IN YOUR PRAYERS.....

"You've been more to me than a friend...
We've shared more than most people do--
feelings that time won't erase
No words can ever let you know
the peace I feel when you are near
In times of trouble, your eyes express
exactly what I need to hear
In times of joy, your smile says
you're sharing what I feel
In times of doubt, I always knew
I could trust in your loyalty
We've stood the test across the miles
and watched our friendship grow
I've come to learn, when it comes to friends,
there's no one quite like you."

---Marie Grady Palcic


Tomorrow is a pretty big day for me. I haven't talked about it all on here but most of my close friends know that about a month ago, unfortunately I had an accident and re-injured my Achilles tendon, this time tearing it....completely. I was 4 months into my recovery and things were going really well. I had been back in the weight room for about 3 or 4 weeks. I still wasn't 100% but I was getting there and then, SNAP, I heard it go one day when I moved in a way that I guess I wasn't ready to yet. The MRI confirmed that there is nothing left holding my tendon together. Even though I've been walking around since then, albeit extremely slowly and carefully, I've HAD to wear high heels all the time to keep my tendon shortened. I'm so over high-heeled shoes right now!!!

Insurance paperwork and delays and approvals have held me back from having surgery sooner but tomorrow at 11am I will be undergoing Achilles surgery to repair it. As nervous and apprehensive as I am, I know it's for the best but to say that I'm not a bit of a nervous wreck today and that my eyes haven't welled up a few times would be a grave understatement. I am praying for God's mercy and blessing and I'm praying that I will come out OK. I've been told that the risk of re-injury once someone has this surgery is very low so for that reason alone, I'll be glad to get it over and done with.

I will be 6 weeks in a cast/on crutches and then another 6 weeks in a boot:-( and I'm sure it won't be the easiest thing in the world but I refuse to let it hold me down and I'm gonna do my best to keep my chin up and get through it.

My friends have been HOLDING ME DOWN! and I'm SO grateful and beyond everything else, it's times like these that I really realize how much I NEED them and how important they are to me. Love and friendship are equal on my list and one would mean nothing without the other. So I want to say thanks. You know who you are....:-)

Keep me in your prayers blog family....I'll update as soon as I'm able.

BLOGGER FAMILY

I wrote a blog with this exact same title last year some time when I wrote about my friend Jewells. Initially, she was someone I only knew through commenting on one another's blogs, but last year when she was coming down to Orlando for a visit, we finally met and we have since become really good friends who chat frequently, laugh a lot and advise and counsel.

A couple weeks ago, another blog friend and family member, Kinta, messaged me on Facebook to let me know that she and her sister would be coming to LA for a few days for some fun, shopping and relaxation and that perhaps if time and schedules permitted, we should get together. It's been a pretty hectic week for me and I have a lot going on, but I definitely wanted to make the time to meet them both. Kinta has been a very supportive and consistent blog friend and has often commented on my blog, Dave's blog and Brianna's. Sometimes you can get a such a positive vibe from a person without ever even speaking to them, where you just get that feeling in your core that you are dealing with a good, sweet spirit. Such is the case with Kinta.

Anyway, last night after a VERY long day for me, I agreed to meet them both at the Xbar at the Hyatt Regency where they were staying. It was a really cool spot and we enjoyed great conversation, food and music and it felt as if we'd known each other for ages. She was how I imagined her to be....genuine and funny. She and her sister have such a great relationship and friendship and I was glad to share the time that I did with them.

We covered everything from The Housewives of ATL, to relationships, to track, to work and just had a good ol' time. I will be doing some traveling in the next few weeks coming up and one of the places I will be spending a few days is Atlanta and so we will definitely be getting together again. Once again, I just have to say how this blog has given me way more than I could have ever expected and I am grateful for that.

Here's a picture from our evening together last night.

FABULOUS FIGHT NIGHT!

So I am a huge fight fan. In fact, one of the things on my bucket list is to go to Vegas for a big fight and watch it live and in person and I am determined to make this happen. I had been looking forward to this Mayweather/Marquez fight for some time now and earlier in the week I was really trying to figure out where in the heck I was gonna watch the fight.

As luck would have it, my friend Marcellus Wiley text me on Thursday to invite me to his house for a fight party that he was having at his new home in Chatsworth. Perfect! I invited my BFF Peggy to go with me and my girl Monica, who as it turned out was already invited herself. She was also invited to another fight party but a) I didn't hear whose party she said it was when we were on the phone and b) I figured we'd go to Marcellus house first anyway.

The night started outed innocently enough. The three of us trekked over to his house and to say that we were impressed with his home would be a huge understatement!! The house was beautiful and grand and I guess that's how the ballers do it:-)...I'm guessing 8 to 10,000 sq. ft. Who knows? There were so many TVs too, lol. He told me there were over 20 TVs in the house and they weren't just put up for the fight. Anyway, we made ourselves comfortable, ate some food and had a drink. Cool. Let's sit and watch the undercards and get ready for the main event.

At some point before the main fight did get underway, Monica gets a call and her friend is telling her to come to watch the fight at the other person's house and she seriously wants to go. I look at her incredulously saying that I actually want to SEE the fight and that I don't really care where we are. I'm thinking can't we go to this other place AFTER the fight? Plus I'm not dressed to go anywhere else...I'm just wearing a T-shirt and jeans (albeit cute skinny jeans and silver wedges:-). Peggy is indifferent but I can tell Monica really wants to go so somewhat begrudginly I agree to leave....

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that her friend was at Eddie Murphy's house. Somehow Monica knows everyone it seems and she tells me that she's been there before when he had another fight party and that it was fabulous. Since I'm a slow driver:-(, I let her drive my car and we drive like bats outta hell to get there in time.

It's amazing what perspective can do. I thought Marcellus' home was so gigantic, to the point where I was saying I didn't think I could live there and then we arrived at Mr. Murphy's house!!!!!! GOOD LORD!!! I can't even guess the square footage but I can say that it looked like a resort lol. There were easily over 200 people there, TVs set up around the pool, the tennis court was tented and a huge viewing screen in there. Add waiters, food, open bars, a DJ and dance floor set up like a boxing ring and you can begin to get an idea of the scope of what I'm talking about.

The list of attendees included everyone from Magic Johnson, to Sugar Ray Leonard to Martin Lawrence to Eddie himself, John Singleton (who knew he was SO short), Arsenio and trust me the list goes on and on and on. Monica knows everyone but Peggy and I felt like we had our necks on a swivel lol. But we kept our cool and just enjoyed the ambience, the food, the fun. Why did I run into my boy Chris and his wife. He said to me "Hey, what are you doing here? I'm supposed to be your only celebrity friend". LOL!!

Anyway, as you all know the fight went as predicted. Money Mayweather won in a unanimous decision. I didn't really want to be the chick walking around taking pictures so I'm sorry I only took two. One of the three of us ladies and one when we had moved out by the pool and I could take a photo of the back of the house from where I was sitting. The whole house couldn't even fit in the lens so picture what you see times 3 or 4....SMH....

Once again, I had an awesome night, spent time with my girls, met some super cool people and had some good food and drinks. Sometimes you have the most fun when you least expect it....I had a ball!





Monica just sent me this pic so I figured I'd add it...

BLIND TO YOU

This is for all those of you who have haters out there....we all have them. Those people who just dislike you for no reason, just cause you're you, just cause you're doing well, doing your thing, livin' your life... and livin' it well. Call it jealousy, cause is self-dissatisfaction, call it whatever, it just is what it is....won't ever make or break my day. My mind goes back to a time earlier this year when this "anonymous" person did some shady stuff....still makes me SMH when you think of what a desperate person will do....You have to think if people were satisfied with their own lives, they wouldn't be worried about yours! Je suis toujours ici!

Anyway.....this is one of my favorite songs right now. It's by a reggae artist named Collie Buddz. He's a white guy from Bermuda and he is DOING IT!!! Yes, there are white Caribbean people:-) So for all the haters out there....I'm "Blind To You", lol....

(For all of you that know me personally, you know that I don't swear at all, so please excuse the cuss words in the song:-( I decided to post this you-tube version of the song with the words written even though they're not 100% correct for my friends who don't understand Patois (word for Jamaican slang), which is pretty much everyone lol.)




****Sidebar...I was just thinking....Do any of you know someone who can make your heart beat faster and slower at the same time? I do:-)****

JOHN WOODEN PYRAMID OF SUCCESS AWARDS

A couple nights ago, courtesy of my boy, again no other than Mr. Chris Spencer, my roommate Erica and I attended the 1st Annual John Wooden Pyramid of Success Awards, where Chris was once again the host. I swear this brother knows EVERY person in LA!!! I guess it helps that he's good at being a host, but I'm constantly awed and impressed by the number of times his services are requested.

It was a pretty formal evening and the event was sponsored by HAX (Hangar Athletic Xchange) and the HAX Foundation. The HAX facility is located in Hawthorne and is housed in a gigantic former airplane hangar and is fully equipped with basketball courts, volleyball courts, weightroom facilities, offices, screening rooms, training rooms, pretty much everything that you can imagine an athlete would need. Coupled with a great coaching staff and administrators, HAX is an awesome place for athletes of all levels from high school to the pros to come and have a great workout/training environment.

Coach John Wooden the former UCLA basketball and the all-time winningest collegiate coach was honored with the first ever Life Time Achievement Award which celebrated not only his philosophies but the influence he has had universally nurturing athletes, executives and community leaders alike. He is most noted for his Pyramid of Success



which many coaches have used over the years as a formula/guideline for their sporting programs and athletes.

There were several other honorees as well including among others legendary sportscaster Dick Vitale, Laila Ali (Muhammed Ali's daughter and former undefeated boxer), and Paul Pierce (Boston Celtic B-ball player). It was a fun evening and the food was pretty delicious. I met a few of the athletes and Erica and I basically just enjoyed ourselves (as we always do:-).

Here are just a couple pics from our night out....

Me, Chris and E-dub



E-dub and Chris



Me and Paul Pierce



View from my seat....



Me and Chris


Ms. Laila Ali on the big screen



PS. My outfit looked pretty good in person (in fact a few people told me so).....but not so good in the pictures for some reason lol, so I've saved you all the trouble of critiquing it and cropped myself in all the shots:-( Not sure what was happening in the photos....

POWER CLEANS/ LONG JUMP 101

A new friend of mine on Facebook from Great Britain sent me a link today that I have never seen before and it made me smile. The first clip is of me doing power cleans down in Orlando at the Wide World of Sports Complex at Disney with strength coach extraordinaire Randy Hadley:-) My technique is OK, not THE best but I get the job done. Looks like I'm putting up about 185lbs (82.5kilos) in this video.. Thanks Randy for all your help!




This next clip is of coach Brooks Johnson talking about the long jump and the physics involved. He sure does make it sound easy....lol...just stay in the air for one second, done deal!!

MADE OVER

For the past several weeks, Caster Semenya, the 18 year old girl that won the 800m at the recent World Championships in Berlin has been under SEVERE scrutiny about her gender. Specifically, was she born and is she a male or is she a female. The arguments and discrepancy has gone from everything including is she a hermaphrodite to does she have too much testosterone in her body to be eligible to compete with other females.

As much as I feel that the IAAF (governing Track body) needs to ensure an even playing field so to speak, I am not sure the manner in which they went about verifying her gender has been appropriate. For one thing, this is a young person, for goodness' sake, not an inanimate object. She is a human being and I think they could have been a lot less callous and a lot more discreet in their attempts to sort everything out.

Back in the day, up until the 1996 Olympic Games, ALL FEMALES had to take a gender certification test two days prior to the start of their event and upon verification, you were issued a credit card like card to carry around with you with your picture and personal statistics. I didn't think it was a big deal at all. And just in case you were wondering, no they did not make you drop your pants in order to check, lol, it was a simple swab in both sides of your mouth that took all of about 10 seconds. Here's my card that I still have to prove it. So yes, if you've ever wondered, I am definitely a female:-)



Anyway, Ms. Semenya has undergone numerous tests following her dramatic win in Berlin and so far, the only thing they've come up with is that she has 3 times the level of testosterone in her body than the average female. I don't know what is the limit that you're allowed, naturally or otherwise to still be eligible. I'm pretty sure I probably have more testosterone in me than the average female too though. There must be a reason why my body can gain muscle SO quickly. The body of a female track athlete just is not "typical".

Semenya has since gone home and been treated to a fairly major makeover and is appearing on the cover of a magazine looking decidedly more "feminine". Here are a couple pics - one of her at World's and one of her on the magazine cover.





Now I don't know what the outcome of this situation will eventually be. I pray for her sake that everything works out just fine. If it doesn't, then fair is fair and she should not be allowed to compete with other females. I guess time will tell but in the mean time a little empathy and compassion wouldn't hurt.

ALBUM RELEASE PARTY

So last night, I mustered up the energy and went with my friend Seun to Whitney Houston's album release party in Hollywood at Cinespace. I was a little tired from a pretty long day but I decided to go support my boy Chris as he was the host for the night. I ended up having a really good time. It was a nice mix of honoring Ms. Houston, Chris telling some good jokes, and some up and coming artists performing as well.

As usual, I met some pretty cool people. I was hanging out with this girl who's on Jamie Foxx's Sirius radio show called Foxxhole and actor Michael Jai White. We had a pretty nice conversation and he turned out to be a really nice guy. He's a black belt in seven different martial art forms and was in among other things Spawn and Tyler Perry's "Why Did I Get Married".

I would have to say though that the highlight of the night was when we were treated to a performance on the drums by Jay-Z's drummer, Tony Royster Jr. I cannot begin to explain to you how AWESOME and IMPRESSIVE he was!!!! I think I sat there the whole time with my mouth agape. Seriously. I didn't know someone could do that with some drums. It almost seemed as if he had 4 arms and 4 legs!! This isn't his performance from last night and to be honest this isn't quite as good as he was last night but just so you can get an idea of what I'm talking about you can check out a youtube clip of him playing here..



WOW!!

Anyway, the night was getting late and Seun and I were getting tired so we actually left before the lady of the night arrived. As much as I would have loved to have seen her, we decided to call it a night. Here are a couple pics though from our evening of fun.

Me, The Foxxhole Girl (I can't remember her name:-/), and Michael Jai


Chris, Seun, and me


One of the comics and Seun


A couple other new friends and me

SHE'S BAAAAACK!

I used to be a huge Whitney Houston fan, back in the days of "All At Once", "How Will I Know", "I'm Every Woman" and of course "I Will Always Love You". I could really go on and on about the songs of hers which I have loved over the years and the ones where you couldn't tell me that I didn't sound just like her, lol, as I sang along over the track. No telling what that would've really sounded like if someone had turned the music off:-/

However, somewhere along the way, she lost her way. Between Bobby and the drugs and whatever else she got into Whitney Houston was not Whitney Houston. She was so wholesome and sweet and beautiful and most definitely had the voice of an angel. By the time she was on the Whitney and Bobby reality show, I'm not sure who that person was.

Here's the thing though - we ALL go through trials and tribulations and ups and downs. Some more difficult and trying than others but when you have to live your troubles out in the public eye, it cannot be easy. Everybody judging you, pointing fingers, saying things that perhaps are not true, embellishing the truth and making the worst seem even worse.

Fast forward to today and Whitney Houston is BACK! She performed on Good Morning America today and while her voice might not quite be what it used to be, she is still beautiful and had a great spirit and her Mom, Cissy was still standing there, right there beside her daughter. And at the end of the day, isn't that what we all need? Our friends and family and those who really do love and care for us to be still standing there, when many others have disappeared, when times get hard and you need them most.

A couple days ago, I got some not so good news, which I won't get into now but suffice to say, when I needed someone to lean on the most, I knew who to count on. Distance or not. We all need people like that in our lives and I am TRULY grateful:-)

Whitney has that in spades. There are lots of people who care for her and want to see her do well and love seeing Old School Whitney, as I like to call her, lol , come back. I love the first two songs from the album that I've heard. She has weathered the storm and she is back!

Here is her performance of one of those songs from Good Morning America today. (Thanks to my boy Avard for the heads up:-) Enjoy....

PS. My friend Chris Spencer, host extraordinaire, lol, is hosting her official album release party tonight being thrown by Arista Records and he has invited me to come. I guess I'll clear the calendar and check it out. If I must, lol....just kidding. I'm really gonna try to make it and post pictures tomorrow if I can.