Crazy busy thankful

Life is crazy.

And by that I mean absolutely positively unimaginably insane to the nth degree. And then some.

Popcorn sales for Scouts. As treasurer,
I've had my hands full.

Daniel and I helped unload a tractor trailer full of Christmas
trees. We'll be spending every spare moment at the Scout
tree lot until the last tree is sold.

Sarah celebrated her 14th birthday - and had
basketball games on the same day. The 3 oldest
are all playing now - so life revolves around
basketball AND Scouts.

The Dude and I celebrated our 2 year anniversary.
Still trying to wrap my head around that one.

I sat down during my break this morning at work and paid bills - and officially paid off the last of my debt. All of my old debts from my previous lives, all of our medical bills, all of my credit card bills, the van - those payments are all gone. GONE.

I am literally debt-free..... until.....

The biggest thing of all right now.... is the house situation. I haven't really said a whole lot about it since I posted those pictures - but I'll fill you in now.

I officially made an offer on it last week. The seller countered, I countered his counter, he countered my counter of his counter....and it went on for several days like that. He was being obstinate and pretty much refused to budge on anything. We finally reached an agreement and I did all of the loan paperwork on Monday. The inspection is scheduled for December 9, so as long as everything goes well and there isn't anything major wrong with it, I'll close on January 25.

Here's the catch. The seller - is stubborn. He doesn't want to do anything to the house. He doesn't want to allow room in the price for repairs. He just wants to get rid of it. So, if there's something wrong with it, we'll either have to fix it ourselves or give up on the house. I am trying desperately not to get my hopes up because I know that it'll just take one big bad thing on the inspection to lose this. I have the day of the inspection off from work, and I plan to follow the inspector around so that I can see first-hand what needs to be done - and then I can make a decision as to whether or not it's something that we're willing to do.

Needless to say, I'm an anxious nervous wreck right now. And I couldn't be happier about it.

697 days

We reached a milestone today.

697 days.

Daniel was born on June 10, 2007. On May 6, 2009 - I told his father to leave our home for the last time ... 697 days later.

Daniel and I met The Dude for the first time on November 25, 2011 - 697 days ago.

As of today, The Dude has been a part of Daniel's life longer than his biological father was.

It's bittersweet for both of us. I asked The Dude today what he thought about it and his response was "conflicted". He's glad to be a part of Daniel's life, but at the same time he feels bad that Daniel will never get to know his father.

Honestly, it's the same for me. I know that his father loved him. I know that he had the potential to be a great father. But it just didn't happen that way. The addiction was too much to overcome and it tore our family apart before it took him away from us forever.

But, we have a good life now. We have come so far as a family and we are finally in a good place. The Dude has been amazing to all of us. Daniel looks to him as a father and I am so incredibly thankful for that. He knows that he has another father - but he also knows that The Dude is there for him and loves him even though there isn't a biological connection.

At his age, Daniel doesn't realize the significance of today. I've been thinking about it for weeks, because not only do I realize what this means for Daniel, but I realize what it means for me. I never dreamed that I would allow anyone to become such a huge part of our lives, but yet somehow, The Dude has wormed his way in and he still claims that he plans on staying. We have gone through so much crap in the past few months between work schedules and house hunting and injuries and illnesses and vehicle breakdowns and stress and chaos and panic - and yet we're still hanging in there (and creeping dangerously close to our 2 year anniversary) and doing everything that we can to care for our family - even if it's split between a couple of different residences for a few more months.

Life is good. Crazy, chaotic, and not always predictable, but it's good.

Two years.

Today is an anniversary. Not a happy one, either.

I wrote this post 2 years ago today, just a few hours after it happened. I wrote this one on the first anniversary, one year ago today. You can go back and read those to get the full story - because I'm not going to relive it again.

I read both of them a few hours ago. And I cried. It still hurts, even after two years and all of the progress that I've made - it. still. hurts.

I don't get it.

For the most part, life is good. If you know me in real life or if you've read my blog for any extended period of time, you know I'm generally a very happy person. However, I've been dreading this day for weeks but was hopeful that it wouldn't bother me that much.

Wrong.

Contrary to what some people might believe, it still really gets to me.

I don't really know what it is that bothers me. There are so many mixed emotions and it's so hard to explain to anyone - including myself - what is going through my head right now

For the most part, I don't feel guilty. I mean, I do - but I don't. I know that I didn't force him to drink. In fact, I did everything in my power while we were together to get him to stop drinking - but he wouldn't couldn't. I firmly believe that I did everything that I could, but a part of me still wonders if I couldn't have done more. But I will never know the answer to that.

I still grieve the loss of what could have been. When I married him, I wanted the happily ever after. But we didn't get that. Even after we separated, I still wanted it. I still hoped that he would get sober and we could reconcile and get that happily ever after. But it didn't happen. That hope was yanked out from under me the day that he died.

I am sad that Daniel will never know his father. He wasn't even 2 years old when we separated so I doubt that he remembers anything. He recognizes his father in pictures, and he knows that his father got sick and died and is in Heaven now - but he's too young to understand much more than that. The older kids remember more, obviously - and we keep our talks about him centered around the good memories rather than the bad ones, as much for Daniel's sake as for our own.

I know that as time goes on, it will get easier. It is already easier in many ways - but there are still days that it sneaks up on me and it still takes me by surprise. Maybe one of these years, the day will just go on past and I won't even remember the significance of the date until later. Maybe it'll happen next year, or the year after, or 10 years down the road. Maybe it will never happen.

All I know right now is that no matter how happy I am, there is still that sadness. It's not so much for me as it is for Daniel. And although I am sad that he will never know his father, I am thrilled that he has The Dude in his life to take on the role of a father figure for him. Knowing that he will grow up with a man in his life who loves all of us in spite of everything makes the sadness easier to handle.

It's not the life that I had planned - but it's the life that we have now. And we are doing whatever we can to make sure that it is the best life possible.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

March 27, 2006 - our wedding day

We need to turn it around...

I went into the beginning of this new year full of hope and excitement. I really do think that there are going to be some wonderful things happening for me and my family this year. I was anxious to get this year started for so many positive reasons.

But then the new year started - and it didn't start well at all.

I found out on the second day of the year that one of my friends was going through a personal hell, and as a mother, it hit home for me.

On the third day, we got more devastating news that again, hit me so incredibly hard.

The Dude has been having problems with his truck. My "service engine" light was on. He has to get two teeth pulled tomorrow afternoon.

It just hasn't been a stellar start to the year. But at the same time I know that it could always be worse.

We spent part of the afternoon today working on his truck. Although we didn't get it fixed, we have now narrowed down the problem and are about 98% sure that we know what's wrong with it. He can drive it for now, for short distances, but it needs to be fixed. Of course that doesn't come for free, but we can get it taken care of in the next couple of weeks.

My "service engine" light? I had a sneaking suspicion desperate hope that it was something stupid - and it was. Turns out the gas cap wasn't on tight enough to make it happy. Stupid thing. But the light's off now, so it's good.

Tonight, however.....tonight was hard. As I mentioned the other day, a little boy who was the son of one of Sarah's mentors was killed in a horrible accident last week. As a mother, I can't even begin to imagine the impact of losing a child. I just can't wrap my head around it. After the kids got home from school and basketball practice tonight, Sarah announced that she wanted to go to the boy's viewing. I wasn't sure that it was a good idea, but she and I talked about it and she really wanted to go. I told her she would have to check with her father, since she was supposed to go to church with him tonight. He agreed that she could go, but only if I went with her. So plans quickly changed, Ex1 came and got Emily and Jared, I took Alex and Daniel over to The Dude's house, and Sarah and I went to the viewing.

It was so hard. So incredibly hard. Seeing the little boy's parents and sisters there, and the other mourners...looking at the pictures and the videos from his short little life....my heart shattered so many times tonight. Seeing the pain in his mother's eyes as she hugged me and thanked me for coming....I have tears running down my face as I'm typing this.

All I've been able to think for the past few days is "something's got to give" - there has been too much bad stuff to start off a new year. Way too much. It needs to change, and somehow we need to turn it around. So I started thinking - always dangerous for me to do.

Tomorrow, January 10, 2013 is my 2 year blogiversary. It's been 2 years since I started this crazy thing.  And Sunday, January 13, is both my 42nd birthday and the 2nd anniversary of the day that my 2nd divorce became final.

I need to celebrate. I want to celebrate. I want to be happy. While I can't forget about the bad stuff, I can't focus on it - and I don't want anyone else to focus on the bad stuff either.

So what do we do?

I know what I'm going to do. I've always been a huge fan of the "Pay it Forward" movement (as is my good friend over at Mom-troversial) and I'm going to start making a really conscious effort to pay it forward as much as I can and in as many ways as I can. I have a pile of stuff sitting by my front door already that needs to be donated - and it's going to go out this week. We have toys that the kids have outgrown or they don't like or whatever. Guess what? They're going out the door too.

I've made up my mind that I am going to do as much as I can for two of my favorite local organizations too - our homeless shelter and our women's safe house. I have my own personal reasons for choosing those two in particular, but they're going to be getting some of my time, my money, and any of my "stuff" that they can use.

So - for my blogiversary and for my birthday, this is the best gift that anyone could give to me (*cough* along with a pair of warm fuzzy slippers so that I don't have to keep wearing The Dude's that are 18 sizes too big for me *cough*). Go out and do something for someone. Donate something somewhere. Be nice to someone. Donate something that you don't need anymore instead of selling it. Volunteer your time. If you have the cash, make a donation to a local organization that needs it. There are so many ways that we can make someone else's life just a little bit easier, but we overlook those things so often in our hurry to deal with our own lives. Pay it forward, people. Please.

So go and do it, and tell me what you did. Leave it in a comment here, post it on my facebook wall, send me an email, whatever. Tell the world that you did it, and maybe you'll inspire someone else to do the same thing.

The Story of Us

It has been a year - exactly one year ago today was the day that The Dude and I went on our first date.

But there is so much backstory leading up to that night that I thought that I would finally share all of it now. We've hinted around about it before, but I have never really spilled all of the details.

My second husband and I split up in May 2009. I knew at that time that it was over and that there was no turning back as far as that relationship went. I was done with it, and as far as I was concerned, I was done with relationships entirely.

But, as time went on and after my divorce was final in January 2011, I thought that maybe I was ready to put myself out there again. So I half-heartedly set up an account on one of those *cough* wonderful free online dating sites. I messaged back and forth with a few guys, and even went out on a few dates, but none of it felt right. And after my ex unexpectedly passed away, I suddenly realized that I was NOT ready to be dating. I had way too many emotions to work through at that point. So I quickly hid my profile on the dating site, and promptly forgot about it.

Months passed, and my mental state improved. I don't know if anyone really knows just how deeply his death affected me - but it did. There were a lot of unresolved issues, and there were many things that I had to learn to accept before I could think about moving forward with my life. Finally, I felt like I was there.

So in about mid-September or so, I unhid my profile on that site. I tweaked it a bit, and added a few more pictures along with more disclaimers - for instance "I am NOT a booty call", "I will NOT send you naked pictures", "I have 5 kids with 3 different fathers, so if that bothers you then you need to move along because it can't be changed" and other things like that. Buried in the midst of my profile was a little blurb that said something to the effect of "I don't go to the gym, but I do try to walk/jog several times per week and I'm currently training for my second half-marathon - there's a story behind that, so if you'd like to know it, just ask".

Anyway, more messaging back and forth with various guys, more dates that never went anywhere, more idiots who only wanted a booty call or naked pictures, and more morons who wanted to just jump straight into a relationship.

 Somewhere around mid-November, I decided that I was done with even attempting to meet someone. Either that site was useless, or I was an idiot-magnet, or something. But I was done with it. I decided that instead of just hiding my profile, I was going to delete it for good. I was looking around for the 'delete' button and I couldn't find it anywhere. Then I got distracted and had to walk away from the computer again.

When I came back to the computer a couple of hours later, I was downright disgusted to see that I had another message in my inbox on that site. I seriously almost deleted it without even looking but I thought no, that would be rude, and I might as well read it. So I sat down and looked. I looked at the guy's profile first and thought "hmmmm.... he's cute" and so I opened the message fully expecting to see another "hey baby" or "wanna chat" looking at me.

Instead, his message read something like "They say curiosity killed the cat. I'm not feline, but I'd love to know the story behind the half-marathon".

I sat back in my chair, surprised. Here was a guy who obviously actually read my profile and paid attention to it - and he knew how to capitalize the appropriate words and didn't type in text-speak. I figured that it wouldn't hurt to message him back before I deleted my profile.

I think we messaged back and forth until about 4am that night.  And the next night. And for several more after that. We talked about so many things in those messages - and it was so easy.

Neither one of us can remember for sure how long we messaged back and forth like that, but it was somewhere in the 1-2 week range - and then we decided to meet. Thanksgiving was coming, and so he asked me what my schedule with the kids was like for the next few days. I told him (figuring that if anything was going to scare him, the multiple holiday custody arrangements that go along with having multiple kids with multiple fathers would) but instead he suggested that we just meet at Burger King the day after Thanksgiving so that I could bring Daniel with me and he could play in the playground while we talked, and I would not have to pay for a sitter. Surprised by his willingness to work around my schedule, I agreed.

So, on November 25, 2011 we met face to face for the very first time. We sat and chatted and watched Daniel play for probably 2 hours or more. Then he came over to my house the next day to watch a movie, and we ended up talking (yes, talking) until 4am.

It took a few weeks for me to get up the nerve to agree that this was what I wanted. I went into it saying "no relationship" and just kind of found myself in one. But I vowed that it wasn't going to get serious. Seeing each other exclusively was fine - but no, it wasn't going to be serious.

Five months into it, we admitted that we loved each other. And here we are a year later.

Yeah, we kind of like each other.
And this might be one of my favorite pictures of us.

Had to gross out the kids with this one!

It hasn't been the easiest year. We've definitely had our ups and downs, but we've been able to work through all of it together and we've come out stronger than ever each time. We still talk about everything. We don't make major decisions without discussing them first. We have been brutally honest with each other, and have hurt each other's feelings plenty of times, but at the same time the honesty is what keeps us strong as a couple. It's something that I've never had the chance to experience before, and I have to admit that it is amazing. We've made it through major holidays with extended family, a cross-country road trip with the kids, massive catastrophic mechanical failure in my van, health issues for both of us.....all of that on top of the typical stress that I deal with on a normal basis with the kids and school and custody.... and we still like love each other.

He's still the first thing I think of when I wake up in the morning and the last thing I think of when I fall asleep at night. I still get butterflies in my stomach when I see him walk into the room and he can still make me melt with just a look from him.

I don't know what I did to deserve a man like him, but I'm not going to argue.

Happy anniversary, babe. I love you!

Milestones

I mentioned on my facebook page a little earlier this evening that I have some milestones to celebrate this week.

The first couple kind of snuck by without much hoopla, since I haven't been feeling well.

January 7, 2005 - the day that my first divorce became final. Honestly, I pretty much forgot about that one this year. I think I mentioned something about it to The Dude the night before or something, but it just kind of breezed on by this time.

January 10, 2011 - just over a year ago - my first blog post as Non-Stop Mom. Wow. I'm actually impressed by that, because I never expected to stick with it this long, but it's been a blast. While I am nowhere near "big blogger" status, I find it amazing that this thing has been viewed over 36,000 times. I mean, really, is it *that* interesting?

January 12, 1998 - 14 years ago today - I arrived in Kansas, intent on making a home here. I had driven from Long Island, NY to here over the span of 5 days with everything that I owned packed in a Ryder truck with my car on a dolly behind it and my cat in a carrier on the passenger seat.

Why did I do it? Why did I move halfway across the country? This is a question that I get asked a lot. Without going into deep, dark details about a period of my life that still embarrasses me, suffice it to say that I moved out here to pursue a relationship with someone who I had met online. Keep in mind that 14 years ago, meeting someone online wasn't as socially acceptable as it is now. I had met him in "real life" and things seemed to be genuine, so I packed up and moved. It was after I got here and landed a really good job that I found out that he wasn't as honest about some things as he should have been - specifically, about his marital status.

Anyway, like I said, I had a really good job, and rather than tucking my tail in between my legs and running back east, I decided to stick it out and start a new life. I soon met the man who would become Ex1, and the rest is history.

Now, 2 marriages and 5 kids later, there isn't much that I would change about how I ended up here. I made some horrible choices, but I also made some really good ones, and they all led me to where I am today. My life hasn't turned out exactly the way that I had planned, but I really can't complain about much. I have 5 wonderful kids and a boyfriend who has shown me more about the way that a relationship is supposed to work than both ex-husbands combined ever did.

And then of course, there's tomorrow. January 13, 2012. The first anniversary of the second divorce becoming final, and my 41st birthday. Yep, I admitted it. No use fighting it, is there?

Before you ask, no, we have no plans. I still don't feel great, and now The Dude is sick after taking care of us all week. So I'll just get the kids off to school and do my thing like I usually do, just with no running since my lungs are still filled up with razor blades. Maybe I'll take the kids out to dinner or something. I have no idea, but I'm sure that it will be fun.