Hey My Lovelies!!!
So this past weekend was FANTASTIC for me as I turned the big Dirty 30 on Saturday!! So in honor of my 30th birthday it is Ol’ School Monday! These are just some of my favorite old school songs so please enjoy!!
My siblings, my loves, my everything!
The best weekend I have had in a long time!
Hello my Lovelies!
I feel like I have abandoned you these last several weeks, my life has been turned upside down with work and if I had to remember to breathe I would have suffocated a long time ago! Thank the good Lord that He automated the process for us! So today, August 30th, 2012 is my sissy’s 26th birthday!!! I think the whole sibling rivalry thing is BS because even from childhood Erica and I have been each other’s biggest fans and proponents. Read the rest of this entry »
Happy Sunday my Lovelies and even better Happy Father’s Day!
It is a blessing to see another Sunday and I woke up with my dad on my mind. He is back home in Louisiana visiting his dad and I am separated from him this Father’s Day. For some this would be quite disappointing not to have their father present on this day but not so for me. I talk to my dad at least once a week and text him regularly. My dad has been with me since I was 6 years old and stepped into the shoes left vacant by my biological father. At an early age I learned that biology doesn’t make a parent. So this morning before I rose to begin my day, I wrote this to my dad:
God has been so gracious to me, He blessed me when brought you into our lives. There was a void in my life and in my heart because the father who biologically is linked to me was absent due to his own iniquities. So God sent you to us and my cup overflowed as you stepped in and filled that empty space in me and then some. Biology doesn’t make a parent, love, care, devotion and acceptance do. I have a father, a biological parent, and I have my dad, the man that raised me, that loves me even through my mess and whom I adore and thank God for daily. It matters not to me what anyone says, you are mine and i am yours; our bond as father and daughter has and will endure until our Heavenly Father calls is both home and we will be friends in Heaven for all eternity. I am so incredibly honored that you call me daughter and thank God everyday for you. Happy Father’s Day!
A father can be many things and many people. I have a biological father who did the best he could given his personal demons, I have a father, my daddy, who raised and loved me as his own and to this day you cannot tell him that I am not his, he will fight you over it if need be. I have two spiritual fathers in Pastor Keven D. Johnson and Dr. Ralph Douglas West, who have nurtured and feed my soul and helped me grow in my spiritual growth. I have a Heavenly Father who when all the others are unavailable or absent, is always there to love, protect and guide me.
Be thankful today and every day for the fathers in your life and if your father no longer walks with you, remember all that he was to you and smile.
Blessings and Happiness
T. Nicole
Hello My Lovelies!
No one could ever mistake me for an old Southern Belle, you can look at my picture and know that definition is far from the truth. But I will admit that I like doing certain crafts… yes, I like crafts! Big whoop, wanna fight about it?! ( Macie will laugh at this later) I enjoy coloring and roaming around Michael’s, Hobby Lobby and Garden Ridge in search of my next project. Growing up my mom always had my sister and I doing something artsy, from color or paint by number to latch hooking to eventually crocheting and cross stitching. At any random time, my sister can be found crocheting a scarf or an afghan. Me on the other hand, I never wanted to learn to crochet when my mom offered to teach me, cross stitching was my thing. ( I have since asked my mom to teach me so that I can make baby blankets for friends) I have made many cross stitching pieces and am currently working on one for my mom’s b’day. However, it seems that I have chosen the largest piece I have tried to date and I am not completely sure I will get it done in a week and a half… HELP!!!
My mom and I love butterflies, so I chose this as part of her June 7th b’day present.
You will note that this piece is 11 x 11… I failed to read that part when I bought it, I was distracted by all the pretty colors
This is more than I bargained for!
After 2 hours of work
After an additional 1 1/2 hours… I will make it… barely!
There is a certain solace and peace that I find in doing crafts, the concentration and beauty that comes with every design. After this… Tinkerbell! Here’s to finding what calms your soul and brings you peace.
Blessings and Happiness
T. Nicole
It’s Monday, the one day of the week that gets no love and has posters and t-shirts dedicated to hating it and loving Friday. I feel bad for poor Monday, I feel badly that it is odious in nature, no one looks forward to it but they would be the first ones to complain if they didn’t live to see it. (Some of ya’ll will get that one on your way home)
When my Mondays are endless, my workload is difficult to balance and I literally want to run somewhere and hide, there is a face that I know will make it all better… Tyson! ( My dog, not the actual boxer… Tyson’s face ( the boxer) would make small children cry). My friends, and my immediate family, know how I absolutely LOVE my dog! Now, I don’t dress him in cloths or hats or anything like that but I do lavish attention and money on him. Tyson is a cheap date on any night of the week, give him an old dish towel or a sock and he is pure entertainment for at least 2 hours that just cost you less than a dollar! Animals, whether cats, dogs, ferrets ( I so totally want one but my husband vehemently told me no) or hamsters, are creatures that require our care, but also give back so much more than we could really ever hope for.
Tyson is a strange creature in that he has a personality and insight that most humans lack and yet has these really weirdo doggy tendencies. I was in the hospital late last year for nearly 3 weeks, fighting for my life, so of course I wasn’t home at all. Tyson is and has been used to seeing me every day, even though I know that he has no real concept of time. When I did finally come home, my husband put me to bed and let Tyson out of his crate. This dog lost his ever-loving mind! He ran from the front of the apartment to the master bedroom, jumped up on the bed ( a four-poster king that even I have to climb up into), ran in a circle on the bed, jumped off and ran back the way he came! Mind you Ty is no Pug or Jack Rus! Robert and I just sat/stood there with our mouths open, blinking because there were no words to express how nutzo Ty really is. Ty tears up paper (he shredded an entire roll of toilet paper one day), crawls on his belly underneath our bed and will refuse to come out, he pulls the stuffing out of every toy he has ever owned ( but amazingly doesn’t eat any of it) and places it neatly in little piles on the rug daring you to touch it, he LOVES ice cubes and the occasional french fry. And he is a sock thief! Ty will pull the socks right off your feet while you are sitting anywhere, play with them and then they disappear… ( We found his hoard while cleaning under the bed one weekend)
He is mommy’s “Noonie”, daddy’s “Butt Boy” ( due to him wagging his tail so hard that his entire butt moves) and the more often called than not, “Oye, Dog!” He can be a holy terror but when you have a really crappy day, when nothing seems to go right, when everyone is down on you, you can always depend on Tyson to be overjoyed to see you and right then and there, you are the only thing that matters in his life… with the exception of his rawhide bone. 🙂
I am vocal, jovial and animated around those whom I am comfortable with. For everyone else I am quite reserved as I am observing and calculating whether or not it is a good idea to be the me that everyone else is accustomed to. Don’t get me wrong, I am always me, day in, day out, I will remain true to who I am. I just have a filter, some people get 20%, some get 50%, very few can handle much more than that!
That being said, tonight was sister time with my lovely lil’ sis/bestie. Of course being the fashionista that she is, Erica showed up looking casually fab! ( I was underwhelmed by my own work attire of khaki and denim, but I digress.) While enjoying drinks, each others company and conversation with a random oil rig worker from Canada, I eyed an old a#$ man, old enough to damn near be her grandfather eyeballing her, all while his wife was looking at her phone!! I looked at him looking at her and went into protective sister mode. His wife looked up and tried to cover up his creepy lurking by commenting on my sissy’s tattoo and attire. This set his wife off and this broad had the unmitigated gaul to start talking trash about MY sister!! Oh hell naw!!
This is where my filter went from 50% to 100% and she got the full brunt of who I can be! I unceremoniously told her to shut up talking about my family. I kindly informed her that she needed to check her husband, who was eye-banging my sis while she was busy looking at her phone, rather than making unfounded, ignorant and slanderous comments about my sister. (Alcohol had nothing to do with me confronting her, I protect mine sober or not)
The moral of the story my lovelies is this: Don’t think just because we are pretty and genial and laugh with people we meet at random that we will simply let anyone talk unmerited smack about us. We are ladies first so we won’t fight you physically, nor will we make a scene in public; but be prepared for a verbal assault if you are in the wrong. If you don’t start none, there won’t be none!
Blessings and Happiness
T. Nicole
T. Nicole's Graham Cracker Crumbs by Tanesha N. Graham is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
T. Nicole's Graham Cracker Crumbs 
Bowed But Not Broken… Tried But Not Defeated
Hey there my Lovelies! As another work week draws to a close I breathe a sigh of relief and of disappointment. This week has held pain and upset that has shaken me and nearly broken my will. Yet here I am, fingers flying across my ergonomic keyboard still here.
So I went to one of my routine 3 month follow-ups with my Rheumatologist on this past Tuesday and since she saw me last I had been hospitalized due to my chronic asthma and a subsequent lung infection. True the infection took more than a month to get over and I felt like something I had pulled off the bottom of my shoe but I was still standing. Upon hearing this, she promptly and unceremoniously said that she couldn’t treat me anymore; that her medicine/treatment had nearly killed me twice (I think she was being a bit overly dramatic but then again… it isn’t like she was lying I was REALLY sick) and that I would have to wait until medicine could catch up with as complex of a case as I am. Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted by grahamcrackercrumbs09 on August 15, 2013 in Family, Inspiration, Social Commentary
Tags: Christianity, Disability, Faith, Family, Fred Hammond, God, Houston, joint replacements, Life, Reflections, Rheumatoid Arthritis, Spirituality, Support System, Tanesha Graham, United Tenors