The Entire Neighborhood Found Out

The Girl Child's new window finally went in!!

When they were taking it out they showed me the spot where the BB bullet had hit the window.

Can you see the big bowed crack? I kept waiting for the glass to fall out because when the wind would blow, the two broken halves would flex independently of each other.

You have to look a little harder to see the crack from this angle

There were about 15 of these BB bullet holes in the screen

The point of impact

Shortest Post I've Ever Written, More Like A Blurb.

It's no work weekend again!!!!

For those of you new to this blog, first off I would like to welcome you!!!

Welcome to the blog!!

For my regular readers, I had a new article post on the Scary Mommy website last week and some of those lovely readers have trickled over here. You can find that post here.

For all my favorite readers who have been around for a while, you know my stance on "No Work Weekends"  which is why there is no real post today! For those of you who are new to this blog, I invite you to click on that link and check it out!

For everyone else, because I love you, I won't leave you completely hanging. I invite you to head over to Lifetime Moms where I've been pretty busy lately. Just click on that link and scroll down to see my articles.

The Post Where I Show You My Ex

Since my ex left, I have made an effort to push myself through uncomfortable situations just so that I could prove to myself that I could do it.

Details withheld (I really don't feel like being scrutinized by the trolls) last year the kids and I were offered the opportunity to go on an all expense paid trip to Disney World, a place that my ex and I had previously gone every year. Looking back, it was only place that I really ever felt "happy" with him. Away from his mistresses, drug dealers, and armed with the knowledge that people could hear us through the hotel room walls, he was always on his best behavior and I, so desperately searching for any hint of feeling loved, spent each trip fooling myself into thinking that I was with a man that loved me.

Disney was sort of like a little bubble world for us. We left a lot of the bad at home and walked around each day in the little bubble facade of a happy life; a bubble that would burst the second the plane touched down on the tarmac in the city where we lived.

After my ex left, when the opportunity came about to take the kids, I wasn't sure that I could emotionally handle it. I thought about it and then I booked a room at the same hotel that we had always stayed at. If I was going to get past this, I needed to get through this. I wasn't going to hide from things that hurt me anymore, I wanted to prove that I could be strong in my vulnerability.

So we went on the trip and did it hurt? 

Hell yes it did. 

I Really Hope I Don't Stand Mr. Attorney Man Up For My Court Hearing

I might have to go to court on Tuesday.

I'm a pretty confident person and have yet to meet a person that I won't talk to. I'll march right up to anyone and introduce myself, never getting embarrassed (even when I should be) by my socially graceless ways. I've been told that when I am up on a stage that I "command the audience's attention" and yet when I go to court....yea that never really works out for me very well. I've actually spent quite a bit of time in my town's ugly courthouse lately for cases involving the abuse victims that I work with, yet when I walk into court for a case of my own, I become trauma.

**OH MY GOSH YOU GUYS a spider just come down from the vent in the ceiling and was hanging like 1.5 inches from my face. I just lost about 5 years off of my life and learned that I can leap over the back of a chair directly from the sitting position.***

When I walk into court for a case of my own I become exactly the person that my ex beat me into being. I can barely get my eyes to look up from the floor and when they do, they are usually brimming with tears. Every cell in my body is screaming at me to run and my self esteem seems to vanish with the sunlight as I step inside.

I become nothing. I feel nothing but shame, terror, and devastation. The courthouse is the tangible monument that encompasses my pain. It's the place where my marriage ended and it's the place where my ex legally threw my children away. It's the place that I admitted the abuse and the place where I defied my ex husband and sealed my fate on the impending rape. It's the place that has torn down emotional walls that I worked so hard to build up and the place where I've been forced to face the demons that I kept locked behind those walls.

It's A Miracle That I Have Any Friends

I often times look around at my group of friends and I start to wonder how I have any.

Seriously, how on earth do I have any friends? I'm all weird and poor and needy and crazy. I am crazy. I mean seriously, there is no beating around the bush on that one, there is definitely something a little off kilter about me and I'll be the first one to admit it.

Why yes, I did go shopping with my friend like this.

I mean really, I can't believe that anyone would willingly venture into public with me these days.

For example, I offered to do a little shopping for a local women's shelter. When I got the list of what they needed me to buy, I was a little...unprepared. Even as a woman, this was going to be a little embarrassing.

So, I figured, if I was going to be embarrassed, why be embarrassed alone? I invited one of my guy friends to go shopping with me. What I neglected to tell him was that we needed to purchase 200 rolls of toilet paper, 50 boxes of tampons, and 30 packages of pads. Lovely. This won't be uncomfortable at all. AT ALL.

I Just Don't Even Know Where To Start

“I mean she’s really pretty and all man, but divorced with two kids? You could totally do better than that. You don’t need all that baggage in your life.”

“You can do better than that” meaning that he, Piano Man, could do better than me, according to his best friend.

I wasn’t supposed to overhear him say that, but I did.

I wish I could say that it shocked me; that I had never felt so offended in my life, but I can’t because I’ve heard it all before. I’ve heard it to the point that the shock has worn off and to be honest, that saddens me more than the words that I overheard.

He knew that I overheard. I didn’t say anything, just told him that I hoped he had a great night and then I left.

He showed up the next day with flowers; roses. He felt awful. He told me that he and his friend ended up getting into it, him telling the friend that he liked me because of what I’ve gone through, because he is attracted to my strength. That if I hadn’t gone through what I had that I wouldn’t be “the amazing person” that I am today.

Just what I’ve always wanted; a guy that likes me not in spite of what I’ve been through, but because of what I’ve made it through.

My own real life prince charming.

Yet really, he has no idea what I’ve been through. No idea how deep the scars run, no idea what I struggle with on a daily basis. He knows that my husband left me and that I don’t have a family, but the details, he knows nothing of.

A Week In Eden's Life; Super Fast Weekend Post

Hi Everyone!!!

As I explained in the post "Please Excuse This Brief Interruption," I'm taking some time to be with my family over the weekends, so today's actual post is taking place over at Lifetime Mom's.

In the meantime, I see that a few of you have posted asking me to write a post on sexism. To get the discussion up and running, I invite all of you to leave a comment explaining a time when you felt discriminated against because of your gender, or just about a time when you felt that your gender gave you less of an advantage. I can't wait to hear everyone's opinions and stories!

Before I go, let me catch you up on a week in Eden's life;

Someone lost their first tooth;

I have no picture for this because ew yuck, but we are deep in the throws of potty training over here. I have to say, I suck at potty training a boy. Like, I don't have a penis, I don't know how to pee out of it, and quite frankly I don't want to know. I also don't want to see all the tricks and fun things you think you can do with it because I am your mother and this is scarring me for life, so can we please just get this over with???

In other news, the kids were very generously taken to a local play center with Frisbee Boy's Mom as a belated birthday gift;

On thursday my friends invited me to go Salsa dancing with them. It only cost a couple of dollars and I had a free babysitter, so I figured "eh, why not." I agreed to go however before I realized that Salsa dancing is done wearing heels. Heels.