Month: March 2016

I’d like to say that the general rules have kept me out of alot of arguments and middle of confusion but alas, these traits were learned and not taught. So, I am going to pass on my pearls of wisdom on this subject that you may avoid conflict in your life. These simple rules or guidelines I like to call them has kept my life peaceful for many years. It is a realm I was not at all familiar with but I must say I have made myself at home and I do not intend on leaving, ever.
I like to think I am a kind and often soft spoken individual, except when I have to repeat myself which is a personal peeve of mine. But we will talk about that later.
I have found myself in uncomfortable situations many times and usually it was innocent on my part,  so I believed, but the ramifications were nothing less than demeaning and downright humiliating. I would never wish that upon anyone, friend or foe. But we have to realize that even the kindest of words or gestures can be misinterpreted or misconstrued and you will quickly find yourself on the defense of a situation that you have no idea how you got yourself into to begin with.
Some of what I tell you may be non conventional to some or just wrong to others. But trust me, I have sought other routes and have found that this is the only way for me. I am an introvert by chance, sensitive to the max, and kind hearted to a fault. I hardly ever speak my mind, will cry over spilled milk, and give you my grocery money just to make you smile. I have no idea where I got this from because my mother and grandmother are almost completely the opposite.
My mother was as kind hearted as can be, will give you the shirt off her back but as long as she has a t shirt on. She will not bite her tongue and her words can cut like a knife. It takes a lot to make her cry but when she does you can feel her pain and know that she has reach her breaking point but it makes her stronger and even harder to break. I used to wish I were more like her but, I’m just me. Over the years I have learned myself and became the best me I can be. I have lost friends along the way, mostly due to the aforementioned confusion and the fact that I don’t speak  when I should.
By now you are probably thinking, well get to it already, I know I would be. I just had to give you a little background on who I am and how I stumbled across this free wealth of knowledge. Trial and error.

1. Always tell the truth.
2. Speak when spoken to.
3. Keep all comments, both good and bad to yourself.
4. Be honest with yourself.
5. Don’t dilute yourself to appease others.
6. Value your morals.
7. If you don’t have any ^ go get some.
8. You don’t need a bunch of friends.
9. Know what you want.
10. Life can be beautiful.

-Rush

Working hard rarely seems to ever be immediate gratification or congratulations. Sometimes we keep digging and digging and we never reach our pot of gold, so we quit never quite knowing what our rewards was and sometimes worse off, we were a lot closer than we thought we were. Its like doing push ups, well for me anyway. I say I’m going to do 30 and when I start off I am full of energy, eager to reach my goal. It seems the closer I get to that 30 mark the harder o have to push and the more I want to quit. At 21 my arms start to feel the burn. By 23 I have to squeeze my eyes close to concentrate. At 25 my arms feel like they are going to give out. By 28 I am literally telling myself ‘that’s good enough. I hit 29 and a smile appears on my face because I know by now I can surely make it. If I quit now I will be thinking about that last push up I did not do. I would have cheated myself by one measly push up. And if I were to get back down to do just one push up there would be absolutely no gratification in it. I will still feel cheated. More than likely I will beat myself up a little thinking ‘Really! You couldn’t do just ONE more?!’ Nobody wants to feel like that yet we do it to ourselves so often. We set a goal and when it doesnt come quick enough we get exhausted. We feel it must not have been that great of an idea to begin with and we abandon it. We must believe better of ourselves. Better IN ourselves. Trust you WILL get there. Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow but you will, eventually. I know, eventually seems like such a long way away but eventually can be in the next five minutes. You will not know if you quit, will you. If I just keep doing those push ups I will eventually get to 30. The only differnce is I have learned that 30 comes after 29 so I KNOW its close. When setting goals and seeking to fulfill your dreams we must remember that eventually will come. It must become such a known factor that its as easy as thinking 30 comes after 29. Because you would not have known that had you not learned that. Trust yourself. The idea you had was yours but if you do not stick to it with determination, drive, amd trust (in your idea and in yourself) someone will stumble across it and fulfil what you were umwilling to. Remember, everything in steps. 2 comes after 1 and 3 after 2. You cannot skip and jump to thirty no matter how much you think you want to. Because even worse than falling short of your accomplishments is falling short of and failing yourself. Imagine me setting that goal of 30 push ups and counting by 3’s. Sure, I’ll get there faster. But will it be gratifying? Worse yet its not true thus my goals will not truly be met and therefore it is a failure.  Before you know it you will have reached your goal. It will seem as if were suddenly overnight but what really happened is eventually finally came. Each step brings you closer and though some of those steps may seem agonizing, just know its bringing eventually closer to you. So keep pushing. Trust the process and know that eventually may take awhile to get here but it will get here. Stay positive!
-Rush

P.S.
Yes I can only do 30 traditional push ups. Don’t judge me.

How can it be? It’s impossible. There is no way you would do that to me, are you even capable of getting over on me? It sounds so conniving and I would never think anything like that of you. But alas, I must put you to the test to see. Maybe not tonight. Maybe not tomorrow night, but soon. Right? I am so confused.

Turns out my baby has been playing me like a fiddle. I have been wondering why I am up every three hours, still. I mean he is 6 months old now and yet I find myself not getting adequate sleep. And naps? Hmph, forget about it. That’s when my time is required with my other babies.
When he sees me walk pass him, providing he allowed me to leave his presence in the first place, he cries like something is wrong, his cries tugging on my heart and as always I come running. I check him out and soothe him and I am good…until I walk by again. So that part I was not surprised but we are all told “babies cannot be spoiled”. Shoot these doctor’s haven’t met my chunky boy. I love him so much I cannot stand to see him unhappy. But this, this is low for even you mister. I get up to whimpers and cries all throughout the night to feed and cuddle then rock him back to sleep. He is a handsome healthy baby boy, bottle fed but surely at six months you are still not on a strict three hour schedule.
I was told today “he is playing you like a fiddle, he knows you will come running every time he cries through the night.” “You are going to have to break him.” I gasped at the thought… he can’t even crawl yet, which is probably my fault because I don’t like him to be on the floor too long, it looks uncomfortable.  Doctor says I should do some three night thing with him. First night, put him to bed and when he cries let him cry but every half hour I can go in the room and rub his back but NOT pick him for 30 seconds and then leave. Next night, I can go in every hour. The last night don’t go in at all and let him cry himself to sleep. WHAT!!!!!!?????? Surely this doctor must not have children. What am I raising? A soldier? Who in their right mind would allow their child to go through such agony and loneliness and fear and pain. What if he gets the stifles? Those things are annoying. Am I a bad parent for nurturing my child or am I am bad parent for strengthening my child. I don’t know about this one… what do you think?

I am a wife, mother, and entrepreneur.  We have 10 children; 7 birthed, 2 blessed,  and 1 in spirit. Everyday I used to get up feeling less and less like being any of the things I aforementioned.  I had to learn to let go of my past and a whole lot of people in it. After a lot of back and forth conversations with myself I finally accepted that I am NOT my past. I found out that taking time for myself, if even five minutes, is detrimental to my happiness and ultimately my health. I am now a blogger, something I never thought I would be given my love/hate relationship with English,  and I smile, often. I have lost a parent and a child (two if you count my miscarriage). I have been married and divorced. I have been homeless and reckless. Yet here I am leaving a legacy,  a carbon footprint if you may. There is Hope. And there is Faith, as long as you realize those are verbs and must be applied.
That was the hardest lesson for me. Your faith and your hope must be treated as verbs and applied to your life EVERYDAY.
When you find yourself going through the same trials over and over, you have to stop and ask yourself,  what am I doing wrong. It’s human nature to want to blame other people for the troubles you go through. Most of us choose to go as far as to blame God. You have to take accountability for your own downfalls and pitfalls but the best part is you also can take credit for your victories!
As I blog on you will get to see just how well we can relate in life,  whether black or white, rich or poor. Sometimes we want a hand out but what we really need a hand up. I hope I can be that hand.
-Rush

I have never been one for self help books, I was never a reader at all besides poetry and an occassional short story here and there. I never could commit to coming back where I left off. As far as self help books I just felt like it was some goody two shoe telling me how fabulous their life was and how horrible my life is (I know, I’m petty). As time goes on I realize I am not doing myself any justice by turning my nose up to help; after all I wasnt doing such a great job at helping myself.
Fast forward to today where I have an over abundance of help-mysef-be-the-best-me-I-could-be books also known as self help. Let me just tell you that there is a plethora of information out there that is begging to be read. I mean, people are not just making it but they are wanting so desperately to show you how you can too!
I have been through so much in life shoot maybe I should write my own self help book. I’ll call it, the Life and Chronicles of Maia. Ha! Seriously. I have some books that have changed not only my perspective in life but my life as a whole. I still have goals I need to reach and I am always pushing towards the next mark but honey, let me tell you you, I have been through several levels of hell and returned. But all in all, my life is good, I still have room for improvement but who doesn’t. I blog to encourage you by allowing you into my life of chaos and madness, dysfunction and lunacy so that you know you are not alone and those times you thought you were crazy, you probably were but look at you now. Dragged through the flood and into the mud. Rolled in feathers and made a mockery of. But look at you still smiling and if you’re not smiling keep reading some of my blogs, you’ll get there. My point is we all want something more but trust yourself, trust the process and I assure you tbat you will get there. Shoot we might get there at the same time. I need a partner in laughs anyhow why not you? Let’s Go!
-Rush

How is it that he gets to disappear? I work hard too. Sometimes I think I work harder than he does but he probably doesn’t think so. My work is a continuous project. I not only work on the house and the children, I not only work my businesses (one or them supposed to be OURS) but I work in my sleep. I work in my dreams. I am up and down continuously throughout the night with whomever decides to awake crying. I am up until everyone is down. And thats when my thoughts of what to do next start racing through my head oftentimes pulling me up out of bed to add to my to do list. I am tired. I am frustrated. I am alone in every sense of the word. He usually says “tell me what you need help with, I’m not a mind reader.” I do not expect you nor do I want you to read my mind but I simply would like for you to be as focused as can be when it comes to the well being of this house. I want your imput not your condescending directions. I want you to cook me breakfast in bed. I want you to get my nails done. My hair done. I want you to stop holding on to the money we get in case of emergency. I AM that emergency. You asked me to come off of my zoloft because it made me too mello. Well I much rather prefer to be mellow than a crying dying wreck inside. What do I need? I don’t know what I need. But whatever it is I feel like I am walking towards it all alone. It seems tje greatest thing we do right together is make babies. I dont want to make babies I want to change the world. No, I dont need a break. I dont want a break. Breaks are for suckers. I want to keep pushing until I have arrived to wherever it is I am supposed to be. Its not here. I should have my home by now. My children should be in private school. I work too hard to have nothing. I am running from the time I wake up until the time I am in the bed trying my hardest to go to sleep but cannot stop beating myself up for all of the things I did not get accomplished today. I cannot stop beating myself up for over extending myself yet another day. I cannot stop beating myself up for falling short of all the goals and aspirations I have acquired through life along the way and not one of them are fulfilled because I keep finding myself, once again on the back burner. But I can only blame me for being so passive and trying to live the best way that God would have me to be so I digress. I digress to the house maid and the nanny. I digress to the butler and the errand boy. I digress to working for free. I digress to sit deep in a depression that no one knows I am in but me and my god. So lost and confused. Ready to run but stuck. Stuck with responsibilities and promises. Stuck hating who I have become yet smiling to see someone else
smile. I hold it all in because I can,  speaking just exhausts me. Crying dehydrates me because once I start to cry I just cannot stop. I think of all that I have been through and though they are tears of rejoicing because I did make it through they are also tears of despair because I had to go through it to be the woman that I am today so that I can show my daughters how to be the best woman of God they can be. My daughters. Who said it was alright to take her from me. I should have three but instead God saw fit for me to have just two and I am okay with that but oh how I long to hold her in my arms. The devastations in my life are insurmountable yet here I stand still strong yet weak. Crying and smiling. Walking but asleep. Why did you choose me? I answer myself, because I am strong enough to endure. And I appreciate that God thought that highly of me. I know I can. I dont mind being the shoulder but when it is my time will you be mine? I try to live life on my terms but its just so uncomfortable because I have lived for someone else as long as I can remember.  I don’t even know HOW to live for me. But I do know that I work too hard for everyone else not to indulge here and there. Sure, I’ll be unapologetic when I do it but I am sure I will apologize when the time is right. Damn! Where is my backbone, my spine, SOMETHING! All I am is heart and sometimes that’s okay but sometimes its not. And that’s okay too. As long as I remind myself daily that it is okay to live for me then one day, just one day I will actually do it.

-Rush

While other women stand in their closet wondering what they are going to wear, I stand in front of a whistling tea pot dazed wondering which hat I am going to put on first. It is not uncommon for me to throw on some sweats with a t shirt and that be considered my outfit for the day. Try as I may to make it look presentable with a pair of earrings and lip gloss I really dont care. Analyzing and perfectly outlining my day as I pour a cup of peppermint tea in my oversized mug, by the time I pour in the honey my tea is cold and I have re evaluated my previous process of the day because I was interrupted and pulled away at least three times.
Throwing my teacup in the microwave for two minutes to reheat I start to clean the kitchen counter. Why my son’s tie is hanging from the cabinet, I do not know. As I walk to the boys room to put it away I step on a lego. The pain is so excruciating I instantly want to run away to the Bahamas. As I enter the boys room the smell of teenage life hits me like a smelly sock. I toss the tie on the bed and leave, quickly. My daughter calls me to grab her some tissue out of the linen closet. As I do, I notice it needs to be rearranged. I hand her the tissue and began to meticulously organize the closet. Once I am done I realize I have not cooked breakfast for the littles (thats what we call our babies who are not in school yet). I scramble some eggs and throw a few waffles in the oven and sit them down to eat. I go in and check on the baby who needs a diaper change and bottle. Afterwards I go to throw the diaper in the trash and notice the laundry is piled so I throw a load on. I glance over to see the littles throwing food at one another. I break up the fight and give them baths then take them out and let them watch a movie so I can clean up their mess in the dining room. My phone is ringing again for the third time this morning, I decide to see who it is, Its my mother calling to tell me that one of my old pastors in Atlanta have pasted away. We talk for about 30 minutes as I make my bed and straighten my room. When I get off the phone I notice silence has taken over my home and that is never a good sign when children are present. Thankfully this time it just meant that the babies fell asleep while watching the movie.  I do a happy dance in my head for an early naptime. Once I lay them in their bed the buzzer from the wash lets me know it’s time for the clothes to go in the dryer. I have to take a quick potty break and just as I sit down someone rings the doorbell. Half frantically I try to hurry, I don’t know who could be at my door. By the time I get to the door there is no one there. I walk outside to see if I can see any evidence that I am not crazy and really did hear someone ring the doorbell.  Instead I see the trash blown from where the lazy trashman allowed trash to fall out of the tashcan as he dumped it and blown all over the yard. I come in the house to get a trashbag and head back out to clean the yard. I step back to admire the grass gowing back nicely now that trash is not covering it. When I come in I decide to sit on the side of my bed after washing my hands. I doze off but am awakened when my children come in from school. “Its four o’clock already!” I think. I haven’t even prepped dinner. I go into the kitchen and grab some meat from the freezer and get ready to throw it in the microwave to defrost and there it is, my tea from seven o clock this morning. Smh. Motherhood.

Every girl wants to get married but none of us want to meet compromise. None of us want to be made to feel like we can no longer rest upon our own decisions. What do you do when you are in love and want to do the right thing, you get married.
Everything about marriage, a happy marriage, is compromise. I hear my husband say all the time, as well as other married men, that we, women, just don’t know how hard it is to please us. And they are absolutely correct. With our mood swings and indecisiveness coupled with our ever changing minds; lets just say I am glad I am the woman when it comes to that department. We inadvertently and unintentionally drive our husbands to an insanity plea in marriage. We want them strong to carry us but fragile to feel our pains. We want them to be friendly but not to everyone. We want them to take care of us but we want to take care of them. Buy us nice things but they cannot spend too much money and that gift better not be a cheap one! Clean up but dont move any of our things yet wonder why its still cluttered. Keep an eye on the children but not like that… oh we get it and unfortunately most of the time we cannot help ourselves.  Half the time we are just as fickled as you are, we like to contribute all of this to Eve by the way. I can assure you most of us are working on it though. I want to let you guys in on a little secret, marriage isn’t all peaches and cream for us either. The compromises we have to make suck too! At least in a traditional marriage like mine. I am a stay at home mother with nine children. What I wouldn’t do to be able to go back to work though, just so, if nothing less I can be a contributor to the household. Having some extra money in my pocket wouldnt hurt either. Time away from home would be nice too. In a time when independent living is at an all time high its pretty difficult to be a stay at home parent.
I didn’t have to answer to anyone about my where abouts or who abouts. I could stay up late or go to bed early. Clean my kitchen or not clean my kitchen. I could blow my whole check on shoes or blow it on stocks. I could wash clothes everyday or once a month. All of my decisions were mine to make. I didn’t have to see if what I chose to do was okay with another person I could just do it, or not do it. Then love came in and swooped me like a tornado and here I am. Excited to be married and amazed of what love has brought forth from my loins. I am happy to be needed and loved in a way I have always wanted to be. There is nothing that compares to being married with children.
Oftentimes I find myself looking for a stiff drink or a cigarette, though I no longer do either anymore you know, since marriage. I would love to go out and dance my cares away until the club closes but I’m married now. I would love to spend my entire royalty check (or some of us, paycheck) on a new wardrobe or that livingoom set but I have to check with my husband first. I would like to invite all of my loud friends over and play spades while blasting explicit music until four in the morning but the children have school tomorrow. I love that dress, it shows just the right amount of cleavage to make me feel attractive to the opposite sex but that would be disrespectful to my husband.
The point that I am making here is yes, husbands, we know you have it hard with our unpredictable ways but we took your last name and released the person we once were to be your perfect wife and though it was a sacrifice, it was a sacrifice we were willing to make. With that comes the responsibility to make us happy in the areas where we would normally have done it ourselves but you probably wouldn’t approve. So the next time you think you have it hard, think of your significant other and what they too must have given up. Marriage is about compromise and finding a happy medium. Saying I do means saying I don’t to alot of other things you used to do. Remembering that you both gave up something or someTHINGS for the other is important when you find yourself in a moment of frustration in having to see eye to eye on a matter.
-Rush

As much as I would love to sit here and tell you that I have it all together, that I want for nothing and my life is a bucket of happiness and sunshine I cannot. Truth is, I have my moments. Tonight I am having one of those moments.

Do you ever feel like everything you do is all done in vain. I mean everything? I sometimes feel like no one would even know where there feet are if it weren’t for me. It feels like everyone depends on me and it is so frustrating. I want to take a break and not do anything but I have the biggest fear that if I decide to do nothing everything will fail. I cannot stand being needed to this extent yet if I do not feel needed then what? My life from the moment I wake up until the moment I go to sleep is surrounded by mommy can i. if I am not cleaning I am cooking. If I am not cooking I am giving a bath or changing a diaper or washing clothes. I have absolutely no idea what down time feels like. In fact, my husband will often try to convince me to go get my nails done or my hair done or even take myself on a mini shopping spree. I cannot make myself take the thoughts of what is going on out of my mind, who can relax when they are worried? I find it hard to believe that my family could possibly survive without me. Is that cocky? I really wish I could though. I see woman all the time talk about how they go out with their girlfriends on occasion and how they have a great time but I fear that I will only be thinking about what is going on.

Tonight I as trying to eat, simply to where it would not matter if I was interrupted I could come back to my meal without having to heat it back up since this is what happens all the time. I grabbed some oatmeal and a bran muffin. Yes, for dinner. Do you know what happened about three spoonfuls of oatmeal in? Cameron kept crying and would only be consoled by holding him in my arms and Gabriel whom was supposed to be in the bed with the rest of the Rush Bunch but he never complies, like any two year old. Finally reaching my point of frustration I completely lost my appetite. I put my untouched muffin in the bowl on top of my barely touched oatmeal and do all that I can to hold back my tears of frustration.

So here I am once again spilling all of my heart to you, my loyal readers. I just hope to encourage someone that whether you have one child or twelve, all days will not work out the way you foresee it.   Don’t ever think that it is just you who has hard times as a wife and a mother because my family loves me to pieces and they make me smile, a lot. But sometimes we all need a moment to ourselves because if we don’t, you will find yourself pulling out your hair. I thank God that I have found blogging as an outlet because if I didn’t who knows where I would be. As I type my husband is leaning over the bedside bassinet patting Cameron and he has placed a fort on our floor for Gabriel to lay down and go to sleep. I thank God for him because I would probably be crazy right now without him. He thinks I do not know all he does for me but I see him and I appreciate him for it all.

If I could just focus some energy on myself without feeling this overwhelming guilt that I am being selfish or thinking any money I spend on myself could be better used on one of the children or something to do with the home I would be doing myself a world of justice. If you have any ideas I am more than open to them. You can email me at JustAskMaia@yahoo.com or even message me here. Who knows, if you are in the Charleston area maybe we could even hang out, make it a mommy date.

The funny thing about it is when I start my day tomorrow I will have forgotten all about my troubles and worries of today. I cannot be mad at my family, I spoil them. I cannot be mad at myself because I do love to spoil them. In their defense they do attempt to spoil me back, I am just a hard one to please I suppose. I am not a very touchy person. I almost abhor any form of affection as I was not raised with it much. My father was not a prominent part of my growing up so I really attribute my lack of affection to this but I do accept an occasional hug here and there. I reward with words of encouragement rather than hugs but that is something I am working on because I do not want my children, most importantly my girls, turning out the way I am when it comes to love and affection. My children nor my husband doubt that I love them with all of my heart I just wish I could show it a little more. But, like I said, I am strongly and adamantly working on this.

Well, I have reached a calm down point so I thank you for reading and I hope you will continue to follow us on our journey to awesomeness.

-Rush