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My 4 Words for Motherhood are Relentless, Chaos, Perseverance, & Confusion. But motherhood would never ask you to not be you. It asks you to be a better you. To be brave, to impress, and to trust yourself. To make a plan you’d be proud to accomplish and then stay the course and see what happens. Even in Summer! You are the best mother when you rise up be a hero for both them and you. Being human, falling down and getting back up is a very noble process and one we owe ourselves and our children a chance to see us grab and run with.
If you are new to Shalavee, welcome to this blog and my middle child that is Shalavee.com. This began 12 years ago when I wanted to become a better writer. I’d say it served its purpose well. Blogs are dinosaurs at this point, but I still am hoping for their resurgence. There has been shifting…
I embody many me’s on any given day. The person I chose to act on behalf of yesterday isn’t all the same as the one I will be working for today. Yesterday I was the grilled cheese coach and photographer for preteen girls who swear they don’t want to be teens. I was the re-potter…
It was 1999 and we were in love. He said, yeah, my treat from my tax return, lets got to Kim’s wedding in Oxford, England and then travel for a week in Ireland. I said OK. And off we went for a whirlwind 10-day UK trip during which I knew I could probably marry him….
I’m 11 years into blogging and l have yet to feel like I have done this blogging thing right. What’s Right though? Right would have been promoting myself to get read by more people. I avoid asking. Right would have been to not only talk about writing submissions but to have done them. And where’s…
I have been emerging back into my life as I fight to be needed less by others. I fight more to show up for myself where I am needed which currently involves time in my craftroom. The craftroom being an analogy for my creative life. I believe this withdrawal into myself is the product of…
Been playing that same game I seem to like to do with thoughts of my time. I want to change my routine and include more writing and creative time again in my days. And then day after day, the time that I thought I’d do this slips away into the vortex of chores. It’s not…
We had brownies with candles. And we blew them out altogether. A ritual we’ve kept on New Year’s Eve for the past several years. Except our family was separated this year. So, we got to it several days later… This year hasn’t begun as smoothly as I hoped for. I wish… That the time I…
I was walking through the house doing some catch up chores like spot cleaning rugs and cleaning cupboard doors and suddenly I blurted out, “I want my life back”. Because for the last almost two months, my time and efforts have been usurped by the chaos of my mother’s crumbling life. I tried in vain…
There’s not a lot of room for me right now with Mom’s temporary stay. I have accepted that. I am the caretaker. This is my current job. I remember this lack of me time from when the children were babies. But I knew I would eventually put them to bed. That isn’t the case here….
Yes, today is my birthday and I’m turning 56 years old (future self reading says, ah to be 56 again). As a mother to a 9-year-old and a 17-year-old, I cannot call myself old exactly. But I feel every bit of the time spent and wisdom gained I have lived to have earned this. As…
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