1) Started a business making girls' clothing called prettybyrdie
2) Decided I couldn't expand that business ethically
3) Turned it into a hobby instead
4) Got a real job (part-time and working from home, but with a salary)
5) Starting homeschooling all three of my kids
6) Bought a fixer upper
7) Spent 8 months renovating that fixer upper
8) Moved us out of our two bedroom apartment into our new 5 bedroom house!
9) Found my son in-home therapists
10) Got my younger daughter diagnosed with autism
11) Got sued by my husband's former client (details: not his fault, but cheaper to go bankrupt than to fight the lawsuit, so....)
12) Declared bankruptcy, bringing my near perfect credit score down to not so perfect
13) Realized after educating myself about autism that I'm likely on the autism spectrum
14) Suddenly understood why I've always struggled with certain things
15) Worked to accept myself and invested in friendships with people who are understanding and accepting of me, just the way I am
16) Decided to be authentically myself, at least some of the time, and allow myself to partake in special interests that other people might not find cool or interesting, but that fulfill me and bring me joy
17) Realized that I probably need to do something creative in order to live
Going forward:
I would like to keep updating this space, even if it's only once a year or so, as a sort of record of my journey. I'm also working on a new website and blog that will have less personal topics, more posts geared towards helping other people with specific issues, and expressing myself creatively. The domain I've set aside for that is gracebyrd.com. On it I'm planning on posting about motherhood, being a working and homeschooling mom, being a homeschooling mom of kids with special needs, having special needs, and how all of those things fit together. I also have a lot of creative content, like sewing and crafting info that I'd like to share somewhere, so I may end up making a second wordpress site for that as well.
