Tell Your Story Contest: My Story

Good morning, fellow Steemians! This is my very first contest, and I am diving into it head first. Thank you in advance for taking the time to read and consider this post.

My Life Before Steemit

I have been an educator for 15 years in two different communities. At the beginning of my career, I taught various grade levels, K-8, for eleven years; and through that work, found my true passion and calling--counseling. During my time as a teacher, I earned a reputation of being good at working with "the hard kids", as others would say to me. While these students were more challenging and took more effort and out-of-the-box ideas, I didn't see them in that light. Each and every one of those young people had something going on at home which put them at a disadvantage when it came to being successful at school. I looked at my kids with a different lens than others did, which caused me to have more success. There would be many times when I knew that I could do more for my students; and when one is a teacher in charge of 25 kiddos, digging in that deep and working on the issues underneath is not always a possibility. It was the desire to "do more" for my students that led me into a career in school counseling.

I have been a high school counselor for the past four years and serve many students who have had some really rough life experiences. My main area of focus is working with young people who are more prone to dropping out (some label these students as "at-risk", but again, I'm not in favor of labels that spin a negative connotation in the minds of others). My job is to help these student remove the barriers that are keeping them from being successful at school and assist them with their goals of graduating and planning their lives after high school. I have experienced a lot of successes and (and what feels like) almost as many failures, which drives me to improve my practice every year. I do love my job because I work directly with students for the majority of the day. My office is located within our academy, and I get to spend a lot of time in the classrooms and building strong relationships with some amazing young people who have overcome more than I have ever experienced in my lifetime.

My time working as a teacher and counselor have greatly impacted my personal life. Through the relationships I have built with my students and in hearing their stories, I was called, yet again, to do something else to help kids who have extremely difficult home-lives. I would sit with my high school students during a counseling session and think, "Here I go again...I could be doing so much more, and I am not. What else can I do?" Many of my students began calling me "mom" or "school mom" because I was fulfilling a role that they were sorely missing in their lives. I even had one girl adopt me (against my will...ha!) as her mother for a time. In addition to this, I had the great personal desire of becoming a mother. It hadn't happened for me yet in the conventional way and something was greatly missing in my life, too. A seed of thought began to sprout in my heart, soul, and mind. I had the need and desire to be a mother, and there were kids out there who very badly needed and desired a mother to nurture, protect, and care for them. In October of 2015, I went through the classes required to become a foster/adoptive parent in my state. By February of 2016, I had my first placement. Shortly after in August, I had my second. My home and heart were full.

Now my life is busy, fun, and chaotic. Being a foster parent is hard emotionally. There are visit schedules, court dates, and other various appointments to be juggled around. Attorneys, DHS workers, Family Support Workers, and licensing workers are in and out of your house at all times. And then there's the attachment. Oh, the attachment! I couldn't love my two little people more if I had given birth to them myself. They are my world and my heart and nothing is permanent or etched in stone. Every day is living in limbo while you are waiting and praying and hoping that their lives turn out for the best for them. With my first little, I knew the second night he was in my house that I wanted him to be my forever son. I made a vow to him that I would do anything I could to support whatever would be the best for him, whether that meant he stayed with me or was returned to his biological parents. A year-and-a-half later, limbo--waiting, praying, hoping, loving--that is my daily routine at this stage in the game. While some people may shy away from being a foster parent because of the hurt they may experience themselves, I'd ask you to consider the hurt these little people have endured...they SO deserve someone to get attached to them and to be loved. I will be absolutely broken if the judge decides to return custody--completely and utterly destroyed. And yet, this little guy deserved to be placed in a home where he could receive the love, nurturing, and attachment he needed. I wear a bangle that reminds me every day that this journey is worth it--worth every tear, every anxious breath, every joy, and every pain. He doesn't understand his situation; he does know how completely loved and wanted he is at my home.

My Introduction to Steemit and Who Introduced Me

I was introduced to this community by @nepd and @patriot. @nepd, his wife, and I have been very close friends since our high school days (can you believe it's been almost 20 years of friendship???) We met up recently at a park with our children for a picnic and some good old fashioned play time. We were discussing my current situation of potentially adopting one or two children in the next few months. When you are a foster parent, you get a stipend that covers 65% of the cost of living, daycare stipends, and medical insurance. While I'm not in it for the money, the stipends I have received and the income that I make on my own have helped me give these kids a very nice life with lots of the "wants" and not just the "needs". I was sharing my concerns of being the head of a one-parent family and absorbing the cost of both daycare and health insurance as both costs seemed astronomical to me, especially having one child with special medical needs. I told them that I knew I would need to take on a second job, which I was completely willing to do to support my family, but I had no idea of what to do since I didn't want to spend more time away from the kids than I needed to--especially if we were beginning a new family together. Ideally, I wanted something I could work on at home after the kids were in bed. I also shared I had looked into blogging, and I wasn't sure of how to get started or if I could be successful.

I knew that @nepd always had his toes dipped into something and asked if he knew of anything. He and his wife exchanged looks and grins, and he said, "Well, I guess it depends on how adventurous you are!" Uh, duh! Adventure is my middle name! I did have to whisper to him to ask if he was doing something illegal (but that was seriously a joke!) We spent the next hour talking about Steemit, while he and @patriot very kindly broke it down to me as if I were a kindergartner. I jumped in the very next day and have been plugging away ever since!

Channel Topics

I'm a down-to-earth Midwestern gal, and my goal is to support my family to give them a life full of experiences, love, and a few wants to make up for their rough starts. I want to give them one of those old-fashioned childhoods that so many of my friends and I experienced that made us into the rock-solid adults today who contribute to society in positive ways. My main channel topics at this point are parenting, foster parenting, and do-it-yourself projects from a female perspective. I suppose there might be more topics added as I get into Steemit (and life) a little more, but that is where I have landed at this point. Here are just a few of the links to my posts in the last few weeks:

Parenting: https://steemit.com/parenting/@thesimplelife/raising-a-man
https://steemit.com/parenting/@thesimplelife/the-voices-we-hear

Do-It-Yourself: https://steemit.com/creativity/@thesimplelife/more-than-just-a-table
https://steemit.com/howto/@thesimplelife/kitchen-face-lift

Hobbies and Interests
My zen place is nature. I find healing and peace among towering trees and quietly rippling lake waters, majestic mountains and meandering streams, rushing waterfalls and sheer cliffs that remind me of the beauty of God's creation. My passion is doing anything that gets me, and now my family, into those places to soak in the rays of the sun and experience the freedom that is the natural world. Hiking, kayaking, snowshoeing, biking, and camping are just a few things that we do for fun. I love doing triathlons; however, in the last few years haven't had the time or opportunity to train for them. I have completed 11 triathlons over the course of the past ten years. My final hobby that I will mention is designing, creating, and renovating spaces. It is a way for me to express creativity and work off extra anxiety. Whenever I get troubled or anxious, I start a new home project. I have worked on two of my own homes, my parents' previous house, and the homes of several friends.

Highs and Lows on Steemit To Date

Since I'd like to end my post on a positive note, I would like to share the lows I have experienced on Steemit in the three weeks I've been part of the community. There actually haven't been very many, which is great! The first is that I have received a few "follow for a follow" requests, which felt a little awkward to me. My goal is to create quality content and contribute to the community. I have only followed 16 people so far, as I am looking for people who have a similar goal. While I checked out the person making the request, in the end I chose not to follow them because of the content on their blogs. It felt like I was being solicited, and I didn't appreciate that. The second low has been not quite understanding everything about the community. I realize that this may be due to me not educating myself properly; however, I made a promise that I would only be spending time blogging when the kids were sleeping and all of my other responsibilities were handled. This means that time is limited, and I try to balance it between creating my own content, reading and curating the work of others, educating myself, and making connections. This week, I was close to quitting as I wasn't feeling that I was going to be able to spend enough time to do these things and create a viable blog and following. My account value hadn't changed and it felt like I wasn't getting my content out there. Was I creating quality work? Did people care about my stories? I had a lot of thoughts swirling in my head when my wise mentor, @nepd, contacted me this week, asking, "Hey, have you claimed your rewards yet?" Crickets chirping...silence..."Ummmm....what's that????" was my uneducated response. Wow, that made a difference and definitely gave me a confidence boost! It motivated me to start educating myself more on the community and ways I can begin making more connections, which led me to this contest.

The highs of Steemit are many; and they all really have to do with the community itself. I have found a couple of people who have given me great support in their comments and upvotes (and it's the comments that I find myself appreciating the most). @merej99, @wiser, @nepd, and @patriot are just a few who have given me great encouragement in my start here, so I would like to extend my most sincere thanks to you! There are many users who spend their time helping newcomers, and I have found several members to follow that have given me some great ideas. The community really is the greatest thing about Steemit! Thank you for the warm welcome and support.

Life After Steemit

This might be cheating when it comes to this contest, but I really truly can't think "beyond" at this point. Right now, my life is waiting for the judge's order that is set to come LITERALLY any day and decides the future of my little one. I received the order for my baby girl about three weeks ago, and as of now, it looks like she will becoming a permanent member of the family. I can only live one day at a time, and if I'm being honest, one minute at a time, until that decision is made. My hope is that my life after Steemit is a blessed one that I can share with all of you!

I definitely don't regret making the choice to join Steemit and take an adventurous leap into the unknown. While at times it is overwhelming; overall, it has been such a positive experience, and I have all of you to thank for that! My goal is to produce quality content for a long time and become a contributing member to the community. I only hope that I have begun to chip away at that goal and have been able to produce quality pieces so far. I sincerely thank you for taking the time to read and consider this post. I know it may be long; however, writing it this morning as I wait for the future of my family to be decided has been cathartic. Even if I earn nothing from this post, I will have gained so much more personally from the creation of it. That's what makes this platform so amazing and the true reason why I am here.