Life

This was the highlight of my 10 year old daughters life. Back in July we brought her to the Fan Expo where she met and had her picture taken with Matt Smith. She is an obsessed Doctor Who lover and this was a really meaningful event for her. (We won’t discuss the sadness of the regeneration of the 11th doctor yet)
I will tell you though, it was a hell of a lot easier to fork over the money for this event than it would have been to have to take her to a One Direction concert. I am happy her interests seem to be more Sci Fi and less traditional tween at the moment.

Naming a child is hard. So hard, and so much responsibility. It is one of those decisions that can leave you with regret, guilt, or even make your child wonder wtf you were on when you chose their name. Which could cause them to promptly change it when they come of age. Continue Reading →

Hello. My name is Sara and I want to be a Freelance Writer. Who wouldn’t, with all those glorified images and stories of care-free travel, pool side writing, and exciting experiences you see online and in movies. I do not fit into that image.  I am more familiar with topics like, what it is like when your child will only eat the same thing everyday for weeks, teaching children to read (my children, I don’t have the patience for other children), and how much fun it is to catch vomit in your hands. I sit here day in and day out as a stay at home mom who homeschools, wishing that I had something of my own to have. Then I started asking myself, how can I accomplish this and still raise a family at home? So for an undisclosed embarrassing amount of time I have been pondering the questions: Can I become a freelance writer? What if I become a freelance writer? How do I begin to become a freelance writer? My answer is “I’m not actually sure, but I think have to try.”

Everything I have read says that having a blog is a good platform for entering freelance writing. It allows you you get in practice, get yourself out there, maybe even build an audience that will help to integrate you in to freelance writing jobs. Shamefully I have had this blog for almost year without a single new post. What a wasted opportunity. It is something I plan to change beginning now.

So if I go back to my ideal image of what I naively perceive a freelance writer to be. I would love to be able to pack my laptop, grab my carry on*, and jump onto a plane to visit an amazing destination that inspired me to write. Instead I am writing from my desktop while my children are eating Fruit Loops from the box and watching Frozen. Well, one is watching Frozen, the other one is playing Minecraft.  I do not have personal experience in travelling the world but I do know where most of the countries in the world are located. I have a vast variety of experience with having children that range from gross to glorious. I am also a mother who loves fashion more than she has the money to support it. I try really hard to remain stylish on a very minimal budget. Budget chic. So I am putting it out there. I want to be a Freelance writer. I have no idea how to start or even if this is possible. This blog may be a journey of that, or may just be a journalling of my crazy life. I will have to see what route it takes.

*Although I haven’t travelled extensively I have researched and honed my skills of packing for a trip using just a carry-on suitcase. I have compiled a huge list of packing ideas on my Pinterest. Too bad I can’t get paid to pack a suitcase.

I just sat down after doing a quick pick up of the apartment. The funny thing is that I just did the exact same thing three hours ago. How a home can get so messy in such a short period of time? Kids is the quick answer. I’m sure it’s a lot deeper than that, but oh man so they do damage. I really don’t know how to beat it. I have downsized and purged. Tried buying less toys for the sake of buying toys and stick to just a few key things that they really enjoy. I mean, I purged five bags full of stuff just from the girls room a few weeks ago to donate and I am still being overrun with things. I see pictures of beautiful homes, with clean tidy, minimalistic designs and my thoughts are twofold. The first thought is how much I would love to have that type of home. It would be a breath of fresh air to get out of bed in my beautiful, clean, crisp looking home. No tripping on things or closing my eyes as I walk past piles that need to be put away. I would walk into my zen living room, unroll my yoga mat and start my day with the most glorious sun salutation. My second thought is, that is never going to happen. Never. How do these people do it? Before we moved to this place it was my goal to downsize. I went through everything and purged, trashed, donated, gave away so many things. Even our wardrobes got culled big time. I thought I did well. My mother-in-law noticed a huge difference when she came over (or so she said). When we moved we rented a 14ft Uhaul truck and we still didn’t have room for everything needing to make a second trip. I can see how there is a direct correlation to depression and having too much crap. It’s overwhelming, disheartening, and suffocating. We moved into this place a little over a month ago and I still have boxes that haven’t been touched because I just don’t know where to put it. I would love to have enough money to start over. Get rid of everything and slowly replace things as we need them in order to cut down on crap. I peruse Pinterest regularly pinning my ideal home, hoping to one day be able to have something that resembles that. Then I glance up from my computer, look around the room, take a deep breath, and start picking stuff up again.

I am Sara, 35, married for 10 years, with two girls age 10 and 4. I have been a mother for 10 years and somewhere along the way that is all I have become. I lost myself during some unknown moment and am trying to find the path back. I am an ambitious procrastinator, a hopeful traveler,  a self taught wannabe linguist, and a history loving, bibliophile, with the deep desire to put down roots in a foreign country. One so filled with history you can feel it in your soul. I also want to start being a freelance writer. So if you have any advice just comment below or shoot me an email through my contact form. To give you an idea of who I am, I present you a list of random facts about me.

1. I am completely disorganized. I have grandiose plans although they never get fully accomplished.
2. I am introverted, not shy.
3. I do get social anxiety sometimes though. I think that has more to do with the fact that I suck at small talk and chasing around a 4 year old who is borderline wild does not equate to good times.
4. I am a cup half empty kind of person. The eternal pessimist. The upside? I never expect anything to work out so if it does I am genuinely surprised and thankful.
5. I play the lottery weekly because if I don’t, then you know my numbers will be drawn next week. This goes back to the pessimist/cup half empty thing.
6. I am Agnostic.
7. I’ve got a potty mouth. I used the F word as verb, adverb, adjective, command, interjection, and noun. Sometimes all at once.
8. I get uncomfortable when people say my name. It’s hard to explain, but it almost doesn’t feel like it is my name or that they are talking to me.
9. I can’t relax. Even if I try meditation or yoga I can never clear my head. I don’t get massages for this reason as well.
10. I consider myself skinny-fat and am going to try to hard to change that.
11. I really want to get a Standard Poodle and name her Scheherazade. I saw it in an old black and white movie a long time ago and it stuck. I can’t remember the movie so if you know what it is called I would love to hear it.
12. I wish I could time travel. I only have interest of going back in time not forward.
13. My favourite movie is The Sound of Music. I don’t know why.
14. I think I was visited by an alien when I was 5. I remember waking up to it standing in the corner of my room staring at me.
15. I hate using text speak. If you text me expect a slight delay in response time because my reply will be full length.
16. I get car sick.
17. I prefer overcast and rainy to sunny.
18. My dream is to live in Europe. I haven’t finalized my preferred destination yet though.
19. I homeschool my children……well child #2 isn’t old enough yet. I do not homeschool for religious purposes (see #6) but because I feel that education isn’t one size fits all.
20. I prefer tea to coffee.
21. Red is my favourite colour, but I usually wear a lot of black.
22. After highschool I applied to college for Interior Design. My portfolio got “lost” in the mail and they could not process my application without it. Dream squashed.
23. I guess that worked out because I am not really creative. I can do some creative type things like sewing and mediocre drawing if I have something to copy (patterns or pictures). But I cannot come up with an idea on my own.
24. I really want to search my family Genealogy but I do not know where to start. I guess I am hoping that I will find out one of my grandparents had citizenship to another country and I can get my own granted because of this (goes with #18). Wishful thinking.
25. I don’t know how to coupon.
26. I used to be a people pleaser but now I am just bitchy.

On my quest to be more healthy I obviously included eating better. Which is huge for me because I really like to not eat well. I enjoy all the bad for you places. When I used to work retail in a mall there was too many occasions to count that I ate McDonalds three times in one shift (if it was a 12 hour shift). So my goal is not super 100% organic because I am a realist, but I am definitely trying to make better choices. If only my kids were on the same page. Anyway, I decided I would be rebellious and have a spinach salad with lunch today instead of my typical  potato chips and I had way more energy this afternoon.  Shocking? I know. This leads me to wishing that I was a more motivated and effective meal planner and chef because I’m sure it would save us some money and cure the dinner doldrums. As it stands, I need to figure out how to make the food budget stretch because there is a large price difference to where we lived last month and where we live now. A big difference. I literally flinch as I toss things in to the cart when I see the price of them. This grocery store gives air mile points so I thought, “hey, it may be pricey but at least it is going towards helping me achieve my travelling dream.” Then you look at your air miles balance and see it only went up a couple of miles after spending $80…….I just can’t win.

P.S. That $80 wasn’t on a full grocery shop if you were thinking that cost wasn’t too bad. That was just a mid week top up shop. Full grocery is twice as much. *Flinch*

Also, if you know of any great budget meal planning sites, let me know.