What do you do when your mom turns into a miserable person?  Is there anything you can do?

My mom has reached a point in her life where nothing seems to make her happy.  She travels from job to job and is always seeking something that will make her happy, and the truth is that nothing does.  I know that she has wanted to change careers or fields for a long time, and yet she seems to be stuck.  She isn't at an age where it is easy to break into a new career.  She has been in the auto industry for her entire adult life, and it seems that she has no joy in her job at all anymore.  She has had 4 different jobs in the last 4 years...the most recent only last 6 months.  Then she moved again.  At each job she finds fault with the management, or the processes, or something.

She started her new(est) job 2 weeks ago, and already seems very depressed and not excited about it.  When questioned, my sister and I get "it's ok so far", in a really dull, underinflated sort of tone.  She sounds like she hates it, but doesn't want to admit it.

She and my dad move from house to house constantly, and both seem constantly unhappy and upset.  'They have gotten to the point where they literally have no friends, because they have moved so many times and lost touch with any new acquaintances that might become friends, and their old friends from younger days have just faded away.  The two couples they were closest with...one died so the wife moved back to Missouri, and the other split up with his longtime girlfriend and so she is in Mexico and he is still around, but hard to round up, and regardless, lives many hours away from where they are now.  My mom never seems to make any friends at all, and so they only have friends that are ok with my dad....but he has lost his two close friends and never leaves the house to meet new people.

They don't attend a church of any kind, and are very much isolated.  They seem to have no faith in God at all, and I don't even think my dad believes in God.

I don't know how to help.  Phonecalls are so difficult because all they ever do is complain.  They move from one topic to the next, and from one complaint to the next.  My dad drinks sometimes and that is even more difficult because he just becomes more obnoxious.  My mom is currently living in a camper trailer during the week because they haven't fully relocated to their newest town yet....so my sister and I don't know where or what she is spending her time doing...we are afraid of what is happening in their lives, and they won't make any kind of change to better themselves or their circumstance.  They seem to be chasing around in circles and never looking for a real way out.  I don't understand and honestly, they have tired me out.  I don't know what to say...positive phonecalls always go down the drain until I finally hang up, feeling empty and exhausted.  They have a way of just making you feel guilty for enjoying any part of life, and unless you are miserable alongside them, they don't have much to say.  They don't call me at all....I've called them regularly but they haven't called my number in over a month.  It hurts my feelings, and I worry and pray for them, but really...what can I do?  She was on my mind more today, probably because Mother's Day is coming up.

It's sad.

45 days and counting until my wedding day!!!   I'm really excited.  I've also become very nervous, but I think it is just normal wedding jitters.  I want everything to go smoothly.  I am stressed out about wrapping up all the final ends of everything and so that is all normal stuff.  Invites have been mostly mailed, starting to get things transitioned from one house to the other, although that is hard since we won't be living together until after the wedding, and my lease runs out a few days after that.  Anyway, it'll all work out.

I miss Xanga... I paid the one year fee and then haven't had as much time as I thought I would to dedicate to posting and being present here.  I am hoping things will settle down and I"ll be able to post more after the next month has gone by.

Saturday morning I have a tax appointment.  It will be nice to have that done and over with, although it always makes me a little nervous when there is a new thing, and having sold my old house last year, I'm afraid there will be a big tax hit.  I hope not, as we sold the house at a loss, but you never can tell.

Anyway, hope everyone is doing well here!

What do you do with a 9 year old who is a terrible sore loser?

I've been having a struggle with my son in that area lately.   He likes to play games but he wants to win them all and he gets really rather ugly about it when he doesn't.  I've talked to him until I'm blue in the face, tried various punishments, etc.  Today there was sort of a big blow up at the end of the day because we went to watch some kids from church while their parents went out.  They came home and just before we left, my son and their son got into some sort of disagreement related to a video game.  It ended with the other little boy calling me crying on the phone after we left, because he was sure that my son didn't want to be his friend anymore.  That wasn't the case at all, my son had just (unbeknownst to me) gotten on the losing end of a game and said something mean before quitting the game.  Anyway, it worked out with the two of them, but I sat my son down and had a LONG talk with him about this problem.   I told him that he will be the kid who no one invites to play soon, because no one wants to keep playing games with a mean person who can't ever lose a game, or who gets mad when he does lose.  We talked about it for a long time and he did a lot of crying.  I think he actually listened for once.  I think it shocked him when his friend called him and was crying over something that meant so little to my son.  I don't think he realized how much it impacts other people, even though I've told him so many times.

So maybe this was a good lesson for him, and maybe it will be a sticking memory and point for him where he can realize that it does bother other people and not just him being angry when he acts like that.

Has anyone else dealt with this ?  What did you do to help it?  I don't want to have that bad mean child that no one likes, and I want to teach him how to be a good friend.  He is an only child, but when he was little, we did not let him win all the games.  It seems to be built in to his personality-all of his teachers have said at ALL the parent teacher conferences that he is so competitive and that he gets very upset with himself if he is not the best...right up from kindergarten until now.  I want him to feel good about being successful but I don't want his whole attitude and mood and life to depend on winning all of the things.  It is definitely a challenge for me as a parent...how to help him with this struggle.  What is the best way?

I guess I forgot that when I got engaged, I was working under the impression that I might not be able to use Xanga anymore, so I had stopped posting as much.

I got engaged on October 7, 2013.  I am engaged to a man that I met at church.  He is wonderful.  He and my son get along very well and everyone is happy.  My son was very excited about our getting married and he was quite interested right away in the possibility of a purple tux (that was a NO!!).  He makes very cute references to the the day when pastor "marries us"..in reference to himself, J, and I.  I think that is so cute and I like that he is excited about it and excited that we will be married.

Anyhow, that is obviously the quick version of meeting, getting to know, and subsequently getting engaged to someone.

Today we went and ordered the tuxes for the wedding, and also ordered the cake.  The cake is going to be lemon with raspberry filling.  I was in quite a panic earlier in the week because nothing was really done for the wedding, and so I sort of wanted a lot to happen today, and I am happy that it did!

I miss the Xanga feature that would allow me to search for and insert a small picture of the book that I am currently reading.  But look, I've managed to figure out how to do it myself!  The book I'm reading, shown below, is called Behaving Like Adults, and is written by Anna Maxted.  I like the book-it is a bit depressing, but also with enough humor mixed in that I am maintaining full level of interest and entertainment while dealing with the grown up issues in the story.

Ok, off I go!!!

On Sunday afternoon, fiance and I went to see the movie American Hustle.  I had not seen any previews for it, and only read a quick blurb.  I knew basically what it was about, but hadn't seen any reviews or anything like that.  It was a good movie.  There was a serious lack of bra wearing in the film, but if you could look past that, it was actually pretty interesting to try and figure out who was conning who.  I don't want to say too much, because I don't want to ruin it for any of you who haven't seen it, but it was good.  Of course, certainly not for kids.  The rating wouldn't lend one to think it is kid appropriate, but I felt like I should say it anyway!  Haha

Countdown is on now-my wedding date is less than 90 days away!!!  Yikes!!!  Time has flown by.

I'm so excited!!!!  I can post again!!!!   It took me awhile to figure out why I couldn't post, and how to get the payment through to Xanga, and also to provide them with the payment confirmation, etc., but here I am!!!!

Have any of you ever been asked to give your testimony in church or to a group?  If so, I'd be happy to hear any details you might be willing to share.  I have shared news about Jesus and my life with many people, but never really "on command" or in a large group setting, and I'm preparing for that.  I have lots of thoughts on sharing my testimony but they are rather hard to spell out...I've been typing and deleting this for maybe 10 minutes already, so I'll just leave this much and see if there are thoughts. 

I am happy that it looks like Xanga is staying around! It looks like there will  be some changes to the format, but I am hoping for the best and will just continue posting as usual and try to figure out all the changes as I come across them.  I didn't pay for a year or anything like that, but I did make a small donation to the fundraiser, so hopefully that means I'll get to stay and can still access all of my stuff when the relaunch happens.

I turned 30 last week! I had my birthday on the same day that my son went into 4th grade!  What a big day!

Currently Let the Nations Be Glad!: The Supremacy of God in Missions By John Piper see related

I've just been hanging around waiting to see if Xanga makes it through or not!!!  I'm hoping so because I am rather attached...

From the time when I was pregnant and I thought about having a baby and then raising that child into adulthood, I have thought that the ages from 9 to 11 would be the hardest for me.  I was right! 

My son is 9 now and we are butting heads like never before.  We still get along fairly well and compared to some of my friends and coworkers, I know I have it easy.  For myself and my son, though, this time is a challenge.  I never went through the terrible two’s with him, or any of those other “stages” that people often refer to in horror.  He has always been my little buddy.  Times have changed!  He is quick to challenge me now, and I can tell that he gets frustrated and bored with me because I don’t have as many things in common with him.  He wants to spend more and more time with his dad, which I know is good and natural, as he develops more masculine interests, but it is hard for me.  Particularly since his dad and I are divorced, it tends to strike my heart more than it might otherwise.  I am glad they have a good relationship, but some days I feel like he is slipping away from me at a rapid pace and sometimes I feel pretty helpless about it. 

How do you connect with your 9 year old?