A little about me…

So…I was born in Calgary, Alberta Canada. You may know it as being the famous Calgary Stampede town. That was probably one of the greatest events we went to annually growing up. From roping to rodeo and chuckwagon racing! Very fun.

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I lived in Canada until I was about 12 years old. At that time we moved to a nice city 45 minutes north of San Fransisco, CA. I was definitely not ready for the culture shock of moving from Canada to California. I had never heard of “pot” or any other kind of illegal drug.

I can’t lay blame on anyone for my lack of knowledge. It is what it is. I just learned by experimenting instead of in school or strict warnings from parents.  I got into some, not very advisable, activities that followed me for many years. In fact, I only escaped the grasp of alcoholism about 2 or 3 years ago. Not to say I don’t drink anymore because I do. I just don’t do it every night, alone, in my garage until bed time.

Back to the story, my family ended up moving North to Vancouver, WA where I currently reside (well close to Vancouver, WA anyways).  You probably read my bio piece so I don’t have to go into my current status again.

Moving to the Portland metro area, was a good thing for my family but both my brother and I were in high school when we arrived here and it made a little difficult to fit in. We ended up hanging with the kids that would accept us and those ended up being the “party” kids. We had wayyyyy too much fun.  Thankfully in those days there was no Facebook and Insta!

In my Senior year of high school I went from having your normal average high school fun to doing crank. Some people refer to it as meth. I was completely hooked from day 1. I had energy like no other and I was doing great in school, my parents were proud of me and they even bought me my first car. They had no idea what I was into at the time.

Shortly after, say 3-4 months after diving into the meth pool, I went to stay with my cousins Grandma and I stopped doing meth. I like to think of my stay as an unexpected rehab. It was an amazing place with fresh squeezed OJ and fresh bagels daily. I slept ALOT and ate even more. However, I am so very thankful that the opportunity arose for me to vacation there. I have no idea where I would be now had I continued on the path I had chosen.  Once I got “clean” I re-connectied with my ex-boyfriend and ended up being pregnant (WTH?!?) we were super excited and decided the best thing to do was get married. I mean what else would a 17 and 19 year old couple do? We had another son together and ended up divorced in 2000. The marriage was not what I would call successful, obviously. My ex-husband was a verbally abusive person and I chalk that up to the way he was raised and being young.  I am sure my own sarcasm (I can’t help myself sometimes) did not help at all.

There were times during our marriage and divorce that I thought I may end up in prison for a very very long time. Thankfully, that is not the case.  Today we are better at communicating and I am even friends with his wife! Growing up really makes a difference!

Fast forward to now (2018), I am married to my husband of 12 years and we have another child together. She is 16; do that math 🙂 We were together for several years prior to getting married. We both entered the marriage with 2 kids from previous relationships and then for fun added one more together. I felt like a modern day Brady bunch.   Having a blended family is probably one of THE hardest things you can do to yourself. There are so many unexplainable emotions and feelings that it sometimes feels as if you are going nuts. Thankfully, time has a way of getting you through the tough times only to come out on the other side a much wiser, patient and empathetic person.

I will say the one constant piece that 100% got me through to where I am now is Jesus Christ. I have been on some nasty drugs and thought I was going to die and only calling out to Jesus helped me get through. I have done some very selfish things and only Jesus has allowed me to forgive myself and keep growing. I was never, and am still not, the “perfect” christian. However, Jesus loves me this I know and without his love and constant rescue I believe I would be a very different person today.

So! This is a pretty high level descritpion of my life. There are many other stories that I don’t think I can share today. Perhaps later in the blog… we shall see! I hope you will share your story with me!

God Bless and keep you.