really seeing yourself for who you are

do you ever wonder how some days you look in the mirror and feel thin.

and others you feel not so thin?

why is that?

today fortunately is a thin day but what i would like is to feel the same way every day.

it's funny because for years i never thought i was thin enough which is just plain dumb.

i'm 5 61/2, most of my life have weighed around 130-135 and i thought i was fat.

dumb.

i wish i embraced myself years before.

i wish every day we all could embrace ourselves more than we do.

i wonder why we don't?

i am still here. just can't think of anything to write about.

hopefully that changes soon :)

dewy

last year on june 15, the day before my mom's death anniversary, i cheered myself up by adding a new family member: the most adorable bichon shitzu pup, named 'dewy'

dewy has been one of the best things i could have ever spent my money on. boo and i both have an allergy to dogs so we needed a non-shedding pet.

i can honestly say that he has brought more enjoyment than anything else other than the hub and kids.

he's licked my tears, turned my sadness into laughter, instinctly on his own.

he's the 3rd child that i always wanted but don't have to breastfeed at 2 in the morning :)

he has truly become "man/woman's best friend"

forever loved

today has been one of those days that can somehow feel very introspective for no reason. on days like this i tend to cry easily and think alot about my mom.

i realized today how truly charmed my life actually is. yes, i might have had to go through some rough stuff like my parents divorce, being a single mom for awhile and my mom's death but if i look honestly at my life i've had it alot better than some.

i have to thank my mom for that. truly.

she gave me everything she had to give me. i may not have always had the most expensive clothes, or trips. she couldn't afford to buy me a car when i turned 16.

but what she did give was everything else. she loved me even when it was hard to even like me. she taught me to be strong and brave. she never wavered on wanting the best for me in life and she probably sacrificed alot more than i will ever know just to give me that.

she was there always. i never had to feel like there was no one who could ever love me more. i always knew that no matter what, i had a safe haven to go to. that even though i was an adult, a mother myself, that she would still sacrifice as much of herself as she could if it would make my life better.

her love for me never wavered, never ended, never weakened...even now in death i feel it so strongly that i can't imagine never having had it in the first place.

i am truly blessed for the mother i was born to and i will never forget that.

monday

binks woke up in the middle of the night coughing so instead of waking him and making him go to school, i figured i'd let him stay home and hopefully the cough would subside.

well it did and now at 12pm he is driving me crazy, on my one morning off!

ugh, i hate when i make the wrong decision in the morning. of course the fact that's 7am, i'm not quite awake i could plead the eyes-only-half-opened plea.

had a nice weekend: my friend ree-ree (not her real name, no kidding hey) was here for a visit with her boyfriend. there was a wee bit of drinkin' on sat nite as we changed up the rules of 'catch phrase'....every time you and your partner lost, a shot of either baja rosa or blue and/or green sour puss (not mixed) had to be taken. for the record i wussed out and only had shots of my drink: vodka, pineapple and cranberry.

i'm not a good shot taker: as i only need 3 drinks regularly to get drunk, shots don't help the matter. last time the memory of inhaling 9 shots of baja is still quite clear, or somewhat anyways: consisting of getting into a fight on the dance floor with some guy, throwing up all over someone's car tire and never wanting to see anything pink again for a looong time has cured me of the need to do shots.

so the weekend was fun, no hangovers amazingly, just still a little tired today and binks isn't helping.

better go as my little man needs a drinks, thank goodness for school tomorrow :)

from tuna to you....

i don't know how to link yet so i copied this from tunagirl ( with her permission). she's one of the blogs i read everyday and i really liked this entry. check her out at http://tunagirl.blogspot.com

"That Thing I Don't Say Anymore
I have this thing that I say a lot. And when I say it, I really, really mean it. I do.

But it always makes my husband sigh and it drives Patrick totally bat shit crazy.

I blogged about it once. Probably more than once. It sounds like I was maybe kidding at the time.I wasn't.I've decided not to say that thing anymore.

But I'm going to type it here one more time for all the world (or all of you at least) to see and judge.

I am the worst mother ever. Whenever I say it to Patrick, he'll start lecturing me about what a really bad mother is.

And I hear him. I do.

But I'm not exactly measuring myself against the kind of mother who would beat, starve, and neglect her children. Because they're not mothers at all.

I'm measuring myself against the average, everyday mother who cares enough not to feed her kids junk food, or send them to school when they're sick, or yell at them, or let them develop the same hang ups she has.

And using that measuring stick, well, I fail. A lot.

But I don't know. Something broke through with me recently.

I spent last weekend at a violin workshop. No. I don't play the violin. This was a workshop presented by a violin teacher who wrote a book on how parents can better practice with their children.It turns out that the author also has a degree in child psychology.

I was dreading spending my weekend in a classroom, but it was totally worth it.

One of the things that he quoted in his speech was that kids don't need perfect parents, or even great parents. "They need ordinarily devoted parents."His point was that the trade-off between ordinary and trying to be perfect is that we spend so much energy on guilt and stress in the strive for perfection that we negate the good we're trying to do. We corrupt the relationship.

Ding, Ding, Ding, Ding.I've heard it before, but it never quite hit home so hard.

Maybe it is because right before I went to the workshop, Patrick totally lost patience with me and read me the riot act about the perceptions and expectations I have for myself as a parent.

You know what?

My being a perfectionist isn't helping my kids one tiny bit.

Since my "light dawns on Marble Head" moment, I've had an exceptionally crappy week.But I'm trying to remind myself, that I'm here.

No matter what. No matter how much I screw up, I'm here.

I'm devoted to my children. Enough to sacrifice a huge chunk of my life to them. In fact, to me, it doesn't even feel like a sacrifice.

It just feels like what I was meant to do.

And it is what makes me happy.

And there is no substitute for me. I am their mother. No matter what.

Even my ordinary devotion is more important to their well-being than the extraordinary love of everyone else in their lives combined.

Hell. Add their wonderful father to the mix and they are two very lucky kids.And I'm not going to say that thing anymore. Even if I think it.

Because even in my worse moments I know that no one else can do what I do for my kids. No one. "

i've highlighted the parts i particularily like/related to.

thanks tuna for your honesty...

Happy Valentine's Day....

blah!

just kidding. i actually like the day, i just think it's carried away a little bit.

for single people all it does it make them more lonely.

and for alot of people in relationship it can breed disappointment.

like" he doesn't love me enough to get the right present"

blah, i say, blah!

if you need this day to prove how much you love or someone loves you, somethings wrong.

not that i'm saying that nice things shouldn't be done today, i'm just saying alot of us base too much on this particular moment.

so what i wish for all of us today, is to really love ourselves first, be your own valentine.

anything after that is icing on the cake of life (yes corny i know :) )

ps. to clarify i didn't write that line in the earlierpost...it was from a whole set of 'i believes' that i received from the lovely ms. h

I believe.....no matter how badly your heart is broken, the world doesn't stop and wait for you to grieve.

do you see what i do?

on one of the blogs i read everyday (http://relaxedalert.blogspot.com), talks about signs from our loved ones after they pass. i have always fully believed in them, i just don't know if i know when i'm receiving one.

i wasn't very specific with my mom when i asked her to visit me. i should have decided beforehand what i wanted the sign to be so i knew it was her.

i believe she leaves me pennies/dimes around the house, our old one and this one. every couple of days there is a new penny in the bottom of the main bathroom's toilet. now i don't know if it's coming from my mom or from the previous owner, who died about 7 years ago.

i do feel or felt that the lady (owner) is still around the house. binks is like me, quite sensitive to feelings/dreams etc. after we moved in here his nightmares started again.

one night, he woke up screaming in a different way then he had before. hub got up with him. while i was laying in bed trying to fall back asleep, i figured i'd get up and go to the bathroom which is right across from my bed (ensuite). now granted since i was only moving 2 ft. i didn't put my glasses on which means things are little blurry for me. as i got up i saw hub come in the room, or to be exact i saw white come into the room in front of our bed. i continued on to the bathroom, did my business, and came back to bed. i asked hub what was wrong with binks. no answer.

for anyone who knows me well, knows that the middle of the night is not a pleasant time for me, i tend to be a bit bitchy, so not answering is not very smart. i asked again, no answer. i moved my arm over to his side to see if he was awake. no hub.

seriously he was not lying there and i swore he came into the room. i felt a little creeped out but must have fallen back asleep. in the morning i asked what was wrong and hub answered" binks thought someone was in his room"

um, ya she was and then she came into ours!

now i'm not afraid of her ( and how do i know it's a her, i just feel it) i think that once a young family moved in again, and children are sleeping in the rooms that her children slept in, she's just checking on them in the night.

binks has seen her in the morning also but he doesn't realize what she is...he just comes running into our room saying someone went downstairs.

one night i had a book party and one of the guests does reiki and feels things other don't. while we were talking she kept looking at the corner where our tv is. finally she mentioned that a lady was sitting there in a rocking chair. yes, the hairs on the back of my neck and arms were at full attention.

like i said i'm not afraid of her, i think she misses her kids and just wants to know who's in her house.

i often see butterflies especially white ones when we are camping or doing anything outdoors. more so if i'm with boo which i think is my mom saying she's there with us also.

i think my mom plays tricks on me by hiding things that i know i put somewhere else. but i want more concrete signs.

show me you're really here.

and i wonder if others are leaving me signs and i'm just not picking up on it.
does that song that reminds me of us come on coincidentally while i'm thinking of him or is he telling me," i'm here"?

do any of you have stories of signs?

good old-fashioned advice

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BABY!!!! it's my honey's birthday today....i'm going to write more about how i love to celebrate the day he was born.

my mil gave me this tonight and i love it:

"we tried to make things better for our kids that we made them worse. for our grandchildren, i'd like better.

i'd really like for them to know about hand-me clothes and homemade icecream and leftover meat loaf sandwiches.

i really would.

i hope you learn humility by being humiliated, and that you learn honesty by being cheated.

i hope you learn to make your own bed and mow the lawn and wash the car.

and i really hope nobody gives you a brand new car when you are sixteen.

it will be good if at least one time you can see puppies born and your old dog put to sleep.

i hope you have to share a bedroom with your younger brother/sister. and it's alright if you have to draw a line down the middle of the room but when he/she wants to crawl under the covers with you because he/she's scared, i hope you let him/her.

when you want to see a movie and your little brother/sister wants to tag along, i hope you'll let him/her.

i hope you have to walk uphill to school with your friends and that you live in a town where you can do it safely.

on rainy days when you have to catch a ride, i hope you don't ask your driver to drop you off two blocks away so you won't be seen riding with someone as uncool as your mom.

if you want a slingshot, i hope your dad teaches you how to make one instead of buying you one.

i hope you learn to dig in the dirt and read books.

when you learn to use computers, i hope you also learn how to add and subtract in your head.

i hope you get teased by your friends when you have your first crush on a boy/girl and when you talk back to your mother that you learn what ivory soap tastes like.

may you skin your knees climbing a mountain, burn your hand on a stove and stick your tongue on a frozen flagpole.

i don't care if you try beer once but i hope you don't like it. if a friend offers you dope or a joint, i hope you realize that he is not your friend.

i sure hope that you make time to sit on a porch with your grandparents and go fishing with your uncle.

may you feel sorrow at a funeral and joy during the holidays.

i hope your mother punishes you when you throw a baseball through your neighbor's window and that she hugs you and kisses you at hannukah/christmas time when you give her a plaster mold of your hand.

these things i wish for you-tough times and disappointment, hard work and happiness.

to me, it's the only way to appreciate life.

written with a pen. sealed with a kiss.

i'm here for you.

and if i die before you do, i'll go to heaven and wait for you. "

paul harvey