About the momster

So, a little about me. I am a 33 year old stay at home mom to 3 beautiful children. The stay at home part was not planned AT ALL. I enjoy it and am glad to have the chance to watch my children grow but I am definitely not used to being at home and not at work. It is the hardest job I could ever imagine having. The most rewarding in some ways and the one with the least amount of glory or appreciation.

I grew up in Gainesville, FL and lived in the area my whole life. I never expected to really live any where else. I got pregnant at 19 and had a wonderful girl. I raised her as a single mom with the help of my parents. Thanks mom! She is now 13 and is a great kid. When she was about 9 I met this guy. It was funny because I was SOOOOOO not looking to settle down with anyone.... but he just hung around until I realized I was in love. I introduced my daughter to him and we moved in to his apartment. About 6 months later I found out I was pregnant. Now, we had talked about having more children in the future but that was the FUTURE.... not exactly the way we planned it. But then, is it ever? So, our little boy was born in August of 2005. He is a wild and crazy 2 year old now and makes his mamas hair go gray more and more each day.

When the boy was about 6 months old we started exploring an opportunity to move to Mississippi. This was a weird time. My husband has been a professional chef for more than 20 years. He had a bad experience with a restaurant that he helped open and decided he didn't want to cook anymore. So, he started working construction with a friend of his. This friend decided to move to MS to take advantage of the many opportunities for work that Hurricane Katrina had left behind. So, we made a tough decision. Things were financially not doing well for us in FL, we were having lots of stress and tension in our relationship with each other and with our daughter and I was really wanting to get a fresh start. We moved to MS with high expectations of lots of well payed construction jobs, a great future and good times.

It didn't quite work out that way.

I left a well paid job as a fiscal supervisor for a hospital gift shop and ended up only able to find a job as an assistant manager in a dollar store that paid $7 an hour. I ask you. $7 an hour? That didn't even pay day care and gas. So, I ended up at home with the son. My daughter stayed in FL to finish the school year and then ended up moving up sooner as she was miserable. And then proceeded to be miserable here. And make us miserable as well. She was so NOT HAPPY. My DH ended up with work issues as his boss was not as well informed about the construction situation here as he thought he was. They struggled to find work and then ended up working for an unscrupulous contractor who screwed them out of quite a bit of money. We struggled to keep our bills paid and tried to make it work.

Then I found out I was pregnant again.

You might ask: Wow, hasn't this woman figured out where babies come from yet? Well, yes. And I enjoy the practice. But, birth control fell through. And we were pregnant once again before the boy was a year old. Wow. I was pretty overwhelmed. So was DH. The boy turned one and we kept trying to figure out ways to make more money to get things straightened out.

Then we got evicted.

No kidding.

It sucked.

What were we supposed to do? We were supposed to be getting married in a month (in FL) and I was pregnant again. And we had 2 kids to worry about already. Not a pretty scene. We basically decided to give it until the end of October when we were going to FL to get married and if we did not have a) a steady income and b) an affordable place to live then we were going back to FL to admit defeat and throw ourselves on the mercy of our families. We ended up living in a big 3000 sq foot warehouse for the next month. It was very odd. But, it had a bathroom with a shower, an area for the fridge and microwave, etc. And the kids were clean and safe. So, DH went looking for work that would be more financially stable than the construction business and ended up as a chef once again. HE found work right away and we ended up finding a house that we could afford to rent. We left our stuff in the warehouse and headed to FL at the end of October to get married.

And that brings us up to last year at this time.

duh duh duh

I will post the next installment in "This is my life" at a later time. The baby is crying. The toddler is looking at me like I am insane. The teen is asking if she can use the computer. And I think my dinner is about to burn.

Later.