Just Lou

It's been a minute since I had any sort of a blog, but it feels like the time is right to start again, so here I am - just being me. Planning to share my views on my world, some you may agree with, some you may not. I'm not here to seek approval or to  start argument, just to state things as I see them, and state them always with integrity, because at the end of the day thats all any of us have when all else is lost - our integrity! and I guess that is what has prompted me to start writing again. I'm not a writer by any stretch of the imagination. I use far too many full stops and exclamation marks to make my points sometimes. I leave the serious writing to my daughter, she is the talent when it comes to penmanship. One thing I do have though is integrity - I'm not a liar, I won't tell you something just to make you feel better, but I do usually try to find a way to tell you something tough in a caring way.

So who am I?

Well I am a 50 something year old mother of three, usually wonderful children. I can't say they are always wonderful, because let's face it, no ones children are always wonderful, are they? I emigrated to the US from the UK at the end of 2011 with a wonderful man, and my two youngest children, my boys, while my eldest, my daughter stayed behind in the UK at Uni. She didn't have any desire to move across the pond, and she was far too old for me to try and force her. She would have been desperately unhappy, and hated me for making her. So I made myself unhappy and left her behind, not an easy choice, and one I don't expect she will ever truly understand the difficulty I had doing. I think she believes it was all easy for me, but that's something for me as a parent to deal with, and not you as a reader. 

Fast forward to 2020, and for my two sons, the move has proved a good one overall. I am now divorced from the man who brought me here - I still don't get that and maybe never will, but it is what it is and I have had to move on from that. I could have moved back to the UK when he walked out in 2017, but I'm not a quitter, and I have a life here, with friends I value and my youngest was becoming a father, so there was every reason to stay. 

So after my husband left, I sulked monumentally for a few months, then pulled my big girl knickers up and started to get on with life. I now work full time in a job which is mentally exhausting and can be physically exhausting at times as well, but I love it. I also have my photography which I am still working towards building into a full time business, albeit very slowly - the need to pay my bills, and the joy I get from my day job keep the photography moving in the slow lane, but it is still moving. I'm trying to get myself back into more of a social scene. I dated one guy but it ended in disaster - he just wasn't the right guy for me. I think he was looking for someone to save, and I didn't need saving. I've always been a fighter and am never going to fit into the damsel in distress type role very well.

I'm a volunteer FF, and I've been doing that for nearly 8 years, and I love that. At the moment work and helping out with my 2 yr old grandson take up a lot of my time, but I do what I can.

So that's a little bit about me. If you have any questions, I will be happy to answer any and all to the best of my ability.