Nightmares. Do you have them too?

This one is a doozy. So strong, it woke me up at 2 am in a panic. It actually involves my ex. :'(

I dreamed that I was moving into a new house, and I turn the corner in my hallway and he (my ex) is standing right there, and I scream and slip and faint. When I wake up I'm in a locked room, and my 7 yo is just sitting on a chair playing a game on a phone. Then the ex comes in and my son gets up, runs to him to give him a hug, and they leave together, without saying a thing to me. Then the ex comes back, says something that I can't remember now, but it was something that made me start panicking... That's when I woke up for a bit (about 30-40 minutes). I went back to sleep, and the nightmare actually continued. I was able to get out of the room and run across the freeway (yea, strange) and run into a bathroom in a restaurant and call 911. I was telling the person that I had been kidnapped, my son was missing, and I was able to escape, but I couldn't tell them where I was because I was afraid that he would find me. I told them he wanted to kill me, and I was scared that he would kill all three kids. cry emoticon Then my alarm started going off and I had to get up again.

Anyone an expert in nightmares? What could this mean? It still gives me shivers, and makes me go look through my house before I go to sleep and right after I wake up, and even when I first get home from work. Not a good thing.

What nightmare have you had that has stayed with you for a long time? Was it so strong it felt like you were actually experiencing it, and NOT dreaming?

"I Know, I Know (I've Been There Too)"

I want to let you know about a new friend of mine. She's absolutely amazing!! And she's going viral!

Who might this be you ask, and how has she gone viral?

Well, it's none other than the beautiful and talented Shannon Curtis.

Photo by  Stephan Babuljak Photography

And I'll get to the viral part in a minute.

I first heard about Shannon through a mutual friend. My friend, D we'll call her, invited me to a house concert last June. Never heard of a house concert before? Neither had I, lol... Anyway, D had invited me to another one a year or two prior, but for some reason I didn't go. This time, she shared a link to a cute song by Shannon called "Let's Stay In"  Watch it first, and you'll see what I saw and heard:

Amazing song. Adorable visuals on this as well! 

The song by itself got me intrigued. I absolutely love her voice, and her lyrics are thought provoking! So I looked up a few other songs, and listened to them and decided "Why not?" 

June 2014 came, and I joined my friend D and a bunch of other locals for the house concert. Set in a backyard just a couple blocks from my own house, on a nice summer evening, I had no idea what to expect.  When I arrived, I quickly found D, and she immediately introduced me to Shannon!

By the end of the evening, my teenage daughter, my then 5yo son, and myself were amazed. It was amazing to hear Shannon's voice mix angelically with her synthesizer. I absolutely LOVED the songs she had sung. She was promoting her newest album at the time Metaforma. I took the opportunity to purchase that album, and a couple other albums that she had brought along.

See the unique thing about Shannon is that she does these house concerts via donations and merchandise sales. She does not sell tickets for her concerts, nor performs in huge stadiums. She travels all over the US and sometimes into Canada with her husband/producer Jaime Hill, in their cute little VW car. Just the two of them. Love it! And through their travels, they connect with EVERYONE. She not only has her personal Facebook page, but also a professional FB page, a website, a YouTube channel, Twitter... She has a heart of gold too.  I'll tell you more about that in just a sec.

Right now she is in the planning for her 2015 Summer House Concert Tour. I hope to hear that she is coming near me again, so I can see her perform again. Hopefully I'll be in a better position to sign up to host one of her house concerts next year. :)

Just a few days ago she unveiled her newest video, with a song that is off her upcoming album which she will be promoting during this summer's house concert tour. Before I share that video with you, you need to know a little more about her video and the song. The song is titled "I Know, I Know"  It's a powerful song. The message is real. To add to the lyrics, the video shows snippets of personal messages from some of her friends. A few months ago she posted on her FB asking for some help with a project. Turns out the project was this song and video! Who knows how many people submitted videos to her for the project, but the ones she picked were powerful.

So, I'll just get right to the point: the video was unveiled April 7th. Yesterday afternoon, April 15th, the video ended up on Upworthy, an online publishing/news feed on FB. They share "things that matter."

To put it in other words: THE VIDEO HAS GONE VIRAL!!  As of last tally (just as I'm typing), the post share via Upworthy about Shannon's video for "I Know, I Know" has had over 2.3 MILLION VIEWS!!

NOW, see the video for yourself!

I'm throwing around ideas for my own message to share with Shannon on her site that she shares at the end of the video: http://iknowiknow.me. 

And yesterday Shannon and Jaime started a 3 week long fundraising campaign to get the new album Connections into finished production. Check out her webpage at http://shannoncurtis.net/, and help her out by clicking on the right side of the page, and picking a donation level that you are comfortable with.  I'm still debating on which level I can afford vs which one I really want to donate to. :)  A bonus: one of the $40 donation levels will have ALL PROCEEDS go to the Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance!

Now can you understand why I said she has a heart of gold? :)

Now GO! Listen to her music. Support her efforts! BECOME A FAN!! <3 <3 <3

What make you angry, or just irks you the most?

For me, right now that is, it's the school district, and the local bus company that they have a contract with.

Here's why.

Today a group of the high school girls had the opportunity to visit a shop that gives away prom dresses. The school arranged for them to go, submitted the request for a bus, and told the girls they were leaving at 5:30am. With a group of around 25 girls, it's gonna take a whole entire day to try on and pick out the best dress.

So I drive my daughter and three of her friends to the school at 5:15am, and sit and wait for them to board the bus so I could go home...  5:30 comes and goes and no bus. One of the teacher chaperones started looking for the number of the bus barn to find out what was going on. Meanwhile, the group of girls are freezing. I mean, It's the butt crack of dawn and most of them are still waking up! It's COLD outside at that time of the morning. Anyway, the teacher can't get a hold of anyone at the bus barn. She finally get's a hold of the school secretary who in turn tried to get a hold of them as well. Nothing.

And this whole time span, of around an hour of back and forth phone calls, the girls are STILL outside, freezing.  The teacher that was there didn't have access to the school for them to go inside and stay warm or even use the bathroom. WTH?

FINALLY, an hour and half later, the school secretary and the teacher decided that the bus was never going to show up. So the alternative was to use the small district buses. One slight problem though. Only one certified driver was available and there were too many girls to fit legally onto that one small  bus. Thankfully a mom volunteered to drive a few girls in her van.

Little more than TWO HOURS later, they were finally off!

So, apparently this isn't the first school event this year the bus company has forgotten about. They've forgotten a couple sports teams as well this year. I say three times is three times too many!! I was also told that the company is going through major restructuring and has been going through new drivers like a box of kleenex. Not good.

And the teacher that didn't have access to the school to let the girls in this morning while they were waiting? She had been previously stripped of front door privileges a few months back for something that she wasn't responsible for. So, the school should have had another teacher available to let the kids in to stay warm. OR they could just have allowed this teacher full access again!

I'm definitely going to write a strongly worded letter to the school principal and superintendent, as well as the bus company.

What's been your beef lately?

Happy 2015!

We made it.

2014 is over,  let the past stay in the past.

It's now 2015. We now have 364 days to make mistakes, tumble, fall flat on our faces, and then pull ourselves up and rise like the phoenix. Or the opposite.

The point is,  we have 364 days to make memories that will imact ourselves and others around us for the rest of our lives.

There are some things I want to accomplish in 2015. I'm not talking what my resolutions are,  because we ALL know that NO ONE  ever keeps them. Just some goals that can carry me on past just one year.

This year I want to make better food choices for not only myself,  but for my entire family.  Cook more,  less eating out, less processed sugar, no more soda... I'll give us the first three months of this year to figure out how we are going to accomplish this together. It's not something you can start suddenly one day and that's it.

I also want to get a handle on my severe depression. I let it get the better of me in 2014, and that resulted in many heart breaking moments between myself and my kids, as well as my few friends I have here. Other things will fall into place once I can get my depression calmed down.

The last thing I want to accomplish this year is to build my Mia Bella candle business up enough that I don't have to work two jobs outside the house. I'm a single mom of three, two of whom are teenagers. I want to get to the level I was a few years ago while living in CA. Just a couple hundred extra a month.

We shall see. It all depends on how firmly I apply myself towards these goals.

What are some things YOU want to accomplish in 2015?