Anyway, lately there has been an article going around Facebook, that everyone swears is true because it looks to be from a reliable source. I have tried to check in to it, though I admit only half heartedly. I haven't really had the time to do the research I'd like to, and honestly even now I should be sleeping!
The article is about food stamps. Not only about food stamps but wanting the ability to tell people what they can and cannot buy with their food stamps because people feel they are being frauded (is that a word? Frauded?)
Anyway, they don't want people with food stamps to be able to buy sweets, or frozen meals, or anything 'junk'. Because after all, if THEY cannot even afford it than a person with food stamps shouldn't have it either.
I understand where they are coming from. I can see how having maybe $100 a month for most families to shop on a week and that's what you have, is difficult. You are counting your cents, couponing, looking for bargains, looking for sales etc. Trying to get the most out of the cash you have available to feed your family. I soooo understand that.
I will not lie when I say I get food stamps. We have gotten them for the last few years. The amount changes based on work pay and hours and what not. Anytime there is a change in our income it is instantly reported so our food stamp balance can be adjusted to match our income.
I shop the same way many of you all do.
Above, there is home made goulash, with a side salad and cottage cheese and garlic bread (with cheese and diced peppers and tomatoes). A fairly typical supper at my house.
I have to make every cent on that card last. It has to last all month. It has to help feed a family of five. Three of which are young children.
What do young children need to eat plenty of? Fresh fruits, veggies, meats, grains. I want my kids to get healthy food. I want them to have well balanced meals just like every parent out there does. I also have to stop and think if there are any holidays coming up that I will need to cook for and see what we'll need to not pick up this month to make sure we have food for our holiday meal (which our meals are far from extravagant and if we are having friends or family over we ask them to bring a couple of side dishes and a dessert with them so not all of the food prep is on us!)
I have to keep in mind if my children have birthday's coming up that month. Do I need to buy cake mixes? Do I have time to whip up home made frosting to go on their cake, or am I going to need to buy a couple of canisters of ready to go frosting? What finger foods have the kids requested to have at their birthday? Pizza and hot dogs? Crackers and cheese? Fruit punch or apple juice?
I have to stop and think when it is my turn to bring snack to their class rooms, or to a Girl Scout meeting, or to a soccer game. What can I get that is affordable to feed X amount of kids and still HEALTHY. I don't want to be the mom giving out sweet tarts or bubble gum. I'd rather be the mom giving out oranges or apples. Healthier by far than a bag of Lays potato chips or a package of cookies grabbed at the store.
IF my kids want a 'dessert' we make something home made. From scratch. By hand. Using old family recipes past down from my great great and even great great great Grandma. You know, people who lived through the great depression and had little to cook with. When ingredients were hard to come by and you had to make everything last. But you still wanted to have a special treat every once in a great while.
Now with this article that's been floating around like wild fire, I've read many different comments. Some are down right nasty and cruel. Others are more understanding, some are mean and fueled by anger and maybe guilt or embarrassment.
I am thankful for the food stamps we've received. Otherwise, my family would have starved. There was a time when neither my husband or I had a job. I had a sick newborn son going through chemo treatment, and my husband had a mild heart attack and it took awhile before a doctor would release him back to work. We really really struggled.
When we first started out on our own, we didn't have food stamps. We proudly worked on our own. I went to college and worked as many hours as I could at my humble fast food job. My husband started out as a paper boy with a HUGE route, then from that job he found his lawn mowing job with a company in town, he continued the paper route and also mowed lawns, from lawn mowing he got not one but TWO fast food jobs. He worked all of those jobs at once to make ends meet. We lived on the cheapest cheerios we could find, we bought a jug of milk here and there, we bought the cheapest bread, bologna, the cheapo mac and cheese, popcorn, and ramen noodles. That's what we lived on for four years. Just so we could save up some money to start a family and not be swimming in stress later on. It's a good thing we did save that money up too. We weren't expecting my husband to get badly injured a few months after getting married, he was hit by a car on his way to work, and now...8 years later he's still feeling the affects from it. The hit and run driver was never found.
That put him out of commission for awhile. A few weeks later I found out I was 9 weeks pregnant with our first child. The full impact of suddenly realized I could have lost my husband and then end up raising our child on my own, was terrifying. I was thankful he had survived.
We still managed to go along and do fine, barely keeping afloat most of the time.
I wasn't expecting to lose my job. I didn't get fired. I didn't do something wrong. Our branch was shut down by the head honchos. Poof. Just like that. OUCH. To add to the equation, lo and be hold we were pregnant again, kids just have wonderful timing.
A month later, found out it was twins. Another gut punch to the stress ball.
I didn't expect to have twins, how many people do expect that to actually happen? We always wanted four kids but we were going to stop at two and call it quits. God apparently, had other plans and a wicked sense of humor. He compromised and blessed us with three kids, with two pregnancies.
I've been thankful for the WIC Program. I loved that program, and not just for the assistance with food good for a pregnant or nursing mom, or items for the baby, but for the educational purposes and they could answer any nursing questions I had, and I rented a breast pump through them both times. I loved that program, and they cared so much about my kids and still ask how they are doing when we see one of the lovely WIC ladies out and about somewhere. However, many people do NOT qualify for WIC they simply are just out of reach of qualifying, and it's a real struggle for them.
It's nothing to be ashamed of to ask for help. That's what the programs are there for. JUST because you use a program, doesn't mean you are scamming anyone. Sometimes, it just means you really need the help. I know I hate asking for help, I am often embarrassed about it and don't like to talk about it. However, that's silly because everyone at SOME point in time has needed help with SOMETHING.
Now I'll admit I've gone to the grocery store a few times and seen a few shopping carts in front of me that are full of donuts, snack cakes, sugary cereals, frozen pizzas, cases upon cases of soda, etc. However, I can assure you I don't gawk to see how the person in front of me is PAYING for their food. For all I know, they could be paying in cash, or debit or check because I'm not that nosey of a person when it comes to other people shopping. Although, I do admit I hate standing behind a couponer, hahaha (mostly because I'm jealous they are so awesome it and I just can't seem to find a groove when it comes to couponing, I try but I just don't seem to have good luck with it).
I remember using the WIC Vouchers, I think those were difficult. TIME CONSUMING pains in the butt. While they were time consuming, and stressful because you hear everyone in line mumbling about "Oh great they have WIC" and leaving the line...your face gets red and your eyes tear up and you look at your children who are starting to fuss because they are antsy and done and tired of being in the store and they just want to go home and take their nap, and you just want to go home and get this stuff put away and here everyone is staring at you, and wait..what's that? What do you mean that isn't a WIC item, I just got it here last week! Oh...they changed things...again? What? Great. Ummm can I run back and get the right item?? Please? More staring from strangers, and eye rolling from them, and the person at the register looks frustrated and calls their manager over who looks frustrated too and at this point you are just ready to cry and say "Oh well, never mind....it's not something that my kids like anyway....and you just get out of there as quick as you can because your kids are now in complete melt down causing you to get even MORE stares and passing judgments.
I remember when food stamps were paper check things. That was when I was a kid and my Mother had them. I hated it. I would flee from the register and practically hide in a hole some where to keep from anyone seeing me with my Mother as she paid for our groceries with the paper food stamps. I thought to myself "I will NEVER EVER use food stamps!!"
How things change when you find yourself faced with circumstances you can't control. Do you stay prideful and not get help and let your children go hungry, or do you swallow your pride and ask for help? I'd rather ask for help than let my kids go hungry.
Everyone says "GO TO FOOD BANKS THEY HAVE FOOD!" Well, that is true they do have food at food banks, but that isn't going to feed your whole family for very long, and quite frankly, we've been to a few and what we got...while I'm not trying to bash it or seem unappreciative in anyway...was a lot of sweets, and veggies or fruits on the verge of going bad (which many are still very useable if you quickly wash, and dice them and freeze them). I cannot feed my family on junk food. A few little treats here and there is one thing, but frozen dinners, and candy bars, and ice cream is not going to feed my family and keep them healthy for a month.
Also some food banks struggle with donations because people don't WANT to donate. They don't feel they should have to donate to others. So food banks suffer. They can only help others based upon how many donations they get. Don't just rely on grocery stores to donate to food banks.
In the past I've been told "well cancel your internet" Guess what, most of the time we didn't HAVE internet, we were using an old computer with a router that allowed us to pick up a neighbors wi fi (with their permission of course). We've been without a cell phone for over 5 years now, we just recently got one and it's a simple Wal Mart Family Plan thing, and it's just one phone that my husband and I share. NOTHING at all fancy. It's not an iPhone or what ever.
We had a home phone, because with children you need some kind of phone and it was cheaper than having a cell phone. We still have our home phone as our primary phone.
We don't even have a CAR right now. In fact, we've NOT had a car longer than we've ever HAD a car. A car is simply just something we cannot afford. I mean, yeh sure we could BUY a car, but there is continuing the car insurance (and I WILL NOT drive without car insurance), there is paying the taxes, getting it licensed and paying all of those lovely fees. I keep my drivers license up to date, but a car is just not within our grasp at the moment. Thankfully my mother in law lives in town now, and she bought a van and we are able to use the van any time we need to, so that is very helpful, but still a pain in the butt. Somehow, we manage to get by though.
When I go clothes shopping...eh? Wait...what's that? I don't go clothes shopping. I don't get my nails done (Haven't had my 'nails done' since I got married!!!) I have no fancy purses. If you see me with something fancy, you better believe we saved up for that sucker and pinched every penny we had, or it was a gift from a close friend or family member or we sold something else we weren't using to get it!!
Above: me with my "nails done" around Halloween time, I did them my self. I did my daughters nails to match. That's how we do things around here. We get creative and do our OWN nails. Sure, it isn't as pretty as the nail salon, but I don't really like nail salons anyway so I'm not heart broken. I'd rather just do it myself even if it isn't perfect. It's still more fun.
We decide once a year what activities the kid are going to do throughout the year and what things they have at school and what not (club fee's, sports fee's, sports equipment, school photos, school fund raisers, school book fairs etc) and we try to save a set amount from our income tax money to pay for those things throughout the year. Our change jar goes towards these things or towards my daughters Girl Scouts activities if needed. Currently we are saving towards a small family vacation to a Zoo that is like 3 hours away (like we did last year). As well as our weekend trips a couple times a month to a nearby lake to swim and BBQ and we're HOPING that maybe we can buy a cheap tent and camp over night and take the kids fishing.
No trip to Disney World for us. That's ok, we have plenty of fun in our own back yard. Water gun fights where we invite all the neighborhood kids, ice cream parties where everyone brings their favorite ice cream and some ice cream cones and we hang out outside and eat ice cream and have fun. We make our own silly back yard games.
We went to the Henry Doorly Zoo in Omaha Nebraska a few summers ago, but my mother in law paid for the whole trip and I just did all of the driving.
We do several of the FUN local activities our town offers that are most generally free to the community. We try to visit the local carnival, if we can afford it. IF we can't afford the rides, we at least walk around and check things out and still manage to have a fun time.
We're pretty simple. We like it that way.
We are even simple with our grocery list. Don't worry we're not out buying T Bone steak, or lobster or shrimp. First of all, I'm not a huge fan of any of those things really, so we're good there. Second of all, why would I buy that? That stuff isn't going to feed my family all month long.
I need things like hamburger, a couple packs of ground sausage (I make home made from scratch biscuits and gravy a couple times a month on the weekends for my kids and they love it). SO much more affordable than going out to eat for that stuff.
Above: Stuffed Zucchini that I made last summer, and it was so good and I can't wait to make more! A friend had plenty of zucchini from her garden and she gifted me several. Many were prepped and frozen for zucchini bread, and several I turned into stuffed zucchini. It was delicious and the kids ate it right up.
We buy chicken breasts and that can be used in a million different recipes (chicken casserole, chicken noodle soup, chicken and dumplings, chicken taco's, baked chicken breasts, and on and on it could go). We sometimes catch awesome sales on meat at a local grocery store near us and everyone flocks there. We still buy a freezer full of meat with our income tax money every year just like soooooo many other people out there living day to day life. Just to "stock up" for the coming months.
We do buy a couple packs of hot dogs here and there, and yes we do try to get healthier hot dogs for the kids just because it's better for them, but we don't always do that sometimes we just buy what is there, and those are usually used with bbqing at home.
Above: Home made pizza lunchable made for my kids to take to school for lunch. 'crust' made out of tortilla's cut with a cookie cutter (into the shape of lips), and some shredded mozzarella cheese, pizza sauce, pepperoni, and black olives their favorite toppings. And I added ONE gummy worm per lunch box for a treat, and they had apple juice to drink.
Spaghetti noodles, and sauce, but sometimes I make home made sauce. I prefer to make home made mac and cheese because it's better than the store boxed stuff and my kids won't touch that stuff in a box. I make home made tuna casserole so of course need tuna for that and peas. We buy frozen veggies (not the most expensive and it has no 'sauce' or anything added to it).
We buy ONE pack of cookies that is to last all month, and if it doesn't? Tough luck kids, unless we have the time and ingredients to bake some. We buy some healthy stuff for after school snacks (cheese sticks, gold fish crackers or cheese it crackers, apples, oranges, grapes, whole wheat pretzels). We buy peanut butter because it is perfect to go with most after school snacks!
We buy a couple of frozen pizza's and they are for ONE of our Friday night FAMILY NIGHTS, where we have pizza, and pop corn, make root beer floats at home and watch a movie we already have at home and play board games. Yeh, For ONE night out of the month we have frozen pizza.
Above: Slow Cooker Cheeseburger soup (a huge hit and so easy to make, and didn't cost an arm and a leg, it was YUMMY!) I actually need to make it again some time! Served with some garlic bread.
We buy a couple bags of chicken nuggets or MAYBE a box of corn dogs if the kids want to switch it up. They like to have that on the weekends for lunch when they are tired of PB and J. OR tired of making their own home made pizza with a slice of bread, some pizza sauce and some shredded cheese. We love to cook with cabbage, my kids will eat cabbage like crazy. So I buy a few heads of cabbage which are pretty cheap generally. Cabbage can be cooked so many ways! We buy some brown rice too (healthier than white rice). We make our own stir fry with left over meat and frozen veggies. We make meat loaf, and spaghetti with garlic bread, lasagna, and tuna casserole, chicken noodle soup, potato soup, etc. Things that YOU all probably make at home too. We make meals that are going to feed us for more than one meal. We can use it for lunch the next day, or for left over night. Or freeze left over portions for some time later.
I collect as many garden veggies during the summer as I can to shred and prep for my freezer to help with the cooking and baking in the winter months.
I promise I'm not wasting my food stamps on soda, energy drinks, donuts, and other crap like that.
We DO buy two cases of soda. One for me and one for my husband. It has to last all month. End of story. If it doesn't...tough luck.
I buy coffee creamer (the cheap store brand powdered stuff, and if I'm lucky I MIGHT find a liquid one I like but I found a great recipe for home made creamer that I love and it can be flavored so that's always nice to make, and even cheaper!)
I don't know about YOUR kids, but mine go through a ton of milk. Milk is used in cooking, cereal 5 days a week, they drink a little milk after school sometimes (or water, they love water thankfully). Milk just seems to go so quickly.
Above: Another home made lunchable for my kids school lunch boxes. Some crackers, some cheese I cut into squares, and some pepperoni slices, and some grapes, and ONE cookie, and there is some yogurt in there to dip their grapes in.
Cheese and bread goes very quickly too.
Eggs can go really fast depending on the mood we're all in. To be honest I haven't been much of an egg fan since I had my daughter. I would get violently ILL at the mere IDEA of an egg (cooked, or not) when I was pregnant with her so it pretty well killed my desire for eggs). We buy a bag or potatoes and it lasts all month.
We get some frozen orange juice, and in the summer I get some ice cream that has to last a long time, and I get some of those freezer pop things to keep in the freezer for the kids.
Me make lots of chili, and ham and beans (I'm so tired of chili and ham and beans by the way!!) But it's cheap and feeds us all, so we make it often. I'm also tired of spaghetti.
Above: Would you like some home made Amish cinnamon bread? This is the most delicious and yummy treat ever. I love making this and so do the kids. It doesn't last long in my house. It is so delicious to bake a day early and then have with breakfast the next day.
Off brand cereal feeds my kids and I HATE tons of sugary cereal. So we carefully choose what we get the kids. SOMETIMES my husband is feeling kind and lets them get a bag of stuff I wouldn't necessarily approve of, but they are kids and deserve SOME fun.
We don't buy lunchables every day. We only pick those up if we're on a road trip and I know the kids are going to cry hungry an hour into our trip.
I can't say I agree with the decision to want to stop the purchase of sweets/junk etc with food stamps. Because one persons idea of "junk" is different than anothers. Also if they can start telling people on food stamps what to buy...what else are they going to start telling others what they can do? I think education is the best way to get through to people. Besides, it's hard enough to keep up with the changes that happen on the WIC vouchers, (and that's with little brochures handed to you to show you what you can and can't get with your WIC Vouchers, and that seems to change every few months). So good luck trying to do that with food stamps too. Better give people a diagram so they know, other wise they will get up to a check out lane and will take forever trying to ring up and fix their cart because certain items aren't buyable with their food stamps. (Now like I said, I don't know if this is a legit thing they are trying to do, seems I've heard about it before a few years ago, and if they do...well they do. You'll either deal with it...or you won't.)
However, if I decide I want to bake my child a cake for their birthday, and the ONLY money I have available to be able to do that is my food stamps, I should be able to purchase those items needed (cake mix, frosting maybe some little candies to go on top for decoration or whatever) for my kid. It's their birthday. It deserves to be fun, even if it IS just a cake.
I disagree with people who sell their food stamps for alcohol, drugs or cigarettes. That is very wrong and not cool at all. If you have children, you are taking food from your children to support YOUR habit, to support it with something that is to benefit your child. Not. Cool.
Part of me gets annoyed when I see or hear someone talking about their food stamps in one breathe and then talking about going to get their nails or hair done in the next breathe. However, I don't know (unless they say) if someone else is paying for it or not, maybe they are. Maybe they have a friend who knows how to do that stuff. I know I get my hair cut once a year, two if I'm lucky. I paint my own nails (or my 7 year old daughter does). If you EVER see me with a name brand purse you better BELIEVE it came from Good Will or a yard sale because that's where ALL of my purses come from. In fact that's where MOST of my clothes come from. I haven't bought new jeans in 3 years. I haven't bought BRAND new shoes in 3 years either. I did FINALLY pick me up a new dress last year, and I love it. Found it on sale...at Wal Mart. Score.
*guilty* of buying a $5 pair of sunglasses yesterday too to replace my Good Will sunglasses that had the lens pop out and got lost somewhere.
I have zero flip flops for this summer. I have no plans of buying any either. My kids need sandals first.
I cried when I splurged yesterday and bought a $4 pair of earrings on a whim, something I NEVER do. When I got home one of the damn earrings BROKE, and there was no fixing it. I cried my eyes out over wasting $4 for something that broke. That I never got to use.
The one truly expensive item that I own, is my camera. I used income tax money to buy that camera. It's my baby. I spent a good chunk on that camera, and I've had it for a couple of years now. I would so love to upgrade to another lens, but it's just not happening right now and I'm ok with that.
Photography is a passion of mine I just love it, and I wanted a decent camera to use, and I'm so thankful for my camera. Our computer, my husband bought with his college money because he needed a nice computer for his computer graphics program in college.
Every bit of furniture in our house...is second hand. Yard sale, given to us, found on the side of the road and re worked into something new.
I found a new rug for the living room on sale during income tax season. I repainted some items in my living room to give them 'new life' rather than BUY brand new stuff to put in. We did get a new microwave, and a new vacuum, but the old were super old and ready to go out on us, so we got them while we could.
We are currently in the process of renting to own a washer and dryer, but our other one was going out on us (the washer was my mother in laws, and it was acting up, it was 15 years old!!) so we figured it was time for a new set, and we're paying it off slowly, but surely.
My dream? Is to eventually have a new couch. Ours has had a very rough life. It's hanging in there though, for now...and we'll use it till it no longer holds us.
My shopping list consists of:
- Milk
- Bread
- Eggs
- Shredded Cheese
- Chicken Breast
- Hamburger
- Big bag of tator tots
- Bag of French fries
- Pancake mix
- Syrup (if needed)
- Sugar (if needed)
- Flour (if needed)
- Coffee (if needed)
- Creamer (if needed)
- Cottage Cheese
- Sour Cream
- Fresh veggies and fruits (getting what is in season as often as we can) Apples, oranges, banana's, cabbage, lettuce etc
- Orange Juice
- Butter
- Egg Noodles
- Several cans of tuna in water
- Spaghetti sauce
- Spaghetti noodles
- Macaroni noodles (not those icky boxes of mac and cheese I make my own macaroni and cheese, and the noodles I buy get used in multiple recipes)
- Chicken broth
- Frozen veggies
- Chicken Nuggets (one bag)
- Frozen Ravioli
- Other meat, if we find good deals on it
- Tortilla shells (for taco night, yay!)
- A couple frozen pizza's for one night of the month
- Potatoes
- A few canned veggies (tomatoes, mushrooms, beans for chili, tomato paste, etc)
- Cereal
- Oatmeal
- A bag of cookies, a bag of chips, and yes, two boxes of soda.
There are other things that go on our list and it all depends on what we may or may not need in our cupboards. Whatever we buy, has to last the whole month and be able to make more than one meal.
Above: This is how we make our home made stir fry, though usually I prefer to use brown rice, but the husband likes the white rice so it just depends on who is cooking it.
We make meals like:
- Home made stir fry (with brown rice, diced up chicken breast, and frozen veggies)
- Chicken noodle soup (made with shredded chicken breast, egg noodles, and some frozen mixed veggies.
- Spaghetti and garlic bread with a side salad (lettuce with some tomatoes and stuff left over from taco night)
- Taco's
- Meat loaf, with mac and cheese and baked beans or broccoli
- Chili
- Potato soup
- Lasagna with cottage cheese and side salad and maybe garlic bread
- Ham and Beans
- Home made Salisbury steak, with mashed potatoes and home made gravy and frozen green beans (I'm not big on veggies out of cans).
- Home made roast beef sandwiches (Don't get to make these NEARLY as often as I'd like too, basically if we have left over roast meat, and that all depends on how expensive a roast is, and if I can find a good deal on a big enough one to feed my whole family)
- *gasp* Tator tot casserole (I once got made fun of for making that for my kids)
- Ravioli (of the frozen variety where you add your own sauce), again with cottage cheese and salad.
- Tuna Casserole (Mmmm I love my home made tuna casserole!)
- Stuffed peppers or Cabbage rolls (NO not egg rolls you'd be surprised how many people get that confused).
I dread grocery shopping day, which eh...is actually coming up. I have to sit down and pour through my cupboards finding out what we really really REALLY need and what can wait another month. Go through the fridge and get rid of anything expired and see if it's something we really need after all. Sitting down and planning out what is going on this month (is there a holiday, a birthday, do I have to supply a snack for anything this month? For like soccer, Girl Scouts, or the class room?) What snacks did the kids like and do we need more? (Currently they love cheese sticks, yogurt, cheese its, apple slices, orange slices, etc) Since we don't have a car we just go and get all the shopping done all at once, because it's simply easier than going once a week and trying to find a way there. So it's embarrassing to go through the store with an over flowing shopping cart and looking like we're buying for an army. That lasts a MONTH for FIVE people. So please don't stare. Don't judge. I am not hosting dinner parties every night, I'm not serving shrimp and lobster, I'm not serving rib eye steak and top sirloin. Granted, we aren't eating frozen dinners every night, or living on ho ho's and Twinkies either.
I always set aside some of my pay check to pick up things like a gallon of milk, because WE ALWAYS NEED MORE MILK. It never fails, we run out of cereal too, and shredded cheese.
Shopping (whether it's house supplies, groceries, shopping for clothes etc) is just not something I enjoy doing. It's stressful, and just puts me in a grouchy mood.
Food stamps are not the enemy! There are so many people around you using food stamps, and chances are...you don't even know. People are most of the time just simply too embarrassed to talk about it, because they know how quick to judge people can be. Working people get food stamps too. It doesn't mean they aren't working hard, it just means their pay checks aren't stretching as far as they need too, and they need some help, there is no shame in that. I have the same worries of people not on food stamps. Paying my bills, making sure my kids do good in school and grow up to be good caring people who work hard, making sure everyone is healthy in my family, worrying about 'what's next' (the next big thing we need to save up for or worry about). I dread school shopping, and Christmas shopping, and buying summer clothes since my kids always go on growth spurts at the freaking WORST possible times ever. I worry about wanting my kids to not feel left out from things because we don't have the money for that right now (my sons soooo badly want to take some kind of martial arts class and I think they'd be AMAZING at it, but sadly it's NOT in the budget at this time). So instead, they are playing soccer, and they love it.
Families, everywhere...just doing the best they can.
I don't post this to gain pity or anything like that. It's just another take of someone else's life. We all live such different lives, yet at the same time...a lot of us (whether we care to admit it or not) are going through such similar struggles, and often face such similar fears, and worries).
Mom Circus
