PEACE                                            strength            Discipline
        Remain strong                the Ancestors will provide                               improvement


My spirit continues to grow with every reminder of my stomach growl. Battling myself arguing about giving in. But yet I remain. I will not break despite how much i want to quit. Something wont let me and for that i am grateful My ancestors, the divine spirit and the universe will continue to guide me and instruct me as i need. Allah continue to provide and i will be satisfied.

Goals

I found a paper that I wrote what I would do in 2016 and when I saw that I didnt even do the first thing on the list I just threw it away. It made me think of what Ive written down for 2018 and how I am determined to not have the same outcome. I wrote my goals down before 2017 closed and have written them multiple times. Matter of fact, I just took one of my many copies from my planner and put it on my new desk for me to see everyday. I am actually able to cross off one of my goals on my list 18 days into the new year, and it feels great! Reading over my goals, I see stuff that requires money to be put away and yet Im still moving in something like a similar pattern that isnt allowing me to save like I need to. Im glad I felt the need to write today, it has allowed me to revisit my plan and re-evaluate where Im at and how to adjust my plan accordingly. Have you set your goals yet? Do you plan on making a vision board? If not, how do you plan to manifest your desires?

Greatness

You know, your words are more powerful than most realize and you have the capability to make whatever you want happen or manifest. Leading up to new years, I have been super pumped, speaking positive and super grateful for all that is coming not only to myself but to my household and every individual in it. Grateful. Grateful. Grateful. That was my mantra. I try to be very conscious about the words that I speak, because I dont want to bring ill to myself or anyone else. So along with the gratefulness it would followed by everything that comes my way, both good and bad. And oddly enough, its taken for me to sit here and start writing this for me to remember that I am grateful for all that comes my way both good and bad. The reason why I say that, is because currently I am sitting on a friends couch in front of her space heater using her wifi. Why am I here and not at home? Well because its winter time, and this winter at the very beginning of the year, not only did my heat want to act a fool, a pipe wanted to burst and flood my cellar. Not only is the cellar flooded, but the new furnace that was installed about 3 months ago is trashed and maybe the  the water heater. I forgot to be grateful in these past 2 days of events, instead I have worried, stressed and became a bitch towards everyone else. In reality, Ive done all that I needed to do in notifying the appropriate people and letting them do what they need to do, so there was no reason to continue the stress and attitude. I remember one of the first things I said this year was that 2018 was going to be great, well my dear, greatness will not come with out challenges. So again I say, 2018 will be great and I will be grateful for everything that comes my way- both good and bad.

Parenting Is..

Parenting is that first grey hair you notice in your mane and actually wondering what took it so long to get here.

Parenting is getting bit while nursing then crying because you werent ready to stop nursing yet. Rza getting mad because you got mad and trying to decide if nursing is for her anymore. Parenting is also extreme joy when Rza decides that she does want to keep nursing and shes not too grown yet.

Parenting is asking your 7 year old son about the girl that he likes and not flipping out on him because "omg hes into girls already." Actually having conversations about how to treat the little girl that he likes and how to be respectful.

Parenting is looking at your children every day and seeing the changes. Growing as tall as you and accomplishing new milestones and shedding a small tear every single time.

Parenting is my life and i wouldnt change it for the world.

I recently noticed I was in this group on facebook called Empowered Planning and everyone was talking about the planners they've gotten.  My first question was, how did I get put into this group? And whats so special about these planners? So I started paying attention to the posts that were made and what everyone was talking about. Getting the planners is to help get organized, get a timeline of what you want to accomplish, set goals, PLAN.  I remember telling my friend who is also in this group that I didnt think I needed a planner since I use the calendar on my phone to plan everything. What was the point of getting yet another thing to carry around in my already heavy backpack. Reluctantly I still got one and its is nothing fancy compared to the posts Ive seen with stickers, and different sections, binders, the works.
As time goes along, this group plans an outing to a local coffee shop so we can all make vision boards for what we are "planning" to do with ourselves, our goals, dreams etc. The event was nice, it was a room full of beautiful women who are wanting a change and trying to figure out how to do it.
We have been going through our own minor set back at home, and it seems like this group came right on time for me. I've been talking about not wanting to be in corporate anymore and having an idea of the direction I want to go, but havent done anything to get me in motion, as if the opportunity is going to just pay for itself and fall in my lap. So as we are planning our come up as a home, we have also been planning our own come ups as individuals. Of course Sr is working on his music and the different avenues that he is going to take, while Ive decided that I want to be a health coach. Yes health coach, mental health, physical health, spiritual health, nutritional, etc. I want to be able to help people, which I guess is the reason why I always get drawn back to customer service.
Being in this group doing our vision boards, and knowing the strength that I have to manifest has really got me working to make this happen. At our meetup, one of the admins asked what we wanted from this sisterhood and I said "accountability." I wanted to be held accountable for doing what I said I want to do, for making sure Im working on ME. Yes I get support at home, but I also know that we allow each other to slack off as well, and Ive slacked long enough. I want a change so Im going to have to make it happen. Im glad I did get this planner, I literally just wrote to myself for the remaining months about class, and if I have started them yet as I was typing this.
I know that I always tell folks to write down the things that they want because that helps to make them manifest, but somehow I never seem to follow my own guidance. Well, thanks to these wonderful ladies in Empowered Planning, Im writing! I will be a health coach, and I will start my classes by December 2017. If your'e reading this, check in on me, see how its going, make me accountable for the words I put out into the universe.

7 months and counting.

Well almost 7 months,  that my sweet baby Rza has been gracing us with her presence. Almost 7 months that I have been breastfeeding her as well. Im super proud of myself with this because I didnt last more than 3 months with her older brother. When I decided to go down this path, I made my goal a year even though I had no idea what I was going to do when it came to feeding/pumping at work or where to start. I also had no idea that I would go through a period of trying to maintain my supply as well. I reached out to various groups on Facebook to see what others have done to help maintain their supply and had been told things like fenugreek, Gatorade, oatmeal, beer, you name it. I decided that I was going to go the fenugreek route even though I was running the risk of smelling like maple syrup on a regular basis. I will admit, during the week, I did great taking my pills around the same time each day, but on the weekends, you were lucky if I even opened up the medicine cabinet at all. I did notice that I was able to maintain an average of  11oz Monday through Friday since I nursed on demand on the weekends, but I cant help but to wonder if I took the pills on the weekend as well if the results would have been better.  It wasn't until we came back from a music festival in Ohio that I noticed a big drop in production, Im talking a total of 5oz pumped one day and 7oz the next. At that rate, Ill never be able to keep up with sweet baby and her needs since shes eating about 14 oz a day. Oy Vey! Since I am out of the fenugreek and Ive done a little bit more research, Ive decided to start taking Milk Thistle this time around and go hard on the mothers milk tea as well.  I will be more diligent on taking my pills on the weekend, although the tea may suffer if we are in motion and its hot outside. I was also fortunate enough to order a batch of emergency lactation brownies from milky-mama.com and am anxiously awaiting those to come. Stress is a factor that can help deplete milk, and I thought I was doing a good job managing it, so Im not really sure as to why Im seeing such a decrease, but here I am. Its all good though, I set a goal for a year and as of tomorrow (the 5th) I will have successfully breastfed for 7 months, I only have 5 more to go, and as quick as August rolled up on us, Im sure January will do the same.  Ill update this post with results of the milk thistle and the emergency brownies, until then...

Peace

Bop the Barbarian

You may or may not know that Sr calls me Bop and you may or may not know that "the Barbarian" has been added to that name. Heres the reason why:  In our old house, we had a mouse. Pachino (our bluepitt) saw it in the kitchen and went in for the attack with me following behind with the broom. Long story short, I ended up bopping the mouse over the head to kill it and get rid of it. I actually added a few notches to the handle of me vs the mouse in that house. Since Sr doesnt do mice, I was the dubbed killer of all things grey that like cheese. So fast forward to this past week or so and the new adventures of Bop the Barbarian.

Bella (our german shepherd) was barking at 230am, and it wasnt that obnoxious bark she normally does, so i went to go see whats going on. I walk to the window and behold a  possum sitting on the fence looking at Bella as shes sitting there barking. I pull Bella inside since we've recently conquered a rat together (picture the killer whale flinging the sea lion around before eating it) and you have Bella catching the rat the other day. Any who so I bring her inside and she gets to making noise so I'm trying to kick her out again so I can get a couple more minutes of sleep before that 430am alarm. I grab the outside broom thinking the possum is playing dead I can just push him off the fence into the neighbors yard. Its 230, Im half sleep, barefoot and armed with a broom trying to take on a possum. smh  So I walk over there and jab the broom at it a few times, it MAKES EYE CONTACT WITH ME and it gave me that look like "Do it again and see what happens."  After we had a 3 second stare down, I gave up, apologized and kept Bella in the house because all I could picture was this possum coming at me like a rabid flying squirrel. Its 230 in the am, Sr is sleep in the front of the house and no one would have heard me scream if this thing decided to get froggy and jump, so I politely put the broom back and took my tail and Bellas tail to bed asking for forgiveness. Needless to say, there is still a possum running around our neighborhood, who has officially punked Bop the Barbarian. lol