10 Things I have Achieved

I thought I would write a list of things I have already achieved in my 30 years of being alive due to it being my birthday next week!  This is in no particular order exceot number one being my proudest achievement of them all!

1. My two boys - having my children has led me to be the person who I have always wanted to be but never realised it until I had them.  I cannot remember life and routines without them and they make me laugh, a lot!  Im so proud of them in different ways because they are at different stages in their lives and I am so looking forward to seeing them grow up.
2. Starting my life from scratch - after being made homeless by unforeseen circumstances, I lost everything, everything being material things but I always had my son.  I became a single mum, moved away from where I grew up and lived on benefits for the very first time.  After five months, I moved back to Essex, built a home for me and my son, found everything in my power to find a job, and was lucky enough to fall in love with my best friend.  It took about 4 years to get my life back to how it was before and perhaps even better than what it was and I am so proud that I did it where others would have failed.
3. I have brought up my eldest son to be how children should be - Now I'm going to be a little modest here but only because of what people have told me about my children and now I have started to believe it myself.  It is very rare these days to see children sitting at the table in a restaurant, or to here them speak their manners, or to see them respect their parents in the street.  But I have to say my son does all of these and more and I have come to realise that it is down to me.  Where I totally believe in the saying 'I blame the parents.' used in a negative sense, I totally blame myself for his wonderful behaviour!  Now, he is not perfect, he is very sensitive and perhaps a bit of a goody two shoes because he knows right from wrong, but I am always proud of him when he goes and stays with other people.  I never get any bad feedback about him and they always invite him back!  This is surely a sign!  He thinks the word 'hate' is a swear word and although I swear freely around him, he knows not to repeat it himself.  I am very proud that as a mum I have achieved to bring him up in an almost perfect way and I hope to do the same with his brother!
4. I have seen some of the world - I say some, I have hardly seen any of it but the places I have been totally make up for that!  I have been to Iceland where I walked on glaciers, stood near volcanoes, swam in the Blue Lagoon and took pictures of Geysers.  I have climbed the Eiffel Tower, (whilst pregnant may I add!), swam in the Med, and stood outside Edinburgh castle.  I still have the travel bug and my children will hopefully get to experience it all with me so that we can travel to many more places and see the sites.
5. I have worked really really hard! - I have ten years retail experience behind me which I am very proud of and from the things I learnt from that I have out into setting up my own business finally!  I miss the full time work side but have to face the fact that I may not be able to go back to work properly until my kids are older so working from home is the ideal option and I never thought I would be able to achieve this.  Yet, I did. I underestimate myself!
6. I have been to over 60 gigs - that is a lot of music!  Not many people have the privilege or money to go to a concert but this is almost a hobby for me, an expensive one but one that I am proud of because I can say I saw my favourite bands when they were at their prime and I will always have the memories of seeing my favourite albums played live.  It is the most thrilling experience being in the same room as someone you admire and joining in with their sing-a-alongs and I would not swap it for the world.  Even being pregnant did not stop from going to 4 gigs in those nine months!
7. I have become the woman Im supposed to be - sounds like a cliche and I am sure everyone has been bullied in some way as they were growing up but I can look back and say that I never changed just because some people made fun of me.  In fact, I am still a nerd, a boffin and a geek, just some of the names I got called at school, except now it is apparently 'cool' to be these things!  I never stopped reading books, or learning or being weird!  I totally rebelled against the bullies and so I did it even more!  I ended up being so nerdy that to this day, I am obsessed with Doctor Who, so is my fiance and so was my son at one point!  I have many, many books on my bookshelf, I am a huge Harry Potter fan and I collect notebooks!  I also crochet, cross stitch and do scrap books, I am addicted to Facebook and I love to blog.  I dress so my clothes clash, I love wearing unusual shoes and I dye my hair red and purple.  I really don't care anymore what people make of me as its their problem.  I am happy to be a geek and my friends are geeks too!  I am proud I never changed, but i got progressively worse and am definetely the woman I have always wanted to be!
8. I am proud of being engaged - I never thought I would find my prince charming because he does not really exist!  So I married a man who I pretended was my prince but it turned out I got it all wrong!  However, I am glad I gave up on that fantasy because it turns out that my prince found me, (sick bucket!) but its true! I am proud that I have him, and have what we have and he is totally the male version of me, and I am the female version of him!  I am proud to be his fiance and hopefully we can live happily ever after!
9. I am proud to have my amazing friends - who needs a huge amount of friends when you can have three very close friends who accept you for who you are and never argue with?!  Going back to my school days, I only ever had one best friend and then when we drifted apart no one really accepted me for my nerdiness so I struggled to make friends.  But I have finally found three amazing girls who are almost exactly the same as me, they totally put up with my ways and we laugh so hard when we are together that I sometimes have to pinch myself in case they aren't real!  I have aquaintances in life who come and go, who let you down or just don't get me but my real friends are just three amazing girls who I couldn't be more proud to call my friends.
10. I am proud to have reached my 30's - Ok, a bit morbid but there have been a few people I have met in my life that never reached their thirties and at one point I never thought I would reach mine.  Unfortunately, the people that have passed away have been so young and you start to appreciate life more and not take anything for granted.  Those people are always in my thoughts and in a silly way, I hope to live my life the crazy way that they would have lived theirs.

xxxx