Wordless Wednesday: Wow

Well, almost wordless....I must say that the President and the First Lady are just awesome! And Mrs. Obama, shake those haters off. You are stunning! Isn't she lovely... (in my best Stevie Wonder impression)?

~Joan

Read more...

It's Not a Dream: America's First Family

It's a reality! Praise God from whom all blessings flow! Let's keep our new first family and administration in our prayers.

~Joan

Read more...

Motivational Monday: My Tribute to Barack Obama

Enjoy!

~Joan

Read more...

Spiritual Sunday: A Week of Obama

I am dedicating this week's posts to the 44th President of the United States of America, Mr. Barack Hussein Obama!

Last week Reverend Kimbrough honored Barack Obama in his sermon entitled Yes We Can, and this week Pastor Brown continued the message of hope and change.

Today's Scripture

12 When Esther's words were reported to Mordecai, 13 he sent back this answer: "Do not think that because you are in the king's house you alone of all the Jews will escape. 14 For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father's family will perish. And who knows but that you have come to royal position for such a time as this?"
15 Then Esther sent this reply to Mordecai: 16 "Go, gather together all the Jews who are in Susa, and fast for me. Do not eat or drink for three days, night or day. I and my maids will fast as you do. When this is done, I will go to the king, even though it is against the law. And if I perish, I perish."

Today's Sermon Title
Such A Time As This

Today's Message (talking points from Impact Church's pastor Olu Brown are in bold)

Like Esther, Barack Obama has been called to risk his life to lead his people--that's the dilemma. God calls us to lead, and we can choose fear or we can choose hope. We all know that our soon to be 44th President chose hope over fear. Thanks be to God that we have nothing to fear because He has already given us the solution and claimed the victory for us. All we need is for one person with a little bit of hope to decide to take a stand and the rest will follow. Think about how God wishes for us all to be like Esther. When God calls us, we must take action regardless of the risks involved. Esther proclaims, "if I perish, I perish." Today Olu said, "if we must die, let us die nobly... because what God is calling us to is greater than what we are leaving behind." As we enter into to this critical and joyous time of change in our country, let us not look back, but look forward and see who we can bless with the gifts and talents that God has given us. Amen!

God Bless,

~Joan

Read more...

Simple Obsession Saturday: Awards and Word Verification Pt. II

Thanks to Alicia at More Than Words, I have been given another blog award. Alicia has also introduced me to a cool way of displaying my blog awards--in a slideshow (see sidebar). Make sure you stop by Alicia's blog and show her some love. She gave this award to her new bloggy buddies, so I will do the same.

And the winners are...

Ryan Ashley Scott at Optimistic Cynicism

Pam at Aunt Pam's Closet

Felicia at All Women: Can I Really Have It All?

3 Baby Chicks

Kel at Girl in the Glasses

Thanks for being my new bloggy buddies!

Now on to more obsessive things. Last Saturday I told you about my simple obsession with Word Verification (WV). Well sad to say, it gets deeper. I've started up my own dictionary, and I'd like for you to humor me and play along. Below are the WV non-words and my proposed definitions. Just for sheer laughs, I'm asking all of you to either use one of the non-words in a sentence or come up with a better definition for one of the words, or you can do both if you're feeling extra jolly.

WV Non-Word Dictionary

Flations—big boobs that can be used as floatation devices
Calisms—phrases that are only known and spoken by Californians
Minesses--something that belongs to you
Pregi--nickname for a pregnant woman
Aminkeg--drunken frat boy utterance

Stater--one who states something--duh! (according to dictionary.com, this is a word, but this is not the "correct" definition)

~Joan

Read more...

Freebie Friday: Editing Services

This Week's Friday Freebie:



Receive the first 10 edited pages of your e-book for free when you purchase my e-book editing services.



The first 2 people who comment on this post are eligible to win. Offer ends January 23, 2009. Stop by next week for another freebie!



~Joan

Read more...

Thankful Thursday: My Husband

If it ain't broke don't fix it! That's one of my mottos in life. My mother says I'm cursed with practicality. My husband is all about change. Change is good right? I'm cool with change if it's necessary, but again, if it ain't broke don't fix it.

Sprint has been my cell phone service provider since 1998. I've been overall happy with the service and have never wanted to switch providers. My husband...my sweet sweet husband decides he wants to switch to T Mobile (former Nextel customer) because he likes their plans better. I was fine with that until he wanted me to jump on the bandwagon. I said absolutely not because I am perfectly content with my Sprint Simply Everything plan (if you have Sprint I highly recommend it). I get everything for $100--no extra charges, no hidden fees. Anyhoo, he left me alone and went over to T Mobile.

Here is the conversation between me and my husband last week while he was at the T Mobile store:
Hubby: T Mobile is offering $10/month home phone service when you open up a new cell phone account.

Me: (Remembering the nightmare it was when we switched our phone service from Comcast to AT&T because he just had to have Direct TV so that he could watch the Redskins on the NFL Ticket and also remembering the fact that the whole fiasco resulted in us changing our home phone number)

No. I don't think that's a good idea because I don't want our number to change again and I don't want the internet to get messed up because I need it for work.

Hubby: It'll be fine. They said we can keep our number and you don't have to worry about the internet because that won't change....we'll still get it through AT&T.

Me: I still don't think it is a good idea. I'll pay the extra money not to go through the hassle. But okay. Whatever....

Here's the saga that began a few days later:

Day 1: Internet goes down.

Day 2: Phone goes down/internet goes up.

Day 3: Both internet and phone go down.

Days 4-6: My husband spend 24 hours a day on the phone with T Mobile and AT&T tech support, and I spend 3 days at my sister's because she has internet.

Day 7: Internet is back up and phone is still down. AT&T truck pulls up in front of the house. AT&T man bangs and digs on the side of my house.

Day 8: My husband takes the little black box back to T Mobile and tells me we have a new phone number.

And guess who it's with? AT& FRICKEN T! So 8 days of drama and we're right back at square one, only with a different phone number. Through this whole ordeal I've resisted the urge to say "I told you so," and I've just nodded my head patiently. Today I wanted to scream! Here is the conversation after my DH told me our phone number has changed AGAIN:

Hubby: I'm taking the T Mobile box back and we have a new number (remorseful sigh).

Me: Why aren't we going with T Mobile so we can keep the number like they said.

Hubby: Because we wouldn't get service for 2 more weeks (yada yada... something about terms and conditions of his plan...yada yada).

Me: I just wish you would listen to me more.

Hubby: Gee, you really know how to kick a man when he's down. I already feel bad enough and now you have to say, 'I told you so.'

Me: I didn't say I told you so. I just said I wish you would listen to me more.

Hubby: Well, I told you so was implied.

Okay, so maybe it was implied. But don't I have the right to be a little upset? Had he listened to me, he wouldn't have gone through 8 days of hell and we would still have the same phone number. Now I've got to send out the quarterly email to family and friends saying, "BTW our phone number has changed AGAIN." People are going to think we're running from bill collectors or something.

Anyway, I know you're waiting for me to get to the point, so I will. Hubbies and significant others do all types of crazy things to annoy us. My mom made a good point when she said, "look at all the things you do to annoy him." The fact of the matter is that he made a mistake and he tried really really hard to fix it. Some people would have just been like, "oh we deal with it." Not my hubby. He worked day and night to try to fix the problem because he knew how important it was to me. My husband is all about change, so why try and change him? If he ain't broke, don't fix him. I thank God for my husband every day!

Who are you thankful for and why?

~Joan

Read more...