That Wiser Person

I know people who seem so sure of themselves, people who really feel they know the best thing to do in any given situation...why am I not one of those people? I SHOULD be one of those people. I NEED to be one of those people! If anyone needs sound judgement, its me, I have a lot riding on it! 

Over these past few weeks I've been thinking a lot lately about what is best for me and the kids and questioning whether I should continue going to school or just work. It's not that I don't like school, in fact I LOVE it! I'm good at it. I hold a 3.5 GPA, I love the lectures, the reading and the nerdy intellectual discussions with intelligent students and teachers. But I have scored a pretty decent job over the summer that pays decent enough wages as long as I work full time, which I do now...but when school is in, well...I just don't think it's humanly possible to work full time and go to school  full time,(successfully anyway) and be at least a mediocre mom. I could work part time during school but then I miss out on the insurance and if I had insurance my kids could be double covered and  I could put braces on their teeth. road. It's not all about the braces either, its the quality time I could spend with them instead of pouring over books and reports! These are the dilemmas that fill the head of a single mom. Hats off to all those other single parents that have been down this same 

 Can't someone wiser than myself just tell me what I'm supposed to do? The best thing to do? 

But that's not possible because wiser people know when to keep their mouths shut! 

And wiser people haven't been in my situation because, well, they were wise enough to not to put themselves in the kind of predicaments that I do. 

Sometimes I ask my mother what I should do. Not because I think she's particularly wise but because she's my mother and that's where girls go when they need advice. Her advice is always the same, 

"Honey, just find yourself a rich man to marry and take care of you." And she never fails to add, " You're pretty... enough!"

 Besides being kind of insulting, that is quite possibly the WORST advice a mother could give to her daughter. I could think of worse I suppose but I don't really want to go there right now.

 I have a brother whom I consider to be quite wise (other than being a complete right wing republican and Rush Limbaugh fan) but even he had little advice to give me other than, "do what's best for the kids"... Well duh... but what IS the best for the kids? That's the question. The question no one has the answer to.

So I weigh the pros and cons:

I know I'm setting a good example for my kids by going to college. My girls tell me all the time that they " are definitely going to college young and not waiting until they're old and have a bunch of  kids to take care of and are pretty much a hopeless case...  like you mom" .

I appreciate their candor. 

But what about the short term? The hear and now is important too. What about the time I spend doing homework when I could be spending more time with them, playing with them like we used to before I started school? What about the stress of school that gets to me and turns me into Oscar the grouch sometimes? They don't deserve that. What about their braces, soccer games, dance practices? How much of their lives am I missing? I would probably regret not finishing school, but I know I will regret missing out on their lives even more. 

Well...I have thought about all of this for a few weeks now. I've begged people to give me an answer anyone!

Finally, I think the right answer came. Or at least part of it.

 and it came from a very unlikely source,

 from within myself.

"Maybe you should pray about it", I said to myself.

And so I did. (Yes, sometimes I'm spiritual. I have a relationship with God. I check in on a daily basis and I believe we're on pretty good terms with one another). And between me and the Lord, I think I have the answer to the dilemma, at least for now. I'm compromising. I feel that it is important to finish school so that I'll be able to support the kids better in the future. It is also important to keep a little cash flowing, so I'm going to work part time through the fall semester and cut back on my credits by three. So, instead of being absolute, cutting out something completely, I am going to compromise. Yep, just adding a new little twist to my juggling act here! 

So I guess the moral of the story is, don't ask your mother for advice, your brother will just point out the obvious and then go on to talk about Hannity or something. But the best answers you'll receive to life's difficult choices will come from you and the lord. Never underestimate either power. 

Why You Should Never Date Your Next Door Neighbor and The Lessons We Learn From Bad Relationships

Here we go, another nightmare dating story by yours truly. 

A few months back I decided to date my next door neighbor...yeah, I'm sure I don't need to tell you that it was a bad idea. And if you've read any of my prior posts, you already know that when it comes to common dating sense, I have very little. 

But all relationships, good and bad, short or long term come into our lives for a reason. I really believe that because I have learned so much about myself from all of my relationships. My relationship with the boy next door, though short-lived, taught me some very valuable lessons - aside from the obvious "don't date your next door neighbor" lesson - it taught me a few,even more important lessons. I will start with the first lesson I learned from this relationship and work my way through.

1. Keep the gifts

You may take this advice for yourself as I believe it to be great advice and I will illustrate my reasoning with my personal story.

Brooke cozies up with "The Blanket"

 The gift  received during this relationship is a beautiful hand-crocheted blanket made by Boy-next-door's Grandmother. Now, before you gasp in horror at my insensitivity, let me explain something; The rainbow-colored afghan my kids and I now affectionately refer to as, "The Blanket" was one of many blankets carefully crafted and given to Boy-next-door by his sweet Grandma only to be carelessly thrown in the back seat of his car where they all remained, untouched and unappreciated for years. Whats worse is that when I commented on how beautiful this particular blanket was he said something to the effect of, "Meh, she makes those things all the time and gives them out to all of us kids. If you want it you can have it." 

I felt that if he was willing to toss this treasure to a girl he's gone out with twice, he must not treasure It at all. It wasn't long before I saw his lack of sentiment for the blanket as part of a pervasive pattern in his unfeeling nature, you might say his care for the blanket is a symbol of the amount of care he has for others. Aside from his video games, Boy-next-door treasured nearly nothing and no one else in his life at all. Case and point: his previous break up. 

When the boy next door knocked on my door to tell me that he wanted to dump his girl friend so that he could date me I will admit, I was flattered. Who wouldn't be? But as I thought about it later I realized that it didn't seem right to throw away a five month relationship just because of a couple light-hearted conversations with the neighbor girl.

 And he broke up with her over text! 

 And everyone aside from Joe Jonas knows that is not cool!

But I agreed to go out with him anyway. Why? Because I felt guilty about being the reason he broke up with his girlfriend! Why would I feel that way? It's not like I was trying to break them up, I didn't even know he had a girlfriend, I was just being me, so I shouldn't have felt guilty about it but I did and it taught me this valuable lesson:

2.Never put someone else's feelings above your own.

To put someone else's feelings above your own goes against the cardinal rule of self conservation and something I wish I had figured out long ago.

The weeks that followed were weird. The boy next door showed up at my apartment almost every day, rummaging through my fridge for juice or some other tasty drink.

 "One thing you will learn about me is that I like to have a lot of tasty drinks on hand", he once said, then he listed drinks he liked and those he didn't care for.

 I took this as a hint for my future grocery shopping lists. He invited himself to dinner on more than one occasion and once commented that he liked his vegetables to be a little more tender than how I cook them. 

I was getting very annoyed.

 He obviously didn't value me as a person and to be honest his subtle complaints about everything from my cooking to the way I raise my kids were wearing on my self image a little. He showed up at my house whenever he pleased, but got annoyed when I knocked on his door. He snapped at me for reasons that baffled me like sitting too close to him or not close enough, depending on his mood that day (I guess he expected me to be a mind reader) and he insisted on winning at the Wii games he played against my kids! And that is just the short list. I will omit the amount of red flags that flared up in my mind when I overheard him speaking to his mother on the phone. But he lived next door, telling him off would be creating a very awkward situation for the both of us. I knew I had to do it eventually, I was just putting it off, waiting for the right opportunity to present itself and It wasn't long before it did!

Boy- next- door asked me out for a Friday evening. He had no particular time set so I didn't rush myself getting ready. When I walked over to his apartment at about 7:00 he was in a fit of rage. I had taken too long getting ready and now we missed the movie he had wanted to see. I still don't know what movie he had planned for us to see because it didn't matter whether I wanted to see it or not, it only mattered that he wanted to see it and that I ruined it for him. 

There it was, my moment! I explained to him that I didn't want to be his door mat or his punching bag and good luck on finding someone who does....Okay, so there may have been a few more words in between and most of them were expletives, but none of them attacked his mother or his height, so I was playing fair. (height was 5'6" by the way. Little man syndrome is a real condition and a serious problem for some shorter men).

The next day Boy-next-door came over to apologize but when he could see that it was a useless effort he asked for his blanket back. I told him that I would keep the blanket because It deserves to be with someone who knows how to appreciate beautiful things...and so do I. 

So the blanket and I have bonded. I appreciate its beauty and all the work that was put into making it. The kids and I love to cozy up with it on home movie nights. Best of all, the blanket has become something of a symbol that reminds me of the most important lesson this relationship taught me:

3. Never let someone to treat you as anything less than precious. 

Update: Since our breakup, Boy-next-door's roommates and I became good friends and as it turns out, they had been miserably tolerating his temper tantrums for the last six years. The two roommates and I formed an alliance. When the Boy-next-door would leave for the night to go do whatever it was that he did his roommates would knock on the wall to let me know that the coast was clear to come over and hang out. One night, as the boy's roommates and I were hanging out together, watching a movie and telling dirty jokes, the Boy-next-door walked in on us. 

It was as if someone's mother had walked in and crashed her kids party! Hell hath no fury like a roommate scorned. Boy-next-door turned red and screamed at his roommates for having no loyalty to him. 

That was the last straw for the roommates. They told him that they could be friends with whomever they pleased, they could bring into the apartment whomever they pleased, they were tired of his behavior and that he needed to find a new place to live. 

Things are nice and quiet here now that Boy-next-door is not next door anymore, and I couldn't be more grateful for the two roommates he left behind. 

Thank God We Have Labels. How Else Would We Know Who We Are?

I love the line in the movie, Silver Lining Play Book when Tiffany finally snaps and calls Pat out on his judgement of her promiscuous past, screaming, "There will always be a part of me that is dirty and sloppy, but I like that, just like all the other parts of myself. I can forgive. Can you say the same for yourself, f***er? Can you forgive? Are you capable of that?"
Read more at http://www.ranker.com/list/silver-linings-playbook-movie-quotes/movie-and-tv-quotes?page=2#2K1GiqGORitD9o7B.99

Tiffany's promiscuity aside, this line really spoke to me. It is how I feel about myself a lot of the time. I will do things or say things that others would not do for whatever reason. I like to think that messy part of them lives somewhere deep inside them hiding behind a mask of conservation and fear of judgement. But maybe I like to think this only because I hope I'm not the only one who thinks or feels the way I do. For example, and this is one of the more innocent and fun-loving side of myself, Ashton and I had a hula hoop contest in the middle of the toy aisle at Walmart the other night. It was fun and spontaneous and gave us both a surge of excitement just knowing that we were sort of "breaking the rules" of convention that are really nothing more than a social invention. (Rhyme was unintentional but a happy accident all the same so I'll leave it). But other times, my dramatic flare will conflict with social norm just enough to make me seem incompetent or unstable. I am misunderstood. I know exactly what behavior is expected of me in public, I just often refuse to abide by the rules. It is with mixed emotions that I say, I see some of this in my son, Matthew. 

Today I broke down in tears, raised my voice a little and generally displayed my irritation with the school system in a meeting with Matthew's teacher, Principal, my ex-husband, and committee of professionals all working to pinpoint Matthew's difficulties in school. I had been worried over this meeting for so many reasons, least of all being my reluctance to accept that my son may struggle learning. But also because I am frustrated with the United States school system that I feel to be outdated, pushes kids too hard, discourages their creativity and takes away any hope of them having a childhood Then when a child resits the conventional methods of education he is slapped with a "disability" label that follows him for the rest of his life.I would really like to believe that my reaction was the reaction many others have inwardly but hold back for fear of being rude.

 I had so many mixed emotions about all of it. I was happy to hear that the psychologist recognizes his wild creativity, and his secret intelligence hidden under his apathy. All of the experts present stated that they believed Matthew's IQ scores are not an accurate reflection of his actual abilities but that doesn't change the fact that in the eyes of our system my son is declared "disabled". It does not change the fact that in order to get him a few minutes of tutoring each day to catch up on his math and language his father and I had to sign a paper saying we believe our child's brain does not process in a "normal" fashion and for reasons no one has a specific name for. 

The term, "learning disabled" is a broad definition used to describe anything from dyslexia to retardation and brain damage. What if my son just inherited some of my "sloppiness" when it comes to perimeters of our school system, refusing to give up his unique identity by coloring inside the lines just because some ass hole decided that to teach kids we have to break their spirits? What if inside that little red head of his he is just questioning why the hell he is learning all these things? What  if he just wants to know how all this shit applies to his life? What if it isn't that he can't define what a dog is, but that he doesn't understand why these teachers are asking him to define the obvious? I can almost visualize his mind thinking, " of course I know what a dog is, don't you?" Is questioning a sign of a disability or of greater intelligence? After all, as a child Einstein was diagnosed as mentally retarded.

I'm not really sure how all of my thoughts in this post apply to each other, my posts are often a string of scattered thoughts. It is that messy part of myself that I have to learn to embrace but at least I have thoughts, I question. Maybe my reaction to Matthew's proposed disability was a little extreme, maybe no other parent would express their irritation at the school system to the principal but burn with a desire to. Maybe I'm overly sensitive about labels like "disabled" and maybe I'm just frustrated that Matthew and I share a common stigma just because neither of us are willing to conform, to lie down and play by societal rules just for the sake of getting our little stamp of approval that deems us "normal", instead I wear the labels, "different", "strange", "dramatic", "socially awkward" and now Matthew gets his own neatly printed label, "learning disabled". It just doesn't set right with me.

Big Man on Campus

It was not the greatest way to start off the new semester. It was the first day of school and I hadn't made babysitting arrangements for my four year old yet! For one reason or another the money I needed to sign Harrison up for a day care hadn't made it in. I haven't been in school long, but long enough to know that the first day is kind of important, It's the day the professors pass out the syllabi and give students a feel for how they grade. Most classes I take will also base final grades on class participation, so miss the first day and it kind of screws with the rest of the semester. I was in over my head already.

I called everyone I knew within a reasonable traveling distance but no one was willing or able to take my little guy for a few hours. I was left with two choices, miss the first day of school or take the boy with me. Missing was not a reasonable option for me so Harrison and I prepared for our first day of school together.

After getting the big kids off to the bus stop, Harrison and I headed across the street hand in hand to the University. Harrison's miniature spider man backpack was bulging with tiny action figures, crayons, coloring books and snacks, mine with math and reading books and plenty of colored pens. Our first stop: math.

Before walking into the room I had a little heart to heart with Harrison. I calmly explained to him that he needed to sit as quietly as he could and color in his book or the math monster would suck his brains out and he'd become a gummy bear. Joking! I bribed him like a second rate mobster, promising him everything just short of Disney Land if he would be quiet for an hour. He responded to that pretty well and we crept into the classroom. The professor was already beginning his monologue, but didn't notice as we slipped into the seats on the back row. Fortunately this was not the typical classroom set up with individual desks for each student, but rather a row of long tables with PC's and chairs stationed at two feet intervals.

 I sat Harrison in the chair next to mine and quickly set up his coloring books, then got out a tablet and pencil for myself. Harrison did great. He sat so quiet, drawing little H's on his paper in green crayon while I took notes. It wasn't until near the end of the class period before we were discovered, and the reaction was underwhelming. Being a school that is about fifty-percent non-traditional students anyway, this had happened in other classes before. As my professor was passing out the syllabus, he came to the end of my table and simply stated, "wow, these freshmen are looking younger and younger every year".

The kindness of the math professor calmed my anxiety a bit and the rest of the day went smooth. Instead of fighting to keep Harrison quietly entertained throughout the next two class periods, I went into the next classes a little early, explained the situation to the professors, who were happy to send me out with a copy of the syllabus and the short version of the day's lecture. By one o'clock we had visited all of my classes and bought my text books from the campus store, so my little man and I wandered over to the food court for a cup of well-deserved frozen yogurt and hiked back across the duck pond home and made it just in time to catch Curious George on PBS. While the situation was not ideal, the end result was. I made it work, things got done and I spent some quality time with my little guy to boot.

I got this.

The Nutty Professor and Me

I remember this one time when I had a blog and I actually wrote on it. It was about rebuilding a life and family after divorce and all the little adventures that come along with it. With spring semester being over, I think I'll take a little time and write for fun again. Lets see...where do I start...awe...crazy professor story seems appropriate for this occasion.

I was a little early on the first day of English class because I'm a nerd and that's what nerds do. There were however a couple of other early birds as well. One of these overly eager students was a very tall middle aged hippie who sat on the back row. He wore some sort of graphic t-shirt and blazer. His hair was pulled back into a pony tail that stretched all the way to the middle of his back and he wore a thick, graying beard. As the students filed in, he made awkward comments about being old and returning to school. Some of the students would politely chuckle. I however, kept to myself, ignoring any bustling or talking from others in the room. When the room was full the hippie stood up and making his way to the front of the class announced that he was in fact the professor teaching the course. I was a little surprised, but then again this was an English class and English professors are notorious for being eccentric. I did not however expect this hippie to be so influential to my life decisions.

I started school intending to study respiratory therapy, being a respiratory therapist was not a life-long dream of mine, I just thought it would make for a pretty decent paying job and I'd maybe be able to buy a small house for me and the kids once my career took off. But I wasn't passionate about it, just muddling through. I had this crazy notion that just because I'm a single mom I have to be boring, serious and suffer through life. It wasn't long before my authentic self was rattling the cage, trying to get out.The cage banging only got worse when the crazy professor began assigning essays to read and then asking us to write about the essays. The very first essay assigned was written by Anne Lamont entitled, shitty first drafts. It was all about the awful drafts that come out on a writers first stab and second and even the third. I was shocked to learn that even the great authors struggle with revision. Soon after the first writing assignment I was finished with respiratory therapy. I no longer felt that breathing was the most important thing in my life, and I remembered who I am, who I've always been, a writer.

Later in the semester, I learned that the crazy professor came from a pretty sorted past himself, he and I are not entirely different from each other. He too, was a single parent, had full custody. His daughter was very young when he started his higher education and often times, he had to show up to class with her in tow. I could only imagine trying to get my four year old to sit quietly during a lecture. He was an inspiration. I felt that if he could finish college and make a career out of doing something he really loved to do then so could I. My life has changed since I made the decision to change majors, I found myself again.

The broken record days.

There are those days when I find it hard to hear myself above the incessant monologue of doubt playing over and over in my head like a broken record. These last few days have been those broken record kind of days.

The semester is winding down and the teachers are getting much more demanding. Its suddenly time to prove myself with final papers and tests and quizzes and projects! It just seems so sinister. Its not enough that I've shown up to every class, or scored high on my quizzes, no, I have to prove I "get it" through a twenty page report that is to include an evaluation of the teacher and what she could do to make the course better! That just feels like a trap to me. There is no right way to write this paper. 

And of course, finals week has to coincide with two of my four children's birthdays. Of course it does! And of course my daughter has to have a big party with over a dozen prepubescent tweens and an eighties themed dance because after all she's turning twelve and that's what you do when you're turning twelve. And of course my seven year old son decides that now, during finals time, is the right time to throw some massive fits and basically act out his own rendition of The Exorcist! Of course! Because anything less than catastrophic would be making things much too easy on me. 

I have this amazing ability to find the most impossible of roads to travel and then travel them. Its like I find these roads that no one even knew existed because its hidden in the thicket, not traveled since ancient times because everyone has figured out that its just a ridiculous way in which to go, but I just have to take it, because I'm April and that's what I do! I travel the road of sure defeat. Dead man's cove. Of course this road I'm referring to is metaphoric. I'm not saying that I'm now an off-road motor cross biker or anything, just an off-road life biker. Instead of just accepting my place in the world, I have to make myself into something better or die trying. 

The goal is to attain a college degree in order to make a better life for myself and the kids. The kids dream of a house with a yard to play in. I dream of a house with a yard I can throw the kids out to. And a laundry room with a washer and dryer I don't have to feed quarters to. I dream of a job I enjoy, where I feel I make a real difference. It all sounds simple enough, until you get to the nitty gritty, the details like babysitting and bills. I couldn't possibly keep up with school and a job, but I can't keep up the bills without a job. Its a tough spot to be in and days like these I question my goal. Is it impossible? Is in unrealistic? Do I need to accept my place as an uneducated woman in a less than ideal career? These are just some of the thoughts that race through my brain on the worst of these broken record days. 

Because Blogs With Pictures of Cats are Super Popular

 The Insurance commercial I heard on the radio yesterday said that if you want to have a successful blog, a good place to start is by posting pictures of cats. People love cats! So hear is a picture of a cat. He is a little exotic looking. People love exotic too! I like to call him, Silver bullet because it would probably take a silver bullet to kill it.









Just to ensure that my little rant pages are super successful, I'm going to go ahead and treat you to another little darling.

 This little guy carries a cunning resemblance to a bar tender I regrettably went on a couple of dates with. He has the same menacing look in his eyes, bad sense of jewelry fashion, and of course the mo-hawk which was Mr. Bar tender's own little trade mark that set him apart so well from all the other fifty million dumb asses with the same due. Little kitty wears his better, in my opinion that is. Not withstanding, I think I'll call this one Scotch on the Rocks.

What do you think? Do we need a finale to keep my sudden influx of new readers coming back for more? I think so. This last little cutie is proof that life does exist on other galaxies and that they are not staying home. We are being invaded people!

I think I'll call him Zuel after the evil demon from the classic 80's film, Ghost Busters. (one of my favs by the way)

But then, I'm kind of torn. Zuel also looks quite a lot like a hellish version of Skippy John Jones, the beloved character from the very popular children's book series. That gives me an idea for a new book in the series, "Skippy John Jones gets carried away with a bottle of Nair".

Any way, I hope you all enjoyed these pictures of cute cuddly cats as much as I did. Its amazing how animals can melt your heart and make you feel all fuzzy inside. I guess that's why blogs with pictures of cats are so very popular. I'm sure glad I listened to the radio.