Grandfather

His strength protected me

His wisdom educated me

His love shines through me.

Dedicated to the one man who showed me unconditional love this side of heaven.

JC Hogan (1916 - 2007)

I will be offline for awhile but wanted to wish all of my regular blog visitors a Merry Christmas. I hope to resume posting and visiting each one of your blogs again in January.

May God Bless each and every one of you.

P.S. - All guest bloggers who turned in their posts, God willing, I will post them at the beginning of 2008.

If we focus too much on ourselves and the troubles in our lives, it is very difficult to be happy. Lord, refresh my spirit, help me let go of longing to become something I am not and show me how to be the best of who I am.

Random Daily Inspiration

Get and keep a good humored attitude toward life. This will bring you support rather than opposition. Lord, may I always be a peacemaker.

 ~ Author Unknown

O.P.B. stands for Other People Blogs. These are a few places I visited this past week. Check them out:

New Song by Janet Jackson - Is it a Hit or Miss? You Decide: Feedback - LISTEN

Single Black Male has several interesting posts on his blog.  Check out Fundamental Character Flaw.

Don over at Minus the Bars talked about “A man aint supposed to cry…”

MegaRich asked the question about today’s AA books - Are they any good?

One of my favorite writers Bettye Griffin interviewed another writer I admire over on her blog.

Marcia King-Gamble is a national best selling author who has written for Kensington, BET Books and St. Martin’s Press. She now writes for several Harlequin lines.  - Five Questions for . . . Marcia King-Gamble Welcom…

Princess Dominique has  I Love New York 2 Drama - The Buddha Conspiracy on her blog, plus several other entertainment posts.

Well… at this point in time on the show I have summarized conclusively that New York “sexually get’s off” on drama. I am wholly a pleaser by nature, so drama is what I give her. The Punk is a COMPLETE back-stabber and uses New York’s trust in him to manipulate her with his lies. What you also didn’t see is while he was conspiring and plotting against me behind my back he was pretending everything was all good to my face… until I called him out on it… you call it. He got played and pimped by New York but I’m sure he found plenty of other boys to wrestle in South Beach before leaving. Read more…

Bishop Thomas Weeks III and Juanita Bynum on the Morning Shows

This week’s eye candy comes courtesy of Karen Knows Best.

Adrianne Byrd always knows how to find the best eye candy. Check out the hunk for this week:

If you’ve ever been cheated on then you know how it feels to be betrayed. The one who is supposed to have your back, stabs you in the back.  Sometimes the woman he cheated with might not know he’s already involved, but then there are times, well there are times when they know. 

The old saying “it takes two to tango” holds true for cheating. Have you ever met a guy and knew he was offlimits, but still felt the need to get to know him better? Did you trick yourself into believing you could just be friends, but ended up in between the sheets? Did he make false promises saying that his wife or girlfriend doesn’t understand him and he can’t wait to get rid of them for you?

If you’ve ever found yourself in any of the above situations, you are an enabler. You have enabled the man to cheat. How? Well, knowing upfront that a man is involved should have been a sign to you that he is “no good.” Grant it, he might be good in between the sheets, but morally, if he cheats on the woman he has at home with you, then first of all he has little respect for you.

Why be with a man that doesn’t respect you? If he doesn’t respect you, he will treat you like a trick. Oh, he might be spending some benjamins on you, but honey child, where is the respect?

Ask yourself, if you were the woman, would you like the fact that your man is out sleeping with someone else? You already know the answer to that is not NO, but in the words of Whitney, “Hell to the Naw.”

So the next time a man who has a wife or girlfriend offer you his love (a/k/a the beef) without hesitation, tell him you’re not the one and if that doesn’t work, threaten to kick him in the balls. Okay, that might be a little extreme, but you get the point.

C stands for Cheater–don’t be an enabler.

Never change yourself to fit someone else’s needs, because guess what–their needs will change.

I made that statement to someone last week and it stuck with me all weekend. I’m single and meeting new people and wonder if I’m too outspoken, but then I thought about it. If a man can’t deal with a strong willed woman, then he shouldn’t waste my time nor his.

I asked myself the question–How many times have you compromised in a past relationship? The truth. More than I care to put out into cyberspace. But I refuse to compromise again. I had a nice talk with one of my exes recently and they were shocked at some of the things I told them. Mainly because I held back some things when we were together because I didn’t want to hurt their feelings. In the end, me holding back was one of the causes that led to the demise of our relationship. It got to a point where I didn’t care to be in his presence but I wasn’t communicating a lot of issues I was having with him.

Going forward, I promised myself that I will express myself more and be me and whoever can’t deal with it, can keep on keeping on.

Have you ever set down and wrote out a list of the qualities you’re looking for in a man? You know the list that is your ideal Mr. Right. Have you ever met a man that’s come close to the things you have on your list? If so, are you with the guy now or did you find out that the guy isn’t really the guy you wanted even though he fit the criteria you’ve been searching for.

I know exactly what I want, but unfortunately I haven’t met “him” yet

One of my male friends insists that we women say we want a good man with x,y,z qualities, but when we get him we find something else wrong…I told him he’s got it all twisted.  So the question I ask is do you think we really know what we want or we, as women, never satisified?

Thought for Today: WEALTH OF YOUR SPIRIT

The most accurate measure of our worth is how much we value ourselves. When we value who we are, we are sure to draw to us others who value us as much. When we are needy, deficient, lacking confidence and self-esteem, we will find ourselves in situations and among people that reinforce those views.The first step in building relationships is learning to value who we are. We cannot convince others how wonderful and marvelous we are if we do not believe it. We must first convince ourselves. If we repeatedly find ourselves in situations where we are treated badly, we are responsible, not the other person. When we find ourselves in situations where we do not feel wanted, we must have the courage and confidence to leave. Our sense of worth must first come from within. When we have that, we can expect those in our relationships will value us as well.

The wealth of my spirit is the light of my world.—”Acts of Faith”

Next week, I’m opening up the spot for guest blogging.

If you are interested in being a guest blogger during December, please leave a message in the comments field or contact me at sheliagoss@aol.com and I’ll let you know which day I’ll need your post.

The subject should be about relationships. Let’s have some fun.

 The main character Paige loves Denzel and Denzel stars in The Great Debaters. Not only that, you now have a chance to win a copy of the soundtrack before the movie hits theaters on December 25th.

If you’ve read Paige’s Web, leave a review on Amazon.com and be entered to win a copy of The Great Debaters soundtrack.

You can also be entered to win by leaving a comment on this post.

The contest will end at midnight eastern time on Friday, December 14th.

Good luck!

P.S. - Void where prohibited by law and this contest is open to U.S. residents only.