Let's get back to it, shall we??  If you didn't catch Part 1 of "How Kiki Got Her Groove Back...And Then Some!", you can give it a read here.  In Part 1, I explained my first two steps in my Self Discovery 101 plan, so make sure to read that first.  If you skip it, it would be like baking a cake without creaming the butter and sugar together first!  Mmmm, cake...but I digress! So, now that you’ve recentered yourself in your essential Kikiness (insert your own name here + ness) and started opening yourself up to new experiences, it’s time

Let’s go back in time to 1998.  I had just started my sophomore year of high school, and the album, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, had just been released.  As a teenager, I spent hours in my bedroom listening to music, and boy did I feel like Lauryn really understood me!  But looking back, it amuses me to think about my teenage relationship woes...my crush didn’t like me back, my best friend got a new boyfriend and didn’t have time for me anymore, I’d never find a boyfriend who liked me for my stick-figure physique, etc.  Of course at the

Does this sound all too familiar?  When you were in a relationship with your ex, your social calendar was so full, you had to turn down invitations to hang out with friends from your various social circles, just so you two could have some alone time together.  You two would schedule your weekends together...game night with this group of friends once a month, a double date with this couple every third Thursday, happy hour with the couple you just met in your condo building, and so forth!  But now, now that you’re single and ready to mingle, you have to

People come into your life for a reason or a season...it's that simple.  It's a straightforward truth but one that has taken me my entire adult life to understand and accept.  I still don't have all the answers, nor will I ever, as to why this is, and the eternal optimist in me really struggles with this truth.  As friends, family, and romantic partners have floated in and out of my life over the years, it has become clear that there are no guarantees in life and in love.  This may sound bleak, but the optimist in me still finds

Whether I’m traveling internationally or domestically, I always make sure to leave space in my luggage for these four unusual items:  a sinus rinse kit, a white noise machine, my favorite tea bags, and a travel-size squirt bottle of liquid stevia. The sinus rinse kit has saved me on numerous occasions from being sick during a vacation and missing out on all the fun!  I’m very sensitive to allergens and air pollution when I travel to a new destination, which tends to trigger sinus infections.  I don’t know about you, but when I get a sinus infection, I’m down for

Did I get your attention?!?  Good!  Now listen up!  What you read is true...I was blessed with the opportunity to travel to Europe for FREE the past two summers and am going on my third free trip to Europe next week!  So how did I manage this?  By sponsoring and leading student trips, that’s how!!  :-D  Basically, if enough students sign up for your trip, you get to travel for free.  In the summer of 2015, I led my first student trip to Spain with WorldStrides, the leader in educational travel (with 50 years of experience).  I took a small

As a dear friend shared with me recently, there’s a saying from AA that goes, “Sometimes God does for you what you can’t do for yourself,” or in many cases, what you won’t do for yourself.  At the age of 34, I found myself  in the third long-term relationship of my adult years, and this relationship was going nowhere fast.  The last two months of our two-year relationship were full of long, tearful discussions, fights, and many misunderstandings.  We weren’t connecting on any level whatsoever, but I thought our love for each other would conquer all and get us through

Pack a “Go Bag.”  My go bag is a small pouch/bag/satchel that fits inside of my carry-on.  I put my necessities inside of this pouch to keep at my seat with me, which I pull out before stowing my carry-on in the overhead bin.  There’s nothing more irritating than being stuck behind a person boarding the plane that takes forever to get seated and settled.  You can avoid being that annoying person by having your go bag ready to go at the top of your carry-on.  So what’s in my go bag??  I always include my ear buds/headphones, travel pillow,