Sayonara 2011!!!!

So here it is....New Years Eve! The holiday that I've loved for soooo long. The holiday I've prepared for so much in the past. The shopping for the perfect dress, the setting up of appointments to get my hair, nails and makeup done, the planning..the getting ready with girlfriends.....the rushing to find someone to kiss at midnight. I have such fun, fond memories of New Years Eve's past. I was always so excited to go to the big $100 ticket party where I had put in all this hard work to look just right...but then that work had all gone out the door 2 hours into the event when the open bar had won over and really myself and everyone else looked like nothing more than a sweaty hot mess who could barely open our eyes and stand up straight for pictures. Pictures that I had taken with my "best friend" who I probably met in the bathroom 30 minutes before and I would never see again...but hell I had 30 facebook pictures to prove how close we were that night. Oh the memories, as ridiculous as they sound now, I looked forward and was excited for each time

New Years Eve rolled around.

Now it's the last day of 2011... and here I am, preparing for a full day of work and then a trip out to my parents to see my son who gets back in town tonight after going on vacation with his grandparents for a week. The truth is I couldn't be more excited about this years plans. Sure they are much more calm, some would even say lame, than my past NYE plans...but they define who I want to be in 2012 more than any plans I have had in past years. I'm setting my goals high for 2012...and to many they may not seem lofty but for me they are what I want people to see me as.

So here it is.........My 2012 goal is as follows:

I want to be the most incredible, loving, thoughtful, fun, caring mother I can be to my children.

Yep that's it. I want a be an awesome mom! I know that should just be something that people want to do anyways. I shouldn't have to make it a "goal" but after much reflection through the past months...I can see where I have fallen short in almost every part of my job of being a mom. I can now see my weaknesses and I want to fix them. I can now see where I have let my own selfish ways deflect me from putting my son first and want to repair that right away. I know there have been times when my son wanted to do something as simple as play with play dough on a Friday night, but the thought of cleaning up the mess was beyond me after a 45 hour work week so I talked him into a movie instead (a parents lazy way of having a babysitter that you don't have to actually pay.) I want to be the mom that not only gets out the play dough...but also helps him build the clay transformer he saw on the box!! (but obviously bigger and better)

There have been times when a home cooked meal and a talk at the dinner table would have probably let him open up to me and us grow closer, but I opted instead to do McDonalds drive through...becaus I was "too tired" to cook. I want to be the mom that not only cooks the home cooked meal....but comes up with fun ways for him to help me so we it becomes a meal cooked with love!!

In 2012 I don't want focus on my own self induced misery or for it to have any affect on my son or my daughter (who will be here very shortly). I want to focus on the 2 gifts I've been given from God. I want to make memories with them that they will remember forever. I want them to never feel as though they are more unloved than other kids they go to school with b/c they are from a single parent household. I want them to know they can always come to me and that I will do EVERYTHING possible to take any pain away they may ever feel. I want them to know I'm their #1 supporter...and make their childhoods the most amazing childhoods a kid could ask for.

So maybe after all my goals are a bit high (at least for me). I know logically I'm never going to be the Martha Stewart of the PTA. I know I won't always have time to cook them 3 tier birthday cakes with matching napkins and goodie bags for their friends to take home. But I've decided if I shoot for "Mom of the Year" in 2012....I can't fall too far from the top! If I make up my mind now to put their needs in front of mine always, I will accomplish those goals most of the time.

So out with the old...sayonara 2011. In with the new....welcome 2012!! As fun as the party scene was in the past...there does become a point where we all have to grow up and this is my point!!! I'm accepting it and actually loving it. I can't wait to see what this year will hold for me and my little family....although this family I have created is very unconventional to many, watch for us this upcoming year,  because we will be amazing and hopefully to some, at least just a few, we will also be very admirable!

Looking for real estate...preferably an all glass house!

We've all heard the expression

"Those that live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones..."

clearly meaning you shouldn't judge others unless you're perfect. But is this really even possible? I mean nobody is perfect, right??? (Well except maybe Victoria Beckham..aka Posh Spice, she does seem quite close to my idea of perfection). But I mean is it really even possible to not only be a non-perfect person but then also go through life without judging ANYONE,  EVER???? It would seem as though being able to be non-judgmental would make you about as close to perfect as it gets, right???

(pretty close to perfect, right)

The truth is I've done my own very fair share of judging. I mean it's practically a survival method through high school. Learn to judge and agree w/the majority or become the very unpopular, unhappy, different, minority....and nobody wants that

 (or at least I couldn't fathom that at the age of 16).

Then there is college. If you decide to take the sorority route as I did you get to experience first hand on your first week of adulthood out in the world on your "own", how truly judging people can almost become a game. Sorority rush week is like a rapid lesson on how others first opinions on you can really affect you. 2 minutes with some girl you've never met (who is probably pretty miserable herself and is looking for you to make her feel better about herself than really deciding if she wants to be what you'll call her "sister" for the next few years)  can decide the future of your college years.

Then there is what they call adulthood. By now we're suppose to know better than to judge others, correct??? I mean as a nation we've become so obsessed with being "politically correct". Every expression we learned as a child has changed to a more accepted expression. We're no longer supposed to use the word 'midget'..it's now 'little people'. We shouldn't use the word 'retarded', rather now 'mentally challanged'. I mean there are a million expressions that have changed....and the very liberal outspoken part of me thinks this is absolutely the way it should be. But is it really how it is? I mean sure in a room full of 'little people' you're going to call them 'little people' but when you go home do you tell your friends or spouse that you just came from a room full of 'little people'...probably not. Most likely you say "i just spent my day with so many midgets". It's when we aren't being watched or judged ourselves that we feel as though it's okay to judge people...it's when we let our guards down from protecting ourselves from what people might think of us is when we really say what we think of others.

(I would brag if I got to hang out w/this fam..I just love them) 

There are so many reasons that we judge people. As sad as it is...I believe there is always still that 14 year old inside of us that wants to be liked by as many people as possible. This is when majority opinion takes over personal opinion and while we may know what we are saying or just even laughing at may not be what we truly believe...but b/c it's the popular way to go we concede.  I believe this to be the saddest reason of  all to judge.

The past few months I have had a crash course lesson in learning the true affects of others words. Of course we all remember our mothers telling us to always remember the saying:

 "Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me". 

But it's a lie! The truth is I made a decision (a very unpopular decision it would seem) a few months back to go ahead and not terminate my pregnancy (an issue I'll cover in  my next blog..."To abort or not to abort.") that many did not think was the best decision for the situation at hand. However, I do believe I have made many decisions that many would not agree with through out my life, but this one seem to be the icing on the cake. The amount of words and judgemental comments that have been made both to me and behind my back (b/c you know that shit always finds it's way back to the person you were talking about) have been a tough pill to swallow. I was waiting for the part "...your words will never hurt me." But that never seemed to be the case. Truthfully, I would have rather you come to my house with your sticks and stones.  I would rather be punched in the face until my nose was bloody than hear some of the awful things others think of me. As terrible as it is to say I would much rather be physically harmed........b/c at least then the doctors can tell you when it's going to heal. It's the emotional harm, the words that you've said that I've let go straight to my heart, that I've let get into my head, that I've let myself start to believe....and no doctor can tell you when that hurt is going to go away. The physical pain would be so much easier compared to the emotional.  I mean after all nobody ends up in the morgue after a suicide b/c they got physically hurt....it's the emotional hurt that they couldn't control, that took over and that won in the end.

(if you ever get to this point...I beg of you to go here if you feel you have no other option:

http://www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org/ )

Now where I go from here and what I take away from this is what I believe is really the lesson here. I can't change any ones opinion on me. I can't make people quit talking about and judging me. And I certainly have to find a way to overcome this...b/c the truth is all I can control is me. Somewhere in all of this there has to to be a test. Maybe it's a test of patience, a test of learning who I really am, a test of making sure I can be completely happy with who I am regardless of others opinions before I can move on to bigger and better things. No matter what the big picture lesson learned at the end of this is...for now I've learned that throwing stones is not for me. Sure I can't say I can go through the rest of my life without judging anyone. Sure I may look at a woman with Keds on and think "I didn't even realize those were still around"....but hey I'm going to try my very best to keep that opinion to myself b/c who knows maybe there is a story behind those keds like they were present from an orphan she helped find a new home (or maybe she just has terrible fashion sense) but either way it's not my place to judge her.

For now I'm going to set my sights on being able to maybe one day truly move into a glass house (theoretically...not really, think of a whole new set of problems that would cause...on the upside I probably wouldn't end up pregnant again).

 I'm going to set my sights on being the person that if someone I know does hurt so bad emotionally they know they can come to me...b/c they know I won't judge them. I'm going to set my sights on the future and learning the stories behind why people do and say what they do before I quickly form my opinion or take others opinions on them.

Lucky for me, my crash course on dealing with peoples opinions have also taught me one more VERY important thing: I could never be a celebrity. If I can't handle the opinions of my former friends I sure as hell don't want to know what Ryan Seacrest thinks of who I'm dating or what Joan Rivers thinks of what I'm wearing, I'll leave that lifestyle to the Kardashians!!!

"If you live long enough, you’ll make mistakes. But if you learn from them, you’ll be a better person.  It’s how you handle adversity, not how it affects you.  The main thing is never quit, never quit, never quit." 

Bill Clinton