My must haves

Lately things have been even more hectic than usual, between preparing to have the kids 5 weeks this summer, my sister’s hair salon burning down and the usual baby momma drama, I have spent the past few months just trying to keep our heads above water. I was also doing so well with my weight loss that I didn’t want to lose the momentum I had built up, so here are a few things that have made my life bearable.

#1 – Bandelettes
These are a godsend for anyone who suffers from chub rub when wearing skirts. A few years ago my body decided to break out into hives at any opportunity. Stressed=hives, sweaty=hives, any skin rubbing=hives. Because of this, I dramatically reduced my skirt and dress wearing since every time I wore a skirt my thighs would rub together and then break out into gigantic itchy angry hives.  Then one day I was killing some time on Pinterest (see #2) while waiting in line and I saw these. I looked them up online (www.bandelettes.com) and bought 3 pairs. They are comfortable, they work really well, and are much prettier than the giant spanx I had been wearing before to avoid the chub rub.

#2 – Pinterest
While I am a creative person, I am not an inspired person. I rarely have a new idea, but always have great modifying ideas. Pinterest has helped me a lot with saving money on our home by helping me find cheaper alternatives and DIY projects to achieve what we want. Whether it’s ideas for keeping the kids occupied, ways to use our space more efficiently, or how to make our own taco seasoning, Pinterest helps me make the most of what we have.  Also, it makes me look way more put together and on the ball than I actually am :)

#3 – Bicycle
My father in law just bought bikes for the kids for their birthdays, and I got myself one to be able to go with them. Then I figured out that because of the lovely bike paths in my city, it would only take me 3 minutes longer to bike to work than to drive. Since then I invested in a gel seat and a cup holder for my morning coffee/smoothie and I have biked to work every day that it’s been nice. It’s helped me get my 30 minutes of exercise without having to set aside time for it, with the added bonus of cutting my gas consumption.

#4 – Collapsible water bottles
These are especially great when we take the kids out somewhere. They are flat and you can even roll them up so they take up very little space in a purse/backpack, and they are easily fillable at any water fountain or tap. I got them in some fun prints and they are enough of a gadget that the kids love using them and so I avoid the argument about buying soft drinks or juice at a venue. Saves money, and encourages healthy habits.

Inspired by Mama Kat's writer's workshop : List some of your most recent must haves…tried and true purchases the rest of us should ownYou saw it on Pinterest…does it really work?

My 2014 Goals update

 My 2014 Goals

#1 – Finally get out of debt – I am down to 3000$ so just a few more months (If you recall I was at aver 9000$)

#2 – Get active/Lose weight – I want to shed my depression/stress weight and get back to feeling good in a tank top or bathing suit.  Only 23lbs to go.(18 lost)

#3 – Let it go - I have come to the realization that I have fought for my BF and step kids as much as I can in my position.  The rest has to be my BF, I need to let go of the steering wheel and focus on being a great co-pilot.  Also, I need to let go of drama that is not mine.

#4 – Rediscover me – For quite a while now, I’ve been feeling a little, I don’t know, lost maybe.  Everything has revolved around the BF, the step kids, the Ex, and I just feel like my identity has gotten a bit lost in the mix, at the very least needs me to rediscover who I am NOW.  I’ve even been at the point where I don’t recognize myself anymore.  Goal #3 should help with that, #2 also.  I’ve been reading A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle, and it’s helped me see that I have been falling into a lot of roles lately, when I should be just being me.

Inspired by Mama Kat's writer's workshop: Update your readers on your 2014 goals. How are things going? Are you staying on track or facing some challenges?

Sooo tired

I started a new job this week, and as with all of the other times, I'm exhausted.  Too much information for my brain, and I have to put a lot of effort into staying awake until at least 8pm.  Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining, and I know that this will get better as I get more and more used to the new place, but I always seem to forget how rough the first weeks are at a new place.  Lucky for me my BF has been picking up the slack with the household stuff and been generally very understanding.

Of course this is also the time that my family and friends start to realize that, hey, it's been a while and we should really get together.  I am realizing more and more that March is going to be another one of those months where I have to focus on just putting one step in front of the other and just push through until I regain my bearings.  It actually took me 6 days to return a friend's phone call.  Thankfully she knows me well enough to know right away that there must be something going on because that is so not like me. 

On my plate right now, and for the foreseeable future are one friend recently out of rehab, a sister-in-law/very good friend who is going to give birth any second now, a very needy mother, at least 3 families who want get togethers with us and the kids soon, a friend's birthday bash coming up that I promised ages ago to go to, and tax season.  All of this along with the new job and crazy babymomma.

As a very good friend once said "Stepmommy needs a cocktail!"

Burned

Lately it feels like all I’ve been doing is burning one way or another.

Burned with rage: At my BF’s ex and her constant manipulations and animosity.  I don’t fully understand why she hates me, and I wish she could understand the harm it is causing to everyone, herself included.

Hating people is like burning down your own house to get rid of a rat.

Harry Emerson Fosdick

Burned bridges: The Ex burned the bridge between us, and after my initial anger, I felt relief.  I could really step away from her for the first time in two years.

Sometimes you get the best light from a burning bridge.

Don Henley

Been burnt out: I’ve felt very disconnected from my spiritual self lately, which dramatically lowers my energy and patience levels.

Just as a candle cannot burn without fire, men cannot live without a spiritual life.

Buddha

Burned up and been reborn:  My relationship.  For the first time my BF has stepped up, he has been the strong confident one this time, the optimist.  Through everything that has gone to crap the past week, he has really been there, and our relationship has changed for the better.  He reminded me that as a couple we are more than the sum of our parts, and that when we work together, we are stronger than anything.

Concentrate all your thoughts upon the work at hand. The sun's rays do not burn until brought to a focus.

Alexander Graham Bell

Now I have one more thing left to burn, the negative feelings I have left, so I can make room for the future.

We must embrace pain and burn it as fuel for our journey.

Kenji Miyazawa

Inspired by Mama Kat’s pretty much world famous writing prompts - Burned

How I’m brainwashing myself to like exercise using Jon Stewart.

I’m just gonna say it, I hate exercise, and I hate dieting, almost as much as I hate cleaning.  I have never been an active person, no team sports or anything like that.  I have always been more of a reader/brain type person.  I also LOVE eating and food, sweet, salty, spicy, you name it.  Needless to say, this is a recipe for disaster when it comes to weight gain/loss.

I have tried many diets/types of exercise, I even had a free membership for a while because I worked at a gym, I have never been able to stick to anything for more than a week.  Then…this year, I hit my psychological breaking point.  I’m 5’2’’, and when I saw 200 on the scale, I cried.  I had gained 70 pounds over 9 years.  I have many reasons/excuses as to how this happened, medication, etc. But this was it, I had to lose weight and get fitter.  Last year was the first time I had trouble finding pants in a regular store, even in the XL.

Just before the New Year, I started a program (it’s an app) that focuses on improvement.  No huge unattainable goals, no failure, just to do better every day.  Every morning my phone gives me my goals for the day, usually meals to log, a step count, along with an article and a task.  For example, today I need to log 3 meals, take 2000 steps, read a healthy recipe, and eat 5 different colours of produce.  The goals adjust based on yesterday’s performance.

In addition to that, I decided I wanted to start doing some activity every day, not a lot, just 15 minutes to try and get into the habit.  But how was I going to motivate myself to do something I hate every day?  Then I saw some article with a lady talking about how you can try to curb sweets cravings by snapping an elastic on your wrist every time you think of sweets.  I had hear the same idea for people who are quitting smoking, it’s supposed to make you associate the thing you want to stop with pain in your subconscious.

That’s where I got the idea.  I would do the opposite, I would try to associate exercise with happy.  I tried to think of something that I don’t just enjoy, but that was sure to make me laugh out loud.  That night when I got home I put my exercise bike in front of my computer, and did my exercise while watching The Daily show online.  I pedaled, I laughed, and the 15 minutes flew by.

We are now 14 days into the experiment, and for the past 3 mornings, I have gotten up early to do my 15 minutes, which if you know me and how much I am not a morning person in the first place, is pretty impressive for me.

It’s only 15 minutes, plus a few more changes in food, but so far I’m down 10 lbs.  Who knows, maybe Jon Stewart will be the secret to my weight loss, I may even brainwash myself into adding the Colbert Report to my workout, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

Trust

Trust for me represents a side road along the journey in the search of the real me.  It has lead me on many detours and scenic routes, some good, some bad, all important.

As a child I learned the opposite of trust.  I learned that you can’t trust adults to be there when you need them, or do what you need them to do.  My mom never trusted men, I never trusted anyone except my cat.  I could always count on her to be there. 

I couldn’t trust that the following year would be spent in the same place, or city, or that my mom would be with the same guy. I couldn’t trust that I would go to the same school the following year.  At the end of a school year everyone would say see you after summer, and I would reply “I hope so”.

As a teen I had certain adults in my life that I could trust, but due to lack of experience, I never trusted them completely.  If I hadn’t been so scared and I had taken full advantage of these situations, it probably would have made quite a difference in my early 20s.  At this point I started therapy to try and deal with my trust issues.

In my early 20s, I went a little too far in the opposite direction.  I trusted too blindly, and ended up hurt many times having trusted people I shouldn’t have.  The one type of trust I was still unable to have, was the trust that someone could love me, really love me.  I had never really believed that someone would want to be with me, and I just assumed that they would leave at the earliest opportunity.  This lead to more therapy.

My mid to late 20s, after therapy, I started to really look at the people in my life, and myself.  I have some fantastic people who have been there through good and bad, even across long distances.   I had always thought I trusted these people, but it came to take on a new meaning for me.  I realized that trust wasn’t just about someone not telling your secrets, or that person not hurting you.  True trust, in my opinion, is knowing with all of your being that that person wants what is best for you, whether they/you like it or not.  Trust is knowing that if you are being a jackass, that person will tell you.  Trust is knowing, not thinking, or hoping, knowing with all of your being that you can be vulnerable with that person.  That person is human, and may not always know what to do, but their intentions are positive.

I also learned to trust myself.  I am capable of knowing what is best for me, and I can get through anything.  I am a survivor.  I can trust that I have broken the cycles of the past (as much as is possible) and that I am worthy of being loved.  Today I am able to honestly say that I trust in my relationship 100%.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m not being romantic and all “forever and ever”.  I just mean that I trust that we love each other, and that we both intend to be happy together and make this the healthiest and happiest relationship possible.  I trust that as long as we are working together, we can get through anything.

Trust has been my friend, my enemy; I have chased it and run from it.  It is something I’ve had too much of, not enough of, and the wrong kind of.  Funny how such a small word, just one syllable, can have so much impact.

Inspired by Mama Kat’s pretty much world famous writing prompts 01.04 - Trust

***Just a little geek side note, the fact that one of the other writing prompts this week was inspired by one of my past posts is sooo freaking awesome to me :)

2013, the year of Acceptance

I’m still alive; I just took a time out to reflect.  As I mentioned in my previous post, I’m in a bit of a weird place right now, everything is kind of up in the air.  I decided to take an online hiatus for the holidays and focus on taking a real good look at my real world life and the people in it.  It was also an extremely busy and hectic holiday season this year.  My BF and my birthdays are both within a week of Christmas, plus we had the kids for a week, add in 4 Christmas activities, and some serious babymomma drama, and frankly I was looking forward to going back to work to relax a bit.

I also wanted to really reflect before making my resolutions though I prefer to think of them as focus areas or themes for the year rather than resolutions. I call them resolutions for lack of a better word.  My first resolution last year was fitness, which I did, but sort of and half assed.  The reason being that it wasn’t really important to me, it was more of a « something I SHOULD do ».  The other was to focus on gratitude, and I think I did pretty well on that one.  I consciously and purposely focused on the good stuff in my life, and actively expressed appreciation for the people in my life.  While I am by no means a happy go lucky optimist, it is one resolution I recommend to anyone, not only because it really helps with the harder times, but because after doing it for a year, it really does become habit.

This year though, I have finally reached my tipping point with regards to weight/fitness.  I never really had much motivation to getting fit because I was buying clothes in regular stores (no plus size) and while I wasn’t in love with my body, I wasn’t unhappy with it either.  I eat pretty well, not much junk food, I’m vegetarian, and I’m never sick.  It was always something I knew I should do, but it just didn’t bother me enough.  In the past little while, there were 4 things I saw that made me very unhappy.  The first was when I was walking next to a series of windows and I saw that my butt started doing that thing where it seems to be trying to climb up your back.  The next was the muffin top that seemed to appear overnight.  Then I tried to buy a pair of dress pants at the store I have always bought my dress pants at, and could not find a single pair that fit my thighs.  Then, just a few days ago I was trying on clothes in a mirror, and I saw that there were fat saggy bits drooping around my knees. 

This time I’m going to skip over the drastic approaches, protein shakes, gym memberships and grandiose plans.  I have found two programs which focus on portion sizes, good foods, and easily accessible exercise, one online and one on my cell phone.  What I like about these is that neither is rigorous calorie counting, or drastic food exclusion.  They both focus on improvement THEN results.  No trying to be perfect for this gal, and no eating food I don’t like either.

I have also resolved to accept the fact that my BF’s ex, the kids’ mom, is not going to change, no matter her proclamations that she is willing to work on our family relationship.  What she really means when she says she wants to work with us is that she wants to help us do what she wants.  I am going to focus on letting go of the ideal I had in my head of what we could be (ie: an inclusive parenting team whose focus s on the kids and were able to get along and make compromises on both sides) and accept that she has issues she needs to work on, and like all personal issues, the desire to change has to come from her, there is nothing I can do.  While this is easier said than done, I want to focus on our family (BF, me, and kids) and try to make that family unit as positive and productive as possible, regardless of what is going on elsewhere.

That’s it, only two resolutions this year, but if nothing else, I strive for simplicity.  2012 was the year of gratitude, 2013 will be the year of acceptance…for the things not within my power to change of course, everything else is fair game for improvement ;)

Inspired by Mama Kat’s pretty much world famous writing prompts 01.01 - Resolutions. Love’em? Hate’em? Tell us why. Make one?  Talk about your resolutions or goals for 2013.

Endings, and floating around

Today is a day of many endings, or as I prefer to see them, beginnings.  It has been a long time since I feared an ending; I was always taught that in order for there to be beginnings and new things, other things have to end.

Though the world did not end today (though you could have fooled me with the snowstorm outside) it is the end of a Baktun in the Mayan calendar.  It is also The winter solstice, or yule, where the darkest part of the year is over, after that we start regaining daylight.  It is also my birthday in a few days, and the start of a new calendar year soon too.  As with most people, this time of the year gets me to thinking about the state of my life, am I where I want to be?

For the past few years I kind of chuckle when I think of this question, mostly at the thought that no one really close to me expected me to make it past 27.  I have a long history of depression, with suicidal tendencies, paired with a lot of really reckless behaviour during my teens and early 20s.  Put those two together, and it is the perfect recipe to die young.  I, and a lot of other people just assumed that one day the depression or the recklessness would get the better of me.  It really wasn't a negative thing, more of a sad acceptance thing.  I never really imagined myself past that age, so I didn’t plan.  I spent those years living like there would not be a « next year ».  I didn’t put much thought into what I wanted after 30.

Then for the past couple of years (28-30) I have been kind of floating by, seeing what would happen, part of me just happy to still be around, barely knowing where I am, let alone where I want to be.

In a few days, I’ll be 31, still young by most standards, though older than I ever expected to be. This year is different, I actually feel 31, I am on pretty solid ground and I know where I am in my life, even if this place scares the bejeezus out of me sometimes.  I feel like a grown up, I have a grown up job, and a family, and a partner.  I feel mostly secure in my « me-ness », I feel like I know who I am.  It’s like I’m in front of one of those « you are here » maps.

The question is, where do I want to go?  I know who I am, but not who I want to become, where I am, but not where I want to go.  I have a tattoo that id the runic symbol that means « voyages », I got it to remind me to never stop moving, evolving, or taking risks.  To not just take physical voyages, but internal ones as well.

So I guess that is what I’ll be doing for the next little while, taking a long look at all of the roles I play in my life, for myself and others, and trying to figure out the next plot line, the next story arc.  From what I see around me, looking forward and mapping out one’s life is second nature, for me it is a brand new experience.  I don’t expect, or want, to map out my life, but I do feel like I need a general direction.  I’m tired of just floating around

Gifts and expectations

One of the best, albeit harshest rules I learned at a young age was that life’s not fair, and you can’t have everything you want.

My mom was young, uneducated, and single with no help, frankly  I’m pretty amazed that she succeeded in keeping us in basic necessities.  There was no money for things like video games, or even a VCR.  There are a lot of things that people around me take for granted that I never had, a washer and dryer in the house, a dishwasher, or an air conditioner.  My mom didn’t have a car, we took the bus.  There was only one thing that she always found money for, and that was books.  If I wanted a book, she found a way to get it for me.

To this day I still marvel at how convenient it is for me to just throw in a load of laundry whenever I fell like it.  No more having to plan out an afternoon at the Laundromat.  I still don’t have a dishwasher, or air conditioning, or cable.  My definition of necessary is very different from other people.

I remember one Christmas I got a TV, it wasn’t big, 15’’ I think, but I remember how happy I was to have my very own TV for my room.  Now I think about how much my mom must have scrimped and saved to buy it.

This may be the reason that I have so much trouble dealing with other people’s expectations of Christmas.  This year the BF and I have dealt with some pretty harsh backlash because we have said no to overspend on gifts, and stuck to our guns.  I think we’ve gotten to the other side of the gauntlet, but it has been a pretty rough ride the past couple of months dealing with everyone’s projected expectations.

The fact is this has been a very expensive year for us, what with the move, and getting the kids set up etc.  And we just don’t have the money to be spending hundreds of dollars per kid. 

The ex told us that she had decided to buy the boys Nintendo 3DS each and she wanted us to go in on it with her.  Of course she had not asked our opinion.  We said no, absolutely not.  My BF had bought the boys a Nintendo DS each for the birthdays last year, and sent them to her house with them, despite our usual rule about not sending things over there.  Within a few months, they had lost one and broken the other.  We saw no reason that we should help pay for new ones when we had already bought two.  We told her that we were keeping Christmas simple this year, no big gifts.  She kept bugging us until November.  We didn’t contribute, and she bought them anyways because that was what they wanted.  No thought about what they needed, or the consumerist message that there are no consequences for not taking care of things, just buy new ones.

Then in October, it was the eldest birthday.  He told us that he wanted the Skylander starter game.  We had already bought him a small gift, but we looked online to see how much the game was.  When we saw that it was 75$ for the starter pack, but then there were about 50 other characters to buy at 10$-20$ each, I said no way.  Especially for a video game.  My BF hesitated, wanting to make the kids happy, but quickly came to the same conclusion as me.  We had been working on limiting screen time for months, and this would not help.  We told him that no, we would not be buy the game, and we told him why, it was too expensive.  He wheeldled and cajolled and tried everything in his eight year old’s toolbox to convince us, and finally understood that it was no.

In the end my father in law bought it for him, and you know what, he appreciated it immensly.  He started to understand the concept that things cost money, and that things are not a right, or essential, they are just things.

The kids aren’t unhappy at our house without cable, or air conditioning.  Kids adapt to what you teach them to expect out of life, and while I wholeheartedly agree in teaching them to aspire to greatness and reach for the stars, I also plan to teach them that aspiration is not expectation.  That while you should strive for more, take time to apreciate what you have.

Love on its own is not enough

I was 19 and unexpectedly on my own for the first time.  My mom had moved away, and despite my dad’s family wanting me to move closer to them so they could help, I decided to stay where I was.  The reason…a guy.  Not just any guy, this was true love, The One, or so I thought at the time.  Within a couple of months, I had found my first « grown-up » job, in an office no less.  There I met my first mentor, everything was perfect.

She was smart, quirky, and exactly the kind of person I wanted to be.  She taught me how to navigate office politics, manage my time, and juggle priorities, most of all she let me learn.  I learned most of the skills that have allowed me to work as an admin assistant at that job, but the most important lessons she taught me were life lessons.  The first was that you really can be true to yourself, and do your own thing, and still find a place in society.  She taught me to compromise, but never to conform.  The other lesson was one that would save me a lot of heartbreak.

After about a year of working there, things were not so great with the guy I was with.  We were just too extreme.  We loved fiercely, and fought fiercely, everything was either really great or really bad, but we were in love, and at the time, I was young, and naive, and I believed that we would be together forever, because it was love, and when you are in love things always work out (at least according to the movies).

One day, after a particularly harsh fight with the guy, we had broken up, again.  We were in her office and she just said « you know, sometimes love isn’t enough. ».  I remember looking at her as if she were crazy.  She continued « I could meet some wonderful man tomorrow who makes me feel crazy head over heels in love, but I would be foolish to run off with him.  I love my husband, and more important, we have built a life together of common goals, values, and respect.  Love on its own is not enough to make a relationship work. » I replied « but relationships take work, it can’t always be easy » she said « there is a big difference between something taking work, and something being destructive.  A truly great relationship is when you both push each other to be better at being you, not trying to change the other person »

At the time I dismissed it, we were in love and would be together forever, end of story. 

About a month or so later, her words were still swimming around in my head.  Here was this woman whom I respected immensely, who had taught me so much and had yet to lead me in the wrong direction, telling me to let go of my one true love.  Could she be right?

Within a few months after that conversation, I left that guy, after two years of trying and failing to make it work.  I also left that job not long after, and moved to be closer to my family.  I have never regretted my decision to initially stay to be with him, mostly because if I hadn’t I would probably still be wondering « What if? ».

Her words have stayed with me ever since, and while I still love being in love, I never settled for just love, and I let go of the idea that things will work themselves out if you love each other enough.  Her lesson has allowed me to stay grounded in my relationships.  I wish I were still in contact with her, so I could tell her that I finally found my « great relationship » of love, respect, and common values and goals.  I wish I could thank her for putting a fork in the road of my life and helping me see the right direction.

Inspired by Mama Kat’s pretty much world famous writing prompts 12.10 - What did you learn from your best boss?

Mommy issues

Lately I have noticed that most of my writing, as well as my life, has revolved around my relationships with other women, my mother, my mother’s in law, etc. 

In the past, this has always been a subject that I pushed to the background, mostly because they were either painful relationships, or unimportant ones.  I have a few, fantastic, female friends, who for the most part I have been friends with for over half my life, but other than them, my relationships with women have been strained at best.

Lately, this has been changing, for the better.  I don’t know if there is some weird cosmic thing going on, but the dynamics with the women in my life have been dramatically changing, and while it is mostly positive, it has also been exhausting.  I am pretty good at adapting to change, but when I am in a period where many areas of my life are changing at the same time, I get tired, both physically and emotionally.  The fact that all of this is happening around the holidays does not help things.

That being said, it has helped a lot to write it and get it out there, even if no one reads it, its therapeutic.  So I guess this was all to say that for those of you who do read this, bear with me, there are a few more mommy issue posts comingJ.

Mothers and daughters - Part 1

People who know me know that my mom and I have a difficult relationship.  I have seen her 3 times in the pas decade, one of them recently.  I have two main reasons for not being close to her, the first is that we are just not compatible; we have very different personalities and would not hang out together if we weren’t related.  The other is that my mom, until recently, was part of a dysfunctional and abusive cycle lasting at least three generations, a cycle I have been determined to break out of.

The first thing they tell a recovering drug addict or alcoholic is to avoid the people they used to associate with who were part of the habit/problem.  For me it was the same, if I wanted to break out of the cycle, I had to stay as far away (physically and emotionally) as possible from the people still in it. 

I come from a long line of women who got pregnant young, had severe daddy issues, and who were alcoholic and/or abusive to their daughters.  A quick summary:

My great grandmother: When she was young she came to Canada with her parents, her father then abandoned the family to return to Ireland leaving them to fend for themselves. Was furious and generally horrible to her daughter when she got pregnant at 15, attempting multiple times to get her to miscarry.  She would go on to treat her daughters with contempt for « dishonoring the family »

My grandmother: Got pregnant at 15 in the 50s by a married man.  This man divorced his wife and married her.  They were both alcoholics with severe mental health issues, him a paranoid schizophrenic, and her bipolar.  The got divorced, then remarried, then divorced again. He abandoned the family twice.  She never got over it, and never got treated for her mental illness.

My mother: Left home at 15, pregnant at 19 by a man whose divorce wasn’t final and she didn’t know had been married. Both alcoholics with substance abuse and mental health issues.  They never married, and I’ve never known my parents as a couple.

All three of these women were an important part of my childhood.  My great grandmother was only in her 50s when I was born.  My great grandmother was wonderful to me; I would only realize how she treated my grandmother once I was an adult, long after her death.  My grandmother and I were never close, but I loved her and learned from her mistakes as much as I could.  My mother, well, things were harder for us.

One thing I was certain of, I would not repeat their patterns.  I did everything possible to avoid unplanned pregnancy and became the first person in that family to finish high school in the normal timeline.  I started working as soon as possible to gain as many skills as possible to avoid having to go on welfare.  When I decided to break away emotionally, I cut off contact and moved closer to my saner family.  Throughout the years, my mother and I re-attempted contact a few times, but she had never really gotten her life together, and while I had forgiven her long ago, and I understood now that she had done the best she could with what she had and that she gave me all she could, I could not have that toxic cycle in my life, and I could not clean up her messes for her or watch her destroy herself.  She understood, even though it hurt.  She was proud in a way that I had the strength to break out.

A few years ago she started therapy, and started working on her issues in earnest.  She no longer drinks the way she did, and she has her life mostly under control.  She told me that the isolation I had caused her was a good thing because it forced her to focus solely on herself.

This past year my grandmother died.  It was hard for my mom, and my grandmother had many regrets, most of them regarding my mother and I.  When she was hospitalized, we were going through some pretty heavy stuff with the kids, and I made the decision not to go see her one last time.  We had not seen each other in over a decade, and had spoken on the phone for the first time in about 8 years a few months before.  I decided that I had to take care of my present family, I made my choice.  I explained it to my mom and grandmother, and my grandmother understood and even stood up for me to any other family members who made comments about my absence.  The only thing my grandmother asked of me was to see my mom, to try again.

I talked it over with my BF and he agreed.  She could come down for a couple of days.  My mom was overjoyed at the chance, and assured me that it would not be like before.  Nonetheless I was stressed in the week leading up to it.  I even broke out in hives.  I’d be lying if I said the thought of cancelling never crossed my mind.  But I am a firm believer in second chances, especially when they are earned.  She had been working on her life for almost three years now, it was the least I could do.

Continued…

Precious moments

This morning I woke up, hit the snooze button, and spent the next few minutes relishing being in bed, alone, after a great night’s sleep.  I was fully aware that i twill be my last such morning for a while, probably January at least. I love it when you are actually aware of a moment being precious and you can relish it fully.

My relishing was abruptly ended with a fat cat jumping on the bed demanding to be pet, then the other cat, wanting his share of attention too, and at that point I figured that I may as well get up.

This past week has been pretty great.  After a weekend filled with people (my mom, the kids, etc) I got to spend the whole week alone and drama free, and I enjoyed every minute of it.  Other than the required texts related to picking up the kids tonight and planning the holidays, I had no contact with the Ex.  I spent my evenings either in super productive mode, organizing everything in sight, which is hard for me to do with other people around, or in total lazy mode getting into bed at 6pm snuggled up with the cats and a good book, but the wonderful thing was that I could do what I wanted.  Other than work, I had zero obligations this week, and it was wonderful.

Tonight I pick up the kids at their mom’s, tomorrow morning I have to get up at 5:30am for SS2’s hockey practice (Which thankfully his grandpa is taking him to so though I do have to get him up and ready, I don’t have to get all 3 up and ready and at the arena).  Then the BF gets home Saturday night and the following weekend the holiday parties begin.  From then to January i twill be rushing, and planning, and logistics hell.

But this morning, that few minutes alone, in silence, it was simply wonderful.

Where we are

I must admit, the past couple of months have been pretty rough for our little family.  At one point I took a step back, realized that I while I may not be drowning; I was flailing, and decided that I needed to take action.

I went online, and started searching for resources.  I admit, I was a little disappointed by the resources available.  Most resources about being a stepmom kind of assume that you have/want kids of your own and focus on the blending of the families, which is not the case for me.  The stuff I did find, however, was pure gold.  I must admit that just the realization that I am not alone has done me as much good as the meeting with my lawyer.

A couple of articles that particularily helped were:

http://stepintheblender.com/2011/03/02/here%E2%80%99s-a-news-flash-i-don%E2%80%99t-wanna-be-friends/

and

http://ahealthystepmother.wordpress.com/2012/10/11/a-healthy-stepmother-creates-a-new-category-of-stepmother/

and

http://www.noonesthebitch.com/2011/08/10/top-10-best-things-about-being-a-stepmom/

I also bought myself a copy of The Happy Stepmother by Rachelle Katz, and A Career Girl's Guide To Becoming A Stepmom by Jacquelyn Fletcher.  The first I chose because it was one of the 2 most recommended books I saw.  The second because when I read the description I felt it would be a good match.

I think a lot of people make one very bug mistake when it comes to self-help books, they tend to focus on book that are all the rage thinking that it must have the answers.  Me, I tend to read the descriptions (and the preview pages when possible) to see if the subjects apply to me.  There is no sense in me buying a book that spends most of its pages talking about balancing my kids with his, when I don’t have kids, or one that focuses on difficulties with the step kids when that is a non-issue for us (for now at least, I’m crossing my fingers and touching all the wood I can find on that one).

I guess you could say that most of October was spent on recon by my BF and I.  He went to see his lawyer too, as well as made calls to all of the social workers, doctors, etc. that are involved with the kids.  We both wanted as much information as possible to get a really good idea of where we stand before going any further.

All of this mostly just confirmed that we are on the right track for the most part, and that other than the babymomma drama; things can’t get much worse than they have been.  She can’t get any more child support than she currently gets (which is a lot, 40% of my BF’s net paycheck, not including the health insurance he pays for them), she can’t touch anything of mine, and as much as she may threaten and bluster, she has absolutely no grounds to prevent him seeing his kids.  This pretty much covers our worst fears, so this confirmation has really gotten rid of the huge elephant in our home.

So I guess now that we know where we are, we can start thinking about where we want to go.

12 lines – Questions that are swimming around in my head

Writing prompt from Mama's losin it, write a post in just 12 lines.  These are the questions swimming around in my head.

1.      Will I be able to keep my job?

2.      Will I ever get out of debt?

3.      Will my BF’s ex ever just leave us be?

4.      Will my relationship survive all of these external influences?

5.      Will I be able to keep depression at bay through all of this?

6.      Are we really doing all we can for his kids?

7.      Am I a bad person because I kind of hope he doesn’t want custody?

8.      Will things go ok when my mom visits?

9.      Is my dad ok?

10.  How am I ever going to get everything done?

11.  Where the eff are my effin keys?

12.  Am I forgetting anything?

On being selfish

For the past couple of weeks, my BF has been gone on a business trip.  The day he left, his ex decided to unleash a huge pile of drama.  Enough drama that he actually reconsidered leaving because he didn’t want to leave me alone to deal with whatever she may do.  Enough drama that I actually thought it time to consult with a lawyer.  I told him to go, that I would be fine, and that I would just do my best to avoid her.

I consulted with my lawyer, and without getting into the details, he reassured me that things couldn’t get any worse than they had been in the past year, at least not legally or financially.

After seeing my lawyer, I decided that I would spend the second week avoiding all thought of her.  I would focus on me and that’s all.

This past week felt a lot like how things were when it was just me and my old cat.  The dishes didn’t pile up, neither did the laundry.  Things were quiet in the house, I slept soundly and in general things were serene and drama free.  I hadn’t experienced this in a very long time, as in over a year, and it brought me to a realization, I missed this.

Don’t get me wrong, I adore my boyfriend and his kids, I am happier and more satisfied with my life in general than at any other time in my life, but I miss being able to be selfish.  I miss being able to ignore the phone, not having to pick up after anyone but me, not having to worry about if someone else is forgetting something.

I also miss being able to choose who is part of my life.  There are a lot of people that I have minimal to no contact with that surprises people.  When I tell people that I have only seen my mother twice in the past decade, they are shocked.  I made a conscious decision a very long time ago that I refused to have people in my life that did not have a positive impact in my life, no matter who they were. 

Unfortunately now I have to deal with someone who seems hell bent on making my life difficult on a regular basis.  I can’t get rid of her unless I am willing to sacrifice the 4 people that I love that are attached to her, and that is too much of a sacrifice.

I guess I miss the control I had over my life before.  I could make decisions without having to think about how they will affect these other people, or what his ex will do if I do such and such.  I’ve been reading up on the subject, and it seems that I am not the only exhausted step-mom out there, and that my biggest mistake was trying to fix everything and doing too much.  So I guess the easy answer is to step back, take care of myself for a while, let everyone else work it out on their own.  Frankly, I don’t know if I can do that, I’m a doer/fixer by nature, it’s not in me to just sit by when I could be doing something.  My biggest fear is that if I don’t DO anything than things will get worse and people I love will suffer, but if I keep this up, I’ll suffer. 

I honestly don’t know what path I’ll choose.  All I know is the BF comes back tonight, and we go get the kids tomorrow, so I guess I’ll find out soon enough.

In defense of the cleaning lady

These days my BF and I are doing our best to cut expenses wherever we can, but there is one expense that we both agree is necessary, no matter what other people say…My cleaning lady.

Even when I was living alone with my cat in a one bedroom apartment, I had my cleaning lady.  She came every 2 weeks for a couple of hours and took care of all of the grunt work.  My cousins (stay at home moms) used to tease me and say that they just couldn’t understand how I couldn’t manage when they had whole families to clean up after and I only had myself.  I tried many times to explain that I worked full time, and did a lot of overtime, so all of the errands that they did during the day, I had to cram into my evenings etc. etc.

I will also willingly admit that I despise cleaning, I have never been a tidy person, and no matter how hard I try to discipline myself, I just don’t care enough.  I love having a clean and pretty living space, but when push comes to shove, it’s low on my list of priorities.

But it was also more than that.  The feeling of coming home after a long day at work to a spotless home is worth every penny.  I’ve had my current cleaning lady roughly 6 years, so she knows me, and how I like things organized.  She pays attention to the little details and honestly gives the impression that every 2 weeks, a fairy godmother has gone through my home giving me a clean slate for the next 2 weeks,

Now that I have the BF and 2^nd cat full sharing my space, plus the step kids on weekends and bigger apartment, she has really become indispensable.  Especially since she is scheduled for the Tuesday following the weekends with kids, and we have moved her up to 3 hours each time. 

The fact that we don’t have to worry about scrubbing floors or toilets etc. gives us the chance to be fully present with the kids when they are there, instead of worrying about cleaning up after them.  The kids spill something, no big deal, I wipe it up with a rag to get most of it, but it doesn’t make me mad because I’m not thinking « Dammit, I just mopped ».

This past weekend I was watching a friend’s 10 month old baby while she was in the hospital.  Needless to say, at the end there were carrots mashed into the carpet and fingerprints all over any glass or screen within baby reach, but I wasn’t stressed, I was able to focus 100% on comforting a baby who was very stressed out because she missed her mom.

I haven’t even gotten to how having her means that my BF and I never fight about domestic chores. He does the dishes, I do the laundry, and we both pick up after ourselves.  We each only have to worry about one main housekeeping task, so when we get home from work, we can just enjoy each other.

It also helps that I never have to worry about the stress of having people over unexpectedly, since the worst case scenario is that there are dishes in the sink.

I don’t consider my cleaning lady an employee who does my grunt work, she is an essential part of the team that helps my family run smoothly, and me keep my sanity.  I will be cutting out many other things before I touch that expense.

My place

For the past couple of months, my BFs ex has been telling me (in rather rude ways and in public) to stay in my place of a stepmom.  She has gone so far as to tell me that if I wanted to have an influence in a child’s life, I should have given birth to one.

My first instance was to reply that anyone can give birth to a child and that in my opinion giving birth is not an indicator of parenting ability, but I held back.  In fact, I have avoided replying and interacting as much as possible.  The main reason being that this was totally unexpected and out of the blue.

For the past year, she has been the one asking for my help and support, even encouraging me to get more involved.  Until a couple of months ago, she had never put up any sort of barrier between me and the kids.  Then in July it all changed.

In July we moved into the new apartment, where the kids have rooms and a yard.  We had the kids for a week in the summer, and I took them to their appointments, except for the ones that she had indicated that their father had to take them.  After that week the first shot was fired.

She called my BF furious that I had taken one of the kids to a psychology appointment, an appointment that she had not indicated that I couldn’t.  I hadn’t even participated in the appointment, I dropped him off, and picked him up, that’s it.  She said that I had no business bring the kids to anything official.  We chalked it up to her usual controlling ways.

Fast forward to September.  She tells us that she may be going away for a few weeks in January, and asks us to take the kids.  We agree.  She calls a week later to ask my BF to go to a parent night at the boys’ school, he replies that we’ll go.  She forbids me from going.  We are confused, she had asked me to be there with social workers in the past, why not this?  We reply that it would be good for the teachers to meet me in case I had to go get the kids while she was away, she says no, it’s not my place.  She says that she doesn’t need to have « his girlfriend shoved in her face during the week ».  Again I am confused, we had been shopping for the kids together a mere month earlier.  She goes on a tirade on my Facebook wall, again saying it’s not my place. 

My BF had been asking her for months to go with her for the reports and information, but she never called him, just went herself and then gave him a summary.  My BF decided that enough was enough and that he would go himself to see the psychologist and get the information about his son himself.  He and the psychologist ask me to join them, they say it’s my place.  What we learn is stunning to say the least, but I won’t go into that here.

Then this week, she finds out that my BFand I have been to see the psychologist.  She is furious, and attacks and threatens.

So here I am, trying to figure out where my place is exactly.  My BF says one thing, the specialists another, the kids another, their mom another.  I feel very alone, and very much an outsider, it’s hard to not know where you fit in your own home, your own family.

Who decides my place, her or me? Can she change her mind at any time and redefine my place?

She claims I am trying to take her place, I’m not.  I don’t want her place, I don’t want to be mom.  I just want to be me, wherever that place is.

Between a rock and a hard place

Something happened recently that made me remember something from my childhood, something that lead to lots of therapy.  My childhood was far from easy, I was raised by a young single mom, who came from an abusive background and had alcohol and substance abuse problems.  My dad was present in my life maybe a day or two a year.  I am very lucky and blessed to have a wonderful extended family of aunts and uncles and cousins who have been there for me my whole life, but I remember asking myself, and God, often, why did no-one come get me and take me out of the situation I was in?

I lived far from this side of my family for most of my life, visiting a month in the summer and march break.  I remember my aunts and grandparents crying when they came to get me, and crying when I left.  I remember them saying that they wished I could stay forever.  I told them what it was like at home, they knew, and yet, no one came to get me.  Eventually I stopped talking about home, it changed nothing, and I poured my energy into making the most of the little time I got to spend in this stable, loving environment.

When I moved here at the age of 22, to be closer to them and the support/love they offered, I finally asked, why did they leave me there?  They explained that they had offered to take me when I was very little and my mom wanted to move away, but my mom refused, and said that if they ever tried, she would run away with me and they would never see me again. 

They also explained that this was in the early 80s, and the mindset at the time was that a situation had to be extreme to get the law to take a child away from its mother, hard enough if you were the father, nearly impossible if you were only extended family.  Since my father was worse off than my mother, they weighed the situation, and saw that the chances were remote that they would win, and that if they tried and lost, they were afraid that my mother would make good on her threat and they would lose me forever.  They decided that it would be better to give the best they could while I was with them.

I realise now that they made the right choice at the time, had they tried, they would have lost, and my mother, being a US citizen, would have been able to disappear easily.  The reason I am able to have the life I have today was because of that decision.  I avoided the common trap of thinking that things were normal at home, or that that was just how things were.  Because of that, I was able to get help sooner, and begin the therapy process much earlier than most people coming out of that type of childhood.  I was able to have great role models, and aspire to a better more stable life and loving relationships.

That is not to say that it was easy, or that there still isn’t that little kid inside me that doesn’t understand why no one will rescue her.  I spent a lot of my life doubting other people’s love because the people I loved, and who said they loved me, seemed to just leave me there in a terrible situation to fend for myself.  I was too young to understand how complicated it was, how heart wrenching it must have been for them to put me back on that plane every year, knowing exactly what I was going back to.

Now it’s me who is the one wondering what to do, what’s best.  The situation in question is not as dire as mine was, but when does it become too much?  Times have changed, but the situation isn’t any simpler. 

The money talk – part 1

This week, after almost a year of living together, my boyfriend and I had the money talk.  This is a talk that I have never had with anyone, never feeling the need or urge to show my finances to my significant other.

It started the other night, when my BF came home very discouraged about his finances. 

He makes a decent salary, but pays a hefty amount of child support, which gobbles up roughly 40% of his net income, meaning that when all is said and done, he takes home less than someone on minimum wage.

I had been aware of his income, and he of mine, because we did have a discussion at the beginning of our relationship about how we would handle the bills and whether or not he was ok with me bringing home more than him.  I earn an above average but not huge salary for an admin assistant.  At this discussion, he said that he would have to deal with it since pretty much any woman with any job was going to out earn him because of the child support.  We decided that we split everything 50/50, since he had already been in the situation of supporting someone else (the ex) and did not want to be on the receiving end of that.

There are only 4 areas where bills that are not divided evenly

·         Food – I am a vegetarian, so he pays 100% for all his meat, unless we are having guests over for dinner, in which case I pay half.

·         Apartment insurance – since I own more of the stuff in the apartment than he does, we based the bill on percentage of total value, with a stipulation that in case of a claim, we each receive that same percentage of the payout.  This bill is split 65/35

·         The cleaning lady – we both agree that she is a non-negotiable expense, and forego cable to pay her. She comes for 3 hours every 2 weeks, mostly doing the heavy duty cleaning, leaving us with laundry, dishes and general picking up.  In order to ease his finances a bit he pays 1/3 of the bill, but he does more of the day to day cleaning.  I do laundry.

·         Kids expenses – If the item is necessary to the kids (ie: food, clothes, primary bedding) he pays 100%.  If the item is optional (ie: toys, books, extra clothes, bedroom decorations) we pay 50/50.

As you can see, we already had a big part of the financial talk done, but we had kept two things private: debt and spending, and we realize now that it was very stupid of us to not have had this discussion.

Me, I’m about 9000$ in debt from various sources, with about 750$ in my accounts.  I’ve had this amount of debt for a while, and the main reason it hasn’t budged is that I would often buy something for the both of us and not ask for his part, because I felt guilty.  I’m not sure if I felt weird for earning more, or that it just felt so much like I was spending my hubby’s money like some 50s housewife, but in reality, I assumed way more expenses than I should have.

Him, well, he’s mostly been overspending and underplanning. He’s in debt around 2500$, but has about 1500$ in his bank account.  He makes enough money to pay all of the concrete bills, but doesn’t plan for any extras, even though he spends on those extras anyways.

So after he came home, the other night, worried about how he was gonna pull off living the lifestyle he wanted, paying his own way etc. I saw an opportunity and jumped on it.  I told him that I too was not in the best of circumstances, and that maybe we should just lay it all out in the open and hash it out.  Then work together on a plan to help us both gain a better financial stability.