Month: January 2020

I have been shopping for a yearly planner since before January 1st and even after. I have went to Target, Michael’s, TJ Maxx, Homegoods and Walmart. I purchased 3 planners in the stores and one on Amazon. No, I do not plan on keeping them all, I just couldn’t decide which one I wanted. Smh. I don’t know anyone who is as obsessive about their planner as I am. I found the perfect one last year. It had all of the components I wanted and it was within my price range. For my planner I need a pen holder (ultra important), a folder inside to hold my coupons and a strap or something to keep it closed. I also like some blank note pages but it is not mandatory. Each one of the planners that I found in the store had one or more of the elements but none of them had all. The planner I found on Amazon possessed them all. Just got it! Not in love but I’ll keep it. Here it is.

Now I just have to take all the others back to the store. Lol.

I am great at thinking first thing in the morning. I have some of my best ideas and it is easy to come up with topics to write about on this blog and future ones. My mind is clear. I can remember all of the things from yesterday that was lost due to thought after thought piling on top like dirty clothes in a laundry basket. I guess it is when God can get to me. Well one Tuesday morning I came up with the title for this new year. I was laying in bed trying to go back to sleep because I had the day off and I wanted to be lazy. But it wasn’t happening. It was time to put a name to this year.

So I used to watch this show called Lucky Dog every Saturday morning. I do not have an antenna right now so I only watch my subscriptions like Hulu, Netflix and Amazon Video. Lucky Dog stars Brandon McMillian and whatever little or big dog he saved from the pound that week. He would take them home to the Lucky Dog Ranch and patiently trained them for their forever home. It is a great heartwarming show and I love his technique. I will definitely use it when I get a dog. And right now I am going to use it on myself. He calls it the 7 common commands when training the dog. The commands are Sit, Stay, Down, Come, Off, Heel and No. And that clear minded morning these commands made sense for me. This is how each command will work in my life.

Sit still. I know that I am always going and going. I may even notice that something is wrong but I do not stop long enough to evaluate it or fix it. So this year, I am going to stop and sit. Allow my thoughts to slow down. Sit and relax. Release the tension. Sit and look within. How can I be better? What is not working? Sit and listen. Whether it is to audiobooks, podcasts or a word from God. I will successfully start meditating this year. Lol

Stay the course. I know what I want to do with my life. I need to stick to my Plan A and believe there is no other option. I have a tendency to talk myself out of what I really want. To think that cannot happen for me, to me. That is what I need to change. I want a “Why Not Me?” attitude when thinking about my dreams and goals. I am worthy and I deserve for good things to happen to me. So this year, I will continue to work on my dreams and not deviate from this path.

Down time. This is the time that I will just enjoy spending with friends. Laughing, eating and drinking. Smoking cigars. Going to Dave and Buster’s. One of my favorite places but I haven’t been in a long time. Doing as Dr. Brene Brown says, play. As she says in her audiobook, adults tend to focus on working, doing stuff for the kids and think that any down time should be filled with other tasks and chores. They don’t know what play is or take the time to do it even if they know what it is. I will play as hard as I work. Using my down time to connect with people and also to recharge my batteries. It is needed.

Come away from anything and anyone who is not serving me. I have difficulty walking away from things that don’t serve me well. I wallow in my bad habits and make up excuses as to why I don’t stop them. This year I want to cut out dairy because I am lactose intolerant and cut down on my sugar intake. All the fun foods. Lol. But I know that both are having a negative effect on my body. Just like the stress that comes with negative situations is having an effect on my mental health. I will come to a better place and state of mind this year.

Off to travel and try new things. There was a few places I wanted to go and activities that I wanted to do last year that I never got to do. This year my goal is to go kayaking, skydiving and on another solo birthday trip. I will have a GoPro to record all my activities to share on this here blog. I am looking forward to these adventures and any other spontaneous ones as well. Off to places I have never seen and putting stamps on my passport.

Heel, walk with God. I am so quick to go my own way, not consulting God. Trying to find the solution. Not giving God an opportunity to work in my life. This year I want to recognize and accept God’s timing. I am going to slow down and walk beside Him. I am going to allow God to order my steps. I want all that God has for me.

No to allowing people to be inconsiderate and disrespectful of me and my time. Especially my family members. Now I am not a yes person but I do find myself doing shit I am not in agreement with because you do things for people you love. This past year has taught me I don’t want to do it anymore. It is time to cut some people off and make them grow the fuck up and stand on their own two feet. There will be people affected by this decision on so many levels. It will be an adjustment but I am sure they will be alright. I know I will be.

I have so many plans for this year. I am so excited as I am every new year. Lol. I would say the difference this year is that last year was so bad. Hell this past decade was wack! When you look back at 10 years and can only find 3 – 4 things that you are proud of, that hurts. I could have done those 4 things in a year, easy. This weekend while working on the 2 books I am writing I came across this quote.

“The question isn’t who is going to let me; it’s who is going to stop me.” -Ayn Rand

This is my new motto. The person that is usually stopping me is me. Who can relate? I will no longer allow anyone, including and especially myself, to stop me. I am done asking for permission or acceptance to be myself. I have to be the person God created me to be. The world needs the one element only I can provide. And I want each and everyone of you to know the same is true for you. The world needs you too.

I don’t know what your plans, dreams or goals are for 2020. If you want to share them with me feel free. I will include you in my prayers when I pray for my own. If you don’t want to share that’s fine too. I know they have a new saying, “Work in silence.” Whatever your thing is I accept it. No matter what, I am always hoping, believing and praying for the best for you. I am one of your cheerleaders. Whatever you decide to do this year believe you are worthy and deserving because you are! Be well and whole. It is one of your greatest weapons in this battlefield of life. Love you all ♥️!

I have been laid low. I mean really fucked up! I contracted the stomach flu from my coworker about a week ago. Life has not been the same. Here it is a Sunday, a week and a day from when I had my first symptoms and I am still experiencing brain fog. Smh. Which just makes it worse. Lol. It does not help that I have MS. The MS is aggravated by the flu which causes me to have what they call pseudoexacerbations. Long word that means it feels like I am having a flare up. Last Sunday morning, I could barely walk. So I am aware that my brain fog is a combination of flu and MS. It doesn’t make it easier to deal with though.

So I have another post that I was going to publish last week because I had finally decided what year this is. I was going to finish it up and post on Sunday. Didn’t happen. I still plan on posting it because it is a good one, but maybe in a couple of days. Still needs a little tweaking. This post is just an update of my year so far. It has been a little interesting but nothing major.

I like Christian music and if I listen to the radio, which is rare, I listen to K-Love. K-Love is a Christian radio station where I learn all of the new hits. They have this 30 Day Challenge of only listening to Christian/Gospel music. This would be implemented in your car or residence. We can’t control everyone’s radio. Lol. I decided to try it for the whole month of January. One day at the beginning of the month I spent a couple hours listening to secular music other than that I have been doing good. But the last 2 days have been a struggle. I love all music. When I went on K-Love’s Instagram page people were saying that they did the challenge and never looked back. Uh…not a chance in hell. I like the messages that come from Christian music but not enough to forsake all other music. My playlist is usually a mixture of all kinds of music. Some gospel, Christian, jazz, R-n-B, rap (not a lot), pop and anything else that I am feeling at that time. So suffice it to say, though I voluntarily took on this 30 day challenge, I can’t wait until it is over.

I have a few projects that I envisioned last year but really didn’t know how to get them going. Didn’t have the resources. And last year just sucked, so there! Anyways, I knew that I couldn’t let them fall by the wayside. God provided me with these ideas and I want to see them come to fruition. My coworker was showing pictures of the artwork her daughter had painted on her bedroom door and walls. They were beautiful. And ding, the light bulb came on! I can’t draw at all. Yes, I have tried. When I first came up with some of my ideas, I tried to draw them out. It was laughable and I laughed and so did the friend that I showed. Lol. I had prayed to God to send me someone who can draw and put these visions down on paper. He came through!!! And pretty quick too. Now the young lady has not agreed yet, but I am feeling like this is it.

Romans 4:17 …before him whom he believed, even God, who quickeneth the dead and calleth those things which be not as though they were. I got this scripture from Dr. Wayne Dyer on the You Can Heal Your Life podcast. In the Manifest Your Soul’s Purpose series Part 1, Dr. Dyer was discussing how to bring forth the things that we want and to stop getting more of what we don’t want. Dr. Dyer said be careful of the thoughts you put into your head before you go to bed. That your mind cannot tell the difference and the subconscious will manifest these negative or positive thoughts into your life upon waking. This was so powerful to me. I have never really paid attention to what I think about before bed but I am sure most of it revolves around my fuck ups for that day. I have started to write out 3 gratitudes for each day, skipping the week I was sick. This isn’t enough though. Since listening to that podcast episode, I have thought about the things that I want to manifest in my life and reflected on them before falling asleep. I calleth those things which be not as though they were.

I truly enjoy listening to podcasts. They give me just the right amount of information. For some odd reason, I don’t do well with sitting still and paying attention for long periods of time. Lol. Either I will doze off or I will zone out and think about something else. I have one more day off work in honoring the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. I am hoping that once this 3 day weekend is over I will be 100% healed. This is something I will definitely included in my bed time manifestations. I know this post kind of rambled on but I hope that you are able to get something out of it. I now know this is the flu season. I am hoping that no one has an experience like mine. As they say, “I wouldn’t wish this on my worst enemy.” Please everyone, be well and whole.

Last year I believed I called it the Year of Me. I think that was a very bad decision because I went into the year with responsibilities that would not have allowed me to focus solely on myself. So even though I went in with good intentions, they were unrealistic. I had thought about it and I was going to dub 2020 as the Year of No. But after much thought, I realized that it is so much deeper than that. I had actually completed a whole post addressing this new year with that title. I still want to incorporate what I was talking about in that post at some point but I will wait until I have it figured out and covering everything. So at this time I don’t have a catchphrase for this new year. Lol. I’ll think of something.

I had not really been listening to any motivational speeches. When I would hear them, my attitude was like whatever 🙄. Just recently, I have been listening to a few different speeches on my future husband, Sean Croxton’s podcast called The Quote of the Day Show at seancroxton.com. I have spoke about this podcast before and I still recommend it. These snippets have helped to start getting me in the right frame of mind. As you all know I was in the wrong frame of mind for all of November and a good portion of December. It was to the point that my friends were texting me outside of the group chat asking me was I okay because I wasn’t contributing. And talking is my thing. Lol. This year is definitely going to have something to do with mindset. I want to go back to being open to possibilities. Even when it seems impossible. A few of the speakers from the podcast touched on the topic of writing down what it is we want to do, be and accomplish in our lives. Stating that the last thing we should worry about is the How. The How will come when we set our total focus on what we want.

Now I am not falling all into this concept. I am struggling to get past this particular part. I had written out a few things on my do, be and accomplish list but I found myself constantly worrying about the How. Mindset! I had a major epiphany one day as I was riding in the car. I always talk to God when I am driving. I say “I don’t know” to God a lot. I had been saying it the majority of 2019. Well this one time I said I don’t know and I immediately checked myself. Why are you saying you don’t know? Why? My answer was, “It is not that I don’t know, it is that I don’t believe.” Listen…when I tell you that revelation was mind boggling. And I got upset. All this time I have been walking around as if I don’t know what I want and wondering why the things that I do know that I want aren’t happening. It was so simple. So fucking simple. Ughhhh!

I wish I can say that after that I was cool. I started believing without any doubts. That I had a total mindset shift. Not at all. I don’t know why it is so hard for me to convert. I was just thinking this morning that I really need to see a psychologist. I felt this way last year as well. I looked up a few but never followed through. I need to make it happen. I am hoping that a few sessions will help me breakthrough my limiting beliefs. Now I may be being a little unrealistic about the time frame in which this can be accomplished. I am going to go in there like Dr. Brene Brown and let her know “no childhood bullshit” 😂😂😂. I don’t even remember half my childhood so let’s leave that shit in the past. Digging it up and rehashing it isn’t going to help anything. I know most of my issues happened in my adulthood.

I may have gotten a little off course. Maybe not. Lol. The point of it all is that I need to work on me. I am not making any health declarations. I am not setting unrealistic goals that I know I cannot maintain or accomplish. I am looking at myself and saying that I don’t want to go another year with unfulfilled dreams and goals. I don’t want to spend another year with a limited mindset. I don’t want to be anti-social. I do want to see my dreams and goals manifested in my life. I want to truly believe and embrace that anything is possible even if I don’t know how it will all come together. I want to network and make new connections and acquaintances. I want to break down these walls that I thought I put in place to protect me but in reality they have separated me from others. This is sounding like it might be the Year of Me again. Lol. But like I said it is hard to describe. Once I figure it out I will definitely share.

I hope at this point everyone has written out a few goals that they would like to accomplish in 2020. If you are still unsure that is okay as well. We have to operate on our own timetable. We cannot let other’s perceptions of who and what we should be in life have an effect us. God is in control. And really it is always on His timetable. I pray that all of your goals big and small are realized by the end of this year. I am asking God to bless you, to shine His Grace, Favor and Mercy upon you. To provide you with His strength when you feel as if you cannot go on. And I am asking you to truly live, to be well and whole and push past limiting beliefs. HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!