2013 All Packed Up & Ready To Be Released!

I am in California and so I am on Pacific Standard Time which means right now it is only 6:38 P.M. Still time for me to make my final post for 2013! 

I could not let the year go by without a post to end the year and so I would like to start here...

The day after Christmas December 26, 2013 I was at a friends house when a conversation began between two individuals and soon the entire table was talking about the topic. It was about a young mom going through the roller coaster of life dealing with her two children and trying to figure out how to feel OK, about it all. Dealing with an ex, her children's dad and their feelings about the entire situation and how she the mom was dealing with it all.  It was a tough conversation and for those of you who are single parents you know what I mean.  I don't want to go into details here since I don't have permission but it was tough - when your mom dealing with the kids and their feelings about their dad and you and the entire situation well it's just not good.  Everyone gave their input and everyone told her she was doing a good job and that she was not alone.  Well lets face it first of all everyone always has a great way of telling us it's all good and your doing everything right but when your laying awake at night and the lights are out - your not thinking it's all good!
And, yes it is really great to have friends and family around but again when your home at night alone it is just you making the final decisions, which makes you feel alone in the situation. She said that is how she felt!

I shared with her that I felt the same way at first and at first I too would lay awake at night feeling alone in the world and trying to figure out how I was going to make it all work!  But then I started to make connections, I made friends who I could confide in, I sought after individuals who I looked up to for guidance and reassurance.  I went through counseling because if I was going to help my kids get strong then I needed to be strong and I began to learn to trust my gut, my heart and my head.  I turned to my community for support and when there was none I created it!  I told her she was making great choices for her kids and doing some pretty good things and to be easy on herself.  So much was said that night but that was a conversation between her and I, in fact when I spoke to her I did not make it a part of the conversation but directed it right to her.

All of this reminded me why I started this Parenting On Your Own blog.. I remember the nights of feeling like it would never end and thinking how in the heck would I ever get us through this thing called life.  I wanted to share what I had done right, wrong, or almost had it perfect answers to situations of raising a One-Parent Family!

I am so glad I choose to share what my family of three went through with all of you and if by some chance I have helped anyone... well then I did a good thing. I always say "I don't want to go through all that I did for naught" I would love to think that by sharing someone will find some answers to their own situations.

In 2013:

I really pushed to get more info into this blog. I invited others to come on in and share with all of you their stories, though at this time we only had one person, it's a start!

I wanted to work this blog at a 100% but found that I was not quite there yet. Though I am excited to see where it can go!

I opened up Mama Cheesecake, my passion is great and I love these cheesecakes (mamacheesecake.com), they are how I raised money for my kids when they were small. It is how we got to take vacations, send the kids on special school trips, and so much more. Once I left the cheesecakes behind to go into the insurance world a part of me felt lost.  Figuring out how to take my life experience as a single mom into a blog or into a blog that could help other one-parent families helped.  But when I really felt like I had to get out of the insurance world in early April and a plan or thought I had to make Parenting On Your Own a full site with paid membership fell though, I felt pretty bad.  It was my cousin's daughter that suggested; no she told me I needed to start a cheesecake business.  It took a while for me to wrap my head around it but you know it felt right and, by the end of April Mama Cheesecake was born!
If it was not for winning a spot on the Count Me In (http://www.countmein.org) Business Accelerator Course with People Biz (http://www.peoplebizinc.com/about/) made this pretty darn easy!  I learned so much and the course was amazing I knew what I needed to do and how to do it. In fact currently this business takes care of it self which means this year it will start to pay for me and an employee to start with! All of this was started by becoming a member of National Latina Business Women’s Association-Los Angeles (http://www.nlbwa-la.org/).  You see doing what I use to do for my kids while raising them is what I now do for me!

Also in 2013...

I was selected to be a part of The Restart Project with Gwyneth Paltrow and Tracy Anderson (renowned trainer) produced by Ryan Seacrest’s production company.  Gwyneth Paltrow and Tracy Anderson spend time with women who’ve overcome hardship, injury, and setbacks to triumph in the face of adversity. We’ll hear their inspiring stories firsthand, whether fighting back from a career-ending injury or transforming their lives and bodies through diet and exercise.  This is an online featured series find it here:  http://on.aol.com/show/the-restart-project-518018512/episode/518030361

I am blessed with an amazing family, friends, mentors and coaches and some pretty Awesome kids, no less!  Life is pretty darn good, no great!

And, for days gone by here are my two little ones - of course they are much older now days and I am so proud of them!

I can't wait for 2014!

For 2014 I will be living Powerfully a life that defies the predictable!
And, my motto will be:

       And, so it goes...

We All Can Choose to Restart!

I’m sure almost all of us have gone through some sort of difficulty that at first made us feel like there was no way out, right?  Or that perhaps we could get out of it but we would never be the same again.  These are all so real thoughts and feelings and if possible I would wave my wand and keep bad things from happening to all of us (this is what I use to tell my kids when things would happen to them).  However, we also all know that it is by going through some of our toughest times that we grow the most.  It would not matter if the issue was health, finances, business,/work, a relationship and the list can go on.  Sometimes we are hit with more then one issue or incident at a time which can make us feel like it will never end. 

A good friend of mine up in Northern CA always says “Break downs bring break through” and I have shared this many of times.      

Something else I always have said is “I want to know that what I am going through right now is not for naught” “ I would like to know that some how I can be of assistance by sharing what I have gone through and my outcome in order to help someone else.  If I can make a difference in someone else’s life then it was worth it (so to speak); which is why I created this blog.  Maybe there is one thing someone will read that will help them make changes in their own life or in the life of their child/children.

So where am I going with all of this… I was approached to submit my info for a new web series - on.aol.com about women who are restarting their life after some pretty incredible issues.  I thought OK, why not maybe this will be my way to really helping others; that perhaps someone will watch and will be inspired to move forward to their successes.  Or perhaps they will be inspired to tell their story which could in turn help someone out.  

I truly believe we each have choices in our lives to make and these choices happen every day we can choose to move forward in a positive manner or we can choose to feeling lousy and being miserable with our lives.  We also should be thinking about the fact that what ever choice we make we are also teaching our kids to do the same thing.  I truly believe that is what always kept me from falling all the way to floor and not be able to get back up. Even as our kids grow into adults they are watching us!

Do we want our children growing up feeling like victims and allowing victimization to grow in their lives?  Well not me I wanted my kids to grow up being responsible for their actions and for them to always remember they have choices!  It really does not matter if our children are in a two-parent or one-parent family how they turn out is what they learn from the adults in their life.  As parents we are able to give them the guidance and tools they need to make good choices in their lives in order for them to know and understand that it is up to them to make their life as good as they want it to be!    

Unfortunately, there seems to be more bad then good highlighted in our news, on TV, and periodicals. We see and read about bad statistics, we are shown the ugliness of the world - instead of the good!  My intention has always been to show that there is good despite what is going on around us.  We will have to go out of our way to find it sometimes and we may have to have a vision that we never lose sight of but the good is there, I promise!

With all that said I would like to announce I was selected to be part of an amazing group of women who share their stories of falling but the show is not about falling to the ground but about how we all got back up and kept on going! How the word victim is not in our vocabulary and how despite things happening that were almost unbearable we all Restarted our lives!  I am honored and humbled to be one of the women being highlighted.

It is a new web series called The Restart Project.  Gwyneth Paltrow and fitness expert Tracy Anderson joined forces to bring this program to life and it is Produced by Ryan Seacrest Productions.  The Restart Project premieres December 16 (today) you can find it at on.aol.com.  I don’t know when my segment will run but it is well worth it to watch the entire series as it unfolds over the next several weeks the stories are amazing!  For those who do not know me by name I am Marian Lopez and now you will know who to watch out for on the series.

Here is the trailer for the show:

http://on.aol.com/video/the-restart-project-trailer-518030361

And, so it goes…