Category: Inspiration

Feel Good Friday

It’s amazing to me that, even working only part-time, I still managed to be one of busiest people that other people know. LOL. I swear, I don’t mean to be this way but that’s how it happens. In addition to keeping up with my writing projects, I’m always open to new experiences that add depth to this thing called life.

Though I knew I shouldn’t have taken on this particular project, I agreed to it, only when I learned that I wouldn’t be doing it by myself. It’s an oral history project for this organization in Detroit called the Detroit Women’s Forum. I’d never heard of the before I received an email from one of my graduate school professors stating that this organization was looking for past oral history students to manage a project they wanted to do. The oral history class was my last class as an elective for my MLIS degree. But as a writer always looking for unique ways to gather information, this class intrigued me. Though I knew my daughter would be giving birth within weeks, I didn’t want to miss the opportunity to participate in an actual oral history project–for a fee, I might add. Turns out, I’m leading it.

Early in April I interviewed for two more librarian jobs. One is a full-time librarian position at the library I ultimately want to work for. First it’s my community library. Second, that being the case, it’s even closer to home than the library I currently work at. The other is a part-time adjunct librarian at a community college. I applied for that one to work in addition to my current part-time job and I want to experience the academic side of librarianship as well. Interestingly, I thought I bombed the interview for the adjunct position, but surprising received a job offer two weeks ago. And for the full-time librarian job, they said I wouldn’t hear anything from them until mid-May if I’d move to the second interview round, but they called last week for an interview for this current week! Talk about blessings on top of blessings. If all goes well with my interview this week, I’ll be in a position to choose what will work best for me instead of taking what I can get!

If that’s not something to feel good about, I don’t know what is…

Happy Feel Good Friday y’all!

If you have good news to share, and I know you do, please share in the comments below.

Happy New Year

If you reading this email, you’re one of the lucky ones. Millions didn’t make it to this space of time, on the brink of ushering in a new year. But you and I did! What a blessing!

I don’t know about you, but 2021 hasn’t disappointed me. Like everyone else, I endured some rough patches. But overall, because of my, “God will never leave nor forsake me” attitude, I choose to focus on all the good things.

Some of those good things include:

1. Leaving a company that I no longer wanted to be at after 23 years.

2. Acquiring a new job in an industry I lm excited to be apart of— librarianship!

3. Completing second master’s degree (which aided in #2)

4. Being apart of growing podcast, Conversations Between Widows.

5. Being published in two successful books: Chicken Soup For the Soul: I’m Speaking Now and A Widow’s Resilience

I really want to add, too, that I have opened myself up to a new love since losing my husband four years ago, but I wasn’t sure if y’all wanted to hear about that piece 🤔

I’m expecting even greater things to come in 2022. Not just for myself, but for you too!

Happy New Year! Be safe!

I Quit My Job of 23 Years—The Vlog

So I haven’t posted since the brief series about leaving my job of 23 years to pursue a new beginning. That’s not because I haven’t had anything to blog about. I decided to do something a little different, more real time, to chronicle this journey—Vlog. I like this raw, authentic process of recording this journey. Check it out. Subscribe if you like it or not. Lol.

So This Happened Today: Journey to My next adventure

Monday, June 21, 2021

Either third time’s a charm or third time’s a swift kick in the butt by God himself: “This is you last chance to trust Me.”

Opportunity #1: March 2006. I was in a strained marriage, had just had my second child two years before, and was working on my master’s degree when the department I was in decided to move the work to Dallas, TX. I’d had great plans for my career at AT&T once I received my MBA in Human Resource Management. I’d hoped to be an encouraging and supportive trainer like the Sabrina, the woman who trained me eight years before. Plus, my eight years of service wasn’t going to garner me any significant severance package. Nothing like the 100K buyout that my husband had been offered on the job he only had 5 years employment with. Moving with the work wasn’t an option. So I stayed and waited for the company to place me in another job in the company, hoping it would come with opportunity to advance.

Opportunity #2: June 2019. I’ve been working in my current dept for nearly 15 years. The work we were doing was on the declining side of the business. There has been no opportunity for growth or promotion within the department and pursuing opportunities in other departments within the company have proven fruitless. Admittedly, all the “no’s” from AT&T was a blow to my confidence. I became discouraged and began doubting my abilities. Thankfully, though, I had my writing. Pursuing the passion eventually became my priority over anything AT&T had to offer. Still, when the offer was made to take a buyout package when the company was making cuts in the department, I was scared to make that move. A couple of major things had occurred in my life by this time. First, I’d lost my 2nd husband, Kevin, after a house fire and a terminal illness in 2017. I was back to being a single mother, responsible for an entire household on my own. Then, I suffered a stroke in 2019 and had to start a regular medication regimen of blood thinners and cholesterol reducing pills. How would I pay for this expensive medication? How was I going to manage all of this on my own?

You can’t leave now, Charmine. You need AT&T’s comfortable salary and good benefits for you and your son.

The weight of that voice influenced my decision to stay. So I remained in my daily discontentment of complacency and fear of trusting God with…what could be next.

Opportunity #3 June 2021. The restrictions of the pandemic have been lifted. My son made it through an entire year of online school and is going into his senior year of high school. I’ve been dating a guy that I really like. And I finally got connected with a contractor to build a deck in the back of my house. Then the week I made the final payment on the deck and two weeks before me and the new guy have a trip planned for Chicago, another force reduction is announced in our department. The first part of the reduction is the buyout offer.

My first thought was, This is your time. It’s now or never, Charmine.

My second thought was, Can you really do this?

Then I heard the still, quiet voice of God, “With Me, you can. I will never leave nor forsake you.”

I always give God credit for being my provider but I’m guilty of giving too much credit to AT&T for providing me a life of comfort. I’d bought into this corporate/blue collar culture of boasting about my 20 years seniority, my 4 weeks of vacation, the company 80% 401k matching, employee discounts on my cell,TV, and internet service. I wanted to get the rest of what AT&T promised me. Another recognition gift when I reached 25 years of service, another week of vacation, etc.

BUT…brace yourself…AT&T CAN’T HOLD ON A CANDLE TO WHAT GOD HAS FOR ME (AND YOU ) AS LONG AS I TRUST HIM!

So, on Friday, June 18 I signed my name on the line and dated the paper accepting the buyout offer 2021. I didn’t turn it in until the following Monday BUT the decision was made that Friday. There was no pondering over the weekend. There was pure acceptance and calm in my spirit. Then I preceded to celebrate the launch of anthology and at a beautiful party in the garden with some of my best supporters.

I must thank the people in my life who didn’t naysay me but encouraged me to fly and trust God! They include my daughter, who has been my #1 cheerleader, my friend and Conversations Between Widows co-host Tonia, the new man in my life, who shall remain nameless for the time being :), a former coworker, Karen, who likely doesn’t know how God used her to encourage. Her words to me on in a random conversation were, “I wish someone encouraged me to pursue life outside AT&T when I had the chance.” And there she was doing it for me just hours after I decided not to leave.

Follow my next several posts as I journey to my next adventure of life…

Naturally Yours,

LA

I’m Speaking Now

When you have a goal, it’s important to keep it at the forefront of your mind. Several years ago, I jumped on the dream board bandwagon. I put all the things that I wanted on the board from declaring myself a bestselling author to purchasing a home.

I’m blocking the board, showing off a hairstyle (lol) BUT this was vision board, which I kept hanging in my cubicle for like 4-5 yrs.

I also put on there to become a contributor for Chicken Soup for the Soul. I’d never purchased one of these books, until recently, but I’d always been aware of them and somehow or another one or two of their books found a home on my bookshelf. Currently, I have the Chicken Soup for the Forgiveness Soul and Chicken Soup for the Couples Soul. I can’t remember when I decided that my personal stories could find a home within their books, but I started keeping an eye on their website for topics I could write about. In fact, now that I think about, I have to credit Dr. Mary Edwards for sharing the publishing opportunity with me. I met her when she was a vendor at my workplace, selling her books. After she shared the story of how her first book, Born Grown, came to be, we were instant friends. That day she also told me about her writing experience with Chicken Soup For the Soul. She’d been published multiple times and asked to be a judge for the stories at one time. She added me to her mailing list and would periodically send the list of topics the publication was looking for. I was so interested that I started going directly to Chicken Soup’s site to check for myself.

The first story I submitted was for a book called Home Sweet Home. My story wasn’t selected but I didn’t give up. Sometimes I would go several months without checking the site, but I was always reminded of what my goal was when I looked at the dream board hanging in front of me in my cubicle. Though I submitted quite a few times, there were only a few in which I knew I put my heart and soul into the story I penned. “Sisterhood”, the story that was selected for the I’m Speaking Now book was one of those stories. I wrote about two very significant events in my life: becoming a member of my beloved sorority, Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. and losing my husband, Kevin. Both events were life-changing and that came across in my writing.

I just love how God shows up in my life. I stand on the promises of His word. In the Bible, scripture says that God WILL give you the desires of your heart. Scripture says all we need is faith the size of a mustard seed. Scripture says faith without works is dead.

I’m here to testify what God has done for me. He has given me the desires of my heart. I didn’t sit back and just wait for it to happen. I continued to write and read the books to learn what kind of stories they published. I also prayed for this to happen and had faith that it would happen.

It may not have come when I wanted it–the first time I submitted, but it has come right on time. It is no coincidence that my first story is published in this particular book. The editors of Chicken Soup knew that this was the time to share the stories of the Black woman. And they wanted new voices for this book. One of the emails I received from them stated that they selected quite a few new contributors. This is only the 2nd time in the book’s history that they’ve dedicated a book for African American stories. Every book in this story is written by a black woman, sharing a story pertinent to her life as a Black woman. This is book is going to be a bestseller. And my story is in it!

DON’T GIVE UP ON YOUR DREAMS!

Naturally Yours,

L.A.

Why I Write: The Page

The Page

Keeper of my secrets

Stories from the depths of my soul

Sometimes true;

Sometimes from the scenes of my imagination;

My dreams

My nightmares

My deepest fears

The crisp white on a notebook page

Or the grainy white of the computer screen,

Never turn me away

Never ignore my pleas

Not afraid of my tears

Not expecting me to be strong

Rather wanting all that I have to give,

to share, to dare

To say.

I can be who I am

I can be who I want to be

I can be who I’m afraid to be

In the open world

There is no judgement on that page;

On that screen

I…AM…FREE

Why I Write? Positively Impacting Other

I’ve been writing for as long as I can remember. Letters to Santa Claus. Love letters to boyfriends. Entries to my diaries in my adolescent and teen years. Entries in my journals throughout my adults years.

I went FB Live on Saturday after I moved myself to tears writing a story I plan to submit to Chicken Soup for the Soul. I wrote about my experience of having a stroke, at 44 years old, with no preexisting risk factors. I wrote about the natural inclination to ask God, “Why me? Haven’t I been through enough?”

I ended on the note of gratefulness that the stroke was just one more thing that God has brought me through. His Word doesn’t say bad things won’t happen to bad people. In fact, it says, “In this world you will have trouble.” Following that text says, “but, Fear not, I will be with you.” How comforting is that?

By the time I finished the piece, I knew that, whenever it is published, it will be a blessing to whoever reads it.

Naturally Yours,

L.A.

Why I Write: The Makings of a Story

Where do the ideas for your books? This is a common question asked of authors by readers and aspiring writers. The answers vary. For myself, the subjects that I’ve addressed in my novels have been retrieved for the pages of my life. The stories aren’t biographical by any means, but they’ve been sparked by things I experienced.

Read More...

Wellness Wednesday—

I was trying to craft some words for this post to go along with this picture, but I concluded that the words say it all.

I have three of these notes taped around my cubicle at work. Whichever direction I look in, these words are in my line of vision. They remind me to use my down time, specifically at work, wisely. Instead of chatting it up with coworkers or watching a series on Netflix when work is low, I should be preparing what I’m going to write in the evening on my manuscript or planning my social media marketing plan to promote my blog and my books, working on my online graduate course, reading a book, or updating my resume.

If you’re laid off due to CVOID-19, or at home with nothing to do because everything is closed, I encourage you to take heed to this words.

When you see these words, what comes to mind that should you be doing with your time? Tell me in the comments below.

Naturally Yours,

L.A.