That is so wonderful OP. Well done!!!

I hope that someday my kids will turn out as wonderfully as your daughter, in whom you are entirely justified in taking great pride.

Congrats! and enjoy your travels!!

Anonymous wrote:Congratulations, mom. Clearly her essay helped set her apart from the other qualified applicants, which can be really hard to do. You *should* be proud of what you and she have achieved. Good luck to her!

OP here. Thank you everyone for your kind words. There have been nights when I've been exhausted and stressed about money and lonely where I thought I couldn't raise this child alone. But by the grace of God, here I am.

And PP, you're right. My daughter isn't a school superstar. She actually doesn't do ANYTHING at school beyond her classes. DD is very, very shy and a huge introvert, but she has interests of her own and has always marched to the beat of her own drum. She's a huge crafter and I have spent way, way too much money at Michaels and other craft stores to support her interests. Her guidance counselor and teachers were actually shocked when she mentioned where she got into school. But they don't know that she spent an entire summer knitting blankets for a local hospital or that she is a part of a group of "peace quilters" or any of the other crazy crafty things she does. She is much, much more involved with the world outside of school (and strangely a world with adults) than most kids. I wonder if that did something to set her apart. Who knows?

The crazy thing is now we are planning this road trip up the east coast and then a trip to Northern California in the next two weeks. It's going to be so, so much fun! I don't travel a ton because of money issues (we mostly spent time locally at the beaches), but I am starting to think through my empty nest life and have been fantasizing. Paris! Rome! Tokyo! So many places in the world I want to see and finally it's almost time for me to begin that journey.

Light and love to all of you in the struggle. We CAN do this. Even on the days when we think we can. Faith and love is everything.

You have amazing energy and dedication, and you did a great job. I just love this story.

A good job well done.

Woo! High five! Congratulations to your daughter, and to you, too! This is wonderful.

Congratulations to you and your daughter. I'm in the thick of it as a single mom to two daughters. This gives me hope.

Congratulations, mom. Clearly her essay helped set her apart from the other qualified applicants, which can be really hard to do. You *should* be proud of what you and she have achieved. Good luck to her!

Amazing. Thanks for sharing! I love hearing success stories like this. It's not just about getting into school, it's about being a good person. You and your daughter should be very proud.

Lovely post. You set such an amazing exampe for your daughter, as well as women everywhere. Way to lead the pack!

Very happy for you, op, and your daughter. You've raised a good person .

WOw I have goosebumps. Congrats to your daughter and to you. Sounds like you raised a wonderful young woman!

This is awesome!

Well done Mom! I'm in the same situation with a son and your story made me tear up.

Congrats to your daughter!

I don't know where to post this, but my daughter was just accepted to every school she applied including several top schools that will cover her tuition since I make less than 125K. What made me cry was reading her essay, which she wouldn't share with me until this weekend.

I'm a speech therapist in a school district. For extra money, I did per diem work at a nursing home with stroke victims to build a nest egg and save for college and my retirement eventually. Since I'm a single mom without a ton of extra income to cover aftercare, I would often bring my daughter with me. She would either read or do home work and eventually got into knitting and crocheting with the residents. Her essay was about her years running a knitting circle with the residents while I worked. It was touching and spoke to why she was there and what I was doing and where she wants to go in life. It spoke to some stories she learned about history, including the holocaust, and I was just agape at the whole thing. It spoke about me, being a single mom who went back to school at night while teaching full time. It was just this awesome love letter to her life.

My daughter is a bright kid, but we hadn't talked about college beyond her going to UVA when she got in early. I figured I would use the money I saved from per diem work and that would be that. We got fee waivers to these other schools and even her school counselor told her it was not likely she would get in. I mean, my kid isn't ranked 1st in her class or this crazy AP 4.9 GPA holder. She's a good student with great test scores who's well liked and sort of flew under the radar at school. Very, very shy kid.

I just wanted to share a bit of bright news. Sometimes it can be so hard doing this alone. I gave up tons of my life to make sure my daughter had the opportunities to live the life she wanted. It's crazy that come August, it will just be me alone. I'm not even 40! And now about to begin this amazing new season of life. In a way, I feel like I'm graduating too