Friday Five Recently | Week 4

Hello February! The month of my people aka Black History Month is officially here! I’m looking forward to continuing to celebrate my culture with my family.

This month also marks my official start of working towards knocking out my goals for the year. I used the entire month of January to really focus on what I want to accomplish and come up with plans on how to get those finish lines. So I’ll be sharing a few of my goals and resolutions for this year later on. For now let’s catch up. 

Celebrated |  Moo and I celebrated our birthdays right before the holidays.  I totally forgot to document it here on the blog.  However, I did vlog Moo’s birthday which just so happened to fall on the same day as our town’s annual Christmas Block Party.  Watch the vlog below.

   

I’m pretty sure I vlogged a bit of my birthday, but my video editor stopped working.  So, I haven’t gotten around to editing the footage yet.  I’ll save that for a Throwback Thursday or Flashback Friday post.  Also, we had a good time celebrating Christmas at my baby sister’s.  

She and my brother put together a very delicious spread.  And we got the best Christmas presents which were my aunt coming from the hospital on Christmas Eve and my mom’s doctors were finally able to get her condition under control.  So she didn’t have to be admitted to the hospital at all during the hospital and she was feeling much better since they had finally found medicines that worked.  And I just want to say thank you to everyone who lifted her up in prayer!

 Pissed |  So since the whole Jussie Smollett incident folks on social media have been sharing their personal experiences and resharing other incidents from the new of other people’s experiences with racial and homophobic attacks, both physical and verbal.  Reading all of the stories has me even more pissed and more than a little hot under the collar that we even have to deal with these things STILL.  I’m pissed because I’m tired of feeling unsafe as a Black person, as a person with brown skin.

I’m pissed because this “great” country is supposed to allow everyone the right to pursue life, liberty and happiness, but it seems that right is only applies to a select few.  And folks want to take about how much this country has come a long way and how we should be content with that for now.  Must be nice for those folks to feel safe enough to even think about feeling content with the way things are now.

For people of color and the LGBTQ+ community, we’re not safe in our communities, in own homes, in our schools or churches.  We’re not safe walking down the street or coming out of a Subway restaurant.  Living in a constant state of having to always be on guard and hyperaware is mfing exhausting af.

As a parent raising two Black children, I hate that enduring racism, homophobia, and police brutality (just to name a few) is still considered “the norm” for us.  Non-black people love saying, “Well, look how far your race has come” or “Slavery was years ago.”  And I just laugh because if we seriously take a look, we’d see that my race hasn’t come very far at all and that a lot of what we’re still fighting against today is still a form of slavery and Jim Crow!! 

I’m over people trying to silence us because sweeping these issues under the rug doesn’t get anything solved.  And furthermore, why should we shut up, sit back, and just take it?  We literally can’t afford to sit in a corner and hope everything works itself out.  We’re losing our lives, our moms, our dads, our sons, our daughters, our husbands, our wives, our friends, etc. 

Fail |  I had such high hopes for NaNoWriMo 2018.  I really wanted to reach the 50k word goal.  The universe had other plans though.  I’m not going to beat myself up about not hitting 50k in 30 days.  I’m still working on my novel and making good progress.

I’m loving my current cast of characters and their story.  I can’t wait until this project is done and I can put it out into the world for consumption.  Plus, I’ll have another chance to hit 50k in this year’s NaNoWriMo.

Survived |  We survived the first half of the school year!  Praises!  Homeschooling two kids in different age groups and grades isn’t for the weak.  We’re already counting down the days until Summer Break gets here.  This year was definitely a lot more challenging than last year.

Also, I’ve realized that I need to do a better job of chronicling our homeschool journey.  There are so many stereotypes about homeschooling and even more about Black homeschoolers.  I want to be a voice and advocate for other parents, especially Black parents and parents of children with learning disabilities and special needs.

Restarted |  Last year I tried to take up bullet journaling.  It started off well, but I didn’t stay consistent with it.  I started looking at other people’s bullet journals and getting a little frustrated with how beautiful their layouts looked compared to mine.  Comparison is indeed the thief of joy.  So I should have known better.

This time around, I’m staying in my lane, coming to terms with my artistic limits, and just enjoying the process.  That said check out my bookshelf I drew to keep track of all the review copies of books I receive from publishers.  I think it turned out pretty good.

Let’s chat in the comments.  Do you bullet journal?  Or are you counting down to Summer Break like me?