7 Things I Learned As A Child

1. Be polite – Say please and thank you.  Say excuse me. You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar; so be polite and make people want to see you come, rather than glad to see you go.
   
2. Pray – I spent a lot of time in youth church; I had some emotional hurdles to jump as a child, and as a result, I learned early on to pray.  I also learned that God hears my prayers, and he answers.
   
3. Be A Good Friend – My best friend and I have been friend for over forty years.  I remember when we were tots, I said something bad to another little girl who was very jealous of our relationship.  This hurt my little friend deeply, but she fought back with some harsh words of her own.  I felt really hurt, but I was more hurt by the choice I made to say it in the first place.  She forgave me, and ever since I’ve tried to be the very best friend I could possibly be.
   
4. Don’t Be Shy – It can affect your self-esteem and your self-confidence. Learn to be bold, it’s okay in most instances. Just do it afraid, and it'll seem really small.
   
5. Dream Big and Often – You can make them a reality, all it takes is a plan, and it’s never too late. But you have to be consistent and disciplined.  And eventually with hard work, they will become a reality.
   
6. Be Creative – I didn’t have much when I was a child, but I always had enough.  I was so creative with how to make paper dolls, I drew their clothes, I made dolls out of coke bottles, and grass and crayons, I made mud pies! I caught butterflies, lighting bugs, worms, played marbles, hop scotch and more.  I never realized I didn’t have a lot.  This also helped me put pieces together (wardrobe wise), which helped bring forth my style sense! well okay, the pieces just looked nice together! LOL
   
7. Be Kind - There is always someone who has more problems than you, and you never know how much it means to smile at someone who’s in pain emotionally.

Letter To My 16 Year Old Self.

Hey you!  yeah, you. How you been?  I’ve been watching you from afar and wanting to come over and speak to you, but I didn’t want to startle you.  See I’m you from the future. It’s okay; I know you can’t believe it.  I’ve learned to live with the tinges of gray peeking through, and the tiny fine lines in the corners of our eyes.  And this weight! Oh my goodness!  I know.  You would’ve never imagines us this size.  But you’d be happy to know I’m working very hard to get rid of about 40+/- pounds so the future-future us can visit in about twenty three years when God’s grace is full upon us. 

But if you have a minute, and it seems you’ve gotten over the shock, let’s talk.  I want to tell you some things that I believe will save us from a lot of worriation, stress, headache and heartache.

He aint gonna last.  You’ll take it hard when you refuse to take him back after the final straw.  You’ll grieve far too long, shed way too many tears before you realize and accept the fact that he was just not built for the long haul, and with him by your side, neither were you. Stop being afraid and move on along.  If you can’t seem to do it, then once the baby gets here in 3 years, take him, run like hell, and never look back.

The same ones that wanted to watch you drown, are the same ones God will make stand before you and watch you swim.  We have some magnificent friends; even though our circle is small, it’s powerful.  You still have those two from elementary school, and you three still huddle (only it’s over a phone now mostly) and tell each other your secrets.  Still.

We fall in love, we fall apart from the heartache of losing it.  Years following the later, God replaces generously, I might add, what we thought for sure we’d lost forever.  And we fall in love again.

We don’t like small talk, and we should’ve paid more attention to the Physical Education coaches in school; they really knew what they were talking about.  It’s so hard now to shake a pound off; it’s doable, but hard.  

Mama and Daddy are in their seventies! Oh my goodness.  They are such wonderful people now that they have grandchildren and great grandchildren.  We have grandchildren! Yup! Four and one on the way.  Our son is married!  He’s a wonderful young man.  We have a daughter!  Remember when we wanted all boys, yeah, that didn’t work out.  Erin is her name, and she has a daughter.  She’s an awesome mother, she tries hard, has a heart of gold.

Grandma, Granddaddy, Uncle Robert, Aunt Clara are all gone home to be with the Lord.  Jason, our dear sweet little baby brother, he joined them this year.  The world is very different without them.  Uncle Willie…oh Uncle Willie, he’s up there too.

Don’t sweat the small stuff.  Continue to read, and study hard.  To whom much is given much is required.  If someone or somebody is always hassling you, and we know who we are talking about, listen, that simply means you are on the right track.  Don’t spend ANY TIME trying to figure out why they don’t like you; they don’t like themselves.  And guess what? it shows.  To this day they are the same idiot doing the same idiotic stuff.  

Do what makes you happy.  We’re so laid back. You and me. We are such hippies! LOL, we’re living here, but we belong in a counterculture place like San Francisco.  We recycle…like crazy, our carbon footprint is very important to us. We’d grow anything if we weren’t so scared of insects!  And I’m natural.  Hair all over the place and I don’t care one bit. Curly hair don’t care!  

My fondest memory of us is when we would walk up the 5-mile rural road by ourselves and walk back, bare feet, and we weren’t afraid of NOTHING! Hair standing all over our head.  We were so free.  People called us country…. we were so blessed.

Oh! and there’ll be a young man that will come along when you’re twenty, the most beautiful eyes you’ve ever seen.  He’ll take you out one time, you’ll talk and talk and talk, but nothing ever becomes of it…..Until now.  Smiling.  He still has those beautiful eyes.  His conversation is more intense now.  He’s all grown up, and a helluva man.  Yeah, something’s becoming of it now. He likes me. I like him back.  

We’re okay.  you and me.  We’re okay.  I love you.  Thank you for passing on the baton, I’m about to pass it on again in about 8 years.  I’ll remember you fondly always, and I’ll write again one day.

-T. 

Five Things I Just Can't Handle

Hey all! Queen She known as Me here.  I’m a Diva journaler, keeping record of everything!  

We all have things that annoy us to no end.  It’s part of life, there is always going to be something (or in some instances someone) that just gets under our skin. I can think of at least five; I’m going to humor you and list them below.  I’d love to hear what some of your butt chaffing pet peeves are, so if you would please, SHARE! Leave a comment below.  Okay here are five for me that turn me into Joseline Hernandez screaming her phrase “I cun not!”

All Images from Google Images

1. People who have bad breath, but they must have a face to face conversation with you

I don’t want to throw etiquette out of the window and scream at you “your breath stinks!” but how dare you insult me by pretending you don’t smell it too! 

2. People who butt in conversations then ALWAYS make the conversation about them.

We were all taught at an early age in kindergarten to not butt in to conversations, it’s rude. Why oh why are you throwing your bad manners 101 handbook out of the window and pretending you don’t know any better?  The world does not revolve around you, other people do talk about things other than you, and simply put, you’re just not as important as you think you are.  Use your manners!

3. A Know It All.

Mark Twain said it best: It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.” For once and for all you do not know everything, and it is perfectly fine to admit it. I will avoid you like the plague in the future if I listen to you ramble on and on just one more time!

4. People who chew with their mouth open

Regardless of what you think, the food in your mouth does not look as appealing to people as it did before you shoved it in there, and I don’t want to see it once you do, so close your damn mouth please!

5. People who waste time

OKAY, this may be my biggest pet peeve of all!  My time is the only thing I can give you, and you can’t give it back.  Please don’t waste it with your BS, please show me that you have at least 1 ounce of regard for something other than your tardy all the time ass.

Hacks!

Hello Divas and Gents, Queen She known as Me here, hoping everything is going well for you all!

I’ve been looking at a lot of YouTube videos, and it seems as if every other one is labeled with the word “hack”; life hacks, funny hacks, holy grail hacks, all kinds of hacks!  So.  What exactly is a hack?  The urban definition of hack and the one I’m referring to (don’t go looking at your computers to see if I’ve taken over the world…I haven’t) refers to any trick, shortcut method of doing something, that increases productivity in all walks of life.  

Okay what’s the difference between a hack and a tip?  A tip is advice that’s given on how to do something, a hack is a suggestion for re-purposing things to reach the same conclusions on that something; a tip for making perfectly round pancakes is to make them nice and small, a hack is to use an old ketchup bottle to dispense the mix.  

Now that I have the meaning of it all, I find myself looking for the almighty hacks…all over the internet!  In doing so, I’ve found some neat ones, but none quite as cool as the ones found on this YouTube channel by 5-Minute Crafts https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9YMpuLDnwo 42 Holy Grail Hacks that will Save you a fortune

Photo from 5-Minute Crafts

If you got some hacks you want to share, drop some down below in the comments section, we’d love to read them! 

Hello. Have a wonderful Day!