Helping Hands

As Logan and I were driving home from the train station the other day I hear him say, “Look Mom! Those people still have their Christmas lights up!” I’m not sure why this was such a shock for him, seeing as we still have our up too, but it reminded me of a time when I was small, when the reason for this was far different. We’ve been busy this year and it just hasn’t been convenient to get up there to take them down yet, but years ago I remember our lights being up for months, not because we … Continue reading

Saving Little By Little

As a single parent money is always tight. It’s hard to make ends meet with only one income these days. I’ve mentioned many times in previous blogs that I am currently a full time student. The university I attend is about a 40 minute drive from our home. I was putting 60 miles a day on my car and was driving back and forth five days a week. When I was teaching in the schools I was putting double the miles on my car. Needless to say, I was spending an insane amount of money on gas each week. With … Continue reading

When the Other Kids Get More

How can you deal with the question of why other kids got more “stuff” for Christmas? This article may help. While I think our kids are blessed beyond what my husband and I could have imagined having when we were young, the fact is that their acquisitions probably don’t measure up in number or value to most of their peers. Partially this is because of the area in which we live, a semi-affluent area where parents can and do provide things for their kids that we cannot even if we wanted to do so. So, I am familiar with what … Continue reading

My Insurer Mentioned a Weight Loss App

Does your health insurance company send you helpful little newsletters? Mine does. This time, the newsletter included information about a weight loss app. Health insurance companies have an intrinsic interest in helping their customers be as healthy as possible. My health insurance company sends me newsletters from time to time. The purpose of the newsletters is so the insurer can send customers information and advice that they can use to improve their health and to stay healthy. Insurance companies have an intrinsic interest in helping their customers to have good health. People who are healthy don’t need to visit a … Continue reading

Entertaining Your Little Ones

When you have little ones running around it can be hard to entertain them day in and day out. Their little attention spans require a wide range of activities to keep them busy and as a single mom running from one thing to the other all day it can be hard to think of simple things to keep them from getting bored during the day. I’m not sure what people did before the internet, but lucky for you, there are a ton of fun ideas to do with your kids, especially during the winter months when you can’t send them … Continue reading

Help from a Support Group

It has been nearly eight weeks since I have seen or hugged my oldest son. Next week our family will be traveling to Texas to see him finally graduate from basic training with the Air Force. One of the reasons I have been able to get through these eight weeks is because of the support I have received. In fact, it’s another reason I am so glad that Facebook exists. Just before my son left for basic training, I looked online for a support group. I was led to an Air Force Moms Support group on Facebook. This group consists … Continue reading

Postpartum Woes-Getting Your Groove Back

When I was struggling during the first few weeks and months of my little one’s life, it seemed so hard. In fact, it seemed that all of the tummy issues he had and lack of sleep was just too much for me to handle. I felt like I would never be back to my normal self now that I had three kids to take care of. I felt overwhelmed, tired, and in a fog. I had several friends say to me, “Oh, don’t worry, you will get back into the groove of motherhood in no time”. While, it didn’t happen … Continue reading

What Happened to Daddy’s Little Girl

One of the hardest things as a single parent is helping your child maintain a relationship with their other parent. It’s even harder when that parent is not doing their part. I worked hard to make sure Hailey had a relationship with her father. I feel like I did more than my fair share, I would drop her off and pick her up on his weekends. He said since I was the one who wanted the divorce then if I wanted him to have Hailey for the weekend I could do the driving, so I did. I invited him to … Continue reading

Two Cost Free Ways to Get Your Home Ready to Sell

My real estate friends tell me that it is not impossible to sell a home in a short period of time, it just depends on the home. Still, with the housing market the way that it is, you don’t want to spend a lot of money getting your home ready for the market, but you don’t want it to sit out there forever being passed over for other houses that are also for sale. Use some smarts and a little elbow grease to make your home stand out among all the rest of the housing inventory, and do it for … Continue reading

Accepting Help

I have always been fiercely independent. From the time I was young I wanted to prove that I could do things on my own. So when I found myself as a young single mother with nowhere to go it was very difficult for me to accept the help from those around me. I was so thankful to have such an amazing group of people reaching out to me, but in my mind, accepting that help meant that I had failed. I wanted to badly to be able to do things on my own, but under the circumstances that just wasn’t … Continue reading