When you wake up it's a new morning, sun is shining it's a new morning.

So only I can commit to Blogging everyday for the month of November and slack off on the first two!!

I was thinking tonight at work, isn't it weird how a smell can bring you back to a memory? A customer was wearing this scent that smelled like Strawberry Shortcake (the doll) and it brought me back!  This led to me thinking of other scents or memories that I connect to people.

I was about four years old and walking home from Coney Island Beach and we were passing this bakery I think, but I can still smell the cookies like it was yesterday. I don't know why that day is imprinted in my head, why that scent is such a strong memory...I mean it was just cookies. I don't even remember who I was with, maybe my cousin? But I can still see me walking along a brick wall like it was a balance beam and the smell of those cookies.

The smell of rain always reminds me of my father because I had been dancing in the rain and drinking raindrops just before I was told of his death at 6 years old. It's why I love to walk in the rain, I always pictured it was him hugging me while I was growing up.

Pine sol is my comfort scent. It is the scent I smelled most growing up.  If I came home from school and I smelled Pine Sol, I knew my mother was having a good day and she was always in a good mood after cleaning! I love to clean with it and when my house smells like it, it puts me in a great mood.  Along with my pomegranate sparkle Febreze (AKA Purple Pie man scent LOL). I love this new scent and unfortunately I cannot find it anywhere!!! I am on a mission to find it, it makes me very happy.

I can think of memories that I held onto for no apparent reason. For instance, A girl Laura in the 2nd grade or 3rd grade had a Halloween party. It was the first time I heard "Start me Up" by the Stones.  I can remember the ice cream man giving me a ring when I was four that had the two masks for Theater of Pain on it, and I loved the symbol for some reason and it was WAY before Motley Crue haha.The song "Let your love flow" by the Bellamy brothers always gives me goosebumps and makes my eyes well up with tears and its hard for me to sing and I don't know why.  I remember listening to it as a child in the car driving somewhere, just not sure where. The song Baker Street by Gerry Rafferty makes me cry and makes me sad instantly and I don't know why that is either!  I just think it is so interesting to sit and think about what memories your brain stores and throws out at you at the strangest times.  Have you ever just sat and wondered what scents, songs or foods bring you back to a place that you just don't understand the significance?

I wonder what I will remember about these days?

Following the signs because I've been stuck in traffic for too long ;)

So last night we sat down to watch the new "Clash of the Titans" movie and then we watched "The Men who stare at Goats"  which I will admit I knew nothing about but it had some of my favorite actors in it,so how could I not watch it?  Needless to say I highly recommend both, loved them! Especially "Clash of the Titans" as I was always a fan of the original but I love all that they did with it here!!  But both movies having the message of encouraging you to follow your destiny and if you don't, then you will never be complete?  Coincidence?  I think not.  So now what?

This is the question I have asked myself EVERY August for at least ten years.  It's right about the time we start getting ready for the kids to go back to school.  I know I will have the whole day "free" and I want to fill it with something productive.  Something that may lead to a career once the baby goes to school.  Like I was supposed to do when my third child went to school but instead took that time to start up a cleaning business. The business was successful but didn't make me happy it just enabled us to pay more bills.  I don't want a JOB, I want a career.  I want to make a difference, I want to share my abilities and talents because I know I have a lot of them.  I want to have a normal schedule and not be wired until 2am after working a late shift.  I want to smell and look pretty.  I want to see that in five years, I did something for myself and for someone else.

I never finished college because we moved to Chicago after we got married and we couldn't swing it financially.  Insert one thousand excuses here, because that's what I do.  I come up with every excuse as to why I can't go back and get a degree and stop serving tables.  I talk myself out of it.  We don't have the money, where will I find the time between work,car pools, keeping up with their studies, keeping them well rounded with a social life, my daughters going into middle school and will need extra help, The oldest will take college courses and will not be able to help out with all that she does at the church and school and she should be a teenager!  Our son, well, soccer keeps him busy all year round as well as me! Let's not forget that potty training has begun!!! I can't even edit a blog in less than 5 hours without interruption.....like I said, I'm full of them.

When will I stop talking and just do it? When will I just do SOMETHING else that I dream of doing? When will I write a book?  When will  I decide on the topic of said book? When will I lose the "baby weight", because she's two now and it no longer sounds reasonable to say that LOL!  When will I love myself the way that I should? That's what it has to be right? I mean I could justify it and say that I put my family before me and their needs are important and right now I have to put ME on the back burner.  But I've been saying that for too long, and it has even gotten old to me.  I mean the kids even recite my excuses at this point! 

I make time to harvest my crops on face book.  I make time to watch the new True Blood episode. Granted this is how I choose to spend my down time but maybe that's the key.  I know subconsciously that I will have NO down time.  In the long run it would be worth all the blood sweat and tears I gave, I know that.  It would mean more income for our family, a happier and healthier Mom, normal hours, no holidays away from my family, and a feeling of accomplishment. 

Don't get me wrong please! Motherhood is the most rewarding blessing that I could ever have been given.  My children are the most beautiful gifts on this earth.  I have learned so much about life and love and pain....from them.  I didn't know that I was ALIVE until I held my first born in my arms (and she was Drama from day one LOL) She was born and I remember saying "This is what LOVE is". My heart was so overfilled with love that I didn't know what to do first!! Then came the next three and just when I thought I knew what love was, it grew.  There is no one on this earth that can make me laugh in a split second, that can make me feel better after a terrible day just by smiling, that has made me feel like I belong on this earth and that I have a bigger reason for being here...than my children.  Now I feel like I owe it to them.  To show them that you can always find your way, it's never too late.  Motherhood is rewarding but I want something just for me,and I just want the courage to finally do it.  Oh, and I want to lose the baby weight.

Thanks for listening. Today I feel like a loser.  Only I have the power to change that.  I figure maybe if I said it out loud....that I would.

"Now more than ever we need the Jedi"~Bob Wilton, The Men who Stare at Goats.

I need to find my inner JEDI ;)