Eye Candy Friday Rings 2/22/2013

Hi All!

Today's Eye Candy Friday Feature is rings with a bonus. So take a look and then read the bonus offer after the pictures.

Cowrie shell in antiqued copper

Wire wrapped Cowrie shell in 18gage SS

Earth stone ring in SS

Wire wrapped rose quartz teardrops on an adjustable band

Wire wrapped Fancy Jasper on an adjustable band

Large Pink Shell on a SS adjustable band

To celebrate Black History Month use code BLKHISMO for 50% off for everything in my shop through midnight March 1, 2013.

Leave a comment as to which piece you'd like to add to your collection.

Thanks,
Michelle

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Celebrating my 57th Birthday Day 6

Hi All


Today is day six of my birthday celebration. I've been doing these posts daily as the Creator gives me inspiration. This being the next to last day I want to go into my time here in Arizona. Tomorrow when I wrap this week up I 'm want to express what I'd like for the future to be. 

These last seven years have gone surprisingly fast. I've watched my girls grow up. My eldest Raven has struck out on her on and is in an amazing trajectory to fulfill her lifelong dream. Syeda has grown into a "tweener", with all the joys and exasperation that brings. She will start high school in the fall. For her middle school class trip she's going back to California. Is there a message in this? Smile. For her sixth grade trip she went to Catalina Island Marine Institute (http://www.cimi.org/cimi.html ) and loved every minute of it.

As I stated earlier we came to Arizona sight unseen. Before we came I took the girls to see our oldest living relatives because I wasn't sure when we would be able to get back to the east coast. Both relatives are in their eighties. Although, I had lived in the South (Atlanta and Washington, DC) and Southwest (Houston) for many years, Arizona was still different. When I got here, I felt like I had been released from prison. You could walk into a restaurant  and not have to be buzzed into use the restroom. You could talk face to a teller and they were not encased in plate glass. The sky was so clear and beautiful. Yes, Arizona still has a long way to go in dealing with Black folks. We are only 17% of the population and it shows. A lot of what they know about Black folks seems to come from MTV, rap videos and OZ.  I had a neighbor who tried everything she could to start a fight with me. When that didn't work she finally asked me, "If I was going to BITCH slap  her". I kid you not. Another Syeda and I visiting in Mesa near the Mormon Temple. We walked a couple of blocks to the store. A little girl about 7or 8 saw us and started, running behind us shouting "Mommy! Mommy! Black People". Mommy got embarrassed and made the kid come back. I always wished Mommy had let her talk to us. The kid had questions she wanted answers to and I would have been more than happy to answer them. Syeda and I are different complexions and some people seem to not be able to understand that I am her biological Mother. Weird. At the same time this is the state that has had five women governors. 


I realize that the Creator guided me to Arizona because I had some hard lessons to learn. My Aries sister always accuses me of looking for the good in people, an accusation I am guilty of. I always have started people at zero. Whether you went up or down in my eyes depended solely on what you did, not on what others said about you.
Arizona taught me to take the rose colored glasses off. I have had more lies and gossip thrown at me in the seven years I have been in Arizona than the first fifty years I have been on the planet. My older brother told me when I was twelve to prepare for this, that people were going to love me or hate me. There would be no middle ground with me. I asked him why, his reply was, "That I was comfortable with myself". He said that was a trait that many grown folks never accomplished. I have lived to see the wisdom of big brother's words. I have had folks who would publicly state they couldn't stand me, defend me in public, while so called friends stood silent. I think its a matter of respect and I'll take that any day. Respect is the one thing I require, if we become friends that's a a bonus. I am respectful and demand it in return. I have been amazed at how folks here will assume that because you are Black you will accept any kind of treatment from them. Its not happening. 


Scottsdale is the fifth whitest City in America and it shows. You will meet some of the most amazing, wonderful, nicest people on the planet here. You will meet some of the most racist people here. I long ago made the statement that I'd rather deal with an avowed Southern  racist than a Northern Liberal. Here's why, the Southern will say, You're a Nigger, I'm a racist and I openly admit it. The Northern will say, You're a Nigger, but I'm NOT a racist. But if I am a racist its your Fault. Big difference. Bottom line there are NO Niggers in my family.


I still like Arizona, there's a different kind of spirit here. A live and let live atmosphere. A lot of the nonsense I spoke of above came from people who are not born or raised here. Remember, I'm originally from Detroit and the racism is a heck of a lot worse in Michigan.


Truth be told there is a very real immigration problem in Arizona. To the Mexican nationals this is Mexico North and they can be way more racist than the Whites here. A fact that is not discussed in the editorials. A lot of Mexicans fly under the radar as whites. They will marry white, anglosize their names and pass. Arizona's and America's immigration problem didn't start with SB1070, it started with dial 1 for English and 2 for Spanish. It will be interesting to see how this saga plays out. 


I am winding down this celebration and will end it tomorrow with what I hope my next 43 years will include. Yes, I am planning on breaking my great grandmother's 98 years record. Inshallah. Smile


So let's keep this party going click on shop or http://wirequeen.etsy .com to use my coupon "Birthday57" at checkout. Today is the last day the coupon is valid.


See you tomorrow.


Michelle

My Birthday Celebration Day 3

Happy Birthday to Me! Happy birthday to me! Smile


Growing up my friends never understood why I would always made time for the Elders. Even as a kid I thought that if you had lived to be 60,70, 80 years old you had to have learned something. I was a sickly kid. I nearly died at age three. If I had been Catholic they would have given me the "Last Rites". I had sustained 115+ temperatures for over seven days and was hemorrhaging from every orifice in my body. The doctor's prepared my family for my imminent demise. Fortunately for me there was a triad present they had not planned on. The Creator , my Daddy and Me. My father thanked the doctors for all they had done and asked where was their chapel. When Daddy got off his knees a doctor visiting from Africa was waiting for him. He asked for and received permission to try a malaria technique to break my fever. The technique worked. For the next 7 years that I spent a spent 7-10 days every summer in the hospital being poked, leeched and examined. Finally after seven years and the doctors  not being able to explain how I survived they finally said I had out grown the nephritis. (Yes, I had the same ailment that stunted Gary Coleman's growth and left my Mother's older sister sterile). The medical profession had my parents so fearful that a blow or injury could trigger the recurrence of the aliment that  I wasn't even allowed to run or play until I was 10. Of course I cheated which is how I broke my front tooth and had to have it capped at 7. This accounts for why my reading speed is 4 times the norm. I was not allowed to do anything else!. I learned this tidbit in law school when a tester timed me while I was taking an exam.


I finally got a clean bill of health at age ten. Then I got Scarlet and Rheumatic fever and had to learn to walk again. Smile. My parents had a rough time with me. Of the seven kids I was the only one who got really sick.
My Granddaddy, who lived to be 96 and was retired as long as I can remember, would come and sit with me everyday at the hospital. Granddaddy was of the generation that lived through the Great Depression. Granddaddy said he told God, "If God let him live through the Depression he would never eat white potatoes again". Granddaddy kept that promise until the day he died. When Henry Ford said he would pay $5.00 to anyone who showed up, Granddaddy showed up. He came from Birmingham Alabama to Dearborn, Michigan to work. My grandmother was supposed to come later but she refused to leave the south and her family. They divorced after some years. When my Daddy moved my Grandmother to Detroit in her late eighties, Granddaddy tried to court her and win her back. Grand mama was having none of it. I don't think Granddaddy ever got over her. All seven of his wives  looked like variations of Grandma.

As I said Granddaddy was from the Great Depression era. Each generation has certain things that pertain to that generation. My Granddaddy's generation wore long johns year round and had a switchblade with multiple blades. This crossed race, ethnicity and income levels. Granddaddy would come and sit with me every day I was in the hospital. He would bring a red apple and buff it on his sleeve. That apple would glow Granddaddy had polished it so. That would be the best fruit in the world. My Daddy would be at work and my Mother was at home with my younger brothers and sisters. I am the second oldest of seven kids. My Mother was a stay at home Mom until my baby brother was old enough to go to school full-time. Mommy put Turune in school in the am and had a job in the pm. We always teased her that she got a job to get a break from us. (If you went into the basement and saw the laundry piled up you would understand. We were not allowed to wear the same clothes twice without their being washed.)


My Mother was from Atlanta, Georgia. She was from old Atlanta money. Reportedly her father was the first Black man to own a service station in Atlanta. He had to use a white man as his front to own it. My mother was the youngest child and both her parents had died by the time she was nine. Her Mother from diabetes and her Father from a head injury while motorcycle stunt riding. Mommy's daddy had spoiled her rotten and My Daddy continued it. Ladies yes you are supposed to be on a pedestal so high you have nosebleed. Smile.

I am thankful I was home in Detroit for my Daddy's last walk and got to spend that time with him. We talked of many things especially about Prophet Muhammad who my Daddy  knew very little about. We talked a bout Islam and why I had converted. Daddy wanted to know what was it about Islam that that attracted me to it. My Daddy had taught me that your spirituality was the way you lived daily, not something you picked up when you you went to the house of worship. My Daddy walked his talk.

As I said Granddaddy was from the Great Depression era. Each generation has certain things that pertain to that generation. My Granddaddy's generation wore long johns year round and had a switchblade with multiple blades. This crossed race, ethnicity and income levels. Granddaddy would come and sit with me every day I was in the hospital. He would bring a red apple and buff it on his sleeve. That apple would glow Granddaddy had polished it so. That would be the best fruit in the world. My Daddy would be at work and my Mother was at home with my younger brothers and sisters. I am the second oldest of seven kids. My Mother was a stay at home Mom until my baby brother was old enough to go to school full-time. Mommy put Turune in school in the am and had a job in the pm. We always teased her that she got a job to get a break from us. (If you went into the basement and saw the laundry piled up you would understand. We were not allowed to wear the same clothes twice without their being washed.)

My Mother was from Atlanta, Georgia. She was from old Atlanta money. Reportedly her father was the first Black man to own a service station in Atlanta. He had to use a white man as his front to own it. My mother was the youngest child and both her parents had died by the time she was nine. Her Mother from diabetes and her Father from a head injury while motorcycle stunt riding. Mommy's daddy had spoiled her rotten and My Daddy continued it. Ladies, yes you are supposed to be on a pedestal so high you have nosebleed. Smile.

I am thankful I was home in Detroit for my Daddy's last walk and got to spend that time with him. We talked of many things especially about Prophet Muhammad who my Daddy knew very little about. We talked a bout Islam and why I had converted. Daddy wanted to know what was it about Islam that that attracted me to it. My Daddy had taught me that your spirituality was the way you lived daily, not something you picked up when you you when to the house of worship. My Daddy walked his talk.
Let's keep this celebration going. Check back tomorrow for my next installment. As always you can click on the title to shop and use the coupon code Birthday57 to receive 57% off through March 10, 2012. 

Thanks for visiting.

Michelle

I

My Birthday Celebration

Hello All


March 6, 2012 is my 57 birthday. This has been an interesting journey the past 57 years. I had great times, near death times and all points in between. If I had to do it all over again I don't think I would change much. I try to find the positive in every experience or  at least learn the lesson from each experience.


I earned my degrees, traveled the world, married, had my beautiful girls and divorced (2x). Smile. Through out it all my belief in a higher power has sustained me whether I was a Christan, Buddhist or Muslim. To that higher power I am eternally grateful that it has sustained me this long. I have had doctors proclaim my impending death more times than I want to remember. Proclaim loudly that I would be in a wheelchair in ten years with my head bent onto my bosom.  Yet, I'm still here, still standing. Smile. I've always wondered where are they now. Smile


If the Creator so blesses me I hope to add another 43 years to this life cycle. My daddy's mother made it to 92 and his daddy made it to 96 so I've got the genes to do it. I hope to extend the family legacy. Smile

 

This picture was taken three years ago.

To celebrate I am having a 57 % off sale just for my blog readers. Use Coupon code "Birthday57" to receive the discount.

Saturday Night Special Starts at 5pm EST

This weekend is a very busy one here in Scottsdale Arizona. The Arabian horse show started Thursday and will continue till February 26 at Westworld. Three are three five big Art shows in Scottsdale. Sports fans can attend the various teams Meet the players events, charity fundraisers,Margarita, Cocktail and Beer fests all start this week. Sunday A'fair and Pink Nation invite only event Sunday afternoon. Tourist season is in full swing. Canadians are in to town and buying up everything in sight. Smile.


We are headed out to the Annual Health and Fitness Expo put on by the City of Scottsdale Called "Fit City" at Scottsdale Community College from 8am to 1 pm today. We have attended every event. Interesting that Scottsdale just came in at fifth place in a national survey of Cities with healthy citizens.


Today My Saturday Night Special will go live at 5pm EST.  To see and take advantage of the special today at 5pm go here Are you in? Saturday Night Special (SNS) starts at 5pm EST. Check to see what the special is here http://etsy.me/ge5IaA 

Example of items that are included in the SNS.

Happy Shopping 

Michelle