That's So Handy

Enough was enough. I had some strong emotions after leaving a store and to top it off, this sign was still up on my way home so I needed to write about it. It's  Story Time ... So today I went to the grocery store and I watched this woman walk straight in with no mask. There was no fidgeting through a purse, no pivot back to the car, no sign at all that she was doing something wrong. She just went in. Can you imagine the confused look I had on my face? I know, I know, perhaps it truly did slip her mind. I mean, I was just thinking the other day how often I've unintentionally left the car with no mask but at some point before entering a building, I remember, and I go back and retrieve it. ALWAYS. It feels completely weird now to almost walk in a building with no mask on. I always get that signal to my brain saying, "Hey wait a minute. You forgot something". But okay, maybe she truly didn't have that moment; I could be tripping. But there was something about her smi...

Welcome to the last month of the year. I don't know if you ran, walked, or crawled to make it to the finish line, but you made it to December 2020! This year came with A LOT , so much so, that there were many mentions of canceling the year. I don't necessarily agree with canceling a year - as if the second it becomes January 1, everything will start over with complete bliss; as if every year doesn't come with it's own set of challenges - but I feel like there's just been a consensus of tiredness because most of the events this year were beyond us individually; it was worldwide! Yet on top of what happened collectively, some people still had to deal with their own individual losses. To say the least, 2020 was a year! This week, I watched the latest episode of Grey's Anatomy. No spoilers, but kudos to the show for bringing to light many of the issues that have been magnified during this pandemic. I felt so seen and validated. Who truly knows how much this virus af...

I hate talking.  I know that might sound weird from someone who was a school teacher, but I absolutely hate the energy that it takes sometimes. Small talk, needing to make a phone call, answering questions, all things that give me anxiety. It's out of fear; fear of not being heard (like actually not talking loud enough to be heard), being misunderstood (misinterpreted), being ignored, and one of the biggest fears is not being validated ! Why bother sharing if my thoughts are overlooked?  I'm not thinking in a "know-it-all" kind of way, but in a "this always happens to me, Charlie Brownish" kind of way. Here's how it goes in my head:  I understand the matter, I've had ample time to think about it and come up with my viable thoughts on the matter, and you mean to tell me that after mustering up enough energy to actually say what's on my mind out loud, you're not even going to accept what I said? Yeah, I'ma just head out for the rest of the ...

Gobble Gobble! This past week we celebrated a holiday which, like many others, is known for getting together with family and friends to eat, watch sports, eat, play games, and eat some more. Thanksgiving looked a little different this year for many of us. Some had to face the day knowing that their loved ones are no longer with them. Some were working and couldn't really see family and friends. Some are still missing their kidnapped family members. Others couldn't see family and friends because they wanted to take precautions due to Covid. There is so much happening and so I think we all can agree that there were many reasons to NOT   be grateful this Thanksgiving. This season is a time to think about your blessings, yet of course, sometimes in life there are situations that tend to overshadow the holidays.  So here I am, with an amazing life, but it can feel pretty unamazing sometimes, with the busyness of raising a toddler and infant, sadness from missing my friends and...

Another week has passed and to sum it up, it was hectic to say the least (emotionally mostly). Along with all the regular tasks that to be seem never-ending, I also had the mental battle of feeling like a failure because I can't keep up with everything that I had planned. Lately I've been feeding off of the thought that if it doesn't all  work, then I can't accept just some  of it working. It just seems like if I can find time to do some , I should be able to find time to do all . A few of my goals are to read the Bible and pray daily, workout 5 days a week, keep up with my weekly cleaning schedule, write daily, and do daily activities with my toddler. There is so much more on the list but consistency with just these items alone have seemed impossible. I've been a stay-at-home mom since December 2019 and you would think that this list was just the bare minimum of what I should naturally be doing. But the truth is that things have been challenging and instead of reas...

I was singing this song earlier this week and I recorded myself playing the guitar and singing it. That's it! That's all. I didn't post it on social media. I just recorded it and let it sit on my phone. Oh wait, later I deleted it.  Friday I decided to record myself again. And I hated it; absolutely hated how I sounded. I imagined it so differently in my head, wanted it to sound stronger, possess more color, yet it didn't manifest that way. Later that same day, I thought about two specific singers whom I like listening to - Jonathan McReynolds and Chandler Moore. They have two completely different sounds in their voices, but I like both of them. The differences don't make either one of them inadequate singers. The differences aren't flaws, neither are they facts that cause one to be better than the other. As a matter of fact, the distinctions only matter when comparing each to one another.  For myself, I have things that I don't like about my voice. I've...

I went into Food Lion this week and a woman was with her daughter walking in as I was coming out. Her daughter had on a mask but she did not. I paused and kind of looked at her with a confused look. When she got to the doorway, she realized she didn't have her mask on so she walked to the side of the building and reached in her purse to retrieve it. Another time, there was a young man I knew in front of me at the register. He didn't have a mask on at all. I gave him a second look and just kept my distance. This is part of our "new normal". Don't forget your keys, wallet, cell phone, mask! When a mask is forgotten, or when it's not quite covering you the way it's supposed to, you might just get a funny look from others around you. We've been mandated to wear masks, we've been instructed on how to wear it. We've been informed on what types are the most effective. However, with all of this comes a variety of interpretation .  What was said? "...

One day earlier this week, I was in my bedroom putting clothes away. My husband was in the dining room doing some work. I was listening to an audiobook on my phone but I intentionally made sure the volume was low just in case he called back to me. If there was a "hey baby", I wanted to respond to it, making him confident that I was available to hear what he wanted to tell me. The action of turning down my phone's volume was based on  relationship . I can make certain decisions because of details that I know about my husband! Some people have an alternate thinking process: Don't yell to me if I'm in another room. Wait until I come back . And if people know that about them, they will follow suit and wait. My husband and I have a relationship where I know that while I'm in another room, he has a tendency to call to me and tell me stories, ask me questions, or ask me to bring something to him when I come out. Since I know this about him, I made arrangements to be ...

My husband's coworker had been advertising that she has a few lawn signs and bumper stickers of a particular president/vice president candidate for people that wanted them. I thought about getting one but the thought was quickly redirected. Honestly, I felt that publicizing my loyalty to this candidate was somehow going to welcome trouble. Isn't that crazy? Land of the free, home of the brave...It might have been a stretch to think that showing support of a candidate would make us targets for hate. But that was the thought I had, so I ended up not being brave enough to want to display the sign or bumper sticker; the other's  supporters might see it as a welcome sign for hate.  That's what the world has become, a welcome sign for hate! *********************************************************************************** Earlier this past week, I was driving and I noticed that the cars in front of me were not moving but instead were letting drivers come out of an intersecti...

Last Sunday, I set out to do something I had never done before and it was one of the hardest things I've ever done in my 35 years of living.  I STARTED JUICING One week later, during my self-reflection, three thoughts became prominent: Make every effort to take care of your health. You can do ANYTHING you put your mind to. Don't go back to something you already came out of. My husband has juiced before and has been successful with it. But anytime he made a juice for me, I would drink it with a meal. He told me that the juice was supposed to be a meal replacement. I never joined him with his juicing because substituting a drink for food didn't make sense to me at all. I loved food way too much and didn't understand how just juice could possibly be enough. So why juice now?  Well, I eat a lot. More specifically, I snack ALL the time. In middle school, I was called Big Hungry. I would eat snacks in class, on the bus, everywhere. If there was food, Big Hungry was eating it....

The Bible says that "to everything there is a season". It mentions a season of sowing and reaping, a time to laugh and a time to cry, a time to live and a time to die, etc.  Seasons are such an interesting thing. There are the four seasons: fall, winter, spring, and summer. There are seasons that represent different stages in life. There are things that we thought would last forever, but alas when they don't, we say they were seasonal. With every season, there is a change. It's not immediate (most of the time). You don't just go to sleep freezing on last day of winter and wake up to a warm spring day. The change is gradual. Seasonal changes have different effects on us, but no matter how much we do or don't want to welcome the changes, they are inevitable and we have to decide how we will react to them. With the recent turn of the season from summer to fall, the weather isn't the only thing that has changed in my life. I truly am embracing a season of ...

I was blessed to be able to celebrate turning 35 this past Wednesday! Here I was starting a new chapter, and the next day was the start of a new month. For some reason, I felt a sadness start to creep in and I can't even give a viable reason for why it happened. Thursday was a busy day that took a toll on me emotionally. It started out with anxiety and progressed quickly to irritability. That morning, I took my infant to the doctor for his two-month checkup. At the appointment, I was given a form to fill out which asked questions about my mental health since having the baby. I answered honestly about my feelings and the doctor consequently asked me if I'd thought about talking to a counselor or therapist. I definitely have. Not even because of having a baby, but just because of life. I had seen therapists/psychiatrists before including in college and even while working as a teacher. In recent years, I hadn't made it a priority although it could have been beneficial. My husb...

If you're like me, one of the first things that you do when you wake up in the morning is check Facebook. It might not be the very first thing, but it's on the list. We all know the question asked right when you open the app: "What's on your mind?" I want you to think about what has been on your mind/ heart. The thing that you've been longing for but have used every excuse weighing on you as to why you can't have it. Imagine if you just went for it with no inhibitions; what's the worst that could happen? I didn't need to wait for 2020 in order to understand that life is unpredictable. But the year has still been an eye-opener to finally put some aspirations into action and prayerfully this will be the time that I stick to them. The time is now! All the gifts, all the dreams. Put it into action NOW! All the goals, work on them NOW! I have quite a few things that are in the works; one of them is creating a healthy lifestyle. Over the past few years, ...

For the past few years, I've been going back and forth, and back and forth with my hair; to keep it loc'd or to wear it out? That is the question.  I got my first perm during the summer before 6th grade, and it wasn't because I wanted to per se. It was because I was teased (no not by the neighborhood children, not even by kids at school, but by people at church). Before all of this, I had really long hair, natural hair before I even knew of the term. Saturday was the day set aside for washing, parting, oiling with Pink Lotion, and platting or twisting with ballies - the usual style for church and school the next week, except for the special styles that came for a holiday when my mom would say, "Don't let anyone touch your hair". Somehow though among my peers and the older youth, my hair was not "acceptable" and it needed to be permed. Once when my aunt came in from out of town, she ended up straightening my hair for the very first time. The next day ...

I grew up in a household where all of a sudden, we started boiling water and refrigerating it instead of filling our cups with faucet water. Not knowing the reason, sometimes I got lazy and would still just get water from the sink, but I could tell that there definitely was a difference in taste. Today, I live in an area where the hot water is cloudy and it makes me wonder if simply moving the spigot from one side to the other would make the cold water suddenly safe. So we followed a recommendation from a friend to buy a water filter. The thing is, we don't just use the water solely for drinking. A few years back, I started wondering about the negative affects of this water on our hair as we wash it, on our bodies as we shower and bathe in it, on our digestive system as we use it to cook. Having children, I wonder what influence it would have on them; on their functioning, on their skin, etc. I mean residing in one of the poorest counties in Maryland and one of the lowest counties ...

It is officially September 2020 which means it's my birthday month! As I approach 35, I've been noticing how paramount it is that I change my eating habits; not just for myself, but for others, including my family. I have always been pretty up and down about healthy eating; sometimes I go hard, making sure to log absolutely everything into MyFitnessPal, loading up on veggies and decreasing sweets and drinks other than water. Other times, I have no filter as to what I feed myself. As a child, I exercised all the time, and although working out has been sort of consistent into adulthood, I didn't always have a handle on coupling it with making the correct nutritional choices. Also, since my first born, I've used pregnancy as an excuse to eat whatever I want, when I want, and blamed it on "cravings". I gave birth over a month ago to my second child and although my appetite has increased tremendously due to breastfeeding, I haven't always gone for the healthier...

Black Panther was one of my favorite movies because I felt like I didn't have to have all the background Marvel knowledge in order to enjoy it. It was just a great movie by itself. I've never been into the comics and such, which brings me to the main reason why I thoroughly respected Black Panther. Growing up, you didn't have to be a comic-head in order to be aware of Spider Man, Super Man,  Batman, Wonder Woman, so many characters. Not often was it common to mention the Black superheroes; even in fiction we were marginalized . So when this movie was due to air in theaters, Black people showed their culture. And I'm sure we got on people's nerves but it's pretty natural to represent when you're represented. During "rep your city" segments, when the mc, host or deejay calls out where you're from, you make noise. When your alma mater is shouted out, you make noise. Even at graduation, when you're name is called, your section of family and fr...

 Apparently, this past week encompassed National Rainbow Baby Day!🌈 So often I think about the child my husband and I lost, especially now that we've just had our second baby. Even though I miss the child and I still feel sad sometimes, I can't help but praise God through it because there was a reason we weren't supposed to carry the child to term. Who knows what the reason was but I know God is in control and even if the only purpose was so that I learn to lean on God through the bad times, there was a purpose. I am learning to praise God through everything. Like for real. Do you ever think about life and the fact that we are all here for a purpose? If no one ever told you, let me tell you that God has purpose for you, and that is to bring Him glory! In good times and bad times, we are to bring God glory. If this time at home during the pandemic has taught me anything, it's that bringing glory to God means that my character matters! ALL THE TIME! It matters! In a worl...

If you're an educator or live with one, you know that it's that time of year again! This is the very first time in 7 years that I am not employed by a school system. I will not be starting this school year working in any capacity. I have officially been a stay-at-home mom for 8 months and I feel like I still haven't found my rhythm yet. But things have been wonderful because I haven't been alone. Due to COVIC-19, my husband has been home since March, and while he still had to work, having him here to help out, and sometimes just having his presence, has been so supportive. However, my husband is going back to work tomorrow! Under normal circumstances, I would just be sad because my husband would no longer be with me in the house all day. But during this pandemic, there are added reasons for my sadness. My husband is physically going to be in the school building working. My response, I hate it! Yes I hate that he is no longer going to be home with me and the boys: it...