What I Want To Be When I Grow Up

This is the first time that I have decided to join in on a blog challenge. It looks to be fun and it will definitely give me something to write about everyday. Or at least I hope. You can catch all the prompts and join in your own posts at Brave Love

What Do You Want To Be When You Grow Up?

First off I will answer this question as I was a child then now. 

As a child I wanted to be a lawyer.  As an adult I would still love to do this, but my life and the track I took put all my childhood dreams on a complete stall. I wanted to be a lawyer, live in Australia on a huge horse ranch. 

I was never really on the right track to head down this road because I discovered boys! This put me pregnant at 16 and married at 17 and a single mom at 19. I re-married at 20 had my second child at 21. Divorced again within 5 years then re-married again and another child at 30. (divorced again) Never take relationship advice from me! Now I am with Mr. Sexy. No more relationships for me.I am done. 

Still I had hopes of becoming a lawyer but with my age, this was almost 10 years ago..I knew I could not make it through a 4 year college and law school. I would be old and I did not have much confidence in myself so I did what I thought was the next best thing. I got my associates degree in Paralegal Studies. But this degree does no good. No one will hire unless I have experience. I can not get experience if I am not hired. At least this is the case where I live. Small town Arkansas. 

On to now!

I want to be the best mother to my children as possible. I have made many mistakes in my parenting. It is a very very long story. As of now I have my youngest child in my custody and 2 step children. My girls, 1 is with her dad and the other with her Aunt. I will say this much, they did not get taken from me due to neglect. I will say this........never go to court without a lawyer! You will get screwed. 

After this mess I was blessed with my son. Logan, he is 3 years old and he has autism. He is my inspiration! I am his advocate. I love my children and when I grow up I want to be the best mom ever! I strive for this everyday and will continue to do so until the day I pass away. 

What do you want to be when you grow up?

My oldest and I 

My oldest and my 2 step kids..Sean the tallest and Cory

My middle girl. Kiya and of course Logan on my hip

Sean and Cory
At the end of the day, the most overwhelming key to a child's success is the positive involvement of parents.

Jane D. Hull

It's Okay Tuesay 9/2/14

That we did absolutely NOTHING this holiday weekend. No cookouts, no shopping (the sales) no trips. 

We stayed home. It was Corys 12th Birthday and he did not to go or do anything but I did make sure I got him the present he asked for which was another mp3 player. This time he better not lose it. 

He got his gift at midnight, the above is not the mp3 player in his hands, its the Duck Dynasty gummies

That we will leave Logan with his two older brothers while we go to the oldests' (sp) volleyball game. 

That it has been one rainy day! 

Anyways that is pretty much all for the It's Okay Tuesday, here are some pics from out boring weekend for your enjoyment :-) Not really just want to share

Guitar hero watching Logan

The boys holding down the furniture

Gabby kept hiding her face but I got her this way

Logan and I just chillin'

7 Tips To Gain and Keep Followers

When you are participating in blog hops, link ups or meme's, what draws you to click on certain blogs?

For me I like to see a picture. When linking up I believe being able to link up a thumbnail instead of just the title helps bring in traffic. For me, I like to see nice colorful pictures. If it is a picture of you or anyone else I like to see it being creative. Not just a bland selfie. (sorry selfie lovers) This usually steers me away and I wont click on your blog. 

I use this picture a lot. It is of me and my son. If I do not have a particular picture that goes with my post I go to this one, always.

Now once you have clicked on the blog what makes you stay there, read the blog, click around and end up being a follower? Or what drives you away?

Once I have clicked on one that has drawn my attention if it take a long time to load I will close out my window and go on. Please make it somewhat simple, do not overload your page to where it takes forever to load. 

When commenting, I do not like the captcha. Sometimes I have a hard time reading them. But not only that but when I enter in my comment and hit publish I usually click out and move on. When that captcha pops up it makes me feel like it is an inconvenience so you will be lucky if I finish up. Every blogger loves comments so make it easier for us to leave our comments. You can manually moderate the comments, so if you have tons of spam get rid of it manually or put that little check box at the bottom to check to prove they are not spam. I have never really had much spam to my comment box so what do I know? It may not be that easy. 

If I am attracted to your blog I will browse a bit but if you blog about the same thing all the time such as fitness...I will not follow. I have read that people will follow blogs if they are about certain subjects. I just disagree. I like to read a variety of things. In my blog you will find reviews (not many though) recipes, crafts, my everyday life, photos and information about autism. Its wide and varies. I try to blog a little something about everything for everyone. Maybe this approach has not been successful. I do not seem to reach over 100 views a day. Put a variety of subjects in your blog please. 

I have came to many blogs and have wanted to leave a comment but have a hard time finding the comment area. Usually its at the bottom of the page and it says Leave A Comment plainly. I found several over the last couple of weeks where I could not find this. So I just left :-( Make it clear where to leave comments!

For some reason I do not really like the content summary being somewhere else. When I click to read your blog I do not want to have to go somewhere else to read it. I want it all there. Keep it all in one place or have page tabs that are easily accessible. 

The other thing that will draw me away from your blog is if it is very very long. Keep it short and sweet. Now this is just most of the time. I know there will be a few times that you want to write a more lengthy post. If so make it interesting and not dry. 

If I like your blog I want an easy way to follow you. I still use GFC and my blogger dashboard. Maybe I am outdated but thats what I chose more times than none. Bloglovin' seems to not be so popular anymore or maybe its just mine thats not. I am still confused when it comes to twitter. I am getting used to google+. If you have any ideas that is better please let me know. I look into everything. I personally like logging onto my blogger and seeing all the blogs I follow right there. 

To sum up the above, in case you skipped down to the bottom of this post--7 ways to attract me and keep me coming to your blog are as follows

1. Make your blog appealing to the eye

2. Make sure you page loads quickly

3. Get rid of captcha

4. Blog about a variety of things

5. Make it clear where to leave a comment

6. Keep your full post in one place

7. Make it easy to follow your blog

This is my opinion only. I do not speak for other bloggers. Just myself. 

A New Meme! What is in My Junk Drawer

So during some random blog hopping that I do everyday I found a new meme to participate in.  Over at Jenerally Informed she hosts a Mommy Reality meme and this weeks theme she wants to know what is in our junk drawer. I was happy to share my post. So on to it...

Honestly I do not have a "drawer" I have a basket that sits on my side table by my couch. "My Spot" everyone in the house knows this is my spot. (one of my sheldon (big bang theory) tendencies. 

So there is some thread for bracelets I used to make and tacky glue, an old cell phone I got out because my moms messed up so I was going to give her this one but as you can see it just ended up in my junk basket. My ear buds, fingernail clippers, tweezers and chap stick. Nothing fancy. 

Now on the other hand my Mr. Sexy has junk drawers everywhere. He is a hoarder of everything I swear so I decided to give you tiny glimpse into his junkiness. 

First drawer, some random patches from when we rode, wires, papers and I see a pill bottle there

More papers, more wires and diablo playing manuel and some pennies

More papers and a router/modem..two of them, bullets and guess what?? More papers and more wires

And this is not it, low and behold he has this in the kitchen

There are more around the house as well.....

It' Okay That I will Not Be Returning to College

Where am I linking up today? That would be over at Airing My Dirty Laundry for It's Okay Tuesday.

Its Okay......
That I found out that I can not do my bachelors degree. I had decided to go back to college and get my bachelors in Business Administration. Not something I particularly wanted to do but it's what is in demand in the job industry around here. You can go anywhere with a BS degree. Well I already have an associates, but that degree is no good for anything and I found out I wasted tons of money doing this. I was young so therefore I screwed around, failed classes, dropped out, went back so in my being dumb and making bad choices I ran up my student loan bill. I am at $55,000! Ouch! Scary number huh? I did not know that they put a cap on student loans until a few days ago. The cap is $57,000. So that left me with $2,000 plus what I can get from a pell grant which is about $4,000. Yeah right, this will not get me my bachelors at $414 a credit! So I un-enrolled. No more college for me. Its okay though, I did not want to really go for that. I will just be a stay at home mom for a long time and figure out how to pay those crappy loans that are worthless. 

Logan starts his new preschool tomorrow. I am excited about him going and its okay that I will miss him. He will be in good hands. Hopefully much better hands than his previous school. Check out this video that shows what a wonderful school/company this is. 


Russellville Grand Opening from Pediatrics Plus on Vimeo.

It will be all okay....My son will be in wonderful hands :-)

Saturday Critters! How fun!!

My Saturday Critters are my two dogs! Love these girls even if they get in a bit of trouble here and there. 

This is our girl Missy, she is chihuahua. Here she is smiling

This is Zuri! Our husky. We love her to death. Our family would not know what to do without her around.

What critters do you have around or have taken pictures of recently. We all would like to see.
Join Eileen for her Saturday Critters Link Up

In the meantime, have a wonderful weekend my beautiful readers and viewers

Please give my Facebook Page a like

Wordless Wednesday 8/13/14

Want to know where I am linking up? Just click my hops and links tab! 
Please do not forget to like my facebook page, you can find that on my side bar! Thank you!!

How Is My Garden Growing?

Well Ill be honest, its not really a garden. It is just two cucumber plants and two tomato plants. Yellow tomato for my Eric and a normal one for me and a Lemon cucumber for him and a normal one for me :-) About a month ago all my plants almost drowned. I have awful drainage and it rained for days. I saved them and now they are beautiful. There is just something about checking on them everyday and seeing new growth. I can not wait until they start producing!!

Linking up with
No Rules Weekend Blog Party
What Has Made Me Happy This Week?

Thursday Favorite Things

This week I am loving the fact that I finally have another squirrel in our yard. I had one previously that I had been watching for weeks and sadly seen that he or she had been tragically hit. A couple weeks later we have another one! I am having issues with birds coming to my feeders but I have this squirrel! 

As you can tell it was a foggy morning. Maybe Ill get some better pictures of our new friend at a later time.

Thursdays Favorite Things Link UP

Wordless Wednesday with Explanation

Its that time again for Wordless Wednesday Link ups. You can Click HERE to find the link ups!

This time I have to put an explanation on the photo, well just because I think it needs it.

 Feet are just disgusting to me as well as to my Eric. That is why I had to snap this picture when I realized what we were doing. Holding Feet!!! Both of us were busy on our phones and so we could not hold hands so instead we were holding feet. Not even realizing it. 

If you want to join up with the Wordless Wednesday Link ups click HERE to find a list of them. 

Enjoy your Wednesday!

What Happens When Daddy--Wordless Wednesday

It is yet another Wordless Wednesday. My how does time fly. 

This is what happens when daddy takes over taking care of the munchkin.

Guess it is to hard to sit him upright to change his clothes and apply eczema cream. 

Wordless Wednesday

Yee Little Things

Create With Joy

Oh My Heartsie

Catch My Words

Tots and Me

3 on Tuesday

It is Tuesday and we made it through another Monday! This Tuesday I am linking up with 3 different themes. 

First we have Touch Up Tuesday with Paper Heart Camera

No touch ups, No nothing!

So I cropped, increased contrast and used the sharpen tool just as Sarah Halstead did with her photo. Hers is much better though!

Next up is Texture Tuesday, you can link up with Kim Klassen over at Kim Klassen Cafe
She will even provide you with a free texture to apply to your photo and the theme this Tuesday is Flowers

This is the untouched version. And of course I did not use a flower flower but a tree blossom. I figured it would count.

Now for the last (I think). This one is Barn Charm over at Bluff Area Daily. For this particular one I have two different shots of the same barn.

Hope you all enjoyed Tuesdays set of pictures because I had a blast editing!

Quarterly Top 5

I am linking up with Sarah Halstead over at The Naptime Momtog to show off our favorite top 5 photos we have taken of our children through the months of April, May and June. Be sure to hop on over and check out her blog and join in the fun. 

On to my Top 5 photos. I think I spent about two hours trying to figure out what I liked the most. It is still so hard to decide but I was finally able to narrow it down. Mostly the all are of my baby Logan since he is with me 24/7. My other three were here very sparingly throughout the last three months. While my step son Race has been here he has been battling a horrible case of poison ivy so needless to say not many snap shots of him. (Im a horrible person huh?)

As you can tell it was still chilly outside. My boy decked out in Red. He will be my little razorback! I picked this picture because of his sweet eyes and the funny little expression on his face. We were at the Gentry Drive Through Safari.

Once again my baby boy. I picked this one because I think I captured a baby's innocence. I love his smile.

My daughter Kiya. She is such a pretty little girl. She actually turned 10 June 19th.

It amazes me to see how much Logan has changed over the last three months! I chose this picture because you can tell how much his big sister loves him. Then of course his expression. He has so many different faces. 

Who can resist a sleeping baby? Of course this is on of my favorites. He fell out right in the middle of playing. 

There is my Quarterly Top 5

This is also the first time I have ever used a watermark. We are still deciding exactly what to do with it. I for sure want a butterfly somewhere in there. 
Be sure to join us for the link up. I would like to see all your kids :-)