If you think your struggling and your having a hard time just imagine how the people of Haiti are suffering and struggling just to live another day.  Sometimes we think our lives are difficult but we have never had to experience such devistation as what has occurred in Haiti.  If I was able to travel to Haiti myself I would be there to help out, but since I can’t be there to help out and since I don’t have alot of cash right now I figured I can manage at least $10 and then do my part to push other people to do the same, just think if everyone gave just $10 how much money could be raised to help those suffering so terribly.  We have to say a prayer for all the people of Haiti both the dead and the survivors and thier families so that hopefully they will make it through this dark time in their lives.

 So, please give $10 to Redcross via your cellphone or go to Redcross.org and just think if that were your family member suffering, you would want someone to reach out and help and lets remember right now every little bit helps. Well,that is my request to anyone who seems my blog that you give to Haiti and that you pass the message on to others around you as well, family, friends, co-workers, neighbors, church members, just push others to give in anyway they can.  Thanks again for your support and lets all pray for Haiti…Let them know they haven’t been forgotten and that we care!!

Back to School at AIU

Well, I have been thinking of going back to school for a long time now, and watching my husband work on his degree for the past couple years and decided it’s my turn to do something for myself.  So, I am now enrolled in school and will begin my first class the first week of February.  Yes, its a little scary to think about since its only been about 22yrs since I was in high school but it is necessary for me to be competitive in todays job market.

I have been online looking up grants and scholarships for women, GA residents and undergraduates and have applied for a few but haven’t got much money yet.  SO, I am also doing student loans and hoping to push through both my Associates and Bachelor degrees over the next couple years.

If you have recently returned to school and have any advice for me on how to manage my time, where to go and apply for student loans, grants and scholarships, I would greatly appreciate your help.

My daughter Taylor has been a big inspiration for me as well to get back to school, she does so good in school and she just loves learning and doing things. I want to show her that mommy can go back to school and do it as well, also I want her to know that it doesn’t matter what age you are, that you can always still follow through with your goals.

I am open to any advice you may have for me, so please feel free to comment..thanks again and I plan on getting back to my blogging for 2010..

Last year we were surprised when my daughter came over and her mom had taken her to get her tongue pierced, knowing that her father and I would be against it.  She has come over to the house and play vulgar rap music that talks about bitches, and F**king, and pu**y, licking the p**, etc..I think you get the jist of it and my husband went off on her listening to such music and she said her and her mom listen to that type of music all the time.  So, its not his daughters fault that she is not on the right path it is directly her mothers.   Her mom is now 35yrs old and for the last 5yrs or so since she got divorced has been trying to go back and live and act like she is 18yrs old again.  It is very frustrating as the step mom to watch your child even though its your step child be so miss directed. 

Her mom is 35yrs old and all she does is go out to strip clubs, and 18 and up clubs and get drunk and party til 4am on a weekly basis.  She lets her daughters teenage friends come over and hang out even when her daughter is with us for the weekend.  When my daughter was 15yrs old she was telling me about her mom taking her to a local club one night and I questioned her over and over as to how she got in the club, when she is only 15yrs old.   It seems like she doesn’t care if her daughter succeeds in life or not.   A couple weeks ago when my daughter was here her mom took one of my daughters friends and that girls boyfriend with her to stay at another home she house sits for and I was like does the other girls mom know that her boyfriend will be spending the weekend and my daughter replied,”she doesn’t think that the other girls mom even knew she had the boyfriend’. 

When they go to Florida her mom still rides up and down the strip like the teenagers and college kids do, and the last time they were there my daughter said her mom had a fling with her boyfriends brother, who is like 21yrs old.  What drives my nuts is she is not preparing her daughter for the real world.  All she sees her mom do is work, party, sleep around and drink, and lie and cause alot of drama in people lives. 

Her mom has been the ultimate” baby mama drama” and been going on for 11yrs now.  In the beginning she did everything in her power to destroy my relationship with my husband, she didn’t want him she divorced him 3-4yrs ealier but as soon as she saw him in serious relationship even though she was engaged to be married she tried to go after him, she didn’t anyone else to have him.   When that didn’t work, she went after me and tried to destroy my relationship with my step daughter by telling her lies, saying I was the reason they were not a family anymore that her dad had an affair with me and I broke up the family.  I mean are you crazy he was in Alaska when she had and affair and then went to Alaska to tell him she didn’t want to be married to him any longer and she left him in Alaska and took thier daughter back to her home town and began her relationship with another man, I didn’t see my husband for 3-4yrs after all that happened.  She hated that her daughter loved me and she did everything in her power to destroy our relationship, she made a photo album or just the three of them and had her daughter bring it over to our house and her daughter trusting her mom believed I destroyed thier family and she began hating me and I had no idea why..So, I did correct the lie but who knows for sure how long she thought that or what other lies were told.

When I had my daughter Taylor 7yrs ago, her mom told her we wouldn’t love her anymore because we had a new baby and she called her daddy up to ask him and she was 10yrs old at the time to see if her daddy still loved her, now that there was a new baby. I can tell you who knows what other lies she fed her because she was so excited to be having a little sister and then when her sister was born and her mom started filling her head with the lies, she began to hate me and she hated her sister, I mean it took a good 3yrs to get my home back comfortable again.  It was like the tention in the house when she came over was not good for any of us.

What I am leading up to it has been years of issues with my step daughter and her moms mind control or manipulation of her daughter that has just been going on for so long and now my daughter is 17yrs old and she has failed school 2yrs in a row and would be do to repeat the 9th grade for a 3rd time.  The first time she failed her and her mom kept it from us and told us she passed and didn’t have to go to summer school, we were so proud of her because every year since she was little she has had to go to summer school to pass.  Like I said earlier on education is not a strong point in her moms house, but what happened is they started charging money for summer school classes and her mom refuses to pay money out of her pocket and she didn’t want my husband to find out that his daughter failed school, so she lied to us and told her daughter to lie.   Then last school year as every year he kept asking for the report card or update on her grades, for the past 2yrs her mom has lied about what school she went to and how well she was doing, so this past yr my husband decided since he couldn’t get a straight answer from his ex he would go to the school, first he finds out that her mom put her ex-boyfriend down in the school records as the father of our daughter and then he finds out from the school that his daughter is not in the 10th grade as we thought that she had failed and was in the 9th grade once again and failing every single class once again this year.  She showed up for school, but never turned in any homework assignments and half the time didn’t do her work in class.  You might say he was upset to learn of all of these things he tried to work with his daughter to tutor her and help her bring her grades up, and her grades were going up but not enough it was to late in the year to fix the terribly low grades she had been getting all year. 

He was going to pay for her summer school to get her through and help her pass, when he called the school to register or get information they said she was failing so bad that she would have to take every single class which would be impossible to do in summer school therefore she fails again. They said based on her age being now 17 and failing for the 2nd time they needed to think of an alternative.  So, my husband told her and her mom that she needs to come stay with us and go to school over her at Open Campus which is a school for kids like my daughter or kids who drop out and want to go back,etc.  He told her mom I will help her and she will still be able to graduate, but her mom only cares about the $500 a month in childsupport that she gets, and she refused to allow her to come.  My daughter said she has decided to drop out, get her GED and go to California with some friends.  I mean total insanity is going on here so my husband talks to her mom again and they decided to give her a chance over the summer to prove she was going to study and get her GED but she never did, her mom took her to work with her at the salon each day she just laid there on the computer or sleeping and then her mom let her go out and party every night with her friends.  I know everything as my daughter tells me what she does and what her mom does.  Well, all of a sudden her mom calls and says she wants to go back to high school but she doesn’t want to stay here and i knew that she found out that even thought the divorce documents state that the child support ends when my daughter turns 18 if she is still enrolled in a high school support can go until she is 21yrs old.  Her mom is so selfish that she only cares about getting the child support money so now she is pushing to put her daughter back at the same high school  that she has already failed at twice so she can keep her in her house and collect child support. 

My husband lost his job 2-3 weeks ago and the only thing she said to him was, “I here you had some trouble with your job, well you  better figure something out quick because your daughter needs some new clothes”.  I mean totally tasteless, she doesn’t care about what he is going through only herself.  She just got her July payment and her partial payment for August already went out so why in the hell hasn’t she taken her to get clothes is she needs clothes.  My daughter told me her mom never gives her an allowance so she keeps all the money for herself and just parties alot.

I know they eat out every single day, my daughter said that since she divorce her ex some 5yrs or so ago her mom hasn’t cooked.  The stop at Quick Trip in the morning and get  junk food donuts and eat McDonalds for lunch and go out to restaurants alot at night so that is where the childsupport must  go to, because they have lived with her grandmother every since her mom divorced.  My daughter made it very clear she wanted to get her GED and that she never wanted to go back to the same school, then they call oh yeah she changed her mind and wants to go back to school and they were going to go back to the same school.  So, my husband talked with his daughter and her mom was right there and so she did what her mom told her to do and but eventually my husband said to her to tell him what she really wants, not what her mom wants but what she wants.  She could come stay with us and go to school over here, or get her GED or as her mom want her to go back to the same school.. She said I want to get my GED it was her mom who wanted, needed her to go back to school just to continue getting childsupport after she turns 18 in a couple months. 

I am not a big fan of the GED we would prefer her to come here and go to school with us here to support her and make sure the work it getting done and turned in but she is almost 18yrs old and she live with her mom so we can’t force her to make that choice.  But going back to the same school failing the same classed again just to get her mom a check is rediculous, because if she doesn’t want to go to school and do the work and get her education we will once again have the same results. So, she has decided on her GED even though her dad has pushed for her to come here, so he told her if that is her choice he will support her in it but there is no talking about going to get the GED and then not doing it as she did nothing over the summer to study for it.  So, he told her he would enroll her in a GED course that would help her study and be prepared for the test and pay for her test and he will help her study or tutor her in areas of concern. 

So, they are working on the GED process but we know her mom will try to figure out how to stop the process as she now realizes if she can get her daughter to stay in school, she will continue getting child support after she turns 18. She doesn’t care about her education it has neve been a concern and she has lied and kept things from my husband for years about his daughters school concerns, by the time he finally got tired of not getting enough information from her mom and her it was already to late to correct the situation.  If we had known she was failing the year prior he would have worked with her to help her bring her grades up, every year he would ask his ex to just give it a try for 1yr to see if he could get her grades up, to get her focused on school but her mom would not allow it, her own sister said she will never give up her childsupport. It’s sad that her support money was more important than what was best for her daughter, we all say that as soon as her daughter turns 18yrs old they will be at the club together hanging out together as her mom already goes to the 18 and up clubs and has been dating much younger guys for the past few years, its just sad to be the step mom and not have the ability to change the situation.  As a step mom my hands are tied, I can only get involved so far because it is ultimately between her parents, her mom and dad have to work things out in the best interest of thier daughter and I can offer advice or talk with my daughter about what going on in her life and let her know my point of view but in the end it comes down to her mom and her dad and her to figure it out.

So, now she is dropping out of high school but my husband will have her enrolled by next Tuesday for the fall class to prep for her GED test and he will follow through and make sure she at least gets her GED and doesn’t wait or put it off.  Oh, for the teenage blues !!!  We will just pray for her and do our best to support her as we never want her to feel unloved, or not supported in life she needs to know that we are going to be here for her no matter what she chooses to do in life.!!

We closed in our garage a couple years back a made 2 offices spaces with a wall dividing the offices so that we wouldn’t be in each others faces all the time. But then my husband moved his office furniture from our commercial space to the house and moved it to the larger open area of the office and made that his office and now sits right where we can see one another and hear one another, and its like it defeated the idea of seperate office spaces.  So, he lost his job a couple weeks ago now and he is here sharing the office with me and it gets quite annoying at times as I am working and trying to concentrate on work and he just likes to talk alot.   I mean it seems he can’t stay focused on his own tasks he needs to complete and it drives me crazy.

Also, you can forget him getting any work done when either one of his ex-coworkers calls him or he calls them, they get on this rant about the job and talk for hours about something that cannot be changed.  I mean lets focus on the future and make something happen here as we have alot of bills to pay and I don’t have time for him to wallow in self pitty over his job loss when there is absolutely nothing we can do about it but move forward.  I mean I am looking to the future to figuring out how to survive and make money and keep my bills paid and the roof over my head.

I love him but, he has a hard time staying focused and it drives me nuts. We can be eating or something and boom out of no where, he will begin talking to me like we were in the middle of a conversation and I will have no idea what the heck he is rambling on about. Then as soon as I figure out what he’s talking about, he is already on to a new subject having nothing to do with the conversation he was speaking of 2 seconds earlier, I mean its mind boggling at times.

I work from home as an appraiser (broke as hell), and I also bid on government contract with HUD for inspections and I contract work and I run our business for local home inspections and appraisals.  Let me just be honest for a minute business has really just sucked since the crap hit the fan in the summer of 2007 for our industry.  So, with that said I don’t make tons of money, I mean I make some but not nearly enough to support our household without my husbands income as well and with his job loss we can’t afford the health insurance which really sucks, as I have several medical problems and my daughter has  2 holes in her heart that have to be monitored, so it sucks losing my health care.

With all that said my point is I work from home, so I am on the computer or the phone etc. and with my husband here it seems he gets distracted easily and then it distracts me as i can see him and hear him at all times.  I think I am just frustrated that he talks about all these things he is  going to get done or needs to do and then doesn’t do them and it makes me crazy.  He would act like I am not contributing to our household because I work from home and make my money here in the house, and I have to remind him that before he took his office job a couple years ago he also worked from home with me for about 7 yrs and as manager of the company, I contribute, as his wife I contribute, as mom to our daughter I contribute, as the person responsible for the house, cooking, laundry, dogs, fish, pool, etc..I CONTRIBUTE every single day of my life to my household.

To many times men don’t realize how much we contribute to our households, whether it be financially or through other things we contribute.  But I have never not worked and just sat on my ass at home, I work all the time.  Like I said before right now the money isn’t that great but it comes and goes as the contracts I have come and go and as the real estate industry goes through its changes so does my money, but I contribute..

Hopefully now that he is back at home out of the corporate world and back to doing our company he will realize how much I contribute and how much work it takes and descipline it takes to work from home and stay motivated and make your own income.  I am always pushing forward looking for a better tomorrow and praying for a brighter day as I will not let the struggles I face today bring me down.

Well, with all that said my daughter Taylor started second grade this week and some how has managed to break 2 water bottles in 3 days, I give up..I told her to pull out the one she used last year and use that one as it lasted all year with no problems.  She is loving school and glad to be back with her freinds, hopefully she can stay there through the school year as it is a private school and with the loss of my husbands income things may have to change there but since it is such a wonderful school and we know she is getting a good education we will do our best to keep her there. Our children our the future so we have to do our best to provide them the best pathe possible.

Som this is whats been going on in my house this week..what the hecks going on in yours?

Now, she has decided she wants pop tarts and she wants to make them herself, and she talks to me like she is a teenager and not 7yrs old.  Even her older step sister said she couldn’t believe how much she changed in the 3  weeks since she last saw her.  She says things that just seem so grown up for her age, nothing bad just more mature or educated than I expected from my 7yr old. 

Today was her first day of school and beginning 2nd grade, and she got up told me how she wanted her hair to be, told me that she was going to have pop tarts and I wanted to make her different healthier breakfast but she wanted to do her own thing, so I allowed it.   She ended some how breaking her water bottle on the first day of school, it was one of the nicer hard plastic bottles and I guess she either dropped it or dropped her book bag when it was clipped to it and broke it, so I was not so happy about that but I took her to get a new one.  When we get to the store, I buy her a totally different water bottle that is the softer plastic that shouldn’t break as the other one did and she was like “NO ONE ELSE HAS A BOTTLE LIKE THAT’,  I was like so what you broke the expensive one on the first day and so this is what you get.

It just seems like our kids at earlier ages are so concerned with what everyone else thinks or has, but right now my husband just lost his job and I am not wallowing in cash, so we will have to do with what he have or can afford.  I am not one of those moms that thinks my daughter has to have all the most expensive brands, I didn’t grow up that way and i am not going to buy a pair of shoes over paying a utility bill at home right now. 

But anyways its just amazing how fast she has grown to 7yrs old, it just seems like the years have flown by and she is getting bigger, smarter, and more independent each day..Pretty soon she will be a teenager and hate my guts, so I have to try and enjoy what time we can get together before those dreaded years come along.. Thank goodness we are only disagreeing on a water bottle today, because soon it will be boys that we will be disagreeing on..Cherish the moments with you kids as they grow up so fast, I spent this summer with my daughter home with me and I made sure we had our special hang out days each week because I want to have those memories together and I want her to think her mom is a little cool, even though I am probably not..I still hope she looks at me, and thinks “my mom is the best’.

I loved having her home with me this summer BUT thank goodness 2nd grade is here to give me a break !! 

Til next time!!

I am glad we have some money set aside in savings, not enough to last for long but at least I know I am not without any money.  Here it is back to school time and I hadn’t done any school shopping yet and so we have decided that there will be no new school clothes right now, we will wait and see how things go and then purchase little at a time as right now paying our bills is more important that my daughter having a new t-shirt and jeans on the first day of school.  She has plent y of good clothes so she won’t be disgraced and she is only 7yrs old so its not like a major deal to her, she doesn’t really even think about it.  The only thing she really wanted was a new book bag, water bottle and lunch case, so I did buy those items for her and so she is happy with that for now.

Right now I am wishing we had about 6 months of savings but we don’t so all we can do is push forward. Thank goodness we own our own business but we are in real estate and so as everyone knows business has been slow but things right now are picking up so we still have that income coming in and I also bid on government contracts and so I hope to get a couple lined up and if so we should be fine. I can’t imagine how so many people theirs jobs and have no savings set aside and have no other income to fall back on as we do, even though I know what we have it is still scary so I know other people with less than we have must be so stressed out and I just say we have to all pray and stay positive and something good will happen.

If you decided to give up or let yourself get to down and depressed than you will not accomplish much if anything, so it is important to look at this as just another struggle we have to face and to push forward and look at any and all options that come your way and also considered making things happen for yourself.  What I mean when I say make something happen for yourself is that we are so dependant on large companies to give us a job but once you get that job you put all your dependence on that job, the paycheck, etc.. If you have a passion, a hobby or interest in trying your own business than give it a shot, its harder to work for yourself than anyone but you will push harder to make the money and will appreciate what you have much more and then only you control how much you make, when you work, and when you vacation.  Of course not everyone is like me and my husband and aren’t wanting to work for yourself but like my husband jus lost his job, I also was in the corporate world as he was and about 10yrs ago out of the blue I was laid off and it was such a shock to me when it happened that I chose to work for myself and I have every since then and my husband only went to work with the other company when the industy we are in got hit and we didn’t have enough business to pay all our bills.  So, now yes we are stressed over the situation but all we can do now is pray, stay positive and push forward.  No matter what gets thrown at you always remember you can get through it, as long as you don’t give up on yourself you can make it through anything that comes your way.

I would love to hear from anyone facing the same issues of job loss in your family and how it has affected you and what your doing to try and move forward..til next time!

We were driving down the highway and she was trying to figure out where we were going and kept asking me questions trying to figure it out and then we got off the exit and she saw the sign, Six Flags, Six Flags and she was just about to burst.  ”Mommy are we going to Six Flags”, she said I told her yes and she was like “YES”, YOUR THE BEST MOM EVER”.   We got there just a little early so I picked up a park map and planned out our trip through the park, it was perfect we went to one area and went from ride to ride.  Going on a week day and getting there when they opened we had no wait to very little wait for rides, we did Splash Waterfall and Thunder River, road roller coasters and did some Wheelie ride that made me feel sick, yuck..I rather do a fast roller coaster that goes up side down than a slow ride that goes up side down, that things made me so sick on my stomach, we did bumper cars, log rides, rocking tug boat, you name it we rode it, it was like 15 rides by 2pm.

Then we had lunch and hit the water park area where she convinced me to do the water slides with her and that scared me to death, it starts off pitch black like in a tunnel and you feel like your just falling really fast and can’t see where you are then when it opens up and your just dropping so fast and you go through areas of dips that makes you feel like your going to flip out of the slide.   I did it for Taylor but it scared me to death, not recommended for scardy cats like myself.

After the water park area I was ready to go home but Taylor wanted to ride a  couple more rides and so I decided to to go along with that and I did regret that as that was when the lines were long for the rides and so I was miserable standing in line for 45 min. to get on a ride.  We did a couple more rides and then finally we got to go home and Taylor was so excited to go home and tell her daddy all about her day.  She even got a Super Girl cape at Six Flags and she was running around with her Pink Super Girl cape showing daddy how it lights up, telling her dad all about her day and how wet we got on some of the rides. We were soaking wet and Taylor just loved it, and she  made me go back and ride the roller coasters twice and she even got me to ride the Wheelie ride twice even though it made me feel sick I did it for her.  Taylor also drove the old timey looking cars, she drove and I sat in the back seat, Taylor is 7 yrs old so for her it was super exciting, I kept saying “ Taylor your driving, your driving”.  She told me it teaches you how to drive of course the car has a guide bar/track so the car won’t run off the road thank god, so I sat in the back seat and let her have fun..

Later on she climbed in my bed, laid next to me and talked and talked all about the day and the haunted house we went through she just loved the entire day.  I thought she would never stop talking or go to bed, so finally I sent her on her way and now its mommies turn to go to bed..wonderful day but I am exhausted got to get some sleep and rest my feet & legs..This day was for Taylor and mommy to have one final special outting before the summer ends and we are back to the school routine..SO, I hope all of you moms / dads out there try and take some special time out to bond with your kids because its days like today that they will never forget and you won’t either before you know it they are teenagers and don’t even want to speak to you muchless go hang out with you. SO, take advantage of spending time with your kids when they still want you around!!!  Til next post..please share your special adventures with your kids!

Well, for Taylor she just doesn’t get that she thinks mommy is supposed to be free to play and hang out all the time.  So, yesterday I took a break from working and we invited our neighbor and her kids to come over and spend the day at the pool and that was fun..But my phone kept ringing and ringing, everytime I got in the pool the phone would ring and it seems liked everyone needed me to help them out right then and there and then the A/C repair guys showed up and so everyone was enjoying the pool and eventually I got around to it.

Today it was back to work, working on appraisal reports  that were due out and once again my daughter was not getting it, she was like “mommy how long are you going to stay down in the office”, I told her probably all day and she just thought it was the end of the world.  I had to research and write reports, do laundry for her trip to grandmas, take a shower, trim the dogs and then drive out of town to meet my mom so she could pick up my daughter for the weekend.

I tell you, I love my mom I don’t know what I would do with out her. She has been getting my daughter for 1 weekend a month every since my daughter was like 6 months old.   So, I say god bless her without her I would never have a day to myself.  My husbands mom barely ever even speaks to us, she lives 20 min away and doesn’t bother to come see her granddaughter or call her but once or twice a year, and my mom live 2 hrs away and we both drive 1hr and meet in the middle every single month, its good for me, its good for Taylor and my mom loves having that weekend with her and Taylor gets to see the rest of the family every months as well. 

I always look forward to this one weekend each month, wether I have plans to go to the cabin on the lake or just sit at home all weekend and do nothing at all, I love being able to have 2 days to myself.  As most women know, even though its not true for all men but most expect the moms to handle all the child rearing and that means, they go on coming and going as they please, never skipping a beat where we have to plan to get them to stop and stay with the kids so we can run to the store or doing something without having to always bring the kids along..It must be nice to not have to be a parent all the time and just pick and choose when you get to do it, because we don’t get that luxury..I am mommy 100% of the time no matter what, I am here if the school calls, if she falls and scrapes her knee, wants a snack, needs her clothes washed, wants to go swimming, needs to take a bath, going to grandmas for the weekend, its me I am always mommy, no one will ever be  able to say I wasn’ t there for my daughter.. Isn’t it amazing how we sometime feel we have to ask our husbands permission to leave the house alone without having to take the kids or convincing our husbands to take the kids with them every so often..I mean my husband never has to ask me to keep Taylor while he goes fishing, golfing, etc..he never has to say to me “why don’t you let her ride with you to go to the store, or where ever I am going.    I know this ins’t true for all dads, because I know some pretty amazing daddy’s out there and so I love to see a man who gets that being a parent doesn’t just mean providing sperm, or bringing home a paycheck to pay bills, being a parent is an all the time, round the clock job, so god bless those men who do get what parenting is really all about.

So, now with all that said I hope to enjoy a peaceful, relaxing weekend and hopefully hang out at the pool with some Strawberry Margaritas and later sit by the firepit..Oh, I can feel the relaxation beginning already !!

So, today I am wondering is there someone out there who isn’t happy with me that is making me have all the bad luck this week..Also, I got my family all reunited using Facebook from all over and guess what, they ended up having a family reunion a week ago in NY and my car had something wrong with it and so I couldn’t go..Sucks right, I mean its like one bad thing after another..obviously I need to read the Secret again so I can get the good time flowing again..

So, that is my vent hope you don’t mind..please feel free to add your own vents when you comments..

I was so stressed over having to go to court but in the end it all went smoothly and I was the 3rd person called so I was in and out within and hour and a half.  After court I took Taylor out to eat and she played with a little boy for an hour or longer, while his mom and I chatted it up. 

Sometimes we meet people along the way that either help us or allow us to help others.  She was a single mom in her early 30’s with a son and wanted some guidance on relationships, kids and following your dreams and it isn’t often that someone approaches me for guidance but we talked for a couple hours and I hope I offered her some guidance and it also helps me to look at myself and my family.  We discussed marriage and commitment and being able to give of yourself , we talked about our kids the sacrifices we make for them to have a better future.  The type of role models we want our children to have and being able to love step-children when you are in a relationship with someone from a previous marriage or relationships.  We just talked about every thing we could and we discussed how she has relationship fears of not wanting to end up like her parents who have been together for 45 yrs and now her father is going outside his marriage and the pain her mother is going through, the anger her father omits on the family and the stress it has on everyone.

It was just good to talk to another mom, another woman not like myself with a different back ground but really we are all alike as we all struggle in life with parenting issues, relationship concerns, family problems and trying to find our career path.  Why we met and shared so much I am not sure what brought us together but we shared more with one another than we probably had shared with other people in our regular daily lives. 

So, in our meeting she shared with me some of her struggles and concerns and I shared some advice and I hope offered her something she can work with, of course I am no relationship or parenting expert but I have over come alot through the years and learned how to stay committed and how to work through my struggles and learn to pray and stay strong in my beliefs and to know we can over come any challenges we face in life and come out stronger and a better person for the struggles we face in life. 

So, a chance encounter with Camerons mommy..it was great to meet you where ever you are and I wish you the best in life..!! So, that was Tuesday, my Wednesday will be back to trying to get my swimming pool back up in running as all the rain has turned it green over night..have to get that corrected ASAP!!  Til next post !!