Okay, so I finally got the kids out the door, the boy clean-shaven, the girl with the bra that matches the shirt, and me with my sanity. To have you fully appreciate the magnitude of that statement, I need to take you back three days…

My favorite vehicle in the world–my trusty yellow Xterra–is on loan to another member of the family, so we are down to our jeep (inside the garage, no top) and our monster of a diesel truck (22 feet long). I needed to run to the store for something small and didn’t want to freeze my keester off in the jeep (it’s not very warm out at eight in the morning) and didn’t want to wait for the diesel to warm up. My son’s car, a little Dodge Neon, sat patiently, so I jumped in to head to the store. The car is a sloppy mess inside, but that’s a topic for another blog.

I hear this piece of paper flapping around in the back seat so, braving what else I might find, I reach back and grab it. It’s the envelope for school pictures, and picture day is September 8th–the first day of school this week. After my quick run to the store, I grabbed my goods and the paper, and brought it all back inside with me.

Once I pointed out the fact that Tuesday was picture day, and that neither of the kids told me about it, they both had their “oh yeah!” moment and, after seeing that mom wasn’t pleased finding out about picture day this way, the daughter runs down to her room and brings me yet another picture day envelope, this one for sports. “When were you going to give this to me?” I ask. “I just did,” she answers.

So last night, after coming home from an exhausting day of boating in cold winds and fish who apparently hate my worms (a topic for yet another blog), I sit down and fill out the paperwork for the kids’ pictures. The one thing I ask of them when I hand them their checks/paperwork–wear something nice and please smile. Please, kids. Just do this simple thing for me. For those of you with teenagers, I don’t have to tell you what kind of reaction I got from that request. For those of you still waiting for your sweet baby’s teenage years to commence, just wait!

Okay, so after I straighten my daughter’s hair this morning, she runs to her room to put on the beautiful black shirt we both agreed would look fabulous for today’s pics. One kid down, one to go. I call for the boy, who appears in front of me with a camo ball cap and one of his plethora of t-shirts with obnoxious sayings. I tell him to change, and it turns into a big fight that ends with him finally admitting he can’t fit into any of his nice clothes, that sitting on his butt all summer and playing video games while snacking on about ten thousand calories worth of junk food has made him too big for his own britches. But, alas, yet another topic for another blog. At least he shaved. A mom has to choose her battles, you know?

Back to the daughter. She now is freaking out that she can’t find the black bra that goes with the black shirt and has on a clearly visible bra that clearly won’t work. I spend the next ten minutes in her pig sty of a bedroom until I find her bra. She changes and finally my kids are off to school to get their pics taken.

And then I get “the call” from school. Apparently the fabulous black shirt we thought would look great for school pics doesn’t fit the dress code. Her shoulders are visible and some of the teachers are not happy about that (you can bet I’ll be blogging on dress codes someday). I have to go back into the pig sty, find another shirt, and deliver it to the school before pics start. I find a shirt and rush it down. She has “that look” on her face and I know I can kiss any chance of her smiling in her pic goodbye.

The moral of the story? I love being a writer. I get to create my own little worlds and escape to them any chance I can. My life is chaotic. No way would I be able to write that scene into a book. No one wants to read about the reality of teenagers and temper tantrums. I’d rather escape to my little worlds of romance, of the land of guys and gals, and all that goes with that. Even as I write this blog, I feel the pull into one of my alternate worlds for a little reprieve.

Neither kid told me about picture day, but then again that shouldn’t surprise me. Neither told me about it last year until I asked, and by then we’d already missed not only picture day but retakes, too. I ended up taking my son’s picture from a school dance, cropping it down to fit the frame, and had my daughter stand in front of the wall to take her picture.

This year we are ahead of the game–we at least showed up for the pics. Maybe next year I’ll actually get them to smile.

~Allie K. Adams
www.alliekadams.com

I’m breaking away from my mamawriter mode and slipping into my Search and Rescue mode. Today I’m going to talk to you about getting lost, whether it be in the woods, the city, or your own backyard.

For years I’ve been a coordinator for Search and Rescue (SAR). It is something I have a passion for, I’m good at, and I’ll never hesitate to share my knowledge with anyone and everyone on the subject.

Yesterday I rec’d a call out from our sheriff that an 18-year-old girl went out for a jog and never returned back to the lodge. She wasn’t too familiar with the area, but was methodical on her evening jogs, and never veered off the road. As an avid jogger, no one saw any issues with her jogging alone, in an unfamiliar area, in the evening. My personal opinions aside–there’s no room nor time for personal feelings when you are running a search–I put together a team of SAR volunteers and established base camp up at the lodge where she was supposed to return to.

We had over forty volunteers check in, which is beyond what I could ever hoped for. We had ATVs, ground pounders, 4x4s, and even people assigned to do nothing but feed us. Once they received their assignments and were sent on their way, I continued to plan out the next twelve hours on the grid I created on my map.

I won’t bore you with the wait. We did find the girl–cold, scared, tired, and hungry. Otherwise, she was perfect. Absolutely perfect.

The reason I’m telling you all this, you may ask? Because the reason this girl walked away from this experience instead of having to be removed on a stretcher was that she did E-V-E-R-Y-T-H-I-N-G right (aside from the getting lost thing). When she went for her jog, she took a road she thought would loop her back around to the lodge, but instead it dead ended and when she tried to turn back around, she got disoriented and by the time she realized she was lost, it was dark. She hunkered down for the night instead of trying to walk out. Walking around at night is the #1 cause of injuries aside from the initial injury that caused the subject to not return back.

Instead of panicking at being lost in a strange area, at night, with nothing on but jogging attire, she found the biggest tree she could find and curled up next to it for the night, though she didn’t know why. A tree, I told her when I briefed her after we found her, acts as a chimney for a human’s scent. If you’ve ever heard of the Hug-A-Tree program, this is exactly what we teach the little kids. HUG-A-TREE if you ever get lost. Scent dogs can pick up your scent from miles away if you are next to a tree.

She screamed most of the night, hoping someone would hear her. By morning, she couldn’t scream anymore, her voice too strained to do much more than a whisper. She did have to ward off a bear, but she just so happened to read an article not too long ago that informed her on how to deal with different animals in the mountains of Montana.

When she started moving again once the sun came up, she walked downhill until she found the river, followed that down, and found the road. Once she climbed up to the road, she walked the road until she spotted one of our volunteers and flagged them down. They brought her back to base and this is one more search we were able to finish on a positive note.

They don’t always end on a positive note. Instead of me telling you everything NOT to do when you are lost, I want to point out everything this girl did right, so you can take and even talk to your kids/friends/family/anyone else who you feel would benefit from this:

• Tell people where you are going if you are going out, and when you will be back. Write a note if no one is around.
• If you get lost, DON’T PANIC.
• Hug-a-Tree if you are lost.
• Don’t move at night. If you are lost and it gets dark, hunker down and wait until morning if at all possible.
• If you get cold, nature is your best friend. As uncomfortable as it will be, shove leaves, moss, rotten wood, or anything else relatively soft and dry, under your clothes. Having nature against your skin will keep you warmer than your clothes will.
• Follow the river (if there is one) downstream. It will eventually lead to a road 90% of the time.
• Carry a whistle, compass, GPS (if you have one), and water. If you don’t have a compass or GPS, at least carry a whistle. They are cheap, easy to carry, and will save your voice (not to mention possibly your life) should you get lost. Whistle tones carry through the air much better than a human voice. Had this girl had a whistle, we would have heard her and she wouldn’t have had to spend the night in the woods.

If you take nothing else away from this post, please remember to carry a whistle. That’s what I told her, all of the volunteers, and even reminded my teams. Whistles are inexpensive and LOUD, and they may end up saving your life.

~Allie K. Adams, also w/a Eve Adams
http://www.alliekadams.com
http://alliekadams.blogspot.com
alliekadams@blackfoot.net