30 Days of Thanks Blog Challenge -

 There are so many things to be THANKFUL for and sometimes we are not in tune with the little things and are conflicted by all the things that we do not have.  I am guilty as well.  In the spirit of November and the THANKSGIVING season here is the November Blog Challenge – should you choose to accept it. 

30 Days of Thanks.  Each day has a TOPIC to be THANKFUL for and the CHALLENGE is to write a post regarding it.  However you choose – be creative and think about it.  CHALLENGE!!!!

 

btw, DAY 31 is a reflection to conclude this challenge.

 

November 1-30, 2012 - Please let me know if you are participating so that I can read your post and feel free to check me out on FACEBOOK  or Twitter (@NVFreckles).

 

May 30: A Picture of myself and 5 good things that have happened since this challenge

Honestly this challenge has allowed me to learn so much about some people that I know and do not know directly.  It has encouraged some thoughts that have encouraged some good writing while reflecting on some missed feelings.  This challenge has sparked somed wonderful things in me that will produce some great writings and even make my writing better as I have read some great blog posts lately.  This challenge has made me understand people more - how and what they are feeling.  Even though I fell off at the end I believe that this May Blog Challenge will make me a bit more dedicated to my craft.

May 28: What Stresses Me Off

I’m too blessed to be stressed, right?  Well my spiritual self knows this but in my humanness there are a few things that stress me out… (in no particular order)

·         My Faith – sometimes I am conflicted. I know better but in moments it just seems or feels kind of stifled.  I trust and believe in Him so much. I know He has me in spite of me.  For that I am so grateful.  I am working on being a better woman and a better Christian.  There are times that I fall short but I am a work in progress.  I think I just need to believe in me more and seek Him more.

·         Things (Situations) that I cannot control. 

·         My current situation. I want so much more for me and though I know God is moving and He will move in His time. I sometimes tend to get a little anxious and somewhat overwhelmed.

·         My desires not being met.

·         LOVE.

·         Hope and my Heart.  I struggle with my hope in the greater good.

·         Not being able to hear my Daddy’s voice and sometimes I stress over how much I miss him.  In those times I get overwhelmed and I don’t really have an outlet.  It has been almost two years and it sometimes doesn’t seem to easier.

·         Not letting the past go.

·         My weight – It’s a struggle for me and has been.  I am not as disciplined as I should be nor am I always as focused.  I do not want to go back to the way I was.

·         Ants. I cannot stand those boogers and when they get into everything and you have to try to get them cleared out. Then you feel like they are crawling all over you. Gracious.

·         Inconsiderate and inconsistent behaviors – again things that I cannot control.

·         Temptation.

May 27: Photo(s) of my CIty - Los Angeles

May 25 Something that I look forward to - LOVE

I have come to terms with the fact that I am in LOVE with LOVE.  It is authentic, genuine and not delusional.  It just is what it is.  I look forward to finding a LOVE of my own. A LOVE that will be full of hope and desire. A LOVE that will be constant and passionate.  Let me explain:

I LOVE LOVE.  I LOVE that there are so many forms of LOVE and so many things to LOVE, ways to LOVE...  I LOVE the thoughts associated with LOVE. I am in LOVE with the possibilities of LOVE. I LOVE the desire to LOVE. I LOVE the thought of being in LOVE. I LOVE falling in LOVE.  I LOVE expressing my LOVE (mentally, emotionally and physically and even spiritually). I even LOVE what it takes to be in LOVE and stay in LOVE.  All things of LOVE are LOVELY to me.  I LOVE hard.  I LOVE deep.  I LOVE tough.   I LOVE efficiently and sometimes too much.  I LOVE completely and sometimes effortlessly.  I LOVE LOVE songs.  I LOVE LOVE stories.  I LOVE LOVE poems. 

A coward is incapable of exhibiting love; it is the prerogative of the brave. Mahatma Gandhi

I LOVE me and being in LOVE with me.  I LOVE that I feel like I have so much LOVE in me and that sometimes though I feel that LOVE has given up on me that I haven’t given up on LOVE.  Although I still have so much to learn about LOVE. I have not always been this woman. I am and have been a true work in progress. In this journey I have learned that you must LOVE yourself in or order to LOVE LOVE or a possibly have a LOVER.

You must love yourself before you love another. By accepting yourself and fully being what you are... your simple presence can make others happy. 

Jane Roberts

LOVE. The thought of LOVE makes me warm and fuzzy.  My LOVE provokes thoughts.

Who is he? Where is he? What is taking him so long? Am I ready for him?

What do I have to lose?  Like India, I am ready for LOVE but waiting for the LOVE of my life like Erykah.  Well at least I would like to believe that I am ready but waiting.  However I will not settle for any kind of LOVE.  I want a LOVE that is unselfish, unconditional and everlasting.  I want the kind of LOVE that comes from my hair follicle to my toe nails.  I LOVE the kind of LOVE that is expressed freely in harmonious metaphors and seductive similes.  The kind of LOVE that makes me call out your LOVERS name.  The kind of LOVE that allows you to smell them when they are not around.  The kind of LOVE that makes you close your eyes reflecting on last night, the night before and possibly the night before that and makes you smile.  I LOVE silly LOVE, courageous LOVE, passionate LOVE, boundless LOVE. I want the kind of LOVE that is worth fighting for no matter what “til death do us part” – a forever kind of LOVE.  Infinite kind of LOVE.  LOVE with no limit like mjb and is sweet like Anita.

My great hope is to laugh as much as I cry; to get my work done and try to love somebody and have the courage to accept the love in return. 

Maya Angelou

Perhaps we're too embarrassed to change or too frightened of the consequences of showing that we actually LOVE. But why not risk it anyway?  Great LOVE and great achievements involve great risks.  LOVE takes work, effort, care and sometimes some pain.  Why not give into the concept of LOVE on any level.  After all LOVE is and we are nothing without LOVE.

Consider this:

It matters not
who you love,
where you love,
why you love,
when you love,
or how you love,
It matters only
that You love.

~John Lennon~

LOVE

It's something that I look forward to.

May 24: Something that I have learned

Something I’ve learned is that it is ok to just be me and God is so GOOD.  I am in a good place in my life right now.  Of course there are things that I would like to change and there are things that need to be better.  This post is in reference to my being.  I am happy with being me and I am finally happy that God made as He did.  He allowed me to make some mistakes and learn from them.  He never left me in the midst.  I am very much in tune with my flaws and fabs.  I know which things I am working on and which I am not… right now.  There was a time that I wore a mask.  I wanted to be so much more than I was and felt that it validated me as a person.  Thanks God my 20’s are over.  I thought that all the people pleasing and pretending made me better but now I have learned that I am pretty awesome.  He made me with an amazing spirit.  I am fab as I am – flaws and all.  Contentment with one’s actual self is a good place.  Now when I get the rest of me together… but that is a process and God is still working on me.

To feel as if you belong is one of the great triumphs
of human existence

May 23: Favorite Movies and TV Shows

MOVIES

27 Dresses

Any Given Sunday

Beaches

Coming to America

Devils Advocate

Dirty Dancing

Fried Green Tomatoes

Lady Sings the Blues

Love & Basketball

Love Jones

Pretty Woman

Purple Rain

Remember the Titans

Soul Food

The Five Heartbeats

Television Shows

All CSI/ Law & Order

Cosby Show, A Different World & Living Single – I can still watch these and hella love them like they are fresh

Criminal Minds

Friends & Seinfeld

Hawaii 5-O

How I met your mother

Sex & the City

What Not to Wear

Parenthood

Grey’s Anatomy, The Practice and now Scandal

May 22: What do I want my future to be like

My future looks bright. I will be happy. I will be successful. I will live out my dreams and I will be full of love.

May 21: Something Im proud of...

11 years ago I graduated from the illustrious Fisk University.  My maternal grandmother attended my graduation.  It was a wonderful moment.  One of the best days of my life to date.  I am so blessed to have been able to share that day with one of the most special lady’s in my life.  She gave birth to my mother after all.  I am very proud of that.

Day 19: Something I want to say to an Ex

EX 1:  I held you, your thoughts, your feelings, your ambition, your lust and your passion close along with your lack of drive, all of your pride and that sad excuse for love that you had for me.  We went day by day after all those years.  I gave all that I could to you and for you.  I embrace your dreams and your hope and tried to do all I could to uplift you, encourage you and keep you focused on our future.  I am so busy loving and caring and trying to be all for you that I lose track of my own happiness and what I needed.  How long must I set myself aside and possibly miss out on someone that may be for me for the fact that I love you more than it seems that you love yourself. Rhetorical.  Day after day I loved you regardless of you being mine to love.  I love you regardless of what it has cost.  I tried to love you enough to compensate for this world that is so cruel and seems too unfair to you so you said.  I loved until it hurt when I don’t know if you are ok because you are not answering the phone when I am called.  Not knowing where you were, if something had happened or if your karma has caught up with you.  I love you until it hurts from worry and tears that wet my pillow where I lay scared that something has happened to you or wondering how I can help you. My tears have filled and now my cup runneth over.  It’s time for a release but I can’t seem to let go.  I love you and it hurts so badly when once upon a time it was so good and it gave me multiples. When fucking you made me feel close and safe and that it was us sharing our love with each other.  Now I can’t seem to release.  Release all the emotions, thoughts feelings that hold me hostage to you.  I can’t let go and it hurts so bad. I loved you so much that prayed for you almost more than I prayed for myself as if my salvation was enough for the both of us.  All of this and for what?  I cannot seem to get a return on my investment and now I can’t seem to let go but now I'm leaving.  It hurts as bad as I feel the words of Ms. Hill and it coincides with Jill’s slowly surely. Slowly surely. Slowly surely.  I walked away.  If only you believed in you as I believe in you and you would see yourself worth as I see that loving you has always been worth it even though you have never been mine to love.  I try to love you enough for the both us but it turns out that it is never really enough. Woe is me and I can stand this shit and all I really want you to do is man up but again I love you as you are full of flaws and with too much love for them same streets that keep me up at night worried about you and knowing that you may not even be thinking about me.  How long do I compromise my heart and my happiness for love that only truly exist in my heart alone and empty all by myself?  The kind of love I do not deserve but hold onto because it’s apart of you and I settle to have a piece of you with no true purpose. 

EX 2:  My love for you was bottomless and is years and years and years long with no real purpose or desire but it was passionate and it was full of fireworks and it penetrates me deep to climax each and every time. Thank goodness but at the end of the day there is no true release and even after I cum my love is still with me and I am still alone trying to maintain what I hope we will be or what we have in my fantasy world but now this is reality and the this love hurts and it is one sided and I can’t carry the burden for the both of us. It’s not fair and it’s not enough.  So now as you go and give up on us, know that once you leave, you cannot come back, I am closed and there will be no more.  This is your decision and I need you say good bye and let me go so that we can conclude this novel.  All of the chapters have been written and the preface did not have enough detail.  This story must come to an end with no happy ending.  The curtain must fall and I will watch you exit stage left.  I cry and reflect on the fact that there is not wrong or any right, no fault, no good or bad involved.  We are just two hearts on different beats to different tunes no longer playing together in harmony.  I sit here purging.  Letting go of all the things of my heart for you and the love is still there but this is confirmation that it has never been enough.  You have to love love before you can love me but you need to love yourself before that.  I love you but it’s not enough and I know that but through it all it doesn’t make me stop loving you. Love loving you and being in love with the thought of you loving me back, the way that I need you too-unconditional and unquestioned and uncompromising.  Loving you has not always been easy and there is times when it beautiful.  I love how you look when you are feeling my love and we are making love and you are just being my lover - Over and over and over. But again, it’s not enough and it’s ok.  I am ok and in fact I am thankful for the opportunity to love and hope that one day it will love me back in a way that does not hurt.  One day it will be my turn but now that I am letting you go maybe it will find me.

May 20: Something you wonder WHAT IF about

WHAT IF…

§  I would have chosen a different major or a different college?

§  I would have become his wife and had his baby

§  I would have kept it all to myself

§  My daddy was still here

§  I would have fought a little harder for us

§  He would have made the effort and not sabotaged us

§  I would have told the truth

§  I would have been comfortable in my own skin a little sooner

§  I wouldn’t have put myself in that situation

§  I decide to share me with him

§  My relationships change for the worse

§  Something were to happen to me

§  I didn’t care to feel or love

§  I didn’t have freckles

§  She wasn’t there for me what would have happened

§  I am not forgiven

§  I become successful

§  Pandora’s box opens

§  I never moved to Atlanta

§  She never figured out who I was

§  He couldn’t appreciate who I am now

§  She lets go of his bs

§  He walks away from her baggage

 There is always a WHAT IF…

May 18: Something I Miss...

I miss the days of not having to worry.  I miss the days that I didnt have to be grown.  You  know this being grown is rather overrated.  I miss love and being in it.  I miss Nashville.  I miss Atlanta.  I miss driving - I do not currently have a car but that too is a work in progess.  I miss my independence.  I miss ice cream.  I miss bartending.  I miss being frivolous & spontaneous.  I miss some of my friendships.  I miss college - gym parties, drinking on the yard, homecoming... College was the best 4 years of my life.

May 17: Shuffle Songs - First 10 Songs

1.    Let, Let Me In – De La Soul

2.    Everything to Me – Monica

3.    He is the Truth – India Arie

4.    Ying Yang in This Thang – Ying Yang Twins

5.    I Wish – Carl Thomas

6.    Have a Good Time – The Brand New Heavies

7.    The Cell - Erykah Badu

8.    Lil Freak – Usher

9.    Text Messages – Raheem Devaughn

10.  Brick House – The Commodores

May 16: MY opinion on MY body and how comfortable I am in it

A few years ago I was over 200 pounds.  I thought I was real cute and the weight wasn’t much of a factor.  So I thought.  I carried it well and I wasn’t sloppy but I was heavy.  I began to feel heavy and it was starting to really think about it.  It was the moment when I almost had to buy a size 18.  I was about an 18 and it began to feel a little tight.  I didn’t want to buy bigger jeans and one point I began not to wear pants due to the size.  I am only 5’2 ¼.

I have always been rather athletic.  I grew up running track and playing soccer.  I did some karate for while.  My Daddy was way into martial arts and the discipline factor.  I had an amazing body in my teens and it carried somewhat into college but then I stopped running and that freshmen 15 turned into 25 but it was still not too bad.  I believe the weight gain happened after college when I began working.  I was working as a manager for EXPRESS and I fell off a ladder.  My left ankle swell hugely and it left me unable to walk.  I did everything but break it (hairline heel strain, torn ligaments and tendons.  I laid up for while and not very much exercise.  I wasn’t able to wear heels.  I got really sad during this time as well.  I was on workers comp for a while.  I blew up some then to on top of the additional that I already additionally carried.  My mother typed me a letter detailing her concerns about my weight.  She said that the letter was better to my defense.  There wasn’t a conversation needed.  I still have the letter.

While in Atlanta I got a little bigger then I finally saw a picture.  Pictures do not lie and I finally saw me in a different light.  Life has a way of happening.  I finally saw me as me and needed to be a better me.  I began being a bit more conscious.  I began to lose.  Then my daddy died and the devastation allowed me to see me more.  Grief gave me insomnia and insomnia gave me working out.  They say exercise is an anti depressant and I needed all that I could get.  As of today, two years later,  I have lost about 50 pounds.  I am down to a good weight which was better before the holidays where I dived into some bad habits and gained about 10 pounds and it gained back rather funky. 

I am in the process in getting that under control and I would like to lose an additional 15 pounds but 20 would be more ideal.  I need to tap into my discipline.  I feel good about me.  I am more comfortable in my skin again.  I am feeling my sexy again.  It was more genuine.  I am getting into a good place.  Thankfully, I was once an athlete and legs never leave you.  They are toned up again.  I have great legs.  My legs are one of my strongest attributes besides these freckles. 

May 15: Death Row Meal

uhm. Imma go with not interested.

May 14: A Picture of ME from last year - how have I changed?

Yall not tired of pictures of me yet??? 

Well... honestly, I havent changed all that much from last year but life has changed from last year.  Last year I was very much in love with a wonderful man. The love came into play rather unexpectedly but it was genuinely appreciated.  We also parted ways last year and that crushed me. I love so hard and throughly with all that is in me and when we broke up it was unexpected again.  So yes I was crushed.  I wrote about it a bit [once upon a time he hurt me].  Its amazing how one can feel so many different emotions in a matter of 12 months.  If I have to say what changed with me outside of me finding my MOJO [read about it here].  I am coming into myself again.  I am feeling myself a bit too. 

in this picture I made the headband and the earrings. Just sharing my creativity.

May 13: GOALS - 35 before 35 (delayed)

I will be 35 in a little over 2 years so these goals are realistic and I am hoping to be able to make them all happen that time. 

35 BEFORE 35

1.     Get a new passport – I plan on doing this as soon as possible.  I have some big plans and it is necessary to have.

2.     Hookah Lounge - this may happen sooner than later. I have gotta go and try it.

3.     Step Class (ole school Chicago stepping)

4.     See Jill Scott in Concert again (she is amazing and I love her).  It would be awesome to see her in Philly and then go to an Eagles game (perfect)

5.     Go to a Eagles game in Philly - long term I want to got at least 10 NFL Stadiums.  I LOVE FOOTBALL!

6.     Host a wine tasting event

7.     Go on a cruise – stamps on my passport

8.     Get involved in a cause (preferably Diabetes in honor of my daddy)

9.     Host a brunch start to finish at my house (garden party) – I love to cook so I want to plan the menu, decorate, make real invitations – the full event (I’m crafty).  I wanna get my Martha Stewart/ B. Smith on.

10.   Build my savings

11.   Attend the Essence Festival and actually attend the concerts

12.   Develop a creative business for myself that I will actually grow

13.   Put a dent in my student loans – That awesomely wonderful  HBCU education is/was expensive

14.   Complete my book(s) and publish them

15.   Move out of Los Angeles again (improve my quality of life by growing up)

16.   Vacation with a man that I love (hopefully but we shall see – this is an entire post of its own)

17.   Start bartending again – I miss it.  I miss the social aspect the intensity and if you don’t use it you lose it)

18.   Stay involved with my Alumni Association (Fisk University) where ever I am

19.   See a Broadway Show in NY

20.   Take a craft class (possibly beading)

21.   Build another scrapbook of something monumental event

22.   Purchase a fantastic pair of Designer shoes

23.   I would like to be married or at least engaged

24.   Go to the Taste of Chicago and Essence


25.   Go Camping with all the specialties. I am not really and outdoors chick but I have had some conversations that make it sound fun.  It will be a group outing that I will have to coordinate.  I am getting kind of excited about it.

26.   Learn more about wine and sangria

27.   Start sewing (using the machine that I already have for real – I need to make something good.  My mom has these awesome patterns from the 70s when she made all her clothing.  I admire that about her.  She tried to teach me when I was younger but I lacked interest).

28.   Take my mother and grandmother on a vacation

29.   Road Trip by way a Diners, Drive in and Dives – I love Guy

30.   Ride in  Hot Air Balloon with someone special

31.   Grow a garden.  Not truly my thing but I hear that it is relaxing.

32.   Sky Dive

33.   Become more involved with Diabetes Prevention Charity

34.   Visit Daddy’s grave – still haven’t had the desire to go.  I need to make that happen.

35.   Convince my friends to hold me to this list.