Thankfully me...

I looooooovvvve holidays, but especially the ones that give me an excuse to pull out the elastic-waist yoga pants and over indulge in delicious treats! I really don't have much to do for tomorrow's feast (I'm making apple cobbler and brownies - from scratch not the box thank you very much), so I'm especially looking forward to lounging around until dinner is ready : )

Although I make sure to say a quick prayer of thanks every morning before I get out of bed, I feel moved to share my list of things that I am thankful for in honor of the big day of thanks tomorrow, so here goes.

I am thankful for:

...having a family and friends who love me.

...having a job, even more so one that I enjoy, during these crazy economic times when so many people are losing their steady source of income.

...being able to indulge in a new pair of shoes or random article of clothing every now and again. Okay, so its been more now than again, but I'm thankful all the same.

...being so close to my Godsons! I may joke about living in the servant's quarters, but I really love it. I like being the first person to hear them when they wake up in the mornings and being able to offer a little late night/early morning hug or 2 if they have a nightmare.

...feeling as if I am walking in my purpose.

...being able to realize when I need to subtract people/behaviors from my life.

...my ability to pretend that all food consumed on Thanksgiving is calorie, cholesterol and fat free : )

Leaf me alone

So, in the month that I've lived in North Georgia, I've learned several things about myself...really profound things.... I heart fall leaves....okay so I lied, it's not profound.

But seriously I honestly love seeing the vibrant yellows, reds and oranges as the leaves on the trees concede defeat and accept the arrival of fall and the impending winter.

Since I live in Alpharetta, but work in Gainesville every morning on my way to work, I get to really drink in the changing colors as I drive along I-985.

Living in South Georgia all my life, I've never really experienced anything like this before. Don't get me wrong, we have trees down there, but the leaves just turn brown and then fall off. And I've been to other northern states in the fall before, but I've never actually been able to see the steady progression from green to the other fire-like colors that I've seen now.

I mean I love everything about these fall leaves. From the color to the crunch.

The other morning as I was pulling into the parking lot at work I noticed that there was a significant pile of fallen leaves stretched between 6 or 7 empty parking spaces. So in a decidedly child-like moment, I turned my radio off , rolled down my windows and slowly drove through the parking spaces and over the leaves, just so I could hear the CRUNCH, CRUNCH, CRUNCH.

Now, I still miss the beaches of my original southern Georgia home, but the leaves here give me something else to enjoy while I'm away.....

A CHANGE is gonna come

As a journalist, I am expected to remain impartial on the issues even when everyone else expresses their views so freely. Well on the morning of a such a momentous occasion, I feel justified in breaking that rule because I feel more passionate about this presidential election than I've ever felt about anything else EVER.

As I type away on my computer, through the tears that threaten to spill from my eyes, I am proud to announce to the world and the infinite web audience that I am without a shadow of a doubt Probama!

Yes I voted early, and I am proud to say that I cast my ballot for the first Black president of the United States. Yes I am Black, but I did not vote for him because of his race, I voted for the BEST man for the job.

I voted not for myself, but for my niece, godsons and my own unborn children. I voted because I know that change doesn't happen overnight and so I took a stand today for their better tomorrows. I voted to plant the seed so that their generation may reap the harvest. I voted unselfishly for CHANGE because I want to leave this world a better place than it was when I found it.

I voted because I know that if you do what you've always done, you'll keep getting what you've always gotten. I voted for the man that WILL get the job done. I voted because I have faith that I can help correct the mistakes of the past by voting to elect a visionary leader for the future.

The journey of 1,000 miles begins with one step and I am proud to say that I took a step in the right direction...

Forever I Love Atlanta?

Anyone who know me knows my extreme dislike for Atlanta, I've always said that I don't want to live in Atlanta or anywhere near it...too many people, too much traffic, too much crime.

But alas, here I am, in the metro-Atlanta area. Since I'm here for what may be a long while, I may as well enjoy it, so here is a list of things I'd like to do in the not so distant future. Since I'm trying to work on setting goals, I'll give myself a six month deadline to accomplish the things on my list:

1- See a good play, I hear that Wicked is playing and I've been wanting to see that since I read about the Broadway version a year or so ago.

2- Go to a concert.

3- Buy something from a cute boutique shop.

4- Figure out where the different counties are in relation to each other and which highways lead to where.

5- Find a new favorite restaurant, preferrably not a chain establishment.

6- Find a place to enjoy a good book.

7- Meet a celebrity

8- Go to a Hawks game...when they play the Spurs, hey what can i say, I'm all for supporting the home team, but I've been a Spurs fan since they drafted my fave player Tim Duncan.

9- Go to brunch at a nice place.

10- Have a dinner party.

Golden Girl

I'm not the most religious person that you'll ever meet, but I do consider myself to be very spiritual. While you won't find me in church every Sunday, you will find me making choices in my everyday life that I hope will keep me on the right side of that chick Karma.

So far so good, as my grandmother likes to say, right now I'm feeling "blessed and highly favored by the Lord."

After putting in my time at my hometown paper for 2 years, I recently was offered and accepted a position with a larger publication in Northeast Georgia. I'm gearing up to start my second week and so far so good, I like my job, my co-workers are nice and things to see on the up and up. Although, I must say that I am a bit bitter to learn that I won't be getting paid until freaking Oct. 24...that's a long time to go without a pay check...but so far I haven't been forced to live off Ramen Noodles!

Meanwhile, Danielle- my bff since 93- and her family have oh so graciously provided me with lodging until I find a place, so it's good times - especially since I get to spend sooooo much time with my handsome, inquisitive and usually agreeable godsons Cam and Car.

Things seem to be on the up and up and that makes me very happy to say the least. A new city, a new job and a new chapter in my life just as I turned the big 2-5- what more can a girl ask for?

In the words of the oh so talented Jill Scott, I'm committed to "living my life like it's golden" so this is just the beginning I'm sure

Open-ended closure...

So, this week has been an interesting one for my family, without breaking our cardinal family rule ("What happens in this house stays in this house") I'll just say that we lost some family members while gaining many, many more. 

Anywho, during this process I raised a lot more questions internally than I have been able to answer, so I decided to present them to the blogosphere and maybe someone else would like to mull over it and get back to me.....

1- On the subject of closure...People are always talking about wanting closure. When a boyfriend/girlfriend suddenly decides to call it quits, the other party still feels the need to contact them one last time - in the name of closure - to see why it didn't work out. Or if a parent decides to walk out on their family - children and all - one of those affected children is bound to seek that parent out and find out why they left - in the name of closure.

But does seeking out closure really bring closure? Such a journey will surely bring more questions than satisfactory answers. If  at the end of your initial quest for closure you end up hungry for more instead of fulfilled, was the journey really worth it?  Should you have just left well enough alone? 

2- Skeletons in the closet...Everyone has a few bones in their closet, some people may even have a full fledged skeleton that some poor child in anatomy class would love to have when trying to learn all the bones of the body. 

Sometimes in relationships, old and new, people feel the need to share these bones with others. They reach back into the dark depths of their past, and bring out a bone and offer it up to someone in their life to chew on for a while.

In new relationships, it's best to start with a clean slate, but once you've been in a relationship for a while (be it boyfriend/girlfriend, mother/daughter, father/son, husband/wife...you get the picture) when does it become too late to share certain secrets?

At what point does sharing a secret stop being about being for the receiver's benefit and more about the giver hoping to soothe a guilty conscious? Is it wrong for the giver to benefit from the exchange more than the receiver? When is TMI really too much information?

When, if ever, should you slap a padlock on your closet of bones, throw away the key and commit to taking those secrets with you to the grave?

*****This is just the tip of my mental iceberg, but I don't want to overload the world with my personal thoughts....

Ping, pop and porn

I have the worst luck with vehicles. This the second vehicle that I have paid off and the second time that something has gone dramatically wrong a week after I pay it off. 

My first car, was a 1989 Chevy Blazer, a.k.a. the Heavy Chevy. It was very old school, but I loved it to death because it was my first car and I paid it off myself. I always said that I would keep that car forever, but apparently the univ

erse had other plans for me. A week after I made my last payment, my friend Dre asked me to give him a ride to work. So I head over to his house, still in my pj's and scoop him up. Halfway there, somebody's grandma decided to pull out from a stop sign and side swipe my car. My radiator was busted, windshield cracked, and passenger side door jammed shut. It was fixable, but because the cost of the repairs were so high and Kelly Blue Book said my car had such a 

low value, the insurance company decided that my baby was totaled. It was a very sad day...I still have the Chevy emblem from the front and old tag in my memory box....

Anywho, I made my last payment on my latest vehicle last week. I w

as driving back from a FABULOUS weekend in Charlotte with

 my girls when I

 heard this pinging noise. 

Immediately after I heard that, my steering wheel started locking up. Luckily I was near an exit, so I got off and pulled into this L'il Cricket Food Store. As soon as I turned my car off, and popped the hood, steam started blowing out of the left side of my hood and anti-freeze squirted fro

m somewhere onto my tire. 

A quick excuse, where am I to this guy that was walking past my car revealed that I was stranded in Bowman, SC. 

This was around 6 p.m. I sat there for like 15 minutes pondering my options. I remembered that my mom had AAA, so I called her to make sure her membership was current, alas it was not ("I don't go anywhere, so I really didn't see the point in paying it anymore" *sigh*)

So my mom calls her friend, who's husband used to be a tow truck driver to see if he could find someone to come and get me at a reasonable rate. Well the best th

ey could find was someone who wanted $400 just for the privilege of coming to get me. So clearly I said, thanks but no thanks. I mean $400 just to tow my car home and Lord knows how much else to fix it? That was soooooooo not in the budget. 

So I called my friend Greg who happened to be home on leave to come pick me up. Thankfully he agreed, but unfortunately he was 3 hours away. 

In the meantime I was stuck in my car, in between gas station/truck driver rest area and porn store...makes for some very interesting but creepy scenery. Meanwhile, after making a couple of trips inside the store, this random slightly developmentally delayed man decided that he needed to keep checking up on me and bringing these random non-mechanics to my car to look at my engine...sweet, but creepy and aggravating 

at the same time. 

Finally my ride arrive a little after 10 and so I'm back in Brunswick, but the Jeep is still stranded in Bowman....