I love you

“I love you”  as you tell me I am crazy as you lie to me. 

“ I love you” as you tell me nobody likes you. 

“I love you” as you ignore my pleas to stop. 

“I love you”  as you break things in front of me. 

“I love you” as you remind me, you didn’t hit me, like some do.

“I love you” as you tell me how horrible I am. 

And then I learn that the phrase “ I love you” means nothing but pain and suffering. 

I HATE the words “I love you” they will never hold meaning for me again. 

Christmas Eve starting over

It’s Christmas  Eve 2023. I’m sitting on my front porch, watching the rain fall. It’s ironic honestly.  I should, and I am, grateful for what I have. It’s been a long year. I wish I would have wrote things down, but I didn’t. I’m starting a new journey and now I don’t even know where to begin. 

Just over a year ago, I ended my 19 year marriage. I hated the idea of throwing away all of the time I spent loving someone. I remember putting my kids to bed, and then going to my room to do what I normally did, just not with screaming from the living room as he played video games, while I finished wrapping Christmas presents and filling stockings. Every single year that is what I remember of Christmas. There was a peace though, but in my head there was so much chaos. So many mixed feelings. So many emotions. I know I cried myself to sleep that night. 

I honestly don’t remember too much of Christmas Eve 2022. But isn’t that a good thing? Nothing bad happened. I wasn’t fighting, I wasn’t faking. 

This year, they are with him for Christmas. This is my first year of not having them with me on Christmas. I just hope they have a great Christmas. I  hope if they feel sad, and miss me, they call. But most of all, I hope he shows them how special they are today, and tomorrow and honestly always. I hope he doesn’t get angry with them if they feel a little sad about the changes. They deserve, just as I do, to feel their feelings rather than bottle them up, and hide it from him, and everyone. 

I do have someone special in my life to share these days with. I am grateful for that. I didn’t expect to meet someone so quickly. We were honestly both damaged goods I’d say. 

Drowning

I keep bobbing up to catch a breath, but those breaths are getting less and less. I am struggling and going under quickly. I catch myself having doubts about being a good mother, a good wife, a good daughter, and even a good sister. My childhood wasn't perfect, but one thing I learned is that you stick it out, it gets better. I stuck it out, it would get better for a minute. Then I would sink right back down. Now, it feels as if I am no longer coming back up for air.

He is handsome, charming, giving, cultured and stubborn.  What more could a woman want. I am selfish and insecure  and stubborn, but I am giving, loving, and loyal.  So what is it that is making me so miserable.
Obviously myself, It is all me. I am selfish because I want handsome, charming and cultured to be about me. I want to be the other side of giving. I want the attention, the positive energy. I want this directed at me.

I am not perfect, he is not perfect. We are not perfect together. There is no you complete me. You are my other half. There never was. There has to come a time when you finally realize, they were right. No matter how stubborn you want to be. They were right.This idea we hold on to, that nobody tells us what to do. This rebel mentality, we grow up. We have to grow up.  We were not meant to be together. If so, God played a sick cruel joke if this was "God's doing. We have fought from before we were "exclusive".  How can you fight with someone when you barely even know each other. We were and are toxic, but somehow we brought 4 beautiful kids into this world. I guess thats to be expected. We fought so much that before we were even a couple, Make up sex was a thing.

Make up sex, and you're NOT my boyfriend??? What, how??? These are signs the universe says go your separate ways. How did you let this go on for so long. I ask myself this question regularly. What was I thinking, what am I thinking.

I was never liked by my in-laws. I do remember the day after my wedding. Sitting on our couch in the apartment with my new mother in law. I remember the stories, the promises, the memories that were embellished.  I remember hearing about how my husband had been so close to his sister that he HAD to go out with her the day after he married me. He had to spend time with her, because in his mothers defense, what if my husband didn't come back from deployment.

I should have annulled right then and there. Because seriously, what the hell was I thinking marrying this man, that I have probably had more fights with than I did my sister and we hadn't known each other for a full year yet. We married because, what if...

What if we had waited.
What if I had started a career? Worked, not have moved out of state? What if I had been independent, instead of a dependent? All of these what if moments.

One of the things that bothers me right now, is the idea that it is easy to jump back into the workforce. It's not, look it up, the articles. Look up other stay at home moms who were left with nothing after their husbands left them. The idea that I gave up everything for all of those years and he says I'm just not trying. I resent him. But there is no empathy for the fact that I selflessly took care of our children, moved them from state to state. Encouraged him, held the fort down when he was away, took two toddlers to a school to purchase books so he could focus on work and then focus on school work. All of the things I did, and I resent him?

I resent him. I do resent him. But not for putting in the effort

He says my excuse for not doing what he thinks I should do , is my resentment. I'm not allowed to blame my inability to get a job on him.
I can get a job. I can go work as a waitress, or in fast food, or even retail setting. I can go back to merchandising. I can get a job... but what I can't get is a career. Because a career takes dedication. It takes losing hours with your kids, relying on help, eating fast food because you're too tired to cook every single night, because it was a late and stressful day. Having everyone help with chores, and really enjoying those moments when you do get to sit down and have a meal together. Words of encouragement mean something, but when you are angry, become distant, say mean things when you're fighting. Those words mean nothing.

Then there's the times you contradict what you have said, with a new statement. You don't realize it, because you've made yourself believe something different.

I have lost the confidence I once had when I was eager, and physically and emotionally able to work.
I no longer feel like I can accomplish and see anything through. I feel as if I wasted my time and money on half of an education that is just a piece of paper sitting in a drawer. I'm not even sure it's still in that drawer.

New Adventures What did he say!?!

It has been a long time since I have written anything.
Since my last post, (uh 2013) I have watched my children grow up, moved to a new house, new school district(technically twice), went back to school, earned my associates degree, watched my last baby enter school, and I am currently digesting the fact that this is our last year of elementary school.

Needless to say it has been a rollercoaster of emotions since 2013. I believe that year I also attended my first, and only out of the country trip. I am hoping though, there will be many more trips to come.

Now I am on to working on a host of other things, all while still trying to raise my wonderful, crazy sometimes bratty rugrats that I adore so very much.
This school year my oldest entered his sophomore year high school. He will likely get his license in a less than two months (oh we just had a drop in insurance last month, how's that for irony?) He turns 16 in October, but thanks to the driving school being less than stellar in customer service, he still has 4 lessons to go with them before being ready to take the drivers test. So while he turns 16 in a short week, he won't be finished with driving lessons until if we are lucky, uh November.

So today, I had a conversation in the car with my older two kids.

Now this conversation might seem random, because honestly until I had my second kid, I'm not sure I ever thought about it.
My second oldest says, "I think my birthday falls on Memorial Day?". Now I haven't looked at the calendar because ultimately even planning a birthday in May while I am in the midst of planning well, 1, if not all three of his siblings birthday prior to his birthday.
So he gets excited because he thinks YAY no school, when he was born, it was Memorial Day so the idea was exciting because what kid doesn't want to have no school on their birthday.
So this leads to my oldest saying, how can your birthday be on Memorial Day? It's always the same date.

So, I pull out my I have no idea where I actually learned it from card, and go in and explain Holidays.  Memorial Day is a specific day, as opposed to date. So Christmas, it falls on December 25th, so you open presents on a different day every year.

Off topic for a second, I honestly would vote for a Christmas present opening day, to be the same day every year, right after the Christmas break starts. This is so you aren't hiding gifts from greedy little children hunting the house to find them when you're busy with other stuff. So you open presents at the beginning of break, and they aren't bugging you with I'm bored, cause it seems these days those items only last through Christmas break anyway. Who is with me??

Honestly I'm not sure he quite understood me, but it was all I had from my low amount of useless knowledge that I had hiding in there.

So then of course I thought about Easter and how I have many times looked up how it is Easter has such a large window for when it falls, sometimes March, sometimes April (oh and its awesome when its earlier, Easter candy clearance for the youngest kids birthday in April. ) Yes I am that mom!!! One year, I threw her a birthday with NOTHING but easter clearance. She was in love with Frozen, again.

So not completely out there crazy from my kid, it was kind of funny that in his many years of being alive now, he hadn't realized where birthdays fall (specifically his brothers, but also his aunts) on the Holiday one year but not the next.

I'm a summer birthday, so I always had no school on my birthday. Unless you count summer school, which I attended because I wanted to attend (no seriously I wanted to graduate early).

So if you're still with me, let me know!?!? Outside of that, I did start an Instagram for my dogs. Sven and Mal.

Oh my Batman!!!!

We were selected to host a Ridemakerz Xtreme Customz party. 
We had planned the party for April 6th, but unfortunately due to sicky situations, we had nobody come.
So, we did our party with one of my son's soccer team. It became an awesome ending to a great practice, and everyone had a great time opening and playing with the cars.

Of course my kiddos were super excited and tearing open the packages. They had seen the cars in our living room and I believe it took everything in their power to wait to open one. So they did go to town quickly after sitting down for these. The packaging is a little bit child proof, they have a hard time opening it themselves, but luckily, parents are there to the rescue. It still took a minute to get the packages open. Even for us.

I was not excited the way each car was already built differently, some parts were already on it as shown in the directions. If you have multiples it's already every car is different, which I realize the point is to customize, however, the instructions show put this piece on, and it's already on and its step 2. But that wasn't on for another car.
The tires were really hard to push on and on one car would not stay completely on. It didn't mean the kids didn't have fun with them though. I will say my 9 year old did get in there and put his together on his own for the most part. My middle son almost 7, could not get it together at all.
My youngest son was all over it and while he couldn't get it out of the packaging or put together he had a blast having me do it for him.  I do think these should be geared for older kids because of the pieces being so small to put in. 5 and 6 is still way to young to keep up with the pieces. Overall we had a great time!

We are Homeschooling! Trying something new this month

I've been invited to try Time4Learning for one month in exchange for a candid review. My opinion will be entirely my own, so be sure to come back and read about my experience. Time4Learning can be used as a homeschool curriculum, for afterschool enrichment and for summer skill sharpening. Find out how to write your own curriculum review for Time4Learning.

It's been awhile

It's been crazy here in this house. We started home schooling in November. With my oldest doing online Homeschooling, and my middle son learning from me each day. So this leaves me pretty busy during the weeks now.  So far it feels like we are doing alright with it. The kids seem to like it better than public school. They get lots of interaction still with their Karate class four to five days a week. One 
Recently I started a new healthy way of living. Green Smoothies! In a few days I've dropped a pound, hopefully still shedding more. So far two days at the gym and while I skipped the gym yesterday, I did do a little workout at home before everyone was up.  I have  a goal, before my birthday, I will be pre-kids weight. The last three days I have had nothing but green smoothies for breakfast and lunch and a salad for dinner. Tonights salad, shrimp salad! I'm going to try and stick to this for at least a week.

I have also given up my starbucks drink. However I am not completely cutting out coffee, just the high calorie drink that I have been getting over the holidays. It's amazing I didn't gain more than five pounds when I finally realized how many calories is in a Caramel Brulee Latte and a venti at that. But oh they tasted ohhhh so good. So luckily most Starbucks are out of it, so the temptation to not order it should be easily fought. I just have to remind myself of my goal.

I have also gotten my little ones on this kick. They are now asking me for Smoothies in the morning. Fresh fruit smoothies, with no additions to it, like sugar, or even cows milk. And for the most part, they are drinking them.

This morning we woke up to snow, so it's been rather hard to keep them on track with wanting to learn today, but we will!