Exactly What I'm Doing

Oh, Boy!  I'm blogging while at a twitter party!

Well, I know a lot of people are seeing on my page a lot of postings for other people.  I'm now an assistant to Rene Syler AKA Good Enough Mother.  She's a mother and a blogger among about ten million other things.  In her infinite wisdom she has introduced me to some great women who also blog.  They support great causes, too.  So if you are someone who is truly my friend you will understand that these days I'm singing for my supper AND loving the song.  I am using FB to promote everyone and everything that I can so that I can live my dreams.  I am not being bought.  I really enjoy everything I do and completely believe in these women and their blogs.

Just wanted my people to know what was up with me.  I'll post more later, but for now I have to get back to my parties!

Living the Dream

Wow!  I get to live the dream!

What happened:  I was watching TV one day basically on a humbug to make sure this show I thought would fail was as bad as I thought it would be.  The show is "Father Albert" and it was a good show, but it didn't have the drama content to withstand daytime TV.  Anyway...during this RANDOM show watching there is a guest panelist, Rene Syler.  Her claim to fame?  She wrote "Good Enough Mother: The Perfectly Imperfect Book of Parenting."  Well, she's famous for a bunch of other stuff, but initially this is all I knew about her.  So after her show I went to her website, FB friended her, and eventually asked this woman to mentor me.

What happened next:  After a few emails back and forth, Rene apologized profusely for not being able to get back to me and also told me that she didn't know if she could be my mentor.  No problem.  I was just sticking my neck out.  Like I said, I wasn't too familiar with her story (which can be found at http://www.goodenoughmother.com/about) so I didn't know how cool and accomplished this woman really is.

Then what?:  Well, I suggested to Rene that since I was free/unemployed that she let me help her.  I needed the job credit for my resume and she needed help.  After several other emails back and forth (she said she didn't want to insult my intelligence re: my experience and the basic level of help she needed) I convinced her to let me on Team Good Enough!   If only I could have this kind of conversation with all the other people I would like to employ me.

The takeaways:  Yay!  First of all I'm so happy to be doing any work again.  Yes, I work all day every day.  There's getting up, getting the kids out of the house, shuttling Joelle to daycare, CLEANING, cooking, cleaning the dishes, errands, you know...stuff.  God said be faithful over few things and He will make us ruler over many.  I take these few hours of "real" work a week seriously.

Next, as I came home to complete my first exciting tasks, I realized I didn't even put a bra on today.  Working from home ROCKS!  And one of the cutest memories ever is Joelle coming around the corner looking for her mommy.  She needed attention at 6am and is not used to the computer getting too much of it.  Also, I can still complete all the other stuff for the household and work around my schedule even though I'd like to be as prompt with Rene's correspondence as possible.

What else?  Rene is a writer!  I came to NYC to be a writer.  I feel like an actress with a waitress job.  LOL  It's akin to that.  I feel like somehow, someway I have made A move...ANY move in the direction I've felt my heart tugging me towards for years.  Every since I became unemployed I've wanted to be my own boss.  I know I can do it...just didn't know how it would come to be.  And I'm not saying I'm using anyone or anything, but aren't we supposed to feel a vibe, an energy when something is just right and for us?


The last thing is I sold myself!  Every book I have ever read on success suggests that you should be able to sell things because if you learn that you can sell yourself or your product.   I wasn't ashamed or afraid of looking stupid.  Usually I am, but this time it really did feel completely right.

Oh, and the last last thing...I followed my intuition.  We all have it and all know of times when it told us to do something, but didn't follow it with disastrous results.  This time I'm all in with the intuition.  I don't know where this ride is going to take me, but I do know that I have great faith that I'm on my way.  A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, and for now I'll take the smallest of steps and be grateful for them because I KNOW big things are just around that corner!


Matt 25:23  "His master replied, 'Good job! You're a good and faithful servant! You proved that you could be trusted with a small amount. I will put you in charge of a large amount. Come and share your master's happiness.'"

Pay Yourself Forward

I'm cooking myself breakfast and I always have a great day when I do that.  Why?  Because I LOVE when I do a little something for myself that I never do.  I always cook for my family and even when friends come over I'm in the kitchen, but it's so few and far between that I sit down and plan a meal for MYSELF.  Most mothers don't.  Hell.  Most single people don't.  We just eat whatever is around and take very little thought to our health and enjoyment.  We spend time making little menus for the kids.  We check with our significant others on their preferences.  And the thing we do for ourselves is basically, "Can I cook chicken again?"  We just make it interesting for us to cook, but never really throw our input into the dining experience.

So today I was feeling really good about breakfast and I wondered, "why?"  It's because I was doing something for me, and I realize now that I need to do more of that.  I don't have to go overboard, but I do need to be more consistent and forgiving.  It's like we feel we don't deserve to give the same to ourselves.  I've bought so much for other people.  I've given selflessly to charities.  Doesn't charity start at home?  Isn't there some axiom that states in part the more you give the more you get?  Who says you have to "get" it from someone else?

Hopefully, I understand everything I just said and start paying myself forward, and hopefully you do, too.

My Faith has works...

I was thinking about a previous post concerning thinking about tomorrow and I remembered what my past held.  My friend Goodie Grimes told me once how cool she thought it was that I moved to NYC and for whatever reason when she said it, it sounded like some grand accomplishment.  Yes, I quit my job with no other plan than "move to New York."  No, I didn't have a job lined up.  Nope.  No family or friends either.  I met my immediate boyfriend for the NYC online after I hit the send button on my resignation.  So I was going it all alone in a city so complex it was deemed that if I couldn't make it here I might as well pack it up and go home.

I don't have a job and have only worked five months in the last three years.  I'm dead broke now, but I have only been this way for a few months.  I had enough savings, severance, and unemployment to get me to today.  I can't wait to be employed again because everybody wants me to go on a trip with them, Joelle of course needs (well, i want to give her) more stuff, and I want to get to the point where I have a savings and can feel the floor under me again.

There were times when I cried myself to sleep twice a month.  I cried on the fourteenth and I cried on the day before the last day of the month.  I don't cry now.  When I cried then I was working 80+ hours a week.  Sometimes I would work about 20 hours, go home to sleep for three, and go back to work for another 20 hours.  I was plenty younger then :-)  I was making a lot of money, renting an apartment in Dayton for under $400, no car payment, very little real debt.  I was supporting one other person who was in school at the time so that took a bit of the money.

Anyway...everytime I need  something now...I have it.  I don't know how God does it, but I know He always does.  I don't have a job and I definitely think somehow, someway I'm supposed to work for myself.  I have been given gift upon gift that would garner me money for myself and for others.  I've depleted my 401(k) THREE TIMES, but that only means I built it THREE TIMES!  One thing I know..if I did it before, I can do it again.  I saved that money no matter what gov't program MADE me or HELPED me.  I have  had to humble myself and pray, but I've also had to humble myself and ASK.  Faith without works is dead and that also means that if I have faith that God will provide I have to at least ASK for the help and God can help me, but his angels have to have my faith ASKING for their support.  That was big because I've always done for myself.  ALWAYS.  Yes, my parents and grandparents helped, too :-)  I'm just glad I get to see that what I reaped, I am now SOWING.  I will never be "broke" because as long as God sits on the throne He will never leave nor forsake me...and that is why I don't have to worry about tomorrow.

Joelle and the Big, Bad Phlebotomist

Joelle had  her blood drawn today.  She took it like a champ, but she really had no choice.  The nurse made me sit with her on my lap, tuck her little legs between my legs, and hold her right arm down by crossing my hand across her chest.  With my other hand I had to hold down Joelle's arm.  All not a problem.  I've changed the girl's diapers and holding her in one spot is an art form I've mastered.  Joelle sat there looking like she was gonna jump - HARD - but once the needle was in she just took it.  She started crying, but I think anyone who is bound and poked and who has never had the pleasure would.  Less than ten seconds later she was fine.

As we left the office Joelle kept waving "bye bye" with her "hurt" arm.  Killer Funny!  And I don't know how, but she got the gauze out of the tape while she was in the car seat and I was driving.  Oh, well.

of course, it's the first day of the rest of my life

Wow.  My own stage!  I've always wanted a place to share my thoughts and feelings.  It was one of the reasons I moved to New York City in 1999.  I wanted to be a writer, poet, spoken word artist.  And I was on my grind when I came here.  I went to the Nuyorican on Fridays and other poetry spots on their respective days.  I wow'ed the crowds with my rhymes and story telling abilities.  I even won a few contests, the biggest of which was to perform in Cleveland, Oh with Les Nubians.  That was pretty hot!  I did my thing, but then I lost sight of it.  Corporate America seeped in.  When I first moved here I was living off the fat of my savings so I had TIME to put up with the politics of going to open mic nights to hear the same people spit the same ill formed poems every night. Ugh.  Tiring.  I didn't want fame at the expense of "my craft" so I left the open mic world and started partying with my new found friends.

Any whooo...twelve  years later.  I'm here and I find myself in a whole new world.  It used to be that I could get a job just by being ME.  I was so honest in an interview for a six month temp position they hired me on the spot.  Now I cant beg, borrow or steal and interview.  It's of no consequence.  I am the same person I was twelve years ago, but the industry and the market have changed.  And I'm so glad it has.  I haven't heard it whispered yet, but I'm sure that we are in the time of "recession babies."  People can't afford birth control and whoops!  there's a new generation of children.  Well, maybe that was just  me :-)  But whatever brought me to this new title of "Mommy" I'll take.  I've heard God whispering to me that I should take my last and start my business, but I never did it.  It's scary, but I'm going a different route.  I have to.  You go crazy doing the same thing you've always done and expecting different results.  Not going to outline the whole plan here, but writing is definitely on the list.  Creating baby stuff seems like a great idea, too.  I would love to start classes for kids going to college so that they can economize and let their creative juices flow as they start to decorate their dorms.  Home schooling may be in the cards for Joelle, too.  What!?  A home business AND home schooling my child.  Why not?  Joelle should have the best and what's better than MY MIND?  Nada.

So I guess this is my first blog.  I'll find more to say.  You better watch out world.  That Boogie is on her way and she doesn't care if you are ready or not!