Day 8 Travels

I have been blessed to see and experience some beautiful beaches..........

Me in Santa Barbara 2007

The beautiful Santa Barbara Coastline.

Me in The Netherlands 2009 

At the North Sea in the Netherlands.

A true to life Sand Castle ! I had never seen anything like this. At the North Sea in the Netherlands.

Florida Trip 2011 

Me and my love admiring Coco Beach.

I was having a bad hair day, hence the Fedora

My recent favorite......Destin Beach !

The most beautiful, clearest, bluest water I have ever seen in Florida.  We did not plan to stop here during our trip, but made a detour. This is definitely on the list of places that I want to get back to and spend some real down time.  I don't know where we will decide to go for our Honeymoon but rest assured, a beach will be involved.  I have never met a beach I didn't like !


What do you plan to travel soon ?  Any recent travels you want to share ?

Thoughts ? Comments ? Questions ?

Beautifully Complex 

Day 7 What Makes Me Happy

Happiness is........


Falling into my freshly made bed after a nice long bath and enjoying some vino and a good book.


Long car rides when I am not pressed for time along with  lots of music I enjoy.


Hugs, kisses and laughter from my nieces and nephews when we come together after being apart.


Learning to appreciate the blessing of my life just as it is. Even if it is different than what I thought it would be.


Enjoying a wonderful meal, delicious cocktails and meaningful conversation with great friends.


Having a lazy day, laying in the arms of my love, doing absolutely nothing and enjoying the peace it brings.


Sitting on a beach, listening to the waves crashing, feeling the breeze and enjoying the warmth of the sun.

What makes you happy ?

Thoughts ? Comments ? Questions ?

Beautifully Complex 

Day 6 Pet Peeves

Pet Peeve : A minor annoyance that an individual identifies as particularly annoying to him or her, to a greater degree than others may find it. 

•  People who drive slow in the left lane and then intentionally refuse to move to the right so you can proceed. Stop trying to control anybody but yourself.

•  Materialistic people who always have to talk about what and where they bought x, y z and emphasize the cost. Pretentiousness in general just irritates me. 

• People who are rude and don't speak when you acknowledge them with a greeting or smile, etc. Being polite is absolutely FREE.

• People who cheat in the express lane at the grocery store and have the nerve to get an attitude when they notice you've counted  their items, when they KNOW they have too many. LOL

• People who ALWAYS spend their time talking negatively about other people. Its been said small minds discuss people and great minds discuss ideas. I would rather sit with the people discussing current events than the people talking about who is wearing what and who is doing who. It's not that I don't ever gossip, I just dislike those who don't EVER have anything else to talk about.

• People who a;ways have to tell you who they are. As my grandmother would say, "Show beats tell". Meaning,  if you are all that you say that you are, time will reveal it. 

These are the things that annoy me to no end.  What about you ?

What are some of your pet peeves ?

Thoughts ? Comments ? Questions ?

Beautifully Complex 

Day 5 A Song that Inspires Me

You know how you have that CD, album, cassette, eight track or whatever you want to call it,  that got you through something really,  really challenging or life altering ?   Well for me that CD is called  Somethin' Bout Love by the one and only Fred Hammond formerly of the gospel group Commissioned.

Every single song on this CD helped me to not give up and I truly can't even listen to it without having an all.out.praise.and.worship session & shedding tears of joy ! It has the perfect mix of gospel ballads and up tempo praise and worship songs to make you simply grateful for his mercy and grace. It is hard for me to pick one song from this awesome CD so I must pick two. Not Just What You Say reflects my growth as a Christian and as a friend born out of my own personal pain. The music is great but the words......

Not just what you say ....Not just what you say
Then we can act like we know what love is....
When you say how are you doing ?
Do you really wanna know and are you concerned, yeah ?
And if you had the solution, but it took some of your time, 
Or some cash or whatever,are you willing ?
Not just what you say ( its mostly what you do)
Not a game that you play (to keep the winning hand with you)
Not just wasting time ( with empty words that don't mean much)
Not just how you feel ( when others need your tender touch)
So can you take out some time ( to help somebody else in need)
And when this is done ( the love of God is truly seen)
Then above all ( we need to cover and forgive)
Then we can act like we know what love is
Love is compassion that makes you reach way down and help your fellow man
So if there's a need and you can be the one, go and help someone
Love is all, all in all, forgiving faults great and small,
patient and willing to cover me, cover you
Love is kind, don't you know, and will not seek its own
God is love forever more, act like you know go and handle yours




Another Song that really touches me is What Can I Give. It just reminds you of the enormity of his Grace and Mercy through life's trials check the words........


I've questioned but I, still don't know the reason why,
when trouble shook my ground You stayed around
So faithful Your love has been to me,
and Lord I'll always love You for the rest of my days....
What can I give in exchange, for the love You've  shown me every day ?
My very life just don't seem like enough, 
but I'd rather give to you and throw in all my love
I'm so grateful that Your love is available,
it hears me when I call and lifts me when I'm low
Lord no other love, is worthy to receive such praise, 
so I give You all of my life and love You for the rest of my days
I'll waste no more time, cause there is no more doubt in my mind,
for Your love means the world to me (Can't live without it,  no Lord) 
There's no way, that I'd go another day, without giving You all of me
(Can't live without it) For all Your love







Some of my other faves on this CD are How Do You Love That Way, That's Why, and Find A Way to Love You More. 


Hope you enjoy this praise break ! LOL

What Song Inspires You ?    Who are some of your favorite Gospel Artists ?

Thoughts ? Comments ? Questions ?

Beautifully Complex 

Day 4 My Parents

I am blessed to have a wonderful Mom and Dad who support me in every way. The man that I call Dad is actually my step-father since I was twelve. My biological father and I have a more complicated situation, cause I am not sure I would call it a relationship, but I don't really want to use this post to focus on that, at the present time.


My Mother is my absolute biggest fan. Like most mothers I am sure, she thinks that I can do anything ! She has always been willing to give me her very last if necessary to help me to accomplish my goals and dreams. She gave me the gift of reading from an early age and it was one of the greatest, most beneficial things she has every done. I recall the 3 of us( me, her and my sister) laying in her bed, all of us with a book, reading for hours and hours. I remember her taking me and my sister to the Library very regularly and I remember being super excited to get gift certificates from B Dalton Bookstore at Christmas as if I was getting a highly anticipated toy ! I also was taught by example, a very strong work ethic, as I saw my mother work numerous part-time jobs in addition to her main job to insure that me and my sister could participate in numerous activities and extras. In hindsight, I understand how little we actually had, but my childhood memories, were full of happiness and very rare instances where I felt deprived. Prior to my step-father coming into the picture she did this alone with NO CHILD SUPPORT. She never bothered to ask my biological for anything because she figured he knew where we were & should have had an idea of what we needed. Another gift that she has passed on to me is her cooking and baking skills. I am definitely the domesticated one in my generation of cousins & usually am the one that plans all of the holiday gatherings, family events, menus, preparation, etc. Since she passed the torch to me, I am just taking up where she left off and have learned to enjoy it as much as she always has, especially as I have matured. My Mother discovered late in life that she wanted to be a writer and is actually working on getting her fist romance novel published. She submitted some chapters to a publisher, who expressed interest, so she is really excited about getting it completed. She actually wrote too many words and is actually having to pare it down to meet their requirements. I am extremely proud of her and love her to the ends of the earth. Now as nice and pleasant as she seems, when it comes to discipline, she did not play ! As a child, she did not spare the rod with me AT ALL. But I can honestly say that I deserved every whooping that I got because, at one point I was extremely hard headed, with a very smart mouth. LOL.  I don't have to tell you how my mother's recent health scare shook me. Those moments when you are unsure about what is going to happen in a situation and your mind takes you to the worst place can be very scary. Through God's grace, I am pleased to report she is continually improving  and I am so looking forward to spending Mother's Day with her next week & making wonderful memories. 

My relationship with my Dad has been more of an evolution of sorts. With time and maturity, I had to learn how to handle him and how to appreciate the sacrifices that he made for me growing up. As a child, there are a lot of things you can't really put into perspective, so I know that I contributed in some ways to the challenges that we had but he also had to own up to some questionable deeds on his part. It is hard to come into a ready made family and find your place. It also takes a special kind of man to take care of another man's children, especially when he is not providing for them AT ALL. The blessing is that I have been able to get beyond a lot of misunderstandings from the past between he and I and appreciate his presence in my life. He is a Vietnam Veteran and is also now retired with some pretty serious health challenges that he has faces in recent years. I believe that facing mortality has affected him so much. In fact, he battled depression after some major surgery several years ago, and though he has recovered for the most part,it softened him in many ways. I have learned that if I make sure that my Dad feels like I need him, it makes him feel better, because it makes him feel useful. This seems to be common among many men. In fact, sometimes I ask my Dad things that I already know, just to give him a chance to feel more helpful. LOL This has done wonders for our relationship. He used to be a pretty good mechanic back in the day, but unfortunately was not able to keep up with all of the currently vehicle technology. He is fascinated with weather & I can rest assured that if there is a Hurricane in the Gulf, or if there is flooding in Houston, I will get a call from him within the hour since his TV stays on the Weather Channel ! LOL He is also a very good support for my Mom in many ways, which includes helping her in the kitchen with prep work, etc when she is making trays for someones party, event or something going on at church. He is like her little assistant. He is teased because of his devotion to my mother, because despite maybe one or two men, he really does not have a lot of friends that he socializes with, as he would rather be up under my mother ALL.THE.TIME. Hey, it works for them and if they like it, I love it. Most men are very different, so I have to let new suitors know this, my Dad is a different kind of guy. He is not into Sports AT ALL. He has his quirks and has gotten somewhat cantankerous at times in his old age, but I love him as he is and appreciate the love he shows me the best way he knows how. 




Thoughts ? Comments ? Questions ?


Beautifully Complex 

Day 3 My First Love

I have to admit I am going to cheat & post something I wrote back in 2010 for a blog challenge that I never finished. I might have some new lurkers LOL !

I was nearing the end of my Senior Year in High School when I met CW. I was pumping gas and he was on the other side, making eyes and trying to get my attention. I am tall 5'10 and he was a little bit shorter than me by an inch or so. I can remember not being very strongly attracted to him initially and thinking that his eyes were too large, or something silly like that, plus his height was somewhat of a turn off, but evidently his game was tight because we ended up in a 3 year relationship and you couldn't tell me he wasn't the ish !

He told me his name and unbeknown to me, he had been a basketball star at an area high school.  I was surprised at this since he was short in my opinion. I  later learned he was a point guard. I specifically remember that he was amazed that I didn't recognize his name, especially since I went to another high school that was a major sports rival to his school. Unfortunately, other than to run track for a couple of years, I was pretty much a book worm/nerd & not necessarily in the popular crowd. Now I was popular with the "scholarly" kids, but in the grand scheme, not so much. As a matter of fact, I was Valedictorian of my class, and I just wasn't into sports and very rarely went to games at my school.  He later told me the fact that I genuinely didn't know who he was made me more attractive to him, because he had had enough of groupie girls that just wanted to date him because he was a popular athlete.

When I got home and called one of my friends & told her about the guy who I met at the gas station and gave my phone number to, she screamed " OMG ! CW ? You met CW at the gas station ? " She then began to extol his virtues, and popularity, etc.  He called shortly thereafter and we were off.  Several weeks later, he attended my High School Graduation and brought me a dozen red roses, which in 1987 was a really big deal ! LOL 

We spent a wonderful summer falling deeply in love. It was really intense. We saw each other every.single.day.  When Fall arrived, I remember him taking me on a special date to celebrate my heading to college at Bennigan's. I remember this vividly because I had my first alcoholic drink, a Long Island Iced Tea, because he knew the waiter, and even though I was only 18, I was having a cocktail, with my boyfriend in a restaurant and baby, I thought I was doing the most ! At the end of the date, when they served dessert, he presented me with a promise ring, and I was done ! It had a pearl with two little diamond "chips" on each side. I wore that ring with so much pride. I actually still have it in a jewelry box somewhere. LOL.

The school I went to was about an hour and a half away, but I promise you that first year, we still saw each other every single weekend and sometimes through the week, when it wasn't during basketball season, he would drive to see me. I was so ate up with this man !  I still have the many, many love letters that he wrote to me in college somewhere tucked away in my Cedar Chest just for nostalgia. 

Sadly we broke up after almost 3 years, during the time that I was actually transferring to a school that would be much closer to him. The breakup was caused by problems that stemmed from a couple of things. First, I found out that he was smoking marijuana on a pretty routine basis.  Which I did not approve of and did not expect, since he was an athlete. He later admitted that he had been hiding this from me since the very beginning, because I was such an L7 ! LOL  Then, I caught him cheating, basically red handed, with the girl coming out of his dorm room, when he thought I was somewhere else.  It turns out that he could smoke weed with this chick, so he in the end chose her over me. 

Oh the heartbreak and heartache this caused me !  I actually made the first and only "F"  I had ever made in my life. I remember the class was Statistics. Because it was the first class of the day on MWF and I would drive to Campus, sit in my car and cry and cry & missed this class so many times, I didn't even know what was going on. But in time, I got over it, but I still remember that it was very hard.

In later years, I heard through the grapevine, that he married the same girl he cheated on me with, they had a couple of kids, and they moved to Arizona for several years. Later they divorced after he developed a drug addiction that he just could not beat. I continued to hear rumors throughout the years, that he was still struggling with drugs. This made me extremely sad when I heard about it because, despite breaking my heart, he was a really good person, that I cared a lot about for a significant time in my life.  And he played a major role in my life story. About 2 years ago, a couple of my cousins saw him out and about in the City we lived in and they informed me that he did in fact appear to be "cracked out", very obviously so and had moved back home. He asked them about me. They mentioned I lived in Houston. He asked if I was married, and when they informed him I was recently divorced, he told one of them, " Here's my number, tell Beautifully Complex to give me a call " LOL !  Ummm..........no ! 

Thoughts ? Questions ? Comments ?  

Beautifully Complex 

Day 2 Nicknames

My government name starts with a J. Same as my middle initial. I am actually  named after my mothers two best friends who were twin sisters. Both my first and middle names are a variation of each of their names. As a kid my first name seemed kind of "mature" for me. It's the type of name you have to grow into. LOL. When I was a little kid they started calling me " J.J." for short. This was cute & I had no problem with it until the TV show Good Times became popular and the name  J.J. was associated with a not so attractive MALE comedian.  So I  then insisted that everyone just call me J. Later on by the time I got to  middle school I started spelling it out phonetically  as " Jaye"  (with an E on the end so you would know it was a girl's name) LOL. To this day this is what my parents, aunts, uncles, cousins etc. call me.  My nieces and nephews even call me Aunt Jaye.

If I meet you socially I will introduce myself as Jaye. However, if it's a professional or work related setting I will give my government name. I actually like my government name & I have definitely grown into it. It's just that I am most comfortable with my nickname. When people who don't routinely use that name for me call me by it,  it sounds odd coming from them. I know that might seem strange. When me and Mr. Mixologist first started dating and  we would run into people I knew, he could determine the nature of my relationship with the person by what name they called me.

The only exception to this is my closest friends family. She & I initially met at work so she called me by my government name for the longest time, so when I first met her family they used my government name too. Now she always calls me by my nickname from being around my family & close friends for years but her family still calls me by my government name even though we are quite close.

We were talking about the wedding vows not long ago & I asked Mr. Mixologist what name he intended to use when reciting our vows & he stated my government name. This is so funny to me because he does not ever call me by that name unless he is referring about me to other people, like when talking to my co-workers,etc. So honestly, it will sound strange for him to use that name.

Now I don't know if I blogged about this before but my love's nickname for me is "Running Deer". What started out as a joke has become his term of endearment for me LOL. The back story is: I ran track in high school & when I first met Mr. Mixologist, I was still running some road races. Also I hail from a state with a very large population of Native Americans and yes I do have some Indian in my family LOL, so this is how/why he chose that nickname.  However, the reason he started calling me this name stems from a joke he played on his family a couple of years ago when we first met.  Historically Mr. Mixologist has dated the rainbow coalition especially when he was in the Military. Anyway, for the eleven months we dated before I met his family, he purposely allowed them to think that I was NOT black. LOL. Once we became exclusive his mom & sister had lots of questions and were very curious about me. One day when we were in the car headed to see my family he was talking to his sister & told her where we were headed. I could tell she was asking questions & so he finally said, "What do you think? "  he just kept saying "What do you think ?". Long story short, his sister was trying to discreetly determine what race I was. Finally he said, well her family calls her "Running Deer" that's her tribal name. LMAO !   I know this sounds crazy but you would really have to know how crazy & what a funny guy he is to appreciate it. Long story short, his sister told his mom I was Native American & when his mom asked him some days later, he never corrected her & continued to let them think that I was a Native American Indian until the day we showed up at their house for Christmas ! LOL The look on their faces was priceless.


Do you have any Nicknames ?

Thoughts ? Comments ? Questions ?