Been a while

Arrrgh!

Well yet again it has been forever and a day since I wrote here. :(

Alas life caught up with this Mumbling Mama recently..and needless to say the mumblings coming out my mouth have not been fit for gentle ears. 

I remember when I was young hearing, "Life's a Bitch, Then You Die", and thinking "Well, THAT can't be right!" Being Grown Up is the BOMB!!! After all you can  DO what you want, GO where you  want, BUY what you want, SAY what you want, EAT what you want etc etc etc.

With the infinite wisdom of one so young, this Mumbling Mama just could not fathom how that particular saying could have any sort of truth in it.

 As the years went by and I emerged from childhood and grew into my teens. That saying made a lil more sense..I mean WHAT teenager can not understand it. After all, you want nothing but freedom, but every gate keeper you come accrossed has yet another set of rules you must be bound by in order to pass. And as most teens I thought "I can't WAIT to be 18!" Then, Ill be legal and I can "almost" do everything I want. (that almost encompassing legal drinking of course LOL)

 But of course then reality hit and I spent the 6 weeks leading up to my 18th birthday finding out I was pregnant and that my whole world was going to change. As my idea of what my life was going to be changed, and the axis swirled and dipped a whole new person emerged. A person with a whole "other" set of responsibilities and considerations. A person who put aside dreams and aspirations and was fixed in the present and what must be done in order to achieve safety for the precious new life with in. It was not easy, and was a lot for one so young to comprehend, let alone live.

 For that wonderful 18th birthday, that birthday I was so SURE a few years earlier would be some kind of catalyst to being an adult. That birthday that would give me the freedom to do as I wished. Let me tell you, it was all of that and more. The day I turned 18, was a day of many firsts for me..and it was defiantly a catalyst to adulthood. Though not quite the one I thought it would be. On my 18th birthday I had my very first OB/GYN appointment. My mother went with me, and with her I saw my 6 week old baby for the first time on ultrasound. My life has NEVER been the same since On that day, the child and the teen died, and the adult and mother who I would become was born. Seeing my child on that screen with a heartbeat, knowing I was the one blessed to protect it was more eye opening then anything else. I had been scared prior to that appointment., as any young parent should be. But at the appointment my scared seemed to take a back seat to the things I needed to get done to provide for this surprise I was carrying.

 I talked with my parents and struck a bargain with them. One to this day I would not change. I did not work in a conventional manner. I had tried to find employment, but no one would hire me. So instead I turned house keeper/cook/errand runner etc etc for my parents and we agreed on an amount of payment. Out were my own plans of graduating early, so I could start college early.  Instead I needed to get a nest egg going, and to do that I needed to stay in school till the end so I could continue with the SSDI benefits I had coming. Out was moving out and trying to set the world afire. I now needed stability as base for this child. Out was my plans of ending my college in NYC, since that is where my field of interest is prominent. Now I would be here, always close to my child's father. Or with in travel distant, to try and ensure a strong and loving relationship.

So many things went out the window and in came so many other. YET, I still could not fathom how the statement "Life is Hell, Then you Die" was relative.  Situations after all were situational. You entered them, sometimes you fell other times not. and well when you fell, well you just tossed out the pieces that no long fit and put new ones in place. "Life is Like a Jigsaw Puzzle; Some Pieces Fit Right Away, Others You Have to Turn About a bit to Make Fit" seemed more an adequate saying for describing life and the many twists and turns that it takes.

As I get older now, I can see the meaning of "Life is Hell, Then you Die" so much more clearly. Its been over 12 years since that day my pee made a cross sign on a HPT, more then 12 years since I saw Mumbling Girls, flickering heartbeat on that ultrasound for the very first time. In that 12 years a lot has happened, a lot has changed. Times have been easy, other times have been rough.  Right now, is one of those Rough times, which is probably why the saying "Life is Hell, Then you Die", is making WAY to much sense. and that bothers me, So this Mumbling Mama is now determined more then ever to think "Life is Like a Jigsaw Puzzle; Some Pieces Fit Right Away, Others You Have to Turn About a bit to Make Fit!"

Ani-Name!

So I have a friend who I made an Ani-Name for a while back (think like 2 years back LOL), that she uses for her email. Well she has a friend who saw it and asked if she could get one. So me being me, I said sure no prob. And I made up this Lil Cutey for her. Its rather plain, just her name written out with a butterfly. But its what she wanted. I offered her a more complicated design, but she really just wanted something simple to add to her emails. So that is what I made & I figured I would share it here.  So with out further ado, here is Kara's Ani-Name

*Note*
Normally I would provide credit, but this butterfly is a random freebie I picked up when I first started in digi land,and it is just kept in a large file with my other freebies.

Coupons, Coupons, Coupons!!

Oh how I adore the mighty Coupon! Well okay,  maybe Adore is not the correct word, but it is as close as I can come explaining in writing my feelings on coupons.  In today's world, the prices of things are so outrageous, that it seems one simply MUST use coupons to help out the grocery bill. Today for example, I saved a good 12 dollars by using coupons and even managed to get a 4 pack of twin blade razors for FREE! SCORE! Now this Mumbling Mama doesn't generally use twin blade razors, nor does she generally use the Wilkinson Sword brand. But Hey, who am I to pass on free razors?!?! Especially when this Mumbling Mama has a Mumbling Pre-Teen (generally referred to as Mumbling Girl) who, as most 11 year old girls has a need to shave her under arms.  And while once upon a time, a mother would teach her daughter to shave using a single blade..now you cant find a single blade razor..or at least this Mumbling Mama couldn't to save her life. So twin blades it is, and what better use for a free razor, then to pass it along to ones Pre-Teen daughter who is still in the process of becoming comfy with shaving that pesky under arm hair outa the way. 

So COUPONS, I love them and the money they can save me. I hate having to search them out online, print them from my computer, cut them out using my own scissors, and then look at all the adds or blogs and try to match them up appropriately to the right store and the right sale. Especially since I have 4 Mumbling Children along with a Mumbling husband who are always with me when I shop LOL  On the other hand,  I have 2 .35 cents off and one buy 2 get one free coupons to use on nestle crunch bars..and I have a Walgreen's down the street..and I read on a blog that Walgreen's had those same candies on sale for .39 cents..so I can get 3 candies for .08 cents. So I am thinking I may stop bye my local Walgreen's tomorrow and see if I can't get me 3 candies for my 3 Mumblings Kiddies for .08 cents! Can't beat that price...

And now I digress yet again..as you can see this Mumbling Mama most certainly has a LOVE/HATE relationship with coupons. LOL I love them for all they give me! But I hate them for all the time it takes to find the darned things... on another note, I do believe I'm going to ask my loving Mumbling Folks to bring me their inserts from the Sunday Paper. LOL Why you might ask, will I ask them to bring me something I obviously love to hate, specially when I could get my own. Well that is very simple..there is undeniably something extremely satisfying about walking into a store with a stack of hard earned and found coupons and walking away with a great deal. and Yes I could use my own Sunday paper inserts...but this Mumbling Mama does not subscribe to a newspaper and does not have it in her budget to do so. So while I might love to hate coupons, and I might hate to love coupons. I most certainly do LOVE to use coupons, and I LOVE to get the reward that is at the end of the searching, price matching, bargain seeking lane..a nice ole hefty SAVING of the grocery bill.