Single Mom Striking Out

These few months has been financially challenging for me because of the old vehicle that I am driving. On top of a battered battery, busted tires, I now have leaking whatever it is and water pump (or something like that).  I am lucky in that it happened on a Monday and when I sent the car in to my mechanic, I was given one of their spare cars to use while my car waits for their attention. I spent the next 4 days, NOT CAR-LESS. I am lucky that way.  But as with any car that is aged more than 10 years (the car is older than my elder son, who is 16 - I know, lol), problems come and go as quickly as the wind and I am feeling the pinch real bad. Instead of feeling down and frustrated, I tried looking for things that I could be happy about. My dad came to my rescue when the tires busted I actually have a mechanic who trusts me enough with a spare car for days without asking a peep about it And I trust them not to change every single thing in the car without notify...

As I sit here, listening to my kids laughing together over a YouTube video, my heart grieves for people who are consistently affected by these attacks. Why, I hear myself asking? How will we ever stop these incidents from happening in the future? What can I do? What can society do? What can countries and groups do? Or is this going to be a norm? So many questions with no answers. Sometimes, I guess, the only thing left to do is to pray and leave it up to our Makers.

Sometimes, I find myself having the most meaningful and honest conversations with my kids when I am sending them to school in the morning. And I love that. I would be all trying-to-be-positive and they would share with me their thoughts.  I don't remember how the conversation started but I thought I would share with them that 'owning up to mistakes gives you more control over your actions and what comes out of it'. Instead of saying 'it was his fault', which gives away the power, saying 'OK, I have a problem, now let's find a solution' is more powerful. Their contention had been 'but it makes me look bad' but I argued back, 'yes, but if you fix it, it makes you look awesome and even if you tried and it failed, you still looked like you tried and that's good'. Kids, at this age, obviously, are very careful about the image they project. After all, teenage years is about finding your ground, being accepted and well....being ...