teenage girls

All posts tagged teenage girls

Day One of Back To Reality; Here We Go!

Published January 6, 2015 by Angela

I wish I could say I had a spectacular day at work, but it was rather boring. Things tend to be a bit slow at the beginning of the year. My girls got home Sunday afternoon, and were home about 10 minutes before the bickering began. Or should I say continued, from the bickering they had been doing the whole time they were gone.

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I was very happy to have them home, and it is nice to be back on schedule. I was very sad that my 10 year old could not stop crying last night because she missed her dad. All I could do was hug her. I had no answers for her when she kept asking “When are we going to see dad again?” I certainly could not tell her next Christmas, which is more than likely true.

Erin is on track with her home schooling, and I already made it very clear to her that we will not be going to bed on any given night until all assessments are turned in that are due that day.

Weather 1-5-2015

We are still under a Winter Storm Warning here in Michigan. That is supposed to expire Tuesday at noon, and then they will just issue the next one. There is no stop in the snow before Saturday, and with highs of 9 degrees, the wind chill temperature is horrible. The doors on my Mini Cooper were frozen shut this morning and there was no chance of me getting them open to get my safety glasses for work. Thank goodness I have a different car to drive in the Winter!

I hope you are all getting settled into your 2015, working on any resolutions you made, and getting the year started off with a bang!

Silence is Golden…

Published December 27, 2014 by Angela

…and I am still enjoying it. Waking up in the morning, drinking coffee in bed, reading books, and watching mindless Netflix. Napping in the afternoon, not having to cook food, take someone somewhere, go anywhere unless if I choose to, and making being lazy an art form.

I am missing my girls, and truly hoping, and praying several times a day, that they are enjoying themselves, and are okay. I am not going to pretend it is easy having them away for so long, but I am making sure I use up every moment to do the little things I do not ordinarily get to enjoy. Meaning, doing a whole bunch of nothing.

I have to do the Scripture readings at my church’s early service tomorrow, I have a dinner date with my boyfriend and oldest daughter tomorrow or Monday, and a visit to a friend’s house on Monday afternoon. Other than that, I have absolutely nothing I have to do, and no where I need to be, before I return to work on Monday, January 5th.

I am most definitely going to use this time to get myself in a great place feeling rested, relaxed, and recharged. I hope you are able to get some type of personal break as well, and get recharged and ready for the new year. I have BIG things planned for myself and my girls for 2015, and I cannot wait to share that with all of you!

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Why Don’t I Feel Guilty About This?

Published December 26, 2014 by Angela

Spending my Christmas evening alone. No girls fighting. No asking for dinner. No arguing over who gets to choose what is watched on television.

Nope. I do not feel guilty. I love my girls to the end of the world, but when you are a single parent, and they only see the other parent one time a year; on Christmas: Yeah, you kind of work up to it.

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Wait for it. Plan for it. Expect it. And cheer your behind off when it actually happens! (Which is not always the case).

So I am taking my nekkid kitty to bed, putting on some Hobbit movie that I have seen 76 times, but still not enough, and enjoying the “Silent Night” that I truly know and believe my Gracious Lord Jesus knew I needed.

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No, I am not joking or mocking religion. Do you pray? Pray enough for something, and He will truly deliver it to you!

Merry Christmas to each and every one of you! What a beautiful day!

I Was Probably Happy Much Too Soon…

Published November 20, 2014 by Angela

…about having one more day of work, and then 9 days off. Because as I sit here, I have 3 girls bickering over the most ridiculous BS possible. Cassidy wants to sit on the love seat, but Erin doesn’t want her sitting by her. So Erin asked Kendall to sit on the end of the couch where she is laying down, and she said No.

“Kendall, why can’t she sit at the end of the couch where there is room?”

“I wasn’t listening to her.”

“So you just answered No, when you have no idea what she asked?”

“Yep.”

So now I am thinking maybe having extended days at home is not going to be a good thing. Luckily Kendall and Cassidy have 2 1/2 days of school next week, ending Wednesday afternoon. That gives me a couple days of quiet to get ahead on my reading and house organizing. At least until they get home from school.

I will be the first to admit, I could never, and would never, be able to stay at home full-time with my children. So if you are anti-Moms-working-you-need-to-stay-home-and-take-care-of-the-kids-you-had, save your breath. Just because I had them, does not mean it is the best interest of any of us to have too much together time 🙂 Me going to work for 9 hours and coming home gives me something to look forward to; dinner with my girls, and getting caught up on how everyone’s day was. I tried to be the working mom with the stay-at-home husband/dad; it wasn’t my fault he was an epic failure at that! It is honestly easier to do everything on my own, then to ever have to deal with him on a daily basis 🙂

And So It Begins In West Michigan…

Published November 17, 2014 by Angela

…a Winter season that is looking to be as bad as everyone predicted, which is even worse than last year. It is currently 6:15pm here, on November 17th, and there are 104 closings for evening events that were scheduled. I think the school closings will start coming in by about 10 pm.

Another thing that I get out of the Winter season is numerous Doctor, Med-center, and Emergency room visits. Case in point: a 5:00 am trip to the ER this morning with my 16 year old. She has asthma, and as soon as the temperature gets to a certain degree outside, she is pretty much miserable for the entire Winter season. I spent $55.00 on an OTC nebulizer at the pharmacy yesterday which seemed to help, momentarily. Her other inhalers were not doing the trick. But this morning by the time I got out of the shower and dressed for work, she asked to go to the emergency room. I know better than to second guess or question her when she asks, because she will suffer in silence until she can absolutely not deal with it any longer.

And that other lovely side effect of bad Michigan Winters is lots of snow days for my girls. Which means lots of phone calls at work for me, because they cannot get along. Sometimes they do spectacular together, other days, they really all just need to be in separate rooms.

And the worst side effect is that I get seasonal depression. Which is much worse than my regular depression I deal with on a daily basis. As soon as the time changed and it started getting dark at 5:30 pm, I have been short of patience. I have plenty of books on my reading list, and my best defense against this very real seasonal depression is laying in my comfortable bed with my cat, reading great stories.

How do you handle the Winter weather if you are in a snowy state?

And This Is Exactly Why I Wish You Would Just Stay Away…

Published November 12, 2014 by Angela

…because since last Saturday, I have been asked, e-v-e-r-y  s-i-n-g-l-e  d-a-y “When is Dad coming to get us again?” “Is Dad going to get us for Christmas Break?” “Can you call Dad and see if he can go to my basketball game Saturday?” and it goes on-and-on-and-on.

Why does this bother me? Because he made a surprise appearance at my front door, 11 months to the day of the last time he saw his (MY) children. And now I get to deal with this. And the crying, and being upset, and brand new feelings of abandonment when he does not show up again for 11 months. And they were just starting to heal from the last time he did this.

So once again I get to pick up the broken pieces, and deal with the brunt of their anger because he is not around to take it.

Someone is not going to have a happy Christmas, and I guarantee you it will not be my children or myself. He is NOT going to break them again; they can only be put back together so many times before it becomes irreparable.

Sometimes the best thing you can do for your children is to just go away. And if you are someone who is reading this and angry about this post and feel I am being unfair to their “Father”, I am more than willing to post a 10,000 word blog on how he has wronged his children, over and over again. Not to even mention how he destroyed our marriage and relationships between my family members and myself in the process.

So as one of my favorite Motley Crue songs states…”Don’t go away mad, just go away.” Except in this case I could not care less if he is mad. I’ve been mad for 8 years at what he continues to do to avoid taking any responsibility for these girls.

Always Receiving, Never Giving…

Published November 10, 2014 by Angela

…has me very baffled at where my children have gotten their sense of entitlement from.

They always want something, but do not understand the concept of working for anything. I am really, honestly trying to determine if I have somehow created this problem myself (I feel I have, to a point) and how to fix it.

For the past week, I have been bombarded with “I need”, “I want”, and “Can you do this for me…”. I have not once heard “Let me help”, “Can I help?”, or “What can I do?”. I have been angry at the world and everyone around me because of this. It has not been a good week to be in my head, with the slightest thing setting me off to an entire day of not-in-a-good-mood-leave-me-alone-and-stop-talking-to-me attitude. Yes, my attitude has been that big.

My girls have watched me struggle to make ends meet, work 70 hour weeks to pay the bills, run on no sleep because they have so many things going on, and no personal time for myself. I find it beyond upsetting that they are completely okay with this.

We had a great experience at our church this Saturday when we packaged over 10,000 meals for a local food shelter, emergency reserves, and a 3rd world country where food is scarce. Being told that in the first hour we were there 600 children aged 5 and under had died from hunger was like a punch in the stomach for me. Hunger upsets me and breaks my heart more than any other plight I can think of. Worse than those sad-abused animal commercials, and I love animals! I always buy extra groceries during the holiday season to donate, and every week I buy extra health care products to donate a couple times a year to a local woman’s shelter.

So how can anyone who has been raised by me, live in the same home as me, and know what my values are, just ask for things they do not need, deserve, and certainly haven’t earned?

I have a feeling I am going to have 3 young ladies in my house that are going to get a reality check like no other reality check, and our Christmas is going to be a little bit different this year. Instead of me shopping for them, I think it is time we go shopping together and use some of the money that would have been spent on them on others who have a true need.

This coming Friday, November 14th, I am taking them to see Kirk Cameron’s “Saving Christmas“, and I hope this is the wake-up call that they so desperately need right now. If you have not heard about his latest project, be sure to check it out here: http://www.savingchristmas.com/

Being The Bigger Person…

Published November 2, 2014 by Angela

…for the sake of my girls. We were all surprised when their Father and his girlfriend showed up at our home today. My 16 year old had her final marching band highlights concert tonight and she is one of the drum majors. They came up to surprise her and attend this half-time highlights concert.

My beautiful 16 year old daughter and Drum Major for the marching band. I could not be more proud or blessed!

My beautiful 16 year old daughter and Drum Major for the marching band. I could not be more proud or blessed!

So they took the 3 girls out to eat, and then went to the concert. My boyfriend and I sat next to them and we all had a good time. They were unsure if they would be staying at a hotel for the night or not, and would let me know. My boyfriend dropped me off at home, I turned on the radio, and finished cleaning the house, which is so much easier to do when there are no kids here!

So the next message I get is from his girlfriend wanting to ask me a question…if they cannot find a hotel to stay in could they possibly stay on the floor for the night so they can spend time with the girls.

I said yes, I did not have a problem with that. My girls would be heartbroken to not spend as much time with him as possible. In the end he decided he was not comfortable with it, but they did want to hang out with them for a while. So while I was in the kitchen doing my homework and editing some photos and book reviews, they were playing the WII and enjoying themselves.

I was not pleased when the girlfriend finally got me alone and asked if they could take my 13 year old, Erin, for 2 weeks and then bring her back. She is my homeschooler, and thinks she would do better living with her father. I said absolutely not, she was not at a point where this type of adjustment, even for 2 weeks, would do her any good.

I wasn’t surprised either…

So I did my good Mommy deed for the day, week, month, year, whatever 🙂 I honestly did not mind, and was very happy my girls got to spend some time with their dad and his girlfriend.

How Would You Like Me To Reward Your Bad Behavior?

Published October 26, 2014 by Angela

A $75.00 gift card to Amazon?

What?

I was almost speechless, but only for about 2 seconds. My dear 13 year old had an attitude yesterday morning when I told her she needed to get ready to go to her younger sister’s first basketball game. She did not want to go. I explained to her that she needed to go to support her sister, and that her sister would be very upset and hurt to look up in the stands and see everyone there but her. Well, her Dad also, but I think she has pretty much written him off anyhow.

Basketball in hoop

So she was intentionally doing everything in her power to make us late, thinking I would finally give in and just let her stay home. I also was not leaving the house without her, no matter how late we ended up getting to the game.

I think she realized this, as she was at least getting dressed, however slowly. She finally made it to the front door and said “I need to brush my hair.”

“No, you don’t. It looks fine.” More angry-face-crappy-attitude-stomping-of-feet all the way to the car. Did I mention she is 13 years old?

So now I am slowly drinking my coffee, waiting for the 8am mark so I can go get her up to go to her confirmation classes, which she has missed for the last two weeks. I told her yesterday if she did not get up and go to her confirmation classes, and I did not care if she was throwing up all over herself (yeah, I said that. This girl plays the “sick” card like it is her profession), she would not have the laptop left in the mornings to do her homeschooling, and she would spend every evening at the kitchen table with me doing her homework while I do mine.

So here’s to a beautiful Sunday, full of sunshine and Blessings!

Still holding on through the cold weather!

Still holding on through the cold weather!