Kaitlyn: I Love You!
Me: I love you too!
Kaitlyn: but I love you a lot, lot, lot!
Me: You do? Wow! How much is a lot?
Kaitlyn: um...all the way from here to Wal-mart!

I can remember the day as if it were yesterday...sitting at my desk on the computer while chatting with my best friend on the phone, when my phone beep with another call. Not knowing that that call would change my life drastically, I placed my friend on hold, said hello and heard,

"Mommy, I love you.
Mommy, I love you.
I love you in the springtime and the fall.
I'm crazy about you.
I can't live without.
I love you best of all."
(Preschool song from the '70s)

My best friend and I had a conversation a few weeks ago about a guy she had overlooked in her youth because he was not what she “was accustomed” to dating. She talked of how he tried on many occasions to get to her to go out with him and how she would relentlessly turn him down; but he never let it stop him from trying. Then one day, he smiles and tells her… “You’ll be sorry ‘cause I’m not going to look like this always.”

“Here I go again, here I go again. Crazy to believe, that God can!” (Hezekiah Walker)

Some may call it entitlement… I call it confidence in believing that I can have whatever I ask for… It may not be an immediate acquisition… and it may not even come in the form in which I envisioned… but the end results are always the same… if I believe it… I can have it.

I read an article today on Newsone.com that hit a chord with me this morning. The article, an opinion piece, entitled - “Opinion: Why White People Love “Precious” And Black People Hate It” talks of how the movie, Precious, sheds a derogatory image of black low income families. Casey Gane-McCalla, author of the piece, introduced the readers to an article that was published in the New York Times, Fade to White by Ishmael Reed.

Today my parents celebrate their 36^th wedding anniversary. In today’s society we are seeing less and less of positive marriages surviving 10 years, let alone 30 plus years. My prayer, as I am “waiting” to be found… is to not be so hasty with wanting to settle and be married that I leave myself subject to desperation falling for the first man that wants to marry, but that I will continue to trust and seek God for his direction as to whom I should say “yes” to and to whom I should not walk, but run from quickly.

This week I almost lost my “brother” to a tractor trailer accident in PA.  Hearing his mother’s voice on the phone speaking softly, brought many thoughts rushing into my mind as I braced myself for what she had to say. My heart leaped when I heard that he was ok; unharmed, despite the condition of his totaled truck.

“There’s no place like home… There’s no place like home…” (Dorothy, Wizard of Oz)

I love the McDonald Clan! Whenever we all get together there is bound to be a party of some type that will include seafood- from shrimp, blue crabs to oysters and more; and no family gathering is complete without Aunt Mona’s Red Rice.