To Edify or Not to Edify...What It Means

ed·i·fy 2
/ˈedəˌfī/ 

Verb 

Instruct or improve (someone) morally or intellectually.

Synonyms: educate 

This is an important word in a successful relationship. If you are not feeding you partner emotionally, intellectually, and physically then your relationship will not grow. A marriage cannot improve without some gardening taking place. You have to make sure your partner knows how you feel about them daily. Sometimes just saying I love you IS not enough. Let them know that you are the happiest person on earth because they are in your life. Tell them that you thank God daily for Him allowing the two of you to meet and become one. Tell them that you appreciate everything they do for you and your family. Let them know you noticed the little thing they did. All these things matter. Even if your partner seems like they don't care about it, they do. Edifying your mate is merely fertilizing your marriage garden. Fertilizer is an essential part of gardening. If you don't fertilize your garden, it may grow but not at it's best. If you fertilize the garden with the wrong stuff, it won't grow. The wrong stuff to fertilize your marriage with is complaining, nagging, ignoring, belittling, talking behind their backs. I think you get what I am saying. But when you fertilize with love, understanding, praise, encouragement, listening, your marriage garden has no other choice but to flourish. Take some time and think about your relationship. Have you edified your partner today?

Changing My Thought Process

This year has already been quite interesting. It has been going by so fast and my baby boy is growing so fast. He is doing things already that I don't think he should be. Anyways, I have began the process of owning my own business. I have became a consultant for Organic Life Products. It was started by a wonderful lady named Montina Portis who I became aware of on YouTube (aka Sparkwisdom). I watched her for a year before filling out the application to be a consultant. I am now working to build my business and introduce what I do to those around me. We are encouraged to get training from a young lady named Dani Johnson and she is awesome. Very blunt and honest. Sometimes you just need to hear it that way. I am in the process of changing the way I think. I figure if I have thought this way all my life and it hasn't gotten me anywhere then why not try and change it. Dani Johnson has so many aspects of life that she speaks on. I haven't even begun to listen to her other stuff just been listening to what she has to say on business.

What if being successful is all in the way you think? Why not change it or at least give it shot? What you (myself included) are doing now is apparently not working for you so why not change it up? We get into our comfort zones and instead of moving around or trying something different we complain and buy lottery tickets or complain and hope that the world around us changes because we want it to. I mean really DO SOMETHING DIFFERENT!

So I am doing something different and I would like for you to check it out. So click below:

Dee Naturals Organic Life Products

BreastFeeding-LOVE IT

It has been two and half months since I gave birth to my third son. I am in love again and its crazy how much love I have for this child. It amazes me that I can love yet another child. Before he was born, I decided that I was going to breastfeed him no matter what. I started out breastfeeding my second son but didn’t really see the benefit and stopped after three months. Really wish I hadn’t done so. I think because I was still young I expected everything to work like the stories I had been reading but of course every story is different and individual experiences are not going to be the same.  I was expecting the weight to just fall off but it did not and I became frustrated and just stopped. How selfish was I? But like I said I was still a young mom (22). Before my third one came along, I made the decision to stick with it even once I went back to work.  This time around it has been awesome. I have support from everyone and it is great. At first I was a little uneasy with breastfeeding around my older kids, but because it didn’t seem to bother them I became more at ease. I am pumping for when I am away at work and everything is working out well. I am just working to build up a stash though; finding that to be a little difficult.  I have lost all the baby weight I gained and then some but this time it really wasn’t about me losing weight but me providing my baby with what he needs. I am enjoying the process. I love to feed him and have him look up into face as if to say, “Thanks mom”.  Not knocking anyone who formula feeds but I see the difference with my older two kids and my youngest already. There are truly some great benefits for him in breastfeeding. I would suggest to all new moms to at least try it. 

Building My Confidence

So this year I would like to do something that I always seem to avoid. I am going to work on my confidence. Let’s see if I can explain my dilemma. I know that I am capable of doing certain things but I am afraid that when it comes time for me to perform that I won’t be up to par. My latest lack of confidence in myself is applying for a job that actually has to do with what I am going to school for. I was a little intimidated when I begin to apply for the job because of the questions that they asked. They begin to ask my experience with the programs that will be heavily relied on to do the job. I guess it’s the way I work. I learn how to do things through trial and error but if I was asked specifically how to do something it may take me awhile to explain. I know that I can do it but I become so unsure about myself. This is how it has always been. I have always been unsure about myself when “people are looking”. When there is no one looking at me, I can do what I need to do with no problem and feel confident about the quality of my work. I don’t know how I am going to build my confidence but I think I will start by applying for the job.

2011 The Year of NEW

2011 was the year of NEW for my family and I. We did so many new things that it really surprises me. I mean we are a laid back group of people and kind of just go with the flow but last year we tried some new things and it proved to be an awesome year.  We started off the year getting a new vehicle and that was great. It was awesome to get a lower car note. We then began planning our first family vacation – New York. This was very new for us because the farthest we had gone as family on trips was to my family’s hometown in Louisiana. It would be the first time that my kids would fly and I was truly worried about that but it turned out they did much better than I thought they would. They were really unimpressed it seemed but they did enjoy seeing the clouds from above. Before the vacation though, we found out that we were pregnant and even though it was kind of planned, it still surprised us. I felt like because I was ten years older than what I was when I had my first two, I thought it was going to be much harder to get pregnant. So on our family vacation we were four and half because I was five months pregnant. That was also new thing traveling while pregnant. I will say I was worried for nothing but it was a bit uncomfortable being a plus size woman.  That is a whole other post though.  So right before I had our third son, we moved into our first house. There is nothing like your first house. We don’t have to worry about any body above us or below us. It is quite nice. And then the major finale of 2011, me giving birth to our 10 lb 9 oz baby boy after Thanksgiving. So wasn’t expecting him to be such a big guy. So that was a quick overview of the year we had last year. I can’t wait to see what this year holds for us – me and my crew.

  

Real Mothers

Okay so I have not made a post in awhile. I will be working on improving that once the semester is over. I wanted to address this topic though so I wouldn’t forget.  I admit that sometimes I waste my time and watch Teen Mom and Pregnant at 16. They are really a shame to me that these girls continue to have children at such young ages. But I don’t understand is them making it harder than they really have it. Now not all of them have true family support but most do. On Friday on Good Morning America, I watched them salute a mother who begin being a mother when she was 18 to her brothers and sisters after their mom passed away. Her mom asked her to keep the family together and I believe that it was a total of nine and then she got married and had six of her own. That would be a total of 15 children that she raised and did without a whole bunch of money or anything out of the ordinary.  I watch as these girls complain about everything from not being able to go out or something petty and I think really? You are getting paid to allow cameras follow you around and yet you still complain about petty crap.  I know motherhood at a young age is hard but you guys are ahead of the game by getting paid the amount of money it takes most of us years to get to and at 16 you are getting paid for not making good choices.  I really would suggest these girls really take time to look at their situations objectively and realized how blessed they truly are.  Motherhood is not an easy job by any means but you laid down knowing what could come of it so stop whining and do what you have to.  I am now stepping down off my soapbox and would like to wish everyone a HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY!!!

You Don’t Like My Natural Hair…Oh Well

So you meet someone and everything seems to be going fine. Then all of sudden he tells you that he is not feeling your fro. What to do? Personally chunk the deuce. You cannot allow someone to change you because they don't like one thing about you. So you don't like my natural hair and you instead would like me to go back to poisoning my body on a regular basis? So I guess that means we can't be together if that is the deal breaker. In the natural community, there has been buzz about Method Man saying that he could not date a woman who has natural hair because their hair is not "did". My response to that is he doesn't know what it takes to take care of my fro and keep it healthy. So I will say that his ignorance really doesn't bother me at all. If you can't be with someone because of their hair then maybe you are not ready to make a commitment to someone. I am lucky to have a man who loves my natural hair and sometimes I think he loves it more than I do. He is not a fan of my product junkism but I am working on that. Method Man's remarks didn't hurt my feelings. It just lets me know that he does not know what having natural hair is all about. So that is my position and I am sticking to it.