Help Angel raise funds as Mrs. Maryland International 2010!

One lucky supporter can choose a Beijo Bag valued at $95. Choose between the bags pictured above: "Unchain My Heart" in bronze and "Object of My Desire" - one chance to win for $5 or three chances for $10. Feeling lucky? Please click on the button below to securely enter for your chance to win! Drawing will take place on Saturday, May 1, 2010 and you do not need to be present to win!!!


****THE RAFFLE HAS ENDED****

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Your Marriage, Your Friends...Do you need NEW ones?

"We are told that people stay in love because of chemistry, or because they remain intrigued with each other, because of many kindnesses, because of luck. But part of it has got to be forgiveness and gratefulness."

~Ellen Goodman

This movie "Why Did I Get Married Too?" has a lot of married couples and even some singles out there raving about the movie. You have some who say they liked it, some who say they didn't, and some who say that it was a good movie but it was a lot that was unresolved.

There are a lot of lessons you can take from the movie and its not just the noticeable ones that everyone has seemed to pick out. I have watched the movie about 3 or4 times...lol. But every time, I watch it something new comes to me. Almost like with any movie or any book, you rarely get the same thing the second or third go round.

My focus is Marriage and Friends.

As you noticed in the movie all these couples were married and shared EVERYTHING with each other...well at least we thought everything. They all had secrets and only shared what they thought was necessary. Except for Angela, she always kept it real. Even though it was crazy....lol, it was real.

My main concern was for Sheila (Jill Scott). She was a newlywed...a new mother, new trails , new tribulations. And even though she had been married before, as we all know, a bad marriage and a good marriage are totally two different things. Shelia did not have a necessary support system that she need around her....honestly. Well, let me not say support but when it came to what she really needed to hear at the time she needed to hear it, she couldn't get it from her circle because they couldn't even be honest with themselves.

There are 2 issues that you can face with your spouse and your friends. 1) the comfort of your spouse with your friends and 2) knowing when they your friends are as real as you are.

You have some instances, like in the movie, where all the characters grew up together and knew each other, except for Troy (Sheila's husband). Troy did not know Sheila's friends as well as Sheila knew them. So when Sheila has shared some of their business with her girlfriends (who then shared with their husbands), it was not comfortable for Troy. So he asked her to not tell their business to them. Now, some may say they don't think its a big deal. Sheila knows who her friends are and know that it wont go beyond the circle, BUT its not just Sheila's marriage. It is her and Troy's marriage. When it come to the business of your marriage, you HAVE to make sure that your spouse is comfortable with what you say to your friends. Just because you know them, doesn't mean that your spouse is comfortable for them to KNOW business. Now this is not saying that you can not have those important friendships in your life, but you and your spouse should get the courtesy of consideration in your "important friendships".

Now as a newlywed (and I am talking to myself here as well), there are a lot of mistakes that we are going to make along the way. Now, when it comes to the "sisters" of ours that are married, if we can not be real with one another, how can we really keep each other lifted while on this journey called marriage. No couple, and I mean no couple is perfect but we can encourage one anther by being transparent enough to know that each other are not by ourselves. It was so sad to see that Patricia had all the answers, but couldn't have the answer to her own marriage. Angela, just could not get past the past, and Diane got caught up in a mental affair that she really tried to hide something that was so open at home. So for Sheila, who did not really know anything of this was going on, except with Angela, really could not reach out. How can a person give you proper or sound advice when they are hiding so much of their own issues.

So she find new friends?

I wouldn't say find new ones because you all have built a lot on these friendships, BUT know when its time to turn somewhere else for advice. Use your discernment to know when its a good time and when its not. Honestly, some of us"young" folk need to turn to these "seasoned" folk to get the advice we need. Its an awesome thing to have us as generation encouraging one another but we are all doing the same thing at the same time, learning the same thing at the same time. Now we have years on each other as young people, so something we can get from each other, but other things, we need to go to the ones who paved the way and are still holding on strong!

Marriage is a beautiful thing. But what makes it beautiful is the building blocks that makes your "home" stronger as the years go on. Its not always the good, but the bad makes you appreciate it more.

So lets make an effort to show the respect that is needed to our marriage, be the transparent (As much as you can) person in your circle of friends, and know when its time to get advice from our elders so that we can share what wisdom has been filled in us.

Why Did I Get Married Too?

So we've waited a week to talk about it so let's talk! So sorry for those of you who haven't seen it yet...

First my opinion:

The movie was emotionally charged and so full of drama! Real marital drama at that, but I was terribly disappointed with the last 15 minutes of the movie...WHY? Because there were NO lessons learned, nothing for me to grow on in my own marriage. Trying my best not to give EVERYTHING away I'll just say that I was disappointed that in Pat (Janet Jackson) saying, "fix your marriages, you don't want to end up like me" everyone is suddenly happy, in love and marriages fixed. Furthermore, I did not like that we never got to see Pat say, 'Oh I do love my husband and I should not have wanted a divorce, and I'm sad things ended this way.' All we saw was her new potential in the end...no moment of reflection. With the movie missing these two elements I feel like viewers did not leave strengthened, or encouraged, or with a tidbit of wisdom to carry home with them (Sidenote: I do believe that Why Did I Get Married? 1 did provide these things.). Now ignoring the last 15 minutes...the movie was absolutely entertaining!

I know alot of people out there may disagree with me, so please share your thoughts...let's get the debate started in the comments section.

Now, with respect to the couples...there were some lessons to be learned as Dani already pointed out in her latest entry on Rage. I saw lessons on trust, communication, support and forgiveness.

That's all for now. More to come later...

Lets Talk.....

I just think that there are those people that their resolve is strengthened by what it is that's keeping them down, and there are some people that will buckle under it. You never know which one is which until you get into the eighth or ninth round of the fight.

~Ron Perlman

So this past weekend was the opening weekend for Tyler Perry's WHY DID I GET MARRIED TOO? If I must say so must say so myself, this movie was one of a lot of DRAMA, laughs, cries, and most of all lessons to be learned. I know my fellow sisters may decide to write about something from the movie but so am I.

I'm going to write about something I think really spoke out to me in the movie. Me personally, I like to hold stuff in and not talk about things until I feel as though I may have calmed down. Or I can do the total opposite, I want to talk about it right then and there because I don't wanna wait. But either way, its something that I have been thinking about for a long time and now it has boiled and I cant be rational with the situation. RAGE is what I am talking about.

Definition of Rage :
~Violent excitement; eager passion; extreme vehemence of desire, emotion, or suffering, mastering the will.
~Especially, anger accompanied with raving; overmastering wrath; violent anger; fury.
~A violent or raging wind.
~The subject of eager desire; that which is sought after, or prosecuted, with unreasonable or excessive passion; as, to be all the rage.
~To be furious with anger; to be exasperated to fury; to be violently agitated with passion.
~To be violent and tumultuous; to be violently driven or agitated; to act or move furiously; as, the raging sea or winds.
~To toy or act wantonly; to sport.
To enrage.

I'm not going to spoil the movie because I don't know who has seen it or not, but I will say that we must be careful with our actions and what we DON'T say. Life experiences cause us to be who we are and they are lessons, but some of those things, needs to be talked about. Especially MAJOR situations. Beating around the bush leaves nothing but room for when you trim it, something to explode out of it.

Sometimes, what we go through with our spouses, is hard for us to communicate how and what we feel to them. Not because we cant express our feelings, but somethings and sometimes, it hard to get through to your spouse when you both have strong opinions about something. Does that mean you don't talk? No, it actually means, you may need outside help to help you communicate. It is okay to have different opinions but one thing that I heard number of times is that you have to agree to something, even if its to disagree. Just because you may fear that your spouse will not agree does not mean that you keep it to your self. That just adds fuel to the fire.

By letting things build up and then explodes actually cause more hurt and harm than help. You never knows what happens when you act out of rage. But I can promise that nothing positive will come out of the immediate situation when acting in rage. You say things that you don't necessarily mean to say, you act on impulse with notion to hurt. Most of all, after the action has been taken, you can never take it back. Words and actions hurt, especially when done in rage and it will cut deep. Whether it cuts your spouse of you yourself, it may take longer to heal because of rage.

Lets make a promise to ourselves that if there is something that is bothering us that we will talk about it and not keep it in. Especially when its major. Eventually you and your spouse will be able to talk about it if you cant talk about it right away, but know that you MUST TALK.

So Lets Talk.......

Why Did I Get Married Too?

My husband and I went to a midnight showing last night of Tyler Perry's latest blockbuster, Why Did I Get Married Too? I want to tell you all about it, but I won't...you just have one week, then the cat's out of the bag. All I can say is that everyone left the theater feeling emotionally exhausted and DRAMA DRAMA DRAMA!!! I think we'll have a lot to talk about next week.