course I can't speak for everyone but its just been unbearable.

I live about twenty five minutes from Sandy hook Newtown in another very small town, where I lived my entire life.

I started working in Sandy hook when I was nineteen as a massage therapist in a day spa.

Sandy hook is so small, a real tight knit community of such wonderful sweet people that are seriously devoted to their children, like most places I'm sure.

I worked there for 18 years, I worked on several teachers that worked in that elementary school, and hundreds of parents over the years that live in this small town, which I'm sure have passed through my doors at one time or another.

On that horrifying day we watched the local news break in and saw parents running with their children crying.

A sight that I hope I never have to witness again in my lifetime.

We were told that a single teacher had been shot in the foot but by the looks on the parents faces, and the countless police with their rifles drawn, we knew it was much worse, just how much worse we could never have imagined.

My husband also worked in Newtown for ten years as well as his brother and several of his friends. A text came to him from a friend on the force saying that "its bad, very bad"

I immediately started crying with a gut feeling that this involved the children too.

I actually said out loud, 'please god, just don't let it be one of the children that had been shot'

By one o'clock I believe we heard the unimaginable that 20 five year olds, babies, kindergardeners had been murdered.

We immediately got several calls from the superindendent from my daughters school telling us that her school was on lockdown, meaning they wouldn't let anyone out or in the school. All of us as irrational as it sounds just wanted to go get our children and hold them in our arms safe at home...

We had just put up our xmas tree, we we're going to decorate it when my daughter got home from school, she had been so excited about it and now it just seemed so pointless. How could we celebrate when forty parents, siblings and grandparents had just lost the most precious little ones in the world?

I've been doing everything I can to avoid watching the news because its just too painful, to watch the anguish on everyone's faces is just torture.

I just can't help thinking what if this had happened to my little girl, I would never survive it, that much I know.

It's so strange here, you walk around and do your normal things and then suddenly it hits you and you break down in tears.

After all these days of not watching any coverage I mistakingly turned the wrong channel on the news this morning and they had the pictures of the angels that were killed. i can't get their image out of my head, my heart breaks for those parents, this is just unimaginable... I'm keep trying to distract myself but it just keeps coming back, those little innocent faces.

At the same time you want someone or something to blame for this SENSELESS loss. Whether its the madness that people absolutely need assault rifles or that mental illness is not taken seriously enough, I really don't know, what I do know is that something needs to change, I don't know what the answer is but there just has to be one.

I keep thinking back to those poor people in Aurora, with the batman movie killings, the same assault semi automatic military rifle was used in that nightmare also.

I know horrific acts of violence takes place all over the world all the time, I'm not that naive but I'm telling you when it hits that close to home it changes you, you realize that your children are not safe, that there is no such thing anymore.

What also hit me hard is that my daughter heard all about this when she was at school, we were so worried about her thinking she'd be a mess, terrified and what was so shocking is that she didn't even seem stunned by it all.

She is the most caring, sensitive, giving person i have ever met in my life and she was for the most part ok, she was sad, but not a sobbing mess like me, when I asked her if she wanted to talk about this she put her arm around me as I was crying and told me that as horrible as it is this thing happens all the time.

That's when it dawned on me that our children are growing up in a world where this is common, they are used to nightmarish school shootings, work related shootings, lunatics that shoot up colleges and movie theaters... they know about 911 and the Oaklahoma bombing and wars that inadvertly or not, kill innocent women and children all the time.

I don't ever remember seeing anything like that on the news growing up. Maybe its just me but how horrible it must be to know you"re really not safe anywhere and know this at twelve.

I just can't get passed the fact that they were just babies, how terrified they must have been, how those parents will never see their beautiful little faces again... how brave those teachers were who died doing everything they could to protect them.

What the hell is happening in this world??

I know many people believe in God, but I'm starting to really wonder if we're just really on our own here.

I don't mean to bring everyone down so close to xmas I guess I just needed to get all this out.

My point to all this is, if you can, stop worrying and stressing about all the meaningless problems we worry about so much every day like why we can't lose weight or wishing we had more money ... just things like that and go hug your kids, your husbands, wives, mom's, dad's, grandparents... friends, pets ....whoever you love, hug them tight and let them know just how much you love them and how important they are to you because love is the only thing is this world that matters.



one last thing and then i promise to shut my mouth....

i know there are a lot of people who are extremely passionate about their weapons, and their right to own them, please don't hammer me with lectures, I respect your opinions, please respect mine.


saying that I want you all to know that I so much appreciate how incredibly nice and supportive all of you have been towards me and my little stories. Big hugs to you all, your kindness means a lot to me. Sorry just feel the need to tell everyone how much I appreciate them lately

now go hug someone you love as tight as you can
Carrie

[IceQueenMay]

Jake17 - Sorry this was so close to you. *hug*

When I first heard about it. What shocked me the most were how old these kids were. They hadn't even started their lives yet. They were babies. With such filled with hope. This person took that away from them. He took their dreams away.

[Heavenli24]

It's so sad what happened to all of those kids, and I really hope this forces the US government to finally tighten gun laws .

I saw on the UK news last night about the NRA's response that 'the solution to bad guys with guns is good guys with guns' and that they think that there should be armed guards in every US school... and I was shocked!

Not sure if people in the US remember/know much about it, but there was a similar type of shooting in the UK back in 1996. A gunman walked into a primary school in Scotland and opened fire on one classroom, killing the teacher and 16 children aged 5 and 6, before shooting himself (current US Open tennis champion and 2012 Olympic Gold medallist Andy Murray was a pupil there and was inside the school when it happened). It hit quite close to home for me because my cousins lived 4 miles from the school involved and were attending the local high school at the time.

In response, the government banned gun ownership in the UK (even the police are unarmed) and increased security in schools (without using guns) and we have not had a similar incident like it in a school since then (there has only been one other mass shooting in the UK since 1996 - the Cumbria shootings in 2010). Sure people can still get hold of guns illegally (and some people are allowed to own guns for specific purposes, like hunting, but they need a special licence), but I have no doubt that banning guns can only be a good thing and will reduce the number of gun-related deaths.

Some people argue that 'if someone wants to kill, then they will find a way to do it whether they have a gun or not, so then what's the point of taking away guns from everyone?'... but surely by having gun control, you make it harder for those people to carry out their plans to kill and you also reduce the chances of accidents happening, or unplanned, un-pre-meditated shootings occurring.

[April]

Carrie, I can't even imagine how, as a parent yourself and as someone so physically close to the entire incident, you're managing to deal with this. I'm states away and feel overwhelmed.

The whole thing is so tragic on so many levels that it's hard to put into words. Really makes me count my blessings and realize that I shouldn't complain about the little things so much.

I made the mistake of watching the news coverage over it for several days straight.

Many of you know that I'm a teacher myself. I think of my students, who I, like the heroic Victoria Soto, often refer to as "my kids," and I realize that there is NOTHING I wouldn't do for them. They are the center of my universe. With the exception of my own family, they're the most important people in the world to me. So, in some ways, it's not hard to imagine the teachers and administrators doing what they did to save those kids. Surely, it was instinctive and natural. But heroic nonetheless.

Seeing the photos and the videos of those innocent children, the victims . . . it breaks your heart. (And let's not forget the gunman's mother, who often seems lost in all of this.) Knowing that they had their whole lives ahead of them, that they could have done ANYTHING if given the time . . .

God.

The sad fact is that we live in a country where psychopaths are easily allowed to be psychopathic. For a long time now, I've been wanting to see gun laws altered, but it's becoming increasingly apparent to me that, if things are really going to change, it is mental health evaluations that need to change first.



So how was my day/week/weekend? Amazing, because I actually got to have one.

[killjoy]

Couldn't sleep so I got up and took apart all my guns to give them a good cleaning (am going to have to disagree with you all on gun control .If I have my pants on I have one of my guns with me at all times ) Turned on the show Preppers and watched it. Understood some of it and rolled my eyes at some of it. Being raised in the country and trained in the military i understand the need to be prepared if bad times/things hit.........but some of them were waaaaaaayyyyyy over paranoid

[jake17]

IceQueenMay,
Heavenli24,
April

Thank you for your support, personal stories and feelings...
I hope you all had a wonderful xmas with your families and loved ones.

[CandyliciousLovah]

Gun control was the last thing on my mind this Christmas, and so was the tragedy. The only Christmas present I really wanted was to have my brother in law home - and that's exactly what I got Family is just as important as what the real meaning of Christmas is for me - celebrating Christ's birthday. I don't know how many of you out there are religious, but I feel blessed when I have my family around for Christmas.