withdrterri

We all want to make a difference and be successful in some shape, form, or fashion. But let’s be honest. If we have been spending the last year making a difference, then we know success is already operating in our lives. The problem most of us are facing now is how to keep success in motion. After all, as the saying goes: “It doesn’t matter if you’re on the right track or not. If you don’t keep moving, you’ll still get run over.” And sadly, many of us are on the verge of getting run over because we’re resting on our past successes of making a difference rather than moving to our next destination of success. So how do we keep our success in motion? I’m glad you ask. Listen, if we’re going to get to this next destination, we have to be good self-managers of our time, talent, and treasure. With this being said, here are five things we can do to keep our success in motion:

1. Manage our time wisely by not only working hard and playing hard but by resting and relaxing each day.

2. Manage our health wisely by keeping up with our physical and mental wellness. This includes our annual check-ups, physicals, and when necessary, professional counseling.

3. Manage our financial treasure wisely by creating a plan to save some, spend some, and send some to worthy charitable organizations.

4. Manage our relationships wisely by learning to create healthy boundaries and by teaching others how to treat us.

5. Manage our nothings and nobodies wisely by making positive use of those rare moments when we have nothing to do and nobody with whom we must interact (return to #1 and repeat sequence).

Certainly, we can add to this list—and feel free to do so. But let’s start with these five things for now. And hopefully in doing so, we can end this year by managing the momentum we need to keep our success in motion.

SHE with Vainglorious Brides

It's the weekend. And as we continue exploring ways to spice things up with our mates, we've invited SHE of Vainglorious Brides to share a way to break away from the mundane and boost the romance in a marriage. Let's see what SHE has to say to both the new and seasoned Mrs. Read on...

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Ultimately, you and your hubby have an awesome relationship. You spend quality time together. You may not have as much time as you would like due to work, the kids, and just plan ole’ life happening but you still manage to have moments alone to bond and connect. Most times you may catch a movie, take a stroll, or even have dinner at one of your favorite restaurants. If you’re really lucky, the kids will abandon the crib and leave you and hubby alone like two teenagers to swing from the chandeliers. You will set the mood with candles, cook his favorite dish, and serve a sweet romantic wine. The perfect soundtrack for the evening is anything Maxwell. Let’s take it a step further; you even have plans for a hot bubble bath for two with rose petals and the good bubble bath (not Palmolive). Does this sound like you and your hubby? Have you planned an evening like this? If your answer is no, this is a great start for you. However, if your answer is yes, it’s time to spice it up a bit! Your goal should be to make your romantic evenings ones that he will never forget. It’s time to stray away from those typical dates that have become so mundane and optimize your time alone together.

First things first, all the steps we take to set the mood is for us. Men don’t care about all of that. The conservativeness of romance is for us; again, men can take or leave any of it. With that being said, here is your challenge for your next romantic evening alone. Start off the way you normally do or the way I described previously. After dinner is served and you guys are winding down, have him move to the sofa or a comfy dinning chair, preferably with no arms. Blind fold him, tell him to relax, kiss him gently on the lips, and tell him it’s time for dessert. Proceed to the sound system, immediately turn Maxwell off, and turn on something more up beat and sexy like Trey Songz.

You want to start off feeding him different fruits and confections, have him guess what they are. Then, apply caramel or fudge to your nipples and have him taste that next. Once he realizes what it is, he will continue to nibble creating a pleasurable experience for you and him! Now, it’s time for you to do the tasting— hmmm. If that’s not your forte, this is the perfect time to perfect it. Remember, he is blindfolded. You can get loose and let your hair down if you are a little shy. You can even add toppings for your own pleasure. A word of advice, they like it nasty, the messier the better! When you are through, tidy him up a bit, turn Maxwell back on, reapply your lipstick, and grab your glass of wine. Tell him to take his own blindfold off, bat your eyes and say “I don’t know what’s gotten in to me, must be this wine!”

withdrterri

Close your eyes and imagine the melodic sounds of these words as you say them: It’s our anniversary! Are you swaying and smiling yet? No doubt, the group Tony Toni Tone definitely etched these classic words in our memories with its musical hit Anniversary. Isn’t it amazing what music can do to enhance a romantic moment? It helps us to notice and bracket our lives in such a way that we can literally roll the tape of our imaginations and recall priceless past love scenes we’ve experienced. But let's be honest, when is the last time we really enhanced the mood for romance with our Boo? Sure, spontaneity can be an awesome way to add spur-of-the-moment fun to intimacy. However, too many of us have gotten caught up in the mundane dutifulness of sex, which is very different from the sensual unfolding of intimacy in our relationships. Hence, the notion of intentional intimacy speaks volumes. It says, “I want you and I’ve been thinking about you too.”

Well, as StillSoSexy! celebrates its first anniversary, we want you to know we’ve been thinking about you--thinking about our past encounters with you our readers as well as the future we hope to share with you. We’ve been getting busy (so to speak) behind-the-scenes with new ideas, discussion topics, and real-time offline projects we hope to bring to you during our second year. And though we’ve been a little quiet lately, we have not left the relationship that we’ve come to love and enjoy right here at our online women’s center. So over the next few weeks you can expect us to bring you more ways to plan some intimate fun with your Boo.

In the meantime, why not plan a little sumthin’ sumthin’ for this week or weekend? Something we like to call “Back-in-the-Day Role Play”! It can be as simple or elaborate as you’d like. First, start by you and your Boo choosing a memorable romantic encounter you've shared together. Next, recall the music of the day (or even the specific event). When you’ve done so, create an internet radio station based on your favorite song or artist; make a homemade greatest hits CD; or, if you’re feeling really nostalgic, pull out some old cassettes and dust off that tape player you have boxed up in the basement. Finally, spend sometime letting you and your Boo reenact the event while playing your favorite music of that chosen past moment. It’s a great way to recapture a sensual memory while creating still-so-sexy memories for future anniversaries.

Enjoy! And we’ll check-in with you soon…

Anonymous

I saw him across a crowded room. Well, I didn’t see him, I saw his friend. His friend was a tall gorgeous specimen. I thought back quickly to my college friend’s advice. She said, “Trip him!” So that’s what I did when I saw Mario again. Only this time I was sitting on a stage in the club when Mario walked by, I extended my long lean legs and tripped him. Too my surprise, it worked! A brief moment of embarrassment, a quick glance to apologize, a heartwarming smile to set my soul on fire, I was in! Mario, then did something that would change my life forever. He looked at the guy sitting next to me and asked, “Is she with you?” My relationship with Mario fizzled over that summer, but it put in progress the relationship that would last thus far.

The gentleman sitting next to me peeped my antics. He later told me he saw the whole thing—I tripped Mario. In fact, he told me that he thought I was just another club groupie. Over the next few weeks at college night in the club, I ran into this guy several times (the guy who sat next to me on the stage…Jared). He was serious young brother. He had wild hair, a distinct style of dress and dance yet he possessed a quiet elegance. I was comfortable around him. I could let down my 19-year-old guard. We eventually exchanged numbers. He wrote his on a MAC receipt. Over the next few weeks our friendship grew. He was the club driver, you know, that guy who takes everyone to the clubs; the responsible one you could trust. If he took you, he’d make sure to bring you back. Jared was a great guy.

We quickly became friends and over the years remained in touch, even after I return to college in another state. Jared was the kind of guy, I could talk to every couple of months, but the relationship was still the same. We’d talk about our relationships with other people; the high of a new “love” and the woes of a fading one. We could tell each other things we wouldn’t dare tell others. He was still just as important to me as I was to him. My family liked him. Moreover, Mom liked him. Jared was the only guy who could pick me up after 11pm and bring me home the next morning or afternoon. You see, when nothing is going on, you speak freely. So I would tell my mom about all the clubs we hit, the celebs we saw, the dj’s we knew and all about the breakfast spot where we all ended up before returning home. Mom was tickled by it.

It later became apparent that Jared wasn’t just a friend, he was my best friend. He treated me with so much respect that others thought we were dating, even though we were not. Every time we hung out, Jared paid for everything. It got to the point that I became spoiled. I was so spoiled I refused to go anywhere where Jared had a date. You see, I wasn’t going to sit in the back of the car for no one. Where ever Jared was, I was going to have his full attention. And well, that wouldn’t fly well with his girlfriend at the time. We were so young and naive; we didn’t know what was happening.

One winter day, Jared and I planned to meet in the Village to hang out. So much was going on in my life at the time; I was going to tell Jared that I needed a break and we should hang out later in the summer. However, I did go and we ended up at a little quaint restaurant with a jukebox. Loving Annie Lennox as I do, I played every one of her listed song…and commenced to singing each one to Jared. After “Would I lie to you?” was over, Jared asked were we dating? Just like that everything over our past 6 years of friendship came rushing back. The relationship had long been more than a friendship. Everything became an amber tint, and yes, I heard birds chirping. It was then, that I realized I was in love. It was then I realized what he already knew. All those years, I had been entertaining my soul mate. I, now, look back over 15 years of marriage, three kids, one year of dating, in addition to the 6 years of initial friendship, and know—he was right.

Note: The names have been changed to maintain the privacy of the individuals.

By Tisa Joyner Nance

I knew my love before we became lovers. He attended the same church I went to and on occasion we would see each other at our singles’ ministry events. But our friendship didn’t blossom into love until I relocated from New York to New Jersey. Having just moved into the same neighborhood, a mere block away, we just naturally began to hangout. On the nights when I was suffering from severe homesickness, he would take me on long walks through the neighborhood to cheer me up. Unfortunately, the neighborhood we lived in didn’t really offer any solace. But eventually his companionship became the comfort I longed for. We became the best of friends. I found that I could confide in him and he would actually talk so much I would fall asleep on the phone.

It was like he was my kindred spirit. There were times when I would have a personal crisis and he would literally be my knight in shining armor. For instance, there was the time when I was sitting in my apartment in the dark because my fuse blew and I was too afraid to go into the basement alone. So I put a candle in on my windowsill and prayed he would walk down my block on his way home and see it (this was before cell phones). Well, although he had a late night at work, “something” told him to take the long way home and walk down my block just to look up and check on me. He saw my candle and literally rescued me from the dark!!! These types of instances would just keep happening to the point where we were both feeling like something divine was as work.

But it wasn’t just about what he could do for me. It was more about the man he was that made me love him. How he would pick up strangers (especially mothers with children) waiting at the bus stop in the rain or the snow. Or how he would calm down the local drunk attempting to disrupt our summer outdoor services. His compassion and concern for his people were both refreshing and inspiring. With each passing month, I found myself more and more in love with his easy smile, his hearty laughter, his passion for social justice, and how much he loved God.

Two years later, on our wedding day, my love dedicated and sang Bob Marley's song to me: "I Want to Love You." With three of his closest friends as his backup singers, he melodically belted out the words, "I want to love you and treat you right. I want to love you every day and every night.” Nearly 13 years later, we are still committed to learning how to embody these words in our thoughts, words, and deeds everyday. It hasn’t been easy but the good days have outweighed the bad days. The emotional and financial investment in our love has yielded wonderful dividends. Now we can truly answer Bob Marley back when we say, "Yes, this is love, this is love, this is love, this is love that we’re feeling."