The Musings of a Latte Queen: Narratives of Everyday Life

When we wake up in the morning, we are greeting with a blank slate, a chance to write the day the way we want.  Sure, there will be interruptions or mishaps or even dangers, but the day is still a promise, a hope, a chance. I spent the summer and fall overcoming an unexpected illness, that literally, changed in a day, one of those mishaps that was unplanned.  In the days spent recovering, I decided a few things 1. life is short and time will pass, might as well do what I want 2. my family are my blessings and my life would not be the same without them 3. friends are the music of my heart and I am blessed with young ones and old ones 4. money isn't everything 5. when you are sick, the real people who love you show up 6. kids are funny 7. aging will happen, might as well celebrate the gray and moisturize the wrinkles 8. it is never too late to go back to school 9. I really am a pretty awesome poet and narrativist 10. being a mother has been my single greatest joy ...

A week ago I was sitting in my bedroom, my bed filled with the business cards and brochures I received while in Chicago at the PhD Project Conference.  I was evaluating my life choices and the next phase of my journey. When I was in Chicago, I was surrounded by so many brilliant minds - all people of color - who were considering stepping away from their careers to go back to school.  There were current doctoral students as panelists giving honest and thorough answers to the Q&A of what a business PhD program would entail.  I missed the GMAT session (last time I took that was before I entered my M.B.A. studies over a decade ago) and thought about my son surviving his ACT for college...test taking anxieties hit me at full steam.  My quick two and a half days were filled with conversations with recruiters and professors, discussion with Management and Marketing discipline representatives at the college fair, and forging a sisterhood with women who, like me, were c...

There are some moments when you just know that you have to take the leap, do the thing set before you, launch out on faith, and capture the wind. That realization hit me this past Friday afternoon, sitting in a conference room in the O'Hare Hyatt Regency, watching one after another of newly minted PhD's walk down the aisle for their capping ceremony .  I started to cry, for it was my soul that woke up and my spirit leaped in recognition...this was my destiny. Five years. It takes five years to finish the business PhD in any of the five major disciplines. Five years. That time will go by in a blink.  I have been in St. Louis for five years.  My youngest daughter is about to be nine, she is alive and healthy, something we were wondering about five years ago when her illness was at its height. Before that, it had been five years since I was working in product marketing at Hallmark Cards, Inc. and left expecting my last child! Five years before that, I was taking an...

A week ago this morning, the world woke up to the definite news that President Barack Hussein Obama was indeed elected President of the United States for a second term.  He had a decisive electoral and popular vote victory of the challenger, Governor Mitt Romney, who finally, after midnight, conceded the election because he was (1) in denial that all the race and class filled hate ads, (2) all the voter suppression, (3) all the demonizing the female body, (4) all the homophobia, (5) all the religious ranting, and (5) all the scaring the white people, simply wasn't enough to get him to 270. The week progressed (Florida was still counting votes) to finally giving that number that was an overwhelming mandate - 332 to 206 .  He won every constituency except white males, older white seniors (except he won Florida!), Cuban Americans, white married women (most likely because they are married to white men who control their lives), and the so-called  christian religious...

The GOP’s God Problem | Voice4America

I went to vote today, with my daughters in tow, me on a cane, limping for my rights.  I made my daughters take pictures of me while voting and we all talked about all parts of the ballot.    I drove around today, spent time with my girls, had coffee and soup, and thought about all the news I've heard all across the country regarding the election.  Then I opened my mailbox and found this wonderful post by my cousin that I thought said it better than I could.  Take a bite of this Peanut Jelly Sandwich and consider what would really happen if voting was made easier across the country... New post on  Peanut Jelly Sandwich New post on  Peanut Jelly Sandwich Voting – Know Your Rules by  Kai I have been a registered voter since I became of legal age to vote.  I have lived in various states and had to adhere to the rules of each one along the way.  Those rules have never gotten in the way of my voting and I must ...

How the Evangelicals Doomed the Republican Party, God and (Maybe) America

Thirty years ago my angel took flight. Yesterday, my daughters went with me to choose his memorial, something tangible in remembrance that we can take and grow.   His baby sister, born on the 1st like him, chose the plant that is small, like a baby, and can grow to keep living.  She said the statute looked like a "little fat boy reading a book" and asked me about her big brother. He took flight and the hole in my heart has been filled with my sweet memory of holding him, straddled with his legs wrapped around my waist, we sitting in the chair, me struggling to breathe but singing to him anyway.  His tiny hands, his head full of curly hair, his sweet smell, his chubby cheeks. For years I neither celebrated his birthday nor mourned his death - each was too painful. I vowed his death would not be in vain so I got my secretarial degree, got a full-time job, taught myself to drive, bought a car, had an apartment, went to college, and tried to forget the tragedy, the aban...