Something Different

Today I am doing something a bit different than my normal writing.  My Mom, as I am sure most of our moms are, is my biggest fan and has far more confidence in my writing than I do.  She is always encouraging me to write and share my craft with the world.  That can be a bit scary but she keeps encouraging me and little by little I am doing so more often.  So, a couple weeks ago I received a letter in the mail from her with a newspaper clipping to enter a poetry contest.  I thought she was crazy!  I'm not a poet.  I simply write what I think and feel, it's my "self" time, but it's never been in any sort of poetry format.  But, it's not like she left me much choice.  She enclosed a note with it that said, "I believe in you!  You can do it!  Go girl!"  How do you say no to your Mom when she says that.

Unfortunately I struggled the past couple weeks finding my inspiration for what to write a poem about.  The poem has to be mailed today, postmarked with today's date, so I was running out of time.  Then I watched an episode of American Idol last night.  The last two contestants of the night were two younger folks, both victims of bullying throughout their lives.  One was bullied for being a talented young singer.  The other was bullied for being very very short.  The last one had me in a pool of tears prompting my dog to lick them all off my face as they fell.  We finished watching the show, my inspiration came, and the words started flowing on the page.

Soooo, without further ado, here ya go...

Why Do You Bully

Hurt. Pain. Anger. Shame.

These are the things we feel being bullied.

Why? What? Me? How Come?

These are the questions we ask when we’re bullied.

Short. Tall. Black. White.

These are the things we can’t change yet we’re bullied.

Smart. Gifted. Musical. Religious.

These are great attributes to have, yet we’re bullied.

Disabilities. Struggles. Different. Abused.

These are the things we don’t want, AND we’re bullied.

Gay. Fat. Rich. Poor.

These are things we didn’t ask for, AND we’re bullied.

Friends. Acceptance. Love. Laughter.

These are the things that we want but you bully.

Funny. Loyal. Supportive. Clever.

The things about us you’d enjoy, but you bully.

Strength. Courage. Empowered. Brave.

These are things that we are because you bullied.

Kind. Loving. Understanding. Overcome.

These are the things we have gained because you bullied.

When things come around as they always do

What you do to others comes back on to you.

Sad. Lonely. Guilt. Rejected.

These are the things you will know as a bully.

Kind. Caring. Supportive. Understanding.

These are the things we’ll give you when you’re bullied.

Just another day in paradise

Remember back in the day when all you had to worry about was...you.  Getting out the door to work was as simple as getting up, taking a shower, throwing on some clothes and heading out the door.  Of course you had to stop on the way to work at your local coffee shop for a fancy latte or the like because you didn't save yourself enough time to put a pot of coffee on at home or you got in so late the night before you didn't bother to set it.  Or, maybe that was just me.  And for the record, this happened a lot but it's ok because I had the money to afford that fancy cup o joe each and every day.  I actually remember throwing on some "not so pajama like" pants on Saturday mornings when I didn't even have to work just to pick up a cup of my favorite blend at my coffee shop where truly everyone knew my name.  Those days are over.

Now, the mere thought of stopping at a coffee shop to pick up one of my pre-marital, pre-motherhood tastes of luxury in a cup sends me walking right to the microwave to heat up some leftover coffee from the day before.  Good Lord, I could by two school lunches for the price of one Grande Skinny Latte with light whip.

Laundry, aaahhhhh my favorite past time.  NOT!!!  I've often said "When I am rich and famous I don't want someone to come clean my house, I just want someone to come and do the laundry for me...oh and clean the toilets."  Back in my pre-motherhood days laundry was something I did once a week.  It would take me all of about 2 hours on a Saturday start to finish and then I didn't have to touch it or think about it again for another week.  Well, unless of course that shirt I looked really good in was dirty and we're going out Thursday night.  And then I would actually get a whole washer full of water to wash that one shirt.  As I type this I am staring at what I fondly refer to as "laundry mountain".  How is it that three little people with little clothes can create such a large mountain that even my dogs find it as inside entertainment and exercise to jump over it.  Oh and it NEVER GOES AWAY.  There is never a finish line to celebrate your success in chipping away at that mountain and getting it completely done!  Once you finish that last load and you are just about ready to break open the bottle of wine and relax, little peanut walks in the room with her big, beautiful smile, snuggles up to hug you, and tells you that while cleaning her room as you asked, she found some clothes in the toy box.  You look over thinking "well it can't be that bad, I will save it for a full load"  Nope, you stare at the mountain that has been resurrected and wonder where were the toys in the toy box if this is what she pulled out.

People are so wonderful and kind when you have three kids and offer you hand-me-downs.  I LOVE THAT, don't get me wrong.  As a parent of three kids, hand-me-downs are a godsend to the pocket book.  They also mean I don't have to do the one thing I truly hate in this world, shopping.  Yes, I know I'm weird.  What woman doesn't like to shop?  This gal right here!  Here's the trouble with hand-me-downs, they increase laundry mountain.  See I don't like to hand-me-down clothes to someone else unless they have been once again freshly washed.  Even if I pulled them out of the dresser drawer, I wash them again before I pass them along.  Come on, all you Moms know exactly why.  It's a myth that everything in your child's dresser is actually clean.  You send them to clean their rooms and dirty clothes end up in the most intriguing of places, the most popular choice however is back in the dresser.  (if you think of it from a kid's point of view it does make perfect sense.  I got it from there so I will return it to there)  Back to hand-me-downs, love them but they increase laundry mountain.

When I was single dinner meant sometimes a sandwich.  If that's what mood I was in then that's what I had.  In all honesty, oft times it was a stop at Subway or digging into the freezer and grabbing a bag of Pizza Rolls.  Why?  Because I could and for the record I was also young back then so I could simply skip a meal and loose 5 pounds.  Yeah....none of that happens anymore.  Not the Subway, because feeding a family of five is not necessarily cheap at Subway, not the Pizza Rolls because there's that whole responsibility deal where you have to feed your kids a well balanced and healthy meal, and my metabolism is not what it once was so I can not and should not be eating them either.  I have to actually cook, which normally I don't mind but I have to cook.  Kids grow.  As they grow you find that their sweet little bodies are nothing but an apparently empty cistern.  If you are not familiar with a cistern, my Grandparents had one on their farm for drinking water.  I would open the lid to the cistern and you would swear when you looked down in there that there was next to nothing left for cold drinking water.  I'd lower the bucket and realize that yes there was but it sure didn't seem like it.  Kids are cisterns.  Some days you are running in so many directions you have to actually stop, do a mental check list, and remember "yes, I fed the children lunch today".  You feed them, like any mom does, three square meals a day and generally two snacks in between yet they are still hungry.  I know there has got to be food in them, I'm sure of it because I just finished cleaning up the lunch dishes that I fed them on, yet they come to you "Mommy, I'm hungry".  Providing food for these kids is like my laundry mountain, once you're done...you're not.

Single people will sit and look at us married mothers and question, "I just don't get why you can't get away and do lunch with us.  Just find a sitter for the afternoon."  They clearly do not get it and secretly you say to yourself "ohhhh I can't wait till you have kids".  Single people are also oft times full of advise.  You can share with them your desire to get healthier, work out, and loose weight.  They always have the simple fix, have you noticed that?  "You have to take time for you.  Get a membership and go to a gym.  Do it for yourself and make your family understand that you need time for you."  Ohhhhh, I can't wait till you have kids.  Taking time for me is being able to pee without an audience, this includes our furry kids as well who I believe have learned from my kids that when Mommy goes into the bathroom you must follow her and try to sit on her lap.  Taking time for me is a phone call to my mother filling her with all the reasons I admire her and questioning her on how did she ever get it all done.  Taking time for me is reading a book...yeah, who am I kidding.  If I sit down to read a book I will most assuredly fall asleep before page 2.

So, it's Monday and this IS just another day in paradise.  I have my laundry mountain to tackle, my living room is in utter chaos taking down all the Christmas decorations I put up to make my home a literal North Pole transported, my dogs desperately need a bath but they were knocked down a notch on the list yesterday since the kids needed baths also and if I'm not mistaken CPS doesn't come to your house for not washing your dog but they just might if you don't bathe your kids, I have to plan something nutritious for my family for dinner, AND I actually do have a job and need to work too.  With all that to do, I find myself looking at the clock and counting down the minutes until I get to go pick up my kids from school and see their sweet faces.  Counting down the minutes until my husband comes home and our little family is reunited after a day of work and school so we can be all together this evening.  This is my crazy, chaotic, less than perfect, but more than any one imperfect woman deserves.  Paradise is not like I imagined in my single days with palm trees, white sandy beaches, a bathing suit (two pieces cause I could), and a delicious margarita in hand.  Paradise is three sweet babies ready with open arms to give me the biggest hugs in the world because they love me that much.  It's all five of us sitting on the couch amongst our chaos laughing hysterically watching The Big Bang Theory.  It's two dogs that are literally spoiled rotten and know they've got a pretty good life and they show it with their big doggy kisses and snuggles.  It's knowing that even though my single life was pretty dayum amazing, it doesn't and never will hold a candle to what I have right now, every day, all day, for the rest of my life.

Ahhhhh, my paradise is perfect!

Even the best laid plans...yeah, you know where this is going.

So, we are at the end of a very long week of getting back into the school routine after the Christmas break.  We were all very excited to end this week with a "lazy" Saturday.  I use the word lazy loosely, though my kids don't know it will be a cleaning and putting away Christmas decorations day.  We all lost a measurable amount of sleep this week getting back into our routine so number one on the excitement list was to sleep in today.  No alarm clocks needed, no commitments or required activities to attend, no places to go.  Add that to the fact that it is a very cloudy, overcast, drizzly day and you have the perfect recipe for our lazy Saturday.  Even the best laid plans fail from time to time.

We all stayed up later than normal last night.  I kept the kids up later on purpose in hopes that it would lead to a later wake up this morning.  I was so looking forward to recouping my lost sleep this week and awaking to a new day with renewed vigor.  My best laid plan failed me miserably.  First, I wrapped my broken toe with some new dressing as I had ran out of the one I was using.  Turns out I am allergic to it so tossed and turned most of the night with a foot that felt like it was on fire.  It didn't occur to me until about 4:30 this morning what the culprit might be.  Once I realized it and removed said dressing I felt much better and was able to get some rest...only to wake up to my internal alarm clock at 6:30 am.  After about 15 minutes of trying to force myself back to slumber I gave up and got out of bed.  Despite my initial plan had been compromised, it was actually quite enjoyable for the first hour.  I made my coffee, browsed the internet, talked to my Mom, and genuinely enjoyed the peace and quiet.

Turns out putting the kids to bed late was a lost cause as well.  In fact, the cause turned around and bit me in the butt!  Now I have three beautiful, wonderful, wide awake, and CRANKY, sleep deprived children.  This should make for a very interesting, loooooooong day.  I'm sure with their current attitude and state they will be equally as enthused for our cleaning day.

Why is this?  Why oh why is it that every time I "plan" to sleep in and be lazy for a Saturday morning I cannot.  I feel like my body has turned on me.  We usually work well together but every once in awhile my body decides to throw the game.  It would be like entering the playoffs only to have your first post-season game end in despair because you had to go with your second string quarterback...or is he a wide receiver...we still don't know.  (if you are a football watcher you will know of which team I am referring.  I am still heartbroken by the way)

As with everything in life however, you have to sometimes just roll with the punches.  I will choose to look at the bright side.  I got some quiet time to myself this morning enjoying my cup of coffee without rushing around to make lunches, get school clothes out, finding shoes that were tossed where they aren't suppose to be, wake children up who really don't want to get up, or making sure all homework ended up in their backpacks.  And of course the extra bonus is, in light of the chaos that we have during the week, the fact that I didn't get to sleep in today, my children woke up way earlier than they were suppose to, and my dogs will not leave me alone this morning, I wouldn't trade this crazy life for another without it all.  Nobody ever said motherhood was easy, just that it would be rewarding.

Now, I am just waiting until after 12:00 so I can switch from coffee to a glass of wine and toast this crazy, chaotic, wonderful life I have.  Have a great weekend y'all!  Oh and by the way - Bulls On Parade!  Go Texans!

Seriously - Dogs are treated better than our kids!

So, I was having a conversation with a new friend on Facebook today.  She and I have a common bond, well a few of them actually, but met through a mutual friend.  We are both "juicing" right now to get healthy.  If you've ever done the "juicing" regiment you will know that when doing so you end up with quite a bit of pulp from the fruits and veggies that you are juicing.  I don't like to waste so we were having a discussion about what to do with all that pulp.  After all, I don't want to just throw it away.  There has to be something to be done with it.

I suggested making a broth with it however the more I thought about that I thought it might taste kinda funny given it has fruits and veggies in it.  She had a suggestion that she's used before with giving it to the dogs in their food.  Then began the "dog" conversation.

Anyone who knows me knows that I am in love with my dog Bear.  We've in the past year added another dog to our family, Astro, who really had a tough road to earn my love given how much I love my baby, Bear.      But because I am such an animal lover it happened a lot quicker than I anticipated.  Now Bear is an Alaskan Huskey mix.  He is beautiful, wonderful, and truly the best dog I've ever had or ever will have.  I look at it that I have 5 children...well 6 if you include my husband. :-)  But, only three of them actually came from my womb.  The other two children in our family are our four legged furry kids.  Bear has some allergies with food.  He can only have the all natural, no wheat, no soy, no corn, no cheap dog food.  He is a big boy so his food is not cheap at all and he goes through it pretty quick.  Given that is the food we buy for Bear, when we adopted Astro that is what he got too.  Now, he is the same and can't have the cheap food or he reacts to it in the form of red, itchy skin.  But, because we love our boys and we are responsible pet owners we do what is best for them and bite the bullet with the expensive dog food.

I like to give them a reprieve from the plain, dry dog food occasionally.  Because I love them I think that it would really be awful to only get the same thing every day, all the time...dry dog food and water.  How boring!  So, I spoil them.  When I make gravy for our meals I save the extra gravy and pour it on their food a couple times a week.  Sometimes I will really go the extra mile to give them a good meal, and yes I am still talking about my dogs, and I make them a mixture of brown rice, lean ground beef, and cooked veggies.  I think this is why they love me so.

Back to my conversation with my friend, she is the same as me.  She does the same with her dogs and "spoils" them with some good, nutritious food.  All of a sudden that whole idea and process prompted this enormous, gigantic light bulb to go off in my head.  I am not the only one who spoils their dogs with good food.  Notice the key word in there..."spoils".

See, when we are talking about our pets spoiling them means that we give them good, nutritious food.  And dogs agree!  To them, getting a "home cooked" meal is spoiling them.  And they reward you for your efforts by way of lots of love and big doggy kisses.  But look at how different it is with our kids.

My kids don't get to go out to eat very often.  I believe in trying to minimize the amount of unhealthy food, preservative soaked, chemically enhanced food that I feed my family.  I make as much as I can from scratch, I make all my own bread, I buy from local farmers instead of the grocery stores, I buy as little as possible of the pre-processed mechanically made foods and junk foods.  By a dog's standards my kids are spoiled rotten!  However....

In this wonderful country of ours "spoiling" our kids means that we take them to McDonalds, order a pizza, or buy an unhealthy snack.  Do you see the irony in all of this??  Does this make any sense at all?  NOOOOOO!  To play on words a bit, by doing these things we are "spoiling" them...but not in the good sense.  We are training these kids that a "treat" is something unhealthy when in actuality the treat should be that they are given the good, healthy stuff  that will help them live a longer, healthier life.  So basically what we are doing is telling kids that the "good stuff", the treats are the unhealthy things.  So when they get older, have their own jobs and have "arrived" in their careers someday and can afford whatever they want they will gravitate towards the treats, the off limits items that they couldn't have all the time when they were kids because those were "treats".

Dogs are treated better than kids!  We treat our dogs with good food but we treat our kids with crap food.  Interesting perspective isn't it?  Kinda makes me think about what I am really teaching my kids vs what I have taught my dogs.

I will continue to treat my dogs.  What I have learned today however is how I should, or should not, treat my kids.

Happy Anniversary to Me!!!

So...today, January 8th, is a bit of an anniversary for me. No, not the anniversary of my marriage, our first date - not that I know what that date was anyway. I am 40 after all. We have enough trouble remembering all of our children's birth dates, our birth dates, and now because we have kids we have to "remember" the day our dogs were born. (????? - yeah, we pretty much made up those dates) No, it's not that kind of anniversary.


Four years ago today I made a decision that changed our lives more than any other. I had always been a working mom, most of the time an event planner, 60 hour a week working mom. At the time, I was working at the corporate office of a home-based business company of household consumable wellness products. I worked in the regional sales department and my job was to talk with Marketing Executives, do sales training, and help inspire them. I remember like it was yesterday.


I was on the phone with a lady, a mom - Shannon, and telling her what an amazing thing it was that she was doing. I had told her to think about all the things that she was there for with her kids and wouldn't be if she was working out of the home. We went into detail about it, as well as just the amazing thing she was doing in promoting wellness all around her. I had a headset on so that I wasn't tied to my desk all day and as I was talking with Shannon I was standing in front of the window. I had a major revelation. See as I was talking to Shannon about all the things she was able to be there for with her kids because of building her business I was staring out the window of the office watching my kids playing on the playground at daycare. That A-Ha moment of what am I doing!


The next day, today, I went in to the office and gave my two week notice and started my business from home. The past four years haven't always been easy but it sure has been great! I haven't missed a moment! I have been able to be there for my kids before school, picking them up from school, all summer long, swim team, PTO, sick days - I don't have to worry about a boss getting angry if my kids are sick. I've been the Mom that's there, the Mom I always wanted to be. And, I've built a business that gives us residual income. I still get paid every month for business I brought in 4 years ago. If I decide to walk away from my business for awhile to pursue other interests I can do that, still get a check every month, and always come back to it. It is the BEST decision I've ever made.


Gerry, my husband, prayed tonight a prayer of thanks that we both have work that allows us to be there for our kids more, to spend more time as a family than most get to, and we're doing ok! I am so thankful and still love sharing my story with others who are like me and want the opportunity to be home with their kids also. So, Happy Anniversary to me! Happy Anniversary to my family! Thank you to my husband for always supporting me in this. And thank you to Melaleuca for showing me that I can be the always there mom. BEST decision I ever made!


The things I CAN do to make breakfast entertaining....because I'm here.