H is for

H is for Happiness

I am going to lay myself out in the open on this one. Come clean here because I do not think I can keep this to myself as I have been struggling with this for a couple years. I have been spending a lot of time in hospitals lately. Not because I am sick, I rarely get sick enough to make me go to the doctor. Frankly, I am not a fan of doctors and hospitals. Before this month, I had gone to the doctor one time in the past year, and to the ER once when I had an allergic reaction that left me looking like Gothmog from Return of the King. Yeah, it was attractive, my husband and the ER staff had a wonderful night talking about the similarities though, and deciding whether I looked more like Gothmog or Gollum.  Gothmog because of the swelling, Gollum because they put these drops in my eyes to make sure I had not scratched my eye up. The drops made my eyes glow yellow in the dark. When I refused to mutter about my precious and instead elected to give them orders to shut the crap up, they decided on Gothmog, especially with the swelling of my eyes and face.

Gothmog, General Orc from Return of the Kings

Gollum, from all of the LOR movies

For those of you who do not read/watch Lord of the Rings, there are the two characters I am referring to. Now go read the book and watch the movies, I guarantee you will not be disappointed! 

Anywho. As I was saying, I do not like doctors and it normally takes something extreme for me to go in and visit one on my own accord. So I am now officially being medicated. If you know me, you know that I am a control freak. Mostly about things at home, but in generally everything. I have only been drunk three times in my lifetime actually, because I do not enjoy being so out of control. I will have a drink now and then, but I always stick to one, and normally maybe once every three months or so. I get angry when I ask for a washcloth, and someone brings me the wrong color, even though I did not specify a color, I get mad when things are not done exactly the way I want them, and when I want them. I just get annoyed and angry unless I am doing it. And then I get angry that I am the only one that can do whatever it is "right."

Yeah. I am a basketcase. Nutjob. Wacko, you name it. Basically with the way I was raised and the experiences I have been through, I became a control freak to cope. I was raised by a mother who was also kind of a control freak. If our rooms were not clean, she would dump the drawers out of our dressers and make us start over again. The house was always perfect and when our room was not clean she yelled a lot and threw things. One time she threw a doll so hard that it actually went through a wall. No joke, there was a hole in our wall that we covered with a poster until we were getting ready to move because she threw a baby doll at it in frustration. The way I was explained this was my brain wired itself to think that was normal. However I did not become a neat freak/control freak until later on because it had not been triggered yet. She got on prozac and became "normal." She did not care as much about those things, and she stopped yelling so much. It was pretty awesome.

When I was 16 my brother was killed. He was 10 years old, and he was killed by a drunk driver in a hit and run. It took a toll on all of us, but my parents became basically useless. I do not blame them for anything at all. It was devastating obviously, and my mother has even told us how she was grateful that my sister and I were older. Because if we had been younger, she is not sure she could have gone back to parenting. She kind of checked out for a few years mentally. It really felt like my sister and I had lost her as well until 2008 when she fully let herself begin to heal. After that, I moved out of the house and I rebelled. I did not want to take care of anything, I did not want to be responsible, I was a messy person. Then I had kids, and moved away from my family and moved a few states away with my husband. At that point, I realized that I was on my own up here in a place I had never been to and a place where I knew no one. Even when I did move out of my parents house, I only moved a few yards and rented the house next door. I was not used to being so utterly isolated. So I started "coping" and becoming a paranoid control freak. I can admit I am paranoid. I will not leave my children with anyone except for three people up here, and even then, I can not leave them for more than a couple hours because terrible senarios play out in my head. It is not that I do not trust the friends to take care of them, it is more that I think if I am not there, something WILL go wrong and I can not do anything and I will not know.

My brother Ryan <3

I do not like my husband to be out driving after dark on a weekend. I just do not trust other drivers. So many people drive drunk, and they normally kill the other person they hit, instead of themselves. I know that it can happen at any time. Hell, my brother was killed in the early afternoon. But that is what my brain is telling me, after dark is dangerous. Leaving the kids with someone else can result in a house fire, or a random public shooting. I. am. crazy. paranoid. So I cope by controlling everything. I clean, and I control. I like things done my way and I like them done when I want them done. I like calling the shots, it is stressful, but letting someone else be in charge is so much more stressful for me. Even the slightest change in plans will throw me off, and make me angry. Say I need to go to the store and my husband wants to drive home after grocery shopping. Okay, that is fine. Then he stops off at Game Stop, which is ON the way home, and just a five minute stop. But I get angry that I was not notified that we were stopping there beforehand. If I am told you will be here at a certain time and you are late, I will stress out, imagine all sorts of terrible things, and then when you show up, I get angry because you are fine, you were just late. If my husband goes out, he tells me where he is going. If he goes anywhere else, he calls or texts me to let me know because if I find out later, I will go ballistic and I even get mad when he tells me because it was not part of the plan beforehand. I used to be spontaneous. I once drove half an hour with a friend to someones house at midnight to dance in the rain in front of their house for ten minutes because he did not believe we would do it, and then drove home. But I have lost that spontaneity. I am working on being more spontaneous, but so far the best I can do is invite someone to a movie the same day it is playing. I normally text them in the late morning/early afternoon and say hey, wanna see a movie tonight with me? <---that is the extent of my spontaneous adventures sadly. Hey, it is a start though!

So I have been seeing a doctor this month because I am tired of living like this and putting my family through this. More importantly, my four year old Monster has started exhibiting the signs of being like me. He thinks that mommy is god and is always right. So when he builds a castle, he does it exactly like on the box. And if a friend tries to change it or add a block, he has a meltdown and starts crying because it is not right and the way it goes. For that reason more than anything I want to change. I know that I am selfish for not wanting to change just because of what I put my husband through dealing with me, but I just was not motivated by it. He has accepted me as I am, and saw no reason to push me to change. He just deals with my crazy and complains every few weeks about it if he has had too much to drink. But seeing my sons imagination crushed, kills me. I do not want to be the one who does this to my boys. I do not want my boys to grow up thinking that this is normal.

So I went to the doctor. I even wrote it down on a notepad and gave it to the nurse so I would not chicken out. You see I went in to see two different doctors about it about a year ago as well. I told them I thought I needed put on prozac or something to help me, and that was what helped my mom. The first doctor said okay, I will write you out a prescription today. He did not ask me any questions, did not talk to me about anything, did not do anything. So I left immediately and convinced myself I needed to get out more and take up some hobbies outside of the house and get away from the kids. The second doctor I saw asking about it, he told me that I did not need to talk to him about it, to go down to mental health and talk to them about it. It was the single most rude thing that has ever happened to me at a hospital. And if you knew how rude the doctor that delivered my youngest was, you would know that is very very rude. So I left again. I did not come back until this month. I originally went in because I had slipped on my porch scooping snow. I figured my back would hurt for a bit, but it never went away. So I went in thinking maybe I had a slipped disk or something and wanted to make sure it was not anything serious. The doctor I saw was amazing, he completely put me at ease, asked about my lack of a chart and then told me I could continue hating doctors because he was physicians assistant, so it would not taint my hatred of doctors to like him. Turns out I had a muscle spasm and he gave me some meds and is sending me to physical therapy as well. So I went for my follow up on that and gave the nurse my note and asked him what he thought about the prozac. He told me that he really could not talk about it right then because he had another patient who he was already late for her appt but he would be more than happy to discuss it with me if I came back. Even if it was the next day, just to be sure that I told the nurse what I was wanting to talk about that way they scheduled enough time for me.
Today was that day. I got in to see him and he made me feel normal. Even after telling me I am a control freak and my brain is wired wrong. I mean how many doctors can make you feel normal while telling you that? He explained everything to me in great detail, and when I did not understand it, he would use analogies.

My two favorites were these.
Lets say you get a 3 inch cut on your leg. Putting a bandaid over it will not do anything. It will continue to bleed around the bandaid. That is what I was doing by getting a hobby and trying to get out of the house. I was putting a bandaid on myself. Now if you get stitches over that 3 inch cut, it is closed, but it is still a wound. The stitches just hold it together while your body fixes itself. That is what medicine is going to do for me. It is going to be my stitches until I can fix myself.

The second example, was about how I am going to be fixing myself. He has a wife who is also military. She got stationed in England and he got stationed stateside. So for two full years while they were separated, she bought blue clothes to remind her of him because it was his favorite color. Although her favorite color was red and had been red her whole life, she bought blue to feel closer to him. Fast forward two years, and they are together again at the same base. She went shopping and found a top she really wanted. She did not want to buy blue clothes anymore because she did not need them to remind her of him and she knew her favorite color was red. But she still brought home the blue shirt because she was convinced it looked better on her than the red and thought the red looked ridiculous. Her brain kind of rewired itself to believe that blue was the best color for her because she spent the last two years buying everything blue.

So I am going to be seeing a therapist who has told me that he is more of a "life coach." Instead of focusing on my past, he is getting a basic understanding of my background, and then we will mostly focus on my future. I will be getting goals to complete each month, and I will be given tasks to do to help me make myself happier without meds. This whole time, I am going to be on meds. In fact, I took a pill tonight. The goal is to have the meds for 2 years, and he will help me in cooperation with my doctor. After nine months, he wants to lower my dosage and see how I do. Check how my sessions are helping. If I am no where near, we will go back to the regular dosage (which has yet to be determined, we are starting slow because I am paranoid I will turn into a lifeless zombie who does not care about anything.) By the time two years is up, he is hoping that we can take the "stitches" out and I will have healed myself from the inside. If at any time I want to try coming off because I feel I am ready, I can decide that. I just have to tell my doctor so that he can decide how to take me off the meds.

I am very happy with my family. My husband is wonderful, we have wonderful kids and great friends. I love my life and I love my house. I love our lifestyle, we live very comfortably and I am happy with everything except me. So I am taking these steps to say that I am truly happy with everything. I am not a fool, I do not expect everything to be perfect all of the time. I just expect to be happy with myself and not be so angry all the time. I am in charge of this, and I am going to finally step up. For myself, for my husband and most of all for my children.

I am taking charge. 

G is for...

G is for Go Go Gadget Survey.
Yeah I know, I am cheating. But I could not get into my original topic to save my life. It was too serious and I feel like fun topics tonight. So a survey is what you get! We could even call it Getting to know Melissa. That starts with a G.

1. What are some things you consider a waste of time and why?
   In life you mean? Being depressed/crying over something. If you are sad then you should find a way to try to be happy. I am not saying I do not get depressed, I just think that being depressed sucks, and it will not change anything for the better.
2. Do you believe there is one particular person (a soulmate, if you will) for everyone?
   No. I believe a person can fall in love with several people in his or her lifetime. To say that there is only one person out in this giant world of ours is ridiculous. I do believe you can love one person with all that you are, but not that they are the only person you could ever love. What if you split up? What if -godess forbid- your significant other passes on? So many things can happen. Humans were not "made" for monogamy in my opinion. (Yes, I realize the irony of my beliefs considering I am married)
3. What feeling do you have the most difficulty expressing?
   Hurt feelings. I normally put it off and tell myself that whatever hurt me was an accident, or that the person did not mean it. Or I tell myself that somehow I must have done something wrong and that is why the person is hurting my feelings.
4. How do you think you would handle yourself in a crisis situation?
   Oh I already know how I would do. When my oldest busted his head open while jumping on the couch, there was blood EVERYWHERE. I about hyperventilated trying to stop the bleeding and trying to figure out what to do because my husband had taken my car without leaving the car seats for the kids and I had no idea how to get to the hospital with the kids without them. Luckily, our housemate was home and he talked me down and came with me to the emergency room. He drove and we ended up putting my youngest back in his infant carrier that we had put in the basement (he had just grown out of it) and then I strapped my oldest in as best as I could beside me while we drove the 3 miles to the hospital. 
5. How would someone be able to tell if you were happy?
   Normally by my face/voice. If I am happy, I am bubbly by nature. 
6. Are you usually an organized person? Why or why not?
   It depends on what area of life we are talking about. I feel like my house and bills are very organized. I have folders for everything, I label everything, I have binders for important things and my house is almost always spotless. I think this has less to be with being organized and more to do with me being a complete crazy person when it comes to messiness. I grew up in a very cluttered house and I never ever want to be in that situation and just be happy with a pathway through the house.
7. Do you make your bed every day?
   I do. However normally the kids and I nap all together in my bed, and I normally do not make it up after they wake up. 
8. Does any particular season make you happier than others? Why?
   Spring. I absolutely love it because as cliche as it sounds, I love the smell of wet grass in the morning. The smell after I mow the lawn is amazing. I just love grass and dirt and warmness. No snow to be seen and the sun shining every day without being too overbearingly hot? My idea of perfection.
9. Do you like to exaggerate things?
   Yes. My favorite expression is when I am talking to the Monster, I tell him "you have a million and twelve toys, why are you whining about not being able to find that exact toy?" Or "You have been standing in that fridge for a million and twelve years, close it, decide what you want and then go back or ask me to get it."
10. Can you adapt to change easily? Examples?
    Yes and no. Yes because I have to adapt to changes moving around as much as I have. I spent my childhood moving from state to state. Florida, Virginia, Wisconsin, Texas, Iowa, North Dakota. Each time I had to make new friends, learn new cities, etc etc etc. No because I am getting worse at it. I have a total of three people up here in this state that I see regularly. I have just turned into a little bit of an antisocial hermit. I prefer to spend my time at home with the kids instead of socializing out in the world.
11. How often do you cry? What can bring you to tears?
    I am not sure how often I cry, I do not document it, but when I cry it is normally about one of two things. Either from the loss of my brother, or because I have gotten frustrated during a talk with my husband.
12. Would you describe yourself as a peace keeper or a troublemaker?
    Peacekeeper. I often forget to stand up for myself because I am trying to keep the peace. I like people to be happy and I will always try to help if I can. 
13. Do you give money to homeless people?
    No. I want to, but if I did, I would run out of money pretty fast around here. I did recently break down and get a homeless man a case of bottled water because he was outside in extremely hot weather with his dog. My heart about broke. 
14. In what circumstances do you feel most at peace?
    When my children are playing nicely together and I can curl up with a good book. I like to read about anything and everything. I will even read wikipedia articles for fun. 
15. Do you enjoy giving and receiving hugs?
    Of course! Hugs make me very happy, both giving them and receiving them. I have held myself back in recent years however because someone clued me in that not everyone likes their personal space invaded.
16. Do you believe in luck, and if so do you consider yourself lucky?
    I am actually not sure if I believe in "luck" per say. 
17. What do you see as your biggest flaw? Are you trying to "fix" it?
    My insecurities. I act very confident, but at then end of the day, I can think of at least three negative things about myself for every positive thing. I am working on loving myself more, and being more happy with myself.
18. Do you feel everyone is worthy of love?
    No. If you abuse someone elses love then I do not believe you are worthy of love. 
19. What are you most disappointed with in life?
    That there are so many negative people out there who just try to hurt everyone they know. I do not mind negativity sometimes but for someone to spend most of their day everyday finding ways to put someone else down, disappoints me.
20. Do you consider yourself to be a competitive person?
    Yes. Unless I am competing against a cocky SOB. If I win, I try to win gracefully and not throw it in the other persons face, unlike some people I know.
21. On what topics do you feel qualified to give advice?
    Honestly not many. Any advice I give is my opinion, and if I say it worked for me, that means it worked for me. It may not work for you. However if you come to me with a problem, I will usually be more than happy to throw myself into research to see if I can find some answers for you and give you that info and advice based off of that.
22. How long can you be alone before you feel lonely?
    Quite a long time actually. I do not find the two to be the same thing. I like to be alone, but I do not like to be lonely if that makes sense.
23. Are you like a member of your family? How so?
    I look exactly like my mother. I act more like my father however.
24. Are you punctual, or do you tend to run late?
    I try to be early wherever I go, but sometimes I end up running late if the kids or I are having a bad day.
25. Do you enjoy housework? What is the one chore you hate with a passion?
    I do not enjoy it, but I do enjoy having a clean house. I do it more because I can not stand to see something out of place. I refer to myself as OCD at times, and others will agree with me. The chore I hate the most is folding/hanging up laundry. I do not mind washing/drying it, but when it comes time to put it up, I normally put it off as long as possible.
26. Do you enjoy drinking alcohol to relax?
    Not really. I do not like to be out of control, so I only drink like once every 3 months or so. 
27. What is your number one fear?
    That I am not enough. 
28. Do you have a favorite song?
    Scars, by Papa Roach. I often have favorite songs of the week or such, but I always come back to this one. It sits with me well and I feel I understand it perfectly.
29. How do you feel about drugs?
    I am not a fan. But, as I said already, I am a control freak, so any type of mind altering habit is not for me.
30. Are you wearing jewelry?
    No. I do not like jewelry. (I know, what? *gasp* a woman who does not enjoy jewelry?) Seriously, my husband got me a really pretty diamond necklace and a steam mop for Christmas. He complains often that I use the steam mop every day (and all of the super neat attachments that go with it because it is AWESOME!) and that I never wear the necklace. Jewelry bothers me. I do not like things around my neck, I do not like earrings and I hardly wear rings. That even goes for my wedding ring. In fact right now, it is in my dresser instead of on my finger. Jewelry gets caught on things and ends up being in the way most the time in my experience.
31. What annoys you most when grocery shopping?
    When people leave their cart in the parking lot. I always take my cart back to the cart return, or sometimes back into the store. I also take any other carts that happen to be near my car back as well. It drives me completely bonkers.
32. Are you the youngest in your family?
    Absolutely not, I am the oldest. I will be turning 24 in three weeks and my youngest brother just turned 4 yesterday.
33. Do you consider yourself a mature or immature person?
    Mature most the time. I know how to have fun and be immature, but mostly once I became a mother I did some growing up. You have to when you are the only one your child can depend on.
34. Do you wear your heart on your sleeve?
    Sometimes yes. I hide hurt feelings and anger as best as I can, but I am told I am a horrible liar. Sometimes it is a pain in the butt, but I would rather be a terrible liar than an accomplished liar.
35. What is something you would like to change about yourself?
    As I said before, my insecurities. I am working to believe in myself more. It is way easier said than done, but I am trying. 

There you go :) Any other questions you have?

F is for...

F is for Friends.

I have truly wonderful friends. Both long distance and people here. Today I am concentrating on the people here in this state. I love them with all of my heart. I do not go out often because I am a self admitted homebody/hermit. I like being in my house, I am comfortable here. I like my friends houses, and I love my friends, but I am such a homebody. I feel out of my element if I am not at home. I occupy myself by cleaning my house/doing random tasks. I do not like to just sit down and talk because I feel awkward. It has nothing to do with my friends, I am just an awkward sort of person who worries about everything. I worry about talking to much, not talking enough. Saying the wrong thing, inadvertently offending someone and then losing them as a friend. Call me silly, but it goes through my mind with ever conversation I have. Even with family. I like to make people happy, I like to make people feel at ease but I am very insecure in this area. I feel like I can be a good friend sometimes but other times I feel like maybe I do not text my friends enough or I do not tell them enough details about me, or I want to gossip too much about something else. I am crazy.

With all of that being said, I see three people up here regularly. Two women surprisingly since before the only people I would hang out with were men because they were less drama. I have been blessed to find such wonderful people up here to keep me sane, push me to be social and help me get out and push myself. I have my friend A. I will not be putting names because I think it is a little rude to put their names out there when I have not asked them how they would feel about being on such a public website where anyone can read it. Anywho A is wonderful. I love her so much. She is one of my best friends. I say that a lot but because I do not have many friends, I think of a few of them as my best friends in some aspects. A and I are so alike and I just can not pinpoint just one thing I love about her. We go out for girl talk, lunch dates, movies or she just spends time at the house with me and the kids. My kids absolutely love her, especially Monster. Munchkin loves her too, I think she is the only female other than myself he lets hold him or touch him for longer than five seconds. She makes me laugh and she is very much like me, but different enough to have an impact on me. I honestly think if she were not my friend I would still be sitting at home going insane. Before I met her, I never went out with anyone, I never left the house. I was paranoid that should I leave the children with anyone (yes, even my husband) for more than 20 minutes, something would go terribly wrong. It is not that I do not trust my husband, it is just that I am that kind of paranoid that he will forget to put the Munchkin's blanket on him just the way he likes it, or that he will not cut the Monster's sandwich in 4 triangles like he prefers. Before A, I really was losing my mind. I had not left my kids alone for more than an hour at a time before we became friends. She is the reason I go out. I cannot say enough good things about her!



Friend B is alsoawesome. She is more different from me though. Our parenting styles are different, our religious beliefs are different but I still love her (see, people can be friends with different religious beliefs!)
 She actually made me cook from scratch today. I was not even aware I could do that. Surprisingly, I did not poison anyone by cooking either! She has three kids, her two oldest boys are the perfect ages for my Monster and Munchkin to get along with great. Well, Munchkin just does his own thing, but he does that with everyone. She is a very sweet loving person. She comes over with her husband and children and we have a great time all night. Her husband gets along great with my husband. I get along great with her, and our boys love each other. Can you get more compatible family wise than that? She helps me remember that kids are kids and they will make messes. She encourages the kids to make noise and build castles NOT according to the box. Something that quite frankly, I suck at doing.

 Friend C is male. He is actually more of my husbands friend and I think of him as family. He is our Monster and Munchkins godfather, and one of the few people I trust with the kids. He gives the kids their dosage of rough play and wrestling which they can not get from daddy because of daddy's back and shoulder injuries. We spend our weekends with him just hanging out and our summers with him camping and sitting around bonfires. If something goes wrong and I need to talk, he can tell and he will sit me down and talk it out with me. I often call him husband number two, or my husbands second wife, depending on what they are doing. I view him as my brother in law, though he is not technically, he is closer to my husband than my husband is to his brothers.
Without these people I am sure I would be a mess, hiding in my house and hating this state even more than I would think could be possible. They make life fun and make me and my family happy. What more can you ask for in a friend than that?

E is for..

E is for Experiments. Not experimenting with science or sexuality. -that was what high school was for- Today is about experimenting with Pinterest. I do not know if you have realized yet, but over there ------> is a link to my Pinterest! Today I did ghetto boxes to awesome storage, string cheese bites and detox smoothies. 

First things first. My storage boxes, were diaper boxes. I have a ton of them, and why not use them for legos? Unfortunately I am not a crafty person in the least, so I am always hesitant to try anything remotely crafty. I am however VERY pleased with the way they turned out. I let Monster pick out the tape we used how he wanted the tape, and I did my best!
I started out with three boxes. I only remembered to start taking pictures after I was done with the first one, but it was 2 am and I was a little spacey. Did I mention I never sleep? Ever? It makes for loopy happenings. I actually had to take a sleeping pill to knock my butt out. I remember vaguely having a conversation with my cable company about my DVR not working. I woke up and had to call them and find out what time I arranged for the cable guy to come out because I could not for the life of me remember. In my defense, I took a sleeping pill at like 5am, then they called at the ungodly hour of 7am. Who does that??? Normal people? That is insane. I am not a morning person, and luckily neither are my kids most days. I should really give them my husband's number, he was very awake at 7am.

Anywho, back to my box. Here are some pictures of the two that I remembered to take pictures of before I started them. Then I just started wrapping them around the box like so.

I think I did pretty well considering :) Monster is very very pleased with them so I am a happy mama!
I do not have pictures of the other ones so I will just have to make you use your imagination. 

String cheese bites? Really good! I think it would have been better had I used regular bread crumbs instead of Italian bread crumbs, but I was not running to the store for regular bread crumbs. I am LAZY! Next time I plan on making them smaller however because I figured, hey, string cheese bites can totally be made into mozzarella stick style right? I was wrong. Too much cheese in one thing can make for messy four year olds.

Detox Smoothie! Now this was amazing. The spinach at the store was gross looking, so we opted for the Kale version instead. While I traditionally like my pineapple juice with alcohol and grenadine what? I figured you can not really do much to screw up pineapple flavor right? So we did it. I think I overdid the ginger because it was a flavor explosion!! Plus the Monster enjoyed drinking something that looked like the toxic waste that turned the TMNT into superheros. *I may or may not have told him it would give him superpowers and then took him to the store so he could make the doors open and close magically and then brought him home and told him he was turning into a ninja so fast that I could not see him.*

So there you have it, my attempt at actually doing things off of Pinterest. I think it turned out well! What is your favorite pin? How about the pin you use time and time again and you think it was a godsend? Any you would like to see me attempt? Lemme know!

D is for...

D is for Dreams

Not the kind you have while you sleep though. They say that a dream is a wish your heart makes, but I am fairly certain that, even in the deepest darkest place in my heart, I do not want the weeping Angels to come after me. So we are just going to go ahead and tell those mice to shove their theory and stick to making Cinderella pretty dresses and singing ridiculous lies. 

This post is going to be about dreams I aspire to achieve. Everyone has a dream they are working toward, I do not care who you are. There is something out there that you want and are making your way closer to. Some of them I am going to have to work really hard at, some that will sound more like goals, but all things I would like to achieve. If you asked me when I was 12 what I dreamed of being, I would have told you rock star. At 17, I wanted to be a flight attendant. At 18 I was back to rock star! At 19 however, my dreams changed drastically. You see that is when I had my monster. When I found out I was pregnant, I wanted so much more. I wanted to go back and change all of my previous dreams and get my life better on track. Since I did not have a DeLorean, I was kind of screwed on that aspect. So instead I focused on bettering myself. I had to grow up because I admit, I was an immature person. I had to try and figure out what to do with my toxic relationship with my then boyfriend. He made that easy though and split because he could not handle being a father. Then my dreams became about supporting my son as best I could, being the best mom I could possibly be and also try to be the best in the daddy role as a woman can be. So I quit my job and got a better one that allowed me to support myself and him without any help from his biological father, not that he offered. I thought any real relationship was out of the question, I mean, who really sees a single mom and says "score! Totally want to be with her for the rest of my life, diaper changes are totally my thing!" Luckily however, my prince charming came along. He has a way about him, most people think he is a jerk and uncaring. I find him to be witty, have a twisted sense of humor and wonderful. He can be a jerk to others, but when it counts, he is the best man I know. You may think I am required to say that since we are married and you may think that he reads this, but he does not read this and I truly believe it. 

I am now going to possibly bore you by telling you about how my husband and I came to be. You see, we had worked together in high school, he actually trained me. Then I moved on to a better paying job after graduation, and he graduated the following year and joined the Air Force. Around July 2009, we started talking again because he had found my phone number. He came back to visit me that month and we went on a date. I was under the impression it was a date, but when we got to the restaurant, my mother, sister and grandma were all there eating. BIG coincidence, but when you live in a small town, you get used to it. He thought I had planned it as a way to tell him I was not interested without actually coming out and saying it. After that, he had to go back to ND and we maintained contact. He came back to visit me again on Thanksgiving. By that time it was completely obvious we had chemistry. We started talking on the phone every night and chatting online throughout the day. By the time he made it back to Iowa in January, I was head over heels. We started officially dating that month, and he started coming down twice a month. We got married in May of 2010. He loves the monster like his own, he is actually going to adopt him as soon as my ex signs his rights over, after we track him down. I was not even trying to look for a relationship with him in the beginning because I did not want to ruin a friendship, but we turned out great. So as you can see, that dream of having a father figure for my son was fulfilled but I can not take credit for it. Had my husband not been the amazing man he is, this would not have happened. I thank the stars every day for him.

Now my dreams have changed yet again. I still want to be the best mom ever of course, but now I also want to be a social worker to help children. I want to be that trophy wife that only exist in stepford, I want to hike to the top of a mountain, I want to read 1,000,000 books. I want to go on vacation with just my husband and myself. I want to take the kids across Europe once they get to middle school or high school. I want to become a great cook start cooking more. I want to adopt a little girl who otherwise would not have been adopted because no one likes to adopt children over the age of six. So many things that I want to do, I just have to get started first. Some I have already started working towards, some I am putting off until the timing is better for our family. Dreams take work, and I plan on working hard to make mine come true. What dream are you working towards? 

Live your dreams <3

C is for....

C is for cow. At least that is what my monsters interactive puppy Scout tells me. Since it is the monsters favorite animal, it is also Scouts. That little thing is a copy cat. I am not a fan of toys that talk. I am a Grinch. I normally wait for the kids to be sleeping, then I remove their batteries...or in the case of the PEEK A BOO I SEE YOU puppy, I hide that thing in a plastic bag in the darkest part of my basement. Which just happens to be under the staircase that my husband is tearing up, so he brought all the stuffed animals out and gave them back to the monster and munchkin. Sometimes I think he is trying to make me lose my mind

Now normally, I would say I am the more patient parent. I am slower to discipline than my husband, quicker to run to their side should they get hurt, quicker to help them with something that may be making them upset. I can not stand crying. I absolutely can not stand it, if there is something I can do to stop the crying, I will do it. Some say this spoils my children. I see it as building trust that mommy will always be there.

Whereas my husbands parenting style is more laid back. He wants them to do things for themselves, he wants them to figure out toys themselves and if they get hurt he says they need to learn to soothe themselves, if they get frustrated, they need to find the solution. We are both are extreme when it comes to how we parent, so we balance each other out nicely. We can recognize when our children need the other parent more than ourselves.

That being said, I have NO patience when it comes to toys. None what-so-ever. If it makes noise, it drives me absolutely bonkers. Toys bother me if they are noisy or messy. I can not stand playdoh either, as well as puzzle pieces that do not stay together in the same area, blocks being outside the block area, etc etc etc. I am told I have a problem. My husband will tell me "Melissa, they are kids, they like noisy toys and when they cleanup they do not think hey, these blocks do not go in the ball pit, they are just thinking about picking it up off the floor" And I understand that, I do. This does not change my hatred for toys though. I look forward to the day when they are teenagers and like to go outside play their video games and their toys are confined to shelves or containers known as DVD/Game holders or tinker with cars and "play" with tools.

Now that you have read of my hatred towards toys, please someone tell me I am not alone? I can not be the only parent in the world who feels this way, right? Or at least not the only parent willing to admit her hatred towards them!

Home Improvement

I love my house. I really really do. I love it even more because we can tear stuff down and rebuild it, I love that I can paint it whatever color I want and not worry about how many coats of white paint it will take to cover up when it comes time for the military to say, HA, you are just getting used to this place, time to leave!! Seriously, my bedroom is orange and purple. Anywho, we moved in and thought the kitchen was too closed off, so we knocked a giant hole in it and created a window. I love being able to do that!

Men at Work. Unfortunately they would not wear toolbelts, so I could not heckle them and pretend they were strippers. Not that I would do such a thing. Ever. Nope.

See how there was a wall blocking my sight from the kitchen to the living room? This made me paranoid. I am a crazy paranoid person and even more so when my kids are not in my line of sight. Call me a crazy helicopter parent, tell me I am stunting their growth emotionally, call me what you will. I am what I am. So my husband put a giant hole in the wall to make me happy. This is why I love that man. You have no idea the crazy he has to put up with from me. He does not tell me whatever my idea is will not work, he simply figures out a way to make my ideas work. Even if I have not thought something all the way through.

Much better, do you not think so?

For that reason and many more, this turned out a success. Now I have him downstairs tearing out closets and knocking out entire walls attached to staircases. Did he tell me no? No sirree. He looked at me, said I am not sure how this will work Melissa, but okay. And he took a sawzaw to it. Gosh I love him. He does not try to keep me away from the action like other guys would have. He lets me help him. Mostly it is him and his best friend (whom I commonly refer to as husband number two)  working on the basement to make me happy, but I help when I get the kids settled into something to keep them busy or down for a nap. I can not wait until this new project is finished so I can post before and after pictures. It is a little daunting because this is the biggest project we have done since moving in, but baby steps. :)