An Important Note to Self

In church today I was really trying to focus on why I was there, but something really bothersome kept pulling my attention away. There was a young lady there who had a baby somewhere between 6-9 months ago AND her belly was smaller than mine! And I'm almost sure that she didn't come out of the hospital exercising and doing crunches! She was just blessed with better skin elasticity than me. While this distubrs me greatly, I'm learning to not focus on things that I have no control over and work on the things I do have control over--myself and what I put into and do with my body. So, right now I'm kind of bummed about the box of girl scout cookies that I ate today :( but I'm looking forward to the 100 jumping jacks, 5 minutes of running in place, and 20 push ups that I'll do before bed tonight.

One of my good friends often tells me of what one of her cousins tells her often. And that is that she MUST exercise everyday and watch her food intake to control her weight because she knows her body. She can't compare herself to others and that's how I need to be.

So note to self, "No more getting down about other women's small stomachs. And most important, you are beautiful AND sexy with a beautiful curvaceous body even with curves where you might not want them. You're just one hot mama!"

All Things Will Work for my Good

In this real estate market everybody and their mama has housing on their minds. Whether it's buying a first home, buying an investment property, trying to short sale ones current home in hopes of buying a better, but cheaper home, or, unfortunately, losing a home to foreclosure. No matter the situation, I've come to the understanding that if whatever you're hoping for to happen doesn't seem to be working out how you want it, you must know that God is going to work it out for your good. That is what HIS word says and I BELIEVE it!

I currently already own a home. When I purchased it almost 10 yrs ago it was perfect for myself and my daughter. Now I have a son too and would love another bedroom. Notice I didn't say need??? It's important to REALLY know the difference between wants and needs when making big decisions. Yes, a huge part of me feels that I need a 3BR home. Then there's another part of me that feels the need for the bigger home that I want is not worth the consequences of foreclosure or bankruptcy. I've worked too hard over the years to keep good credit to destroy it--even just for a few years--because I want what I want. It's important for me to do things the RIGHT way as much as possible. This is something that I've had to think long & hard about AND be prayerful about as well.

What I keep being led to realize is that, as unfortunate as it is for what I want, I am simply not in a financial situation to buy the bigger house that I want while I still own the one that I live in. But you know what? I AM in a financial situation to do some other things that I have on my plate. Those include remodeling my basement, decreasing my debt, increasing my savings, taking my children on a spring vacation, and promoting my self-published book, Unfinished Business.

How you view your circumstances is all about your attitude. Even when things aren't going the way you think they should, God may have something totally different in my mind for you. My advice is to make the best of whatever situation you're in and give God the glory!

Temporary Insanity

I take back everything back that I said in my previous post. And from here on in, whenever I feel frustrated about my locs instead of considering taking them out I'm simply going to make a quick stop to YouTube and check out some loc styling tutorials because that's usually what my problem is. As much as I love not HAVING to do something to my hair every morning, I still get tired of looking at the same 'ole same 'ole day in and day out. And what changes that besides styling options??? The thing with being still kind of new in this loc journey I have to get more creative with styling since I can no longer clip on a phony ponytail or pay the African hair braiders a billion gazillion dollars for some zillions.

So anyhow, the day after I posted my frustrations I was checking out YouTube and I was immediately rejuvenateda about my locs.

Will I, Won't I, If so, When?

Here we go again or should I say here I go again--contemplating changing my hair. The fact that I keep going back to the idea to take my locs down must mean it's what I really want to do. Of course, I realize that I usually feel this way when I'm feeling tired of looking at the same 'ole same 'ole. However, when I go through this and then do some different style to my hair, that solution is becoming less and less satisfying.

So, what's the worse that can happen, I'm asking myself, if I take my locs down? Will I immediately regret it? Will I feel a freedom on top of my head that I've been quietly longing for? If so, will that feeling evaporate the next morning as soon as I have to do more to my hair than take the scarf off of it???

Further, if I let the locs go, what will my hair styling options be? Trying to keep up natural hair styles is what led me to locs in the first place. One day twists, next day cute twist-out, the next day a less cute twist-out. Later that week straightened hair. My days prior to locs I felt like John Trivolta and Nicholas Cage in the movie Face Off. I was still me underneath, but I was someone else on the outside. Then I got to the point where I had to make a decision and I decided to do something that I had never done before. Now that I've done it, I'm kind of tired of it.

Vent Session

I make a point not to do this very often, but right now I feel like venting about everything under the sun, so just bare with me a few minutes.

1. I just want to take some scissors to my hair and clip these locs off and be done with them. I'm not saying I don't like my locks. From time to time I just get tired of them.

2. The bulge in my belly that this laptop I'm typing on is resting on just repulses me more often than not. It seems like I've been trying to get rid of it since I turned 20 yrs old--nearly 15 yrs ago! That is unacceptable. I'm wondering do I need to starve myself to lose this fat.

3. I'm tired of paying high insurance in the city of Detroit. Enough said on that!

4. I get really frustrated when I start a blog and then lose my train of thought so badly that I can't even complete--like what happened with the blog I was trying to compose when I switched to this one.

5. Lastly, the daily grind of daily living.

Okay, like I said, a few minutes of venting and I'm done.

Til next time,

L.A. Jefferson

Today was much more fun than I expected it to be. It's the last two days of the winter break for the kids. Usually I don't take any vacation days off since it's so early in the year but this time I was driven to do something different. While I couldn't do the entire week, I settled on these last two days. I promised the kids fun, not just hanging around the house. Not only did I want to do something fun, I wanted to do something outside of the box. My original intent was to go to a bounce house. That wasn't going to be much fun for my 14yr old but at least she'd be out of the house. Plus I was going to stop by a mall for her. She would have been happy. But things ended up working out even better than that.

The weather was more than decent for a February in Michigan so when my daughter suggested we go ice skating after our brunch, I surprised her with, not only an approval, but a follow through! Supporting one of my city's newest jewels, campus martius park. We had a great time! I had as much fun if not more than the kids! I want to go again, but it was just beautiful to have shared that experience with my kids.

A New Day

You'd never believe what I had planned for myself on this past Friday evening. A hair appointment! Yes, a hair appointment. What's so significant about this hair appointment as it compares to other sporadic ones that I've had over the last two years is that this one will be the first of many to come. After much consideration of how I take care of myself, I recently decided that I'm lacking considerably in the area of allowing myself simple indulgences that, quite frankly, I deserve. After all, I do go to work everyday. I provide a good life for myself and my children. But when the economy started going to hell I, like many Americans, began cutting back on spending. I won't get off into all the cut backs that I made, but I'll say among the cuts included my personal pampering spending. Back in the day I was at the salon every two weeks. In the summer I would get pedicures, sometimes manicures. I kept my eyebrows arched. Well, not anymore. I rationalized that those things were not important enough to spend money on, especially when I knew people who were doing these things for themselves. I figured I could too. That's what led me to become a DIY'er. Don't get me wrong, being a DIY'er has certainly had it's advantages, specifically monetarily, but it's also quite exhausting. Becoming a DIY'er made forget the importance of treating oneself. That's why there is a industry full of services: massages, nails, facials, hair salons, etc. So in essence I'm damaging the economy in part by taking away money from that industry. Therefore, I'm giving back. I've decided to have my locks interlocked. And, since I can't do that myself I'll be entrusting the care of my hair to my cousin,a professional loctician, who also happens to be my cousin. I'm starting with my hair, but in due time I'm going to start treating myself to monthly massages and pedicures. Matter of fact, I think I'll get a pedicure today :))