II had to trim the video for YouTube so you miss my announcement that everything about this video was done solely with my iPhone. I recorded it with the phone, edited it with an app called Splice, added music and uploaded to YouTube. I’m typing this post using the WordPress app. I’m letting my smartphone be smart.
The Splice app did almost everything I needed it to do. My video was over 16 minutes and YouTube only allows you to upload a video 15 minutes or less. I would have liked to splice the video in the middle and cut out a section where I rambled a lot and then add a transition. But l could only set a beginning and end with the app. No splitting in the middle. At least not that I was able to figure out
In another note, remember how I’d been suffering from insomnia since about October? Now my body is making up for it. Last night I fell asleep at 8 and slept for 10 straight hours. Sleep is cutting into my productivity.
Have you been keeping up with the clean eating boot camp on the Black Girls Guide to Weight Loss site? By now you should be drinking a couple glasses of water before you have any soda/juice/sugary drinks, avoiding fast food and planning your meals…even. If they’re frozen dinners, and snacking on fruits and veggies instead of chips or cookies. How are you doing? My water intake is pretty great and I eat apples and oranges as snacks at work. I’ll talk more about my fitness goals in another post. Enjoy the video below!
In my generation of cousin’s on my grandmother’s side I’m the 6th of 9 and as you know by now, I’m the planner/organizer/birthday giver/baker…etc. So when my birthday rolled around I didn’t expect anyone to put anything big together for me because…well because no one ever has. It’s clearly established that the best birthday weekend I ever had was in 2007. My cousin Danny started asking me 2 weeks before my birthday what we were going to do and where we were going to go. After taking everyone’s budget and likes into consideration and consulting with my online birthday coupons, I told Rollo that I wanted to go to Chili’s. She suggested the location closest to her house and I sent out a text (after Danny continued bugging me about it). I spent Friday morning going to all my fabulous friends at Sephora, Aveda, Bath & Body Works, Aeropostle, and Edible Arrangements and putting together cute little swag bags for all my female cousins joining me for dinner at 7. So imagine how pissed I was to be sitting at Chili’s at 7:22pm and no one had shown up yet. I had called Rollo and she didn’t indicate that anything was wrong….but everyone was late!
Eventually two cousins showed up and said “Rollo needs us to pick her up but we don’t know where she lives. Can you show us the way?”
Well why in the hell didn’t Rollo just tell me to come get her? This Chili’s is right around the corner from her house!
When we reached Rollo’s house I noticed a lot of cars and thought “Hmmmm her husband must have guests.” I walked in and saw balloons and food set out on the kitchen island and thought “Hmmmm that must be for her husband’s guests.” I noticed a birthday cake sitting on the table and thought “Hmmmm I guess they’re bringing the cake to Chili’s.” and I went back outside to the car amidst yells of SURPRISE and HAPPY BIRTHDAY to get my other two cousins and tell them to go in and get Rollo so I could go back to Chili’s. It was at the car when Tre’ said “go back inside to your party” that I figured it out.
A SURPRISE PARTY FOR ME!!!!
Yes I missed the balloons.
Yes I missed the question “did we get you?”
Yes I missed all the clues. LOL
and Yes I had the time of my life!!!!!
This year has tied with 2007 to be the best ever! With a track record like this I’m definitely looking forward to hitting 39 in 4 more years. LOL
Over the years that I have been blogging I have often struggled with the image of myself that I want to portray. What is the best Original Diva to present to companies in the hopes of garnering more professional relationships? What side of Original Diva will stack up hundreds of comments? How many of Original Diva’s recipes should be posted to appeal to the foodie community and sell more cupcakes? Should I stop talking about intimacy when I got married out of respect for dude? Should I keep my depression demons to myself so that people don’t think I’m crazy? It’s a struggle.
One day I got an email from someone (that I never replied to cause I really suck at replying to emails) and she said:
I’ve been reading your blog for a long time now. I love your rawness and honesty about everything you go through. I have a sister who deals with depression and I’ve often had trouble relating to how she feels. Your blog has given me a greater understanding of what she might be going through.
~ K.L.
I loved it so much that I added it to my pitch materials to companies. Thank you K.L.
Yesterday I went a looking for an award that I received from Nikki and I was really surprised to see what she said about me.
Diva in Demand. Her blog is beautiful. Its honest. Its sometimes very gut-wrenching. She shares yummy recipes, talks about her downfalls, and you just want to be there with her to cheer her on.
For YEARS I didn’t realize that I suffered from depression. I thought I was just a waste of a person and shouldn’t be alive. I mean really….if this is it…why keep going. I didn’t even realize that it wasn’t natural to want to die. And I had NO idea that I was even laying in bed every day for a year! It never clicked to me!!!!!
I guess my point is that sometimes you get the Diva behind the mask who is refined and a social event butterfly who flits around partner stores in the mall giving out fragrances and bracelets and sometimes you get to see manic/low Diva who just wants to die.
I’m sitting at the Arkansas river listening to my Enchantment station on Pandora and wishing that the water was high enough that I could just walk in and give up. I’m ready to give up today.
I’m afraid of the voices in my head. I’m starting to question that maybe there is something really wrong with me. Who the hell hears voices…DIFFERENT VOICES…and listens to them?!?!? One of them is getting louder and more violent and today she scared me. I think there’s something wrong with me.
Yesterday he asked me if I was happy now. For the entire time I didn’t have a job I kept saying that I needed purpose and organization. I believed that a job and a home would make things better – that I’d feel better. But I don’t. I’m not any happier. I still feel lost and without purpose. I don’t know what I want…to be able to work towards it. I used to! I used to want my own event center with onsite everything and a local bakery and flower shop. I wanted a house with a backyard and family gatherings. I wanted to be in Chicago. I’ve given all that up and now I don’t even have a clue as to what to do next, where to go, what to want…I’m lost…I’ve lost myself.
My self esteem is shot all to hell.
All of the blogs you see online about divorce feature women who made the decision to leave…women who chose to end things. You never hear from the woman whose husband told her that he’d rather die a horrible death alone than be miserable with her anymore and packed his stuff and left. She never tells her story.
I remember dating a guy whose family had these big 4th of July celebrations and I always wanted him to invite me. I wanted to be special enough to him that he would include me in the family gatherings. I married a man that did just that and I never appreciated it.
When I die I want my ashes scattered in the desert right outside of Albuquerque (in the direction of Las Vegas).
Every time I write or type or think about Vegas I cry.
I woke up this morning and realized that I have had everything in life that I had ever truly wanted and I pissed it away in some fashion. I used to say I wanted to have my own business but didn’t have the time. After I lost my job I definitely had the time and I didn’t do anything with it. I always wanted to travel but wanted a “partner” and then I traveled for a year and only left the hotel room when forced to. I said I wanted to live in the south and spent a month in Atlanta without even entertaining the effort to stay and make it work.
At points in my life I’ve had the opportunity to have just what I wanted and I screwed it up. That’s going to be my legacy in life…a screw up.
I’ll be short and to the point. I’m lonely. I got an opportunity today that drove me to tears in the office and while I’m not dismissing the peanut gallery, I wanted a partner to share it with. Someone who would show an interest. I made my very first sample box tonight (pictured below) and I didn’t have anyone here to show it to…anyone to celebrate with me in the fact that I’ve learned how to just cook 2 or 3 cupcakes at a time or taste my lemon buttercream and tell me if it’s tart enough or to tell me that nobody knows the frosting on that ONE cupcake doesn’t look how I wanted it to but me.
I want somebody laying beside me in bed and telling me about their day…discussing what the hell is going on in life and reminiscing on some random memory they were reminded of earlier.
E wear the mask that grins and lies,
