Yesterday is yesterday and today is today. I’m still feeling a little sad about yesterday but Pierre has been great. He’s been cracking jokes all day about adopting a new Grandparent from AARP. He figured better insurance and there better taken care of. LOL.  So it’s making me smile and not feel quite so sad today.  This week has been filled with lots of emotion for me. I found new family members and lost a family member. All my life all I wanted was to have family and to know my roots. Who are the people in my family, where am I from, our history. The sad thing is that as much as I would love a close family, my family just doesn’t want the same things as I do. There off living there own life and I’ve been cut out of even a glimpse of it. And I realize that no matter how much I want to be a part of their life I’m not.

So the great thing about being an adult and making my own decisions in life is that I also get to choose my family. Family need not be of blood, sometimes the closets family is the family you choose. So I release myself from the obligations of blood family. Those who want to be my family know where I am and those who don’t want to be my family will quietly fade away. I will not shed any more tears for you and I will not spend any more time and energy where it is not wanted. 

I will however love and cherish the family that I choose, my beautiful daughters, my wonderful partner, my newfound family, my ex-husband and the various assorted people who have been there for

Today’s topic is weddings.  I think everyone has different views on weddings. Some want a big ostentatious display for friends and family, the perfect fairy tale wedding for the perfect fairy tale relationship and for some that may be the case. But I see too often now days the fairy tale turns into a horror story and lots of money has been flushed down the toilet in the pursuit of something that can’t be found in a fairy tale story but can only be found when things are real.

Now as one of the female persuasion, I have dreams of my special day, as do most women. But I don’t want to break the bank to do it. For me the most important parts of a wedding are the joining of two people in marriage and the coming together of two families. For me weddings are two important parts.

The commitment to marriage is sacred and shouldn’t be undergone lightly. It’s a very private and intimate act for me. It means I choose to bind my life with that of my love through bad and good times. Unlike family, you choose this commitment. You open yourself completely to another and share that which is most precious. Your true inner heart. Even knowing that at times it may be scary, even though it opens you up to being hurt. It also opens you up to great love and passion, to trust, to a life mate to battle the world with.

For me this is such an intimate and bonding moment, it’s hard for me to open myself up and allow other to be a part of this special moment. It’s like having sex in front of everyone and trying to enjoy it too.  I know that sounds strange but even though I’ve been divorced I don’t take marriage lightly nor divorce. There are few things in this world that would make me get a divorce. Sadly, I had to do it once, but hopefully I won’t this time. I go into this marriage with eyes open and full and complete disclosure. I want to make sure Pierre know what he’s getting himself into.

Now the second part of the wedding is the coming together of two families. I don’t think many people think about this now days but family is important. And two families coming together to support a new couple is so important to the success of the union and to future relationships. 

In days of old both families would come together to give gifts to the new couple and to help the new couple start their new lives, it’s not just about a wedding gift. Its families helping to make food, decorate, offer advice, to celebrate and making the new family members feel welcome. 

So for me a perfect wedding isn’t about the gifts or the dress or how perfect everything is because life isn’t perfect and if my wedding is “to perfect” then it’s not really real is it?

I want our families to support us, to accept Pierre into my family and Pierre’s family to accept me into his. I want to have homemade dishes from both our families so that we can share our family favorites. I want games, laughter, and dancing. I want to be beautiful for Pierre because he should know that the beauty on the outside is just a dim reflection compared to the beauty and love that I have for him in my heart, and because every bride should feel beautiful on her wedding day and every groom will be the handsomest man on your wedding day.

So in saying this I hope you all understand marriage from my point of view and help cheer me up once in awhile because wedding planning can be hard. Maybe I should write a book about that, “How to create a memorable wedding on a shoestring budget for 200 + people and not go crazy”.

-Budget: Hmm maybe $200 maybe $2000

-Location: $600 and I’ve got to pay it all now? Darn find a new place _TBA_??

-Theme: Asian Cherry blossom (ok so this one’s easy)

-Guests: 200 and counting…

-Food: A lot

-Favors: Hand maid

-Décor: Hmm can I make theses twigs and string look cool?

-Music: Dj Curtis (Jades Fiancé and a laptop computer and lots of ingenuity)

-Parental Involvement: 0

-Honeymoon: ha Ha Maybe if we drive around and sleep in the car.

-Sanity: Priceless

But at the end of the day, at the end of all the craziness I have two beautiful daughters and my sweet Pierre. Every minute of craziness is worth it, to have him by my side. Even if I get married in jeans and a t-shirt, I will still love and be loved.

Ok so enough of me already. I feel like I’ve been talking about me way to much lately. Oh, Wait….Yea so 365 blog means 365 me. Hmmm guess I’ll have to keep talking then, But not right now.

HELP WANTED: Now accepting unsuspecting Brides maids and Groomsmen for unexpected manual labor and creatively planning a wedding. Must provide own shoestring!!

 Wahoo I am on fire today and not in a bad way. Got the Hypno Room painted, got a letter back from my big brother (wow feels weird to say that). Today is a really good day. Now all I need to do is win the lotto jackpot and life would be perfect. So now, I’m thinking about what I would do if I win.

So here’s my list:

-Pay off all my bills

-Buy a home

-Buy a car

-Set up trust funds for my Mom, Grandma, Ex-husband, Girls, and Pierre

-Give money to friends and family

-Take Friends and family to Disney world and give each child under 18 $500 spending money and Paid trip for parents

-Give money to Charity: Vera House, CNY Sans etc

And this is the short list; I actually have an Excel sheet for when I win. So I’m sitting back with a silly little grin thinking about how nice it would be to take everyone to Disney world especially all my new family. 7 brothers and sisters, 19 nieces and nephews and 1 grandniece. I couldn’t be happier.  Sometimes when you make a wish, you sit and wait awhile but eventually it comes true. My wish came true, yours can too.

P.S. Some people say I can be too generous when I have money but what fun is it if I can’t share it with those I love. 

P.S.S. I already won $25 on an instant win ticket tonight. J Yea me!

Today is a trying to ignore the pain so maybe it will go away type of day. So far it’s not working all that well and I will probably pay for it latter. But as always, there’s so much to do and not enough time to do it, and besides if I waited until I wasn’t in pain that would be never.

Today between running to my daughter jades school, work, and trying to get the hypnosis room ready for painting everything kind of just melted together into one big pile of stuff. But I’m getting most of it done. My only worry is that when I stop moving the pain gets worse so I try to keep moving till I drop at night then it catches me while I’m trying to sleep and then I don’t sleep because I’m in pain. GRR Frustrating but hey what can you do.

So on another note I’m trying to come to terms with the fact that I have a new found family.  I always knew that I had have siblings but I never thought I would get a chance to know them, or that they’d even want anything to do with me. And so far, they seem very interested in me. I cannot stop smiling and being happy and terrified at the same time. The cool thing is looking through my brother’s page at pictures of his family and seeing people that look more like me. I’ve never had family that looked anything much like me, and it’s pretty cool. My daughter jade I think is the most excited and she’s already planning a trip, me I’m just scared. What do they think of me, will they like me, do they know anything about me, what’s my dad like. So many questions.

It’s funny I have so many questions about my dad and I would like to meet him at least once in my life, but I am more interested in meeting my half-siblings. So here’s to an unexpected but exciting new part of my journey. May be soon I will be planning a trip to see some new family. J

I don’t like to think about my childhood.  Some memories I’ve forgotten and the rest just seems too painful. It’s taken me along time to recover my memories to be able to remember what was on TV 5 minutes ago but I’m doing better and I keep lots of notes. Sometimes it’s weird because some things I remember with crystal clarity and others times its hazy but once I start remembering it seems to come in and stay. I know everyone has a rough life, childhoods full of pain. So mine is not really any different.

My mom was a hard working person, who worked long hours and did her best, but she was also a hard person and for awhile someone I didn’t like very much. For years, I thought I knew my mom. She was ex-military with a need for everything in its place and not so funny army pranks.

I remember a lot of broken promises and learned to fend for myself. And now I watch as she promises my girls things and I run behind doing damage control trying to limit the hurt feelings the my mom doesn’t; mean to do.  But I cannot do it forever. Jade is starting to understand that grandma’s promises don’t always mean much. And it’s frustrating to me, I want to shake my mom and yell at her, but I’m not sure I even know her anymore.

She’s been gone for so long and the sporadic phone calls come less and less and mean less and less because she’s not there. I know I’m an adult and my mom shouldn’t mean this much to me. But my mom is all that I had growing up, and now I just feel sad. My oldest jade is bitter and angry because grandma doesn’t’ care and lily doesn’t’ know grandma. Mom’s been gone nearly 9 years and she’s only been back less than a handful of times. And I don’t even know my stepfather; I’ve never even met him.

I know why she left because my grandma was so bitter and mean but she left me too. And now I don’t even know if she will be there for my wedding. Sometimes it seems like she might but at least she’s not promising me she will this time. I think it would kill me if she promised me and then backed out of another promise.

But although me and my mom haven’t always got along and see the same page. I do love her. She raised me for 17 years alone, with no one else and that’s not easy. She did her best and it is from her that I get my strength and strong work ethic but I wish she were here more. I know she lives in Bosnia now and that’s her home now but I wish she would visit more, or write or call.

So this is some more back story of my life, it’s the stuff that shaped me today and maybe tomorrow but I don’t know if it will shape me forever. 

So it’s been a day with huge ups and downs, and my final thought is WOW. So because I am still reeling from everything and need more time to internalize it all I’m not going to say much about my day. Except that, I may have found a half brother today and he comes with six other half siblings to me. So Ok wow, and he’s excited to have me find him. I’m someone’s sister. WOW.

But for now on to another random topic.

While driving today I was noticing a lady on the side of the road dressed very provocatively and who I’m pretty sure was prostituting herself. And so it set my mind to thinking about prostitution.

I think there are people on both sides of the fence for this issue those who see no harm and those who do. Me, I’m a little of both sides. You see I look around and I see many women prostitute themselves although it’s not called that. How many women out there are in bad relationships but they stay because it keeps them feed and housed, it keeps these kids safe. We don’t call it prostitution in these cases but it is in essences the same they trade there body for money or safety.

So what difference does it make that a woman openly prostitutes herself for money instead of hide behind a relationship at least the one on the street is being hones at least she has some control over her destiny.

Now I’m not saying either situation is right or wrong it’s just something to think about.

I think too about the men in both types of situations. The ones in the “bad relationship”  tend to be domineering and controlling where as many of the clients of prostitutes are lonely and looking to get needs met, they are being open and honest about their desires and willing to exchange energy ( in this case money)  to obtain their desires.

They are not forcing these women to do it; the women can say no, the men can find someone else.

What I find bad is when someone is forced to do something they don’t want to do, if a woman is forced to work as a prostitute by a pimp then its wrong because it is not her choice but if she makes the choice to do this then it’s a job like every other. In some cases maybe a little better because she can make the rules.

An then there’s Sacred prostitution. Imagine what your first time was like all the fears and you had and how you were kind of scared and it was all just new and terrifying. Think about it with someone who shows you pure love, is experienced, and can give you this amazing experience in a very loving way. Think about how lonely it can be sometimes when you don’t have someone special and you just need someone to connect with in a intimate and loving way but there is no one to talk to, no one to share your needs with. Sometimes it’s not just about sex it’s about the energy and the connection.

So any way this is my ramble. Tell me what you think. 

Ask me a question, anything I am an open book. Ask me about my blog, ask me about my past my present my future to come. I choose this journey because I need to find change in my life and the purpose is to change. So ask me about my life to help me facilitate the change I desire and may be you’ll find some answers to your own life challenges.

And While I am waiting for you to ask a question. I will let my words wander on some more. Today I am Grateful for many things. Even though the world can suck, I still have so many things to be grateful for. I am grateful to my loving and wonderful partner Pierre.  He’s always there to catch me when I fall and make me smile when I’m sad.

I am grateful to my two lovely daughters they can be a trial sometime but I love them more than life and they keep me moving in this world. If I am strong, it’s because I need to be strong for them.

I am grateful for my business; it allows me to be me to interact with all types of new people, to help people. My life has been filled with lots of pain and sorrow and no one to help me. Now I want to be that helping hand that light in the dark.

I am grateful for my life because even though I’m broken it gives me the perspective to help others who are broken.

I am grateful for the challenges in my life because it has shown me how strong I truly can be.

So even when life sucks there is still so much to be grateful for there is still so much left to keep fighting for.

Thank you. And I am thankful for all of you who choose to read my words.

Now hurry up and ask me a question because I’m waiting to answer them for you J

I was so looking forward to things settling down a bit, no more dr's appointments or dentist appointments. Within the last 3 weeks, I’ve trekked back and forth to 13 separate dr’s/dentist appointments. It is enough to scream at. Then there’s trying to do all this and work and deal with lots of high pain days and way too much stress and now the powers off. I want to cry and curl up somewhere in a tight little ball and disappear from it all. I feel like such a disappointment sometimes. I know I put a lot on my shoulders but if I don’t do it who will?  I’ve tried before to delegate and that hasn’t really worked out so well. So I try to do it all. But how can I manage the money when there’s just not enough. And me trying to run around figuring out a plan to make it. Trying to figure out a way to pay the bills when no one want to hire a broken, over educated me. So I made my own job, but that comes with risks too because now it’s just me trying to run a business and pay those bills and trying to run a household and pay those bills too. People think self-employed that I must be rolling in money but no, I’m struggling to make it work because otherwise I have nothing. No one will hire broke overeducated me and the bills still need to be paid. So I try to make something else, I try this and that trying to make a difference but sometimes it just plain sucks. It seems every ones as broke as me. And the tools I need to be successful are just out of my reach.

A business needs advertising and marketing and just a little more cash flow then I have. But this year has been a dozy for me but better than last year so far. We had to move the business and we finally found a place to live, but moving the business is like starting over for a small business. So here goes year 1 all over again.

So for right now I know I just need to slow down and breathe and try not to lose my skin. I’m so agitated right now; I could probably make a milk shake. Anyway, for now I’m taking a break to breathe.

So I notice that as I’m walking around that I spend a lot of my time watching the ground as I walk because I’m afraid of falling and making myself more broken then I already am I wish I didn’t have to watch the ground so much because there so much beauty that surrounds me and I miss it because the ground likes to trip me.

What a day to be had, It’s still not over but I think for now I’m done talking about it. I’m going to breathe and try to have a camp out with my girls and pretend that life is really good, instead of the suck fest that going on. Maybe I will sit up and watch the stars come out. 

I’m looking out the window at the rain, sometimes it comes down in little sprinkles here and there and sometimes it comes down a blinding sheet of water. And it makes ne depressed. Rain is cold and wet, your clothes stick to you, and then there’s puddles etc. Rainy days makes me sad. As a fire sign, I want nothing better than a warm hot day where I can take all of my clothes and lay content in the warm sun. But as I sit here thinking of the rain I think about how nice it is to be in a nice warm shower. How refreshing it is, how it washes away all the bad, all the dirt. It makes you feel clean inside and out.  Sometimes a shower is better than a cup of coffee. It can both be refreshing and cleansing of the body and the soul. 

I think about what I do to prepare for a ritual. I take my ritual bath that ritual of shedding the old and unwanted energies and I think how good and pure I feel after I think how clear my mind is. It’s as if I’m Reborn.

Now I look out my window and I think about the rain how cool and refreshing it must be to the earth. I think about what it’s like after a good rainstorm. Everything clean and new again. It’s like I can take a breath of new clean air. And I’m not so sad about the rain anymore because everything needs a fresh start, the opportunity to wake up, be clean and refreshed. And so I sit here with a small smile on my face thinking about a nice warm shower and giving thanks for the rain to wash away old energies that we no longer need.

Sometimes it feels like my mind is a storehouse of ideas. So many ideas that I want to try. So many things that I want to accomplish. But always in the back of my mind, there is that little weight that holds me down. Not enough time, not enough resources, it’s silly, it’s different, what will people think, you have X, Y, Z to think about. But what about me? What about what I want.

I’ve spent my whole life trying to be something different but being held back to by fear of everything else. It’s funny really, when I think about the times I let go and fall into me, what I can really do.  All the books like “the Secret” and such don’t lie. Our brains are really truly amazing things, but we are so caught and held hostage by the beliefs of many by society and the teachings. By all the “NO” floating around us that, we forget that, that really doesn’t matter. Because when I forget about all the “NO” out there that’s when all the “YES’s” Come floating in. When I don’t worry about all of you that I become important. When I stop worrying what you think and do what my heart says and BELIEVE that it will happen it does.

But sometimes it’s so hard because I struggle with the desire to fit in to be just like everyone else to not make waves, like I’ve always been taught, like every ones been taught from birth to death. But I don’t want to be in that mold that isn’t me. Because when I step out of that mold that isn’t me everything I want, everything I can dream of happens and I love it.

+I love lily’s in a vase with a big pink bow that I wished for and told no one about but got them just the way I wanted, from my mom on my birthday last year+

+I love finding the right vehicle at the right time with the perfect amount of money +

+ I love an unexpected check that pays the rent+

+ I love finding my Pierre that is a reflection of all that I hold dear, that know me like no other+

+ I love starting a business with nothing and being here still 2 years later+

+ I love that when I truly believe it happens+

 So my promise to me is to live more for me and less for all of you. I love you all dearly but this is not your life its mine. And I want to believe all my wishes are just around the corner.

So to all my friends. Stop worrying about me and all the other not You’s and start worrying about YOU and believing in the power of your dreams because they will happen if you allow it, if you believe it. 

So I’m really tired tonight and I have been on the computer nearly all day but I promised to write something every day for the next 365 so here’s today’s installment.

So of the people in my life the biggest one who has played a major role in my life is my ex-husband Nelson.  Our relationship is very much a love/ hate relationship. I like to describe him kind of like the idiot brother you want to slap sometime but he’s family so you can never really get rid of him. I know it sound weird but nelson and me have a long history together, and I could never truly hate him.

 I met nelson when I was 13 and very messed up about my life. I wasn’t in a very good place in my life my mom was a difficult person to deal with and life was just not being very nice to me. We dated for a little bit and broke up. Why because I didn’t realize he really did care about me and not just my body. As I said, it was a very messed up time for me. I had a lot of people walking all over me and tearing me down and there he was just being there. He would ride his bike for miles to see me. One time he rode his bike to see me in a snowstorm, it was so bad it was white out and there he is riding his bike to see me. He did a lot for me and he still does. He doesn’t have to but somehow I know that he will always be there when I really need him.

Well as I said we dated and broke up for awhile and then we started dating again and then it’s been on and off again for years. Things were never really perfect. He didn’t know how to talk to me and I never could figure out how to listen to him. But we gave each other a way out of our homes and our own family. We tried for many years to make it work but something’s just aren’t’ meant to work. He has a tendency towards strong emotions and violence. And me I would have taken it forever because it was all I really knew. It was my life from one door to the next, from one abuser to the next. I lost track of them, because they never really mattered. And me I never really figured it out right away that this wasn’t normal that you weren’t supposed to be put in pain by the ones who love you. It took me awhile to figure that out and a frightened little girl trying to protect me.

When I think about it now I wonder how I could be so stupid. But then it’s still hard for me to accept that I am not someone’s dumping ground. But out of everyone, Nelson was not, the biggest problem he really did love me. And I know that you will not understand how I can sit and say that but he does love me and he always will. One of the things I learned by being abused for so long was that when you get beat up you go to your special place. The place the protects the fragile you. I learned to go there long before nelson. I learned that if you fought back that if you tried to protect yourself then it was only worse so I went inside. And for nelson that was a place he didn’t understand and couldn’t reach. That was the thing that set him off. He couldn’t reach me in that place and I couldn’t stop going there. For a while, I didn’t even know that’s where I went. I knew that I had huge gaps in my memory that I still struggle with.  But most times it was a struggle to remember how I got the bruises or where the holes in the walls came from or why people were asking me if I was all right. It was as if it was all happening to someone else.

I knew enough to get out here and there. And that’s why our relationship was so on again and off again. He can be so sweet and loving and can be truly wonderful. And then it would happen again and if I didn’t take action right away, it would be right back into the circle. Nice, Build up, mean, and repeat.

And we tried to make it work to fix the broken bits to hang on to something that was broken but somehow better then where we came from. Because at least where we were we had choices and knew that even if it was messed up we still had someone there who cared. There was round after round of anger management class and numerous arrests and the finally I gave up. And filed for divorce. I was done being his wife.

Yet the story is not done still because he’s still here, although it has been a long while since we have been more then co-parents and friends. He’s still trying to take care of me and I am grateful for all he’s done. Now we are all just trying to hang on.  Trying to keep the roof over our head, the power on and food in our stomachs. It’s now time for him to move on and start living his own life just as soon as we all can survive on our own.  We talk, we argue, we parent, he has his room in the attic and mine is downstairs with my Pierre. He says he’s happy that I found Pierre, and we all seem to get along in our weird little world.

So for now that’s enough about Nelson. Don’t be too hard on him in your thoughts because he really is a great guy. Dependable and he will do the world for you. But understand that his kids come first then everything else.  Just not the one for me, My friend always, Co-parenting the best we can.

So breathe and realize that tomorrow is another day and it can be the change you are looking for, When I started on my path I didn’t know what was in store for me but if I didn’t take this path then I would have found the strength I have now.