Mom Shaming at Christmas

I've come across several posts on social media advising, "Before you share your extravagant Christmas tree pictures with an abundance of gifts, consider how it might impact others." I disagree; share your pictures, share your reality, regardless of its appearance!

All the pictures I share reflect my personal experiences. The Christmas of 2009, with gifts from the Dollar Store, was particularly challenging. However, it taught me the joy of buying presents there. This year, there are numerous Dollar Tree puzzles for my youngest under our tree, along with a few stocking stuffers.

I've had Christmases funded by donations, especially in 2011 and 2014, as well as ones where I could do

Winds Of Change ...

Sometimes patience is good. Sometimes recognizing small blessings, small miracles, the wonderful little good things in life can make all the difference.

I am having an amazing  week.

It's the little things. Last Thursday my work called and told me I would have no hours this week, I was actually okay with that because I start nursing school next week and it would give me some decompression time, but then low and behold on Sunday I was rescheduled for a forty hour week, which is also awesome because this is my last chance to work a forty hour week until the end of the semester.

Did I mention, I love my job?

I started going through my reading assignments for my nursing classes (the ones that have to be done before class starts), and it's all review information, it just feels like I'm in the right field, I'm doing the right thing, this nursing school thing is going to be okay.

I won a minor victory with my ex over a schedule conflict with my oldest daughter, which was a victory for her not me.

I was pulled over because my license plate tags were expired and the officer let me off with a no proof of insurance ticket, that can be easily taken care of. He said it was

The Toxic People That Bring Us Down ...

Recently I tried to erase someone out of my life in every way that was possible to me. After I went through and deleted almost one hundred people off my Facebook page I realized I was a happier person and then finally this one person crossed a line with me for the last time. I deleted her from every aspect of my life I possibly can and I refuse to interact with her unless I absolutely have to. Amazingly, it seems like once I got rid of all that toxicity, all that negativity I felt better about life in general. ... but ... I still feel the need to do the cathartic thing and get rid of it all, so here it goes.

I have written a few blogs about the Lemon Man's aunt, mostly on my old blog, but I brought one here for back story. Then there was the whole part where she let a fourteen year old bring drugs with her to our family vacation.

But there's more to it than all that ...

The first time I knew she had burned me was a long time ago, when I first met her. This was back when the Lemon Man and I were still defining our relationship. Which as corny as it may sound, was a lot like Matthew McConaughy and Jennifer Garner in Ghosts of Girlfriends Past. It was there, it was always there, but he had things that he wasn't sure about, and honestly a single mom with three kids isn't exactly a bachelor's first choice. There was an "us" there just wasn't a defined, legal definition "us." Anyway, there was this nurse ... this nurse that took care of the Lemon Man's grandma after her horrible accident,

Deleting Out the Cruelty ... Killing the Judgment ...

I know better than to think that I can change people ... I don't think I can.

Sometimes, though, I bite when given the opportunity to debate something that obviously isn't worth my time, effort or energy. I was highly inspired by Aubrey at Way Too Much Aubrey a few months ago and her post/rant about judgment of those who receive help and subsidies from the government. I have fought that battle myself with people in the Facebook world, and occasionally in person.

I remember sitting around the Thanksgiving dinner table with my family when I was 19. I was in the middle of my sophomore year of college and I was taking a core-required Black History class. I had always been liberal, always believed in feeding, clothing and sheltering the poor, but that class changed me. It wasn't about race, it was about people being told "you're not allowed to have children because you're poor," and then refusing to help them with birth control or abortions or even adoptions. It was about people being treated like second class citizens because of their economic background, not their skin color.

Back to my Thanksgiving dinner table ...

A discussion started because they asked how school was going, and I listened to my grandparents, my aunt, and one of my cousins all lay into me about how all poor people

Sabotage ...

The title alone means I know what I'm doing to myself ... I mean, really, I know that I am sabotaging myself ... yet I still do it ... what is it about us? ... humans? ... women? ... all of us that struggle with weight and body image ... what is it about us that makes us fail ... that makes us sabotage ourselves? ... is it psychological? physiological? societal? peer pressure? ... sigh ...

Here is my story ... my crazy story that makes me feel like a failure, but maybe typing it will make me feel like I'm ready to get back on the horse ... I guess we'll see ...

So back in January I started on Weight Watchers ... it was good ... it's worked before for me ... I was good with it ... by March I had lost 32 pounds ... then I plateaued ... and I don't know what it is with me and being majorly discouraged by plateaus ... but I was ... I fell off the diet ... I gained about ten pounds ... then I got really serious and started on the paleo diet ... which was easier than I thought it would be to follow ... my main problem was getting the fresh produce on a daily or every other day basis and the lack of true

Softball Drama ...

Well, what better to bring me back into the world of blogging than something going on right now ...

I guess this requires some history ... my oldest daughter (who is now eleven) started playing softball when she was eight ... she started with 40mph machine pitch competitive ball on a 10u (10 and under) team when she was eight ...

When she started playing she had an absolutely amazing coach ... we moved to another city and I was naive and didn't know about how the whole competitive system worked in a bigger city ... so she played recreational ball with a wonderfully nice coach who really didn't know how to coach for her first season ...

She ended up trying out for some competitive teams ... but again I was new to this process ... we made some rookie mistakes ... and then she broke her finger during a try out ... it just wasn't meant to be ...

She signed up to play fall ball with some of the girls she played with last summer ... at first it seemed great ... she had started playing catcher last summer and she continued in that position in the fall ... she shared the position with another girl ... and they were about 50/50 ... everyone seemed happy ... as the season went on we noticed that the head coach seemed to get more and more angry ... he had words with more than one umpire ... and then he started in on the girls ... my daughter no longer wanted to play for him ...

Over the winter I tried to get her on to two other teams ... one of them I again lost out on due to naivety ... I knew when and where to sign her up, but I was supposed to have a copy of her birth certificate and they only took cash ... no checks, no debit cards ... so by the time I pulled up her birth certificate, etc., ... the team was full ...

It came down to asking her if she wanted to not play at all or play for that coach again ... she chose playing for him again ... well, she started out slated for catcher (along with the other girl from the fall) ... the coach said he wanted a third catcher because he didn't want any of them being burned out ... an assistant coach jumped at the chance to get his daughter into the position ... and started teaching her how to catch ...

To make a long story short ... as time went by the kids have played about 22 innings of softball (they average about 2 innings a game ... they're timed games, so they go for about an hour and a half regardless of how many innings they go) ... the other girl that my daughter has always shared the position with caught about six innings, my daughter has caught for three and the assistant coach's daughter (the one with no experience) has caught the rest of the innings ... the other girl's dad has stopped coming to the games and is talking about starting his own t-eam ...

Now, if this was all about winning and it was about the better player ... and his daughter was the better player then I would have no issue with this, but that's not the way it is ... even other parents have said that my daughter has skills that neither of the other players do ... and just to make sure I wasn't looking at it through my "mom goggles" as my boyfriend calls it ... I started counting catches vs drop pitches vs pass balls ... the assistant coach's daughter is getting better but she was about 50% ... the other girl was about 75% ... and in the few chances she has had my daughter is about 80-90% ... so it's not about skill ... every time the assistant coach's daughter steps up behind the plate I get sympathetic looks ... and some parents even come up and talk to me ... I haven't been vocal about any of it, so they're doing it on their own ...

On top of that the head coach's daughter is one of the pitchers ... she has missed four games and more than half the practices, but when she is there she pitches all the innings ... despite having two other very capable pitchers on the team ... 

All along, the coach is having major anger issues ... he gets ejected from a game ... in 10u recreational ball ... ejected ... seriously I don't understand ... three other girls have quit the team ... we all cringe at the way the assistant coach yells at his own daughter when she is catching ... or doing, well, anything ... it's not just about my daughter not playing catcher ....

Last night she had a breakdown ... she cried and cried ... and talked about quitting the team ... but she loves the sport ... she doesn't want to quit the sport ... at this point after talking with her father and my boyfriend what we've decided is that she'll go to the game tonight, but her father and I are going to go together to talk to the coaches after the game ....

I, personally, am willing to let her quit ... I understand all the stuff about following through on commitments, but there comes a point when the price is too high ... and teaching her that she has to put up with things she shouldn't have to put up with for the sake of commitment isn't a great lesson either ...

I guess we'll find out what happens tonight ... I'm not looking forward to this ...

Dancing in the Rain ...

Originally posted on my "old" blog ... September 9, 2009 ... 

So, a while back, someone posted one of those pictures on my wall that says "life is not about waiting for the storm to pass, it's about learning to dance in the rain." In the last few weeks, the very deep meaning of that has come to light for me.

Life will let you down, people will let you down, things will happen that you never dreamed would. You will find out that people you thought you knew aren't the people you thought they were, or maybe even your instincts and bad feelings about people or situations were right, and things you hoped weren't true, will turn out to be true. You will lose your car keys, your kids will do things like color on the couch ... random people will try to make you feel bad, to feel sad, to make you cry ... because apparently nobody ever taught them

Letting Go ... Divorce is Hard ...

Originally posted on my "old" blog ... August 4, 2008 ... 

I am carrying so much with me, so much that I let effect me, I'm just hoping that this will be cathartic, help me to let some of it go and move on . . . I have so much going on in my life right now, so much that is expected, so much that I'm obligated for . . . a lot of stress, both good and bad stress . . . and I need to get a handle on it because I've turned into an emotional basket case - crying at the drop of the hat, or one misplaced innocent action or word from family or friends, or anyone . . . some of this is probably normal, I'm getting divorced, with this comes various stages of grief and stress and whatever else . . . right now I feel like the first and last thing I need is a shoulder to cry on, someone just to hold me and tell me that everything will be alright . . . my finances are well, not even finances . . . my dad who lives 150 miles away is going way out of his way to put gas in my car and help with my rent . . . I miss my kids like crazy when they're gone and they drive me crazy when they're here . . . certain aspects of my job leave me feeling completely unappreciated and at my worst incapable . . . I'm dealing with lawyers and doctors . . .  and I'm trying to hold my shit together for everyone in my life . . . I try not to let anyone in on the emotions . . . because first off, this is nobody's burden but my own, but also I never know the reaction I'm going to get from anyone; sympathy, anger, judgment . . . but no matter what I am countered with nobody has a full grasp of everything I am going through . . . I was asked last night if I still thought it was for the best . . . and yes, absolutely is it for the best . . . there are things that would never be ok, things my kids should never have had to deal with as long as they did, things that I need to let go of because there is no point in me carrying it with me anymore . . . and I'm working on that . . . and of course there are things I miss, as anyone would with anyone they've been with for eleven years . . . most of it is intangible, and actually completely replaceable . . . if someone ever comes along that is willing and I want to replace those things . . . stupid little things . . . a lot of it physical, because I am a touchy feely person, I have a huge desire and need for physical contact with people period not just lovers, or boyfriends, or family but everyone . . . a hug from my friends . . . my boss rubbing my back and playing with my hair . . . it's not sexual just physical . . . but yeah, I miss the stupid little things that helped to reassure me that I was/am beautiful - inside and out, loveable, worth the effort to be touched . . . and these are reassurances that I shouldn't and in all reality don't need, but they are missed and wanted and desired . . . and at some point there will be someone who will be that person to me without all the negativity that makes leaving those things all for the best . . . but as my quote said not very long ago, there's a reason that today is called the present, it is a gift, we cannot live in the past, nor predict the future and live to create it or nurture it, but rather live for today, appreciate what is here, try to ignore what isn't and go to sleep hoping that you wake up the next morning for the gift of tomorrow, but yes, worrying about tomorrow today will do nothing if you don't wake up the next morning . . . so why bother . . . .

The Delivery ...

 Originally posted on my "old" blog ... October 8, 2010 ...

Sometimes it's the delivery ... not the message ...

If someone gives you the best news that you could have ever heard ... but in the wrong way ... or the worst news you have ever heard but in the right way ... it can change your reaction completely ...

When someone is angry all the time ... and everything they say ... even positive things ... come off with that angry overtone (or even undertone) ... the receiver of the message will probably not see things in the positive light that they may have if the delivery was upbeat and positive ...

Body language is extremely important in person, as is facial expression, followed by tone of voice ... over the phone ... tone of voice means more than the words you say ...

In writing ... now this poses an interesting thought process in the reader's mind ... what generally will happen is the reader will take what they know about the writer and put that

I Want You to Want to do the Dishes ...

 Originally posted on my "old" blog ... August 15, 2010

So, this is a blog post that I have been writing in my head for years (that's my way of saying don't take this as a slam on the current man in my life ♥) ... but it seems to be an ongoing theme in my relationships with men and in those of my friends with their significant others. I have heard it reversed and I will get to that as well!

So, let's start with that line; "I want you to want to do the dishes" ... for those of you that don't know where that line is from, it is from the movie, The Break-up Jennifer Aniston's character says it to Vince Vaughn's character after a party has occurred at their house and he sits down to play video games while she is in the kitchen doing the dishes. She of course is angry, she wants his help, he responds and says basically fine, I'll come help, she says something like I don't want you to do it because I'm asking you to, and then says "I want you to want to do the dishes" ... he of course finds this ridiculous, stating, "who would want to do the dishes?"

Unfortunately, the metaphor in all that is one that most women know very well, and some

Labeling Our Children ...

Originally posted on my "old" blog ... October 13, 2010 ... 

I think there is a fine line between encouraging and nurturing the strengths of our children and labeling and pigeon-holing them into something, somewhere that is unfair to them ... so here is my confession/struggle ...

Hi, my name is Lemonade Lady, and I just came back from parent teacher conferences, and this is where I find it very hard to not "label" my children ... let me start out by saying that all three of my children are bright ... all three of them have areas they stand out in and areas they don't do so well in ... but ... here is where the issue lies ...


My oldest is "the creative one" ... she naturally draws better than I did when instructed by high school art teachers ... she is musically inclined, I have never heard her sing horribly off pitch ... not always perfect (and I'm a tough judge with three years of vocal music major fun stuff in college) .. but she is a decent singer ... she is interested in musical instruments and drama ... and writing .. which is about the only academic thing she is interested in ... she has already had plenty of F's and D's and I's and "needs improvement" and "below grade level" and other such negative comments on her report cards ... I fear her parent teacher conferences ... and today was

The Stay At Home Mom Curse? ...

Originally posted on my "old" blog March 14, 2011 ... 

If you had asked me 5 years ago if I would ever be writing a blog like this I would have told you that you were totally and completely nuts ... if you had asked for my honest opinion 5 years ago as to whether or not being a stay-at-home mom was the better best choice for any growing family that could afford it ... I would have said ABSOFREAKINLUTELY ... and then the walls came tumbling down ...

Now before I say all this ... please don't think for a minute that I actually regret the time I spent with my children ... watching them grow ... nurturing them ... seeing every single

Confessions of a Former Mommy Snob ...

Mommy snobbery is not a new subject in my blog ... but I don't know that I've ever dedicated an entire blog to it ...

There are a lot of things involved in mommy snobbery ... the mommy wars definitely are a large part of it ... for those that don't know ... the mommy wars are the arguments like breast vs bottle, co-sleeping vs crib sleeping, baby wearing vs detachment, spanking vs not spanking, etc., etc., etc., ... but my main issue with mommy snobbery and the kind of mommy snob I used to be didn't have much to do with any of that ....

I married young ... had my oldest when I was barely twenty-three ... none of my friends were married ... none of them had kids ... they were in their early twenties ... living it up ... drinking ... partying ... bar hopping ... they invited me for a while ... but after I pretty much flat out said something like "don't you understand I'm a mother now, I have a baby, I don't have time for those childish things" ... they stopped inviting me ... it was funny because in the season finale of How I Met Your Mother Marshall and Lilly have their baby and suddenly they tell their friends they don't have time for them unless they have something to say that is ranked "an 8 or higher" ... I looked at the lemon man and said "see mommy snobbery" ... they even talk about it in sitcoms ... I digress ... for a while I was glad my friends had stopped inviting me ... but then two more kids later I started to realize some things ... and I give credit to a speaker

The Struggle ...

I am caught in a struggle ... well several ... but the biggest of which is whether or not to stay true to myself ...

My last post provides some context for this one ... but basically I am an only child with only three cousins ... two of them are close in age and always lived very close to me ... I considered them more like siblings than cousins ... I'm sure they didn't feel that way ... but being an only child I guess that I definitely had a different point of view ...

Throughout time they have found various ways to exile me ... at my girl cousin's wedding there were reserved tables for "all the family" ... my dad (and his then girlfriend) ... sat at the head table ... by the time my ex-husband and I made it from the church to the reception hall with a four year old, two year old and five week old in tow and then made it through the receiving line ... there was no seating left in the banquet room ... and amongst

Black Sheep ...

 From my archives ... originally posted December 10, 2010 ... this blog offers context for an upcoming blog ... but also needs some itself ... in July 2010 my father evicted me from a house that he bought for me and my kids to live in post-divorce ... his reason for evicting me was that me living in that house was "bad for our relationship" ... I had to quit the job I had at the time ... move three hours away ... and into my mom's basement ... when I first moved in there I had no money ... I was reliant on her for everything ... she had a great deal of control and she exerted it ... the part of this blog that is needed for context for an upcoming blog is the part about my cousins and extended family ... but this has been a short synopsis to understand this blog ...

... so I'm going through one of those times right now where blogging is both my best friend and my worst enemy ...

I have feelings I can't explain ... feelings I can ... and then of course this blog is not anonymous .... so I have to be somewhat careful, guarded if you will, about what I say about certain situations, people, etc.,

The holidays are very hard for me for multiple reasons ... but mostly it's the pressure and the tug of war of both myself and my children .. and then I come off as uncaring and not wanting to spend time with people, which isn't true ... but I've spent a lot of time as a black sheep, and I emphasize a lot ...

I went through a phase right around my senior year of high school where I felt much the same way I do now ... but basically it comes down to this ... I play a very good black sheep from the sidelines ... so what is the purpose in joining a game, where further injury will inevitably be the only result? ... the bulk of my extended family has made it very clear

Scared ...

This is something I don't talk about a lot ... and it's probably something I should be talking about ... I don't feel comfortable with the subject because, quite frankly, it scares the living shit out of me ... so I don't talk about it with my closest friends ... or my family ... but for some reason ... today ... I'm going to share it with the people that read this blog ... the bulk of which are strangers ...

I think I don't talk about it because I don't think people realize how much it really scares me ... how much I avoid it ... and then I finally do say something ... and nobody responds ... leading to me posting about how it actually hurt my feelings to have no responses on Facebook about it ...

So here it goes ... my kidney is slowly failing ... I say kidney because they already took

Why I Actually Like Working the Night Shift ... And Why it Works For My Family ...

People tell me all the time I'm crazy ...

Maybe that doesn't have anything to do with my shift though ... but we'll pretend it does ...

I've always been a night person ... I've always detested alarm clocks ... and I've always, always had insomnia ... that alone explains part of why I like working nights ... my current shift is midnight-7am Monday thru Thursday nights and then 7pm - 7am Sundays ... although my position is PRN (basically on call so a lot of weeks I don't work all those nights) ...

But ... the main reason I work nights ... the reason I seek out night shifts ... is that it is

It's In The Eyes ....

Lately I've received an outpouring of compliments on my eyes ... it's weird ... because that normally just doesn't happen ... walking through a store ... going to work ... random people telling me that my eyes are pretty ... people that know me telling my eyes look brighter and clearer ... I can even see it in pictures of myself  ...

Maybe it's as simple as I haven't been working that much lately ... or that school is over for now ... maybe it's more ... maybe as they say the eyes are the windows to the soul ... I have been happier lately ...

I can't even say exactly why ... there are things in my life that are better ... but there are

Is it all Just Another Popularity Contest? ...

I've been thinking lately ... okay well I think all the time ... but I've been thinking lately about the world of social networking, the blogosphere, the way we use information these days ... and I know for the younger generations it's just an extension of the drama ... the bullshit ... of junior high, high school and maybe even college ... I have seen work drama unfold on Facebook ... I have seen family drama unfold on Facebook ... but I've noticed some things ...

I have a friend that has now had the same issues with different people four, five times in the last two years ... major issues ... life changing issues ... and everyone is always there to offer twenty ... thirty ... comments on her Facebook page about how sorry they are she

How North Carolina Helped Make Barack Obama A Two Term President ...

Whether you are an Obama fan or not ... whether you think he is the lesser of two evils or the epitome of evil or the best gosh durn thing that ever happened to this country ... he made history the other day by coming out in support of gay marriage ... that being said I actually believe that what he was responding to will have more of an impact on the upcoming election than his own statement ...

Top GOP pollsters are reporting that if the Republican party does not back off in the fight against gay marriage that they will marginalize themselves into "insignificance" ... and I agree ... 

Every few generations there comes an issue that just can't be overlooked in the grand scheme of our country ... the end of slavery, women receiving the right to vote, "colored" people receiving the right to vote, the ban on the segregation of schools, workplaces and government facilities, the Vietnam war ... and now we have gay marriage ... in all of these situations what the "conservative" party never understands is this is almost a generational