It is totally shocking how life can just abruptly change and yet we are unaware of it.

I sit here at a few minutes past 1 am, exhausted and sleep-deprived as hell, yet I cannot sleep!

This is the same me who was dozing off this money right after drinking two cups of coffee!

The past two weeks have been crazy for me - I have been working my butt off to ensure the successful completion of two major projects.

I sit here in my living room, listening to random music, flipping through facebook and restless as hell! I have been horribly frustrated in the past week....

I have the weird feeling of doom and gloom. Oh yeah, I'm being dramatic..but am I really?

I feel grossly under-accomplished....yet I have ticked off 80% of my goals for 2016. Maybe I'm crazy?

No I am not. I am just a woman who is terribly frustrated by her husband right now. Normal, you say? Perhaps. Except that this is by no means a normal feeling.

I feel like I am in a dark hole...or maybe it's a drum...I'm not quite sure...but it definitely isn't a well as I am not drowning.....but I feel out of air, out of breath. I need oxygen. I need saving.

Maybe I should go back to God.?

Not like I left. But who am I kidding? I did leave. No concrete reason...I just got tired of pastors and double standards. Christians and their unchristianly behaviour. Yeah, who am I to judge? Bla bla

I'm not judging...I just got tired of being in what I thought was a deceptive bubble. Still think it is.

But what has that got to do with God? He has nothing to do with the deception of men.

I miss God. Is that a normal thing to say? I'm not quite sure.

Maybe I should go back to Him and He will save me from this horrible feeling of doom.

Maybe it isn't so bad....maybe this is the sleep deprivation talking...maybe I'm just making excuses.

Deep down, I know the doom is real.

Dang. Some of it definitely has to be sleep deprivation.

I miss writing. I used to enjoy writing so much. What happened to me? I feel like I'm slowly losing myself - losing my true essence. I shouldn't let that happen.

I worry too much - about everything and everyone. Not good. I'm gonna have to start letting my hair down and enjoying life.

I mean, I do enjoy life. I am generally a happy girl - contradictory to the gloom abi?

Maybe it's the sleep deprivation afterall. Maybe not.

I think I have a little crase in me that I have decided to express this night.

Truth is, I miss writing so much and I haven't done it in a while so my fingers have gotten a little too excited.

I just realised I posted last almost three years ago. Dang, girl! What do you do with all your time?!

My last post talked about my baby - she's a big girl now with established opinions on various subjects and she's also a big sister to her chop chop little brother.

They are my rainbow.

I hope I come back here soon, and more frequently. I promise to be more coherent.

Motherhood

Hello World.

It's 2014 and I did not even post one single hello all through 2013.

I'd like to blame it on motherhood. But should I?

Nna mehn. First of all, hats off to my mother who had five children and my grandmother who had 10 children!!! A super huge twale to them!

With only one child, I feel as though I am CONSTANTLY tired. Even when I'm asleep, I'm tired. LOL!

I had my first child 10 months and 16 days ago at 10.20pm on a Monday night. I remember thinking "this one wey I born on Monday night, it means my daughter will be a career, office-type woman". Buhahaha. I remember questioning my sanity shortly after that thought.

I had a pretty uneventful pregnancy and labour was equally uneventful, generally speaking.

However oh, to me sha, labour and delivery were dang painful! Shet!!!

While I was having contractions and all, my dad kept calling me to tell me not to be worried and how labour is soooo easy. Buhahaha. *Straight face*.

Dad: Don't worry, you'll be fine, You know, all the times you mummy gave birth, she just went in and out like she went to urinate.

Not even to shit. Urinate. Really, dad? You'd think he was the one that pushed all five of us out.

To be fair to him though, I do understand where his calmness was coming from. Being the first child, I'd like to think I saw my mother all through four pregnancies. And I can say for sure, I remember and was conscious for only three.

My mum did make it look so easy. Her third child was even born at home, right on the floor of the sitting room because before they could find a cab to take her to the hospital, she had already pushed the baby out. And I watched from the window. Almost 21 years after that, the picture (abi na video :D) is still firmly imprinted in my head.

I woke up that morning with some new type of pain and I knew it was going to happen that day. I woke my husband up, he bathed me and got me prepared..lol
Made sure I ate well well so I'll have enough power to push. but then I remembered that some women poop in the process of pushing but I was afraid to empty my bowels so I don't push my princess into the toilet.

Headed to the hospital with my hospital ngwongwo feeling like voltron ready to push. The matrons looked at me up and down and laughed. They said I definitely wasn't in labour because if I was, I won't be as cheerful and bubbly. Whaat?

Just to indulge me though, a doctor proceeded to check how far dilated I was and it was just a mere 3cm compared to the 10cm I needed to push. By the way, the method of measuring dilation is just way tooo crude. Infact, I think it was the worst part of my ordeal sef. They stick their whole fist (maybe I'm exaggerating, some fingers sha) far up into vagina. Wth? I didn't find it funny at all at all. Mschew

I was given the option of going back home or pacing around the hospital. I went back home, came back after a few hrs, they did the annoying dilation check again and it was just 4cm, I think. Dang!

I left again and went to Shoprite with my husband to by a vacuum cleaner because we figured our incoming princess didn't need a single dust in her princessy life. Infact we were both just crazy that day.
After shop rite, we stopped at the spare parts village to buy something for his car. We were generally just acting normal between bouts of increasing contractions though.

I went home and had another bath and headed to the hospital. Annoying dilation check again, arrgh. 6cm this time. I was told to take of my clothes, lay down on the bed and chill. It was all well and good till they hooked me up to a drip (oxytocin). And that was when the pain started. I thought i was gonna gooo crrraaazyyyyyy. Jesus. The pain was so much that I even fell asleep in between. I know that doesn't make any sense but hey!

But when the baba of all pain came, I knew it was time. I went wild. I saw myself yanking the drip and pushing the stand down. I remember even trying to bite somebody. Lol. And then I was told to push without stopping. I think I tried once and failed. And the matron said to me "Your baby's head is already almost out, If you don't push, she will die"

Ahhhhhhh. See push. I pushed till I was sure my intestines and entire digestive system will come out along with the baby. And there she was. My yellow baby.

I had been anticipating this moment for the past 8 months and I had thought I'd die from too much love and happiness. But truth is, I felt nothing. Just exhaustion. I was bloody tired.

But in the hours, days, weeks, months that have followed, the pure love, joy, happiness, contentment I feel just from this one little tiny girl CANNOT be put down in words.

She wears me out because she is just one of those baza queen babies who want their hands in everything, want to climb everything including the damn wall and I am constantly after her AND the worst part of it, she doesn't sleep through the night....hence my constant feeling of exhaustion.

But in actual fact, if I have to stay awake EVERY night for the rest of my life, if I don't have to sleep at all just for her, I will without batting an eyelid because this love I feel is special.

Forget man and woman love. This mother-child love is higher than cocaine. Lmao.

All thanks be to God who has seen us through till this point!! If not for Him, where would we be? :)

On 2012

The last time I posted anything was 10 months ago and I could not possibly have let 2012 end without saying something. Anything!

This year has gone by incredibly fast, as most years do. I'm still waiting for a year I can say took its time.

This time last year, I prayed to atleast manage to find a real boyfriend. Strangely, that prayer wasn't exactly answered. I was given a husband instead. As I type sef, I still haven't gotten used to the fact that I'm now somebody's wife and mother-to-be.

A lot of times when I have to fill in my name, I still use my maiden name....I wonder how long these things usually take. For me, being married does not make me feel any much different. I am still very much my regular self. I even forget to wear my ring sometimes :D

Things that have changed:

1) I live in a much nicer house with a real kitchen and wi-fi (yay! :D)
2) I now eat like an uber glutton (I'd like that blame that on the pregnancy hormones....oh God I hope I go back to being normal after I have my baby)
3) I no longer answer phone calls like I'm a customer service agent (all the toasters have disappeared..power of marriage, huh!)
4) I now cook regularly......gone are the days of indomie and quaker oats diets. *sigh* I now cook foods that involve pounding cocoyam in a mortar with a pestle. Me???????!!!!!

Between untraditional me and my traditional Igbo boo, I guess we both had to find a balance!

I really don't remember much that happened this year......most of it has just been a blur...I'm blaming the hormones again.....the only things I remember are this baby who kicks the shit out of me every minute and  getting married to a very unusual and great man whom I had known all along but had "friend-zoned" because well, I just felt we couldn't be anything other than friends.

I shudder to think I almost missed him standing right in front of my small nose! I guess i"ll have to dedicate a full post to him :)

I Have a feeling I'm not being very comprehensible right now....it's the hormones..

Seriously though, I'm one of those lucky people who have zero pregnancy issues (minus gluttony) and for that, I am grateful.

I am grateful for so much. I married my friend. I made more money this year than I ever have in my life. I've been healthy, so have my family. I've been blessed with great in-laws. I was blessed by so many people this year, I can't even count. It was also a challenging year in a lot of regards but His blessings far outweigh whatever challenges there might have been.

"Sometimes, the only blessing you need to count is your heart beat"

So it doesn't matter what you gained or lost this year, being alive is ENOUGH to thank God :)

As we go into 2013, I'm praying I'll cultivate a deep relationship with God. I'm praying for Nigeria and honestly in my heart yearn for it to be a better country.

God bless us all :)

13th February

I cried yesterday. Twice.

I woke up in the morning and the first thing I did was check result of an exam I'd written in December. I was a bit nervous and had even dreamt about it that night. I quickly logged via my phone and the word "Pass" had NEVER looked so good.

I jumped and cried and yelled "Thank You Jesus". i had asked Him for a Pre-Valentine/Valentine gift and He gave it to me, as always. It was THE perfect gift :-)

Sometime during the day, I got a call from a friend and she told me "My dear, bad news...XXX has passed on". I held the phone to my ear in SHOCK and had huge balls of tears in my eyes.  I could not believe it.

Last time I'd seen her was in December, just before Xmas when I'd gone to their office to say hi. She was one of the sweetest human beings ever and just had a smile that could cheer just about anybody up. She couldn't have been more than 30.

She had gotten pregnant, after years of trying to conceive with her husband....and she had a miscarriage last saturday, lost too much blood....and that was it...she was gone. She is gone. Just like that. As I type this, I have a picture of her smiling and eating an apple stuck in my head. I can't get over it.

This life is too fragile. It's too easy for us to take each day we're alive for granted. It's too easy to get overwhelmed by challenges life constantly hurls our way. So easy that we lose track of how PRECIOUS life is.

And once again, I'm faced with these unanswered questions - Why do bad things happen to good people?

She was a devout Christian. Hardcore born again. Thread-plaiting, no make up, deeper life-attending young woman. No, those are not the things that really define our spirituality. But that's what sort of person she was. And beyond that, she was a GOOD person with a GOOD heart.

All i can feel is sadness and the last hug we shared.

All I can see is her smiling face, eating a green apple.

Why?

No, don't tell me. I guess we'll never know.


I came across a few words yesterday that touched my heart and I'll share:

"I can’t in good conscience promise that God will make the sun stand still every time you walk in audacious faith. Your faith does not control God—in fact, human faith on any scale can never put divine providence in your back pocket. That means that, sometimes, people you love will get sick and they won’t recover. You won’t achieve everything you attempt. You’ll have to absorb and manage some pain you didn’t create or invite or deserve. You’ll have days filled with frustration and misery.

Audacious faith does not guarantee a crisis-free life. But audacious faith does enable you to seize the opportunity to see God’s glory in the midst of every crisis in your life.

Even when—and maybe especially when—the sun goes down -- Steve Furtick"

It's A New Year

2011 came and went by so fast. The last half of the year especially went by like a flash of lightening! At the beginning of 2011, I wrote down my goals for the year and by God's grace, I achieved almost everything. The only thing I didn't do was get a boyfriend/husband. I have given that one a special extension :-D

All in all, it was a very fulfilling year for me. A year of focus. A year devoid of emotional distractions, for the most part!

Spiritually though, I have to honestly confess that I went down the scale....thank God I have realised/identified that. That's the first step to making it better.

I thank God for the gift of life, for good health, for family, for friends, for favours that left me wide-eyed for months. Too much to thank Him for.

I spent Xmas and New Year with my family and took  3 days in between to attend a carnival. And I had sooooooo much fun! It was a good holiday, summarily.

Sometime in between my holiday, I ran into my ex-boyfriend. I hadn't seen him in over a year. We had a looooong discussion and I was all the happier for it. And all the while we were talking, I couldn't stop looking at him and wondering why l had loved him so much. And then it hit me - it was the way he loved me. There was something about the way he loved me. It was too special. Unfortunately, the love wasn't true because during the storms, a monster came out. I was happy to realise that I didn't love him anymore but that l'll always value what we had together and will always see it as a great lesson in love and life.

So, I'm back to my spinster's life. Hello Fuel Subsidy! You have been on my mind all week. The only times I didn't think of you, I was thinking of Boko Haram.

I have had so many discussions and arguments about the Govt's decision to remove fuel subsidy. Let me not start. I'll dedicate a full post to that.

Hello 2012, I pray you bring better days for Nigerians.

The Evil that Men Do...

The other day, I got the BB broadcast message below:

"Gangs are placing a baby car seat by the road, with a fake baby in it, waiting for a woman (of course) to stop and check on the abandoned baby. Note that the location of this car seat is usually beside a wooded or grassy (field) area and the person (usually women) will be dragged into the woods, beaten, gang-raped and usually left dead.

If it's a man, they're usually beaten, robbed and maybe left dead too.

DO NOT STOP FOR ANY REASON. DIAL 767 AND REPORT WHAT YOU SAW, BUT DON'T EVEN SLOW DOWN.

If you are driving at night and eggs are thrown at your windscreen, do not stop to check the car. Do not operate the wiper and do not spray any water because eggs mixed with water become milky and block your vision up to 92.5% AND you are forced to stop beside the road and become a victim of these criminals.

Sometimes, they pretend to be accident victims and will prove you wrong the moment you get close enough to assist

These are all new techniques used by gangs. These are desperate times and there are unsavoury individuals who will take desperate measures to get what they want. Please pass this round to your loved ones"

I dialled 767 sha and the number doesn't exist.
2ndly, which statistician came up with the 92.5% figure?
3rdly, I don't know if these techniques are being practiced in Nigeria yet but it IS very possible.

I am usually wary of BB broadcast as a lot of them are filled with lies but I'm sure this one has plenty elements of truth in it. These days, the part of the Bible that says "the heart of man is DESPERATELY wicked" has become truer than ever! We hear all sorts of stories everyday of people committing various atrocities and I wonder if it was the same God that created those same people who commit unspeakable acts.

I feel so sad that I have become so wary of people. I feel molested. I feel like my innocence has been taken from me. It has been taken away, actually. I can hardly see a stranger and offer to help. Because you do not know who has lay a trap somewhere and who hasn't.

The kids on the street begging for alms, I hear they "submit" all the money they get to their master (usually an Alhaji). So these days, in traffic, I don't look at anybody's face.

The other day, one guy stopped me on the road begging me for money to buy medication, he even showed me a prescription supposedly written by a doctor. He told me his brother was sick and in the hospital and how he sold his phone to buy drugs. The amount he asked for was paltry (about N900 or so). I acknowledged that he might be lying and also acknowledged that it might be true. And in my opinion, N900 wasn't so much. After I gave him, I was warned to run away from such people because they could "charm" you into giving them everything you have. I never believed this charm story till it happened to someone close to me. She went into her mother's house and gave them ALL EXPENSIVE JEWELRY. Very long story.

The worst set are the "mothers with children". I always used to feel sorry for these ones and give them money. That was until I heard the story of how they rent babies to garner public sympathy!

After that, I quit! These people on the streets, you just never know. If I wanna help, I'd rather look for more deserving and "credible" recipients!

Who Is Fooling Who?!

Sometimes, I see certain News headlines that just make me cringe and make my intestines recoil with/from rage. Some make me sad. Some make me laugh. Some leave me puzzled.

Item #1:
JAMB yesterday said it'll expend over N2bn in constructing prototype offices in the 36 states of the federation at the cost of N56m each.

Now tell me, how many secondary schools in Nigeria have a value of N56m or even half or quarter that amount? How many schools have a 10% value of that amount? No answers required.

This is the same JAMB that under admits students into poor quality schools who can't find jobs after graduation.

Item #2:
Akwa-Ibom teachers have decided to embark on strike following the alleged refusal of the state govt to pay their two months salary arrears.

Assuming there are 200 teachers in Akwa-Ibom state earning N50,000 monthly, that'll be N10m monthly.  And we all know there can't be 200 teachers earning 50k. I'm jst doin best case scenario. Using best case, the govt would need N50m to pay 200 teachers in almost 6months. And that's the same amount being approved for "prototype Jamb offices". What will happen to the already existing ones? Putting the cart before the horse, taking out the tryres from the cart and feeding them to the horses till they die of poisoning  is what our Govt is good at.

Item #3:
Sale of pubic Albino Hairs booms in Delta State. It is used for Jazz/Juju because albino hair is supposedly effective for love charm

Ewwwww!! Seriously! Lord have mercy!

Item #4:
"Nigerians spend an estimated N93.9bn monthly to buy airtime or recharge cards for their mobile phones and other mobile devices"

All I can do is wonder what percentage of my money makes up that figure!

Item #5:
"Over 300 ex-militants yesterday blocked parts of Oron-Eket road in Urue Offong of Akwa Ibom in protest over non-payment of their allowances"

Why should the Govt be responsible for the upkeep of able bodied men cum criminals? I don't just gerrit. Isn't it a wiser option to provide jobs for these men and pay them salaries instead of allowances. That way, unemployment/crime rate is reduced, these criminals get some sense of of responsibility that comes with having a job, the economy is further strengthened by job creation, disruption of economic activities by these "militants" is reduced, and most of all, they provide services to the public. Dashing them money does absolutely nothing. it's only a temporary solution to a permanent problem

Item #6:
War Against War Against Boko Haram: To protect the presidential villa and its environs, President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan has approved the sum of N5billion for the purchase of robotic bomb detectors for Aso Rock.

Need I say more? There are two issues here - the fact that it's 5billion and that they're taking extra steps to protect themselves without doing the same for the rest of us. Except you consider the CCTV cameras mounted everywhere within the Abuja metropolis which shows your face but doesn't help them locate you or where you live if the need arises. Sigh


Now, just heard that a mosque was bombed in Sapele by ex-Mend militants on the basis that Boko Haram has been killing their "southern brothers" in the North. Seriously? This can only worsen things for everybody! The most csualties in this Boko Haram madness have been northerners. Besides, so much for brotherhood, how many of them actually act "brotherly" in their home state?! Mschw

Who is fooling who???