Thanksgiving

So grateful to have a perfectly calm Thanksgiving. To have all of the toxic family out of my life. Not to have to pretend things are OK when they are not. Not to have to be in a room full of people I don't want to be around or have my children around just to make people happy. Smiling and pretending all is OK, when you know it is all an illusion. To live in a world where enabling bad, addictive and toxic behavior is normal and being normal is considered wrong. So glad those days are gone. I will take my normal, parade watching, Christmas movie, loving, honest family any day over the mess of what we use to have to go through. I will gladly be the black sheep when I know I am the free sheep who set boundaries escaped the toxic wasteland and ended the trend that nobody else could or would.

Grumpy Morning Cure

Honest morning moment. Just so you know I am not Polly Anna. I have my grumpy moments. This morning is one. My cure? My running shoes, nature and Hillsong United. I even stopped to take pics of turtles for my nephew. I have lived through PTSD. Falling happens - getting up is what defines you! After being stuck in it for a long time I can tell you the quicker you pull out of it the better. Sometimes it's super hard. Now after being and living at rock bottom it's much easier for me to get out. I know what a horrible sad and lonely place it can be. I don't want to be there again. Even though there may be bad days there is something good in it. Have a plan and the seek out the good.

Note to Self

So I have a little injury and I am admitting to a little defeat. I have a hurt ankle. Which means no running and modified workouts. So this morning I went for a walk. I became very frustrated on my walk. I walk really fast. I can barely get my heart rate past 100 on my Polar though. What is the point I tell myself? Well the point is I am being active even when I am down and out. Also a HUGE point is I use to have high blood pressure before I got healthy. Now on a super fast walk I can barely get my heart rate to GO high. So hello Kim FOCUS on that!! There is always something that is going to hold you down, back or make you upset. It is how you look at it that can change everything.

Gratitude of Friendship

I am going to share this from my Challenge Group today. We have a morning focus on Gratitude. I think many can relate to this.

Morning Gratitude = friendship

I am so thankful for my friends. I have a big family.. That a choose not to be apart of about 75% of. I have set boundaries and walked away from them. Most will say family is forever. I say I choose my family. Family is love, respect, loyalty, laughter, fun. That isn't mine. Mine is sad, broken and toxic. My close FRIENDS are my chosen family. They are everything on that list that a family should be. My friends are my family. The people I knew as family are just a bunch of people placed in my life to teach me lessons of who I don't want to be and how I don't want to treat people. Friends are the family I get the honor to pick. I also feel they are an apology for the family I was given.

*If you do have a wonderful family - be grateful for that today. I am happy to say I have ended all the trends set before me. I am proudly giving a healthy family to my children and all future generations

My Son

Every once in a while I get the honor of boasting about my now adult ( 20 year old ) son. He truly makes me so proud and is so beyond anything I ever dreamed of him being. He is third year of College. Always been an amazing young man. The last few year he has really come into who wants to be. As most of you know he plans on going into Youth Ministry. Which if you look at my life he was the person who brought me back to the church. When I lost a baby at 19 weeks when he was 4 he asked me where she went. I just simply said "Gods House." We were driving down the freeway during this conversation and he pointed to something that he didn't even know was a newly constructed church.. I hadn't told him.. and he said "If she is there why aren't we too?" I started classes to convert the next week. Which really came out of nowhere as I was the first of my family to change religions. It was something I feel that was in my heart though I just wasn't listening until my little guy posed the question. Sometimes plans have been made forever - it just takes a while for us all to be ready. He has been meant to do this forever. He has been leading me since he was a toddler. Over the Summer he took a position as a Counselor at a camp a few hours from here. He also did music ministry there as he has with our church. Finally though he started singing not just playing his guitar. Now he does even more music ministry with our church. Leads music at Mass and does Praise and Worship with the High School youth. This one song is just so Avery to me. It fills my heart with joy to hear him sing it in our church or just to hear it on our home. He has an amazing voice more importantly the passion that comes through him is so moving. The words to this song are perfect too. Maybe someday I will get him to record it for his Dear Old Mom. 

 https://youtu.be/SDP8tQSR6uQ

Overwhelmed With Love

As I sit here at this candle light homecoming ceremony... Lights are off over the football field now. I'm over to the side with Phoenix now watching as an observer. I am so very grateful THIS is the life my daughter has. So different then mine was at her age. She has High School team fun, TWO parents who love her, no verbal, mental or physical abuse. No secrets. Nothing she is told to hide from people. No family secrets she will be shocked to learn in her 30's. A simple life filled with honesty.  A life of fun. A life of love. She knows how I grew up. She knows how lucky we are to be mother daughter and friends too. This just all is overwhelming to me tonight. We are blessed. I have ended the trend of abuse. If I had to go through everything I did to give her this life I would do it it a million times. I love her that much.