Be Inspired: Phenomenal Woman

This is so beautiful. I hope it brightens your day.

Find out more about the Because of Them We Can Campaign. 

It's phenomenal.

Black Excellence: Awards Season

The people who know me best know that I LOVE award shows and award show season. I think there is something so special about seeing people so proud of themselves and their peers. I enjoy seeing people on the red carpet that look like me. It makes me incredibly happy to hear how happy they are to be living out their dreams. That is what black excellence looks like

♥

“…thanks for this award, especially on behalf of my daughters, who I want to know, with this nose, this height, this color skin, these arms.. look what you can accomplish.” 

-Chandra Wilson

My People

My People by Langston Hughes

The night is beautiful,
So the faces of my people.

The stars are beautiful,
So the eyes of my people.

Beautiful, also, is the sun.
Beautiful, also, are the souls of my people

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Happy Black History Month♥

Motivation Monday

Just a reminder for anyone who reads this. You are a masterpiece. You matter. Even on your worst days, it's important to remember this. You are special. You deserve good things. You deserve to take a break when you need it. Don't be hard on yourself because you're too special to be treated badly--especially by the most important person in your life, you.

This week, don't forget how special you are. In anything you may face this week, whether it be good or bad, remember that you hold a very special place in the universe. You matter.

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Quote of the day:

 "Stop believing the lies you’ve been told about yourself. You are not worth less than anybody else. You are not inferior or inadequate."

This week keep telling yourself how unique you are. There's no on in the world like you. Have a good week!

Welcome to 2015!

Happy New Year!! 

My first post of the new year comes almost 2 weeks in but I've just been taking it all in. I love the holidays so I enjoy this season. I enjoy celebrating late December and early January so I've been in a in good spirits for the past couple of weeks--for the most part. Happy to say that I made it through one full business week of the new year. My new year started on a pretty good note. Once the weekend was over I went right back into my school and work routine. I felt like I needed a longer vacation but I was excited to be filling my days again.

This year, if all goes accordingly, I will be taking more classes. I'll be more focused on school this year so I'm hoping that this year I can procrastinate less, focus more, and prioritize my energy.

I'm doing the happiness jar again this year. It really reminded me to be appreciative of all the little things that make me smile. Reading everything at the end of the year was such a great activity. I really enjoyed the whole project and look forward to doing it again. When I finish redecorating my jar, I will share the 2015 happiness jar look!

This year, I want to journal more. I was inspired by Pearl Cleage and I want to document my life. It's great to look back and see how much you've grown but it's even better when you look back and read about it and relive scenes from your life as you read the little details would be so much more amazing.

More self love this year!! Every day, more love. Less negativity and hopefully less over-thinking.

Most importantly, I hope 2015 is good to you. Happy New Year.

Looking Back On My Year

This is what my happiness jar looked like coming to the end of 2014. I just finished reading through my happy moments. There were so many! I was surprised by how many notes I put in there because there were times I forgot about the jar for weeks. I noticed that I had a lot of the little things documented. I love that. I'm proud of myself for finding joy in the little things. I hope to carry that into 2015.

Although these were small notes on small pieces of paper, I was able to see the ways in which I've grown. I'm so glad I was able to look back on that. Hopefully, I will be able to grow more and continue to be comfortable in my own skin.

Next time I would make sure to add the dates to every note and to try to put moments in the jar the day they happened. I say that because there were things I added to my jar from previous weeks and my feelings about those moments had changed. I feel like it was important to be authentic. To be happy in the moment. Hopefully next year I can add to my jar closer to when the moment happens.

My happiness jar showed me that it was a good year and I'm very thankful for it. Here's to 2015!!

Books of 2014

I love books! At the beginning of 2014 I made a goal to read more. That was going well and I was reading for pleasure and loving it. Then I started grad school and reading for fun took a back seat but I'm so glad I got to read each and everyone of these books this year. Here is the list with links to my blog posts about them:

• For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When The Rainbow is Enuf by Ntozake Shange
• Mom and Me and Mom by Maya Angelou
• Sister Citizen by Melissa Harris-Perry
• The Other Side of Paradise by Staceyann Chin
• Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer
• On The Come Up by Hannah Weyer
• Things I Should Have Told My Daughter by Pearl Cleage

Mom & Me & Mom

It's no secret that I love Maya Angelou. I feel that she's guiding me through life. I'll jump at any chance to read more of her words and learn from her. I've already shared quotes from this book on my blog. This book really spoke to me. It was so intimate and personal. I loved it.

Favorite quotes:

• "Love heals. Heals and liberates."
•  "I may never be known as a philanthropist, but I certainly want to be known as charitable."

 Must read for all my Maya admirers!

Books I Read: Things I Should Have Told My Daughter

Things I Should Have Told My Daughter by Pearl Cleage

I looked into reading this book after seeing Pearl Cleage on Melissa Harris-Perry's show. My favorite thing about this book is that these are her actual journal entries from a decade of her life. It really made me want to journal more. I really need to work on writing more. At least once a week. I did enjoy following her life and I feel like this is a book I can go back and read during different stages of my own life.

Here are some quotes that I loved:

• "I will claim myself for myself."
• "I told a student today: You shouldn't be so hard on yourself. Praise yourself as much as you fuss at yourself.' And I could have been talking to myself. And I was. And I will."

I think this is a great read for women, activist women, women of color--particularly black women, and writers. I really enjoyed it.  

Books I Read: Sister Citizen

Sister Citizen by Melissa V. Harris-Perry

I read this book earlier in the year and I absolutely loved it. I had so many thoughts on it that I never even took the time to sit down and write about it. I wrote all over the pages and  I have stickers over this whole book. I don't even know where to begin.

My favorite aspects of this book:

• The connections made between American classics like Their Eyes Were Watching God or For Colored Girls and the issues that Black women in America face daily. 
• I loved the use of poetry, quotes, and imagery. I wasn't expecting that in a political book.
• I really enjoyed the quotes from various women from different places. I think it's so important for people's voices and experiences to be shared. 
• The range of topics the book covered. It raises discussion of religion, strength, beauty, disasters, and so much more. It reaffirms the importance of looking at every aspect of life. We have to be aware of how race, gender, class, past experience, religion, etc all intersect to shape our lives. All of those pieces to our individual puzzles mean something. They set us apart from one another and we have to recognize those differences.

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This is what the book looked like after I was done:

I'll select a few of the quotes I highlighted:

• "It is so easy to be hopeful in the day time when you can see the things you wish on. But it is was night,  it stayed night. Night was striding across nothingness with the whole round world i his hands." -Zora Neale Hurston
• "...this book makes the claim that the internal, psychological, emotional, and personal experiences of black women are inherently political. They are political because black women in America have always had to wrestle with derogatory assumptions about their character and identity. These assumptions shape the social world that black women must accommodate or resist in an effort to preserve their authentic selves and to secure recognition as citizens. This is less a book about what black women do to become first-class citizens than one about how they feel while they are in that struggle."
• "If Black women were free, it would mean that everyone else would have to be free since our freedom would necessitate the destruction of all the systems of oppression." - Combahee River Collective
•  "Sometimes black women can conquer negative myths, sometimes they are defeated, and sometimes they choose not to fight. Whatever the outcome, we can better understand sisters as citizens when we appreciate the crooked room in which they struggle to stand upright."
• "...shamed individuals see themselves as particularly worthy of punishment. Shame eats away at self-esteem and makes every social role more difficult."
• "If African-American women are led to believe that strength is an essential, inborn characteristic--a racial rule--then showing weakness or asking for help becomes traitorous."

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I think everyone should read this book.