Time Flies

Wow. Time certainly flies doesn't it? It's been 3 weeks since I blogged last. Summer is already here. And half of the year is already pretty much over. I feel like I need to catch up before I get left behind. Speaking of catching up, here's an update on life.

Love
My marriage hasn't been this good since my first month of marriage. You know what he said to me this weekend? We were relaxing in bed. I was on my iPad searching for a special something (more on that to come!), and he was laying there watching me. Out of the blue he says, 'You're so cute.' Since I had my bonnet on my head, I turned to look at him with disbelief in my eyes, but then he went on to mention that he really likes me and plays with me so much because of how much he enjoys me. If you know my husband, you know how much of a joker he is, so to be the object of his jokes I guess is a good thing. Nevertheless, it was so nice to hear him express himself out of the blue. I live for moments like that.

Right now, he's in the man cave with 4 or 5 other guys who kind of invited themselves over at the last minute. Game 7 must be entertaining because I can hear them all the way up here in my bedroom. I'm glad hubby is having fun though. As time has progressed, I care more about him smiling and having fun and being happy than I used to. One can either look at that as a terrible thing, or a good thing. I choose the latter.

Girlfriends
I've only had one girlfriend who I talked to almost every single day. I was her person and she was mine. I miss that a bit. I have a great group of girls to hang out with and talk to if needed, but it doesn't go much farther. And I'm ok with that for now. I had a great double date with a new couple on Friday. It's interesting to watch a budding romance as a married person. You have so many suggestions and ideas and cautions to give. At the same time, by watching the new couple, you get to remember your courtship days. Besides all that though, I had a really good time. We dived into a few good conversations that allowed us to all show each other who we really are. I love stuff like that. Not to mention that the weather was perfect. I haven't gone to a rooftop lounge in a long time… since days in LA in fact. Looking out over the DC landscape was nice. I want to do more things like that with people. Eat, talk, have deep conversation, laugh. Sometimes I wish I had my person that made me her person so I could do that all the time without having to call someone up and ask them, but it's all good. Sometimes you have to put the work in and I'm not going to be lazy about it.

Family
Sis and brother-in-law are good. They are studying the Bible together with another spiritually mature couple. Loving that. The couple that they're studying with visited DC over Memorial weekend so hubby and I got to meet them. I think they are all a good fit for each other. I'm excited to see where the studies take my family. Mom and Dad are good too. Same ole with them. My mom calls me every day it seems. Dad is still as chipper and happy as he's always been. My in-laws are all doing well. They have teenage son issues, but what family with a teenage son doesn't?

Spirituality
If I had to rate my zeal right now, it would be a 7 with 10 being the highest and 1 the lowest. We had a public talk recently about whether your heart goes out in the ministry with you whenever you do field service. I thought that was interesting because I'm not sure mine does. So I want to work on that. I'm still very consistent in my commenting and my preparation. My Bible reading isn't that great though. In family worship tonight, hubby and I did the Bible reading for the week together. That was nice. We put in our applications for the Regional Building Committee a few weeks back. I'm nervous and excited at the same time. The idea of building Kingdom Halls and Assembly Halls is cool. Especially since I love interior design. Hopefully I'll get to help out with something like that.

Car
Can I just say that I love my car?! I had to drive out to Reston, VA today for a meeting and the drive was so much more enjoyable simply because of my car. I was thinking about my love for my car as I was breezing down George Washington Memorial Parkway. I haven't felt this good about a choice in a long time.

Career
Meh. It's there. I have a job. I get paid on time. The end.

Future
Here's what I'm looking forward to.
1. Visiting Hampton this weekend, seeing hubby's dad and my preggers amiga and of course, doing some outlet shopping which I really saved for this time! No credit cards.
2. The convention. I think we're getting a new Bible or something. There have been plenty of clues/hints leading me to this conclusion. I mean why else can no one order a Bible anymore at the literature counter?
3. My family reunion. I have $72 more to pay and then I'm free. A week long vacation on the beach with all of my family can't come soon enough. I think this is the first year that every single person will be there too. All of the cousins, the grand babies…everyone.

I think that's a sufficient update, don't you?

Ran-Dumb Thoughts

I haven't blogged in a while
I feel like I've been away somewhere
But I haven't
I'm extremely antsy
I can't seem to settle down
I notice it when I'm trying to find something to listen to in the car
Station change
Nope
Station change
Nope
Station change
I don't want to hear that
There doesn't seem to be anything happening on the radio
Nothing intriguing
Or maybe I'm just bored
Either way, I'm antsy
I miss Jennifer
I was talking to my mom about girlfriends
And I've learned that my definition of a friend...
...is one who will never talk bad about you.
I have a nice group of girls that I hang out with
But only a few of them would never talk bad about me
I don't think there's anything particularly bad to say about me though
I try not to get on anyone's nerves
Or be shady
Or act big headed
Or be untrustworthy
But Jennifer
She would never bad mouth me to someone else
Or talk about me behind my back
That's a true friend
She's too far away
I haven't been back to LA since the day I said goodbye
It's been way too long
I have work to do that I don't want to do
An ad hoc analysis that is so messy I could care less anymore
The data to start with was messy
So nothing ties
But oh well
They should collect better data next time
I have a photo shoot coming up
Not a picture taking one
But one where I am the subject
I'm excited about it
MJ is in it too
I enjoy taking fully produced shoots with my partner
I haven't been eating much
Having $10 to my name makes that a reality
I get paid tomorrow though so the forced-upon-me-fast will be over
Being sick last week didn't help either
No dairy
Ugh
I miss cereal and yogurt
And that seem to be all that we have in the house
I'm addicted to salt
These pretzel rods that they bought for the office kitchen
Gosh
I look at them like a full meal at Olive Garden
That's my favorite chain restaurant by the way
What else is up?
I'm bored
I need a trip or something
Gotta check and see what Living Social and Groupon have
I've been married for 3 years now
Seems like nothing number wise
The legite number is 5
After 5, then I think I'll won't feel like a newbie anymore
Sometimes I trip out about the fact that I am going to be with him...
...for the rest of my life.
God willing, that's a lot of years
With the same person
Oh well though
What's going on for Memorial Day weekend?
I have not ner plan
Well there's a bridal shower
But what a perfect time to go to the beach
Let me get on this living social app
I needs some excitement in my life

Juice Fast

Hey peoples.

Hubby and I just finished a 3 day juice fast. What an experience! Who knew that 3 days could last so long!? Lol. It was very interesting to feel how devastated your body gets once it realizes that you are trying to clean it out. Day 2 was the worst for me. I had the worst headache that I've ever had. We learned through research that when you go through pains/headaches, it's because the toxins in your system are trying to escape your body. Hubby thinks my toxins are related to the amounts of salt that I take in. He's probably right since I eat a lot of Lean Cuisine tv dinners for lunch at work. They just happen to be on sale all the time at CVS! And I love the sweet and sour chicken one! Between Lean Cuisines, White Castle cheeseburgers and Digorno pizzas, I spend $20 on lunch for TWO WEEKS. I know I know...The savings do not make up for the fact that I have to do better. Hence I will.

The worst day for hubby was day 3 (yesterday). He had to leave work early because he had no more juice left at work and was getting a headache. If how he felt was anything like how I felt, there was no way he could sit there for 4 more hours and make it. Yesterday was great for me. I felt so clear and clean! I wasn't even hungry. My mind wanted food more so than my body did. Knowing that my fast was coming to an end, I couldn't mentally understand the difference between eating on Wednesday night as opposed to Thursday morning like I was supposed to do. Fasting is truly more of a mental exercise than it is a physical one. That mind is a strong organism man!

What we've learned is that we need to be more careful about what we put into our bodies...the salt, the caffeine, the sugar, the non-essential fat, etc. And since we did it together, we also grew closer. The feeling of making a huge life change together was uniting. I'm looking forward to incorporating juicing into our normal lifestyle (especially because we have nothing but shelves of veggies in our fridge now). Since we don't eat veggies like we should, the spinach/kale/lettuce juices we made will be essential to our diets going forward. I'm excited about this new healthy lifestyle we're embarking on. I'm more excited about the possibility of less ailments in my house. Hubby's headaches have GOT to go. If I were to do anything different, it would have been to continue our fast 2 days longer. I heard that the 4th and 5th days are amazing. The energy levels, the lack of ailments that you had before, the refreshing feeling... I'm interested to experience that and to see what it does for hubby since he gets sick so often. And perhaps we shouldn't have broken our fast with a slice of pizza. lol. The pizza wasn't even all that good either! Womp.

Anyway, I'm in a good mood, my body feels good and I'm excited about our progress. Let's pray we can keep this momentum going!

Defining Success

You know what? I had to take a moment and blog this. I'm having an aha moment. I've been doing some recreational reading lately and there are a bunch thoughts I've come across that are hitting me. This is one of them....

This is what I wanted. When I was praying and dreaming about a successful life, this is what I prayed for. So I'm glad to take the moment to reflect back on what I asked for and to see that I really do have exactly that. A good marriage, a beautiful house, an approved relationship with Jehovah, a comfortable financial standing and more. I know that I get so focused on what's not right and where I need to be that I don't appreciate the here and now. I'm sure that if the person I was 5 years ago was looking at me right now, she'd be happy. So here I am being happy for the here and now. I've worked hard to attain to my goals and have traveled on a wild journey to get here. A journey I don't regret... It was all worth it because I've created the life that I want for myself and couldn't be more proud.

Do The Work

I took the day off today. When I woke up this morning, I had that familiar feeling. The feeling of disdain when thinking of another day of work. It's been over a year since I've been at my job and up until recently, I've enjoyed it. For the most part. But these past couple of weeks have been trying. I've experienced what I call 'work dread' in past jobs and it's not the business. 'Work dread' consumes your life. You spend weekends living it up way past the point that you should all to mask the eventuality of 5 days of prison. So I've made a decision. I'm going to do the work and fortify myself. I'm going to make the decision to not have that old experience again.

So I'm revisiting a book by Amy DuBois Barnett that had a profound effect on me in my 20's. While I'm in a different place in my life now, I can probably pull some quotes out of it that'll help me. Like this one...

"We don't appreciate the good things we may already have and we certainly don't value the experience of adversity and the strength it gives us to make the life we truly want." ~ Two things... My job is a good thing. It's a blessing. I'm financially comfortable and appreciate that. Secondly, the adversity that I'm going through right now is only going to make me stronger. Maybe I'm learning tools that'll help me to be a good wife or mother. I should always look at the adversity and say 'what can you learn out of this?'

"For the first time in my life, I was truly happy because I'd created this life for myself." My sis Tiff has been posting thoughts like this on instagram lately and it's forced me to think. Happiness is a choice. It's a unilateral choice. No one can help you be happy and no one can force you to be unhappy. My manager cannot force me to be unhappy. I have to create my own happiness.

"When you fall in love with who you really are, it's that much easier to be you, always." This isn't work related. Just something that strikes me and is worth typing out. I think I was at my best when I lived in LA. It wasn't so much the location as it was the space I was in. I was learning, growing, understanding, and defining myself.

"Living a full life is actually experiencing the entire range of emotions we have...being able to understand challenges as experiences in one long adventure will change your whole attitude." This is a good one. If you understand the challenge as that, then you can also understand the positives.

"Learn from others' successes and failures." This is under the subheading Stop Comparing Yourself To Others. I think this will help me with my manager. He's a bit of an overachiever which means that sometimes the work he has me do is over and above. I'm a numbers person and if you know anything about math, engineering and technical people, you know that we look for shortcuts. We're lazy. We try to complete a task with the least amount of steps. So my manager frustrates me when he asks me to do things that I feel are unnecessary. But I need not focus on that. The fact of the matter is that he's a smart guy who leaves no leaf unturned. He is more thorough than anyone I've ever met. I can learn from that. I need to learn from that. There's no problem with stretching myself a little bit more.

Ok, I think that's enough. I'm going to keep reading but I'm done with typing. I'm all about doing the work today...

There's A Difference - What You Feel and What's Real

As I sit here in the living room with my husband and sister on a Saturday, I recognize how important family is. I have a really great bunch of people in my life. All people who love me and put effort into the relationships they have with me. It makes me think about the past month or so and the number of different things I've been through with my family and have decided write about here in my little space of the Internet.

When I have the sudden urge to write about my feelings, I'm mostly writing from an emotional place. The feelings are raw. They aren't well thought out and they aren't necessarily what's true. It reminds me of a quote from the movie 'ATL'. After the drama went down with T.I.'s girlfriend, T.I. had a little bit of an attitude problem. His uncle came to him though, and said something that's stuck with me. "I want you to recognize the difference between what you feel and what's real."

I've been writing a lot lately about my feelings. And that's exactly what they are. After a few days the sometimes PMS, sometimes emotional, sometimes insane feelings dissipate. They are in fact always temporary... until the next emotional occurrence.

So here's what's real. I have a good life. I am healthy. I have a good relationship with Jehovah. I have no major problems. I have a really good husband who wants to love me like Christ loves the congregation. I honestly am very blessed and love these people sitting here in this living room more than words can express. Because of my emotions, I might make things out to be worse than they are, which I really need to stop. When I'm in the middle of a tough spot, I need to remember the difference between how I feel and what's real.

Music and Cars

Morning! Check out my new post on my creative blog. I did my first photo shoot since Tiff's bridal shower and it went fantastic! Woohoo!

So I have a lot on my mind. Nothing bad. I just feel like talking and I haven't really been able to blog like I want to. For some reason, every time I try to blog at work in my 10 minutes of down time, I get this proxy notice that irrates the mess out of me. So today, I'm trying this from a different browser. Blogger doesn't support this browser though, so we'll see if this actually posts.

Anyway, did I mention that I got a new car? This is actually an important milestone in my life I feel. My now retired charcoal Mazda was my first baby. I loved that car. It did me so well and was right there by my side for so many experiences. Missy the Mazda rode with me through my years in Cali, was parked for a year while I lived in NY, and then carried me through my return to DC. I cried in Missy, I laughed in Missy, I had make out sessions in Missy, I partied in Missy. The time came, however, to let her go. *moment of silence* I was actually quite ready to part ways with her. I felt like she wasn't quite on my level anymore with the amount of bumps and bruises she had on her. Not to mention, her technology parts weren't sufficient for today's day and age. So now, I have a new Missy. Missy 2.0. A white, top of the line, fully loaded Kia Optima. I'm in LOVE with her. She is so beautiful I can't stand it. Getting exactly what I wanted in this car was very important to me. You see, I feel like I've always been the one to settle... on engagement rings (my ex, not my husband), on jobs, on apartments... so I wanted to make this car decision without any outside influence. I'm at an age now and have a career where I can afford not to settle. I'm too old to settle. So Missy 2.0 is very important for me for that reason. It's the first big decision I've made that's totally for myself that I did not settle on. And it feels good. I'm grown y'all!

I've been thinking about music a lot lately. The type of music I listen to... The upcoming concerts that I'll be attending... Yesterday's daily text mentioned that we have to abhor what is wicked and apply that principle to our choices of entertainment. It said, "Not all forms of entertainment center on practices that are expressly condemned in God’s Word. In such cases, before choosing the entertainment, we should carefully compare the activity with Jehovah’s view of what is wholesome, as expressed in Bible principles." Now, lately Rihanna and Beyonce have made me very uncomfortable in this area, which is why I'm kinda having second thoughts about these concert tickets that I bought. Rihanna more than Beyonce. For Beyonce, I'm not quite sure how this is going to play out. I feel like this "Bow Down/I Be On" song is just for giggles. Perhaps she just needed to get that one out. Perhaps she knows better than to include that on her album and even worse perform it in concert. I'm not trying to be at her show while she's yelling 'bow down b$*@#'. First of all, don't call me a witch with a b, and secondly, bow down? Huh? And then there's Rihanna. Chile... I had to stop following her on instagram. I think the chick has lost her mind. She is so nasty, raunchy and funky it's not even funny. The chick looks dirty. There's no way I could ever roll with her. So I kinda regret the Rihanna ticket buy. But I'm going with a friend all the way to Revel in NJ, so... I don't know how I'ma get outta that one. Beyonce, I'll suck it up for now and keep a close eye on her. Her next moves will determine a lot.

But anyway, I took hubby to see Questlove DJ at the Howard Theatre on Saturday. My first Questlove experience with Jenn out in LA changed my life. So I had to see him again. I realized my absolute obsession and passion for soul/neo-soul/hip hop. Not the hip hop that you hear on the radio. Not the Kanye's and the Jeezy's and the Jay-Z's. I'm talking about the Camp Lo's, the J. Dilla's and the Little Brother's. The music is so soul piercing! It hits me in a place I can't describe. I almost feel myself getting high off the sounds. It's simply amazing. I am definitely an undergound music lover. A soul lover. Give me the Rahsaan's, the Chico Debarge's, the Foreign Exchange's and the Van Hunt's all day long please. When I look back at the years of blog posts on here, I seem to post this paragraph about music once a year. I love all types of music, but I keep coming back here. If I had to listen to only one genre of music for the rest of my life, I guess this would be it. Reggae comes in a close second place.

Well, work is calling my name. I sent out the sales reps' commissions yesterday and they are emailing me back telling me that this is missing and that is missing. They keep an eye on their MoNEy!

Ciao!

Hallelujah

"Have you ever hated yourself for staring at the phone
Your whole life waiting on the ring to know you're not alone"

Yes P¡nk. I couldn't have said it any better, but guess what? My man called today.