God is so good! This week has just sped by and I was all set to post this entry at midnight when I got a message from my blog host saying the site would be down until 1am. I just went to bed.

I am thankful for the following this week.

Use of my legs
I don’t have a car, but my parents have been exceedingly generous with the use of their car. This week I decided to see if I could do without using it once. On Tuesday evening I needed to do some light shopping, and the store I needed to go to was a good 25 minutes away by foot. I whined and considered trying to take the bus there but I eventually put on my running shoes and walked. It was bit cold but with good music in my ears it was very doable. Next time I’ll eat dinner before going out though!

Having the option to walk somewhere is something I definitely take for granted. It may not ever always be the preferred choice but at least it’s one I have.

A functioning immune system
I have a cold but the fact that 48 hours has made a difference is testimony to a functioning immune system, especially since I didn’t take any medication for it. I still sound a bit like a frog and my nose is plugged but I feel sooo much better than I did on Monday evening and that is something that I am thankful for.

The Save to Splurge Challenge
The fabulous Onada came up with the Save to Splurge challenge at the beginning of this year. The plan was that anyone who wanted to join the challenge would share how they would save some of the money they regularly spend (on eating lunches out or on coffees, for example) and then use the money saved to either pay down some bills or buy something lovely. We had to set goals for how much we thought we’d save.

I joined this challenge reluctantly because my track record with sticking to anything for longer than a few days is ABYSMAL! It just does not happen. In fact I think some researchers need to use me as their guinea pig to study this phenomenon. Back when I thought diets were the way to lose weight I’d say I’m on “such and such” diet and be off it before 24 hours has passed.

But this challenge stuck, shockingly enough. I have bought my lunch for most of my life, and at my current workplace where I have been for almost five years, I have bought my lunch every day. So my personal challenge was to bring in my lunch once a week, which would make my savings for the eight weeks of the challenge $64. However, the challenge was bumped to nine weeks in length and this is the ninth week and I have saved nearly twice that amount because I actually made the extra effort to prepare enough dinner so I had leftovers and I actually remembered to bring the leftovers to work!

Unlike the other ladies, I didn’t intend to splurge because I couldn’t think of anything I wanted that would be in that price range. However, during my walk on Tuesday evening, I decided to stop at a shoe store and saw these two pairs of summer sandals and um, they had to go home with me.

I think I may have broken the rules of the game by splurging before the challenge is over but when your feet are size 11 wide, you don’t hesitate when you find shoes in your size. I snapped them up kia kia, and I even had coupons to soften the blow of paying full price (and thankfully, one pair was on sale). I’m very pleased with my purchases.

Funm’s reading challenge
I love to read but sometimes there isn’t enough time in the day to get things done, including reading. That’s why I was excited by Funm’s reading challenge. Also, the fact that I proved that I could stick to a challenge made me eager to give this new challenge a try! I’m going to try to read two books a month (versus the challenge’s four books per month) and I’m starting with the book on the right. So far, I love it! The jist of the book is that women who want to get married should be looking for those qualities that make a man a good longterm partner, and that focusing on things like chemistry or sparks doesn’t guarantee a better marriage than those who marry a guy who is nice, dependable, so-called “boring” guys. The book is not telling women to settle, but instead encouraging them to compromise. I’m interested in what I’ll take away from the book.

There was a time when reading a book a week wasn’t a challenge at all, because in a week I could read three or four books. Now I have to actually remind myself to make time to read. Hopefully I’ll be able to consistently make time for books.

Upcoming good news
A friend of mine has some good news coming up and I’m too excited on her behalf to say nothing at all. I’m definitely thankful for that.

And those of you who have good news to share and are biding your time before revealing it to your loved ones blogsville, I’m thankful for that too!

Filed under: Thankful Thursdays by goodnaijagirl | 1 Comment »

This is the latest Thankful Thursday (clearly I use the latter term loosely) entry I’ve every posted. I had good weekend: it involved some socializing with friends but unfortunately an interaction has left me feeling very unsisterly and wishing I hadn’t decided to spend the day (and sleep over) at my parents’ place on Sunday. I did pray to God about the situation but I have not found peace yet. I know this will come soon though, so I am thankful for that!

I’m also thankful:

• for the almost spring-like weather. I think I’ll be thanking God for the weather until all this snow melts.
• that I feel safe. It’s a real gift to be able to go out and come home late at night and not be afraid, even when all is quiet around me and it seems like I’m the only one awake on the whole street. This doesn’t mean I’ll behave recklessly, of course.
• that I’ll be going camping with my sister and friends this summer. I booked the campsite this week; it just so happens it’ll be during my birthday weekend. We’re going to the same place as last year and it’ll be the fourth year in a row that this group of five (six this year) goes and I’m really looking forward to it.
• for the power of a kind word. Have you ever been the recipient of unexpected kind words? A month or so ago, I was at a grocery store, just buying a few things, and the cashier said she liked my hair. I hadn’t done anything special to it (I wear my hair relaxed) but her compliment made my day since it was so unexpected. Yesterday, while waiting for my turn at another store, I noticed and really liked the cashier’s hair colour so I told her so as she was putting my purchases through the cash register. Her reaction was very much like mine earlier: surprise at the unexpectedness of the comment and then a genuine smile. Try it!

I had a great time on Saturday taking part in the Big Size = Big Dating Problem? show on Verastically Speakin’ and I’m so thankful to all those people who told me they listened to the show. There was great discussion (as usual!) on the topic and the message that kept coming back was that confidence is key, there’s someone out there who will like your body and while it’s ok to have a few extra pounds, being obese is not cool.

Most guys who called in said they wouldn’t mind dating a bigger girl but like I said on the show, no guy on blogsville is going to say otherwise and risk the the ire of blogsville’s citizens! I may one day put up an poll with pictures of women in a variety of sizes and ask men to vote on who is too big for them to date. I’m hoping the anonymous poll would allow them vote in a way that supports my hypothesis.

If you want to listen to the show, you can click below.

Have a great week everyone; wishing you success in all your of your plans.

Filed under: Thankful Thursdays by goodnaijagirl | 13 Comments »

When I used to think of what I’d want to know about my future spouse before marriage, it was things like if he wanted kids, if we shared similar religious beliefs, if he was an alcoholic or drug addict, if he had a history of infidelity or if he had any sexually transmitted diseases. Many Nigerians would add another thing to the aforementioned incomplete list though: whether their potential spouse has the sickle cell trait; that is, if they are AS. The question “What’s your genotype?” is about as foreign to me as being asked “Baby, what’s your sign?”…well, it used to be. Now I have been asked twice by prospective beaus.

Sickle cell disease is serious and anyone wanting more information about this can consult:

• Sickle Cell Ontario
• Sickle Cell Disease Association of America, Inc.
• These Genes, Tosyn Bucknor’s project
• the wikipedia page on it

If you would like to donate to this cause, you can support Sickle Cell Ontario by donating here, or support the Sickle Cell Disease Association of America, Inc. here. Give what you can; even if it’s just your coffee money!

For those unfamiliar with how sickle cell disease transfer from parent to child works (and those in the know, especially the doctors among us, please correct me if I get any of this wrong), if you are AA, you do not have the sickle cell trait or disease; you are completely healthy (as regards sickle cell disease). If you are AS you have the trait, which means you are a carrier of sickle cell disease. You generally show no signs of the disease but may have or develop some conditions as a result (though generally not sickle cell disease). If you are SS you have sickle cell disease.

So, if you know you’re a carrier, to give yourself the lowest chance of having a child who is also a carrier or a child who has sickle cell disease, it’s ideal to match yourself with someone who is AA as that nearly guarantees you won’t have children who have sickle cell disease. If you and your spouse are AS, there’s about a 25% chance that your offspring could have sickle cell disease, a 25% chance that your child could be AA, and a 50% chance that your offspring could be a carrier like you.

As far as I can tell, these are only odds. It doesn’t mean that if two AS parents have four children, two of them will definitely be AS. You sometimes hear that despite the odds of having a child with a certain condition, some families have multiple children with the same “rare” or “uncommon” condition.

I think the older generation cares more about the answer to the question asked in the title of this entry. One example is the pastor of a friend of mine who told her to make sure she finds out the genotype of a guy she was getting to know before things get more serious. Among the younger set, some don’t know their genotype and aren’t in a rush to find out, and don’t care about the genotype their significant other. I currently don’t know my genotype, but I will be requesting that it be checked in the blood test following my annual physical exam next month, along with my blood type (which I’m embarrassed to confess I don’t know either). I know it won’t affect who I decide to be with, but my potential future partner may feel differently.

I have some questions for you:

1. Does the genotype of your (future) spouse matter to you?
2. Have you ever ended a relationship or decided not to enter into a relationship due to genotype?
3. Have your parents or others tried to influence a budding relationship due to “incompatible” genotypes?

Please vote on the poll on the right regarding whether or not you know your genotype!

Filed under: Causes, Relationships by goodnaijagirl | 38 Comments »

I’ll be on Vera’s radio show this Saturday!
This Saturday I will be guest hosting with Caramel D on Verastically Speakin’. The topic is Big Size = Big Dating Problem? I don’t know exactly what I’ll be saying but I will try to make it interesting. If there’s anything related to that topic that you want to share or that you think needs to be discussed, please let me know in the comments and I’ll see what I can do.

My general stance is that bigger people (by which I mean overweight or obese folks) have a harder time dating. However, I don’t think society and its focus on slim/muscular people being the standard of beauty is 100% to blame (only 95%): some overweight or obese people (*ahemGNGahem*) are not completely comfortable in their skin and despite their best efforts this dissatisfaction is often more visible than they are aware, meaning that they don’t come across as confident people. We all know that confidence is sexy and a girl or guy who’s busy with their body issues is not always a fun person to be around.

I’m sure the discussion will be very interesting, especially since some people have very strong words for overweight/obese people, stereotypical things like thinking they must be fat people are ugly, lazy, slobs.

Join us at 10am EST on March 6 and hear what we have to say!

The 2010 Nigerian Blog Awards are coming!
The 2010 Nigerian Blog Awards are coming. We have a website that’s non-functional (I’m no Seye Kuyinu when it comes to web design) and a twitter account. Please follow us so you’ll be first to know when the fun starts.

If you have no idea what the Nigerian Blog Awards are, please visit the 2009 Naija Bloggers Award site that sting and her able helpers organized. I changed the name a bit for 2010 but much of how things were run last year will be the same.

Please continue to send any blogs by Nigerians or blogs focused on Nigeria to me so I can add them to this list. They will also be listed on Nigerian Blog Awards website, of course!

***

Can you believe it’s March 1 already? God help us…I have things I need to accomplish before December 31 so I’d like time to slow down a bit!

Filed under: Blogging by goodnaijagirl | 15 Comments »

I decided to sleep over at my parents’ place last night and I had to drive over. It was a snow storm outside: cars were sliding all over the place and as I was driving to my parents’ place I saw a car that had hit a pole and another car. No one seemed to be seriously injured, thank God.

Since I got my full driver’s license a few years ago, Canada’s winters have really been a great challenge of my driving skills. I have driven in really bad weather, I’ve had to control a car while it’s skidding and sliding all over the place and I have learned to not over-rotate the steering wheel when trying to control the car because the result ends up being worse than the original skid.

As I drove last night, I became a little scared at the way the car was sliding around, so I started singing “I’m not driving this car; God is driving this car”. I often do that when I’m not feeling confident: I’ll sing a song to myself. It was exactly what I needed to force me to focus on the task at hand and not on anything else. Even though some of the cars behind me were probably wondering why I was driving so slowly, I only have one life and skidding into a ditch was not a part of my plan.

I arrived safely at my parents’ place and said a quick thanks to God.

***

Other things that I am thankful for this past week:

• the success of the Nigeria Day aspect of Black History Month that was held in this city. I’ll blog more about it later but it was nice to see some non-Nigerians waiting to enter in order to share out culture with us.
• the continued health of my family in general. God is good!
• the fact that I continue to pay down my mortgage and other household bills without too much pain (my bank account might disagree!)
• that I’ll be seeing some female friends that I haven’t seen in a little while tomorrow. They’ll be coming to my place so I need to get that house clean.

May you be overflowing with thanks this weekend.

Filed under: Thankful Thursdays by goodnaijagirl | 12 Comments »

The incredibly talented Amina Hassan, owner and designer of Gidan Nodza bags and accessories (really, go check out her work on her blog!) will be holding an exhibition in Lagos this coming Friday and Saturday, February 26 and 27. The exhibition is called Jaka – An Exhibition of Bags. I’m a huge fan of her work so I begged her for more information. For those of you who are in Lagos or plan to be, or those who know someone who you can send there on your behalf, here are the details:

Dates: February 26-27, 2010 (this week!)
Time: 9:00am – 8:00pm (both days)
Location: Cactus Patisserie, 20-24 Ozumba Mbadiwe Avenue, Victoria Island, Lagos

Amina’s work blows me away because she doesn’t only construct the bags herself, she hand dyes the fabric part and I can’t even imagine how much work goes into that. Don’t take my word for it though; here is a preview of she has in store for you:

If you can make it on either of those days (or both days sef), go and show your support (tell her GNG sent you). Her work is truly beautiful and it’s good to support fellow Nigerians doing entrepreneurial things like this at such a high level, in addition to their day jobs! Simply inspiring!

Filed under: Fashion by goodnaijagirl | 9 Comments »