International and cross cultural fairy tale! Real Love Story

From Amy of Making Mrs Mauritz.

This is one sweet tale of love across race, culture and nationality. I came across her blog while they were planning the wedding and I marveled at how awesome love can be when it breaks barriers. Enjoy...

Love can be found in the most unexpected places with the most unexpected person. My unconventional love story began one fateful summer day when I was studying at the Starbucks close to my schools campus. My diligent studying was interrupted by a gorgeous young gentlemen who wanted to know if he could sit with me. I pushed my books to the side and thus began our love story.

Who would have known in 1984 when we were both born that our paths would ever cross and that we were destined to be soul mates? He was born in a tiny town in the midwestern United States to parents of Swedish and German ancestry. I was born in a small city in Nigeria to parents who barely had enough money to make ends meet. Fastforward 23 years and our paths collided. A Texas raised Nigerian girl and a Midwestern American boy meet and fall in love.

Three years later we got married in a wedding celebration that celebrated our love for each other as well as both our cultures and heritages. I am truly blessed to be living a modern day international and cross cultural fairy tale!

___________________

First to comment, do state your choice of chapter 1 - 35, and please leave your email for a fast response, or make sure it is on your profile page.

Have a fantastic weekend people. Remember to do all those secret shopping you need to make Valentine's day special.

I told you I'd see you soon - Real Love Story

By Histiara.com, another blogger I admire a lot, for her writing and the personality that shines through her blog. I hope these stories are as motivating and inspiring as they are for me, this one has some love and life tips too.

First to comment, please state the chapter you'll prefer, or email it to myne @ mynewhitman.com. Cheers!

"Like playing footsies in the dark, our hearts melded before I saw your beautiful face." ~ Maidofheart 1995

I was a self-sufficient, confident, content single who wasn't searching for a man. I was pretty sure no man could melt my stony heart. I’d had years of practice and the carcases I left behind could attest to my uncanny ability to bruise the ego and grind a man to a halt. Life taught me a lesson: 'How to train your heart and never be taken captive again.' But life deceived me. My heart could melt and beat again. Here's my story:

One mildly hot mid-May Friday evening, I'd gone to spend the weekend with one of my best-friends. We were to be bride's maids at her brother's wedding the next day. As I got out of the car and stepped into the house, Nepa struck and the house was plunged into darkness. I groped around and was quite sure I had my bearing right. I took one step up to get into the dining room and bumped into a stone wall, a warm and moving stone wall and almost lost my balance.

"Oh sorry, excuse me. Are you alright?" A deep velvety male voice reached out a hand to steady me.

"I'm fine." I ignored the hand he offered and I shouted at the top of my voice; "Modele are you home? I hope there's petrol in the gen o."

The man chuckled.

My friend came down the stairs and made introductions whilst the lights were still out. We shook hands and I indulged him in a few minutes of polite small talk. When he was leaving he took my hand, pulled me close and whispered in my ears, "See you soon," and he stepped out of the house. Then the lights came back on.

Shock was not the word but the feeling that zipped through me. Who was this guy and how dare he cross my personal space. I was torn between anger and a strange feeling of excitement.

Excitement was one word I hadn't felt in a very long time.

Tips for a Healthier and Happier You!

I got the following guidelines in my email and want to share with you. I'm still struggling with some of them, but from the few I already practice, I know they definitely make me healthier and happier. I shared all on tweeter yesterday and my followers loved it and asked to see them in full. Feel free to share.


Health:

1. Drink plenty of water.
2. Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and dinner like a beggar.
3. Eat more foods that grow ON trees and plants and eat less food that is manufactured IN plants..
4. Live with the 3 E's -- Energy, Enthusiasm and Empathy.
5. Make time to pray.
6. Play more games
7. Read more books than you did in 2010 .
8. Sit in silence for at least 10 minutes each day
9. Sleep at least 7 hours per day.
10. Take a 10-30 minute walk daily. And while you walk, smile.

Personality:

11. Don't compare your life to others. You have no idea what their journey is all about.
12. Don't have negative thoughts on things you cannot control. Instead invest your energy in the positive present moment.
13. Don't over do. Keep your limits.
14. Don't take yourself so seriously. No one else does.
15. Don't waste your precious energy on gossip.
16. Dream more while you are awake.
17. Envy is a waste of time. You already have all you need.
18. Forget issues of the past. Don't remind your partner of his/her mistakes in the past, that will ruin your present happiness.
19. Life is too short to waste time hating anyone. Don't hate others.
20. Make peace with your past so it won't spoil the present.
21. No one is in charge of your happiness except you.
22. Realize that life is a school and you are here to learn. Problems are simply part of the curriculum that appear and fade away but the lessons you learn will last a lifetime.
23. Smile and laugh more.
24. You don't have to win every argument. Agree to disagree...

Society:

25. Call your family often.
26. Each day give something good to others.
27. Forgive everyone for everything.
28. Spend time with people over the age of 70, and under the age of 6.
29. Try to make at least three people smile each day.
30. What other people think of you is none of your business.
31. Your job won't take care of you when you are sick. Your friends will. Stay in touch.

Life:

32. Do the right thing!
33. Get rid of anything that isnt useful,beautiful or joyful.
34. God heals everything.
35. However good or bad a situation is,it will change.
36. No matter how you feel,get up,dress up and show up.
37. The best is yet to come......
38. When you awake alive in the morning,thank God for it.
39. Your innermost is always happy,so be happy.

LAST BUT NOT THE LEAST:

40. Consider forwarding this guide to those you care about.

The kind of person I’d like to marry - Real Love Story

By JustJoxy

hello dear people, and happy Monday! Like I said, I'll be giving out a chapter of A Love Rekindled to the first person to comment. Go ahead and enjoy the real love story for today.

T came up to me as I was sorting mail in my job as a casual post office sorter. It was my last week of employment after having worked there on and off over the past five years. He was a permanent member of staff and I didn’t even notice he was standing beside me till he said hello. I looked up and up and said hello in return. He asked how I was doing, and we exchanged names and chatted for a short while before he had to go on his break. I can’t remember what we both said, but I do know we discovered we both went to the same church, even though I’d never seen him there before.

After he left, I turned to my friends and said something like ‘I’ve met the kind of person I’d like to marry’ or words to that effect. They asked me if he’d worn a wedding band, but I’d not thought to check. It turned out that even though he wasn’t married, he was dating a girl in church. I didn’t mind, it was nice to be friends with a guy who was being genuinely friendly without any strings attached, and I enjoyed the few more conversations we had before I left Royal Mail later that week.

My prayer life changed. My prayer was ‘Dear God, after so long, I have finally met the kind of person I’d like to marry. Lord, please make it happen according to your will.’

This was in December 1994, a few weeks before Christmas. I was travelling to America for the first time early in the New Year too, and was looking forward to my trip. I had a lovely time while I was away, and when I got back, he told me his girlfriend had broken up with him. I commiserated with him, but I was turning cartwheels on the inside!

First Lines

Thanks to Brenda Drake, I'll be sharing the first line of A Love rekindled with you today. The book is mainstream contemporary romance and starts with a nightmare....

The air was smoky from the kerosene lamps and candles whose flames flickered into the darkness.

SO what do you think?

Giveaways - A chance at $75 shopping and a free eBook!

Happy weekend my lovely people, I hope the day has started off well? For us here, there's shopping, movies and some cooking. But hey, let's talk about the one-time-use $75 promotional code that CSN stores is offering to my awesome readers!

CSN Stores has over 200 online stores where you can find everything from stylish furniture, modern bedding, great cookware, furniture and general home decor. This promotional code can be used in any of these stores, to buy anything you want. With Valentine round the corner, this is absolute great timing! How do you win, you ask? Simply leave a comment, follow if you want to, and I'll pick a winner by my next weekend blog.

This CSN giveaway is only for those in the US and Canada, so I'm throwing in something extra. For all the posts this February, the first to comment will get their choice of one chapter from A Love Rekindled emailed to them.

So get commenting and enjoy the rest of your day.

That word ‘Love’ is a mighty big deal to me - Real Love Story

By Flourishing Florida - Now married for two years (December 2010) and with a cute son too...

Four months to our wedding! Hurray!

December 13th has always seemed far away to me b4 now. But suddenly, it feels like tomorrow. This whole ‘Mrs’ thing is so much realer to me now. It’s not my fantasy (& i fantasize a lot!) or my imagination doing over-time. This is actually happening! U betcha am excited as hell, but am also scared shitless. It’s crazy really. Me, Florida. I am really going to be married to a Nigerian man! A naija who’s never been abroad @ that! I mean, am told dat am so frigging emancipated that only an oyibo or oyiborized man can manage me! How did i wind up with MM & to the point that i feel like it’d be ordained to be like this. Doesn’t it just show you that a lot of times God’s ways r so different from what we envisaged. So, how did we meet? I have this very good friend, Nonie, who works @ Zenith Bank with MM. She and MM just recently got jisting. They used to be nodding acquaintances, till something brought them to a closer friendship.

7th Feb. 2008, MM goes to her and says he’s looking for a wife, does she have any recommendation. Nonie said yes, me. Then, she contacted me and warned me not to fuck up oh. She marketed him so well that i, who hadn’t wanted a relationship for the next 6 months to 1 year, said fine. 1 hour later, MM sends me a text introducing himself and says he’d call later. I replied that it was ok. But, work and all made me not to save his number. Thus when he called, i didn’t know it was him. He reintroduced himself and we talked briefly. He said he’d call back, i said ok and we ended the call. Truthfully, i wasn’t impressed! First and foremost, his English was below my usual standard and my standard is pretty astronomical. Secondly, he sounded stiff and too business-like. I was like, does this man realize that he’s wooing a woman and not closing a deal?

In the evening of that day, MM called back as he promised (and majorly scored a point for keeping his word). I’d slept then, but in the morning i sent him a text apologizing for not answering his call. He called again in the day, we talked. I think he called again in the evening, but i can’t quite remember now. Anyways, what i know is that on Val’s day he sort of told me what he wanted. I say ‘sort of’ cos i honestly can’t say now that there was a proposal. My reply: i told him i just wanted friendship. It’d been barely 3 months i walked out of a relationship that wasn’t going anywhere no matter how badly i’d wanted it to, and i felt i needed time to heal properly. MM says if it’s time i needed, no problem. However, one week after that he wanted to know what’s up. It was really funny, cos it’d only been one week! The man knew what he wanted, i tell you. He tried to reassure me that he wasn’t going to be a bad husband and all. I have to admit, i liked hearing that. I told him about my parents and my fears about marriage, but it didn’t deter him. So, i said alrighty. That was the 21st of Feb, 2 weeks on the dot from the first day we spoke to each other!

Was i excited about being engaged? Hell no. I was frightened. I tot i’d just done something really crazy. I mean, am nuts but this was simply over the top. I was afraid of what people would say, so i didn’t want to say anything initially (when i finally started telling, i pushed the date backward so it’d appear that we’d known for a longer period). Nonie, when i did tell her what i’d done, was alarmed. She was like ‘this is too fast, this is too fast’. My mom too! I was really surprised about my mom, cos isn’t she d one who’d been bugging me to consider someone? I guess what stunned her the most was that i hadn’t seen MM face 2 face, (and i was supposed to be so into looks eh) so how can i be so sure he was my Mr Right. All those reactions made me wonder if i’d done the right thing. For starters, am not ur regular fairy-tale meeting kind of girl, so how could i be d one doing this things that sounded like something out of the movies? But the doubts were only for a short while. There was this connection i felt with MM that was incredible. Even though we’d only just known each other, i felt so much @ home with him. I told him loads of things about me, the good, bad and terrible. I tot now he knows i don’t fit into the mould of a ‘good’ girl/wife, that should make him think twice. Nada. He wanted me and that was it.

Debate Tuesday - Who should love the other more?

The man or the woman?

But first of all, happy February everyone, it's the month of love. As usual, this is going to be a love-themed month for me and my blog. Some of you already know that not only is February my SO's birthday, it's also my wedding anniversary. I'm an unabashed romantic and already ideas are popping in my head for ways to make it memorable. But for this month and on this blog, it's not going to be all about me. I've gone looking for love and will be bringing you "Real Love Stories" and from people all around us.

You know how you go to wedding websites and the first place you go to is "Our Story"? I'm a sucker for ohhing and ahhing over those. For someone like me who believes in romance, these stories show that it can be real. LOVE IS POSSIBLE. It happens to people we know and it can happen to anyone. I have several guest bloggers who will be sharing stories of how they met their fiancées and their spouses. Some of them have also been married for several years and will be sharing marriage and relationship tips with us. The "Real Love Stories" starts this week, so watch out. If you want to share with us, send me an email at myne @ mynewhitman.com

Click link to read the REAL LOVE STORIES

OK, before we get all lovey-dovey. There is this question that crops up sometimes. In a relationship, is it the man or the woman who should love the other more?

The received wisdom (old wives tale) seems to be that the woman should be with and marry a man who loves her more. Maybe if men gave themselves such advice, it would be the other way around. I personally think what is more important is that both love each other deeply, and work to nurture and sustain that love. This is because love is not static and in a long term relationship, it tends to move around. Today, she loves him more, tomorrow, he loves her more.

What say you all?

Uche Uwadinachi - Guest Author (Spoken Word Poetry)

I first 'met' Uche Uwadinachi through his blog and then Facebook and finally in Nigeria where we really met at several of the events I attended. he was a charming person and his spoken word poetry even more so. He has a trademark poem, Ebony Goddess, which has won him some prizes and which is a joy to watch him perform. His first collection of poetry is Scar in the heart of pain. In this interview, Uche emphasizes that what he does "is not spoken word but spoken word poetry thus that makes it understandable that every poem, any poem can still be performed. My spoken word poetry is my book in its speech act medium- and I always write my poem not like prose, nor like drama but with that riddle that define the oral tradition where the African poetry began. However I still hope to improve on my style of writing."

I got a complimentary copy of the book and enjoyed most of the poems. In it, there are issues of solitude, absurdity, survival, poverty, and serenity to faith but most of all is the theme of a persisting circle of pain in the life of an individual. "The pain wakes up as an ache of situation but bulge into an entire life of agony and this tradition is seen irresistible in the life of the common man. The hold here strikes at the cells of the mental and physical being of the victim. The common man thus is disfigured with the worries of poverty, unemployment, disease and deaths, thus the continuous struggle against these odds, leaves him drown in despair and desolations with no thoughts of ever surviving."

Enjoy the interview below...

1. Tell us about yourself; a brief autobiography -

My name is Uche Uwadinachi, a priest of poetry. I practice performance poetry and the spoken word as part of my vocation and religion. Am a graduate of the Lagos State University Ojo -2006 with a B.A in English Language. I belong to a two-man music group named Kamazaiah- a culture hip pop movement. Our first compilation album ‘Lifted’ was released in 2007 under the Sound Factory Label and presently we work towards our next album titled ‘Bad Things’. I have featured in several Nigerian movies such as Real love, Love of my life’, Haunted love, Adam and Eve, You broke my heart, Who killed Dele, Veno, Superstory (No pain no gain) among others.

I am the author of the book ‘SCAR in the HEART of pain’ and its spoken word album. The poetry collection was published by BlackArts, while the album was produced by Tuntout Records. In 2006, I won the ANA Lagos poetry festival (poetry performance) prize, by 2010, I won the June Poetry-craze contest, November 2010, I won second place in the Ken Saro-wiwa writing competition for poetry-2010. I have performed my poetry at the 1st Tinapa trade expo, Wordslam 1, 11, 111 and 1V, Bookshelve-LTV8, Poetry-potter, Bristish Council, Samkard Tree-National Library, Pen society, Ayota Art Centre etc.
For a living, I work as a continuity man for TV commercials and reality shows and also as a presenter in Konto Music, a music documentary programme on NTA Channel 10 Lagos, and 9ja TV.

A Gang of Brothers - BlogFest

Thanks to Dominic De Mattos; I've just written my first Young Adult (I think) short story. The rules of the blogfest and the story below. Please excuse typos, I just wrote this now.

Post a passage in which your MC (or your favourite fictional character) shows their bravery. It might be in the face of physical danger, or peer pressure or personal sacrifice. It might be epic bravery or bravery that goes unnoticed by anyone but us, your devoted readers.

I cheerfully admit that the blogfest is mis-named! Bravery is not the absence of fear - that is recklessness. Bravery is overcoming fear, or doing what is right despite the fear.

"Zube, come on, it's break time."

"I don't want to go." Twelve years old Zube shrank in his seat and looked up through the corner of his eyes at the person standing above him and gesturing. Ike was turned sideways, one leg already turned to the direction of the door. Outside waited Paul, fourteen years old and the other members of their neighborhood gang of boys. It was exams next week and Zube wanted to study. He also did not want to hang out anymore with Ike and the other boys, especially Paul.

"You're wasting time," Ike said. He'd not heard Zube and was halfway across the classroom

"I don't..." Zube dragged to his feet as he spoke and shuffled behind Ike as they walked into the bright sunshine.

"Come on," Ike yelled, sprinting forward with a glance over his shoulder.

Zube shaded his eyes with his hand and saw Paul standing in the distance with about three other boys. Sweat break out on his upper lip and he wiped at it with a balled fist as he increased his pace. He had dreamed of the day he would join that close-knit group but now, he hated them. Paul had started the group in their  secondary school as a study group, but since they all lived in th University campus where the school was located, the boys ended up meeting after school too.

Zube had asked his classmate Ike, who lived in the same building with Paul, to get him in. Last week, Paul invited him and gave him the rules. They were a gang of brothers who did everything together and never questioned orders. They studied together, helped each other in their housechores and came together if an older boy tried to harass any of them. It had seemed easy till they invited him for an outing the next day, which involved going one of the boy's house, whose mother was their English teacher. There, they had broken into her desk and took notes from the already prepared test papers.

After doing everything required of him, Zube had gone home and cried. He loved studying and felt deceived; this was not want he wanted. he almost confessed to his father, a lectuer in the university but in the end, could not go through with it. And now here was Paul again, standing with hands across his chest and glaring at him through slitted eyes. Zube stopped walking.