The Balancing Act of Motherhood

Restaurant and Maid Service in your own home

2011-08-29T21:44:00.000-07:00

I am fed up with trying to cater to everyone's wants around here. Not needs, that I could handle forever, but the wants of everyone around here is what is going to drive me nuts. Do I look like I run a fucking restaurant in my own house? Do I look like the maid? Why the hell do I have to be the one to organize everything around here? I am not talking about cleaning, others can do that, but organize. My husband thinks cleaning the garage is just throwing everything up onto shelves and into boxes. He doesn't care that things are put back into it's proper place. My roommates leave their crap out there as well. I know that I am not perfect about putting everything where it goes, but I am the only one it seems that does it at all. Then I have to worry about what I, or my family eats, because one of my roommates has a serious food allergy. I can't fault her for that, and I don't, but she also doesn't eat pork, beef, or fish. She can't handle the texture of it. My other roommate is the same way. Since they are like family here, I try to please them. I try to please my kids, my husband, my roommates, their friends that come over all the fucking time, and anyone else that decides to show up. I am not the fucking maid, you want clean clothes, then do the fucking laundry!! You want something other than what I want to cook for dinner, then make it after I make the meal for my family. You want your dumbass friends to come over? Then you are the ones to make them leave at a decent hour and not 2am. I am so tired of everyone else' shit and not a single one of them realize I have my own shit to do! I have school supplies that need to be bought, clothes for the kids too, and not to mention that I have my own shopping that needs to be done. Does any of that get done? No, cause I seem to be the only one to be able to cook anything in this house that is decent. Not this fast food shit that my husband likes to make. I am also the only one that wants the windows washed, frig cleaned, and things put where they belong, not just shoved in a fucking box. I try to give, and give, and give, and all I get in return is their selfishness. They take, and take, and take, and I for one am tired of it. They all know how to clean, they should all know, by now, how to organize as well. Yet I am still the one that does it all! Fuck 'em then. Lets see how fucked up this place can really get when I refuse to do anything for any one of them!

Weddings & Marraige

2011-07-14T01:02:00.000-07:00

When I think of someone who is getting married, I always seem to wonder how long it will last. Did they think it through? Are they old enough? How long have they been together? Well now it's my turn to get married.

Even though I know that I have not only thought this through long and hard, it still makes me wonder how long it will last. We have been together for 7.5 years now, and I love him more now than I did when we first met. He is the only one that I can really see growing old with and being happy with. I know that he is the one for me. We both are well past the "honeymoon" phase in our relationship and we have both seen each other at our worst. He loves my kids as much as I do and he makes a wonderful husband and father. Now is the time to walk down the proverbial aisle and do the right thing with the man that I would love to have as my husband.

Now, about the wedding. At the beginning, I wanted a small one with close friends and family, but I have found out that some of the people that I wished (though didn't expect) to come, can. GREAT! Some people on the other hand that I could care less whether or not if they come, were hurt when they found out they weren't going to be invited. Since I am trying to please everyone, they are getting invited as well. Whatever, it doesn't really matter to me.

So, I am now down to about a week and a few days until the wedding, and I am in a rush to get things done. Money has been really tight, but what screwed me over was a mother-in-law that can't seem to take 30 minutes out of her day and look at the reception hall that she rented for us. If she had done that when I asked her to back in May, all would be well right now and I wouldn't have to scramble for everything. Instead, she got rude. Sorry that it's our wedding, not hers, and I would of liked to of been able to plan better. Anyway, once we realized that she was not going to be of any use to us, and she was more of a hindrance that anything else, I took matters into my own hands. Now we can get the ball rolling!! I love my soon-to-be uncle-in-law and aunt-in-law!! They have actually helped me with all of it and has been a wonderful stress reliever to me.

With all the planning and preparations that I still have left to do, it really makes me thankful for the people that are helping me along the way. I am so glad that I have so many good friends that are coming from all around the united states to be there for us and help us. They are so awesome and I hope at the reception I am able to thank each and every one of them properly.

Right now though, I have to run, run, run, run to get everything done.

Walmart's Beef

2011-02-28T13:19:00.000-08:00

I just can't do it!! I can't bring myself to buy any kind of beef products from Walmart. Why(you may ask)? It is as simple as this, when I look at the labels I expect to see that it says 100% real beef with no additives. Instead, when I turned the package over I saw a piece of paper that listed the INGREDIENTS IN THE BEEF!! I understand that there are additives in some meat like lunch meats, ham, hot dogs, and many others, but I want my steak to be just beef. It has been said that what they add to it is suppose to not only make it keep that red appearance, but it's also suppose to enhance the flavor of the meat. I don't care if my meat turns a bit off color due to oxygenation, I don't want some chemical inside of the darn thing!! It all turns brown when you cook it anyway.

Now, you may say that it's not such a big deal because other meat have stuff added into them as well. Yes, I have noticed that even chicken has water added to it. What I can't handle is the fact that what is added is mostly salt. I feel sorry for people with heart conditions that eat this stuff. Here is the list of ingredients that they put into their steaks.

Beef
Beef broth
Potassium Lactate
Sodium and Potassium Phosphates
Salt
Natural Flavors
Ascorbic Acid

Okay, the beef I understand. Why add the beef broth? What is in the broth anyway? Where is the list of ingredients to that one!! It's probably more salt anyway. The potassium lactate is salt of lactate acids. It's use is to make it have a longer shelf life. Gross! Sodium and potassium phosphates are phosphoric acids and its salt. It is used to enhance the meat flavor. Here we go again with the salt. So, let me get this straight, we have beef, beef broth (which probably has salt in it), salt, salt & salt, oh, and more salt! What the hell are the natural flavors? I'm sorry, but there is no natural flavors when it comes down to it. It's all salt to me!! Oh, and last but not least by any means, we have ascorbic acid. It's used to keep your meat red even if it's spoiled!! OH HELL NO!!
That is just wrong on so many levels!

What kill me on this is that the front of the package it says 100% freshness guaranteed! If it sat there for months would they still consider it fresh?!! I have tried to be more mindful of what I put into my body and I know that I still need to do a lot of work in that department, but leave my steak alone!!

Thanksgiving- The Feast and Family

2010-11-23T01:20:00.000-08:00

I love turkey. Turkey with homemade stuffing, fresh fruit salad, candied yams, black olives, mash potatoes with homemade turkey gravy, and pumpkin pie with whip cream. When it comes to my holiday dinners I tend to spare no expense to my waist line. It's all so fattening, but my kids LOVE it.

This year my children are going over to their dad's house for the holiday. My daughter told me that she wished she could stay with me because she loves how moist my turkey is. I don't try to boast about my cooking (as I am sure there are others way better than I am), but I do pride myself on my bird. I also know what she is going to go through with my ex's idea of a Thanksgiving meal. So to kill several birds with one stone (no pun intended), I have decided to have a Thanksgiving dinner before they leave.

One of my reasons for doing so is to let my children have what they want. It's not to be mean to my ex or anything, I really like having my kids involved this time of year. Another reason is that since we are going to my man's grandpa's house, we aren't going to have the most wonderful thing about turkey day, and that is the leftovers!!! The last reason is because I miss my kids this time of year when I don't have them. I should be use to it by now, but I'm not.

Now, I don't know what my ex's family does to make their turkey come out so dry, but if it has anything to do with listening to a little white and red thing that is stuck in the bird, that could be the problem. One of the first things I do when I get that bird out of the plastic is take that thing out!! I swear that those things cause nothing but problems. I remember one year I left that thing in just to see when or if it would pop out to tell me the bird was done. I also stuck in my digital one and set the temperature for when it needed to be pulled out. When it went off, I pulled the bird out, covered it, and finished making dinner. I kept a close eye on the plastic piece of crap that didn't pop yet to see if it ever would. It finally did after about 30 minutes of it sitting there. I really think that 30 minutes of resting instead of cooking the juices away made a huge difference. I will never go back to the plastic method again!

Okay, I think I am done going off about my experiments with turkey temps. I know a few friends of mine have written down what they are thankful for, so here is a few of mine.

Great friends and great family
People that give the best hugs
Hot chocolate after a snowball fight with your kids
All things that make you smile
Strangers that hold the door open for you with a smile
Extended family members that make you feel like you belong

I have a list that can go on forever, but I need to get some sleep so I can be ready to start the day with some fun. That is if the snow sticks around and grows!

Pain and Motherhood

2010-10-27T12:48:00.000-07:00

When you become a mom, it seems like you are not allowed to get sick, hurt, or even have a headache. I recently had a chiropractor tell me not to lift or move my left arm much because I messed up some tendons and some other things in it. I looked at him, smiled, and told him that I will try my best but there are no guarantees. After all, I do have a two year old!

No matter what, when you are a mom, you still have responsibilities to take care of. It doesn't matter if you are so sick that you can barely walk, your kids need to get to school, your man has to work, and you have to just suck it up and deal with it. You do what you must to keep the house going. The only thing you don't do is all the extra house cleaning and things that can wait until later. Now if your man is really nice, he will try to cook you some dinner and tell the kids to not bug you. Then he will help with the homework, the showers, and all of that. I feel though that things just don't get done the same and things always seem to be forgotten about.

I do have a trick up my sleeve for not getting sick though. During cold and flu season, when I see that my kids are sick and I haven't showed any signs of it, yet, I take prenatal vitamins, and that seems to work. All that extra stuff seems to really help with keeping me healthy, or at the very least, not as bad off as everyone else.

Being injured is different though. When you are told not to use whatever body part you have hurt, there is nothing anyone can do. You have all good intention to favor it and take care of it, but there is no way not to use it. It's just impossible. Not to use the arm that I hold my son in? That I lift up his legs to change his butt with? Use when I am cooking dinner? Laying him down in bed? I am trying to do it, but I can tell you now, it's going to be the longest week of my life!

I think when you become a parent, you should become indestructible. With the way mistakes happen, may they be accidents, or otherwise, in my house, it always seems like it's the mom that gets hurt over the little and sometimes the stupidest things!

What kind of mom.......

2010-10-18T13:53:00.000-07:00

When I became a mother, I learned what true, unconditional love really was. I have lost all focus on myself, and turned it toward my children. I see other parents that care very little for their children, and they also don't listen to one another. I never want to be like that. Even though I run a "tight ship" so to speak, my children know that they can come to me for anything and I will be there to listen. More importantly, I can also tell by their mood, when you need to ask them if something is wrong. More often then not, a flood of words come out along with tears and they need a shoulder to cry on. They aren't looking for advice, or someone to judge them, they are just looking for comfort and someone to listen.
I try to have the children be involved in the house as a family. We sit down at the dinner table to do homework, we do chores, we eat meals at them table without the TV blaring, and we go and do things as a family. I want to be involved in their life, to help them when they need it, but more importantly, to just be there for them.
I don't know the future or how they will turn out in the end, they will make their own choices, but I do hope that with the way I raised them they will be good ones. I am just so blessed to have these children and I hope that one day they, themselves will understand the joy of it all.

Saving Your Sanity

2010-10-16T01:33:00.000-07:00

I have this blog, and typing in here helps me quite a bit, but there are also times that I just need to vent. I think we all have been there, and we vent in different ways. For me, I keep a journal. I use to write it down, but then the kids get into the paper and either read it or use up the notebook with whatever they need it for. So now I do it all on the computer.

Typing in my journal saves my sanity. In there, I can say what I really want to say. I don't need to worry about others reading it and getting offended. It's something about seeing my feeling put into words and then being able to reread it when I need to, that makes me relax. I tend to dwell on the things that I can't change and typing it all out just puts my mind to rest. Talking to friends and venting to them is nice, but it doesn't have the same soothing effect on me that typing does. These past couple of days have been a bit stressful for me, but thanks to my journal, it made it easier to deal with it all.

Why do I dwell? I do it mostly to try to figure out the problem, or at the very least the reason behind the problem to begin with. If it's money, I dwell on how to fix it, if it's the house, well then I dwell on what I can do to repair it. There are many things and people that I tend to dwell on and it seems that after a while, they get all tangled up inside my brain and then the stress comes. To me, everything is like a problem that needs to be figured out. When I can stop dwelling on something, then the answer usually comes to me.

So if you are like me and just need to get things off your chest, then I would recommend a journal. It's better than any Facebook, MySpace, or Twitter. You don't have to listen to other people that got offended and yet you still feel like you vented, but you did so without stepping on toes.

Friendship

2010-10-03T02:34:00.000-07:00

Recently I have come to think about what friendship means to me. I think people tend to take that word a little too loosely. It's not the other parent on the same team as your child, nor is it someone that you work with on an everyday basis. I know that everyone has their own ideas of what a friend is, and how they are your friend, but what I have come to realize is that it's not the quantity but the quality that matters the most in the end.
I have a few things that I try to look for in a friend. I think they are pretty good traits and I hope that one day my kids will understand why I look for those traits in others when choosing my friends.

Open minded. I am open to all new ideas, thoughts, actions. I know that there is a difference of hearing the idea that sounds a little impracticable and doing it. I think I just like friends that can at least discuss things without the fear that they (or I) might offend the other person.
Intelligent. Now I am not saying that they have to be a PhD in anything, but I think someone with a bit more common sense than normal seems to work well.
Nice. Not Mr.Rogers kind of nice (that is just creepy). I am talking about how you treat others that aren't your friends, colleges, or what ever you consider your equals. I am talking about what others refer to as "the little people". I don't care if the pizza guy took over two hours to get there. Be nice, that person may be having a worse day than you are.
Follows through. There is nothing worse than a friend that you make plans with and doesn't follow through with them. I understand when things don't work out occasionally and you can't be there, but when they do it 3 out of 4 times, it shows they don't really care. Even bigger on that list is when they know sometimes weeks in advance they can't do it and they don't tell you about it until you call them.
Honesty. I know most people are honest up to an extent, but I am talking about a whole new level of it. You think something I said was stupid, tell me flat out. I don't want to hear it from someone else that you think that. I would then discuss it with you like an adult and see if I was actually saying something stupid, or if it was just a miss communication.

There are also things that will turn me away from being your friend as well. I don't know about other people but I call them some of my pet peeves. Don't get me wrong, I do try to turn the other cheek and not worry about it, but sometimes even that doesn't work. It happens mostly when someone does these things on a very regular basis and drives me nuts with them. If you are a really good friend, I will just let you know what it is that you are doing.

Whining. May that be about your past, present, or future. I understand when someone needs to complain about something, but don't whine about it and not try to fix it. Also own up to what you have done (or has been done to you) in the past and don't whine about it. You can't change it so don't worry about it.
Rudeness. Don't be rude and show up 2 hours late when you say you are going to be there without so much as a phone call. Don't be rude to others unless they started it and you needed to end it. Also don't ask me to come over then have me "help" you with something. If you need help, call and ask me to help. I am more than willing to help when I am not being "buttered" up. It's just rude.
Lack of acceptance. It just kills me when I try to accept the things as they come. If a friend has to cancel on me, I accept it and we go from there. I expect the same thing. I don't want a guilt trip if I have to cancel plans. I feel bad enough as it is and the guilt trips and trying to bully me into doing something doesn't help your cause any. Also when you act like that, it makes me less likely to go out of my way to help you in the future too.
Users. We all have had a friend from our past that said they wanted to be our friend, but it turned out they did only for what we gave them. They used us for money, food, help, etc. It is a take, take, take situation and they don't give in return. If they do give, it's such a small amount and they think it makes up for everything they have taken.

I am sure that I missed something, but I can't remember what it is. In any case, I am sure you got the point.
Family is and always will be your family, but your friends are the family that you choose. I choose who I want to be in my family very carefully. Some I may have no say so in the matter because they are apart of my mans family, but when it comes to my side of the family, I only want the best when it comes to them. I may not have many of them, but the ones that I do have, are the best.

Trouble

2010-09-26T15:39:00.000-07:00

My dearest daughter is 11 now and for her birthday she got a cell phone. First off, I didn't get it for her (my ex did), and second, I really wish they would not get her those things at all. She didn't need it, and I didn't want her to have it. Well, now she got herself into some hot water with it. She has decided to start cussing in her text messages to some of her friends. I found out about it and also found out that she has been cussing all summer. Now I know I don't have the holiest of mouths myself, but I know damn well that a girl her age is not going to be using that language.
She has hit that age where she thinks that she is queen and can not be caught by the law (namely me). Little does she realize that I am prepared for her. She knows of my past, but she doesn't understand what that entails. I don't think she fully grasps what me having the knowledge of what a girl can get into can do about the situation. Any situation with her that is too.
Now I know what some would say, and they would accuse me of being too hard on her. Well, they can stop right there about giving me advice. I am the mom, and what I say goes and not anyone else will change my mind about her punishment. She has gotten her phone taken away for one month, and she is grounded FROM her room for the month. Along with that she will be doing extra chores and things. You might think this is extreme for someone so young, but I can guarantee you that it is not. The phone is the punishment that fits the crime, the month from her room is so that she can't hide in there away from anyone, and the doing of extra chores is the fact that if she has time to be mad at people, then she time to do the chores she hasn't been doing.
I know that if this child will grow up to be anything like me, then I am really going to be in for it, and I am prepared for that. I do not punish due to a guilty conscious of my past, I do it in the hopes of fighting the horrible parenting that is over at the other house. My only hope is that she learns from this and doesn't think that she can pull the wool over my eyes.
Silly girl, she must think she has a stupid mommy.

School Time Again......

2010-09-06T01:45:00.000-07:00

Well, it's that time of year again. You buy all the stuff they need for school, then you buy what the teachers need too. You get the kids some new clothes because they somehow ruined all of theirs during the summer. Then when you are tired and worn out from shopping all day, you have to figure out who gets what and open all their stuff and make sure your kids have everything on the list.
I know that times are hard and money is tight, so I will give a few pointers on saving money, your hair, and time to organize your back to school lists.

At the end of the school year, get your child's back to school supply list. Also make sure they bring home ALL of the left overs that you bought for them the year before. (I had a teacher request us to buy 4 dozen pencils and she threw them all in together, so I had my daughter take about 3 dozen of them back at the end of the year. I thought that what the teacher did was quite rude to not inform parents about it before doing it.)
When you get home, go through all the stuff and figure out what was reusable and what was not. The rulers, pencils sharpeners, notebooks that still have a lot of paper, etc. Cross those off your school supply list. You should be left with the used item which I throw into their art supply area to be used up at home. (Or I just throw them away if unusable)
Now that school supply list that they gave you should have quite a bit marked off and if you are like me, it makes it hard to read at a glance while shopping. I make a list of what I need to buy and how much in my own writing so it's easy to read for me. I keep it in my wallet or purse so if I saw something on sale and I think it's on my list, I can just look. It makes it really nice to be able to buy things slowly over the summer and not have that BIG rush at the end. Also winter and fall clothes are on clearance then too.
Each time I buy something that I know they will need, I put it in my room in their bags so they won't ruin it until school starts. Oh and if you want to make things really easy for you, I would make 2 lists, one for shopping and one for the kids. The kids one would have their names at the top and a list of all of their school supplies. Then I separate everything when I buy it and put it into their bags (that's in my room)so that is one less thing to worry about when come time to pack all of their stuff into their backpacks.

Little tips. Your child really doesn't need 4 dozen pencils. Who do you know that goes through 48 pencils in less than a year?!! Oh and that extra box of crayons, yeah, leave that at home too. If you think it's excessive, you're probably buying it for someone else. Just tell your kids that if they run out of anything at school, then come ask you for it. Also tell your children to not dump all of the stuff you bought them in with everyone else. I can understand the wet wipes and the tissues, but nothing else. If you are aware of a certain teacher that does that and your child happen to have that person, then contact them and talk to them about it. If they insist that your child does it as well, just don't send the extra stuff.
This has saved me a lot of money this year and it made my back to school month a lot less stressful! It may seem like I am a tightwad but with the way this economy is going right now, do you blame me?
I wish all of you parents out there the best of luck with your child's education this year and I hope that they don't take us back to school to much.

Fat, Overweight, Muffintop, It's All The Same!

2010-07-15T23:04:00.000-07:00

I am overweight by about 120 pounds. I know after having 3 kids I will never have the same body as before. These stretchmarks are never going to go away, and the extra skin that I now have is not a bother. I don't need to dress like a teenager anyway. I don't mind that part at all. I have came to the realization though that I do need to "diet" for the sake of my health. I want to be around long enough to see some grandbabies. I quit smoking about a year ago and now I am learning new ways to lose weight.

Now, just so you know, I HATE the term "dieting". Every time I hear that one word it makes me want to eat the biggest pizza around and have ice cream too. I need to change my eating habits for life, not just for the short term. I know that in order for me to lose this weight and keep it off I have to be ready for a big change in my life and it will be forever. It's like being a professional runner. You either are a sprinter or a marathon runner. I don't want to sprint to lose the weight, it comes right back when that happens. Instead, I want to be a marathon weight loser. So my weight loss will be slow, but I am in it for the long haul.

I am also out of shape being a stay at home mom. I am working on it though by going for more walks and I know that as I lose the weight, it will be easier for me to work out too. My kids can help with me getting active, but when it comes to the eating part, well that is a different story. It feels like the whole family is conspiring against me with food. Chris brings home some of the most unhealthiest things that are so tempting that sometimes I just give in. It also doesn't help when my kids want to make S'mores and the smell of burning marshmallows just about does me in. Oh and heaven help me when there is Pepsi in the house!! I need serious support here, and they are just not helping!

So it will be a life change, for my family, because in the end, if I don't help them with their bad eating habits, who will?

I will keep you all posted from time to time about my weight loss, but don't expect much. I don't own a scale and don't intend to buy one. I don't need something else telling me to lose weight, my pants say it enough!

The Past is Like Taking a Crap.

2010-07-10T00:25:00.000-07:00

At the time it could be hard, easy, or just plain wrong. Not to mention that the sent lingers on sometimes long after it has come to pass. It also is not as bad to you as it sometimes is for other people.

My past comes with the stories, just as most peoples do. Some is common knowledge and others are just not spoken about. For me though, I have tried to not let my future be brought down by my past. I don't see the reason to bring it up or to use it as an excuse for my actions of today. I have heard the idea that the past is what makes you who you are today. I don't believe that. I think it is the knowledge that you gained from the past and how you use that information that makes you who you are.

Now, just because I have moved on from the past, it doesn't mean that others have. It is those others that bring up the past and throw it back into my face. They try to whip me with it and think that it will have the same effect on me like it did when I was young. They were wrong. I have found that when you let the past be, and accept what has happened, you can be more content in your future. Now let there be no misunderstanding here, I am not saying everything is not my fault. What I am trying to get across is that you can't change the past so let it go and learn from it.

Those others that I was talking about earlier, I feel like they haven't moved on from their past. They act the same way at their age now that they did when they were 16. They throw insults at me like a monkey flinging crap. Why do they do that? I will take part in that yet again, I am partly to blame. I stepped on their toes and stood up to them for what I believe. I have noticed that most people would just blow me off and call me a b*tch at most. Not them. It must of been hard to hear the truth in my logic, or some other reason unknown to me, for what they did was lash out onto me even more. I was called every name in the book and I also were told half truths as if they would hurt me. I stood up to them anyway. I don't care what they think of me. The only reason why I am posting this in the first place is because I want you all to know how I think of my life.

Like I said before, I try to not focus on the past. When I am old and gray, I won't be looking back on the things that others have said to try to hurt me. Nor will I want to remember the times of agony and sorrow. I have so much that I want to pass on but those are not any of them. Instead, I want to remember my daughter telling me that I should open a restaurant because she loves my cooking. How about remembering Ethan picking on me so that way I will tickle him? There are so many good memories in my life and I know there are going to be plenty more to come. I know my life is not going to be an easy journey, but it will be the happy times that I will try to focus on the most.

The best part of being content and happy in my life is this, if I am happy, so are my children!! The second best part is that my happiness seems to really piss off the other people!!

The Truth of the Matter

2010-07-07T22:54:00.000-07:00

Here is the truth of the matter. I was 19 when I got pregnant with my first child. It wasn't planned, but that doesn't mean that I don't love her. I didn't have much as in a place to stay, so we (my man at the time) stayed with his parents. We stayed with them for about a year and a half before scrapping up enough money to get a place of our own. Yes, we used food stamps and the state health care. We were both using marijuana at the time and I know now that was not helping anything. I own up to the things that I have done, and I think that it has made me a better person for it. Things were okay, and I say that very loosely. I ended up getting pregnant again in 2001, and had a baby boy right before my birthday in 2002. That one was not planned either, but I don't love him any less either. I was working my butt off pumping gas at that time while my man was a stay at home dad for a while. We had our fights, and I won't deny that a lot of them were my fault. Things were really rocky for us, and after about 5 years with that man, we called it quits. I am not going to play the blame game, it just doesn't go anywhere. We both played our parts in the matter and that was that. So now I was a single mom without a place to stay (I won't get into the why for that one). I tried to find a place to stay, get a job, pack up our stuff, and figure out what I am going to do. I was scared, very scared that I would never see my kids again. I knew that I had to stay down here and if I tried very hard, I would eventually get what I needed to stay afloat. You know that saying "When one door closes, another one opens"? That is just what it did for me.
It opened up with someone standing on the other side of it. His name is Chris. I owe a lot to that man, and I will forever be grateful for what ever brought us together. I met him in a bar of all places. I know it's such a cliche but it's true. I would go down to the bar for dinner some nights while my ex and I were together. He was just a guy that was down there to play video golf and pool. We would talk and play pool together. He seemed really nice, but I knew I didn't have a chance with him. Nothing became of us because he was a gentleman, and knew I was with someone else. So when my ex left me, I did what I consider a normal thing. I went down to the bar and drank. Chris just got off of work and saw me there. He knew something was wrong and we talked. He told me that if I couldn't find a place, I could stay with him. That is just what happened too. His roommate was planning on moving anyway so I moved in. To say we hit it off would be an understatement. I don't know what I would do without this man, I love him so much. He helped me get joint custody of my kids, then eventually full custody. He has helped raise my two like he was their father. We worked perfectly together as parents. He is my better half. Our money is always tight, but if I have to choose between love or money, I would gladly take love any day of the week. Now, I know what you must think and you are right, we are not perfect people, and we do have our ups and downs. If I was to compare notes though, I would gladly take these ups and downs any day of the week. I think it comes down to this, we both had a hard time in our lives, and we both take responsibility for our faults in it. We also learned from our mistakes and are better for them. There was one thing that was lacking in our lives though. I wanted him to be a father in all sense of the word. I wanted him to hold his baby in his arms in the hospital and see how much of an impact that one little move makes on your heart.
I got my wish in October of 2008. We had a very healthy baby boy. I was more than blessed that day. I not only was able to have Chris with me, but my parents were able to come down as well. The only thing that I was missing was my best friend, Jen, and even though she was not able to be there for the birth, she was there for me shortly afterward.
Now as I watch Chris with our son, I know that my love for him will never go away. I don't need a piece of paper telling me that he is my husband. Being with him 6 years (almost seven), and loving him more and more every day tells me that I will be with him forever.
Yes money is tight, but that is because we haven't gotten welfare in about 4 years. My small amount of child support has stopped, and I am not working right now. I am looking for a job though, so when I find one I know that will help. Now, I know some people will look down there noses at me, and insult the way that I live. That is just fine by me, just be warned that I will stand up for myself and my family. I have left out some details just because I knew this was going to be a book, but that doesn't mean that I am a liar or anything else. I may not of asked for this life, but I am happy for what I got. I do believe that everything has happened for a reason, and I have learned from it all. Yet others may not want me to be, but that just goes to show you what type of people they are.
My life may not be perfect, but it's pretty damn close.

M-O-M

2010-07-04T05:47:00.000-07:00

I am a woman that has one husband, one girl, two boys, and two female dogs.
I am also what is known as M-O-M. I do what I must to be a good mom, and I wouldn't trade it for the world. Only another mother would know what it's like when you yell at the top of your voice at your child for them to put something down, then the next minute continue the conversation that you were having on the phone. I find people that don't have kids to be strange, because I have forgotten what that is like. All in all, I like my life and the way things have turned out so far. Not a day goes by that I couldn't imagine not having my kids. I love them dearly. Only when you love someone, do they get under your skin and annoy you so much, but then again, you aren't doing your job right as a parent if that doesn't happen!! So this is my blog. My pain, my joys, my anger, and my love are all going to be put within this blog. I hope others will enjoy reading it as much as I will enjoy typing it!