How I Know Bey's Not Pregnant

1. Because she is a workaholic and a perfectionist she would not get pregnant knowing she has a tour to do.
2. She did a show and told the audience that her doctors told her not to. No mother is going to defy doctors at the risk of her baby for some fans. She's weird, but she ain't crazy.
3. She probably just had a sandwich.
4. Every since she announced that she was preggers with Blue Ivy she has broken all of her news herself. First pics of Blue? She broke it. Pics of the baby one years old. She broke it. Beyoncé is not about that "You tell my story" life any more. No, she will be the author of her own story henceforth and forever more. Believe that.
5. Her publicist (and the Bey machine) has not confirmed it.
6. She ain't tryna lose all this tour money.
7. She ain't tryna lose all this endorsement money. (Please believe Pepsi, H&M and whoever else is doling out millions is not trying to hear about her being pregnant at a photo shoot. Nope.)
8. Birth control exists and married people use it. (Contrary to popular belief). She ain't Catholic. Tell a friend.
9. I bought tickets to see her in Vegas and I'm getting a blonde weave and ain't nobody got time to see someone with child try to back it up and drop it. Nope.
10. Necole Bitchie said it's not true. So there's that.

Just That Simple

Sometimes life is not that deep. It just is what it is. Por ejemplo:

T: Did you say cookie?
Coworker: No, but I have a cookie at my desk. You can have it.
T: Oh, no worries. I have cookies at my desk already.
Coworker: Why do you always have cookies at your desk
T: Because I like cookies.

New Car

Don't ask me why this has been sitting in my drafts for four months, but...

With the support of my stepfather and my honey and lots of trips/calls to Penndot, State Farm and my local Chevy dealer, I am proud to say I bought my first card today [read: the day I wrote this].

My mom goes: Scratch it off your bucket list. LOL!

It's a 2013 Silver Chevy Malibu with all the bells and whistles. I'll probably never drive it to Chicago, so just imagine that's what I'm driving when you see me in the Chi.

I can't believe I have a car again. It was strange at first, but not it's just normal. Things can change so quickly.

Blazing the Trail

Again, cleaning out my drafts and remembered that I wanted to post about Basketball Wives. This probably two seasons ago by now. #KanyeShrug

When in a clothing boutique and referencing her man, Gloria used the phrase "Blazing the Trail" to mean "Sowing your oats" or basically saying her man was cheating on her. I think that's hilarious.

Maybe more sad that hilarious, but definitely insightful. When people are in situations that you don't understand or agree with, it's like anthropology to see how they justify the things that they do or don't do that keep them where they are. 

VH1 gives me insight into the minds of crazy and I'm glad that I get to watch in on TV and not explore it in real life.

He Rose and I Survived!

Found this in my drafts. Easter was  over a month ago but...

I survived Lent 2013. 40 days and 40 nights (it's actually 46 and I need a good Catholic to come on here and explain why) without TV. No YouTube clips of TV, no Hulu, no podcasts of TV shows (someone seriously suggested this to me because it's not on the actual television. o_O)

I prayed daily. I had to. WHAT else could I have been doing that I couldn't find time to pray. (Plus in fasting when you want to do what you gave up, you're supposed to pray anyway, so there's that).

Here's a list of things I did since I couldn't watch TV. It's kind of funny because these are things I should be doing anyway, but don't (due to TV).

- Called my family on the phone
- Shredded documents
- Cooked
- Cleaned
- Went to the movies
- Read a book (or several)
- Exercised (a lot towards the the end)
- Updated my nonprofit's website
- Answers emails
- Updated my student loan debt repayment plan

I'm sure I did some other stuff that I wouldn't typically do because I'd be "too busy". But it was a great time and like all periods of sacrifice it taught me some things about myself.

How did Lent go for you?

May 2013 Fitness Update

One of my goals was to achieve a flat belly and flat belly weight by my birthday. If you've seen any birthday pictures you know that all of my goods were covered up at every event. I thought that I could commit to keeping the belly tight without actually showing the belly. I probably cannot.

I changed my goal from a weight goal to a BMI goal and said that I would maintain a healthy weight in 2013. That's much more obtainable.

I did a #30for30 at the end of March, beginning of April. I feel off on day 26. It was like 80 degrees, there were happy hours followed by late nights. The day just came and went without a workout. I don't feel bad about it. Working out for 25 straight days is still a great accomplishment.

I had some travel right after the falloff, so I probably went about 2 full weeks without working out. Then, just like that, I went back to the gym. It wasn't difficult or a big adjustment at all, which makes me happy. This means that fitness is a part of my lifestyle and I'm off when I DON'T workout vs. being off when I do workout.

Working out is also necessary to get endorphins. Living in a city with no established relationships, it can be very easy to sit on the couch, eat pizza, watch TV and feel sorry for myself. Working out ensures that I don't succumb to pity parties endorphins are truly real. I'm a better relationship partner (work relationships, romantic relationships, friendships) when I work out.

So even though this isn't about a beach body, it's about a healthier lifestyle, we ARE about six weeks away from summer.

Check in! How is everyone doing with their fitness goals?

Professional Party-er

I don't think partier or Party-er is a word, but...

I was a professional party-er in Chicago last weekend. Three straight nights (ok, who are we kidding days and nights) of drinking like a fish, but there were passouts, no bad nights and no ugly mornings. Here are some tips if you're planning any big party weekends. Like most things on the blog, this is a reference for me, but y'all are also welcome to it.

• Hydrate. When I touched down in Chicago I went to Target and got a case of water. Kept it in the trunk of the rental and pretty much drank about 4-6 bottles every day. All a hangover is is dehydration. And we know alcohol dehydrates, so combat that by drinking water like you drink liquor and you'll be fine. I also drank a ton of water at the club. This does not make you a punk. This makes you someone who despises headaches and dry mouth.
• Take your vitamins. When you're drunk you make poor decisions like going outside when it's 50 degrees with no coat on. And you're warm because you're drunk, so you don't even feel what your body is telling you. To combat this drunken stupidity, I take Airborne daily when it's a big party weekend. Gotta get
• Take your supplements. You've heard of celebrities taking B12 shots to get their energy back up. Well, you too can get your energy back on track. I just take B12 the morning after a party night and it helped tremendously. This was a new tactic to help me get my life and I'm going to do it all the time now.
• Eat like a man. Party weekends are no time for diets. Your body is not going to sustain the abuse of liquor if you're eating kale and quinoa. No, go get some burgers, fries, gyros, pizza, pasta and anything else you really want to eat anyway. I had three solid meals EVERY day. Not only did it improve my mood (you know I'm cranky when my blood sugar is low), it helped to soak up all the dranks.
• Take naps. I rarely if ever get a full night sleep when I'm traveling. I used to have enough vacation time to take off the day before and the day after I travel to pack slowly, recuperate from flights. That is no longer the case. While good sleep is important, I find that it's also just a state of mind. If I tell myself "you only got 4 hours of sleep last night" I'm going to be tired and sluggish all day, but if I say "that was a nice LONG nap" then I'm good to go.
• Visine. It gets the red out.
• Have good friends. Someone needs to be the designated driver and someone needs to be the voice of reason. My friends made me get down from a table at the club because it was from Ikea - not built to sustain grown woman weight, they made executive decisions to NOT go to Harold's because I was too sleepy to get out of the car (still mad about that, actually) and they checked on me to make sure, despite mixing light and dark liquor and taking shots like I was 21 and had never tasted liquor before, that life was still good. It is, it was.

Happy Birthday To Me!

Chicago is my mistress

I hate infidelity. I've never cheated on anyone and I will never cheat on anyone. It's not my thing. I'd rather be single than to cheat on a man.

Howsoever, I recognize the sexiness, the allure of cheating. Like any other sin there is pleasure that you gain in doing something that you're not supposed to do.

There are also certain convenieces of cheating. In not having a true relationship, you don't have true relationship problems. You aren't arguing about who's taking out the trash because the hotel that you checked into to do your business has housekeeping. Who cares who takes out the trash.

While I was in Chicago last weekend, it occurred to me that Chicago is now my mistress.
 
I come into town. I don't have to pay any bills. I don't have to do any civic work. We don't argue. We don't fight. We just party. All we do is party. Then I go back to Pittsburgh and deal with real issues like getting up and going to work everyday.

Side note: I am seriously trying to figure out how to become a stay at home nothing. Not wife, not mom, just stay at home by myself. Do you know how happy you are on your day off? I want to feel like that every day.

I digress.

Home was amazing. It was everything I expected it to be. It was magical. It was like four days of nonstop love, fellowship and partying. It was so awesome and just right.

Then I had to hop on a plane to come back to where I live, despite where my heart is.

The good news is that I'm not married to Pittsburgh. We are however and unfortunately, in an exclusive relationship. And even though no mistress should ever believe this, as soon as I wrap up this little "situation" I'm having with Pittsburgh, I'm going to make Chicago my wife. (Or you know, a city with a booty as big as Chicago's. LOL!)

Do you cheat on your city with any other cities? Vegas? New Orleans? NYC? D.C.? I know it's not just me.

An Airport Tale

(This events of this post happened forever ago, but it's a good story. I kept it in my drafts, so I could tell you all without you being able to trace the time or date... Some privacy is important)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I'm currently sitting in the airport. I'm not fuming anymore, but I'm seriously disappointed. I left work at 5 p.m. on the dot. I got to the airport at 5:46. I got to my gate at 6:13, where I noticed that the flight was delayed til 8:10.

I asked the gate agent, he said the flight was actually only delayed 5 minutes, so from 7:35 to 7:40. At about 7 p.m. something in me didn't feel right. The gate agent was gone, I look up and the flight is now delayed to 8:45 p.m. Now this would all be fine and good if I didn't have a connection. My connection is at 9:30 p.m. CT (All other times have been Eastern)

So I trot around the airport asking other airlines can they get me to my final destination TONIGHT. They cannot. In a moment of pure heartbreak the woman at the airline's call center told me if I'd called an hour earlier she could have gotten me on a flight that left moments after my flight was supposed to leave.

But I didn't. I called at 7 p.m. And they were busy. And they called me back between 9 and 17 minutes later and delivered the heartbreaking news that I would be staying in the city where my layover is and not meeting my honey across the country.

When I told him see you tomorrow yesterday, it meant two days from now and it sucks. It sucks because I don't have any time off work, so wherever I am I need to be working at 9 a.m. ET. It sucks because no one who I love lives in this city. So the disappointment of not being about to see him or POSSIBLY not being able to see him is magnified exponentially because I am so lonely in this medium sized city with its medium sized airport.

I guess on the bright side, everyone here has been extremely friendly and nice in helping me and they are really good at empathy. Either that or I look profoundly pitiful and they feel sorry for me.

I miss my honey. I miss Chicago. I miss flight options.

I'm Outchea!

It's about time y'all knew. My honey turned sour.

This means I'm back on the dating scene... In Pittsburgh.

Just like today's post, there will be a delay on dating posts to protect the guilty, but expect some funny stories to come up.

Apparently, I'm doing better than MOST people who are not from here and need to date in this city. I've never been one for a slow start. I'm like "I'm here. Let's get it crackin'!"

Stay tuned.

CO.MING.HOME.AGAIN!!!

Plane tickets. Booked.
Evite. Sent.
Outlook. Sent.
Car. Rented. 
Hair appointment. Check.
Nail appointment. Check.
Brow appointment. Check.
Spa appointment. Check.
SPRINKLES appointment. Check. (This is an internal appointment, you feel me.)
Freakum dress superstore appointment. (see above)
Make-up appointment. Check.
Bottles reserved. Check.
BBQ caterer. Check.
Liquor distributor. Check.
Texts to people who don't check email. Check! Check! Check!
Get on both of my grandmas calendars. Check.
Nonprofit meeting. Scheduled.

Yeah, I'm coming home for my birthday. GEEKED!

See you all soon!

Black Shoe Update

The BCBGeneration shoes I bought hurt like hell, so I was back on the hunt again. So I ordered some Herve Leger shoes from Luxe810 the new discount designer section of DSW. Originally $600 on sale for $250. Woo chile. I was too excited.

Opened the box and the leather was SUPPLE y'all. But guess what, it also hurt like hell. Had to send them back.

I broke down and bought this Nine West pair for $79. It's cheap, it's comfortable, it will tear up in a year and I'll just buy it again.

 

Better to have to buy $79 shoes each year than to walk like a fish out of water in $600 shoes that hurt.

Also, I'm not sure why I didn't figure this out before, but black, leather, pointed toe, 4in heels are a spring shoe (and the ones I ending up buying are 3 1/2 inches, so maybe that's the problem). Now that I've broken down to get the Nine West one, Ralph Lauren has one. Enzo has one. Every store brand has one. I bet Michael Kors and Stuart Weitzman have them now too. Reminds me how I spent day and night looking for chocolate brown pumps before I found out they had been replaced on the color wheel by nude. Now I know.

You shop and you learn.

Last Names for First Names

I'm SO into them right now. Here are some of my faves.

10. Taylor
9. Tyler
8. William
7. Hunter
6. Sanchez
5. Ryan
4. Chandler
3. Thomas
2. Allen
1. Steward

You can steal these. By the time I have children I probably will be on to a new trend.

Can you think of any others?

Go To Sleep!

I did a Facebook poll asking friends whether they turn their phone on ring, vibrate or silent when they go to sleep.

Of the 14 respondents

Silent - 7 (2 people said DND which I grouped as silent)
Ring - 6
Vibrate - 1

The reason I did this poll is because I send emails and notes at all times of the day and night. Generally, I send messages when I am free which has nothing to do with appropriate hours to reach someone. In today's society when people receive all notifications on their phone, it occurred to me that I could be being rude by sending messages at any time. I sent an Evite out at 8:30 a.m. ET on a Saturday, so people who were on the west coast might have been cursing my name.

In case you were wondering I put my phone on silent when I go to sleep. Social media is in my job description. There isn't an hour of the waking day that I'm not online and completely available and reachable. When I'm sleep, I need to be able to go off the grid. It's my only truly free time. 

Almost everyone who said they keep their phone on ring or vibrate qualified it. It's like they know they should turn the phone off to get a good night's sleep, but they have reservations. Here are my tips to get over those reservations, get a good night's sleep AND to get them to stop cursing me out when I send late night texts, emails and GroupMe chats.

I keep my phone on ring because I'm not that popular - Likely, if you're not that popular, you have a list of people who COULD be calling whose call you would take in the wee hours of the morning. GET AN iPHONE NOW! It has a "Do Not Disturb" feature that stops texts, emails and calls from anyone other than folks on your "favorites" list. Add your small group of people you'd actually take calls from to your favorites. Now you're good to go.

I need to keep my phone on ring because I use it as my alarm - Again, upgrade to an iPhone IMMEDIATELY. You'll wonder how you lived in the dark ages so long. I put my phone on silent every night and my smart iPhone recognizes that the alarm still needs to make noise whether the phone is on silent or not. How dumb are Blackberries Androids for not figuring this out?

I keep my phone on ring because someone could have an emergency - Stop what you're doing. Make a list of everyone you love. Call them RIGHT NOW and tell them you love them. Now that you've done that step, know that if God and Satan came to an agreement that something horrible is going to happen to your loved one, there's nothing you can do to stop it (Look at Job's family). If everyone you love knows you love them, there's no need to worry that you'll be needed while you're sleeping. Unless there are special circumstances (Caring for an ailing loved one, a disabled child who's away from you, etc.), there's no reason to lose sleep about something that COULD happen.

So what do you think? Is this helpful or do I need to stop emailing y'all early in the morning?

It's Not a Priority

Someone put up a post on Instagram (I'm so addicted now) that said "When you say you don't have time to do something try replacing that with 'it's not a priority to me' and see how that feels."

This phrase has given me such life. Since giving up TV for Lent there are tons of things I COULD have done with all that free time, but didn't.

Here are some examples of how these things went in my head. (Or maybe out loud because I live alone so I can talk to myself. Who gone check me boo?)

Cook dinner instead of eating Chipotle... It's not a priority to me.
Mop the floor... It's not a priority to me.
Twist my hair before going to bed (depending on the day of the week)... It's not a priority to me.
Go to church...yeah, that's a priority.
Pray daily... Wayment. Hold Up. It IS a priority, so I gotta make it happen. .

In that same vein, I remember working at a job and I told one of my mentors that I was furious at my bosses because they "didn't respect my time." She looked at me and said "No, you don't respect your own time."

Professionally, I used to feel like going the extra mile meant sacrificing work-life balance. Now I know that I get to decide my own priorities. And yes, in some instances there will be late nights and early mornings, but for the most part if I make it clear that my office hours are from 9 to 5 (*big red finger waves waving), then people can't disrespect that unless I allow them to.

Personally, if I decide that mopping the floor or responding to emails IMMEDIATELY does not make my world turn, then that's ok too.

This line has eased my mind (and my schedule). Look at God speaking to his child on Instagram. :-)