Last night was my first night running sound all by myself!! I was SO nervous that Pastor Carson helped me through practice and 15 minutes into worship, LOL!! But, I feel somewhat better about it. There is just SO much going on at once. It’s like the first time you learn to drive but I’m sure that after a while it will be no big deal. Pastor Carson said I’m still going to be in trial mode because of my hearing. Like last night I had him up to loud and he had to tell me to turn him down. I am over compensating making things too loud because I’m scared of making them NOT loud enough, LOL! I do want to keep doing sound so I hope he puts me on the schedule more the next three months. I’m sure I’ll stay on Wed. nights as it’s more a relaxed crowd, LOL!!

Here is where I sit and that is our sound board. YIKES!!


We drove to Willoughby for the parent meeting at Laurelwood and the doctor said he’s not releasing CJ until today. CJ is still talking of hurting himself when he comes home. CJ doesn’t want to come home and it’s not us. The problem with CJ is that he lets his “friends” dump all their garbage on him and he doesn’t know how to get rid of it so he tries to live with it and he can’t. CJ doesn’t have a filter of where to draw the line and tell others that he can’t handle all their junk. He thinks if he does that he’s being “mean” and not a good friend. So, he has lots of therapy to do to figure a way to dump what his friends are dumping on him.

CJ says that he REFUSES to tell anyone what his friends tell him because it’s “nobody’s business”. *SIGH* We told him he doesn’t HAVE to give a blow by blow of what they are telling him but he can discuss how what they are telling him MAKES HIM FEEL! CJ just has a heart to help the hurting world but he cares TOO MUCH and that is the downfall.

An example of this missing filter is that CJ is allowed some spending money to go to the vending machine once a day. I gave him $6 and when I saw him on Monday I asked him if he needed more money and he said yeah he didn’t have any left. I asked why he went through it so fast and he said that there are kids there that don’t have any money and he felt bad so he gave them his money. He didn’t use the money for himself! I told him that I wasn’t paying for other kids so I wasn’t going to give him any more money. He said that was a good idea because he KNEW that he would spend it on other kids and NOT himself. He knows we don’t have a lot of money and he would rather we kept it than give it to him. He would rather go without. I told him that them not having money is NOT HIS PROBLEM but he doesn’t NOT see it that way. If the problem is in front of him it’s HIS PROBLEM TOO. Now, this isn’t a bad thing but it can be because people like that can be taken advantage of so easily. CJ gives ALL himself and when others stomp on that he gets hurt badly and thus is the vicious cycle.

CJ doesn’t want to come home because he can’t stop his friends from dumping on him. When he’s in the hospital NO ONE can contact him but us so he’s “safe” there. We told CJ that he doesn’t have to be put into the hospital to get away from everyone. We told him that Nana and Don would love to have him for a while and we would pay to fly or bus him down. He look at us with wide eyes and said, “Really?!?” We said of course and Uncle Tony even wanted to have him for a while and he was surprised and happy to know that he’s NOT stuck here and that he can go someplace far enough away. But, if he continues to text these “toxic” friends while away it won’t do much good. We also told him he can’t just take off during school. So, if Nana and Don don’t mind maybe CJ might need to come down next month. LOL!