A GREAT love lost...goodbye 2009*

This New Years Eve is a bittersweet one filled with smiles and invisible tears, as my heart grows more and more reluctant to open up to the new unknown, 2010. The last 364 days have been a complete whirlwind of happy times, better times, fun times and adventurous times!! In short, 2009 was the year that I actually had a real life love affair with. Now it's time to say goodbye and like the rest of them, this love affair too, is coming to an end, never to return again...BUT i'm not sad about this one....this decade has made it's impact. I'm eternally grateful for what the last 10years has bought me, taught me and steered me from. I was a girl of 12years going into year 2000, i'm a woman now going into 2010 with independence, self assurance, worldly knowledge, and Bachelors degree in tow. I SMILE about that because with all the last 10years has bought me, it has still ONLY introduced me to the journey that will reveal my destiny. Sent me off with a bang, 2009 was the truth!!! The seventh grader that I started the decade as had no idea what would lay ahead....so much has occured:

1. United States entered 2 wars
2. Tuesday September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks
3. I lost numerous friends and cousins to violence, 3 grandparents to ailments, and motherhood ended before it started
4. Thursday June 2, 2005 I became a high school graduate
5. August 2005 I began college....University of Maryland Eastern Shore
6. February 2006 I met the love of my life
7. April 2007 I lost my beloved Grandmother Edna to Alzheimers & Breast Cancer
8. June 2007 experienced the most horrible breakup ever for me anyway
9. October 2007 I lost my Grandfather John Thomas Bennett
10. December 2007 I was initiated into the Alpha Phi Sigma Criminal Justice Honor Society
11. March 2008 My other grandfather William Crawford passed of kidney failure
12. November 2008 I was finally eligible to vote in my first Presidential Election and had the option to vote for a black man
13. December 2008 I turned 21...a woman at last
14. January 2009 President-Elect Barack Obama was inaugurated as the first African American President of the United States of America and I was there in the FREEZING COLD
15. April 2009 I finally got to visit the Motown Hitsville studios in Detroit Michigan
16. MAY 2009 I BECAME A COLLEGE GRADUATE WHEN I ACCEPTED MY B.S DEGREE IN CRIMINAL JUSTICE
17. June 2009 my first concert @ Madison Square Garden....so pressed*** THE KING OF POP/ENTERTAINMENT MICHAEL JACKSON DIES...never WANTED to see the day!!!
18. July-August 2009 DISNEY WORLD!!! BEST vacay ever!!!
19. August 2009-I started my first job out of college and couldn't be HAPPIER!!!
20. December 2009-I had the best birthday party i'd ever been too....22 BABY!!!!
21. December 2009-I'm STILL in and experiencing LOVE***

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYBODY!!!!! MAY THE NEXT 10 YEARS BE EVEN BETTER!!

Planning BIG**

OMG!!!! I'm a real fiend for the color pink. I like for everything I buy to represent me and well in my room everything is PINK* I love Barbie too even though there is a real shortage of BLACK BARBIE merchandise on the market. Anywho, I was thinking I wonder if there is a barbie themed hotel room anywhere and so I googled it....I'll be damned if one didn't pop up!!!! The Palms Hotel & Casino in Vegas has a Barbie Suite in their fantasy tower!!!! Sooo, while it will likely not be when I go to Vegas this time, I will certainly be planning a stay in the Barbie suite...maybe my 25th birthday when I wild the hell out in various cities. Idk though, I may just go ahead and stay there for a night or two when I go in March* Checkout the pics, cute right????

Kindness inspires kindness....

It being Christmas inspired me to write this post. The other night after partying, my girls and I headed to IHOP. When we got there, there was a man asking people if he could wash their windows in exchange for a few dollars to buy some coffee and maybe something to eat. Of course he asked my friends and I and we all turned him down as we headed into the warm restaurant to order our food without a care in the world. I will be honest and say that I told the man "I am getting ready to eat with the money that I have."

He answered with "Ok, thank you and have a goodnight." I turned to continue walking inside and in that instant conviction fell on my heart. I DID have it to give to that man and here I was about to leave him out in the cold, Christmas week when all he wanted was warmth and something to put in his stomach. I couldn't live with the answer I gave him so I made sure to turn around and correct the situation by giving him a few dollars, apologizing and telling him to have a Merry Christmas and a goodnight.

As I am inside having great conversation, being warmed by my hot chocolate and filling my belly my meal of sirloin tips, hash browns and pancakes, my mind began to wonder and feel further remorse for the way I initially handled the situation with the man outside. The man came back in to thank me again and tell me he'd washed my windows anyway. I thanked him.

I tell that story to reiterate the title of this post that kindness inspires kindness. Imagine what the world would be like if we all checked ourselves and spent our days trying to be a blessing to others as opposed to judging, condemning, and avoiding those that seem to just be wondering through life.

EVERYONE has a story!!!!!!!!! NOONE says I want to grow up and be addicted to drugs, homeless, abused, live a life a crime, etc. AND it is not for us to judge those fighting such struggles in their lives.....WITH THAT,
decide to be a blessing to someone else by coming out of yourself every now and then and commit a random act of kindness. It doesn't have to be monetary but it could be an encouraging word, a warm smile, honesty, a hug.....HAPPY HOLIDAYS BLOGGERS!!!!! LOVE YOU!!!

OKAY SO I'M PRESSED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

ALL I WANTED FOR CHRISTMAS WAS A PINK LAPTOP AND I GOT IT!!!!!!!!!!!!! THE PINK DELL INSPIRON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I WAS SO DUE FOR A LAPTOP, MORESO AFTER GIVING MINE AWAY BUT NOW I HAVE ONE AND IT'S PINK, THE COLOR OF EVERYTHING WONDERFUL!!!!!!!!!!!

BY THE WAY I'M TYPING THIS ON MY NEW LAPTOP!!!! YEA BUDDY!!!!!!

WHAT IF....

just one or all of the 5 senses you were born with were suddenly taken away from you? Say, you suddenly couldn't feel the embrace of the love of your life or touch, caress them much like you had before. How about not being able to hear your favorite songs, the ones you often sing along to, even though you remember what they sound like...It's the holidays, so what if all of a sudden on Christmas you chew and swallow mama's honey ham, yams, mac & cheese, and famous collard greens but you could no longer taste the flavors you grew to love as a youngin' and expect to indulge in during the holidays? Once more what if you couldn't smell when that fine specimen of a man walked through, wearing Polo's Blue cologne (one of my faves), or look in the mirror and see yourself age (something we all take for granted)?????

We take life's little things for granted, things like the 5 senses. I thought I'd see what you all thought of this because two years ago, I was confronted with these questions. What would I do if it happened to me? How would I cope? How would life change?

You can't miss what you haven't had, but to be born with your senses and become acustomed to treading through life with them and have them taken has to be a scary ordeal....at least I imagine it could be, I could be wrong.

In 2007, I had an earache that I assumed would just go away partly because of my ignorance to ear aches and reluctance to think it was anything of any significance wrong with my ear. However, as the days went by, the pain got worse and worse and after about a week the whole right side of my head began to ache with intensity, and my hearing was almost non-existent on that side. I would talk louder than needed because I couldn't hear myself the way I was used too...It'd effect me when I turned my head, talked, ate, slept or attempted, pretty much whatever I tried to do!! So, with my parents out of state I said "i'm not going to the hospital, imma ask the pharmacy what to do." I did that and THANK GOD there was a nurse there who looked @ my ear and directed me to go straight to the Emergency room. I went, and then the doctor who saw me told me I had a severe case of swimmers ear and that my ear had started closing as a result of being swollen. He gave me an antibiotic and sent me on my way. IT WAS A SCARY SITUATION!!!!

I was thankful it was just an ear infection that could be fixed with antibiotic BUT up until that point I was terrified that something else was going on and I was slowly losing my hearing...remember, I couldn't hear anything on that side. I now make sure to be thankful for EVERYTHING even just waking up in the morning and the abilities to taste, hear, smell, touch and see.

Really though, if you thought or knew you were losing one of your 5 senses, how would react, cope, move on????

The CrackBerry blues***

OMG, I swore I would not become a CrackBerry addict but clearly I have eaten those words. Yesterday, there was a outage of blackberry internet services and I lie to you not, I couldn't function. I don't know if it was having a cell phone that I could only text and use for phone calls (how 90s) or if it was because I couldn't twitter, facebook, instant message, bbm, or download new Blackberry Apps!!!!!!!!! LMAO for some reason I was feenin' to tweet and couldn't for the life of me understand why noone was returning my bbm messages....So yes, the harshness of my reality has been fully realized!!!!

Hello. My name is Tora and I'm a CrackBerry addict (standing up shamefully, headdown, side eye*)

LOL, was anyone else's Black/CrackBerry out yesterday or lastnight....GOD bless you and were you as traumatized as I was....really tho, I need help, clearly!!!

BAD GIRLS CLUB***

So, whose been watching the Bad Girls Club??? I haven't watched since big Tenisha was on there...remember her?? Yea, that was my favorite season thus far and the one after. What happened last night??? Is it OnDemand???