I have moved

Hello I'm not actually sure anyone is still reading this old blog anymore but if you are and would like to catch up and see where like has taken my over the last 10 plus years please feel free to join my at my new address. I missed blogging and the community that it attracted so I jumped, well maybe thats too strong of a word, its more like dipped my toe back in. dawnminney.blogspot.com

SWF

With this new chapter unfolding I am re-emerging into a new life a totally different person. Now I am a strong woman. It sounds really stupid saying those words out loud but it is true. For years and years I wanted out of my marriage, I knew it was wrong, I knew it was bad but I just didn't have the nerve to do it, to walk away. He had asked me many times over the years for a divorce but I had always asked him to stay. He had. I find it odd when I asked for it that he went so nuts and fought tooth and nail. I think it was more of his controlling personality and since he wasn't controlling it, then GOD DAMMIT, it wasn't happening.

Here's a little about me. I''m not an easy person to live AT ALL. I have an awful lot of energy. I can run many kids ragged in a short amount of time. I am just naturally high energy. I don't sit still. If I sit, I fiddle, with something, anything.  I have to move. Always. I don't like going to movies cos that involves sitting. It drove my mother INSANE.

I also have quirks. I cannot deal with mess. Everything has a place, find it, use it. I can't deal with dirt, at all, ever. If I am stressed, I clean, always. I get stressed easily. I am a classic type A personality. I am a minimalist if given a choice, with kids this can't be but I would love to pick up this house and toss the freaking lot. More crap gets me more quirky, more quirky gets me more stressed. it's a circle.

I am highly strung. I wear my heart on my sleeve. I am low maintenance and not at all fru fru but love the option. Compared to my sister I am all girl. I am kind and trust worthy. I love to give.

If you hurt me I am done with you forever. Once the door is closed by me it is closed forever, I do not care who you are.

He wasn't a bad person. Really he wasn't. He just wasn't the right person for me. Before the girls it didn't matter and I picked up all the slack without realising it but after 2 kids, the example I was setting to them was messed up. But I covered, all the time, it's what I do, I make things right.

Perhaps I shouldn't write this. Perhaps I should write it for the cathartic value and maybe someone who reads it will gain something from it.

This is going to be raw, unplugged and cover a lot of years. Most of it nobody knows except me. It's not bad, really. He was never a wife beater or anything terrible but I honestly believe he never ever loved me. We were great friends, the best of friends but when you give up your family and your country for one man you tend to cling to that one person and find all the good you can in them. I think he stayed in love with the girlfriend before me and on occasion I would find messages to her that he would write on Facebook. He would absent mindedly leave his page open, or perhaps it wasn't so absent mindedly. Of course he denied it. I wasn't jealous. I know that sounds so strange but I wasn't. I figured she was married now and he had married me and we had decades together I just didn't "get" why he wouldn't let it go. She had let it go and I learnt recently that she blocked him on all social media.

I won't go all the way back to the beginning as that would be nearly 30 years ago, THIRTY years, oh my. That's a long time. I can't tell you how many times, when I have told people that I am getting divorced, that they have said but after so many years why not just stay. If I had a dollar for every time I've heard it, I'd have a lot of dollars. But suffice to say with age comes experience and wisdom. I have always been a very stubborn person and as I always say about Lily, who shares this trait, one day it will serve her well, it's serving me well now. I have forged forward. My personality has emerged and I am strong. We were raised to be strong and independent yet we always knew if we needed anything, anything at all, our family was there, right there.

I was a kid when I met him and a kid when I married him. I lived at home and was a good kid, I came over here and worked as a nanny, met him and we got married pretty quick. I never lived alone, ever.  Oh wait I did for a 10 months in London but I hated it and went home every chance I got. I think, as we all do, that I was pretty mature when I got married and started this life but looking back how could I have been? I had just turned 23 and had lived with him for 18 months prior. We got married in the UK and as soon as we got back he got me a job doing something I hated but I learnt to love it and stuck at it for 10 years. I went to college and studied something I wasn't very excited about and changed majors twice before finally saying STOP, I am doing what I want, not what you and your mother want and I became an LMT. That's when it all started to change. I enrolled in college.

 He had had a good job a stable job for years but had walked out of it one day, just like that, while I was in school. Decided he needed a change. For a long time he didn't work and our savings dwindled. I worked a couple of days a week while going to school full time. He looked for work but nothing. He chose a career that was based solely on commission. There was never one commission cheque. We put our house up for sale. I put on a brave face, graduated school pretended it was for the best. We rented an apartment, things turned around again.

My career took off with a mind off it's own. I realised very quickly that I was very good at what I did, my client list was filled with all the professional athletes that live here. I worked morning, noon and night. I had a waiting list of people wanting to be in my care. We decided to start a family. It didn't happen so we made an appointment to see a fertility doctor. Off I went with 100% certainty that I was to blame for this. I was very skinny, not good, I had been bulimic for many years, not good (maybe I will touch on this again) I smiled, not good so we both knew, It was my fault. The tests started, things looked good something came up that was fixable, it was fixed. Then and only then was it his turn. hah, it wasn't my fault. I shouldn't have been blamed from the start. He wanted out, told me he wanted a divorce AGAIN. I was crushed. All my dreams went down the drain. I suggested we adopt but he wouldn't even discuss it. Finally we moved through this too with the assumption to all, that it was my problem, the reason we couldn't conceive. I was OK with it, what did it matter anyway.

After we bought home Lily our social circle opened WAY the heck up. I am a very social person and I loved it. We met couples and did things with them. Many times I did things with them as his work schedule is whacky. I started blogging and met more people. happy couples and I started to notice something. They were a team. Couples are a team.

Oh believe me I tried hard not to notice, really I did. I tried not to compare. One day a friend was complaining about the size of her bum and said but Mark, ( fake name) loves me just the way I am he thinks I'm beautiful. I realised at that very second that my own husband had never said that to me. It's ok don't get all upset. He had once told me I was fat, at 112lbs but had never said I was pretty or beautiful. I called him on it and he denied but wouldn't say it. Hmmm. It happened a lot. A friend would be ill and the spouse would support them. It didn't matter what it was. When he found out I was bulimic he went ballistic. I'm not proud of it, I'm not. It is in my past. My family doesn't even know, well they do now. Ask me anything and I will tell you. I am not anymore. I PROMISE. He threatened to leave. Told me it was a self mutilating behaviour and to get my shit together. Yeah, people that love one another do not do this. When we heard his Mother had died I turned to him and said something comforting and he told me to F*ck off.

Yet I stayed.

Don't stay. It doesn't have to be abusive. but that doesn't make it right.

You can be best friends, have fun together but it doesn't make you man and wife.

I chose to focus on the good stuff. The fun stuff.

I believe he is a good person but emotionally crippled.

This next part is really hard to admit.

Right before we bought Rosie home, She already had a name and a face I spoke up and said I couldn't do this again. I couldn't bring another child into this scam. he said he would work on it. We were a family, what about Lily. He was right. Kids need to parents.

I was right. I couldn't do it. I couldn't set this example to my girls.

I searched to the very depth of my soul and finally told him I wanted out. We agreed to take the girls to counselling. To get them comfortable with what was about to happen. But one night he got mad as hell at Lily over her pet fish and just screamed at her that Mummy is breaking up our happy home. Her little face still haunts me. She was gutted and terrified. I looked at him with a venom that sadly has not yet gone away and in that instant everything changed and I hated him. I went to grab Lily and she recoiled.

That part was resolved. I called a therapist the next day and He and I went to see her and then Lily went to see her. It's all been worked out. Lily doesn't have much in common with him and I am working hard on that. I love my father dearly and cannot imagine her not loving hers. But love cannot be forced. I've spent 27+ years proving this theory.

So here I am, a single mother of two.

It's pretty damned scary.

I chose it.
I will embrace it.

I will do anything and everything for my girls.

Oh and don't even ask me if I will do it again cos I will throw a bucket of water at you.

This is not the post full of surprises, this takes precendence

♥ Six years ago today I became Rosies Mummy. It seems forever ago to me, yet at the same time I hate to think that she is 7 already. That is typical of my mental agility, all over the place!

She was such a tiny little thing and so scared and upside down. I truly believe she thought her life was over. She grieved so hard for all that she had lost but so quickly became attached to me. I was looking back at the albums earlier and was shocked to see how she found so much comfort in me so fast. I was her go to person, even if I wasn't the right go to person, I made do. That hasn't changed one bit except now I am the right go to person.

I distinctly remember thinking because of her skinny little frame and lack of tone that she would be at least 18 months before she started walking. She proved me wrong very fast on that one as she raced to catch up. She took a little longer than some but she did it. It took much longer for her walls to come down and for her demons to be put to rest but she did that too. Now when I look at her I am so proud of all that she has overcome. She even went off to play with a friend the other day and his mum. She didn't even try to talk herself out of it. I was invited too but I knew for her she needed to go alone.

Rosie, you are amazing and I love you with all my heart. You are such a sweet and kind little soul who thinks of other people all the time. You will race down the stairs or across a park just for a kiss and then dash off again. You just cannot fathom why anybody would ever do or say anything hurtful ever and you get your feelings hurt so easily. In your eyes, life is just perfect as long as I am not far away...well guess what kiddo? I feel the same way about you.

Gotcha day. Holding my 2 children for the first time

sisters

Adoption day. I love how she is touching my face

red couch photos at the White Swan

I detested thumb suckers until I met Rosie, now they melt my heart.

Funniest little grin EVAH

Hah!

What your shirt says!

Just a little crazy!
♥♥♥♥

Happy family day Rosie.

they did it anyway

They did it anyway, start school again, that is. Every single year at this time I try to stop it but my efforts are futile and they head off anyway.

This year was different. One of my babies children headed off to middle school, middle school do you hear me? How? My other baby child became a first grader. crap. They are getting really big.

She looks so confident but will it last?

Oh yeah, Lily is ready

Good grief, thems some big feet kidlet.

Rosie is sticking to her sister like glue

I really think my days as a blogger are done.  sigh.

Laughing out loud

When I was driving home from work today I was sent a text from Rosie, "Mummy, wen are you cummings home?"
When I got stopped at a red light I replied, "be there in 5 minutes, meet me at the door".

As I was getting out of the car the front door flew open and out popped Rosie closely followed by Lily, at least I think it was Rosie and Lily. 

I took one look at them and laughed out loud.

Swimming goggles, really? 

Speechless

We had to go to register Lily for school this morning and I dared her to wear her wig...when will I learn?

Strange animals at the zoo

We went to the zoo the other day and just after we had walked in we bumped into some very very special friends of ours. WE had headed there to meet up with some other friends and the friends we bumped into were doing the same thing. Yeah aha you guessed it, we never did meet up with our original friends. It was 8000 degrees that day and apparently Groupon had been running one of its specials as the place was a mob scene. I couldn't find Kelly and although Amy did find Daniel but they went their own way but that might have been due to the gab fest Ame and I were on.

The two of us have been friends for years. Nicolas and Lily were friends when they were very tiny. It's fair to say that Nick was Lily's first friend and they have always had a great bond. Even though we don't see them often because our paths have changed, 2 boys versus 2 girls, baseball every single night, swimming every single night, when those 2 got back together time had stood still and it was classic Lily/Nick escapades.

Nicolas and Lily 2003

Nicolas. Rosie and Lily 2013 

Hmmm, this is very funny when your are 9. 11 or 12 

cooling off with ice

and then an ice fight broke out

they all stuffed ice down each others shirts

I handed over my camera again and it proved to be such a silly thing to do. I should have known when the above noted sign caused such a disturbance that the photos would also be off kilter. What can I say....youth!

only the rear

three in a row...must be a record

more

bottoms up

bloody cheek

icee time

intent on cooling off

so hot

I believe that this very innocent looking child is the one who took many of these photos...bwa ha ha.

For an accidental encounter it was the best time but I think they always are. As for the friends we tried to meet we met them the next weekend. I also need to add to this, meeting up with Amy has led to me giving up all sugar and processed foods. You all know what a chocolate junkie I am and how I love my deserts. yes well they have all gone and my diet is almost as pure as driven snow. I feel fabulous. I went 3 days before the massive headache hit, I knew it would happen and I was nervous as all can be. I t was not as bad as I thought it would. Last night we celebrated a friends birthday and I didn't even have a piece of ooey gooey covered in fudge chocolate cake, I really didn't want it. Oh my god what has hapened to me???? Any is a nutritionalist and just a casual conversation about something as we were walking inthat 8000 degree heat hit me and bam, job done. Oh and I think I am so over blogging. did I am manage to slip that sentence in without you noticing. Oh and don't you just melt at that photo of Lily all pudgey and cute. Not many photos of her on here when she was so little.

Deering Estate.

The rotten thing about vacations is that they end and then you are stuck with reality! Yesterday whilst waiting in line at Barnes and Noble Rosie pipes up, out of nowhere, "I wish I could have room service again". Don't we all deary, don't we all.

I'm so behind in blogging. We have had such a lovely week meeting up with friends and doing all sorts of fun things. Last Saturday a friend asked us to meet her at the Deering Estate. I have never been so I jumped at the chance. Both of the girls were less than lack lustre with their enthusiasm so I gave both of them a camera and told them to snap their way through the estate. They had a fabulous time, even in the mind melting temperatures. Turns out our friend couldn't join us so we went alone. Summer time brings many many storms and she has dogs so she had to stay home and keep them calm.

It is beautiful and so easy to picture yourself living their in quieter, less complicated times.

It was HOT and they weren't happy to smile

Searching for crabs until......

they saw this. Then they made lots of noise and ran away.

looking unrealistically angelic

The cement house

The cement mixer that as used. Photo cred. Rosie

I want this ceiling

The garage

I love this house.

Looking back at the house from the bay (rose)

Hah! I bet it seemed so expensive!

Photo cred, Ro. 

Photo cred, Lily

Lily

And so I learnt something. If I want the girls to go and look at something, really look at it and learn, I just hand them both a camera and then they take in everything at every conceivable angle. Genius!

I'm not sure I am the cruising type

We had a great time, honestly we did. In fact it was absolutely brilliant but I have to make a confession: I don't think I like cruises, I don't think I'm the cruising type. As I mentioned before the reason why we went with Carnival Cruise Lines was purely for the kidlets enjoyment. There is no debating that they cater to the kiddies. If it had been a cruise for me I would have chosen NCL or RCL or maybe even Princess. Carnival offers a lot and I can't find fault with anything.

The dining rooms didn't offer a very great vegetarian selection or many salads but seriously I am possibly the only person who goes on a cruise and wants to eat a salad. The ships are known for their food. I am not a foodie. The day they offered the Chocolate Extravaganza lunch I might have eaten my body weight but other than that I was pretty much take it or leave it. Just because it is there does not mean I will eat it.

I realised something about myself on this trip and that is that I am NOT a people person. There are a kazillion lot of people on a ship that size and I don't like crowds, AT ALL. Not that at any point were we all squished together in one place but I just knew they were all there. Sometimes walking past the pool I would see it so full of people it looked like some sort of cold exotic people soup just waiting to be ladled out. Blech. We had any time dining so the dining rooms were never packed and never ever felt cramped, there were so many shows going on at one time the venues never seemed over crowded but I just felt them. I also have that anti germ thing happening and well, no never mind...lets just leave that one right there. A picture might just scar you for life.

The ship was clean, really clean, you barely even saw empty glasses and cups on tables. Our room steward was like a magician. He knew what needed to be done before I did...he must be a mummy. LOL

I loved being waited on hand and foot, who doesn't. I loved going to bed in Key West and waking up in Mexico. All of that I loved, being on the ship....not so much.  But at the same time I loved being on the ship.

Yes I am fully aware that I am making no sense at all. Let me try it this way. I don't think if you asked me now if I wanted to get on another cruise next week I would say yes.

Allow me state for the record, cruising is not my first choice when it comes to holidays. (but this one was fabulous)

Oh and for the record my weirdness isn't only on cruise ships you should see how freaky I can get in a hotel room. Egads, my kids don't dare get near the carpet and forget about touching the bathroom floor. People....gag, wretch, heave! They don't stand a chance of growing up unscathed.

Everything was ship shape

Thursday we spent a whole day at sea...a whole day. I was a bit worried that I just might end up launching my own lifeboat just to be able to get away but thankfully the day was filled with entertainment and at no point did I feel the overwhelming urge to walk the plank. The girlies were back on the golf course and and the water slides and we even participated in a huge scavenger hunt that was really rather good fun. It was very very funny.

After lunch things slowed down enormously and we hung by the pool. At one point I could tell Lily was getting a little stir crazy so she just kicked back in her deck chair and admired the view while Rosie whizzed down the slides for the eleventy billionth time. Just being able to kick back with no interruptions was fabulous. No phones and no computers was so refreshing. I could have had both but chose not too. I loved not being interrupted. If I have them I have to use them, I have to respond to people it is just the way I am wired so leaving them behind was the best decision I could have made.

If there is water that is where you will find her

Fish

chlling...that big old bag went everywhere with her.

It's called a fun ship for a reason!

We went to back to back shows on Thursday evening and squeezed every last second out of the fun. We had to be up and at 'em quite early on Friday as the boat docked at 8am and we would receive our marching orders. I decided to have our bags carried off the ship allowing us a slower disembarkment. We went to breakfast and then waited for our eviction papers to be served.

waiting

I don't want to leave

enough photos Mum!

Never enough photos for this Diva.

and so we have been home for nearly a week and it isn't fair. Once you get back it is like you never left at all.