Here she is, Coconut, the newest member of our family: 

I know you’re saying, “Aww…she’s so cute!”  That’s what we said too at Atlanta Rescue Shelter.   We hadn’t come in for her; we had seen two other dogs on the shelter website that we were interested in.  The first dog that we met shed too much and triggered my husband’s allergies.  The second dog was too hyper for my daughter.  Just when we were about to give up hope and come back another day, we spotted a sweet white dog just laying on her bed, relaxed, but alert watching all the other dogs jump up around her.  We took her in an isolated cage and got to know her; she was so sweet, gentle and loved to be petted.  She was perfect for my daughter, who is really sort of afraid of dogs.  My son was worried that she was too gentle to play, but when offered a few toys, she played a little bit.  At five years old she was a much older dog than we had anticipated getting, but she seemed healthy enough.  That is, until we read her history: she is being treated for mange…oh, that explains why she was practically bald with patches of complete hair loss.  And she limps on one leg, perhaps the result of an improperly healed injury.  Not what I wanted…an older dog with problems.  And she had zero curb appeal.  But she was sweet and by now the kids had fallen in love with her.  We took her home.

And at home is where we found out that she completely snowed us in the shelter; she’s the direct opposite of how she presented herself.  Some dog on the outside must have said to her, “You’re an old dog; people go for the puppies. And let’s face it, with that mange, you’re no beauty queen.  If you want to break out of this joint, your best bet is to be as sweet as you can.  Yes, I know your true personality, but I promise, if you put on this act, they will love you.  Once they get you home, then you can show them who’s boss.”  

That is exactly what she’s trying to do; she is NOT a sweet, gentle dog, but a feisty tyrant who jumps up, barks and growls at me and wrestles with her leash.  Despite living with other dogs in the shelter, she growls at every dog she meets. My daughter is terrified of her and my son gingerly pets her from as much distance as he can manage. He was afraid that she wouldn’t play with toys? –Ha!  She tore up a tennis ball in 15 minutes flat.

My husband, who is not an animal person and didn’t want the dog in the first place, is saying “I told you so” and no help at all.   Both of my kids, while liking the idea of a dog, have never been around animals before; they are afraid of her and not petting or playing with her like they should.  Who does that leave?  Me!  The mangy, limping, barking, growling, bully dog is mine to take care of all day.  I am the only one who can put on her leash, brush her, take her in and out of her crate and try to train her.  All of the things that I wrote in this post, have come to a grinding halt right now as all my attention is focused on taking care of the dog, getting her used to our house and making sure that she learns some manners.  

I have a long road ahead to take the “nut” out of Coconut.  So, the question of the day is: is it possible to teach an old dog new tricks?

*Update on Coconut 1/29/09: With a heavy heart I returned her to the shelter today.  She had several medical problems (more than the shelter knew) and the behavioral issues were actually getting worse.  It was not an easy decision, because despite her many issues, she had grown on me.  It is a rescue shelter, not a kill shelter, so I am confident that she will find a good home that is more suitable for her.  She just wasn’t a good fit for our family.    This whole experience was rather harrowing for me.   I need a minute to re-claim my life and then we will talk about getting another dog, perhaps a puppy.

© 2009 – 2011, Funkidivagirl.com. All rights reserved. Republished only with permission.

Funkidivagirl has left the building!   Spreading my funki-ness around, I am a featured writer on One Brown Girl, a fabulous website dedicated to empowering and inspiring brown girls around the globe.

Using my “civilian name”, Sherrelle, I write as a part of The Brown Girl World and you can read my article here (yup, that is my Girly in the first and last photos).  There are also fascinating articles by other brown girls like Deepa, an Indian American, and Shannon, a Maliseet Native Indian.  You don’t have to be a brown girl to appreciate learning about other cultures; One Brown Girl is for everyone.  Check it out and let me know what you think!

© 2009, Funkidivagirl.com. All rights reserved. Republished only with permission.

© 2009 – 2011, Funkidivagirl.com. All rights reserved. Republished only with permission.

To the readers of Shankman.com and Gawker.com: this post is for you. 

I’m a sucker.   Basically I like to think the best of the human race and give people lots of grace to make mistakes and well, be human.  And I really try to do my part to make my daily interactions with people be as pleasant as possible.  But sometimes I am reminded of just how unkind some people can be and it really makes me sad.  I have a blog, I am on Twitter and I love Facebook for interacting with my friends.  And I’m not the only one; social media is one of the fastest growing forms of media today.   I think that is very valuable in connecting people on both a professional and personal level.  But just like other forms of media, it can also be used by cowards and gossips.   I would never say anything in any form of media that I wouldn’t say to someone’s face, but that is obviously not the case with everyone.  (And Diddy…if by chance you are reading this…yes, it is I who said that your tweets were lame.  I don’t mean that they are terrible; you just need to tweet more about your fascinating life and have more dialogue.  ”On my way to CSI set” is not very interesting.  That’s all I meant; just trying to be helpful.)

Just like the tabloids in the grocery line that people gobble up by the millions or those awful celebrity gossip blogs on the internet, people love to form opinions about somebody based on ill-gotten facts and mis-information taken out of context.  I refuse to read those rags or blogs or follow anyone on Twitter who promotes that trash.   

And this is what basically happened when my husband’s recent tweet hit the internet.  Did he say “I hate Memphis; it is a hell-hole of a city?”  NO!  He tweeted a very obscure and heavily veiled dislike for an unnamed town. The person who was initially offended by the tweet made an incorrect assumption and the readers of Shankman.com ran with it.   I’m amazed that half of the debate was whether or not Memphis is terrible looking town in need of a major over-haul.  THAT IS NOT WHAT HE SAID!  Now, what I would have said was “Some racist fool in Memphis almost got a beat-down; I hate this town!”  But, that’s just me.

Anybody who uses Twitter and knows what they are doing, knows that it is a dialogue that takes place.  Any sane Twitterer would have tweeted back, “What town are you in?  Why do you say that?”  And it would have been a conversation shared with many people.  That is the beauty of Twitter and social media in general.  Where it gets ugly is when people abuse it by carrying out their own vendettas against individuals, companies or groups of people.  

Are we so out of touch with each other as humans that we can’t confront each other in person, if the circumstances allow?  Is all human interaction reduced to emails, texts, tweets and internet slander?  I suppose that is the easy thing to do because it makes the person you are attacking less human.  

Many of the comments on Shankman’s blog were not constructive or thoughtful discourse about the use of social media, but were insensitive attacks against my husband’s character–someone that they don’t even know.  I think that people forgot that they were talking about a real person with a real job and a family to support.  

People: that is my man that you are talking about!  He is my husband of 15 years, my best friend and partner.  He is a father to 2 beautiful children.  He is a son, a brother and a friend to many.  And he IS the Keyinfluencer; anyone who knows my husband would say that he is a master connector, network guru and social media rock star.  And anyone who says otherwise is a hater.

You got beef with my husband?  Then you say it to me.  My name is Sherrelle Kirkland-Andrews, otherwise known as Funkidivagirl and I am proud to be married to James Andrews, The Keyinfluencer.  

Bring it.

© 2009 – 2011, Funkidivagirl.com. All rights reserved. Republished only with permission.

Happy New Year!  I think that I can still say that, right?  Even though it is January 15th?  Wow; I can’t believe that the month is already half-way over!  December took so much out of me with Christmas, the kids off school and a family vacation.  I was so happy to spend time with my family, but by January 5th I was also happy to have my space again.  Last week I got my house back together and put away every toy, swept up every pine needle and put all the Christmas decorations away (well, except for the ones outside; I hope that we don’t leave them up until spring).  Now I am ready to begin my new year!  What have I got planned this year?  Well, every year–just like everyone else–I make a long list of resolutions or things that I plan to do and then by April I have fallen off the wagon.  Then summer is here, the kids are out of school, any plans that I have made go right out the window.  This year I am trying to figure out what is really important to me and concentrate on that.

January is my month to get organized.  I’m pretty organized already, but there are areas in my life that need work:

1. Clean out my filing cabinet.  I try to do this every January and throw out old receipts, utility bills, etc.

2. Purge and organize my computer files.  I hate any kind of clutter, even on the computer.  I have to watch myself though; I tend to be over-zealous and junk everything–only to realize that I needed that file.

3. Finish decorating my bedroom.  This is the last room in the house to be decorated; Oprah and Nate Berkus would be very annoyed with me because what does that say about me that I have put my personal sanctuary on the back-burner?  It says that I ran out of money, out of steam and that yes, I cared more about my kids’ comfort in their room than mine.  But I am on a roll now and hope to be done decorating soon; I will post photos when I am finished.

4. Have a finance meeting with my husband and make a plan.  With college tuition in the very near future, we need have a very clear financial map for the next 5 years.

5. Start scrapbooking again.  Oh my God I am so behind!  I am actually very anxious about it and frozen by the 7 years of photographs waiting for me.  It is not a coincidence that I stopped scrapbooking 7 years ago and my daughter is 7 years old.  The second kid pretty much took all of my “free” time away.  And now that she is older, her big brother takes all of my time with his rich extracurricular activities and social life.   Mostly I feel guilty about not scrapbooking; my daughter loves looking at her brother’s First Year book while hers is just a big box full of photos and mementos waiting to be archived.  This year I resolve to at least do her First Year book, catch up on both kids’ School Days books (my son’s stops at 2nd grade and he is almost in high school) and add the last 2 years to the Christmas Memories book.  I might have to make digital books for all the other photos.  Did anyone else have this dilemma?  What did you do?

6. Start planning my summer.  I hate, hate, HATE planning the summer so early in the year and up until now I refused to do it.  But year after year when I sat down to plan in May I found that summer camps were already full and vacation spots already booked up.  I can’t fight the system any longer and must fall in line.  Part of the reason I resist planning so early is because my kids don’t need to be in camp; I am able to be home and I actually like spending time with them.  But I finally realized that my daughter prefers to be in summer camp; she likes playing with other kids and needs constant activity.  And my son is at the age where he needs to start volunteering, working a small job or attending an extensive academic or performing arts camp.  Which means that I need to get those balls rolling.

I take pretty good care of my health, but of course I could always do better.  These are not really resolutions, but a plan to change my lifestyle:

1. Start cooking regularly again.  With a husband that travels a lot and kids always on the go, I have fallen into a take-out rut.  I used to cook 5 days a week; I will aim for 4 days now.  It’s not the cooking that is hard, it is the meal-planning that I object to.  But, eating at home is not only more financially sound, it is also healthier.  

2. Wash my face every night.  I admit that some nights I am so exhausted that I just take off my mascara, but not wash my face.   I can’t take my good skin for granted anymore, so I had better treat it right!  Maybe I will work up to the mini-facial routine that Luxetips does, but for now washing my face is a good place to start.  

3. Join the gym down the street.  The gym that I currently belong to is 20+ minutes away and since I don’t already feel like going, that is just one more excuse for me to use.  I know that exercise is important to my health and I need to make it a regular part of my daily routine–which means making it easier to get to.

My family: I feel that I live my life for them, yet I also feel that I don’t do enough.  Mostly I need to just stop the other stuff that I am doing and be present when they are around.  That means reading a long story to my daugther at night, instead of a short one so that I can get back to my own stuff, staying off the computer on the weekends and getting outside with them more to just play.  It’s hard to balance all the things that I want to do for myself with all the things that I want to do with them; there is just not enough time in the day/month/year.   My mantra this year:  ”I am only one person; I can only do so much.”  I will make it a point to carve out time to pursue my dreams and goals, but also be intentional about the time I spent with my family.

So, with the little time that I do have, this is what I would like to do:

1. Continue horse riding lessons in the spring.  I loved riding this fall and felt that it was something that I was doing just for myself.  It was a real physical workout and a challenge to learn something new.

2. Take advanced swimming lessons, maybe even get certified as a lifeguard.  Some years ago I learned how to swim after a lifetime of being afraid of water.  I was so proud of myself and want to learn even more.

3. Get an article published. I enjoy writing this blog and think that I would enjoy writing for someone else as well.

4. Make a business plan for at least 1 of the 50 ideas that I have.  

And of course continue building Funkidivagirl.com; I have many great posts planned this year!  I will help you get more organized in my Ma-Gyver posts.  I will give you my personal travel reviews in T as in Tango.  My Charmed Life, Word From the Mother and What About Me will keep you up to date about what’s happening in my world.  Kicking It Old School is just for fun, while Things I Like/Believe the Hype will inform you of things I think are Funkidivagirl-worthy of trying.  There will be more 4 Real Housewives submissions and more guest posts by Captain Cuisine and The Gastro-Teens.

2008 was a great start for Funkidivagirl and 2009 promises to be even better.  I hope you have enjoyed grooving with me so far and ready for a funki ride in 2009!

© 2009 – 2011, Funkidivagirl.com. All rights reserved. Republished only with permission.