As I believe I have mentioned before, I dabbled in the personal ads game.  People turn to personal ads for many reasons…  Sometimes you genuinely are ready to pursue that “long term” relationship… Sometimes you are just looking to have fun, meet people, casually date… Sometimes, you just need someone to talk to.  That is why I turned to personal ads.  I am a single mom, with a little one at home.  I still am emotionally invested in someone else.  I can’t fathom moving on, committing emotionally to a new relationship.  It’s just not where I am at, the thought turns my stomach.  Right or wrong, I am hoping that I can regain what I have lost, jkjbring our friendship back to a relationship, and put the crap behind us and start anew.  So go ahead, and call me stupid.  Tell me I am naive.  (It won’t be the first time, that’s fr sure).  Cite me statistics, send me articles about why it will never happen.  I don’t give a rats behind what the experts, Dr. Phil, your best friend Jessica or your Aunt Bertha have to say about it.  I know what my heart says, and it says its not time to go on.

So, why the hell did I post personal ads?  Well frankly, I was lonely.  I don’t do the bar scene well, I like being home with my baby better than hanging out with the party girls.  With the relationship between my baby daddy and myself being vague, undefined, see-sawing and turned upside down, I really felt I had lost my best friend.  Without going into details, I was often angry and hurt, and tended to lash out, making things worse. Without him, I had no one to turn to, I felt lost, and I needed someone to talk to.  Hence, personal ads.  Here, I could go and send innocent flirtations, chat about things that didn’t matter, be made to feel like I was wanted.  I was in control.  I could walk away from the computer any time I didn’t the direction things were going.  I could purposely choose to talk to men whom I knew I would never want a long-term relationship.  I could just bide my time until “my time” finally came around.

The I started emailing with someone who seemed just the perfect friend.  type A (so not me), not looking for a relationship (perfect), kept talking to me when I told him I had no intentions of actually dating because my heart still belonged to another.  I could email him my latest trials, and he would give me his psycho-babble advice… I could talk about work, about how my adult children were doing, about anything, and he never ridiculed me, or put me down.  He made me ask questions, he challenged my beliefs, and he played the devils advocate.  Fine, I could appreciate that.  Then, I hit a particularly vulnerable point, and things shifted.  He wanted to meet.  For me, this was the “Hey, sure.. Let’s meet… This time next week I am going to be back together with the person who matters, and you and I will never see one another again, and it would be nice to meet the person who I have been emailing forever.”  So we met, and he was just as I pictured him.  Smug, so sure of himself and his opinions.  Totally not me.  But, it was fun to argue with someone, to just sit and be distracted by someone else’s voice besides the one in my head.

Well, next week didn’t happen the way I , what I expected didn’t materialize.  I was crushed.  I jumped to conclusions, I overreacted and lost it.  I turned to my “friend” to get advice, got the expected “I told you so, I’m a guy, I know how guys think.”  He invited me to dinner, and I accepted.  He cooked, I talked and drank to much wine, and things went a way I didn’t really want.  Hello walk of shame, at least in my own head.  After he walked away from my car, I sat there and cried, too sick to my stomach to drive.  The next day, he flooded my phone with messages I just deleted.  I told him, I wanted a friend to talk to about life, and suddenly it’s all about sexting… This isn’t what I want out of this.  He reassures me, that’s not what its all about, come over next week and we can just relax.  Well, maybe the push wasn’t as hard, but the game played out the same.  I knew I couldn’t do this.  There shouldn’t be a price to pay for friendship, or companionship.  Although it was never put into so many words, I knew there would always be that price, and I couldn’t pay it.  I couldn’t wait to walk out the door.

There are other dynamics to this story, there always are.  There is no happy ending, you can’t say everyone involved walked away unhurt.  Life isn’t that way.  Today I asked him to not contact me anymore, that I couldn’t continue a relationship that left me shamed and empty, that he could do better with someone who had the same goals for the relationship. With the brevity of his reply, I am guessing he senses the other night that I wasn’t really there (or else his pride is really hurt).  A friend helped me find the confidence to make this decision, and as I sit here this evening singing silly songs with my daughter, I feel such a sense of relief.  I hope my daughter is stronger than I as she grows up, and never purposely puts herself in a situation as emotionally degrading as the one I chose.

So personals, you won’t be seeing me again anytime soon.  To all those those women out there who are selling themselves short because they don’t feel they deserve any better… You are wrong.

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• Would you rent a friend? (guardian.co.uk)

My oldest daughter is chronically ill.  She has been seriously ill since 2001, when she was diagnosed with IBD.  It took several years for it to be determined that it was ulcerative colitis, and not Crohns Disease.  She also eventually was diagnosed with auto-immune hepatitis and primary schlerosing cholangitis.  Neato, huh?  When you go into the emergency room with a problem related to these diseases, most staff have never even heard of them.  As a side effect of these G.I. related diseases, she has other problems such as Sjogrens Syndrome, Celiac disease and Osteoperosis.  She is now 20 years old.  She has had more procedures, blood draws, and hospitalizations than anyone I have ever met.  When she was 17, she suffered a compression fracture in her back.  Someday, she will probably need a liver transplant.  In all probability, she will not be able to have children.  She lived with an ileostomy bag for almost two years.  She just had the third part of her j-pouch takedown done on March 27th.  Tonight, she is at the emergency room.  My mind is racing, my worst fear is always that the surgery isn’t taking, and she will have to have her bag again.  Without going into personal details, it could be a tear somewhere, a general infection, general dehydration or pouchitis (an infection of the bag, which would necessitate a trip to UCSF).  Tonight, she will undergo blood draws, invasive things involving her bottom, and who knows what else.  I will sit at home with the baby and worry until I find out what is going on.  I wish I could be there, but I have a baby at home that needs me too.

People do not really understand what it is like to have a child this ill.  They don’t see it.  They see this:

My dauther is NOT defined by her illness

What people do not see, is all the internal effects of these illnesses.  They have never seen blood drawn from her veins that came out black because she was so dehydrated.  They have not seen the bone density scans, showing the bones of an elderly woman on a 17 year old.  People do not read about the effects of these diseases, about the chronic fatigue, the constant chronic pain, the depression, inability to sleep and the lack of self esteem caused by medications and symptoms.  They don’t understand what she must have felt being told that she would probably face infertility, and should see a geneticist (not only to see what diseases she could pass on to her children, but what other auto-immune disorders she is probably going to get).  I can’t tell you how many times I have seen rolled eyes when she is really ill, or when she gets the energy to actually go out and have fun.  READ ABOUT THESE DISEASES BEFORE YOU JUDGE MY DAUGHTER.  Most people with just one or two of these conditions have difficulty getting by day to day, she has more than most medical professionals have seen in one person.  Her brother mocks her openly, men I have dated look down at her as lazy or taking advantage of me.  If it were your child, if you were halfway educated, you would understand.  Even when I have been in a committed relationship, for the past five years I have been alone in this.  For a mother of a child with needs, you are met with skepticism and jealousy of your time, no one understands the importance of your role as mother. It becomes wearing to have to justify every emergency room visit, every choice that is made.   I pray these men never see their children experience illness like this.  I worry every day that Troll Baby may inherit my family curse (aunts, cousins, so many women in my family have auto-immune disorders).

I am thankful every day for my daughter.  Sometimes, I let the frustration and worry seep through.  Will we have money for gas, do you really have to go to the ER now?  I am not proud of those moments, yet I have to acknowledge that I am only human.  I appreciate the love she has given her siblings, the support she gave me as I went to school.  I am so proud of her for making the honor roll every year of high school, despite averaging 30 absences a year.  She is a remarkable human being.

I wish I had someone who understood.  Mama2, you are a blessing and an exception, as are you Ash.  Everyone else who has been critical, reluctant to self-educate, lacking in compassion, you can kiss my ass.  I am strong, and I am my daughters best advocate.  I have spent countless nights in emergency rooms, hospitals, gotten on first name basis with more medical staff than I care to.  I have flirted with the records guy at UCSF to print out the hundreds of pages of records I needed for SSI (for free – sometime showing a little cleavage helps).  I have lived on the free cereal, coffee, sandwiches and bananas on the hepatology ward in the Children’s hospital for days, because cafeteria food cost too much. I will gladly donate my liver, if she needs it before I get too old.  I am not complaining, I would do this all again in a heartbeat… for any of my children.  I hope someday I have a man by my side that will take the time to understand.  I hope if Troll Baby ever gets sick, I will have someone there who cares as much as I do.

It’s funny really.  Moms are tough.  I mean, think about it… We go through ten months of gestation, experiencing leg cramps, sleepless nights, incessant peeing, hemorrhoids, varicose veins, barfing, heartburn, constipation, searing pain in our sides from our uterus expanding, an awkward sense of balance and countless other untold physical discomforts just to squeeze something the size of a large grapefruit out of a hole the size of a nickel (or in my case, an incision about the length of a dollar bill).  We handle all this with a minimum of bitching and whining… it’s all worth it for the end result, the golden ticket, the warm, soft, cuddly bundle of love.

And then, you get a cold.  You know the one… Your sinuses are so full of pressure that it feels as if your eyeballs are going to be pushed right out of your sockets, yet your nose is running so fast you have to sleep with a tissue on the pillow under your nose to catch the constant drip.  During the day, it takes every ounce of energy you can summon to get any work accomplished, let alone keep up a stream of interactive and enthusiastic parenting with the aforementioned bundle of love.  This is especially true when the bundle of love is 17 months old and is a non-stop bundle of toddler energy!  This week, I am getting a real reminder of what it’s like to do this sick thing as a single mom.  See, Troll Babys dad and I are no longer in a relationship, just platonic co-habitation until he gets a place, and co-parenting for life.  Yesterday, he was out of town, so Troll Baby and I were on our own.  It’s difficult to feel like you are really doing a good job parenting when you can barely drag your ass off the couch.  Luckily, Troll Baby is a good sport, and finds it to be a lot of fun using me as her helpless victim.

Special Kisses for Mom

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Image by Will Lion via Flickr

When you look ahead to the new year, what do you see?  For many of us, we are currently in a state of financial uncertainty, emotional duress and an all around feeling of blah.  I think there are few who can deny that 2009 has ended on a sour note in at least some aspect.  Whether personal, national or global, one hasn’t had to look far to see what we perceive to be fear and failure. I find myself guilty of this myopic view of life as well.  I have allowed myself to focus on all the negative, when I should have been counting my blessings.

I am entering 2010 full of emotions.  I am thankful that I have a family to love and care for, that does the same for me and instills me with a sense of purpose.  I have talent and experience in my field of choice, and I simply need to focus on using my skills.  I have many ideas to build on that will provide for my family.  Although I am experiencing a relationship shift, I am not alone and the parting is not filled with anger, but with purpose and hope.  I have a roof over my head, and a reliable vehicle to drive.  Despite facing many challenges, my children have a great future ahead of them.

My emotions going into the new year include fear, anxiety and hope and love for my family.  I want these emotions to be a call to action which results in changes in both my personal and business endeavors.

• Early to bed and early to rise… This may be an old saying, but it is one that I believe will benefit me greatly.  No more staying up ’til all hours of the night, and then wasting the day away.  Troll Baby needs a schedule and so do I.
• Write everyday.  Write for myself, write for business… No excuses, just write.
• Make a life plan.  Make a business plan.  Act based on these plans.
• Love my children, even when it means I must anger or disappoint them.  I know that emotions of guilt and a fear of confrontation have created a negative approach to how I parent.  I know this won’t change overnight, but I must endeavor each day to recognize when I am not parenting as I should.
• Make time each day for family, and not hide under the guise of the “working mom” excuse.
• Clean house.  Everyday, instead of letting it pile up and overwhelm me. (It would really be nice if their were laundry fairies though… I’m just sayin’.
• Cook more, drive thru less.
• Get out and talk to adults once in a while.  It would help to interact with my target audience and client base, instead of just the lessons of Yo Gabba Gabba and Wow Wow Wubzie.

I hope you also enter the new year full of emotion, realizing that this isn’t a sign of weakness, but rather an opportunity for a better tomorrow.

Well, it’s time to out why I haven’t been able to blog.  It is hard as a “mommy-blogger.”  What makes you interesting, what draws people into your life, is not always funny, sarcastic, or entertaining.  Sometimes it is painful, makes you look like an ass or at the very least, a complete idiot.  Yet, despite the fact that I have decided to share my life openly on my blog, it’s hard to do when you know your family is part of this, your family and friends read what you write, and you are often judged by the context of the words on the page.  DoozieDad and I have decided to go our separate ways, at least until we get life figured out a little better.  I was originally going to title this “The Perfect Breakup” but there is no perfect breakup.  There are however, breakups that are less painful than they are hopeful, and that is what this is.

Here is a quote by Dooziedad, posted on his Facebook wall the day after we reached our conclusion about where we are emotionally and in our relationship, and decided that we needed to make changes before we could live happily as a family.

life takes a lot of twists and turns. you never know whats going to happen from one day to the next. But as long as you have love friends and a great family like mine you can over come anything life puts before you. It also opens it up to the unknown and the past as well some times. embrace what comes and there can only be brighter days ahead. Have a good day ! Luv yeah

So what went wrong in our DoozieLife? I think one only needs to look at the time-line of our relationship and see that the odds were stacked against us.  Sure, it’s not just about timing, or events… but it sure has a hell of an impact on your emotional status, energy available to put into yourself and your partner.  Damn it all, we just were screwed from the start, and our relationship isn’t ending…or suspending… due to lack of effort, but because we came to the conclusion we should part now, while we still cared enough to be friends, before endlessly butting our heads against the wall brought hatred to a relationship that has potential to evolve into something better in the future.

Ok, so back to that timeline…

• 11/2007 – My 15 year old is hit by a truck, spends 11 days and 3 surgeries in the hospital.   I stop dating current partner because I feel he can’t understand the needs of my kids… isn’t it ironic…  Youngest  son turns 5 day his brother comes home from  the hospital.
• 12/2007 – Start dating DoozieDad.  He is fun, charming, a gentleman.  It’s so nice to get away from the pressures of an angry, wheelchair bound kid and the physical therapy, the medical stuff and escape to a place where I could let go, be spoiled and not worry for a little bit.
• 1/2008 – It’s been a year since my 2 oldest children received child support, house is in final stages of foreclosure.
• 2/2008 – Find out DoozieDad has swimmers.  Freak out. Worry about how unfair it is to bring another drain on my time into my kids life.  My son is struggling with dealing with the accident, with dealing with life in general, missing school and stuck with home schooling.  My daughter’s ulcerative colitis is flaring.  Life is a jumble of doctor’s appointments, physical therapy, trying to squeeze in hours at work.  A baby?  I can’t do it, I asked the right questions, this wasn’t supposed to be able to happen.  My period’s were all screwed up with stress, I don’t even know when I got pregnant.  Abortion?  Can’t do it.  Get the call from the bank, we have to move.  Ugh…
• 3/2008 – Move 5 people into an 844 sq. ft house.  My 5 year old has to sleep in the laundry room, and my 15 yr old gets stuck in the detached garage.  Daughter is in and out of the hospital.  Son turns 16.
• 4/2008 – Son and daughter both have major surgery in San Francisco on the same day.  He has a knee reconstruction, she has her colon removed.  I am approx. 4 1/2 months pregnant.  My pregnancy is high risk, my boss hires someone to pick up the slack because between all the appointments, I just can’t be there much.
• 6/2008 – I can’t take it anymore.  Doctor puts me on on disability.
• 8/8/2008 – Troll Baby is born, and everyone falls in love.
• 12/2008 – Daughter is scheduled for ileostomy reversal.  Day of surgery, we get call that her thyroid levels are too high for anesthesia.  Major suckage.
• Rest of 2008, we push on… After disability is up, my boss’s business has slowed, she has laid off almost everyone, nothing for me to go back to.  Go on unemployment after disability and Paid Family Leave.
• 1/2009 – Oldest kids dad goes back to work, I file to reinstate child support, let the games battle begin.
• 7/2009 – We travel down south to see oldest kids grandma before she leaves on a 3 year missionary trip.  The kids attempt to be gracious, their dad hardly says 5 words to them.
• Sometime/2009 – Daughter has thyroid removed.  Brief scare when Endocrine thinks her ovaries are damaged due to immune system.  Bag causes her to become dehydrated easily, she has to often go into ER for IV re-hydration.  The guys just don’t get it.  they don’t get her disease at all.  I feel like I have to constantly defend her illness.  Hello, if you have your large intestine removed, it’s obvious your disease is serious.  Not to mention the liver stuff, the Sjögren’s syndrome, the Grave’s disease turned hypo-thyroid, the osteoporosis.  I can be sympathetic to your injured knees (son) and your fused back (partner), can’t you just shut the hell up about her?  Yes, this is a sore point.
• 7/2009 – DoozieDad’s mom is losing fight with chronic emphysema.  We visit, take the baby, try and spend last good moments that we can with her.
• 8/2009 – Oldest son’s best friend ends his life, he is only 15 years old, my son is devastated.  Night of his funeral, Troll babys Gramma passes, DoozieDad is there at the last.  He is so torn, he won’t let the coroner take his mom without his help.  How awful this must have been for him.  Troll baby turns 1, we do a TinkerBell theme, make the best of this time as it   Funeral is hard…
• Next few months, the tension is thick.  The weight of everyone’s issues, sadness, financial worries, grief, depression… I am walking on eggshell’s everyday… Can’t do conflict, trying to keep a happy face for the little kids.  I can’t be intimate, haven’t for ages.  It’s unfair, but I can’t be emotionally drained and find room in myself for that.
• Thanksgiving 2009 – Spent at DoozieDad’s sister Diane’s.  Great day, good food, good people and no one has a clue we are going crazy.  Daughter get’s food poisoning, after a few days of being sick, spends several days in the hospital.  Par for the course when you are immune suppressed.  Again, guys don’t get it.  Act like she is hypochondriac or something.  My oldest son has been having horrible nausea, diarrhea, heartburn, etc.  I am scared to death he has something like his sister.  Get referral to GI Specialist.
• 12/2009 – Reference previous post Emotional Foreplay.  DoozieDad and I talk, decide to get out while the gettin’s good, before the knives are pulled.  Daughter has a 2nd attempt at her ileostomy reversal scheduled for 12/23.  My older son got approved for counseling (Hurray!), his dad’s child support payment was $200 short, his dad did not accept his request for Facebook and he had to do every horrible GI related test under the sun.  This quarter at school fell apart for him.  Good news… My old boss called me.  My “replacement” is driving them nuts and they want to hire me back after the holidays, so when DoozieDad and I move apart March 1st, no one has to be homeless.

So come on 2010.  I don’t think the next decade can pull nearly the punches that this one has.  This year… Oldest son will start counseling, learn to harness his issues, help around the house, stop resenting his sister, finish school, get a job and go to college.  Daughter will recuperate from her (oh please, please, please) successful surgery and finally be able to move away like she wants. My son’s GI will say it’s stress and diet, and here is how you can fix it.  My youngest son’s dad will finally either get a job or join the military, before he can no longer help support his son.  Oldest son’s dad will not fall back into depression/alcohol dependency with his mom in Wales, and will continue to support his son, and maybe even friend him on Facebook.   My boss will be able to keep business going and afford me (or just let me take over the damn place).  DoozieDad and I will be friends, co-raise our daughter and build our relationship.

So basically, that’s it for 2009. Hopefully my son will learn to man up and help more around the house, and hate on his sister a little less, hopefully she will learn when not to say things that sting, and find happiness in the Emerald City.  May DoozieDad find peace and realize how much I cared, and hopefully put the past in the past and take life one day at a time.  I hope I learn how to help my son grow into a man, give him a clear picture of why I deserve his respect and he needs to step up and act the “man of the house.”

Kedrick's 5th Birthday

From the time I was a freshman in high school, I have had a job.  My first job was as a Summer Camp Aide at the YMCA in Klamath Falls, Oregon the summer before my Sophomore year.  During the next couple of years, I worked at a snack bar at the local skating rink, worked as a day care aide and various other “high school” jobs.  After my Junior year, I moved to California to live with my mom, and worked for her on her “game bird farm.”  What this meant was I shoveled tons of quail, pigeon, pheasant and other kinds of bird poop, collected eggs, killed sick birds, caught birds to take to the market, and many other unpleasant tasks.  As soon as I graduated, I sought a less stinky working environment and somehow landed a job as a receptionist at a insurance company during the day, and a clerk at the video store next door in the evenings and weekends.  When my insurance company boss wanted to make the relationship more than professional (I was 18, he was in his 30’s and married… ewwww) I politely turned him down, asked for a reference, and started doing books for a couple that owned several companies.  Eventually, I went from doing the bookkeeping and receptionist duties and was gradually stolen away by the wife to work for her graphic design company.  I learned on the job on the very first little Macintosh computers, with their monochrome 4″ screen and no hard drive.

Since that time, 22 years ago, I have always worked in the field of graphic design.  It has ranged from old school burning negatives and plates, using a waxer to build page layouts, to running two different school district printing departments.  Unless I was on maternity leave, I worked full-time.  I took a two year break when my children were in elementary school, so that I could volunteer in their classes, do more field trips and spend more time with them overall.  I worked still, but part-time, and often took the kids with me to work.  Two years was all I could take, and I was soon back to working full-time (although I always tried to stay involved with school and extra-curricular activities).  Despite working full-time, I did taxi duty, and was a choir and football mom.

From 2001 to 2003 I was in the Army.  Crazy, i know.  It was a mid-life crisis, I have to get away from my ex-husband or go crazy kind of thing.  In some ways it was good, but in many ways it was bad.  Not the Army part, but the fact that my ex-husband was ill-equipped for the responsibilities of fatherhood without me there to do it all.  Shortly after I left, my daughter got sick, and he fell apart.  Alcoholism and depression soon followed.  After I returned home from the Army, I began to pick up the pieces.  In 2005, my daughter’s health took a sudden turn for the worse, and she nearly had to have a liver transplant.  I was working at the school district at the time, a new hire in charge of their printing department.  In six-weeks time, I had used up all my leave for the entire year.  I stayed for another year, but my daughters frequent trips to UCSF led me to turn in my resignation, as the department needed someone who had less personal issues to deal with.  One of my old bosses had been emailing me for months, saying she needed a graphic designer.  It was less pay than the school district, and no benefits, but it gave me the flexibility I needed to care for my kids and still work full time.

All that changed two years ago.  My son was hit by a car on November 2nd, 2007 (he spent 11 days in the hospital and had 3 surgeries.  His dad and I alternated 24-hour shifts at the hospital, and I was finally able to bring him home November 13th.  He had a broken right femur and a completely blown out left knee, as well as a broken left hand and arm.  He was completely dependent, having to use a slide board to transfer from hospital bed to wheelchair, and needed assistance using the restroom.  He required in-home physical therapy to prevent blood clots and to stimulate improvement with the “drop-foot” he was experiencing.  Soon after that, my daughters ulcerative colitis flared, requiring frequent emergency room visits and trips to see her G.I. specialists in San Francisco.  Holding down a full time job became extremely difficult.  My hours were sporadic, with physical therapy and doctor appointments during the day, and then my working at the print shop in the evenings and weekends.  Late February, I discovered  I was pregnant, and added the visits associated with a high-risk pregnancy to the mix.

April 29th, 2008 my son had reconstructive surgery and my daughter had a colectomy (surgical removal of the colon, or large bowel) with a resulting ileostomy stoma.  Yes, due to circumstances beyond my control, these surgeries were scheduled on the same day, one at UCSF Mt. Zion and one at UCSF Children’s Hospital.  I was 5 months pregnant at the time.  I stayed with her during surgery and recovery, and the first two days she was hospitalized.  My son’s dad drove up from Los Angeles, and stayed with him during his surgery and recovery.  Until my son was discharged, I took the U.C.S.F. Shuttle between the two hospitals to spend time with each child, sleeping on the little fold out bed in my daughter’s room each night.  When my son was discharged, I drove him home, spent a couple of days with my fiance and my 6 year old son, and then went back to the hospital to bring home my daughter.  My daughter’s recovery was difficult, and dealing with two post-operative teenagers was taxing, to say the least.  Adjusting to life with an ileostomy pouch was difficult for my daughter, and even proved a challenge for the home health nurse who was assigned to her.  Finally, the right type of pouch was found, she learned to care for her stoma herself, and her general health improved.  My son’s recovery from surgery was difficult, and he experienced (and still does) a great deal of pain.  Still, through all this, I kept working.  My fiance was a great help, and my 6 year old spent a lot of time with his dad when things were crazy.

In June of 2008, my perinatologist had me going in for mon-stress tests twice weekly, I was seeing my high-risk OB bi-weekly, having a level 2 ultrasound monthly, and taking the kids to physical therapy and clinic appointments.  I was having difficulty gaining weight and my stress level was thought the roof.  I asked our family doctor to take me off work (I already had trained my replacement at work), and I went on disability.  After my pregnancy leave was up, I talked to my boss and realized that her business had fallen to the point where she could not afford two graphic designers.  She had already let her daughter go and her husband was only running the presses part-time.  Since the new designer was working for lower wages than I had been paid, she laid me off (an agreeable solution for everyone).

Since that time, our area has been hit by extremely high unemployment, and graphic designers looking for work (or trying to freelance) are a dime a dozen.  I am trying to learn the in’s and out of freelance writing, as well as web design, until such time as California’s economy turns around.  My goal is to replace the income I used to make when I worked full time with a comparable freelance income.  You can see what I am up to at my other blog, My Mompreneur Life.  My life is still crazy, and this was really just a glossing over of what life is like.  One thing I have learned through all this is that you can’t control life.  When I talk to other moms who have children with health concerns, the consensus is the same… No matter what gets thrown at you, no matter if you are sure you just cannot handle anything else , you just do.