Author: elsims

I have been living and experiencing but not much writing. Crazy right!?! I took almost back to back trips. Upon my return, I have just been sealing in all these wonderful memories. I like to think back fondly when life isn’t going so great. Here is one fond and a couple of not so fond memories from when I visited my mom. Lol.

Went on a boat ride and got to see my mom’s friend retrieve crabs from his traps. That was very interesting. Here is a video. Had to shorten the video. I think I will upload my videos to YouTube and then share on my posts.

The crabs were fighting for their lives and I don’t blame them. Their little asses kept jumping out of the container and scurrying around the boat. Chalupa, my niece and I were not about that life. Lol.

Now the not so fond memories besides the phone screen going out on me. One morning I woke up to go to the bathroom and seen a little black thing on the floor. Probably about the size of a quarter or a little bigger. I am trying to figure out if it is a spider or a frog. It’s not moving and neither the fuck am I. Lol. Well…it jumped and so the fuck did I. Ugh…it is a frog. Now I can’t smash it. If it had been a spider it would have been plastered on the bottom of a shoe.

This is where it gets comical. Now that he has shown himself, he keeps jumping and I am trying to devious a way to cover him to get him outside for release. I don’t know why there is a Styrofoam bowl in the bathroom, but there is one on the sink. So I’m like I am going to throw this bowl on top of him. Now his little ass is against the wall. Plan null and void. New plan. Get him away from the wall so I can throw the bowl on him. I take the toilet scrubber with holder and try to get him to get in the middle of the floor. He just keeps jumping along the wall and now the tub ending up behind the toilet. Dude, what the fuck!?!?!?

Now I am bent down encouraging him with the scrubber to get his ass from behind the toilet. He is jumping alongside the sink. Finally he is in the middle of the floor. I throw the bowl at him, I miss. 🤣🤣🤣. Why 😩???? I am scared to grab the bowl because that may make him jump his little ass out of the bathroom. I look in the trash bin. Only a couple paper towels inside it. I pull them out and hurriedly put the trash bin over him. 😓

I can’t sleep. I know he can’t get out from under there but my imagination is overactive. Also, I feel bad and I am hoping he is okay. Then there is the possibility of my niece waking up and going to the bathroom. She might take the trash bin off him not knowing. So many thoughts!

I hear my mom in the kitchen around 3:30 am and let her know what’s up. We devise a plan to release him in the morning. I finally fall asleep around 4 am. Around 7 in the morning we set about enacting our plan. We take a cut up gift box and slide it under the trash can. We are going to lift it and carry him outside. The gift box bows just a little and I see little black feet. I proceed to smash little black feet. Awe I did not want to do that but he cannot get out off this trash can until he is outside. Period! We get outside and my mom pitches the gift box, trash can and frog into the air and they laid on the grass 😂. My niece comes outside like, “What is going on?” I am laughing too hard to respond. Then little miss says, “Y’all crazy. I’m going back to bed.”

I wish that it ended there. By no means. Next night, my mom is at a BBQ and my niece and I are chilling watching TV. She goes out on the porch to get her notebook she left out there earlier. I tell her to shut the door behind her. She is like, “I just need to sit this down and then I’ll close it.” About 10 minutes later we both turn to see a Palmetto bug about 2 times the size of the frog crawling on the wall. Oh God 😫. She is freaking out and I am cussing. Lol. I grab my mom’s broom. I proceed to hit him with it. Unfortunately that hit doesn’t kill him. It just maims him. Now he is on the floor under one of the chairs. I am hypervigilant because I don’t know where he is and I know he is not dead.

I go back to watching TV but I keep glancing over at the wall. He is back. I hit him again but he just falls. Now I am pissed because he is under the chair again. I try to sweep him out from behind the chair but he is not cooperating. I sit back down, but stay alert. Here he comes limping out from under the chair. I grab the broom and hit him several times. Chalupa says, “You don’t have to torture him.” I am not trying to torture him, I am trying to kill him!

After these two instances, I had a pretty mild stay. Thank God. I don’t know how much more nature I could handle. The only animals I like are dogs. Anything else, I’m good. Wait until I tell y’all about my Mexico trip. Smh. I think I could have developed anxiety after that trip. It makes my complaints about the animals at my mom’s house seem ridiculous.

Pandemic ✔
Racism ✔
Genetically Modified Mosquitoes ✔
Cops who killed Breonna Taylor still free ✔

Not much has changed in America. If you are struggling with what is going on in the world, I totally understand. Still haven’t completely tuned back in. Every time I think I want to my mind says, “Wait, we aren’t ready yet.” Mental health is truly important. Do not oversaturate yourself with the news and current events. Find a balance people, seriously. Make sure that you stay well and whole. Much love 🧡💚

I had what I considered the best call ever with book club last Wednesday. The calls have gotten better each week. When I first joined I was like, “I don’t know if this is for me”. I am weird but I felt that I was on a different level of weird from the others. I didn’t think that they were my tribe. It was like being in a high school cafeteria and seeing the separate tables of “weird” kids. Though they were all labeled “weird”, they were not the same kind of weird. Science nerds, extra smart nerds, gamer nerds, computer nerds, book club nerds. I thought I had sat at the wrong table. Now as time has gone by, I have found myself relating to their stories. Appreciating their perspectives. Respecting their willingness to put their vulnerabilities on display. And generally just learning from, laughing with and enjoying the time spent with these unique individuals. I am glad that I didn’t make any snappy decisions and quit book club.

I mentioned this book club before on my blog in “Testing, Testing 1, 2, 3”. In case you haven’t read that post the book club is called the Rich Lit Society and we meet weekly via Zoom. Hosted by Sean Croxton, who also has my favorite podcast called The Quote of the Day Show. I have talked about his podcast in past posts as well. It is a gem. Now I am kinda cheap. When I initially seen the price I was like, “He cool and all, but not happening”. Lol. Then Sean presented a trial offer of $7 for the first month’s subscription. It was right smack in the middle of the stay at home orders and I thought, what the hell. I joined in right when they were starting “The Alchemist” by Paulo Coelho. I said it before and I will say it again, “The Alchemist” needs its own blog post. One small problem. I gave the book to a friend. Now I need to reorder it to be able to talk about the book the way I want to.

Like I said, I wasn’t really sure if book club was for me but I did enjoy the book. I continued on with the next month’s subscription payment of $29 and a new book called “The Four Agreements” by Don Miguel Ruiz. I had rented the book from the library at one point, but never read past the first couple of pages. This book though interesting and having good content, manages to rub me the wrong way every time I read a new agreement. Don Miguel would say that there is something that I made an agreement with that is my issue. I am inclined to believe that but at the same time, boooo! Lol. We are not done with the book yet, but I still recommend it. It will challenge you and make you a little mad. These are good things. It lets you know what you need to work on. We can all be better versions of ourselves. Even different versions if what we are isn’t working for us. Here is a link to order the book if you are interested.

https://amzn.to/2WwtVV2

The reality is I have found my tribe. It just took me a little longer to realize it. I am so used to being closed off. Only sharing myself and my story with a few close friends. Even the things I share on this blog is just the tip of the iceberg. Here these people are bearing their souls to each other. And here I am on the outside looking in. Wanting to join, but not knowing how to open up. Searching for the right words to say. I want to be vulnerable. There is healing in the release. One day I will get there. I do not comment much on the calls, but I have become active in the chats. Even though I am slow to open up to people, I do feel comfortable doing so in this group.

If you have read my last few posts you know I was going through it. I didn’t know how my next post would go. This post was actually suppose to be the next one, but then something happened that I had to share first. Lol. Check out “Lack of Communication”. With this post I decided to present my usual content because that is why I started this blog. I am still and will always be in support of Black Lives Matter and against racism. I am still wondering when will Breonna Taylor’s family get justice for her senseless murder. I am still aware of the covert and now extremely overt racism going on in America. I know that black men and women are still being killed due to the color of their skin. I did however unplug for a little bit. I found myself angry every day with each new atrocity. I found myself hurting and bruised, consumed by the effects of reading and watching the news stories. I was not in a good place.

I want my blog to be inspiring and relatable. I want to make people laugh and even at times make people cry. Most importantly, I want to be true to myself. There are times that I will display my dark parts. That is who I am. I will continue to touch on issues that are going on in the world. I will however, not overwhelm you with them. I can share the worst of it with my friends and family, my support system. Thank you for continuing to support this blog. As always, stay well and whole. Much love 🧡💚

Quick update:

My new phone is here 🎉. I am completely happy now. So who knew that on the Samsung phones there is a thing called Smart Switch. Not me obviously or I wouldn’t have been so worried about the data that I hadn’t downloaded or losing my passwords. Smart Switch allows you to move all of your information from one phone to another by connecting them wireless or through the USB. God shined his grace, favor and mercy upon me today and the old phone blinked in just enough that I was able to activate the Smart Switch and transfer all the information over to the new phone. Yay! Problem solved on so many levels.

The unthinkable happened to me. I am out of town and my phone crapped out on me. One minute I was playing a game on my phone, the next my screen was flickering. Kinda like when a TV screen goes out. Well exactly like it. The difference is this is my phone with all of my shit on it. Literally, all of my shit. Even all of my passwords are saved in my phone. Websites, businesses and apps are requiring such complicated passwords that I can’t remember all of that. Then they make you change them and that never works out for me. So I don’t know any of them except for the one I use for my bank.

There is so many things wrong with this situation. Like I said, I am out of town. Two, I drove here. It is a 14 hour drive. That requires music and any other interesting thing to keep one entertained for such a long journey. Not missing the fact that I would need a mode of communication just in case I had any issues on the road. Verizon is running a deal with $300 off a Samsung Note 10 (yes I am Team Android) and I had thought about upgrading. But I love my phone and up until that point, it had been working fine. I have insurance on my phone and would have been able to get it fixed, yet all the information I needed is back at home…ugh! So I say forget it. I am just going to get this new phone. I visit Verizon’s website using my laptop and I am unpleasantly surprised. Whereas the other day when I viewed the deal and there were phones available, that is no longer a fact this day. They are all out of the phone that I want! And so are the local retailers where I am at.

Now I am like what the hell do I do!?!? Ok, ok, I can grab a prepaid phone from Target and use that as my mode of communication for my trip home, do what I need to get my phone fixed and I am good. Yes, plan made. As I am sure you’ve guessed by now, plan already failed. For one, why the hell are they charging all this money for prepaid phones, even a janky ass flip phone? Two, the cheapest one they had was on sale for $20 and they were out of them. I will be damned if I pay more than $20 for a damn phone that is wack ass hell and I will probably never use again. Being as it is a prepaid, I still have to load the damn thing up to even use it. I am trying to accept the fact that I may still have to go with this plan when I overhear my mom’s conversation. She is complaining about the one time she had to get a phone at Best Buy because Verizon did not have the phone she wanted in stock.

Yes, yes! How have I forgot about the fact that Best Buy sells phones? I guess because I haven’t been there in a while due to the pandemic. Like they never even crossed my mind. So, this story has a somewhat happy ending after all. Best Buy did have the phone I wanted available including the deal for the extra $300 off the phone. They even had the color I wanted. The downside, I can’t get it until Tuesday. The other upside, I don’t plan on leaving South Carolina until Thursday. That gives me enough time to get the phone set up for a successful trip back home.

The reason why it is not a completely happy ending is because a good portion of my shit is stuck on that phone. I was able to retrieve some things by hooking my phone to my laptop and saving it to my laptop. But the things I had not saved to my phone or SD card are lost. So now I am at a place where I need to figure out a safe way to save important information just in case this happens again. I used to keep all of my passwords and important information in a notebook, but we all know that is not safe either. That would require me carrying that notebook with me all the time, the possibility of it getting lost and someone having all my important information. I don’t want to save it in my laptop either because this damn thing could crap out as well and I won’t have access again.

Has this happened to you? What did you do to make sure that you would not be in this position again? Technology is great but when it fucks up, it is the worse. I have to formulate a plan. I am open to any tips. I don’t know about y’all but I have become too dependent on my devices. They are so convenient. I actually write majority of my blog posts on my phone because I always have it with me. When a thought strikes I can just go to my Evernote app and get to typing. It is easy to add pictures or videos since they are already on my phone. I even have the WordPress app that I can use to upload the posts. Really convenient. Not to mention the music. Amazon Music app loaded with my favorite jams. Comedy shows downloaded from Netflix to listen to when I am on long drives and bored. And countless other options available to us right in our hands.

If this has not ever happened to you, I hope it never does. Total pain in the ass. Lol. I just realized I never mentioned that I am unable to receive/send text or calls. I guess that isn’t as important. I know that America is back “open”, but Coronavirus cases are still climbing and racism continues to rear its ugly head. There is a lot going on. At the same time, so is our everyday lives. Just be careful. Be well and whole. Much love 🧡💚