Small gifts but big meanings

Today I got this glass case I have been searching for a long time for this doll my grandmother made.  It wasn’t made for me originally, but it was one that was up for sale.  I just always liked it and when she died I got it.  Here is the story:

My grandmother died back in May 2000 after being in the hospital for a few weeks.  Her body just gave out and they took her off the tubes and just let her go.  She was a constant figure in my life and even though we did not get along while I was growing up she was still a big part of my life and most of that is good stuff.
She had this crochet doll on a shelf and she had 3 others with it.  I think it was ironic that she had those for sale for years and not one person bought them and when she died there were four dolls and four granddaughters…Debbie, Naomi, Laura, and I.  I just knew this is the one doll I wanted.  I didn’t care if I was the youngest one out off the girls, but that doll was mine.  I got it.  My mom helped me get it.  I know my cousins were a little miffed at me because they wanted that doll, but I didn’t care.  She was mine.

Now this doll was her casing.  I am going to treasure her for as long as I can.  Because sooner or later, Iwill add to this story about my cabbage patch doll.

Fall

I have come to you unclean
But your eyes have seen

What is in my soul
To create me as a whole

I bow down at His feet
As our eyes meet

He looks into me
For what He has already seen

Sees what Christ had in mind
When he created my time

I was meant to walk with Him
Through light and through dim

I was meat to fall
So that I could give Him my all

Prayer

While on your knees
You are stronger than you believe

Hands folded, mind to clear
Waiting on God to hear

Your cries are not heard alone
He allows them to be shown

Seek your family as well
For their prayers will help tell

That you are not weak
God will provide what you seek

As long as you follow His word
All your prayers will be heard.

I come

I come to you as a slave
You turn me into a brave

I come to you as poor
You give me so much more

I come to you humbled
You do allow me to stumble

I come to you as weak
You provide me with what I seek

I come to you as imperfect and unpure
But your love still endures

I feel lost and alone
Your love alone has shown

That you are the truth and light
Never to be let out of sight

We will find find life with you
And everything old will be new

Alone

Watching you sleep
Listening to you silently weep

Feeling your body start to breathe
And seeing you to go ease

Wrapping your hand with mine
Fearing there is little time

Hearing your body moan
While giving you a hushed tone

See you wake with peace
By letting your fears release

You won't wake up alone
I have not left you on your own

Single mom

There are days I let the single mom part of my life just overwhelm me.  I don't realize it until I am in a bad mood and everything just gets to me.  I hate that I don't know how to do certain things that I have been taught is a man's job, but when I am just a single mom it makes things harder for me.  I need lights in my kitchen and I have asked my office mgr to have them replaced and its still not done.  I am upset because I can do it but don't have the stuff to do it.  I need to have my vehicle checked and I don't know who to trust.  I go into a repair shop with no ring and kids and they think "easy target."  I hate that and plus I don't have a male friend that can assist me there.  I so want better for my kids than I had, but I am in the same boat my mom was in when we were growing up, but instead of 5 kids I have 2. 

I get no extra money for my kids.  The state says I make to much to get any kid of help so where do I go and what do I do, but let my kid be without.  I have to balance even milk into my everyday budget.  That is not right.  I got 5 weeks of child support and guess what I am now required to pay half of that back because I had public assistance when my son was born.  I hate the system.  I can apply for his disability and right now I think that I am going to have too.  I don't know what else to do. 

Single mom stinks.  I can see why God created two people to make a family.  It is not  a one person job. 

April 5th

Noah is running fever and coughing
Didn't balance @ work....short 85 bucks and no idea how I did it
Lights went out at work....didn't get to finish my daily duties
Received a collection letter from ATT on my net service and found out they didn't turn off my net from the old place and was charging me for it
Feeling overwhelmed right now.  Worried about how Noah will feel tomorrow.  I hate this weather.  Keeps making my kids and me sick.

Music

Every hear a song that just says in your head for days at time and you just think its a new song, but found out its old.  I have found that song.  I was watching Gray's Anatomy the other and the song "The Story" just found something inside of me that keeps making me thing of those lyrics. 

If someone knew the "me" of the past few years they would probably understand alot about me now.  What my children have been through and what I have endured is not the easy life that we were suppose to have. 

I was married, but I was not happily married and plus he was a liar to not only himself, but to everyone around him.  He has so many people fooled and I really think he had fooled himself.  He even had his own mother fooled.  I look back and I see all the signs, why didn't I see them then and before we got hurt the way we did. 

I lost my whole world in a matter of days....7 of them to be exact.  I was fired from my job on October 31st, but was told that I could work out the remainder of th week, but why.  Plus my own boss couldn't even hire me, she let the human resources lady do it for her and they lied to me.  Told me I had a job in another department, but they canceled that.  I just wanted to scream and that is why I said F*** it all and not go back to rest of the week.  I went straight to the employment agencies and went from there.  I got a job working for Goodwill as a temp during their sales peak for the holiday season, but I knew that wouldn't last.  It was less than what I was making and I was the only one working so I was desperate for work. 

November 7, 2007, my children were taken away from me by DHS and the police and my ex-husband was arrested for child abuse on my oldest son.  I was looking at being charged for "failure to protect."  I was lost.  I had no idea where to go or who to go too, but Traci was there and helped me get through all the times, but no one was there for during my court appearances and I think that was God's way of telling me that I could do this and I was do this is alone. 

"So all the lines across my face tells you the story of who I am so many stories of where I've been and how I got to where I am"

I will share more later. 

April 3rd

14 years on this Friday I became a mom for the first time.  It is hard to believe that 14 years ago I had my first child.  Time sure has flown when I look back at it.  So many things we have done and we have been through.  I wonder at times why God put us together as a family. 

I was telling someone the other day at work about my kids because they are like night and day.  Preston was the very mellow child.  Everyone loved him and he was so good, never caused trouble, just kind of was there, but Noah is all over the place, but he loves with his whole heart just like Preston does, but Noah makes like fun and interesting, Preston was just an existence.  Don't take this badly of me, but that is how I view them at times.  That person I told that too, she tells me God gave you Noah for the fun to be brought back into your life.  I mean, Preston and I can sit in the living room perfectly quiet and just read and just know each other is there, but that is all.  Noah is all over the place making noises, laughing, making me yell and raise my voice.  He is just a little livelier than Preston. 

I remember the anticipation I was having waiting for the next day to come.  Most of my family had just left that Sunday after my grandpa's funeral and most of them were pretty upset that I didn't have him then so they could at least meet him, but Preston had other plans.  I talked to his grandma Rachel the day before and that was the first time in months that I had even spoke to her and she reached his dad Jacob and had him call me, I guess.  I talked to him too and it was odd.  That Monday morning mom and I left to head off to Poteau and were informed that the nurse on duty was late because she wasn't feeling all that great, but we got there and 1 hour later she showed up and there the pitocin was started.  I was ready to have him then and there, but you know babies they show up when they want too.

I guess I will try gradually this week to tell his story one day at time and on the days it happened.  Might be neat to keep up with memory lane that way. 

March 17th

Honestly today was a mini-break down.  I was doing the math on what bills are due and how much I am going to get paid next week and I don't hav enough to cover.  I have rent, my phone, my insurance, my car tag, groceries and gas to put in the car.  Plus I need gas money to drive to Muskogee and enough money to get a CT scan on my face because for some reason I have this really bad infection in my nose that is not clearning up and one side of my nose is bigger than the other so that is making sleep difficult for me.  I am not a happy person right now.  I want to be healthy, but for some reason I am not. I just don't get it.  I go to the doctor and almost everytime I get some sort of bad reason.  I just want to cry.  I don't want to think of having to have surgery, but it might come to that.  I really hope not.  About 8 years I had a CT on my face and there was a polyp found as well as the deviated septum so I've know I had issues there, but I didn't want surgery then and I definetely don't want it now.  I will do what I have to do to get the hearing back in my ear as well as feel better.  I have one sinus infection after another.  I get more than my share of them. 
I have to take Preston to the dentist every few weeks and now I have to take him to Ada as well.  Ada once a month for 3 months, then everyother month, but all of that depends on him too.  I am stressed.  I will not have a solid paycheck in quite a while now.  I cannot afford to keep doing this on my own.  I was getting a little child support and that was helping, but his job lacked off and nothing.  I am working two jobs and I am still struggling on what to do now.  I am down to the bare minimum in expenses.  I have internet, my phone, rent and my light bill, insurance, and gas for my car plus groceries and I am still trying to stay on top.  I just want to cry and today I did right in front of my mom and the kids.   Mom is going to see what she can do with her job and help me out.  I need her help right now.  I really do and I appreciate it so much. 
So much stress is affecting me in a lot of ways.  I am forgetting things easily.  Today I had a panic attack and I felt like I was going to have a heart attack.  I ended up having some sharp tinges in my chest, but I was stressed.  I am ready for a break.  I am ready to relax for a few days and not let anything bother me, but I don't know how that is going to happen when I am dealing with an angry 13 year old male.  I have keep reminding myself to breathe.  BREATHE!!!!!!

March 13th

3 breakdowns in 4 days.  Oh boy!  I am beat today.  I need to relax and I am trying, but honestly I am just waiting for bedtime today.  I go to work tomorrow, but the kids are going to be here alone while I am working and I am nervous.  Really nervous.  They do good, but I am just going over and over what has happened before so that makes me uneasy.  I wished I could afford to put Noah in daycare this week or hire some to help babysit.  Noah is being trying here lately. 

I will survive.  I am strong, but I am a nervous parent right now.  I have no other option.  I am going to have a solid talk with both of them together and by themselves.  Strict rules to follow this week. 

March 9th

Tonight was hard.  My oldest son got frustrated with his little brother and decided to hit him with his reader and he lied about it.  He was afraid of telling me the truth and that I was going to hit him like his step-father did to him.  It broke my heart and it breaks me as a parent right now.  I am lost for words and just not sure what I need to do or say right now.  I love my child and I hate to see him in so much pain and turmoil.  He told me that he got upset in Social Studies today that his teacher got upset with a student and that student happens to be Preston's friend and he had flashbacks of the abuse that he suffered. 
I knew something was up when I picked him up from the library.  We went to WM after work today and he would stay behind me, he would not talk to me, he was just there.  We had dinner, but not a whole lot of joking or talking was going on.  He sat on the couch with Noah to help him to do his reader and he got frustrated at Noah.  Noah told me the truth, but Preston would not tell me.  I separated them and then I got them together and then I decided to have them re-enact what occurred and Preston would not participate so I knew something was up there.  He refused, but I got him to do and then he went nuts.  He got up and went towards his room.  I got him to stay and then I got close to him and he pulled away.  I kept walking towards him.  He kept backing and he ended up in his room and I walked right in there.  He wanted me to leave, but I stayed and he cried and I talked to him.  I just talked.  I got him to calm down and realize that I was not going to hurt him.  My whole body just ached from seeing this fear in his eyes.  They were so red from fear or anger or both.  He calmed down and we got through this.  That is all I know to do anymore.  I just know to relax and just be there and not push the "wrong" buttons. 
Tonight was hard and it was the 3rd blow up, but at least these blow ups are getting shorter.

March 7th

Honestly it is nice to be self-sufficient again.  I have had to use public assistance on and off for years, but now I can say that I don't have to anymore.  It is nice.  I am doing this on my own and yes at times it is hard, but I don't mind the hardship because I am doing it.  I don't have anyone telling me that I need to come in for appointment and that they need this or that.  I am relieved. 

Next year I will get my student loans paid off and then I can consider going back to school.  I am 2 years away from my B.S. in Business Management and I am going to go for it.  I am going to take one class at a time and online till Noah gets a litte bigger and becomes more self-sufficient and then I will go back to school on a full time basis.  I can't stop now.  I am so close, but honestly I love my job so much that I am not going to leave it, but I just want the degree to have it.  I have worked my rear off to get where I am now.

Trying out my phone.

March 4th

Today was a day from hades honestly.  It started out good at work, but ended on a stressful note.  Plus I went to go cash a check and somehow I ended up losing my license in my car.  It grew legs and jumped out my window or something.  I have no idea what happened.  I know it didn't go out the window and I have no clue on where it went too.  It is frustrating me to no end that I can't find it.  I hope tomorrow it is in the sit waiting on me. 

As of now I sitting on the couch watching "The Devil Wears Prada" with my boys, but I am not really into the movie right now.  I want to see the "A Team" again.  I will buy probably before to long. 

Yawn, yawn, yawn.  I am tired and I am ready for bed.  I will get Noah there soon and then off to bed I go too.

Part 2...March 3rd

In a month and a few days, I am going to be a mother of a 14 year old son.  Geez!  Where did that time go?  So many things have changed in our lives since he was first year.  Cell phones were out there and not as popular as they are now...not every one had one and that was me included.  We could still feel a little comfortable sending our children to places and knowing they would be somewhat safe and now I can't even let them out of our home.  He went to the public library of all things and some person asked him if he had weed or if he where he could get some.  We move into a new place and our first week here, we get home from school and some of the kids that live here decided to take my children things and decide to play with them and they did not ask much less did the parents even bother to find out where the children got their "new" toys.  I was not a happy parent.  I conforted the parent and guess what they did not care that their child borrowed my child's toy without asking.
 I get mighty upset if my children use my things without asking.  Preston borrowed my jacket and guess what he did....he lost it.  I was upset with him and I am still am.  I paid for that and he had no right to take it without me asking.  I have raised my children better than that.  Some day he will have children of his own and he will know how I am feeling and why I have done things I have done.  So many things to worry about and not enough time to do it all. 

March 3, 2011

This is the 3rd blog I have created, but for some reason I keep forgetting the username and password to them.  I hope this one I don't.  I need an outlet to write and put stuff out there.  You want to read it, go ahead and if it doesn't interest you then I am okay with that too.