What Is Your Escape??

I have always tried to be healthy and in shape.  I was an athlete in high school and even afterwards I was still pretty active.  I ate fairly decent, but not the best. Fast forward to adulthood and kids, I never lost my passion but it did take a back seat.  I always knew it was still in there, just didn’t know how or when it would rise to the surface again.  Until, my second marriage and having a blended family started to seem impossible to handle.

You see I don’t have a testimony of losing a large amount of weight or having a physical health scare.  I have one on more of an emotional and mental level. During the transition of getting married and blending our families, this started to get stressful. We planned and talked and prepared as much as we thought we could, but you cant plan, prepare or talk through how another person will react until that person reacts.  We thought we had the tools to help us, but nothing could have prepared us for the situations that we were about to face and boy did we face them, they hit us right in the face!

We were not prepared at all! Nor did we understand why these things were being said and done. Let me tell ya folks, we are as laid back and as simple as they get. We live a very simple life that we love. Sure to some degree we spoil our kids, but we don’t live a life of big luxury and that’s because we choose not to. So, why? Why would anyone want to destroy what we have? Well, I’ve learned something in these forty-one years of my life and that is, misery loves company! Not that we should ever excuse people or allow people to treat us poorly, but at least we can know that it has nothing to do with us.

Back to the being healthy part, during this time in our blended family I needed an escape. Not like an escape like leaving my family and jet off to a private island and just send postcards type of escape (now that I’m writing this maybe I should have looked into this, lol), but something to do to get me out of the house so I’m not suffocating under all the negativity.  So, I chose the gym! I needed my outlet, my happiness back, my own space, and something that I could control.  This is when I decided that my health was the most important thing in my life.  No I’m not the fittest person ever and yes I have days that I don’t make good choices or workout, but the end goal is to be as healthy as I can be for me.

I am now more positive with what we went through as a blended family and having people that seemed to want to make all of our lives unhappy, see above with the misery loves company.  It broke us down and forced us to dig deep and become different people for each other and ourselves.  I found my happiness again and my drive to want to live a healthier life. Now, I eat cleaner than I ever have and do some form of activity almost daily.  It has become a lifestyle now and I will never go back or let anyone take it away from me.  It has opened doors for me that I never thought I would be able to do or to have the confidence to do them.  I am a personal trainer at my gym and love every day that I get with my clients.  It doesn’t even feel like work!

Maybe I should write a thank you letter to the people that worked so hard to destroy our family because they are what gave me the drive early on to put in the work that was needed for all of us.  I don’t do it because of them anymore, I do it because of me and for me.

That is my testimony and how I decided to live my life for me and for a healthier version of me.  Blended families are hard, harder than anyone can even describe to you. If you are dealing with blended family issues (or any issues in life) and need an escape I highly recommend finding a healthy outlet or jet off to that private island, but I would love an invite for the later one!

Stepmoms

In years past, they have been given a title that rarely had any positive tone to it. And why? Why did it have to be that way? Did we/they ask to be in the situation they are in? Helping to raise children that aren’t her own? No. So her choices are to search for a man to date that doesn’t have children at all or to date someone knowing they have children and take the chance of it being a healthy situation or a not so healthy one.

At a certain age, the dating pool gets smaller, then take out the men that have children and it’s really, really small. So as a single woman you decide to take a chance and think to yourself that if the roles were reversed you would be respectful to a stepmom to your children so surely others would act the same. Wrong!

Let’s be honest, women can be mean. We can be insecure, jealous, hateful, bullying. Not all of us are all of these things, but all of us have felt at least one of these things at some point in our lives. The key is to handle it in a healthy way. You have to say to yourself, why am i so angry? Why am i feeling the way I’m feeling? When you can honestly answer those questions, then you can come up with some resolutions to solving your issues. Because usually it’s a personal issue with yourself, not the other person.

I have said it a thousand times, no one can take your role as mom or dad unless you are putting it on the table to be taken. And, just a little secret us stepmoms have, we don’t want to be “mom” to our step kids, especially us stepmoms that have children of our own. We have enough on our plate raising ours let alone take on more that we didn’t raise from birth and obviously wouldn’t have the same bond with. We just want to be a good foundation for them for when they are with their father. We want to make the home feel like it’s everyone’s safe place and to provide things they love and need so that they don’t feel like they are coming to a house that they don’t belong in, that’s it, it’s that simple!

So i ask again, why is it that the term stepmom has a negative connotation to it? That’s because lots of times it’s given by the bio-mom, or at least in my case it is and many others that i have talked to. Bio-mom feels threatened by another woman coming into her kids life and “that’s a hard pill for her to swallow.” Understandably, so wouldn’t you want to get to know that stepmom and see where she is coming from before you decide that it’s a bad thing? I would and I did with my kids stepmom and she’s wonderful!! Wonderful a thousand times! Now, if I myself felt insecure or jealous of my kids stepmom then it wouldn’t be a positive thing because I wouldn’t allow it to be. You as a woman can decide how any situation is going to be, especially in a blended family. If the bio mom isn’t happy with having a stepmom, it will feed into the kids not being happy about it as well. Also, it will then in turn effect the coparenting situation between dad and bio mom. Why would any mother want any of that for her children? That causes so much unnecessary stress and emotional harm to your children and all because of bio moms personal issues. Again, even if she does feel a certain way, bio mom can be the one to make or break the relationship between children and step mom. I pray for those moms that make it an issue that you please realize that the only people that suffer are the children.

Keep your heads up stepmoms, in the end we know we are doing the greater good and for a better purpose. We are the ones keeping the kids as first priority and nothing else. We are the ones that can lay our heads down at night peacefully knowing we have done the right thing 💗

Anger

Had a conversation with a friend yesterday about some things that my husband and I have gone through the past six months. Not going to lie, it got my blood boiling a little. I managed to distract myself yesterday when thoughts of anger, frustration, or even revenge kept creeping in. By evening time I felt better and went to bed.

When I woke this morning and was thinking about my morning devotion and what I wanted to study, I immediately chose anger..maybe tomorrow I will choose forgiveness.

I sat down with my coffee and dairy-free yogurt, yes there is such a thing and yes it’s actually good, and dove right into my Bible. I couldn’t get enough, I was starving and dependent on His word to help me let go of my anger.

“In your anger do not sin; when you are on your beds, search your hearts and be silent.” Psalms 4:4

Don’t search to get revenge when you are angry, search for peace. Give it all over to the Lord and let Him handle it. He probably won’t handle it the way you would and that’s a good thing. Don’t wish for bad things to happen to that person. If they aren’t a good hearted person, chances are they are already unhappy. Pray for them..that’s a whole other lesson to read on another day.

Divorce and co-parenting

Sadly,  divorce is not all that uncommon nowadays in 2017, but with that means there is also tons of education when it comes to co-parenting after a divorce.  Unfortunately, I have been divorced and had small children at the time. It was a very difficult time for all of us, especially our kids. I have had many friends go through divorces since mine and the one advice that I always say to them is, keep the kids first!!! Of course they always say that they will and how easy it will be to do that, but they have no idea what’s ahead of them!  The kids dad and I have always strived to do this, have we failed at times, yes. The key is when you realize that you aren’t putting them first, take off the gloves and regroup.  We had a long stent where their dad was not very involved in their lives right after the divorce and they were very hurt and confused. Now, if I were to approach it in a selfish way, say I was maybe harboring some ill feelings, then I would be happy he wasn’t in their lives nor would I encourage him to communicate with them. This only hurts the kids!!! I see this so many times! I somehow seemed to find soothing words to make them feel better and would even call him to let him know they were asking about him and wanted to see him. Kids ask questions about the other parent and all they get in return is bad mouthing and hurtful words, again this hurts the child! If you always put their thoughts and feelings ahead of your own then you will always be able to come up with the right words to make your child feel better. Remember, they didn’t ask to be in the situation.

This also goes for not encouraging your children to have a relationship with their other parent. Usually this happens with the father because the kids are most often living with the mother full time. I have seen situations where the mother seems so fearful of the children having a relationship with their father almost as if she’s afraid they may like him more than her, so she never encourages any time with the father other than the court appointed time. With any extra time allowed with the father and kids,  there is a very specific schedule and is on moms terms only. This can also be said with “buying” a child’s love. Always wanting to make sure they have the latest and greatest from the mother so that they see her providing everything and not the father. This is not putting your kids first, this is putting materialism first. To go out of your way to make the other parent look badly in any way, even if they are not doing their part physically, emotionally, or financially is just wrong and can do some serious damage to your children. Children need both parents to be a part of their lives, not in competition of who they love more. News flash, they love both mom and dad!!!

Also moms, don’t use your kids as cash cows. You shouldn’t want to nickel and dime the father just so the kids can have the best of everything. That’s not real life. Don’t you want dad to have a life when he has the children? If you were thinking of your kids first then you would because that would make the kids happy.  They want to be able to go to the movies with dad, too. Again, this makes them happy. They want to have a comfortable place and space of their own at their dads, dont you want them to have that? Do you do anything to encourage that? If not, then you’re not putting the children’s thoughts and feelings before your own. My kids father and I have been divorced longer than we were married and even though we have a visitation schedule in writing, we don’t go by it and haven’t for a few years now. The only thing we follow is Christmas and that’s just so everyone can see the kids and there’s no question as far as when they will be with me or dad. My kids go see their father whenever they want or as often as they want. I just ask that they let me know ahead of time to the best of their ability so I will know if I need to cook dinner  or not. And really, if I had already planned on cooking, we can just eat it the next night, it’s not that serious! One thing I pride the kids father and myself on is when we are at our sons football games, we have purchased season tickets all on the same row. This way our son can look in one section and see his mom, dad, stepmom, stepdad, grandmothers and grandfather all sitting there together to support him. We may not like each other at times, but we do it all for the kids.

Remember moms and dads, the children did not ask for this life situation and for their sake they would love if everyone could get along and put their feelings ahead of your own selfishness and greed.

Will I survive the teenage years??

As soon as I had told my parents that I was pregnant, all they kept saying was to be ready for sleepless nights, dirty diapers, and a crying baby….and those were the easy years! I passed that test with flying colors! Fast forward to preteen and teen years, I’m failing terribly! Either I’m too involved or not enough, one day I say the right thing and the next minute it could be completely wrong. Don’t get me wrong, I can still clearly remember what it’s like to be a teenager, I’m not all THAT old.  I can remember not wanting to tell my parents every little thing going on in my life. I can also remember what it felt like to have that wonderful feeling of freedom when I would drive out of the driveway in my car…that my parents paid for. What I don’t get is the insane hormone changes that my teenagers are having.  Is it the food, internet, social life?? Whatever it is, they need to get a handle on it and quickly. As most moms do, I pray every time my kids walk out the door that they keep God in their hearts and always make good choices.  I know at some point they will be given a chance to make a choice in a situation and I just hope they make the right one. I also pray he can give me the patience to allow my sweet angels to maneuver through this thing called life. And while the maneuver through it, I pray they only hit a few bumps in the road rather than potholes.

Dont go thinking that I don’t love those kids, God knows I do, I just need to learn to take a deep breath and jump two feet in when dealing with them. I know I’m the bad guy most of the time and yes, I know my parents felt the same way. I’ve become accustomed to that. I feel as though I’m not properly doing my job as a parent if I haven’t made them mad at least once in their lifetime. So, on to the next time I make one mad…wait I think one is calling me now for their packed lunch that they forgot at home. Not such a mean mom now, huh?