Fragmented Fridays (Family on the Brain)

by UnknownMami on July 29, 2010

Family. I have family on the brain.

My husband’s aunt came to visit and we met her for the first time. When I say “we”, I am including my husband. He had never met this aunt before. The story is long and not mine to tell and it was started by my husband’s grandfather (whom my husband has never met).

What I would like to share is that there is something beautiful, courageous, and authentic about a woman reaching out to siblings and extended family and risking rejection because of poor choices her father made. There is also healing and growth in embracing each other and accepting each other as family once and for all.

Family. Sometimes we are born into it and sometimes someone steps in and becomes family.

There is a man that I am biologically related to. He is technically my “father”, he is also a stranger to me. Oh sure, I’ve talked to him, I know what he looks like, but I do not “know” him, I can not claim him as mine. Then there is another man that came into my life when I was already 18 years old and slowly worked his way into my life and heart. I’ve never lived with this other man, I got to know him through my mother because she lives with him. This other man filled a space I never even knew was vacant. He loves me the way I imagine a father loves his daughter. He introduces me as his daughter. He comes through for me EVERY SINGLE TIME I need him to.

Family. My family.

My family used to mean my mother, my brother, and me. Now “my” family means my daughter, my husband, and me. Of course I have family that extends beyond those I hold nearest and dearest, but I will protect “my” family even if it means protecting them from family.

Family. I’m happy I let some “family” go. I’m happy with the family I’ve made. I’m loved by those that have accepted me as family. Family means more to me now than it ever has.

Mommy's Idea
Hosted by Mrs. 4444

Post to Twitter

{ 4 comments }

Reading did not come easily to me. We moved around a lot when I was a child, which means I switched schools a lot. I knew the alphabet, I knew the sounds letters made, and I knew some words by sight, but most words were a jumble of letters that I could not decipher. Somehow I missed the lesson where it was announced that the sounds the letters made could be strung together. I remember the shame of being the tallest kid in first grade and being sent to the kindergarten class for reading. It was embarrassing, but it was a gift because that is where I finally learned to read.

One day, I was sitting in that kindergarten class towering over all the smaller children, we had been given a list of 3 letter words. Once we had figured out what each word was, we were to go to the teacher and read it and he would check it off as correct. One of the words was “pig”. I went up to the teacher and told him the word was “big”. He said, “No” and sent me back to try again. Well, I kept going back and insisting that the word was “big”. Big was one of the words I had memorized and I figured that since “pig” looked so much like “big” that it must be the same and that the teacher was wrong. The teacher eventually looked at me and said, “No, the word is not big. Sound it out!”

Sound it out?! I had never heard of such a thing. Sound it out! “You mean the letters?”, I asked. He nodded his head and I stood there sounding out “p-i-g” until I said it fast enough that it sounded like a word. That’s the day that a whole new world opened up for me. There was no stopping me after that. That same school year I went from being sent to the kindergarten class for reading to being sent to the third grade class because I had gotten so good.

Books helped me through so many difficult moments in my childhood. They provided a safe place to escape and explore, to relax and imagine.

These memories resurfaced for me because I was sent the “young adult” book “Amigas: Fifteen Candles” created by Jane Startz, written by Veronica Chambers, and inspired by Jennifer Lopez.

In order to truly “get into” the book I flashed back to my early teen years where I would love to read these sort of light, fun, escapist type books. They were a welcome distraction in a childhood that was not always placid.

“Amigas : Fifteen Candles” is the first in a new series for young adults. Great literature it is not, but it’s not meant to be. As a teenager, I would have enjoyed reading serialized books like “Sweet Valley High” that had Latino characters and mentioned things like quinceañeras. The book is peppered with Spanish, but you don’t have to know Spanish to understand it. It’s also about Latino characters, but you don’t have to be Latino to enjoy it. I’d say it would be a fun, quick, summer read for a tween or early teen.

Post to Twitter

{ 29 comments }

I Comment Therefore I Am

by UnknownMami on July 26, 2010

Welcome to another edition of I Comment Therefore I Am, where I put together a post from comments I’ve left on other blogs. Below are some of my favorite posts from the previous week and what they inspired me to say.

Write Away featured an “I Comment Therefore I Am” post in which she shared a comment she made about what mothers are called by their offspring in different parts of the world, which led me to write…

I always called my mother Ama when I was annoyed or Mami the rest of the time. Mami is said in Spanish like, “mah-mee”. When I came up with the name of my blog it didn’t occur to me that some people would pronounce it Mammy. Most of my readers are from the U.S. so I say, “Not Mammy from the South, but Mami from South of the Border.”

Doreen has been going through some tough times lately. Fortunately, there is the wonderful fact that she is expecting the release of her book. She is having mixed feelings because her book is about the true story of her brother’s murder. I had to respond to what she wrote because I think she needs to re-frame her perspective. I start off by quoting her…

I have always dreamed of being a writer and that dream has come true I feel bad celebrating because I am realizing my dream because my brother died.”-No!No!No!No! You are framing this incorrectly. You are not realizing your dream because your brother died. You ARE a writer, your dream would have been realized no matter what in this lifetime. Unfortunately, your brother died and it has informed your writing. We do not exist in a void. As a creative person your creative output will be influenced by your life. How could you not write about what you have written about?

This is not a comment, but a shout out: if you enjoy the comment sections of blogs go visit lisleman’s new blog,  I can’t blog , where it’s all about the comments. There is only one post and all the action happens in the comments section.

That’s it for this edition of I Comment Therefore I Am.

Do you give good comment? Wanna play along? Go forth, spread the comment love, and turn it into a post (I keep a draft post open while I read blogs throughout the week). Recycle, reuse, and reduce my friends; it’s the wave of the future.

Oh and feel free to comment on my comments otherwise how will I know that you exist.

If you play along please link back and/or post the button below. Spread the love, spread the love! You can grab the button code from my sidebar.

Unknown Mami

Post to Twitter

{ 31 comments }

Sundays In My City

by UnknownMami on July 24, 2010

SDC13908

SDC13910I saw this random log in the park that someone seems to have transformed into some kind of an animal. Do you see the eye and mouth?

I showed you mine, now you show me yours.

Share your city/town/suburb/you name it! If you link up, please link back or post the Sundays In My City button either in your post or sidebar to let people know that other bloggers are sharing their communities too. Happy trails!

Let’s travel the world together!

Unknown Mami

Grab the code from my sidebar even if you already have it because the old code no longer works.

When linking up please add the URL to your actual post NOT your homepage. Do this by clicking the title of your post after you hit publish, an extended URL will come up in the address bar, paste that URL into the Linky form.

Post to Twitter

{ 47 comments }

Fragmented Fridays

by UnknownMami on July 23, 2010

For someone who is under-employed I sure have been working a lot. As many of you know, the contract for my work from home job was not renewed and my husband is currently laid off (he’ll be going back to work next month). Since he is able to take care of Put Pie, I have been picking up extra shifts at my work outside the home job. I’m grateful for the work, but I’m sooo tired and I have had no time to blog. So if I haven’t been around, please forgive my absence. Mami’s got to get paid, y’all!

My camera drowned!!! I do not have a fancy camera, I have an inexpensive point and shoot, but I love the darned thing and this week I was responsible for its drowning. This is what my good friend and constant companion looks like. Isn’t she cute? SamsungShe was in my purse where she always is and I put in a very large bottle of water in there too because I like to stay hydrated, but apparently the bottle was not shut all the way and my camera went for a swim. My camera is not designed to go swimming. She is now drying out on my counter and I am hoping that she will recuperate, but the prognosis is not good. She has condensation in places that should be dry as a bone. Send her positive thoughts or send me a new camera if you can.

Awhile back I won a giveaway from Vino Bodega and this is the lovely bracelet that I got:

photo(Please excuse the quality I had to use my phone since my camera drowned.)

I love it! I’ve already worn it 3 times.

I also won an $80 gift card to CSNStores.com from The Fifty Factor. I’ve already thanked her for it in a previous post, but I wanted to share what I ended up getting. It took me forever to decide because the possibilities were endless. Here’s what I finally picked:

Women's Durer in RedYup, I got a pair of red clogs! I was going to get something practical that the whole family could use and then I was feeling really down because I have no money to spend on fun stuff and I decided that I should just treat myself. I’ve always wanted red clogs and now I have them. Thank you, Joanna! Oh and the best part? They look fantastic with the paper bag I wear over my head.

Also, Joanna is hosting another giveaway for an $80 gift card to CSNStores.com. Click on the link to enter.

And that’s all she wrote!

Have a great weekend!
Mommy's Idea
Hosted by Mrs. 4444

Post to Twitter

{ 51 comments }

I Comment Therefore I Am

by UnknownMami on July 19, 2010

Welcome to another edition of I Comment Therefore I Am, where normally I put together a post from comments I’ve left on other blogs. This week I’m gonna do something a little different. In last weeks installation of I Comment Therefore I Am I was tickled by the reaction I got to  a particular comment I shared, so this week I’m going to share the comments that were left about that comment. How more convoluted can this commenting post get?

This is the post and corresponding comment that I highlighted last week:

I was visiting Jenny Matlock, who is very funny, and she made me think of the times my husband “yells” at me without actually “yelling” at me.

My husband yells at me all the time without raising his voice. When I tell him to stop yelling at me he points out that he didn’t even raise his voice. Ha! Like I can’t hear an implied yell.

It appears my friends that I can “hear” an implied yell. There are many of us out there that can hear a yell even when there is no accompanying escalation in volume.  Here are the comments that I got that prove that implied yellers are being called out all over the place.

Mary Anne Gruen wrote:

Hah! My husband yells without yelling too! So I know exactly what you mean.
Macy wrote:
I get “implied” yells ALL.THE.TIME.
immyyas wrote:
Oh my gosh my husband yells at me without raising his voice too!
Cheeseboy wrote:
An implied yell! LOL! My wife gets mad at me all the time for this. It is so frustrating.
Unknown Mami says: Well, Cheeseboy perhaps if you stopped implied yelling at your wife you wouldn’t have to deal with this frustration. I’m just saying.

My husband does the “implied yelling” too.. though maybe it’s more of an “I’m busy and don’t want to talk to you right now about this because somewhere there are sports on the television that I’m missing” tone.
I know the implied yell well. I am a master of it.
Unknown Mami: At least you admit to it. I don’t appreciate the deniers. You know the ones that get caught implied yelling and then swear up and down that they were not.

Maria Mohan wrote:

Hey, I know the implied yell! I can’t believe other people get them as well. I thought it was only me LOL.
Camp 1974 wrote:
Yeah, my husband never “yells” but if he looks at me funny, I translate it to just that.

dina@4lettrewords wrote:

Oh! I’m right there with you on the implied yell. I think it’s worse, actually.
…I think the yelling without the yelling could also come from the female side of the house also. :)
Unknown Mami says: Urban Cowboy, the thing is that most of the time we don’t have to imply our yells because we are perfectly okay with just straight out yelling.

I would like to end with the implied yell that I got in the form of a comment…
Monkey Man wrote:

Tone apparently is everything in conversation as it is in commenting. If I mistakenly keep my cap lock on AM I YELLING OR ARE YOU OVERRACTING – AS USUAL. No we are not YELLING, we are just asserting ourselves in a manly fashion. Tell unknown papi that I feel his pain.

Unknown Mami says: Monkey Man, please keep your hands off my husbands “pain” or any other part of him.

That’s it for this edition of I Comment Therefore I Am. 

Do you give good comment? Wanna play along? Go forth, spread the comment love, and turn it into a post (I keep a draft post open while I read blogs throughout the week). Recycle, reuse, and reduce my friends; it’s the wave of the future.

Oh and feel free to comment on my comments otherwise how will I know that you exist.

If you play along please link back and/or post the button below. Spread the love, spread the love! You can grab the button code from my sidebar.

Unknown Mami

Post to Twitter

{ 41 comments }

Sundays In My City

July 17, 2010

Just another day in the park. San Francisco, CA I showed you mine, now you show me yours. Share your city/town/suburb/you name it! If you link up, please link back or post the Sundays In My City button either in your post or sidebar to let people know that other bloggers are sharing their communities [...]

Fragmented Fridays

July 16, 2010

I’ve created a monster! I can’t go an entire day without hearing my husband say, “Blog it!” I told him he needs to get his own blog because he is just overflowing with ideas for my blog. I’ve been in a funk for a couple of weeks. Partly because I lost my job and my [...]

To Curse or Not to Curse

July 14, 2010

Some of you are parents, some of you are not, but I’m pretty certain you have all been children at some point. Were you raised by someone with a potty mouth or did you grow up in a curse-free home? I watched a expletive-laden webisode by Evenflo called, “How to Recover from a Potty Mouth [...]

I Comment Therefore I Am

July 12, 2010

Welcome to another edition of I Comment Therefore I Am, where I put together a post from comments I’ve left on other blogs. Below are some of my favorite posts from the previous week and what they inspired me to say. Technobabe shows up in these posts a lot because she gets me thinking. Most [...]