I am the happy mother of two children. I've been married for almost 16 years to a guy I met when I was 16. I spent my entire childhood in the Mississippi Delta towns of Rosedale and Cleveland. I graduated from Cleveland High School. My college path includes 2 years at Hinds Community College; a year and a half at Mississippi State University and the big finish at the University of North Florida.
I married my husband, James, who for the remainder of this blog will be known as "Lonnie," on June 3, 1995. We soon after became pregnant with our daughter, Austin, which scared us both straight to Jacksonville, Florida to live with Lonnie's parents. They had recently moved to Jacksonville from Baltimore, Maryland. Lonnie's focus had changed from helping me get through college to helping me just get through the day. Forget morning sickness. I was sick every single day for the first three months of the pregnancy. My grades dropped really low at MSU because I was missing so many days. It kind of made the decision easier to move to Jacksonville.
We settled into the River City in December 1995. I sat out of school for one semester. Austin was born April 1996, and I was back in school by August 1996. I enrolled at the University of North Florida. At MSU, I was a Biology/Pre-Med student in my senior year. Although my grades had fallen severely right before we left Starkville, I was still determined to stay on the med school track. That was until I learned I would lose almost all the credits I had earned at State when I registered at UNF.
It was time for the backup plan. I figured if UNF, affectionately known as "U Never Finish," was going to set me back two years, I was going to find a major I could finish in two years. My passion for writing led me to Print Journalism. I finished in exactly two years, graduating July 1998 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Communications/Journalism.
The ironic thing about all this is I still stayed on campus for six more years to work. I was offered a job as a purchasing agent, which was more promising financially than going into the news business. The money was good, but my heart was still calling me towards the industry. I left UNF to take an offer at a local news station. I spent 3 years as an associate producer mostly for the weekday morning, Noon, and weekend morning shows. The money still sucked and it wasn't worth the stress even with a promotion to producer. Now I'm back to buying, but this time for the our local government.
In my six years at UNF, our son Kingston sprouted up. He was born May 2001. He and Austin are almost exactly five years apart. We thought he was going to be born in April as well, but he held out until the second day of May. Just a sidebar here: birthdays in the Burney household can get crazy. Not only are the kids' birthdays close together, but Lonnie's birthday is also in April. Needless to say, it's a busy time for me. Trust me, I'll be blogging all about it, especially since everyone is having a milestone year. Kingston will be turning 10. Austin will be turning 15, and their dad will be turning the big 4-0.
This type of scenario is just one reason I wanted to start Diary of a Happy Mom. There is always something going on. The other reason is because we have so many people who tell us how proud they are of our 22-year relationship. Our friends and family are always interested in how we make it work. I don't know if I can pinpoint any one thing. We just genuinely like being around each other, and we truly love being with our kids. I give all the credit to our Lord Jesus Christ for all the good times and the bad. We've learned so much over the last 2 decades.
So, I'm hoping to do with writing what I would have done as a doctor, and that's help people. Hopefully, our relationship and family life will inspire other couples to celebrate marriage and family.
I will be sharing all the things that make me a happy mom: my family, my faith, my food and my favorite movies and other entertainment.
It's going to be fun! I hope you'll stick around for it all!
