Author: dianegclark

This is Jason, our personal trainer at the gym.

Today i worked out in my own for about half an hour then Jason worked with me. He had me do some boxing first at his mitts then at the bag. Then he decided i needed to do some crazy stuff to get my heart rate up. He had me push and pull a sled. The floor is the wrong type for it so it was hard!

Then goblet squats with 35 pounds, walking lunges with 25 pounds, push ups and the ropes. Good times!

I burned a few calories today!

I always thought the first book I would write would be about all my experiences as school social worker. I have 29 years of memories, most great, some really, really hard. We used to have a joke, “you can’t make this shit up.” But it is true. Being a school social worker was so incredibly hard, sometimes terrifying, to be honest, but also exciting and so rewarding. It has taken me a long time to process it and get to a place where I can write about it. I think I have blocked a lot of it out. But the memories are starting to come back.

So hard to know where to start so I’ll just put random memories as they pop in.

I can remember a psychotic kiddo who would lose his shit but calm down the second I came in the room. He would say, “make them stop looking at me” and I ordered everyone to turn around. Then I could talk him down.

I remember a super strong woman who had 6 boys all elementary age. I first met her at Big Brothers Big Sisters. Then they were at one of my schools. She was such a great mom. But she had been hurt badly by the boy’s father in front of them in a far away state. Once, after the boys had been absent from school for a week, she called me and said she needed help. The boy’s father had convinced her to let him see the boys and came and got them. As soon as she found out it wasn’t going well, she went from crisis center to crisis center begging for bus tickets down there, across the United States, went into the house at night, busted her kids out in their pajamas, and went from crisis center to crisis center back here. It was unbelievable. I’d like to tell you that her boys all made it, but the strikes against African American males with a trauma history was too much to overcome, even with great parenting. They are all in jail.

I remember doing thousands of suicide protocols and helping tons of kids past that. But the ones who attempted and a couple who succeeded will never leave me.

I remember, unfortunately, being bitched out by a father about his daughter just before I left school at noon to get a cancer treatment. I wanted so badly to shut his mouth by telling him, but I doubt it would have made a difference.

I worked with 4 generations of one family. No kidding. When I was at Big Brothers/ Big Sisters, I knew the grandma, mom and little girl. The little girl then grew up and had a daughter who went to the elementary school I worked at and then showed back up in the middle school later. And then she had a baby shortly after she left.

I remember being so afraid of an escalated kid that I didn’t feel like I could touch my radio. I emailed and no one came to help me. He later ended up being one of my all time favorite kids.

I remember at one of the wealthier schools, a little girl and her mom who had escaped being held in the back woods of Kentucky by a crazy, abusive man who terrified them, and held them without electrity or running water. The little girl would talk and dictate stories and her teacher did not know how to handle it. So I’d have her go to my office and we wrote and wrote. When the mom got afraid the man was coming to get them, we took the little girls’ stories down to the county attorney and the mom was given full custody and a protective order. I remember they gave me a ceramic angel that I still have.

I remember before any bullying training, at a higher SES school, all the girls getting up and leaving when a girl sat down at the lunch table. The Principal gave all the girls consequences then almost caved into the pressure she got from parents to let them out of it. I told her I would quit if she caved.

I remember sitting on the front step of a home on the south side with a pregnant mom and I was pregnant for the first time and felt my baby kick and she told me what I was I was feeling.

I remember a kid that the teachers had me see three times a week, mostly to get him out of the classroom. I really liked that kid. He went to prison in middle school for robbing a convenience store with a sawed off shotgun. He later showed up at Eisenhower having turned his life around and thanked me for all I had done. He said that what I’d told him finally sunk in!

I remember getting called to the police station and put in an interrogation room. They told me to stop calling crime stoppers and call them directly and to stop going to a particular neighborhood on home visits because I’d interrupted several planned drug busts. Oops.

I remember a little bitty girl disclosing sexual abuse to me that we reported to DCF with pictures and everything so we had a really great case and the next day she didn’t show up. Her family came in to unenroll her the day when I wasn’t there. A teacher told me she pulled the girl aside and told her to keep telling when she got to her new school. All we could do is report to the police where they’d enrolled her when we got the records request. I still hope that little girl got help.

I remember some really tough kids that trusted me and we had such great break throughs in my office. And kids I had absolutely no idea how to help.

I can remember once in a group clinical supervision setting, we got talking about difficult child abuse situations and one by one we each busted out in tears and sobbed together for about an hour.

I can remember some horrible graphic sexual stuff that kids were into that we had to report, “kiddy porn” as the cops call it, and adult porn they watched. Kids are truly resilient and amazing with the crap they have to deal with. That stuff sticks with me even now. Images I have to block out that resurface from time to time.

I had a lot of frustrating staff members to deal with who truly didn’t get it. And so many amazing teachers that did so much for kids over the years. I loved the team approach, the way teachers give and love and give some more. I’ll never forget the support I personally received when I went through cancer. I have never felt so loved.

I worked with so many great Principals over the years. And my sweet Nancy and Angela, counselors. And school secretaries! Mary and Diane stick out and will forever be deep in my heart. They took care of all of us. Every day for years and years.

I remember the little girl whose mom had died who lived with us for awhile when her daddy was sick. And then she later played soccer for Scott. I run into her from time to time and she has become an amazing adult.

And the little girl whose mother died giving birth to her baby brother. They were from a culture where the dads weren’t involved in child care at all and here he was trying to raise a little girl and a newborn. The best thing I taught her was how to make ramen noodles.

And the little girl who only spoke spanish whose house had been robbed by gun point while she hid. There were zero Spanish therapists to refer her to so she drew pictures and we did the best we could to write the story down and then she read it over and over to her parents until she got better. That was way before we had any trauma training.

And the transgender Asian student who didn’t speak English who had no way to tell us what they needed and who they were. I was able to piece it together and communicate it to the psychiatrist. That was way way before we even knew transgender was a thing.

I remember doing year after year of divorce support groups. And child of alcoholics groups. One year I had to have a group for kids in one school whose parents had been murdered!

I remember having such great conversations with a bi sexual student who was being bullied by the Christian kids and trying to help bridge the gap between the two worlds, to build acceptance and understanding. And advocating and educating administrators about LGBTQ issues without really understanding the whole thing myself, frankly. And educating administrators on the rape culture of dress codes. Don’t get me started.

I remember two of my favorite people, school psychologists. Not that school psychologists are my favorite people, ha ha ha, but two in particular whom I loved. One I was super close to and loved, and one with whom our heated debates drew us close and made us appreciate one another. My, we had some heated arguments. I’d tell him to put his F***ing manual away and do what was right for kids.

As a school social worker, I was always the one in the meeting who was willing to “go there”. If there was something that needed to be said and everyone knew it, I was the one that would go ahead and say it. Someone once told me I had the gift of saying it in just the right way. But I just remember pissing a lot of people off. On a regular basis.

I remember early on, a kid in first grade cussing me out using the F word and throwing a phone at me. His mom was into Wiccan orgies. I told him he was making clear choices because if he’d wanted to hit me with the phone, he would have aimed better.

I remember a middle school girl who was so terrified she couldn’t talk because she had a sudden onset of schizophrenia and the voices were so loud they would knock her over in the hallway.

I remember reading a first grade primer book to a big tough middle school boy on his front porch after he’d been kicked out of school.

And the kid we had to get the police to follow us every time we had him ride with us to take him home. And the day he kicked me in the throat and called me the most horrendous things. I had to press charges against him. Thankfully, when I was on the stand, I couldn’t recall exactly what he’d call me. I visited him at the detention center and took him a cheeseburger. He asked me to ask his mom to please put some sheets on his bed before he came home. I was too scared of her to ask her anything. She tore up the Principal’s office once. The kid’s sister was at my house after school one day, braiding my daughter’s hair. When we were waiting to go into the courtroom to testify, a teacher on one side of me said she felt I had violated the kid’s rights. The cop on the other side of me told me I should walk my kids to and from school for awhile.

I remember the time a father told me he was going to kill a guy. I was too terrified to report it (thankfully he didn’t give me a name). I asked my Principal what to do and he said he’d think about it. The next day, he brought me into the office and told the Dad in front of me “I hear you are scaring my social worker.” The guy apologized and said he hadn’t meant it.

I remember the scary drug addict who was beating his wife that came up to the school and asked me why his daughter was afraid to come to school. I said because she was afraid to leave him alone with her mom. Later, I asked his probation officer to please send him to rehab before jail. He called me from rehab to thank me. I ran into the assistant DA at a party a few weeks later and he told me I had balls.

I wonder how many DCF reports I made over the years. How much tobacco and pot I took off kids (and called the police). And how many faculty, inservice, and IEP meetings I attended. I wonder how many school lunches I ate over the years. How many interns I had…How many clubs I sponsored and how many service projects did we do…how many bully protocols….how many office referrals I wrote…how many fire drills we had…how many lunch bunches I did.

I loved being a school social worker. I couldn’t have done it one more day, though. God Bless school social workers.

I love my new car.

I know it was so hard for Mom to give up her car. It means giving up so much independence even though she was only driving it very short distances. And the car was special to her, purchased brand new shortly after Lee died with money he left her. As she signed it over to me, I promised to love it too.

Its a 2009 Lexus 350 ES, four door sedan. It drives like a dinner knife through butter. It has cruise control and cherry wood and leather interior. I like riding with the sun roof open. Everything is automatic and keyless. It’s so luxurious.

It was time for me to graduate from my cute little Mazda zoom zoom college girl car to something a bit more worthy of the new me. I did love my little manual transmission zip around car. It was fun to drive but felt like a golf cart to passengers. It went terribly in the snow and rain. I almost blew off the road driving it to Denver once. It didn’t have cruise control and the only thing automatic were the windows.

I feel so honored to ride in such style and luxury.

We looked at looked at outdoor patio furniture for our deck in the fall and just couldn’t find what we wanted. We were looking at some expensive options online and took a trip to Menard’s and found exactly what we wanted! It is basically the same style we had before so we got the couch, three chairs, a coffee table, end tables and then a table with an umbrella and chairs. We will put the old furniture minus the futon on the lower driveway then eventually build a fire pit in the yard.

Yesterday, Scott and our two friends tore down the old shed and last week Scott built the new one. I helped for about two hours. It was fun!

Hannah and Kent will have their wedding party here in June when it is all finished.

I missed my boys so I took a quick trip to Newton today and it was a good one.

I made a huge effort to go the speed limit on the way there, even while singing.

When I arrived, Emmet was in his rocket man outfit playing with his farm. He asked me to sit next to him, Leah said he’d been planning that all morning waiting for me to get there. That didn’t last long, so we rolled the ball back and forth and it was pretty apparent he was wound up so we got our jackets and shoes on and went outside to play. We put some outdoor chairs facing each other, I held Henry and we threw the ball for Moose over and over about 50 times. Each time Emmet screamed “Watch this!” and we together tried to get Henry to say, “Oh Wow” when Moose caught the ball in his mouth mid air. Henry said it once. Emmet taught me the command “drop it” to get Moose to put the ball down.

When that was done, I tried to teach Emmet to ride his trike. It was a little too hard for him yet. So I put the boys in the wagon and pulled it around and around in circles. Henry loved that. I was surprised Emmet stayed in as long as he did. He has a tremendously long attention span for a kid (longer than mine:).

Leah made us the nicest lunch, chicken enchiladas with green onions, avocado, and black beans for the top along with tortilla chips. Emmet actually tried the green onion! I had thanked Leah for making us a special lunch and Emmet kept patting the green onions and calling them special.

After lunch we loaded up the boys and went out to water their community garden plot. Emmet was super excited to show me the garden and to water it. So cute.

I got some Henry snuggles in. I told him I loved him and he put his little head down on my chest with a sweet little grin.

When we got back, Emmet and I played in the back yard awhile, more wagon pulling while Leah put Henry down for his nap. I read Emmet his two books in the chair and he snuggled me. While I was reading he said in the sweetest voice, “Grandma, I love you.” Completely unprompted. My heart melted.

I took a short nap on the couch snuggled up with Moose while Leah painted a pic. Leah said I can get a couple of her green tea towels at a discount.

I stopped by Prairie Harvest and tried on Easter dresses. Found one and a purse, but decided I didn’t really need either so passed. I got a few items from Prairie Harvest including a yummy snack to eat while driving home with the windows open and the sun streaming in. While singing at the top of my lungs, of course.

So this short visit was a win all the way around.

Some people say that men and women can’t be close friends. Not true. Some of my closest friends are men. Dave Romero is one.

When I first met Dave, he was way different than anyone I had ever met. Scott recently described him as a hummingbird. His energy level is off the chain. He has a unique, west coast style of clothes and hair. He exudes confidence, almost to the point of overconfidence until you get to know him and find out his history. Now I know that he is one of the most humble people I know. Who loves to talk about himself, probably to remind himself of who he is and what is important to him. Dave welcomes friends like us who can call him out, are real with him. Dave was a rock star and he is still a rock star. Not many of us have actually met one so of course, he’s going to be a little different. Now he just rocks it out as a Pastor.

People are important to him. I am important to him. Scott is important to him. His words and his actions show this on a daily basis. Dave is there for us. Not just there, but there there. I can tell him anything. He listens and he accepts me and he hears me. He understands me. He always has just the right thing to say to me. He never ever lectures me or judges me but he speaks truth to me.

Sometimes we joke that I am the female him. We are so alike in so many ways.

I absolutely love to sing with Dave, to hear our voices blend together. We’ve gotten to this place where he doesn’t have to tell me when or where or what to sing, I just know. My job as his back up singer is to harmonize and add to what he is singing, to make him sound better, if that is even possible. And when the three of us sing together, Scott, Dave and I, its like magic.

We love to have Dave over to hang out. He’s easy to be with. He is hilarious. Even with his energy level, he can chill. He loves to eat and just hang. And talk. We don’t have to put on any pretenses at all. We have a pile of private jokes between the three of us.

Oh my goodness, Dave’s sermon’s lately knock it out of the park! I used to accuse him of reading my journal for inspiration for his sermons because it seems like they are just for me. He is so genuine! I write notes as fast as I can and then go back through them because even though they are simple, they are deep. So inspiring. Always exactly what I needed to hear.

I am so very grateful that God brought us together. This is what friendship is supposed to be. The type of connection we were created for.

I have such great kids. My heart bursts with pride. God gave Scott and I such great parents and then helped us raise up these three fine individuals.

Our oldest, Hannah, is such a beautiful person. She cares so deeply about people, especially marginalized people. Hannah was recently asked to be one of two representatives to go to Washington DC to represent and advocate for LGBTQ rights in health care. She was selected because as the President for the National Physical Therapy LGBTQ Club, she got to speak at a National Physical Therapy School.

Hannah is almost done with her second year of Physical Therapy School. She will graduate with a doctorate in Physical Therapy. It took Hannah awhile to figure out a career path but I think that is because she is such a free spirit! Hannah left high school and attended Baker University to play soccer. She was coming off of an injury and surgery so it was a tough go. She initially majored in nursing.

Her second year of college, Hannah transferred to KState. She majored there in art education and then dropped the education part and focussed on art. She worked at the Beach museum. Her junior year, she did a national exchange year in Laramie, WY at the University of Wyoming and ended up staying. While there, she got into rock climbing and crack climbing. Scared us to death! She also started working the summers for Americorp doing wilderness work for three weeks at a time. She ended up being a leader the second summer and met her soon to be husband, Kent. Hannah would have to organize all the food, activities, equipment and safety for her whole work crew. They built trails and even chainsawed in the deep wilderness!

After graduating with a degree in art from UW, Hannah lived in Lander, WY where she did an externship in art and worked part time in a PT clinic. It was there she figured out she wanted to go to PT school. So she returned to Laramie and took two years of science and math classes, prerequisites for PT school. She rocked them! She applied to one PT school, Regis in Denver and was accepted! This is a huge accomplishment.

Hannah continues to nurture her creative side while kicking ass at PT school. She and Kent plan to get married in August through a series of four parties for families and friends in various locations.

Hannah is the kind of person who lights up a room. Everyone’s attention is always drawn to her. She lives and laughs large. She is beautiful and stylish and doesn’t give two shits what anyone thinks of her. But she cares deeply for people, almost too deeply sometimes. She’s an awesome daughter, granddaughter, sister and aunt.

There was no doubt from the moment that Hannah was born that she would be a strong leader. She’s had a strong will and been a leader all her life, from calling kids in each grade to start a Bible story club while in 1st grade, to singing at church and in musicals and plays, to playing against boys soccer teams all the way through high school and starting on the varsity team 9-12 grades, to being in student council in high school.

One of my favorite stories of Hannah is the day she watched the security guards give a Hispanic student a hard time in the hallway for being on his cell phone moments after she walked by them on her cell phone and they did nothing. I did get called to the high school to meet with the Principal and a teacher Hannah was going in circles with and also to meet with the truancy board, oops.

I have no doubt Hannah will have a huge impact on making this world a better place.

Our sweet little Henry turned one yesterday! Leah threw the cutest party on the mezzanine (the cool rentable space above their store Prairie Harvest). All the closest local family and friends were there. We drove up and took Mom and Julie.

Henry woke up with a big fever and Emmet was wound for sound but it was still very fun. The theme of the party was animals. Leah’s decorations are always so cute and well planned. Be sure to check out her blog at Lavender and Clover this week.

Henry loved his cake, the abacus we got him and all his presents.

I already wear my hair in a style that is a little edgy. And sometimes I dress a little younger than I am. But I am not getting any younger folks! I’ve wanted to go a little further out and the other day I saw a style I liked so I am going for it. Its a faux hawk. Right now it doesn’t look a whole lot different than the shorter version of my regular hairstyle. But it is close all the way around and the top is going to grow longer while the sides stay short. I haven’t had a chance to experiment too much but I can swoop it back and the other direction, braid the top, put the top in a bun to go to the gym, and wear it down across one eye.

To top it off , decided to needed some more piercings. So I got two more in each ear. I was so nervous! I went to a tattoo shop where the expert piercer had been recommended to me. He was super kind and helpful. He pierced my ears with hollow needles folks! I was pleasantly surprised that I could do hoops right away and not studs. It hurt, yes it did. But I survived!

Now I purposefully dress a little more conservatively and feminine to balance things out.

I am so so proud of Leah. Leah is a confident, strong, artist, Mom, and entrepreneur.

It was so fun watching Leah grow up and become her own person.

Leah was born two weeks early, the tiniest of our babies. She slept 22 out of 24 hours for the first 6 months of her life and then had her days and nights mixed up. She had the tiniest little wrists and dark hair as a baby. She was a busy child, always moving, but very quiet. In elementary school, Leah had braces, glasses and we had to give her two allergy shots a week. Leah is a middle child. Growing up, she was often ill with asthma, sinus infections, and pneumonia, but she ran cross country in high school without an inhaler! I remember when she first played soccer, she ran behind all the other kids because she didn’t have enough lung power or long enough legs to keep up, but she proudly announced, “I kicked the ball once, mama!” She tried volleyball and basketball. Once her basketball team was way ahead and her teammates kept passing her the ball, hoping she would get a basket. She tried and tried! By the end, even the other team was in on it! She was musical and she loved hanging out at our neighbor’s house behind us. She and Anna played in the yard for hours and were pretty much inseparable. It was from Kathy, that Leah learned to bake and decorate. Leah always had pets and was an amazing caretaker of them. She had a baby doll that she took everywhere she went for an entire year when she was 5. Leah was always in multi age classrooms even in kindergarten! Leah played violin in the gold orchestra. I got to travel to New York City with her in high school and watch her orchestra perform at Carnegie Hall!

In middle and high school, Leah had a great friendship group and still is friends with many of those same girls. Leah wasn’t a rule breaker but she developed her own ways of doing things.

Leah decided to go to Bethel college in North Newton and it was the best choice ever. She initially decided to major in elementary art instruction but also played in the school orchestra. Leah met her husband, David, at Bethel and they married fairly young. Leah taught art for two years at middle and elementary school.

Leah and her husband and two kids live in a beautiful little house, perfectly decorated, close to where David works at Flint Hills Design. They co own Prairie Harvest, a local cafe and health food store for which Leah does the social media and some floor displays.

Leah runs her very own business from their home, Lavender and Clover. She makes and sells art products from cards and prints to printed fabrics, baby items, etc. She sells online, at pop up shows and has her products in many stores.

Leah is an amazing parent to her two kids, Henry who is almost one and Emmet, almost three. She is so patient and kind. She teaches them to share, play together, get along, and express themselves. She lets them get dirty and help with gardening and chores. She teaches them love of art and music.

I love Leah’s creativity and joy for life. I love to look at her Instagram photos and visit her house. She has it tough staying home with two little guys but she handles it with such grace. She is her very own person in her gentle way. I also love it when she comes to see me!