Life Updates

Figured I do a “life update” sort of post. Partially because lists are awesome and partially because not a heck of a lot is going on!

• I got rid of Food at OSN (not like anyone was really aware of it!) and will just go back to posting my recipes and such here.
• I’ve been back on Weight Watchers Online for about a month now and have lost 12 lbs!
• How does one remove super deep and large bush stumps without paying a fortune to a landscaper / owning a bobcat?
• It’s almost farmer’s market time! SO EXCITED!
• I decided to get an account over at ThisLife based on my friend’s recommendations on her post, This Little Life of Mine: Keeping My Life’s Memories Safe with ThisLife! LOVE IT SO MUCH! I had to get their largest plan naturally lol!
• I bought two new books that I’m super excited about, Deadlocked: A Sookie Stackhouse Novel and Beyond the Sling!
• My heart is just… overwhelmed with emotion for Diana, if you aren’t up to date on what’s going on for her, please offer your support for her and her unborn twin boys. She wrote a post about the current situation they are going through. The babies were born this morning. Please keep her and her family in your thoughts.
• Haven’t heard from my mother after the last post where I shared the comments she had made, maybe it’s finally over with!
• As some of you may be aware of, @kitchenwitch and I aren’t on speaking terms anymore (oh drama!). Why? Who knows (not me, that’s for sure) but alas, lesson learned. If a person isn’t the same as they portray themselves online (I guess I wasn’t special enough to get the online persona)? Probably is a red flag. Eh, doubt anyone really wants to know more than that.
• Got my oldest son Daniel set up with an IEP at his school, thinking happy shiny positive thoughts.
• Also got my oldest son his very own iPhone! Due in part because we washed his iPod touch and in part because I’m a paranoid parent and like being in contact with him when he goes over to his friends houses (he doesn’t bring it to school… unless it was a field trip maybe).
• Got myself the iPhone 4s! I previously had the iPhone 3gs. I upgraded for the camera, naturally lol. Gave my old phone to Tristan with all of his apps. I still need a case for it. Hard to find something purple and/or glittery! I just want something that is fantastic.
• Been loving my shows lately! Especially Fringe, The Good Wife, Revenge, Missing, Awake, and Once Upon a Time!
• A friend of mine has an AMAZING photo collage template up for a free download. So go download it! She also wrote a tutorial on how to use the template!
• I already got my May “It Girl” Julep Box! Just need to do some swatches and then I’ll post about it! Just a bit said that I missed out on the add-on polishes because the site wasn’t working for me at the time.
• In World of Warcraft, I’m going to freaking lose it. I’ve spent MONTHS trying to get Vyragosa with NO luck! That damn dragon is all I need to finish Frostbitten.
• The husband and I are still pondering if we want to have a third child within the next two years. What made YOU decide to have more kids or to STOP having more children?
• I bought the domain starrymom.com awhile back, trying to figure out what to do with it. Any suggestions?
• I really want to get another tattoo, just not sure WHAT to get.
• I miss the show Wife Swap.
• Does anyone watch The Voice? Tony Lucca FTW!
• After going 13 years without central air conditioning, I appreciate it all the more… especially when it’s 83 degrees with 58% humidity!

Bonus photos!

Songs I’m Loving

I thought it’d be fun to share some of the songs I’m really into lately (well the videos I could find anyway!). So here they are in their YouTube glory! Oh and yes. I am a HUGE Glee fan.

Follow-Up to “My Mom Abused Me”

My mother left numerous comments on the post I wrote a few days ago, Yeah, My Mom Abused me, How About Yours?”.

At first I left them published but then they got more and more… weird. So I put them back as pending. I know some people already have read them while they were still published or they were subscribed to the comments so they got them in their email. I’ve since decided that since she posted public comments on a public post that it’s appropriate to share them, I’m sure some of you are curious what her response was.

I’ve not edited them in any way, not even for grammar or punctuation. I apologize for the all caps, that’s just how she writes online. I did bold the parts I thought were the MOST… bizarre… to me anyway.

I know not everyone agrees with my decision to post ANY of my past, much less the response I’ve gotten from my mother, however, I am doing my best to process and heal. For me that means no longer hiding it. I still do feel a lot of shame stemming from everything though. I feel dirty and WRONG because I know now, more so than I did THEN, how very wrong it was to have a parent do and say the things that were done and said to me. I’ve not brought up her relationship with my brother because there really wasn’t one. He left when he was 13yrs old and was basically raised by our father. To my knowledge, he really hasn’t had a ton of contact with her since.

Also, funny enough, I found a thread on a message board about her, how she stole, lied, and committed fraud (for gardening things and on Ebay). That was weird for me, seeing OTHER people see her as an online “troll”. Weird to have that as your parent!

Some parts of comments are a bit confusing (stuff she brings up) so I explained them using footnotes.

I’m not surprised she brought my father up and even though we’ve had our issues, he has since than more than made up for it by letting my child and I live with him, rent-free, for six years (when I was a single mom to DS1) and has helped me a lot over the past 10 years. He also has never lied to me about the past, made excuses for his past behavior, or threatened to kill me or expose me to sex shops or pornography as a child. He was only in my childhood up until the age of 10 and I saw him sporadically after that until I was 20 years old with my then new baby and moved into a 3-bedroom apt with him and my son’s bio-dad.

Also? She only lives 7hours and 45minutes away from me. We live in the day and age of mail service, email, video, phone, etc.

1. Not true. I have been diagnosed with depression though, no wonder heh [↩]
2. Sadly, she did. This is right when I got out of the hospital for mono. I was on the couch when my lawyer called me about it and then ended up staying at my best friend’s house because I was so scared. [↩]
3. This also isn’t exactly true. I was the driver but my brother, sister, and brother’s friend were in the car. Brother’s friend pulled the wheel. I hit some concrete and broke the axle. I took responsibility and admitted fault. [↩]
4. Yep, she got less than two hundred a week in child support which she would spend on china or linens. She didn’t have a job from when I was about 11 until long after I left at 17 years old. Which meant my sister and I didn’t have money for lunches or clothes. Generally my father would send large checks for birthdays and holidays so we could buy clothes and such for the rest of the year. I also worked two jobs, Taco Bell and Baskin Robbins yo! [↩]
5. Yep, she did say she dreamed of burning me alive to two police officers. It’s how she ended up in the psych ward for 48hrs and how my sister and I ended up in the shelter the first time. [↩]
6. Not bipolar, I’ve been tested because I do worry since my mother is bipolar. I have been diagnosed with depression though, not “deep” depression. I also have issues with PTSD and anxiety after the traumatic pregnancy and birth of my second child. [↩]
7. I doubt the police officers that picked me up from my then boyfriend’s house, who would later end up being the bio-father to my first son, would make that up. I was even tested and searched for cocaine because they said “Your mother told us you were dealing and doing cocaine so we had to pick you up.” [↩]
8. I’ve always said I have issues moving on from my traumatic past. Yep! [↩]
9. Huh? No words for this one. [↩]
10. She didn’t take her medication during this period of time, it wasn’t until a long time after did she take medication consistently [↩]
11. She lived 4 hours away from me for over a year. She made the journey to visit my niece. Ok… [↩]
12. I really am lost here. I RARELY talked back. I wasn’t perfect. I ran away from home at 17 because I couldn’t handle waiting until I was 18. I’ve been arrested when I was a minor. Yep [↩]
13. Uh. Talking about MY direct past isn’t something I can be sued for, pretty sure about that, however, bring it on. [↩]
14. Covered this already. [↩]
15. Again with my sister? [↩]
16. Wow. My husband just LOVED this bit. [↩]
17. Not sure where this all comes from. My son has been in school the whole year, granted I have issues with the education but that’s my perspective. Really confused about this. [↩]
18. Again, confused. One of these days I’ll post photos of their overflowing bookcases and closets. Not sure where that all stems from. [↩]
19. Wow, THIRD TIME about my sister. Not sure when she’s been there for me much less during a crisis situation. She did help pay my co-pays to my then OB when I was pregnant with my oldest 10+ years ago though. She also paid for an emergency tooth extraction in 2006 as well for me. [↩]
20. More about my sister. I guess they had an epic conversation about me apparently. Didn’t know I lost her either. News to me. [↩]

So basically, I’m an awful daughter, sister, mother, and wife. My makeup is destroying EVERYONE. OH and everything was my fault. Gotcha! It’s all so clear now! Oh and I’ll end up alone forever. I know that’s a bit sarcastic. Coping mechanism for the win!

Seriously though, I didn’t expect an apology. I do wonder why she skipped over all the sexual stuff she said/did (Honestly? That wasn’t even the worst of it, I only covered one year in that post). I actually don’t grasp 80% of what she said because it just didn’t make sense to me. I really wasn’t surprised how many times she brought up my twin sister. She’s always made it crystal clear that she favored her.

I’m not sure how I, as a child, could have provoked her enough, what I DID to cause this. Seriously, how did 4yr old ME somehow FORCE my mother to toss cold medicine in my face (when I refused to drink it) and call me a little bitch. Or a 6yr old me being told (as I was told my entire life with her) that she wished she had an abortion with me. Even when I was a teenager… I didn’t talk back or put her down. I recall a few of my friends witnessing some of her… moments. Yes I ended up running away. Yes I ended up dropping out of high school (I then worked 2 jobs). I’m not sure how that “earned” or “deserved” what went on from birth until 18.

I do wonder if I can handle posting about my past, any part of it, again. It’s hard to open up like this and feel judged for it. I know it has to make some people feel uncomfortable, especially if they grew up in a healthy or even semi-healthy environment with their parents or caregivers. However, maybe someone can relate to what I went through and know they aren’t alone.

I promise, I’ll go back to my fluffy posts from now on!

Yeah My Mom Abused Me… How About Yours?

After asking on my private twitter what I should blog about, fluff vs my depressing past, I decided to go with… DEPRESSING PAST!

Aren’t you lucky?

If I wasn’t so sleep deprived I’d just make a list because it’s easier but alas, sleep deprived.

So the other night my husband and I were up super duper late and somehow the conversation came around to my past. He knows ENOUGH of it to feel bad for me and to really dislike some members of my family, but to tell him even more? To wonder if he’s going to see how fucked up I really am? Not the easiest.

I asked him if his mother ever made him a microwavable meal while having a porn movie playing on the small TV in the kitchen or if she ever drove him to a sex shop (not the oh so classy kind but the kind that makes you look where you step) and get pissed when he didn’t get a “toy” that she felt was “suitable” (for the record, I got dice and fuzzy handcuffs, the least threatening objects I could find at the time).

How about the first time you end up in the teen shelter (the one and only time your twin was in a shelter), this time only for a weekend, because you felt you had to call 911 on your own mother because you were scared she was going to seriously injure your sister, to have your mother tell the arriving police officers that she wanted you, JUST YOU, to go because she would dream about setting ME on fire and burning me alive. However, a statement like that got her a weekend in the mental ward and us girls into a shelter.

Ah, if only I knew then that that first exposure to the shelter would give my mother the idea, the brilliance, to send me there anytime she got angry at me, or in her words “I feel MANIC today” while saying how she wished she never had kids, wished she had an abortion… maybe I would have tried to explore other options like emancipation.

Or how about the living situation getting SO BAD you end up running away across the country (to the man who’d later be the father to your first born) only to have the police show up after getting a phone call from your mother saying you’re doing and dealing cocaine? One look at me could show them how untrue that was. Even better? Two months later she personally drove me back to the airport to go back to live with him because the court decided she couldn’t keep sending me off to shelters for no reason except for she had dreams of burning me alive.

This all happened in about a year time span. Literally. All in ONE YEAR.

You all envy me. Hardcore. I can tell. Besides, I’ve written about her before.

If you hear my twin sister talk about our past, our mother, she would say she had a hard time too. I don’t doubt it. My mother was cruel with her words and even though my sister got the better end of the deal from my perspective (a car, computer, bed, didn’t have to work, none of the sexual stuff, etc), I’m sure she has her own issues to process. Although to my current knowledge, she and our mother still talk on the phone weekly. So maybe not?

I don’t acknowledge her as a grandmother to my boys because she never has acted as such. She only has met my oldest twice. Once when he was 18 months old and we drove up and visited her for my birthday a few years ago and the second time is when she came down right away to meet and visit with my twin sister’s newborn daughter (at the time). He was 6 years old and had no idea who she was really. She’s never met, or made any effort to meet, my youngest son. He’s going to be 3 years old this October. She’s never met or spoken to my husband. She never met my oldest son’s biological father.

So why do I post about this now? Today? No specific reason really. It’s just always bouncing around in my brain. Years of therapy, especially as a teenager WHILE all of this was going on, didn’t help. Really, I think it’s just the older I get, the older my kids get, the more paranoid I become. What if I turn out like her? My twin sister is already following her path. My brother has zero relationship with her.

I don’t deny that she has mental health problems or that marriage to my father wasn’t detrimental to her, but it’s hard to tell what is real and what is her own created reality when she talks about her past, her present… it’s hard to dig through the lies hoping for a bit of truth.

I am beyond 100% positive that this post will upset her, will end in a flurry of emails and letters to my siblings or even to myself, even though we’ve been estranged for a long time now. I will even bet that my sister will be upset as well, that I didn’t perceive her life to be as difficult as mine, that sure, she was given a car, but when I had moved back in after a failed attempt with living with my father (a glorious story for another time), my mother took the car away, so that means life was ROUGH for her too dammit!

I feel like I make conscious decisions to be BETTER for my kids, healthier for them both physically and mentally. I make more of an effort to talk about it, mostly to my husband, but still. To try and get it out of my head. To stop my nightmares.

But deep down? I still feel like that terrified child wondering if her mother was actually going to burn her alive.

Random Life Updates

You know what’s super awesome and fun? Life.

Starting Wednesday the 22^nd and lasting until a few days ago I’ve been living in excruciating pain.

It began Wednesday with a TWO HOUR MEETING at my oldest son’s school with over six individuals about where he is educationally and about the bullying issues we’ve been dealing with. To sum it up because I still am so very angry… his school is utterly useless. The principal and his teacher? Could give a shit about what my son is having to deal with each and every day just because he’s taller than the rest of his bitchy little classmates. EVERY DAY I ask him if he wants to stay home because I will not be one of those parents that forces their child to go to school to be bullied and every day he tells me he’s “hoping” today will be BETTER, that the little evil children will be KIND to him. He is far too generous and forgiving.

I told him this morning that if it happens again and he tells the nearest teacher, his own teacher, and the principal and NO ONE DOES ANYTHING? I’m going to the superintendent and filing a report.

I despise this school. There’s so much more but it would require writing a novel.

He wants to finish out the 4^th grade here and then be homeschooled (we previously unschooled after he was in the useless public school system here for two years) for 5^th grade and see after that if he wants to attempt middle school.

Then it’s Thursday and I went in for my scheduled perio-scaling. What’s that? Oh a joyous procedure where you get around four shots of Novocaine and they use metal power tools to scrape under and around your tender gums. My appointment was in the morning, 10am, so I didn’t eat or drink ANYTHING. During the procedure my dentist asked me if I would allow her to find another dentist to do a root canal for me THAT DAY. I said SURE since everything I was told was that a root canal doesn’t really hurt.

So I head over (still numb) to dentist #2. Where he does my second set of x-rays (this is important) and then visually inspects the tooth to see it has a huge crack and had to be extracted and couldn’t be “saved”. Oh but wait, he doesn’t DO extractions.

Off to a THIRD dentist and a THIRD set of x-rays (again, important!). So mind you, STILL NUMB on the left side of my mouth. At this point it’s past 6pm. I now get FOUR MORE shots of Novocaine on the RIGHT side of my mouth. So my entire mouth is numb. He pulls the tooth and says, “YAY we got it!” and then… looks at my mouth… gives me a look of pity and says, “Oh I am so sorry about what’s about to happen!”. Huh? He just said he had the tooth… right?

Longgggg story short, turns out after THREE sets of x-rays no one saw the SECRET ROOT! So he had to then chisel, chip away, yank with dental pliers, and drill the crap out of my poor tender mouth.

Let me remind you it’s about 7pm and I’ve not had ONE drop of ANY beverage and not one crumb of any food item.

I get sent home and by the time it was around 10pm I was in sheer agony. All I could do was cry. My husband went and filled my Tylenol w/codeine prescription (which I wasn’t going to fill because I don’t like taking meds in GENERAL much less while breastfeeding) and I then took one as per the label on the bottle.

Didn’t do a damn thing. So now we are into the wee hours of Friday morning. Around 5:30a I wake up with a blinding migraine and proceed to call my poor twin sister BAWLING which in turn made her start to cry because the pain of my head combined with all the oral trauma was simply too much. I want to cry again just thinking about it! My husband gave me another Tylenol w/codeine and my normal migraine cocktail. Not only did nothing work but the pain got worse so off to the ER we went. Which let me tell you, putting a migraine sufferer in a LOUD and BRIGHT waiting room for 40 minutes before even seeing them? Doesn’t help. Not one bit! After a ton of BS from the on call doctors (they were convinced it was caused by getting my tooth extracted, rather than my over 20 years of being a migraine sufferer and that I had been to this ER a few times in the past for migraines), I finally got an IV which took a bit since I was super dehydrated, and some medication that took merely the edge off.

Yeah, tired of reading all that? Ugh.

So I’m NOW finally feeling a small bit better.

I gained three pounds over February so getting back into gear with MyFitnessPal and using my Fitbit. Even been attempting to do C25k on my treadmill. I can barely get half way through but still, I can stumble and gasp my way through “running” at 4mph / 1.0 incline for about a whole MINUTE. Still feel like crap afterwards, working out makes me more aware of my fatness, also? Weird and random pain after, for example, my throat feels like it’s on FIRE after attempting to pretend to be someone who is super athletic.

Anyway, here’s some random photos.

Isn’t that pretty? I love my Lacquistry nail polishes! They have their own shelf now!

Oh my little one? HARDCORE into drawing lately. He has these stories too on what he’s drawing and is really good with details and circles! Keep in mind he isn’t even 2 1/2yrs old yet!

And for kicks, here’s a photo of him from a couple hours ago, decided to go black and white for once! This is his “Momma has the camera out AGAIN!” smile. I usually get either the smile, a thumbs up, or a combo of both.

Lastly, my recent Instagram photos!

Protected: Venting

Stopping NaBloPoMo

I know there’s only a week left but the quality of content has just… it doesn’t even exist anymore. So stopping now before it gets even worse!

Thanksgiving

I hope everyone had a lovely Thanksgiving.

We didn’t celebrate this year because not only am I super sick (2^nd migraine in 48 hours, meds only NOW kicking in) and having to use the neti pot (because I don’t like taking any medication that could affect my milk supply like a decongestant), but my husband worked all day so no point in doing a huge meal.

Instead, having take-out Mexican from a local place. Probably going to eat it in the living room and watch Chopped.

It was nice though, my twin sister came by for a bit today, it was mainly for her to watch the boys so I could rest but I had the migraine meds in me so she made us grilled cheese sandwiches and we burned music cd’s while she watched (and yelled at the TV) the Packer’s football game. I even did her eye makeup in Packer colors.

I have my answer post almost done, just need to take some photos so if you want to ASK ME ANYTHING you still have time before that post goes up in a couple days!

Sick

I’m really sick. Trying to rest.

NaBloPoMo Filler Post

I planned on answering all of your questions today however I’m super sick and can’t form a complete thought (plus I need to shoot photos for some of my answers) so that will be for tomorrow!

If you have ANY question about ANYTHING at all, ask away! The more the merrier!

I had two shiny happy moments today which makes me being sick… tolerable enough. I got my new Stila Glitter nail polish sets in the mail today and the November BirchBox (which has a mini Zoya Polish). Also it was my older son’s parent-teacher conference today and it went very well.

Going back to being super congested and miserable physically (this cold rain isn’t helping), at least my little one is getting a TON of anti-bodies through his milkies!

I made zero sense in this post.

SHINY GLITTER HAPPY RAINBOWS!!!!

• WordlessWednesday: Hair Fluffs
• Blast from the Past: Old OSN Designs
• Leap into Spring: Finale
• Leap into Spring: Grass/Green
• Bubbles
• May 2012 Julep Maven It Girl Box
• Life Updates
• Leap into Spring: Rain/Water

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