Do Overs

I have always been someone who doesn't believe in regrets. What's the point, right? You can't go back in time; you can't change the decisions you made. Everything that could be interpreted as a regret, should be seen as a lesson learned instead. I am a firm believer that everything happens for a reason and our paths takes us where we are destoned to go. So why then, are there some decisions that seem to haunt us many, many years later? Is it that we didn't learn a lesson from the situation? Or is it because the lesson we learned was one about ourselves that was not very flattering?
There is one terrible decision that stands out in my mind as a regret. Now that i am writing all of this down, I can see why. The lesson that I learned from that decision is that at that time, there was a side of me that never considered how my actions made other people feel. I was a teenager trying to play an adult game that I thought I knew all about. Looking back at that decision and the people involved in it, I can see how it was the right decision just carried out in the wrong way. I suppose that my problem with this regret has been turning it into something positive. I couldn't do that until now. I couldn't do that until I wrote this and realized that the side of me that reared it's ugly head then, is not a part of me anymore. I am a better person now because of bad decisions that I have spent years regretting.
So maybe in life we don't get do-overs, we remodels instead.

Life in the Dark Ages

My world has been somewhat isolated for the last year and a half. Internet and cable were two things that I decided were not a necessity for the girls and me so I had them disconnected in July '08. I don't know how many of you have ever been without those two things but there are times that not having them can even make carrying on a conversation hard. I always loved the looks I would get from people when they would talk about a tv show and ask if I watched it. Telling people you don't have cable must be about the same as telling them you don't shop at Walmart. Both of those comments will earn you looks that will make you wonder if you have just grown three more heads.
Fast forward to present and I am now a college student again. When the company that I worked for announced in September that they would be closing in December, I did what any single mother would do... I paniced! I was a wreck the entire first day and cried myself to sleep that night. But when I woke up the next morning, I decided to "Stand Back Up" and turn that misfortune into something positive. So I decided to be a nurse when I grow up and started making plans to turn that dream into a reality. Did you know that you can't even fill out a college application without internet? You can't apply for financial aid, register for classes, nothing. And so I was forced back into the land of tv shows and websites.
Coming out of my isolation has been a bit of a challenge for me. Not because I don't have anything to say (I could talk to a wall) but because I don't really know how all the sites work. One of my oldest and best friends couldn't wait for me to set up a Facebook page but I don't know anything about it. In fact, my question to everyone with a page has been "What do you do with it?" The funny thing is that of all the people I know who have a page, no one could tell me what you really do with it except "find old friends". I am now one of those people who have a page but no idea what it's for lol :) I signed up today and what I have found so far is that everything I say to people everyone in the world can see. I'm not sure I like that game too well. I'm sure there's a way to hide what is said but the cavemen didn't leave me any drawings to instuct me on that one.
Now that I am out of the dark, I wonder what I did to keep busy for that year and a half. I could still do without the cable, but I too wonder how I survived without internet. No wonder there were so many cave drawings, they didn't internet to entertain them either.

What's In a Name???

Anyone who knows me personally knows that I am a planner. It was recently brought to my attention that I can't even get out of bed unless I have a plan for what I am going to do that day. Since that comment I have come to realize just how true that is. I have been wanting to start a blog for about 6 months. Therefore, I have been planning it for that same amount of time.

The name for my blog has been the hardest to come up with. I thought of every aspect of my life and tried to come up with something that would describe me and my girls. I thought of every "mommy" and "single mom" title you can imagine but nothing stuck. Oddly enough, my planning is the reason for the name and the name is the reason for the planning.

My family and friends all know the history of my life over the last 6 years. This post would be endless if I told the whole story so here is the run down. My daddy died in a car wreck in 2004 when I was 8 months pregnant with my first daughter. Two years later my momma went to be with him. Apparently something big happens to me every two years because in 2008 I found myself divorced and a single mother to my 2 beautiful daughters.

I told you all of that to show you this... Life is HARD! You are going to be knocked down over and over again. It is up to you how you deal with those things. You can lay on the floor and hope that somebody will come by and pick you up or you can pick yourself up, dust yourself off and make a plan to turn that experience into something positive. That is where my planning "disorder" came from :)

I don't know how to add a music player yet so instead here are my favorite lines from the song "Stand Back Up" by Sugarland.

"I've weathered all these storms

but I just turn it into wind so I can fly.

If what don't kill us makes us stronger,

when I take my last breath that's when I'll just give up."

So you see, "Turn It Into Wind" isn't just the name of my blog, it's my personal motto.