College Football and I

So this weekend is gonna be Memorial Day weekend. This means that most people will be able to have a long three day weekend (myself include). This weekend is also the start of college football. Now usually during this time of year, I would be excited about. Not this time though. As many of you know, I am a UAB fan til the day I die. You may also know that this past December, Ray Watts (that jackass) decided to take away the Football, Rifle, and Bowling programs away from the university. You can only imagine how I felt about this.

Well good news came in June that those programs will be coming back to the Southside. Everything is great, right? Well not too fast there, my friend. See, the rifle team will be back this season (2015-16). Bowling coming back next season (2016 season). Then the football team will back on the gridiron for the 2017 season. That means I have to wait two entire season to see my Blazers play again. So while everyone else is watching their team play and get to experience how it is for College Football Saturday, I don't get to have that same chance.

Now the good things for this season is that the UAB Marching Blazers will still be marching this year. Many people were wondering if the marching band would be gone, but they are still going strong. In my opinion, they are even better than ever with what has been going on. They are still practicing and putting in all the effort as if they were getting ready for a game this weekend. So make sure you check out The Sound of the Magic City whenever they perform this year.

Now getting back to football, I really won't have any team to root for this whole season. I won't be able to get excited for my team getting closer to being bowl eligible. I won't have be to see if we can win a conference championship. All because of Watts thinking that "numbers" had something to do with it. Now most of our players and coaches have left to bring their talents to other schools, and I can't blame them. This only means that now we have two season to rebuild what we started last season. Now I know that we will not be as good as we was last year, but then again I didn't expect us to be as good as we was last year. You can never know what will happen with the UAB Football team.

So now what will I do? What will happen for me with college football? I am gonna lay low for the next two years. With my team not being able to play, I have no for real reason to watch college football. It might sound petty, but I don't care. Everyone else has a chance to watch their team play on Saturday, but I don't have that same luxury. I won't be able to say "Touchdown UAB" or cheer when we win a game. I won't be able to do that for another two season. Now don't get me wrong, if I am with friends and a game comes that people want to watch, I will join in. Just for me personally, I won't try to make any effort to watch it on my spare time.

I hope everyone gets to enjoy these next two season of college football, and I truly do mean that. I hope your team can win as many games as possible. Just remember this though. A sleeping dragon will be hungry in 2017, and you know what happens when a dragon has been hungry for that long.

#BewareOfTheBlazers2017 #GoBlazers

Great and Grand

The lady you see above is someone who means so much to me. Her name is Carrie Bell Slaughter, aka Grannie. She was my great grandmother. I pretty much was with her for most of my life. She raised me from being a little boy to the man you see today. She is someone that I didn't just see as family, she was also my closest friend.

She lived with my family ever since my great grandfather passed away in 1998. She was by far the best cook I have ever been around (sorry Mom). She had so many recipes that she knew about that she didn't have to look at a cookbook. I always loved when she cooked breakfast because that was when I was able to help her out. Okay, so it wasn't every time but it was close enough.

She also had a heart of gold. She was such a nice and helpful woman. I never knew of a person who was willing to help you out no matter what the situation was. If she was able to, she would be there for you. Even she was getting older and couldn't do the stuff that use to do, she would always still try to get up and do something.

Sadly, she is no longer on this earth. She passed away about three years ago from Alzheimer's disease. Even though that she had it, you can still tell that she remember somethings. There were plenty of moments when I tried to cook her something to eat, and she wouldn't eat it because it wasn't up to her standard. That was when I knew she was still there. Then there were other times when I would talk to her, and she would have no idea who I was. I will be honest with ya. Those moments break my heart. I knew it wasn't her fault, but yet I wish she still could remember.

I remember the morning of the day she passed away. I was heading to work, and I went to her room to see her before I left. I gave her a hug and kiss (like usual). Just before I left, she said something to me that I will remember for the rest of my life. She told me, "I raised to two great young men." She was talking about my brother, Ryan, and me. I smiled when she said that, but it didn't think that would be the last thing she would ever say to me.

When I learned that she had passed away, I broke down. I knew that any day it could happen, but it didn't want it to. She was my grannie. My best friend. I never wanted her to leave my side. I know that she was family to every one, and she was special to all of us in the family. I will have to say though that I felt that she was only MY grannie. I was loved her so much (and still do to this day). I am just glad to know that she is not hurting anymore.

I want people to know that someone like my great grandmother only comes once in a lifetime. She was someone I know I will never be able to meet again. I just hope she knows that she was such a big influence in my life, and I thank her so much for everything she has done. I hope that when my time comes, I can come somewhere as close of a great and grand person that she was. I love and miss you Grannie.

This post was inspired by a blog post by Lara Parker, editor for Buzzfeed, called On Being Left Behind.

This Block Is A B!tch

So I want to start of by saying that, for me, writing has been an easy way to talk about whatever is on my mind. No matter how big or small, this blog has been the place I could let you guys how whats going on in my brain. Lately I've been having some sort of writer's block going on, and I will tell you one thing about this block. It has been a complete bitch to me (sorry not sorry for the language). Let me explain.

As many of you know, writing has never been a forte of mine most of my life. I never really enjoyed doing writing assignments during school, but that changed ever since I decided to start blogging last year. Now I have people telling me that my writing is actually good. Can you believe that? Someone who never thought of making writing a career, and people enjoy what I write.

Now that I know that I can somewhat write something that people want to read, I want to continue on with this. Enter the writer's block. Lately I have thought about certain things I want to talk about on my blog that I am really interested in or want to speak my mind on. The problem is would people be willing to actually take time from their day and read what I am saying. I know put a lot of effort into what I post, and I want to make sure that people are actually gonna read them. This is when I get to worrying about if people will read my stuff. What if they see the title and decide it not something they want to read? What if they start to read, but they get bored by what I say or don't understand my side? This is what I think about all the time.

Now I have friends who I talk to who say to just write what you want. That my true followers will be interested in what I have to say and will still enjoy it no matter what. I know that what they say is true, but I always have that little voice in my head saying, "You know that people won't like this." It's hard for me to believe that people actually enjoy stuff that I put out into the universe. It's always been a flaw of mine. I'm usually my biggest enemy.

I am hoping that this post will get me to understand that I should just write what I want. I know there will be some people out there who might feel the same as I do. I won't say that everybody goes through this, but I might have at least one person can relate. Whoever you maybe just know that you are not alone. I am going your pain as well. Just know that we can make our writing our passion as well. We just need to let that little voice in our head that says we can't do it out the door and figure out how we can show the world that we can do it!! Hope this wasn't too long of a post for y'all. I just need to speak my mind and let you know how I truly been feeling lately.

Take Your Own Advice

I would like to think that I am a good friend. Usually when a friend is in trouble, I try to be there for them. I know I can't always be there for them physically; however, if I can be able to help give advice or tell them what I think of a situation, I will. Last week was prime example of that.

I have a friend who I haven't talked to in a while. We was just catching up with lost time and what not. I asked how life been treating them, and she informed me that it's not like how she wished it could be. Found out her relationship with her boyfriend is not going as well as planned. Now I felt bad for her because it was similar to how my pervious relationship was like before I met Whitney. If you know how that relationship was, you know it was not a good one.

I told her that if she isn't happy and have so much doubt that she needs to leave. It's not always easy to leave a relationship, especially if you tried so hard to get things right with them. After that long talk, she understood where I was coming from. Then we got into talking about stuff going on for me. I told her that married life has been awesome (as y'all already know), but I'm not as happy with where I am at in life. Talked about how I am trying to do things, but nothing is clicking like I wish they could.

She kept on telling me that things will get better. She known me for about five years, and she knows how much I have done in my life. She told me that if I was able to leave my bad relationship and get such a wonderful person like Whitney in my life, I could easily get out of my situation. The crazy thing about this is that I have told plenty of people the same thing.

Like I said before, I usually am good on giving people some good advice. Not saying that I am always right but I do help out as much as I can. It's just sometimes I don't take my own advice when I need it in my life. I always have dreams or things I want to do, but I put them to the side because I feel like I have to do the "responsible" things.

Then I read this Daily Grit written by Stephanie Davis. In it she talked about how she wanted to do photography for magazines, but she decided not to follow her dream and just go for the reasonable things in life. She went on doing other things when a friend informed her that a magazine was looking for interns, and she jumped on that in a instant.

I know I have always told people to follow their dreams, and things will get better. Why haven't I followed that same advice? I've always felt scared about going for them, but I know that I CAN do it. I am a very successful person, but I have fallen a few times. The good thing about me is that no matter how many times I have went down, I have gotten up more times. I think that I can really say that now more than ever is gonna be the time when I actually do something for me. I'm not gonna worry about what people might think about it, but I will do this to make me happy. I deserve to have great things in my life, and I deserve to follow my dreams. They might not come to me by the end of the week, but I do know that I will one day be able to say that went for my dreams and got them all. Taking your own advice can be hard times, but it's always the best thing to do.