Call Me Crazy...

But I actually want more kids. 3 More to be exact. Yes you read that right, I want to have a total of 5 kids. It has always been my dream to have a large family and I feel so deeply that I want my kids to have a large loving family to grow up with as well. I want my home to be filled with constant laughter and always have family in and out and have tons of love just exploding from everyone. I know this may be unrealistic, but hey! I can try and make it happen! :]

Anthony... he's not really for the idea. He's gonna need some convincing lol but hopefully he jumps on board cuz this really is one of my life goals and dreams.

Ideally I would like to have another child in summer 2015 when I am 23. I want that child to be a boy and I would name him Taz. I know I already have 2 boys but I want my kids to be able to be close and bond and have fun together. And since Bear and Seth with be close in age to that child I think it would be great for them to have another brother to play with.

Then I want to take a break for 7 years and when I am 30, I would like to have another child. This one being a girl. I would name her Wren. I REALLY want a daughter! This just ticked in me a few days ago, I was just in the car riding to work and I thought to myself, "OMG, I really want a daughter!" I want someone that I can be close to and I want a friend I know many people's best friends are their mothers, and I really want that.

I would like to have my last child at the age of 33 and I would want that child to be a girl as well, so my daughter could have a playmate and someone to be close with all the time. I have no clue what I would name her.

So in a perfect world... When I am 33 (12.5 years from now) I would like to have 5 kids. 3 boys and 2 girls. And at 33 they would be ages: Newborn, 3, 10, 13 and 17.

We shall just have to wait and see if this all plays out. Who knows, maybe I will still be blogging 12 and a half years from now and I can do a post about it ha.

I'm back!!!!

No seriously... this time I really am back!

I have been away for just about 2 months (crazy!)... WOW have I really been THAT busy?!... the answer to that question is: YES!

So many things have happened while I was away! So many good, good, good things!

Here is a brief update on what has been going on, I will be posting more in depth posts about each subject as time goes by but for now here is a quick summary. 

Work:

I got a new job! This is what caused me to stop blogging in the first place. I am now working more hours and days. I still work for the School Board and I even still do the same thing. The only difference is they added in a few new things (more on that later), I work more hours, I moved offices, I now have full benefits including insurance and retirement (WOOT!) and my salary doubled! So we are no longer have financial issues. Praise the Lord.

Etsy:

Etsy has really taken off! We are now making about $550 to $600 a month selling our crayons! We have had many long nights and even sleepless ones but at the end of the day it's worth it and I do say I love making these cute little crayons! This month has been a little slow, these past few days, we have been lounging around and enjoying a much needed break. We have lots of new products that are about to be going up and I will soon start to make those (more on that later as well)!

Bear:

Bear... my sweet Bear. He has grown so much! I will do an update on him on Thursday so stay tuned for that!

My Family:

Things have changed with my family. It is odd, one day they just decided they were going to accept me and Anthony too! AND my sister's BF Steve as well! So now we are having family dinners every now and again. It is the oddest thing ever. I never would have thought I would see this day in a million years! Now I can actually look forward to my dad being at my wedding! 

Charlie:

Unfortunately, we had to get rid of Charlie :/ he went to live with some very nice people that even have a lady dog friend for him to play with. He was getting to be just way too much to handle. We drew our last straw when he started pooping on the carpet in front of us literately 5 minutes after coming in (like we had JUST taken him out to poop) he was choosing to use our carpet instead of the grass. He also started pooping in his cage. We love Charlie but enough was enough and we ran out of patients. I really hope he enjoys his new home. :[

Diet:

I am now about 120 lbs. I came off my diet at 122. I was wanting to lose 11 more but decided 122 was a good place to be. A few weeks ago I was planning to go back on it for a little bit to try and lose the last 11 lbs but ultimately decided not to. I have been skipping lunch most days (there is a reason behind this, it's not to lose weight) so my calorie consumption is already quite low as it is. Maybe like 500 to 700 calories a day because I only eat one time a day. Don't get me wrong some days I eat more than others and I consume about 900 to 1000 calories but for the most part it stays under 800 and my diet calls for 828 a day so I think technically I am still dieting? lol who knows. All I know is that I am satisfied with my body now and that is all that maters.

Church:

Me and my sister started going to a non-denominational church. We have been about 3 times so far but these past 3 weeks we have skipped it. I am not sure if we will be going back or not. To be honest I really want to go to Church I do, but the thing is I feel like I am being forced and I can not worship God like that. It has to come naturally. When I am good and ready I feel I will get up and go to church all on my own. The times that I did go with my sister I went mainly for her, because she was too shy to go alone but I did feel like she was forcing it upon me and this made me unable to really open up and worship God. I may decide to try a new church because I feel that the one we were going to gave week services. We shall see how this goes in the weeks to come.

Seth:

And the BIG thing that has been going on in my life... I am now fighting for full custody of Seth. I am not going to go into detail with what is going on with this case until after it is over. The reason behind this is, just in case the wrong person were to get a hold of my blog, I wouldn't want the other party to be reading what I am doing on my end in attempt to win the case. I do assure you that I will be posting updates about it every step of the way (just not publishing them) and once the case is over I will post them in parts. In the mean time I will finish up the "Losing Seth" series of posts where I explain how I lost custody in the first place.

I believe that about sums it up for now!

A Little Ramble about my Father & Sister

Wednesday I had a job interview for a position that is in the same department that my dad works in at the same company that we both work for now. I did not tell him that I had even applied for the job, so I was there without his knowledge. Before the interview they made me go into a small room to take a test. The room had a window so people could see in. My father walked by, saw me in there and said "Oh I didn't know you were here! Good job!" and this... angered me.

I have been thinking about the moment a lot since Wednesday. Wondering why what he said to me angered me so much. It is obviously not "normal" to get mad when someone compliments you. I guess I feel like it's a slap in the face. Almost like he is saying "WOW! I didn't think you would do something that good!". Or maybe it's because I feel like he has a very low opinion of me so when I do do something good or productive with my life it like blows him away... when really it should not because his opinion of me is not as high as it should be. The man walks around telling everyone that gets close to me that I am mentally insane and that they really should stay away.... true story, I have been told my MANY people that do not know each other that they were told this by my father.

I feel like he is laughing in my face with every "Good Job" he says to me. I also feel like he has no place to say anything like that because he has never really been there for me. I mean yes he has put a roof over my head and food on the table, but I mean emotionally... he was never there. He was always in another world. So when he does try to be emotional, it upsets me, even hurts me. Gives me the feeling of "You have never been there for me and now 21 years later you want to start? You have NO right!". Maybe I am wrong for feeling this way, but can one ever really help the way they feel?

Now don't get me wrong I love my father but our relationship is very odd because of his wife. It's like hes only 5% my father and 95% his wife's husband. It does not really make sense to me that my father lives literately 5 minutes down the road and yet has only come to see my son I think 3 times in the four months that hes been alive. Don't grandparents normally want to see their grand kids? Spend time with them... get to know them... etc.? All three times he simply sat on the couch and held Bear for about ten minutes and then went home. Doesn't love mean investing time? How can this man love me if he never has time for me or my son? It is all just warped how he has time to go out to picnics with his friends or to theme parks with his wife's sister and her husband but he does not have time for me. He refuses to invite me to his house for dinner or to do anything else with him for that matter. He wouldn't even go out to eat with me on my Birthday! And I asked him to come and he said... no. Really I am just hurt, I am hurt by his actions. Or his failure of actions rather. He talks the talk but does not walk the walk.

Unfortunately this same thing is starting to happen to my sister. We used to hang out but ever since she got a boyfriend and I had Bear it's like she is no longer interested in hanging out with me at all. She says "Well, I have just been really busy" but then she tells me about how her and her boyfriend are going to Disney or a baseball game... like REALLY! that's busy? That's playing and having fun. So she can make time to do all these fun things with him but she can not make time to even sit down and call her own sister. I have been her sister for 21 years and her boyfriend has been her boyfriend for what 21 days? I just.don't.get.it! And to top it off, when I call her she always seemed annoyed. She never wants to talk, if she is playing a game on the Xbox, she won't even put it down to talk to me. She will just say "yea" and "uh-huh" and pretend to be listening but the minute her boyfriend walks in the door she will scream his name with excitement and say she has to go. What happened to time is love? I feel like if I died tomorrow it would not even effect her all that much. And she is acting the same way with Bear as well. She never wants to hold him or talk to him or anything. When she is around (once in a blue moon) she takes little to no interest in him what so ever! Like he is just a new lamp I bought. Basically says "Oh how cute" and then moves on. She acts like he is just some baby not HER family, not HER nephew. Complete strangers are more interested in my son than my own family (really). This upsets me.

This all upsets me. It is not fair. It simply isn't. And yes I know... no one ever guaranteed life was going to be fair.

What I have learned from living with Anthony

When Anthony first moved in with me I did not really know what to expect. I did not know how everyday life would go or how we would get along. What we would eat or what we would do when we were bored. These past three months have been a huge learning experience for the both of us. I continue to learn more and more about him everyday and I continue to fall more and more in love as well. Here is what I have learned and noticed so far:

• Anthony does NOT like to wake up in the AM. He does a lot better when he stays up all night than he does when I have to wake him in the mornings to drive me to work. It is a struggle just about everyday to get him out of bed. I have found that coaxing him with food (sounds funny I know) does the job pretty well. So now I tend to make him breakfast in the mornings when I can.
• Anthony goes through stages. Sometimes he will be in a bored stage at which point he will spend more time with Bear and I and be more clingy. Other times he will be in a gamer stage when he will spend hour after hour and stay up day and night on a game. He does also have a grumpy stage where he will grumble around the house and not play back with me when I am cute with him. He tends to come out of his grumpy stage pretty quickly though.
• Anthony can go days with out sleep. I am not sure why he does this but sometimes he will just stay up for about 2 days with little (meaning like 1-2 hours) to no sleep at all. He will eventually crash and go back to a normal cycle.
• Anthony has food cravings. Not very many men have these. Or at least men that I have known. Some of his cravings include jelly doughnuts, wings, and grilled burgers.
• Anthony does not get aggravated much at all. Much like myself he has a very long fuse. We do get aggravated by many of the same things like the dog being bad or Bear screaming for no reason.
• Anthony WILL help me if I ask for his help. He is not one to just jump up and start helping but if I ask him to help me he will normally drop everything and come to help.
• Anthony LOVES his baby boy! He has a great bond with Bear and it is growing day in a day out and it just warms my heart to see them together.
• Anthony also really loves me. I used to be very insecure but now he has shown me the great amount of love he has for me and our family. I know that we are the most important thing in his life.
• Anthony is lazy. I love this man to death but he is LAZY! He always tries to do things the easy or quick way and never wants to do the unnecessary. And with 99% of everything he would rather do it later even if he could do it now.
• Anthony can eat 2-3 times as much as I do. He does not eat lunch unless I make him lunch or leave him leftovers in a container and tell him to eat them, so typically dinner is his only mean unless I made him breakfast that morning. So the fact that he eats over two times as much as I do at dinner is not all that surprising, but the amount he can inhale really surprises me some days.
• Anthony loves to cuddle. A lot of couples grow out of cuddling. We are not that couple. If I am laying on the couch a lot of times he will come up and cuddle me for no reason. I absolutely love it. We will also give up space just so we can cuddle, like in the bed. Instead of putting bear in the middle and getting a good amount of space, we put him on the right side so we can cuddle, even though we end up super cramped because Bear takes up 70% of the bed with all his pillows.
• Anthony gets hot really easily or maybe I get cold really easily lol. We do not typically touch the A/C it tends to stay at 78 degrees. But we do have fans that we flip on and off. He always wants it on when I want it off because he will be sweating with I am literally freezing.
• And stuff I have learned about budgeting. Living with another person or two is WAY more expensive than living alone. It is not even double but triple the cost because together you want more. You want more for each other, when alone you tend to deprive yourself of stuff and say you don't need it or can live without it. When in reality you can but when you are with another person you want it if not for yourself but for them. Like paper towels for instance. I never used to buy them when I lived alone and when Anthony moved in, well now I can't live with out them!
• Stuff I have learned about food consumption: Food goes WAY faster with 2 than it does with one. I used to cook every other day. I would have enough food for the night I cooked, the next day for lunch, and dinner the next day. Now I cook EVERYDAY! I almost never have leftovers for lunch too. We can go though a loaf of bread in 4 days compared to the 2 weeks it took me alone. And we can go through a tub of butter in 2 weeks compared to the 2 months it took me alone.
• And last but definitely not least! Eating habits. I have noticed that our eating habits have grown together as well. I used to be ok with just eating a frozen pizza for dinner or on some nights even a few snacks like some cheese cubes and fruit. Now a days I have to cook because I can not leave Anthony with no food and he will not cook for himself unless I tell him what to make and step by step tell him how to make it. He also likes many things that I never ate before like fried foods. He likes to fry his fries, egg rolls, and other things that I would usually put in the oven. He likes to dress up his sandwiches when I could settle for a plain one. He won't eat baked beans or anything with seeds in it (like smoothies or jams). He won't eat anything with a gritty texture like grits or oatmeal or even couscous. He likes his rice to be short grain not long and his meat to be cooked well done. He does not like Dijon mustard or too much onions. He will not eat sweet salads or just a salad alone they need to be a side dish. He prefers red meat over white and laughs at the thought of a meal that has no meat. He hates sugar cookies and is really picky about icing and cake too. He likes stuff to be spicy and full of flavor. Stuff with weak flavor is never a hit. He typically does not like anything that is southern cooking, like chicken and dumplings, grits casserole, or even sweet potato casserole. He does how ever like chicken pot pie. He will eat mostly anything I put on his plate even if he does not like it, but I still try very hard not to serve things that he does not like. Oh boy I could go on and on about this mans eating habits! But I think I will end it here with some pictures. Because after all pictures are worth a thousand words.

This is a meal that we made together. Note the fried fries and egg rolls and hey even a fried egg! And a coke on the side lol. Not so healthy if you ask me.

 Another meal we made together, chili baked potatoes, salad, and fried empenadas.

And the breakfast he made me one morning. Half an egg burrito and a bagel with cream cheese and raspberry jam. (so sweet :]) 

 

Here's to many more to come! I love you so much.

I Finally Broke Down and...

contacted my sister.

If you are lost as to why I was not wanting to contact her... click and read my previous post.

Here is how it went. I came into work yesterday to find a Christmas gift bag with gifts on my desk. Next to the bag was a little note that said the contents were for Bear and my sister. I wanted to not say anything to her but I knew I had to because it would be wrong of me to keep her gifts from her when they were clearly meant to go to her.

So I decided to call her... the last time I talked to her was probably about 3-4 weeks ago. I called... and the phone rang and rang... then voice-mail. Guess she wasn't too interested in talking to me (not surprised). So I then decided to send her a text message. Here is how it went.

Me: Hey Abdu gave me some gifts for you so you can come and get them from my house.

Her: lol....okay, are you in Bartow (that's the city I live in) for forever now? I miss you :[

Me: Yea I have been for like 2 weeks.

Her: Oh... lame

Me: You didn't call me to ask if I was or anything....

Her: I have been busy. (classic cop out excuse, what on earth is it that you were SO busy with that you could not contact your family for almost a month? I didn't say that just thought it)

Me: So..... when are you going to come over?

Her: I don't know.

And that is where I ended the conversation. I feel like I am pulling teeth to get her to talk to me and I don't want to do that. I am not interested in forcing myself into someones life even if that someone is my family. She says she misses me but to be honest I feel that her words are fake because if that was true I don't think she would have said "I don't know" when I asked her when she was coming over. If I missed someone I would make plans to see them right then and there even if the plans were not for a week.

This upset me but like I said in my previous post on the subject... I am ok with it. It is ok that my family does not care enough to contact me unless I contact them first. And I will continue to not contact them to see how long they really do go. I still have not heard from my dad at all, it has been about a month... and he lives literally 5 min down the road from me. I almost feel bad for them that their family means nothing to them. Sigh. What is this world coming to?

I've realized...

that my relationships with everyone other than Anthony and Bear are really, extremely, weak. :[

This weekend I sent my sister a picture of Bear via email. I sent her one of my favorite pictures of him that I have taken so far. This was the first picture she has seen of Bear because I do not post pictures on Facebook. She wrote back saying how cute he was. I then replied wanting to start a conversation, by telling her about how I am going to try and take professional-ish looking pics of him for Valentines day. She then replied back with "Oki Doki".... this made me realize that I have VERY weak relationships.

My sister and I were always close and I *thought* we still were but apparently that is not the case. It pains me to say this but it is true. I used to call her all the time to talk or to hang out before Bear was born. It was fun and I really enjoyed it. After Bear was born I was in Kissimmee for a long time and very busy with adjusting to life so I had little time to call and chat with her, but I did do so once. But over the coarse of 5 weeks, she did not call me one time. Not to see how I was doing, not to see how Bear was doing, not to chat, not to hang out... not one time. D: The same is true for my dad.

This got me to thinking..."Why am I always the one who has to make an effort?" aren't relationships supported to be about give and take? I feel like I am putting into it and they are noting giving anything back.

I bet that if I did not call them they would never pick up the phone and attempt to talk to me. Do they just not care? Are their lives THAT busy? I just don't understand. All I know is that I don't want to be the one that always has to call first. I want to feel that others (my family), care about me and want to talk to me, or at least make sure I am still alive.

I am just very thankful for Anthony and Bear. I know we have a tight bond and I am going to work very hard at making sure it gets stronger and stronger. I guess it's ok that I they are all I have. Now that I realize that that is indeed the situation, I AM ok with it. I wish it was not the case, I really wish my family would make some effort to show they care about me, but hey, at least I'm not alone. I get plenty of love and affection from Anthony and Bear and that is really all I need at the end of the day. I love the two of them more than anyone or anything on the planet.

As for my sister and father... I guess I won't be calling them anymore. I would like to see how long it takes for them to pick up the phone and call me. I will post a follow up once they do so (if that ever happens).

 The picture I sent my sister. (The cutest baby I ever did see, maybe I'm bias but I don't care!)

I Dream of a Family

Let me start off by saying this was a VERY long post, but at the last minute I erased the whole thing and started over again because the original one sound way too much like a rant and that is not what I was intending to do here.

Never the less....

 I want a family much like this one:

Picture courtesy of National Geographic. It was the only picture I could find with two big bears and a multitude of little bears. 

Ok so maybe not EXACTLY like this one lol but similar.

Growing up I never had the ideal family. I came from a broken home and a broken family. Still today, I have yet to really have a family, all though slowly but surely one is forming.

I think everyone wants more for their children than what they had growing up. The main thing that I want to make sure my son has is a big loving family. LOVING being the key word there.

So, I have made a vow to try my hardest to make one hell of a family for my son, for Anthony, and for myself.

Here are some of the things I dream of:

1. Everyone in the family loving each other and showing affection
2. Family movie night, where we all snuggle on the couch together
3. Reading bedtime stories together
4. Playing games together on the consoles (mainly because this is Anthony's favorite thing to do)
5. Creating holiday traditions like painting eggs on Easter etc.
6. Always eating at least one meal a day together
7. Trying to spend as much time together as a group
8. Family game night like Hasbro
9. Family outings
10. Baking together (going to be hard to get Anthony to do this one lol)
11. Family photos (I am not hopeful on this at all as I have to pull teeth to get Anthony in a picture, but hey I can dream!)

I really just truly want to surround my my son with love and affection, the best way I know how. I do want to eventually expand out family so that he can have siblings to love and be loved by as well. I think the family in my mind that I picture is probably unrealistic, but that's okay because it is just a goal. I know what is realistic and what is not and I know our family will not be picture perfect, but I am going to try extremely hard to make it as close to perfect as I can.

I can not wait to embark on this beautiful journey with Anthony and our son.

Here's to dreaming and here's to the future!

December Photo-a-Day Challenge: Day 13

Day 13

Family: Anthony's mom managed to get a picture of Anthony and I at our baby shower last month! And look you can even see Bear (kinda lol) Charlie was actually at our feet too but you can't see him cuz the table is in the way, boo.

For more info on the December Photo-a-Day Challenge please click here. It's never to late to join the fun!