Tuesday, October 11, 2022

Working single mom life

 I am 43 years old raising 3 boys on my own. Their dad is a truck driver and gone for weeks at a time. I refuse to send my kids to government indoctrination camp and can’t afford private school and have mixed feelings about that too. We are un schoolers. I have to work 36 hours a week at a gym where I get paid $20/hr. I just lost my medical insurance because I didn’t submit my choices in time but I do still have dental so I can’t quit until I figure out an income that will cover the 10k in braces that the dental insurance pays for. That leaves me having to have a 2nd job that takes about 12 hours of my day and that still isn’t enough money to live comfortably. 

I don’t want to leave my kids. I want to read and write and travel. I don’t have much time left with them. We are supposed to be world traveling. Not living in a shitty duplex in North Dallas letting my kids play video games while I work at a gym with no real purpose in life. I have to figure out what’s next.

I want to write the story of the murders. I want to help people. I want to learn trauma release techniques. 

How can I move on when I’m stuck in quicksand? 

Tuesday, September 10, 2019

I'm baaaaack!

Hello world!

I am going to reboot here as a mom blogger. I miss keeping a log of motherhood. It has been a blur. So much has happened in my life since my last entry. I will try to catch up as well as discuss things that are relevant to me now. Speaking of what's relevant, here are some of the things I will be talking about: diet, nutrition and cooking, holistic healing, natural medicine, parenting, traveling, and general life improvement.  I am doing this mostly for myself so I don't really care if my blog sucks lol. Thanks for reading.

Sunday, February 10, 2019

Panama!

As I begin to write, this I can't even believe it.  I am taking my 3 boys to Panama in 2 days. I just randomly decided to go. It was been almost a year since our magical Colorado trip. Seeing as I aspired to roadschool/worldschool, I figured I'd better get on the ball. I was researching places to go. I decided in Panama for many reasons. First and foremost, Finley told me he wanted to take a nap in the rainforest. I thought that wad amazing. Plus I am obsessed with Sloths so it's the perfect place to see them. But more importantly I feel safe traveling as a single mother there .. I know a bit of spanish, they usr the American dollar, and it is safer than Costa Rica. It is one of the most ecologically diverse countries in tbe world.  I am so excited to share our journeys and revive this blog that has been so shamefully neglected.

Monday, April 15, 2013

Monday

Kids sick today. Finley has a cough and C has had a runny nose for several days. So we just hung out at home. I raked the leaves that were in the front yard. It seemed like every neighbor on the street just blew their leaves into my yard, like "Oh she'll never notice" because the amount of leaves was ridiculous. They filled my compost, my trash can, and I didn't want to put them in plastic leaf bags- an eco nightmare- so I put them behind bushes and on the side of my house until I come up with another solution. Maybe the compost will disintegrate soon.

Other than that we just hung around. Sweeping, vacuuming, laundry. A housework king of day. Then this evening I started my first parenting class. It's 6 weeks long. I think it was quite good! 

Sunday, April 14, 2013

Sunday

For breakfast, I made cinnamon roll pancakes. They were anticipated to be delicious but they were only ok. The "cinnamon filling" was supposed to be made with dates but I only had dried figs. Um, they aren't really interchangeable. Unless you like seedy pancakes. So boo. But the bacon was a winner. And I tried to get them to eat an orange but they weren't into it.

So then we were off to church. Finley totally freaked out that I as going to leave him "with the kids." I have left him with strangers only a couple times and it's never gone well. But enough is enough. Mama needs church and he needs to be in "Sunday School" or whatever my alterna-churches call it. We had about a 30 minute pep talk about me needing to do this for myself and him needing to meet new friends because all of his friends right now are my friend's kids and he is old enough now to pick his own friends. I was hoping that would be somewhat enticing. NO. I ended up having to give him some Rescue Remedy and rubbed some Young Living Valor on his face and told him I understand he is nervous because everyone is nervous in new situations. But he needed to learn to introduce himself and be nice to people and he will feel just fine. Luckilly when he got there he saw many people introducing themselves to each other so I was able to show him how he wasn't the only one who didn't know anyone.

I went to the Center for Spiritual Living today.  Everyone was very nice but I felt the service was lacking. What exactly, I can't say. The music was uplifting. I guess they spent a little too long on things that I didn't care about like upcoming events and saying goodbye to music directors. The pastor or whatever she's called took a ridiculously long time to tell a story. It bugs me so much when people repeat themselves for dramatic emphasis. Like, I get the picture, just tell the story already! But I was probably more impatient because I really wanted to go get Finley but knew that I needed to stay until the other parents came in to get their kids. So after resisting boredom induced temptation to flee, I see the kids all coming downstairs. Oh my poor Finley. I just knew that he was horrified to have to stand on stage in front of all those people. FOr some dumb reason, they feel the need to "include" the kids in the service toward the end by bringing them onstage and having some kid tell about what they did that day and then the congregation says an affirming verse for them.  I may have been more horrified than Finley though, he seemed like ke was about to cry but I asked him about it later and he said he was happy to go so he could find me. He didn't see me till the end when he was walking back. But he did say he had a good time and liked the man who was the leader of his class.

So woo hoo- he liked it and was fine- I decided to stay for a class on the 5 love languages for kids. At first the kids were sitting with me but I swooped them upstairs because I knew they would get too chatty and disruptive. It ended up being a long day for the 2 of them, it was only a 1.5 hr class but still, C was tired, and I know they were both hungry- only an apple and some peanuts for a snack, and some nasty rancid graham crackers that the church was serving. Literally smelled like 10yr old vegetable oil. Hope F doesn't get gluten diarrhea- I let him have some yesterday!   So they didn't like the part 2 of childcare but darnit I needed that class. It was very insightful!

After church we came home and had "lunch" and by that I mean all the kids would eat was frozen blueberries. I heated up some leftover paleo chicken pot pie but they weren't having even a bite of it.  I reminded F how much he loved it the first time but he said he just wanted the juice box I promised after he ate it. Hmmm, effective coercion or backfiring plan?  Then we dropped some books off at the library and went to get chicken feed. I came home and mowed the lawn while Finley made "potion" in the driveway. We had ravioli and asparagus for dinner- with a bit of force they both ate all their asparagus. I guess partial starvation is how to get them to eat their veggies! 

I had some special time with F after C went to sleep. We thought of silly names for the chickens. So far we have Fiona, Tarzanna, and Rose-ella.   The unfortunate last one has yet to be named- we threw around a few like booger head and fart face and some other ridiculous non words F came up with. I could tell that he was really benefiting from our silly convo and I really became aware that I don't spend enough time with him- really devoting all of my attention to just him.  Also I asked him how he knew that I loved him and he said because I stay home with him. He said when I leave him he feels like I don't love him. Then he made up a song about me staying home with him but needing to go to work so we can eat and do fun things and if I don't work then we have to stay home all day every day. So maybe he's working through that. I'm just glad I have been able to spend the last 2 weeks at home with him and wonder how I"m going to manage in the future.  Homeschooling remains a top priority for me but I have faith that everything will work out.

Saturday, April 13, 2013

Saturday

Today I took the boys on the DART rail to the Crow Collection for Asian Art. There was supposed to be a yoga class but for some reason it didn't happen  That was annoying but Finley got over it, we had a nice time at the museum anyway. Then we walked to Klyde Warren Park and had burgers. The kids played for a few minutes at the park then we left to go to Central Market to get some file powder for gumbo tonight. Tiffany and her kids came over for dinner. We had a New Orleans theme. It was our first themed dinner so we didn't have much else planned but the next time we have dinner we are going to try to have an educational experience.

Almost 4...











In one week from today, Finley will be 4 years old.  I want to do a post before his birthday.

But looks like I never finished and now it is one year later. Awesome!