Single Mom in the South

Friday Fragments: Going for Truly Random Again

2012-02-24T06:05:00.000-05:00

Did captchas get revamped?

I was tooling around last week, return visiting everyone and I felt like I got hit with an abnormal amount of captchas. Not only that, but I couldn't read them and there were two words and commas and I thought,

"What is this???"

I'm sure it had nothing to do with the fact that it was 5 am and I was up after having a little blonde girl in my bed trying to run a marathon up my back all night.

*****

We lost a sports icon last week.

source

In a notoriously...um...rowdy?? locker room, Gary Carter was a moral compass who had a true love of and enthusiasm for the game. We need more role models like him.

I am not a baseball fan. I was, however, at 10 years of age, a 1986 Met Fan.

In fact, I couldn't figure out why all these people were such big fans of that team called the Yankees. They stunk in the 70's and 80's. It wasn't until they started winning again in the 90's that I realized they were a historically great team.

Who knew? Not me apparently. Did I mention I'm not a baseball fan?

*****

I was a little late with Christmas Gifts for my children's teachers this year. This is a little embarrassing, considering I work with them. I DID get them baked goodies, but the actual gifts went from being Christmas to New Years, to Martin Luther King Jr, to FINALLY being given on Valentine's Day.

This was included in the Goody Bag:

Paper Voodoo Pad by Knock Knock

A gift truly appreciated when given to a teacher from another teacher!

Writer's Workshop: More on Coffee

2012-02-23T06:22:00.000-05:00

Mama Kat and I seem to be on the same wavelength of late. Twice in the last three weeks, she's hit me with a perfect prompt. Two weeks ago it was the Ten Years Ago Today prompt and today it's vices.

If you were around here on Monday, you already know my answer.

The vice I simply cannot live without is coffee.

I would rather go without food than coffee, light and sweet please. ~Speaking of which, do you know how hard that is to get Below the Mason Dixon Line? You walk into Dunkin' Donuts, which is hard enough to find to begin with and order you coffee Light & Sweet and the person behind the counter just stares at you.

The irony of this situation and the thing that makes it so perfect for this here blog is that I did not start drinking coffee until I turned 30. ~or a little before~ For most of my life, I hated the stuff. I mean, I always liked the way it smelled, but if I had to drink it, it was in extreme desperation and with lots of flavored creamer and sugar on top of that!

My ex considered himself a coffee connisuer.

Then he left.

And I found myself alone in the house with a 17 month-old and an almost 3-year-old. I was extremely stressed and it was all I could do to wait for dark so I could put the kids to bed and crawl in myself, only to not be able to sleep and then be up bright and early with my little ones.

It was either coffee or wine and given my situation, coffee seemed like the wiser choice.. which is exactly what I told my ex when he tried to take the coffee maker!

I still prefer it flavored or with flavored creamer, but I no longer need to add sugar on top!

And I even now keep good decaf in the house, because sometimes, at the end of a long day, I like nothing more than to curl up on the couch, in front of the fire, with a warm cup of coffee.

The one vice I cannot give up... coffee.

Oh the irony!

PYHO: Remembering Fondly

2012-02-22T06:13:00.000-05:00

I was really touched by your responses to my post about the days leading up to realizing I was pregnant with The Boy. Of course, it got me thinking...

When a marriage is falling apart and you are really at odds with each other, what do you do with the happy memories?

I've learned to let them lie and be what they are:

HAPPY MEMORIES

Because those moments, between those two people, they were happy... dreams were coming true... and that doesn't change just because things didn't work out.

The fact is, that regardless of the motivation that might be assigned to it in retrospect, The Boy, who was then just "a baby" was very much planned and wanted and welcomed.

We were so very young and in many ways, innocent, and so very blessed in that we said we wanted a baby, we started trying, and BAM! we got pregnant ~In fact, my ex may have been heard complaining more than once that he wished it hadn't happened quite so fast, because it went from being really fun to not in a matter of weeks, you know, with the nausea and emotions and exhaustion and all... *winks*

That isn't changed by what's happened in the years since, because those two people...that young couple... they got that baby and they still love him and cherish him, even if they are now doing it apart, instead of together like they originally planned.

It's okay to remember the "happy," because it was just that in the moment:

HAPPY

It is a gift I can give my children...to know that they were born out of the love of both of their parents and that both of their parents still love them in their own way. It is okay, when the moment warrants to give them silly, happy memories of our time together, because we had 12 years of it.

Oh, lessons can be learned too, about love that is too young and doesn't develop into lasting love and how to nurture love so the cycle isn't repeated, but in the meantime, my children are young and they don't remember what it was like to have their parents be together and they need to know about the happy.