I’ve spent 14 years raising kids and building a business, 14 years fighting every step of the way to keep everything together. I’ve done the best I could but I’m tired of the fight – not that I’m saying I give up, I just want a more peaceful and positive life. I want to find a way to build and grow and move foward.

GaryVee posted a video yesterday about letting go of the past; the biggest thing I took away from this is to quick looking at the past and look forward. The past is GONE! I think I have a pretty good grasp on this most of the time but I want to work harder to surround myself with positive people who also are able to stop looking back and only look ahead to where they’re going.

Maximizing My Time

This past week, I spent quite a bit of time on Monday and Tuesday setting up content for my Instagram feed – I have enough done to reach the end of the month. On Monday, I’m going to do the same thing and start getting things ready for the upcoming month. The biggest reason I’m not more active on social media is that I’m always scrambling to find something to post and then it ends up being haphazard and crappy. So planning ahead is my new focus.

Since I started planning ahead with my social media strategy, I decided I needed to get on top of my game with meal planning again. Like my social media strategy, meal times have been haphazard and less than appealing. It seems like we’ve been having the same dishes over and over again. So I decided to dus off my Once a Month Meal Plan and do a monthly cooking session. I have to admit that instead of doing a “once a month” cooking sessiong, I’ve had to spread it out over a couple of days. Which is fine! I’m in charge of my own actions and destiny and I can do what works for me. Once I get done with the cooking, I’m going to get it all written up and posted to Rose’s Family Recipes so it might benefit someone else.

Other Stuff

It’s been a pretty quiet week. We’re still digging out from the 25+ inches of snow that we got last weekend. Our driveway is pretty crappy, it’s a bit difficult to get into/out of without 4wd. The beautiful 50+ degree weather that we’ve been having is doing it some good though as the snow is melting rather quickly. It won’t be long before we have muddy soup in the driveway!

Isaac’s vehicle is broken from trying to get it unstuck from the snowbanks last weekend. Now we have one vehicle between the three of us. All my appointments and events, I’ve been cancelling – it’s just too much to try to get 3 people different places with one vehicle. Isaac is going in to work 30 minutes late everyday until he gets his vehicle fixed. And I’ve been scouring facebook and craigslist looking for an affordable SUV that I can drive until I’m able to save up enough to buy something newer and more reliable.

I’ve quit drinking Pepsi – this time it’s going to last awhile. I’ve been drinking Real Sugar Pepsi for awhile now but during our snowstorm last weekend, I ran out of it. There was some regular Pepsi here in the house and I started drinking it. The day after I switched to regular Pepsi, I woke up and my lips were swollen. I didn’t really associate it with anything that I’d done differently. Day two my lips were again swollen and I was a bit annoyed. On day three, my lips, cheeks, and eyes were swollen and I couldn’t ignore the problem any longer. I thought back and realized that the regular Pepsi must be the problem. So I quit, the next morning I woke up and my face was back to normal. High fructose corn syrup is really, really bad for you! With kicking the soada habit comes the added benefit of loosing a few pounds, yay!

Discovering My Passions

One of the things that I really want to do is help and make a difference but I’ve had a hard time defining the who, what, and how part. I’ve discovered I really enjoy working with start-ups and entrepreneurs. I love the passion and energy they have for their business and I really love finding ways that I can help and encourage them.

The AMVETS is another one of my passions. I have a very strong love and respect for veterans and they’re very dear to my hear. But after joining the ladies auxillary and the riders group, I’ve discovered a few things about myself. I don’t like being the low-level grund person like I am in the auxillary where my hands are tied and I can only do the things they tell me to do …like serve food at Bingo! LOL I enjoy being part of the AMVETS Riders because I can actually do stuff to help in ways that I’m good at and in ways that I truly enjoy.

I want to focus my energies in directions where I’m passionate because I find that I’m more productive and focused and I find ideas flow easier in areas where my passions lie. Since I’ve started defining the who and what of my passions, I think it’ll be a lot easier to define the how.

Photos of the Week

It’s a cold and snowy April Saturday here in WI. I thought I’d take a few minutes to go back through my SS Mommy website and discovered I haven’t posted anything on here in over a year!

I’m sure 2017 was a fun and eventful year and I don’t really know why I stopped writing. I find it’s always easier when I have a muse – someone who inspires me to write more. I think I need to look for the muse within myself and inspire myself to write.

Accomplishing Goals

Last weekend was a cold and blistery 16 degree day but I went out and accomplished one of my goals. I took the basic motorcycle riders course and now I have my class M license! Back when Chris and I were dating, we’d been down in La Crosse visiting Travis, Sara and Elena – we stopped at Kwik Trip for gas and while he was inside, I slid down to the drivers seat of his bike. I think it was then that I got the idea that I wanted my own license. Now, I’m one step closer to riding my own bike out to Rolling Thunder in 2020!

Changes for Social Web Dzine

The business has had it’s ups and downs – it’s slowly moving back towards a growth stage with a whole of hard work and elbow grease from me. I’ve implemented a lot of changes and now have a team of people who work with me that specialize in various aspects of digital marketing. It’s really nice to be able to take on larger projects and hand off different parts of it to other people and know it’s going to be done to my high expectations. I’m still looking for a virtual assistant – this is a tough task to work on because this person will be working more closely with me than the other team members. For now the rest of us are working on branding, a new logo, a name update, and just unifying everything to make the business stronger and better for the customers we work with.

Updates about My Munchinks

Sarah is two years into her degree program and has now been accepted into the college of nursing. The first two years was mostly prep for this step – now she’s on track to her end goal of becoming a nurse.

Isaac is becoming more and more of an entrepreneur every day – like me, he follows Gary Vaynerchuck every day and is getting more and more ideas for his future. He’s planning to go to tech school right now and do something in the electrical field – he’s still exploring options.

Since he first got into high school, Benjamin has wanted to be a welder and this is where he’s gearing all his efforts. He enjoys working with his hands whether it’s with metal or wood. He’s very artistic and has a creative mind.

Darrell has moved on to another job and is loving what he does. He’s working for a company that builds home and has moved around through different positions in the company. He’s looking towards his future and what next steps he wants to take.

Travis and his girlfriend Sara got married and moved around a bit last year. While they were out in the Dakotas, they were in a car accident and Sara miscarried their second child. It was pretty heartbreaking for all of us to loose this little girl. She now expecting again and will be delivering sometime this summer …I think.

So what about me? Where am I going? What am I doing?

Some days I feel lost, some days I feel focused. Since starting to listen to GaryVee, I have to say that I’m having more focused days than I am having lost days. I’m learning to cut out the negative people from my life. I no longer am willing to sit and listen to someone who whines and complains about everything – I can feel how it gets me down. I once would sit and listen to this crap and then chime in with my own “woe is me” story. Not anymore! I’ve kind of gotten the “suck it up buttercup” attitude lately.

I’ve joined the AMVETS Ladies Auxillary in Redgranite – never quite sure exactly how the correct way to write it is, I know there’s lots of rules regarding the name. I guess as a digital marketing guru and branding specialist I need to figure it out and get it right! I love the auxillary but volunteering, donating, and all the stuff that goes along with it are tough right now. No, I’m not whining – just stating facts. I find it a bit difficult to help others at the moment when I’m struggling to help myself with everything.

Also have joined the AMVETS Riders and I have to admit this is something I’m more interested in and passionate about. The group is small right now and it’s easier to get to know the people and I feel very connected with all the causes they support and the ways we raise money. With the AMVETS Riders, I feel I have more opportunities to donate my time and my skills and help in ways that I’m good at. And of course, have fun doing it!

The landlord has had conversations with me about buying this house – and that’s really exciting. I know I need to get some things in order to make that happen but that’ll be fun new adventure.

I’ve been out to a gun range and learned how to shoot a handgun. Was a very fun experience and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I discovered a 38 special that I really liked – has to be black, though. I want a gun, but hey I’m still a girl so looks matter! LOL

As for my personal life – dating stuff; well after the end Chris and I, I’ve decided to keep that stuff the SS Mommy blog. Until life sets things in concrete – I think I’d rather just keep it to stuff about every day life.

I hope to start blogging more – let’s say maybe once a week. So hopefully, I’ll see you all again, next Saturday!

Here’s some pictures over the past year for you to see where things have been with us – click on the image and it’ll expand so you can see it better. (p.s. I’m going to fix the font on this website soon so it’s more readable. The SS Mommy has been neglected for awhile so bear with me while I update things on here a bit.

Fourteen years ago, I started a journey of being a single mom. I was 33 years old. Wow, 33 seems so much younger than 47. The first few years were a struggle for sure. I never thought that after 14 years, I’d still be a single mom. I never thought I’d spend 14 years raising my five kids all by myself. Some days I wonder what’s so wrong with me that no one seems to be able to put up with me in a relationship.

Today, I had 85 people wish me Happy Birthday! Eighty-five between Facebook, text messages, phone calls, and other social media sites. How in the heck did I get to know 85 people in the last 14 years? My mind is just boggled at this. I’ve always been a loner and a drifter. I’ve moved 43 times in my life and never really took any friends with me as I moved from town to town, place to place, or house to house. I just can’t quite fathom how I managed to gain 85 people who wished me happy birthday today. My heart just feels so overwhelmed.

My birthday celebrations this year lasted over a few days – Sarah took me out to get a pedicure with her. It was alot of fun and I love my pretty red toes! We had a gift certificate from Culver’s so we all went there to get custard after Isaac got off work. And since Sarah was going back to college on my birthday we made cupcakes the night before. I’d have to say, this year was my best and favorite birthday so far.

I’m always happy when this day finally comes! It’s the last Christmas party for the year that just passed. I’ve been hosting the family Christmas party for my aunts and uncles for about 10 years now. More specifically, the Hunt’s family Christmas (my mom and all her brother’s and their spouses). I don’t know which of my family reads this and at this point I don’t really care. I have one brother – we don’t always see eye-to-eye, his fiance’ and I haven’t always gotten along well. But when we do get to see each other – which isn’t often here lately – we do everything we can to get along with each other and enjoy the time together. Not all brother’s, sisters, and in-laws seem to be able to do that. I just wish we could have a family Christmas where everyone talks to each other – nicely! Where everyone puts aside thinly veiled barbed words. Where everyone brushes off anything they think might be finger pointing remarks. I just wish my kids for once in their life could see a group of family members that get along and enjoy being together.

I put alot of work into these famiy Christmas parties – this year, my heart just wasn’t into it any more. It seems no matter how hard I try something is never good enough. My aunts and uncles are all 10, 15, maybe 20 years older than me. Some days I just wish they’d step up and take on more of a role as elders in this family. I wish they’d be there for each other – share more joys and sadness with each other. Be bonded together as brothers and sisters and realize that life is flying by while they’re wrapped up in whatever it is they’re not getting along with each other about. I’m still a single mom, raising kids. Yes, those kids are now teens but there’s still alot of responsibility on my shoulders and this family gathering is always stressful because I know the outcome every year is going to be the same. I just wish we could have a fun, happy, joyful family get-together but nothing I’ve ever done seems to make that happen.

Well, enough of my ranting – here’s some pictures of the Hunt family

Well, that’s it! 2016 is over and done – 2017 is here and it’s time to get this year started. It’s been busy so far:

• I found a chili recipe the whole family loves
• Got a clients new website started
• Christmas party with the Leads group from the Chamber
• Been adding all my writings to the Writings by Rose website
• Nearly have the Roses Family Recipes website finished
• Oh and I’ve been writing my life’s story for 3 years from now!

Here’s an excerpt of my life story:

Begin with the End in Mind

Rose sits at her desk to do her weekly planning; Memorial Day weekend (2020) is just around the corner. The weekend she’d been planning for the past three years. This year, she’ll be riding out to Washington DC with the Rolling Thunder group and finally get to touch the wall where her dad’s name is inscribed.

Three years ago she’d been dating someone who’d promised to take her on this trip. But when she talked to him about some issues she was having with their relationship, he’d abruptly broke up with her just before the dawning of New Year’s 2017. After that, she’d worked hard to focus her life in order to reach new goals and it worked! Here she was three years later going through a checklist of what needed to be finished before her trip:

• tune-up on the trike
• hair cut
• plan some meals for Benjamin
• …

At 5’2”, Rose is a slim and sassy 49 year old whose youngest child Benjamin is now 17 years old and will be graduating next year. Her daughter, Sarah, an independant 21 year old young lady will be graduating in June. Isaac, her middle child graduated from high school last year and is currently attending college as well. She has two other children, Darrell – 25 years old and Travis 29 years old who blessed her with a grandbaby Elena Marie four years ago. Thoughts of her children and grandbaby flit across her mind as she idly brushes a strand of her ash blonde hair from her eyes. Sixteen years ago she became a single mom. It was an uphill road to raise five successful and happy children but with a whole lot of determination she did it. With Benjamin graduating next year, it’s time for her to start planning for the future starting with this trip.

Rose’s thoughts drift back to New Year’s Day 2017 when she sat down to start creating the action plan that set in motion all the events that brought her to this moment.

I managed to drag out our Christmas celebration all day and into the evening. The last of presents weren’t opened until Sarah got home from work after 9pm. I decided to do another game this year to keep the kids guessing about which present belonged to which person. I think everyone enjoyed all their presents and they’re dreading next year when I come up with a new game (or possibly revise this one! LOL)

After Christmas and in the days following we played alot of games together which made Isaac extremely happy. I’m not fond of board games because they take so long but now there’s some new card games out that replicate the old board games but are much quicker. The kids and I really enjoy these games and we’ve had a lot of fun spending time together.

And finally, I visited my doctor(s) for follow-up visits and they determined that it’s a very good possibility that I have thoracic outlet syndrome in my right arm and want me to go to a vascular surgeon for more testing and diagnosis. I’m not thrilled about this idea – and especially about the other option of pain management. There has to be a better way to live a pain free life. I know I need to get my adrenal fatigue under control and that’s going to be priority number one in the New Year. I’ve been struggling with this for over 10 years and it’s time that I do something to make me feel better.

It snowed, alot! Sarah and I really wanted to go to a “craft show” today but I wasn’t about to drive. Chris took us out in this yucky white crap – I don’t know why but I can ride on the bike with him no problem but his driving in the truck scares the crap out of me! LOL

The “craft show” was one lady with a few handmade things in her basement – so much for a craft show! But Chris took us out to visit some other shops and stores that we’d never been to and we even stopped in at the Red Mill. I love this place – it’s so beautiful.

I know my last post a few days ago was a bit of a downer – I just get so frustrated at life sometimes. I know there’s nothing I can do about some things but I just wish I could. Things have gradually gotten better over the last several days.

I spent the entire weekend in the cold and snow looking, looking, looking at my truck and I finally found the problem. A wire was disconnected. Tess, Sarah’s boyfriend’s mom arranged to have a friend of hers fix it. It was nice to have someone who knows what they’re actually doing to look at my vehicle and tell me what’s good, what’s bad and what’s ok. I can breathe easier a bit now knowing what’s up with the truck and especially since it’s fixed.

We finished decorating the tree – well the kids did most of the decorating stuff lol. It looks pretty good. I also got some projects finished that I’ve been wanting to get done for a while now.

And I decided that we’ll just have to work our Christmas around Sarah’s schedule and learn to deal with it. Nursing is the career she wants to do and we’re just need to learn to live with the fact that she’ll be missing many family get-togethers in the future. There’s going to be holidays, birthdays, funerals, and special days that she just won’t be able to attend. I was hoping for a few more years but I gues it’s just time to learn how to deal with it.

Here’s some pictures from the past few days – hope you enjoy them.

Picture of my living room right now while we’re in the process of putting up Christmas decorations.

I started out the day with a bit of optimism and was looking forward to getting stuff done.  But everything went haywire fairly quickly.

First thing on today’s agenda was to get Isaac a bank account since he starts his first job on Monday. I stopped at the ATM and took out $20 to start his account. I thought kids accounts had to have a minimum deposit of $5 so I figured I’d have change to get Christmas lights .  Wrong! Minimum deposit is $25 but she let us do  $20 since he’ll be having his checks direct deposited. So nothing leftover and I’ll have to use my debit card for the lights.

We left the bank to go to the dollar store and the truck starts to sputter and die. I could barely keep it running. I stopped and put gas in it along with some gas treatment. That’s doesn’t help.  So we go over to O’Reilly’s to have them pull the code to see what was wrong with it. The code for the idle control valve came up.  I’d just replaced that in June so it was under warranty and I didn’t have to pay for it. But the part wasn’t going to be in for 2 hours. So we went to get the lights and headed home.

At home I wanted to get the house clean and decided to hang up a shelf at the end of the stairs so they could hang up their costs. First I got a metal sliver in my finger from the screw and then the shelf came off the wall.  So I left that project for Darrell to do later.

When it was finally time to go get the part, Darrell drove me into town and Isaac decided to ride along.  We went back to the parts store but it didn’t come in on the truck and wouldn’t be there for another two hours. Also they said we needed to bring in the old part in order to not get charged for the new one.

We left there and went to the dollar store and to Fleet Farm to get stuff for the rest of the projects I wanted to do today.

Back at home, Darrell, Isaac and Ben started bringing up the Christmas boxes so we could put up the tree and decorate the house. That’s when Sarah told me that she’d volunteered to work Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.  Well that’s just wonderful! First of all, I’m not particularly fond of Christmas – it just seems depressing always. Secondly,  the kids dad gets them Christmas Eve this year and he’s never too prompt about getting them back to me so it could be close to noon before I can start celebrating Christmas with the kids. And now Sarah has to leave for work at 6 pm. I’d planned to open presents a little at a time all day until evening, so now I don’t know how I’m going to do that now.

While we’re starting to put together the Christmas tree, Darrell is outside getting the part off the truck.  When he’s done,  him and I go back into town to pick up the new part . We go back home and Darrell puts it in only to find out that it didn’t fix the truck. Just wonderful!

I end up burning supper and the boys are trying to get a sliver out of the paw of Butterfingers, our little boy kitten.

I’m  sitting here now thinking about Sarah working on Christmas. Everyone always tells me how I’ve done such a good job with my kids and I should be proud of how they are all hard workers. They all tell me that kids growing up and starting lives of their own is a good thing. All I can think about is how in just a few years I’ll be spending all my holidays alone because all my kids will be grown up with lives of their own. Because I’ve done everything right I get to spend the rest of my days all by myself and alone. I guess when I was having kids I didn’t anticipate how the last years of my life were going to be spent alone because I did such a good job of raising my kids to be independent adults. Wow, what a fantastic reward.

On this “Day After”, I’ve been sitting and watching my Facebook newsfeed and thought I’d enjoy posting some snarky videos or meme’s about the results of last night’s election but I can’t help think about the people in our country who lost; the ones who felt Hillary Clinton was going to take the election with ease.

Just over 150 years ago our nation was divided and because of that division we sacrificed over 600,000 of our citizens due to deeply held beliefs over many issues. Today, just like during the time of our Civil War, Americans are divided about beliefs they hold dear. That division runs deep just as it did all those years ago. It runs deeper than party lines, it runs deeper than state borders. This division divides our families – mothers, brothers, sisters, fathers, aunts and uncles all stand on different sides of these issues. Now is not the time for one side to gloat and chase the other side to cower and fester in a corner. Instead it’s time for the winners to be gracious and extend their hands to those shedding tears and feeling the pangs of their great loss.

In the wee, early hours of this new day, President-Elect Donald Trump stated “now it’s time to bind the wounds of our division”. He is absolutely right! It’s time to put aside the hurt and anger and to come together as one united group of people that want nothing but the best for our nation. Secretary Clinton in her concession speech admonished her supporters to “remember that this election was never about one person or even about one election – it was about the country we love”. Both Secretary Clinton and President Obama made a statement to the American people that Donald Trump is going to be the next president of the United States and there will be a peaceful transition of power.

These are people who’ve spent so much time, money and effort fighting for something they believed in who are now setting aside their differences. They are at the very least putting on a public face of acceptance and making way for a peaceful transition. I strongly believe it is time for us to set aside ours as well. It’s time for us to heal the divides in our families and in our own friendships. We need to set aside our petty gloating for the greater cause of supporting our nation.

It’s time for us to become not only one nation united; but also families and friends united.