Life With Wendy Is…
I am so happy to be launching my new web site. An ADD mother driven by distraction, I have spent 5 years writing a newspaper column about finding humor in everyday life. My dream was to fit in somewhere between Tampons and Depends, or between Erma Bombeck and Dave Barry. I wanted to reach out with my antics and stories to make people laugh, to make my readers stop a minute to think, and to make them realize that in our souls we are all the same….same stories..same joys and sorrows…. all presented in different colors and packages.
In the last three years I have stopped my column and started working on my book One of One which is about a girl spending her life feeling as though she never fit in. One day she wakes up to discover that she has a different biological father, one that has lived one street away her whole life. I went to bed thinking I had 3 siblings and woke up with 7. I also realized that I was one child born to two parents, no full siblings which explained the differences. I wrote and rewrote and discovered that I hated the book. It wasn’t funny, it wasn’t me. Just when I was about to pack it in, my eleven year old son suggested that I write blogs every day as if it were the first day of my journey into finding my second family.
“This way Mom its short, funny, and you.”
Brilliant! So here you will find my story as well as my articles which deal with life. I write to reach out, I write for my own therapy, and I write because I love it. -
Top Three Lessons Learned From A Social Blunder
To follow up on my last post where I asked my readers if I should have confronted someone if I thought they were trashing my daughter, I think I have my answer.
Despite the fact that I have never had so many hits to a column, I took it off because it was causing unnecessary pain. I was hurt and didn’t confront it immediately. Instead, I sat down and wrote about my feelings on a public blog. Many times we all say things about others that take two minutes to come out and many years to be forgotten. We all have done it. I am truly sorry for any feelings I may have hurt. We need to think before we speak or in my case, write.
There was a learning lesson here. The next time you get upset with someone go right to them and tell them that you feel their words are hurting you. Direct communication builds, telling twenty others first, breaks relationships down. Tell them you feel they are being judgemental. I have come to realize that not everyone will like you despite your efforts. Sometimes the best efforts are misconstrued and misunderstood.
Another lesson…stay out of your kids life. Don’t talk about them. Let them talk about themselves because it is their life, not yours. Let them work out their difficulties and manage their own relationships otherwise you will cheat them out of valuable life lessons. Child or adult, anyone can have a friend when it is all fun and games. True friendship goes through hardship and misunderstandings.
As my husband will often tell me, it isn’t the good times that forms the bond, it is working through the difficult times that makes a relationship that endures over the years.
Ten easy Steps to Organize School Papers
As quickly as we get our freedom back on that glorious day when the kids go back to school, is as quickly as 3pm comes when they are home again armed with enough paper to wallpaper your kitchen. Year after I would sit and think about how I could organize it so I didn’t have one more pile on my counter.
As the school days go on, it seems to get worse. Which stuff should I keep? I couldn’t keep it all but yet on the times I got caught throwing it out there was hell to pay.
“Sorry honey it must of fell into the trash.”
In an effort to survive, I developed a system. Here are the ten steps designed to keep your kids worked saved.
#1) First buy a extra large storage trunk for each one of your kids .
Website: http://www.walmart.com/ip/Sterilite-Footlockers-Set-of-2/14147139.
Your cost is $32 for two and they come in all different colors. Type your children’s name on the computer and enlarge it using black ink. Print and tape onto a storage trunk with packing tape
#2) Buy a book for their special Memories.
The Christmas Tree Shop has them or you can buy them on line.
Website: http://www.currentcatalog.com/342494.html?AS=1&keyword=memory+book.
It will be the best $15.99 investment you have.
#3) Buy a rolling cart made of clear plastic with drawers.
I have a 4 drawer cart because I have 4 kids. Each one of your children gets a drawer. I searched the web and found them cheapest at Walmart for $17.
website: http://www.walmart.com/ip/Sterilite-3-Drawer-Wide-Cart-White/8282897
#4) For each year from preschool through current grade, cut their class picture out and tape their picture on the front of the pockets for each year in their memory book.
Put their class pictures and their report cards in the folders behind the picture.
*Tip- Organize your photos in folders on your computer by child, by year, and at the end of the school year make a disc, label it,and put in with the report cards and class picture.
#5) Separate all their work by grade in piles.
#6) Keep several assignments from the beginning of the year, mid year, and year end.
Keep anything else that stands out as special. The rest, THROW AWAY!
#7) Use gallon storage bags and label them with permanent maker by grade. Fill each bag with any work that you are keeping.
#8) If you have photos mixed in put them in a separate bag and save them to organize in an album at another time.
#9) Put each gallon bag marked by grade in the large storage bin starting with preschool in the back and the current grade in the front.
Now you should have an empty drawer with one memory book in it. As the papers come in, label them with a name, date, and grade if you are keeping them and store them in the appropriate drawer.
#10) Next September you will follow the system all over again, moving all items into a storage bag and stored in your large storage bin.
It took me 8 years and hours of work but I think I have finally cracked the code.
