Its That Time of Year Again!

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Lent is here.. (insert mix of cries of joys and groans of agony here). Some of you may not know that Lent began last week Wednesday; Ash Wednesday to be exact. Even before I was saved I practiced the tradition of Lent every year. If some of you remembered last year I gave up facebook/myspace/aim/bbm/gchat/ basically any forms of social networking. I was still blogging of course and was putting out entries every 5 seconds I had no outlet haha. This year though I have decided to give up the snooze button.

Yes I said the Snooze button. Anyone who knows me well knows I LOVE sleep. I don't get enough of it so the snooze button became my best friend. On average I hit it about three times a morning! On the very rare occasions where I don't have anyplace to be in the morning I walk up to take a afternoon nap. I have a comfy pillow top mattress and I just detest coming up from under the covers in the morning. So this is going to be a big sacrifice for me. But this is exactly what this time is about: Sacrifice. Its a time to learn what its like to do without something we think we absolutely CAN'T do without.

It is also about taking on something. I always struggle with this part of Lent as I am constantly taking on new things so I'm left struggling to find something else to do when Ash Wednesday arrives. After some thought I've decided to make sure my hands are painted. Again something most of you are left scratching your heads about. I'm not a very "girly-girl" I don't like shopping, mani/pedis, or spending hours in a hair salon. If I do paint my nails my fingers are probably clear because when they begin to chip I can never find time to redo them. Granted I do like what they look like afterwards but I always wonder when some women find time to have their nails done so regularly. So this Lent I am going to invest in myself. I am going to hit the stores buy some great colors and I am going to MAKE time to do my nails every week. Oh the joy...

Is anyone else devoting any time to Lent this year? What are you giving up? Taking on? And most important question of all: Any suggestions on fast drying nail polishes!

Live Like Your Dying

Hello My bloggy little family. I know its been awhile I was on a two week vacation. I'm back and tanned and loving it! They say Black is Beautiful; I'm darn near Gorgeous right now. But I digress The year is losing its new car smell and some of you may be forgetting all the promises you made to your self, your loved ones, and God. I'm not going to remind you. (What? I can't read your mind I don't know what promises you made!) But I am here to remind you that tomorrow isn't promised. Walk with me talk with me.

Before I left to go on vacation I had a short insignificant conversation with a male friend of mine. We'd gone to elementary and JHS together and grew up on the same block until he moved when he got to HS to another section of Brooklyn. We weren't that close but we had a shared history that enables us to converse every once in awhile and catch up with one another. He had gone from the nerdy dude with the SUPER high water uniform slacks to a pretty decent man and father. We talked about his son and some plans he had for the upcoming year and I gave him the haps on my life and how some mutual friends were doing. We parted ways with intentions of catching up again at some other point in time and went about our business.

I went on vacation had one of the best times I've had in a long time. Just an FYI I went to Trinidad for Carnival. I've gone every year, except 09, since 2005 and this year by far was my favorite time. And my last. There is a lot more of the world I want to see and jumping up in a band in TnT is something I can hold off on for a few years while I check out Asia and Africa. But again I digress.. Upon my return I sign into my facebook account to let my fans(friends) know of my return and I see a note in my inbox. Yep you guessed it. A mutual friend msg'd me while I was away to let me know our friend had died. I was in shock obviously. At the ripe old age of 26 you don't think about your mortality too often. I will admit when I was 22 and got the news that my step brother had been murdered I did get a smack of that reality; but I guess I'd forgotten.

After getting confirmation from some other friends that the funeral had been the weekend that just passed and his death was still something of a mystery because no one really knew how he died. They just knew it was a medical issue I kind of found myself in a place where I wanted to get all my affairs in order. I started to wonder if when he realized he was about to die did he have any regrets. Did he wish he had did something or that he hadn't done something. At that point I made it my business to do and say all that I needed to in case today was my last. Some people were receptive, others not so much. The point is that we shouldn't wait until we are staring our morality in the face for us to do what needs to be done.

Release that grudge

Tell that person you love them

Hold tight to those that you don't want to lose

Eat too much Chocolate Cake

Run barefoot

LIVE LIKE YOU ARE DYING

Do NOT wait until what you want is no longer available to you to realize what could be yours. Take stock of your lives and figure out if you have been giving big time to little things and rectify that error because today is as good a time as any to not just be alive but to live.

I Don't Want To Grow Up...

The other day my Granny's best friend passed away. We used to call her Aunty Mary. I was 18 before I found out this woman wasn't my real aunt you know. As a child I spent a lot of time in her home in Guyana, where my family is originally from. Whole summers would be spent with my various cousins and siblings sleeping under this ladies roof. Some of my favorite childhood memories were at that place.

I haven't been there since I was 19 which is the last time I was in Guyana. Was supposed to go last year but had a Saturday job that kept me grounded most weekends. And a host of other excuses that I let keep me from going back to the land of my ancestors. Back to Aunty Mary. Well by the time I was 19 she was blind but she was still sharp. My older cousins(OK me too! Lol) would sneak out to go party and she could tell u what time we left and what outfit we had on! SMH

I will truly miss this woman. But more than myself I worry for my elders. My mother, aunts, and uncles saw this woman as there Aunt and could tell her things they couldn't tell their own mother. And what of their mother? My Granny? She has lost all of her siblings and she has one half sibling left, she's lost her husband as well. The last sister she lost I was there when she got the news and it broke my heart at how alone she felt. She kept saying she was the only one left. I tried reminding her of her sister who could practically be her twin only to find out she was a half sister who she didn't grow up with. As far as I'm concerned there are no half-siblings; you just love them with your whole heart to make up the difference. My Granny was not hearing that.

Now she has lost her best friend. Someone who wasn't blood but you'd never know because of their closeness. And I can't help but think "Lord I don't want to grow up!" To lose my sisters and brothers! My parents or even my cousins as we all grew up together would be such a hard burden to bear. To continue your life without the ones who have made it worth living is no easy task and I don't envy my Granny at all. So at this time I can just love on her as much as possible to help her realize she still has some of us left.