First Day of School

This has been a major emotional week for me. My baby girl turned 12! For some reason this is a big one for me. TWELVE! Wow! Today is our 16th wedding anniversary! Seriously! SIXTEEN~~!! Double Wow! Yesterday, I went to register my children for their co-op classes. That is what it is called, when homeschoolers take classes, taught by other homeschool mom's or dad's or their children! Back to my thought. I got home and it hit me. It hit me like a ton of bricks!!! I had just registered my baby boy for his FRESHMAN year in HIGH SCHOOL!! OMG! When did this happen? I remember his very first day of school like it was yesterday! I'm talkin Kindergarten people! I remember how he looked and him holding a special bookmarker I had made for him. On one side it had a picture of me, and on the other side it had a picture of his Dad. I told him that way we were still with him at school and if he felt sad he could look at his bookmarker. tear. As I sat ther realizing what had just happened, I realized that he only has FOUR more first day's of school!!! Four out of thirteen!!! I hope and pray to God that I am doing a great job at being a mother. (at least, I hope they will think so when they are all grown up!) I pray that I cherish every second I am blessed to share with them. I pray I lead and guide them to make good decisions and be outstanding citizens in society. I pray that I have instilled in them that having faith and believing in God are just like breathing. It comes naturally, and you don't even think about doing it, cuz it is such a normal process for you. I always knew I wanted to be a mother, and I pray that I have done my best at it. I am blessed to be staying home and home schooling my children now. I am really enjoying them and getting to know them on such a different level that many parents are never aware of. Thank you Lord!!

Do you Have any "rules" for your life??

I have a few. The other day on facebook a friend contact asked if it was okay for her to be mad at a person she had asked a question of, that had given her an answer she was not happy with. Ummmm.... DUH! I have a simple rule. It is my number TWO rule in my life. NEVER ask a question you really don't want to know the answer to. It's that simple! Like how many people ask their significant other the number of partners they have been with. WHY? What difference does it make, as long as you are disease free and this person makes you happy? Would it matter if it was 1 or 100? I think it's more important to ask yourself what are you going to do with this information. Are you going to hold it against them? Is it going to affect your relationship negatively? If yes, then WHY ask?? I simply say before you ask the question, ask yourself a few questions. 1- what are you going to do with the information? 2- is this information in any small chance going to change your relationship/friendship? If you are not ready for the change, or don't want a change. STOP. Don't ask it. Sometimes being clueless means being bliss. That is my tip for the day..... The sun is out and not a cloud in the sky. go forth and may the force be with you my friends!!

Back In the Saddle Again?!

Wow!! I can't believe it has been almost a year since I have blogged!!
<<>> I am doing much better lately. I see my blog has fallen apart
in my abscene. I will be working on it as well as a few other things from
now on. : )
I hope to get it up and running in the next week......
so y'all come back now ya here! wink wink

Seriously??

Wow! I knew I had not blogged in awhile... but since last year?? Wow! Just had to say it again. Well, so I've been doing some "soul" searching. It has now been a year since my brother passed away. With his passing came many changes and many realizations. I started this blog yearssss ago! Seriously, that is sad that I don't even have 100 posts. So, when I started it was because my brother's health was so bad and mine was no better with my weight, I decided I wanted to blog about weight loss. I have yet to write one post on nutrition, healthy cooking, workouts, or anything fitness related. Lately, I have been doing some serious blog surfing and I find myself glued again and again to creative type blogs. One thing I knew about my job as a NICU nurse was that it did not "feed" my creative beast. Yes, it's a beast ladies and gentlemen! This beast is constantly talking to me, look at this, did you see that, what would you do here, and the one I constantly hear is, "I can do that!" I love that I get such inspiration from perfect strangers that open their homes and hearts online. With all this said, I think my blog is going to take a different direction. This is a big leap of faith.. Wish me luck, and most of all stay tuned! Ciao chicas!

Farewell 2009! Hellooooooo 2010!!

Here it is just a few minutes shy of 2010. I didn't expect to post tonight. I was blog hopping and trying to catch up on some of my coupon clipping and reading the end of the year post for some of them made me want to say a few things.
This was truly the hardest year of my life! The devil did not fail to attack my life in any area! Financially, Spiritually, Physically, and Emotionally.
The best part is that I'm still sittin up eatin table food!! Yeee-ha baby!
I really "heal" well with music. When I was younger, I used to call the radio my
"heartbeat," cuz I had to have it on all the time! One song that has particularly helped me heal from losing my brother is Carrie Underwoods, Temporary Home. OMG! Tearjerker! I find myself coming back to some things I had been away from and hot not even realized it.
I am looking forward to 2010, and if there is one thing I learned this year is that God is in control!
I wish I could say, I'm not gonna sweat the small stuff, but I am a control freak... so, let me say.. I'll work on that.
I have been praying about sharing my full year in full disclosure, but I don't feel strong enough yet. I know that when I am ready it will help people. When I was being personally sued by a parent in the NICU, it took me awhile but I can now share that story and show a great example of how to trust in God. Long story short, I was dropped from the lawsuit! Those 26 months were difficult also, but not near what we went through this year. With that said, I pick up my twinkling champagne glass, and make a toast:
May 2010 be filled with joy, warmth, and blessings beyond measure.
May we be a blessing to friends and strangers alike.
May it be the start of the greatest decade of our lives, and
finally.. may our bank accounts grow fatter and our waistlines
get smaller! Cheers Chicas! : )

Trying to get organzied, but only getting overwhelmed!

Whew!! The start of a new year, already! I can't believe how fast the time has gone. Sometimes when I am writing a check, (YES, I still write checks!) I start writing 199- OMG! Maybe I want to live in the 90's? Who knows? Personally, I LOVED, LOVED, LOVED the 80's !! They rocked didn't they? There I go... getting off focus. Hmm, kinda like my day today. I got up, got the kids up and thought I was headed off to a productive day. WRONG! Seriously, I don't remember how.. or why.. but I ended up back in bed! Now, hold yourself up, cuz I have NEVER done this.. I slept till 2pm!!! Holy Cow Batman! I don't feel sick? I thought I was tired, but not t h a t tired?? Oh well, it's done now. I have slowly been working on getting some things organized before the new year. Umm, today... not so much. I did manage to do some laundry! Woo Hoo! Probably, only cuz I was out of clean bras! Shhh! I don't own but like 3! Guess what? I ordered 4 and they came by mail today! Have not tried them on, cuz I have been busy.. yeah.. NOT! I'm still in my "jammies."
Well, with all this organization I "dialed for dinner" tonight. Pizza Hut, Hello?
I did semi okay today... my cereal for breakfast with fresh blueberries. Sandwich and some sunchips for lunch. You will notice as the day progresses I steadily got out of control. I wanted Ice Cream. So, I asked my son to bring me some. He brought me a bowl full! I am happy to say, here it sits, melted. Okay, well at least 1/2 of it. I just couldn't eat it all. Good thing, cuz now we are having Pizza and wings for dinner. JOY! I guess I best get back to my "papers." I am working on finding out how much we spent on Christmas and how much I saved us with all my coupons and online deals. Hmmm, if only I would really have that cash in my hand... Ahhh, to dream or not to dream.. that is my dilemma.
Opps. The pics of the snow we got in North Texas! As of today it has actually snowed twice in the past week! That is like extremely unusual!

Christmas

Merry Christmas!! Yeah, I know it's the day after Christmas. So what?! Who cares?
As you can see I did not blog much this month at all. It was a difficult month and I am glad to say "I am sittin' up eating table food, and doing just fine!"
Yeah, so sometimes there are tears in my oatmeal.. it needs salt anyway right?
Ha! See, my new attitude? This was a big year for "first things." It was my first Christmas without my brother. That was difficult. I may not have mentioned it, but in Nov/Dec I lost a 29yo cousin (Olga) to H1N1 !! She left behind three young boys. She was single and had been through some dark paths in her life, but she was working on putting her life back on the right track. Sad... Just about 2 wks after that, my aunt Helen died. more sadness... My aunt Jenny was taking care of my aunt Helen in her home. Helen was one tough cookie, up until the moment she passed. It's funny, talking to one of my cousins, we joked about how we grew up being scared of her! She was a tall, big woman with a husky voice that she carried loudly! If she was in the room, everyone knew it. I can say, that because of my brother's passing I have a new memory of my aunt Helen. I got to sit and have a meal with her during my time in El Paso. She walked into my aunt's house wearing a funny hat! I wish I could describe it. It was kind of like a Cat in the Hat hat. I want to say it was purple, but not sure.. I'll have to go back and look at the pictures. Anyway, I now think of my aunt as, my aunt with the funny hat. smile..
Interestingly, enough my aunt Jenny took in my cousin's three boys. I guess she will get custody of them and raise them as her boys. She has three grown children and now she is starting all over again. Whew! God Bless her!
I know I went off on a tangent there.. oh well. Life happens. The greatest and biggest, bestest first of all was that this was our FIRST EVER creditless Christmas!! Yep! Yee-ha!! We or "I" since I did 95% of the shopping did not charge a red cent!! The greatest thing is that the presents were better than ever this year!! Since my coupon shopping started, I have been able to get some SUPER good deals! One deal I got was to do a 30day free Trial of AmazonPrime. I signed up on Novemeber 22 and made sure it was not automatic renewal and shopped my heart out! With that little benefit I got FREE SHIPPING on ALL my orders! OMG! I joked that the neighbors were going to think I started selling drugs or something. The delivery trucks, just kept coming and coming. Fed Ex, UPS, USPS, it was awesome!
I have not done the tally on how much we spent and how much we saved, but I know it is significant. OMG! Another great giant First was the kids FIRST WHITE CHRISTMAS!!
Yep! We actually got snow in North Texas for Christmas! It actually came Christmas eve, but was still on the ground Christmas morning and throughout the day. Okay, Okay, so it was not much, but heck, It was snow nonetheless!
It is beautiful and sunny out today. Not much evidence of a white Christmas anymore, just the evidence of a bright sunshiny day!!