Mama Needs Money [RANT]

People keep telling me I should write a book. This usually follows a story about my early years. Instead of writing such a book, perhaps I should see how many people would wisely pay me not to share my experiences with them. How much would you pay for me to stop talking endlessly about cats, childhood trauma, and how I became addicted to chocolate?

But why would I possibly need money? Possibly to fund my corset, chocolate, cat, and fabric addictions? Maybe? 

In actuality, the first issue is an age-old one. As a mother, I was offered the opportunity to stay home with my children instead of outsourcing their care to others. My husband felt that the pay wouldn’t be enough to offset childcare if I worked in an office or a bookstore or a library. And I wasn’t sure I’d want to miss their little faces for forty hours or more a week.

However, the constant need to advocate for extracurricular activities for my kids is exhausting. Yes, I have many random skill sets, but I didn’t pursue teaching as a career because I lack some of the required facets of a good teacher—unlimited energy and patience, for instance. This means I get to hear how bored they are despite my best efforts to entertain. Besides, as their mother, they don’t always give me the same attention they give to someone else who is sharing knowledge with them. 

I want my children to learn and have fun. One of them definitely does better with a definite and consistent schedule repeated every day. This is my second summer trying to execute such a schedule. Thanks to advice from a group of like-minded mothers of faith, they are responding better to my attempts to keep their math skills sharp. What was that secret? Play board games with them and let them do the math, checking for accuracy, of course. They haven’t been as cooperative as I try to give them some life skills like cleaning, organizing, and resisting the urge to hoard.

On top of that, they frequently complain that they want to see their friends. So I try to make that happen. But guess where their friends are? In camps. Most camps seem to average about $300 to $400 per child for a week. That can really cut into the budget, so we stuck with the one camp that charges about $150 per child per week, but that leaves us flailing for the rest of the summer.

On top of that, a kitchen mishap has resulted in me needing to replace some cookbooks and magazines. I ended up photographing the recipes I like or still need to try from the magazines because I bought them so long ago, that people willing to part with them were charging upwards of $50. I may need to up the dosage on my heart medicine to recover from that sticker shock, but a couple of the books were reasonably priced, so I am convincing myself that it is okay to buy them or ask for them for my birthday.

In short, I technically have a very small cash stream. I finally have two paid subscribers on substack, so I will be able to afford those cookbooks by the end of the year. I also get the occasional interested party who wants to buy some of my up-cycled journals or other crafts, so feel free to send an inquiry if you need a gift for an upcoming birthday or other event. After all, it is never too early to plan for Christmas in July. (It might be too late depending on how extreme you want to get though, so choose carefully.)

Final Words: Finally Found [PREACHY]

Somehow, I have decided to fall into the weeds of my digital archives. In so doing, I found some writings that seem to be mostly finished aside from finesse. Some of them might boost my productivity on Substack. Others clearly want to be shared here. So I present an edited and updated mini-post that I buried in some dark recess of my hard drive until now:

One of the podcasts I listen to, challenged me to write my Final words in six sentences. I don’t even remember when this happened at this point. As I mulled it over, looking for perfection though I know I won’t find that in myself, the following wanted to be written. My self esteem isn’t that good or you would have so much more to read from me each week. But why on earth would that be the focus of my final statement to a world in need of hope and guidance?

Shouldn’t those final words be about gratitude? Final words give one last chance to leave the world better than we found it after all. So here we go, my final words should they be needed anytime soon.

1. No matter what happens, don’t forget that you are loved by me, by our Savior Jesus Christ, and by your Father in Heaven.

2. Keep striving to be the good in this world. 

3. Furthermore, try to be grateful for all that you have, both blessings and trials.

4. You need both the good and the bad times to make you into the best possible version of yourself.

5. And remember that you are never alone because Heavenly Father sent us here to care for and strengthen each other.

6. When you doubt any of this, be strong and turn to Heavenly Father in prayer.

This Is Why I Care [RANT]

Some people may have read my last post and are now waiting for my breakdown and the reign of terror. But bad experiences, terrible decisions, and the cruelty of others aren’t all life taught me.

I don’t remember my grandmother very well since she passed away the year I turned four. Yet I have always feel loved when I think of her. My mother assured me that though my grandmother’s cancer had spread to her bones, she refused to miss a moment with me. She relayed that even the intense pain of trying to hold me wasn’t a deterrent. My grandmother wouldn’t let my mother take me from her, even when she heard a snap that sounded like weakened bones giving way. Sometimes, love overrides the pain. 

While many of the people who claimed to try to help me as a child probably did more harm than good by making promises and never following through, a couple of educators truly saw and celebrated me. For some, they showed this by writing a letter requesting I be put in a reading class that would challenge me. One worded it more as an admonition for my enthusiasm making less motivated readers feel bad about themselves and I still got placed back in redial reading the next year. Others gave me outdated reading textbooks from higher grade levels. I devoured all of these words ravenously. 

One teacher in particular took it upon herself to champion me. She didn’t limit the encouragement to just her class. She encouraged my interest in other areas of learning, pointing our with excitement how those interests related to each other. She may have also clothed me for a couple of years. I had a hobo not-chic hand-me-down style that no one else bothered to try to correct politely. (You know other kids weren’t kind—most of the time). 

And she wasn’t the only bonus mom who tried to fill in where my own exhausted mother couldn’t find the time. If you really know me, you know I was the least needy of her children. Some have observed that I essentially raised myself in some areas. In other arenas, I may have been raised more like a boy. Thus you get treated to the weirdness that I call personality.

So despite all my complaints, I have to confess, that I want to be kind. I want to care. I will not randomly decide I hate you because your beliefs or appearance different than mine. And I state certain things all the time, but I shall try to summarize a few here:

I don’t care who you love as long as you respect my assurances that I want to be your friend but I don’t need to be just like you or make out with you to do that.

I am not staring because I am judging you. Sometimes, I am just looking your way because your smile or your eyes are beautiful. At other times, I am looking at the art that someone painstakingly applied to your skin while you exhibited the patience of a saint. 

On a similar note, I may be counting your piercings or contemplating how one tiny hole became large enough to stick a finger through. I am socially awkward not judging you.

If I am asking you questions about your beliefs, I am not about to attack. I want to understand. Honestly, I have bolstered my own faith on more than one occasion where I asked awkward questions about another’s faith. Not because I found their faith wanting but because what they said about their faith sparked a testimony of my own. 

In short, this world we live in needs more love. Let’s assume the best of each other. Sometimes, the person who cut you off just wasn’t paying attention. And even if they were darting in and out of traffic like they mistake the highway for a racetrack, maybe it is best to try to avoid that particular person instead of deciding to drag race them…