I am Tired.

Madeline Kahn is one of my all time favorites. I am also a big fan of the slap stick comedy of Mel Brooks.

This morning, this song came to my mind as I awoke from yet another sleepless night. I am tired.

I am tired of interviews

I am tired of job search engines

I am tired of paying the minimum on monthly bills.

I am tired of working deals with creditors.

I am tired of turning friends down for fun/ expensive activities

I am tired of building meals out of what is in the pantry.

I am tired of car problems I can't afford to fix.

I am tired of broken down swamp coolers.

I am tired of pulling weeds.

I am tired of mowing my own lawn.

I am tired of daytime TV

I am tired of saying NO to my kids because I can't afford it.

I am tired of stress.

I am tired of sleepless nights.

I am tired of selling myself over and over.

I am tired of getting rejection letters.

I am tired of scrimping and saving just to pay the bills.

I am tired of .....

Please let this all come to an end soon. I am exhausted. Much like the video above, it was a bit humorous for a while...now it is just tiring!

Why I blog-

People who do not blog or have never even read a blog don't understand fully the depth of a blog.

I began my blog a couple years ago to tell my story. It didn't matter if no one commented on it or even read it. It was MY place. A place where I could write out my feelings much like a journal and memories I would like to keep forever in print. It has become so much more.

Blogging is a social community. A place to read about and possible help others. Some who may be fighting the same fight as you. Other single parents making their way through life's struggles and joy. Others who understand the challenge of dating as a parent. Others who may be facing challenges in their lives that may or may not be similar to your own. Others who have much advice and happiness to share.

I have been able to empathize with so many others in this virtual world. Made virtual friends who I may or may not actually meet face to face some day but who I would like to.

It is like a virtual 'Friends' coffee shop. Friends meeting at Central Perk to discuss life's intricacies. Most times without repercussion. It is a feel good place to be.

But then there are times it hits you hard in the heart. And you realize it is so much more than virtual. It is real. You follow some through battles too large to overcome.
Such is the case for a man I have followed from the beginning. He was one of the first blogs I read.

A Single father of two beautiful and young kids. He began his most recent blog near the same time as I began mine and in his post, he was just undergoing a biopsy. Which turned out to be malignant. It all started from a tiny mole found on his ear.

The past two years, I have followed the ups and downs of his story. His fear of doctors news, his anguish awaiting test results. His time with his kids. His dating life. He has had such a positive outlook on life no matter the struggle.

Yesterday September 18, 2010 his struggle ended. His words bring tears to my eyes.
"I'm sorry, everyone. I did my best."  


If you didn't get a chance to know Depot dad You missed knowing a great and courageous man.


There is a sadness in the blogging world today. RIP Jim. Peace to you and your young children. 

Penalties imposed for doing the right thing?

For the past twenty two years, I have worked full-time.

For the past thirteen years, I have been a single mother.
For ten of those years I have been a full-time or part-time college student. For all of those years, finances have been a stress in my life.

Making it financially is hard for new couples just beginning life together. The economic downswing making it that more difficult.
Being a single parent adds to the stress both financially and in workload  vs hours in the day. There are not enough hours in the day for most full-time employees, more so for working parents, and even more so for single parents who work. If you attend night school, God help you.

But that has been the life I have led for a long time.

Recently I graduated from night school. And some time was freed up. The older my kids get, the less they demand of me too. I was unlucky enough to finish night school just as the jobless rates increased. I was also lucky enough to work for three companies who in turn held huge lay-offs in order to cut costs and/or send manufacturing to foreigners to save money.

I have written about surviving in an 'old boys club' field of work. And about juggling motherhood and single parenthood. I have written here about struggling to complete my own school studies while helping the kids with theirs.

I have also written about my school project on the differences between the wages of men and women when comparing the equal education and experience levels.

I have fought a long struggle, I have made the money I have worked for and earned work for me. Both combined with my child support and also in times when I was receiving none. I have made it through. I have one more child to get through school.

I have never qualified for any assistance, government or otherwise. I have done it all on my own.
Nothing reduced, nothing paid for me. (albeit the occasional save from my family when an appliance broke down)

I have rarely complained.

However this article got my attention.

http://www.businessweek.com/careers/workingparents/blog/archives/2009/06/the_motherhood.html

I have heard the stories often.

A full-time working mother struggling to make ends meet, needs just a leg-up, a small subsidy to help pay a medical bill, or put some food on the table for the month... a reduced price for her kids public school fees or lunches. Just a small supplement to aid her while she is doing all she can to survive.. and she is told:

I cannot help you. You do not qualify. You make too much money. But if you quit your job and go on full assistance, we can qualify you for everything!

This is a broken system. I do not know how to fix it. But I have lived it.

What are solutions?

Why do we penalize those who work hard.

Why are you penalized for being a woman? ( my thoughts on the reason this one was put into place was when women were thought of as the supplemental income- which is really not the case these days)

Why are we penalized for being working mothers? Mothers who tend to give 110% as they feel guilty if they need any extra time off.

and

Why are we penalized when we give all we have to make our kids, our employers, our instructors and our own selves happy in every hour of every day?

I have never taken a sick day just because my child was sick, I made other arrangements.
I have never asked for more time on my school assignments because I am too busy with my kids or life. Most of my teachers didn't even know I was a mother or single.
I never qualified or lied in order to qualify for reductions or waiver of food, fees, bills, etc. I went without and my kids went without the latest gadgets and things we would certainly love to have but could not afford.

We made it through and I think my kids are better for it. They know the value of a dollar, they understand and are sympathetic of those things they went without. But it doesn't make it any easier on a parent knowing they did all they could and still could not provide all they wished they could.

But why the mistreatment? Why penalties are imposed on those working to make it better, I will not know.

We acquire the strength we have overcome. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

If you have not read my story part 1, part 2 and part 3 you may want to read it before this post.

There is so much more to this story than this small segment from my teen years. And I may share more of that story here. For now, just this.

The year following the birth of my baby, T and I continued to date. That following May I graduated from high school. We spent our summer apart. He at basic training at Ft Leonard wood and I  worked the summer at the wonderful grand canyon. The time apart was hard and it was probably good for us too. 

We married the next June and within four years we had three more children together. We were a family, a happy family. It is funny how your mind works. Like a keyword into a computer search, a particular word or event would bring something to mind. When I was pregnant with my son, Jeremy women would often tell me what to expect with the pregnancy. It was so hard not to say 'I know'. I was honest with my doctor, he knew about the previous birth. He had to. But it was a strange feeling to have 'been here before'.

Many times through life, I would wonder where he was, and was he happy. Would I someday discover him on a news story or in a store? Evey time I heard the name Caleb, I would take a second closer look. I wondered would I recognize him if I did. 

After nine years of marriage, we were divorced. That is a story in itself. It was a bit bitter at times, his second wife could be really mean with me, with my children. T and I had always said we would, when we felt the time was right, sit our own children down and tell them about the past, about their brother. But when is the right time?

I didn't have to answer that. While visiting their father one weekend when my oldest was just in the sixth grade, my ex felt it his place to make that decision. When my children returned to me that Sunday I was stunned to hear them ask. 

"Do we have a big brother?"

I sat my children down and we talked. I explained to them that yes, they had a brother. That there was a chance they may meet him again some day. But that it was up to him and we must respect that. I explained how some families cannot have children and that what their father and I had endured although not easy, was a miracle for another couple. They had a lot of questions but in their young minds, made some sense of it. 

In the years since that conversation, he has come up a few times. My children ask me if I would like to find him. They would tell me that they would like to find him. I explained that it was a closed adoption and that it was up to him, when he turned eighteen, he would be able to get information to find us if he chose. If he chose not to dredge up his past that too was his choice. 

October 2004 Caleb turned eighteen and he was once again on my mind. I knew the files were legally locked but hoped that someone, somewhere had information. This is the time of the internet,I just wondered where he was, what he looked like and how he was doing. I didn't want to interrupt his life if he was happy. I had given up the right to be his mother. 

But I did search. There were sights with men named Caleb. I would peruse photos of these men, looking for traces of our family lineage... But always came up short and really with little information to go on, it is like finding a needle in a haystack. 

I remember finding a site it was a virtual version of a bulletin board. You could read through the heartbreaking stories of people searching for adopted family members. Some were taken from drug abusing parents and siblings were searching for them. Some were born in the fifties and sixties and were taken from their young parents because of what was seen as guilt or family disgrace.

Reading those stories I was grateful that I had the choice to make. It was a huge site with pages and pages of posts. So many lost souls. 

I searched the site the best I could for a Caleb in California. And although California is a large state and Caleb is a pretty uncommon name, I came up short. If he had been awaiting his eighteenth birthday to find his past, if he was out there looking for me. ( and I had no reason to think he was) he had not been to this site. 

And life went on. 

Until July 21st of last year. 

I received a message on my facebook account. An account I had opened to get back in touch with many old classmates following our 20 year class reunion. Facebook shows that you have a message similar to email and there is a small thumbnail of that users profile picture. I clicked on the message and before I had a chance to read the message, that tiny little picture took my breath away.

It was as if my ex husband was staring out at me from the screen, but not quite. Then I read these words:

I'm sorry if you can't help me, but I've been looking around for a person that may or may not be yourself.

I was born in Provo Utah on October 2, 1986. I was adopted and moved. After various searches online your name came up with a variant spelling of my own. Yours as the birth mother and mine as the adoptee. Should I know you better than I do? 

Yes! Yes it was him.My son had found me and there was no mistaking. I cannot tell you the strange feeling to be looking at your son, a son you have not seen since he was born, since he was 8 lbs. And here was a man staring back at you and you know he is your son. There was no mistaking.

We have chatted many times online. He is a happy, healthy 23 year old living in an adjoining state. We have made plans to meet, the kids, I and Him. He calls me mom. We are all excited to meet. He has asked a few questions but he understands. He has told me that in that situation he feels he may have done the same thing. He is not hurt, he has had a wonderful life and he is grateful.
This summer the kids and I hope to drive to see him. He is full-blood sibling to my children. They all have the same genes. I suppose there may be more to this story after the meeting.  Things have a way of working out.


I know God will not give me anything I can't handle.  I just wish that He didn't trust me so much. - Mother Teresa

Although I love this Place

Utah has been getting press lately regarding the air quality around here.
No offense to the people who live there but usually when the topic of bad air quality is debated, La comes to mind. And well,  to be honest, Salt Lake City usually brings to mind images similar to Denver or Tahoe. Clear bright blue skies with pristine snow caps.
Not this year!
*Cough* *Cough* *Sputter*
It seems that no less than four of the northern major cities in the state have qualified for the 'worst air in the nation' list.
Wintertime in the Rockies it is not uncommon to see a large low cloud hanging low into the valleys, a cloud large enough to run mountain bench to mountain bench. This large looming cloud is called an inversion.

With the ceasing of convection, which is normally present in the atmosphere, a number of phenomena are associated with a temperature inversion. The air becomes stiller, hence the air becomes murky because dust and pollutants are no longer lifted from the surface.

This can become a problem in cities where many pollutants exist. Inversion effects occur frequently in big cities such as Mumbai, India; Los Angeles, California; Mexico City ; Sao Paulo, Brazil; Santiago, Chile; and Tehran, Iran, but also in smaller cities like Oslo, Norway, Salt Lake City, Utah, and Boise, Idaho, which are closely surrounded by hills and mountains that together with the inversion effect bottle-caps the air in the city. During a severe inversion, trapped air pollutants form a brownish haze that can cause respiratory problems. The Great Smog, one of the most serious examples of such an inversion, occurred in London in 1952 and was blamed for thousands of deaths.- Wikipedia

Most winters we get inversions, however a good snowstorm clears it out of the atmosphere and the sun shines in and the air is clear once again. Not this year! Although we have had a couple of real good storms, the bad air continues to hover and haunt.

I suffer from slight asthma and it is tough to catch a breath these days, outdoor activity is near impossible. Respiratory illness and bronchial colds are as widespread as the swine flu.

We had the opportunity this weekend after some work schedule changes, to drive to the south end of the state to visit my parents for three days. I felt like an elephant had been lifted from my chest. My eyes were not red, my lungs filled with clean oxygen, and my sinuses clear as ever.

Until we drove home.
As the girls and I were heading north, we could see the beautiful sun setting in the clear blue sky above the red rocks of the south, as the mountains took on a more blue grey hue, so did the sky. Resembling the large shadow cast over the land in Close Encounters, the horrible grey-brown clouds hung over the valleys we were headed into.
It was great to see my parents, it was nice to chat about our upcoming cruise and to breathe so free.
But too short.
They predict a storm on Wednesday, Hopefully it will be big enough to clean the atmosphere but not so big that the traffic is hazardous. I am still making do in my sons car, awaiting my repairs. And I am just not used to driving without 4-wheel drive.

For now, I will be shallow breathing. And if we don't get a storm soon, I am afraid that the winter doldrums will continue to bring me down.
for now, this song brings a little sunshine to my day whenever I hear it:

 
and so does this face!

A wonderful Post by a fellow blogger

Although my blog does not have a large following, There are many I follow nearly daily.
Often I can really relate to the posts as they are struggling single parents or just struggling parents.
Sometimes it is happiness they post about.

Every once in a while you will read a post the just speaks to you. Whether it is how you feel and just dont know how to put it into words. Whether it is a new view or insight into something you thought you already knew.

or sometimes it is just the feeling of yes! yes exactly what I want to say.

Well Christina - Over at solomom.com did just that!

I love this piece. It is what I want to say.

My son

The picture above is of my oldest, my son, and my youngest daughter. For the past year and a half my sons home away from home has been Ft. Riley Kansas a long way from home, from me. My son arrived home for a short visit on July 5th just one day after we celebrated this country's independence. He was here for just over two weeks and left on the 17th. This picture was taken that day. The last day that I saw him. The last day I will see him for a year. 365 days.

This alone would be enough to make a mother sad and depressed.

This past Sunday he turned 20. We are almost exactly 20 years apart. He was due just days after my 20th birthday but came 5 weeks early. We are both entering new decades in our lives this year.

But my son is a man now. My son is also a soldier. He will be leaving on a plane headed for Iraq (the last group to go) very early this Saturday morning. I knew this day would come but I was always able to push it out.. now I cry.

I have had a hard time with this. I am so close with my children, we have battled divorce, financial struggles and so many other struggles together all these years. We are more than just a mother and her children, we are friends. We really LIKE doing things together. Or doing nothing, as long as it is together.

Over the past 12 years there have been frustrating moments as a mother when I would just step into my room, shut the door and cry. Sometimes being a mother can be trying and scary. Times when you don't know why they are acting up. Times when you think their bad behavior will never end. Or times when you think they will never grow up or understand simple instructions. And all you can do is have a good cry, stand tall and face it head on.

Then they grow out of that. They become the man that you imagined them to grow into. You are so proud of them. And then they leave for their own adventures and frustrations of life.

Nobody prepares you for raising children when they are a handful, no one teaches you how to cope when they have the upper hand.....
And no one can ever prepare you for the pain, the fear and the sleepless tear-filled nights when one of them is sent across the globe for an entire year.
No one can ever prepare you for the feelings of anxiety for his safety when placed into a literal firing range. A long way from the safety you can offer at home.- Out of your control.

Please let him come home to me the same as he left.
Physically,
Mentally, and still
My happy, loving, gentle little boy.
I love you son. PLEASE take care, be safe, and come home to me.

Single mothers where you least expect them

I hope that my thoughts and reviews of older movies are not getting mundane or boring.

We have had a lot of spring rain over the past week. Although I love the rain, I prefer to stay in watching old movies while listening to it fall on the windows and rooftop to actually being in it.
So a few days ago, I poured a cup of tea and snuggled in to watch another movie from my Netflix account.
In a recent post, I wrote an account of the movie Kramer vs. Kramer and how the events in my life changed the way I viewed it. This past week I viewed, Places in the heart another movie I viewed for the first time while in my teens. When I added it to my movie queue about all I could recall about this movie was that it was about a woman and her struggle to keep her farm. However I couldn't really recall what the actual struggle was.

Turns out, early on in the movie she becomes a widow and single mother. Her characters' struggles are somewhat typical of many single parents, such as learning to live without someone to wake up to or turn to during tragedy and trial. She struggles taking on what would have been her late husbands role. She lives in the deep south in a time of segregation. She becomes friends with two somewhat unlikely subjects and they all end up leaning on each other and become fast friends. They are all three facing challenge in their different ways and able to lean on each other.

Single parents cannot possibly survive without others to support them. In my life, it has been close friends, other single parents, my parents and even my own children who have helped me face the difficulties and challenges throughout the past twelve years.

Sally Fields character is stubborn and strong, but also has moments of self-defeat, worry, and fear. I can relate to all of those feelings. While she is struggling with her sudden thrust into singlehood, her sister is strugging with infidelity and forgiveness, another aspect I can relate to.

I was awarded our house in my divorce, it has been a blessing and a burden. Without a roof over our heads, I don't know where we would have gone. Without the house I am in and the mortgage and payments figured prior to the huge rate increases of the past ten years, I would never be able to afford a house on my own.

There have been times during my life as a single mother when coming up with the mortgage was tough. The house itself has cost me thousands in repairs and upkeep. I sometimes thought it would have been easier to rent and let someone else worry about the repairs. But it was worth the struggles to give my children a house of our own. A yard to play in, each a bedroom of their own. In the movie she is determined to keep her family together and in their own home, in her case a cotton farm.

This time, I watched the movie as a single parent. I read a lot of blogs written by single parents. whether by widowhood or divorce, single parents face a lot of the same challenges. Whether ex's are still in the children's lives or not, whether the relationship is civil or strained, whether the kids are young or grown, parenting solo has challenges and rewards.

The strength that the main character has in the movie is unyielding and I try everyday to keep the positive strength that she shows in the movie.

I highly recommend this movie to anyone, it is not all about singleparenting. The movie touches on many other struggles and also hope. A real feel good movie that touches your heart. Probably not as much a favorite with the guys. Perfect for a rainy day.