🎵Monday, March 23
5 Days to go

🤯The neighbors are getting a new roof, and I hate noise
Our entire day has been thrown off.

🐈‍⬛Luna didn't want to go on the patio of course. She's not used to any other humans being outside where she can hear them lol
She likes peace & quiet like me and Moonflower. So Luna might be up all night and get the zoomies 

🌛Moonflower is taking a night time nap with earplugs in

⚒️But Hallelujah I keep looking out the window and they started before 8am, and I think they're about to finish things up
12 hour job

I didn't know what was going on in the morning, I went on the patio and looked over there, guy on the roof saw me. I zipped back in the house like well okay, kinda awkward

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🪮I'm doing a twist out for the concert. And I'm not a hair person, so my twist out is me twisting my hair then taking the twists out.
I don't do the extra steps to make it fluffy or anything.

I watched OnlyOneJess, her tutorial, for a refresher because I did pretty decent with my 1st twist out 2 years ago. I love her hair!
So I washed my hair and started the twisting. I've only done the back for now. That's the hardest for me so wanted to get it out the way

💊I started cramping. It's just a level 1 of 10 if I had to rate it, but I'm so scared from how painful January and February was.
Can't take anti-inflammatory because of the stomach issues they cause so doctor recommended Midol. I took one.
Raspberry root tea has worked great in the past, and I'm also trying to add Omega 3 fatty acids to my diet

🪩So I did some exercises, and I know I should be doing this everyday. I get bored with trying to exercise so I have to dance;
So my exercising and movement is dancing. Did about 30 minutes. Ended with Chuckii Booker, baby I love me some Chuckii!!!
🌟"Turned Away" has been a major song on my healing journey from those teen years

🎵I plan to watch New Edition videos each day until the concert!
So I started today with their oldest videos, Candy Girl being my first choice of course. 🍭🍭
🌛I asked Moonflower to come and look at hoe blurry and old the video was, and how young they were, and told her that's who dad is taking me to see

🌟🍭🌟

🎵Tuesday, March 24
4 Days to go

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🤯The construction workers are back next door. I want to cry or lord forgive me, dye. I know that's bad to say that's why it spelled it like that "dye" cause man....messing up my rest, Luna can't go enjoy outside. I laid on the sofa and then Luna started waking me up

🌛Moonflower is handling this noise good thankfully

🌟Couldn't rest so I decided to watch Michael B. Jordan win the Oscar 10 more times or so. He was literally holding his breath, bless his heart. Such a good memory and I love how Ryan Coogler gives him that hi-5. So over-deserved. 
So Happy for Ryan Coogler and Michael B Jordan

💙Then decided to look at some more of New Edition's music videos and performances
Not social media clips or influencers or anything like that. Old school performances and videos

🪮Finally got to take a nap and then was able to finish twisting my hair when I woke up, so that's done

💊Oh god, okay. My cycle has started and so far I'm okay. So, either way the worst will be over before Saturday!!
So I can breathe a sigh of relief that I won't be at the concert wondering if I can make it through without an accident or something
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🎵Wednesday, March 25
3 Days to go

Biggest deal for me today is that I'm not having any peri-menopausal pain; I'm so relieved and I kept up with my dancing, stretching that focuses on my lower body/hips/uterus, more water, Omega 3 fatty acids, no soda past 2 weeks, smaller amount of sweets leading up to my cycle. Now I don't know why I had such a drastic improvement from January and February, I think it's a combination of things plus the second I felt abdominal discomfort I took a Midol.
I think key is making sure the pain doesn't start at all.
I listed all this as a reminder to myself each month! I cant get too comfortable and think "hey, I didn't hurt last month so I should be okay this month. Babe that's not how it happens with menopause

🎵Enjoyed more New Edition videos.

🪮Twisted Moonflower's hair. I mean, we put this off for like a week. Hair is a lot. Takes me about 2 hours but it went great. I was so thrilled to not be cramping 

‼️I have so many different writings in my head I asked AI to expand on gentlemen image of New Edition. I could take a week to write it, but leave me alone, I'm taking a short cut. I have tons I'm doing already and excuse me I do have a concert to go to! 😆😆I can't write everything. 
Why am I overexplaining to myself? Alright so...

So, I decided to title it:
From My Dad, to New Edition, and Now My Husband
Or more like: Dad, New Edition, Husband: Gentle Men in My Life

Thursday, March 26
2 Days to go

🤢I was sick. Exhaustion. Thank heavens that I'm not hurting with perimenopausal pain, however I read where it can affect your sleep.
The hormone fluctuations can affect a bit of any and everything. So I'm keeping up the differences I note and when.
These are different sleep issues than I usually have. I could not sleep at all and thus even though I eventually fell asleep I was still sick the entire day Thursday

📺Managed to watch some more New Edition videos though lol

🌻It's so awesome how family is so happy for us, excited, and it's vibes like this is our 2nd Honeymoon. Might as well be.
They so sweet.

Friday, March 27
1 Day to go

‼️Road trip day. (Not super far or anything like that). About 4-4.5 hours. Back to my husband's hometown and where we met.

💤I kept waking up through the night but eventually settled enough so I felt good when I woke up thank goodness.

🚗We left at 11:30 am. When the gas station was packed that was definitely a sign of what was to come.
It was not a smooth, typical drive at all.
Lots of congestion, bad drivers, road work, and the likes.
GPS kept rerouting us off the Interstate; 
It was 🐄🐄🐄🐄🐄🐄🐄🐮🐮🐮🐮🐮

Me and Moonflower (and her dad too) love animals so she giggled when she saw me smiling hard at all the cows.
Seeing cows isn't unusual for us or anything, it's just that it was so many but we are from Alabama so ummmm
I saw a cow about to get in a lake or something lol. I love them so much, I be like, there needs to be a better way diet wise.
I just wish humans could not eat animals and could coexist

Moonflower had to use the bathroom and Joe said we're on this long stretch of road, not sure when we'll be able to stop
But thankfully there was some little store on the corner. It wasn't a town so country where you like "oh hell no" or "get out of here before dark"
Man one time, I was riding with my older sister and she was driving from Dothan, AL and the route was different or something really secluded that she doesn't usually take and it felt like "Get out of here now, even in the day time. We should never ever in a million years be here when it gets dark."

I was just about shaking and it was broad daylight. Why do we say "broad" lol? Broad daylight.

So again, this path we were on today was rural but not horror movie rural.
It was a lot of normal looking people so that's good. People traveling with kids! 
Me and Moonflower walked in and it had all this taxidermy stuff and I said What the Hell.
The guy working at the store, most likely owned it, said "To the right, down this way then to your left"
I said thank you.
He didn't hear me say WTH, I wasn't that loud, but he just immediately knew we were looking for the restroom.
Everything went fine. As we were walking out I started to touch a deer and say "Poor baby" but that wasn't going to help me feel better
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😆Oh so this just all reminds me that back before they modernizing these rural stops (more like, building a bunch of national chain stores in those places), so when we used to drive to college a lot back in the late 1990s man pulling over was usually horror movie level.

Here's one memory. With my silly self.

Me and little sis rode with our dad to drive back up to Auburn, AL so we could pick older sis up from school to come home for the summer.
Of course it was scorching

The car's AC was broken.
Me and little sis did not have to ride and I think our mom/dad suggested we didn't ride until the air was fixed, but we just liked to do everything together and it was always beyond exciting to pick up sis from college and bring her back home

I'll just have my water and have the entire back seat to myself so I can lie down. One problem was the traffic was slow so we weren't getting that wind blowing on us.

So I was just lying in the back seat sweating

Dad pulled over at a gas station, to get us more to drink, can't remember but he exits at a rural gas station.
Him and baby sis get out the car, but I stay in because I wanted to just keep lying there

So I'm lying in the back and then when I sit up, I see some guy walking down the street, not just walking but limping.

He's coming towards the gas station.

There were no other buildings or nothing around. He was just walking down the street where there was nothing but trees and a long road.
I couldn't tell where he came from. It was like he just appeared out of nowhere, like a horror movie.

His shorts were torn, like strings hanging. I was so scared. I let the windows up and locked the doors.

I guess looking back I could have gotten out the car and went inside but that was the quickest thing for me to do, was to lock the doors because I swear it's like he appeared out of nowhere, walking down a long secluded road, and limping or something strange with is walk. So I was very scared.

Looking back, he apparently was just too hot.

I sat in the car and watched him and all he did was walk on the gas station property, walk past the car without even looking my way and went into the gas station.
Skinny teenaged looking guy. He must was hot and tired that's why he was walking with a limp.
It was like he walked straight out of a horror movie though, like, where did he come from?

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🖥️Okay so back to today, Joe needed to drop a computer off and his job's office here and was very pressed for time but thankfully it worked out

I started feeling slightly too hot, and with the traffic being such stop and go it's like my acid reflux was starting back up

Got to his mom's house and I took a nap

Got up feeling much better; and we ended the night with him and his mom watching the Birmingham Stallions barely win their opening football game

🎼🎵🎶
Saturday, March 28

🎶🎶🎶

Tonight is the night. I'm so nervous about my clothes. I feel like I'm going to have a wardrobe malfunction, something not gonna fit right (even though I've tried everything on), something gonna come a loose or something and I'm gonna need another woman's help but it ain't nobody but me. 

I've never worn over the knee boots. I made sure to get them flat with no heel!

Took a photo this morning: