Back in the Saddle

Over the past year, I have gone through alot of changes within my life. None of them were easy changes to make and some of them broke my heart. However, each change I've made has a common theme, gaining control of my life. Now that (almost) all of those changes have been made and finalized, I feel so happy and calm. I got tired of not being able to do the things I wanted to or being envious of other people's lives. Knowing that I am the only one who can affect the daily life that my children and I lead is incredibly freeing. There are obviously those people that could throw some wrenches into things, but I have learned to not let their actions affect me.

Enough of the emotions, I have always loved reading blogs and am very jealous of a few friends who have created (and keep updated) great blogs that I enjoy reading. With that in mind, I am back in the saddle of blogging. I wish I had blogged more over the last year, but its probably best that I didn't because I don't like airing dirty laundry and the last year would have been alot of that! I'm looking forward to being able to look back and relive this time with my kiddos as we navigate our new life...

New things are a comin'

For the last four weeks, I have been doing something that I was honestly not sure I would ever do while my kids were young. I have been looking for a full time, 8-5 job. I have been working 3 jobs from home, but it was just not cutting it. At first, I came to the decision to pursue a full time job because of necessity. I was so terrified of this. Once I came to the decision that it had to be done, no ways around it, I have felt alot of peace about it. When I was younger (before I had kids), I always said there was nothing wrong with daycare. I started daycare myself when I was 6 months old and stayed until 10 years old. I enjoyed it and made my oldest friend there. I have no bad memories of day care. But when my first child was born, my thoughts changed. I just did not see how I could do it. This mental block has kept me from doing what has probably needed to be done for a long time. I am glad to be over it!

I have been actively applying for jobs for 3 weeks now. Unfortunately with my degree, you really need to have a Master's to be able to do the things you dream of doing when you are an undergrad, so that was kinda a shock to my system. (I won't even start on how my advisor and professors failed to mention this!). I had an interview last week for a job that I basically had, but it was just not a good fit for my life right now. It is a great job and so needed, but not for me. It was hard for me to let the job go though, because it was the only one I had even heard back from! This week I got an interview for a different job within the same organization and 5 mins into the interview, I knew this job would be great for me! When I left, they told me I should hear on a second interview, if I got one, in a week. That night, I checked my email to find that I got a second interview for the same week! I am beyond excited and hope this means that they were as pleased with me as I was with the opportunity. I am secretly hoping that they offer me the job on the spot on Friday, but I know that is probably far from realistic.

Even though a year ago, I never would have forseen the changes I am going through and definitely would not have seen them as something I am looking forward to or even enjoying, I am. God is great and I have never felt closer to Him than I do right now. I feel 100% confident that I am on the right path and taking the right steps. I know the big changes have just started and will get harder to handle, but I am ready. BRING IT ON!

Now I am struggling with my child care situation, but I know that this will also work out the way it is supposed to. I believe that God knows our life before we live it and I just have to have faith and stay focused on Him and simply live. Its odd to be content while living with a lot of turmoil, but that is a very apt description of how I feel right now. I also have never realized what incredible people I have in my life. I am so blessed that I cannot even believe it sometimes!

Here's hoping for an "I got the job!" post in a couple of days...

The Kitchen I was standing in...

I happen to be reading a friend's blog, who has my blog on her page, when I noticed I had not updated in 5 weeks! How did that happen? I have had at least 5 blog ideas but obviously they never got done. Some of them I will still write about, and some I won't. For those of you that follow me on Facebook, you probably know that in the last couple of days, something is up with me. While I am not ready to discuss specifics, there are alot of changes happening in my life right now. Big decisions are being made and I need all of the prayers I can get right now! If you don't know me personally, I don't like change. I think things to be the same day in and day out, I love knowing what to expect the next day, and I have a really hard time handling things if they don't turn out they way I had pictured them in my head. Needless to say, change is HARD for me. I am hurting right now and trying to to one foot in front of the other. I am thankful for the wonderful people in my life and am happy that even 1 person reads my blog! I promise to have a better update soon, as well as posting about some blessings that have come my way recently, I may even explain the title of this blog. Thanks in advance for the prayers!

Answers to Prayers

Have you ever prayed and prayed about something, feeling like God wasn't answering you, and then you wake up one day and realize he has been telling you what to do and you haven't been listening? What was I praying about? Money, finances, stability. I currently have two jobs, both work at home. One is a non profit job that I love with my heart and soul, but there is just not money in it and it has slowly become a volunteer job. The second one is a very cool job with a local child welfare agency, writing profiles on children eligible for adoption through the state. This job is a contract job and I only get paid when the file is done, which takes about 6 weeks. I love both of these jobs and am thankful to get to do them, but there is just no money there, literally right now! So, I've been asking God for guidance on what to do next. Should I get an 8-5 job, put my son in daycare and just be miserable? Should I go back to teaching and make very little money for my time? (Nothing wrong with teaching, but I could only get a job at a Preschool, because I am not certified and Preschools don't pay).

All the while I have been thinking about all of this, I have also been wishing that I had a business. Something that I was in control of and loved to do. My mind kept going back to Arbonne. Back in 2007, I signed up to be a consultant with Arbonne. The week I signed up, I had a miscarriage. I really lost my drive after that. Shortly after that I got pregnant with Henry, and life just got busy. However, it has always been in the back of my mind. It is such a great company, with great, natural products and their compensation plan tops any other Network Marketing Company out there! I just kept thinking, God, I don't want to sell stuff. But you know what I did? I applied for a work at home job in advertising sales! I did not get it, because I have no experience in advertising, but one day it hit me: I was willing to work selling something for someone else, but not for myself? DUH!

So I contacted my close friend, Krystal, who recruited me to Arbonne originally. What a God thing it was because she had been thinking about the same things as I had and just told her husband about it! The more I let myself think about it and believe it, the more I realized that God had been smacking me upside the head with it! What it finally came down to for me was this: My kids are worth it. Why was I letting other people dictate how much money I made? How much work I had? I am jumping in feet first and ready to go! I know it will be hard, and it will take time. But this company has proven over and over again, that if you work, you will reap the benefits! In the book, The Millionaire Club, Maureen Mulvaney wrote about the success of 21 females who earn as much as $20 million a year through home based businesses. Three of these women are with Arbonne. Can you believe it? Those are some great odds.

If you are interested in talking with me about how you can change your life with Arbonne, hear about the products, or book a party leave me a comment! Is your success in your hands? Mine is!

Duckie

Yesterday, we went to say goodbye to our good friend Duckie, Donald Broughton. Duckie was killed when his motorcycle hit an SUV head on, late Friday night/early Saturday morning. Angela Halford, who was a passenger on Duckie's bike, was also killed. They were in an unfamiliar area and got turned around, and ended up going the wrong way on the highway. He was laid to rest on Wednesday, September 3rd. Duckie was one of my husband's best friends. He left behind a 2 year old son and Angela had twin daughters. It is such a tragedy. They were both in their mid 30's.

Through dealing with Duckie's death, I have also had to almost re-live the death of my father, when I was six years old. There are many similarities between my father's car accident and Duckie's, and it has been really difficult for me to know that Duckie's son will never know his dad. It will be up to his mother, as well as Duckie's parents, to keep his memory alive for him. This is not nearly as easy as a task as one might think. Now that I am grown, I have realized that my dad's family did not talk about him often because it was just too painful. While I now understand this, it was hurtful when I was younger because I wanted to talk about him. I wanted to know every memory. Even at six years old, I really only had a handful of my own memories of him. Thankfully, my mom, my aunt and some close friends helped me to keep his memory alive in my heart and let me know what kind of person he was. His boss at the time of his death wrote me a letter about what kind of person he was. This letter is so precious to me! I have asked my husband and our friends to do the same for Duckie's son, for when he is older.

My prayers are with his family and his son's mother every day. This is the type of thing you never get over, you just keep moving forward. His mother is very young, and this is not an easy burden to carry. Not just parenting by yourself, but parenting a child without a father, keeping his memory alive, etc. I have new found respect for my mother in all of this. When my dad died, they had been divorced for not long at all, so there was still alot of love between them. My mom had also lost her father almost a year to the day before, and she was still reeling from that. Suddenly she had to raise a daughter with very few father figures in sight. She had to make sure that despite my dad's death that I was still well rounded and loved. She was also only in her late 20's when this happened. She got divorced, lost her father, and her ex-husband in less than 3 years. My mom is not perfect, but I don't think she could have done anything better than how she handled things. Between her and my grandma, I never doubted that I was loved and was the most important person in the world to them. If Duckie's family and his son's mother, can do half as good of a job as my mother did, they will be fine!

If you are interested in helping raise money to assist Duckie's family with the costs of the funeral, and to help set up a college fund for his son, please contact me at crleegrl at aol dot com. I hope you hold your loved ones tight tonight, I know I will! Duckie, you always made me feel special!

Swagbucks

I am always looking for new ways to save and/or make money. I work from home, which allows me to be able to go to school events, drop off and pick up my daughter from school, etc. This is very important to my husband and I so along with my 2 part time work at home jobs, I make it my full time job to save as much money as possible in every way I can. I am also always looking for ways to make money at home. I discovered Swagbucks earlier this year and really love it. It is a search engine powered by Yahoo and Google. When you search, you can earn Swagbucks. These rack up pretty fast and you can redeem them for prizes, gift cards, and now even paypal money! I have heard of many people getting lots of bucks in a short period of time. I know one blogger who used Swagbucks to purchase a Wii (by redeeming for Amazon Gift cards).

Also, when you recruit others to Swabgucks and they sing up through you, you get points for all of the Swagbucks they win! If you would like to try it out, click below to sign up and you will also help me earn points. Then you can get others to sign up under you and get even more points. I added a Swagbucks search bar to my home page so that I can just search and not have to go to the main page. Its a great way to earn money and prizes for doing what you would normally do anyway! Happy Searching!

Terrible 2's

When my daughter (now 5) was my son's age (18 mos), I had someone tell me that the "Terrible 2's" actually start at 18 months and last until 3 yrs old. We some how skipped this with the Princess. She was (practically) born talking and had full sentences at 18 mos of age, so there was very little of the frustration that seems to lead to the terrible 2's. She was also a totally different kind of kid than the Prince is. She never really had terrible 2's, but she had what we termed the "Fearsome 4's". This stage was mainly her testing us, testing boundaries, bedtimes, talking back, asking why 300 times a day, etc. So I was unprepared for the Prince's head first jump into the terrible two's.

A large part of my son's terrible twos seems to be his lack of language. He has some words, but seems unable to use all of them at once. It goes in phases, although his first "real" word (used correctly all the time) was thank you. It was really cute and since we push manners pretty hard around here, it seemed fitting. However, now he has lost thank you and hasn't gained many other words. So his main form of communication is pointing, grunting and stomping his feet! Let me tell you, its a fun stage!

The other characteristics of the terrible twos he has started is throwing things and climbing. And the other day, he put both of these together to climb on top of the glass coffee table and throw things off and downward on the glass. I had a small heart attack when I found him like that. He has also started throwing fits, and kicking his feet when I pick him up to re-direct him from a hazardous activity. I know all of these things are normal behavior, we were just spoiled with my daughter's personality because she and my son are SO UNBELIEVABLY different. There could not be two children whose personalities are different. (Except my little sister and I, we are incredibly different also). I guess I stop re-reading New Moon (I have to make sure I know every single detail before the movie comes out) and pull out my copies of What to Expect for Toddlers and The Girlfriend's Guide to Toddlers.

Grammar Nazi's: Is it terrible two's or terrible twos?