Rainy Days Brighter Tomorrow

I woke up today to a rainstorm, (strange because the sun has been blaring every morning this week). Most people would be discouraged and unhappy with this (normally I would too). But, I have been reading these morning devotionals by Rick Warren on my Bible app on my phone everyday. I'm only on Day 13 of the reading (which will be a year plan). The messages have been all about goals, and finding out what your purpose is on earth, and tapping into the gifts & limitations that you have in your life. GREAT STUFF!

I'm sitting here today going back a few days in the reading plan thinking about some key points from all of them. Do you know what your Destiny is? God gives us all gifts that we are to use not for ourselves & the betterment of ourselves but for others. "What has God given you for good use for good?"

I also learned "not to let limitations limit" the vision. That was such an awesome message I have put the link to read here ---> http://www.youversion.com/notes/4827021/rick-warren-s-daily-devotional.(check out the whole book of Esther) I also learned that if you aren't quite sure what your destiny is (which I'm not) to take a look at the things that get you fired up. What are you passionate about? In this year so far I have figured out I am passionate about health care, politics, and trying to figure people out to be of assistance to them. I don't know what I will do with these things but I hate to see people hurting and sad. Like when I see homeless people it bothers me, and I always try and give them some cash (if I have it because I never carry cash). I'm a firm believer in being blessed to be a blessing!

I'm sitting here on this rainy morning and I'm grateful for the rain! I'm happy that it is raining on the last day of the month... I need this! In some kind of way the rain is a representation of washing away of pain and strife of this month! I refuse to go into March with the same load of garbage from February, so I'm happy the rain came to wash away this atmosphere of negativity surrounding me. I need to get on with my vision (well at least figure out what it is)! Live Laugh Love

Faith Without Works...

When I think about the journey that my life has taken, I know that if it had not been for God's grace in my life I would not be here today. I woke up today feeling really discouraged really lost and just hopeless.


I have been laid off from work for 2 months now, company cut backs and budget reform. It hurt to lose that job (which was an awesome job) but I didn't worry or get down. I packed up my desk and left, knowing that God was going to take care of it all. Now here it is 2 months later, hundreds of resumes later and I am still making it.


But this morning I lost sight of that. I forgot how much I have overcome by the grace of God. This morning I was down and out sad at the direction my life is going, or should I say the lack of direction my life is going. I feel like I have no real plan, no real goal I am striving for nothing that I am building towards, and for this I feel hopeless. I guess I feel like I should be doing more, doing something with this time that God has given me. I think about how busy I was when I was working my 9 to 5 everyday and how much I didn't get finished due to me having that full-time job. But now I have all the time and all the freedom to complete and do so much yet I haven't. My cousin told me that God is giving me this time to sort through things and to get myself prepared. I should be taking this time and reading, learning and trying to enhance myself and my resume. I haven't made a plan, I haven't barely had any job interviews. I am discouraged yet not defeated. My cousin, who is my counselor (spiritually and mentally at times,  Check out my Cousin's blog... she is a beautiful inspiration) definitely help me to bring things back into perspective today. She reminded me to pray and that Faith without works is dead. That was it... FAITH WITHOUT WORKS IS DEAD. I had been feeling like I was doing so much but in all actuality I have been doing the bare minimum trying to get by and get a pass off of just that. Its not good enough! I am constantly reminding people around me that anything in life that you want you have to work for. It is mentioned in the Bible at James 2:17 & 26. I need to put in more work somewhere in my life, not quite sure where but somewhere. I need to stop BSing!!!


I don't know what God has in store for me but I plan to keep praying. My cousin gave me Mark 14:1-9 to read, briefly telling me "God says do what you can and He will do what you can't". Live, Laugh, Love!

Prelude

I hate hitting my blog with these random post trying to play catch up. I keep telling myself I am going to do better with posting things, and I will do good for a little while and then fall off again. I was reading a blog about being vulnerable and I thought to myself, hey that's pretty much what my whole blog is about.... BEING VULNERABLE (along with hitting you with some knowledge of current events and what not). So this is just a brief prelude to let you know about the great things to come (and I say this like I have a whole lot of people actually reading my blog *sigh*).

Great things coming:
Laid Off - Taking Time Loving me and Loving God
GOP Candidates
2 Corinthians and what it taught me
My Natural Journey (and Great Links for hair tips)
RIP Whitney Houston
The 54h Grammy's
Club Paradise- Drake Concert

STAY TUNED!!!!!

O.B.A.M.A. - Opposition Based Amongst Many Americans

I'm soooooooooooooooooo TIRED of everyone being against President Obama. Just 3 1/2 years ago everybody was all for him so how is it that now, after all he has done, everyone has something negative to say?

Let me remind you all of who was the leader of the "free world" for 8 years... Yeah George...oh or did you all forget that. By far (in my personal opinion) the most ignorant SOB that has ran this country!  Yeah I'm not afraid to say this... Freedom of Speech dammit, its a 1st Amendment Right!
However, this post is not about him, it is about President Barack Obama. The man that the we all believed in, supported, and elected just 3 1/2 years ago. Why elect him if you all didn't believe? Why choose him if you didn't believe he was the best candidate?
When I cast my first Presidential Election vote of my lifetime back in 2008 I chose Obama because he was the best candidate. A lot of people may say oh you picked him because he is black. Oh really now?? Well since we want to decide world-leadership on such things as race or even gender why is that Hillary Clinton didn't win the Primary to go on to win the presidency.

 President Obama was the better candidate...PERIOD, and he just so happened to be black! There were a lot of black people back in 2008 who just voted just cause he was a man of color, and are now the same ones waiting around for a muthaf'n handout just because he is black. What were you expecting... For him to come hand deliver a remedy for your particular situation right at your front door? Dumbasses.. That's not how the politics of being President of the United States works! It pisses me off to hear people say "oh I'm a democrat, yeah I voted for Obama, but he hasn't done anything for me" #THEFUCK! What do you mean?

Let me break it down in simple terms for you real quick what Obama has done for this damn ungrateful, ignorant ass country (and I will further elaborate on this in my Part. 2 post). This man was elected in the midst of this country going through one of the worst economic crisis ever.. No thanks to Bush. Hell anybody that came after Bush definitely would have had a hard time..look at the mess he made! I look at it from a Marketing stand point... In public relations when things get all jacked up a publicist is called in to do damage control... I feel like that is exactly what has been done. Obama not only stepped in as the President of the United States but as the Publicist of the United States. This country needed someone to do damage control, that's all that could be done in his 4 year term!

He has done everything he said he would do and some. He has rescued this country from international embarrassment! The whole threat of the government shutting down is not his fault, I'm sure it would have happened to anyone else who would have been elected. He has done so much for this country and the people of this country, and yet everyone wants to spit on him and what he has done! Everything he comes up with, regardless of its effectiveness, has been opposed by Republicans in congress just cause it came from him! Can someone give the man some credit!! DAMN... Like what does he have to do to satisfy the people of this country???

I have a message for all the haters, the naysayers, the non-believers, the shit talkers, the REPUBLICANS, the RACIST..... LEAVE MY PRESIDENT THE HELL ALONE!!!! Let's go back to that grade school principle of: "If u don't have anything nice to say.. Don't say anything at all", especially if you are around me! I don't want to hear about you and your personal problems in your life and how its all Obama's fault! Oh really now, so because you made the decision to do whatever and you can't do this that and the other its all the President's fault? NO.. That's is your fault your problem... Put your big girl/boy pants on and DEAL WITH IT! Stop blaming your inadequacies on the Leader of this country. If anything we should learn something from him, because even through all the opposition and negativity he has still managed to fulfill his goals.  LIVE, LAUGH, LOVE, LEARN!

The Reality of Reality TV

After having a conversation via twitter with one of my fav followers @MrsValUable about reality shows, I was sort of motivated to do a post. Now I will not sit here and try and perpetrate like I don't indulge in the reality show craze. I definitely make sure to catch my weekly dose of Real Housewives, Basketball Wives (aka Baby Mama's), Real World's, Love & Hip Hops, Bad Girls Clubs, etc... (I could go on.. I watch a lot of reality tv). I will agree a lot of these shows are dumb and majority of the cast members are nothing to praise, but its entertainment! As a college graduate with a B.S. in Marketing I understand fully how sex, drama, and crazy antics sell sell SELL, which is the number one reason why these reality shows have been taking over tv and doing so well!

Now there are 2 reality shows in particular that puzzle me, and honestly have puzzled me since they started..... 16 & Pregnant and Teen Mom. From the very beginning when MTV introduced these shows I was giving them the *side-eye* because I couldn't understand for the life of me why would they want to further publicize the issue of teen pregnancy. The issue of teen pregnancy has become more urgent in these recent years, with the number of pregnant teenage girls skyrocketing and groups of friends in 10th grade making Pregnancy Pacts!

I have given the shows a chance and have been a follower of the seasons thus far, believing in the bigger picture that MTV is trying to display with these shows. I truly believe that the intention of these shows was to depict the hardships of dealing with teenage pregnancy to the masses of teenagers out there who need a good warning! However, I am also very sure that the show is not having the "impact" on the masses that was intended. When I go to my local grocery store and I see magazines with headlines such as: "Teen Mom star arrested for fighting", I am irritated. I'm not so much irritated that they have made negative headlines but more so that they are referred to as "Teen Mom star"... when the hell did these chicks become celebrities?? Can someone let me know when the hell having a baby in high school became glamorous ? Why the hell are these chicks even relevant to make a headline on any newspaper, magazine, blog, news feed, etc... And better yet why are these girls getting paid to do this?

The intent of these shows has definitely been forgotten.. Its evident by the still increasing teenage pregnancy rate! The young people who are now watching these shows are not at home thinking "man that girl is dumb" and "I will never be that stupid", they are relating with them. Teenage girls are watching these chicks that are not too much different from themselves being publicized and turned into celebrities for what SHOULD be a punishable! So is it so far fetched to think that they would be looking up to these girls and trying to capitalize in their own lives just how these "Teen Mom Stars" have?

And where the hell are their parents? Who the hell are these people? All the kids that are shown on these shows are ALLLLL MINORS!! MTV has to be getting parental consent from someone in order to exploit the naïve adolescents! I know my mother and there is no way in hell she would give parental consent to go on tv to embarrass myself, her and the rest of my family!! Do these parents not care or is it about the quick pay off? They get a nice lil check from the producers for the exploitation of their children's mistake on tv sets across America, that's sick!

Granted I know babies are not cheap, and any kind of. financial assistance would be great for these young parents but what about that young girl who is TRYING to get pregnant just so she can have her 15 minutes of fame? What about that baby? What is this society coming to when this is just socially acceptable and we all stand back and watch? Over 30 years ago it wasn't even socially acceptable for you to be pregnant out of wedlock, so why now is it ok for Babies to have Babies? Ignorance is running rampant in this country. LIVE, LAUGH, LOVE (and just because) LEARN!

Reflecting to Healing!

I spill a lot of my heart and soul and personal pains in my blog, when I do decide to blog. This post here tonight is for no particular reason, I'm just feeling some kind of way. Feeling some kind of way about what you may ask? I look back at my previous post and I look at how I have exposed so much of my pain and heartache and  what I have gone through in my personal life. Yeah, it comes off as a little foolish to have a whole blog devoted to allowing me to vent and express how I feel. But let me explain something......


There are not many people on the face of this earth who know me and I mean TRULY know me. There are many who feel that they read me like a book, but yet they still do not COMPREHEND who I really am! See I started blogging over 3 years ago in an effort to better myself. I was at a place in my life where I was going through a lot, emotionally and had no way of expressing it. Those who know me know that when I am emotional and upset, having a clear coherent thought is out the window. My head hurts, my mind is racing at 100 mph, and all I ever want to do is just go back to being the person I was 5 mins ago without a care in the world. 


My cousin introduced the idea of expressing myself through writing, and it proved to be effective for me. Being able to write how I feel and what I am going through has helped more than anyone knows. It is crazy to go back and read what you wrote, and remember exactly what it was you were talking about and exactly what you were feeling at that very exact moment. And once you travel back to that moment, you fast forward to today... at this very moment and you think of how far you have come. To be able to reflect on the things in my life that I have struggled with and that have caused me pain and to take those things and put them into prospective in my life today... it is truly a beautiful thing. Not only does my blog empower me, but it allows me to put things in my life back into prospective. So at times when I feel like my life is going insane and I am doing bad, I can think back to the post on my blog and read them and see where I have been and how far I have come. 


Yeah some may say why not just write in a personal diary. I look at it like this, if someone out there could read my blog and take something away from it to help themselves then I have done good...lol. Hell if someone can just read my blog and get a feeling that they're not alone or they're not the only ones that have been there and it makes them feel better... then I have done good. To be able to make an impact in someones life... regardless of how minor it may be... that is good enough for me. I know many people don't read my blog... and that is fine ... but for those who do I hope you take something away or at least have a good ass laugh. LIVE LAUGH LOVE

RIP Troy Anthony Davis

I was really moved this week with the Troy Davis story. Did I hear of it before this week...nope. But let's think... This whole "crime" took place in 1989..I was 2 years old in '89. I was unaware of the case, the story, and this man.
I don't want to go on and on stating the facts and the reports that have all been told to us via CNN and MSNBC. I would rather tell you how it made me feel and maybe someone out there feels me.
I first saw this man's name on twitter, and what got my attention was the fact that more than one of my followers was tweeting about him and the whole injustice. I didn't know anything so I did my favorite thing to do and GOOGLED IT. I read about the case and I wasn't surprised or outrage off bat about it. The only reason I say that is because we all have seen things like this happen before.

 Example: I watch The First 48 every week (I'm sure you have caught an episode or two). We have all seen those cases where someone was killed and there is a group of suspects. There is always one suspect that actually didn't do anything but he is guilty just like the trigger man just because they were there! Even the people who claim it was an accident... they still go to jail!

Does it make it right that people are getting charged with Capitol murder for just being in the wrong place at the wrong time? The more I thought about it the more wrong it seemed and the more mad I got. What separates this case from just a regular murder case where the suspect will likely just spend the next 30 years to life in jail, is that Troy Davis was sentenced to death. Why death though? Is the crime he committed not the same crimes that happen on the First 48? They get to rot in jail, chillin but Davis gets the Death Penalty! Something doesn't seem right in my eyes.
As I sat on the edge of my bed last night watching the CNN report I was deeply sadden when they announced his appeal was denied. He ran out of appeals. This man had been fighting for justice & freedom for 20 years.!! I was so cold and hurt thinking about him sitting in a cell by himself everyday for 20 YEARS on death row, knocking on deaths door, not knowing when someone would answer. The torture of having a countdown on your last breathe, the last blink, the last time your heart will pump blood through your body, the last time your brain will have a thought. The shit is sick. I wanted to cry but I couldn't, I felt numb knowing that this man who had so much doubt surrounding his guilt was laid out strapped to a gurney waiting for a bunch of old ass f*cks to decide his fate!
I had an interesting conversation with one of my coworkers (who is also black) about the whole thing and he told me that we as a culture (Black Americans) use the race card too much. I understood what he was saying an actually kind of agree. There are plenty of innocent white, yellow, orange, and black people sitting in jail, I don't doubt that. However, in this case I feel as if race played a big part.
I broke it down like this... The victim was a white cop in Savannah, Georgia. The suspect was a black man (any one will do), someone had to go to jail and die for the crime. But I think about it like this the cop was off duty, not in uniform how the hell is anyone supposed to have known he was a cop. To anyone there he was just a regular white guy. Yeah its wrong to take anyones life but let that cop just be a regular white civilian, would Davis had got life instead of the Death Penalty? Let's go even further... What if the cop had been black?  What would the outcome have been then?
Its evident that race played a LARGE part in this case. Hell it was 1989 in Georgia.... GEORGIA yeah one of those confederate states that at one point of time felt like black people shouldn't have rights. Yeah I'm sure those cops were thinking "yeah we got the right ni**er to put this on" "and we're going to fry him for it".
Kanye said it best "Racism still alive they just be concealing it". So while some black people are walking around thinking that the playing field is equal out here in these streets of America... NEWS FLASH they aren't. There are still a lot of conservative racist people in this nation that are very much so stuck in the past. Yes there are Black people out here making big moves ..ie Obama.. hell he won the whole chess game for us. But we should still be aware of the wrongs that are still being done and use the power and knowledge that our ancestors fought and DIED for to CALL IT OUT!
By no means am I a racist.. Hell I love anyone that loves me dammit... But I believe in standing up for what's right regardless!
Who are we to decide who lives and dies?? Who gave humans the right to play God?? Who is to say that man wasn't innocent? Why was that decision left up to human beings? We are not perfect! Yes we may have been designed in the likeness of God, but don't get it twisted. We are flawed... MAJORLY. Those 7 out of the 9 witnesses who recanted there statements are F*CKING FLAWED! That goes to show you that we as humans aren't capable of judging, nor taking a life.
I truly believe an innocent man was killed last night, but he has gone on to better place with the Lord. He can finally have peace! And hopefully his death was not in vain but is the catalyst needed to open up our eyes, speak up, and speak out for change! Live Laugh Love