Moving...

I haven't forgotten about my promise to blog once a week. I've just been trying to figure out how to move my blog without losing all my content. I thought about just starting from scratch, but then I figured...Naw! I want to continue to share all of my journey even the fact that I was on hiatus for so long. Anyway, you can find me here. See ya, on the other side.

P.S. Thanks TiffanyinHouston for the help!

2011 Goals...

Well, let me start off by saying that I had a very good week. I'm starting off 2011 on the right foot. Now, let's just hope I can keep it up. Let's jump into my 2011 goals. I have some challenges ahead but I'm trying to be realistic about it all as to not get to overwhelmed.

First, I would like to keep up with my running/working out. My big goal this year is to do a half marathon. I have one picked out already the Marine Corp Half Marathon in May. I'm gonna sign up for it this week. I'm also gonna do some of the same races I did last year. I would also like to incorporate other types of exercises into my workout rotation. Just this past week I tried Zumba and Bikram Yoga. I really enjoyed them both! Bikram Yoga is not for the fate of heart and is VERY intense...I wasn't quite sure I was gonna make it through the whole class. But I did it! And I plan on doing it again this week.

My second goal this year is to finally take the LSAT and start applying to law schools. I took an LSAT class last summer, but then studying started falling by the wayside. To be honest I was just scared that I wouldn't do a good job. The LSAT score is VERY important and I'm not very good at standardized type tests. I plan on taking the test in June. I figured that will give me plenty of time to study and to retake the class.

The last major goal is to save money. I'm a pretty frugal person... I don't buy a lot of unnessary things, but I do need a little help budgeting. Around November of last year I started tracking my spending using Mint Now, I'm trying to create a livable budget, so that I can save money to buy a house at some point in the next 5 or 6 years. Wish me luck!

In order to accomplish my goals I decided that this year I would write them down in a notebook. I divided my goals into quarterly benchmarks to make them easier to focus on. Futhermore, I wrote out a monthly goal list and then each day I make a list of each thing I want to accomplish towards that goal. I know that seems like a lot...but that's what I need to keep focus and on task. Adult ADD is deep and it's real...LOL!

That's about it for now...I'll make sure I'll update you all every so often about how I'm doing. How do you stay on task when trying to accomplish your goals?

Happy New Year!! Happy New Me!!

I've been MIA for a long, long time, but now I'm back. I had to stop blogging back in 2009 because I realized that I was starting to become a sad sack. I was tired of always feeling like I was writing nothing but how my life sucked. I felt bad and my writing reflected that.

I spent the rest of 2009 slipping downward on a slippery slope of depression. Until it just culminated in my getting a wake up call from a couple of friends. I realized then that I had to do something. I could no longer allow my life to go drifting by and waiting to get better and feel better. December 2009 I made a plan. I literally named it "A Guide to How to Save my Life", because I knew I needed saving. And I knew the only person that could do it was me. No amount of therapy, venting to friends or medication would help me. I had to get off my butt make a plan and stick to it. So, I made an outline listing all the areas that I wanted to improve in. At that time I still wasn't sure how I was going to implement the plan, but I prayed that God would help me find a way.

A couple of months later I found my lifeline...one of my co-workers, who lives near me decided to start a walking group to help us all lose a few pounds before summer. She invited me to join and although I don't really like mixing my business life with my personal life...I joined. Then things started to take off from there. One of the ladies mentioned running and I used to run and enjoyed it very much, so I decided to start running again in April and ran my first race of the year that very same month...a 10K. My love of running was rekindled...my mental health improved tremendously and I started to lose those 15lbs I'd picked up along the way.

During 2010 I ran 7 races including the Army Ten Miler with some of the Usual Suspects. Although, I still have my moments I'm in a much happier place then I was a year ago. Barring any real injuries or illnesses I plan never to stop working out, because I know that for me working out is directly related to my moods. And does WONDERS for my mental health!!

Yesterday, I sat down and wrote out all of the goals I want to accomplish this year. I will share them on a later post. Of course one of my goals is to blog...at least once per week. I will write a post every Sunday and if I don't call me out!

Well, anyway I hope you all have a Happy New Year! I know I will!

My Weekend

My weekend started out a drag, but ended on a nice note. Last week I wasn't feeling very well. I was exhausted and just down right blah. Nothing I did was getting me out of the funk I was in.

Anyway, Friday after work I ran a few errands and then went home, ate dinner, cleaned a little and got in bed and vegged out until I fell asleep. I woke up at 3am and turned the TV on and watched infomercials for a while. When I finally realized that I was not going back to sleep I popped in a DVD.

Once the movie was over it was time to get up and get ready to go to the salon with Monnie. She has been after me for months to get some layers cut into my hair. I agreed that something needed to be done, but I wasn't sure what. I had been itching to get it cut, but I wasn't sure what style. We went to this Dominican salon and at first I was a little nervous...well I was a lot nervous. I mean there have been so many times that I've left a salon unhappy with my hair. After getting my hair washed and roller set and watching the various stylist I began to relax a little and felt safe enough to allow the stylist to cut my hair. I wanted long layers, but she said that I needed a good trim. I knew what was going to happen next, but I figured what the hell it's just hair it will grow back. When she was done with my hair I was floored at how good it looked and how much I absolutely loved it!!!

*Next, Monnie and I scooped up our boys (E and Prince Ziggy)and we all went to lunch to celebrate the Hostess' birthday. A fun time was had by all, which included Sissy, Gladys, Onefromphilly and Honest. When E and I got home we just relax the rest of the afternoon.

Sunday was spent first with sleeping in and going to the grocery store. Then I spent all afternoon cooking up my food for the week. Since classes are starting up soon I need to cook a few meals to freeze for those days I am too busy or too tired to cook a good meal. Today I made navy bean soup in the crock pot (we will eat half this week and I will freeze the other half), Italian chicken chowder, turkey meatballs (which I put in the freezer for later), roasted veggies, brown rice and salad. Next weekend I will make some more food to freeze. This really helps cut down on the fast food runs. My pledge for 2009 was no fast food, so hopefully we can do it. I really do love to cook, but with all that I have going on sometimes it is hard to find the time to really make something good. I am going to make the effort this year to have a home cooked meal at least 90% of the time.

Well that is about it. I have to mentally prepare myself for the back to work grind...sigh. I'm really not sure what I'm gonna do about my job situation once I graduate. Part of me wants to leave, but part of me realizes that it might be better to stay awhile longer and see what the economy is gonna do. I guess this summer I will just organize my resume and send it out and see what comes up. I don't have to take a job if I don't want it.

Have a great week!!

The Interview

1. If you want to participate, leave me a comment saying, “Interview me.” (And your e-mail address, please.)

2. I will respond by emailing you five questions. I get to pick the questions.

3. You will update your blog with the answers to the questions.

4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.

5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.

My interview questions came from Kayla.

1. If you could change what you do for a living, what would you do? Why? Well, this question is actually a pretty easy one, because I am working on changing what I am doing for a living as we speak. Right now I'm a paralegal and even though I enjoy most of what I do I would rather have the salary that comes with being an attorney. This is the year that I am going to be taking the next steps that I need to take to go about going to law school. Hopefully, I will be accepted and start that chapter in my life no later then the fall of 2010.

2. What's one cd you're ashamed to tell people you have?
This is a tough one because I have such an eclectic taste in music and I have never been ashamed of what kind of music I like. I had to actually look at my CD collection and see what I would less likely like to be caught jammin' to in my car. For lack of a better answer I would have to say the soundtrack to the movie "Grease". I love that soundtrack, but would probably a little embarrased to admit that I know every lyric to every song including dance moves.

3. Do you remember your first kiss? If so, who was it with?
Unfortunately, I don't remember my first kiss, but I assume it was with my first boyfriend Paolo. He was from Brazil and we dated in 9th grade for a few months.

4. Do you have any regrets about losing someone you dated?
I'm sure I had regrets after we broke up, but at this point in time I realize it was for the best.

5. Did you ever own MC Hammer pants?
No. Thank God I was never that cool.

Rambling Thoughts

All day long everyday all I do is think. Mostly because I only use about .05% of my brain power 95% of the time at work. When I come home I usually jot down somethings in my notebook, but by the time I have time to sit in front of the computer I get writer's block. I can't come up with anything that I want to write. Even though just a few short hours earlier I had several ideas dancing in my head just bursting to get out.

My summer class is finally over and I have about two and half weeks until Fall semester starts up. E starts school next week and I am kinda of dreading it, because that means more running around for me...sigh. He is spending his last week of vacation with my grandparents. It is so nice to have a week of peace with no kid and no school. Unfortunately, I have a list of stuff that I need to get done before the week is out, so no rest for the weary.

I wonder everyday if I will ever be happy? It seems no matter how much I accomplish I just keep wanting more. For example today I was looking at the requirements for graduating with Honors at my school. Even though I have 5 classes left (my last class has not been graded yet) and a pretty good cumulative GPA I am not sure if I will be able to graduate with Honors. I mean it should be good enough that I am graduating at all, but I am upset because I might not make Honors. Why oh why do I have such ambition in my soul? It is very frustrating.

Depression sucks.


I waste so much of my energy just fighting my depression every single day. I could be doing so much more, but I have to literally kick depression in the azz every minute of every day. I mostly win all my little battles. But will I ever win the war? Will I ever wake up in the morning genuinely be happy to be alive?


I am not good with relationships. I tried in the past and have failed pretty miserably. I am afraid to try again.


Fear is a funny thing. I am a pretty fearless person when it comes to most physical thngs. That's probably because I have a death wish. My biggest fear? Rejection. I just recently discovered this about myself. Now if only I could figure out how to cure it.

Stemming from my fear of rejection I have an extremley hard time getting close to people or really letting people into my inner circle. I think this is what causes my relationships with men to fail. I have been told on more then one occassion I am a bit...ummm... cold. I mean on the surface everything seems fine, but when it counts I am just afraid to let anyone in really.

Because of this I often feel like I am on the outside looking in when it comes to my friendships. I try to appear like I am opening up. I am not sure how successful I am at faking the funk though. It is hard to explain how I feel. I wish I could make people understand.

I know I live in a prison of my own making. I know I am my own worst enemy, but I have lived in this place for so long. I am comfortable. Even though I wish I could be different. I am afraid.

I know...

All About the Benjamins

Busy, Busy, Busy...

I know I really need to schedule in some downtime into my life, but there always seems to be something that NEEDS to get done. I guess I should be grateful, because there was a time in the not so distant past where my life was totally crazy and I had no sanctuary of my own to rest. Now at least I have my own apartment as meager as it might be, but it is all mine as long as I pay the rent...LOL.

My next major goal in life, besides finishing my undergrad degree, is to become a homeowner. Sadly, if the economy does not start to get better my dream may not get realized for sometime. I really do hope that all of the years of sacrifice I have had to make in order to get my degree pays off in a big enough way. I mean I am being realistic I don't expect all of my financial difficulties to go away with one fell swoop (although that would be nice), but I at least will like to have some breathing room in my budget to really start aggressively saving up for my own home.

It really has been very hard for me to save, because something always seems to come up. It really doesn't help that the price of everything seems to go up by the minute and my salary in comparison seems to stay stagnate. I guess the best thing I have going for me is that I am inherently a saver and I don't go spending my money all willy nilly on ridiculous things that I don't really need but just WANT. I have never been one to try to keep up with the Jones' so to speak. I could care less what they have and I am definitely not trying to go broke getting it. I try very hard to live within my means. Most of the time I am successful, but sometimes I do have to steal from Peter to pay Paul.

The one thing I am very proud of is that I do not have a whole lot of debt and I have decent credit. I would love to say I have great credit but my credit is pretty new. I thought I was doing fabulous when I was in my early 20's because I had no credit card debt, because I had no credit cards...LOL. All I ever heard was people talking about all this mounting credit card debt they had especially in the military. No one ever told me that I NEEDED credit in order to get a great interest rate on say...a new car or get an apartment. But I digress...

Like I was saying before I don't have a lot of unnecessary debt. I have two credit cards one major one and one clothing store one that I am about to get rid of. I only have the clothing store card because when I got my first job out of the military I needed new clothes right away. I have a balance on my major credit card...in fact it is maxed out right now because I used it to pay tuition. As soon as my GI Bill comes in next week...the balance goes bye-bye.

The next piece of debt I have is a small student loan that I regretfully had to take out last year. I was very broke and I needed to get a new computer and to pay the upfront costs for my tuition. Times were very lean, because of some medical things I had to take care of for E. I really needed to finish school so I took out a small loan to get started, but I have great interest rate and I should be able to pay it off fairly quickly.

My last part of my debt is my car note, but in a few short months it will be paid off. I decided once it is all paid for instead of looking at the extra cash as free money. I am going to direct deposited into a high interest avings account and pretend I don't have it. That added on to the amount I already deposit should accumulate into a nice down payment for a home pretty quickly.

Well basically this is the start of my plan and hopefully nothing major comes up that I have to tap into that savings account for anything. This year I also cut out all unnecessary spending, and I am really budgeting everything to the penny. I make sure that I do give myself an allowance, so that I am not feeling too restricted. I give myself a certain amount of cash every pay day to do with what I want.

So, far my plan seems to be working and I actually had a little extra money left over after all bills were paid and allowance was doled out this month. I am putting half of my surplus into savings and the other half...Hmmmmmm...

Oh yeah...If you have any money saving tips or tips on buying a home. I will be more than happy to listen. Like most things in my life I am going at it alone.

Countdown to Graduation ...

8 more classes to go not including the class I am about to finish up in a couple of weeks. I am going to take four classes this semester it sounds like a lot, but really two of those classes are only one credit weekend lectures I figure if I take three of those then I will have my last 3 credits for electives take care of without stressing myself out too much.

Every day I get more and more excited over getting my degree and wondering what doors it could open up for me career wise. Now I am not being too unrealistic I know that my undergrad degree is only going to take me so far, but I will be one step further then I am now. I have been working towards this degree for more years then I care to admit, but barring any catastrophes it will be in my hot little hand no later then May of 2009. YAY!!! What a sense of accomplishment I will feel I have been tossing around the idea of not going to the graduation ceremony, because I am not really into all that formality. I think I just might dawn my cap and gown and proceed across the stage anyway, if not for me, than for E. He needs to see what it is I have been busting my azz for all this time. He knows I am in school and what it means (more money), but he truly doesn't understand the impact.

I would love for E to go to college right after high school and get that whole college experience that I missed. I am sometimes totally envious of people who have those four years to reminisce about especially those who joined fraternities and sororities. I ALWAYS wanted to join a sorority when I was a kid because my older cousins joined and it seemed like so much fun. Oh well I may not have had the chance to be in a sorority, but I was in the biggest brotherhood there is the U.S Army and I would not change those experiences for the world. Talk about being hazed!!! gee...

Anyway, I am just rambling now. This next year is going to be extremely busy for me, but I am determined not to put any more pressure on myself then there already is. I am just such a perfectionist though so it comes second nature and the fact that I am just mere fractions of points away from graduating with honors. but if does not happen I will be alright. I think....LOL!!