A quote to end 2009 & one to bring in 2010

2009 has been an interesting year, to say the least. A lot has happened, both good and bad. I refuse to do a recap of all the stuff that's gone on... partially because I have a bad memory LOL Honestly, the things that meant the most to me & that impacted me the most have either already been shared here or are of such a nature that I'd rather keep them close to my heart. Instead, I'm going to share two quotes that I found a long time ago, forgot all about, then found again on a little scrap of paper as I was doing some winter cleaning a few days ago.

"Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could; some blunders and absurdities have crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; you shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense."
-Ralph Waldo Emerson

Forget the BS from this year & previous years (but not the lessons learned from it!). Take on 2010 with renewed spirit.

The next quote is the one that basically affirms my newly strengthened "Doing Me" attitude. I'll definitely be carrying this one with me into 2010 and beyond:

"Don't let the opinions of the average man sway you. Dream, and he thinks you're crazy. Succeed, and he thinks you're lucky. Acquire wealth, and he thinks you're greedy. Pay no attention. He simply doesn't understand."
-Robert G. Allen

Happy New Year to all!

Resolutions? Um....

Let me let Calvin & Hobbes handle this one...

A random story about attention

The other day, while walking to the garage from work, a man stopped me & asked if I still went to Jackson State. I was a little hesitant, as I really didn't know dude, but I told him I was in grad school. His was working up there at the time, and used to see me walking to the business building regularly. Turns out he remembered me from my walk (people say I have a unique, "bouncy" walk... IDK) and the fact that my hair was always looking nice (#itstrue). He said I still had a pretty smile, wished me good luck in grad school, and that was that. Y'all don't even know how that made me feel! To know that someone I don't even know noticed me. I made a positive impression on someone... Someone who gave me a tiny bit of attention when he had no obligation or motivation to do so.

If that little random instance of letting me know someone was paying attention to me made me smile, imagine what attention from someone I'm feeling does for me! It doesn't take much... I'm really not an attention whore or anything LOL But little things like mentioning an inside joke at some random point... or mentioning something I discussed on one of my blogs or playfully pointing out my lil idiosyncrasies...

Don't really know where I'm going with this one... I'm just saying... I appreciate attention when it's coming from someone who has my attention... *shrug*

Quote of the Day

Okay, today's quote of the day is hilarious to me! It's from one of my cousins & it's about yours truly. Last night my whole fam (all of my cousins that are on facebook) had a complete convo on one cousin's status about who would be next to get married. (Shout out to cuzzo Derrick for putting a ring on it!) My twin cousin put me out there saying I'd probably be next. (Hardy-har-har...) Then her brother chimed in with this:

I don't know. I think Tori's a pimp. I don't see her getting married anytime
soon. She's got some pimp bones in her body. "Keep your heart, T-Mac. Keep your
heart!" -JB

Now this probably doesn't mean jack shyt to anyone else but iRolled reading that! So for putting a smile on my face on a Monday (especially after the kinda messed up stuff that happened last night) my big cuz gets the honor of being immortalized in my Quote of the Day!

The Current Look

So I did the curls....

My hair didn't quite turn out like I wanted, but I was able to do something like a rocker-esque look with it and it came out pretty cute. Better than I expected. See for yourself...

Freshly done 

 


A little sweated out 


Last night

What do you think? I may keep this style for a while, considering I really don't have to do anything to my hair. I'm sure this probably isn't considered a "protective style" but for now I think it'll do. 

Oh yeah, a few growth pix as well (from about two weeks ago):

poem with no title

i'm in love with the past
a figment of a man that couldn't last
despite my desire.
he said he'd always be there
but he wasn't.
he changed.
his personality morphed
while i counted on him staying the same.
he was still growing up,
and the man that he grew into,
well i didn't know him.
and the man that he was
i still can't let go of him.
my present no longer fits
the plans we made for the future... 

i started on this poem a few weeks ago & got stuck here. it seems like it's not complete, but i guess it is. since i never could figure out how to express the rest of what i was feeling, i guess the poem was meant to end here.

Previouscats or Learning from the past?

Okay, sooo lately I've been noticing some things ("little" things, some would say) that my current whatever-he-is-since-he-doesn't-have-a-title does that are a lot like the trifling sh*t my ex started doing near the end of our relationship. Not necessarily make-or-break things since I don't know the full story behind what's fueling it, but things that have definitely made me perk my ears up and go "Hmmmmm."

Now I hate to be the stereotypical woman who carries over baggage from one relationship to another. I don't say "All men are alike" because I know for a fact that that's just not true. I know these are two totally different guys, different personalities and characters. In some ways they are similar, but in most they are nothing alike... But am I wrong to see certain things as red flags since they've occurred before?

At what point does one go from simply learning from past mistakes and experiences to dealing with a "previouscats" situation? Is it when I start to ask questions about what's going on? When I simply start to compare the incidences? When I say "I know you're doing blah blah blah, because you did/said/went blah blah blah..."? I have so many questions that I want to ask based on the "little" things that he's doing because when I look back on those "little things" in the past, I see that they should have been blaring warning signs.

So is there a difference? Or is it simply a matter of "tomato, to-mah-to"?

 

ETA: So I went over to dreammoods.com to see if there was anything I could find about why my ex has been popping up in my dreams lately. This came up and I found it to be interesting considering this post:

Ex To dream about your ex-boyfriend/girlfriend or that you and
your ex got back together again, suggests that something or someone in your
current life that is bringing out similar feelings you felt during the
relationship with your ex. The dream may be a way of alerting you to the same or
similar behavior in a current relationship. What you learn from that previous
relationship may need to be applied to the present one so that you do no repeat
the same mistake. Alternatively, past lovers often highlight the positive
experiences you had with that person. It could also signify aspects of yourself
that you have x'd out or neglected.