Rock and Roll Saved My Soul

In 1987, a small group of caring individuals had a vision: establish a private source of support for suicide research and education, and essential suicide prevention efforts could be sustained into the future. These founding families—each of whom had lost a someone to suicide—joined with scientists to create what today is the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, or AFSP. Many of our original founders were concerned about an alarming rise in youth suicide over the previous four decades. During this period, the suicide of young men had tripled while for young women it had doubled. Suicide is currently the third leading cause of death among young people age 15 to 24. The highest overall rates of suicide are for adults age 40 to 59. Before AFSP, there was no national-scope not-for-profit organization dedicated to understanding and preventing suicide through research, education and advocacy. Since its founding in 1987, AFSP has: Mobilized and connected tens of...

Jen: lefse!! Colleen: preparing the holiday meal and spending time with family Sandy: I love that Santa brings my family a movie for each of us every year. Santa always wraps his presents in santa paper along with the stocking stuffer stuff he brings everyone. Last 3-4 years i have wrapped my presents for each person with certain paper. So everyone knows what presents our theirs. Santa writes whose are whose from him. Michaelle: Holiday goodies! Baking, sharing, and of course, eating! Gina: The past two years, since my nephew was born I’ve been going to see him on Christmas Eve and spend time with him and open presents, eat, this year we’re going to decorate gingerbread houses. Heather: Open presents in the morning Radeyah: Around Christmas time my mom and I drink hot chocolate and watch Christmas movies. Lori: My brother and his fiance and I always go to our dad's for Christmas and I always buy my brother and I lifesavers story books as well...

What is the most clever life hack you've learned? Kate: Paper binder clips! They have so many uses. I use them as chip clips and for keeping cereal bags closed. And they're great for holding phone charger cords together if you keep them in your purse or bag so they don't get knotted up.  Sid:  I think the most clever life hack I’ve learned is in drawing where you can use a triangle to build up certain foot poses. (That counts, right?) A list from Google: http://twistedsifter.com/2013/10/clever-life-hacks-to-simplify-your-world/

Dating in the Digital Age By Kate Marie Robbins Where do you find a relationship when you live in a small town, work in a field that is primarily dominated by the same sex as you, and the bar scene isn’t your cup of tea? I didn’t meet my husband in high school or even college like most people do. So where does someone like me turn to? In this day and age, the only viable option for someone like me is the internet. We all have our own reasons for choosing for using sites such as Plenty of Fish, Match, Tinder, Facebook, Meetme, etc. to find dates and none of those reasons are wrong. There is so much stigma still in using the internet for dating and I don’t understand this.  If you’re being safe about what you’re doing, which is key, then it shouldn’t matter where you meet people. It baffles me that some people automatically assume that just because you met someone online that there must be something wrong with them. I decided to write this to try to help try to brea...

In the Netherlands , Sinterklaas arrives on the evening of December 5th. Children leave a shoe out by the fireplace or windowsill and sing Sinterklaas songs in the hope that he will fill them with presents. They also leave some hay and carrots in their shoes for Sinterklaas’s horse. They’re told that, during the night, Sinterklaas rides on the roofs on his horse and that a Zwarte Piet (Black Peter, who is like an elf) will then climb down the chimney (or through a window) and put the treats in their shoes. In Iceland , in the 13 days leading up to Christmas, 13 mischievous trolls called Yule Lads (jólasveinar in Icelandic) come out to play. For each night of Yuletide, children place their best shoes by the window and a different Yule Lad visits, leaving gifts for nice girls and boys and rotten potatoes for the naughty ones. Clad in traditional Icelandic costume, their names reflect the trouble they like to cause: Stekkjastaur (sheep cote clod), Giljagaur (gully gawk), Stúfu...

When should you reveal a secret you said you wouldn’t?  Sandy:  Only time I feel is if that person is in danger and their life is question. Otherwise keep secrets until you die. Sid:   You should reveal a secret when someone is in immediate danger, or if someone is hurting you. Kate: When it puts the secret holder or someone else's life at risk, especially if the person is a child.  Facebook weighs in: If it's someone else's secret never.....because it's not mine to share. However, if it's one of my own then it depends on who I'm sharing it with. I don't reveal any secrets unless I absolutely feel comfortable with a person or know i can trust them. There a still secrets from times in my life no one knows about and never will. -Shauna Y. Depends on the secret and who it might hurt or not. -Jenn W. For one, we must never divulge a secret. A promise is meant to be kept and if we don't honour our own words, we are disrespectin...

CHERUBS is the world's first and largest CDH non-profit organization. We are truly a grassroots organization - CDH families creating something out of nothing when there was no other CDH group, information and services in 1995. CHERUBS was created to make sure that no family endures Congenital Diaphragmatic Hernia without support or accurate information. Our Board of Directors includes CDH parents, grandparents, survivors, nurses, doctors and the world's top CDH researchers. CHERUBS is run solely by volunteers and donations. At CHERUBS, every CDH family has an opportunity to honor or remember our children while doing good to help others and work together as a CDH community. No other charity in the world has such a respected, educated or experienced group of leaders who care so much about the CDH community. CHERUBS was not created by one family or for one family. It was not created in honor or in memory of one child. It is, and has always been, a group effort to help ...