This break was unlike others. Any of the others.

I took care of myself. My husband helped me take care of myself.

We rested, we ate, we enjoyed time.

We cleaned, ran errands, did projects that were well past needing to do, and we traveled too, but we rested.

It’s true what so many elders say, as you age, material things, worldly things matter less and less. I wanted this Christmas and break to be simple. To be about time.

I didn’t force anyone to be in this time. If it had just been Shiloh and I, that’s how it would’ve been. I just simply voiced my choices and plans and went on about it.

I focused on my relationship with God. I know 2020 is all about God. I have had the resolution for the past three years for that year to be about God. There’s more to this statement obviously, but each year has brought me closer. However, I feel this is the first break where I felt The Holy Spirit right there with me, in me, for me. I saw Him in my loved ones, I saw Him in strangers. I felt Him moving and healing.

I just know that 2020 will be a pivotal shift. For some, this will hurt like hell. I’m probably “some”. I am ready. 2019 was a reactive year. So overwhelmed by the things happening “to” me that I couldn’t focus on what I needed to make happen. God carried me through on prayers and sheer determination. 2020, year of proactive.

2019 I watched my infant turn in to a one year old….hands down a huge blessing. 2019 gave me a 17 year old, driving, working, senior in high school, who opened my eyes to her growth and maturity….hands down a blessing to me. 2019 showed me once again that my husband is who God has for me.

2019 also threatened to take away one of the most important people in my life. The single most influential woman in my life. It did not. Prayer and determination again I believe won out. 2020 may not come and go before I face this devastation, but I am with God and He is with me and my family. He will make it okay. I can pray that 2020 comes and goes too with my Nanna right by my side. God does hear my prayers.

I feel I got prayers answered that had hung over me for a while. Career wise, priorities wise, and I feel I’ll be a better version of me for it.

So come on 2020. I’ll embrace you and love you no matter how hard you come at us. We are family, we are Gods children, and I have prayed circles around my loved ones. If prayer truly protects your loved ones…then odds are if you’re reading this….You’re protected!

Much love and the peace of the Lord wished to each and every one.

Christmas break is a big deal to me, particularly since I started working at the school. It means two weeks off of work! This is so needed too.

However, with break and two weeks off comes some caveats. As with all blessings and good things, there are downsides. I would like to start off by saying I love my family time and I love time to rest.

During much of the year, a regular work week includes me not seeing my husband much. We work opposing schedules. So I have a schedule, he has a schedule, then we see each other on weekends as we can. This has worked harmoniously as long as we have been together. I am independent and self sufficient. I was responsible for myself and others well before I moved out of my house, then I was a single mom, so this role was natural.

Caveat one, when we are together for 17 days straight…..it is like getting a new room mate. Some great times. Some annoying ones. I quote myself “You annoy me more than anything when you do….” he replied with a laugh. I.E. I have a pampered chef stoneware baking sheet I love, he hates. He has on many occasions tried to coerce me out of it. He didn’t like how seasoned it had become. I defended it furiously.

Until this week….I go to use it…gone.

I ask him about it and he says, it broke. I am suspicious. I tell him that was my favorite and he said you barely use it. “Well if I barely use it then how did I notice so quickly it’s gone?” ……”well no worries I have another one and this one is twice the size!” ………

I don’t think he was as happy as I am about this. Joke is on him though. I’m pumped.

Caveat two, all of the things that need to be done around the house. You can kind of ignore them on a normal week because you’re so busy. When you’re home for two weeks straight, hard to ignore.

Husband is one who loves working and projects. So we have done a few of those this week.

Caveat three, the things you should be doing but don’t because you choose rest over working. Which always causes a slight sense of guilt in me.

Overall though, besides going by too quickly I have thoroughly enjoyed my break. I want the next week to go soooooo slowly!

The video says it all! So I won’t bore you with written rhetoric

There is a common misconception that when you work for a public school you get to be off when students do not come to school. However, this is incorrect. I have the privilege of being a twelve month employee. This means that unless it is a code 1 or 2, I come in to the office!

This is a double-edged sword. The day is usually uneventful and stress free, almost enjoyable since I love my co-workers! However, it is hard because A) Every one else is off and I don’t want to leave my sweet kids, husband, and pets, particularly in suspect weather conditions. Love y’all, pray I come home safely to live another day with you!

This part makes me beg to question the motive of the entity making these code calls. So if we are here, with little to no work to be done, then why are we here? Yes we can be somewhat productive. Even in just six hours though we can run out of productive tasks. I believe the answer is money. Always follow the money. So are we a bottom dollar, not a life? I do not know the answers to this question for sure, but I can infer. What am I going to do once I make my inference? Nothing, the answer is, absolutely nothing differently. I will get up and go to work each time and be a “big girl”.

Some take the day off, I see this as a potential option however, I did not today for several reasons. Firstly, I didn’t want to waste my precious PTO. Secondly, I am taking two PTO days next week (which were questionable depending on who you ask around here…but hey, I live my life). Lastly, I don’t mind these days, and it does allow me to tie up loose ends that I can’t otherwise get to on our busy days due to too many interruptions. Yes, parents and students….mostly parents, are interrupting my actual “duties”.

As I felt salty this morning, I redirected my mindset due to my recent promise to practice more gratitude and positive thinking. I realized, I love my co-workers, they are in this too, I love my husband, my wonderful children, I have a wonderful life, and so very many perfect blessings. This is a minor inconvenience in the grand scheme. The takeaway from this post is, fellow school workers on the days you are at work not enjoying yourself….remember that we had to pull ourselves out of bed, get presentable, and drag ourselves through the ice and cold to come in to work the office!

Do you ever just look around all of a sudden and think “What is going on???”. It’s like people are scrambling, you hear complaining, petty comments, people making bad decisions, no one taking accountability, people are bailing, no one is doing their own tasks and not worrying about what others are doing?

Yeah that is where it’s at. Begs to wonder what is going on in these lives that they are in these moments with the thought processes they have. My empathetic soul is searching for ways to understand, relate, help. I myself, am drowning a bit, so it feels a bit like trying to save someone yet you’re both going down.

This is the realization, sometimes you have to stick to yourself, do what you know is right and let others fail and rise on their own. This sounds dramatic, yet it is real. I am by no stretch perfect, and have lots of work to do myself. Feels as though there are a lot of grown children though. Life does not have to be as hard as some people make it. Myself, do my fair share of grumbling lately, have not as grateful as I should be, no. I am very happy with my life in general though. There are a few outliers that are stressing, however, I wouldn’t change them for a thing. Not one thing. God is good even when life is not. My mouth may not confess it like it should, but my heart knows it.

There are good people, that are around every day, they are not happy. They are not open minded, their eyes are tunnel vision. Efforts are made to be uplifting and try to play devil’s advocate. Over time I want to scream “Get over it”. “Grow up!”. I don’t, I won’t. How do you want to live your life complaining and pointing fingers. Assumption is it’s a distraction from their own insecurities and pitfalls, but guess what…we all have them. There is a little voice that always tells me something is wrong with me. That voice doesn’t get a stage though. Progression and what can be fixed and improved does get the stage. The positive not the negative gets the energy.

One thing that is clear after thirty odd years on earth, it will be okay. There is so much joy, good, happiness in life to be savored like a good chocolate cake with fudge icing, and caramel, whip cream, and nuts on top!

Here is a picture for attention, and happiness! Live life as happy as this girl is over sunflowers and bubbles!

As I previously mentioned in my first post, I feel led to write about my current parenting situation. By situation , I mean that I want to simultaneously love and squeeze my teenage daughter and swiftly dropkick her in the throat. Can anyone relate?

Have you ever just loved a human so much, yet they infuriate and frustrate you at times? This is the perpetual loop of having a daughter. When she was born, I then learned I was having a daughter. I thought this was for sure the best choice of genders. On many counts it was. On others, no so much.

A girl is your best little buddy, and you see yourself in her, and you see her sweetness and her love and contagious smile. It is so heartwarming. You spend countless hours talking, playing, giggling, and as they grow you still do these things but you add shopping, eating good food, tv, movies, music, nails, hair, and so much more. You get her, because she’s a tiny, better, new chip off of yourself.

Then they grow up, they start facing the challenges of learning who they are, realizing they have a body image, battling the onslaught of social media, negativity, suffocating standards of todays society of what a “girl” should be. It is heartbreaking and beautiful. You tell your daughter all the right and pretty things “you are beautiful, you have a great heart, you are smart, you are motivated, you are a child of God.” Yet it still slips through the cracks of the world telling them they are never pretty enough or skinny enough, and they need male validation.

Raising a teen daughter is a cycle of her knowing she is worthy, then still going out and making choices that indicate otherwise. She knows you are the ride or die, yet will treat you like you’re so annoying and do not know what you are talking about. You look at her sweet angelic, young lady face and you see that sweet cheeked, curly haired baby girl that lit up every room every time. The girl who thought you were the best mom ever. She still will tell you you are though, she will still let that baby girl pop through here and there and your heart just melts. Then on another day you realize she has directly went against something that you know for a fact you have raised her better than.

Then comes a boy, and you have those experiences, the ones where you can tell her that he is not going to be around long or that he is not a good fit. This girl will never take that to heart. She will learn for her self. She should. You should let her. To a degree. You can’t just let your girl run wherever with whoever just because, but you have to let her spread her wings too. DUDE, this is the hardest part. Like are you too hard? She thinks you are. Are you not hard enough, your childless friends think you’re not. In the end it is a play by play job. You can plan all you want, these kids will throw you a monkey wrench quickly. That is part of the joy though.

I can literally ruin my daughters life by cutting a snowflake incorrectly out of paper….yes that happened today. She acted like I slapped her because I wanted to try a different technique than her for snowflakes. You know, typical terrible mom stuff. I am struggling, she was such an angel for 16 years that I thought I was in the clear. I was not in the clear, not by a long shot. She ebbs and flows like the ocean in a hurricane. I am between get the heck out already and omg please never leave. It is hard. SO VERY HARD.

She’s a great kid though, literally. My heart has never felt more sad than at the thought that sooner than later, she won’t wake up under our roof every day. The past 17 years have been around her, she has brought so much joy to our home that I can’t fathom it changing. I know the joy will grow and evolve and it will find new outlets….and inlets. I just have to mourn the loss of my “Little girl”.

Being the mother to a teenage daughter is the best and hardest job I have ever had! I would not change a moment. Pray for me, I am not okay!

Okay, sooooo at the risk of sounding dramatic, I was happy to wake up and go to work today after my near death experience yesterday.

My family and I, like many Americans, were traveling back from a Thanksgiving trip on our busy interstate yesterday. Traffic was stop and go and stop and go, with many accidents and pullovers along the way. I didn’t find this particularly alarming, but stayed alert and diligent in my albeit amazing, but somewhat nervous driving style.

Upon seeing a wreck far ahead, I also see that traffic is slowing pretty quickly. I come to a complete stop about three car lengths behind the car in front of me, the suv behind me does the same thing, then I hear it…….screeching brakes and a massive metallic impact which then launches the vehicle behind me in to my vehicle and projects us forward too many feet for me to give you a specific measurement because I have shoddy depth perception. Seconds later I hear the dreaded screeching of more brakes, and more metallic impact and we are slammed a second time by all three cars behind us at this point.

I do what any God fearing mother would do while having her one year old in the car (we will forget about the husband and brother in laws because at this point it is me and baby, and every other man for their selves) I panic and turn the car back on (Which cut off from impact) I am screaming expletives and about to get the hell out of dodge, when my brother in law B, as I will henceforth call him, yells out “WAIT, we have to call the cops, we have to get a report!” and I am full panic like “I DON’T WANT TO BE HERE ANY MORE, I WANT OUT OF HERE NOOOOWWWWWW!”.

I do pull back over, and these idiots behind me which I am doing my level best to get away from because they caused all this to start with actually pull forward further themselves to be behind me. I am looking behind me in sheer fear thinking what the literal hell is wrong with these people. “GO AWAY, I DON’T WANT YOU BEHIND ME, IF ANYONE GETS HIT AGAIN I DON’T WANT IT TO BE ME!!!!”

You know fight or flight? Well I was in full flight mode, but I wasn’t above fighting someone either because at this point my baby is screaming bloody murder and I can’t pull off to a safe space because Virginia is dumb and despite all the money we pay in taxes our busiest interstate only has 6 and 1/2 inch freaking shoulders and that is all rumble strip.

I feel trapped and vulnerable, but you know I am a survivor so I calm my flight instinct in lieu of reason which is give me my phone I am calling 9-1-1. It takes them a month of sundays to get to us because they were handling other accidents which some were actually worse and I prayed for those people, all the while praying for us at this point. We did receive help, traffic did move over and thankfully didn’t scare me more than it needed to at this point, and after like a solid 45 minutes my daughter fell asleep and the screaming ceased. The car was driveable (I am getting the red squiggly line under this word so assuming it’s not a real word, but I like it and I am using it) and we were at no fault. We gave our statements, got our reports and were on our way home.

My takeaways from this experience were this: This could’ve been worse and I am so grateful that my sweet baby was not hurt (my husband too, I do actually love him), I really for the love of EVERYTHING holy wish people would learn to drive, stay out of the passing lane, do not follow too closely, and PAY ATTENTION, and lastly, this is EXACTLY why I drive in the middle of the night for trips. I will not make that exception again no matter how ready I am to be home.

Stay safe guys so you can continue to read my nonsense and tell me nice things! 😉

Okay, soooo I realize it’s cool now to be imperfect. You see mom posts all the time like “I cuss too much, I drink, I have tattoos”. That’s cool, definitely not knocking it. However, I don’t feel I fit in this category (I do have tattoos, but they aren’t how I define myself). I definitely am not perfect, nor do I pretend to be. I am one of those moms though that tries my hardest to do everything a cute Suzi homemaker would and I fail miserably!!

I don’t know that it’s because I have shoddy-at-best time management skills, or my satirical nickname is Grace, or because there’s no such thing as an awesome, working, living, Suzi home maker style wife and mother. Whatever the reason, I literally can’t claim to cook, can’t claim to be crafty, will definitely drop my kids off late to events, and my house is no where near spotless….ever. Literally my kids look great and are well fed, and like two other things can happen that day….that’s it. If I look hot, then the house doesn’t, if the cooking is okay, then I look a mess, get it? Good!

Thankfully I married a gracious man, who may be partially blind and deaf but doesn’t admit it. Regardless, I love him and he seems to love me quite nicely too. I also have amazing kids! Between my DH and I, we have a 17 year old, a 16 year old, and a 1 year old! We are both employed full time and we give of our time as freely as we can to those we love when we aren’t working.

I am going to keep this short and sweet , as this is my introduction of sorts. However, if you already feel you can relate then stay tuned and I’ll be writing again about being a mother to a teenage girl! Send help, just kidding….kind of. I’m okay but not okay. So for real, check back soon. I hope to post at least weekly! I’ll focus on family, life, Faith, travel, food, and probably my animals too as I have a small zoo! I fancy myself rather funny at times…so make sure you comment and LOL once in a while or I may not feel validated 😂.

See ya for now!

Be yourself; Everyone else is already taken.

— Oscar Wilde.

This is the first post on my new blog. I’m just getting this new blog going, so stay tuned for more. Subscribe below to get notified when I post new updates.