"My Name Is 'Get The Hell Off Of Me'."

I feel like over the last few months I've really come to know some of you guys. We chat over email or Facebook and often times joke that we would have fun together in 'real life'. Well, since I don't know any of you in 'real life', the best that I can do is drag you along with me on a night out; photographically. I laid everything out in steps so that you can replicate this on your own and pretend that I am with you.

(Hey, I never claimed to be normal)

Before we get started, you will need a few things.

#1 A 36 year old friend that has a 20 year old daughter who can watch your kids overnight.

#2 A designated driver.

#3 The promise of a club promoter to pick up your group's bar tab.

#4 A friend that announces upon entering the car that she is "not wearing underwear because the dress couldn't handle it." (And no, it was not me) Technically you don't really need this per say, but it's a great way to kick off the evening.

Step #1 Manage your curls.

Step #2 Buy bandaid's for inside your shoes.

Step #3 See what Walgreens has in the sex aisle. Did you know that Walgreens has a sex aisle? We sure didn't!

Just Show Up

**Forgive me for the quality of some of these photo's, I took a lot of them on a disposable camera and since I don't have a scanner, I literally took a picture of a picture and posted them here.**

When I was 15 (16?) my parents sent me on a work camp trip over the summer.

Take a minute to envision how that conversation went. Here, I'll even give you a little hint, it went almost exactly like this; "Eden, we are sending you on a work camp mission trip for the summer. Oh and by the way it costs $3000 and you have to pay for it yourself. This is non negotiable."

I was NOT happy.

Yes, life at home was awful, but this entire little plan of theirs seemed insurmountable. I hadn't been on a plane since I was three, I didn't have any construction skills, and now my parents were going to drop me off at the airport where I was going to fly across the country to live with people I didn't know and literally do hard labor for the summer. Oh yea and I had to find a way to pay for it myself.

Not daunting at all. Not a bit.....

Not only did I spend months participating in more fundraisers than I care to remember, but I had to attend "work training" classes at my church. I would literally show up with a piece of drywall, throw a hammer through it, and learn to mud and tape it back up. After learning to safely climb from a ladder to a roof when June rolled around I had scraped enough money together to begrudgingly hop on an airplane and jet set off to labor camp.

It was a life changing event that probably saved my life.

Ok, I'll Admit It, Sometimes I'm Just Bad At Sex

Alright, so I've said it before, I've only had consensual sex with one person (gasp!) Whatever, I don't care. It's not like I couldn't if I wanted too, I just don't care to have a dick inside of me unless it's attached to a man that I am seriously committed too.

That's me, swimming against the mainstream as usual....

But, if you are willing to roll "sex" in with "sex acts," I would say that I have partaken in sexual experiences with several or possibly more than several boys. Sometimes though I feel like the experience I have to offer is a little bit strange, kinda twisted, not what my partner was expecting, and quite possibly something he would have wished to avoid.

I don't know about you guys, but my girlfriends and I love to talk about sex, I'll be honest, we do. The thing is somehow they all seem to be pulling off amazing TV porno sex every time they do it and me? Not so much. I'll admit that sometimes I'm just awful, but them, not so much. I seriously cannot be the only girl that sometimes just cannot get the job done.

So here my dear readers, is where you come in. Convince me that I am not the ugly duckling in a pond full of sexy swans and that you too sometimes fail at being sexy.

With that being said I am going to get this ball rolling by sharing a few of my own stories (some of which I shared in more detail in the post "Dates Where I Was On My Worst Behavior") and I'm hoping that you guys follow suit and post your own stories in the comments section.

A Letter To My Ex on the 10th Anniversary We Never Reached

Dear Ex,

Today would have been our 10^th wedding anniversary, but we didn’t make it. I look back on my life and it is crazy to me to think that I met you only a few years shy of half my life ago. I was still just a kid; playing house in a grown up life.

It was ten years ago today, a decade to be exact, that I innocently walked down the aisle to become your wife. It was a decade ago today that you took the first part of me, not just my hand in marriage, but my entire body as well. It was the day that my hopes for a future that would make up for my past shattered down around me into a million broken dreams.

Still though, I just wanted to take a few minutes to thank you for our marriage. They say that you will know someone is “the one” when they make you a better version of yourself. While I’m pretty sure that our relationship was not exactly what they were referring too, I will admit, you did make me a better version of myself.

Since I wrote you a letter on the 2nd anniversary of your leaving and I shared with you all the things that I had learned since you had gone away, I wanted to take a minute to thank you for everything that you helped me realize about myself during our marriage. If it weren’t for you I wouldn’t be the person that I am today and I’m kinda starting to love the unlovable me.

It was our marriage that taught me who I want to be and what I want to do with my life.

You ripped everything I had away from me down to the dignity of the skin that I’m in. You left me with no choice but to look inside myself for any shred of self worth that I could find and to build myself back up into being a functioning member of society.

If it weren’t for our marriage, I wouldn’t be the amazing version of myself that I am today; built upon the lessons you taught me and what I taught myself in their aftermath.

You took a lot from me, you broke a lot, you hurt a lot, but because of me, I'm ok.

I guess though, as I am writing this letter, something is becoming apparent to me:

I guess I never really needed you, because my parents had already taught me all of that. You were just a detour that made everything a hell of a lot harder for me.

Dammit.

Anyways, happy “Never 10th Anniversary” baby and cheers to all the rest that we will thankfully never reach.

With all the love in the world,

                 The Girl Who Never Stopped Being Your Wife Even When You Failed to be Her Husband.

P.S. Thanks for the kids. They are pretty awesome and I’m keeping them.

I May Be A Little Bit More Devious Than I Originally Let On...

I talk on here a lot about how awful my ex was, what a horrible person, and terrible husband he was, but with the exception of the post where I talked about the time I actually hit my husband, I don’t often talk about the times when I was mean to him.

In an effort to not falsely portray myself as the constant victim, I might as well tell you about a few of the times when I myself was a little bit evil.

Like the time I found his Facebook account up on the computer and logged on. I had known for quite some time that he was cheating on me, but I didn’t know with who or what the details were, I just knew that he was and come hell or high water he wasn’t about to admit it. The guy wasn't the brightest crayon in the box, but I'll give him credit, he covered his tracks well.

One day I got on the computer and for the first time ever found his Facebook account (the account he swore he didn’t have) up on the screen. Normally all his accounts were locked down tighter than the white house, but today was my lucky day.

I’m not typically a sneaky person, but hey, if the opportunity presents itself….

She Said I Was A Failure Of A Mother

“This is all your fault! I don’t want you to be my mommy anymore! I want a dad and all I have is you! I have no one! I only have you! I don’t have anything everyone else has and this is all your fault!!!”

Those words cut me to the core in ways that I have never would have imagined were even still possible after everything my ex put me through.

I turned away, clasped my hand over my mouth, and squeezed my eyes shut as tight as I could, not able to look at the face glaring at me; the face of my six year old daughter.

It’s always my fault. It’s been “my fault” my entire life. I've been a supposed failure of a child, a failure of a wife, led an "apparent" failure of life really, and now I was being called a failure of a mother by my own child.

It happens to every mom at some point, the inevitable moment when your child suddenly blames you for every reason of unhappiness in their lives. It’s almost like a rite of passage to be honest; you aren’t really a seasoned parent until your child has told you what a horrible job you are doing of parenting them.

I just wasn’t ready for it yet and most of all, I wasn’t expecting to actually wonder if it was true.

This Week In Fashion Fails....

This week seems to have been one big fashion fail. 

Allow me to explain.

Remember the post "I Realized I Was The Ugliest Person At The Gym?" Well I had a gift card to Kohl's that I had been hanging onto for some time and I decided to finally change that. It was given to me as a birthday gift with the stipulation that I not spend it on the kids, so when a fitness wear sale came around I finally decided to get some running clothes that actually fit. Seems like a good plan, am I right?

"How could this possibly go wrong Eden? They are just clothes."

Well let me tell you, I was fairly shocked when I realized that stretchy or not, those clothes do not always stretch where you want them too. Since I refuse to be one of those people taking selfies at the gym I had to wait until I got home to take this picture.

"But Eden, you look so...gym appropriate!"

Look closer.

How To Take A Toddler Grocery Shopping In 100 Easy Steps

Hi Everyone!! Today I'm just going to be lazy and share with you my latest scary mommy article "How To Take A Toddler Grocery Shopping In 100 Easy Steps." (Just click on the link) Hopefully it will give you a good chuckle.

Since I don't want to appear as lazy as I actually am right now, I will leave you with a few pictures that I took last weekend and something that I realized lately;

Get Your Own Damn Life

My friend looked at me, eyes wide open, unsure if she should applaud my creativity or call social services on me.

"Well, what was I going to do?" I said. "I'd rather have her scared than dead."

I was referring to the fact that after several gun related incidents with a few of my daughters daycare classmates, a staggering look at the statistics of children and guns, the rising number of homes that have guns in them, a 20/20 special that proved the gun awareness programs that we have for kids are failing, and a very eye opening conversation with my six year old that alerted me to the fact that even after all the talks we have had about not playing with a gun you find at someones house and learning that she still was not absorbing the information, I decided to take matters into my own hands.

I scared the crap out of her.

How you may ask? Well I made popcorn, I brought extra pillows and blankets to the couch, I let her stay up late, and we had a mommy daughter TV night.

We watched "Trauma Life In The ER: Gun Edition."

"Mommy!!! All his blood is coming out!!"

"Yep, it sure is dear child of mine! That's because a bullet when into him and made a hole! Look! The doctor is putting that big tube in his throat!"

After it was over we had a long talk and I think for the first time she understood the concept of "a gun really will hurt you." I believe this to be true because several days later I overheard her say to her little brother "don't pretend to shoot me! If you ever see a real gun you have to run and get a grown up as fast as you can! They can make all your blood come out if a kid touches them!"

Mission accomplished.

Was it the most practical way to teach her about gun safety? No, I'll admit that. Some might call it cruel or heartless but quite frankly, I don't care.

The Sex Toys I Couldn't Get Rid Of

So here's a strange story for you....because really, let's be honest here, more than half of you tune in everyday to watch the train wreck that is me.

I'm totally ok with that.

Anyways, once upon a time almost exactly ten years ago, I had a bridal shower before getting married.

My ex worked with a woman who thought it would be funny to give me a giant box of the raunchiest sex toys one could possibly imagine, at my bridal shower. Not at the bachelorette party, oh no, at the bridal shower.

My grandmother and my mother watched me open anal beads, a penis pump, and things that I cannot even describe to you. Those were expression's I will never forget....

How To Buy What You Love When You Can't Afford It (Take A Tour Of My House!)

Today we are going to be taking a little detour from the normal topics of this blog and talk a bit about my house.

*I'm going to interject here for a minute and say that it feels weird to say "normal blog posts" when I write about things such as burning the hell out of my lady bits and taking my clothes off in a parking lot among the other more regular topics of rape and abuse. There really isn't anything "normal" about any of my posts.*

Anyways...after the post's "Make Money Makeover" and "I'm Not Paying For That" I got a surprising number of messages asking me home decor questions and money saving tips. While I certainly don't claim to be a specialist in the home design department, I can share with you guys the tips and tricks I used to haggle a good deal, find a great dumpster, and re-purpose what I could to get the decor I was looking for at a price I was able to afford.

On account of the fact that I'm not really a home improvement blogger, I'll sort of just take you through a tour of my house and point out where and how I was able to save money and still get what I wanted. Also, since I don't want to leave the rest of you out I'll end this post with something a little more "blog typical" so make sure you stick with the post to the end!