What’s New in My Crazy Life

It’s been awhile since I’ve told ya’ll what is going on in life. In case anyone thinks that life around here has calmed down, let me just tell you that it hasn’t. I do find a little bit of more peace in moments, but really it’s just plain insane around here. I keep wondering what exactly God is preparing me for but then I realize that a lot of the chaos comes from living a life full of bad choices for 33 years and even some bad choices after my conversion. What my husband and I are trying to do is break the cycle of generations of dysfunction from two different families. It’s not easy. If anything it has taught me that the effects of our sins ripple through our family line way after we are long and gone. My grandparents did the best they could, but the fact that my grandmother had a lot of issues that went unchecked by medical professionals has really caused a lot of issues that even trickle down into the life of my granddaughter. I think that when you are so busy trying to survive on your own without Divine Intervention that you can’t really see that because you are drowning and who sees anything while drowning?!

It’s not Friday so I can’t do a Quicktakes but I have to write this all out so that my brain will function and let me move on with everything that I have to do. Here are just a few things going on in the Life of a Crazy Face:

1. My teens are all taking turns losing their minds. I have 4 kids 21-14 years old. My oldest was three when I married my first husband. His biological dad rarely has anything to do with him and paid $63 a month in child support for his entire life. He has always considered Ben to be his dad but as I said yesterday, Ben has his own demons to fight and has been fighting them the entire time that I’ve known him. Ben and I got married after only knowing each other for two weeks. That’s right, I knew him for two whole weeks and then married him. I don’t regret that, because I have my kids, but I do realize that not knowing anything about life and not having a stable support system of parents who could help us navigate through life or a community of any kind was why we crashed and burned and took our children down with us. I worked most of my kids’ lives up until 5 year ago when I married Stacey, my husband after our conversions. From the time that I was 16 until I was 33 years old, I worked. Sometimes I worked two or three jobs even, just so that we could make ends meet. Even then, we struggled. My kids suffered through a lot of things that they shouldn’t have had to suffer through and I was not always present when I should be or sometimes I was present by was drunk. Now we live in the ‘burbs where my kids go to school with kids whose parents would rather give them cars than time. Considering that I haven’t always been the mother of the year for many reasons, this has created the perfect storm where my naturally self-centered teens seem to think that I don’t give them anything and that they have had the worst life ever with a mom who doesn’t do much for them. It’s exhausting to love these little humans who are so ungrateful at the moment. But it’s my job to love them and that love isn’t always by giving them their way. That’s even harder because I feel like I’ve already screwed up as a mom so I don’t want to make the wrong choices and screw up more. But enough is enough, I refuse to allow them to walk all over me. Dealing with all of this alone can send someone to the looney bin.

2.  My stepkids. Same as above only they aren’t my kids so there are 17 other levels of things to deal with. All which involve dealing with their mother. I’m just gonna stop there and let ya’ll guess how much fun that is.

3.  I need to go to confession. Dealing with teens and exes will really get those sins to come to the surface. I’m a really selfish person and the stress in dealing with these people comes from me not wanting to give of myself to people. I would rather sit alone in a cave and read a book. Or sit at a dive bar and drink. I would rather set myself on fire than deal with Stacey’s ex-wife, but I digress. I need to go to confession.

4. This stray dog found us on Saturday. I thought it was a neighbor’s dog so I called it over as my husband went to knock on their door and see if it was. Well, it wasn’t their dog. She is a pit bull and so sweet. She also has blisters on her feet and is very thin. I have had her scanned and there is no chip so now she has a name and my dog Bourbon is in love with her. Looks like we have another dog since God has a sense of humor and all that. She really isn’t that big of a problem and I found a place that will help me get her spayed and her shots. My dogs need their shots too, so really without Moonshine showing up, I would not have found a place to get my dogs their shots. She fits so perfect into the family that I really understand why people say that God has a sense of humor. It’s like she was meant to be a part of our pack. Bourbon and Whiskey aren’t really good with other dogs, but they just took this one right in and the empty dog bed that they refuse to sleep on now has a dog sleeping on it.

5. I have 2 papers due today and 3 tests that I need to take. Why am I blogging you ask? Well, because my brain is freaking out about all this other stuff until I process it and so this is how I process it.

6. I am also scheduling interviews for my show at Breadbox Media for January. I am focusing on my grades for this semester and then I’ll be back in the radio thing come January. I’m pretty excited about some of the people that I’ve got lined up!

7. I have an article up at Aleteia today! Go check it out and let me know what you think! I really love being edited and having people go back and forth with me to polish up my writing. It makes me so happy to see the final product. If you want to know what my writing looks like without all the rambling, then this is a great example!

8. One of my aunts is very sick and her family is trying to raise money to help with medical costs along with make arrangements if she were to pass away. My cousin who set up this GoFundMe was the first person in my family to graduate from High School. I’ve always looked up to him for that, it’s a huge accomplishment in a family of migrant workers. My grandparents and aunts and uncles all worked the fields for a living. Some of my first cousins too! Which is crazy when I think about it in my two-story house in one of the best suburbs to live in in the country. If you could help out in anyway, my family would be thankful. If you can’t donate any money, please leave a comment saying you’ll pray for her. You would be surprised how much prayers help.

9. My mom is sick and has been for a few months now. She has a test next week. Please pray that the doctors find out what is wrong with her. My son (the one driving me bonkers) is also sick with a cold and is having his wisdom teeth pulled soon so please pray for that too.

10. I think this is it. Life is crazy. It’s weird that I feel the closest to God when things are crazy though. I don’t know how to live a normal life with no crisis. I would love a nap here and there, but really I wouldn’t have to rely on God if I didn’t live in crazy.

Thanks for reading and praying. Please pray for me.