Gift Card Holders

I love these simple gift card holders! They are made with an envelope, some ribbon & cardstock! Doesn’t get much simpler than this!

This one is made using the sets Year After Year (109347), Short & Sweet (109369), & the See You Around (109687) Jumbo Wheel. I used Certainly Celery & Apricot Appeal ink and cardstock and Celery 1/4″ Grosgrain Ribbon. It was for a gift card for a friend’s baby shower.

These two pics are of the same gift card, just the inside & outside. It uses the set Big Bold Birthday (109439), Pixie Pink & Chocolate Chip cardstock & ink. Plus Shimmery White cardstock and envelope. I love shimmery white, it sparkles! The frosting part of the cupcake is cut out and mounted on dimensionals. I used Crystal Effects to make it shiny, then while it was still wet, I placed chocolate chip colored seed beads for the sprinkles. The edges of the Shimmery White pieces are sponged with Pixie Pink. I also used the Ticket Corner, Large Oval & Small Oval punches. If you look closely, you can see that there are 10 candles, guess how old the recipient of this gift card was turning? ;o)

This last picture, if you look closely on the right side, you can see the top of the gift card peeking out. Just thought you might want to see how it holds the gift card. To make the holder, the first thing you do is fold the envelope in half. Then, you cut off half of the flap, sealing the other half. The side that you cut the flap off is where you put the gift card! So simple & easy!

Pepper Spray

I used to have one of those pepper spray key chains. You know, the kind that they sell at survival stores and self defense classes. They don’t protect you, but give you that extra time if you need it to get away. I worked odd hours, sometimes until 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning at a casino. I felt safer having that in my hand as I walked through the parking garage to my car. I got it *just in case*, you know, just in case you get attacked, just in case you get mugged, just in case someone tries to carjack you. I never expected to actually use it though.

We got into a fight one night, again, no clue what about. I remember that I was trying to keep it from getting physical though. So I grabbed my keys & purse, and was going to leave. I don’t know where I was going, but I thought if I could just get out. When I got to the door, he shoved me, told me to get the f*** out. When I fell out the door, I turned so I didn’t land on my face, and he then kicked me in the stomach. I swear I thought I was going to die. It knocked the wind out of me. I struggled to get up. He had slammed the door, so I thought it was over. As I slowly got up, the door came open. I had my keys in my hand, and I ran to the car. We lived in an apartment, and our assigned parking spot was right outside our door thankfully. I got to the car and got it open just as he caught me. He grabbed my arm, I panicked. I didn’t know what he would do if he pulled me out of the car, but I knew that it would be bad. I could already feel the bruise on my stomach where he had kicked me. In some moment of clarity, I remembered the pepper spray. I wasn’t sure it would work. After all, the people who sold it said that it might not work on an enraged or deranged person, but I was desperate. Somehow, I managed to get the flap open. He still had a hold of me. Those little pepper sprays have this great safety catch, so that you can’t accidentally set it off in your purse and zap yourself with it. The store where I bought it had instructed me on how to release the safety one handed, so that if you were struggling with an attacker you could still open it. It worked. As I felt the guard slide around and realized that it was open, I pressed, hard. He screamed and let go. I slammed the door, locked it, started the car and backed out. I remember seeing him in the mirror as I drove away, terrified. I knew how angry he would be, and I couldn’t imagine what I should do next.

I ended up at his mother’s house. I didn’t know where else to go. When I told her what had happened, she was furious. They promised not to let him in. He called, they told him to leave me alone. He called again, and again. Eventually, he stopped being angry, and was sorry. He cried, he didn’t know why he did it. He was so wrong to hurt me. He was sorry. He just needed me, he just needed to know when I was coming home, he couldn’t live without me. Why was I doing this to him, hurting him so bad? Eventually, I talked to him on the phone. Then, I went back. I was ashamed of myself. I had humiliated him with his family by going to them. How could I have done that to him? How could I think he would have really hurt me. He loved me, I was his savior, the only one who understood him. The only one who would never leave him. So I went home. About 3 or 4 weeks later the bruising on my stomach finally healed completely.

Mission to Mars

When I left, besides clothes and some toys for the kids, I took two things. I took my Precious Moments collection, because I knew that he would destroy them when he got home and I was gone, and I took my computer. It was my lifeline and I also knew that he would have taken a baseball bat to it as well. He had told me as much.

In 2000 we got our first computer. I had worked at A&M while I was pregnant with A and discovered the internet. Wow, I was enthralled! After she was born, I was back to staying home, and we decided that it would be good to have a computer. So, we bought an HP computer at wal-mart. We put it on lay-a-way and when we picked it up, I was so excited! I’ve always liked computers, and now I had one of my own! From the beginning, it was my computer.

We got online, dial-up, with at&t. I was so excited! I had an e-mail address. Excuse me, WE had an e-mail address. One e-mail, after all he said, why did I need one separate from him, was I hiding something? Of course not, so *we* decided together that one e-mail was all we needed. Anyway, we were living about 100 miles from all my family, he was working as a truck driver gone 3 or so days at a time, and I had this wonderful machine. I discovered usenet! At first, when I opened outlook express the first time and it asked about newsreaders, I thought, “oh, that’s neat, I can get the newspaper in my e-mail, how nifty!” Then I slowly discovered what it was. I found a haven, alt.mothers. It was this group of mothers who posted about all things relating to motherhood and mothering and mothers. I loved it. One day though, this *place* changed. Trolls, nasty little people who post arguments and nasty ugly things trying to get people to fight appeared and invaded our little place. We tried fighting back, but that didn’t work. So, someone suggested we should all just leave. If there was no one to post to, and no one replied, then the trolls would leave. So we did.

Someone, I forget who exactly, and I apologize if it was you, set up a message board somewhere and our happy little group posted there for a while. The joke was that since we had just abandoned the usenet group, we were all going to Mars, and Marsmoms was born. Once things settled back down, several moms left and went back to alt.mothers. There were about 20 or so of us who stayed though. We set up a yahoo group to send our messages. It was this wonderful amazing thing that happened! A few more left, but there was still probably 15 or so of us there. We developed friendships, love for one another, and this amazing thing was happening to me, I was discovering that I had worth, that people did like me, and that I wasn’t just this loser with no education who would never be anything without this hurtful man to take care of me. More people left, some of us had babies. Some of us got degrees, some of us got jobs. We had problems and hurts, and we all cared for each other. It meant so much to me to be able to log onto yahoo messenger at any given time and know I had a friend there to talk to. I learned how to properly say “Crikey” and what it means, I had late night chat sessions with friends in Canada, England, Australia, Hawaii, all over the US. These women cared about me. When I hurt, they listened. One of the Marsmoms was having problems with CPS and another one came to her rescue, she contacted a housekeeping service in the town where she lived, and had them come clean her house.

During this time, he slowly realized that these women were really becoming friends. He tried to alienate me from them. He would read the e-mails and interrogate me, what does this mean, what does that mean? Why are you chatting with that one more than the others, are you having an affair with her? He would tell me that he should just throw out the computer, I was becoming a different person and he should just bash the computer with a bat. Do you really think they would like you if they *knew* the real you? What he didn’t know was that they did know the real me. For some reason, I shared everything with these women from the beginning. I told them things that troubled me, that hurt me, that I was scared about, at first, I expected them to ostracize me. To reject me and say, “we don’t want you here, you are a lousy person.” They didn’t though. They hugged me (virtually of course), they loved me, and all that time, they were slowly helping me to realize that what I was living was not what I deserved. That I was/am a good person, and I deserve happiness and peace.

One night, a Marsmom posted a picture of herself with a black eye. Her husband had punched her in the face. She kicked him out. I was amazed. I never would have thought that one of my friends could possibly be living the same horror I was. She & I talked, and I told her that I truly understood what she was living. Eventually, she let him come home, and after that, she drifted away from Mars. I was sad. I started reading about domestic violence. I learned that most women will leave 7 or 8 times before they make a final break. I still had not told everyone about my biggest secret. The fact that I was living a nightmare. I soaked up the love from these women though. These sisters who loved me for me, because I was and am always honest with them. I never hid myself from them. They are the first *true* friends I have ever had.

After one fight with him, and this was very close to the time I left, I remember posting something to the effect of how do you know when you have had enough and can’t go on? I was referring to my marriage, but I still remember the frantic phone call from one Marsmom asking if I was ok. She read my message and thought I was suicidal. She was terrified that she was to late, that I had done something. Shortly after that, I left. Those wonderful women gave me the courage to do the right thing for myself, and for my children.

When I was living with my family, I didn’t have internet access at home, I went to the public library to post to mars. I got phone calls from them all the time. Cards in the mail. They even took up a collection and sent me gift cards to do something fun with the kids. I don’t know if they will ever know how much their friendship means to me. They TRULY saved my life, because I have no doubt, if they had not come into my life and helped me realize my worth, I would not have left, at least not until I was in a body bag.

Another First

Something a little more positive tonight. The first time I realized I wasn’t alone. After I left, I was seeing a counselor at the local women’s shelter. Fortunately, I did not need to stay there, my family was there for me. Many women don’t have family to turn to though, and women’s shelters provide a place to live for them. For those of us who had a roof, they provide other services though, counseling, support, help with childcare, finding a job, etc.

They helped the kids and I with counseling services. All four of us received individual counseling, as well as a support group that I participated in as well. One night, one of the counselors who was facilitating the group opened up by reading the first part of a book, “I Closed My Eyes: Revelations of a Battered Woman” by Michele Weldon. Before the speaker was finished, I was in tears. This woman, she was telling my story, what she said, what she felt, what her batterer said and did, it was my life. I was stunned. I thought up until that point that I was alone. I believed him when he had told me that it was my fault, that I was to blame. Yet, how could that be, when here was another woman, in the same situation, telling the same story. Who believed the same lies that it was her fault, that somehow, she could hang on and eventually it would get better?

How many others are out there? How many other women are believing those lies? Are lying in bed, nursing a black eye, bruised jaw, crushed spirit, or any of the hundreds of physical injuries? With crushed spirits and empty hearts, just trying to survive, believing that if they can only do just this one thing right, then it will all be better? I am not alone, I have sisters out there, in this *sorority* of sorts, we didn’t choose it, who would? We didn’t ask for it, we didn’t enjoy it, we didn’t do anything to bring it on ourselves, but each day, struggle to make sense of the life we have found ourselves in, and hold onto anything that can bring just one shred of hope. That maybe, just maybe this time it won’t be so bad. It doesn’t get any better. Each instance is worse than the last, it escalates that way. There is a pattern, a cycle of abuse, how does the cycle end, when does the cycle end??? I don’t know, but I do know now that I am not alone, I never was. There are other women out there, just like me. I am NOT alone, and I never was…

I know…

that this is probably getting old for you. I guess I’ve needed to put these things into words for a long time. This is a way for me to do that. Hopefully, someone will read this, and maybe it will help them realize that the situation they are in is not their fault, and that they are not to blame.

It wasn’t always horrible. There were ok times, and there were good times, but most of the time, I was surviving. Especially towards the end. I felt as if I was walking on egg shells most of the time. Never knowing when something I said or did would push him over that edge. I told you about the first time he physically hurt me. Let me tell you about the last.

Once again, I don’t remember what the argument was about. At this point, I was coming to realize that my marriage was abusive, that I was what they called a “battered woman”. I hated that term. I still do in a way. I am more than that, I was more than that. I hadn’t reached out for help yet, but I was close. It was Memorial Day, 2000. My family has a tradition, we all get together and go camping every Memorial Day weekend. He was off that weekend, and so we had gone camping with my family. We had to come home on Sunday though because he had to work Monday night, and he didn’t want to have to come home, unload from the lake, then pack up to go drive for three days. Anyway, Monday morning, something happened, we argued. I remember the kids were in their rooms playing. They were 4, 3 & 1 at the time. When it started to get physical, I was trying to get past him to go to the bedroom. I could get in there and hide in the bathroom. I did that a lot. It was one of the only places where there was a lock. He wouldn’t let me by. He pushed, I pushed back. That was it. I don’t remember all the details. I remember him yelling, saying horrible things. Then he punched me, in the face. I hit the floor. He isn’t a big guy, but he’s strong, and it floored me. I don’t think I lost consciousness, but I don’t know. The next thing I remember was crawling on the floor to get away from him. I could hear the kids crying, and I was telling him to stop. Not to do that in front of the kids. I got to the corner of the dining room behind the table, and I remember looking up at him. He was holding one of the dining room chairs over his head, and then I looked down, and I can remember seeing the kids standing behind him, crying. All three of them. I guess he heard them, I don’t know. I just know that he put the chair down and left.

When he came home, a couple of hours later, the bruise was starting. It wasn’t horrible yet, but it was starting. He had gone to get a haircut, and while he was there, he paid for me to get my hair cut & colored. Wasn’t that nice?

Not just physical

Domestic violence isn’t just physical abuse. The emotional/psychological abuse is there too. It is in my experience, more harmful than the physical.

I remember sitting on the couch, probably less than a week after I had moved in with him, and he pulled out some pictures of his ex-girlfriend. He was showing them to a friend of his, telling him how gorgeous she was. Hello, I was right there. Then, he turned to me and said, you could be that gorgeous too if you lost weight. Those types of comments were regular in our house, all through our relationship. Whether I needed to lose weight or not, I was constantly told that if I would just lose xx pounds, or just work out, I would be gorgeous.

When something went wrong, whether it was because I cooked something wrong, didn’t do the laundry just right, the bathroom wasn’t clean enough, the couch cushions were wrong, whatever wasn’t just the way he felt it should be, it was because I was stupid, or a b**ch. Those things were drilled into me. I wasn’t smart enough because I didn’t have more of an education than high school. I wasn’t pretty enough because I needed to lose a few pounds. It was never good enough, clean enough, pretty enough, whatever. And those things were all my fault.

It wasn’t always what he said either. Sometimes, just HOW he said it would make me draw up inside myself. That was just my over-sensitivity according to him though. I was just to sensitive and to much of a baby. If I would just grow up and be a real woman then I wouldn’t be so sensitive. The constant emotional battery was something that I grew to think showed how much he loved me. It was his way of trying to make me a better person. To help me grow up. I was only 18 when we got together, so this was his way of helping me. At least, that’s what he said.

It never mattered if other people were around, he would be cruel anyway. It is so humiliating to be put down in front of your *friends*. That is part of the control though. Abusers know that in order to maintain their control, they have to alienate you from your friends and family. The best way to do that is to let their true colors show. Then, when your friends and family say to you that they are concerned, you will distance yourself from them, because they just don’t understand your love. No one could understand how much he loved me. How much it hurt him to act that way, and how much he didn’t want to hurt me. So I would cut a friend out of my life, or not talk to my family as much. The family part was easier for him to cut out at first, because we were in another state. I guess I should say that I cut the friends and family out, because after all, it was my choice, he never demanded I stop having friends. He was just kind enough to point out that they didn’t understand our life, and if I wanted to be around people who said bad things about him, well, they didn’t know what he had been through.

Intimidation was a big thing too. After that first time, I knew just what would happen if he got mad enough, and he used that to his advantage. He would block the doorway so I couldn’t get by, or he would stand in a certain way, and it would intimidate me. I could feel when he was getting mad enough to hit, and so I would back down, at least in the beginning. No one wants to be hit or kicked, especially when you can still remember the stings of last time, so I tried to keep it from happening. When he would get mad, I would immediately apologize. I’m sorry for not doing that, or for doing it wrong, or whatever. Anything to keep him from going over that edge, and in my mind, that was being good.

After all, it was my job to fix him, to make him happy, and if I could just make him happy enough, then he would stop being mean, right?

The First Time…

That first time is still right there, fresh. If I close my eyes I can feel myself being drug through the house, I can see the sheer rage and hatred in his eyes. I can see the looks on the faces of his brother and his friend as they watched without doing anything. As they turned their faces away while I screamed for help.

I don’t remember what it was about. I don’t really remember what ever set him off. I just remember the pain.

It was late October, 1991. We had only been seeing each other for a few days probably when I moved in. I thought it was wonderful how he couldn’t imagine being away from me, how he just wanted me there all the time, so he could take care of me. I craved that, someone to love me, to want me, to care for me like that, so in a way, it was almost like a dream. I needed to be loved, and I thought that was the truest love ever. I mean, he couldn’t stand the idea of being away from me for even a day. My friends and family didn’t understand, at least I thought they didn’t. They probably understood much better than I did at the time.

That first time is still so fresh. I remember how shocked I was when he grabbed me. When he called me those names. Then the next thing I knew, I was being drug through our apartment. He had me by the hair. My hair was really long then, all one length, down to my butt. He grabbed me, and I was being drug through the house on my back, on my knees. I was trying to get away, but it hurt so bad, and I was so scared. I remember I was crying, and begging him to stop. It hurt, how could he hurt me, he loved me, right? I remember as he pulled me through the living room I looked over, his brother and a friend were sitting on the couch watching tv. When I saw them, and they saw me, I remember screaming and crying to them to please help me, I remember that I said, “you know this isn’t right”. Both of them turned away. That was my first clue that it was me who was wrong. After all, if I was innocent, then they would have helped, right? That was my thought anyway. When we got to the front door, he threw it open, and pulled me out. The front door opened up to a concrete porch, and then to the asphalt parking lot. He pulled me out by my hair and threw me into the parking lot. I was crying, so scared. No one had ever hurt me like that before. I didn’t understand. Then, my clothes came flying at me from the front door. I remember thinking that I couldn’t leave. I couldn’t go back to my mom like this. So I sat there and cried. Then, I slowly began to gather my things and go back inside. I knew that if I could just make whatever it was right, it would be ok, and he would love me again.

10 years later, when their mom passed away, his brother apologized to me. He said that he remembered that night, and wished he had stopped it. At that point, I was starting to realize that the life I was living was not a fairy tale, that there was no happy ending in sight, that he wasn’t ever going to get better, and that it wasn’t my job to help him. When he told me that he was sorry, and that it wasn’t right for his brother to do that to me, it was just one more door opening for me to realize that I deserved better, I truly deserved love and happiness, and most of all, I deserved peace.

October

Most people know that October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. You can’t go anywhere without seeing pink ribbons all over. That is GREAT! What most people do not realize is that October is also National Domestic Violence Awareness Month as well. Take time this month to think about the following, and how they affect you, and I assure you, they do. I am also going to be posting some of my experiences this month. I will be honest and as gentle as I can, but I feel that it is important to give voice to experiences. I hope that you will continue to read, and to pray for survivors, victims, abusers and those who don’t even realize that they are experiencing this horrific ordeal. When you read these statistics, please keep in mind that these types of crimes are very under-reported, and that the actual numbers are probably much higher.

Abuse In America

• 4 million American women experience a serious assault by a partner during an average 12-month period. 1
• On the average, more than three women are murdered by their husbands or boyfriends every day. 2
• 92% of women say that reducing domestic violence and sexual assault should be at the top of any formal efforts taken on behalf of women today. 3
• 1 out of 3 women around the world has been beaten, coerced into sex or otherwise abused during her lifetime. 4
• 1 in 5 female high school students reports being physically and/or sexually abused by a dating partner. Abused girls are significantly more likely to get involved in other risky behaviors. They are 4 to 6 times more likely to get pregnant and 8 to 9 times more likely to have tried to commit suicide. 4
• 1 in 3 teens report knowing a friend or peer who has been hit, punched, slapped, choked or physically hurt by his/her partner. 5
• Women of all races are equally vulnerable to violence by an intimate partner. 6
• 37% of all women who sought care in hospital emergency rooms for violence–related injuries were injured by a current or former spouse, boyfriend or girlfriend. 7
• Some estimates say almost 1 million incidents of violence occur against a current or former spouse, boyfriend or girlfriend per year. 8
• For 30% of women who experience abuse, the first incident occurs during pregnancy. 9
• As many as 324,000 women each year experience intimate partner violence during their pregnancy. 10
• Violence against women costs companies $72.8 million annually due to lost productivity. 11
• 74% of employed battered women were harassed by their partner while they were at work. 12
• Ninety-four percent of the offenders in murder-suicides were male. 13
• Seventy-four percent of all murder-suicides involved an intimate partner(spouse, common-law spouse, ex-spouse, or boyfriend/girlfriend). Of these, 96 percent were females killed by their intimate partners. 13
• Most murder-suicides with three or more victims involved a “family annihilator” — a subcategory of intimate partner murder-suicide. Family annihilators are murderers who kill not only their wives/girlfriends and children, but often other family members as well,before killing themselves. 13
• Seventy-five percent of murder-suicides occurred in the home. 13

1. Issues and Dilemmas in Family Violence: Report of the American Psychological Association Presidential Task Force on Violence and the Family . Washington, DC: American Psychological Association; 1996.
2. Bureau of Justice Statistics Crime Data Brief, Intimate Partner Violence, 1993-2001, February 2003.
3. Progress & Perils: New Agenda for Women, Center for the Advancement of Women. June 2003.
4. Silverman, Jay G., Raj, Anita, and Clements, Karen. “Dating Violence Against Adolescent Girls and Associated Substance Use, Unhealthy Weight Control, Sexual Risk Behavior, Pregnancy, and Suicidality.” Pediatrics, August 2004.
5. Teenage Research Unlimited. Findings from study commissioned by Liz Claiborne Inc. to investigate the level of and attitudes towards dating abuse among American teenagers aged 13 to 18 [online] 2005 Feb [cited 2006 Mar 20]. Available from: URL: www.loveisnotabuse.com/statistics_abuseandteens.htm
6. US. Department of Justice, Violence-Related Injuries Treated in Hospital Emergency Departments, August 1997.
7. US Department of Justice.
8. The Commonwealth Fund, Health Concerns Across a Woman’s Lifespan: 1998 Survey of Women’s Health, May 1999.
9. Helton et al 1987.
10. Gazmararian JA, Petersen R, Spitz AM, Goodwin MM, Saltzman LE, Marks JS. “Violence and reproductive health; current knowledge and future research directions.” Maternal and Child Health Journal 2000; 4(2):79-84.
11. Costs of Intimate Partner Violence Against Women in the United States. 2003. Center for disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Injury Prevention and Control. Atlanta, GA/
12. Family Violence Prevention Fund. 1998. The Workplace Guide for Employer, Unions, and Advocates, San Francisco, CA.
13. Violence Policy Center (VPC), American Roulette: Murder-Suicide in the United States, April 2006.