Precious Diary

SETTLING IN CALIFORNIA

August 27, 2018

I have been planning to do a Monday morning post for a couple of weeks now but I keep sleeping way into my Monday mornings than I want to. I always wake up past the time I expected to wake up and by then my day is already crowded with many things that I can barely find the time to sit down and write. Sleep could be evil.

This morning was no exception. I woke up much later than I wanted to. But I purposed in my heart to sit down and type an update post no matter what. That’s because I set Monday mornings for “pen speaking” posts and though I haven’t been able to do that for a while now, my goal is to establish that.

So, we are settling in California. And Iife is just all shades of different right now.

One big change I’m loving is the new church we found! Wow! So many loving people in that place. We have literally met (spoken, gotten acquainted with) new Jesus loving families almost every Sunday that we’ve been to church. Considering that it is sort of a megachurch, it is quite wonderful to see that people make such an effort to connect with others. I never wanted us to belong to a megachurch because it often feels like you are lost in a crowd and you have no church family. But this one has proven to be so different so far so thank God!

Also, we met a couple of homeschooling families. AND I will be having a mom’s night out with other homeschool moms tomorrow. So excited!

We are also loving the fact that there’s no looming fear about impending winter and unending inches of snow. Okay, not unending inches but that’s what the snow in Minnesota always felt like. And I always didn’t look forward to winter. It always felt like a dark period of life which we could not escape. Maybe our winter coping mechanisms weren’t strong enough but still driving in and walking through snow is not quite fun.

Now here is one thing I don’t like about California: there are lizards around! And it is really strange that this freaks me out because I grew up seeing large lizards strutting around buildings. But after being in Minnesota for a while and not seeing any of such around (except for a pet lizard in a family friends’) home, I had kind of forgotten what it was like to share your pathway with a reptile. Verily verily, I need to learn how to live with and accept the creatures God made. But it is hard!

I have been cooking a lot because cooking makes a house a home right? Here are some things that have gone down, which I shared on my Instagram page:

Plantain Porridge

One of my biggest cravings right now is anything that can be made in one pot with palm oil. So yam porridge and plantain porridge are right on the top of my list of favorite meals. West African “porridge” meals are not quite the same as porridge in other parts of the world. They often include a starchy carb cooked in one pot. And they are not all mushy either. As you can see, my plantain porridge has pieces of plantains in it which are quite chewy. So good!

Also, I have been making a lot of omelettes.

Omelette and some sweet fried plantains. This combo is the truth!

Omelette and some fried African sweet potatoes. And I always love some avocado on the side because avocado just makes the whole thing better.

I bought African sweet potatoes from an Asian store. They are quite different from American sweet potatoes. The ones I bought are purple on the outside whereas the ones back home are yellow on the outside. However, they taste EXACTLY THE SAME. I think the ones here are labeled as “Thai sweet potatoes”. An African style omelette is just one of the most flavorful things on the planet! to see how I make it, you could check out this video.

Also, I have been enjoying a lot of stewed pinto beans (recipe coming soon)! I think I have eaten pinto beans in California more than I ever did in my entire life in the US. Here is some stewed pinto beans and fried plantains – life-giving combination!

And I just love the epicness of this potato hotpot. Such a hearty meal! Get some russet potatoes and make some (that’s an order).

Can we just give a standing ovation to one-pot 30 minute pasta meals? They have been saving lives since 1769. Here is macaroni which I simply boiled then sauteed in a simple tomato sauce with canned sardines in oil. I tell you, my kids were very happy and cleared their plates in no time.

In case you are interested in how I made this, I shared a similar recipe on my Facebook page a while back.

Also, more stewed pinto beans (I told ya). This time, it is served with Garri (granules made out of yucca root also known as cassava).

The Garri is soaked with water (preferable cold water), sweetened with sugar and eaten with a side of stewed beans. It is a very informal casual meal that tastes insanely delicious! I ate this so many times while growing up and I still love it like crazy.

Also, someone is very pregnant.

And I’m enjoying all the benefits like being crazily sleepy in the middle of important tasks. And forgetting what year we are in. And feeling the baby kick. And just feeling special because there is new life growing in me.

May your week be filled with love and good food! Thank you for reading.

YESTERDAY

August 14, 2018

Yesterday was quite the day! I wake up in the morning with great plans to shoot several videos for my YouTube channel. But first I have to eat breakfast and go shopping. So after all the morning things (prayers, making my bed, changing from PJs into clothes for the day, brushing, etc), I go downstairs to the kitchen for breakfast.

I glance through my phone as I eat for home furniture ideas since we just moved and our home is now barely furnished. Then I finally go shopping. My first stop is at Walmart. I return an item I bought previously and didn’t need. Then I buy some fresh herbs for planting: basil and mint. I am so excited about keeping them at home and harvesting them whenever I need some for a recipe or to garnish food for food photography!

My next stop is a food market, Aldi. There, … oh my God! I discover they have a whole lot of home stuff that I have been wanting to get and they are in my newest favorite color, turquoise. So I get the food I went to buy but also, I also get some turquoise baskets for home organisation. I get a turquoise 3-step drawer, I get turqoise foldable bins and some turquoise stackable racks. I am so excited about my finds!

Also, I keep checking my shopping list typed in the note section of my phone. Part of the food I am getting are ingredients for cooking videos so I want to ensure I don’t miss anything.

So after shopping and turning around Aldi, standing and admiring some shelves, wondering if I should get this or that, buying lots of vegetables and fruits, I have a FULL cart. Also, I still haven’t been able to buy everything I need because everything isn’t available there. So I decide to check out of Aldi and go back to Walmart.

After checking out of Aldi, I make a quick stop at the Dollar Tree, a store where everything costs one dollar. There, I get some 1 dollar glasses and some few home essentials.

Then guys, I drive back to Walmart, which is just a few blocks away. And this is when it happens. As I try to slowly park into the parking lot, I hit someone’s car! Oh no!

This is the first time ever I have ever hit someone’s car. Oh no! It is not an huge impact though. I barely just touch the car with mine. So I park and come out to take a look. The car has two silvery lines as a result. I’m not even sure if my car caused it so I ask the lady, the driver of the car who is standing out by now already taking pictures of the accident. “Did my car, cause this?” She says yes.

So I park carefully near her then I come out and tell her I am sorry and let her let me know what I can do to resolve this. Before coming out, I say a little prayer because I don’t really know what to expect.

I call Mr. N and tell him what happened. Then I go back to speak with the lady. She says she will need to repaint the spot and a paint job will cost $300. Then she asks what I have to offer her.

I get back to Mr. N. He says I should give her the phone and after speaking with her and going through different options, she agrees to receive $100 as compensation for the damage caused. Friends, here is the damage I caused:

There are a lot of reflections in the picture but if you can spot it there are two lines just under the booth of the car on the right.

So she shows he to the nearest ATM where I withdraw the hundred dollars and give to her which she happily receives. Thereafter I am no longer interested in shopping at Walmart. I just feel disappointed about the accident so I drive back home.

By this time I am tired, hungry, so hungry. So I cut into a watermelon and start eating. And as I enjoy the juicy fruit my body feels rejuvenated. Food therapy is real!

I really really want to sleep at this point – blame it on the pregnancy. But there’s dinner to make, I have to also organise some stuff using the things I just bought. So I manage to mount the 3-tier drawer together with the girls and I put it in their room for their underwears. Each girl gets a drawer!

Also, I go into the kitchen and make some awesome Jollof and grilled chicken! I manage to clean the kitchen and get the girls ready for bed. After that, I am exhausted but thankful that though the day wasn’t so good, I still managed to do basic things like cook for my family. I wasn’t able to shoot any videos as planned but I still felt thankful. Also thankful about the little accident – it could have been worse so I choose to still be thankful because I’m sure God knows why He let that happen.

Anyways, off to another busy day in which I will hopefully shoot several episodes for the YouTube. Thank you for reading!

THREE NEW THINGS I WANT TO TELL YOU ABOUT

July 15, 2018

You guys, I am back! Is this the season of the new or what? New house, new KITCHEN, new baby on the way… I feel new!

MOVING TO CALIFORNIA – NEW HOUSE

Moving wasn’t easy! Packing everything out of a house is not a walk down a park. At some point, I felt like the work wasn’t going to end. There. Was. So. Much. To. Do. Then the part that shocked me most was how many things I had in my kitchen. Oh man, I had a ridiculous amount of stuff! I had kitchen box upon kitchen box that I lost count of them. Not kidding. I felt really bad about it since I have been working hard to declutter my kitchen every now and then. But then I told myself that my kitchen is basically the center of my life. It is literally my workplace and for me to work properly I need the right props. Thankfully, I have a bigger kitchen now into which my kitchen items can fit nicely – there were overflowing in the previous kitchen! More on the new kitchen below!

I am so grateful for the friends that showed up to help me pack. Without them, I will probably still be in Minnesota, trying to pad breakable plates to fit in boxes. Thank you, friends!

So we moved! I still feel so different about it – I actually just feel new inside and hopeful for what is ahead. Moving here, one of the first things I Googled was “African store near me” because a girl has got to cook some African food. And guess what? There’s an African store just two minutes from our home. I didn’t believe Mr. Google so we had to drive there to see if it was true. And yes, it is true oo. We got there when the store had closed but through its glass doors I could see some fufu, Peak milk (popular West African milk brand) and Cerelac (popular baby food in Africa). It got me all excited and I can’t wait to go to that store and explore! I plan on making my first friend in California there. Haha.

California is HOT. The day we arrived home, while we were still outside I almost asked Mr. N where the hot air was coming from. It was unbelievably HOT. Thank God for AC. Also, there are some good normal days when the heat is not that bad so it’s all good.

NEW KITCHEN!

You guys, your girl has a new kitchen! And it is almost all I ever wanted! It is spacious!!! It has white cabinets (this is a big deal for me!). Also, the cooking range is on the island in the middle which is super important to me because now you can have a better view of me cooking in my cooking videos.

This kitchen is a dream come true and proof that God answers prayers. I have prayed and cried for a kitchen like this. Yes, cried! That’s how badly I wanted a kitchen with the right shape for the camera. God just had to answer me. Lol.

Now, why I say it is almost all I ever wanted is because of a few misses here and there. One: the appliances are black: I really wanted stainless steel appliances. But hey, I prefer all black appliances to white or mismatched color appliances (that’s some black here, some stainless steel there, some white there). So I am happy with all black! Also, it doesn’t have a double oven. I really wanted a double oven since I bake a lot. BUT I am super grateful for my single wall oven because I wanted a wall oven anyway, and wall oven I got.

In all, I LOVE this kitchen. This was the best kitchen I saw when we were looking for a house and I’m so thankful that I got it. It is a girl’s dream come true! I can’t wait to show you guys my cooking space in my next video on YouTube!

NEW BABY!

As in, Mr. N and I have decided to continue our mission of obeying God’s command which says go into the world and multiply! I can’t believe I am pregnant again! But I am and well into my second trimester. I am so excited to bring another human into this world.

Also, the girls are so excited and they have all these plans for the new baby.

My first trimester wasn’t easy. I HATED food. I hated thinking about food. I hated even seeing pictures of food on the internet. They all made me so nauseous. And I suffered from really bad morning sickness. I only ate to live meanwhile in my normal life I live to eat.

This greatly affected my work here on the blog. While I wanted to be consistent after my niece’s wedding, I just couldn’t even look at pictures of recipes I had tested. The struggle was real.

Thankfully, I feel much better now and I am starting to enjoy food again. And my tummy is growing!

So with that said, hope you, I mean you reading this is doing well. Thanks for being my sweet internet friend and I will see you in the next post.

Love,

IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT

June 8, 2018

You guys, I have news for you. We are moving! Mr. N, our 3 girls and I are moving from Minnesota to California! And let me tell you: these are busy days! While I want to be able to still post content here on the blog, I just can’t keep up with packing and blogging at the same time.

So this is so sad for me to say but I’ll be gone for a while. I will take time off from here so I can focus all my energy on this important transition in my family.

But I’ll be back! Once we are settled into our new place, I’ll start publishing new posts again AND I will resume making videos on YouTube which I have missed doing for a while now.

I’m really going to miss posting here – there are so many awesome recipes, stories and just heartfelt issues I want to share with you. But there is time for everything. This is the time for me to move. The time for more posts is coming.

I can’t really tell when I’ll come back. It might be a couple of weeks or more. But one thing I can assure you of is I will resume posting as soon as I settle in our new place.

I’ll see you guys on the other side when we are in California!!! Love you.

Meanwhile, enjoy this meal of Fufu and Njama Njama with some delectable fried fish and a glass of pineapple ginger juice! Yum!

MY FIRST FOOD BLOGGER CONFERENCE!!

May 14, 2018

You guys, my life is forever changed. Last week, I attended my very first food blogger conference and let me tell you this: my life can NEVER be the same again. It has been the highlight of my year so far. Where do I even start? From the food to the workshops to the networking, everything was life-changing!

I’ll take it one step at a time and tell you all about my experience at the Everything Food Conference in Salt Lake City, Utah last week.

That’s a picture of me or rather my feet waiting at the airport to board the plane and head on to Utah, where the conference was to take place. I was so excited to go on this trip because I have heard so many amazing things about this conference.

In fact, many people say it is the best food blogger conference. Also, some of my favorite bloggers and YouTubers were scheduled to speak so I couldn’t wait to learn from them.

When I arrived in Utah, I was thrilled to find lots of mountains! I said, “I like the hills!” And my Uber driver who drove me from the airport to the hotel replied emphatically: “Those are not hills, those are mountains!” Haha!

Maybe I called them hills because Mount Fako in Buea, Cameroon where I spent a great part of my childhood much bigger. These mountains looked smaller but where so many – I could spot mountains from almost every part of the city which was nice to see. Here in Minnesota, we don’t have mountains but lakes. Lakes everywhere! That’s why it is called the “land of ten thousand lakes.”

Alright, moving on! I couldn’t resist taking a selfie in my hotel room.

Then I had dinner with a group of other food bloggers on the evening of my arrival. We were 7 of us in number. It was amazing to see people who do the same thing as me and spend some time with them. Too bad, we didn’t take any picture at that dinner.

The next day was key for me because I had to meet with brands for speed networking. Think of it like a job interview for food bloggers. So I learned more about the brands, had my business cards printed out to give to them and even practised how I was going to pitch to them.

Bloggers talking with brands

I spoke with many amazing brands and you might see my work with some of them soon here on the blog and/or on my YouTube channel. At the end of the day, I was EXHAUSTED!

So my arrival day and the day of networking with brands were not the conference proper yet. On the next day, which was Thursday, Everything Food Conference 2018 started!

The energy in the hall at the beginning of the conference was amazing. There was hip-hop music, screams and so much excitement. It was the most epic start to a conference and even more amazing to me was the number of food bloggers all gathered in one place – several hundred. Most were from the United States but some came all the way from other countries like Australia and Dubai just to attend the conference.

For 3 days, we had workshops, keynote speeches and lots of networking.

I LOVED the conference workshops! There were so many workshops on different topics: SEO, food videos, photo editing and more. My favorite workshop was that by Nagi Maehashi of the food blog Recipe Tin Eats. She shared tips on how she has grown her blog to 7 million page views. She was so transparent and motivating!

That’s a picture of Nagi and me. As you can see she’s such a fun person!

I also loved the workshop on how to grow your YouTube channel. All of the speakers at the workshop were YouTubers I love and watch their videos: Tatyana Nesteruk of Tatyana’s Everyday Food, Beth Le Manach of Entertaining with Beth, Sara Lynn Cauchon of The Domestic Geek and Joanne of Fifteen Spatulas.

YouTube Workshop

I took a pic with Tatyana, she’s such a sweet soul!

Also, Beth – the wisdom she shared was amazing!

Perhaps my greatest highlight from the conference was the time I`spent with my friend, Imma from Immaculate Bites. I have been speaking on phone with Imma for a while but being with her in person, was amazing. She taught me so much about blog growth. She is the absolute best!

Also, it was fun to meet several Black Food Bloggers!

And can we talk about the food for a minute? It was a food blogger conference and there was sure some good food to go with it. I tried Korean cuisine for the first time! Glass noodles, chicken, topped with spicy mayo and another sauce, whose name I can’t remember.

I rejected the can’t-remember-name sauce because I wasn’t sure if I would like the taste but the man who was serving the sauces asked me, “Are you crazy?” He went on to say the sauce was “so good”. So I agreed to it and the sauce was sure good.

Also, we were served an epic dinner on one of those nights.

I loved the watermelon fruit bowls!

I had salmon and it was amazing.

This is what the dinner menu looked like…

I loved the food, I loved the lessons and I loved the company at the Everything Food Conference. I left the conference so motivated to do more and do better!

If you are a blogger looking for a conference to attend, I highly recommend the Everything Food Conference, which holds every year. Go there and soak in as much as you can. It is so worth it.

Hope you guys enjoyed my recap of last week. I’ll see you in the next post which will be a recipe. Have a lovely week!

A LETTER TO MY 16 YEAR OLD SELF

March 12, 2018

Dear Precious,

You are now 16 going on 17 which means in many ways, you are a grown woman. You have had your first period, gone through high school and you are now a freshman at the university. You have a whole life ahead of you in the university and after. Here are some things I want you to know.

Stop feeling weird because you have never had a boyfriend. One day, you will get married to a man and not an adventurous boy who wants to play with your feelings. You are not out-of-place for not having dated anyone up till this point. Yes, you may be weird to your peers but you are doing just fine.

Believe in yourself and your dreams. Don’t be afraid to dream and see far because dreams actually come true. Write down goals for yourself and work towards accomplishing them. You can do anything.

Dear Precious, not everyone is going to like you and your goal isn’t to make them like you. Your goal is to walk the path God has set for you. Your goal is to love others and to give as much as you can to the world. Your goal is to please God and not men.

You just got born again. Your life just got completely transformed because Christ met you. Hold on to your relationship with God more than anything else. Invest in this relationship, build it and nourish it because it is the single most important thing in your life. You will be mocked because of your relationship with Christ but don’t give up. Stay with God.

Life can be tough and filled with challenges but you have to keep going, keep believing and keep fighting. Press on towards becoming a better person every day.

Surround yourself with the right company. Your friends can make or mar you. The wrong friends will influence you negatively. The right friends will influence you positively. So choose your friends wisely.

Dear Precious, don’t form an opinion of yourself based on the negative things others say. People will always have an opinion and sometimes that opinion can damage your self-esteem. But don’t let them do that to you. Believe in yourself. Believe in you even when no one else does. They will eventually turn around and even if they don’t turn around, don’t stop believing in yourself.

Enjoy life. Enjoy nature. Enjoy the beautiful things God made. Live fully. Smile, laugh, play. Breathe and have fun. Enjoy your youth but only within the confines of your Christianity. Christianity might seem too restrictive but it is actually the best kind of freedom you will ever experience. There is no better way than God’s way.

Dear Precious, your future is certain because He that keeps you never sleeps nor slumbers. He watches over you. He is with you. Let Him continue to be your everything.

P.S. I am not 16 in the picture at the beginning of the post. I am 20 or so in there. Wish I could find my 16-year-old picture!

If you were to write a letter to your younger self what would you tell her/him?

TUESDAY THINGS

February 6, 2018

What a beautiful Tuesday morning, friends. It’s been a while since I did a lifestyle update post but today sounds perfect for that kind of thing. I have many things on my mind which I would love to share with you guys. Here we go:

1. Your girl got registered at the gym. Like seriously I need the gym so badly in my life right now. Some of you have asked if I’m pregnant. I am not. My tummy is getting rounder by the day and folds are forming in my back. This is not the way I should be so gym, here I come. I’m also toying with the idea of doing a month of clean eating recipes here on the blog. That will probably be in March after I finish sharing Valentine’s Day and other recipes this February. Still thinking of it, though.

2. I am in the market looking for the perfect kitchen! Actually, we are trying to find a home. But I feel like all I am looking for is a kitchen. Lol. I really want a large kitchen with lots of space and one that is perfect for filming my YouTube videos. So hopeful and excited to see what we finally get.

3. I just read my morning devotional about Valentine’s day gifts that cannot be bought and this speaks so much to me. Sometimes you feel like you need to spend much to give your partner a lovely gift.However, some of the best gifts could be priceless things like forgiveness, lovely text messages, and acts of service.

4. “It is useless for you to work so hard from early morning until late at night, anxiously working for food to eat; for God gives rest to his loved ones.” Psalm 127:2 I think I have shared this scripture before. I am sharing it again because it speaks so much to me. Somehow I erroneously think that anxious toil is necessary for me to attain my goals. But God is teaching me to slow down, enjoy the slow moments of life and follow His path which is a whole lot different from mine.

5. Pray for Cameroon. Pray for Cameroon. Pray for Cameroon. Please pray for us. My country is going through a season of so much instability. I am confident that God is in charge and the end of this challenging season will be according to His will. One of the most powerful things we can do in this season is praying.

6. Did I tell you how much I love you? I love connecting with you here and sharing my heart with you. I love all of you, my sweet online friends.

Hope you have a wonderful Tuesday. I will see you tomorrow in my kitchen!

THE POWER OF REST

January 15, 2018

There is a story I heard years ago that has stuck with me for life. Many years ago, in my graduate student hostel, a woman decided to work more than here body could take it. She was moving into the hostel and had tons of work to do. And she wanted to do it all in one day.

So she worked. And worked. And worked. Parking stuff. Arranging stuff. Cleaning.

Despite pleas from a school administrator that she should stop, she continued working. The school admin even told her she could pass the night in her house if she couldn’t make her hostel room move-in-ready on that day. Still, this lady would not listen. She worked. And worked. And worked.

Then the unthinkable happened. She had a cardiac arrest and she died right on the spot. Died. Dead. Gone forever. All because a lady could not leave some for tomorrow.

This story struck a chord with me.

I’m that girl who wants to finish everything she wants to finish in a day. I am that girl who doesn’t leave some for tomorrow. I’m that girl who thrives on accomplishment: doing, doing, then doing some more. I’m that girl who hardly thinks about rest. Rest? It sounded mainly like a myth to me.

But now slowly and surely, I am getting to understand the power of rest and applying it in my life. To be honest, I am not there yet. I still lay down on the couch and respond to comments and call it rest sometimes. Fake rest.

But lately, I have listened to and read a lot of materials drawing me more and more into the power of rest.

“Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates.” Exodus 20:9-10 (ESV)

Rest is one of the first things God instituted early on in scripture by resting Himself on the seventh day after creating the world for 6 days. He went ahead to instruct His people to work for 6 days and rest for 1 day. Every 6 days of work deserves a day of rest.

The thing is when we work continuously non-stop, we hit rock bottom. We reach a season of overwhelm. We risk totally abandoning our work because we fail to rest. So we must make make rest part of what we do.

Recently. I took a two week break from the blog. It was HARD. Because you know what? My work is one of the first things I think of when I wake up in the morning. So in these two weeks I kept thinking of just continuing with writing, cooking, photographing, recipe testing and all.

But my body. My body was pulling me away. But I was resistant. Reason why I didn’t even announce it. I kept saying perhaps tomorrow I will wake up then make a video and put on YouTube. So I saw no need to announce something that I will eventually probably break.

It was a hard season of let me work, let me not work. Let me rest, let me not rest. But in the end, I’m grateful that I was courageous enough to take some time off. The only regret I have is I didn’t let my followers know they will be missing me for a while.

But here is the thing: at the end of that time, I felt so pumped up and motivated to continue my work here and on YouTube. I felt so refreshed and so full of energy.

Here is the thing: even when we do what we enjoy, we must make time to rest else we will begin to hate the very thing that we enjoy doing.

We must make rest a part of our regular schedules. We must schedule days for doing nothing.

Hard work is sweet. Work hard as much as you can. Be diligent, be disciplined. Be excellent in your work. Strive to be better everyday. Bulldoze as much as you can. But every now and then, in the midst of all this hard, disciplined work, press pause. Do it. Do it intentionally. Take a day off. Rest. Sleep. Play games. Read interesting books. Watch interesting movies. Do nothing but only what is fun, relaxing and puts no pressure on you. Then after that get back to your work and continuing slaying like the boss lady/gentleman that you are.

I’ll share this poem I picked from my daughter’s lesson with you:

Work while you work
Play while you play.
One thing each time,
That is the way.
All that you do,
Do with your might.
Things done by halves
Are not done right.

Now let’s talk. What’s your approach to rest? Do you take days off? Is rest a part of your life? What fun activities do you do in your time of rest? Please share.

THE DAY I WORE FAKE LASHES

November 13, 2017

It was my youngest daughter’s dedication so I decided to take my makeup to the next level by putting on fake lashes. After, scanning through an array of lashes at the store, I settled for one that looked more natural and less conspicuous. At the isle in which the lashes were displayed was a lady with very exotic ones on her. I asked her to help me choose an appropriate glue to help me glue the lashes to my eyes. She chose a hair glue for me, telling me it was going to be stronger than the glue specifically made for the lashes. She had lashes on herself so I figured she knew better. There was no need taking her advice with a pinch of salt.

On the day of the occasion, I asked my niece-in-law to help me glue on the lashes. She rubbed the glue on the hairless end of the falsies and asked me to close my eyes while she attached them. In what seemed like forever, she kept pressing on the lashes to ensure that they were well attached. I lifted up my eyes and looked into the bathroom mirror and there was I, looking like a semi-witch. My innocence was gone. My calm look, all gone. The lashes added some character to my face that I didn’t quite like.

“Hmm, is that how it is?” I asked.

“Can we cut it?”

My in-law said cutting it was possible. So she took it off, got a scissors and trimmed the lashes then glued it on again.

When I looked into the mirror, I had graduated from looking like a semi-witch to looking like an apprentice witch. I was pressed for time I left the lashes like that and moved on to other things.

When Mr N saw me, he said, “You don’t look like the woman I married.”

Wandas! I didn’t want to tell him I had fake lashes on yet I felt like I was a different person. On our way to church, that cool summer afternoon, the wind started blowing so fiercely that the left lash slightly detached. So yours truly could see her ‘lashes’ from the corner of her eye dancing to the wind. That was when I knew I had to do something about the lashes before I disgraced myself in church. I asked my in-law:

“Can I just take them off?”

Thankfully, taking them off wasn’t some procedure as I thought. She said I could just peel them off which I did. I was happy to have my life back.