Many of you have noticed I took up the moniker "Moni" a couple years ago. To be honest I was going through a change in life of learning who I was after being reconnected with my birth family, and that was a nickname my natural parents called me. In my eagerness to be connected to who I was before my adoption I decided to try basking in that name for a while. Then when I felt "full-grown" and was ready to step back into life as "Monica", damned Facebook decided to limit name changes. So I am stuck being "Moni" when I really want to be Monica. Everyone has adapted that name and it has definitely stuck, so I'll let it lie. To be honest, it's kind of sweet that everyone has accepted my different changes of growth and is just going along with my flow. So I don't really mind. Just know that Monica is the fierce outer shell protecting the inner child "Moni." As I've been getting to know "Moni," I've been very ...

The past two months of our lives have looked completely different. I'm laughing inside at the idea of "perfection" we all have of others...perfect marriages, perfect families, perfect pregnancies, perfect hair, perfect bodies, perfect schedules, perfect perfect perfect...Can I call it? It's all BS! We all have to do the best with what we're given, and we're all given some of the same things: brains. mouths. butts (ok that was pointless). opportunities (although not identical). Here's what has changed for us, and WHY I'm happy with it. In March we became completely debt-free. Nothing owed to any collectors, creditors, parents, NADA. We worked our butts off for this to happen, had some arguments, the whole 9. When we made it I was so relieved and could barely believe it. I felt free. We were really happy. We felt to RICH not owing others. Then we worked on building up our emergency fund. Dave Ramsey suggests a 3-6 month fund, Suze Orman suggests...

Today I realized that I am loved and that I am blessed to be able to have children, watch them grow, and stay home mostly full-time to do so. My youngest son Kendrick, who just turned a year old a couple weeks ago, is now growing into his personality and it's such a treat to see. I love this part of child-rearing!  I really do believe the first five years of our babies' lives are the hardest because they are almost 1000% hands/ears/thoughts-ON. So much micromanaging, effort, strength, stress, and speculation goes into their care. From discipline to schooling choices to nutrition to personal energy stamina it's quite the tilt-a-whirl. Sometimes I feel for myself because of the hustle and bustle and energy required and expended and other times I feel grateful, mostly the latter. Especially during nap time. But those little moments-the laughs over shaking our heads "no" over eating pureed bananas, talking about butts inappropriately at the dinner table, heavin...

Oh sh**. It's really time to get up again? Why do I feel like crap? Oh yeah, I got up with my daughter who awakened me with her terrible squeals in the middle of the night because she had to go to the bathroom but seemed to forget how to get up and walk in there. Then proceeded to whine and cry for God knows why even after I led her by the nose pretty much to the toilet and cleaned her up. Then I couldn't go back to sleep. Oh shoot, husband has to work today? Nope, didn't make a lunch. Too tired to make one at night and can't drag myself out of bed to do it in the morning. Good luck fending for yourself, dear! You could take the leftovers from last night, but oh wait! You don't like leftovers. Tough luck.  Oh why dost my body betray me? Too much stress makes my chest tight and it travels up my throat. Dear God, please help me get this under control before I get throat cancer from always carrying my stress there. Researching as many stress-relieving breathing ex...

Since I came out today, I figured it is only fitting to organize what I do believe since detaching my tentacles from the organized religion of Christianity. Here is what I do believe, with no evidence, just feeling what my spirit feels: I feel there is a Creator. Actually I choose to believe this because I cannot wrap my head around any kind of notion that the beauty we find in nature, children, love, and the connections of spirit with others  is just by happenstance or evolving biologically. There is no way this just "is". I can't tolerate that concept. There is something bigger than this universe that has taken time to deliberately paint flowers, design body systems, and provide emotions. That I feel in my spirit for SURE.  I feel the closest spiritually to my creator when I am in nature. When the sounds and music of nature are playing I can almost tear up for the sheer beauty of it all. I feel healing happen naturally in nature.  I believe that when someone is ha...

I must be crazy for doing this. No, actually I must want to be silently (or maybe loudly) slaughtered by judgmental minds and peering eyes, crazed holy folks who will not, not NOT tolerate any type of diversion tactics, alternate theories, or openness to other levels of spiritual living. And I'm okay with that. Because I must be honest. I can honestly say I feel like I'm getting ready to "come out" to the world, and although I don't know what that's like for those who are homosexual, I know what it feels like to "come out" religiously, and I'm about to do just that.  Deep breath, you can do this. Just tell them what's on your mind. Just tell them...tell them... I don't think I'm a Christian anymore, guys. Instead of trying to beautifully articulate gluttonous paragraphs trying to sanely explain what goes on in my noggin, I'll just write a quick annotated list of what has spiritually been happening inside of THIS woman. I w...

To my lovely readers, I want you to know that I'm still here. I have been avoiding writing because my life is a little imperfect right now, and to share it with you would be very risky for me because it would mean being honest. As you know, I am very insistent on honesty. So since being honest would be hard, I decided to wait until I was confident enough to share this honesty with you. My life is such a grand mural, and a new paint or pattern may become splatted on it at the drop of a hat, with no warning and certainly no opportunity to wipe it off or rearrange. Once it's there, it's there. Displaying right on my heart. There's no way around it. I want to be responsible in how I share the new art that's been done, so that my words will paint an accurate and, again, confident portrait of what is now.  I find such an escape through writing, painting, playing my instruments. But I have to remember not everyone understands and unites with my soul. And I'm okay...