#tbt

yeah, yeah, I know it's Friday but whatever...I am ALWAYS a day late and a dollar short.

So here is my picture for this week....

This picture was July 4, 2004. Emma had just turned 2 in April and I was just about to be legally divorced.

This summer was a summer of ups and downs. On one hand I felt free and the other I felt my life was spiraling downward.

I lost a lot of friends and family that summer. I lost a husband. I lost a family.

Since then I have grown and learned from my mistakes. Eight years later I am in a totally new place. I have a new husband. I have new kids that I added. I have new friends. I have new family.

But, still, some days I get little pangs of hurt and sadness. My husband, Matt, knows about these. I mourn the life I "thought" I was going to have. I mourn the life Emma could of had with a mom and dad.

Those days continue to get farther in between. I watch Emma grow and I know she is ok. This girl has a heart of gold. I know parents say all the time how great their kids are but Emma is truly my gift.

I could go on and on about all the things my Emma is pretty great for but all of you who know us in real life already know how amazing this kid is.

She is going to change the world some day. Trust me.

#tbt (only a day late)

This is my absolute favorite picture of me and my grandpa. My 4th birthday. I actually don't have to much to say about it, either that or my emotions are running high and I just can't right now.

#tbt....trying something new

I'm going to try something new for this little ole blog of mine. I am going to start participating in the "throwback Thursday".

Pretty much I am going to post an old picture and a little bit of writing about the picture. I am going to attempt this everything Thursday. Let's just taking bets on how long I will actually keep this up.

So here is my first #tbt

This picture was taken late October 1998. I was a new 18. Blah. Seems so long ago.

I joined the Army Reserves because I knew I was graduating high school soon and I wasn't going to college and I just wasn't sure where my life was headed. Also I wanted to get out of my parents house. HAHA...what 17 year old doesn't want out of their parents home?? So I sat there and thought and thought and thought. The military was a perfect fit. It gave me a home, food and money in my pocket.

So I graduated highschool (barely) in June 1998. I turned 18 in early August and left for basic training mid August.

I spent 8 weeks in Fort Leonardwood, MO. Interesting place....ummm, not. It was really great actually. I learned a ton of new skills. I learned alot about life in general. It was just the kick in the ass I really needed at that point in my life.

Well, graduation was coming up and I was pretty bummed. I heard almost everyone around me talking about their friends and relatives coming in to see them graduate. I knew my mom and siblings would not come (too far, too expensive) and my grandparents weren't sure yet.

I could not have been more excited when they told me they were coming to see my graduate.

My grandma and grandpa drove 12 hours to the middle of no where. They came to all my graduation festivities, took me and some friends bowling and then to Burger King. It was a really great weekend.

It was also a great weekend for me to get homesick. The picture above was taken about 5 minutes before my grandparents left to go back home. I remember we took this picture then I walked with them back over to the car. I asked if they could just put me in the trunk and take me back home PLEASE. And then I started crying. Pretty hard. Of course my grandma and grandpa said "NO". We hugged, said our goodbyes and they were on their way.

I still remember that day so vividly. I had never felt more accomplished because I had just finished basic training. I also never felt more sad because my grandparents left and I was off to Ft. Sam Houston, TX in a few hours.

So there ya have it. There is the story behind the picture. One of my most favorite pictures.

Clarification

I feel like I need to clarify my post from a few days ago.

I quit my job to be with my kids more. I quit my job to be a stay at home mom.

We are going to be just fine. Matt's job covers most expenses. I say most because I am going to have to change MY spending habits. Stop eating out as much as I do. Stop Target shopping trips. Only buy things that we need to survive. Only go out to eat once a week instead of 5 times a week.

This has been a long time coming. Not a decision that was made lightly. Not a decision that was made on my own.

I have told alot of people and people have different reactions. And here's what I say to that "OH WELL".

This is my family's life. I am taking the opportunity to show my kids that money isn't everything. We have gotten to a very bad place with kids and money. They think that they are entitled to certain things. I think I am entitled to things. Not true. I have figured that part out now it's Matt and I's turn to teach this to our children.

I truly believe my kids are going to be better people for it. I do not think that I am showing them anything less. I think my kids are going to love the time they are going to get to spend with me.

I am grateful that I have the chance to be a stay at home mom. I get to spend my mornings with my husband (he works 1230p to 9p), then I have 1230p to 330p to do my stuff. I can clean, do laundry, shower, catch up on shows, run errands, my God time, etc. Then from 330p till 915p I have my "kid" time. I have time to talk to them, make dinner with them, clean up after with them, homework time with them and all sorts of other things I have planned. I plan to not be as stressed with them. To actually enjoy their company.

Now, let me be clear about something. I am not saying I am going to be a stay at home mom forever. Should the right part time opportunity become available I will work. When I say right opportunity, I am saying part time between the hours of 9am-3pm, LOW stress, and a job I can leave my job there, not take home with me. Should this opportunity appear I will go back to work. I will not work weekends, I will not take my work home with me. I will not take a job so physically exhausting that I can't even make dinner because I am so tired.

And there you have it. I know I did not have to explain my decision. I do not OWE that to anyone. This is my choice to share. And it's going to be good!!

Living the American Dream.....

Living the American dream.

Those are words that have entered my brain and thought process Friday night and have not been able to GET OUT.

As you know from my last post I have been super stressed out. Like crazy stressed on many different levels.

I decided to go to my church's Girls Nite Out this past Friday. It's from 630-900pm. You get some yummy desserts, chat with some ladies, sing some songs and watch a short video from a christian speaker. I only decided to go because I could pay $5 and my kids would be in child care for almost 3 hours!!!!

I went, I ate, I talked, I watched video, I had a meltdown. Complete and total meltdown. The speaker of the evening was the amazing Sheila Walsh. I have seen her in person a few times so I knew her video was going to be inspiring and amazing. What I did not expect is for her message to hit me so incredibly hard.

The main thing I got out of the video was "stop trying to live the American dream, live God's dream".
This hit me like a ton of bricks. Seriously, a ton of bricks. I cried to hard you would of thought a ton of bricks really did hit me. Her message was all about life not turning out as you imagined. She went into detail about certain things and it just hit me.

I had to get up and leave the hall because I was a complete hot mess.

After the Girls Nite Out event, a bunch of us went out to dinner. It was so great. We all went around the table and introduced ourselves, gave a brief history of us and told our story on how we all ended up at the church we had the event. I met some awesome ladies and I got to know some ladies even better.

Ok, so let's speed this up. Saturday night we had signed up for a Married Life event hosted by our church. It's a quarterly gathering of fellowship, dinner and a speaker. This month is was at a local Italian hot spot a.k.a. yummy food!!! We got to connect with couples from church that we kinda knew but really didn't know. We chatted. We laughed. We had a great time.

Then the speaker came up. He was such a funny, down to earth, real kind of guy. He spoke on a level that I understood. I won't go into EVERYTHING he said but it really hit home. I am still trying to process things he said along with things from the night before.

So at this time last night my brain was on fire. It was going a mile a minute. I thought I was going nuts. I finally fell asleep around midnight. I woke up about 4am just wide awake.

My mind was racing. My mind had 8000 thoughts.
*How can I stop living the American Dream?
*How can I stop keeping up with the Jones's?
*How can I get more energy at night after work?
*How can I spend more quality time with my kids?
*How can I get Landon to stop acting like an ass?
*How can I save money?
*How can I spend more quality time with my husband?

I could seriously go on and on.

Before this post gets entirely too long, here is what I decided.

I quit my job.

I quit my job. I am going to change my spending habits. We are going to downsize. I am going to spend more time with my husband and my kids.

As soon as I made this decision, lyrics of a song popped in my head "I WILL REJOICE AND BE GLAD IN IT". Just those words have been singing in my head all day today.

New day, new beginnings. I thank God that I woke up today with a brand new perspective on my life.

Breaking Point.....

Yep, I've hit my breaking point. I have fallen on my knees and asking for help.

MY.KIDS.ARE.DRIVING.ME.NUTS.

Since I feel like I have to defend my self let me explain. My husband works in a retail store. He works upstairs in the office but they are still operational from 9am-9pm. For many years he only worked 4 days, 2 of them would be ALL DAY LONG and 2 8 hour shifts, one from like 9-5 and the other from like noon-9. So at least 4 days a week he was home in the evenings with us.

Fast forward....he got a really good position (YEAH!!) and finally NO WEEKENDS (YEAH!!!) but he works Monday - Friday from 1230pm till 9pm (UGH!!) The kids are in school till around 330pm then it's all with mommy - every night, all night...until daddy walks in about 915pm. At that point I pretty much tell him they are all his, he talks to them for about 5 minutes, tucks them in and that's that.

My part is waaaaay more fun. I get to get them off the bus, homework, chores, dinner, my chores (UGH), showers, quality time (ha, yeah right, I have no idea what that is during the week), errands, etc. I think you get the picture. I have to deal with all the drama that ensues our house every single night. All the fighting, crying, screaming. I deal with trying to get them to do homework and read with each kid, dinner and clean up, and just plain ole clean up of the house.

I am so tired. I am so tired of being in charge. Somedays I just want to pee without someone asking me questions like "What's for dinner?", "can I have a snack?", "where to clouds come from?", "is there a Santa in heaven?". Every single time I go to the bathroom one of the kids asks questions or fighting starts. Just like every single time I get on the phone one of them decides to act a fool.

I am just tired. I am stressed. I need a break. I feel horrible for it. I really do. I feel like crying, well, I am crying. I cry because I am so stressed. I cry because a "good" mom could handle all this stress. I mean, they are MY kids. I choose to have them. I should take responsibility right??? Ugh.

I am pissed because society wants me to believe all this crap. AND I DO!! That's the worst part. It doesn't matter how many times I tell myself that it's ok to have a break once a week, I still feel so guilty when it happens. Just like when Matt and I finally had a honeymoon only 6 years after we got married. We went to Vegas for 4 days and left the kids here with a VERY trustworthy and awesome sitter. I can't tell you the amount of people who felt like they needed to tell us how wrong that was. Seriously. "oh, I could never leave my children behind while I go on vacation", "you made them spend Spring Break at home while you and Matt took vacation?" - YEP, I heard so many comments like that. UGH.

Whatever. I am so tired of having to defend myself. I'm not perfect. My kids drive me so insane. I need a break. Judge me all you want.  I'm stressed. I'd rather take a few hours to myself (pretty much just to run errands or clean the house while someone else is in charge of them)

I think my kids would rather me be smiling and happy to see them then constantly yelling about pretty much everything.

Well, I think I am done venting for the moment. I posted on Facebook about needing help one or two days a week for a couple hours at night. I really hope someone takes me up on the offer. **fingers crossed and praying**

just some mindless dribble....

I am seriously slacking on my writing of 2 new posts each week. UGH. Well, whatever, I'm writing one now.

And this one is going to be pretty much a throw up of thoughts in my brain. (Even as I wrote that sentence I picture my head opening at the top and spewing...LOL)

I finally got a job. I job I really love. I work as a prep cook at a restaurant. Let me give you a little back story on why I like being in a kitchen( just not my own). I started busing tables at age 11, I was doing short order cooking with my mom at 13. I got my first real job at 14 busing tables. I went to culinary school (vocational school for high school) for 2 years all the while working in kitchens. I loved it. I can't explain what happens in the kitchen but for me it's so comfortable. I feel at home. I could do most of it with my eyes closed. I feel at ease. And the 2 GREAT points to all this is NUMBER ONE: I don't have to do any stinking dishes. NUMBER TWO: I do not take my work home with me, either mentally or physically.

I am toyed with the idea of going to an actual culinary school for years, like almost 20 years. I think I really want to do it. I have a whole list of reasons that I can't. Oh, well. maybe one day.

Kids are pretty good. I see Emma blossoming every single day. She is quickly growing into a young woman right before my eyes. I can't stand it. I want my little baby back with butt ruffle pants.

Landon just got into his first fight at school. He was on the swings at recess and saw 2 other kids "fighting", so he jumped off the swing and tackled one of the kids. At this point I was trying so hard not to laugh as the principal was telling me. So then the other boy tackled him. They both walked away with scratches on their faces. Apparently the boys were not fighting just playing rough. We did talk to Landon and let him know that if this ever happens again he needs to find an adult to report it. His heart was in the right place but his mind was apparently elsewhere. I love that kid to the moon and back. He has such a great heart for others.

And finally Chase. Chase had tubes put in his ears last Wednesday.That kid was a trooper. Not one complaint, not one scream, not even one tear. He did so well. Even after surgery in the recovery room I asked him if he wanted mommy or daddy to hold him and he said no and continued to watch Sponge Bob. I have to admit my heart broke a little. After Landon's 2 surgeries I held him. I held him the whole time :( But now hopefully Chase's ear infections will stop. That kid has had 13 ear infections in 12 months, some being double ear infections. Even on surgery day the nurse said his ears were getting very pink. It looks like he was about to have another ear infection.

 

Here is my little guy before surgery. He was so excited. I couldn't even keep him contained!!

 

And here is my little dude after. He looked worse then he actually was. We were only in recovery for about an hour and then we were sent home.

 

 

Chase was perfectly fine about 3 hours after we got home. He was running around playing and he ate alot of food. I was pretty nervous about the food because of him being put under but he did really well.

 

 

So let's see I have covered my job, my kids and that's about it. We live a pretty normal, boring life. I wish I had more to blog. But at the same time I am grateful that I don't have alot of bad stuff to blog anymore.

 

Right now life is good. I am in a good place. My kids are in a good place. My marriage is in a good place. Finances are in a good place. It's all good.........for this week.