Happy Monday Mernting...Food-for-Thought Week

My baby blog sista, that Chicken Original Oldgirl LBeezy, said she's going to start biting my blog style.

She sent in an email last week, an example of such:

Today, it's 56 degrees in the VA…I’m heading to the black people’s Kroger to get some head-on shrimp…this is the card that I made for my coworker that’s having a toenail removed…I’m sending some of my infamous oatmeal raisin cookies out to my favorite blog sisters…and have a good day on purpose…and mean mug any way that you can!”

*Lee narrows eyes at Beezy*

LOL!

You're real funy, Beezy. Real funny. And you read my blog a bit too much.

I think she's calling me Smurfy.

I take that as a compliment!

"You make the mundane funny, Leezie!" she says.

I sure do, girl. I can look at an ant walking on the ground minding his bizness... and get a good laugh out of it.

Feel free to bite, since I bit your blog style years ago! I've been wondering when you're going whip out your souljah girl rag and get back at me for shamelessly being a copycat.

But sometimes, life ain't the smurfiest. I have things going on, things that I'm trying to work on, just like the next female.

I rarely talk about my thoughts and feelings to people. I am to myself like that. I pray alot about things. I do MUCH writing. What usually goes on with me is answers occur all around me, keys to solving whatever is bothering me...

Blogger Aretha, who writes the most fabulous blog, According to Aretha, has gotten me to thinking about a few things.

One thing she does is make monthly goals for herself.

And it blows my mind.

You know, we are stuck on this BOOTLEG making of yearly goals, resolutions they're called.

She takes the bull by the horns and sets monthly goals.

I don't do that. Why, you ask?

Because honestly? I am afraid that I won't fulfill them.

Don't look at me like I just stepped off the bus.

I am being honest with myself.

But Aretha sets these monthly goals. Does she fulfill them all? Sometimes yes, sometimes no.

But the courage and faith to at least set them, write them down, and attempt to reach them is what's key here.

That's the principle thing.

Oh, I have fantasitical goals (is that a word?) swirling in my head, but honestly, unless they are written down on paper and on purpose with a reasonable timeframe attached, then said goals might as well be leaves blowing in the wind.

I reach goals all the time. They are long-term deals, though. Some written, some not. It's my inconsitency that bothers me. And setting monthly goals creeps me out for some reason.

Ms. Aretha has given me the courage to do that. So, I have started my monthly goals, writing them down on paper on purpose...

Thanks chick!!

*LadyLee throws cash money in Aretha's offering plate*

You better watch out, girl. You might be running up on some Original Oldgirl status. Really though.

My short term goals are sparse, seemingly insignificant. This is okay, because they are mine and I have had some good results.

But you know what?

This post isn't really about that. Very indirectly, but not quite.

At the beginning of the year, I decided to look at what happens in my life on a quarterly basis. This may or may not include meeting my goals.

More importantly, it may consist of epiphanies, things on my mind, or simply things that cleared up that I've been praying about for a minute.

Let's get specific here - it could be about things that have been bothering me that I had repressed or don't even know about.

Hmm... that may be too deep for you to understand.

Let's see if I can explain it.

If you are like me, when you're expecting guests into your home, you know, people who aren't your road dawgs, BFF, etc... you make sure that house is clean. Spotless.

If you're like me, you have a room, closet, or drawer where you hide things. Just shove the stuff in that place so the guests won't see it. You will deal with it later.

So, as a result, the house looks spiffy. But it really isn't. Because you have hidden things in that closet, drawer or even under the bed. I hide things out in the garage, shove them under the bed or the sofa.

Well, we do the same things with our lives. Our hearts are like this.

My pastor said something very interesting a couple of years ago, which has stuck with me. I think of what he says often.

We have places in our hearts where we hide things. We won't deal with them, won't pray about them... nothing. Just hide things in the "closets" of our hearts. Way back in the back of the closet, under a box, under a rug, under the floorboards, een.

Away from God, and away from ourselves.

This goes for my folks who don't even believe in prayer, God, or nothing at all.

You hide things from yourself. Won't deal with them. Won't talk to a friend about them. Won't take some sort of action concerning them. Won't do a doggone thing about them.

Just shove stuff off into your proverbial closets.

(Okay if I'm the only one who does that, then so be it.)

That is what this week is about for LadyLee. And no, I won't do this monthly. Only quarterly. It will be a potpourri of things that have been bothering me, things that have been solved, goals met, whatever "nonsmurfy" things I want to talk about...

... All of which goes towards cleaning out my "closets".

So I plan to post quarterly concerning such. And I am a bit late doing that, since this is the end of April. But I have to do it because there are ALREADY things happening in the second quarter of this year. I don't want to get it all confused and include those.

There have been a couple of dark clouds in my life that have been lifted. I'm talking about crap that has been bothering me for the past couple of decades.

My prayer for 2008 (ongoing): to see myself completely, to see what's in my heart. (This is painful as some of the things revealed, I do not like. That's okay, because the goal is to deal with them.)

My prayer for 2009: To be free in my mind. For the exposure of mess that has been bothering me for years. Whatever's in my "mental closets", that which I have forgotten about, repressed, chosen to ignore, and what-not, to be exposed... and for me to have the courage to deal with it.

My best friend LadyTee always says, "Don't pray about stuff unless you are absolutely sure about making decisions about it when it shows up. You better be ready to deal with it."

Sho' you right, LadyTee. Really though.

I know this may be hard to understand. Some of the stuff that I say regarding my life may seem insignificant. That is okay. These are things that I am trying to deal with.

Just roll with me like you been doing, babes.

Now, I'm gonna do something different here, something I don't do in the House of LadyLee, but have been gearing up for.

Now I'm (hopefully) bringing these lurkers out. (I have a lot of them).

I'm giving away a book, a book that has heavily influenced the way I think about myself and my life in general...

Blogger Chele's collection of poems and essays, Confessions of a Beautiful Woman.

This book got Chele her much coveted Original Oldgirl status, lol.

When I think of books on my personal list that I will never forget, books that influence me and change my way of thinking of and about myself as a woman, this book is on that list.

I was talking to my sister Kentucky about it. I gave her one of my copies yesterday and told her that the book is crucially important. I told her to go upstairs and read through it and tell me what she thinks.

Kentucky is that type that says what you want to hear... and keeps it moving. I expected her not to really read it, and to say "It's nice". I thought I would have to go up in that jungle of a room of hers and rescue my book (You should have heard me yelling at her. "Are your hands clean, gal? Don't get NOTHING on that book!!!")

Let's just say Kentucky read it...

And she scanned a couple of poems to tack up on her bathroom mirror. I think she said something about typing one into her computer so she can keep and look at it on a regular basis. We actually had a mini-book club type discussion.

But I want to sow this book into someone out there. It is a book of essays and poems that cover the entire scope of a woman's emotion- hurt, pain, ecstasy, loss, happiness, sadness, bitterness...EVERYTHING.

I love this book.

All you gotta do is leave a comment this week. That goes for my normal readers and you lurkers hanging out in my spot.

I don't have a problem with lurking at all. And I am not a comment whore. But if you want a chance at this book, then you need to leave a comment.

You might say something I need to hear. One of my favorite lurkers, Ms.Blackliterature.com, will psychoanalyze the hell out of me, and throw me in the right direction (over email, lol). So you never know what you say might be useful to me.

If you leave a comment relevant to what I've posted that day, you get something extra. I am not telling you what that is, but you see what I give to people all the time... that's what you'll be getting.

So welcome to my quarterly "Food for thought" week.

Serenity3-0 is smiling hard about all of this. This means I don't have to worry about her doing any weird drive-by shootings in my comment section, as is her habit when I get a bit "too" smurfy.

Southern Black Gal is cheesing hard, showing all 32 teeth. For some bizarre reason, that Chicken likes to quote me. You'll have MUCH to think about this week, honey chile.

Terry is waving his Cheap Seat 'round and 'round in the air like he just don't care. I ran the idea by him, and he's given his approval.

The baddest writin' Diva in the solar syster, Tayari, is working on teaching a writing class EVERYWHERE except Atlanta Georgia. (You know I had to get at you, Queen of Lurk City! That's alright, Oldgirl. You'll be teaching at the North Pole one day, and look and see me, kicking the crooked 2-fanger point and cheesing hard like Celie!). She'll lurk her way through this week.

Oh yeah... I forgot to tell you...

Someone gets their Original Oldgirl *Platinum Plus* Card this week.

Uh, that means I will christen a new Original Oldgirl on Saturday, May 1st... which happens to be her birthday.

That's one HECKUVA birthday present, don't cha think??!!

Been awhile since I've done that.

(I wonder who that can be?... Hmmm.)

LOL...

Stay tuned.