I smiled today.

It's snowing today and most who live in Wisconsin right now would probably be saying this with a grumble in their voice as we are ready for spring...green grass, birds chirping and buds to reappear on the trees. But this morning, after my daughter's basketball game, as I was about to reenter my snow covered minivan, I looked at my door handle and smiled.

There were piles of beautiful, unique, individual snowflakes. They were the kind were you can actually see that the saying is true, "No two snowflakes are alike." The kind of snowflakes that really do land on your nose and eyelashes and land like glitter on your gray sweater and black gloves. Truly amazing. I am so glad I am at a place today, where I can enjoy, simply notice and appreciate the beauty of snowflakes today. I haven't been at a place to appreciate gifts in nature lately.

Life has been, shall I say challenging? Starting the year off realizing my relationship as well as engagement was over, I did make it to a place where I realized it was for the best and am back at a place that I am doing well on my own again. Then, less than a month later I have two sick children. Housebound for most of the week, the one evening when my kids went to their dad's, I went into work to discover, due to financial issues at church, they have cut hours on six positions, mine being one of them. Only ten hours were cut, but that ten hours means no insurance after May. So much for being glad I got out of the house. I spent the rest of the week as home caring for sick kids and trying not to become sick with worry and stress myself. The following week, as I returned to work, the Director of the Preschool job I took on this year, met with me and expressed her disappointment with my attendance last week at work. I explained to her, what she already knew, that I am a single mom, with no family around to help and had kids with a fever of 103, I couldn't leave them. She continued on upset and after leaving, I spoke with others at work pointing out I had to stay home and they then pointed out her treating me this way was not legal and I have every right to stay home with a sick child. I am pretty much over it, yet am wondering if I really want to work for a person who treats people in this way.

So February arrives, my employment future unclear, no relationship in site and it's time for Valentine's Day. Perhaps I should take a step back in case you haven't read my journaling before, that I am one of the biggest romantics out there...alone again this year on the holiday to celebrate love. Fortunately, Valentine's Day landed on a Monday and I had my kids with me. I had decided earlier that I was going to through a party on Valentine's Eve to celebrate the wonderful friendships in my life this year and then ended up having my daughter's birthday party on Valentine's Day after school as well. Needless to say, I had no downtime to focus on the lack of love in my life this year, which is exactly my intention from the start.

So, in true Lisa form, I over planned, became a bit overwhelmed, but had a great time with my friends and my daughter claimed her celebration was "awesome". Onto mid-February and the media. If you turn on any TV, pick up a newspaper or even log into Yahoo or Facebook, you'll see images and read stories about the protests at the state Capitol. Trying to help balance the state budget a huge cut in the salary of state workers/nurses/teachers pay through making them pay for health care and pensions and more importantly putting an end to unions. We hit National News last weekend with over 70,000 people protesting and impressively without one arrest. Many people I know are being deeply affected by this. I was and may in the future, be a public school teacher and currently have friends that are feeling the stress and fears impacting their lives. Today, I have friends downtown standing up for the teachers, nurses and many others. I have been asked to join them, yet coming from a non-political family, I just don't feel comfortable going down their, especially alone. I also have coworkers at church that are on the opposing side of all of this and at times it gets to be a bit stressful and overwhelming with it all going on.

As I took my kids down to my parents yesterday, to celebrate my dad's 65th birthday, my Mom-a retired teacher-and I briefly spoke about all of this, as they no longer live in the state and are missing much of the news coverage. I pointed out the sad fact that 20 teachers in our school district were forced to retire due to the intense changes about to be made. My mom, almost excited, pointed out that there will be a much better chance of me getting back into teaching this fall then. She was assuming that now that my son is in school, of course I'd leave my low paying church job to go back to what I got my college degree for. Only, last night I spoke with my friend currently teaching, who pointed out that there is a good chance all of the teachers in town are going to be receiving pink slips unknowing how many will be rehired or what will happen. I don't want to be viewed as taking a job from someone else, nor do I have any clue what I will be facing going back into education after this bill passes as it appears it will. It's a scary out there in the work world.

Then there is the lack of responsibility my ex-husband has been putting towards our children. Today is the first time in the past two weeks that he has taken our children. First, he did not take them on his Wednesday night due to coming back late from an out of state work meeting. Then this past Wednesday, I had a text saying he was running late at work, then another, until finally he said I should just keep the kids for the night.

This morning, I awoke to a call from him, explaining that our son didn't want to go to basketball, which was odd as he was excited yesterday an the past six weeks...he talk to him again and then text me to let me know. No, he didn't go this morning, I explained to my friend, while I sit on the empty bench above her at my daughters game. About 15 minutes into her game, he appeared walking around the court to the benches with both my son and daughter walking slowly in front of him. As they were getting closer, my friend commented that they were not wearing shoes, then "Oh, no and Allie's crying". As they got to where I was seated, he explained that the kids forgot their shoes back home. I got up right away and walked hand in hand with my daughter over to the assistant coach and explained that she did not have shoes, but I would go out in the lobby and look through this week's donation for the Clothes Closet and see if I could find some and had her sit down by her team. Thank you Lord, there were shoes out there in her size and she was able to play in the game...not only did she play but made a basket this week as well. As I came back to sit next to my son on the bleachers, my ex-husband returned and thanked me for finding her shoes and I noticed he had went and got my daughter's DS. So as I watched and cheered on my daughter, my son and ex-husband both sat next to me, playing video games. Oh well, at least she was able to play.

In summary, life at the end of February, life the past few months has been, well I suppose challenging is the best word for it. Somehow, through self-help books, morning motivation/devotional readings done at night, through friends and prayer I have made it to today.

Before I end today's entry, I should mention something that made me smile this past week. As I was reading through facebook postings one evening this week, a friend I graduated from high school with, who was divorced a year before me, has posted recently about his search for his soul mate, was asking the question, "How do you rock a women's world? No not in bed!" I began by commenting that it depends on the women. As others game their advice ti came out that things were not going well and he was trying to find something to wow her. I pointed out that "if she was really your soul mate, just being you should WOW her." I continued reading responses as he soon commented back, "Lisa, it's not the same, as easy as ten years ago..." Like I needed him to point that out to me! HA! I responded, "Spend your time and energy on things you enjoy. Find your own happiness and that's when it will happen." What happened after this amazed me..."Whoever Lisa is, she's right!"; "Lisa must be very smart"...and after he said, "I have had very good luck in my life of telling the world my problems and doing what people tell me to do...Facebook makes that so much more dangerous and very entertaining" In closure, I replied to him, "Yes, but when it come to relationships, you really should believe in yourself/your gut/intuition or whatever you want to call it. Deep down you'll know the right answer, you many hate it...but you'll know."

I smiled when I logged off and closed my laptop that night. Regardless of all that has been happening in my life, I am learning, growing and actually, for once-taking me own advice.