Catching Santa

I always enjoy Christmas Eve night and the time leading up to Christmas.

Even though I know that I put out the Santa gifts after the children are nestled in their beds, it is still a really magical moment. I can almost hear noises outside that I swear sound like hooves.

Call me crazy but I still sometimes hope that there will be something for me from Santa on Christmas morning.

This is the one time of year where it is looked upon by most as okay to have that childlike innocence and belief in magic. Okay, well if it isn't who cares anyway. I still have it!

After waiting about forty five minutes after the kiddos went to sleep I start putting up Scarlett's doll house that Santa brought for her.

I had put it together a couple of hours before at my ex's house before he got home from work; with his permission of course. This is another positive of having separate houses.

The kiddos have two bedrooms upstairs and can overlook the living room area if they are in the hallway outside of their rooms. I nearly jump out of my skin as I hear, "Caught ya Santa!!" I scream a little and look up to find Logan looking down with a smirk on his face. His brother Che` says from the bedroom, "Logan you're stupid. Get back to bed." Che` knows that you can't spy if you are getting any presents, although he shouldn't call his brother stupid.

Obviously the boys don't believe wholeheartedly anymore as they are ages thirteen and ten, but there is always that doubt that Santa could be real. I've never come out and told them. When they asked, I told them that they can believe in whatever they want. That seemed harmless enough.

I still have a few more years with Scarlett as she is only four, and I will keep the magic going for as long as possible.

I hope that everyone had a very Merry Christmas/Happy Holiday.

Extremist Perspectives

There was a situation at work today that got my brain ticking again and back to a place where I used to be when I was extremely active in my church a few years ago.

I would like to find that middle ground. The middle ground for me would be not preaching to people, but not going to the opposite end of the spectrum either. I have been told by friends that I am an extremist meaning it is either one way or the other.

I had never really thought about it before until it was brought up to me. Looking at the past few years when I was very active in church however, and then my life for the past two years, I can see how that has been true.

We had only been open for about thirty minutes, and I was at the front door with a few of the other waitresses waiting to greet and seat people in our sections.

I didn't have anyone sitting at my tables yet so this man walks through the door and I ask if it is just him. He says he just wants to tell us something. He walks up to those of us standing at the door, and says, "There will be trumpets."

I don't remember word for word, so ethically I don't want to misquote him. He says that God will be coming again, and spoke of Jesus for a bit. I look around at the other girls and they are completely looking at him like he is insane and I can sense they are uncomfortable. Me, on the other hand, just look at him and smile.

After a few minutes of this one of the girls said, "Okay thank you!" I said, "Merry Christmas!" He looked at the other girls and said something along the lines of you will need more than a pretty face when he comes again. He looked at the girl who spoke to him and said, "If you want me to go away you must not be ready." He left after that.

The girls were saying, "What was that?" They thought he was crazy, and a few were a bit freaked out.

I wasn't freaked out. My reasoning is this. In my opinion he actually spoke the truth, he just went about it in an overly zealous way. Okay, an extremely overly zealous way.

Was he a prophet speaking the word of God? Probably not, but as long as he isn't hurting anyone, I'm okay with that. On the other hand, if he was a prophet, I wasn't rude and I let him speak his piece. You never know!

Perhaps he will be able to achieve his goals of spreading the word of the second coming with a little less zeal one day, and maybe more people will welcome that information.

As for me and my family, my children deserve to have that middle ground balance, and that is always a work in progress. I'm speaking from a recuperating extremist perspective of course. I am getting there though.

May everyone else find the balance that suits them and their own paths.

Failure Lined In Silver

The semester has come to a close, and I have to say I'm not thrilled with how things turned out. I needed a 75% to pass Elementary Algebra, and I ended up getting a 70.4. To those of you who were in my corner, believe me I'm so disappointed in myself.

Keep in mind this came up from a 62% in about three to four weeks. I now know the secret to my success and it involves being in the math lab every day.

This was my first attempt at school as a single parent, and it is a completely different ball game.

Working two jobs, studying, and trying to keep my children in good shape, was a bit harder than my brain wanted to comprehend.

To be fully accountable, I must say that I could have done things a bit differently to do better. Had I gone to the math lab earlier in the semester, and rearranged some things I would have been ahead. I had previously had a bad experience in the math lab so I wasn't sure it would help.

My boss in the PR office urged me to try again, and even told me he wanted a blog about it. Now I had no choice but to go. This was the best thing for me.

There is a silver lining in all of this though. My math professor got me into a class that is both Elementary and Intermediate Algebra condensed into one semester so that I can still be on target to graduate.

The downside of this is that now I am taking seventeen hours of classes! I am going to be living at Vol State. Since I have no choice but to quit my waitress job with the slight possibility of working one day a month, I will max out my hours in the PR office working on Vol State's blog.

I am now more determined than ever to succeed, even if it kills me! Whew! It may just do that, but I will die trying! :-)

Quitting One to Keep Another

For the sake of trying to keep this blog as uplifting as possible, I tend to not go into the negatives of my life that often.

Yes, I try to look at the positive in almost everything as I consider myself a "glass half full" type of woman. However, I have had my nervous breakdown type symptoms.

The past two years have had many ups and downs, and I would like to say I'm a better person for it. Through all of the positive outlooks, I have had my fair share of tears, and I've felt like mentally having a breakdown, but pulled myself out of the well because I don't want my children to see giving up as an option.

Today I started getting that feeling that I'm never going to get through school. I haven't done nearly as well as I could or should have this semester. I simply took on a lot more than I should have. I was taking classes, working at the PR office, performed in an opera, and worked at Hooters. Ugh!

I made a decision today, and I'm sticking to it. Since I'm taking fourteen hours of classes starting in January, and my contract will continue as the student blogger at Vol State, I'm going to have to quit my weekend job at Hooters.

Actually, I'm going to ask my boss this weekend when I go in if I can work possibly once a month or every other month to keep my position open so that I can work the summer I graduate before going to MTSU or Western.

From a job perspective this if completely fine with me as this isn't my favorite job. I simply don't think I love being a waitress, but this has been the way I have paid for Scarlett's daycare each week. Of course, there have been times when I still haven't been able to pay, but I am seriously going to have to cut back now.

I'm not sure how much more I can cut back though. I'm sure there is a way. There simply has to be because my education and future career is important to me. I have waited entirely too long, and I can't keep putting it off. I picked a hell of a time to get divorced!

Well there you go. Life comes at you fast.

Divorce Process Differences

I received a phone call from one of my friends the other day who is also going through a divorce, and realized how lucky I am on certain levels regarding this process.

Before I go on let me clarify that it isn't a walk in the park so to speak to do everything on my own, and yes there are struggles at times with keeping my wits about me. Financially is a struggle month to month. With that being said, it can always be worse.

My friend has been going through this process for a few months and it has not been very amicable. After they had a court date and everything was agreed upon, her soon to be ex decided he was retracting everything he agreed to.

She asked me how we worked out our custody agreement and I said it is completely joint, and it is working out. It was at this time that I decided not to go into every positive thing about my situation.

I can know that things are better in that regard for me without going into every detail when she is obviously struggling. At this point, I can listen and offer encouragement without saying how easy the actual divorce process has been for me.

If I could give anyone advice on this subject it would be to take a step back and truly think about the children and not how you can hurt the other individual. Is a toaster or a television really worth fighting over and prolonging an inevitable process? This isn't to say that this is what is going on with my friend, but more often than not, it does happen unfortunately.

My marriage wasn't healthy. We didn't argue constructively, and our communication was poor for the most part. I joke that, "We made each other miserable enough while we were still together so why do it now?" There is definite truth to that statement though.

From the outside looking in, the people that I know who are going through the same process right now seemed to have a very healthy marriage. I'm not so sure outsiders would have said the same of my situation. :-)

I'm content to have a decent friendship with my ex now, and have us agree on what is best for our children completely. We both see the children equal amounts, and it is part of our routine.

I would rather have that peace of mind and know that the children are seeing both mom and dad regularly than any "stuff" that could have been argued over.

Cell Phone Use

When I was thirteen, I was happy to have a phone in my room, but my children have one better. My two boys each have new Sprint Rumors.

The upside of this was that they were free with our contract, but Che` has already left his on the bus and gotten it taken up due to texting in class.

I like the idea of being able to get in touch with him whenever possible, and now that he has this phone he doesn't need a camera or an Ipod for now.

It is interesting that The Hendersonville Star newspaper recently wrote an article about cell phone use in school.

Although there are positives and negatives, I am happy with the decision to allow my children to have cell phones. I happen to enjoy the texts I get that say, "I luv u mom!"

Last Minute Time Crunch

After thinking that my ex was going to be able to pick up our daughter from daycare I got a call saying that the S.W.A.T. team had been called out.

I guess this never ends even as the ex-wife of a police officer on the S.W.A.T.

I was in the math lab at the time and needed to stay until about 5:30 pm, and Scarlett has to be picked up no later than 6. Managing to get her in time was fine, even in the downpour and I was able to pick up Logan my ten year old as well from his dad's house.

My thirteen year old son Che` had his Christmas band concert tonight and this completely slipped my mind until I get a call from him reminding me he has to be at the school by 6:30.

Really?

How I let this slip my mind is beyond me. I've never missed one of Che`s band concerts and this wasn't going to be the exception. So much for sitting down and watching a Christmas movie with the kiddos tonight.

To put a fabulous spin on my hectic evening, my van got stuck in the muddy grass for a bit and Che` and a nice man had to give it a bit of a push to get it out. Yes, it is a joyous occasion having to park in the grass at an overly crowded school event in the pouring rain!

It's funny how such a hectic schedule still makes me happy at the end of the day. I suppose it is something I'm fairly used to by now, and it is just life after all.

Thanksgiving: Still A Family Event

Finally being able to have more than one full day off has been fabulous!

I took off the entire Thanksgiving weekend so that I could spend some quality holiday time with the children, and catch up on some much needed rest! The weekend started out early with Che`, Logan, and I going to The Nashville Rescue Mission to volunteer.

We were scheduled for the 4:30am to 7:00am shift. It was really cool to have the opportunity to serve, but I feel like I needed to do more. Che`, my thirteen year old wants to do it again.

The mission needs volunteers all of the time, so we will probably go back to volunteer again!

Thanksgiving dinner was enjoyable, as we were able to eat together as a family. Yes, my soon to be ex-husband was there. No, we didn't kill each other. We both figure that we tried to do that enough during our marriage, why should we do it now? Our weekly dinner visits seem to be working, so why fix something if it isn't broken?

I don't understand why so many people have such a hard time staying civil while going through the divorce process. People ask me, "How is it so uncomplicated with you guys when you have children together?" My response to this is simple. "It is because we have children together that we make it uncomplicated."

Don't get me wrong. There are times when I want to pull my hair out because it is mentally taxing to do so much on my own. Why add to my stress by going for my ex's throat over what can be perceived as trivial matters? Besides, the children are happier this way!

Getting Behind But Staying Afloat

I'm behind on my blog posts, as my thirteen year old son has been out sick for the past three days, and I have been feeling pretty badly as well.

Last Friday I stayed home in bed, but had to work a double Saturday. I had an audition Sunday, and did well considering that my voice wasn't to standard due to the scratchiness of the cold or whatever bug I have been fighting.

I hate being behind in my Journalism Technology class, especially since this is my major. I still have to get my sound and slide together which is thirty pictures and a song for a fabulous slide show to be posted on this blog and my website.

Although I feel like I am sometimes getting behind, I do however feel like I'm slowly but surely getting into a more organized routine. When you are doing a large majority of things on your own, organization and some sort of structure is inevitable to stay sane. I am finding this out the hard way.

For whatever reason, I have always been the type of person that has to learn for herself. Someone can tell me until I'm blue in the face the easier way to go about something, and I'm not sure if it is my stubborn nature or what, but I will do what "I" feel is best first nine times out of ten.

Luckily for me and my children, I am learning the more structured route is going to be better in the long run. Of course, veering a bit off the beaten path is sometimes good for the soul as long as you don't wind up in another galaxy entirely!

Struggling

I know that my blog is supposed to be an uplifting read of how the single mother can accomplish anything!

I am realizing now more than ever that this just isn't possible. There are ways to get things accomplished, but sometimes I feel like I'm sinking rather than rising above and beyond.

Today I actually got to my first class early despite only one hour of sleep. The one hour of sleep wasn't for lack of trying, as I went to sleep at 11 p.m. I couldn't get my brain to rest and I kept thinking about things that shouldn't even be stressful to me at all, but actually have been the cause of most of my heartache and lack of rest for the past few months.

Sometimes I feel like I am doing a wonderful job getting everything accomplished. I get to class on time, homework gets completed, have my blogs posted in a timely manner for the PR office, and spend quality time with my children.

I wonder how successful single moms of the past have accomplished everything they have to do. For the love of God, I know I'm not the only woman to go through a divorce while taking care of the children, going to school, and working to make ends meet.

I'm currently reading the book "Standing Alone: An American Woman's Struggle for the Soul of Islam" by Asra Nomani. I had the privilege of meeting Asra when she came to speak at Vol State a few weeks ago.

As strange as this may sound, her struggles that she has overcome is such a motivation for me. She is a single mother herself, and former journalist for the Wall Street Journal. I feel a sort of kinship with her if that makes any sense.

She has struggled with faith in her religion, and that is another thing I can definitely relate to.

Basically, I am doing the best that I can and trying to stay focused on the goal.

Math Mayhem

Stress abounds whenever I think of math. Ever since the age of six, I remember math being an issue for me.

When the other first grade children had no problem learning addition and subtraction, I struggled. This problem continued well into long division, fractions, and Algebra in high school.

I'm scheduled to graduate Vol State May 2010, and while I got a fabulous A in History it took me two tries to get through Basic Math, and this is my second semester trying Elementary Algebra.

It is frustrating that you have to get at least a seventy five percent to pass the developmental classes. Personally I feel like if you have that much trouble with the subject in the first place, why make it harder?

When I have homework in Algebra, these are the days I depend on Scarlett's dad to take her for a couple of hours. Being the vibrant four year old she is, she isn't very happy when the attention is taken away from her due to "My Math Lab."

I believe that unless you are an engineer, computer programmer, or doctor, you don't need to know how to solve 8(8-y)/3=-y. I can't recall one time in my life of balancing my checkbook that a calculator didn't help me get the job done!

I just hope and pray that I can do well on the future tests so that I can pass this class, and move on!

Morning Madness

Mornings have a tendency to be crazy in my household. It doesn't help matters when I have a distinct tendency to procrastinate. Even when I have the best intentions to get out the door in x amount of time, it seems to fail.

My first class is at 8:00am, and I get up anywhere between 5:30-6:30am. I really shouldn't get up later than 6am because I know that I have to have my coffee and watch a little TV, check email etc. to get going.

Even on the best of days when I'm ready this is when my daughter Scarlett decides to be four. Okay, she is four but it is becoming apparent that she is more and more like mommy when it comes to getting out the door. We can both be dressed and packed up and it still takes me an extra thirty minutes to get her out the door and in her car seat.

She is going through a very rebellious stage and short of dragging her out the door before Dora, Mickey, Backyardigans, you name it is over she won't budge. There has come a point on a few days where I have had to pick her up kicking and screaming and try my damnedest to get her in the car seat.

This struggle doesn't make for getting to class on time. I'm usually between five to twenty minutes late to my first class and if I miss attendance being called I'm not counted present for the day.

I know this sounds crazy and exasperating but honestly I'm very lucky to have my children, and it is always a learning process.

I'm Back

It has been a couple of months since I've posted in this blog. This was going to be my personal blog, but I've decided to use it in my Journalism Technology class.

I was going to keep the title "Direction" since I have been aiming for that the past couple of years anyway. My professor had other ideas, so that is why I changed it to the longer title "Direction and Focus For the Single Mom." Apparently this could have more "hits" on the site. We shall see. I can live with writing about me, and parts of my life while receiving a grade.

Basically, I have been back in school since the end of August, and it seems that I can't function properly unless I'm going twenty different directions at once.

Anyway, I applied for the student blogger position in the PR office, and I was very happy when I got hired. I get experience in my field of journalism and get to meet interesting people. Okay, most of the time they are interesting. :-)

The difference between being in college now and a couple of years ago is that I am living as a single parent now. I have no choice when I have to juggle so many different things.

Aside from my classes and homework, I have my blogger job which I love, I waitress about twice a week on the weekends, and I am in another production of the Nashville Opera. This is all done while making sure the kiddos have everything they need. I try to spend as much quality time with them as I can, but this is sometimes a challenge.

Since this is going to be a series of blogs, I will save the rest for next time, and touch on each subject a bit individually.

Throughout this blogging process I hope to enlighten some of you on what it takes for me personally to find some direction in life. This includes the struggles of being a single parent, a student, and a performer.

Direction and Focus

Direction and focus should be my main priority after God and children. Some days are easy, some days are a bit more difficult.

You see, for the past couple of years I have been searching...for my relationship with Jesus again, love, and most of all myself. I thought I had found what I knew was well on my way to being the best I could be a few years ago, but I was going about it in too extreme a manner.

Basically the past couple of years or so I have been on a downward spiral to nowhere, and finding myself crawling out of an empty well of useless promises and wishes so that I can wash off, clean my scrapes, and mend my bruises.

Thank God for friends who came into my life when they did. I believe wholeheartedly that the positives will eventually outweigh the negatives, and everything will be mended and fresh.

It would be too easy for me to take the negative, roll with it, and act as if I'm a victim in the situations I've gotten myself into. I have to step back and realize I'm not a victim. Okay,I could have chosen not to trust so much, but you know what? The problem with that rationale is I should have trusted MYSELF.

I am to a point now where I am hell bent on staying focused, and getting done what needs to be done for myself and my children.

God is all loving, all forgiving, and AMAZING! He is helping me take the steps needed to find him again, this time without going too far to the left or the right. :-)