He'll love me one day...

Shante and her husband Greg, who were mutual friends of Keyon and Candi, introduced Keyon and Candi to each other one day. Keyon and Candi had never met each other in person before, and had only spoken over phone. However, after briefly talking over phone, Keyon and Candi decided to meet each other for dinner.

On their first dinner date, sparks immediately start to intensify between Keyon and Candi. He liked how she looked, she liked how he looked, and they both enjoyed each other’s conversation. The idea of marriage and kids were brought up during conversation by both of parties, as an option if their relationship progressed forward. The fact that neither of them had any children was a plus. That night, since Keyon and Candi enjoyed each other’s company so much, they both decided to keep in touch and continue seeing each other. The first month or so everything went great. The two of them were talking all the time, texting each other all the time, meeting up at his place all the time (no sex), and were just enjoying each other’s company.

Happily Miserable

When people enter relationships, most of them have unrealistic expectations. Ideally, we all would love to fall in love with the man or woman of our dreams, and be happy with that person for the rest of our lives, but reality states that even if we find that person we’ve been dreaming about, life isn’t that simplistic. There are many speed bumps on the roads, many roads with very little light, and many roads that will have dead ends. Each person comes into the relationship with independent thoughts and feelings, but most importantly, different ways of viewing life. Too often, one person gets too consumed with the other person’s life, and forgets how to think, act and feel independent. This lack of independence becomes burdensome on the other mate and causes major problems in the relationship. People need to understand that there is no such thing as a person completing them. We are born a complete person and the other person should be complimentary to our lives. Each person in the relationship should continue to have a life outside of each other because it makes a healthier relationship. Going out occasionally with friends and family provides the person an outlet that may not exist if they only spent time with each other. Besides, time a part helps you learn to appreciate each other more.

Give It All Away

Life is tough, and can sometimes seem unbearable to live. With all the chaos going on in the world, we lose sight of the bigger picture and get consumed in our issues. Life is not all about us. Just because we’ve had a bad day doesn’t make it right for us to take out our frustrations on others. You never know what type of day that person has had either. We definitely need to be more cognizant of others and understand that we have a responsibility to treat others, no matter who they are, like we would want to be treated. Life is not promised to be given to us with out triumphs, and we are not promised a life without trials and tribulations. The problems we face in life sometimes consume our thoughts and dictate the mood we will be in for the day. Our personal issues take precedent over everything else in our lives because have not learned to let go and let God handle them. No matter how horrible our situations may seem, someone else situation is always worse. When we understand that we don’t have all the answers, that we cannot fix everything thing wrong in our lives, and that we too, fall short and will endure hardships, we will get a better glimpse of the picture.

How can we expect differently from our children?

Children from a very early learning age are taught how to be respectful, how to speak, when to speak, what to say, who to say it to, and where to say it. In fact, being respectful is taught in just about every corner of the world. For many years, teachers have struggled with maintaining diplomatic order in their classrooms because some children just couldn’t or didn’t grasp this concept. We all know how frustrating it is when someone just blabs out things in the middle of class, or when a person is just being a complete donkey for show. It majorly disturbs the energy in the classroom and creates an atmosphere for confusion. In school, children are taught to raise their hands before speaking, to listen when other’s are talking, and most importantly, to be respectful of other people’s thoughts and opinions even if they don’t agree. This communication skill is taught to children at an early age because when children become adults and face these situations, they need to know how to appropriately react.

Cheating Signs

How to tell if the person you are dating/married to is cheating or up to no good…

1. Intimacy has been on vacation so long, you forgot what it was. (No touching, kissing, hugging, sex, etc)
2. Your mate is all of a sudden “working longer hours” all the time and conveniently becomes unreachable at certain hours when before you could reach them.
3. Your mate is all of a sudden hanging out with “friends” you’ve never met and doesn’t plan on letting you meet the “friends”.
4. Your mate constantly starts arguments with you so he/she can leave.
5. The cell phone is always turned off, on vibrate, or set to silence when you are around and your mate refuses to answer or walks off to answer.

Sweet Nikki...

My cousin Nikki was from a small town in, South Carolina. She was the mother of a precious little girl and expecting another child. Nikki was one of the most genuine people you could ever meet. She had a smile that would lighten up a dark room, and a personality that was magnetic. Nikki was very family oriented and strongly believed in keeping the family together. Nikki really loved her daughter and it showed in everything she did. Everyone that knew Nikki would say she was an awesome mother, friend, co-worker, or person in general. She truly loved people and prided herself in being a good person.

Well, it took me a while to write about this because it hurt me so bad, but I feel like it’s time. Domestic violence is growing at a ridiculous rate, and too many lives are being taken as a result. My cousin Nikki, who was pregnant at the time, had made it very clear to her ex-boyfriend (Jeffery Scott Jr., the child’s father) that she had no desire to be with him and had moved on with her life. In fact, she had told him that she was pregnant with another man’s baby and no longer wanted to communicate with him unless it was about their daughter. Nikki was trying to do the adult thing and break off this relationship in a respectable manner. As you can imagine, Jeffery didn’t want to accept this and pleaded his case. Nikki wasn’t interested in what he had to say and pretty much brushed him off.