Welcome to Boobies on Duty Blog

Hello everyone and officially welcome to the Boobies on Duty Blog. My name is Selena but you can refer to me as the Neighborhood Mama. Let me start by telling yall some things about myself. I am a single mother of three of the most beautiful (if I do say so myself), rambunctious, self-aware children I am blessed to have given birth to. I was born and raised in Houston, Texas. I grew up the middle child of five, having two older brothers and a younger sister and brother. My childhood was pretty normal in a lot of ways. Being born in the late 80s and growing up in the 90s, I did what most Texas girls do. My siblings and I would ride bikes, skate, play out in the backyard, climb the trees, and chill under the sun and stars with our dogs. We had our summertime pool days and family movie nights. Holiday bar b ques followed by family reunion fish frys' in the country. I must say looking back on it, those were the days. I was lucky enough to be born in the last generation who understood the quality of the world without technology yet subsequently being the same generation that witnessed the birth and evolution of technology. My parents kind of always reminded me of the Evans from Good times. The strong everlasting black couple that just strived to give their children a better life than they had growing up. That is part of what inspires me to do what I do when it comes to my children.

When I was growing up, one of the things that I enjoyed doing the most is reading and writing. It was my escape from everything the real world could through at me. In each book that I read, I would find myself in each one of those individual worlds feeling the characters' feelings, hearing their voices, and seeing their life form through their eyes. For me, this was the ultimate form of therapy. The way I was able to clear my mind and find my calm zen space was like a baseball player standing in an empty stadium envisioning the game they are about to play. It was always right after that I would break out a pen or pencil, and notebook and begin to write. Being in my zone, and hearing my own voice, I would let the point of my pen do what it will do on paper. I am a little mad at myself that once I went to college, this part of my life changed. But, as we learned in The Lion King, life rotates in a circle and I am finding myself coming back around to my love of reading and writing. Just the grown-up version.

Becoming an adult came with its challenges as I'm sure you all know very well. The things that I experienced during my coming into my own story were things that I use to be afraid to expose. I always felt that opening up about some of the things that went on in my world would somehow make me less than who I really am. I never did realize how much holding things in stifled my mind in a way that writing, something I loved to do the most, became something that I just couldn't do. I had the ultimate writer's block. It took so many years for me to get to the point where I was able to pick up a pen and put words to paper. And you know what, let me tell you something, it was like learning how to ride a bike. So forget that saying, it's like ridings a bike haha. Nevertheless, I was writing again. When I looked back on my writing, one thing I noticed that I was writing about was the hurts in my life. I had gone through so much, and I always just kept pushing forward, never really stopping to deal with the issues head-on so that I could heal from them properly. My life took me through a rollercoaster ride consisting of family trauma, rape, a failed marriage at a really young age, multiple miscarriages, the death of the love of my life while I was pregnant, losing everything I owned except for my clothes, and having my health to change. The winding road I was on felt like I was in a never-ending pitfall. As the saying goes, "You can't enjoy the sunshine if you haven't experienced the storm." Hindsight looking back, I needed that storm for me to find my way back to myself. Back to my first loves- reading, and writing. During this ride back to myself, God blessed me to have two more children. They were both born premature but had the fighting spirit that allowed me to know they would be alright.

Being a single mother while having disabilities come with its level of hardships, but I wouldn't change a thing. One of these hardships includes trying to find a way to take care of my family when working stops becoming an option. But I am a firm believer that everything happens for a reason. The biggest silver lining is that I can be with my children every day. I am blessed to be able to see my kids grow and change. I am able to witness their personalities blossom and see the individuals they are growing to be. Watching my kids grow, I wanted to be someone that can show them that what they want in life is reachable. My inability to get a traditional job due to my health had me trying so many different avenues to try to make ends meet. Throughout the course of this blog, I will be sharing with you guys all the different ventures I have tried over the years. I feel like in me trying to find a way to provide for my family, I realized that I was coming across a lot of information that could help so many out there become the entrepreneurs that they really want to be. My goal is to help as many people I as can become financially free without all the gimmicks.

One of the first things I will share with you guys is for those who are interested in building a business through e-commerce. There are different ways to do this. In my next post, I will begin a series to break down how to build and grow an Amazon FBA store. I will also be publishing a book soon that will give you a more direct step-by-step as to how to start and build an Amazon FBA store so stay tuned.

Until the next post, again Welcome to Boobies on Duty the blog. I hope you guys will enjoy my stories as well as entrepreneurial posts to help you to achieve the financial freedoms you deserve.

Stay hustling, my friends.

Selena aka Neighborhood Mama