The one thing I like to feel in control of and a place of order is my blog.

Lately it hasn’t been like that.

And it saddens me.

I was just looking at the majority of the posts I’ve written since starting work and a lot of them are missing pictures. Which I don’t like. I  want my posts to be full of visualness…. because I’m a visual girl.

My son’s 1st of day of school hasn’t been blogged about ~ pictures still waiting on the memory card to be edited.

My son’s 9th birthday still hasn’t been blogged about ~ pictures still waiting on the memory card to be edited.

My kids and I went on a picnic on Friday {scary story to come with that} and I took pictures of the beauty around us for a blog post…. still not done.

I need to cut myself slack. I knew things with my life would be like this once I started working full time while being pregnant…. and now I’m going to school full time…. oh boy!

The one thing I never want to neglect is my blog. It’s my mark in this life not only for me, not only for you, but for my children as well. My words come from my heart and I want them to see that when they flip through the books I’ve had made from it.

My blog is me.

I put my first essay on my blog and asked for feeback on ways that I could make it better.  I received the help of some fabulous women {thank you a million!}.  The feedback I then received back from my professor floored me.  She thought it was excellent.  My first essay in 10 years was considered excellent.

This is my second essay, which is the main essay for the narrative unit.  It gets to be much longer than the first, which makes me happy, but we’re working with the same directions.  It needs to be on a vividly capture of a poignant moment or experience in the life of the author using a show not tell method.

Here is the first draft of the main essay for the unit.  I’d love any feedback you have to give me, you can leave it either in the comment section or email me.  Thank you!

I turned the corner to see her standing there, medicine bottle to her mouth, chugging it like she found a new liquid candy to consume. My heart fell into my stomach and just possibly might have stopped for a brief moment. Did I leave the one medication on the counter for her to have access to that could potentially kill her?

I seized the heart medicine, which normally kept her heart regulated, from her tiny little hands. Panic flew through my body, followed by thoughts of failure. Why wouldn’t I put something without a childproof cap up high? Why, the one time I set the medicine on the counter, did she discover how to pull out the drawers and climb?

“CRAP! We have to get to the hospital now! She’s hardly keeping her eyes open!” It was that fast. Not even ten minutes and she was already being affected by the medication that was supposed to save her life not kill her.

The drive to the hospital felt like an eternity. Trying everything in our power to just keep her alert and coherent was just about as easy as telling an unborn baby to hurry up and exit the womb. We made it though, and I rushed her limp body into the emergency room. The questions they were asking me sounded like they were coming from a distance. I couldn’t focus on anything other than demanding to know if she was going to be okay.

What I didn’t think about was that things had to start getting worse before there was any chance of getting better. The medication hadn’t even gone through her entirely yet, and poison control has never dealt with an overdose with this medication. “Just a little over the recommended dose can be fatal.” Those words coming from poison control to the doctors did not sit comfortably with me.

The first hospital transfer happened almost immediately. I held her close to my body as they pushed us into the ambulance. She needed to be at a hospital with a Pediatric ICU, so off we went. Things calmed down a bit after our arrival. She was in great care and I knew in my heart that she was going to be okay. We just had to ride this out.

“All done! All done!” the sweetest little voice said. She was shaking her hands to do the sign language along with it. Then the throwing up started and I felt relief flush over me. This has to be a good sign, right?

No, a good sign is everything is wasn’t. Her eyes bulged out and she froze, she wasn’t breathing. Nurses were rushing all around her and I didn’t know what to do, so I ran out of the room and dropped to my knees to pray to a God that I hoped was listening; a God I hoped had his arms wrapped tightly around the both of us as I didn’t know how to hold myself together anymore. From a far distance I could hear words no mom should ever have to hear, “Call it! Call it!” and doctors rushing in. Somebody grabbed me and held me so tight and told me, “She needs you, Mom, she’s breathing on her own and she’s waking up.”

“Oh, God, thank you for being here. I knew you were here and with us, I just didn’t know if you were here to save her or take her.” I think these words might have actually come out of my mouth in front of everybody. Either that or my thoughts were still so loud that I not only heard them internally but externally as well.

I sat next to my daughter’s hospital bed and thought about the normal night we would have been having. How instead of being mediflighted to Portland we would be fighting the frustrations of everyday life things. I’d probably be worrying about the list of undone chores, or the mess the kids made, an unpaid bill, but not praying for God to spare my daughter’s life.

We got discharged from the hospital a couple of days later and as we walked out of those hospital doors I walked out a completely changed person. I learned about the difference between the big scheme of life and the small stuff. I learned that it can always be worse, and you never know exactly what you’ll wake up to. Instead of worrying about the little everyday things, you could be praying for the life of your child. The messes, the bills, the exhaustion of being a mother will always be there, but will be forgotten. The beauty of seeing your child pick you a flower, or smile at your soul never will.

For Pour Your Heart out I decided to go with a post I wrote a few days ago regarding how judging each other as mothers just plain out sucks… for the post in its entirety please go

 {HERE}

I’ve missed out on the first couple of weeks of the Friends you Love Bloghop, but jumped in this week with an AMAZING blogger to share with you.  If you haven’t met Crystal over at {Wanna Be Balanced Mom} you are MISSING OUT!  Crystal and I have so much in common so when I stumbled upon her blog I knew she’d always be a favorite of mine.  I found her by somebody tweeting about a video of her singing to her husband at her wedding….. it made me cry!  So PLEASE make sure you head over and check her out!!  And below her button is a guest post from the fabulous Crystal herself!!  ENJOY!

Hello all you Enchanting Havoc readers, I’m honored to be here today doing a guest post. Don’t ya just love Amanda, such a great person, and lovely blogger, always being so open and honest about everything.

Today I thought I’d brag a bit about the famous people I’ve met. I try to tell my husband these stories in hopes to prove how COOL I am, but he’s never impressed. I’m proud to say that, yes, I met Will from Black Eyed Peas. I know I know…. I AM amazing!!! Never thought you’d be reading reading a blog post of a practically FAMOUS mom, right! ha, I bet not.

So here’s the story. This happened WAAAAY back when I was at the young age of 19. I was with my BFF Brenda, at a Macy Gray concert in Arizona. This was back when the Black Eyed Peas weren’t real popular yet, and they were opening for Macy. So anyway, my friend and I were dancing around up in the front close to the stage, next thing we know, there is Will, hanging out in the crowd.So of course, Brenda and I, being the opportunists that we are, went over and started dancing with him trying to flirt our way backstage to meet Macy. Like I said, he wasn’t that big yet, so we weren’t so much interested in meeting him.

Well, our plan worked, just as we were about to go backstage with Will, this stupid security guard stopped us and wouldn’t allow us back there, ugh! Well, we did hang out with Will for a bit, even snapped a few pics. But of COURSE…..of all pictures to get screwed up, these ones didn’t turn out, I think the flash wasn’t working or something. I know what you’re all thinking, yeah, sure……. nice cover up. But no, I’m serious this really happened!

So…………. do you think I’m cool yet?

If not, then here’s another one for you.

Now this goes even further back, when I was 17 working at a little guetto pancake house downtown. I met Lou Diamond Phillips!!!!!

Do you even know who he is? My husband was like, “big deal, he’s not even famous”, ha, I beg to differ. Haven’t you seen the movie La Bamba?……….Well I didn’t either until I met Lou. Okay, I admit, I had no clue who he was when he came in, until a coworker started freaking out. I was like oooh, someone famous, I better go meet him. So, I went up and talked to him for a bit, asked him about his career (he was in town filming BATS), he showed me a picture of his little twin daughters, and he left me a $10 tip, pretty awesome huh :). Well, needless to say, that night I went home and watched Labamba for the first time.

Still not impressed?

Okay, last but not least……..I met Megan Joy from last seasons American Idol. And this one I can actually prove 🙂

She was very sweet, and I loved her as a singer. I hope she comes out with some cool songs soon. I thought she was very unique and different.

Now for the people I would LIKE to meet

I’ve been a fan of Julia Roberts since Pretty Women, LOVE her!

I love Ellen Degeneres, I watch her show all the time and just love how funny she is.

I’m very intrigued with Angelina Jolie, I love how she’s really into her kids an also a successful actress at the same time. Don’t exactly know how it’s possible for her to do both, but she sure makes it look possible 🙂

Most of all I would LOVE to meet Thomas S. Monson. Wouldn’t it be nice to just pick his brain for a day. What an inspiring person he is.

Okay, well, you’ve all seen

The Secret

So now that I’ve put it out there, perhaps one day I’ll have the opportunity to meet one of these amazing people.

All right, so let’s hear it! What’s your claim to fame story?

“Whatever is going on in your mind is what you are attracting” The Secret

If you really stop to think about blogging, it is probably one of the most narcissistic things out there. In the beginning of blogging I didn’t know about the “blog world”. I didn’t know I’d form lasting friendships, my main reason for blogging was simply to document our lives. Keep our family that lived far away up to date on our lives. Now, I don’t think my family and friends that we moved away from even read this blog.

Why I blog has changed. This blog has transformed from a blog based around my family to a blog based around me. Like I said ~ narcissistic.

I’ve now transformed my blog into not only documenting my family’s life, my children’s childhood, but my personal development. I’ve learned so much about positivity and thoughts and our minds and how we can become who we are entitled to be. It’s too often on Facebook timelines, blogs and just plain out in the daily lives of people I know that I see them living a negative life.

Never looking at the abundance in their life, just on what they don’t have.

While I’m not constantly positive and having rainbows and butterflies to talk about I try to find the beauty in it all. Trust me, I come from havoc and one of the most dysfunctional families I’ve ever seen… well, maybe not the MOST, but pretty dang close to it. I try to share my positive words and share with others how we don’t have to let the negativity affect us. We don’t have to let our childhoods shape our future.

We have complete control in what happens to our lives. Not everybody has this mindset. Heck, my mindset isn’t even completely there yet, but I know it’s true and I’m working very hard towards mastering this.

And I’m blogging the journey away. That’s why I created {Just a Motivating Monday}. I created it as a carnival for other’s to link up their inspiring, motivating posts. While I rarely have a linkup I still do this EVERY MONDAY. I love to share something positive, uplifting, and motivating for people for the week. I want to help others start their week off with positivity… get their mindset set and my mindset set.  If I’m writing positivity, I’m thinking positivity and I want to manifest nothing but positivity in my life.

I wrote this post for the SITS girls Back to Blogging event. Which is sponsored by Standards of Excellence, Westar Kitchen & Bath, and Florida Builder Appliances.

It’s Friday.

I just spent the 7th week away from my home.

I have officially missed out on 7 weeks of lazy mornings, 3 year old giggles all day, and soaking up the sunshine while watching my little girl play her day away.

But I’m halfway through. There’s only 7 weeks left of me working. 7 weeks left then I’ll be able to go back to lazy mornings, hearing 3 year old giggles all day, but the sun will be gone…. and instead I’ll have to watch her play her day away inside. *sigh*

There’s things I’ve realized in these past 7 weeks of working. I just plain out don’t want to do this for the rest of my life. I’ve watched people come in to work, day after day, sitting in front of a computer. Doing the same thing EVERY. SINGLE. DAY! And I’m not talking young bucks, people. I’m talking I’m watching old people come in who have probably worked the same job for 20+ years. I just can’t fathom doing something like that.

Where is the growth?

Jim Rohn has a quote that I absolutely love love love love love….

“Work harder on yourself than you do on your job. If you work harder on your job you’ll make a living {which is fine} but if you work harder on your self you’ll make a fortune {which is super fine}.”

I have been blessed to have had wonderful opportunites to be placed into my life. Opportunites where I can make a fortune and I can set my life and the life of my children and generations to come up for greatness. I’ve never doubted that what I’ve had in my hands is magical and a pure blessing from God, but I don’t think I knew exactly how much I really needed it in my life.

I had been home for over 3 years and didn’t have to get up and leave at the crack of dawn for work. I didn’t have to miss out on any part of my children’s life. I didn’t have to kiss my kids as I’m running out the door so I’m not late. I didn’t have to miss out on a damn thing. So having something so powerful placed into my lap was fine, but it wasn’t super fine until I realized that if I didn’t grab that bull by the hands and ride it, I would end up one day coming to a job ~ you know, (Just Over Broke). Doing the SAME. THING. EVERY. SINGLE. DAY.

No thank you. I’m setting my life up for greatness. I’m going to go back to building my empire and making money by saving my family and friends money on services they’re already using. I’m going to skip to my mailbox knowing that my mom and my best friend and everybody I know they paid their cable bill, they paid their cell phone bill, the paid their internet bill, they paid their home phone bills, they paid their home security bill to protect their family, they paid their flipping POWER & GAS BILL! And the beauty of it all is, they’re smiling too, because they’re paying cheaper than they paid before. And every, single month I’m getting a portion of that. That is the most beautiful sounding thing I think I’ve ever heard.

It’s my ticket to be home. It’s my ticket to ensure my children’s futures are set. It’s my ticket greatness.

And before these past 7 weeks of doing the SAME. THING. EVERY. SINGLE DAY. I didn’t realize what a true blessing I had in my hands.

For the past almost 3 years {my goodness I downright cannot believe I have been blogging for almost 3 years!} I have been documenting my life, my dreams, my complaints, my motivation, my inner soul at Garibay Soup.  Garibay Soup is what I’ve been known as in the blog community, twitter and even throughout the friends and family in my life.

But I decided that after I lost my domain garibaysoup.com that it was the perfect time to make “the change”.  If you’re a blogger you know what change I’m talking about and that was packing up and moving from blogger over to wordpress. Since I no longer had garibaysoup.com I figured this was the perfect time give myself a complete makeover….. including a name change!

So, I welcome you to Enchanting Havoc.  I chose this name, because honestly my life is havoc.  Things are always hectic, the house can never stay clean, what I create in the kitchen at times turnes into a disaster, there’s just no better word.  My life is havoc….. but my life is enchanting, because it’s beautiful, it’s my happily ever after and I wouldn’t, couldn’t ever ask for anything more.

I hope that you’ll enjoy the new blog!  It’s not 110% done yet, but we’re almost there.  So you might notice little things being changed or not available so bear with me.  But I welcome you and I hope that I can inspire you in some way to see the beauty in the chaos of life!