*D✖3*

I was like most teenagers back in high school, extra eager to start going to see over idolized celebrities. In my city, everyone would drive about 40 minutes out to the next city for the annual “Super Jamz” concert. For us, it was closer to driving to the other bigger cities and a chance to see famous artists  for a good price. As I got older, I would often say I’d catch my favorite artists concerts, but lack of time or not wanting to see shows with 9/10 other artists I don’t want to see would discourage me. I then compiled a lists of people I’d definitely want to see perform in 2020. Then here comes COVID! So no concerts for me or the rest of the world! However, during COVID I had plenty of time to think as most people did during those months of lockdown. I started to think about my priorities and I realized that I didn't really need to be wasting my money to see some of these artists. Decent seats or even nosebleeds seats can get pricey and as the prices of concerts rise, so does

Happy December! Let the Christmas countdown begin, only 21 days left! Are you excited or over it already? I’m a little bit of both. As the Christmas holiday approaches quickly, my city decided to gift the residents with the Section 8 list opening up for about four days before it closes again indefinitely. I wanted to discuss my thoughts on the program for my city. If you haven’t heard of this government program, it’s designed to help low income families find stable housing on the rental market. Families can choose from apartments or rental houses if the owners allow the voucher. The voucher covers a portion of rent, trying to make possible that everyone pays only 30% . So what’s the issue? Well, for starters the program has gained quite a scandalous reputation. Landlords have had property damage that’s not reimbursed by the program  and hefty loads of paperwork to deal with. The program requires safety inspections and some landlords have complained about this aspect as well. A program

It’s not new information that there’s little animation and representation of minorities in the mainstream media. Upon having children, it’s became extremely obvious just how little representation that is. My daughter, like most children have taken an extra liking to YouTube channels dedicated to toys. She also enjoys Barbie specials and YouTube stars like Ryan. However, when it comes to finding diverse things for her to watch, I’m left with little options. I’ve went back and found shows I grew up on because there’s not many shows with young black children, and the ones that are out sometimes seem to be filled with stereotypical propaganda. Some old shows she’s into are That’s so Raven, Sister Sister, Proud Family, Keenan and Kel. Even though these shows are nostalgic and fun for us to watch together, I wish she had shows to watch from her time. I know there’s Raven’s Home, Young Dylan, and even That Girl Lay Lay, but these are still limited. Maybe one day there will be more show option

 So the word "industry plants" may not be unknown to you or maybe you heard of the term but don't know what it means. Industry plants are artist that are found by labels when they were "struggle artist" and trying to make it. The label takes the artist and grooms them into "mainstream artist material". The artist gets rebranded, signs a crappy contract, gains access to famous connections, gets an advance, has payola ($ for radio plays), etc. So basically the person gets "lucky" and gains massive fame. What's the issue then? Well, for one this practice takes away from the "even playing field" of up and coming artist. The struggle artist usually has to put in time and effort in their craft on a long unsure journey of trying to get discovered. At one time, people would go through great measures to try to get discovered. They'd stand in the rain, handout mixtapes/demo-tapes for free, get rejected over and over, etc. Now people a

 November  is coming to an end and pushing us further into fall bliss and closer to winter! I hope everyone is pushing forward through the lasting obstacles in our world! I’ve been hammered with family and school turmoil, so it’s been awhile since I’ve been able to tend to my blog. I’m so glad to be back posting! I want to discuss fat phobia today. Fat phobia is defined as having a fear or dislike  or discriminating against people because of their weight according to PubMed. The reason I’m writing this is because I’ve seen bad press surrounding the music artist Lizzo for awhile. People often attack her clothing choices and they usually try to say it’s due to not being appropriate for certain social settings. However, other celebrities in the exact same industry often don’t receive the same criticism. Instead it’s considered “sexy” or “stylish”. I can’t help but wonder how can people claim to have an issue with Lizzo’s fashion but not a Meg thee Stallion or Cardi B. You’d think it would

    I spent my day deeply provoked by thoughts of what it means for children to grow up in homes without fathers vs. children who grow up with one. My spouse shared a meme with a young boy indulging in bad activities and it was captioned, "When Women Try To Raise Sons Without A Man". Needless to say, commentators couldn't wait to sound off on this subject mater. I appreciated reading the different points of views. Of course, all single parent upbringing doesn't result in a son being in prison or dead from gang affiliation. However, how can we dismiss the importance of fathers involvement in child rearing within the black community? We have been bombarded by statistics of how children raised with absent parents are impacted in various ways. Disclaimer: This post isn't about bashing or downing people who raise children singlehanded, it's very common and many people have examples of this working out well. This post is to educate on some of the information out on

 Hi Everyone, I know it's been a slight gap in my content. I've been a bit tied up with life priorities, but I'm working out some arrangements with my schedule so I can get back to blogging consistently. I'm not very thrilled by the C19 upsurge in cases or the decreasing brain cells of human kind to think it's okay to infringe on citizens everyday lives. It's not a privilege to go out your house everyday. It's a human right to choose to leave your premises. Real life is not a social media platform where it's okay to pull comments or restrict people access to their accounts. Real life shouldn't allow any entity to force people out of doing their everyday activities. It's very telling that businesses can restrict their services to certain people. After all that's how discriminatory practices were able to thrive during the days of segregation. It's awful to see how easily people can recreate these inhumane policies. I wish these same busines

 So this month Amazon released a new witting venture for authors to explore. The site is called Kindle Vella. It's going to allow authors to write a short series, that'll have tokens for the audience to redeem to unlock more of the series. The first 3 episodes are free! I'm super excited about this because I've been working on my series for the last few months! I've been waiting for the site to launch since Amazon first notified writers. So, what is my series all about? It's about the Ludus love type. Ludus love is an uncommitted love type. It's based on lust and doesn't consist of any real seriousness. The series chronicles Ludus, as he navigates his freshmen year in college whilst struggling with the new responsibility of adulthood, wavering feelings for a new companion, and potentially facing teen fatherhood obstacles. The series will be full of serious issues that plagued many young adults as they face the harsh reality of the world outside of high s

    Great hesitation overtakes me as I contemplate whether or not to put these words on my spouse's custom made t-shirts,  Rapper   Athlete   Singer.   The hesitation is stemmed from my past of pissing people off from my unmuzzled mouth. Ultimately, we came up with words that skipped around these specific aspects of the entertainment world. After all, black entertainers get paid amazingly. An estimate of 2.5 million dollars for NBA players, 860,000 median salary for NFL players, and 77,000 median salary for rappers. However, most of us are going to be great in our own unique way. We may not ever perform in front of millions of fans, host parties all night long in LA, or get Nike and Adidas Endorsements. Regular people are often shamed. So much conversation about not working for others and not making more than a teacher. Remarks that aren't ever going to make anyone's self esteem improve. These remarks are also degrading to the fast food worker that prepared your food (which

 Hectic, hectic, hectic!!!!! It’s pretty much over now!!!! I pretty much have 3 main assignments to turn in and I can enjoy my brain having idle time for a couple of weeks before it’s time for my fall semester. Going to school showed me that I’m definitely  a busy mom! It’s been tough on my self discipline. Putting my phone away and focusing. Not diving into the comment sections of my favorite YouTube videos, not being able to catch up with my friends on FaceTime, and having to wait a little longer than everyone else in the house to relax because I’m still studying. It’s been a great experience though and confidence  booster. I’ve been through a lot to enroll in school all these years. I’m glad the Lord made a way and it’s been on the up and up! My grades are awesome. I’d be lying though if I said I didn’t work as hard as I could to make it happen. I had to challenge myself to commit  to time management and doing research on how other adults made it work. The research is pretty subject

    Happy July Everyone! The summer is flying by and it'll be fall before we know it! I've been seeing all this outrage online about the Olympics and their marijuana guidelines. So many people are upset because marijuana is legal in some places and they don't understand the ban. I'm bringing this up because over the years marijuana legalization is  a hot topic that gets people really going.  It seems like marijuana is an easy drug to overlook, and praised for it's recreational usage. However, I want to discuss some of it's other properties because I feel like some people are misinformed. I've heard people deny it's bad for your health and mothers deny it can contribute harm to their unborn infants. No, this isn't a post about why marijuana should or should not be legal. It's just a post with the less popular information that some people ignore or don't know about.  Marijuana is one of the most ADDICTIVE substances. (Tobacco and Alcohol are th

    Hope everyone's June has been wonderful! Mine has and it's truly been flying by! I've been blasting through my summer semester and trying to give my children a fun summer without overspending. Needless to say, we've been taking advantage of the parks and walking trails. We've been coloring and working on educational goals. My little boy will be officially starting kindergarten and I've been making sure he's fully prepared. Sight words, improving handwriting, and learning how to tie his shoes has been on our radar. One of my daughters will be going to pre-k and I've been busy preparing her as well. She's been learning how to write and spell her name. I want to encourage everyone to still have their children active with their education this summer. It keeps the kids busy and gives them the opportunity to be caught up or ahead once back in school. Make it fun! Give them dance breaks! Pull out some old fashioned card games like, Go Fish or Old Maid.

                So you may be wondering what is the big deal? Why were law makers arguing and debating about this being a national holiday? (apparently it didn't get passed last year) This post won't be long because I'm sure a lot of you have heard about this in mainstream media this past week, but I want to briefly mention the origin of Juneteenth. For starters, Juneteenth is the official day that slaves in Galveston, Texas were told that they were free by General Granger in 1865. Why is this a big deal? It's a big deal because the other states under Confederate control found out they were free in the year 1863. In Texas, Juneteenth was made an official holiday in 1979. Now in 2021, it has officially been declared as a national holiday. President Joe Biden wrote it into law on June 17, 2021.  However, Americans have been celebrating July 4th (our independence day) and honoring our freedom from Britain control. You would think that this didn't even need to be debate

          Hi Everyone! It's the middle of June! How's your Summer going? Are your kids home and driving you up a wall or are you use to them being home since we're coming out of the pandemic slowly but surely? Where I live we still are wearing masks in some places. Businesses have been allowing vaccinated people to take them off in some places. I'm waiting for our state mandate however, because I just don't want to deal with any drama in the stores. Last summer, a lot was going on with people taking masks off. Plus, my children still have to wear them so I wear mine too so they don't complain about theirs. I'm glad the school year has ended. My Pre-K student was promoted and he's going to Kindergarten next year. I couldn't be more proud of him! He even won an award for outstanding behavior! I'm still in school and it's exhausting everyone! Trying to keep up with my kids, cleaning schedule, cooking, and keeping up with assignments is quite a t

It’s been a long journey for me with trying to gain my undergraduate degree. Life got completely in my way, but I didn’t give up by the grace of God! I’m back enrolled in school and it’s bit overwhelmingly exciting. I’m nervous about this new step and about all the college stuff I’m just now having to deal with. Plus, I’m a mom now and a wife so things are definitely hectic. I’m going through all my advice and research to keep myself calm during this new experience. It’s going to be different being an adult learner but I refuse to be discouraged. I know a lot more about life now than then. I’ve learned about real time management and the importance of strategizing plans. I’ve learned about the financial aspect of school too and why it’s overly important to be as cost efficient as possible. I’m optimistic about this time around and more confident in myself than before. Some of the things I’ll have to work at is endurance and continuing to set goals for myself. I have to give myself time

It’s crucial to make time to communicate with our children. Whether they’re school aged or infants, we set their foundation for language. It’s so easy to feel like infants couldn’t possibly need your conversation, but research disagrees. It’s been proven that not talking to your infant can cause them social delays. It can even make it more difficult for children to be able to form secure attachments. Infants need to hear their parents voices and see our facial expressions. It shapes their language world and helps their bond to their parents. As they age and start school, keeping up with their day is even more vital. Peers and pop culture  will become a bigger influence and it’s important as a parent to help your child from being misinformed. Children want to feel understood, just as many of us do to. When we consistently talk to them (not down at them) and listen, we are showing that we are engaged. But when we can’t put our phone away for just a few minutes then we are creating a divi

  Ingredients: •  Boneless Chicken Breasts • Bell Peppers • Shredded cheese • Flour Tortilla Bread  • A pack of El Paso fajita seasoning  What To Do: 1. After you clean your chicken and season (with a seasoning of your choice) just let your chicken thoroughly cook. After it cools off you shred it into pieces and sit aside.  2. You can start your peppers next. I usually buy mine already chopped but you can easily chop the peppers. In a lightly greased pan you just let your peppers cook while stirring them around so they don't stick to the pan. It doesn't take long for peppers to cook, about 15 minutes. 3. Now you're ready for your tortilla bread. So you put one of your tortillas down in a lightly greased pan on low heat. Then you put some of your chicken, peppers, and cheese on top of that one. Put  another tortilla on top of that one. You take a spatula and press down gently. Flip it over after about 1 minute, then press down again. You'll want your heat low because you

    It's hard to believe that it's been a year of me blogging already! When I first decided to start my blog up, I was filled with hesitation. I honestly didn’t even know that some people still read blogs on Blogger. My friends were starting YouTube channels and encouraged me to start working on my blogs. I wasn’t sure what I’d talk about or if anyone would care about what I talked about. But the more content I created, the more viewership my page received. I’m overwhelmed with gratitude! I appreciate everyone that has checked out my work. There’s been readers from all over the world that have checked out my work. It’s really amazing to gain readers that live outside of the US. I’ve had months where I’m blooming with writing ideas, months where I’m suffering from writer’s block, months where I’m gaining amazing traffic, and months where my traffic is extremely low, but I will prevail. God has truly blessed me on my writing journey and I know he’ll continue to oversee my path. T

May is truly passing quickly. I’ve been a bit preoccupied this month trying to get my priorities straightened out. I’ll be back in school soon and I’ve been a bit stretched thin trying to get things going. I haven’t had the spare time I’d like to post, and I’ve been extremely tired. Due to my tiredness I thought the subject of sleep would be relevant to mention. I want to talk about some interesting loss of sleep facts.  • Being sleep deprived and driving is as dangerous as drunk driving. • Lack of sleep can increase your chance of getting cancer. • Lack of sleep can cause weight gain. • Not sleeping causes toxins to build up in our brain. • Grieving can cause insomnia. • You don’t dream when you snore. • Vaccines are less effective if you’re sleep deprived . • Drinking coffee at night can keep you up an extra 40 minutes. • Our phone light confuses our brains and cause them to feel like it’s daylight .

    Being a mom is tough and unyielding,     O ur love for our children keep us building.     Through the years cherish their tears,     Because independence is one of a parent's worse inner fears.     Love them unconditionally,     Scowl them mercifully,     They need all your love, hugs, and kiddie conversations.      Raise them your very best since it shapes their next generation.     Until Next Time,     Dx3

Throughout my busy day, I find myself constantly teaching my kids. Sometimes it’s just having conversations about their surroundings, kid tv shows, and games on their tablets. I try to take advantage of every moment and turn it into a learning conversation. Not to mention, their bedrooms are filled with vocabulary cards hanging up, numbers, and the alphabet. I’ve always wanted to create a learning environment for them so it’s overly familiar. I didn’t want pre-school to be the only exposure to learning that they had.  I’ve always had an interest in learning as a kid and now as an adult, I can see why it’s so vital to give my kids the same strong foundation. It's been proven that children who don't have any prior learning exposure already start school academically delayed. When studies were done in the past, it also showed that black children had less exposure to reading than white children at the start of kindergarten. Since these studies were done, programs like HeadStart was

      Hi everyone! Yesterday, I talked about emotional bondage. I think a lot about how what we watch and listen to can also cause us certain thoughts that can keep us bound as well. Unfortunately, a lot of black media can seem geared towards reinforcing black stereotypes. I know every year that when the Oscars and other award shows air that there's a lot of uproar about the decrease in black winners or black movies selected for review. There's a lot of different opinions about why this is an issue. Some argue that it's the lack of black films reviewed every year and others feel like it's due to the lack of black movie roles in Hollywood. I feel like we share a responsibility in our writing and filmography not being taken seriously. I don't think it benefits us to limit our talent to only writing urban city drug tales or struggle toxic love stories that include cheating, abuse, manipulation, etc. I'm not saying these are not realistic pieces of inner urban citie

    May is here! Hope everyone is enjoying Spring time! The bees and wild life are certainly enjoying it in my town. My allergies are not enjoying it as much if I must admit. I've been doing better. I've been regenerating my energy and prioritizing my sleep schedule. Today, my phone was on autoplay and played an interview with Iyanla Vanzant on BreakfastClub. I hadn't intended on listening to it but my hands were wet from washing dishes and I let it play. I ended up enjoying it! It talked a lot about healing and taking proactive steps towards being wholesome. I resonated with it because lately I found myself falling prey to old patterns of anger and allowing people and circumstances to cause me to not exercise my self control like I'd like. I'm a firm believer of working on myself and I was a bit upset at myself for allowing people to upset my positive energy flow. It just made me think recently am I really emotionally in control or am I in emotional bondage? I'

Hope April's been going well for everyone. This month has been busy for me and I haven't been able to post like I'd like.  Its been awhile since I’ve talked about being a HSP (Highly Sensitive Person). But right now feels more dire than ever. Honestly, I don’t talk much about it because I feel like most people have no idea what you’re talking about nor do they care about how they make you feel. I’m honestly tired of being so affected by stuff . Literally, it’s draining me to be impacted by every single thing that happens in my day. On the other hand, I'm not one to like being a "victim" so it's hard to open up about stuff. If you don't know what a HSP is, it's a personality trait that causes you to be more responsive to your environment. This can cause a range of emotions, sometimes good or sometimes bad. You're more sensitive to sound, imagery, social environments, and sometimes can feel drained easily and need to retreat. Right now, I've

    Delayed gratification is the ability to wait or put off wants/pleasures until a more appropriate time. You may think of the "marshmallow test"  where you give a child the option of waiting for 2 marshmallows after a certain amount of time or getting 1 marshmallow right away.  If that's not familiar to you, then think about how many times you saw something you wanted to buy even though you know you don't have the money to spare but you go and buy it anyway. If you are impulsive with purchases and your decision-making then you probably aren't very good at delaying gratification in your life. If we want, want, want, all the time then we're not going to be able to learn the value of waiting. Choosing to save for your dream vacation compared  to using money from your pay check that's suppose to be for bills is just irresponsible. It shows a lack of discipline and self control. This can hurt you in the long run if you have a habit of just gratifying your ple

I wrapped up my week of financial focused blogs and hope you all enjoyed the content. If you haven’t seen them yet, feel free to search the archive tab. I’ll be sure to include more financial blogs on here but for today I’m going to be shifting gears and sharing a recipe since it’s been awhile. Ingredients: Steak strips Shrimp Rice Chopped bell peppers  Butter  Extra Virgin Olive Oil Seasonings of your choice Directions: Clean Shrimp and set aside to cook. I usually cook my shrimp in a small amount of butter and a pinch of seasoning salt. It doesn’t take long for shrimp to cook depending on if it’s raw or cooked already. Once it’s finished sit aside and clean steak strips . Season steak strips with your choice of seasoning. I usually use garlic and onion powder with a seasoning salt. Cook on medium heat stirring occasionally until meat is cooked throughly. While your steak is cooking, you can start your rice. If you have a hard time cooking rice on the stove, the microwave is a much ea

     Hope everyone has enjoyed my recent content. Thank you for all your reading and support! Today, we'll touch on the last bullet point from my blog, Generational Wealth and the Black Community. Making a business for your family that can be passed down is a good way to leave your children jobs and help keep money in your family. We, as black people must stop being afraid of being different. We have to stop fearing doing things on our own or fear being in the minority. We have to start using our interest and turn them into streams of income to help us with cash flow. If you are good at anything, see if it's something you can take seriously and use it to your advantage. If you like baking cakes out of the boxes at the grocery store, you can easily buy some baking cups and utensils and start selling baked goods. You can do a bake sale and start advertising on your social media showcasing your talent. Some people bake from scratch, but either will work if you're good and pa

    We're almost through all my bullet points from my blog post, Generational Wealth And The Black Community. Today, we're touching on how to save your money in high yield savings accounts. A high yield savings account helps you earn money faster than your traditional savings account. A lot of these accounts are offered online and many are federally insured just like a traditional bank.  You should look for accounts that are offering a high interest amount. For example, some regular accounts may have an APY of 0.05% (about $0.50) and a high interest account may have a 1.50%(about $15.00) .  One would be earning you more money over time than the other. Some of these accounts do require certain deposit amounts, but it's worth looking into for short term savings goals or as an emergency fund. These accounts have online access and usually it's not too difficult to transfer funds when you need them. These accounts are a great way to increase your finances and a good start

    We've wasted no time this week hitting on these financial topics. Let's not lose our stamina now. Today, I'm going to talk about 3 ways you can invest in real estate. It's so common to hear about those real estate classes people pay for and don't utilize, but some people don't know there's different ways to invest in real estate  other than just renting out their own  home.  REAL ESTATE INVESTMENT TRUST(REIT)  REIT's are real estate investment companies that let investors buy and trade stock. Usually these companies own commercial properties and they pay out dividends to the shareholders. This type of investment stops you from having to deal with the issues of being an actual landlord but still being able to reap the benefits. You're able to invest in a REIT just like you would invest in any other stock, but you should be well informed before doing so because some REIT's can't be traded and as with all stock there's a risk of loss. ON

    Previously, we discussed how investing is one way black famililies can work towards generational wealth. We then got a quick vocab lesson on select words that are important for us to be aware of. Today, we'll briefly discuss some first time tips for investing.  Create a financial plan. You have to have your finances in order first before you can find excess money to use for investments and savings. It's recommended you have sufficient income coming in. Get an idea of what your goals are and write them down. So have an idea what you want to invest for and figure out ways to cut back on spending or even what ways you could possibly bring in more income.  Start "Paying Yourself  First" this means you take some of your income and give it to yourself to put up. Work on paying your debt down and eliminating it. It's recommended to work on one balance at a time. Try writing down what bills you have to pay and how much spending you're doing so you can keep track.

      This is a continuation of my last post. We're tackling new vocab terms so we'll understand more about the financial world. There are more terms out there, I just tried to pick words I see frequently when I'm doing personal research.  Budget: Your money management plan.  Capacity: Ability to repay a loan.  Capital: The value of what you own.   Capital Gain: The difference in the price you buy stock at versus  the cost you sell it at.  Capital Loss: When you sell stock at a lower price than you purchased.  Cash Flow:  Your net amount of income coming in and going out.  Certificate of Deposit: A certificate issued by a bank to a person depositing money for a specified period.  Compound Interest: is when interest is earned on a previous amount of interest and it helps income increase more rapidly.  Consumer Advocates: groups or individuals that expose unfair business practices.  Endorse:  To sign the back of a check and make it payable to a specific person. Impulse Purcha

    As promised readers, we are going to get through this heap of information on financial literacy together. I know a lot of my blogs are aimed at African Americans and systemic issues we face, but this information can honestly be useful for anyone who feels that they lack information on financial literacy and want to make a promising change for themselves and their children. I'm pro black, but I'm also pro human (meaning I want everyone to be the best version of themselves that God made them) Now that I'm done with my dissertation, let's focus up! I think we should start with vocabulary. This will probably be broken into two separate post because it's lengthy.  If you want to make flash cards like my spouse or just jot these down then feel free to grab your supplies and get going!   Amortization: making payments on a loan over a period of time.  The interest and principle are usually included in the payments made.   Annual Fee: yearly fee credit card companies cha

    Happy April! Sorry for my absence. My children are on Spring Break from school and I needed a break also since I've been their formal teacher this year with virtual learning. Anyway, I'm glad to be back from my brief hiatus. This month, expect a range of blogs on informative topics. Today, I'd like to discuss generational wealth and where the black community stands on this topic. It's important during life that we as parents try to handle certain things so our children don't have the same struggles or lack of knowledge that we may have had. It's easier during their life if we can lay a strong foundation for our children. First off, generational wealth is financial means that are passed down in your family. This is important because children that inherit assets (a way to bring money into your pocket) are proven to have a financial advantage over their peers who may not. Having the extra funds can prevent your children from being in debt and making detriment

    About 2 months ago, I started aiming for eating a salad everyday. At least one salad a day. I started taking salad for lunch at work instead of buying something or bringing a full meal. If I skipped a salad at lunch time then I'd prepare a side salad with my dinner. I started doing this to help me reach my correct amount of vegetable servings a day. Often, I'd say I'm going to make my vegetables but instead I'd finish cooking and not want to wait for my vegetables to finish or I forgot to take them out earlier and get them prepared. For younger adults it's recommended that you get approximately 2.5 cups of vegetable servings. So my salads were coming in handy and making it easier to get these servings and I was getting full faster and wouldn't end up even eating all my food on my plate. This was working so well for me that I even started recommended my friends try this with me. Every time we had a salad, we send each other pictures and keep each other encour

    So many mothers are doing wonderous things in the work world. Women are breaking through barriers and in top positions in many occupations. Being at home with children are becoming stories of the past for many. It reeks of boredom and domestication in the minds of some. For me, it's the epitome of a selfless sacrifice. When a mother comes out of work to care for her kids it's a huge life decision. It's a responsibility that's unyielding. In some cases it's necessary due to the outrageous increasing  cost of childcare. There's a million opinions on this and many mothers can feel discouraged while others thrive by tending to household duties. I have personally been on both sides of this for awhile. I've had times where I stay at home with my children and other times I'm back in school or the workforce. Really, it depends on what works best for my family at the time or what I'm working towards for that moment. Honestly, that's all anyone can do

        I try to not  overuse technology even though it's a huge part of everyday life. I have Alexa enabled on a few of my devices, but I just recently started using her. I use her to make funny announcements to my kids, set reminders, and timers. The other day I realized how useful Alexa could be to my workouts outside of just merely timing. A lot of people may have already known this, but I literally just found out that Alexa can walk you through workouts and coach you. It was the most amazing thing to me( I guess I'm showing my millennial tendecies.)  I had her walk me through a quick 6 minute stretch regimen at the start of my workout. I usually aim for a 30-45 minute high intensity workout.So I utilized a few workouts on Alexa's workout menu. The workouts are cut down to about 5-8 min workouts so I just combined them until I got to my full time. I liked the workouts from Alexa because each workout had a set time you perform an exercise before it moves you to the next.

    If you're not really into YouTuber world then maybe you never heard of Derrick Jaxn. He's a youtuber that does relationship advice/dating advice for women mostly. He kept his private life very private and didn't talk about being married or about any of his personal information like some public Youtubers do or don't. A lot of people have been entertained by an affair being exposed by one of his mistresses. Of course, it was followed by a stream of internet memes and humiliation jokes. Derrick and his wife publicly addressed the affair situation and people went on to bash his wife for her appearence. They laughed and talked down on her for choosing to stay and work on her marriage to her spouse. People felt like she wasn't looking great enough to come on the internet. Some people were accusing Derrick of being abusive and forcing his wife to do a video. The internet the last few days has been in an opinated frenzy. This situation was on talk shows, radio shows, an

    Being a mom is a job never done! It's a joy, it's pain, it's responsibility, accountability, sacrificial, tough, and rewarding. There's an unmeasurable amount of stress and pressure on modern day mothers. There's this unrealistic belief that you can be dedicated to your spouse, career, children, and your own self interest. I'm not saying you can't do all these things, but I am saying all these things are not done with the same care that you may wish. Something has to take a backseat to something else and get less of you. We're only humans and it's not possible for us to pay everything attention at one time effectively. This is a reality some many people don't like to face. We keep seeing it pushed on tv, the mom of 3 that got her graduate degree, she's married, she has time for her girlfriends, she's super fit, etc. I haven't seen this in real life yet. I've seen women upset over gaining weight during a pregnancy, determined t

    Air Fryers have been making a name for themselves the last few years. I was blessed enough to get one for Christmas a few years ago. I don't use it as much as I should. However, recently I've been using it like crazy while we're in the process of replacing our stove. It's a really quick way to make your food and it's literally a lot less greasy than cooking certain foods the traditional way in a frying pan or deep fryer. I use it to sometimes even short cut waiting on my microwave to cook certain things. Here's a few things I like to use it for :   Fish: This has to be my favorite thing to cook in my air fryer! It is so easy to season and throw in there on the fish setting. I usually up the timer because my spouse likes his fish a bit crunchy, but fish is really good to make in the air fryer. It works if you use breader or if you just want to put it in without breader. It still has a good crunchy texture and it's not dripping with grease. The downside wo

     Some of my recent blogs have been very rant heavy. However, today we're going to be on a more productive note! I have always heard about people creating vision boards. I even have always planned to sit down with my friends and create one. This plan has always gotten pushed to the back of my plans. Lack of time from work schedules and lack of time to make a trip to the craft store hasn't helped me not continue my pattern of procrastination. Yesterday, I had some extra time on my hands so I decided to make a digital vision board. I made it on Prezi, which is a site where you can make presentations. It's not too different from PowerPoints or Google Slides, just different layouts. Anyway, I just thought it would be a good time to release some of my thoughts and goals and lay them out before my eyes in a creative way that's therapeutic. In case you don't know what a vision board is or why they are significant, I found some interesting information of them. A vision b

    It's been a few days since I posted due to a couple of work days I picked up. I've decided I want to switch directions in my career path so I'm adamantly working in order to prepare for school. However, this post isn't about my change of heart with my career, but instead it's about a few issues I've encountered with blending my family. I'm weary of the subject because it seems nearly impossible to break the stigma behind step parenting. It's been a huge challenge that I'm still trying to overcome. I have a good relationship with my step kids, and my husband and I have had a success at all our children being very close knit. The difficulty comes from outsiders lack of understanding of the step parenting role. Showing up with my spouse at a teacher conference doesn't equate to I'm here because "I want to be seen as my stepchildren biological parent." Taking them to the doctor office due to my spouse having a work schedule conflict

    As a married person, it's rare to hear positive affirmations surrounding marriage. Whether you're looking at tv, your social media feed, YouTube, or even listening to co- workers you're destined to hear negative speech regarding the institution of marriage. The reasons vary for these bias ideas, but I wish people would consider a few factors before filling your ears with non-sense that may only apply to them or people they knew. Everyone's relationship is unique to their personalities and beliefs. People marry for different reasons and start or never start families based on what's best for them. People marriages also end for different factors. If you had a bad marriage, it doesn't mean someone else will.  However, this is the real world and rationality is usually not a favorable trait amongst us humans. Anyway, here's a general list of 6 things that I hate hearing about marriage. 1.) All People Cheat- Until the whole world allows this study to be conduct

   The last few months, I've been still dealing with virtual learning. That hasn't been too bad because I've always said eventually I'd homeschool so I've used this as a trial period. I've always stocked up on learning materials and spent a great deal of my downtime on educating my kids. However, I guess I've expected for their formal school years to be equivalent to mine and I've been highly disappointed.  I'm wearing thin with the curriculum of the public school system. I'm tremendously grateful to all the educational professionals that teach children for a living and deal with the ever changing budget cuts. I'm also grateful to the board members that relentlessly tackle difficult decisions relating to children and their parents. This gratefulness doesn't surpass my frustration with the curriculum. Some of the topics are raced over and no homework is assigned nightly. When I was a kid, homework was what helped reinforce the lesson learn

Hi March! It's almost Spring time and that's great news! I'm a bit tired of so much cold weather and I'm looking forward to Spring! This month I'd like to continue executing my 2021 plans and adding new ones. Here's a few of them:  1.) I've been having a decluttering challenge in my home the last few months and it's been going quite well. With my kids constantly growing, there's is always something that we don't need anymore. Plus, getting rid of things and being organize is suppose to help with your natural Zen.  2.)  I have to update my music playlists! I have to be in the mood to listen to music. However, I know listening to music is a great way to help with mood management. I always need something to lift my mood because it's easy for me to have a dampened spirit sometimes.  3.) I've forced myself to eat salad as a quick way to get the correct servings of vegetables and honestly it's not so bad! I've been incorporating a salad