Chile, I was triggered this week, so I’m back! It’s been a minute since I’ve posted anything because it started to feel redundant and not serving the purpose I expected. Quite a lot has happened since mid-May though. I’ll try to stick with the same format to bring ya’ll up to speed, but the format will be changing soon. Not sure how just yet.
WHAT AM I THANKFUL FOR?
I had a pretty good summer. I took off for a week and went to Essence Music Festival. I had a good time there. I always love NOLA. Great food, great people & great times. I love seeing all my people enjoying life. The concerts were amazing. I went all 3 nights. And, I had a boyfriend for a little bit. It didn’t work out, but it was fun while it lasted. It had been a long minute since I’d had a Boo.
WHAT DID I ENJOY TODAY?
I enjoyed making an amazing cup of pumpkin spice coffee. Chile. Let me hook ya’ll up with the recipe HERE.
HOW DO I FEEL EMOTIONALLY?
Lawd Jesus! It’s been an emotional few weeks. I’ve been getting over a break up. All is well on that front, just wish I could’ve gotten some closure but shrugs. The dominating force in my life right now is the climate of sexual assault in this country right now. I woke up during the night this past Monday and I started scrolling Facebook, like I always do when I wake up in the middle of the night. I came across this post and it triggered me. You can read it HERE
It triggered me to write my own Facebook post and tell my story. I have reservations about making the post public and allowing it to be shared via FB. But, I will make another post here on the site, if you’d like to read it. (Click here to read it) As of this writing. The post has over 100 comments and over 170 reactions. Most of the comments are commending me for being courageous, strong or brave. Honestly, I didn’t feel any of those things when the words were flowing. I felt frustrated and angry. Frustrated with the societal attitude towards assaulting women and angry about rape culture. The responses drained me emotionally to where I came home for 2 days and went to bed at 8pm. Even though I opened up to share my account with Facebook friends, I did not then and do not now feel equipped to handle the aftermath of having shared. I know many others have stories and I want them to feel confident and at ease to tell their story too. However, I’m not qualified to help any further than I can inspire them to tell their story. Part of healing is acknowledging what happened to you. Another part is being able to speak or write it. Where I fall short is helping anyone unpack their situation beyond telling their story. It’s a critical part of healing. I encourage any survivor of sexual assault, abuse or rape to seek a qualified, professional counselor to help them through their journey to wellness.
HOW DO I FEEL PHYSICALLY?
I feel pretty good. I’ve lost quite a bit of weight. I attribute most of it to really restricting my sugar intake. I was a big sweets & bread person for most of my life. By sweets I mean cakes, brownies, ice cream, pie, sweet tea and candy. I would eat a little something sweet every single day. It wasn’t uncommon for me to eat sweets more than once in a day. I kinda stopped that cold turkey. I eat a limited amount of sugar now. I don’t actually count the grams. Generally speaking, my daily intake of sugar now consists of 1tsp or so in my morning coffee and I pretty much avoid any of the aforementioned. I eat sweets rarely. Like once a week, if that. That seems to have reduced my weight dramatically. According to MyFitnessPal Last year this time, I was ~193. This morning, I was 173. I’m excited about that. My A1C has come down quite a bit too. I may be able to get off metformin, if I keep up the good work. I still eat bread, but I try to be mindful of it.
HOW DID I WORK ON MY MONEY GOALS?
I’ve been getting inventory built up for Q4. I vended last weekend and made 90+% of my sales goal. I have secured a major holiday event at a local mall and I’ll have products stocked at the Made In Baltimore Store, opening next week.
