Date with Josh

7/26/2011 3:14PM Changed my life!

There I was minding my own business, typing furiously trying to complete a memo and I hear the "ding" of my email alerting me that I have a new email. Disinterestedly, I open it. It's from an Executive assistant to the Partners at my job who I dubbed the "ticket lady" because the only time we get emails from her is when there are tickets to concerts or games that my company is trying to give away (or sell at a reduced price). But this time, my attention was captured within 5 seconds of glancing through the e-mail - among the available tickets to see Keith Urban and Mystics vs San Antonio, there were 6 available suite tickets to the Josh Groban Concert on Wednesday July 27, 2011 at 7:30pm at the Verizon Center!! OMG!

Remembering that the tickets are on a first come first serve basis, I quickly sent an email back to the ticket lady requesting 2 tickets and waited. Oh, did I wait! Thank goodness I had painted my nails because I would have gone to town on my pinky (I'm a recovering nail bitter...7 years and counting).

But at 3:53pm, I got the best news! I got the tickets!!! A squeal escaped before I could control it! I was in Cloud 52! I had thought about purchasing tickets myself when I heard he was coming, but those prices were steep! I love the guy, but COME ON! And out of the blue, I got SUITE tickets! Like a VIP! It can't get any better than that! And of course, I knew who to take with me..my fellow Grobanite and bestest friend, Bunmi!

I had to go to great lengths to get the tickets but I wasn't going to let gas be the stumbling block to my date with Winslow! Thursday couldn't come fast enough! I started boning up on all his songs - Oceano, one of my all-time favorites (I learned the lyrics! And I have no idea what it means) came to mind. Although he released it in 2007, I was really hoping he would sing it....

So Thursday - Bums and I got there at the right time. After trying to find parking in the Executive parking lot with our VIP parking passes (we were rockstars!), we left the car in the capable hands of the parking officials and rushed off! The show started at 8:10pm -

Bums and I

He was magnificent! His voice is so full, so rich and deep and I had to shake myself sometimes - his music is so profound that you can forget where you are. It still comes as a shock to me that that beautifully controlled tenor/baritone can come out of that slip of a man! He sang several of my favorite songs - Oceano (made my night), February song, You are Loved (with a twist), Per Te, Higher Window, War at Home, Bells of NY City, Galileo (Bunmi's new favorite), Alejate - Bunmi's all-time fav, you should've seen her face when Josh was singing this song!,Voce Existe Em Mim (beautiful Portugese song with a beautiful arrangement and lots of drums) and The Wandering Kind, an arrangement he put together when he was 12!. Oh! and he sounded BETTER live!

I should really stop here because I could go on and on about this guy! He sang to a lady for her birthday; I'm sure she will never be the same ever again! He was funny, witty, geeky, quirky and soooo Josh!

Okay, I'm done! I plan to listen to all his songs I have and hunt up the rest! I have fallen in love all over again. I'm actually thinking of quitting my job and moving to New York to find him. I have a beautifully crafted scenario already planned out. Still thinking about it though!

I have attached some of my favorites here for your listening/viewing pleasure!!

Ode to Honeychild

On July 23rd, 1984, a jewel was born in Nigeria into the family of Chief M.K.O Abiola and Mrs S.B. Abiola. She was cute. She would grow up to be one of a kind like those handmade Christian Louboutins that retail for half an arm and a quarter of a leg.



Honeychild at 4

Oyinlomo, to me, is a living, breathing asset. An addition to whatever life she touches. She is giving of herself- her time, her money, her cooking (and that alone is a blog for another day). She is the type of person that you will be blessed to have in your corner. She is smart, like her papa. Whatever she sets her mind to do WILL GET DONE! She's like a bulldog that way; she'll sink her teeth in and never let go until she sees results!

Birthday Gyal and I

I remember about 10+ years ago I was in primary 5 at Saint Gloria's School in Shonibare Estate, Maryland and she was in JS 2 at Atlantic Hall and it was about to rain. I don't really remember exactly what happened but we were stuck in school without a ride. So my sister decided that we would take the bus home. So off we went. Then this torrential rain started. When we got to our busstop (which was another 15 minute walk to our house), Oyin unknotted her navy blue sweater from around her waist and used it to cover both of us; it was really to cover me because by the time we got to Red Hat (this popcorn place close to the bus stop) to wait out the rain, my sister was drenched from head to toe, while just my shoes were wet. I will never forget that day.

She's cute aint she?

Oyin still does things like that now, with slight variations....

She's extremely creative; an expert planner. Be sure to check out Tasteful events Consulting whenever you have a chance. Oyin is the one who call when you have a birthday coming up and you want to do something but you have no clue what that something is! She's the general guru for planning ANYTHING! Brilliant!

Tols, Bums, Oy

Oyin is also really really weird. She barges into your personal space (my room in my case) and starts to dance to a song that only she can hear! Random sturves! Unpredictable is definitely a trait I can attribute to her. I mean who resists kisses one minute and plants a huge on you the next? Yep! Oyin!

Shakara Unlimited

Oyin with the heart big enough to fit the whole of Maryland! Oyin is like a Chocolate Molten Larva Cake- she has a hard exterior and a gooey and soft interior! She comes off as a tough cookie (and don't get me wrong..she is!) but she's more soft than anything. She's loving, open, giving, funny, weird, fun, cool, hot, mean, unpredictable and dependable.


Oyin and Pops



Oy and Shayo!



Oyinlomo, Tola loves thee! I admire you; I look up to you in so many ways. You really rock! I'm happy to call you sister. I'm proud of who are and I can't wait to see what God will do with you and where he will take you. I looked through Proverbs 31 today and it reminds me of you.

Oh! I also did some research on the number 27 and the one that stuck out to me was the fact that it's 3 to the power of 3 (3 x 3 x 3); divinity intensified. May that be applied to every area of your life and existence. May every mountain and obstacle in your life meet the intensified sovereign divinity over your life in Jesus' name!
Je t'aime plus que les mots peuvent dire.
Happy Birthday.

PS - Oy, this is for you -

!!!!!!SPECIAL DELIVERY OYINLOMO!!!!!!

"Doyinlomo, you play hard, you love hard and you most definitely work hard. You pursue your goals with admirable determination. I love you and I know your best years are yet to come. Meet me in Paris for lunch via TX *wink**wink*" - Bunmi

"You are a piece of my everyday life. An important piece of the puzzle that I could never take for granted. A friend that is a complete opposite of me but yet "gets" me. May God bless you and increase you. May He shock you with uncommon favor and take you to heights beyond your imagination. Love you much! Happy Birthday!" - Shayo

2 Chronicles 7 vs 10 - "On the twenty-third day of the seventh month he sent the people to their homes, joyful and glad in heart for the good things the LORD had done for David and Solomon and for his people Israel."

Suzy Homemaker?

I'm confused! Really I am!

My sister, Honeychild, is the cook! She's the mommy! I love it! She makes sure we're well fed and things are running smoothly so I eased into the baby position rather seamlessly. I am the baby, after all!

But lately, I feel this weird need to cook! WHY??? It saddens me! Now don't get me wrong, I can cook but I absolutely don't have to and I definitely don't want to. I mean, why should I? With a professional chef in the house - I'm spoiled. Stew today, Efo (vegetable soup), Okro soup, Buka stew tomorrow with a healthy dash of Jollof rice thrown in!

But yesterday (after I got the good news that my right eye is fine!!!), I cooked! I usually cook out of sheer desperation - Oyin hasn't cooked and I'm starving! That's the way it works! Then, my beautiful, maternal sister will have mercy on me (I mean us) and cook up a storm to last until the next desperate moment. It's a cycle!

That was not the case yesterday! I purposed in my heart to cook chicken stew! OMG!! And now Oyin put it in my head to bake a cake for her birthday (which is tomorrow, BTW) and I'm sitting here at work day-dreaming about frosting choices! I've gone NUTS!

Help me!

Can I Have Your Attention Please?

Hello!!

So something rather dire happened to me last week Sunday; I haven't been able to blog about it until now for reasons I shall explain in a minute. Church was absolutely spectacular. My pastor preached on the Spirit of Victory and how we should see what we say and not the other way around. It was awesome...except that my right eye was itching so bad that I was tempted to pluck out the offending eye and give it a good scratch. But being the demur lady I am, I gave it a cursory tap and rub every once in a while. Then it got worse! On my way home from Church (thank goodness I didn't drive), the flood gates opened and I was weeping profusely...from one eye! I looked like I had just walked into someone's fist!

So, thinking it was just my contact lens acting up again, I dashed into the guest bathroom the minute we pulled into the driveway to rinse out whatever grit had latched onto my lens. Then the unimaginable happened! The contact lens cut into two even pieces! I stared in shock at my semi-new lens that I just put in a week before! And to add insult to injury, that was my last pair! I think I went mad for about 5 minutes after that - I even tried to piece the two parts together IN MY EYE! This has never happened before...EVER! In my 4+ years since I started using contacts.

Quickly, I dashed into my car with one eye (I'm virtually blind without my contacts, really) after toppling over chairs and shoes and headed to the nearest Hour Eyes to get something to stick in my eye. Then ANOTHER shocker: during my test, I realized that even with  the prescription lens thingy, I still couldn't see anything out of my right eye! So the teddy-bear looking optometrist checked the eye and after a few "hmms" and "ahhs" told me that I have a corneal abrasion in my right eye and it's pretty bad. I won't be able to put any lens in the eye because that might cause unwanted complications (like GASP...blindness!).

I have been operating with one good eye since Sunday. Very frustrating. But this whole ordeal got me thinking...

I had been putting off getting a more updated eye exam and new lenses for quite sometime, my rationale being that the ones I have are working so why bother? Well, I had to bother on Sunday didn't I? Now the optometrist didnt say that this happened because I was using weaker lenses but you can bet that I'm never  putting off getting my eyes checked!

Has that ever happened to you? I've had more experiences with procrastinations that have caught up with me that I'd care to count! First it was my car that decided to die on me after I got several pleas to change her. I was forced to change her too! That one still hurts, actually.

I have definitely learned my lesson..I think!

PS - What do you think of the new blog???

JigSaw

Fear. Uncertainty. Doubt.

These words paint a picture of someone who has been walking in a pitch black tunnel with a glimmer of light ahead that seems reachable but this person has been walking for miles and hours and that light is still nothing but a glimmer - afar and unattainable.

I was that person.

Having heard clearly from God concerning my life, I chalked it all up to "the impossible" and turned from it. For years. I now realize that it's easier to do what I did than to admit that it does look like the impossible but then considering that nothing's impossible with this God, maybe, just maybe, with a little faith and action, something good can come out of a dead situation.

Life is like a jigsaw puzzle. You're never supposed to figure it all out. If that was the case, then you won't need God. That's why people go about their lives knowing that something's missing and trying to fill a vacuum only God can fill with other things. But I digress. We are only given a piece of that puzzle at a time. So, sometimes, we get caught up on the little information that we have and lose sight of the big picture. Thank goodness God doesn't!

We either get antsy that things are not going according to plan or as quickly as you'd expect or get comfortable with the little that you have. Two really bad places to be - I will discuss only the first today:

Expecting to set the pace of your life is a common mistake we all make. "I have to graduate by 21, get a correct boyfriend by 22, get engaged by 24, get married in less than a year, have a boy at 27 followed by a girl at 29. Oh yeah! Not to forget the career too - make sure that by 30, I'm pretty well set career wise with a 6 figure salary and a 20 hour work week!" All these things are great! But what if it doesn't work out quite that way? What then? I know the Bible does say that God will do exceedingly abundantly above all that we can ever ask or think but what if all your plans fall flat?
 Does that change who God is? Why do we forget the promisor and focus solely on the promise? When did Jesus become "not enough" for us?

I am happy to announce to you that my previously small glimmer of light is getting bigger day by day, bit by bit. And I believe it's because I came to a point where I stopped grabbing for straws in my restlessness and listened again to what was promised to me. Yeah, it looks ridiculously impossible, but then a dream that can be achieved by you is not from God because you don't need God to get it. This one is going to hurt and I know that I'm going to need to hang on to God for dear life for this one.

I have a piece of the puzzle. I know it's going to be hard waiting for the next piece and trying not to be complacent with the piece that I do have, but His grace is sufficient because at the end of the day, my focus is not on the promise (which is uber cool, by the way), but on the One who promised me. That way, there's no issue if it takes longer than I anticipate because His ways are certainly not my ways.

So I'm hanging on.......

Have a blessed and God-filled day!!

PS - I have started a new venture, DClutterMe (just click on the word to get re-routed), a professional organization business - Be sure to check it out and "like" it on facebook!!