My How Things Have Changed

On my 26^th birthday, which was a little over a year ago. I stated “As I go into what I hope is at least the 2nd quarter of my life, I am looking forward to the pain, joy, heartache, love, exhaustion and accomplishments as I move forward with a different set goals. Becoming a licensed counselor is something that I am currently working on and 26 will definitely see it. I also hope that the next chapter of my life brings me a family, a healthier lifestyle, a new city of my choice, a job that I enjoy as much as the one that I currently have, and some leadership opportunities.”

Wow! Boy did I do it. In the last year so many things have transpired, I received my license, I was blessed with my son (4 months tomorrow), I have a new job, and possibly a new city. Wow! However, it did come with a price. Over this last year some of my friendships have taken a hit. Don’t get me wrong I still cherish the friendships but they just aren’t like they were in the past and I’m okay with that. Life Stages. I learned this in school. I am in a different stage of life. I still cherish my friendships and love my friends to death but I get why I can’t be as active in those friendships as I use to be and I want to be sometimes.

Having a new baby is hard. People told me what to expect as far as how to care for baby, baby’s stages and milestones but no one really explained what happens to mommy during the time. Emotional Rollercoaster.  I went from having no kids to having two kids in a matter of months. There were times I felt that it was just me, alone by myself. Even though people were helping and assisting it wasn’t good enough for me.  I started to doubt myself and my abilities as a parent, a partner, a family member, a friend and as an employee. Without the support of my family and friends, I don’t know what I would have done. There were times when I was down and no one knew. However, because those people talked to me and checked in from time to time, they were helpful to me. They encouraged me and put these tiny bugs in my ear that I needed to hear even though they weren’t really aware of it. However, I made it.

This year will be over in a couple of days. This is my first post from the year and I doubt it will be my last. However, I want to end stating that I am blessed. Most people didn’t know what I was going through but they contributed to helping me through. For that I am grateful and blessed to have these type of people in my life. 

With A Sincereheart,
Dreka

Happy 26 to Me

On October 26 I will be 26 years old. This is supposed to be my Golden Birthday. I will spend half of it at work doing what I love and what I enjoy. The first quarter of my life has brought me pain, joy, heartache, love, exhaustion and accomplishments. It has been a roller coaster and I appreciate that. Without the things that I have been through, I will not be the person I am today nor would I appreciate my life.

The biggest lesson that I have learned over the last 25 years is that goals are endless. When I was in the 5th grade, my friend of a year at the time, Tiera, started a tradition.  Right before school started we would set goals for the school year. At one point, maybe around middle school, I started to feel like it was  a dumb thing to do but I did it because it made my friend proud. It brought her joy and I loved to see her determination. Throughout the year we would check in on our goals and what we had accomplished. What my friend doesn't know is that I still do this today. It may not be at the beginning of the school year but  I do it. It started as goals for the school year-- good grades, meet new people, save some money, be on the honor roll, or join a club. Well then high school was over and had to set goals for college. Eventually, my goals for college had to be extended. Now I find mysef setting goals for my career and relationships.  The most difficult thing for me at 25 is to go about this world with no goal. When I completed my Master's Degree and obtained a job, I was depressed. What next!

So as I go into what I hope is at least the 2nd quarter of my life, I am looking foward to the pain, joy, heartache, love, exhaustion and accomplishments as I  move forward with a different set  goals. Becoming a licensed counselor is something that I am currently working on and 26 will defintely see it. I also hope that the next chapter of my life brings me a family, a healthier lifestyle, a new  city of my choice, a job that I enjoy as much as the one that I currently have, and some leadership opportunities.
Happy 26 Birthday to Me
May the odds forever be in my favor!!
With a sincereheart <3

Happy 42nd Birthday Mom

In less than 4 hours it will be my mother, Shonda Shaw’s birthday. My mother has been deceased for 10 years now and in honor or her birthday I will not write a status about missing her but more so about what she left me with to carry into my adult years.  

My mother was ill for majority of all my life. According to my grandmother, my mother found out that she had diabetes when she was pregnant with me. I grew up thinking that my mother was mean. She had her days were I felt she was nice but for the most part I thought she was mean. Therefore, I decided that I would go to my grandmother for things.

I remember being in the 3^rd grade. I think Ms. Walker was my teacher. This was the time where we learned our multiplication facts and spelling words started to become hard. When I got out of school, my mom would make me get right to it. I had to go in my room or to kitchen table and study, study, and study. I would come out and ask my mom to quiz me on what I had learned. The first one I would get wrong, she would send me back to my room and yell “You don’t know these! Study!” I would be like geez. I only missed one! It was unacceptable.

My mother wanted me to be independent. Although, she never said so my mother figured if I learned it at school, home is the place to practice or study it. My mother wasn't the type to walk me through it. It was like she knew that if I learned it at school she shouldn’t have to teach it at home. If I didn’t know how to do it, there were questions as to why I didn’t. This motivated me to focus on school because I knew that I would be on my own. My mom had a minimal assistance policy. I did all my reading fair and science fair boards by myself. She would asked what I needed and get it. She didn’t even help me pick out a topic or book. I remember being angry going to school with those ugly boards that I did on my own, glue everywhere, and letters crooked.  There was this one kid in my class that would win all of them. I know his mom did all his projects. She was a teacher at the school too. I knew she did them because he wasn’t that smart in school. I told my mom one time that his mother helped him and she told me that his mom is not going to be able to help him with other stuff.

My mother really prepared me to be a go getter on my own and not to depend on others. When I was in the 9^th grade she passed away. I thought that this was the time to get some help. #Fail. Everyone I would ask for help with my homework told me “They didn’t do this when I was in school!” Therefore, I had to continue on like I had been in the past.

I was an honor student from k-12. In my second semester of college, I had 2 C’s the rest of my grades (6 years of college) were A’s and B’s. My mom raised the bar and set goals for me before I even could understand. She prepared me to be independent. These are the values that make me the great worker (not toot my own horn) that I am today. It’s the reason that others have seen leadership qualities in me before I had seen them in myself. No one will ever know if this was something she just wanted out of me in general or if she knew that she would not be able to be there all the way with me physical. Either way, I am thankful for the life lesson she taught me. Even though, I thought she was being mean to me or giving me some very tough love, I understand it now and I appreciate it whole heartedly. I hope that one day I am ½ as great as the mom that she was while she was here.

I Love You Mom. Happy 42^nd Birthday!

With a Sincere Heart

My Journey Continues

I am so excited to update you guys on my progress on this journey. Like I stated in my first blog this journey is not just about my physical health but my mental health as well. I think that since I started, I have been more social. I have been going out with friends and getting out the house. I haven’t let those little things upset me and I’ve honestly just been happy. With that being said,  I’m pretty sure that some of this happiness has to do with my health. The last time I weighed in which was about two weeks after I started my journey, I had lost five points. I took this an inspiration to kick it up. So let me tell you what I have been doing.

1.       CALORIES- I have been watching my calories and I am on a 1700 calorie diet (recommended by my fitness tracker). I have let go of those empty liquid calories and increased my water. Fast food has been limited. I use to eat fast food everyday on my lunch break and sometimes I would eat it again for supper. This was a no –go and I’ve had more money for other stuff too.  However, there have been times were I have had no other choice than to go out for food during lunch hour but I leave the fries and substitute for a side salad. Oh Yeah! I’ve increased my vegetable intake. I have at least one serving of vegetables a day. At one point in my life.. most of my life I didn’t eat vegetables but may every 2weeks. Yeah It was bad people.  I must say this has my digestive track regulated.

2.       EXERCISING-  I have been doing Zumba 2-3 times a week in addition to some strength training for about 30-40 minutes 2 days a week. I want to do a little more with my exercise and plan to crank it up within the next week or so. I feel like I can. I feel like I’m ready!

3.       MEAL REPLACEMENT- Most recently I have been venturing out to try new things I can add to increase my weight loss goals. I discovered Special K protein shakes. I have a hard time working breakfast into my diet; however, I want that metabolism boost so that it can start working early on. Therefore, I tried the French Vanilla shake as a meal replacement. It worked well both Friday and Saturday. I believe that I will continue this but not every day because protein shakes are expensive. I have to tell myself that $7 for 4 meals is not bad when I would spend that on 1 meal in fast food.  The first flavor I tried was French Vanilla. It was nasty but I swear it wasn’t good as I feel it could have been. However, I learned from a co-worker that is better than all others. Next step is to try the Milk Chocolate flavor. I also plan to try the milk chocolate slim fast version as well.

4.       DETOX/CLEANSE- The reason that I am really excited today. A girl I met through a mutual friend told me about the ITWORKS GREENS. She had a special going on so I decided to try it. Let me start by saying this SHIT is nasty!!! However, I decided that I wasn’t going to write it off quite yet, especially since I committed to three months of this crap.  So I tell her it is horrible and I was about dead yesterday when I mixed my first packet in my V-8 Pomegranate juice (it’s nasty too).  So she told me she would ask her friend about the smoothie she uses. Well after giving me her recipe, I tweaked it a bit by changing the juice and made my own version. It is delicious. I think that this is something that I can do every day.  

      My Recipe: 8oz of Ocean Spray Berry Medley, handful of spinach (I doubted this), handful of mixed berries (strawberries, blueberries, blackberries), pineapple chunk, 1/3 of a banana, and of course the Berry flavor green mix.  It doesn’t look good but it is.

If you would like to try it out or check it out visit my page http://robdrekashaw.sharewraps.com I think I get a free wrap or something if you purchase something. Lol

I must say that I am satisfied.  Now, my birthday is next month on October 26. My goals I to lose 10 more lbs which makes a total of 15lbs by then. If I lose more that is fantastic too. Thank GOD there are no holidays in between. Well good people now that I have shared these things with you, let the journey continue.

With A Sincereheart

Patience and Prayer

I’ve been feeling that I needed to post a blog soon. However, I really couldn’t think of a topic to blog about. Today, a table I purchased for my dining room came in the mail and I put it together. My table is very lovely and I was talking to my grandmother about the fact. In the midst of talking to her, I had to stop and thank God. I had to think about where I was last year and where I am today.

 Last year around this time I had just graduated from my graduate program, gotten a new job, purchased a new car, and moved into a new unfurnished apartment yet I was very depressed. I was depressed because I was in debt to survive. I needed to work, I needed to get there, and I needed a place to stay. Starting with $0 dollars only allows you get in debt to take care of all of those things. It was a very sad time. My boyfriend had moved to my city to be with me and he didn’t have a job to start off so it was a very rough patch. Our apartment was empty we only had an air mattress that his aunt had given us, a tv, and a tv stand. Eating was even a challenge. Well I found a couch for $20 bucks and we added that.  Later in the month an awesome co-worker of mine gave us a futon to add to our empty home. It was very depressing. I am not ashamed to say. Yes I went through a period of depression.

However, today I am proud to say that I have moved on. God has blessed us with a bigger apartment, a full living room, two bedrooms both furnished, and today I completed my Dining area. God is so good and he works on his time. It had nothing to do with me being depressed but the fact that he had a plan in store for me. Some may say. Hey Dreka, those are material things. I agree, but I also look at them as physical things. Sometimes people need to see things to believe it. You can’t measure or began to see my happiness at this point in my life, you can’t measure the fact that I feel better with myself, you can’t measure the fact that my faith is stronger than it was last year, you can’t measure the joy I feel to say that I am debt free.  I will be lying to you if I said I didn’t have my bad days because I swear I do. But I get out of that funk and live my life day to day. There is no sense in worrying about tomorrow when tomorrow’s not even promised. 

Sincereheart,

SHHH!!!!!

Warning: This was too long to be a facebook post! Viewer discretion advised.

People can be so judgmental. Call me a hypocrite for writing this blog. I honestly don’t care. However, I watch a lot of videos on social media and people always have [insert curse word] to say. It doesn’t matter if the person(s) in the videos are being positive or not. There are going to be 899,999,999 comments and 899,999,990 are going to be negative.  “She wrong for this. Call child protection services. That baby hair .2 centimeters to short” “Oh, my God, he should be arrested that dog breathing to hard. It’s dehydrated.” Shut the [insert curse word] up! You don’t know what is going on with these folks. It just kills me that people are so quick to give a verdict from 10-15 second clips on facebook. I am so happy that our constitution exists and jurors are screened. Don’t get me wrong, I know that some slip through the cracks. For the most part I trust that we are not going to get some of these commenters on social media. I’m just saying. One wrong move ruins your name when it comes to social media. “Wow, I almost saw her nipple. May she be called a THOT forever!” Y’all runs the hell out!

Oh and don’t let somebody’s child know the words to a song. They are horrible mothers and fathers. They need their children to be taken away. Really people!! Why take those kids away and no one is taking them in? Heaven forbid they know a gospel song “They should be a shame of themselves. That child is not old enough to understand religion! They are forcing God on that child. Let’s take their children away and sentence them to life.” People please calm down. Sometimes it’s best not to say anything. Everything doesn’t have to have a comment. It’s okay to “like” the post and move on. When I say “like” the post I’m just saying recognize that you saw it. At the end of the day your opinion really doesn’t matter because the video is recorded which means that the event itself is in the past.

I’m Irritated but I swear it’s with the Sincerest Heart 

My Journey: Day 2

So let’s talk about Day 2 of this journey. I am feeling good. I am feeling motivated and I feel that I can do this. Yesterday, I cooked a nice meal and watched my carb and sugar intake. I did not eat out today at work, instead I ate leftovers from the day before. However, my leftovers tasted better for lunch than it did last night for dinner. I am struggling with eating breakfast. Today I did manage to take a granola bar to work. Some challenges that I foresee in the future is sweets. I want to eat sweets! I know that if I just get a taste for something sweet I am going to go bunkers and become the cookie monster.

Another challenge I foresee…. THE BF. He hasn’t said anything yet but I can tell by the look on his face and the fact that he hasn’t been to the kitchen in seconds for the last two days that he is not feeling this health kick. He wants better for me and understands the health part of my journey but I don’t think he thought about the fact that he would be dragged along too. But that’s okay. I know how to mix it up and sometimes do half and half.

That’s the health part of me. The social part of me is still pretty steady.  I just don’t know what to do about it this point. Let’s revisit this later.

With the Sincerest Heart