My new connections!

With my new career just on the horizon, I have joined the South Jersey Paralegal Association. They are the nicest group of women That I have had the pleasure of meeting and have been so very welcoming to me! I wanted to share our new officers because I am so happy and excited about the upcoming year! If any of you are interested or know someone who may be interested, please share this with them as well!
Congratulations to all of our new Officers!

PRESS RELEASE FROM SJPA (By News Contact: Georgea Oshman)

New Board Of Directors For South Jersey Paralegal Association

SJPA installation of new officers fêted at Cherry Hill Restaurant

(CHERRY HILL, NJ)—June 27, 2011 – The South Jersey Paralegal Association is pleased to announce the installation of their new Board of Directors for the 2011–2012 term. A ceremony was performed by the Association’s guest speaker, The Honorable Ann Marie Donio, United States Magistrate Judge, during a dinner meeting held at the Caffé Aldo Lamberti in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, on June 27, 2011.

The new 2011-2012 slate of Officers are Betsy Lindenberg, President, Georgea Oshman, Vice President, Janice Kennedy, NJCP, Treasurer, Sue Merewitz, Recording Secretary, Rebecca Watson, Primary Representative to the National Federation of Paralegal Associations, Georgea Oshman, Secondary Representative to NFPA, Lynne DeRemigio, NJCP, Parliamentarian, and Christi Valerio, NJCP, Corresponding Secretary. Additional Committee Chairmanships will be appointed by President Lindenberg prior to September.

One of the major endeavors for the new Board will be the planning and hosting of the SJPA Paralegal Convention to be held for the first time in the South Jersey area. This special event is planned for March 30, 2012 at The Enterprise Center located on the Burlington County College Campus in Mount Laurel, New Jersey. Additionally, a September “kick-off” event is planned for the Marlton/Cherry Hill area. Details for this event will be posted to the South Jersey Paralegal Association’s website in July.

For more information please visit the South Jersey Paralegal Association (www.sjpaparalegals.org )

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BIO:  South Jersey Paralegal Association

The South Jersey Paralegal Association is a New Jersey-based, non-profit organization incorporated in 1983 and is governed by a Board of Directors.  SJPA is a member of the national/international organization—the National Federation of Paralegal Associations—with 16,000+ members.  SJPA is comprised of paralegals, paralegal students, paralegal educational institutions and other entities that support SJPA’s goals and the paralegal profession. Traditional members are either employed or retained by law firms, corporations, governmental agencies or financial institutions throughout New Jersey.

WHEW!

Have you noticed I was gone? If you have, I have been absent for a good reason. I, a Mom of six children aged 4-14, decided to go back to college. I guess the daily tasks of Motherhood, laundry, cooking, cleaning, disciplining, carpooling, teacher conferences, IEP meetings, kids activities, blah, blah, blah, wasn't enough for me.

I made the decision to go, I registered before I could think too much about it and BAM! I was a student again! I was nervous. I was 39 years old, been out of work for 14 years to stay home with my kids, been away from school even longer, and I take 9 credits. (Hey, I don't do anything half way!)

It was wonderful! I haven't felt so alive in a long time! My kids were only mildly neglected and my husband only mildly annoyed with extra responsibilities. It worked out fine!

I ended the semester with A's in all three of my classes, and my kids have a new appreciation for school and it's importance.

I am taking two online classes this summer, and then, in the fall, I'm back in the classroom again! I have even started the ball rolling on a fall internship!

Wow, look at that, my fist blog in a while and it's almost all about ME! That feels swell!
:-) Looks like I do have a place after all!

It's a New Year!

Happy 2011 Everyone!  Well, another year behind us, another year ahead.  As I look forward, I'm happy, I'm nervous, I'm excited, I'm my normal crazy self!  I can't believe all the things that I have been through and survived in my life and I worry about what is to come. 
I would like to make a toast to all the people that have been in my life, through good and bad, for the short term and the long term.
Here goes.....

As I think about my life my family and my friends, I am amazed at how blessed I have been.  I have been given, throughout my life, so many people people that have taught me so many lessons through the years.

With you, I have experienced the hilarious, the uncomfortable, the emotional, the memorable and even the unthinkable.  We have disagreed, cried, laughed, hugged, held hands and loved together.

We have had broken hearts and broken spirits, we have picked up the pieces and dropped them again. We have sat in silence when there were just no words to say and we have interrupted when it was necessary.

Our friends have become our family and our families have become our friends.

For 2011, I wish for all of you love, peace and grace.

Happy and Healthy 2011 to all.  Every experience and every person has made me who I am today, I wouldn't change a thing.

Ho! Ho! Ho! Because I said so!

My babies in a rare moment of cooperation. I only needed to threaten my 14 year old once! That's progress!

Crazy Christmas

It's almost Christmas, five days to be exact. I hate to admit it, but as an adult, I've never really been a big fan of Christmas. It's all commercial and so overly hyped up that, honestly, no one could really live up to it. It's just a huge set up to an equally huge let down.

When my kids were little, some of the magic came back for me. Christmas through a child's eyes is magical and wondrous and infectious. I started to actually enjoy Christmas again. Then, the kids grew.

Let's face it, kids are born selfish. When a baby is hungry, he cries until he's fed, it's human nature, it's how they survive, I get it. I just wasn't aware that my 14 year old was at risk of death if he doesn't have a cell phone. That a Nintendo DSi was crucial to my 8 year old son's survival. No parenting book ever taught me that my 9 year old will absolutely perish if he has to wait one more year for an iPod.

Family Christmas visits are a disaster. What, in my mind, should be a Norman Rockwell painting of my extended family enjoying my wonderfully polite and well behaved children turns into a soccer game in my Aunt's family room resulting in a spilled drink and me melting down.

The Christmas season in my house is the joy of breaking up four fights over who's turn it is to mix the cookie dough. It's the harmony of White Christmas playing on the stereo whilst my four year old accompanies good ole' Bing with a temper tantrum.

In spite of all this, as Christmas draws near, I am sad. I am sad because as a divorced Mom, my oldest five children will be spending Christmas with their Father this year. Brian and I will only have our four year old for Christmas. It will be so quiet as Aidan will have no one to tease and torture him. I won't have any fights to break up but I also won't get to see the faces of my older kids upon opening their presents on Christmas morning. I am hosting a family Christmas with my own family fractured and incomplete. 

As I write this I have become melancholy and a bit sappy, because after all, my kids are at school and I am becoming delusional in the peace and quiet. I'm sure when they get home they will snap me back to reality.

So, for this year, I get to skip the whining and crying and fighting and disappointment over what presents they DIDN'T get. I will call my children on Christmas morning at their Father's house and hear about their gifts and they will tell me that they miss me and they wish that they were home for Christmas. I will smile and tell them that I miss them too (because I will) and I will know all the while that my ex will have to deal with the reality of it all, if only for one weekend, and I will be just fine.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Mom's can party too

I am going to confess.....

I love my kids, but I also want to be a person.  Being a Mom is great, don't get me wrong, but it can't be ALL there is to life.  I only know a few Moms that will actually admit to this although, I suspect that there are many more Mom's that feel this way but are afraid to SAY it.

Well, why the hell not?  Mom Guilt?  Fear that other Mothers might judge you?  Newsflash, they already do.  Before Motherhood we were women, we had careers, we had friends, we had FUN.  Why should ALL of that cease just because we had a kid or two or six?

Of course it gets harder.  Of course our children come first, that goes without saying.  I love a wild night out with friends today as much as I did in my 20's but if one of my kids is sick or has a project due, or has a social function, my fun gets put on hold.

I have learned through 14 and a half years of parenting that I am a BETTER Mother when I get time for me.  I have learned that it's okay to go out with your spouse or a friend for the evening.  Hell, I even get drunk sometimes!  *GASP*

So, lets end the Mom guilt.  Call your girlfriends, grab another couple, get out of the house and let loose!  Your kids will be fine, and you just might feel like a human again!

And if another Mother judges you for it, she's probably jealous, invite her out next time, I bet she goes!

Here come the girlfriends!

My oldest is 14.  He is also a boy.  This means that he doesn't often come to me with "boy type" problems or issues.  As his Mother, I am mostly grateful for that.  I am probably better off not knowing his "boy type" issues.

My son does come to me when it matters most though.  He will come to me when something is really bothering him, when he's really frustrated or confused by something or when he wants to ask about girls.

He always starts with, "Since you're a girl........."  It's right at that point when I take a deep but silent breath and remind myself to NOT sound like his Mother.

Those words evoke something in me.  Fear, joy, indigestion, I haven't decided which it is.
I'm not really a "girl" anymore.  I am a woman who has never really had a bunch of luck in the dating, boyfriend, love department until I finally got it right with my current husband.

I didn't date in Middle or High School.  It wasn't because I didn't want to, it was because the boy that I liked usually liked my friend and the boy that my friend liked usually liked me.  Like a bad episode of a High School drama, it went on and on this way.

So, now here I am with a 14 year old son who wants advice on girls.  I dare not tell him the truth.  The truth is, that he will like many girls who will not like him back, that he will have girls following him around, "in love" with him that he doesn't like at all.  That his heart will get broken, more than once, and that when it does he will pick up the pieces just to have it broken again.

I don't tell him that girls are as scared as boys are but mostly because if their girlfriends don't like the boy she is dating, she will have to dump him, no matter how she really feels.

I don't tell him that he's too young to be thinking about girls and dating and that there are more important things for him to focus on.  I also don't tell him that I don't really believe that he's too young to be thinking about girls and dating, I just want him to believe that so that he doesn't have to get hurt by it all already.

And so it begins.  His life is beginning to become his own.  This is the first step towards finding his future wife.  That sounds dramatic, but it's true.  Dating is how he will know her when he meets her. 

When the time does come for each of my children to marry, I do hope that they ALL will remember the one piece of advice that I didn't take myself the first time I got married BUT did get right the second time;

"Marry your best friend."

In the meantime, I will give advice only when asked, I will help him pick out corsages and I will not kick the ass of any little girl who breaks my son's heart.  What more could a son ask of his good ol' Mom?