Jalen Bailey is Baking Cookies & Taking Orders for V-Day!

Picture above courtesy of bing

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About a year ago, I wrote a story about a phenomenal then 8yr old young man by the name of Jalen Bailey whom was cooking up pies and cookies in his kitchen, and these weren’t just any ordinary cookies and pies for the local bake sale at school or church but  had become a lifestyle job for Jalen, whom was destined to make his passion into a profit that would help both he and his mom. Jalen Bailey was using his gift of “baking” to its fullest potential. I wanted to re-share this story to shed even more light on Jalen and his skills and to inform you of how you can get your very own order from Jalen’s bakery. Now that Valentine’s Day or V-Day as I like to call it is fastly approaching, you too can get your hands on some of Jalen’s delectable sweets for either yourself or that special someone in your life. Jalen’s bakery has been doing so great, it caught the eye of Rachel Ray, YESSSSS! the number one chief herself asked Jalen to be a guest on her show. You can read all about Jalen and his reason for baking below as well as watch his appearance on Rachel Ray. I’ll have links below so you follow Jalen’s Bakery Journey and while you’re at it – you can get your yummy order in as well!!

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jalen bailey

 

“I said I wanted to be a millionaire. I thought that wasn’t possible but now I think it is.” Jalen Bailey

Those are the words of 8-year-old Jalen Bailey who started in a baking company called “Jalen’s Bakery” right out of his mom’s small kitchen. Seeing how tiny their kitchen and house was, Jalen decided to put his gift to work by baking and selling cookies –not to get new toys, but to buy his mom a house.

According to HUFF POST, Jalen doesn’t use a cook book, but bakes all of those yummy goods from scratch! This includes his specialty peanut butter cookies, banana nut muffins and vanilla cake in a jar. Just the thought of all of those goodies are making me hungry. The prices for the treats range anywhere from $5 to $15 dollars. He and his mom will even deliver them too you (but only if you’re local).

Jalen’s mom, Sharhonda Mahan, who is a single mother, is his biggest supporter and a business-owner herself. So for Jalen starting his own business didn’t come as much of a surprise to her. According to Sharhonda, Jalen has been receiving many requests for orders and has also baked for his first event in which a vendor offered to purchase a bigger stove for him to keep baking more and more tasty goods.

“He’s very excited. It seems like the more orders he gets, the more excited he gets and the more serious he gets about his business.”

Seeing how passionate and driven her son has been for the past two years about baking and the many requests which floor their door, Sharhonda recently started a GOFUNDME page so that Jalen can start shipping to customers nationwide. The goal is $10,000 for Jalen to own a house, raise funding for college, give back to the community and learn the life of being a young entrepreneur. While this seems like a tall order for an 8-year-old; with Jalen’s drive, his mom’s support and their now booming business, I believe he will be able to complete everything on his list and more.

To keep up with Jalen and find out what he’s cooking up next, you can follow him on one of the social media sites below:

Follow Jalen on his Instagram page entitled jalensblog here

You can place your order for V-Day on his website here 

Get daily motivation, and see his latest recipes on FB here 

The goal of 10K was met, the link to the GoFundMe page above is new and was created so Jalen can help and give back to the community, his goal 2 months ago was to raise enough money to be able to giveaway 200 coats and socks to kids in need. But please visit the page as there are other philanthropy goals that Jalen is doing. What an Inspiration, Way to Go Jalen!!!

 

Roshonda N. Blackmon – Creator of A Blog, A Magazine. It’s JustsumInspiration, Author, Speaker & Encourager

 

Monthly Series: An Attitude of Gratitude – Challenge #7

photo above courtesy of etsy.com

Happy Monday Inspiration! and welcome to the fourth and last week of our Monthly series – Attitude of Gratitude. I do hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving!!. Just in case you missed the November Vibes post, Every Monday and Wednesday for the month of November, I will be posting questions in regards to being grateful. I will answer these questions myself but my hope is that you will answer them too and leave those answers in the comment section.

Some questions may have us digging a little deeper within ourselves to answer them, but in the end – my hope is that you will feel more empowered and begin to see yourself and even your life differently and not just for the month of November – but for every month of the year. You can choose to start a journal if you want but this challenge as you may say, is not just about us writing things out and leaving it in a little book to store it away and go back to it when we’re reflecting on our life but the challenge is to show it!! so as an extra bonus after every question regarding yourself will be a question in which will relate to the world around you, it’ll be called “Our End of the Day Question” – you don’t have to write about it here, but it’ll be something that you’ll just ask yourself everyday at the end of your day. While writing out what we’re “grateful” for is half the battle, showing gratitude for and towards others is the KEY!

So, let’s do both – reflecting and showing….(by the way, the passage above will be in every challenge post to start off, however; a new question will be at the bottom of each post).

Today's Challenge Question is.... (3)

What is your TOP goal and why are you grateful for it (My response)

I would say that my TOP goal is to continue to go hard in exercise and stay healthy. Over the course of the last couple of months (late August), I’ve been on the “Girl, Get your Self Together” movement…lol. It was hard at first because as most of you know, when you go a long time without exercising – it’s a killer once you start back but if you keep at it, you’ll eventually begin to not only see results but improve your strength and overall thinking about your body and the things you put in it. We only get one body and therefore we have to treat it as our temple, not our trashcan.

I’ve also been doing/going to a group class called burn boot camp, trust me when you hear the word “boot camp” I know it makes you cringe because you know your body is going to be pushed to its limits. But I took the challenge and have been doing it thus far, faithfully everyday at 5:30am. It’s motivating to be around other people of all shapes and sizes, whom have the same goal as you “To Get Healthy.” It’s truly been a life changer for me and I absolutely love it. I realize that working out is a lifestyle change as I’m not doing it to fit into a certain garment or to attend a special event to show people or exes what they’ve missed but I’m doing it because I want to be healthy and I want to be able to have energy to do things with my two kids, so I do it strictly for me. I’m just grateful to be able to have the mind to want to get healthy and the will to actually do it.

Now It's Your Turn

– What is your TOP goal and why are you grateful for it; Comment Below –

Your End of the Day Question:

How many of your friends would you trust with my life?

 

Roshonda N. Blackmon – Creator of A Blog, A Magazine. It’s JustsumInspiration, Author, Speaker & Encourager

Let’s Live Well, Laugh Loud, Inspire More & Love Harder!

EnSpired: Hairdresser Spends Well Over 8 hours on Depressed Teens Hair

picture above and below courtesy of Daily Mail UK

This month as we talk about having an Attitude of Gratitude, there’s a 16yr old teenager who’s ever grateful for the time and patience a hairdresser took in taking care of her distressed locks. 20yr old student hairdresser Kayley Olsson of Waterloo, Iowa must have seen many clients and completed many hair transformations but none of them could compare to the client in which she was about to see on a Tuesday morning.

Probably thinking her day was going to be a breeze; it quickly turned into a tornado when a depressed 16yr old young lady (name withheld) sat in her chair to get her hair done, the teen’s hair was so matted and damaged – Kayley had to clear her schedule for the next day and a half.

According to media site Daily Mail UK the teen whom had been battling depression, was so depressed she couldn’t even brush her own hair and came to the salon to intentionally ask for her hair to be cut off.  But Olsson wouldn’t have it and decided to spend the hours needed (13 to be exact) to fix the teens hair whom also had picture day coming up at her school.

‘It honestly broke my heart and we tried everything we could to keep this child’s hair for her! At the end of the day I want this to be a lesson to people.Kayley Olsson

After spending a full 8 hours one day and 5 hours the next day – Kayley was able to turn the teens stressed tresses into a Cinderella story that had a very happy ending. So happy until it even surprised the teen, whom stated:

I will actually smile for my schools pictures today, you made me feel like me again“.’ 

The picture above is the before and below is the after transformation!

Teen girl1Teen girl2

 

Kayley, touched by the incident in regards to the teen – shared her story on her Facebook page in hopes that the situation would raise eyebrows about mental illness and how it affects our children, at the end of the day – Olsson just wanted to make the teen feel special again, stating:

A CHILD should NEVER feel so worthless to not even want to brush their hair. After being here 8 hours yesterday and 5 hours today we finally made this beautiful girl smile and feel like she IS worth something! 

Since posting the occurrence, Kayley has been praised by many for her tremendous sacrifice and work, the post has been viewed over 1.9K times and has also been shared by millions. Way to Go Kayley! What a great way to show and spread gratitude ~

 

Roshonda N. Blackmon – Creator of A Blog, A Magazine. It’s JustsumInspiration, Author, Speaker & Encourager

Let’s Live Well, Laugh Loud, Inspire Often & Love Hard!

Bigger & Better – Must Appreciate Smaller

 

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What are you doing in your small space that is preparing your for your Bigger Place! Why ask God for more money, a bigger house or even a spouse when you’re not managing the money you’re getting now, cleaning the house you have now or taking care and loving yourself right now.

What we do now, really does determine the next steps in our success. Bigger does not mean, I’ll do better. Bigger means I’ll do less and make an even bigger Mess, if you’re not prepared!

Start the preparation today in your small area and stand back and watch how God takes that small and prepare you for your BIGGER!!!!

bigger

Only when you are able to handle eating the smaller portions first.

 

Roshonda N. Blackmon – Creator of JustsumInspiration, Author, Speaker & Encourager

Let’s Live Well, Laugh Loud & Love Hard!

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Feel free to comment or email us @ justsuminspiration@gmail.com

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MUSHROOM NOSE…

If I literally hadMushroom Nose3 a penny for every-time someone said something to me or about me that brought my spirits down about how I look, what I wear, from my hair not being long, to my hair being extra short. To the moles on my body and my face, to my dark skinned tone, to not being skinny enough or being extremely too large. I would be a very rich woman. For the better part of my life, I’ve always been criticized for not looking like the average girl. I always wasn’t enough, no matter how much I tried to kill myself in the gym to lose weight, eat crazy to gain weight, bleach my skin, color my hair or take numerous amounts of supplements to make my hair grow long. And let’s not even speak of going in debt to make sure I dressed the part to look the part of whatever & for whoever….IT NEVER WAS ENOUGH!!

I always struggled with just being ME. Yes, I had the wonderful personality in which I always felt as if I had to parade around like I was in a circus to get people to notice. Growing up, my aunts would get jealous if they saw their boyfriends or someone they potentially liked; talking with me, in which I never understood why – they were the pretty ones, I was the one struggling to get noticed. What they didn’t understand is that I never wanted their guys, I was just delighted to have a guy talk with me without judging my appearance first. It took years upon top of years for me to become comfortable with looking at myself in the mirror, in which I avoided at all cost. I had been told I was UGLY so much until I believed it, it was so bad until I felt if I looked into a mirror it would surely shatter……I really did. I combed my hair by touch and feel. If it felt right, it must have looked right…

As I got older, I began to slowly take a good look in the mirror at myself. I mean a really good look and I noticed that I wasn’t bad looking at all. I had a beautiful smile and there were features aboutnose5.jpgt myself, such as my eyes and how they lit up when I smiled; almost in a flirtatious sense and my eyebrows – they were thin, but how easily they were to shape up and my hair, it wasn’t long but hey, many women are rocking short styles. Once I began to change my mindset about myself on the outside; my inside began to truly shine through as well. While my self-esteem and self-image were beginning to blossom, I took notice to something else about me that I didn’t particularly like and that was……MY NOSE!

I hated my nose, I loved my smile but I hated how my nose spread wide when I smiled – It looked like a big balloon had implanted itself right in the middle of my face. There was nothing that I could do to cover it up either. I literally felt like Rudolph, my nose wasn’t red but I felt his pain. Because I had now built up this new esteem about myself, I wasn’t going to let something as minor as my nose get the best of me but still found myself covering it up when I chatted or laughed with people. While it was a secret and I never told anyone about my nose dilemma….I felt like I was taken 50ft back when someone close to me, someone I loved – called me, mushroom nose. I suddenly felt like all the self-image issues that I had dealt with came rushing back at me – FULL FORCE!

What the individual didn’t know was that I had a complex about my nose. I had seriously thought about going to one of those plastic surgeon shows and having it fixed. It’s the main reason why I hate taking pictures today. While they laughed about it, I didn’t particularly think it was funny…..my mother had a wide nose and it’s the only thing I wish I had not inherited from her. They didn’t know how embarrassed my nose made me feel; they didn’t know the struggles I battled in my mind with accepting my mushroom nose and they caused that war to be re-lived in a matter of 2 seconds.

I felt like going into a corner and crying my eyes out – BUT I DIDN’T…

I had to go back to the mirror and take a good look at not only who I was but WHOM’S I was, the bible says that EVERYTHING, I MEAN EVERYTHING that God created was good and very good and that includes the creation of me and you (Genesis 1:31 & 1 Timothy 4:4). We’re all unique individuals; made, shaped and groomed into the image of our master creator. The enemy knows what it takes to get us down, make us stuck and he knows what tactics to throw our way to keep us buried. He desires to get us so down-trodden until we stay down, not having the strength to look up at the one who came to give us strength. Once he has you down, his intentions is to keep you down by constantly beating you over the back with regret, self-image, low self-esteem and uncomfortable issues that plague us daily.

You’re as handsome and pretty as you want to be, by keeping a mind of defeat you’re the one that’s keeping yourself in uncharted territory in which you were never meant to belong. I dare you today to embrace the GOOD LOOKING! person you are because God didn’t make junk nor trash when he made you. If you have something about yourself that you don’t like – figure out what it is and change it (please nothing crazy or silly like getting ridiculous surgery to obtain a bigger butt, boobs, pecks or flatter abs) you can get butt pads, padded bras and you can work on those abs and/or pecks at the gym or in the comfort of your own home.

Just don’t let anyone define who you are. I’m here to tell you that you are beautiful, I’m here to let you know that you are handsome. If this girl with the mushroom nose can change her mind about how she views herself, then SO CAN YOU

Mushroom Nose2

I Love My #MushroomNose! – Thank you Mama!

IT’S NOT WHAT YOU’RE CALLED – BUT WHAT YOU CHOOSE TO ANSWER TOO!

THE ONLY THING YOU SHOULD ANSWER TOO IS GREATNESS! BECAUSE THAT’S WHAT YOU ARE!!!! YOU WERE CREATED TO BE…

#Greater than your Enemies

#Greater than your Past

#Greater than your Hurt

#Greater than your Pain

#Greater than what your Think of Yourself

Remember, Jesus nailed all of your hurt, pain, habits and hang-ups on the cross a long time ago, so you have no excuse to not live and be Great!

What’s a Flaw that you have about yourself, that you now Embrace! Share Below by stating “I Love My #_______ with a hashtag of what you love about yourself.

 

Roshonda N. BlackmonCreator of JustsumInspiration, Author, Speaker & Encourager

Let’s Live Well, Laugh Loud & Love Hard!

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Feel free to comment or email us @ justsuminspiration@gmail.com

For Daily Inspiration, you can follow us on one or all of the social media sites below:

Facebook:   JustsumInspiration for the Mind, Body & Soul

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