Super Moon = a realization for Mommy Time...

So this was a Super Moon kind of day. I have been tired and cranky, and just working through trying to get the day done. I posted on my personal Facebook about how I just broke down and yelled at my kids "Please pick your crap up and quit playing 'Squirrel!'".

Here's my frustration. I love my children. I would so be super mom, or a female Al Capone if you mes with my kids. I am a momma bear. my son is the love of my life. But at the same time, I have spent all day focusing on an Excel spreadsheet hurrying to complete it accurately but speedily. I came home, and found out that I ruined the pork chops in the crock pot, and they just weren't right and he was not eating them. ... crying was gonna happen soon.

Then I go out to see the Super Moon, and it was clouding and beginning to rain.

Now then, Boy-o talks. He talks all the time. He narrates everything he does, what he is thinking about doing, and wants constant affirmations that I like what he is doing. Which I give him whole-heartedly. I answer all the random questions "How long to flies live? What's it like underwater? What would happen if I mixed soap and the scrubby stuff?" I answer things about his Dad and I. I answer things positively about his father, so that it's a good bond that I have not singed.

But, after working all that time, I would love to be able to come home after a hard day, sit on the couch, and zone out. But that is not the life of a single mom. It's me and these two 24/7. All the homework, the scrapes, the 'do the chores', the hugs, the kisses, the goofiness, the tears, the fears.

But I love them, and I realize that someday I will miss all of this. It isn't easy, I knew it wasn't gonna be easy. But it's worth every moment.

... Because between verbally asking him multiplication tables and even some quiz facts for sis that she shares on our drive in the morning when we start out together.... I get this wonderful contest where the kids try to up me on who loves who more. Often - I drag out a 90's saying of 'All that and a bag of chips' which produces giggles. We sing and for 5 minutes, we try to start our days out the best we can. As a loving family, who while odd... is working our best to be the best we can be.

Never said we were perfect - Never said that was a goal. But happy and productive.... those are goals I shoot for with my kiddos.

A cloudy Super Moon taken this evening. 

Living Passionately is hard...

Strange part of living passionately, is sometimes the engine runs out of steam. I've been divorced a year and a half now, and my ex is engaged and already a father to another child. I am still struggling with my children. But I love them and could not do without them.

But I lost my steam, I lost my passionate reasoning. And it's hard. Passion is something I want to be at the core, passion for my friends and family. Passion in caring for my community. But my passion, over the last year and a half, fizzled.

You look on blogs all the time, or simply on your Facebook, and it reminds every mother out there to take care of herself so she has something to give. For awhile I thought that was something only those who had another half could do.

...Then I had an epiphany.... 

Passion, is much like an Amish Friendship Loaf starter. You start it, you feed it, and then, you have to bake with it. It feeds your soul, in yummy carbohydrate heaven. But there is a small problem with it, after you have satisfied your soul, it's still growing. So now, you have all these soul carb loaves, and no chink to stuff them in with your own soul. So what do you do? .... You spread your soul food to others and help inspire them to begin. Once they taste it for awhile, they may ask you how you make it. .... You'd give them a starter and the process begins all over again.

My starter had died. Slowly though, my best friend came along and kept sharing her soul food with me. Now, I've started producing my own soul food again. Only Jamie did not share the very butt widening experience of Amish Friendship Loaf - She shared BeachBody. PiYo, to be specific.

It has been a great experience. I feel motivated for the first time in a long time to do more with my life than just struggle to raise the two kidlets that I was blessed with. I'm even writing again folks, and trust me when I say this is a wonderful thing I never thought I'd be doing.