Yep! I'm still here

I can't believe it's been almost a year since my last post. A lot has happened and on the flip side, not much has changed. Since my June 13th post, I became the mother of a teenager. Yikes! It's been stressful, trying and sometimes I look at my son and think, "that is not the kid I gave birth to." So far I haven't killed him or caused bodily harm. I've been showing great restraint and patience.

Don't let the cute face fool ya

In September, my maternal grandmother passed away. It hit me hard. I mean really hard. She was my last surviving grandparent. She's the one that gave me my name. It still hurts but I know that she is in a better place. Always, the up side to a death in the family is that family comes together. It was great seeing all of my uncles, aunts and cousins. We are scattered all over the country and don't get to see each other as much as we should. With the death of my grandmother, we all made a vow to not let so much time go by without visiting whether it be in a central location or whatever.

The weight struggle continues on. I went to my Gyno at the end of last year and I didn't gain any weight! Woo hoo! But I hadn't lost any either. Boo. So right now, I am using the internet to help me with my weight loss. I'm using the Lose It! app to track my calories and workouts. Thanks to Pinterest, I discovered the workout jar. You put $1 in the jar for every time you workout. Once you get up to $100, you buy yourself a treat. I'm at $15 and I started the Workout Jar back in February. LOL! Baby steps. I have been consistent with tracking my food. Now I just need to do that with working out. Now that the weather is nice, it won't be too much of a hardship going to the gym (I hope). And I have decided to not let anything or anyone get in my way of getting to the gym. I'm putting myself first. Everyone else can wait.

A friend of mine (ex co-worker), Felicia, was diagnosed with breast cancer 2 years ago and she passed away last month. She fought the entire way. She didn't let the diagnosis or the treatment slow her down. She wasn't sure if she would have a little or a lot of time left so she did everything she wanted to do but had always put on the back burner. She traveled to Europe, visited New Orleans. She had her own bucket-list that she was determined to fulfill. I admire her so. damn. much. And I learned so much from her. Life is too damn short. Live it. Love it. Enjoy it.

That's how I want to live my life. Not everyday will be a great day or even an ok day. But I am going to be appreciative that I am alive to LIVE another day. The one thing Felicia taught me was that we should treat our bodies like a temple. She was into holistic, natural remedies and products and fitness. She was a runner and was trying to get me to start running. Thanks to her, I've started making my own products -- facial cleanser, body scrub, hair treatments. It's cheaper, better for you and you actually know what you're using on your body. My husband is on the same healthier living kick. He is about to turn 41 and he does not want to get the "Whitmore belly" as he calls it. So we as a family have cut back sugar, processed foods, red meat. We do allow ourselves to cheat because you still want to have that nice steak for dinner and that yummy cheesecake for dessert. But we are more cognizant of what we're putting into our body. Like I  told my husband, I don't want to be 50 and taking a bunch of meds to be able to function and get through the day. No sir, that will not be me!

Hopefully this won't be my last post for another 10 months. I will be getting back to being more consistent. We're actually going on vacation this summer to Aruba! (That's another motivator for getting my ass in shape). I will be detailing my journey through life. Some of it may be boring, some may be interesting but either way, I can guarantee I will find a way to make it funny!

Easter 2010

We had a great Easter at my parents house. The weather was perfect - mid 80s and plenty of sun. It's been a long time since we've had nice Easter weather. The kids had fun looking for eggs. Darrius' main focus was trying to find the most eggs so that he could remain "the champion". That boy is competitive with everything!

Darrius and Julianna ready to get started.

Ricky and Adrian

A boy on a mission

Raymond, Julie and Adrian relaxing with ice cream

Why so serious?

We had a great day with family. And Darrius is still the Easter Egg Hunt Champion (unofficial title)

World Aids Day

To raise awareness and support the 33 million people living with HIV/AIDS, find ways that you can learn, act, and give.

http://www.worldaidscampaign.org/
http://www.google.org/world-aids-day-2009.html




This is dedicated to my cousin. May he rest in peace.

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I hope everyone has a chance to spend it with their loved ones. I am always thankful for my husband and beautiful son and my family. I'm thankful that I have a stable job in this tough economy and that my husband was able to realize his dream and open his own business. I am thankful for my health. And most importantly I am thankful to wake up each morning and start a new day.

Eat lots of turkey and dressing and enjoy the time you spend with your family.

Happy Anniversary!

Today is my parent's 37th wedding anniversary. Happy Anniversary! They set the standard of what a marriage should be.



I love thee, I love but thee
With a love that shall not die
Till the sun grows cold,
And the stars grow old...

Vacation Part Deux

I'm still recovering from my week in Paradise. The nasty sunburn on my shoulders is now turning into a nasty peeling, scaly mess. I look like one of those aliens from the TV show "V". But the sunburn was worth it. Here's a vacation collage that summarizes how spent our 7 glorious days of relaxation.

Vacation 2009

We're baaack!!! After spending 7 glorious days on the island of St. Maarten, the Whitmore's are back in town and back in the real world. The vacation was wonderful. This is the first time we've taken a whole week for vacation. I can no longer go back to the skimpy 4 or 5 day vacations. On our last day we still weren't ready to leave but all good things must come to an end. We spent our days either by the pool or lounging on the beach. We went to our favorite beach - Orient Bay - not once, not twice but three times! It's on the French side and it is beautiful.

One day was spent shopping to buy souvenirs and look for bargains on jewelry. The Dutch side of the island - Front Street -is known for their great prices on jewelry. It seemed like every store was a jewelry store.

The best part of the vacation was spending it with my family. My parents were able to join us and it was great spending time with them. Darrius was happy to have his Grandma and Pop-Pop on vacation with him. He has already suggest going on another family vacation next year. Destination - Turks and Caicos. Sounds like a good idea to me!

I love my family

*NOTE* I started this post last Monday. For some reason I couldn't get my thoughts together to finish it so I saved it. I now know what I want to say so here it goes:

I haven't posted in a while and I hate that my new post is about death. But I feel that I need to express how much I love my family and how this tragedy really brought it to light. Thursday before last, my mom called me at work to tell me that my Uncle Bo died of complications from sickle cell. He'd been in the hospital for a couple of weeks fighting the latest crises. When I heard the news, my heart started hurting. Uncle Bo is my one of my dad's younger brothers. My dad has 5 brothers and 4 sisters. Living with sickle cell, my uncle was constantly in and out of the hospital. But he would always fight through. This time his body couldn't fight any longer. I was able to see him while we were visiting for Thanksgiving. I am grateful that I had that time with him. I am thankful that I had my uncle in my life for so long. People living with sickle cell don't have a long life expectancy.


We drove down to Arkansas to attend the wake and funeral. As always, it was great visiting relatives and seeing cousins that I hadn't seen in years. My mom's sister from Detroit drove down to show their support. My mom's brothers and sisters were all there to provide their support for my dad. They grew up in a small town in Arkansas so the community is very close-knit. I was having a great time, putting the reason why we were there to the back of my mind. I won't go into details regarding the wake and the funeral. Everything was beautiful and it was everything my uncle wanted. He wanted his funeral to be a celebration of his life. We can shed our tears, but know that he is in a better place. He's no longer sick, he's no longer in pain. That night (after the funeral, burial and repast) we went to a fish fry. It was a party-like atmosphere. We were laughing, rejoicing, watching NCAA basketball, playing cards, trash talking - being a family. It's a shame that death is what brought us all together.

While my uncle was in the hospital, he made it known that he wanted everyone to come down for the 4th of July. I'm sure he thought that he would make it through this last crises and would be well enough to host a 4th of July celebration at his house. In honor of him, we are going to keep that promise. Family is so important. Death should not be the catalyst for reaching out to your family. We're all busy doing our own thing but we shouldn't let that get in the way of keeping family first. We need to stick together and love each other.

You don't choose your family. They are God's gift to you, as you are to them. ~Desmond Tutu

When you look at your life, the greatest happinesses are family happinesses. ~Joyce Brothers

Road Trip!

Every February we go to a "ski" resort called Massanutten located in Harrisonburg, VA. My father-in-law owns a timeshare there and it has become a family tradition. We snow tube every time we go. The resort uses man-made snow because Virginia doesn't get enough snow to keep the mountain covered. Darrius loves it. There's also snow boarding, skiing, an indoor waterpark and a golf course (for summer visitors). It's a nice, quiet family-oriented place. We arrived Friday and stayed through Sunday. It was unusually warm for this time of year - 65 degrees warm to be exact. But this didn't stop us from slush tubing. Couldn't really call it snow because of the heat and the sun, the snow was melting. We had fun anyway as you can see from my video of me going down the hill. The snow tubing is organized; you buy tickets for a two hour block. And let cattle we're herded up the mountain on this slow "escalator" type device. Then you get in line (there are 7 lanes) and you wait for your turn. It was fun for us - maybe because we don't know any better?

Me on the snow tube...spinning and spinning and spinning!

Darrius was allowed to bring a friend - Jaylin. It was great because we didn't have to entertain him.

We will be going back next February. I just hope the weather cooperates and it will be cold! We were all sweating in our snow suits. Now that wasn't fun.

Cuteness

Here are pictures that Ricky sent of my nephews Adrian and Raymond. They are too cute.