Hey there everyone :wave:, hope you are all doing well! :) Things are going pretty good for me. I have been at my new nursing job for 2 months now, and it's going pretty well so far. I trained on days, but switched to overnights this past week and that's been a tough adjustment. :o Hopefully I'll get used to it soon, though. Dale and I are doing great! :love: Since it's the holiday weekend, we get 2 visits. :yay: :dance:
Anyone else visiting this weekend? If so, hope you all have great visits!! :) If you can't visit, I hope that you get your phone calls and/or letters. :yes:
Happy September everyone!! :D Lisa

Hello Lisa-

Glad to hear that things are going well with you. Congrats on your semi new nursing job... I hear you about the shift adjustment; I work nights mainly but moonlight during the day and have a tough time remembering the days...LOL I am excited for you that you are able to visit Dale.... Mine just got to Eyman so it will probably be a month down the line.. Kinda a mixed blessing though, because I am still kinda scared to go there and stuff...

Have a great visit.

Blessings-

Azalea

Greetings fellow PTO'ers.....well September is starting off terrific. I just got back from a wonderful visit with my husband down in AZ and we got to visit for five visits, one of which was a "special visit" where we got to spend the whole day in the visitation room....ALONE. It was wonderful beyond words. He and his new stepkids got to meet each other for the first time plus I got to meet my new stepkids too. Everyone got along better than GREAT and we had so much fun playing games and eating out of the vending machines. My kids liked that part the best I think. :yuck: I had dinner with some friends from PTO which was really great, other than my getting lost, as usual, on the roads in Phoenix! LOL The hardest part was leaving my husband and coming back to New Jersey. I have developed such a dislike being here now and only want to be where my heart is. I think that is understandable, right? We shall see. I hope everyone's September is great - hey, kids go back to school so that is at least ONE PLUS, right? In any event, Happy September and before I forget....

OH HELL YEAH!!!!
:rock: :rock: :rock:

Hey everyone! :wave: Things are really great for Mikey and I. We were granted parole in July and he will be home with me in January! :faint: After all this time, we can hardly believe our time is almost here. I am busy making plans and preparing for his homecoming.

I have been back at work for 6 weeks now, and my college classes started back this week. I am considering specializing in autism (I now work with special needs kids) and I also have a real desire to learn all about OT (Occupational Therapy) for kids with special needs. Either way though, the new school year is going great and I am having a blast working with the kids in my class. :yes:

Mikey is excited about coming home and he already has a job lined up! I am so proud of him. I hope everyone else is doing GREAT and that your loved ones are, too! :hifive:

Aimee

Hi all!
Things here are going good. I've recently started my third job. Such is life as a single mom trying to make it work in San Diego! But I love working at the school. The kids are great. Alan is great too. He's still up at Winslow and if he's still there, I'll go and see him again in December. We're just about under a year and that's very exciting. Other then that, I've just been busy busy busy!
xo
leigh
:o

Hey all... I'm still pretty much bored out of my mind and stay waiting for my weekends all week. Me and mine finally got our phone calls through (I TOLD them I don't have call forwarding!!!), so that makes the week go a little faster. Other than that, not much is new news!

Hi everyone. I've got good things happening as well. I'm coming out to AZ for a visit with my baby this week (special visits included since I'm from out of state)!! I'll also be starting to look for a place in prep for "the big move" I'll be making out there soon! I'm so excited I can hardly stand myself! :yay:

:D Hello Lisa-

Glad to hear that things are going well with you. Congrats on your semi new nursing job... I hear you about the shift adjustment; I work nights mainly but moonlight during the day and have a tough time remembering the days...LOL I am excited for you that you are able to visit Dale.... Mine just got to Eyman so it will probably be a month down the line.. Kinda a mixed blessing though, because I am still kinda scared to go there and stuff...

Have a great visit.

Blessings-

Azalea

AZALEA... Got to visit my Honey for the Holiday weekend special visit at Eyman! Boy it's huge! I was nervous and scared as well as this was my first time and he just got moved there. They are strict! I have to say they are the strictest at visitation that I have been to so far. If you have children ( we have a son I also take to see Dad) you have to watch them closely and maintain serious control over them :D They also made me remove my tennis bracelet at visitation and go put it in the car. That was a first.. Once in however, it was great! It is a huge visitation room, inside and out for the Cook Unit visitation. If that is any help.

Also if you like me need to get a hotel room, I highly recommend the Blue Mist Hotel. They are not cheap, but well worth the money, besides being the only hotel in town basically. So make reservations as soon as you know you are going to go visit. They have in room coffee makers, hair dryers, they give you the complimentary shampoos, lotion and mouthwash little bottles. The rooms have a little fridge and a microwave. They are very very clean! I was pleasantly surprised. I can also recommend the chinese restaurant next door. My son had an awesome hamburger and fries there ( i went with chinese, excellent). The pool area at the hotel wa the cleanest pool area I have ever seen and the water temp absolutely perfect! I was a little intimidated at the proximity of ASPC FLORENCE ( a seperate prison from EYMAN) the front of the Blue Mist overlooks the prison yards! and it is HUGE!! :D Also a word or warning, they do get to the outskirt of Eyman Unit and line up starting at 6 am!! by 7:30 when they start letting you onto the prison grounds, there are 30 cars in line at least!! I got there by 6:30 and was the 5th car in line. I hope any of this is helpful to anyone! It was SUCH A PERFECT VISIT!!!! Leaving them there just never gets any easier! especially when you have such an awesome future to look forward to! :thumbsup: :thumbsup: Have a great September ya'll!!!
:cool:

Hey there everyone, glad to hear you are all doing well! Hope you all had a great weekend! I got to see my baby twice, so that made it an extra special weekend. :love:

~Azalea, the nights are hard to get used to! How long did it take you to adjust? Hope you get to visit your guy soon! :)

~Nancy, dinner was fun...we'll have to do it again next time! I know you're missing Eric, hopefully you'll get to see him again before too long. ;)

~Aimee, hope your classes are going well! :)

~Leigh, 3 jobs! :eek: You must be so busy! I hope you're getting to talk to Allan regularly and that the time will go fast so you can see him again soon! ;)

~Schase, glad to hear that your phone calls are going through now! :)

~Maggie, I bet you are so excited about your visit, hope it goes great! :) What part of the state are you going to move to, do you know yet?

~Karma, glad to hear that your visit weekend went well! :)

My husband moved from county to Lewis finally!!! He was stuck in county waiting for sentencing. I am still waiting for phone calls and visits, but at least he has moved. Thankfully less than an hour drive from my house. He was sentenced to less than what the plea was for which was such a blessing 2 years instead of 2.5 to 3.5. Small Miracles, I will take them.

I'm going to look around Phoenix & surrounding areas, he's from there & his family is there so it makes sense for the future. Doesn't help right now, since he's in Yuma but such is life. Any suggestions for where to look?

3 months down, 12 to go. Going on 4 weeks with no phone calls (damn system), but my wifey is doing okay. She really is a remarkable woman, stronger than I even imagined her to be. Visits have been wonderful. They don't allow us to hold hands though, which is profoundly stupid and mind boggling.

For my part, I would gladly take her place so she would never have to suffer this, but I can't. So I will do everything else I can to keep her happy. :thumbsup:

By the way, am I the only husband here? :confused:

DivineRite,

They don't even let you hold hands?! :eek: That's insane! Makes me feel lucky for what little bit we do get. :o

I guess from what I'm hearing, the old visitation officer let you. But the new one they have doesn't. I got a copy of the rules for visitation, and no hand holding isn't on there. I guess that's her personal rule. Maybe she'll losen up in the future.

Edit: By the way, this is a very minimum security yard. The other female inmates refer to it as "snoopy camp" compared to a place like perryville.

Just check in with everyone. Seems most everyone is on an even keil with the starting of September. I am on a bummer fiance decided he needed to fight someone so he is in the hole. Now I am having to learn an all new procedure. So hope everyone has a good month. I have put mine in the hands of the Lord because He know I can't handle it all by myself.:rolleyes:

My September was starting to be ok, but I found out yesterday by chance that my husband was moved from Lewis to Diamondback. I called the prison to find out about getting him a call since his grandfather had died and I got a call back at the end of the day to tell me that he had been moved. I hadnt recieved a letter from him in over a week (still no phone or visit priviledges). Lewis wasnt bad since we live in the Phoenix area. I have no idea how I am going to get 2 small kids to sit in the car for 2 days to drive to Oklahoma.

It's been awhile, but I am back. He is only in till November for a probation violation. He was out 5 weeks before he went back. He finally filed for divorce, is going to counseling, and is trying to reconsile with me and his entire family and all the people that he's hurt along the way. It took this violation to stop him from continuing to be in denial, so even though I hate the fact that he's back in, it needed to be this way.

Now that the month is about over, I thought I would check in. I have been out of town visiting family. Still trying to catch up with all my penpals. Most are doing OK but are definitely affected by the staffing shortages, boycots of the commissary and inavailability of jobs.

Traveling again next week and will check in again in Oct. Take care everybody.

Drove home in snowflakes today!!

Things are going good with Steven and I. He is for sure getting out in January, just kinda hanging out till then. But so far so good:-)

Well, my September started off to a great start and I've been on a high ever since. If you'll all remember, I visited my friend for the first time over Labor Day weekend. I hadn't seen him in 10 years! Thanks to all of you and especially Snow for all of your advice and support. I could not have done it without you all. Surprisingly, I made it through the registration part without any major hang-ups.

So I'm definitely looking forward to my next visit. Hopefully in December.

In the meantime, I started taking on-line classes through the University of Phoenix. So that is really keeping me busy.

Dawn