Please Link Through to My New Blog

I had a little trouble simplifying this blog the way that I wanted to so I just created another one at A Royal Diva. My blogging "priorities" as well as status has changed a little so I just decided to start over and do things the way I wish I had done in the beginning.

Please support my blog and follow me on A Royal Diva.

Thanks

My First Vlog

Okay guys and gals bear with me. This is my first vlog that I've EVER done and I'm okay with it. Still have to work on the editing a little but I'll get the hang of it eventually. Hopefully I'll be doing more and more of these as it actually seems easier to do a vlog instead of a regular blog post which is weird because a vlog takes more time in the long run. But anyways, here it is:

Yes It's Wednesday and I'm doing a Sunday Stealing...Sue Me Will Ya

1. You’re building your dream house. What’s the one thing that this house absolutely, positively MUST HAVE? (other than the obvious basics of course)
A bright and sunny studio for all of my arts and crafts.
2. What is your dream car?
A Mercedes G-Class in gunmetal gray
3. What is your favorite website that isn’t a blog?
Facebook of course
4. iPhone 4 or Droid, which do you want?
Definitely Droid
5. When you’re feeling down or lonely or just generally out of sorts, what do you do to cheer yourself up?
Well it used to be drink a glass of wine and chill online but since I'm preggo I cut out the wine and added icecream... lots of icecream
6. Tell me about something or someone that you love that most people seem to hate.

I love love love french fries dipped in buffalo wing sauce and everyone else thinks it's nasty.
7. What do you want to be when you grow up?

Who really knows...
8. Would you go on a reality show if given the chance?

Yep... Real World in a heartbeat.
9. Who was your favorite teacher when you were growing up. (Grade school, Middle School, Jr. High or High School only.)

Pamela Jennings, my third grade teacher. She was just the sweetest lady ever.
10. You get one pass to do something illegal or immoral. What are you gonna do?
Probably rob a bank
11. What were you doing 10 years ago?
Just starting life as a teenager
12. By this time next year, I ...
Am going to be a mommy to a busy little boy
13. Do you think the United States will elect a female President in your lifetime? Do you think this would be a good thing?
Yes and No, respectively. Let's just leave it at that
14. Which fictional, TV show character you would shag anytime?

Special Agent Derick Morgan (Shemar Moore) from Criminal Minds
15. What is your greatest pet peeve?
Messy people
16. Tell me about your most recent trip of more than 100 miles?
Back home to SC. Not really interesting
17. Which do you use more often, the dictionary or the thesaurus?
Thesaurus
18. Do you have a nickname? What is it?
NiNi
19. What are you dreading at the moment?
Giving birth to my son in a few months
20. Do you worry that others will judge you from reading some of your answers?
Uncensored!! Hell no. I don't give two shits what they think.
21. In two words, explain what ended your last relationship.
MIL Sex
22. What were you doing this morning at 8am?
Posting this duh!!
23. Do you have any famous relatives?
I wish Shemar Moore was my baby daddy. Does that count?!?!
24. How many different beverages have you drank today?
Koolaid, Milk, and Water
25. What is something you are excited about?
My little man getting here
26. When was the last time you spoke in front of a large group?
Never, I try to keep it small. Lots of people make me nervous.
27. When you looked at yourself in the mirror today, what was the first thing you thought?
Damn I'm sexy.
28. What were you doing at midnight last night?
Playing on Facebook
29. What’s a word that you say a lot?
OMG
30. Who is your worst enemy?

Let's not discuss that... 

Click here if you wanna participate in Sunday Stealing.

Bedrest= More Blogging Time...Hopefully

So at 28 weeks 4 days (thats 7 months for those of you not familiar with preggo time) I have officially been put on bedrest. Peanut is head down and I started having some strong contractions. I guess he thinks it's time to come out, but we have other plans for him.

The somewhat bright side to all of this is now I have an excuse to lay around all day and not do anything. Which is probably a bad thing because I'm REALLY not gonna do anything. I'm hoping I will use this time to work on my blog some more, but who really knows. I'll definitely get caught up on my blog reading and commenting and possibly try to add more blogs to my Google Reader.

I always check out other blogs and websites trying to get tips to improve my blog, but it takes me forever to implement those changes. As you can see, sometimes it doesn't get done at all. I think I might use this time to learn to redesign my blog myself instead of paying someone to do it.  So I apologize in advance if it looks a little weird at times.

On that note, off to watch baby shows.

iGoogle is my blogging savior

After struggling for the past couple of weeks to keep up with my blog posts and reading and commenting on other blogs, I finally found a solution. In comes iGoogle. This has truly been my blogging savior. I really don't know why I didn't find it sooner, but better late than never.

The screenshot above is from my iGoogle for Single, Sassy, & Uncensored. I have my Gmail open to see when people comment on my blog and send me blog roll requests. I have a running to do list to keep track of blog posts I need to work on, new social networking sites I need to join, blog carnivals I need to join, etc. I also use it to keep track of things I find other bloggers doing that I need to research and see if I can incorporate into my blog.

Happy Memorial Day

 

Happy Memorial Day to Everyone!!

Enjoy the fireworks and lots of good food, but don't forget to honor those that will never be forgotten.

Is abortion worse than sexual abuse?

Well according to the Catholic Church, it is. A nun in Phoenix, AZ was excommunicated after approving an abortion that saved a woman's life. Read the full article here.

In short, the woman was 11 weeks pregnant with her fifth child. She had a condition which doctors determined would have killed her if she had continued the pregnancy. The nun was on the ethics committee at the hospital and made the decision to terminate the pregnancy in order to save the woman's life.

Not so single anymore...

Well guys and gals it's official... Miss Single Sassy & Uncensored is no longer single (gasp!!). Yes, I have a new romantic interest in my life and I'm really happy. Glowing really. He might pop up in a few posts here and there so we'll just refer to him as Superman. And yes he is all that and more.

Someone asked me if I was going to change my blog name now that I'm no longer single. That's a good question and I'm not quite sure of the answer. For now it will stay the same and we'll see how things go. Superman will understand that it's just the name of my blog, even though it's not my title anymore.

Now I have even more to blog about. So excited!!

Photog Friday: Extraordinarily Ordinary

 since I've been learning to manually use Kam and I really didn't get an assigned photography project this week, I decided to come up with one on my own.

I decided to take pictures of ordinary things that people probably wouldn't think to look twice at. When photographed properly, they are still ordinary, but they become extraordinary.

These are pictures of a concrete wall that has a metal pipe running across the top. It had just stopped raining and mold and corrosion from the pipe were running down the wall. Don't know why it caught my eye, but it was really cool.

This was from a brick wall in the student lounge at school. For the most part, all of the other bricks are intact. This one brick is just chipping away and had this really cool discoloration to it.

This flower actually caught my eye because it was the only one there. It was just sitting pretty, nestled in some grass and leaves growing all over the place. I took this immediately after it stopped raining so it was really cool to get the detail of all the rain drops on the flower petals.

This was a fun project for me to work on mainly because I made it up myself so I didn't have any real rules. I just took pictures of whatever caught my eye. This day it just happened to be things that normally wouldn't catch someone's eye.

My New Camera

Ok so I finally got some halfway decent photos of my new camera. It's a Canon Rebel XS/EOS 1000D. I love it so much I even gave it a name, Kam. Yes my camera has a name.

This is my first DSLR so I'm super excited about it. So far so good. We learned all the controls and how to manually operate our cameras in photography class, so I had fun playing with it and taking random shots.

The lens is an EFS 18-55mm lens with image stabilizer. It's pretty good and it gets the job done, but I definitely have my sights set on a bigger lens. Any suggestions??

Well I'm definitely enjoying my new camera so far and I might actually be getting the hang of it...Maybe

Stay tuned for all the random and not so random shots that I take with Kam.

Photog Friday Update

Ok so I know I missed my Photog Friday post last week and I already know I'm going to miss it this week too.

I just started my photography class for my Photography and Graphic Design major and we start shooting photos on Monday, so I will possibly use those for Photog Friday next week.

I guess my purpose for Photog Friday has kinda changed, especially since I know what to expect with this photography class. My Photog Friday posts thus far have only featured my work, and I want to keep it that way. I will use any work I do in class to create my posts from now on and use it to gauge my progress and growth in the photography area.

So we'll see what gets posted next Friday.

Formspring.me

So in my never ending quest to be active and play around with all these different social media/networking thingys, I decided to create an account on Formspring.me.

For those of you who don't know what it is, basically it lets people ask you questions and you answer them. The "fun" part of this is that people can anonymously ask you questions, so you're not really sure what to expect.

I left the option open for people to ask me questions anonymously. The worst that can happen is someone can ask me something or say something to piss me off. But then again, it will also make for a good blog or Twitter post, so we'll see what happens.

If you have anything you want to ask me, do it here http://formspring.me/royaldivanini.

This should be fun!!

Strong Black Woman

So I was on Facebook and this guy posted a status about what do people feel is the definition of a strong black woman. Someone responded with this answer:

 

One who is independent (requires little to no assist from anyone), one who can carry her own weight, one who can overcome situation in her life and still come up on top, one who don’t require validation from anyone. One who sees herself in a situation and find solutions instead of coming up with excuses. One who believes in herself when no one does. One who can stand on her own two feet without using someone or ppl as a crutch. One who go through life struggling and never complains, but continue to press forward. One who don’t take stuff from anyone. One who speaks her mind not caring what anyone else thinks of her. One who leads by example and never a follower. One who carries her self classy and know they time when she needs to be sassy. One who walks with her head up and not look down at the ground. One who struts because she is confident In terms of relationship: All of the above plus one who supports her mate, sits down and be a woman knowing she has a mate who can stand up and be a man. One who helps out when her man is struggling, one who caters to him, one who don’t make her man feel intimated by her success. One who walks hand and hand, one who got her man back 100% when he feels like he let her down. -Andrea Sheppard

 

I think that about completely sums it up and no more needs to be said. I just had to post this.

Wordless Wednesday

Photog Fridays: Squirrels

So I walked to the park today to get some exercise and I saw this really cute squirrel. I couldn't help but take pictures.

Wordless Wednesday

Photog Friday: Out and About in My City

  

I'M BACK...ALREADY

Ok so it didn't take me NEARLY as long as I thought it would. I just took yesterday, sat down and focused, and got most of it done. TAH-DAH...Do you like it??

It's not completely finished, but I'm happy with the blog design and layout. The layout is very similar to what it used to be, there's just not as much clutter on my sidebars. Now that I have tabs at the top, I can keep a few more things organized.

My absolute favorite part...the colors. Pink and green are my favorite colors, especially together. They represent my vibrance, femininity, and fun nature. I'm also really happy with the header. I did customize it a bit and I really like the way it came out. Now I feel like my blog is truly about my WHOLE self and not just my pregnant self.

Now I can focus on new posts and photos. YAYYY!!!

Just a Really Quick Hiatus

Okay so after reading LOTS of blogs and posts with different ways to improve my blog, I've decided to put some of those plans into action. I will be taking a quick hiatus from my blog, hopefully no more than a week or two. If you happen to find yourself on here and things look a little off or mismatched, this is why. I'm trying to fix one element at a time, so here it goes...

See you in a week or two with  something that makes some sort of sense a completely redesigned blog.

OOPS!!

Ok so I just realized that I posted my Photog Friday post yesterday right after I created it, instead of saving it and letting it post today. Oh well. Better me posting early instead of late. 

I've been a day off all week anyway. Somebody pray for me!!

Introducing Photog Fridays- The Many Faces of Me

Ok so I said I wanted to add some type of photography element to my blog and I've been trying to figure out what to do. I know that in the coming weeks I want to do interviews with some of my favorite photographers and possibly showcase their work. As I get more into the photography field, I will definitely be showcasing my work.

Black versus African American

Ok so I've come across numerous posts on my Babycenter message boards and various other message boards about Black versus African American. Pretty much people are trying to decide which is "better" to use. The general consensus is most non-blacks choose to use African American to be politically correct while most blacks just use black. As you can see, I'm one of the ones who uses black.

To Tweet or Not to Tweet

Ok so I've been having this back and forth debate with myself about whether or not I should start using Twitter in order to help build a following for my blog. I see others using it both effectively and ineffectively, so I decided to do a little research to help me make a decision.

I finally made the decision to set up a Twitter account and see how things go. If nothing else, it will allow me to network with other bloggers who may be great resources to help me build my blog. Hopefully this will also help to promote my blog and build my readership.

Follow me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/ssuncensored or use the link on the right sidebar.

Ok so it's been over a week...

So so sorry for neglecting my other baby for so long. My baby #1(Peanut) has been taking all of my focus this week with ultrasounds and babyshower stuff. Oh yeah, it's official. My Peanut is a lil man, not a girl like I originally thought. I'm actually happier to be having a boy. Go figure.

Well life has been hectic, crazy, emotional, eventful, and then some. I'm trying to adjust to single life and impending single motherhood and so many other factors are being thrown my way. Certain people are wanting me to be in a relationship with them, yet they aren't quite ready to commit to me and only me. How does that work??

Just to take the edge off

So here it is. April 1st. April Fool's Day. The one day that assholes can use to justify the way they are the other 364 days of the year. Can you tell how much I love April Fool's Day.

Well I found this post on one of my pregnancy message boards and I decided to post it because I'm just in no damn mood to write one myself.

TRUE STATEMENTS

1. I think part of a best friend's job should be to immediately clear your computer history if you die. 

  

2. Nothing sucks more than that moment during an argument when you realize you're wrong. 

  

3. I totally take back all those times I didn't want to nap when I was younger. 

4. There is great need for a sarcasm font. 

5. How the hell are you supposed to fold a fitted sheet?

Introducing...

I just had a thought. Seeing as this blog is partially about chronically my pregnancy, I thought it might only make sense to introduce everyone to my little bundle of joy inside of me.

I would like to introduce the world to Peanut. He will be the topic of many of my blog posts, so get used to him hanging around.

Planned On Doing Nothing

It sounds like an oxymoron at first glance, but that's just what I did. I made a plan today to do nothing. Of course things didn't quite work out that way, but hey at least I made a plan. I ended up bribing myself to do laundry. Yes, I did say bribing myself. That's just the way it is. I finished one load and I got some pineapples. I finished the second load and I got a bacon cheeseburger. Since the last load were sheets for my bed, the reward was simple: a nap. That was a major feat getting it all done.

And who says bribery gets you nowhere.

I also managed to sketch out a few good ideas for this blog, so we'll see how those work out. Seeing how boring and completely uneventful today was, I promise I'll have something a little more substantial to write about tomorrow. Maybe. Possibly. Okay maybe I should take that promise part out. Okay I just did.

Creating My Personal Manifesto

As part of this whole process of opening up and being totally honest, raw, and uncensored, I have decided to create a personal manifesto. I have been following Marelisa Fábrega's Abundance Blog on creativity, productivity and  simplicity. According to Marelisa, "your personal manifesto, creed, or magna carta, is a set of rules or guidelines you’ve created for your life. Having a personal manifesto will help you make decisions that are in line with your values and the vision you have for your life."