It’s ALL for Instagram

It’s EASY for us to get sucked into the world that social media creates. Sometimes we think that in order for us to be “satisfied” with our lives, we have to live it up lavishly like everyone else. I can speak for myself, I think we have all scrolled on Instagram and pondered on, “How on earth is this person THAT successful?” 

NEWS FLASH- Sometimes it’s JUST for the media! 

We all have our daily struggles, and one that I have a difficult time with is maintaining my study schedule. Alice (my 4 month old) doesn’t typically like me to have a set schedule so she takes it upon herself to switch up her sleep times which throws off all my studying. And on that note, some of us will struggle with finances and how to manage them. My first real experience of how to manage my finances was when I leased an apartment at the age of 16. (Yes, this was completely illegal at the time, but quite grateful for the man that gave me a chance because he saw my potential). Rent was 400 a month (for an efficiency years ago people) plus utilities, and groceries of course. All I did was go to school, and work at Sonic at the time ( I don’t want to recall those Sonic times).

What helped me stay on budget and keep track of all my bills at that age?

I KEPT A LIST!

SO HERE WE GO:

  1. Write a list of all your bills.
  2. Write down the amount of income you bring in every month (excluding anything that you are not sure you’re going to get such as child support).
  3. Review the list of your bills and see what is a NECESSITY and what is a WANT. Can you do without the want and save about 150 or so a month for it? -Cool then eliminate it off of your list of bills. 
  4. Think about it like this, if you eliminate ONE bills (for example the $150) you could potentially put in your savings about $1,800 in just 1 year! Now tell me we all don’t need savings for those emergency situations?! Before Alice was born we had an unexpected accident which caused us to dig into our savings and give a $1,000 deductible to the car collision center. GRRRR, I was so upset, but grateful that we had the money available rather than having to pull out a credit card.
  5. Besides, who REALLY needs cable when we have Netflix, Hulu, Funimation (that my husband loves), SLING TV, and etc. because I know the list goes on and on. You’re easily spending about $12/month which is definitely a better bargain when you KNOW you hardly get to watch TV since you’re out and about all day!

Continuing to build on your savings and setting aside for other activities you would like to do such as a vacation, is preparing you for a mindset of saving for your future HOME! My husband and I have decided that once things get on track as I know they will because God is good that way, we will begin saving again for our home. Our goal is to have a good percentage saved to get that dream home we desire. 

My point is, it’s okay to not live that “lavish” lifestyle for now, so you can save NOW for the lifestyle you want in your future, with a HOME and savings in your bank. Re-evaluate what you spend your money on, what you can tweak, and begin SAVING!

Do you have any other tips on how to save money? I would love to know! Weigh in and drop your thoughts for me. Until Next Time! 

Need Encouragement? 8 tips to reach your potential!

It’s Not Whether You Get Knocked Down, It’s Whether You Get Up.” – V. Lombardi

Do you ever feel like you have hit a plateau in your life? What ever it is that you may be pursuing in life? Man, I feel like I HIT THAT this past week! No matter how hard I attempted to pull myself out of it, I was absolutely UNSUCCESSFUL!

Funny how drastic things typically have to occur in order for you to realign your priorities (again), get that fire under your ass and keep going, huh? As you all know, my grandfather recently passed away. To be honest, out of my father’s side of the family he was the only one truly interested in my future and my career plans. Anytime I spoke with him about my goals, he would reply, “Well you need to get your Master’s degree Bianca.” Here I am little ole’ me just thinking small like, “Yeah, i’ll get my bachelors degree and work and see how things go from there.” He was such a well-rounded man. He never had his own house he desired with a backyard that had a garden he could take care of, but if he were at any friend or relatives home, he would get out there and trim some roses and just stimulate your  mind with some badass knowledge. 

So how do we get back up after being knocked down? I mean, it HAS to be easy, right? –WRONG! Oh man, the struggle is real sometimes.

Here are some helpful tips:

  1. Take a step back and evaluate what you have been doing the past week; what have you been spending your time on?
  2. Is it related to what you need to do in order for you to achieve your maximum potential in the future?
  3. If not, then go ahead and eliminate that off your “to-do” list, whether that being hanging out with friends, or scrolling through social media for hours.
  4. Start from scratch and create a NEW schedule.
  5. Make sure you make use of every HOUR of your day.(I really believe that people don’t recognize how much one can really get accomplished in a day if they just learn how to manage their time wisely.) 
  6. Dedicate a couple of hours a day to your work! -I say a couple of hours a day because I’m a mother of 3, so sometimes it’s hard to pull away for an extended amount of time without the house falling apart rather quickly. 
  7. Once you are done with that PLANNEDout schedule for your week, do a test run and see if there are any changes you think you need to implement. 
  8. LASTLY, keep in mind that it takes TIMEto adjust to new schedules, just like a sleep schedule takes a minimum of two weeks for your body to adjust to those set times you have placed. 

 

 

After getting back from my grandfather’s funeral and discovering that I have a good amount of family members in the medical field, my desires to achieve that maximum potential in my life have SKYROCKETED!–You can catch me studying, while trying to blog, and be a good mom all at once. Let’s see how well I can manage.

I hope this helps you some! Weigh in and add what you think should be on this list of tips as well. Can’t wait to hear from you all!

Discovering Bangladesh Culture

Hello Everyone! 

Have you ever discovered you were an ethnicity you had no idea about?

Recently, my grandfather passed away (quite suddenly) and he happened to be at an unexpected place at the time, MINNESOTA! He’s lived most of his adult years in Dallas, Texas although he is from Bangladesh. Growing up, I had NO IDEA I was even Bangladesh. My father always explained to me that I was Pakistani, and well of course I knew I was Mexican as well (hola!) because my mother never forgot to teach me about her roots. I recently discovered I was Bangladesh about 2 years ago, yes yes, well into my adult years already, I’m nearly 30! 

Alice (my youngest daughter) and I packed our bags and caught a flight to Minnesota, racing to the hospital to say our final goodbyes. By the time we arrived, physicians gathered everyone in a room and discussed the options we had in order to provide him with a peaceful death. Some family members fought, stating that we needed to begin dialysis and that maybe this would be a miracle and he would come back. I opted for allowing him to be on medications and letting him die peacefully without causing any further damage to his body. My grandfather had some neurological brain damage after being with low oxygen for several hours, a weak heart that was no longer perfusing to the rest of his organs, and fluid in his lungs with a recent discovery of lung cancer. A few hours later, he passed.

I learned that in the Islamic tradition, one must bury their loved ones 24 hours after their death! I was clueless to anything relevant to this. Maybe I should start doing further research into the culture.. Unfortunately, this put us in a predicament where we had to bury my grandfathers body in Minnesota rather than transporting it back to Texas. 

So my question to you is, what do you do when you are of a different faith than the relative you are burying? — I found myself clashing with mostly everything, but out of respect I followed through with what my family wanted. 

I discovered that my grandfather believed in a prophet coming AFTER Mohammed the prophet, therefore he was considered an Amity ( I had to do some research obviously). My father was fighting with the mosque because they were stating he was unable to be buried where the other muslims were.

The following day I had to wash my grandfather’s body, this is known as “Ghusl.” Being that I ALSO do not speak URDU this was a difficult task. I began to wash his body 3 times, beginning with his face. 3 Somalian men volunteered to help me. We rid his body of any extra fluid by sitting him up and pressing down on his abdomen ( I apologize if I am making this too graphic), and I wrapped him in white cloth and tied knots, assuring that the cloth would remain intact while being transported to the burial site. His body was laid to rest in a big storage container with zipties securing it. 

LATER ON…..

I did some research and realized that only MEN are supposed to perform this ritual! I’m glad that no one enforced that rule because I feel like cleaning his body and praying for him in my own form was a way of closure for me that allowed me to not fall apart when it came time to bury him. 

So how would you have death with the entire situation?

Do you believe that the tradition of allowing only men to perform this ritual should be applied regardless of the circumstances? 

Also, how have you coped with the death of a loved one? 

Do you believe that if one does not cry during such a stressful time that they truly did not care for the individual? –My personal take on that is that we all grieve differently and the same things do not apply to everyone. 

Lastly, to bring things to a close, this led me to wanting to learn more about my culture. To be able to give that information to my daughters if they are ever curious about our roots. Hey, maybe even visit Pakistan and Bangladesh someday. I heard it was beautiful.

What are your thoughts? Weigh in and let me know! I would love to hear from you guys! 

High School Dropout to Nursing School Graduate

Be A Leader

      Have you ever felt you needed to make a decision you were not prepared to make, but no longer had other options? That’s how I felt when I had to walk into my high school and withdraw from all my courses. I remember going through every hall, getting my form signed by my teachers. Algebra was a course I struggled with, and my instructor Mrs. Johnson was ALWAYS giving me such a hard time. As I regretted approaching her class, I put my big girl panties on and proceeded to knock on her door. She stepped outside and I handed her my form. Before I could open my mouth, she instantly began telling me I was making a big mistake; dropping out of high school was not the only option I had. Tears just started falling because little did she know, I didn’t want to give up on my education; From a young age I knew that my schooling would be the only thing that would save me from bad financial situations in my adulthood. I walked away with my head down, said my goodbye’s and never looked back.
      A few months later, I was thanking God for the angel he had brought into my life. She welcomed me into her home with open arms regardless if I was not her blood relative. She provided me with myFIRST bible ( which I still have till this day), and she pushed me to get my GED. I didn’t know where to begin, or how even to study for this. I felt completely unprepared, so I did the best I could do with the circumstances. I began studying the material I collected within the years I was in high school. Once I felt I was comfortable, I scheduled my test, paid my $100 dollar fee. I sat outside in Downtown Dallas with the sun blazing in the end of May. June rolled by, and I picked up the mail, my results had come in-I passed my GED with high scores. That feeling of RELIEF came over me. To be very honest with you I never felt that I had what it took to get my GED. Half of the time through school I was having so many family issues that it was difficult to focus on my studies. 
    Immediately I began applying for jobs that required me to either have a diploma or a GED. I felt accomplished for once in my life. It didn’t take long for that feeling to suddenly disappear and begin having a feeling of emptiness watching all my prior classmates heading off to college. 
    Fast forward a few years, a lot of working, a lot of sacrifice. I came to a point in my life where I had reached the “Cap” for the job I was doing at the time and I knew that I didn’t want to be a lab tech forever. I began researching how to pursue my dreams (getting into nursing school and progressing in life), and it was HARD! I had so much fear and to be honest, luck had never really been on my side, so I felt that my dreams were just not possible. Maybe I’m just meant to be an average person, nothing wrong with that right? 
   I worked 3rd shift at the hospital. In order to study while I was working when the hours were dead, I would push my cart with my book in front of me. I studied and hardly ever slept between needing income for my daughters, and needing to study to get accepted into nursing school. I took my test twice and FAILED! I felt so defeated and thoughts were rushing through my head that maybe I am just not cut out for this type of stuff. BUT every time I was assigned to cover ER when a trauma would come in, I felt this rush that I belonged there. I bought one more book (on top of the 5 I already had) and decided to give it one more shot. A few hours later after testing, it was confirmed that I indeed had passed my test and now I just needed to interview with the board of directors to determine whether I was an individual they wanted in there school. 
    I WAS ACCEPTED! I made a commitment to myself that I would study my behind off, focus on making sure school came first. I had many failures throughout the 3 years of nursing school, but the time finally came to where I was able to walk across THAT STAGE and have all 3 of my DAUGHTERS present and my husband! 
    
        This brings me to tell you to: NEVER GIVE UP! 
I made many mistakes along the way, but I learned a few things that I feel could be beneficial to others. 

1. Surround yourself with like-minded people that are pushing towards their goals and SUPPORT your dreams.

2. Eliminate any distractions; sometimes this means we have to stop going to family events so we can use those valuable hours for study time. 

3. Create a list of GOALS & continuously review it to remind yourself of what you are attempting to accomplish.

4. Create a schedule and do your BEST to stick to it. I have an iPhone and use the Calendar to load my study hours along with my daily mother duties that I need to complete before the end of the day.

5. Lastly, BREATHE! You will have some SETBACKS, but like my family used to tell me all the time, “Dios aprieta, per nunca ahorca”. Learn from your mistakes and create a plan on how you will begin to work on improving those mistakes. 

Much love my lovely people. I hope you can find some of this information useful. 
Weigh in on it and let me know what YOU think! Comment! Give me your feedback. 
Until next time. 🙂

 

 

 

 

 

 

In The Unknown of 15 and Pregnant

   Imagine sitting in your mom’s car on the way to school and you’re stopped at a red light. You turn to your mom and quickly tell her you think your pregnant. Um Excuse me?! The look on my mother’s face was a calming look. She stared ahead and said, “okay, let’s go get a pregnancy test.” Well that went much better than what I had anticipated. For the first time in my life I felt that maybe I could actually confide in my mother. We made a quick Target run, immediately coming back home as I walked into the bathroom to take the test. Still no words, signs of anger or frustration from her. Unaware of how to properly use a pregnancy test stick, I was busy reading the back of the box when she walked in and said I just needed to pee on it and it will show me 1 line or 2. I nodded.

   For a brief moment, I felt time had frozen, 1,000 things were racing through my mind. What have I gotten myself into? Have I just ruined my life by being irresponsible? Following the instructions on the back of the box, I waited two minutes to confirm my results, but the reality was that as soon as I peed on the test the second line appeared rather quickly, which was a positive indicator confirming I was in fact pregnant.  I didn’t know what this meant, if that makes any freakin’ sense. As in, where does my life go from here? For the first time after just being silent with no actual emotion, my mother turned over to me and said, “I am so disappointed in you. You have ruined your life.”

   My entire life took a drastic turn. I was lost and in need for some advice and support. This happened almost 13 years ago. I always said that IF I could have a voice to explain what I felt in those moments I would shout it to anyone that was willing to listen.

Are you going through this? Are you currently experiencing this with one of your kids? Can I share my own personal advice with you?

 

  1. If you are disappointed (which I am sure you are) explain WHY you are disappointed, also reminding your child that you are disappointed because you know they have more in store for them; you see so much potential!
  2. Be hard, but don’t let “kicking them out to learn a lesson” be a first resort. -My mom’s first move was to send me off to the boy’s mother having me stay there because she wanted to have nothing to do with me. From every aspect, this broke me to pieces. I felt unwanted by my parent, I felt abandoned.
  3. ASK QUESTIONS. Why did they seek this person? Why did they choose to give up such a precious treasure to them? What did that person offer to them? Why did they not come to you for advice on such a sensitive subject?
  4. Discuss options. Whether that being you believe in keeping the child or having an abortion or adoption. Does your child even know what an abortion is? -My aunt, who by the way is never involved in my life, came out of the blue when she found out I had disgraced the family and immediately told my mother they should take me to get an abortion. The look on my face was, “what is an abortion? Do I have a choice in what I want to do with my baby? I thought my mom is supposed to guide me to make a decision?”

 

These are all serious, and real questions. The reality of it is that I WISH I had someone there for me, to give advice, to listen to my fears, to tell me there were OPTIONS that existed. As a now parent of three beautiful girls, the best advice I can give is to LISTEN & OBSERVE the signs when your child is trying to tell you something.

Please weigh in on this & subscribe! I look forward to hearing from all my readers. I want to be as raw and authentic as possible.

 

 

A Failed Marriage

 Hello!? Can anyone relate?!

I could possibly begin to catch arthritis from remaining in the same position typing away at this topic! I’m going to break this down in separate posts if you all are interested! 

    18 years old, decided to get MARRIED and willingly leave anything else behind. Or was I? Marriage is hard, everyone knows that. I had known him since I was 12, and no matter what SIGNS were screaming in my face to get the hell away, I stayed and committed my life to this guy. Can you say stupid one time? K, thanks. Let me keep it real with you though. I came from a broken home, where love, and having a COMPLETE family has always been one of my many aspirations. With already giving life to 2 beautiful baby girls by this time, I felt I had nothing else to lose, and this was the “right” choice to make, after all, he is the father to them and they deserve a family unit. EH! Number 1 mistake right there. LADIES, one more time, LADIES! DO NOT stay with a man JUST because you have CHILDREN with them! (Hitting my forehead right now)

     Within 2 weeks of being married, I discovered he was ALREADY cheating on me! Who am I kidding, he was still a kid, wanting to explore and see what other fish were in the sea, but didn’t want to let go of a prized possession, just in case other things didn’t work out. In disbelief, and my mother just recently being deported (yep, both of my parents got deported at separate times) all I could do was cry. I had turned my back on my family because they didn’t see that I felt I was making the right decision to keep my family together, so I had no one to run to when times got hard. AND THEY GOT HARD.

     I forgave him. Of course, you knew that was coming, right? I mean, c’mon, cut the guy some slack, he only cheated on me once and we had just gotten married. No biggie. Haha! Years flew by, 6 years to be exact. And guess what? Things never changed, in fact, they had only gotten worse. After constant cheating, lying, betrayals, mistrust, I gained weight and I was depressed with my life. I was working full-time and till this day I remember working 26 days straight picking up overtime to help pay the bills because ladies, the guy could barely manage to keep a job when he got one! 

      I figured staying, reassurance that change would occur, marriage counseling through church would fix my marriage, but the reality of it is that it was broken from the moment it started. I went in for all of the wrong reasons, and unfortunately in those times of my life, I did not have a mentor. I did not have someone that could advise me over marriage, or what to look for in a MAN, and what I myself am supposed to bring to the table. 

Would you like to hear the end and learn more about this? Let me know and I will create another blog post! 

How do you feel about this? Tell me, would you have stuck around, or left a long time ago? I’m interested in everyone’s thoughts.

Weigh in! Comment and let me know!

 

 

Parental Deportation-Seeking Affection Elsewhere

 

Rubbing my eyes as I dragged my feet to the bathroom to pee, I could remember like any other kid, “Man, do I REALLY have to go to school?” I heard screaming and a door slam, so I pulled up my pants and rushed out of the bathroom. Honestly, I have no idea if I even wiped. It was 6:30am, I knew that because my Dad always got us up at that time and said his goodbyes before heading to work. As I rushed outside, my brother was leaning across the railing on the 3rdfloor, screaming down below to some men that were trying to put my dad in a vehicle. I didn’t say a word. Looking back on it, I think things just did not register for me in the middle of a stressful situation. “LEAVE MY DAD ALONE”, my brother said. One of the men responded by stating, “We are U.S. Immigration Officers, we are taking him in.” My Dad yelled out to us to contact my grandfather (his father) and inform him of the circumstances.

  Chances are you have probably experienced something similar to this or know someone who has.

 If you were in my shoes, what would you have done differently? 

These series of events changed my life forever.

 

Advice?

  1. Parent? –I highly recommend seeking counseling for your children if anything of the slightest occurs. With being a child, our minds truly do not comprehend the impact that it will take on a child to be put through these unfortunate circumstances. In my personal experience, I longed for a relationship I knew I could not get back.
  2. Counseling too costly? Reach out to a church, or your own home church, and let your child know that they are LOVED & WANTED, and sometimes unfortunate events happen. Later in life, this led me to seek relationships with any male that was willing to give me some on their time.
  3. Pour love into your child, daily.

Weigh in, tell me your thoughts. Subscribe! I would love to hear your feedback. Thank you for taking the time to read.

 

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