Blonde Girl Single Anniversary

This week commemorates one year that I have been single.  I don't know the exact day, just like I couldn't tell you the exact day that I met my exhusband or the exact day that I left him, or the exact day that I met my exboyfriend and not sure of the exact day that I left him.  However I do happen to know that broke up with him during the week after Thanksgiving so I'm just going to call the last day of November my single anniversary. =)

It kind of goes hand in hand with my blog from last night, Life Remote Control?.  I was miserable in my living situations, I tried and tried my hardest to make the situations work, and since I was not happy with my life situations, and nothing else I tried worked, I decided I would take life into my own hands, control what I could, which was me leaving the situations and starting over. Take charge and change my own life.

I see people sit in miserable relationships for years, complaining to everyone around them about how bad it is, but staying in it.  And then we see people divorce after 20-30 years and have no problem saying that they had never been happy or hadn't been happy in years.  I stuck the first one out for 10 years, I got married young and had that naive idea that marriage is supposed to last FOREVER no matter what!  HA!  And it ended horribly.  So when I was in the second relationship I just got to the point where I knew it wasn't working and it was never going to, I had to dig deep in myself and to be an adult and end it before it got to the point to where it turned to complete shit, it already was kinda, but it could have gotten much worse.  It took a lot for me to be able to end something while I still cared for the person, however I've resolved in my heart it's better to end it before it turns into a situation where I pretty much hated them.

So now that I've been single for a year I've come a long way.  This is the longest I've been single since I was 19, because I met my exboyfriend the same week I moved out of my exhusband's home.  Yeah I fell into the rebound thing, they never work I hear.  Luckily I'm a person who actually enjoys alone time, actually thrives from and needs alone time.  I've rarely felt lonely during this year, I've had my moments, but they never last long.


I left behind a lot of nice things that I either purchased or helped purchase.  Though I have a lot of stuff, I still need/want a lot of other stuff.  So over the past year I've been able to get some of those things, and I'll hopefully be able to continue to get them.  A couple of my major goals is I desperately need a new/used car, the one I have is living on borrowed time and I'm thankful every day it gets me where I need to go. Secondly I would love to get out of this tiny apartment and possibly move into a house or something.  I'd really love for my dog, Balue, to have a fenced yard again!  As mentioned in the blog last night I was able to upgrade my job and hopefully will continue to be able to upgrade my life.

What does my future hold for me?  I have no idea.  I have goals and aspirations.  But I'm not worried, I know I always end up where I need to be.  Even if my last two relationships weren't all great, they weren't all bad, but more importantly I learned a lot about life and myself during both of them.  So even if they didn't last forever, not everything is meant to, but I was where I needed to be at the time, because otherwise I wouldn't be where I am now.  And it's a really good place.  And I'm grateful for that.

Truly loving, trusting, and respecting yourself will get you through anything.

Whether you are single or living life with another person or people... always strive to better yourself.   

A virtual toast to the people who are able to move on and move up in life no matter their circumstances!



Much love!

Life Remote Control?

Today someone posted this little image on Facebook stating "Life has no remote. Get up and change it yourself!!"  It reminded me of a blog that I wrote on another website a few months ago, and since I've pretty much integrated myself to only blogging here I thought I would transfer it over to share with you.  Life may not always be easy, but that is the beauty of it, to go through the good the bad and the ugly and to grow and make a life for yourself.


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Luck, Fate, Dedication and a lot of Gumption. ~Written by Me on 9/1/11 

Today was my last day at the job I was at for little over a year.  When I took the position the pay was fine, however I was in a relationship and there were two incomes.  Supporting yourself is not so easy on a low wage.  Over the past several months I realized that though I loved my job and my coworkers it was time to move on for bigger and better things.  I tried working my way up in the department I was in, unfortunately I was unable to.  There was a lot of frustration and heartbreak involved in the process.  I then began applying for promotions within the university in other departments.

After weeks of applying for positions I was called in for an interview!  It happened to be with the first department that I had applied for and the night that I applied it was the last night that the posting was available to apply for.  I then did more in depth research as to what the department actually did.  I sat down carefully thought out questions that I wanted to ask the people who would be interviewing me and wrote them down.  I also went through the job posting and reviewed the listed job duties and preferred qualifications and wrote down everything that I felt would show myself as an asset as pointers to glance at when in the interview in case I had a loss for words.

Sell yourself as someone that they feel like they need to have working for them and then you will be a front runner candidate.

Before even applying for positions I put together a carefully thought out and professional resume.  I also like to ask supervisors when I am leaving a job, or when they are perhaps leaving, for a letter of recommendation.  A great resume, cover letter, and letters of recommendation are what sell you to even land you the interview.  Out of 105 candidates I was chosen for the 10 that they brought in for interviews.  After giving the interviewers a good idea of who I was and selling myself as the valuable employee that I truly am, I was then chosen for the top 2 to come back and interview again with the head honcho.  It felt like I was on Survivor!

Would I be voted off the island or would I win the grand prize?

Out of 105 candidates I ended up being NUMBER 1!!!  I cannot wait to start tomorrow.   The promotion in position of course comes with a pay raise, that was the whole purpose of this process to begin with so that as a single person I could live a better quality of life, and stop depending upon Top Ramen to sustain me, the department I am transferring to also has a few added perks that I did not have in the old one.

This long story to get to about 8:05 this morning.  I was walking through the office and a coworker at the job I was leaving was standing there talking to someone else, looks at me and says “Barbara today is your last day.” and I say “Yep it sure is!” as I’m walking away I hear her saying to the other person “I really hate lucky people.”  This truly struck a nerve within me. 

“I really hate lucky people.”

• Luck: Success or failure apparently brought by chance rather than through one’s own actions.
• Fate: The development of events outside a person’s control.
• Dedication: The quality of being dedicated or committed to a task or purpose.
• Gumption: Shrewd or spirited initiative and resourcefulness.

Perhaps some of the process that happened was a little luck, perhaps some was fate, but if it were not for my dedication and determination to find a better job to improve my life it would not have happened.  It was not like I sat there for years moaning about my situation never doing anything to fix it and was just walking down the street one day and BLAM new job offered to me just out of the blue.  That would be truly lucky.  No I truly struggled, and had some “bad luck” in the process as well. I persevered and saw what I was trying to accomplish through until I achieved success.

If you are a person who finds yourself quoting that same line of hating the lucky look at the circumstances that got the person there.  What effort did they actually put in to get to where they are, or have, or whatever it is you may be coveting that they have going in their life that you do not?  Make a goal, come up with a plan, deal with the obstacles, be flexible, vent when things aren’t going your way but keep going, and in the end make a better life for yourself.  Being “lucky” isn’t always just happenstance by itself and it’s not always easy.

When you achieve success do not forget to thank those who helped get you there even if all they did was lend you an ear (or read your rantings on Facebook). 


“Admiration for a quality or an art can be so strong that it deters us from striving to possess it.”
~Friedrich Nietzsche

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And just an update, if you are wondering, I LOVE my new job and department even after 3 months of being there.  Taking the reigns of you own life is a good thing.

Much Love!

Thankful Reflections

Over the past 4 days of Thanksgiving weekend I thought a lot about all of the things in my life that I have to be thankful for.  So many big things and so many many more tiny things. I slacked off was lazy and didn't blog and just enjoyed the time off from work and pretty much all reality.  Which is one thing that I am so grateful that I have opportunity to do from time to time.

I'm currently enjoying a wonderful cup of hot coco, it may sound silly to be thankful for a cup of hot coco but there are so many people on this planet who live in such dire circumstances that they probably have never even imagined that such a simple thing as a cup of hot coco exists.  To them just a drink of the fresh tap water that I conveniently have coming out of not 1 but 3 faucets in my home would be nothing less than a miracle.

Today I participated in more than one disturbing conversation where parents were talking about how much money and the extravagant gifts they were giving to their young children this Christmas.  I posted my opinion on this matter on Facebook...

"People wonder why kids & young adults these days act so spoiled and entitled... I can tell you why kids act like that, it's kind of obvious. I was lucky if I got $10 spent on me at Christmas some years. What is funny/sad is these parents spend that much on their kids and they are gonna be disappointed because they forgot something, or didn't read their minds about wanting something. Tis the season for greed, disappointment and teaching kids that everything they want in life will just be handed to them with a bow on it."

That is a condensed version of the post however the point is still made.  Some of the responses my friends came back with gave me hope that perhaps I'm not the only one left in this world who does not feel like children need to have everything adults have and everything that they want.....

"I agree, and when these kids have to be out in reality, it hits them and they can't handle it. Our kids only get 3 presents - want, need, surprise. Christmas isn't about stuff."

"Maybe they should have taken there kids to the stores and had them pick out some gifts with some of that money for needy kids that aren't going to get presents this year. And then had them donate the gifts to toy for tots! Show them that giving is better than receiving."

"We always had a good Christmas when I was a kid, but I never felt entitled to anything but air. And even on some days that was questionable."

"I'm really proud of my kid; he only really asked for one thing, a bigger gun."

"Some of my best memories involve tall grass, streams and jumping off of the couch"


When your children open their presents do they spend time whining about what they didn't get?  Do they really need everything they ask for?  Is it possible to work out a rewards system and let them actually earn some of the more extravagant things that they want?

This holiday season when you are shopping for your children stop and think what kind of message you are sending to them.  I know too many young adults, and even ones my age, who are mooches, lazy sit at home and expect to have everything given to them and act like it's the end of the world because the life of their dreams is not being handed to them.  I personally cannot respect a mooch.  

I feel like a lot of times, based on certain people I know backgrounds, that this attitude can stem from being raised in circumstances where they had little to no responsibility as a child or teenager, everything was done for them and almost everything they wanted they received.  Perhaps the start to building a better future for our future generations is to stop spoiling them and to start teaching them in the way of love and respect and responsibility.  As one of my friends stated "Christmas isn't about stuff."  Christmas is supposed to be about family and love.  Are your kids more worried about their stuff or are they looking forward to spending a special day set aside for some real loving family bonding time?

As you are looking at your child's Christmas wish list perhaps you will see a thing or two there that you can use as a learning opportunity to teach your child how to earn the things that they want, even if it is just by being more helpful around the home.  And perhaps that will also teach them to be more thankful for what they receive.


As whoever "they" are say... just some food for thought.


Much Love!!