A Clean Sweep

This is not a travel post, it's just the intro and update. I have become a travel agent again.

I have been planning our family vacations since age 7 and helping friends and family travel for over 30 years and was a travel agent with World of Magic Travel from 2016-2021, so getting back in the industry has seemed natural.

This time around and Lord willing the last time, I am with an AMAZING agency called, Smart Moms Travel. I specialize in Disney, cruises and all-inclusive.

But that's not what this post is about.

This post is about a short disconnect I am going to have with social media. 

I enjoy using social media to build and online business. I'm getting ready to launch my travel agency, Michelle Spanos Travel Agent, LLC, and will use IG and FB to do so, I really enjoy connecting with clients and starting conversations about travel on social media.

This month I have been doing a 30-day Bible Reading Challenge. Once this challenge is complete, I will be wrapping up my social media time for 2024. 

I'll be logging off for social from Dec 1-31, 2024.

😁 Eeeeeeeeeekkkkkkkkk!!!!!!

I am excited to take this break.

I'm curious do you take social media breaks?

If so, how long? How often? What motivates it?

I'd love to hear so please do tell in the comments.

The last major break I took was in 2015, I took the entire year off. Looking back, it's kind of sad and kind of pleasing. Sad that I can't see that year and pleasing because I know I was enjoying the present.

🙏

This social media break is different. The motivation behind it is fueled not by social media negatively affecting me but a prompting from The Lord. 

I've been listening to a sermon on the parable of the women who lost the coin, she searched and search for it, sweeping the room to find what she had lost.

The speaker encouraged us to think of something we have lost and wish we could get back.

She had taken a poll and some of the answers were, innocence, virginity, joy....., whatever it is we have all lost something and sometimes just can't find it, but here's the deal- we can find it! 

In Jesus we can find it, we may not be able to actually get them back but with Jesus we can have purity, we can have joy, we ca be complete not lacking.

I want that.

The women swept the house; think about it, when looking for what was lost, you and me, we often need to do a clean sweep.

Talk about a clean sweep, I just got divorced after 27 years and 50 weeks.

For me, divorce was a clean sweep.

Everything in my life was swept away, my income/job, my husband, seeing my boys every day, getting to be home with my daughter, my ability to trust, my desire to see people, my self-esteem, my future dreams, so much was swept away, not one part of my life was left untouched. 

With all that swept away, I can now have clarity, I can find what God's Word says and have what I've lost, my joy, my happiness, my positivity, peace, back.

So, I'm looking forward to this clean sweep of a future I have, and I want to clean out the noise as well.

We live in a loud world.

Lots of voices and experiences bombard us every day and is why taking a social media break is so important.

So, join me.

Take a month off and why not December, it's a busy month anyway, why waste time on social media.

I'll still be blogging weekly, and I will be praying for you. Praying that your heart with be steadfast after Christ.

xoxo

-m

It Was the 2nd Time I Found Meth on Him

I paced around the house while on the phone with the Sheriff's office.

I had requested a sheriff come out to my house, I did not feel safe and I did not trust myself.

That morning I had discovered meth on my husband and then 30 minutes later found him curled up like a child on our tenant's bed, while she rubbed his head, it was sickening. I had suspected the relationship, they denied it, now I knew I was right.

Should have listened to my gut.

Oh that intuition, it really speaks volumes and most often the truth.

It's funny how life is.

I think we go into it thinking we have a say in the outcome.

Somewhere along the line I was under the impression I would grow up, have a career, retire and become a snowbird and all will be happy, go lucky and well with no issues because I was a child of God.

I was very WRONG!!

Our family at Disney
while the ex was away getting his drugs.

It's not really anything we can predict or imagine, especially for women like me who after 20 something years of marriage find ourselves near age 50, single, empty-nesters or single moms and over the coming months and years discover the man we had been married to was not at all who we thought he was, who he said he was or who people thought he was.

However, I have to ask myself... did I really know?

Did you really know something was up?

I'm a Gen-Xer, sorry for those of you of a different generation, we won't hold it against you; actually, wait, we will hold it against you because as a Gen-Xer it is my duty to dislike anyone who isn't us, a feral group of kids who grew up unparented, latch key, outside on bikes, no cell phone, would travel miles into the woods and many of us found ourselves showing each other things we should just be keeping to ourselves, yeah that's us and we are a little bitter towards everyone else.

I say all of that to give a bite of a background on me. Those early years formed a thread of adventure, independence and a taste for the flesh fueled sins I came to cherish.

Back to my marriage falling apart at 27 years 50 weeks and the question of did I actually know? 

Well to start, hindsight is 20/20 for sure. Looking back I see the clues. My ex was a drug addict, what ended with meth, started with Darvon, a pain pill from the 90's he would steal from his dad. I thought nothing of it, didn't realize it was a drug (silly, I know) and didn't know when or how much he was doing it. After birthing my boys, he would take my pain meds and brag about he and his buddies drinking beer and snorting those pills, again, I didn't see the wrong, I actually didn't give it much mind, I was too busy being a mom and doing all the things.

I started to dislike him for his drug abuse around 2007/2008 when he would pass out anytime he sat down. At first I believed that he had been working a bunch, then I knew it was more than that. It's kind of sad to see the pictures of family events because I would always take a picture of him passed out. He always told me I was sick and crazy for taking those pictures and never once addressed the fact that we were at Disney world with the entire family and there he is slouched over on the sofa.

Same Disney trip, this time he
was passed out in the room
& won't get up to join us
exploring the resort

I say all of that to say I think something deep down told me this was not good and I should run; I stayed. I wanted to keep my family together, I believed God could and would change him, I was hanging on by a thread and dying inside but knew God hated divorce and I wanted so desperately to make it work, so I stayed. 27 years to be exact, actually 6 months before the cops came that day and he left for good, I had left, moved into a battered women's shelter to get peace and clarity. It worked, that time was the best 5.5 weeks of my life, more to come in another post.

Do I regret staying? no

How can I? In all the mess of my life God has been faithful, he has loved me when I was unlovable and He has extended lots of mercy and grace in my life and it has been during the challenging seasons that my faith has grown. It's in the trials that he can be highlighted against the darkness of the pain.

From teen mom to adoptive mom, 

stay at home schooling mom to single working mom, 

I've survived cancer twice and like you read my marriage fell apart after 27 years and I had to start at $0 and zero job at age 46.

What I have learned and know that I know that I know, is that trusting God and His way, is the only way to live this life. When we do that, trust God and believe His Word, then whatever we are facing, can be a sweet part of the journey with you and God.

Well, until next time and remember, Jesus loves you and so do I.

xoxo

-Michelle

No one said it would be easy

Happy November, I've been absent for a very long time, why?

Well, I let my ex-father-in-law's words get in my head.

He told me I needed to stop acting better than everyone else, that I was bossy and judgemental.

And I believe him, or at least let his words run my blogging and writing world for far too long.

So I'm back.

I'm going to be sharing the struggle I am currently in and how good and marvelous and compassionate and caring God is. 

I'm divorced.

I knew my ex was a drug addict for a long time. That's how we connected actually, over him driving me to a pit (that's a gravel pit where rural kids go get drunk, have a bonfire and do things we will not say) to pick up my 4 pack of Mich Lite in a long-neck bottle. Yeah don't ask me how or why I decided that when I was gonna drink beer, which I hate, it would be Michelob lite in a long neck bottle; any whozel a party had been broken up by the cops and I had to flee leaving that said beverage behind, but I'm thrifty and knew I needed it. So that was hang out #1 with my ex and hangout #2 consisted of us getting high, off mary jane, behind an old farmhouse my parents had purchased for the land.

It would be July 9, 2019 that it was confirmed that my husband (at the time) was truly a drug addict when I found his pill vile with crystal meth in it. This was 3 weeks before my last chemotherapy treatment for breast cancer.

He denied then admitted it was indeed his.

Some days I think I should have kicked him out but I wanted to stay. I loved him and a Christian women I dearly wanted God to heal him, that he would put down the drugs and pick up a love for his family.

Why do we stay so long?

I've spoken with other women who knew something was up in their marriage but stayed. Cheating. Drugs. Gambling. You name it, so many women stick around for the sake of making it work, for the sake of a change coming. For me, it never did.

So as I step back into blogging I will be sharing my story.

Divorce gave me freedom, it gave me peace, it gave me sleep; it also gave me uncertainty and fear. I have many things to put down on paper.

Many things to share that I haven't be able to fear of repercusions in divorce court. I am not innocent in this mess of a movie marriage I was in for almost 28 years.

I did things I knew were wrong, I allowed things I knew were wrong.

So why ot share the story.

Share the journey that took me from a lost, scared 18 year old to here today a single mom trying to honor God with her life and make a difference for His Kingdom.

Thanks for being here.

xoxo

-Michelle  

Fight the Good Fight Michelle

I haven't updated in awhile mostly because I am not sure what to say in my update.

I don't really know what I am doing, so how can I properly share it with you all.
I am cancer free.
I mean no doctor has said it, but I had that pesky tumor removed on April 27th and since then the cancer has been gone.

It's the aftermath that I did not expect.
The aftermath of living with choices, new lifestyles, a changed social life.

My main goal has been to make my body an environment that is not encouraging cancer growth.
Eat lots of raw.
Juice lots.
Budwig protocol,
essiac tea.

Keep my body alkaline and not acidic.
Only drink water.
Not drink coffee.
Ugh.

It can be a lot.

No dairy.
No meat.
Watch the soy, not much if any.
No legumes.
No sugar.
ugh.

I find I just don't want to eat.
The prepping.
The prepping.
The prepping.

The food battle was one I didn't see coming and probably my biggest struggle.

It is a lot.
My peace begins to slip away...

it slips into the past

I didn't expect this battle in my mind over the past.
I ate too many sweets,
baked too much,
ate out too much,
too much ice cream
and milk
and cereal.
Oh how I loved to drink cows milk, and ceral, I loved cereal. Not anymore.

Then my mind loops to my boys.
I realize I fed all that to my boys.
My grown boys.
For years I did my best at what I knew to feed them.
Was I wrong all those years?

Then I got educated.
What if my lack of knowledge caused health issues with my kids.
Did I fail them?

I did my best.
I didn't know what I know now.
I can't think on the past, it changes nothing; it does no good.

Oh crap!
I just ate a cake pop,
and a piece of pecan pie,
and turkey,
and ... and...

And then after I work through the what I fed my boys saga, I get angry that no one was there to guide me.
Invest in me.
In a sense I was thrown to the wolves.
18, then 21.
Married with two kids. College drop out trying to doing the best for my family.
I always thought I did good, some days I wondered, no some days I convince myself I did them wrong.

Oh this battle in my head.
I call it out for what it is- all lies.
Lies to bring me down. Sadden my spirit. Focus my thoughts on the past.
But, lies.
Lies I know, but that doesn't soften their blow, when the hits come my way.

Then I think about the future... the forever.
Forever I will be a cancer survivor.
Forever I will think about what I put into my mouth, or don't.
Forever...

So nothing profound.
Nothing to educate you on healthy living.

Nothing because I have nothing much to give these days.
Again, I lift my head and trust in my God who created me and has a plan for me,
a good plan.
May that knowledge,
that truth be enough to sustain me this moment.

11/27/16
-Michelle