Since it is February, I figured I would talk about Love. Not the sappy stuff though, I'm talking about the hard stuff. The believe in yourself, stand up for yourself, find your worth kind of love. Can you say that you truly love yourself? Do you find value in who you are and what you bring to the table? You don't have to be perfect to love yourself, heck, some of what makes you the most special are your cracks and wrinkles, your soft spots and your ability to feel things. Being shown love by others can be a wonderful thing, but nobody knows what you need better than you. If you are in a relationship, and you want to feel loved by the other person, you have to speak up and let them know what you need in that relationship to feel loved. If you are not in a relationship, then do things for yourself that make you happy. Actually, even if you are in a relationship, do things for yourself that make you happy. Your happiness does not come from what another person does or doesn't do. It comes from finding joy in the moments.

Jon and I are completely different people. What makes him feel loved and what makes me feel loved are so polar opposite that sometimes giving each other a gift that we know the other one wants actually feels wrong. It feels so opposite of what we believe should make the other one happy. So we have to step outside of our comfort zone and give to the other person based on what they want and need. I just want to come home to a clean house and a meal already made and sit down and watch a show or read a book. He wants to go out and have fun and laugh and be with people and he wants me to show him affection. So we have to work harder to keep our relationship on where we each feel loved and sometimes he has to make a plan to do something that I would be too chicken to try, and once I'm out, we both end up having a great time and he feels good because I tried and stepped out of my comfort zone for him.

I've struggled for years with a fear of being alone. It has been completely paralyzing to me at times to cope with not having friends or loved ones around me, which is strange considering I enjoy reading and quiet time alone. So I do get it when people feel desperate and unable to let go when a relationship ends. I've watched in amazement when people around me are strong enough to walk away from unhealthy relationships. I can't even begin to comprehend how they can take those steps. So I have been nosy and asked them straight out how they can walk away from a person and know that they will never hold them or be close to them again. They all basically say the same things, they couldn't live anymore being unhappy, they were tired of settling, they wanted to feel loved, they wanted to feel alive again. I want those things too, but I'm not willing to walk away from my marriage to get them so a year ago I dug my heels in and decided to make my marriage a place of love and happiness for both of us.

Recently one of my kiddos told me that her ex was threatening to commit suicide, I knew that he was hurting and I also knew that we didn't have the skills to help him. He had discovered that even though he had ended their relationship, he wasn't prepared to find out she had happily moved on a month or so later with someone else. We called 911 and the police picked him up and we didn't hear anything else. We advised her not to contact him anymore or to allow him to contact her and we let her therapist know so that she can work through how this makes her feel. This month, many people, young and old will feel that desperate feeling as they spend Valentine's Day alone or see their ex on a date with someone else. I have this to say to you, if that is you...I challenge you to find happiness in yourself and to LOVE YOU. Reach out to someone who can help you get through these feelings. Don't make a permanent decision based on temporary feelings. Life really does get better and worse and better and worse, it's a roller coaster, but we have to find the good things in it and hold on to those to get us through the scary parts.


Take time each week to do something today that makes you feel happy and find something that you like about yourself and tell yourself about it. One thing Matti Vann of http://hemosunite.com/ and http://manyminimods.com/ told me was to take a 20 minute walk outside where you can only think good things about yourself. I was really surprised how quickly that turned my day around. Do not let any critical thoughts about yourself in during this walk. Try it. Fall in love with you, if you want to have a good relationship with anyone, you have to have something good to bring to the table, so be the type of person who you want to be with, be happy. Do something fun for yourself, go to a movie, buy yourself a favorite treat or a longed for item, within your budget of course. Don't be let the commercialism of the holiday steal your peace and joy. So many times I have allowed myself to be hurt just because the person I was with didn't do what I thought they should have done on a certain day. If it had been any other day of the week, it would have been a perfectly good day just the way it was. Enjoy life! Love you. XOXO



If you are feeling suicidal, please seek help. Call 911 or The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255 or check out their website at www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org

Those Crazy Teen Years

I remember thinking that my parents just didn't have a clue what it was like to be a teen in my day and age. I thought that they couldn't understand what it was like to be in my shoes and that they were making a big deal over nothing all of the time. Now I'm the parent of four teens and I can tell you that I was partly correct, but I was mostly wrong. My kids are going through things that I didn't have to deal with, Social Media being a big one. I had to use the house phone in the kitchen until after high school and then we finally got a cordless phone. My parents didn't have internet until I was married and pregnant with my first child. I was quite sheltered once my mom re-married when I was 14 so I wasn't dealing with drinking or sex in High School. I dealt with some bad stuff in Middle School but nothing too out there in High School. So in some ways, I can't relate to my teens.

That said, I spent a lot of time in Middle School and after High School getting into trouble, figuring out who I was and generally making bad decisions and I'm trying to protect my kids from making some mistakes that either I made or I watched others make. The thing is, I'm not the strictest parent I know by a long shot, but to ask my kids, I'm over protective because I want them to check in and I want to monitor their Social Media presence. Human Trafficking is a big deal, it's happening in my own neighborhood so being blocked my kid and not knowing who is seeing their stuff or what they are posting freaks me out big time. The days of sending your kids out to do whatever they want until the street lights come on are gone when you live in the ghetto and I'm not even in the very bad neighborhoods, but we do hear gunshots regularly and somehow we have become used to hearing the "ghetto bird" flying around searching for criminals.

Now I'm facing a whole new experience of having foster kids in my care who are used to roaming freely day or night and they look at me like I'm an idiot for wanting to keep them safe. I picked one up from a bus stop where a homeless person was sitting with everything they owned. Now this lady might have been completely sane and looking out for my girl, but she could have also been mentally unstable and hurt her if I hadn't picked her up as well. This girl won't speak up and advocate for herself with me to get what she wants or needs but I'm supposed to believe that she will stand up for herself to strangers after dark with nothing to protect herself and she's barely bigger than my nine year old. I think it's definitely important to teach kids to protect themselves. Maybe some self defense classes and a can of pepper spray would make me more comfortable letting them wander around town or ride the bus or take a train. I wish we lived in a nice rural town sometimes so that I could feel safe letting them go out, but even then, that creates a sense of peace and bad things happen everywhere.

When I was 16 we were able to get a license and drive around to and from different places which feels safer somehow. In order to get just one of my teens driving it costs us twice as much as it did to insure my husband and myself and we had hire coverage. So now here we are paying three times as much and we have three other kids who are old enough to learn to drive. They will need to get jobs and pay for their own insurance before they will have that opportunity or the oldest will need to get a job and move out and then the next oldest can have a chance. One thing is for sure they are all able to drive me up the wall faster than anyone ever has been able to. They know exactly which buttons to push to get me upset and they know exactly what to say to get me to give in. Being a teenager these days is more complicated than it was when I was a teen, but I can't really say that it's better or worse. Kids these days have some advantages we didn't have but they also face challenges we didn't have. I'm trying to keep this in mind when I am talking through issues with them but it's like we speak two different languages some days. I'm looking forward to that day when my kids "get it" and thank me for what I've done, but some days I feel like I'm just pushing them further away and they will never see it from my point of view. It sure makes me miss those days of cute baby kisses and words said incorrectly. Either way, I love all of my kids and I just keep trying to do better today than I did yesterday and when I screw today up, I just hope that I will have another chance tomorrow to do better.

Each year we stop and think about the things we want for the upcoming year and we make a promise to change it, and each year we do well for awhile and then give up on some things and keep working on others. I started making changes in November and failed miserably at a big one, getting up each morning and exercising. I'm just not a morning person and I can't talk myself into getting out of bed even 20 minutes early. I have to change this however because Jon and I want to renew our vows this coming Summer and I really want a dress with spaghetti straps and that is just not happening with these arms.

I spoke to a very wise friend this past week and told her my list of things I want to change this year and she gave me some very good advice.

Here is my list:

Budget is out of whack and we want to buy a house next year
The house is a mess
The kids aren't getting homework done
The kids aren't nice to each other
Ethan says his mama dresses him funny
My weight
The house looks like a thrift store threw up in in and not in a classy chic way
The foods I prepare - I'm bored with them and need to find healthy foods that fit in our budget and taste good
I don't like me anymore. I don't feel nice or happy or fun.

Her advice was to pick one thing and work on just that thing for 30 days. My dad, Norm, used to tell me to do something for 21 days and it would become a habit and in that moment when my friend told me to do something for 30 days I realized I had the answer all along, I was just too stubborn to listen to my dad. She also said to start with the budget and a lot of that other stuff would fall into place. So I spoke to Jon, we don't work on our finances together, I handle everything and I've messed it up badly. I have trust issues so I can't let go and just let him handle it but he gave me good advice as well and I'm going to try things his way and see how it goes. I pay everything as it's due, often leaving us strapped some weeks and seeming to have plenty other weeks so he's asked me to divide the bills into four and pay a little each week. I can try that. Also, I'm working to clear our credit to buy that house. I made some good progress on that this past year and hope to have everything but my student loans gone by the end of 2016.

I also gave up soda this past Sunday. I have seen what drug addiction does to families and if I can expect those I know to give up drugs then I should at least be able to give up soda, right? So that's what I'm treating soda as from now on, a drug, and I don't do drugs. EVER. I just can't handle them after all of the people I have lost in my life because of drugs. They should be here with us, not dead. It makes me sad, angry, and frustrated and I don't want to do that to my kids.  Not to mention the $20-40 a week I can save by not buying soda and the weight I can lose by not putting that into my body. I'm not buying it for my family anymore either, so their health should improve as well.

I won't be successful if I bite off too much all at once but all of these things need to be addressed. I don't necessarily need to work on some of them daily though so I'll just keep doing my best until I figure out how to better. After spending some time with so many amazing women this year, I've learned a lot. Being willing to take some of the advice from my mom and sister has helped as well. I find it easier to see them do things and follow suit than to be told I should do things, but they know that and tell me what they are doing and I'm blessed that they love me enough to work around my quirks.

Happy New Year everyone, let's make 2016 better than 2015, even if it's only by small increments, eventually our lives will be better!

Love and hugs!

Married 20 years today

Just a quick post to add what I posted on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/marcie.greenreynolds) today to my blog:

I have spent the last 20 years being married, having kids, laughing and loving, fighting and crying, winning and losing, next to one man. Some days we couldn’t stand each other and other days we couldn’t stand to be apart. There were times when nobody thought we would make it and times when we thought they might be right. Life has not been perfect at all, but there has been a bond so strong that even we can’t break it. This past 9 months have been the most rewarding because we faced the end, the insurmountable and we came out stronger on the other side. 

Marriage is nothing like I thought it would be. I thought it would be coming home after work and cooking in the kitchen together while the perfectly decorated, spot free home sparkled in the background for ambiance. I thought it would be family portraits with matching outfits and perfect lighting. I thought it would be balanced checkbooks and paid bills, good credit and nice cars. I thought it would be the American Dream. Instead it is scary diagnoses, fear, and tears. It is real life pain and drama, misunderstandings and disagreements. It is messy homes and burned food. It is exhaustion and stress. It is all these things, with someone there by your side to hold you up when you can’t go on and for you to lend support when they are just worn out. It is long hours working to support family and struggling to juggle bills and needs and wants. It is not the perfect little life I imagined, but it is mine and I love it.

Don't be Discouraged. Change is Possible.

I often hear people say that if you don't like your life, you should change it. It sounds so simple, as if we can just make a decision and BAM! everything will be different. It isn't that simple. You can make the decision and then take steps to make positive changes in your life though. Recently I tried to tell this to a lifelong friend and she decided to remove me from her life. At first I was stunned and hurt and wanted to stop trying to help people. I want to help people not push them away. Then I realized that there are many more people that I'm meant to help and that for now, at least, this lady and I are meant to go our separate ways.

If you've read my prior posts you know that I've had a lot of drama in my life. My marriage has been a challenge, my credit is a disaster, my home is usually a mess and my kids are often struggling in school or with medical issues. I've allowed this to be an excuse so many times. I've allowed it to keep me from having the life that I want. NO MORE! I will continue to make changes that improve my life and one day I will get to a place in my life where I will be able to say that I'm where I want to be. Wait, who am I kidding, I'm never going to stop wanting something better. Let's just say that I will be doing better than I am today. That has become my mantra, that I am not competing with anyone, just doing better today than I did yesterday and tomorrow than I did today. That can only lead to better things. It's all in our attitude and perspective. Do you have a can-do attitude or do you allow all of the things that could go wrong keep you from even getting started?

Change happens when you form good habits. That takes time, it won't happen over night for most people. There have been times where I have been able to say "I'm never going to do that again" and stuck with it but for the most part I have to work on changes. I've recommended www.flylady.net many times for this reason. She teaches you to take baby steps to make changes in your routines that will help you have a cleaner home but the foundation sets you up for success in other areas of your life as well. The program at www.daveramsey.com also teaches you steps to take to find financial success. Both of these sites were a major part of helping me to make positive changes. I've recommended listening to podcasts by life coaches as well. This is FREE therapy. These people have taught me that I do need to take time for myself, to get out and go to lunch or dinner with friends, take my husband to happy hour for a drink and cheap appetizers, go for a walk on the beach, read a book. Whatever it is that you enjoy, take time to do it. This will recharge you and make you a better wife, mother, employee.

One of the biggest things that I have fought is routines. I did not want to be that strict mom who is unbending and never lets the kids relax and have fun. Wow was I an idiot! My children want routines, they crave structure, they succeed when there are solid rules and plans in place. They want to have dinner at a set time and while they may balk at having only an hour of time to use electronics after homework is done, they are becoming successful in their school work and participating in the family and laughing with each other. Chores are starting to be done instead of me complaining that I am being ignored even after the 15th time I have asked them to do something. I am not providing a bunch of junk food. If they don't like everything I make then they can find something I made that they do like and just eat that, or they can make themselves a sandwich. I'm not going to continue to risk our health and serve junk just because they would rather have pizza than salad. We are all going to benefit by eating healthier, even if they do get tired of chicken being served a few times a week. I get tired of it too so I search www.Pinterest.com to find new recipes.

I probably spend more time than I should on social media, I am searching for a better way to live my life and I am finding tidbits here and there that are helping me. I'm trying to get the nerve up to Konmari my home. I sit there looking around my room, wishing that I could just throw it all away and start fresh but afraid to actually let anything go. I grabbed a garbage bag this weekend and headed in to start, and got rid of one blouse and a bunch of clutter from my dresser and night stand, mostly papers that didn't need to be shredded. I have a long way to go, but it all starts with one step and I'm getting there. So can you!

Keeping in touch

I've been neglecting my blog and I need to find time to sit down and write down the thoughts in my head. If only there was a way to blog while I drive home from work. Maybe I should just start talking out loud to a recorder in the car and then typing up what I'm thinking when I get home. I jot down possible topics from time to time and I have several that I really want to work on soon! I just thought I'd take a few minutes to check in and let you all know how I'm doing and what is new.

Since my last post I have been working with several different groups to try to bring the women who are a part of the Hemophilia Community together. Through HemosUnite and Hemophilia Alliance of Orange County we have a dinner one night a month that is sponsored by one of the pharmaceutical companies, they send out one or two ladies who meet with us and provide some form of education and we chat for a few hours over a nice meal. I have been asked to be a part of the Women’s Leadership for The Hemophilia Foundation of Southern California. We had started meetings in Long Beach one Saturday a month where we provide education and support for the women in the community but the Director stepped down and the acting Director is making some changes so we are taking the Summer off. We will be receiving training from The National Hemophilia Foundation and expanding to other areas of Southern California. In the Fall we will be participating in the Hemophilia Walk with a Star Wars Theme.  I have grown so much from my work with the women in this community and I am excited to see what will happen next.
 
I still have a lot of things that I'm working on, finances, keeping my home clean to my standards, being organized, taking care of our clothing so that I can present my family in a way that doesn't embarrass me and the biggest of all, being a positive person. 

I am excited to start working with a Financial Adviser, I believe this will help Jon and me to work together instead of both doing our own things and we will continue to work toward the goals of credit repair and home ownership. We have a lot of medical collections debt that we are working to clear and with Jon only being back in the workforce for a month, we are behind on several items. I think we can quickly recover if we make the right choices but it's so easy to blow $5 for breakfast $10 for lunch and $30 for dinner and if we do that every day it adds up fast! Every time we start making enough money again, we get stupid and start spending and then all of a sudden there isn't enough money to pay for important things. We need to learn to keep spending the way we do when money is tight so that we can start saving money. I can't wait to prove to ourselves that we can do better.

I've started fresh with www.flylady.net and I'm doing the Baby Steps again this month. I can see the changes in my home already as well as in my attitude toward others who don't do things the way that I want them done. I always hear in my head her saying "housework done incorrectly still blesses your family" and I realize that I've only given myself that grace and not my family. The work they do, even if not what I consider correct, is still less that I have to do and a help to me.

I need to continue to figure out how to dress my family fashionably and take better care of our clothing and realize when it's time to get rid of an item and to set aside money for fresh items when needed. I think I'll have to go to Pinterest and work on that some more. 


I have been listening to different podcasts, mostly by life coaches and while they do have some explicit language, their overall messages have helped me to find my footing and stand tall. My two favorite life coaches right now are http://www.thejoyjunkie.com/ and http://yourkickasslife.com/.  I also LOVE listening to the http://hemosunite.com/ podcasts and getting a chance to know more about people in the community. 

I know I need to work on my weight but for whatever reason, my heart just isn't in it right now. Probably because I'm just plain exhausted. I had a medical procedure done in June and my recovery has had a few hiccups. I'm hoping I won't need to have a more invasive procedure done but that is a possibility. I'm adding two young ladies to our home, friends from the kids' high school who have become a part of our family in so many ways. They are sisters. One has been with us for months while the other is still waiting for the system to place her with us, hopefully in the next week. I need to do a big purge and trade bedrooms to give the three girls in our home the Master bedroom so they can fit all of those beds in there. 

As part of my progress toward being the person who I want to be, I'm trying to cook more at home and eat out less. I'm trying to choose healthier foods and get my family to eat these foods, but often they just pick the meat or bread and leave the veggies on the counter. While I want to learn to make some new foods, I don't want to waste money by preparing food that my family won't eat. Progress has been made here, but we have a long way to go.  

I'm also working with a lady from the Hemophilia Community to achieve my personal goals. I meet alone for dinner with her once a month and we talk about plans I can put into action before the next meeting and how I've done since the last meeting. I was recently at a group dinner and realized that someone from each family there had taken the time to check on me or help me out in some way, one family even took my boys while I recovered from surgery and they went to the water park and then to their home for dinner, the next day they drove my oldest an hour and a half to camp and refused to take my gas money! Another family picked him up the next week. 

I hardly recognize the weak, sad, lonely woman that I was just six months ago. I've realized that the more I reach out and give of myself to help others and be there for them, the more people are not only here for me, but I feel stronger and more confident because I'm taking action to help others and I am making a difference in their lives as well. When I reached out in my weakest moment and bared my soul, I was so humiliated. I couldn't believe that I had embarrassed myself by telling so many people how bad things were. Some people walked away and I understand their stance, but others stayed and lifted me up and now I'm able to lift others up and we are all a strong net of people who build each other up. It's the most amazing feeling, my heart is full and I am truly blessed.

One step forward, two steps back

When people ask me how I am doing, I just tell them that I am putting one foot in front of the other, and working to get through each day. This is not where I want to be, but I'm not going to stop trying. I've paid off five collections (we owe $10,000 in medical collections) and my credit score went down. In researching this, I discovered that two new items were added and that is why it went down. I have a job that I absolutely love. I am not changing the world or solving world problems, but I'm good at my job and the company recognizes that. I even won 4 tickets to Disneyland. As soon as we can buy the 5th ticket, pay for parking and food, and find a day we can take off, we get to take our family to Disneyland for the first time since 2008. It's exciting! I found out that I could have avoided a lot of these collections if I'd talked to the creditors, but I've had some very bad experiences with debt collectors and I avoided their calls, knowing that I couldn't even send them a payment that would satisfy them so I didn't even try. I'd love to be able to buy a vehicle or move to a neighborhood where we aren't awakened by gunshots. Having good credit will open those doors.

I'm working on a food budget, and hoping that will help me make a difference. I figure every time I make dinner at home instead of going to a drive thru (which we do way too often, as I'm mentally drained by the end of the day) we will save $15-35. Even if we save $20 times 7 days, that's $140 we aren't spending each week, that's $600 a month I can spend to pay off debt, or even just makes it less likely that I will get a payday loan that month. If I can talk the creditors into settling for half, I could pay the debt off in less than a year, just by not eating out. I've asked my daughter to help me in this endeavor, by making sure the kitchen is clean each day. So far, I've grocery shopped for this week, using a menu I created on Friday, and we made our own food yesterday. I've also put the car into the shop, which will cost us $834 a month, for 6 months. SO, maybe in 6 months, I can actually start paying more creditors. For now, I'm paying $120 per month and this month I will finish paying off another one and I can use those funds to work on the next one. I know we are making progress, but it feels so slow. I just want to have made better choices but I can't change the past, I can only work on making the future better. Make good choices people!

As for parenting, I could just pull my hair out most days. What is the right thing to say when the school calls to tell you that your child threatened to kill another child, in detail, for asking him to move up in the line. Obviously I'm disappointed, but I'm also not the least bit surprised. Nothing this child says or does surprises me anymore, but it still hurts me. We have taken away his ability to watch shows or play games that are not age appropriate. We have handed out punishments but he just shrugs them off or throws a tantrum so bad that we reach our wits end and can't even be in the same room as him. He has irrational fears of being in a room alone or using the restroom. He soils himself daily and he's a very bright 8 year old. He refuses to write at school, even though he knows the answer. How can three children all turn out so differently with the same set of parents. I mean, I know that I have changed through out the years, as has their father, but essentially, we are the same people. I've finally reached my limit and started looking for a counselor for him. I have major trust issues when it comes to counseling, so this is going to be a huge challenge for me. I hope that it helps him though. I just don't know how else to help him.

I'm always working to do better today than I did yesterday. Educating myself in ways to do life better makes such a difference in my life. It gives me the power to stay positive and keep trying. It can be frustrating to be unable to do the things that we thought we would be able to do by this stage of our lives, but it is also empowering to know that others have come through to the other side of adversity with an excellent outcome. I'm going to just keep swimming, even though I'm fighting against the current the whole way. I know that I'm not making much progress in distance, but I'm growing stronger from the exercise.