Passion is no ordinary word

Someone once told me that a lack of passion is fatal. 

I never believed it…until now.

Recently I was asked to write a very brief presentation on my passion and I froze.  Do you know why I froze?  I froze because I had no idea what my passion was.  I had lost sight of it and it scared me.  It scared me to the core.

I was desperately pulling at strings.  My mind wondered all over the place.  I could not figure out what my passion was.  I cried.  I sat in silence.  I became frantic.  Nothing came to my mind.

Then it hit me!  

This is why I was scared…

Yep!  That calendar is why I lost my passion.  

That calendar is just a month in my life.  The majority of the things on that calendar occur after the hour of 5pm.  I have two very busy boys and I’m just one person.  Oh, they have a dad.  A dad who is pretty helpful, but he is a dad that most nights is not home before 8pm. 

I am up at 5:30am every morning and don’t stop until about 9:30pm every night.  There is not one moment between those two hours that is stagnant.  Nope, we are constantly going. It is stressful.  I don’t have a lot of help with my kids, therefore, I don’t have a lot of free time, hence the reason why I’m single too.  Who has time for things we are passionate about, let alone dating, with a calendar like that?

Looking at that calendar, however, made me remember what I was once passionate about…and am desperately trying to be passionate about again. 

Writing!

It was once THAT haven for me.  That haven that I NEEDED every day to feel complete.  There once was a time, that if I didn’t write each day, it affected my mood.  Because of that picture above, it quickly became something that I didn’t think about for days on end.  And I don’t ever want to be there again!

I want to write…I need to write…it is who I am.  It makes me a better mom.  It makes me a better employee.  It makes me a better friend.

“You don’t write because you want to say something, you write because you have something to say.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald

The Geekster is 9

So this piece of goodness (aka: Gibson, Gib, Gibby, Geeker Beeker, the Geekster) turns nine today! He likes to tell people that I started blogging again so that I could write about him.  Between you and I, let's let him continue to think that way.

I cannot believe my baby is 9! Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think I would be raising an 11 year old and a 9 year old. When I dreamed of becoming a mom, I always visualized myself with babies, I never pictured myself with two boys who have stinky armpits, leg hair and attitudes. Not that I don’t love them, because I do…it was just not the picture I ever had in my head.



To commemorate this sweet boy on his special day, I give you these:


Recent Conversation:

The Geekster: (who plays center for his football team) “Mom, do you know why I like Cole as quarterback better than Aiden?

Me: No, why?

The Geekster: Because Cole gets his hands off my butt faster than Aiden does.


Text message from his best friend’s mom:

“FYI…I’m making 2lbs of meatballs for Gibson for his birthday”- This is a woman who truly knows and loves my boy!



This story he wrote, in which he was asked if a pig and a cat could be friends:

Once there was a pig. Along came a cat. The cat was hungry. He ate the pig. The cat lived happily ever after. The end.

…so I’m concluding that cats and pigs cannot be friends.



Question on the first day of school:

Mom, do these shoes make my feet look fat?



Conversation we had on the last day of school last year:

Me: I can’t believe tomorrow I will have a 6th grader and a 3rd grader in my house

The Geekster: Do you know what is so bad about that?

Me: No, what?

The Geekster: That’s gonna be a lot of stinky armpits!


These kinds of comments spew from his mouth on a daily basis. He is the sweetest, kindest, most loving, funny and energetic kid I know. He loves everyone and wants to be loved by everyone. He makes me laugh and cry every day. He can be a challenge at times, but I wouldn’t trade that trait for anything.

This boy has it going on!

BTW…the picture above…that’s him…on 3rd grade picture day. I promised he could pick out his outfit, and it was a battle I wasn’t going to fight. This outfit is totally him and I don’t ever want to forget that moment.

Grey Goose with a Twist

I tried to stay away, but I couldn’t!

I tried to convince myself that you guys didn’t want to hear what I had to say, but I wasn’t successful!

I took on other projects, but none more fun than writing my blog.

I tried to be passionate about other things in my life, but I got lost.

So….

I’m back!  With a new twist.

Since you can’t really write a dating blog about dating if you don’t date, I’m changing up the format! 

Never fear, if I ever go on another date again, you guys will be the first to hear about it.  But in the meantime, I will be writing about the crazy that is my life, you know, the funny things my kids say and do, the stresses of being a single parent, and the awesomeness that is life in general.

Stay tuned…I have so many thoughts in my head that are just dying to get onto paper.

In the meantime, how about those Chinese messing up our badminton brackets this year at the summer Olympics?  Discuss amongst yourselves…

Snips, snails and puppy dog tails

I love being a mom of boys!

Sometimes they make me laugh, sometimes they make me cry, but most times it’s just plain fun. I appreciate sports, mud and stinky sneakers so much more than I do dance recitals, flowers and pretty pink bows.

Deep down, I know I was created to be a mom of boys!

That’s why I wasn’t fazed when I had to have a conversation with the on call doctor because I thought my youngest might have had a bladder or kidney infection. Normally, I would share the details of a conversation like this because it’s usually the details that make a story funny.

But this time it’s different.

This time, all I have to share with you are my responses to the three questions the doctor asked.

“Yes, Dr. Miller, Gibson is circumcised.”

“Yes, Dr, Miller, Gibson does wash his penis on a regular basis.”

“Yes, Dr. Miller, Gibson let me look at his penis this morning and it was not red.”

Oh, I might point out that this “one sided phone conversation” took place while waiting for coffee at a very crowded Starbucks.

Yep…that’s how awesome it is to raise boys.

On a scale of 1 to 10, I think I want to throw up

Life is hard!

No one ever told me it would be easy, but man…some days are just downright difficult to get through. By the time I am done being mom, housekeeper, counselor, teacher, EA, cook, seamstress, chauffeur, referee, coach, personal shopper, hair stylist, plumber, electrician, laundry attendant, social director, banker, nail tech, and law enforcement officer to my kids, I don’t really have time for anything else.

So in the grand scheme of things, what I want to talk about today is not a big deal. But it is something that weighs, heavily on me every day, all day. It’s something that I constantly think about, no matter how hard I try not to. And if most women were being honest with you and with themselves, they would also say that this topic weighs heavily on them as well. In fact, I bet it’s something that men think a lot about too, but will more than likely rarely admit that they think about it as much as they do.

And that thing is…body image.

From the moment I wake up to the moment I go to sleep, I am constantly aware of how I look, and most of the time (about 99.9%) I DO NOT like what I see or how I feel about myself. The sad part is, I can pinpoint the exact moment in my life where I started to become very self conscious about the way I look…It was the day that my Ex asked for a divorce. Not only did he take away my life as I knew it, but that night he also took away from me my future. Little did I know at the moment when he said “I’m just not attracted to you anymore” that my life would change as much as it did.

I don’t think men, women, boys or girls for that matter, realize how much damage a little comment like that can do to one person.

Before those words were ever muttered to me, I was confident, outgoing and fun to be around. My life, unfortunately, changed in the blink of an eye when I heard those fateful words. I stopped being me.

I was no longer confident.

I was no longer outgoing.

I was no longer happy.

I was no longer me.

To this day, I’m still not confident, I’m still not as outgoing as I used to be, I’m still not as happy as I would like to be, I’m still not the me that I so desperately crave to be. I’m a lost, broken woman still looking for myself.

But do you know what I have realized in this journey to find myself?

I’ve realized that I may never be that me that I was before. I have realized that in today’s society of “quick fixes”, like botox, ab chairs, six pack enhancers, metabolism enhancing over the counter meds and brazillian but lift videos, I have no chance of being that girl that I lost years ago. I’ve realized that the media has played a lot into how I “should” feel about the way I look.

Take this picture for example...



The girls in this picture are supposed to represent a normal size 8, size 12 and size 16 woman. I’m going to let you all in on a little secret…the media is lying to us! I can’t believe I’m going to say this, but I am a size 10 (on a good day) and a size 12 (on a normal day), but I am a better representation of the size 16 woman in this picture. This, my friends, messes with a girls mind. This, my friends, is why it is so easy to believe it when my ex tells me that I am no longer attractive to him. This, my friends, is the kind of stuff that ruins women!

Or what about this picture...



This is a picture of Jason Aldean, a country musician. Look closely at this picture paying particular attention to his abs and waist. Look at how photo shopped he is. Look at how much distance is between his jeans and his waist. This, my friends, is the media telling us that sexy, hot Jason Aldean is not sexy and hot without a photo shopped waist or abs. This, my friends, is the media telling us that we aren’t good enough for each other. This, my friends is why there are so many hurting people on this earth with body image issues.

I can’t take it anymore!

I’m tired of waking up and immediately feeling like I’m not pretty enough, not skinny enough, not enough of anything to be who society and the media say I should be.

I’m tired of waking up feeling like a loser because I don’t look like some celebrity that society has dubbed “the perfect woman”.

I’m tired of waking up every morning thinking I’m not good enough to be the object of someone else’s affection.

I’m tired of waking up feeling like I’m not good enough.

Bottom line, I’m just plain tired!

I'm a single parent, not a superhero

I’m not gonna lie, single parenting is one of the most difficult things I have ever done in my life. The worst part about it is that there is no end. When I wake up tomorrow, I will still be a single mom. I will still be the one making decisions in my kids lives in an effort to make them better individuals. I will still be the bad guy, when I want nothing more than to be the good guy and I will still be the one who has to break their heart when they don’t make the team.

Yeah, it’s not all butterflies and cupcakes.

Being a single parent is exhausting! And I’m not even talking about the mothering side of things. Nope, it’s the everyday mundane tasks that often become huge events in my house.

Take the task of telling your kids at 8:45pm that it is time to come inside for the evening, even though all of their friends still get to stay outside and play. Do you know why their friends get to say outside and play? They get to stay out and play, because they all come from dual parent homes and they have a parent that will still be awake when they are asked to come in at 10pm for the evening. Unfortunately, that is not how things work in my house. I’m a single mom who has to get up and go to work in the morning. Therefore, my kids will come in at 8:45 because it takes them at least an hour to stop copping an attitude because I made them come in earlier, shower, brush their teeth, and get their clothes out for the next day, before I need to be in bed. Yes, I did say “before I need to be in bed”.

Or what about the little task of shopping. No longer can I swing by the grocery store after a sweaty work out. Nope, now I have to have freshly washed and styled hair, wearing the coolest clothes with four inch trendy shoes just in case the man of my dreams accidentally bumps into me while we are testing the melons for ripeness in the fruit department. Ok, I know that this scenario doesn’t have anything to do with single parenting, but if I weren’t a single parent hoping to run into my Prince Charming every time I stepped out of my house, then I wouldn’t give a S&*# about what I looked like…but I digress.

How about being the mom that has to tell her kids that we can’t go on a vacation for Spring Break, because I have to work. I have to work in order to pay the bills and put food on the table. This last year I worked really hard to become debt free (except for my house and car) and building up the vacation fund has been a low priority. But 11 and 8 year olds don’t understand that.

I’m also that mom who only allows my kids to do one extracurricular activity at a time. Not because I don’t think they would love to do more or participate in every single sport known to man like some of their friends, but I have a job. I’m not a stay at home mom (not that I have an issue with that at all), I don’t have nannies or even an ex that can help me cart them around. I’m a single mom with a 9-5 job who struggles to get home and put dinner on the table every night at a reasonable hour.

And laundry…don’t get me started on that one. I CANNOT for the life of me, decrease the size of my laundry piles, no matter how hard I try.


This is what my laundry piles look like every day. I could do one or two loads of laundry a night and never ever get caught up. It’s never ending.

I know one day my kids will learn to appreciate all the things I do for them. And by “things I do for them” I mean, make them come in early, do chores without getting allowance, stay home for Spring Break and participate in one activity at a time. But until that day comes, I will continue to broaden my shoulders and take all of the grief that they may dish out about me not being able to do it all!

I confess

I confess, Downton Abby is my new favorite show. Yes, it is on PBS. Yes, it is a Masterpiece Theater show. Yes, I have become my parents. My dad couldn't be more proud.

I confess, I use the rear view mirror in my car to look at my cute kids sitting in the back seat, not as a safety device.

I confess, I HATE dating, but I also understand that it is a necessity if I have any chance of meeting Mr. Right.

I confess, my heart sank a little when I made eye contact with the Hot Fireman at the movie theater this weekend.

I confess, I did not take our tornado evacuation seriously at work on Friday. Instead I chose to use it as social hour.

I confess, I'm a sucker for anything basketball related, especially when my kids are involved, unfortunately it is this that is hampering my ability to find the time to date.

I confess, I don't know how much more patience I have left for an 11 year old with an attitude problem.

I confess, on a scale of 1 to 10 I am at the Adele level of frustration when it comes to successful relationships.

I confess, having no plans on a Saturday night every once in a while is AWESOME!

I confess, this new book I have on my Kindle is seriously hampering my motivation to clean my house.