How I Take care of My Skin

I'm talking about my skin today because I was reminded by the last meme I took part in - 11 Question Tag - where I answered questions about my beauty regime and my favorite beauty product. While I'm not a cosmetic junkie by any means, I try to use a small number of good quality skin care products to take care of my skin, especially my face. While it's not susceptible to acne, the sun is a different matter altogether and I have noticed that generally, my face tends to be darker than the rest of my body.

You see, when you do not use products with sun protection in a tropical country like Nigeria, the possibility of sun damage is very high. A few years ago, I began to notice the uneven skin tone down the sides of my face. Funnily enough, I never realized how susceptible I was to sunburn until I moved to the United States.

I had gone to the beach with Atala wearing a halter-neck bathing suit and without sunscreen. It was my first summer here after a very dreary spring and I was lapping up the sun like a dog starved of water. However, I had to beg for us to leave after some hours. My back was on fire. You guessed it, I had sunburn on my face and my back. It was so serious that I had to use medication for almost a week after that.

Were You Team Karen or Team Ivy on Smash?

The season finale of the NBC show Smash aired last night, and we finally know who got the leading role. I was kind of disappointed to be honest cos I had been rooting for Ivy to get it throughout most of the season's episodes. By the way, Smash is a portrayal of what it takes to put together a musical based on the life of Marilyn Monroe and get it to Broadway

NBC.com

I liked the show, not just because it was a musical, and followed it semi-religiously every Monday for the past few months. It was well written, and the staged music was just fantastic. They had some pretty interesting characters and some storylines that kept me watching.

The competition between the two would-be leading ladies geared up very from the very first episode when we were introduced to two talented singers vying for the spotlight and the chance to play Marilyn. As the season progressed, we got to know them better, with the two of them striking up an uneasy alliance along the line. The rivalry ratcheted up last week when the character of Uma Thurman, star Rachel Duvall, bowed out of the production of Bombshell among other stuff happening.

So who are the two women battling it out in the ring?

Expectations from Relationships - What are Yours?

One thing I've come to realize as my marriage progresses is that relationships are all about expectations, even as they are about communication. A lot of us have very high expectations of relationships and even much more of marriages. These expectations follow us from childhood, and what we see our parents and other married couples do. We read them in books, watch them in movies and TV and play-act them in the little mummy and daddy drama we take part in with other children.

We also pick some up as adults as we begin to negotiate life on our terms and mix up with different kinds of individuals, at work and at play. When some of these expectations are picked up from broken relationships that are not properly healed, they are known as baggage. I read an excerpt from Timaya's interview in a magazine where he said,

“My bride must be very intelligent, outspoken, caring and loving. Her strongest quality is, she must be God-fearing. A woman that is God-fearing will not jump around and she will be submissive to her man. I’m not searching for a perfect woman. I’m not yet married because I haven’t found a God-fearing woman who will pamper me and our would-be children. A woman that cooks very well and who will stay my side in time of trials. A woman who loves me from the depth of her heart, in spite of my shortcomings.” [Source]

These are indeed some of the expectations we have of relationships, and the people we get into them with. Sometimes we're lucky and we meet the people who fit into our wishes up to an extent that we can live with, and all things being equal, and when there's mutual attraction and love, we get together either in short or long-term relationships. It is actually good to know what you want and expect from the person you want to enter a relationship. And as one gets older, we begin to add to those expectations that we prefer a long-term relationship, that is, marriage.

Bruno Mars' Just The Way You Are - Romance Meets Music

Hope everyone is having a good weekend? This is a hectic one, but gotta share this with you. Just the Way You Are by Bruno Mars is a beautiful song to share with the ones you love. Enjoy...

A Kindle or Book Gift Idea for Mother's Day?

Have you considered 50 Shades of Grey? The Ad below is a really funny spoof but it is Not Safe For Work, and if your kids are sensitive or too wise, do not watch with them. And if you are too squemish, do not watch either. This is Saturday Night Live being as irreverent as possible. Don't say I didn't warn you. That said, let's laugh a little...

Did someone ask what the book is all about? Amazon Description - "When literature student Anastasia Steele goes to interview young entrepreneur Christian Grey, she encounters a man who is beautiful, brilliant, and intimidating. The unworldly, innocent Ana is startled to realize she wants this man and, despite his enigmatic reserve, finds she is desperate to get close to him. Unable to resist Ana’s quiet beauty, wit, and independent spirit, Grey admits he wants her, too—but on his own terms."

You can read blogger Flourishing Florida's thoughts on the book below.

If Tears Could Speak by Salatu Sule

It is almost midnight, and the city is now very quiet. From the balcony where I am sitting, I can see the mild glow of the street lights reflecting off the tarred road. I hear the whoosh of waves beating on the rocks, a sound amplified in the stillness of the night. The children are asleep after the day’s hustle. Though I call them ‘children’, they are all grown up.

Hassan is a strapping young man of twenty-seven and has just started his own business – hard to believe, isn’t it? Walid is nineteen, looks as burly as Hassan and believes he has no more growing up to do. Faiza, your little princess, is twenty-two and it is because of her that we are all here this weekend.

Is it not strange that for the first time in fifteen years, we will be here together again on October 1st? I wonder if this day carries any special significance for Faiza. She was touched much more deeply than anybody else. Hassan went to boarding school shortly afterwards; Walid was young, too young to remember those tumultuous times.

I remember many things, too many things, things I don’t want to remember: Mama and her harsh words, Big Brother and his sudden hostility. I can see the bedroom again as it was on that morning, many Octobers ago. Faiza barges in, in her customary manner, throwing a greeting as she bounds up to the bed where you are lying.

Sign Fireman's Church and Hot Girls in Lagos

This is for those living in Nigeria. Please did anyone actually see this flyer or poster in Lagos? I just saw it on Facebook and wanted to brush it off as a Nollywood spoof but someone insisted it was real? Surely this is one of those Lady Gaga, Rihanna-Beyonce movies?

BTW, I watched the documentary on Sign Fireman and some other Nigerian pastors where he said God is a game and Church is essentially a business, but this is surely crossing the line? I have been SMH since I saw this. Lagos peeps, I await answers...

Obama Makes a Stand for Same Sex Marriage

I don't think Obama speaking out will make such a huge difference in the scheme of things, but it will certainly make for a more interesting time as the election campaigns heat up.

"I had hesitated on gay marriage in part because I thought that civil unions would be sufficient. I was sensitive to the fact that for a lot of people, the word marriage was something that invokes very powerful traditions and religious beliefs. I have to tell you that over the course of several years as I have talked to friends and family and neighbors when I think about members of my own staff who are in incredibly committed monogamous relationships, same-sex relationships, who are raising kids together, when I think about those soldiers or airmen or marines or sailors who are out there fighting on my behalf and yet feel constrained, even now that Don’t Ask Don’t Tell is gone, because they are not able to commit themselves in a marriage, at a certain point I’ve just concluded that for me personally it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same sex couples should be able to get married."

On how Michelle feels on the Issue;

"This is something that, you know, we’ve talked about over the years and she feels the same way that I do. And that is that, in the end the values that I care most deeply about and she cares most deeply about is how we treat other people. We are both practicing Christians and obviously this position may be considered to put us at odds with the views of others but, when we think about our faith, the thing at root that we think about is, not only Christ sacrificing himself on our behalf, but it’s also the Golden Rule; treat others the way you would want to be treated. And I think that’s what we try to impart to our kids and that’s what motivates me as president and I figure the most consistent I can be in being true to those precepts, the better I’ll be as a dad and a husband and, hopefully, the better I’ll be as president."

The Stock Exchange Drama and Ndi Okereke-Onyiuke

As a writer, sometimes you feel like a prophet. I remember researching a subplot for A Heart to Mend in 2009, and deciding to frame it as a vendetta against the backdrop of illegalities in the Nigerian Stock Market. It wasn't totally new to me to be honest.

I had worked in a Nigerian Bank for about 2 years between 2005/06 and admired Soludo and Okereke-Onyuike in the beginning. As a BDO within that period, I advised clients to invest in stocks as well as used some of my own money to do the same. By the time I left the bank, I was less naive about how these things worked.

Some of that experience was what fed into writing the character of Edward in AHTM and setting the book in 2006. That year was quite a volatile one for the financial institutions in Nigeria, some of it good, some bad.

Just before I quit, my bank had just gone public, and employees were getting delayed salaries, and our bonuses were arbitrarily being converted to shares and stock of which we never saw certificates. There were rumors of margin trading, insider dealing, etc. By the time I checked on my stock investments by 2009, it was back to square one, and in some cases, ground zero.

Now, the truth is coming out gradually;

The 11 Question Tag - Who's Next?

It's been quite a while since I did my last meme that I've almost forgotten about them. But I do like reading the getting-to-know you tags on other blogs, and it's nice when someone remembers you. I was tagged by Destiny + Yankeenaijachick Success. Thankyou, dear.

These are the rules - You must post 11 things about yourself. Answer the questions that your tagger posted for you. Create 11 questions, then choose 11 people and tag them to answer your questions. Remember to let them know you tagged them. No tag backs...Let the tagger know when you answered their questions. So these are eleven things about me -

1. I live 8, and sometimes 9hrs behind GMT. This is for those in Naija and UK who beef me on FB and Twitter cos they think I ignore their tweets and chats. I am possibly sleeping by then.

2. To those saying HUH! to the above, don't be fooled by when my blog posts are published, most of them are scheduled days if not weeks in advance.

3. I am from Asaba and like to brag about it, but seriously, I don't know much about Asaba and the people. I sometimes cringe when people ask, oh...do you know so and so family?

4. I like musicals and so I guess it follows that I like the Opera. After attending about three Live Performances, I was almost about to scratch it off my interests list then I saw Madama Butterfly on a large screen. I now know I prefer it that way.