DELILAH DIOR DOMINICA

--> We should look different from the world. I’m not saying we should have blue skin or wear aluminum foil on our fingers or anything like that, but people should be able to look at us and notice we are not like this world we live in. I used to have a goal to look just like everyone else. As a nearly six foot tall mixed girl, I have always stood out in my surroundings. I spent elementary and middle school in a pretty much all white community. I so desired to be my friends Monica Lake (Hi if you’re reading!) and Stefany Fischer (Hi to you too!) because they were teeny little things that the boys could pick up and people could play chicken-fight with. For those of you not familiar with Chicken fighting- it is a game where two people sit on the shoulders of two other people and face each other for a scrappy fight in the pool. The first person to be knocked over loses. As you probably guessed, I was always on the bottom-half drowning, half supporting my featherweight best f...

Hello from Canada!  This trip has been a much needed break from reality. The hubs and I have spent days watching episode after episode of Mad Men curled up on the couch. Spending afternoons and evenings with nieces, nephews, brothers and sisters, parents, aunts and uncles, and great friends has been the lotion to our ashy knees- the Buckley's to our sinus infection, the chocolate to our pms...in other words, it has been the perfect solution. We are so thankful to have a place where everyone can come together and truly cherish the time we get to spend with his side of the family.  Mornings with nothing on the agenda have led to wonderful quiet times and studies. I have been able to catch up on some church services led by one of my favorite pastors, Miles Macphereson. Miles is the pastor at The Rock Church in San Diego, but I have known him since I was a little girl running around my family's Chicago home. My parents are very fond of Miles and his wife and Miles often tells me...

My goodness, I love my husband. And the Lord is so good for knowing 21 years age when he was forming me in my momma's tummy that 21 years later I'd be sitting on the couch in a bathrobe smiling and thinking, "My goodness, I love my husband." I had two MRI's in a row yesterday. This is nothing gasp worthy, but I would like to declare it as a little victory. I am terrified of small spaces, and I only say terrified because I'm not confident in my SAT vocabulary enough to think of a more powerful word. Literally, hands shaking, heart dropping, throat clenching terrified. For any of you who haven't gotten an MRI- don't. Because the machine lays an inch from your face and yells at you for an hour while you can't move. And if you move (because, let's say, you're so nervous you can't lay still...or something...) then you have to do that segment again. It is an un-win-able game I tell you.  This photo is so fake its pathetic! Everyone is al...

I have been on hiatus for a while- my dear readers- but I wouldn't allow the year to pass by without one more post for 2011.  I had to start with a story- I am usually the half of Team Atogwe that proposes the most unusual questions, for no particular reason, all day long. These questions include, but are not limited to: "Isn't it so weird that we need sleep? Do you ever think of what life would be like if we lived underwater? If we were spies, do you think we would wear underwear that is actually a weapon? Do you think that if a person rubs their hands together non-stop for three months they would lose all their fingerprints?" And so on. He usually entertains the questions and answers to humor me- but more often than not the answer is just " No ."  The other day while we were laying in bed on a rare off-day, Oj said "Isn't it so weird that we can never see total darkness?" I was shocked, I thought I was still dreaming and somehow talking to ...

Maybe it was the twenty second flight since September 1st that did this to me, Maybe it's the whirlwind of the Holidays, Maybe its the herniated discs that wont give up after four years,  Maybe it is the home decorating , the five losses in a row, or just plain too much on a plate.  Who knows what is to blame, but I woke up this morning absolutely exhausted and worn down- physically and emotionally. I almost cried at the gym out of sheer confusion as to why I feel like such a mess.I have been talking to my back as if it were a person, like it is responsible for the issues it causes. I have been treating my immune system as if it were a younger sister that did something wrong for allowing me to get sick. Ultimately, however, the thing I cringe at accepting is that I am angry at God because I don't understand or agree with some twists and turns he has presented me with. Unknowingly, when I speak negative ly, fear fully, or doubt fully about my back, I am speaking those th...

A whole lot has happened since the last post, and joyful praise have been raised up from this spirit of mine for the past few days non-stop. Why? Well, because our God is so good. Also, because I have great news. A warning, this will be long , but is a way to answer everyone at once. First off: No, I am not pregnant. For the past few years I have been plagued with stomach and health problems. I have always had a sensitive stomach (I blame my incredible mother...) but 2008-2011 have presented a brand new set of problems that I knew was not just sensitivity. Intense nausea, powerful migraines and lack of appetite have danced across my days unannounced for three years. People wrote it off as me being stressed, under pressure, and even anorexic. (Please, take one look at me...then re-think the anorexia assumption.) I, however, know my body. I absolutely knew something was wrong. On my first date with my husband, actually, I was just finishing a detox prescribed by a nutritionist to ...

Out of all the strands of DNA that make me who I am, I do not have a single molecule of ‘cool.’  Not one. I don't mean trendy with good hair and impeccable fashion sense; no, that is not the kind of 'cool' I am talking about. I mean I do not have not a single ounce of the 'chill' cool in me. I was never the cool-chick girlfriend and I am not the cool-chick wife. I'm not the girl doing shots with her husband or whipping out the worm (is that cool?) If things do not go as planned, you won't find me sitting back with the "everything will be fine, life throws some curve balls" mentality. I cry. Although I have always craved to wake up as the easy going-version of myself (she has to be in there somewhere ..) I close my eyes and picture doing things that that entail and I just cringe. I have accepted it, I am a little lame. I am a master of drastic - and incorrect assumptions. I am constantly convinced everyone has a gun strapped to their thigh, and a ...

I am currently in a state of counting down the seconds til' the end of school. That is how I approach every flight and every long class Tuesday: "I'm almost done and then I get to go home and I'm one week closer to being finished with school." This sort of outlook has given me a serious case of anxiety and antsy-ness. My nature has always been one of distraction: when I am sitting in class I'm tapping my fingers thinking I should be at the gym. When I'm working out I'm thinking I should be doing homework. When I sit down for lunch I'm thinking I should be organizing the house...you get the picture. Talking to my husband about this last week, he reminded me that if God wanted me to be doing anything else, I would be doing it. This is just the phase of life I am in, and if he has me here...I better live in the moment to experience what He has me learning. Thinking of these wise words reminded me of last Fall semester... Last year was a very interes...

I'm going to let you guys in on a little secret. My family would laugh at the fact that i'm calling it a secret, but I'd like to think I've made a big enough transformation to title it however I want. I used to be unfathomably lazy.  Example: I used to share one of the largest bedrooms in the house with my younger sisters Brooke and Becky. When my dad would send us upstairs to clean the room before we were allowed to eat breakfast (clean rooms were a big deal, something that I have taken to my adulthood...) I would lay on the bed with a handful of fruit snacks, delegating jobs. My sisters used to be excited for the game, faces full of joy and eager anticipation. They fell for the "whoever cleans the most, fastest, WINS!!!" They would cheer and trash talk and wait in a runners stance for me to start the notorious 'ten second tidy.'  Like I said, my sisters were running around the huge room picking up laundry, organizing books, scrubbing toothpa...