Paula Rae

As I sit on my back porch keeping an eye and an ear on my niece as she picks up garbage out of our yard that has float over from the hundreds of kids that live in our neighborhood, a task that she INSISTED on doing, I can't help but to laugh and be grateful for her and her energetic spirit.  I think back, it's almost like my sister started preparing us for her passing while she was pregnant with my niece. She asked me and my husband to be my niece's godparents. She often made me promise that if anything happened to her that I would raise her daughter as my own. Even when we'd argue and avoid talking to each other for a while, as I reckon some sisters do, she'd make sure that we had an understanding that our "adult mess" didn't void our verbal contract. If something happened to Ashley, Ava belonged to me. I always agreed. I would try to avoid the conversations, blow her off in disbelief... but she'd make me promise. So, in our final 2...

That is what I recently asked myself... MY ANSWER: Not where I want to be. *insert many complaints* Then I remembered that in addition to this being my year of saying YES to new experiences (which I've been doing pretty good on so far), the only thing I promised myself on this year was that I would BLOGGING. So, guess who's left feeling like a HUGE failure:  Le sigh. Woe is me.  So, why haven't I been blogging? I've received emails, inboxes, texts, taps on the shoulder, etc ... anything you can imagine, all from people asking me that very question or some rendition of it. I've been blessed to have some really dope conversations with people I didn't even know were following my blog. The initial response was GREAT! So, why wasn't I blogging??????? My answer: Processing... I was processing. Processing having a 7 year old, again. Processing the weird relationship between my mom and I, even after my sister's passing. Processing the f...