Be Blessed!

Happy Thanksgiving Pooka Family!  This is my favorite holiday; not only because of the food but it’s the one time that I purposely stop and reflect upon God’s blessings.  HE has blessed us with the gift of life, love, family and friends.  Through trials and tribulations we are still here this 11^th month of the year!  Although my heart is heavy with the verdict in Ferguson I am still humbled by God’s blessings and know that with these blessings comes responsibility.  Although I am not out there on the front line marching with my people, I am a supporter of the cause – the dream is still alive and we have a responsibility because change has not come for EVERYONE yet.  So I will continue to support whether it is financially thru Color of Change or on the front line. 

Pooka founder on Our World with Black Enterprise!

The Five Love Languages!

 

Greetings Family!
Well my hubby and I recently started a couple’s book club with some of our friends.  We were trying to get together to do something different besides eating and drinking….a foodie’s first choice for social outings!  We rotate male/female as far as book selection so we read a variety of genres…book club word people lol!  We recently read The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman.  (Shout out to Brenda for being an amazing facilitator!)    Well, let me tell you how profound it was!  It is not that these were concepts or ideas that we are not aware of.  It was that it made you think about and identify you and your partner’s love language.  Your love language loosely defined is what you need to “receive” from your partner to feel loved.  We all know that it doesn’t always take the same thing for everyone.  The book makes you realize that the love language you are giving your partner is not always the language they need to receive!  Obvious, yet profound at the same time.  The book outlines the five languages as:

Words of Affirmation
Quality Time
Receiving Gifts
Act of Service
Physical Touch

 

Most often, each person has a different love language than their partner.  Also most assume they know their partners language or think it is the same as theirs and they have no idea! So the husband’s language is acts of service ( again what he wants to receive!) and assumes his wife’s must be the same when all she wants is quality time instead of him doing the dishes.  Or the wife gives her husband the loveliest gifts and can’t understand why he doesn’t appreciate them but all he wants to receive for her is praise and not gifts because his love language is words of affirmation.  All of the couples are married for different amounts of time and all of us had aha moments!  From not knowing their own love language, to assuming the wrong language of their partner.  It was a most eye opening book club meeting family!  And the best part was that no one went home with an attitude….you know how we do lol!  Everyone really got it…amazing!  So in conclusion read this book with your partner.  You will be glad you did!  Keep you posted on our next book.

Peace Family!!

 

When enough is enough

As I sat reading the story of London McCabe the 6 year old with autism who's mother threw him off an Oregon bridge. I can't help but think about the terror he must have been in. Yes, there are different degrees of Autism and London was unable to express himself in many different ways. But I am sure he must of felt something when his mother picked him up and dropped him off of the side of the bridge. His mother Jillian McCabe is on some type of medication (not sure what) and was apparently having problems coping herself. I can't even begin to understand her feelings in that she felt this was going to be the only way out of her problem. Or how about Gigi Jordan who was just found guilty of manslaughter for feeding drugs to her autistic 8 year old son, Jude Mirra.

With the mid-term elections over  there were a lot of re-elections and new faces. I hope that the American people will make them realized that there is far more work to be done and they are accountable for some of the solutions to the problems that plague our society:  Mental Illness is REAL people and we need to be doing something about it.


April Reeves-Mathis

Dear Teachers.......

Dear Ms./Mr. Teacher,

                                    Thank you for teaching _______everyday because he/she is learning a lot and you are viewed as an authority on all things. There is one thing that I would like to bring to your attention that I wish we could change. Projects, yes do it at home school projects. Over a period  of ten years, I have made everything from a map of the world to a dinosaurs foot print. I have made costumes for a five minute speech (which was really only one minute long!) I have drawn, glued, stapled, plastered, play doghed, painted and run out to the store in the middle of the night to  make a project look like we spent weeks on them. Now it could just be me, or maybe its my kids, but my boys are not the most hands on when it comes to creating works of art for school. I have spent plenty of nights sending them off to bed, exclaiming what a wonderful job they did on a project, only to have to tear it down and build it back up again. I can't help it, I know they are supposed to do it themselves but when I see the pieces falling off and words spelled wrong I just can't stop from fixing it!

Case in point, last night Wesley reminds me, that he has to have a shield by tomorrow, (yes tomorrow) Ok, so we go scrounging around our house looking for cardboad and whatever else we can get our hands on to make this happen. So we get the cardboard and I don't know what he is drawing  on it, I'm like let me draw it, then we have to cut it out, (let me cut it out), until we have a reasonable facsimile of a shield. Then we have to cover it with foil and then,cut out his initials from an old Happy Birthday banner and add some pictures. Simple right?  Wrong! Glue is all over the paper, he's cutting letters out wrong,pictures are hanging off the shield. I'm like just go to bed so I can get this project done! So he finally goes to bed, I stay up late to finish his project (which by the way looks great!) He gets up and exclaims that he did a great job, then leaves for school without it! So I run back home get the shield run back to the bus stop as the bus pulls up, he gets the shield and all is well. I smile as I limp back home, yes we got it done, but I would be ok if I never had to do another project again!

My BFF Oprah! #lifeyouwanttour

Well pooka family, by now you’ve all seen my photo with my new BFF, Oprah!  I also want to say that I may have to stop writing quickly if Oprah calls or needs me, so be prepared!  

2 weeks ago I had an amazing experience.  I was able to attend the Oprahs, LIFE YOU WANT weekend and it was AMAZING!!  I was blessed with a VIP opportunity to the weekend and it was more than I could imagine.  The Life you want tour was 2 days, Friday evening was day 1 and this was Oprahs night!  It was 2 hours of her telling her story and sharing her journey.  She was so transparent and forthcoming.  I had a 5th row seat, close enough to see the sweat on her brow!  As I’m staring at her mouth wide open, in walks Steadman and sits only 2 rows in front of us!  Really! 2 rows behind Steadman, I must be family!  The touching thing this was, that Oprah stopped in her tracks and said, “Steadmans here!”  She was actually excited and at that moment she seemed just like any one of our girlfriends excited to see her guy.  She proceeded to chat with him, like we werent even there and she smiled and giggled a bit too!  Wow, Oprah is just as goofy as the rest of us, I thought!  Once she was content with her Steadman chat, she started telling stories about him and how he is in her life and just the fact that she chose to share that with us, well...me, said volumes about her.  

The next 2 hours went by fast, her telling stories and sharing.  I can say that she is totally AUTHENTIC, she really wanted us to get it.  She wanted us to know that we can live the life we want, the life we are supposed to have.  She said, You can’t live my life but you can live the best life that you’re supposed to live.  It was very powerful.  The entire weekend was filled with wonderful anecdotes and positive affirmations about how to live your best life. 

Once she was finished on friday, my group was ushered to another room where we had dinner and champagne, (Yup, I’m fancy) The group was small, maybe about 150 people and then casually, Oprah walks in!  She starting talking to us and hoping that we knew the importance of the weekend and getting our Best Life on!  I just couldn’t believe that she was just right there, chatting with us!  She told us that she was going to take a picture with each one of us and that the picture should symbolize the shift that will happen during the weekend.  I was soooo excited, as I waited for my picture, I just kept thinking about how cool I was going to be and what I was going to say when I talked to her.  I definitely wanted to talk about President Obama and her school in Africa, maybe some womens rights issues or some popular investment opportunities, the possibilities for our conversation were endless.  As I rounded the corner and entered the room, she turned and looked at me, as I walked towards her she said, “I love your dress!” Well people that’s when all my cool went right out the window and I screamed, OPRAH!!! Yup, just like that, I screamed her name and went in for a crazy bear hug!  Why wasn’t I saying all of my planned conversation points, when was I going to ask her about our mutual friend, Michelle Obama?  Well as you see in the picture, her name was about all I got out, the funny thing is, I was hugging her across her shoulders and she took my wrist and held it down in front of us and said, “you want to get a good picture!”  To which I replied, “OPRAH!!!!”  So if you look in the picture, you actually can see Oprah holding my wrist down with her hand, so I don’t tackle her, LOL!  So much for coooooool Dawn! 

It’s all good though family because in those few moments me and O bonded (thats right, I call her O, thats what BFF’s do!) I’m sure she’s going to be calling me soon and I know for a fact that I’ll be getting a dinner invite next time she and Steady(why are you shocked, thats what I call him because we’re friends too!) are in town!

My Next blog post, I plan to share the powerful affirmations I received during day 2, so stay tuned!

Wait.... that might be her calling??   Gotta go, Bye Pooka family, Bye!

Career Woman Turned Mom

Morning Pooka Family!  Hope everyone is staying warm during these first few days of autumn!  Today I realized that I have transitioned from career woman to mom!  You would think I would have known that by now considering Taiye is 5 yrs old but I guess part of me was still holding out on giving that part of my life up (for now).  This realization came when I looked at my calendar and realized that this month I have a lot of “Taiye activities” scheduled.  I have to bake a cake for her school fundraiser, I signed up to be a parent volunteer in her classroom, I have to organize her playdate crew for a day at the farm to pick pumpkins, I promised her I’d make her Halloween costume this year and I have to take her to her new musical theater class.  Wow!!! My calendar no longer revolves around me.  My calendar used to be consumed with business trips, getting my hair done, going to the gym, planning date night, and hanging out with the girls.  Complete 360 now!!!  However, I am going to have to try and maintain some kind of balance because I need to focus on me time too but as every mother out there knows, it’s not as easy as one thinks!

Tricia