Candid Pens

My radio comes on at 4:13am every weekday as I love to start my day with Bella Rose on Inspirational Hour and most days, it stays on till my phone battery needs a recharge. Last Tuesday, Debbie and Mark were on air and though I wasn't fully paying attention to their bants, my ears pricked when I heard Debbie mention  Tosyn Bucknor 's name, then Mark said something about great loss. Immediately, I jumped up, went straight for my laptop and quickly searched for the latest news on Tosyn Bucknor and there it was staring back at me. I gasped as my eyes scanned the page reading the headlines about her demise. As I read more about the sad news, it felt as though I was reading about the loss of a close friend, my eyes welled up 😢. Even though I'd been following the radio goddess for months, it was the first time I was ever seeing her pictures. That didn't make it hurt any less. As a matter of fact, I first heard about the " Area Boss"  in March while I was ...

Kate sighed. It’s 4:35pm already and she should start packing her bag, so she can get home before traffic get’s too heavy.  She slides her chair back a little, as her foot eases off the fur foot mat under her table. The warmth the mat brings is still as good as the first day Jamal gave her on a Valentine's day.  Jamal has always been one who finds it pretty easy to pick up gifts that would be appreciated for a really long time. Kate had once teased him about his real calling in life being to pick gifts for people as she has never met anyone who knows just exactly what to gift others. A day before that fateful Valentine's day, Kate was certain she would beat Jamal to the gifts that year as she had planned a romantic dinner at the newest restaurant in town, she had wrapped the perfume she bought him the day before; it was the most expensive bottle she found in the store and she was going to make his favorite dish for breakfast. She went to bed that night,...

Mum and Dad stands on the sideline waving proudly at him as he sits in the cockpit of the aircraft. He looks handsome in his all-white pilot uniform.  This is his first time flying and the joy on his parents faces that their only child is finally living his dream made his eyes water a bit. Mum shields her eyes from the sun, she had refused to wear her sunglasses because she "wants to see her son directly, no barriers". David smiled remembering his mum saying that to his dad and himself a few days back. They both are proud of their only son. Wait! "Did I just say that?" Scratch it. I keep forgetting I'm no longer an only child as Mum decided to get pregnant when I was 20 and I'm only just remembering the toddler in the stroller in front of her. My baby brother came along 18 months ago and even though I fell in love with the boy from the very second I set my eyes on him, I still can't help feel the stab of betrayal every once in a while when I re...

MS SIZE 18 The fear of hunger is the beginning of wisdom. Well, those who know me well won't be surprised that I started today's post with a quote about food. We can't help who we are right? 😁 Before going to bed last night, I made sure I cooked a pot full of spaghetti with pleeeenty onions and panla fish scattered inside. I had a sound sleep last night knowing there was a pot of my favorite food waiting to be consumed in the morning 😉  Emi, omo ounje fun ara e!! I had to move from the Mainland to Island so I was up from 4 am, said my prayers, had my bath, got dressed, warmed my yummy spaghetti , packed it in my newest food container, and off I went. I couldn't help humming happily as I walked to the road to get a bus. My journey to Oshodi was smooth, Oshodi to Obalende was smoother because in less than 10 minutes into the journey, I knocked it off and didn't even stir until the man seated next to me tapped me to inform me we were at the last bus-stop (...

Knowing your way or dying on the way. Candy Crush has taught me over again that a game is never over until it is really over. One could remain on a particular level for weeks. You play, you lose, lose all the lives, return after 30-45 minutes to play, lose all the lives again, and this goes on and on for days, sometimes running into weeks.  At times, you don't understand what the rule of a particular level is, yet you go on playing. This part is my favorite because the Creator of life doesn't always show us the full picture of our lives, yet we keep living, trying hard, trusting blindly, never giving up and at the end of the day, you either come to understand the rule after several trials and errors OR you just pass the stage in a way you can't even explain...just like that! Many a times you make a wrong move and you wish you could  Ctrl Z  on Candy Crush to undo the wrong but then, you just have to live with the mistake. In the same vein, we don't alw...

Am I crazy to want my heart broken? I have loved and I have been loved back. I had my first boyfriend in secondary school and trust me, it was no puppy love at all. I loved him for real and I was even convinced at some point that he would be my husband as the feeling was too deep. We loved each other with a love that was more than ordinary, there are people from my secondary school days who still tease me from time to time asking us to come back together. Our relationship was everyone's envy 😊 I love love that you don't have to try so hard to make happen but when it does happen, you both want to guard it with all that you've got. [This brings to my mind stories from Harlequins novels ^_^] So I just realized that my heart has never really been broken. I do experience heart aches after breakups for reasons such as; I miss him, or miss what we could have had, or just feeling stupid for dating such a person in the first place 👀  but never have I ever had someone r...

Hi there! How was your weekend? I had a nice one. So in my last post -" What's Yours? " (go read if you haven't), I promised to share with you something I learnt recently. Let's get started, shall we! Ikigai is a Japanese concept that means "a reason for being." It is thought of as the reason why you want to get up in the morning, what makes you enjoy life, makes you happy and gives you fulfillment. The word ikigai is usually used to indicate the source of value in one's life or the virtues that make your life worthwhile. Ikigai = Purpose To know your reason for being and why you want to wake up in the morning or what gives you fulfillment is quite easy, just follow the steps below; {You might need to get a notepad and pen here} a) What are those skills you have that you can be paid for?  b) What do you have that the world needs? c) What are you good at? d) What do you love doing? *What the world needs + What you love = your MIS...

"You do not invent your purpose in life, instead you discover it."  - Dayo Adefolahan If you own a Ferrari car and all you ever did was use it as a luxury vehicle, that's all it will ever be to you, a luxury vehicle. Put it on a race track and you'd be in awe of what it can do because it's being used to its fullest capacity. Purpose is the motivation behind every creation. You were created for a particular purpose. Go discover it! My Pastor's wife said as a lady, your purpose in life is not just to marry, bear your man's name, have his children and be a "kitchenette" or serve in the other room. I jokingly mentioned to the guy seated next to me that a lady might want to bear " Mountbatten-Windsor " just because 😂. I mean a lot of people would literally kill to be the girlfriend/fiancee/wife even concubine of any of the Princes of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland yeah? 😊 (I'm not entirely sure ...

Growing up I had mixed feelings about Sundays. A reason was that my family attended a white garment church that closed really late. I mean we could still be in church by 3pm just taking offerings after which series of thanksgivings would follow. The part I loved however was that my dad usually gave my siblings and I a lot of money for offerings. I remember specifically that he would give each of us N20 mints and as the eldest child, I got more than my siblings. What I did then was to take two out of the five to ten N20 notes i.e N100 - N200 (I always took just two notes regardless of how much money I was given), to the puff-puff seller close to our church to break the money down to lower denominations so I could easily drop lesser amount each time we had to pay any of the offerings. I treated myself after service to ice-cream, sweets, biscuits and fried fish (you know those ones first coated with yam flour before frying... very yummy 😋), with the 'savings.' The oth...

" Mondays are just no fun!" Seeing that a number of people feel this ☝ way about Mondays, I decided to bring a relaxed, not-so-serious angle to today's Monday post. I personally don't like waking up to remember it's Monday morning (except you love Mondays), like.....aaaaaarrrgh!😏 But really though, why do we 'dislike' Mondays? {I'm being careful not to use the word "hate" here} If you browse through various social media platforms on a Monday morning, you are most likely going to find quotes, memes, graphics and the likes about how "direful" it is to face Monday & how people wish the weekend never came to an end. I did a little research this morning by asking some of my colleagues at work why they dislike Mondays. Here are some of their reasons: E.O: " Because I get to wear shirts and I really don't like shirts " ( I must say, this cracked me up...lol). He went on to say, " The rush on Mo...

As excited as I was about putting my service year behind me, I still couldn’t help the fear of,  ‘What next?’ ‘Where will I move to?’  ‘Am I going back home?’ (There was even no way on earth I was gonna do that!) ‘Will I get a job immediately?’ ‘What if I can’t find a job before I exhaust my savings?’ ‘When will I get married?’ ‘Do I want to make money first before settling down?’ Bla bla bla…… No, but really, I’m sure quite a number of youths in Nigeria called to obey the clarion call in the Batch B’ 2016 set are really looking forward to never having to wear khaki again by October. But how prepared are you to face the ‘outside world?’ No more ‘allawee’, you know, as small as N19,800 may seem, knowing that you will get that alert every month has its own relief  *shines teeth*. How about how much you will miss some of the good, “weird” and “crazy” guys you met while obeying the clarion call? What I miss the most...