Stories For and About Living Your Truth
Write your own story
By Chanda Temple
What makes you smile? Do yourself a favor and do it.
Silly? Maybe. But it’s your first step to getting to your happy.
Stop letting others set your agenda. You are in charge, so take the lead.
By the end of the day, you’ll be glad you did.
Chanda Temple is a veteran reporter now working in public relations. She blogs at http://www.chandatemplewrites.com. Follow her on Twitter at @chandatemple.
Burgess “BJ” Jeffries. Photo by J.C. Bravo.
Huffman High School math teacher Burgess “BJ” Jeffries is used to dealing in matters that add up.
So when he researched the benefits of how riding a bicycle to work would increase his fitness levels and decrease his carbon foot print, he knew there was only one thing to do. He bought a bicycle in February 2014 and started riding it to work in March 2014. He’s maintained the routine every week, when weather permits.
Does he have a car? Sure. But he says that riding his bicycle increased his energy levels and allows him to help the environment. His ride to work is 3.2 miles, one way, on Roebuck Parkway in eastern Birmingham. He hopes his efforts will encourage others to ride work.
Dr. Condoleeza Rice speaks to students in Birmingham, Ala. at Regions bank. Photo by Chanda Temple.
By Chanda Temple
Former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice always thought she’d be a concert pianist.
She could play the piano and read music before she could read. But by the end of her sophomore year in college, she attended a prestigious music festival and school where music prodigies at the age of 12 had put her piano playing skills to shame.
Hmm, she thought, maybe piano is not for me.
NOTE: This tribute to my mother appears in the May 2015 issue of Birmingham Magazine. Happy Mother’s Day!
By Chanda Temple
Sitting on my desk is one of my favorite photos of my mother.
In it, she’s wearing a pressed dress suit, perfectly coiffed hair and a high-wattage smile — some of my favorite things about her.
My younger sister and I are standing by her side after the two of us appeared in a children’s fashion show — a norm in our young lives during the 1970s in Huntsville. As we walked out of the venue, my mother slipped off her heels, took hold of our little hands and started to escort us down a pair of concrete stairs.
Something about that image must have struck my father because he snapped the photo.
“Cheese!”
By Chanda Temple
I was watching TV late one night and saw an interview with NBC’s Hoda Kotb. Her comments on The Nate Berkus Show had me reaching for my notepad.
She said: “Someone once said the way you spend your days is the way you spend your life. So if you are dissatisfied with your life, just change Monday. And then you change Tuesday, Wednesday and a week.”
If that’s too tall of an order right now, think of how doing just those simple things will change you.
Still not convinced to change? Think of this: If you continue to drag into work on Monday, for example, that’s how you’ll live your life, she said.
So pick up the broken pieces at your feet and get ready to create another great masterpiece. Your future is waiting on you.
Note: This post is part of my #MakeMovesInMay series, a challenge to do things that will improve myself and others in May.
Chanda Temple is a former reporter now working in public relations. She blogs at http://www.chandatemplewrites.com. Follow her on Twitter at @chandatemple.
On this Motivation Monday, take time to clear out the clutter. (Image via Flickr by Sean MacEntee.)
By Chanda Temple
In sticking with my challenge to #MakeMovesInMay toward better living, I finally tackled the stacks of papers piled up in my home office because clutter can stunt creativity.
Scribbled on notepads were quotes I’d collected from interviews, TV programs or social media. As I started to read them, I thought they’d be perfect to share today for Motivation Monday. May they help you on your journey of self improvement.
Once you make it, don’t try to go back and show others what you have done to prove you are worthy, says life coach Tim Storey on Oprah Winfrey’s “Super Soul Sunday.” Stay focused on the present and not the past.
By Chanda Temple
It’s 4 a.m. on the first day of May 2015 and I’m up thinking how will I “Make Moves in May.”
I know I’m not alone. Every time the first of the month rolls around, we promise ourselves that “this is the day I’ll do” this or that for improvement. And by the third day, we’ve fallen back into old habits.
Well, today is M-Day and it’s time to get serious. So for the next 31 days, I’m committing to making moves that will not only change my life but I hope will impact others. I’ll occasionally tweet about my journey and use the hashtag #makemovesinmay.
Birmingham School Board member Sherman Collins Jr. challenges citizens to do 42 acts of kindness in memory of late wife
By Chanda Temple
“Clink! Clink! Clink” go the quarters as Sherman Collins Jr. drops them into an expired parking meter next to a stranger’s car.
“That should help somebody,” he says as he buys $2 worth of time and moves to the next meter in downtown Birmingham.
His actions today come with a special meaning. He’s doing them in honor of his late wife, Katrina Bethune Collins, who was always helping strangers in the smallest of ways.
“She wanted to bless people,” Collins says. “She’d buy people lunch. Feed expired meters. It didn’t have to be someone’s birthday. She would buy flowers and take them to (people’s) grandmothers.”
Birmingham School Board member Sherman Collins Jr. with his wife and their children. Photo credit: Special
By Chanda Temple
Is there crying in ballroom dancing? There is if it involves Noah Galloway.
The veteran combat soldier and double amputee from Birmingham, Ala. had me in tears after I watched him dance his heart out on ABC’s 20th season opener of “Dancing with the Stars” tonight.
Randall Jimerson, far left with siblings Ann, center, baby Mark, Sue and Paul, rear, in early 1963. Photo credit: Special
By Chanda Temple
Imagine you’re the son of a white pastor who’s moved his family from Virginia to Alabama in 1961 to work in Birmingham’s civil rights movement.
You support your father’s cause and his push for equality. But some of those determined to keep things the way they’ve always been in segregated Birmingham, don’t like change. And they tell you so.
“As a young teenager, I’d answer the phone (at the house). …there would be either silence or heavy breathing or ‘Your daddy is gonna be six feet under,’ ” recalled Randall Jimerson.
Such words were hard for Jimerson to hear. But he knew his father, the Rev. Norman C. “Jim” Jimerson, was on the right course, a course to help others and to bring about change for the better in Birmingham.