I HAVE A YOUTUBE CHANNEL: THE QUEEN OF MY CASTLE

I just wanted to announce that I will be posting videos on my youtube channel, The Queen of My Castle. I am not looking to do anything super big, it's just something I feel I want to do to help me with my speech with my new smile.

The year 2020 was a struggle for a lot of people (as well as me), but it also was an opportunity to restore my smile and the courage to begin to let my little light shine.

I won't go into details here, but, here is a link to my channel so you can go check it out. All 3 of them are there. Vlog 1 is right before, Vlog 2 is first after, and the last vlog is just a little test I was doing on my way to work recently. I am working on speaking to a camera. But, I am determined to do this!

 The Queen of My Castle

Update for 2015

Just wanted to post here that I am currently working on fresh content, and I am going to try to come up with a posting schedule. I have recently become a planner nerd, so, a lot of my posts will probably center around that so I am not over sharing.

Please stay tuned and hopefully over the course of the next few days, I will have more content to post. Any ideas for possible posts, feel free to comment or email me at wvcatlady74@gmail.com.

Let The Blogging Begin...

I have been wanting to blog regularly for a long time, there just never seemed to be enough time to sit in front of the computer and type it out. I have Blogger on my mobile phone, but just never decided to actually record any part of my life. It's not that I didn't think my life was important enough to share, it was just laziness I guess. So, starting today, I plan on making regularly a part of my day. Not sure when...maybe at night right before I go to work, I don't know. Maybe in the morning, who knows, but I will try to fit it in daily, or maybe twice a week so that more of my life and my family life is out there. So, here goes.

Silliness!

I'm Back!

Wow! I know I haven't been on in a long time...um, 7 months I think, but that is because I have just been lazy. I want to blog. I want to write because for a while I was on facebook all the time, but I just get lazy because I want to write about it all and post pictures and it just seems like it takes so much time!

Anyways, Shawn and I are in our next to last semesters of college (hopefully) and I will be so glad when that chapter of life is over! It is so tiring doing endless amounts of homework...Algebra takes freekin hours...but we are working through it and right now just wanting it over with.

We are also thinking about selling the house and moving. I want out of the town away from the kids here. I don't like the kids that live around here and their influence on my girl. I want my boy to get out and be a boy. So that is something we are looking into...soon, very soon.

Shawn got back in touch with his father over the summer too. I thought that was great...he needs to have a relationship with his dad, I think it will help with how he interacts with his own son.

I was also reunited with my brother, and got to go to his long overdue wedding!

So it has been an interesting year so far and I am trying to sum it all up but I will post more about it if I think about it. I will try to blog more regular...I had thought about having a theme to give me ideas to blog about. We will see, but I am glad I took the time to do this and at least get this started back up. Will post again soon!!

Behind the Photos

I decided to start my New Year off doing something I had been wanting to do for quite some time, just never got around to it.

I decided to scan some old pictures, and post them on my Facebook timeline.

I also decided to take the time to start telling bits of my story.

I met my first husband when my mom and I moved from our little Gapland, MD home in the spring of 1992 to a little efficiency apartment on John Street where he lived in front with his sister, her boyfriend and two sons.

I was going to classes to get my GED, and received my diploma in June 1992.

We began "dating" on July 5, 1992 after he came home from a 4th of July party his sister through at the house they moved to. At that time, we had moved from the efficiency to his old place.

I moved in with him not long after we started "going together", as it was called in the early 90's. We lived there maybe a few months, long enough for the red flags to pop up and me be too dumb to see them. Like the night he was laying on the couch and pretended (I guess) to turn into a demon and made me make promises to him, and honestly can't remember what it was, but I remember being freaked out. I should have left right then and there, but thought it was normal. After all, I had been in churches and saw preachers rebuke demons, for gosh sakes.

He once asked me what I'd do if he was at work and I wanted sex...I told him I'd wait until he got home. I thought that was a fair enough answer, but, obviously he didn't. I don't know how long it took me to convince him I wouldn't screw around on him....I should have told him to buy me a vibrator and he wouldn't have any worries, lol.

So, after that, we ended up moving back in with mom because he lost his job. Blamed having to stay home and take care of me although thinking now he just didn't want to go to work. I got pregnant the first time shortly after, and miscarried (even though the hospital ER doc swore I wasn't), not long after that, in early fall, I got pregnant with Stephanie. Will be one of my most memorable pregnancies...

We got into a fight one night, I think it was him accusing me of getting pregnant by my stepdad...we fought and he ran out of the house and up the stree, and once again, like a stupid fool, I followed, begging for him to come back because of the baby. I cried and cried, it was raining and I followed him up john Street to Winchester Avenue past Firestone and the Paint store and the automotive parts store, just bawling my eyes out. We got to his cousins house where of course, there was a party going full blast.

On arriving, his one sister snatched me up (in the gentle way, she knew I was pregnant) and was telling me how she couldn't go with out smoking weed while she was pregnant...it got her through the pregnancy. So, he goes off doing whatever and they are partying and including us in conversation and our previous fight kinda died right there. I remember getting back home the next morning and mom being worried out of her mind, after all, there were no cell phones back in 1992, at least not that we had.

So, before I go on, here are some early pictures with a brief story behind..



This picture to my left was taken during our stay at Rob's mom's house. I think I had already had Stephanie in this picture because the tag on moms car reads 1994. This is one of the few pictures taken of me during that time. No, I wasn't camera shy, there just weren't many happy moments to capture.




This next piture below to your left is the only clear picture of Stephanie that I have, and, unfortunately, includes Rob (sorry). If you notice there are 2 couches in the background; the one Rob is holding Stephanie posing her for the picture, and one to the left..that was my "bed" (couch). Yes, his mom obviously knew we slept together (hense, Stephanie), but we still had to sleep separate because we were not married. Hmm. A LOT happened during our stay in that room, not that I want to go there.

This room was our haven during my last couple of months after my mom and her boyfriend had their fight at the house on Burke Street hill. That was a place to remember. We lived there when Bill Clinton was inauguerated into office during the beginning of 1993...yeah I know that because I remember watching it. That is when I watched Rush Limbaugh...but not much else other than maybe soaps.
I watched a lot of TV at his moms house. She always had The Price is Right on or The Three Stooges. I watched them a lot. Now I hate watching TPIR, and the Stooges arent even in syndication anymore unless its a channel we dont watch.

I remember Mother's Day in 1993 because his sister and cousin and a few other of their friends were going swimming down at Blue Hole (a creek on the outskirts of town somewhere). I was about 6 months pregnant and his sister (bless her heart, I know she meant well), gave me a 2 piece bikini outfit to wear in the water. Can you image me with a belly wearing that? I did and I stretched that bad boy! No, no picture. Sorry. I wish I had the picture of me while I was pregnant with Stephie...I was standing at my usual seat at the kitchen table and whoever took the picture got a GOOD profile of my bod. I remember wearing this purple short sleeve polo..wish I still had that shirt....anyways.

I wear the swimsuit and we go, I get in the water and am having fun, but keeping an eye on him because I was afraid he was sneaking and smoking...silly me. So, we get back and getting unloaded and he realizes he lost his cigarettes...so he argues with me telling me I lost them...a family friend actually had to step in and back him away from me because he was getting out of hand. she ended up going in and telling his sister who was inside her apartment, and she told him he had to find someplace else to spend the night. I was welcome, but he wasn't. So his bff took him back to his moms for the night.

I did not want to stay there with him not there...you know, just couldn't function without him...(shaking my head) I remembered the Mother's Day card we bought his mom and decided to take it to him for her...yeah, I walked late at night, clear across town from Addition Street which is one street in front of the old Martins, clear on the other side of town...maybe 10 blocks, I don't know. No, I didn't care that someone might snatch me, or was I afraid of the boogieman...no. I had walked those streets enough to know what I was doing, and that is what I did.

I got there, he let me in, I gave him the card and he asked his moms boyfriend if i could stay the night instead of treaking 10 blocks back and he said yes. That is how we ended up 'living' there.

What Do You Do?

I feel as if I am at my wits end.  Just when I think I am making some progress, something happens and just blows everything sky high.

I have been feeling overly stressed because I don't feel I am doing well in school. I haven't yet been able to come up with a routine to get school work and housework done, and have any time to relax. So frustrated, I'm so ready to pull my hair out.

I stress over the details like how to organize my school work and keep notes and I can't make up my mind about anything.

Shawn told me the other day when we decided to go pay off my curio cabinet at Schewels that he didn't understand why I didn't want to go anywhere or do anything.  He's been wanting to go to Furnish 123 to pick out a new kitchen table and chair set, but I keep putting it off.

He doesn't understand that doing these things takes time and time I don't really have.  Doing 1 homework assignment for Algebra seems to take me 3 hours because it's so confusing, and that doesn't leave time for any of my other assignments, or my business for that matter. 

Then, there is housework.  There's dinner.  Don't forget we need a social life...where does it all fit in, especially when you work at night when everyone else is sleeping and YOU sleep when everyone else is awake?

We have talked about dropping down to 4 days a week, so we have that extra day.  It would work, but we have to have things assigned to certain days so that we get stuff done or it will just be another day off. 

So right now, I'm sitting here trying to get the laundry caught up, Hannah made tomato soup for dinner, and I'm saying everything else will just have to wait.  I have to finish up the dishes but sometimes you just have to pick and chose.  My goal is to have the dishes done, and the laundry in progress. 

I know that there is a light at the end of the tunnel, I just wish it was closer...