You may remember (or learned about it in History Class) Black Monday for the crash of the Stock Market.  But I remember it for different reasons.

October 19, 1987.  I was 19 years old.  I was done.

My mom had custody of Marisa, I lost my apartment, my chance at reconciling with Marisa’s father were gone and I was at what I thought was the absolute end.  That nothing would ever be better, everything could only be worse.

I was staying with a friend, I went to their bathroom and took a bottle of Tylenol to the living room, everyone was in bed.  I stared at that bottle for what felt like hours, but was probably minutes.  I dumped what was in the bottle on the table and counted out 25 pills, I didn’t want to leave my friends with nothing in the bottle, the stupid things you think of at moments.

I took those pills, washed them down with a beer and waited.  I don’t know what I thought, that my body would instantaneously react to the pills and I would be gone immediately or I would simply fall asleep and never wake up.  So I just waited.While waiting I couldn’t help but think.  I thought of my mom, how much she had sacrificed over the years for me and was still sacrificing by raising my daughter.  I thought of Marisa, how wrong I was for everything I had done to and with her since she was born.  I thought of the friends I was staying with, how awful it would be for them to find me in the morning and god forbid if one of their children woke up first.  Those thoughts jolted me into another realm.

I didn’t know if I wanted to “live” but I knew I no longer wanted to die.  I got up and left the house hoping I could “walk it off”.  Barefoot and without my glasses I walked around the neighborhood again for what felt like hours, ending up at my sister’s house about 10 blocks away.  I can only assume that my state of dishevelment didn’t surprise them because my entire life was disheveled. I crawled into a bed and left it up to a higher power.

Two days later I met Taj.  The day after that Marisa turned 1.  Within 90 days my life took an amazing turn and I was living in Maryland.

My life has never been the same.  I have been in many different places and have contemplated trying again, but it always came down to how can I hurt the only people who have helped me?

Taking your own life isn’t about you, it is about the people who love you, you may think there is no one, but there is always someone.

During the most recent episode of Glee, Mr Shu told his class about an attempt he made when he was younger and how glad he was he didn’t because look at all he would have missed.   He then had the students tell what they were most looking forward to.

I am at my “looking forward” point.  I have seen my children grow up, I have 3 beautiful amazing grand children, and I have a man who loves me no matter all the strife I have put him through for 25 years.

It gets better.

This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter for SocialSpark. All opinions are 100% mine.

Toast to the Red Carpet – LIVE, presented by I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter! is inviting movie fans to an online red carpet viewing party, complete with an exclusive roundtable of Hollywood stars, and best picture-themed recipes for your own home viewing party. It will be streaming live on the I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter! Facebook page on February 26 from 3:00-4:30 PST.

I love the Academy Awards, it is one of the few awards shows that the West Coast gets live and unspoiled.  I am lacking in my Annual Best Picture post because there are two movies I haven’t seen yet, Hugo and tree of Life.  Hoping to rectify that this week before the telecast.  At this point it is a toss up for me.  I think there were a lot of “good” films this year, but nothing has stood out as “best picture” for me, yet.  But all of this will be covered when I finally get around to that post.

Back to the point of this post, I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter! is also offering one of you lovely readers with a FREE tub of their yummy product!  All you have to do is leave a comment below telling us why you are going to watch the Toast to the Red Carpet – LIVE online show and interact during the Toast to the Red Carpet – LIVE online show on the I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter Facebook page.  It’s that simple.  A winner will be chosen on Sunday, February 26 during the Oscar telecast, using Random.org and that winner will receive a coupon for the free tub of I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter! in the mail.

My favorite thing to eat while watching award shows is the same thing I love to eat at the movies – POPCORN!  But at home I get to play with the recipe a bit.  Instead of plain old butter on my popcorn, I like to mix in some parmesan cheese or italian seasoning.  Makes for a scrumptious bite every time!

Giveaway coupon is being provided by I Can’t Believe it’s Not Butter! just in case the FTC was wondering and checking their guidelines and what not.

I first saw a picture of these on Face Book and couldn’t wait to make them with the grands.  But I had a busy work schedule and weeks went by before I finally had the chance.

First you cut up hot dogs into big chunks

Break spaghetti sticks in half and stick 3 into each hunk of hot dog

Boil until the spaghetti is cooked

Voila! Sghetti dogs!

Actually she isn’t, she is refined and adorable and…….a dog.

The Lady and the Tramp is a Disney Classic.  I remember watching it when I was a kid and I remember watching it with my children.  Now I am watching ti with the grand children.  Movies like this just don’t go “out of style”.

A classic love story unfolds in the best Disney tradition as a lovely young pedigreed cocker spaniel named Lady, who lives a pampered life, finds herself falling romantically for Tramp, an amorous street-smart pooch without prospects. Although they have fun together on several dates, including a sentimental spaghetti dinner by moonlight at Tony’s restaurant, their relationship is strained not only by Lady’s loyalty to her human family and their newborn baby, but by Tramp’s devil-may-care attitude that eventually gets Lady in trouble and tossed into the dog pound. However, good-hearted Tramp redeems himself by saving the baby from potential harm and thus wins Lady’s love and the affection of her human family.

Recently in honor of Valentine’s Day, Disney released this clip of two dogs re-enacting the famous Belle Notte scene.

Enjoy!

In my younger days (okay maybe only 10 or so years ago), when my gray hair wasn’t as noticeable, I used to get my hair straightened whenever I would get it cut.  But lately, I just haven’t wanted to see how much the gray shows up when it is straightened.

Blow Angel’s in Los Angeles invited Mom’s LA for a night of pampering and who am I to resist?

Before:

My unbrushed curls

During:

During - Credit Erica Leigh Photography www.ericaleighphotography.com

After:

Voila!

Of course nothing lasts forever, especially a blow out, my bang curl was back by the time I went to bed because I had a horrific hot flash on the way home and sweated through my head. sigh

But the rest lasted almost three days before I had to wash my hair.  Will do it again?  Not myself, but I may go back to Blow Angels sometime in the future!

Caitlyn and I had a busy weekend, we ate peanut butter and pizza, shopped kitchen gadgets and baby furnishings, and we won some amazing prizes.

There will be explanations of all of this later, but for now I want to share with you Cait’s first endeavor into modeling.  She participated in a fashion show for an upscale boutique.  She wore a dress from Marc Jacob’s Spring Line and we will not be so gauche as to speak of the price, but OMFG!

Enjoy (I edited the video myself, Megan would be so proud of me!)

My grand kids sure do!

They watched the new Mickey Mouse Clubhouse: I Heart Minnie with Aunt Kathy this past weekend and as usual they were thrilled with what they saw.

Now that I finally bought ink for my printer I can upload all the fun activity sheets for them from the button below and we can color together when we watch it again!

If you <3 Minnie you can win a copy for yourself (or your kids/grandkids), just follow directions in the Rafflecopter below!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Back in October(ish) I got an email from Boyd Gaming inviting me to a Slot Tournament at The Orleans Casino in Las Vegas.  the invite included not only the tournament but a room for 3 nights, my friend and I jumped on it and here we are.

Unfortunately they sold out of extra entries so she couldn’t compete, but she nonetheless stood behind me and cheered me on through the two sessions.

Speaking of the two sessions, I played twice for 15 minutes each.  It was the Red White and Blue machine with the max bet of 2 coins preset.  Getting the Red White and Blue 7′s (in that order) was the big hit and paid 1,000 credits.

For the first session I sat next to a man from Minnesota, I didn’t hear where exactly but he said it wasn’t too far from Hibbing when I mentioned I had family there.  His wife was playing at another machine a distance away (the machine numbers were randomly drawn) so my friend cheered for him as well since he was a good sport and was joking along with us.  the lady on the other side of me however was not cheered for since she acted crabby when I kept singing along to the awesome soundtrack they were playing.

The first session I scored 13818, which when compared to others in my vicinity seemed average.  The highest score we saw was a bit over 20000 and the lowest was around 9000.  The second session when I surpassed my first score I was happy, but again my score of  16028 seemed average compared to others.

Out of 1200 entrants only the top 4 received cash prizes.  The next 46 received $100 in free slot play and the next 50 received $50 in free slot play.

This is where the Happy Birthday part comes in, I was number 81!  I won!  I received $50 in free slot play!

I couldn’t believe it when we saw my name on the list, can’t wait to hit the slots!

happy Birthday to me!

Caitlyn in her Hanbok

Marisa was always a good student.  She never had to work hard at it (at least not that I noticed) and she never complained about her classes.  Adam had a harder time of it and at one point I contemplated getting him a tutor.  When he flat out refused the help, I didn’t bother following through and I regret that.

Caitlyn is in the FLAG (Foreign Language of Glendale) program at school.  She spends half her day learning in English and the other half learning in Korean.  She is struggling in both.  As the grandma I only get to hear bits and pieces of how school life is going and I hear different things from Caitlyn and her mom.

At an event I attended I won two free tutoring sessions from College Nannies and Tutors.  They were very open to helping to find a Korean language tutor, but because it was only two sessions it wasn’t feasible.  The tutor that came was Lara (she also happens to handle their PR {Hi Lara!}).  She and Caitlyn hit it off like gangbusters.  Lara came over to Marisa’s house two weeks in a row for an hour each time and helped Caitlyn with her homework and flash cards.

From Marisa: “Lara is doing GREAT with Caitlyn. I don’t think I could ever be this patient with homework. Cait is loving having her undivided attention. She is very encouraging and loving even having only met her 20 minutes earlier.”

Unfortunately, neither Marisa nor I can afford to have a full time tutor from College Nannies and Tutors.  But if we could we definitely would.  In the mean time Marisa has interviewed two high school students who are Korean fluent and will be deciding whom to hire to work with Cait.