More than a 1000 words…

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It’s true a picture is worth a thousand words. This attached picture presents a compelling argument that we, men can not deny or ignore any longer.

The only logical response for every man (married or not) is to appreciate his special lady/woman.

Show some Love & Respect.
Appreciate, Nurture & Protect her.
Listen & Laugh with her.
Above all, let her know that she is a precious and unique gift from God to you.

Don’t stop there…
Remember, Relationships Do Matter.
Flo

You are not ALONE.

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Don’t get isolated into a false belief posture.
Don’t get bent out of shape by the wrong mindset.
You are not ALONE.
There’s Hope, Help and Support available.

The admonition, "
Be of good cheer"
, often sounds hallow or
foreign in the thick of battles and challenges doesn’t it?
But be encouraged today and know that in the midst of life’s toughest struggles, you will feel lonely and abandoned but guess what ? You are not alone.

In the crazy battles & struggles of life, you will feel isolated and alone but you are not alone.

We know that –
The enemy of our souls is prowling hoping to catch us napping…but not today or ever, because we are going to "Be careful—watching, I like to say we are on a "look-out", yes a look out.

The response to attacks is standing firm and trusting the Lord.
And here’s the phrase, that made my day…remembering others who like us are also fighting and going through similar struggles as well. Simply, YOU ARE NOT ALONE.

Here’s the ”catch’ (if there is one) after a ‘little’ suffering (how little? I can’t say but little), we know who is personally coming to pick us up and set us firmly in place and make us stronger than ever.

So our action & reaction (now) –
A hope-filled smile.
A cracked smile under the pressures because we see the ‘end’ from where we are standing…"To him be all power over all things, forever and ever, Amen.

And you thought you were alone… YOU ARE NOT ALONE.

@pstflo
Inspired from 1 Peter 5:8-11 Living Bible (TLB)

Singles’ Awareness Day (SAD)

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Don’t be SAD on SAD! (get it?)

Teacher don't teach me nonsense!

The world is characterized with all forms of awareness months or days. Some are formalized and recognised e.g. World AIDS Day, Black History Month, Breast Cancer Awareness Month, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day etc.

There are also less formal awareness days/months that nobody remembers or even knows exists unless you attend a ‘happy clappy’ international school like a United World College or you are subscribed to free online ecard websites. An example is International Hugs Day.

Now, there is a final one! – Alone in its category. It is that category which is neither formalised and yet you do not need to be reminded when it comes around because the whole world has conspired to make you know that it is happening. This day is what a close friend of mine has described as the Singles’ Awareness Day. Oh wait, you know this awareness day, it is on the 14th of…

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Bat Boy Syndrome – Seth Goldin (Reblog)

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Got this piece a few days ago, loved it!
I think you will too…a powerful, short, succinct post.
The message is simple…it’s pick-up-yourself-you-can-do-it-time.
One last thing, Ignore the noise and don’t believe the critics or cynics. Go!
‘Flo

Bat boy syndrome – Seth Goldin

Here’s a common fantasy: Your team wins the pennant. It goes on to the World Series. It wins! And you’re there for it, all along, the bat boy, helping out the sluggers, doing your job, proximity to greatness.

The line to get a job at Disney and Google and Pixar is long indeed. Countless people eager to get picked to join a winning team. Not as the person who is going to have to step up and cause success, no, the opportunity sought is to be on the team, to bask without being asked for heroics (which of course, carry risk).

The industrial culture, the resume-building mindset—it’s no wonder so many have bat boy syndrome. The alternative, the alternative of picking yourself, is frightening because we’ve been hoodwinked and brainwashed into believing that it’s not up to us. But it is.

Source: http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2014/02/bat-boy-syndrome.html

“THIS FRAME DIDN’T LOOK LIKE IT EITHER.” – Sinmisola Ogúnyinka

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All that glitters isn’t gold! A popular adage that captures a myopic viewpoint on life and relationship matters. I have heard many similar painful stories, seen many heart breaks. This story is a stern reminder, so please look hard before you jump. Enjoy!

I met this couple a few years back. Sweet-looking things, if you ask me. I thought the wife, Tomi Feyiji, was the most beautiful thing created since Eve. I assume Eve must have been the epitome of female perfection. God wanted to impress Adam, right? Sola Feyiji fitted his wife. He was tall, milk-chocolate, muscular, and polished. The kind of man every woman wanted to take home to her parents. Well, former university queen, Tomi, took him home.

When I met them, they had been married for six years and had a lovely three-year old daughter. Suffice to say, Tomi looked like she’d never had a child. In our church at that time, the class thing was huge, and Sola and Tomi rocked the centre. Tomi was the elegant first lady of her husband’s world. She did nothing but spend her days looking good, and the nights gracing her millionaire husband’s arm at the most prestigious gatherings. Sola spent his life making more and more money as a software developer. People saw them as the couple made in heaven. I did too.

Until I was ‘privileged’ to become their house fellowship leader, a job I did for six hellish months. Sola and Tomi lived in a gated estate in Ikeja with their three-year old daughter, Temi, and eight uniformed staff. As the house fellowship pastor, I visited all my members in the neighborhood an hour before fellowship started, encouraging them to attend. The first few weeks after the centre opened proved to be difficult for me. Tomi was heavily pregnant and prone to crazy mood switches, even during the fellowship. On more than one occasion, I came to the house to find the couple in the middle of a heated argument. So heated, I asked the butler to turn members away. Why did they offer their house for cell fellowship when they knew they were like… this? When I complained to the house fellowship pastor, he explained the church needed the location to attract members from that exclusive estate. But what a mistake it turned out to be. House fellowship in the Feyijis’ house closed three months after Tomi delivered a bouncing baby boy. The family had been given a date for their boy’s coming to church. The day before, as the house fellowship leader, I went to visit. I knew an event planner was in charge of the party so I had no ‘help’ to render in preparation of the party the following day. But to fulfill all righteousness, I visited.

Something must have happened before I got there. When I arrived, the butler and was cowering somewhere, and wanted me to get to the couple and intervene. There was noise everywhere. I heard Tomi screaming, and breaking things. Sola cursed intermittently. I only took a moment to get incoherent details from the butler. Confused and angry, I ran into their bedroom, it wasn’t my first time there to settle a fight, and stopped short. I had never seen anything so crazy outside of Hollywood, and Nollywood.

Tomi had the baby dangling by one leg in her hand. A knife in her other hand. Sola was shouting at the top of his voice that he’d kill her if she harmed his son. The baby was screaming and sweating profusely, and Temi hugged her teddy, and cried at one corner of the room. I died several times. “Put the baby down, Sister Tomi, please. Put the knife down.” She screamed something I didn’t hear. And flung the baby in the direction of the husband. People told me I was fat. But that day, I proved the Yoruba saying: a body doesn’t get so huge the owner cannot lift it. I don’t know where the speed came from. I dove in front of Sola, who had ducked because he thought she threw the knife, and caught the baby before he hit the marble floor. No one died, thank God. But I hit my head on the floor, and the baby got away with a broken arm where part of my weight fell on him as I tried to shield him from the hard floor.

Need I say the party didn’t hold the following day? Who could have ever imagined this beautiful frame called Tomi was capable of such madness?

Click for more information: Sinmisola Ogúnyinka’s Books
Facebook: Sinmisola Ogunyinka’s Books
Twitter: @sinmisolaog

Image Licensed under the creative commons license, epSos.de as the original author.

Groundhog Day and the Super Bowl – Seth Goldin (Reblog)

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One way the tribe identifies is through the observance of a holiday, of a group custom, of the thing we all do together that proves we are in sync. People thrive on mass celebration, but as our culture has fragmented, these universal observances are harder to find. We used to watch the same TV shows at the same time, eat the same foods, drive the same car. Given a choice, though, many people take the choice—and so, as the culture fragments, we move away from the center and to the edges.

Halloween and the Super Bowl are the new secular holidays, the group-mania events that prove we’re able to stay in sync. Every year, signed up for it or not, each of us is expected to survive the relentless hype. We see almost a month’s worth of never-ending media about the Super Bowl—business articles, travel articles, legal articles, cooking articles—a huge onslaught of content-free noise.

And every year, the commercials disappoint, while the game includes eleven minutes of action over the course of four hours of not so much.

And yet we do it again and again. Because the corporate hoopla is beside the real point, which is a chance for all of us to talk about the same thing at the same time. This is part of what it means to belong.

While the Super Bowl is a large-scale example of this happening across a huge swath of people, these occurences happen often in much smaller tribes as well. The buzz about Fashion Week or CES or the latest from Sundance are micro varieties of the same desire to be in sync. Your customers and your employees want to feel what it feels to do what other people are doing. Not everyone, just the people they identify with.

It’s easy to be persuaded that this event is somehow about the game, or the coverage or the hype, but it’s not. Like Groundhog day, it’s a pointless thing we do over and over again, because hanging out with people you care about (even if it’s just to eat junk food and talk about how bad the commercials are) is almost always worth doing.

Source: posted on Seth’s Blog here- http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2014/02/groundhog-day-and-the-super-bowl.html

Should I move on?

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Dear Reader,

I went on a date this past Saturday with a man I met on a dating site. Now they say not to start planning your wedding when you’re sitting across from your date, and I swear, I wasn’t!
But I did play Rihanna’s “Where have you been” like five times the morning after my first long phone call with him.

I recalled the popular adage below. I am the PRIZE.

Inline image 1

See, I’m in my mid-ish thirties, and I can officially say I’d like to be coupled up soon. But not for the usual “desperation” reasons. I just want my partner as I journey through this life. My homie. My dawg. My advocate. My defender. And me, I will cook for him. And be loyal. And his supporter (I mean emotionally, not financially o. We will support each other in that respect). So help me God. Amen.

Anyway, back to the date. He lives in New York. I live in in the Midwest. I had made plans to visit my sister on the east coast (way before we met online) and so we decided he would drive down to see me while I was there.

After a flurry of emotions and activities that included my sister accidentally sending photos of me posing in like six different possible date outfits to a total stranger in Dallas, I was on my way to meet him at a cafe near my sister’s house. We met and he gave me a hug, My sister kinda read him the riot act (make sure she comes home alive) until I elbowed her in the ribs and waved her goodbye.

We sat. He ate. I watched and had some tea. I had had breakfast earlier and eggs are just not the most appealing food when your stomach is full of butterflies.

He was definitely older than the photos of himself he had placed on Match. But he wasn’t bad looking. He was dressed in khakis and a long-sleeved shirt. I was wearing light makeup, a tunic, leggings and tall boots.

After he was done, we hopped into the car and began the drive to a town two and a half hours away. Our date was going to be a college football game. He was nice, kind, caring. Made sure I was warm, explained every play to me (and I still didn’t get it). He’d test me by asking what was going to happen next. I could never give a right answer. What can I say? I hate numbers!

We drove back. I noticed him look at his phone a few times. We went to a steakhouse and had a lovely meal. I thought it was lovely, anyway.
He dropped me back at the cafe and my sister picked me up. I checked up with him once I got home to make sure he’d found a hotel, was safe, etc. He said he was fine.

And since then it’s just been text messages…until I told him, look, if you’re no longer interested, let me know.
He said he still is but still hasn’t called, only text messages.

Now,
I’m wondering if I should take the hint and move on? What do you guys think?

Ciao,
I am …
Alone in the City.

5 Things I tell Young Wives About Sex (Reblog)

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Powerful article…the advertised new book is on my 2014 book list.

close up happy couple 246x167 5 Things I Tell Young Wives About SEX photoWhen my sister-in-law was in the hospital in labor with my niece, I thought it would be an ideal time to show her (and everyone else in the room) the fabric I’d picked out for my bridesmaid dresses.

I. Kid. You. Not.

I literally laid the fabric across the foot of her hospital bed and asked for opinions.

Can you believe it?

As a 21-year-old soon-to-be bride, I was dripping with self-absorbed wedding enthusiasm. Blind within my own tunnel vision of cake flavors, processional songs and flower bouquets.

And fabric choices for the bridesmaid dresses.

I wasn’t even phased by the look upon my sister-in-law’s face that seemed to scream (between contractions), "Seriously?! Now?! You want to show me this now?!"

I even went on to elaborate about a lace overlay that was going on the bodice of the dresses. It would have all been so comical at the time. If it hadn’t, of course, been…well… so true.

I mean, I was serious about this fabric. (Stunning shade of green, in case you were wondering).

Well, that baby niece just turned 21. Ironic how time passes. And I look back and laugh about my antics that day in the labor room. Someone else’s labor room. Even my sister-in-law laughs about it.

If I’d known then what I know now, instead of spreading dress fabric across the foot of a hospital bed, I would have been more concerned with someone telling me a thing or two about marriage.

If I’d known then what I know now, I would have sought the words of wise mature married Christian women who would share with me. About grace. About growing up. About leaving and cleaving.

And about sex.

If I had known then what I know now, I would have been better able to brace myself for and seek solutions for the real struggles my first husband and I encountered with our sexual relationship.

I always figured we would sort those struggles out "someday," but I never really walked in the direction of someday. Our "someday" showed up in the form of divorce papers. And unrelenting emotional pain.

No, I can’t go back. What I can do, though, is be the wiser woman and share with younger women what I have learned about marriage and sex.

When my co-author and I set out to writea book about sexual intimacy based in God’s Word, we were thinking not only of the countless people who have been married for awhile, but also of people who are engaged and newly married.

If you are an engaged or newly-married woman, I want you to know that it is easier to build something strong from the start — than to try to mend it after years of damage.

5 Things I Tell Young Wives About Sex…

1. Communication is what makes sex great.

Authentic, vulnerable communication where you seek to understand each other is the difference maker.

Don’t try to read your husband’s mind and don’t expect him to read yours. Talk about sex. Talk about what feels good and what doesn’t. Learn each other’s bodies.

If you want to become more comfortable having sex and talking about it, do both of those things. Often.

2. Your orgasm matters.

If you and your husband do not take to heart the importance of you experiencing sexual pleasure, you will soon find sex to be a chore. You will resentfully endure it at best and outright avoid it at worst.

Sexual pleasure is not just for your husband; it’s for you too.

God’s design of your clitoris is part of His vision for profound intimacy between you and the love of your life.

3. Real sex doesn’t look like a romantic movie.

Real sex is often messy (I mean, literallymessy).

Real sex is often awkward, especially until you get the hang of things.

You may think right now that you want sex to look like it does in your favorite movie, but truth be told, you don’t.

Just like you thought what you most wanted was the perfect wedding… when deep down what you really want is a strong and loving marriage.

Don’t let Hollywood fool you. Real sex is better than fabricated sex.

4. Not all sexual encounters are created equal.

Don’t let any one sexual encounter be your gauge of how things are going in your marriage.

Sometimes sex is "off-the-charts-leaving-me-speechless" amazing. If you are paying attention to points 1 and 2 above, you will have orgasms and soul-drenching connection that will be unlike anything you could have even imagined.

Other times, though, sex feels routine.

When you occasionally have sex that feels routine, don’t slip into paranoia and start thinking things like "we’ve lost the magic" or "he must not be attracted to me" or "the best is behind us." That is destructive thinking that will lead to division and heartache. A better approach is to see point 1.

5. Authentic sexual intimacy will make your marriage better.

This is so hard to see right now, but you’re going to have to take my word on it. If you are like most married couples, you will soon discover that along the way, life gets complicated.

There will be details.

Like mortgage payments. And babies. And car seats. And, "What are we doing for Christmas?" And, "You want to take a job where?!" And dog puke. And minor fender benders. And overtime at work. And, "We’re out of milk. Again." And, "There is 2 inches of water on our basement floor."

Oh, there will be delight and joy and tender memories too.

But it’s the hard stuff and daily grind of doing life that take the greatest toll on a marriage.

Sex helps you navigate all that crap, because it equips you to remember you’re in it together. You will be better able to extend grace. To take a breath. To embrace a long-term perspective on short-term roadblocks.

You will see your husband more as your ally than your adversary.

Those are the 5 things I tell young wives about sex.

What about you? If you’ve been married awhile, share in the comment section what you would tell young wives about sex.

And for more insights on better intimacy in marriage, invest in yourself and your beloved with our book Pursuit of Passion: Discovering True Intimacy in Your Marriage. I genuinely believe you will be glad you did!

Oh, and if your friend, sister or relative is ever in labor, that’s not a good time to ask her opinion on fabric samples.

I’m just saying.

Copyright 2014, Julie Sibert. Intimacy in Marriage Blog.

Source: http://intimacyinmarriage.com/2014/01/09/5-things-i-tell-young-wives-about-sex/