The saving challenge!

As some of you may know, in the last month I've totally and  willingly took a huge pay cut.(not that I was making extreme amounts of living money) but I took the challenge to be a stay at home mom and "babysit". I'm currently in the process of getting my day care license, at my home. The process is long and beyond tough. New York state (thankfully) is very strict when it comes to daycare regulations. I've heard about a dozen complaints about it, but honestly.....stop! It's a dang good thing! What? Do you want you kid under anyone's roof!?...that's what I thought. Anyways, before I can get my license I can only babysit ( pinch cheeks) 2 kids/babies, so I'm reaaaalllyyy making hardly nothing... This week I was able to pay our $35 national fuel bill thought! It will continue to be this way until my house gets inspected, I get finger printed, I take a couple classes,exc. SO I've been thinking of ways to SAVE, SAVE, SAVE!!
1- making my grocery list based on weekly coupons-thank God for Sunday's!
 2-shopping at ALDI!
3- what my next full years blog will be about........living off the Duggars Moto "buy used and save the difference" I am challenging myself (as I work my second job at Victoria's Secret) to not buy clothes from any store BESIDES consignment, for a FULL year, 356 days!!! I'll be posting my buys with some awesome fashionable pictures of my consignment outfits for the next year!...even SOPHIA'S!... And don't doubt me! I WILL be saving the difference!! Also, at the end of the year I will add up how much I saved doing this in hopes to encourage this challenge to someone else! This world is way too materialistic, and I'm going to prove you can be fashionable, you can have nice things, you can have a good wardrobe without wasting all your money and I'm going to have fun doing it! 
I'll be posting my first buy...shortly!

Drum roll until then

Breaking

Today as I sat on the bathroom floor crying from frustration, I sat there repeating in my head "I quit, I quit, I quit!" I even tried talking myself into packing a bag and going "Home" for the weekend, home as in my mommys house....Balling my eyes out, feeling depressed, overwhelmed, not good enough, feeling like a bad mom, feeling like I'm raising the screaming devil,  somewhere for my first time through this depressing day GOD popped up in my head. Somehow, he made me think of even worse times in my life. As I looked back on them, remembering myself at the lowest point, getting hand fulls of cash that I worked hard for, 3 jobs while pregnant, hard for, trying to support myself, and not succeeding because drug  money was more important. More important that our child! No I never did drugs, that's not who I was. But I did support it....I chose to provide drugs for someone versus buying groceries. Having a gun to my head at 2 months pregnant, having family members and friends try talking me into abortion, or adoption....Sorry, that wasn't me! As god brought those not so good memories back, it made me thankful, made me so thankful I was even enlightened for sitting on the bathroom floor while my toddler whines and kicks while sitting on the potty. I sat in the bathroom looking into the messy kitchen, noticing the food that hadn't even been touched yet. Noticing the microwave! Noticing tons of things I didn't have for only 8 short months.....but seems a lifetime. Making me ten times more grateful for these possessions now. Making me grateful, that the baby that was inside my tummy when I was 2 months pregnant received a mommy AND a daddy, no not both birth parents are in the picture...but at least we are both a live. Being thankful, for the first time in my life I made a life decision to keep my baby. I even was thankful for not having the best dad. Thankful he was an alcoholic. Because if it wasn't for the hell I went through as a child with his alcohol abuse, and his depression and his coldness toward me.....I wouldn't be the mother I am today, which is everything I wanted as a child. Everything I wanted from my father growing up, I make sure Sophia has. Whether I'm providing it for her or whether Andy is providing it for her, Sophia is one fortunate little girl. Sophia has one strong mother, only because of Sophia's grandpa! It's bitter sweet. But what if I didn't go through what I did, would I be this loving of a parent, would I know how to parent? Would I strive to be the parent I never had? For the first time in my life, I'm thanking my daddy. I'm thanking my baby-daddy. I'm grateful for my rough patches in life. I'm grateful for god! As I got up from the bathroom floor, wiped my tears, I went and read my devotional for the day,which couldn't have been on Que any more perfect! And even though i'm still having a bad day, I'm grateful. For everyone, for everything, for bad decisions, for the lessons learned, for faith,for Andy, for family, for daddies, for potty training, for terrible two's, messy kitchens and for bathroom floors!
AMEN!

She's her own kind of Beautiful!

Rewind to May of 2011.
I was living on my own, in Jamestown. Not living a wonderful life.
I was working 2 job, and going crazy.
I peed on 6 pregnancy tests that all read positive, I got dirty, dirty looks from the nurse at my doctors office(who was my grandmothers friend) all because I was pregnant. I was turning 21 in December..Like get over it lady. I understand my age doesn't define weather my pregnancy was right or not...But there's worse things out there. In July I found out the baby has a "vulva" the doctor called it, which minutes later I read " It's a Girl" across my sonogram picture! (cause who knew what a frickin VULVA was!? oh yeah, everyone but me!)
I got a second apartment with Andy in October and it was absolutely perfect!( Don't remind me)
I had Sophia on January 13th and Andy stood by my side the ENTIRE time. From day one everyone knew Sophia would soon be a "Pullan". She came out with Blonde Hair blue eyes....Wait What!? I pictured her the ENTIRE pregnancy with brown, CURLY, CURLY hair and big brown eyes!.....and lots o hair!
But lets face it, she was bald....an looked just like her dad. It made me cry at times, she looked nothing like a Dickerson, nothing like me. Not even her smile, her fingers or her toes, she even has a birthmark like her sperm donor....and I cried.
Every day I pondered "what if she turns out like him"?
"Her personality is going to be just like "his"!
"What if she has a temper?"
"What if its just runs in the family for her to be addicted to drugs?"
"What if she hates me"
"What if she hates Andy"
"What if she would rather be with him"
Things like this crossed my mind..every day, and it SUCKED!
But let me tell you, I've prayed since before I had her that she would be like me, that she would have my personality, have my eyes, my smile, my walk, my voice, my everything, and even though once and a while I see parts of me in her and parts of her biological dad in her...Shes completely her own person. Sophia is crazy,cute,smart,hyper,calm,photogenic,playful, independent, loving, and the MOST caring toddler I have ever met...And quite frankly I really can't take credit for it! She teaches herself, she watches EVERYONE. She picks up on absolutely everything! Everyday she has accomplished something new. Already, at the age of 2 she has mother instincts like non other! I can't even say I was as good of a mother that she is to her baby dolls! (minus dropping them on the floor when shes ready to move on to a different toy, but you get the point) She LOVES shopping!...She constantly asks to go to the mall, not even to buy anything, but just to walk around. She loves playing outside, and shes stubborn as heck at times..but she easily gives in and listens to her parents, she obeys SO extremely well.....like how!?...and why!? I am SO thankful.
All in all, she is nothing like him, and hardly like me... Sophia is Sophia, and her own kind of beautiful!
I no longer thrive to make her like me, I no longer care, just simply because Sophia will be who she is based on how she is raised not by who here sperm donor is, and that I can't be more thankful for! I have no one to thank besides the Lord..