Real Talk

Quick Roadtrips & First Concerts :: How To Make Precious Memories On A Single Mom Budget You remember Middle School, it's the time when music really starts to resonate with you and you start to relate to the meaning of all those personal lyrics and you drown yourself and your newly developing hormones in solitude and become one with your favorite artist, wearing your air pods or dancing secretly in your bedroom. Nothing is better than this escape and you start to dream of seeing your favorite artist in concert. Seeing your dream concert isn't as accessible these days with the high cost of concert tickets and the rising cost of living, especially as a single mother, but when my daughter...

Taking Back My Power I never did ask for much. Maybe that was the problem. Spending the greater part of my life accepting the bare minimum became my downfall. Trying so hard to fit into preconceived notions just to keep the peace. Never standing up for myself and what I wanted. From the time I was a teenager until my early thirties, I constantly ached for people to just like me that I never went after what I really deserved. But that’s changing. I no longer look for others approval when it comes to my life and how I decide to live it. I walk to the beat of my own drum, and if anyone has a problem with it, oh well....

The Advantages Being an "Older" Mom I wasn't one of those women who had aspirations to be a mother growing up. I blame this on being the oldest of 4 children and not ever really feeling like a child. In the workforce, I would encounter working mothers and had no idea how they did it, working all day and then going home to take care of someone else. It sounded so exhausting. I had devoted my adult life to my career and traveling, but I was always missing something. Fast forward to age 37 when I married a man who had two young daughters and my life forever changed. I fell in love with two little girls, and I loved having a...

Kindergarten Chapter 2 :: “We Finally Did It!” You hear about someone else’s child getting held back for Kindergarten until it is yours. My oldest son and I navigated many tears while doing Kindergarten over again. In Spring 2023, I felt thrown into a closed door when I was told my child would not advance to 1st grade. Months before his first Kindergarten school year was over, he was diagnosed with ADD. At first, we thought it was ADHD, but he doesn’t experience the hyperactivity. Personally, my family and I decided not to medicate our son because, for us, the cons outweighed the pros. We gave him Saffron gummies and other vitamins instead to help our son during test days. Fast...

GroupMe Etiquette for the Modern Parent Okay, moms. Let’s talk about GroupMe. I’m officially using my unofficial authority to set some rules. This is for your own good. These rules will liberate you - freeing you from feeling obligated to respond to every message in GroupMe and silencing the constant barrage of notifications. You probably have several unread and irrelevant GroupMe messages to tend to now, so let’s dive right in. Rule #1: If the coach asks who will NOT be able to attend the game or event, only respond if your child is NOT attending. This one’s pretty simple, but it’s commonly misunderstood. Let's examine this one closely: "Not attending" signifies your child won't be there - not present in...