That Moment You Realized, “I done Good”

by brandyellen // February 6, 2014 // Comments off

This right here is my daughter. My lovely first born and only daughter. My sweet, lovely first born child and only daughter is at “that age”, and parents, I know you know what I am talking about! That age where hormones go flying, your child becomes someone you don’t know and things are a bit testing at times. It’s an age of changes across the board …. friendships, relationships, body image, hormones and much more!

MY Awesome Daughter

What I had hoped would happen but didn’t really expect to happen during this age of changes, keeps happening!

The other day I had an “I done good” moment with my daughter.

It went something like this ….

Daughter says, “So my friend {name left out for privacy} the other day was sitting at a table with a bunch of kids I know don’t like me. She told me she was clenched fist mad because they kept talking about me. She said she kept telling them not to talk about her friend like that and she was so angry with them.”

I reply, “oh wow, so she gets really upset when people talk about about you, huh? I suppose your friend {again name left out for privacy} was just trying to stand up for you because she sees you as a great person, right?”

Daughter says, “I guess so but she really needs to stop. I told her that I already knew that group she was sitting with doesn’t really like me, I don’t care that they don’t like me, it doesn’t bother me one bit. If they don’t like me, that is their choice and I am okay with that.”

I reply, “huh. Well guess I taught you well. I am happy to see you are this confident. I love you.”

Honestly, I wasn’t quite sure what to say because at that moment, my daughter sounded exactly like I have sounded all of these years raising her. I have often told my daughter, who gets upset if her Dad {or anyone} talks badly about me, that “I don’t care what anyone, including your Dad thinks of me or says about me. Anyone who knows me will realize the lies others say about me are untrue. Those who don’t know me and wish to judge me based on what others say are not worth my time nor my energy. No matter what mean things people say, it doesn’t change who I am in my heart. I am who I am and I am awesome, others can make a choice to love me, like me or hate me. I cannot control how others judge me.”

I lived my life in such a confident way that it has allowed my children, specifically my oldest & only daughter, to see and understand that others cannot break us, others are not able to allow us to feel anything unless we let them. I have lived in such a way that is now showing it’s true colors through my daughter. She has seen me overcome so many hurdles, she watches me respond and interact with other adults in a way that encourages a positive mindset and high self esteem.

I couldn’t have been more jaw dropped proud in that moment hearing my daughter sound just like me and I can only hope she continues on this positive path of loving who she is.

Just a Small List of What I’m Thankful For in My Life

by brandyellen // November 22, 2013 // Comments off

I am thankful for so many things, mainly each morning I wake up breathing but to go further into that I wanted to share a list of things that I am thankful for. It’s always nice to remind yourself what you have in your life to be thankful for, so here goes —

Happy Friday thankful for what you have

I am thankful for having met a man who, when he wraps his arms around me, I feel complete. It’s a feeling I have never felt and it’s so difficult to explain in words, but it is a very secure, happy, complete feeling when he just wraps his arms around me for a hug.
I am thankful for having open minded, caring, compassionate, loving children who are willing to realize Mom isn’t perfect. They love unconditionally because that is how children should be. I am proud of who they are.
I am thankful for my younger sister (and only sibling), without her I don’t know how I would have survived some of the teen bullying years I went through. My sister has done a lot for me to support me, help me grow and get me to come out of my shell a bit more.
I am thankful for forgiveness; both the ability to forgive and the ability of others to forgive me.
I am thankful for friendship; the friends I have are there no matter what. I have gained friendships that don’t require daily communication, rather we can go months without talking then pick up the phone as if we just talked yesterday.
I am thankful for the ability to work from home, since 2006 I have done direct sales then in 2008 I started blogging from home. This has been a blessing as my children grew and needed more of my time than a regular job would allow for.
I am thankful for family; no matter how often we talk or don’t talk I love that I have family. I still have my great grandparents alive and grand father on my father’s side. I have recently realized that some never even knew their great grandparents.
I am thankful for two new amazing children; my boyfriend’s children have welcomed me into their lives in such a great way. I think of them as my own children and treat them as if they are my own, they have a big place in my heart.
I am thankful for my online support group; in times of hardship and sadness or even happiness I know I can turn to my online friends for help in moving forward or sharing happiness with.
Last but not least, I am thankful for having a wonderful boyfriend who I hope to marry someday (in the far future), he really makes life so much easier without even realizing that he did it and my kids adore him too. He really just makes it easy for me to be in this relationship, it’s how I feel when I’m around him … just something about it.

There you have it, a wonderful short but sweet list of things I am thankful for. Of course I could go on and on but I think that about sums it up for today!

What is something you are thankful for?

I Feel Invisible

by brandyellen // April 8, 2013 // Comments off

Well, not me.

My daughter. The tween.

Says she feels invisible at school.

While driving down the road my daughter and I have most of our random conversations.

It seems, as of late, that is the easiest place for her to open up with whatever may be on her mind.

She is 10 and will be 11 in October. The tween years.

That middle stage of childhood. The testing years of trying to find yourself and who your real friends are.

Picsart App The Daughter

Apparently at this age, everyone is dating. So says the daughter.

Of course, she isn’t allowed to date per say. While it’s fine with me for her to crush on a boy in school and say maybe that they are boyfriend and girlfriend. Dating? Like actually spending time together outside of school that isn’t a birthday party or something, is not happening.

While I thought she would be fighting me on this. She isn’t. It seems Ki has learned to trust my rules and instinct, even if she isn’t 100% in agreement with me. The agree to disagree technique works well for us because she understands my logic with rules.

Back to the story of feeling invisible….

Beauitful Daughter

Ki has this one friend. Apparently no more than one. While this is okay with her most times, there are times where it bothers her.

The thing is that Ki is who she is. She has her faults, everyone does. Ki is an individual who does not fit into any particular clique at school.

Many girls are now forming these cliques. You have the girls who can do whatever, who have minimal if any parental guidance at home. You have the girls who are below their age in maturity and emotional aspects, while also have stricter rules than I have in my home. And then you have girls like Ki,she is encouraged to be herself, find who she is and what works for her and also has set rules. So Ki essentially has this Mom/Best Friend relationship with me and in turn the kids do not think that is so cool.

Ki wears clothes that may not be the hit style this year. Ki is super intelligent, a high honor roll student. Ki is goofy, silly and loves to read.

Upon our discussion of Ki feeling invisible, I knew I had to redirect that negative feeling into something positive. After all, that is how I roll. I took a moment to ask questions as a way to open Ki’s eyes to the fact that she isn’t invisible to her peers.

First, I asked if she gets picked on? Ki replied no. I also asked if she still has only “one” friend as she has told me in the past months. She confirmed, yes.

Okay then. My conclusion was this and is what I told my daughter,

If you have no one picking on you and yet no friends as you think, then maybe it’s not that you don’t have any friends. Sure you don’t hang out and talk a lot with these other girls, but they don’t pick on you. These are girls who are aware of who you are and I bet they have a respect for you. While you all don’t play or hang out like you used to, you all are not fighting and name calling either. This, my daughter, is called respect. So while you feel invisible, you are not, in all reality you are respected. That is the correct word to give this situation. And you need to stand tall & proud that your peers respect you.

After I said this to Ki she started to take in just what I had said to her. Ki verbally, out loud, while riding in the car with me started processing her thoughts in response to my citing that she is respected, not invisible. And then I could see a beam of happiness across her face, she was lit up, it sunk in and she was like “Wow. Thanks Mom. You may be right!”

Friendship – Always There Even when Apart

by brandyellen // March 30, 2013 // Comments off

Wedding Friends

Friendship -

Being a friend does not mean smothering each other with each waking moment of existence. Honestly if you are a parent who is able to smother yourself with anything but taking care of your kids during the day, I applaud you because you are a much more multi-tasking person than I. There will be times when you have gone and angered your friend to the point where they have to separate themselves from you. There will be times when you and your friend don’t even talk for months because one or both is so busy with their own life.

We are adults after all, right? We have to ensure the everyday needs of our children are met, well unless you are someone who has all of these simple needs taken care of by another person. Then we could argue you are not a true adult then or have one amazing husband/partner.

It doesn’t matter who you are. How long you been friends. How great of friends you are. Truth is – once we all turned adults, life happened. There isn’t always time to make for needless hours of talking or texting. Sometimes even the most positive of people, myself included, need a break at the end of the day from people in general. It’s nothing offensive, it’s just called knowing what you need to do to keep your own happiness within and doing it.

I barely speak to any of those I call friends, not because I am not thinking about them, but because I have a lot going on. And I mean a lot. I have to find a rental. I have to save for a deposit while still paying current bills and paying back my Mom for oil costs this Winter. I also have to make sure I am bidding on jobs and looking for more work to ensure that I have work consistently rolling in. I also have to tend to my kids, their schedules and their needs. I have to fit in family time fun somewhere in the middle of all of that too.

Life is hectic at times and sometimes if you see me at the school and we chat, then that’s about the only time in the day we get to catch up because I am busy every other moment and when my hyper boys finally lay down to sleep, all I want to do is crash in my recliner without a single word from anyone else.

My point is this: no matter how long you go without speaking to someone, no matter what happens to try to tear away the bond that was created between two people as friends, that the friendship will always prevail. It may take a bit before you all start communicating regularly again. It may not take a bit. Truth be known once you are true friends, with a true bond, that will always be there. No matter what.

{book review} THE BEST MAN by Kristan Higgins

by brandyellen // March 25, 2013 // Comments off

Free Product

I spent many days with my head in a book, but not just any book …. The Best Man was the book that I found myself so involved in reading that while I was sitting in my car at the school waiting for my preschool son, I completely forgot I was even parked at the school. I was so enthralled in reading The Best Man that my brain shut off all other surroundings.

The Best Man_cover

Do you have one of those friends that just seems to never get the right guy?

She dates and dates just to find something wrong with each of those men she tried forming a relationship with?

Maybe it’s you? Maybe it’s your sister. Maybe it’s your best friend. Who knows, but I bet we all know or have known a Faith Holland in our lifetime.

Faith Holland is that type of girl – the one who gets the wrong guy over and over, well sort of. As I read this book I began to think that maybe Faith just fell for any guy that was nice to her, looked appealing and was in a decent career. Reading further into the book I realized that Faith had a deep secret about her mother that quite possibly made her latch onto the wrong men, being completely oblivious to the fact that they were gay, married or what not. It’s as if she was wanting a protector, a man to fill some hole within herself that she didn’t even stop to smell the roses … or see who the real man in front of her was. This was a habit Faith kept falling into and eventually led to her utter frustrations with the male species in general.

Excerpt From The Best Man -

When she’d paid the bill (and really Clint, thanks for ordering a seventy five dollar bottle of wine), she went out into the damp, cold San Francisco air and started walking. It wasn’t far to her apartment, even in heels. The streets of San Francisco were nothing compared to the steep hills of home. Consider it her cardio. Pissed-off Woman Workout. The Stop of the Righteous and Rejected. It was noisy down here at the wharf, the seagulls crying, music blaring out from every bar and restaurant, a dozen different languages bouncing around her.

Back home, the only sound would be the late seasoned crickets and the call of the owl family who lived in an old maple at the edge of the cemetery. The air would be sweet with the smell of grapes, tinged with wood smoke, because already the nights would be cooling down. From her old bedroom window, she’d be able to see all the way to Keuka. She’d spent her childhood playing in woods and fields, breathing the clean air of western New York, swimming in glacier-formed lakes. Her love of the outdoors was the main reason she’d become a landscape architect—the chance to woo people from their increasingly interior lives and enjoy nature a little bit more.

Maybe it was time to start thinking seriously about moving back. That had always been the plan, anyway. Live in Manningsport, raise a family, be close to her sibs and father.

Clint Bundt. Married with a kid. Such a hemorrhoid. Well. Soon she’d be home with her dog. Liza probably was out with her guy, the Wonderful Mike, so Faith could watch Real Housewives and eat some Ben and Jerry’s.

Finally that one man came into {and out of} Faith’s life in such a way that she started thinking about her true plan … the life plan she had for herself before moving out to California, to move back home and be with her family in Manningsport. Faith had nieces, nephews, grandparents, father and family along with friends in Manningsport, should she not belong back there now? Now that her love life is simply just taking this turn for the worse it seems?

Travel along with Faith Holland while she goes on a somewhat funny romantic walk back into the world she grew up in and learns some things about human nature, her own self and perhaps go on to find something even more special … finding that one true love.

The Best Man will have you so enthralled with the story line that nothing else around you will matter while you are reading it. The comedy keeps you giggling when things get a little too serious sounding. The relationships between the characters and their actions are written so well by Kristan Higgins that you will picture yourself right there witnessing all that Faith and the other characters in the book go through. Between the comedy and the suspense found in this romance novel, I firmly believe that if you are a romance book fan that you will just love this novel.

Learn more about Kristan Higgans, New York Times Best Selling Author and see what other books she has available for your reading pleasure on KristanHiggins.com.