Food for Thought: "Patience"

Continuing on with the "Serenity Special", i.e., her list of topics for me to discuss sometime during the month of June.

Patience. Part I.

Part II will be up late next week.

I GOTTA get back to my normal smurfiness.

Ya'll got me thinking too hard.

But I'd like to post an essay from blogger Chele's book Confessions of a Beautiful Woman.

She has kindly given permission to post the essay entitled "Patience".

I think she expresses some wonderful truths here.

Patience

"Patience is a virtue"

"All good things come to those who wait"

"Everything in due time"

One cliche after another.

But when you've been waiting for what seems like forever, who the hell wants to hear another cliche?

How do you know when it's the right time?

Stop banging your head up against the wall.

When it comes to bein patient, the only thing you can be sure of is YOUR time is probably not the right time.

The concept is a difficult one for most of us to accept because we think we know what is best for us. Maybe in most situations we do, however, there are times when we truly just have to let go and reconcile ourselves to the fact that we don't know everything.

Look at it this way - no matter how much you seven-year-old insists that he can drive, you are not going to turn the keys over to him.

God feels the same way about us.

He knows what's best and He knows exactly what we're ready for and what we can handle.

Patience and Faith work hand in hand. We have to have faith that God knows besgt and His timing is perfect.

Look back over your life and and think about all the decisions that you rushed into. All the decisons you made without a plan. Did they work out for the best?

Probably not.

Experience is a wonderful teacher, but if we could learn to be patient from the beginning then we could save ourselves plenty of heartbreak and disappointment. There's nothing wrong with being patient. The Bible says They that wait on the Lord shall renew their strength... (Isaiah 40:31).

So while you're waiting, you're getting stronger.

Everything is a process - try to enjoy the process.

When it's the right time you will absolutely know it.

There won't be some miraculous sign, but you will know.

Aww, so nice, so nice... That's why that chick is an Original Oldgirl. Dropping succinct knowledge like that.

Thanks for your words, Chele. They are the fiya.

Really though.

This Food-for-Thought special has been brought to you by the House of LadyLee, with special request for Super Shoe Queen blogger Serenity3-0...

You have MORE than enough to sit off somewhere in the corner and think on. More than enough.

Chele! You're taking a "holiday" as the English would say. Make it a GREAT vacation!

The rest of ya'll: Go have a great weekend... on purpose!

Food for Thought: "To Settle or Not to Settle?" PART II

So, uh... I've had the most INTERESTING convos off blog concerning Part 1 of the Settling post.

Ya'll some heavy thinkers out there!

We're continuing with that Oldgirl Serenity's request for me to scatter my thoughts all out over the floor of the House of LadyLee for all to see concerning this thing called...

Settling.

Settling in any situation, like for a man, for a job... anything.

I've beared heavily on the "settling for a man" issha because I feel like, as black women, that is one of our biggest concerns in life. That is a sticky point of weakness for many of us.

So, I guess I will continue on in that vein.

Remember, the opinions expressed here are the express opinions of That Original Oldgirl LadyLee. Period. Ain't talking about you, I'm talking about me, from my own personal experiences.

Maybe you can pull something from it, something that you can add to your own personal truths.

I'm just here to give you a mere glimpse into this Oldgirl heart of hearts.

I must warn you, I couldn't figure out how to write this post, so it is more stream of consciuosness than anything. It loops and curves like a roller coaster, all over the place.
But if you read the parts highlighted in green then you'll get the gist of where I am getting at.

So, with that... let's begin.

There's a book I love oh so very much because of the simple yet powerful truths that lay within it's pages.

Michele Matthews, Blogger Chele's Confessions of a Beautiful Woman.

That book really solved a few personal isshas for me. Really. Why, I love it so much that I'm giving away several copies in give-a-way contests this year to folks who hang around the House of LadyLee.

The essay, "10 Things I wish Mom had Told Me", was one of the most poignant peices in the book. Chele spoke of the 10 things that she wished her mother would have talked to her about, and she writes briefly about why she wished Mom would've said something to her concerning such.

2 quotes stick out in my mind:

"Don't give your heart away to someone you aren't sure will take care of it."

and

"Develop a relationship with God before you try to have one with a man."

I imagine that Chele wrote these things (and correct me if I am wrong, Chele), because she, like myself, had entered into relationships where she had doubts whether that man could handle her heart as it should be handled, and/or her relationship with God was just not quite right before she entered into relationships with a few men...

As a result, some of those relationsips (well speaking for myself) came out to be the result of one thing:

Settling.

Settling for what was beneath me.

Settling for a relationship that is simply not for me.

You may say, "Well, LadyLee, don't be so hard on yourself. Stuff happens."

I beg to differ.

My sister turned me on to the most interesting book this winter, something she had to read for class. Well it was more like "Lisa, read this book and tell me what it's about. I have to write a paper on it."

I was NOT happy about it. But once I started reading it, it broke down (very scientifically) something that I've always known.

The name of the book is Blink: The Power of Thinking without Thinking.

It nicely lays out that you know when you're dealing with crazy folk. You knew you weren't suppose to be in a relationship with that man YEARS ago. You saw he had issues. But you chose to ignore it all.
Could probably fill up a whole notebook with all his issues.

But..You chose to settle.

Settle for someone who was beneath your standard.

You choose to give your heart to someone who might NOT be equipped to handle it.

I told my sister the gist of what that book was about. About trusting your "first instinct" or as Serenity said in the comment section of trusting your "first mind".

"My 'first' mind never steers me wrong. It's the second and third thoughts or the voices of the peanut gallery that I need to stop listening to."

That book was extremely technical, but it delved into the complexities of that "first mind". I was glad I read that book. It made me think.... about all my reasonings, and all the times I chose to settle. My sister read some of it, and we discussed it. It was all very enlightening. I thought it was just me who thought such things.

And I must admit that I tend not to listen to my "first mind". Oh, I do in many cases, like when it comes to men. But I fall short in other areas of my life.

What is the reason for this?

Why do we not listen to our "first mind", and continue to go on and on until something happens where we KNOW it's time to go?

Shoot man... Why it gotta be YEARS later before we decide "I'm through with this."?

The answer is deeply ensconsced within one simple passage early in the book of Proverbs.

Proverbs 3:5-7

CEV:
With all your heart you must trust the LORD and not your own judgment, always let him lead you, and he will clear the road for you to follow. Don't ever think that you are wise enough, but respect the LORD and stay away from evil.

Message Version:
Trust God from the bottom of your heart; don't try to figure out everything on your own. Listen for God's voice in everything you do, everywhere you go; he's the one who will keep you on track. Don't assume that you know it all. Run to God! Run from evil.

That passage is simple enough, yet complex...

At any rate, it is a straight arrow shot back to Chele's thought of

"Develop a relationship with God before you try to have one with a man."

I have found that in any area of my life that is a bit shaky, and I am in "settling" mode, well... there's a direct correlation to my relationship with God concerning that area. Not sure that is clear. Don't know how to make it all that clear except to say that concerning that shaky area of interest, my relationship and my listening to God is VERY weak. My TRUST in God is virtually nonexistant in that area.

In other words, I am leaning on my own understanding.

Even getting over into assumption... assuming stuff.

Assumption, you know, is the lowest level of human thought.

You have to understand something: our way of thinking and understanding is being subtlely shaped and molded daily by everything we read, everything we hear, everything we say, everything we do.

That's why that whole Rhianna/Chris Brown thing was so dangerous: we can extrapolate from that that it's alright to settle. Some young girl out there, in a bad situation... her understanding was shaped by that.

For me, I can get real specific... I go a bit past the whole "leaning on my own understanding" phenomena...

I'm caught up in my own personal motives and personal agendas.

I'm being selfish, quite self-serving in fact.

I hate to admit it, but 'tis true. I test all of my decisions in the light of that.

Many of us pray about things. And I believe, once we pray, the clock is ticking down to when the thing comes to past. But sometimes, a hiccup, a decison occurs where we say, essentially, "Yeah, I've prayed about this, but God, You too slow, so I'ma do MY thang! You're not doing this thang the way I want it done, so I got this. Holler at you later!"

I don't know about you, but I have been that way about things. Still am in some cases.

I've gotten a clear answer, clear direction on what to do and I mess around and say "Yeah, I hear you, Lord, but I'm gonna do my thang."

I've even gotten downright crazy and said "I don't care what you say, THIS is what I'm going to do. That answer You're giving is quite stupid!"

(I'm glad that "God striking peeps with lightening" bizness is uh... not true, lol)

And the results are disastrous... The results of me leaning on my own understanding are just bad.

These days, if I get an answer I don't agree with I say silently to myself, "That don't make a doggone bit of sense, and is a bit silly and stupid... but let me go write this down and do it anyway."

For God can see around the corners of my life... I can't.

And it is always EXACTLY what I need to do in the situation. Exactly.

Listen...our minds are so finite. I wish so much that I could see around the corners of my life. If I could see what was waiting for me around the corner, I wouldn't settle for this dude who is falling short of my expectations.

I've not seen around the corners. But I do credit one person for showing me what the RESULTS of settling is.

My mother.

My mother absolutely scares me sometime. Well, not anymore, but she has always left me perplexed. She has settled for men who basically reside in the underbelly of society. I mean, real lowlifes. This last sucka she was married to... Man, I tell you, that dude said he didn't want her kids around AT ALL. Dude was a horrible alcholic. His kids were on drugs. He'd accuse us of stealing. Messed up my Mama's credit. Told her he would kill her if she ever tried to leave. Just a bunch of craziness.

Mama liked the fact that he was "light-skinned-ed".

Excuse me? Are you serious?

I learned one thing from her: There are consequences to our settling.

Somebody must've been praying for us as children, because it is a suprise- no, a wonder- to me that we hadn't been molested or are not dead (although one of her boyfriend's did try to kill me and my mama. I've looked at her sideways for the past 33 years).

Not only are we emotionally affected and wounded by our settling, everyone around us is affected by it. I mean, the emotional carnage abounds, and it's not a good thing. I'm more bitter, more upset, more of all the wrong things... and so is everyone around me, who's dependant on me or who is close to me.

Now if that is a reason not to settle, I don't know what is.

I must be honest. I didn't want to get a divorce, even though I had settled, and the situation was obviously just not good for me or him. The main reason why is that I didn't want to wade through all these jokers out here in this here dating game, didn't want to roam clubs looking for men, didn't want to do all this expected competing with other women.... didn't want none of that.

Not my idea of fun.

But I prayed about it. Asked God to help me in that area, where I would make sound decisons. I asked Him to make my life very full.

I think I prayed that prayer some 6 years ago. And it has been answered beyond my wildest imaginations. Far beyond.

When asked what the most amazing prayer I've prayed that has been answered is, I point to THAT.

Really.

To settle or not to settle?

I have answered it for myself.

I will let you ponder... and answer for your ownself.

Semi-Wordless Wednesdays: "Adventures in Juicing"

It's that time again...

Time to bring out the Jack Lalanne juicer and make some fresh juice.

I'm not juicing oranges today.



Nor am I fooling with grapes...



We're taking it to that other level.

We're making the Super Juice.

We're wandering over to veggie territory.

Let her rip!!!!

Beets...



Gotta do those first... cleaning beet stains is a beast!

Plus, you can't drink beet juice alone. It's got too much going on. Gotta cut it with other veggies.

Like carrots!

Parsely!



Apple!



Have to juice those last, because it's easier to clean up!

Results: 4 cups of good fresh juice!!!!





That should last about a week before it goes bad... I might freeze some of it for later!

Then we're on to more juicing adventures!!

Food for Thought: "To Settle or Not to Settle?"

I was asked by my baby blog sista Serenity3-0 to discuss the notion of settling, amongst other things.

I saw *crickets* when she asked my thoughts on such. I sent an email saying

"Dear Chicken, can you be more specific?"

I could see her eyes rolling quite hard when she read that.

She ought to know by now how slow I am. And getting my thoughts on something is like pulling teeth with cheap tweezers. Very difficult to do. Don 't know why she bothers to browbeat me about things.

I know why... That chick wanna be like LadyLee!!!

LOL!!! HA HA!!

No, that ain't the case. I just have a different point of view about things... I suppose.

But I carry her questions around in my wallet and I've been pondering them since she gave them to me on June 1. I take time to write a page here or there concerning them. I have searched the coffers of my mind and personal diaries for something...

That something that would remind her of just how insane that is.

I don't think that she will mind me posting what she said. (If so, uh, you need to let me know, chile). But I think that it is important, and something that crosses every woman's mind at one time or another in life.

"It is too easy to settle for a man, job, etc. When you keep running upon obstacles, you get tired and decide to just take the first thing smoking. I need a reminder of just how stupid that would be."

Hmmm...

To Settle or Not to Settle?

That is the Queston.

An all too important one at that.

You know, I read a post over at Aretha's spot a few months ago that made me shake in my frickin' shoes.

Ya'll know I'm a hardcore bootleg tomboy, but I do believe I even might've dropped a tear and had a hard lip quiver behind that post.

The title of the post was "Eff You, Aretha"

She was expressing to a fella that she didn't think they should see each other anymore. I am not sure if they were dating or not, but she wanted to stop all communication with him.

Well, the guy nutted up on her, right there in the restaurant.

I pulled a quote from that post. He'd just snapped on her, told her she was acting crazy, told her she was afraid of relationships... just tripped out on her something awful.

"I told him he was the one acting crazy, and that if he “thought” he loved me, chances are that he doesn’t. I told him that since he’s going to throw a tantrum I may as well be completely honest. I told him that the truth is that I do want a relationship. I do want someone to have full access to my life, my thoughts, my desires, I do want to have sex and a lot of it, I do want to go away on fun weekends, I don’t want to date around and have other guys date around, I do want to fall in love…I just don’t want it with you. ..."

Shoot. I think I must've read that post 5 times.

I commented in that post, in particular to that quote I just pulled:

"My goodness. That right there struck me. I mean, how many of us have those very same feelings, and yet are browbeat into something and stay in it for YEARS... still having those same feelings, and end up kicking ourselves for not going with that initial feeling.I applaud you for nipping it in the bud. And you got a glimpse into LL's true character. Better now, than 5 years down the road. Good for you for going with your true feelings and not lowering your standards. Not eff you, but good for you."

Aretha made a choice that evening. Well, not that evening, because her response shows that she had put much thought into it.

The pertinent thing here is that she made a choice. A decision.

She chose not to settle.

She chose to say "I have a standard that a man must meet to be worthy of my love, and I am NOT lowering that standard."

So many of us do not take that route.

I have had my isshas with that in the past. I have settled. And I tell you, it is NOT a good thing and it is NOT a good feeling.

I met my ex-husband when I was 24 years old. I was young, heavily involved in grad school.

Over the years, there were many problem. He clubbed too much. He drank too much. He was terrible with him money at times. At times he dealt with the wrong people.

...Sold a little weed when he, you know, needed a little extra money to get by.

I couldn't get mad about that. Hell, I smoked some of his stuff when I needed to relax.

Can't get bent out of shape about that, right?

Right?

Hmm...

I can tell you the very time that I knew I needed to step away from him and go on with my life.

I'd just moved in with Oldboy. It was when the liquor store called about a $69 check that had bounced when Oldboy wrote a check off our joint account.

The liquor store peeps were talking trash to ME, threatening to put it in collections and put it on MY credit if the money wasn't paid.

I responded by yelling, "I didn't write that check! I drink Boones and Gold Champale, and it don't cost that much!"

I should've been gone after that.

But instead I settled.

I paid the check plus the 25 dollar bounce fee. And I promptly removed my name and money from his account and got my own.

I settled.

I placed a band-aid on a bullet wound...

Any which way you look at it, I settled for what was beneath me and not up to my standard.

I think I was just young. He was a decent guy. Kind and very funny. A good lover.

I loved him. He loved me.

But he didn't know what he wanted in life. I didn't either. My only goal was getting through school. Period. I'd worry about that life thing later.

We'd been together 5 years. And at the age of 29, against my better judgement, we got married.

My reasoning: I have been with Oldboy for 5 years. That's a lot of time. I don't plan on getting with anyone else, so oh well... Might as well get married.

Dumb mistake.

The gist of it: I settled.

People like to talk to me about things. Not sure why, because I am a bit stringent when it comes to certain areas of my life, one of them is not wasting ANY time on a dude that is not worth my time. PERIOD.

Makes for a less than exciting life... Well, not for me, but for other people. What folks think of me is several orders of magnitude less important that what I think of myself.

But I do have the life experience of making the crucial mistakes. We all do, in some way or another.

You want to hear my biggest advice?

Let's do a little exercise.

Close your eyes. For only a couple of seconds.

Think about your current situation with that man.

Now open your eyes.

Imagine that it is NOT a few seconds later... It is 10 years later.

Do you like what you see? Do you want to be in that very same situation 10 years later? Can you keep going through the same ish? Do you see yourself growing over that 10 year period?

Because let's face it: We gotta get off this ish about "I'ma change him."

No you ain't.

Stuff gonna get worse.

He's slapping you around. He cussing you out. He's got a slight cheating problem. He can't find a goal if it was sitting there staring him in the face. He jealous of you. He don't have a life, but pissed at you because you are enjoying yours. His friends are shady. He don't like your friends. Heck, he don't even have friends. He's lazy. He's disrespectful to others. He's just plain stupid.
There's nothing about him that makes him unique. Negro is CRAZY.

All of that is alright, though. Just means he loves me.

Nope. And you know, if you are being honest with yourself, that this is simply not the case.

For we all have something deep down inside, an alarm, that goes off that signals...

"Something here is not right..."

We can choose to ignore the loud blaring of the alarm...

We can choose to keep hitting the snooze button, i.e., keep making excuses, put off removing ourselves from the situation.

Or we can shut off the alarm, get up, and get ta stepping. We can choose not to settle.

After settling and getting married, I promised myself that I wouldn't do that again. I am not saying I'll never get married. I am saying that I would go into it fully satisfied that I haven't lowered my standards, knowing that I have increased as a person as a result of this man being in my life. I have grown. In turn, he has grown as a result of being with me.

Of course, this sends mixed signals.

And this is when you see a man's true character come to light. Just like we saw in Aretha's post.

Dudes swear you are harboring baggage, afraid of getting hurt... Man, I've heard all KINDS of explanations for my ways. I've heard some creative explanations that I myself would have NEVER thought of. sigh.

Dudes know they can come with the mighty deep psychoanalyses, don't they? lol

All with the central goal of NOT building you up as a person...

But simply getting you to lower your standard.

But the bottom line is: I am choosing not to settle. You are not what I want.

I caught a clue when I spent 9 years with a man that I had no business being with.

And I knew it was time to go when we were having conversations about having a baby, and I said

"I'm a woman. I want to have a baby. I want to be a mother. I want to experience that.

I want to have a baby... just not with you."

(You can imagine the problems that THAT statement caused.)

And I think that's the reason why Aretha's response to the livid suitor resonated with me.

I had said something similar, albeit in a different situation.

Overall, the stance was the same: We both chose not to settle.

So the question is. "To Settle or Not to Settle?"

I'll let you pontificate that for yourself.

I do have a bit more to say on this... on the spiritual tip.

We're gonna brang this issue home, knock it out the park... on purpose.

But this post is already too long.

To be continued... sometime this week.

Good Monday Morning!

Happy Monday Morning...

This weekend went by MUCH too fast.

The current temperature in the ATL is 67 degrees.

Why, that's just lovely!

What's not so lovely is that the temperature is gonna shoot up to 90 degrees today.

Oh. Joy.

Tropical heat.

Not looking forward to that!

My weekend. Man... I didn't get anything done on Saturday. Just stayed in the bed. I don't know WHAT my problem was on Saturday. I didn't even get up and get dressed, just sort of roamed the house in my house coat. I know my sister had to be looking at me like I was crazy, but of course she didn't say anything, lol.

I made sure to call up The LBeezy and wish her a very happy birthday. I called REAL early, around seven in the morning. That's the time when we all got a little bass in our voices, lol. Woke her up out of a deep sleep with the most busted rendition of Happy Birthday EVER. LOL. She was wide awake after that! I know you gonna get me back for that one, girl!!! I hope you made your birthday a good one!

I have a gift for her. Thought her birthday was later in the month. Shoot. Watch out for that in the mail one day, girl! LOL

I spent much time trying to get into my book club book, J. California Coopers Life is Short but Wide.

Now I absolutely LOVE J.California Coopers' short stories, but I am not a big fan of her novels. Don't get me wrong, it is interesting, but for the subject matter (a tale of the lives of 2 sisters and their families from the Great Depression to the early 80's), isn't lighting my fire. Ya'll know how much I love some Celie type craziness, lol, but I just feel it would have been better in a short story format.

With that said, I clocked about 200 pages this weekend, and I am almost finish. Halfway through, I must admit that it became very interesting, and is turning out to be a pretty good read.

I think I'm just so enamored by her short story storytelling skills that a novel is a bit hard to take in the storytelling way she likes to do.

Besides that, that is all I pretty much got done. More progress was made on Sunday, as I did a little grocery shopping and renewing of a prescription for some of my meds. I managed to get some chores done on Sunday. A pretty quiet weekend indeed. Sort of glad for that, as I have stuff planned for the next couple of weekends.

Serenity Special Potatoes. I made a new dish, courtesy of one of my favorite Chickenheads, Serenity, lol. She gave me her recipe for roasted potatoes and carrots. She was a bit concerned about me leaving out the carrots (I hate baked carrots), but I worked it out and added some mushrooms.



What do you think, Serenity? It came out pretty good! I added the coriander like you said. That really set it off. I'ma need you to hook up a cookbook, gal!

Writing. I actually got some writing done last night. Close to 1500 words on a one of my current stories. I am happy about that because I haven't been writing much lately. I've been working on some things with my beloved writing partner (I lost a scene from what I needed to give you; I am revamping that, Man!), but not my own stuff. I am much more interested in what Terry and I are working on. But I have to have some balance.

I have a summer writing goal plan due to Serenity today. Hopefully that Oldgirl will keep me in line concerning it.

So that's all for my weekend. Very slow, very relaxing. I am glad of that!

I'm still holding to posting every day of the month in June. (It is driving me NUTS). We are at the halfway point. 15 more posts to go!!! GLORY. lol.

Serenity has given me some difficuly Food-for-Thought topics that are making my stomach hurt. Thanks a lot gal. You're number one. Really.

I hope to crack into a couple of those this week. I don't know. She is giving me a hard time about it. So we will just have to suck it up and post. Still trying to get my thoughts straight on that.

Also, I've been vegetarian for 2 weeks. I plan on talking about that. (people have been quite bewildered and amused of my food choices over on facebook, lol).

It's the start of another new week.

I'm going to have a GREAT week... on purpose.

You do the same!!