my locs as of late.

well here are my locs thus far! they're finally getting it together to the point where i no longer have to pin them after twisting them...a blessing because i lost all of my hair pins anyway and money is too tight to replace them now. i want to add more jewelry to them as well. i was contemplating adding more color to them for the summer but i'm not so sure about that anymore as the only color i can add to my hair without any damage to it is black, and that looks better on me in the winter.  we shall see as time mosies on along exactly what's next for us!

well i did it!

i'ze married now...it's official! lol. i didn't want to say anything before it actually happened (i believe in jinxing yourself)...but now that the "i do's" are all "i done's", it's cool to let the cat out of the bag. so i am officially a proverb's wife. it feels pretty good...i have to admit, better than i ever imagined it would (and i have to admit, i really loved my hair on my wedding day)! so now i can *restart* my blog off on another foot...and just move on with life! yessiree.

my locs thus far.

here are my locs thus far. they are about 1.5 years old now, and i dyed them red this summer but it's cooled off to a soft brownish color. my roots are dark brown and because i don't want to dye my hair anymore, i'm letting them just grow out. yes it looks a mess when i don't twist my hair but i try my best to keep it twisted now lol. at least until the dark brown grows out a few more inches!

when i took these pictures i was blow drying my hair and clipping it *as seen in picture two*. now it's starting to become a hassle to twist my hair because it's getting longer and heavier, but i work my way through it faithfully. my hair is finally reaching the nape of my neck and i love it lol, that's my proof that it's actually growing and not just sitting there doing nothing. :p

on the left side of the last picture that whitish ball in my hair is actually a sterling toe ring that i twisted into my hair. one of the reasons i don't want to color my hair again is because of the discoloration that happens to the jewelry in my hair. my dogwood flower is stained a dark gray color and it hasn't turned back to silver yet :(

i almost can pull my hair into a ponytail at the nape of my neck! hopefully by the time hubby comes home they'll be at least another 4-5 inches long. wishful thinking i know but anything is possible!

cats, cats everywhere!

sam. one of my very first set of foster siblings, sam's brother kater died a few days after my mom brought the litter home, so she passed sam and her brothers fred and purrfect off to me. they've all since been adopted and have new moms and dads. :)

bo. from my second set of foster siblings, bo is awaiting adoption now. she looks evil here but she's really cute LOL.

godaddy is my newest foster. he was in poor condition when i brought him home. he has neurological defects and is a special needs kitten. his eyes here are watery because he has a slight eye infection. but what he lacks for in balance he makes up for in personality! godaddy is afraid of the dark so i keep a light on for him at all times. *sadness to my soul, godaddy died on 10/14/09 in my arms. he died from complications from injuries and neurological complications. it was difficult for me to deal with, even moreso than the kids. :*( *

bamino, my 2 month old foster, rubbing heads with my sleeping daughters. bambino is also the kitten in this post. when i brought bambino home with his sister bo and his sister purrina *i don't have a picture of her :( *, they were so little and new i thought they would all die (he fit perfectly in my daughter's hand pictured next to him now). their eyes had JUST opened and they were still bottle babies! NOW he's fat and heavy and handsome and fresh!

dean! he's 11 years old, and is an old ornery man. but he's still a doll. he is battling an eye infection right now and bowel problems but he still thinks he's a young whippersnapper LOL. see the huge mess he made with his litter *and got caught in the act doing*?!

so at the beginning of the summer, inspired by my own desire to change the world, mr. president's encouraging words about volunteering, and my general love for animals, i decided to volunteer at my local humane society. i had also been going through a series of stressful health situations and figured that doing something for animals in need and their caretakers would help me to not worry so much about my own issues.

so on may 2nd i believe, i went to an open house and first timers meeting for becoming a humane society volunteer. immediately i loved the animals, the flexible schedules, and their generosity to take any help the volunteers offered, from washing clothes to walking the dogs *some people and organizations actually aren't generous about receiving volunteer help*. my mom came with me *also prompted by mr. president's volunteer pep talk* and she decided to volunteer too.

we started that day, folding dry laundry and washing dirty laundry, totally not adequately dressed for the event but in love with the place nonetheless.

over the weeks we got to know everyone and the pets to the point where we were indistinguishable from the actual employees other than the lack of a biweekly paycheck. eventually we knew the ropes and where everything was, and we stuck to walking and giving the dogs some extra love and cleaning their areas...until one day we wandered into the *back* of the shelter.

to the kitten room.

in this room we were immediately hit by the stench of sick babies and mama cats who desperately needed help because they were just dying slowly. eye infections, upper respiratory infections and digestive tract problems ruled the land there, and almost every cat in the room was dying. since the humane society we volunteer for is a no-kill shelter, instead of putting the cats down, they strive diligently, patiently and sometimes pleadingly for the cats to get better and the illnesses to subside. we were told that since the economy weakened the shelter was rationing out medications and it just wasn't enough, but there wasn't enough money to purchase more medicine. so the only thing that could really help was taking home the best off kittens to keep them from getting sicker and taking home the worst off kittens to try and help *aka pray* them back to life and health. right then and there my mom picked a family of kittens to bring home. i picked an adult orange cat named dean who has irritable bowel syndrome in cat form (and he actually was in the sick adult room, not the kitten room, but it's a very similar place), and my mom brought home a set of kittens that were doing the best out of the room. the next day we went back to the shelter and dismantled the entire kitten room, disinfecting the whole place and letting the kittens out group by group to get exercise. over time the room got worse and then better, sometimes the kittens would die and one or two HAD to be put down because they were already basically dead, but then sometimes there would be a burst of cuteness coming from somewhere that just made the whole ordeal worth it. i eventually got my moms group of kittens because she wasn't prepared for the difficulties of raising little babies without a mama cat.

when the brakes on my van went i couldn't get back and forth to the shelter anymore *neither could my mom*, so we just decided to become full time foster parents of the neediest kittens and mama's in the shelter. why the kittens? because while the dogs are higher maintenance, the kittens and cats have more needs. i chose to take on the kittens because i already have adult cats in my house and more adults just makes it harder for me to keep the peace *at one time my only female adult started spraying this one particular wall EVERY DAY because of stress! *EEWWWWW*

right now, i have godaddy, bambino *pictured above* and dean *pictured above, whom i adopted*. dean has an eye infection that may cause him to lose his right eye so that has me a bit wacked out, and his irritable bowel syndrome is getting worse. but he's alive and i'm doing the best i can. every other kitten has been adopted save bo, who is waiting now.

i didn't expect the financial costs to rise of my household with fostering kittens, but it has. i'm already strapped for cash to the point where i am statistically in poverty, and i buy the cats food and litter because the shelter is having a hard time. medicines are low and i can't afford vet bills *which is why dean's eye is so bad off*. most people would say don't adopt a cat you can't afford but taking dean back to the shelter is out of the question and struggling together with half of the problems you had before has gotten to be better than struggling alone with all of them. i am blessed for the opportunity and so are the cats. i used to feel that praying for animals was silly until i went through the stress with baby, now i see that you can pray for anything that you feel is important to pray for, and if you have to pray for it, it must be important. God must smile down on me because i send up my prayers for my fosters and He answers them. if He doesn't answer them, there's a reason and i accept that all things have their time.

we eat everynight and have lots of love and warmth to give. the kittens get their needs met with me and my girls love them, and i feel like i'm really making a difference, despite my dire financial situation and sometimes lifestyle stress. so really, i'd say i'm rich. and so are my kitties.

*btw, the kitten room has improved DRAMATICALLY and i am HAPPY to announce that this season was the worst season the humane society has seen for cats in years...good! so we basically got indoctrinated in the worst season--now i know it doesn't get much worse than that. from here we can only go up. hopefully next season won't be nearly as bad*.

my humble abode thus far.

so here are some pictures of my bedroom, kitchen and living room.

the reason i'm posting them up is to show my personal frugality at work. with a little hard work, patience and determination a person can have a pretty comfortable place to live in on a very tight (or even nearly non existent) budget. contrary to popular belief, being frugal has many more pros than cons, and honestly it's really fun once you get into it.

everything on the bed was free, even the kitten LOL. the only thing i purchased was the frame itself for 150.00 at ikea about 6 years ago. there are at least 350.00 worth of blankets and pillows on my bed *very good quality items, including a down pillow bed and comforter woohoo*. in my living room the only thing i brought was the tv 8 years ago at 300.00 and the tv center for 50.00 from the thrift store about 2 years ago. everything else was free. in my kitchen the only thing i purchased were the 4 clear canisters with the blue tops from the dollar store at 1.00 each and the two apples from the same store at 1.00 each. there was a bunch of chaos going on because it was dinner time. but theres a plant, tea kettle, bread canister, sugar bowl, spice rack and a container with spoons in it *ok i brought the spoons, 15.00 from bed bath and beyond*.

it's really coming along and the best thing i've accomplished thus far in it is making it feel like home. yessiree, when you walk into my house, it has a nice, ahhhhh feeling to it. i've decorated my home over the years all for less than 5,000.00 altogether from the time i've moved in, i'm positive. and that includes 1,500.00 for my new carpets *which are brown but look much better in person than in the pictures*.

all things considering, i must say that the pictures really don't do my little townhouse justice.

ok, so when i first moved into my little townhouse 7 years ago i had 2 blankets, a pillow, a radio and 3 boxes of books, clothes and diapers for my girls.

now it's been a while and alot of struggle. i've written about my sick dog and the havoc she wreaked on my little spot, and how i had to move her to my moms because of the difficulties i had keeping her. i've also had to deal with a building that's not the most structurally sound in the world haha, when trucks come past everything rumbles. as the house settles, things are more than a bit lopsided and the ceilings and walls are shifting and seperating slightly. some of the materials used to make my home were discontinued and actually the cheapest money could buy. when the snow comes it has a tendency to melt into my home. when the rain comes if don't lock my windows it will splatter through the cracks and wet up the floors. i have to continuously wipe down my kitchen cabinets because the food oils stain them horribly if i don't.

despite all of these problems, my little townhouse is my home and i'm grateful for it. when i moved into it, it was just another little mechanically created house on a long block of little mechanically created houses which all looked, smelled and seemed the same. after putting a few memories and some very special things into it, my humble abode now has personality and spunk!

i am almost proud (we shouldn't be prideful) to say that most of what's in my home is preowned or brought new for under 20.00 lol. the things that cost more than 20.00 new are far and few between, and the word "new" is relative. when i got those "new" things, sure they were "new" but this was also 6-7 years ago lol.

in other words, i no longer buy anything new for more than 20.00 to go into my home except for clothing for the girls and myself. lol.

it may not be much, but it's not bad to have basically been free, eh?

Jesus loves ALL of His creations, even the imperfect ones.

yes it's true. i love my american pit bull terrier, and she loves me. not only that, but Jesus loves her too. i suppose it's safe to say that Jesus loves her so much because i love her so much, although He loves all of His creation. so maybe i'm being a little siddity in saying that He loves her as much as He does because i love her as much as i do.

but at any rate, the point is, we Both love our pit bull terrier, baby. a while back i posted about her struggling with mange, and the stresses it brought to the table. well, we were still struggling so much and badly that for the first time i had considered seriously, seriously putting her down. it really came as a final decision after i got my carpets replaced, which needed to be done very badly. because of the cost (1,500.00) and the amount of physical labor it took me by myself to have them put in, i really couldn't stand to have her ruin them again.

but my heart just couldn't say yes to euthanizing my dog. so i prayed.

now some people think it's silly to pray over certain seemingly small things, but as my mom says, "if it's important enough to pray over, then it's not small." so i swallowed my anxiety and i spoke to Jesus about my problem. i prayed for a solution, and moreso than that, i prayed that He help me accept putting her down, because my heart just couldn't take it. it was probably the most emotional prayer i've had all year--i cried before, during and after my prayer. i felt like i was choosing to euthanize my best friend or a family member.

i still can't really express the pain i felt praying that prayer.

but i know Jesus heard it. and what else did He send but an answer?

two days before my carpets got done, my mother called me up. now take note that after i had said my prayer few days earlier i texted my mom and asked her to pray for me concerning the situation as well, to pray for me to have enough strength to do what was best for all parties involved.

so anywh0, my mom calls me up. and she blurts out that she'll take my dog! now i'm confused because i've had this dog for x amount of years and no one save my sister has offered to help me by actually taking her. unfortunately soon after that my sister lost her job and her apartment so that offer fell through the floor.

but i certainly was floored. my mom told me she'd take my dog and help me with her. all i had to do was buy her medicine and continue to make her meals...which i agreed to do without fail.

when i asked her what made her decide to help me she said, "i don't know. i just have been having these dreams about her and my heart is telling me not to let her get put to sleep."

funny, but that's the same exact thing both hubby and i have experienced with this dog. dreams and our hearts/intuitions/feelings telling us to keep her around. almost like God Himself is demanding she be kept alive. i pretty much listen to my heart, i don't ignore my feelings. and this dog evokes such a strong response from me emotionally--it's hard to explain but for some reason i cant let her go. she's blessed--there's a reason she's on this earth i've decided.

so my prayers were heard and answered. i was spared the pain of putting down literally the sweetest dog i've ever owned, and my carpets were spared the pain of being totally destroyed again. what a blessing huh!

to make matters better, my dog seems to be healing up super quickly. hard to explain, but i think she is allergic to carpeting. her fur is growing back in and she no longer needs to wear a tshirt around her neck *as you can see she has on in the above picture too*. this dog has been delivered from death more times than i care to count. i believe i explained her story in my last post about her so i won't repeat it, but she's a special dog. she misses me sure, but since i'm right around the c0rner from my mom i'm always in her face anyway. my sister helps me out too, so i guess it's safe to say baby has become a family dog.

and i know it's safe to say that she's loved and that Jesus loves all of His creations, even the imperfect ones.

my idol marriages.

throughout my adult life, i've collected stories of the marriages of the couples around me, and picked what i deemed to be the three healthiest of them all. then i made a sort of "marriage collage" of these couples, and i listened to their stories and experiences and studied what i heard to come up with my own solutions for a successful marriage.

i've come to term these marriages in my life "my idol marriages". they aren't perfect marriages by far, and the people in them aren't perfect, but they are what i call perfectly imperfect.

they are really the epitomes of what i want my own marriage to be like.

the three couples that make up my list are:

donald and judith. these two composed an irish american couple who were married for over fifty years. they got married when don was i believe 22, 23ish and judy 18. judy was a coworker at my last job. i loved the stories she told me about their marriage. and whenever don called...you could hear the love behind the teases he had for us about judy. they have four children and judy really loved him so much. last year at this time, don died of brain cancer...he was in his 70's. judy hasn't been the same without him, but she still smiles when she speaks about him.

christina and michael. these two are african american couple who've been married i believe 28 years? they have two grown sons and what stuck out to me the most about the beauty of their marriage was the sense of togetherness between them. christina always told me how she and mike love to party together, and how she never gets into the bed without him. for me, that's a big one, because i don't understand marriages where the husband isn't home when it's bedtime, yet he's not at work. for me--that doesn't fly. but you can see the love these two have for each other, and they have a beautiful home. she told me about some problems they had, but that their solution always was to just take it one day at a time. to not jump to conclusions, and if they didn't know what to do, they didn't do anything at all until they did know what to do. they are still young and in love too...and that's what i love.

mance and martha. these two were my very beloved grandparents. my grandmother outlived my grandfather by over 25 years; he died from lung cancer in the 70's. my grandmother would show us family pictures, and there was grandfather, always hugging her close to his hip. they had 6 children and my mother is the youngest. my mother always recalls her father being very loving but strict with them, meaning when they did something wrong it didn't go unpunished. and she said grandma was even worse than grandpa, but that was because the times were so hard for them that there was very little room for mistakes and errors of any sort, because they could be costly. i know it sounds cheesy, but i can still see the love in their eyes in the pictures they took. my grandfather was very broody but he loved his wife. and she loved her husband. they were married for about fifty years--and they got married when my grandmother was 13, and she had their first son at 14--and he was a whopping 12 pound baby!

well today, i had to add a fourth couple to "my idol marriages", because i am so in love with how they love each other that i want to be the biggest copycat ever.

mr. and mrs. president have my heart in total rapture for them. they are absolute poetry in motion and they make me want to cry sometime. i can see the whole meaning of marriage in those two--everything. from the spiritual to the physical is there with them. i can see God in their marriage, i can see healthy physical, mental and emotional love. their children lack for nothing in the way of parents. they are all blessed, and i am blessed just to even be able to watch them!

so i put together my favorite pictures of them all. i wish i could really have a book of all my favorite marriage, but mentally will have to go...because i can't really get in touch with judy anymore, my grandparents are dead and pictures of them are scarce. christina probably would give up a picture of her family--i will ask.

but here are my favorite pictures of my fourth idol marriage. i love them so much, i wish them all the peace and blessings in the world, and i am keeping my eye on them!

my dredlocs!

i am so proud of my hair for really allowing itself to get tamed into little knotty locs. hubby noted that they are getting much longer, straighter and in general more "together" looking.

good, because that ugly stage was eating at me every day.

now i only use the hair balm by genesisethnicbodycare (genesisethnicbody.etsy.com) to loc my hair. it does wonders for hair health and keeps my strands together longer until they loc into the rest of the hair.

i have also gotten into the habit of buying sterling silver trinkets for my hair. i've twisted already into it a dogwood earring, a fish (Christian symbol fish) charm, and some silver hoops into it. the other day i brought a toe ring and bent it around one of the locs. at our last visit my hubby noticed it because it's such a bright sterling. in the pictures you can see my toe ring twisted around my loc :)

i wanted to twist another toe ring into my hair, as well as purchase one for my pinky toe (but at this rate i'm thinking an actual ring would work best on my pinky toe)...but ugh...we'll see. every little penny counts these days as the rent is due lol.

but my locs are finally starting to brush the base of my neck. i am sending a picture to my email via my beautiful palm centro that i will scream over now...so you can see how my hair is growing!

my plan to have yankable locs by the time hubby comes home seems to be working. i love tugging on them myself already...it releases alot of tension in my upper body for some odd reason...sort of like a good yawn.

ok...the pictures came :)

so this is my hair as of today. it's not long enough to pull into all the styles i want...but it's getting there.

i can't wait until i can wrap them around the top of my head!

my locs and i...with pictures!

ravyn wanted me to show her a picture of my locs...so i had my 6 year old hold the camera, aim and click a few pictures. these two came out the best. while i think that a recent bout of stress is stunting the growth of my hair in general, i think that my hair looks more like locs now than ever and i have noticed SOME length to them. i twist them myself, and these locs were not started with totally kinky hair--the last 2 inches of each loc is relaxed *yes, RELAXED* hair, and yes that loc'ed as well :) i cut the ends of a few locs to remove the relaxed hair, thinking it would make a huge difference--but it didn't. so i don't plan on cutting them until my hair is well below my shoulders...which at this rate will take me about another four years LOL.

anyway...those are my boos...i love them so much. in the second picture in my hair is a sterling silver dogwood flower earring that i won off ebay. a famous designer handcrafted it--i forget his name though LOL. to me, it's a symbol of the cross which Christ was crucified on, so it's special to me. it's loc'ed into my hair, so i don't have to worry about it coming out. the second picture is the top of my little ponytail--i can gather up my locs now to make a little bush ponytail. i can't wait until i can wrap them around my head. patience, patience...i know i know! in the first picture you can see much better the ends of my locs...which are relaxed, but will not untwist.

as i come across little items, i'll add them to my locs. soon it'll be like my very own charm bracelet in my hair. LOL.

looking for fleas.

^Baby during one of her better moments. the cotton rag around her neck was to protect it from the elements and the collar...it was red and raw from mange, and during that time i was exercising her more often to get rid of 15 lbs of excess puppy weight!

about three years ago as i was driving to go to the store i red nosed pit bull tied to a gate, bloody, cold and hungry. it just so happened that the gate was across the street from my front door. as i drove past, i noticed the dog looked like it was waiting--patiently--for someone to come get it. figuring it must have an owner, i kept driving, but a nagging in the back of my mind prompted me to say to myself, "if it's not gone by the time i come back, i'll have to untie it."

well as it happens to be, because God seems to want me as keeper of all things needing TLC, when i got back from the store, the dog was still there, patiently waiting. i pulled over, and 6 months pregnant and wobbling...i cautiously approached the dog, noticing that it was a she and her bloodiness was not only worse than i thought, but her attitude was better than i expected. she eagerly wagged her tail at me and tried to trot on over to me, but the rope tied around her neck prevented her from taking more than a few steps.

when i realized not only was she not going to bite me, but that she appeared grateful to have me there--it dawned on me that her owner was NOT coming back for her. so i took off my gloves (it was about 11 degrees outside) and i tried to untie the knot--but it was done tight. so after at least 5 minutes of trying, i realized i couldn't get the knot undone and it was cold and i was feeling every inch of the weather. a passerby saw me struggling and she offered to help me--and for the next 10 minutes, we both struggled in the freezing cold to untie the dog.

finally we got it undone and we reviewed her injuries. to me they looked horrible, but that probably was because i was pregnant and especially sensitive to anything that looked uncomfortable. the woman asked me if i was going to try to help the dog, because she would if she could but she had no where to take her. i told her i'd take her in my house.

that was the beginning of my and the girls relationship with Baby--a red nosed badly bred but heart of gold pit bull.

now, three years later, Baby's mange, which was the cause of her distress and more than likely her owners disposal of her--is not any better. it has it's up and down (mostly down) moments and i noticed that now, she's not as positively effected by medications that she's taking for it. it's bad enough that my already badly strained pockets can't afford another bill, but what makes it worse is that i can't afford her already marked down medications (the vet marked the prices down from 130.00 a shot 2 times a month to 50.00 a dose once a day--30 day supply for me--and that is CHEAP). so i am struggling with her, badly. i wish i had a constant supply of the medicine, but because her mange (which is demodex) is so bad, he's afraid that it will be a lifetime illness, meaning a lifetime of medication.

that has me stressed.

last summer was one of Baby's better moments--she actually had about 17 fleas that nested on her. now while most pet owners despise the little nasty buggers that sap the life and blood from animals worldwide, for Baby, the presence of fleas was a great thing! she was so sick and so bad off that neither fleas nor ticks would come close to her...it was a mixture of the medication and the sickness and the stinch probably...but last summer 17 very brave little fleas decided that they would land on her and suck her blood. this summer, not a single flea is in sight...letting me know that they just don't find her appealing. letting me know that she's having a bad turn of events.

i'm still struggling with her illness--it's very bad. but it has humbled her and made her into one of the most loyal and loving dogs i have ever seen. she has a heart of gold and she smiles at the camera for pictures, despite being in pain. her vet said, "she's more even tempered than even the best pits i've seen. to be in so much pain and not so much as growl--wow what a dog!"

at one time i tried to put her down, but i couldn't bring it in my heart to do it. that was two years ago, and i still haven't done it, because of how much the kids love her, how much i love her, how much it would break us up inside to put her to sleep.

i've been through so much with this dog, i've had to pray over and for her because sometimes she gets so sick she'll stop eating and peeing...and then i feel guilty for even keeping her alive. but even if i wanted to--i can't afford the cost of putting her down. and i don't know if i could ever do that. so right now, yes i am being stingy and selfish in keeping her alive...but it's my only option as far as i can see.

she just had a bath and she's feeling much better. her skin isn't doing too good and we have no medication. when she dries completely i'll take her for a short stroll (she gets exhausted super easily and i don't like to add any extra stress on her), and i'll try to scrape her up a bone for her good attitude.

but unfortunately, there are no fleas this summer.