Yesterday, I ate 2 Kashi granola bars, nachos with black beans and Spanish rice and cheese. (I messed up on the no white rice part) I also ate a bag of whole grain popcorn. I drank 64 oz of water & 16 oz of sweet tea. (I know, no more sweet tea, either)

I didn’t workout yesterday. I also need to go to grocery shopping for more veggies and fruit. I have the recipes for 3 great smoothies that I’m going to try. Wish me success on this journey.

“Every couple has the right to make their own rules.”

Do they? I think it’s easy to say but hard to do. Especially, when you have family and friends around you that will make judgements on your choices.  No matter how nonchalant we try to be, the opinions of those we love affect us. We care.   Fast forward to last night,  I was watching the HBO Documentary “His Way” about legendary Hollywood producer Jerry Weintraub.  Jerry Weintraub is married to Jane Morgan and also has a life partner in Susie Ekins. In the documentary, Ms. Morgan stated that she knew not everyone would understand why she and Jerry chose to live this way. This is a threesome who has decided to make their own rules. It probably helps that they live in California and are celebrities.

Do you think that every couple has the right to make their own rules? To ignore the basics tenet of marriage which is fidelity.  Is it still cheating when your spouse gives your permission?

I’m not that girl that stops traffic with my looks. There’s nothing super glamorous or pretty about me. I like the way I look for the most part except for losing weight which is entirely up to me.  I’m just your average Black girl.

I’m not a girl with Daddy issues. My Dad and I are close, I love him. He has shown me through his successes and mistakes what a man should and shouldn’t be. He’s the ruler by which I measure all men. I don’t have issues with men because of my Dad. My issues with men are all my own from my mistakes and missteps.

I’m not the girl to lose sense of self over a man. I think that’s due to the fact that I’ve never been in love. I’ve never had that all-consuming feeling where the world outside ceased to exist because I was in a relationship. I’m never the one to cancel previous plans with friends or family because I’m involved with somebody. I’m not that girl who doesn’t talk to her friends for six months because I’m in love and he’s the best thing since sliced bread. I’m not the girl that stops eating because her boyfriend just broke up with her or cries for two days straight because she caught him cheating.

I’m not a girl that puts all my feelings out there. While, I enjoy conversing at much as the next woman, I keep a little part of myself separate from the world. I don’t think anybody knows me fully except the Creator and I bet he shakes His head at me daily.

I’m not that girl who allows people to hurt her, easily.  My big sis, Vanessa, tells me that I’m pessimistically cautious but I disagree,  I think I’m realistically cautious. I don’t think that you should set yourself up to get hurt. If you can do whatever you can to prevent it, then you take precautions. When I get hurt, I do one of two things. I will forgive you, place you in your new box in my life and keep it moving. Or, I will cut your completely out of my life.  That’s just how I roll.

I still feel like this post is incomplete. I guess I will try to finish it when I start examining my other feelings.

I was told after one conversation with a young man that I sounded guarded. A phone conversation! I mean, I am guarded but I didn’t know that it was so obvious. I believe very strongly in self-preservation.

Nothing else is really going with me. The siblings and I are working on the parents 30th anniversary present. We really hope they will like it.

Anyway, I was going to be more candid but I don’t know what else to say right now. I will call him. Eventually.

I head to work in the insanity of Triangle traffic. Then I get to work. Management sends out an email informing us that one of our co-workers died yesterday.  We have a lot of people walking around in a daze not even understanding what is going on and how somebody they saw on Friday is no longer here.  That really got me to thinking about how little you know about a person’s situation if they are not your family or your friend. I mean, I didn’t know my co-worker was sick. I try not to get close to people at work because you need to maintain some professional distance to be objective in the workplace.  This won’t stop me from praying for my co-workers family and friends as they mourn her passing.  Safe passage, Monica.

I hope that everybody had a great Valentine’s Day.  Tonight’s post is going to be short because I want to reserve this day for love. Tomorrow I will be back to my 60 minutes of thought flowing freedom. 

Today was a good long day. I didn’t get to see the speech that Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak made today but the gist I got from Twitter was that he’s not going anywhere.  I really wonder what action the Egyptian people will take due to this announcement.

I miss our radio show. I really hope that we can find a way back to the airwaves soon.

I’m currently applying for jobs like a mad woman. I have to get out of my present job. It’s not giving me what I need on a professional level any more. I need to make a change.

(CNN) — Elizabeth Edwards, the estranged wife of 2004 vice presidential candidate and former North Carolina senator John Edwards, died Tuesday after a lengthy battle with cancer. She was 61

She died at the family home in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, according to a statement released by the family.

“Today we have lost the comfort of Elizabeth’s presence but she remains the heart of this family,” the statement said. “We love her and will never know anyone more inspiring or full of life.”

Edwards was diagnosed with breast cancer shortly after her husband lost his bid for vice president in November 2004. John Edwards, a one-term Democratic senator, was Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry’s running mate.

It was later revealed that she knew before the election she might have cancer, but shielded her husband from the news during the campaign. She immediately underwent treatment, and the cancer was believed to be in remission.

In March 2007 — at the start her husband’s 2008 presidential campaign — Edwards learned that the cancer had returned and spread.

Dr. Lisa Carey, the oncologist treating Edwards, categorized the cancer as metastatic stage four cancer, largely confined to the bones.

The cancer was diagnosed treatable but not curable, Edwards said.

Despite the diagnosis, Edwards said she was ready to go forward with her husband’s bid for the White House.

“Either you push forward with the things that you were doing yesterday or you start dying,” she said. “If I had given up everything that my life was about … I’d let cancer win before it needed to.”

“Maybe eventually it will win,” she said. “But I’d let it win before I needed to.”

John Edwards, unable to compete with the attention focused on then-Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, withdrew from the presidential race in January 2008.

Several months later, he admitted that tabloid claims about an extramarital affair with former campaign videographer Rielle Hunter were true. Eventually, he also admitted to fathering a child with Hunter — an allegation he initially vociferously denied even after conceding the affair.

John Edwards said the affair happened in 2006 while his wife’s cancer was in remission. He claimed he informed his wife at the time and asked for her forgiveness.

The couple was criticized by some activists for not revealing the affair prior to his presidential bid, as the news could have damaged Democratic chances if it became publicly known during a general election campaign in which John Edwards was the party’s standard bearer.

“This was our private matter, and I frankly wanted it to be private because as painful as it was I did not want to have to play it out on a public stage as well,” Elizabeth Edwards said.

The affair appeared to end any future political ambitions the former senator may have had. It also led to the couple’s separation.

Elizabeth Edwards was born Mary Elizabeth Anania on July 3, 1949, in Jacksonville, Florida. Her father was a Navy pilot, and in her early years, she attended school in Japan.

She attended the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, and met her future husband while studying at UNC’s law school.

They spent their first date dancing at a local Holiday Inn, and it ended with John kissing Elizabeth on the forehead.

“It was just really sweet,” she said of the kiss. “I wasn’t used to men being sweet.”

The couple was married July 30, 1977, the Saturday after they took their state bar exams. They had four children: Wade, Cate, Emma Claire, and Jack. Wade Edwards was killed in a car accident in 1996.

Mrs. Edwards worked as a clerk for U.S. District Judge Calvitt Clarke Jr. in Norfolk, Virginia, and was a bankruptcy lawyer in Raleigh.

In 2006, after her initial cancer diagnosis, she wrote “Saving Graces: Finding Solace and Strength from Friends and Strangers,” which chronicled the aftermath of her son’s death and her battle with the disease.

When her cancer returned in 2007, the couple held a news conference to publicize the information and declare their intention to continue with John Edwards’ campaign.

“You can go cower in the corner and hide or you can go out there and stand up for what you believe in,” the former senator said. “We have no intentions of cowering in the corner.”

In an interview with the Detroit Free Press after her husband admitted to his affair, Elizabeth Edwards said the incident helped her focus on resuming her role as an advocate for the poor and for health care reform. She also said it pushed her to refocus on her role as a mother.

She also said she did not want her husband’s tarnished public image to overshadow his role as an advocate for the poor — particularly in the eyes of her children.

“I have to prepare for the possibility if I die before they are grown” to make them “able to function without an involved, engaged and admiring parent,” she said. “So I need to create the picture for them that I want them to have.”

She said living with stage four cancer “is like dancing with a partner who keeps changing.”

“Fortunately with the research, it looks like there may be a new drug for me down the line,” she said. “My job is to stay alive until they find a cure. I don’t think there’s any way to live with this diagnosis than to have that kind of optimism.”

On Monday, the Edwards family released a statement saying that further cancer treatment would be unproductive.

In a message posted on her Facebook page, Elizabeth Edwards addressed her family and friends:

“The days of our lives, for all of us, are numbered. We know that. And, yes, there are certainly times when we aren’t able to muster as much strength and patience as we would like. It’s called being human,” she wrote.

“But I have found that in the simple act of living with hope, and in the daily effort to have a positive impact in the world, the days I do have are made all the more meaningful and precious. And for that I am grateful. It isn’t possible to put into words the love and gratitude I feel to everyone who has and continues to support and inspire me every day. To you I simply say: you know.”

CNN’s John King contributed to this report.

Take your rest, Elizabeth. You have earned it.