Beginning a new life in a town that had happy memories made things run smoother. This was literally the third time I had moved to Florence. This time I moved back to Grove Park.

It was comforting but at the same time odd that instead of the neighborhood where kids rode their bikes all over, played in the woods, hung out in the park, it was a place where parents worked, kids were over scheduled, houses filled the empty lots and no one hardly used the neighborhood park.

My old neighbors, the Skinners, were my lifeline. They taught me a few important lessons, one that friends can be like family and music can heal.

In the early days I made lots of CDs using Napster. I learned what my favorites songs were and could “name that band”. We went to a few concerts, Rod Stewart, Neville Brothers and Pat Benetar. Music was slowly healing me.

I joined divorce care and met some great people trying to heal from their journey. It also gave me people to do things with when my kids were on visitation. They warned our group not to date. Many of us did anyway and learned the hard way that heartache is hard when you are still broken.

Everyone wants to fix you up with their single friend. Sometimes it’s good but most the time it’s bad. Its always a good idea not to have them meet the kids unless it’s going to last.

We spent a lot of time traveling back and forth to court. Nothing could be agreed on. We wasted money and time getting nowhere. The kids were being yanked around unnecessarily with adult games, I became mama bear. For the most part shielded where I could.

Kids became pretty independent as needed. Instead of being the mom I envisioned, I took things day by day teaching them how to pour their own milk. Taught the older boys how to do their laundry. I assigned chores.

Somehow in the middle of this I met my husband. He saved my heart but I remained proud and financially independent.

Money ebbed and flowed and then stopped. It was scary. The heat went out. I emailed a plea for help. It was so embarrassing. Had to go to DSS to sign up for public assistance. Ultimately this turned out to be a saving grace. We were on food stamps, Medicaid and welfare. I ended up going back to work and putting my babies in daycare.

Collecting child support was impossible so I had to get DSS involved. The war continued and we had a Guardian Ad Litem, which had my fears at an all time high. The end result was they would stay with me and I would be primary custodial parent. It took another year to get child support going again.

By the time everything was said and done I had no assets, little cash but I had my dignity. I had my children. They had me. It wasn’t perfect but the love was strong.

During this time we blended our six kids together on the weekends, holidays, vacations and more. The kids had their moments adjusting and their insecurities about their place in the family. There were challenging moments that were completely understandable as we navigated forward.

We knew in our hearts we were in love and committed. One day we were driving along and I just looked over at Tim and thought “wow, he loves me, our kids, and our life.” He never played games, he never made me feel insecure, and I have never had to question his motives. Our relationship was solid and such a relief! The amount of peace that flooded over me was so comforting.

We never talked about the details of getting married but we knew if we ever moved in together we would be married.

We spent our weekends at home looking at houses, or under construction one that would work for our 6 kids. The kids loved the idea as well.

One memorial weekend 15 years ago we found the perfect house. It was for sale by owner. We figured out how to make the formula work for our 6 kids. We put an offer on the house and at that moment realized this was our fancy way of getting engaged.

Everything came together for the house, our closing was on Hunters 10th Birthday, we sold our others houses fast, and merged our two families together. Officially we were married two months later.