Single Mom Success

Confessions of a Terrible, Horrible, Awful Mom Confessions of a Terrible, Horrible, Awful Mom

The Challenge of Growing Up and Letting Go

How Do You Forgive Someone Who Ruined A Life?

New Year – Not So New You?

Are you spreading shame and judgement instead of joy?

The True Meaning of Christmas in A Starbucks Cup? [Podcast]

Are You Using Social Media to Shame Your Children?

5 Reasons Why Consignment Sales Are The Best

Stop Sending Your Sick Child To School! (It’s Not That Simple)

You hear all the time about things like fat shaming and body shaming and all those horrible instances of one person making another person feel bad about themselves. Recently a woman named Nicole Arbour gained a great deal of infamy due to her “Fat Shaming” video where she basically insulted overweight people everywhere. Now I understand that she felt that it was a bit of satire, which I almost always enjoy, however it was done in very poor taste and while MAYBE her intentions were to give some ‘tough love’ to people who struggle with their weight it ended up simply pissing a lot of people off. (I will not be posting a link to the video because it is really quite offensive – but I’m sure you can find it if you really want to search for it.) But this brought up a topic that I have found to be a huge problem in the parenting community. Parent Shaming And by parent shaming, I am talking about those individuals – be they parents or not – whom feel that they need to make another person feel bad about their style of parenting, or the choices that they are making as a parent. I’m talking about the lady in line at the supermarket who takes a look at your toddler sitting in the buggy and tells you that you really should buy one of those buggy covers so your child doesn’t get any weird germs on them. Or the person who a few years back took one look at my son having a meltdown in the middle of Target and told me that I should really learn to discipline my child. Not knowing that my son had a traumatic brain injury and was having this melt down because the seams of his socks were bothering him and he couldn’t take his shoes off until we got to the car or that the Halloween costumes scare the living daylights out of him and so he freaked out because he went into sensory overload and couldn’t handle it. (Yes we had multiple incidents of people telling me how horribly my son was behaving in the store). Now it used to be that these incidents of parent shaming were simply a local thing, something you only had to deal with in your local store, or home, or school or playground, but with today’s social media platforms you now can be shamed by the entire WORLD for your parenting choices! Isn’t that just freakin’ fabulous! Recently this became more national news due to celebrities like David Beckham, who was criticized becuase his 4 year old had a pacifier in her mouth. Many went after him stating that it was wrong, and he shut them down rather brilliantly. My son had sensory issues and needed a pacifier to sleep until he was almost 5, because it calmed him and helped him feel secure. Is he unbalanced now because of it? NO. Does he have dental issues? A little but nothing that braces won’t fix. Did having a ‘binkie’ to help comfort him enough so that he could sleep when nothing else would work cause him irreversible damage? NO! – and to be honest it saved us all many sleepless nights and my sanity thank you very much! Then just a few short months later Alyssa Milano took on fire for a throw back picture that she posted for her daughter’s birthday. It was a beautiful picture of her nursing her baby in the hospital after she was born – I have one JUST LIKE IT. I am certain that most mothers do. However, because she is a celebrity and posted it on social medi...

Don’t give up! Never give up! Don’t quit!   We constantly hear this in our lives. That you should never give up on anything, that you should keep fighting, keep working hard, keep pushing if you want to get ahead in life, if you want to be happy, if you want the outcome that you desire you CAN’T QUIT! You see the memes out there always telling you to keep working and never give up – and for many situations that is in fact true. If you have a dream of being a dancer you won’t achieve it if you quit. If you want to become an artist you will never achieve that dream if you give up. For all intents and purposes never giving up is a good thing. It shows a certain amount of tenacity and dedication and it keeps you motivated to achieve your goals in life. But there are some times in life when the best thing that you can do is give up. I know, I know… that is very contradictory to what I just wrote, but it’s true. There are many times in life where it is better for you to give up and walk away. In fact sometimes it is vital to your happiness. Sometimes in life we soldier on through situations and experiences that make us absolutely miserable simply because we have been told to never give up. We feel like if we give up we are failing – and that simply isn’t true. There are times in life where we will stick with something out of a fear of failure or loss even if it is toxic for us. I know that I stayed with my daughter’s father for a hell of a lot longer than I should have simply because I thought if I just tried harder, worked more at it, changed this or that about who I was or what I did that things would get better. I talked myself into believing that if I could just get him to change this one thing about himself that everything would work out. I was deluding myself and trying to justify staying in a relationship that was doomed to fail. Many times we will stay in relationships that will never work because we think if we just keep working at it then it will all get better; all the while ignoring the glaring evidence that it never will. My ex and I are two very different people and the only way that we were ever going to work was if I fundamentally changed who I was or if he changed who he was. And that is not a healthy relationship for either party. Sometimes we have to weigh the pros and cons of a situation to see if it is really working for us. Is the struggle that we are going through worth it in the end because the pros have outweighed the cons? A few years back I had a client whom I was working for as a Virtual Assistantand he was the most difficult man to work for. He was a decent enough guy but very demanding, very self involved and unaware at how poorly he treated people at times. He created a very poor working environment for those who worked for him. I thought many times about quitting and no longer working for him but because he was my largest source of income I was afraid to. So for many years I worked for him, becoming more and more stressed out as time went by. It got so bad that when I saw his number come up on my caller ID I would instantly feel my shoulders tense and my stomach would tie in knots – and it started effecting my job performance. When I finally stopped working for him it was the best possible thing that could have happened. It was scary losing that much potential income but the possibilities that were now available to me were far outweighing the fear. Instead of staying with something that was making me miserable just to earn some money I was now able to find new clients with whom I worked well with, people who paid me more than my old client and I was much much happier.

My Weight Loss Struggle – Are There Ways to Lose Weight Quickly?

One of the best books I have ever read is the 4 Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz. It has brought me a great sense of clarity through my life and helped me get to a better place internally. I know that may be a bit woo-woo-ish for some, but I highly suggest that everyone read it. It has given me greater insights to myself and how I deal with the world around me. Especially in how I deal with others and how they deal with me. One of my favorite of the 4 Agreements is the second one ‘Don’t Take Anything Personally‘. This one was a bit hard for me to manage at first but once I did it helped me so much! The basic premise of this agreement is that no matter what someone says or does to you you can not take it personally. Whatever they are saying comes from a place within them and has nothing to do with you personally. They may not like something you do, or the way you dress, or the things you say… but that is because of them and not because of you. The way that others see you is not the way you see yourself. Their interpretation of you and how they see you is changed by their experiences, their biases, their beliefs and so they “see” you differently than you see yourself. As an example, think of someone who is an online bully. You know the ones I’m talking about. Those people who sit in front of their screens and hide behind their keyboards having nothing good to say about anyone. They find people and articles online and use that anonymous platform to spew their anger, hatred and self-loathing onto others. You would call them trolls. And any time these trolls appear online there are always those who say to them “You must be an unhappy person. You must be miserable or a loser to feel you need to attack others like this.” Those trolls are saying what they say because of something within them that makes them feel they need to lash out. Should the person who is being attacked take it personally? NO. It’s an anonymous person on a screen. It doesn’t mean that the words don’t hurt, I completely understand that. But should an internet trolls words make that person feel bad about who they are? Should they allow those words to make them feel that they need to change? Hell no! Reading this book and learning this concept of not taking things personally really helped me develop a better relationship with myself AND with my ex if you can believe that! Today’s podcast is about remembering not to take things personally and how I had to remember this lesson very recently.

Day 1… At last it is here! The event that children anticipate all school year long… SUMMER VACATION!!!! I have to say that I absolutely love summer, it is by far my favorite season. After a Colorado winter (that lasted until late May this year) and a fairly dreary spring – all 2 weeks of it (it’s been a weird year weather-wise for us in Colorado)… I am soooo excited to see the sun and be warm finally. I love spending time outside, going to the pool, grilling burgers and brats while drinking the occasional margarita and doing all kinds of fun things with my kiddos. There are many pros AND cons though to being a work from home mom during the summer. THE PROS: * I am HOME with my kids – I am able to be here all day with them and take care of whatever they need or any issues that come up without the fear of needing to leave work early. Not to mention the amount of money it saves me on child care! * I have a flexible schedule – I am able to work the hours that I want to and take off the time that I want to. I am able to work for half the day and take the kids tot he zoo in the other half should the mood strike me. I can take the whole stinkin’ day off if I want to. * Have laptop will work – meaning that I can also take my work with me. If we decide to go to the park for a few hours I can always take my laptop and hotpot with me and get a few hours of work done under a tree while the kids play on the playground. I have even been known to take it with me to the pool (away from the splash zone of course). So the kids can get in fun time and I can finish up some work as needed. * I don’t feel like I am missing out on summer vacation with my kids… I remember when I worked in an office during the summer, by the time I got home from work after picking them up from day care I was so tired and worn out that I didn’t want to go anywhere or do anything. I felt like the only time I got to enjoy during the summer was on the weekends and I hated it. I hated being so tired that it felt like a chore to go out and play with the kids after work. * No rush hour in 90 degree weather!!! This is just my personal favorite – because I HATE rush hour with the white hot heat of a thousand suns. Take normal rush hour madness and add to that increased temperatures and it gets even worse. People get meaner, more short tempered on the roads and I just don’t like to be involved in any of that! Now I don’t want you to think that working from home during the summer is all sunshine and rainbows… it’s not. There are many, many, MANY trying times working from home during this time of year…   THE CONS: * They think I am on Summer Break too – So my children know that I work from home obviously – but they don’t apparently understand that I do actually WORK while they are normally at school. So when they are on break they seem to think that all my time should be spent on them, with them, entertaining them, spending money on them – and so on and so forth… yeah, not so much. There are many times through the summer where I have to remind them that just because THEY are on break doesn’t mean that I am on break. * I am constantly a referee – having three kids home for the summer, two with special needs and one who thinks she is a teen even though she is only 8 – well let’s just say it creates a unique dynamic in our household. There are many times where they all get along and life is peaceful and serene. There are also times when all three want to tear each other limb from limb and are very vocal about it. These incidences tend to become more and more common the more time they spend together.

Getting Fired Was The Best Thing Ever!   Wait, WHAT? Yep you heard me; getting fired was the best thing ever. This one solitary event was a catalyst that changed my life forever. Changed it for the better! I know you are thinking getting fired can’t possibly be a good thing. You are out of your mind lady! Don’t get me wrong, it didn’t feel like it was the best thing at the time. In fact I cried for a full day when it happened. Then I picked myself up and realized that this had been some kind of a sign for me that I HAD to make some changes in my life. Call it divine intervention, call it fate or whatever you wish but I knew deep down that the universe was trying to tell me something. As a single mom of three kids I had spent over 7 years struggling, both emotionally and financially. I was on government assistance programs to help me pay for my food and child care even though I was also working a full time job. I was stuck in what I like to call the “child care gap trap”, working but still not making enough to afford child care. Even with the “help” I was receiving I was still barely making it. I spent those 7 years feeling like I would be struggling for ever and things would never get any better for me. I thought that there was no way I was ever going to be successful doing it on my own. Even worse than that, I felt like I wasn’t doing enough for my family and as a parent that is the worst feeling ever. I had been working as a waitress at the time because it gave me hours where I wouldn’t have to pay for child care because friends and family could watch the kids. But after being let go I decided that I needed to get back to a better paying job, one that was in the administrative field which I had excelled at for years. So I started looking at the papers to see what was out there and calling around to child care facilities to find out what their rates would be. Imagine my shock when I found out it would cost me almost $1300 a month to put them in child care – that’s more than my rent!!! Well I spent some more time freaking out about everything and then suddenly it hit me…. I needed to work from home. That was the only way I was going to be able to make this work. I couldn’t afford to put my kids in child care, and I wasn’t going to be able to qualify for child care assistance so really it was the only option that I had. Never mind that I had no CLUE how I was going to do it, I just knew that deep down I HAD to do it and figure out how to make it work. And it was the BEST decision I ever made! This podcast is all about how I decided to work from home, my decision to become a VA and how I got started down the path of self-employment. If you have been thinking of working from home and aren’t sure if it would be a good fit for you I encourage you to download the free report I created “Is Working At Home For Me? 7 Things to Consider Before Starting A Home Based Business”. Click here to get the free report.