I’m going to say that we are actually shaped by both. I say this because I believe that we actually have to have life experiences in order to find out who we really are. I was actually raised by a single mother which kind of shaped the whole way that I see different things. For example when I first started driving I learned how to drive on a standard 5-speed manual vehicle and the first time that I got a flat tire my mother came to help me yet she made sure I knew how to change a tire from that day on I also learned how to change my oil check my oil, at one point I was having trouble with my fuses and I actually was able to figure out if something happened in my vehicle that which fuse I was to use to actually fix whatever had gone wrong. I feel like I need so much about my vehicle that when years later one of my friends made a comment that her boyfriend left her stranded with a flat, I asked her she had a spare she said yes and then my next question was do you have a jack and she also said yes and I feel to understand how he left for stranded when she had all the tools necessary to change the tire. It was odd to me that nobody taught her that. Because my mom taught me these things I never felt like I was a damsel in distress because I did have all the necessary tools in order to figure out how to get my self out of a situation where others are not always thought that. I was also taught as a teenager that men are not always there to protect women. I understood from a very young age that fairness is  a weather condition. Should I ever have to defend myself I know from the start that I’m only 4’9 and in a situation more than not a man will always either outweigh me or have a longer reach or wise than I do. So my best course of action is to look around and find something that’s going to equal our strength with each other. Like a bat for anything that’s easy to swing and not so easy to have taken away from me. My family was held hostage when I was younger and because my mom was vigilant and aware of what was happening around us we survived. She may have chosen different decisions now but at the time she did what she could. So in a heartbeat I would get between my children and anybody trying to hurt them. People think that I’m being funny when I say I dare somebody to make me a victim because that person is going to get more than they bargained for because I will never let it happen again. I think that the person that I am is completely shaped from all the experiences I’ve gone through in my life and how I was raised. So I am who I am but I’m that way because I am a drug addict, an alcoholic, I struggle with mental illnesses not only my own but my husband’s as well learning disabilities that are challenging but I am living sober and I take each and every day one day at a time. This last Sunday my father passed away and I am honestly holding it together the best I can and I haven’t fell off my wagon. But one days when I’m by myself and my husband’s at work I do struggle wanting to go back to using or drinking or just going to sleep and hoping to not wake up because I’m depressed. I got up in the mornings drank my coffee and totally tried to start my day so that my daughter can start her day. So my depression doesn’t become her depression I am trying really hard to get my body moving so I can accomplish even the smallest task.

When you find out the answer to that question let me know because I still don’t know. I go to work I come home and most of the time I go to bed and then start over again I don’t know how to unwind I don’t think. You think I ever had to or learned to so when you guys find out let me know thank you in advance

I found out when I was in Middle School that I have test anxiety disorder. This means that I can learn a subject I can become a master of that subject but if you tell me that I have to be tested because of that subject and I have to pass or get an outstanding

grade in order to move to the next level I all of a sudden cannot remember anything having to do with that subject. I had to take my driving test three times before I passed it. I knew every answer on the written form of the test yet I failed it the first time I tried to take it. When I had to take the driving part of my driving test I did the entire test on a five-speed manual not an automatic and when I was done the instructor failed me because my passenger door was not easily accessible to get out of. I lost it. I went up and down every street that she asked me to go down I even drove halfway down one Street in reverse and I parallel parked my vehicle perfectly and because she could not open my passenger door to get out without assistance she failed me. I do not like to drive now I hate driving and I learned to drive on a five-speed manual vehicle I can literally drive anything that is on the road today yet I am so unsure of myself when I get behind the wheel of a car that I don’t think it’s safe for anybody for me to drive. I also have been in three car accidents that are not my fault and I am so unsure of myself when I drive.

Later on in life I found out that I am dyslexic and that I have obsessive compulsive disorder two things that could’ve helped me out when I was younger yet I had no idea.

Balloons also make me nervous, not clowns not birthday parties not being around people but balloons in general. Sometimes I feel like they’re coming after me. My friend actually witnessed this first hand at her younger daughter’s birthday party she had hung balloons like normal parents do and I stood as far away from the cluster of the balloons as I could and the one balloon that was closest to me all of a sudden popped. She is convinced as am I that balloons are evil and have minds of their own and you better believe the entire time that I was watching “It”  and that balloon was bouncing around I was just waiting for it to come out of the TV after me. I jest, I laugh about it now, but one of my prouder moments, is not picking my niece up from Chuck e cheese while she’s sitting in my backseat with a balloon bouncing up and down on the ceiling of my vehicle which you guys already know I don’t really like driving to begin with, I roll down the back window where she was sitting and the balloon flew out and I’d like to say I did it on accident but I don’t think I did it on accident I think I did it to make it stop bouncing up and down in my back seat. I also may have smacked my nephew in the face when he came up to me with a balloon sword that was made for him and said “on guard” . I did however allow both my daughters to have some kind of balloons at  least three of their birthday parties. Trying to decide that their fears are not my fears and my fears are not their fears. But it really is hard to be around balloons.

I literally hate when my nieces or my daughter call me bro or brah. I seriously can’t stand to even hear it come out of her mouth. First of all hi identify as a female always have always will but I wonder sometimes if they understand what the difference between their female family members and their male family to call their male family members bro I still kind of feel like it’s a little bit disrespectful. Before brah and bro I would have said I hated the C word and the N word. I still hate those two words however they’re kind of part of our world and some content needs to be preserved in order for us to understand what our ancestors went through and to work on going forward and not making those mistakes again. Other than that I feel like people are here to make content or to make their opinion said and heard and I don’t believe that it is okay to edit or  rewrite someone’s craft

I might go to comfort food has always been pasta. I love pasta I can different kinds of pasta with different kinds of sauce and throw that stuff together and I am a happy happy camper. But for some reason I don’t have pasta at my disposal I like to put together what my friend Blair called ghetto nachos. Basically get a nachos are any kind of chips that you like preferably Doritos or tortilla chips and any kind of lunch meat turkey chicken I like chicken I love chicken cut up and small as you can drop it into your chips and get a couple of handfuls of shredded cheese Blair used to use sargento but I’ll take any kind of changes cuz I like cheese too and drop it in the middle and then microwave it for just a few not even a minute I don’t think just let it melt and then when you pull it out get a dollop of sour cream and drop it right on the top of that thing and then go to town there’s you get them not just so good so easy to make and not that expensive. That is my comfort food

I’m always kind of curious about how other people live. Not only in different parts of the world, but also different regions of this country. My husband was raised in the south, when  say South I’m talking about,  Southern Living. Most of the time when he enunciates his vocabulary it is spelt, exactly the way it sounds. I grew up for the most part in the southwestern part of the United States which is Arizona going into Texas. The way that people from Texas are viewed as being Southern is not the same as people from Florida , Virginia , The  Carolinas, Tennessee the southern Appalachians, the heart of The Mississippi, and please don’t get me started on Louisiana which is a whole separate type of Southern to begin  with. Most of my education growing up was in Texas so we had a huge emphasis on how Texas became part of the United States and how it came from being its own country, as well as the fight that it took for us to become what is today. Six flags Fly over Texas and people don’t really pay attention to what those mean but all six of those flags represent what Texans are about. However to say that every state that’s in the southern half of our country, hold that same view is not correct. Being from Texas or growing up in Texas holds a completely different meaning to any other state in this country. You honestly cannot tell a Texan what their history is because they’ll tell you exactly what you got wrong. So what I’m curious about is people who live in other parts of the United States I am always wondering what makes their region so different and when I talk to people from different places you can honestly tell that they are raised and taught different values different histories of how the place that they call home actually came to become their home. I found out a long time ago that my family came here from different directions my mother’s side of the family came from across the pond UK and Spain and my dad’s family it’s kind of still up in the air but for the most part we know that they were primarily native American when I found out what the history behind my family was I starting wondering what makes my home my home yet so many other regions in this country have a lot of history behind them as well. when I speak to my husband about where he came from and where his family come from I can not even fathom what he was looking at when he was growing up

I grew up with mountains, desert and landscape that has been described in books for ages.  I don’t have memories of oceans as far as I can see being able to watch a sunset over a horizon that is mirroring the actual ocean. If any of y’all reading this are from different places in the United States or even from different places around the world tell me what it’s like where you call home I really am curious

I wouldn’t say waste but if I could sleep all day I feel like that’s what I would like to do. If people just let me I would sleep all day all night until the next day until I can sleep no more or until my life was nothing but sleep. Instead it seems like I waste my time worrying about what other people are doing and how to fix everybody else’s life.

Salitos, are actually dried prunes that literally are salted and then salted again. When we were kids we used to get a lemon or an orange and cut it in half and shove the salito inside of it. Then spend hours destroying our teeth by licking the lemon or orange with the salito inside. Sometimes my Mom would cut random fruit slices like pineapple oranges lemons apples even and put the salito in there with it and let it absorb all of the different flavors. I don’t know who came up with the idea of this but every time I go back home to Arizona I find a place that sells them just so I can do this.