Happy Thoughtful Thursday to you! Long time, no talk to! Today is a good day and I just wanted to say hello, share a few things with you and see what you think!

As far as my living to be healthy, I have lost approx. 16 pounds and still going! I have 21 more pounds I’d like to lose by the end of October. My personal trainer who is married to a military man had to follow her husband to a new assignment in South Carolina. Additionally she is now 7 months pregnant and our time together would have come to an end sooner than later. However, she left me moderately equipped to continue on my own. But…as good as she was, I want more! I have decided to hire another trainer for just a few weeks. She refers to herself as “super trainer extraordinaire”! I can’t repeat what others call her! Lol. What I know is, she is tough! I would like one more round of working with a trainer, especially one that is going to push me beyond my limits and make me mad and glad at the same time!

I can tell you, I feel better, (hopefully) look better, have more energy and display more confidence! I wish there was a magic pill to make the weight melt off and tighten up all my loose, sagging, jiggly parts! But to achieve a permanent place in the Diva Hall of Fame, I must work and work hard! Lean cuisine, water, treadmill, elliptical, ball, weights, bands, etc! And I won’t stop until I reach my goal! Pray with me!

Now for my BIG news! Remember all my sad stories regarding my wedding pictures? You remember, me not getting my pictures and then not getting my refund? Well, if you recall, I did finally get my money back and I bought a 50 inch flat panel TV that I lovingly refer to as my wedding pictures. The recovery of my refund came when I inboxed my photographer’s wife on Facebook. You know the saying: Behind every great man there’s a great woman? Well, behind my photographer was a great woman who took me seriously, handled the situation and refunded my money! But there’s more! Last week I got an inbox from her requesting my address. She said she had a gift for me. Yesterday I received a package.  My wedding album! Oh my goodness! It is beautiful! Absolutely gorgeous! Amazingly, his work is exquisite! I am so pleased! More than pleased! Of course I would have preferred it on time but it still brings me joy today!

Here is the lesson I learned. I could have gone to more extreme measures and did ugly things to recoup my losses. But I didn’t. In the end I am just as pleased with my pictures now as I would have been then! Maybe even more so! I am so appreciative and will cherish each and every photo and… my 50 inch flat panel TV! Ain’t God Good!

Holla back!

This is the front of my photo album.

P.S. – anointedphotography.com

P.P.S. – My Anniversary is July 14th….and now I have pictures to prove it!

I am so mad right now. I have a few bank accounts and one is a checking with Wachovia. I stay on top of my accounts and always do what I need to do. Some of them I don’t deal with as much, but I do more with Wachovia. My husband doesn’t like them with good reason and has all but left them. He has an account with them in name only basically and has taken his real business elsewhere but I have always done what I needed to do with them and remained moderately satisfied. This week two unexpected financial things happened with large amounts of money I hadn’t anticipated! I knew I had to deposit money to cover them yesterday. I knew exactly how much money I needed to combat the emergencies that had cropped up so off to the bank I went!

Although I don’t monitor my account everyday online, I do monitor it often and I always know what is going on with my account/s! Yesterday, as soon as I got off of work, May 19th, I went into the bank and made a cash deposit of the monies I needed to cover my unexpected emergencies. The teller gave me a receipt with my balance on it and all was good! Just so you have this straight: my account was in the black when I checked it online, when I went into the bank and after my deposit! When I left the bank there was MORE than enough money to cover everything that would be coming out of my account and more! This morning I go online to check my account and of course my account is in the black but I have two overdraft charges. (heavy sigh…) Of course I call and today on May 20th, they tell me that my overdraft charges were due to two transactions that posted to my account on the 18th. But here’s the thing, there was absolutely no way I could have known that! Seriously??? Although there is a place online that tells me what transactions are in hold and what transactions are being processed, neither of these transactions were either place for me to see. I told Jerri, my CSR that I was in the black online, in the black when I walked into the bank and even deeper in the black after I made my deposit and walked out of the bank. And basically what she was told me was: “no you weren’t, but it’s not your fault for not knowing!” I was in the red the day before on the 18th but they kept it a secret from me! I didn’t know because it didn’t appear online, my teller didn’t know because she is just a person positioned to take my money and withhold the truth from me without empowerment to be a “real” CUSTOMER SERVICE REPRESENTATIVE! So although my account never visually went in the red, Wachovia bank has taken 70 of my hard earned innocent dollars hostage and refuse to give them back because it secretly went in the red!

My question I kept asking was: “what could I have done differently?” Their response: “nothing, you had no way of knowing the transactions had gone through on the 18th”. That is what Jerri told me when I called the Wachovia customer service line and the same thing Nenee Marquez told me when I called the Wells Fargo/Wachovia Headquarter office and asked for Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf. Of course she wouldn’t let me talk to him but I tried!

Here’s the other thing, if I had just been careless and if the emergencies had not arisen, my fault… I guess, but even then, how can I know if it doesn’t show up for me online nor for my teller inside the institution poised to care for my monies in the appropriate manner. And check this out… Wachovia does their debits before their credits. Here’s a great example of what I’m speaking about: if you have $10.00 in your account and you make a $1,000,000.00 (one million dollar) deposit Friday after 2:00 pm, on Monday morning if a check for $10.50 comes in, your account will go into the red/negative briefly and you WILL be charged overdraft fees, even though you still have $999,999.50 in your account! What in the world!!!

I’m hurt. I have been a great Wachovia customer! I have tried to make them my warm and fuzzy financial institution since coming to GA however, I’m not stupid. I did open another account months ago and will now be forced to make them my new warm and fuzzy. It’s all good! To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven. Ecclesiastes 3:1. My time with Wachovia is just about over. I will reroute my direct deposit, settle up with them and say goodbye. I’m just saying….

Holla back!

Happy Thoughtful Thursday to you! It’s been a while since we’ve talk hasn’t it? I have been extremely busy at work and at home. Just to give you a brief update of my life changing “striving to be healthy” progress, well…the skirt I have on today isn’t squeezing the life out of me! I haven’t worn it since I don’t know when! I haven’t had any major weight loss but I have tried to be consistent in staying the course and can feel slight gradual changes! My biggest challenge is my husband! He hasn’t been moved to change his lifestyle yet so when he sweetly ask me to take a trip to the Dairy Queen with him, I say yes and try to order the lowest calorie treat I can!

I go to the gym at least three times a week and do weights, ab exercises and the treadmill at home 5 – 6 times a week. My trainer is phenomenal! However, she is PCSing (leaving with her husband for an Army reassignment) the end of May. I have her until then and hope to know what I am doing and can continue to train myself when she leaves. I can remember when I first started training with her. I was so self conscious about people watching me trying to mimic her instructions and do the exercises without looking totally stupid. She assured me, most people start off like that but after a while, they don’t care. Tuesday when I was there doing my training, my closest co-worker was in the same room doing his thing. For the entire time I was in there I didn’t notice him at all! Not until the next day at work did I know he was in that room! Why? Because I was in the zone!!! I no longer care who is in the room or who sees me doing what! I have a goal and even if I feel like I’ve gotten off track, I keep going. I want to start running but I have to really work and work to build up my stamina! Currently I run about 2 good minutes and need oxygen!

My goals:
1. To be thin enough to see the bones in my chest right below my neck.
2. To have Angela Bassett arms.
3. To be able to do 10 one hand pushups like Demi Moore did in the movie GI Jane.
4. To do at least a mini marathon sometime in 2011.
5. To RUN a mile without the thought of stopping or needing to stop.

I do feel much better about myself even though I am no where close to my goal… YET but just moving and sweating thrills me! I love to sweat! Last Saturday morning I did my first Zumba class!!! Can somebody say Amen?! Talk about a workout! I haven’t gone since, lol, due to schedule conflicts but I will! I won’t give up! I’ll keep you posted! I do need cheerleaders. I love support and challenges so if you wanna scream “you go girl” I’ll take it! If you want to join me, I’d love to have you! If you just want to watch, stay tuned! I plan to be as sexy as possible by my cruise sail date, October 24, 2010!

On a serious note…I’m always thinking. Today I have just three random questions, all to do with Christianity. Some of these might actual be questions that really need to be full fledge posts but for now, we’ll just make them questions.

1. As a Christian, is it ever alright to cuss? I went to see Tyler Perry’s new movie and I know from hearing him talk, he is a Christian and tries to make God the central point of the positive messages conveyed in his movies. But in this one, he did cuss quite a bit. Cool? Not cool?  What about a person that is a professional actor and that is their one and only job. Most scripts today call for some cussing. Is that alright? Does a multi-million dollar Christian have the same requirements as a regular Christian?  (Ok, many of you who read this may be cussers whether it is: habitual, chronic, social, for entertainment purposes only or part of your normal daily conversation/talk. I guess I am not talking to you but more the ones who think it is not Christianly to cuss.)

2. As many of you know, I grew up old school. And let me start off by saying, I am proud of the nuts and bolts of my character stemming from traditions and old school. With that said… if I am at a party/gathering and they are doing the electric slide – no bumping and grinding, no pelvic gyrations, no nasty dancing, etc – as an old school, Pentecostal Christian who was raised not to dance, can I join in and take three steps left, three steps right, three to the back, with a front dip, a back dip and then swirl around (something like that.  smile) without jeopardizing God’s pleasure with me? (Can some old school folk that were raised like me weigh in on this one?)

3. Disclaimer: I am asking this question because it came up in conversation having NOTHING to do with me, my father or anyone in my family AND recently I heard the same discussion question on talk radio. What is the pastor’s wife place in the church? Should she be allowed free reign? Should every pastor’s wife be co-pastor/associate pastor/assistant pastor just because she is married to the man called by God? Should the pastor’s wife be held to a higher standard and expected to carry herself in a different manner than the other sisters in the church? And lastly, what happens when the pastor’s wife isn’t friendly, engages in cliques, causes dissension in the church, runs members away, turns the unconditional love the people had for the pastor into conditional love and destroys his livelihood all because she is, first and foremost, his wife and he refuses to do anything about her behaviors?

Holla back!

Marvelous Monday to you!

Here we go! I need to make a lifestyle change! I need to eat healthier and move! Exercise, exercise and exercise! But here’s the thing. I don’t want to! I don’t want to sweat (I’m a black women with hair that doesn’t appreciate sweat!). I don’t want to eat crunchy raw foods with antioxidants that reduce build up of this or that. I don’t want to twist my body in an awkward position and hold it for five seconds! I don’t want to walk for a minute on the treadmill and then run for three minutes (only to need resuscitated!). I don’t want a closet full of sports bras, spandexy pants and running, walking AND gym shoes. I don’t want to do any of it! I want to go to work, sit at my desk, take as few steps as possible and then go home. I want to get home, cook high cholesterol/high caloric foods = tasty meal, eat dinner and then relax in bed while watching Project Runway! But the truth of the matter is, I can’t continue that lifestyle or I will die!

Currently, I have no diagnosis leading me to believe I am anything but moderately healthy.  I just know, if I don’t change, that diagnosis will change. I took a reading of my blood sugar levels Saturday and I am good. My cholesterol levels are excellent. I do take meds for high blood pressure that are working to control it and keep it in a safe zone. I have enough hair products and face products to help keep my appearance appealing and hopefully be a detourant from my full figureness! But again, the truth of the matter is, all that is subject to change overnight! No amount of glam can clean out my arties if they become clogged or rejuvenate my heart if I continue to squeeze it with my upper belly. I am not in my 20’s or 30’s and being beautiful, thin and attractive is no longer top priority! However, if I change my lifestyle and do the right things, the sweet look of loveliness will begin to reappear on my body and I can dust off my black dress with the white fringe and wear it like a champ! In the meantime, today’s goal is to become addicted to all things HEALTHY!

Two things happened recently that gave me pause. Last week my college girlfriend accepted my Facebook request to be her friend. When I saw a picture of her I was so sad. She looked fabulous! Thin and cute and in great shape! We are the same age within months of each other. Trust and believe, if we stood side by side in the mirror, I would be so ashamed! The other thing happened yesterday at church. I wore a dress that I bought in a size bigger than normal. I really liked the dress but always wear it with a sweater to kind of hide things. So why was clapping my hands to the music a chore?! I couldn’t just do a natural clap and enjoy myself. No siree! I had to stop and think every time I clapped! Why you may ask? I was bound up in that dress! It was too tight across my clapping area! I was mad too! Mad at the dress. Mad that they kept singing clapping music. And mad because I am fat! There I said it, fat! How mad am I? Mad enough to share this with you in efforts to make myself accountable to something and someone (you)! I know me and I am not in denial. I know I am low on will power. I know my get up and go, got up and left and I am without drive and determination! Oh yes, I have all of those things within me in the logical place in my mind; they just never come to fruition in my real life! That’s where you come in!

I don’t need anything from you except to listen, cheer me on and pray for my success! But… if you would like to join me, I’d love to have you! This may be the most important and crucial thing I ever do with kleverkathy.com….save my own life!

Because I am too embarrassed, I can’t tell you how much I weigh or what my measurements are. As I begin to loose weight and gain confidence, I will tell you all of that. My goal is to loose 40 pounds, several inches and have Angela Bassett arms. My timeline to accomplish my goal (just my goal as far as the numbers go because the rest of it is a permanent lifestyle change) begins now and ends October 24 when I board the ship for The Kleverkathy Caribbean Couple’s Cruise. I plan to not only be slim, trim and in better health, but I am striving for sexy and smoking hot! (that last one is for my husband, lol)

So begins operation D.I.A.! If you don’t know, the women I work with know. I have started a club. I am the club’s founder and the first proclaimed Diva In Action! The original basis for DIA was just daily living as a Diva. Now Diva In Action denotes my new life of action:  exercise – Pilates, yoga, cardio, strength training, running, walking, jogging, skipping, breathing, lifting, lunging, squatting, etc! I will become a true Diva In Action! Join me if you like! If not, that is fine, but please, pray for me, cheer for me and keep your fingers cross it will all take and I will be a changed, healthier woman, with enough energy to keep up with my three year old grandson!

I’m meeting with my personal trainer today and my nutritionist next week. I will be keeping a journal on Kleverkathy.com for your perusal and my accountability. Any comments, constructive criticisms and good advice are welcomed! Let the games begin! Holla back!

P.S. – The skirt I’m wearing, as we speak, is about to squeeze the life out of me! And I am wearing my Spanx to boot! (heavy sigh)…

Did you see the movie Bucket List with Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson? The premise of the movie is: they make a list of all the things they want to do before they die. That list is called a Bucket List. I haven’t seen it yet but I hear the movie was a combination of comedy and slight drama with a message about how you should live your life to the fullest, how your family is important and how you should be happy in life. Of course those are all things we know, but do we actually live day to day with the intent of being happy that day and living that day to the fullest?

Today I am going share 10 things from my newly penned Bucket List! I’m very excited. When I stop and think about all the things that have been in the back of my mind but have never come to fruition, I feel somewhat defeated! And life always presents road blocks to our dreams whether it is time, money, energy, raising the children, working the job, etc., but we still gotta dream the dream, set the goal and fill our Bucket List!

I do want to veer off my beaten path and do some really “out of the box” kinds of things but what you will not see on my list is bungee jumping, skydiving or anything that could end my life within a matter of seconds. I will leave the dare devil feats to my eldest brother! I also won’t put a night with Sean Combs on my list; I think that would be kind of tacky don’t you? Lol. I’ll just share my top ten dreams, desires and goals as I dump out my Bucket List for your perusal. These are in no particular order:

1. Visit Africa.
2. Go backpacking (I have paid my money and will embark on this adventure this weekend!)
3. Write and be published! (I have three books in the works. Pray with me on their success!)
4. Sit on Oprah’s couch as her guest.
5. See a kangaroo in its natural habitat.
6. Learn to ballroom dance. (Ummm…. I know this goes against my upbringing but… it is in my bucket)
7. (Even if it is just once) Be hired and paid as an interior decorator!
8. (Even if it is just once) Be hired and paid as a motivational speaker!
9. Help build a Habitat for Humanity home.
10. Play the piano.

Ok. So my list may be a bit boring but they are all things I want to do! I read somewhere that a true Bucket List has 100 things on it. It would take me quite a while, probably days, to come up with 100 things!

It’s your turn! Please share at least a few of the things in your Bucket List! Tell us what you want to do before you die! Who knows, seeing your list might inspire me to step even farther out of the box, out of my comfort zone and do something I have never dreamed of doing! Let the sharing begin!

Holla back!

Marvelous Monday Morning to you! You know me and my wandering mind! I’ve been thinking and these are the things I’m thinking about today:

1. If a song can be played on a Soap Opera during a sex scene, can that song also be called a “gospel” song? I’m on the fence with this one, and in my opinion, that is exactly where Benjamin and Priscilla Winans (BeBe and CeCe) reside, on the fence! I think playing it this way is lukewarm. I believe you can sing anything you want, this is America, but there needs to be distinction as [...] Continue Reading…

UPDATE:  Thank you to all the prayer warriors who prayer for my co-worker.  The last report I got was that she is doing much much better!  Look at the power of prayer!  She went from a 0% chance to live, to a 5% chance to live, to doing much better!  The chemo is working, she is repsonding well and they are struggling to keep her calm so she won’t pull out her IVs and tubes.  From the report I got, unless something unforeseen happens, she is gonna live and not die!  Thank you for your prayers, but don’t stop, [...] Continue Reading…

Good news! It is not too late to be a part of the Kleverkathy 2010 Couple’s Caribbean Cruise! All you need is a partner (of the opposite sex), a deposit and an attitude for fun! Currently we have 9 couples on our adventure and there are a limited number of spaces left! We’d love to have you join us! Of course you can go on a cruise anytime but here’s the thing, this one is already planned and ready to go! All you have to do is pay your deposit now, pay the balance on or before August 1, [...] Continue Reading…

Happy Thoughtful Thursday to you! It’s a good day! I’m doing well and hope you are too! Yes, this is a long post today, but please read it all. Maybe it will help save a life!!!

Did you see Oprah Monday? I had seen previews and purposely set the DVR to tape it. It was about driving while talking on your cell phone and texting. Wow… It was a sad show. There was a wife and a daughter whose husband and father (two men traveling together) were killed due to a young man driving while texting. Surprisingly, the young man [...] Continue Reading…

Welcome to Thoughtful Thursday. Today I have a mixture of five random questions, thoughts and concerns. You’ll see by my list, I’m all over the place but it is a good day! Despite my circumstances or the circumstances surrounding me, I’m employed, I’m healthy, my family is employed and healthy, I’m happy, blessed and highly favored of God! Here we go.

1. I am so sad about the catastrophe in Haiti. My husband, brother, sister-in-law and I stopped there during our cruise in 2007 and got to see a snippet of that country. To know that so many families are [...] Continue Reading…