Happy Sunday everyone!

Anyone else's bracket busted? Surprisingly for me, I got an FB message from my co-worker that I was in the running and still had teams that are still destined for the final four. Yay me! That may change after today's games...I'll keep y'all posted!

Anywho, I know I said I need to get better about posting more. I'm trying! I'll try harder...thank you all for being so patient with me!

Anyway, over the weekend, I took a trip back to my hometown. Seeing the town now as an adult, I can barely believe my eyes. Usually when I go home, I'm visiting my family there. This happened to be the case as well when I went back. I went out to some stores with my mom to get things for my apartment and we both made the same revelation, we could not move back now...especially in the state of lives now.

But that wasn't the biggest revelation for me. The simple fact that I was able to spend time with my aunts, mom, cousins, and grandma was so precious...it almost made it seem like it was a rarity and sadly, it seems to be the way of life now.

I understand people have to build their own lives but I don't want to get to the point where I'm so busy building my life that I build walls blocking people off. When I was driving into work yesterday, I realized that I have been doing that...and somewhat intentionally too.

I cried a little bit because that is not the person I want to be...so alone and destitute that no one...not even family could reach me. I'm not saying I want to be a complete open book but I do want to return to the openness that I had instead of the focused minded person that I've become that is not even me at all.

So, i will now focus on the good of my days instead of the bad. I noticed that I have tons of notebooks from my college days so now, I will start writing tonight at least 3 things that went well today....well, I'll post it now and I would love to hear from you the 3 things that went well for you today. I hope this inspires you to really see the good of your day and to see how blessed your life really is.

1-I woke up,I'm alive, I'm still blessed. Thank you God!

2-I got a text from a friend--glad to be maintaining this friendship for several years.

3-I had a day off today--especially after a rough shift from work.

I hope to hear from you all soon!

Feel free to share on social media!

IG: ladi_layce

Twitter: ladi_layce

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With love and blessings,

Barbara ^_^

Happy Sunday everyone!

First off, I want to apologize for not writing. I know when I started this blog, I stated a goal of three postings a week. From this point forward, I will work even harder to achieve that. I felt like I have been given half effort to do so in the past but I believe I have renewed focus to achieve this goal now. There have been days that I knew I wanted to blog but did not put the correct amount of effort to do so. I also do not want to blog for the the sake of blogging but actually put out meaningful content for your reading pleasure. To those who have supported my efforts thus far, THANK YOU!!! To those who are new to my blog, I welcome you and hope you continue to check in!

As for this post, I have been thinking about what I wanted to say about the present state of time. If you have been following along, I've discussed the past and future with you all. Now it is time to talk about my present. To be honest, I've struggled with how I was going to approach this topic. I've felt like the past and future were so easy to talk about because it was events that have already occurred and events that have yet to happen. However, talking about what is going on now is difficult because I feel like there is a lot and nothing going on. Then, I remembered the above caption posted on the wall of the church I attend. I knew this is what I wanted to incorporate into my blog because it describes perfectly my current state of being.

When I say a lot and nothing is going on currently in my life, this is what I mean. Currently, I work as a registered nurse at a university hospital setting. A lot happens on my job on a day to day basis. The interactions I have with various types of people that seem normal to me are just about completely chaotic in the everyday world. However, to me, it has almost become completely routine in my line of work. Outside from my career, I attend church, cook, clean, blog, and do other various activities to balance out my "normal" not so normal chaotic work life. So in a sense, there is the a lot part kicking in. I also have days, like yesterday, where nothing is happening---that is nothing too strenuous. Yesterday, the most productive thing I did was wash dishes. I did not cook, do too much cleaning, nor did I hardly answer any phone calls. In fact, I did it on purpose. I actually had a day to myself and watched my shows, pigged out, and enjoyed my state of being almost alone.

Ever since I have started back attending church, I have learned that when it looked like I may to up to nothing, God is always up to something. No matter how alone I want to make myself or secluded I want to be, it does not necessarily mean the grinds of my mind aren't clicking or that I have a true 'off' day...there is something going on. It may not be physically--it could be spiritually, financially, emotionally, and/or socially .

With me saying all of this, it brings me to the caption that I've posted---having that balance of victory for a God designed life. I believe in this moment, it is what I am trying to achieve and to be honest, the process is a lofty one. I do not want to be successful in one area of my life--I want to be successful in all areas of my life.

When people think of success, most may think of material success--cars, money, bling, etc. While those things are nice, they only reflect success in one aspect of a person's life. Just because you're financially stable, doesn't necessarily mean you are relationship/socially stable. And just because you may be book smart doesn't mean you are spiritually stable. I have seen countless people have success in one area that does not spill over to other aspects of their lives.

I know there are areas in my life that need to be worked on so that I can have complete success in my life. That is one of the many reasons I got back involved in church. For me personally, I saw how far God could take me if I just trusted Him. I am so thankful my parents saw that in me at a young age even when I didn't understand it. (I will speak more on this in a later blog post.)

So, presently, if you start to see changes in my life, know this--I am working on becoming a better me--in all aspects of my life. I have been looking up so many projects, things, etc and trying to figure out how to balance it out so I can have the life that He promised me more exceedingly and abundantly. Also, if you see me stop doing some things, it is because it is time for me to move on from those things in order to move into something greater.

In closing, I hope this post inspires you to be a better you then you were yesterday, last week, last month, or even last year. I am saying not you have to make drastic changes but evaluate the small things you can do without and change them into better habits. Once you do that, you'll be surprised at what you can accomplish!

Let me hear from you! What things are you doing currently that inspire you? What are things you want to do currently but have not quite figured out how to do it? What are the things you want to give up so you can do something better? I would love to hear your comments!

Thanks for reading! See you next post!

With love,

Barbara ^_^

Happy Sunday everyone! If you are in NC, I hope you got out to enjoy the beautiful weather today!

In my last post, I talked about stuff I found that invoked certain memories and talked about how my past shaped me into the woman I am today. Today, I wanted to spend some time talking about the future. The funny and circular thing about it I have to talk about my past to propel me to my future. Let me explain.

As I stated, I was looking at stuff that I had when I was moving and it sparked memories. I did the same thing with the photos in my phone and I came across the above photo. I wrote this list out months ago before I graduated from college. It was some ideas of things I wanted to do in the future. I also found another photo list I wrote in my phone and it stated the things I wanted to find in a city and career. Again, I wrote this list months ago, before I graduated.

To be completely circular, I also found a physical list I wrote down of goals I wanted to accomplish in a year. I found this list in a journal and I looked at it and found that I have accomplished almost half of the list. I was pretty stoked and in awe.

The point of it all was in reality, we truly do not know what our futures hold. However, we can plan ahead and get to our goals with a start of an idea.

As I stated in my first blog post, this blog was an idea/thought I had months ago. Now, it's a reality. It is truly amazing what your mind can come up with. However, people may not act on their ideas/thoughts due to a fear, which in reality, it's a thought blocker.

My point is do not let fears hold you back from your future. Write out those crazy ideas, dreams, goals, etc. Who knows? You may be one thought/idea from something that can bring you true happiness, prosperity, peace!

I would love to hear from you! What things do you do to try to shape out your future? Do you plan out things or fly by the seat of your pants?

Feel free to share on social media!

Also, I have all of my Wednesdays off this month so I'll be posting then! At least that is one guarenteed day!

Be blessed!

Barbara ^_^