Daily Scripture

Psalm 103:13

New International Version

As a father has compassion on his children, the Lord has compassion on those who fear Him.

My Dad and Jackson at the Dog Beach.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DADDY!!!!

Daily Scripture

Isaiah 43:1-2

New International Version

Do not be afraid, for I have ransomed you. I have called you by name; you are mine.  When you go through deep waters and great trouble, I will be with you. When you go through rivers of difficulty, you will not drown! When you walk through the fire of oppression, you will not be burned up; the flames will not consume you.

With roommates at the National Championship Celebration at Bryant-Denny Stadium

Elena, Sarah, Me, and Stephanie

more friendly bragging...

I have to brag on another entrepreneur friend.  Parker Landers, a graduate of The University of Miami and a good and genuine, hometown friend of mine established Kontour Clothing.  His dream became a reality in the Summer of 2009 and his ideas are portrayed through his impressive graphic tee-shirt designs. 

Click here to view his website

His line consists of designs that are supportive of art and music.  Each graphic tee-shirt is a portrayal of song and music.  Kontour Clothing's goal is to "spread the beauty and symbolism in great songs using our clothing as a canvas."

Be it as no surprise that I personally own the "Take It!" tank-top.  His portrayal of Janis Joplin's "Take Another Little Piece Of My Heart" on a comfortable, wife-beater type tank top was an easy marketing tool to use on me when he presented it to me at a party this summer.  If you know me well then you know that I LOVE wife-beaters and I LOVE Janis. 

He has some really neat songs and designs, so check him out - and while you do, consider his motto. "Listen. Interpret. Portray."

Peace and Love,

BJJ

Parker Landers & I in our hometown. (August 2009)

Daily Scripture

She is clothed with strength and dignity; she can laugh at the days to come.

Proverbs 31:25

New International Version

With friends in Jacksonville Beach, August 2009.  Me, Savannah, and Jennifer.

True Devotion

I spend my days doing the normal things for your typical twenty-two year old girl.  As a student, I study and go to class.  As a friend, I socialize.  As a daughter, I call home to Mom and Daddy.  As a Child Development Associate, I do my practicum hours at the preschool.  As a "dog-mom", I play and go to the park.  As a writer, I blog.  As a blogger, I surf the internet.  As a Christian, I pray - but I cannot honestly say that I keep myself disciplined about reading the Bible each day or staying focused on my various devotional books.  So, to better my relationship with the Lord, I am going to add a "Daily Scripture" post to my blog.  That way, since I am either blogging and/or blog-hopping on a daily basis, I can post the scripture that I read and that inspires me each particular day.  Not only will this help MY relationship with Christ, but it may offer inspiration to someone who reads "The 'Other' Sister." 
I'm very fortunate to have a loving father on this earth just as we are all very fortunate to have a loving heavenly Father.  The father that is Daddy to me gives me a devotional book every year at Christmas.  A couple of years ago he gave me "God Bless The Crimson Tide: Devotions for the Die-Hard Alabama Fan."  Last year he gave me "Daily Steps for God Chicks," a 90-day devotional written by a heroic survivor of breast cancer.  This year, he gave me "Four Paws from Heaven: Devotions for Dog Lovers."  Just as my heavenly Father knows what is best for me at each stage of my life, each devotional book that my earthly father has given me has been right on point for the high's and low's of my life as I grow up.  They are all based on The Bible, which I know is the book that can get me through ANY high's and ALL low's in my life. 
From childhood to adulthood, God's word is the lamp unto our feet.
So, this is my reason and story behind a new addition to my blog. A daily scripture for inspiration, love, comfort, and blessing.
I hope everyone finds the way, the truth, and the life through the Lord and the pages in the Holy Bible.

Peace & Love,
BJJ
The 'Other' Sister

End The R Word

Most close to me know that my passion is in helping children with disabilities. Not only do I want to provide educational and developmental opportunities for children with special needs in my career path, but I also want to be an advocate for their rights and equality.

Too much has the "R-word" been used in mainstream society. I'm disgusted by how many people exchange the word "retard" for any other descriptive word. Not only are the words "retard" and "retarded" politically incorrect but they are also ignorant, not clever, and discriminatory.

In so many talk shows, sitcoms, comedy shows, movies, and civil conversations, is the word used. My friends and those around me are aware at my hatred for the widespread use of the word but even those that understand the prejudice behind it and the passion of my concern about it still say it out of habit - because it has gotten that bad. Teachers and even national political figures have used the word freely. How ignorant and discomforting.

Could you imagine if one of President Obama's cabinet members spoke to the media and used the "N-word?" What kind of havoc and chaos that would cause...
Well, it's discomforting and honestly embarassing to know that the President had nothing to say about one of his cabinet members using the word "retarded" in a public statement. It's the same thing as using the "N-word." It's prejudice, discriminatory, derogatory, and shameful.

Join the national campaign, started by the Special Olympics, that works to end the mainstream use of this word. "SPREAD THE WORD TO END THE WORD" will rally on 3/3/10 to raise awareness and encourage people to show their support at www.r-word.org.

Make this movement known all over the nation, starting in your community - at school, at work, at home, or even at your online community. Please! Help this cause!

Buy a t-shirt, make the r-word pledge, make an impact.

Please... take 5 minutes to watch this video. It means so much to me and those who are touched by the exceptional and loving lives of persons with disabilities.
www.youtube.com/endtherword.

Peace & Love
BJJ
The 'Other' Sister

Mildred

Having to leave Millie at home for a month so that she could recover from her "girl surgery" was a pretty hard thing to do. The little 30 pound bundle of joy is my side-kick and not having her around meant I was pretty darn lonesome. I guess getting back to school and celebrating Alabama's National Championship and beginning my last (well, sorta) semester of college kept me busy. Still, that month could have been better with her here but I'm glad she gave my mom ("Granna") and my dad ("Big Butch") and their dogs some good company. If you've never met Millie or been around a Boxer puppy then you are surely missing out on a true gem in life.

This past week was our first full week together again and when I say together, I mean it. We've done everything together. When I'm cooking dinner for one, I make a little extra that I can give to her when I sit down to eat. Blame this on Granna. Granna introduced Millie to a whole new world of good eats a.k.a. table scraps. Out of my seven daily showers this week, Millie has attempted to hop in the tub with me four of those times. We share the same pillow at night despite my best attempt to make her understand that there are three other pillows on the bed with us. I let her get away with this snuggly habit since my ancient little house lacks any productive insulation during the winter. But, come summer time in the Alabama heat, she and I will have to reach some sort of spacial agreement during our sleeping hours.

We've gone to the park or to the university's quad almost every day, only not going when the weather doesn't permit us to do so. We've gone on walks, watched movies, made lesson plans, and put together preschool curriculum guides.

When she was gone, I knew how much I missed her but I didn't realize how she really is the most loyal friend each and every day. Making note of the fact that she is there in good spirit doing all the boring things I must do to get by like cleaning, studying, and running errands, I've put aside some of my social activities or nap times so that I can do the things that she likes to do. So, despite the sub-freezing temperatures that have struck Tuscaloosa lately, I'm the idiot outside with my bouncing and jumping dog while the people with common sense stay inside by a fire or cranked-up heaters.

They may think I'm the unfortunate fool who has to be outside in the cold playing frisbee or fetch, but actually they are the unfortunate ones. Trust me, a lot of fortune and goodness comes with a friend like Millie.

Apparently my typing just interrupted her nap time and I just got "the eye" and "the sigh." I know what that means, it's time to go play!

peace and puppy love
BJJ
The Other Sister

friendly bragging...

A dear friend and sorority sister of mine is quite the entrepreneur these days with her personally designed stationary company. This business of hers came of no shock or surprise to the rest of us because she always had that sort of glamour and elegant sense of creativity. As a design major she wasn't the type of artist that throws paint on a canvas to portray an abstract thought. Instead, she was the "pretty" artist. Her zest for fashion and design mixed well with her southern upbringing and proper 'letter writing' etiquette so she created Brittany Fuson Stationary & Design.

Click here to view her website

Click here to view/follow her blog

I just thought I would share her talent with my readers because her variety fashionista-inspired paper art is the perfect gift for Valentines Day, Easter, baby showers, wedding showers, birthdays, graduation, and more... plus, she's a super cool girl with a super cool company that she created only months after graduating from the University of Alabama. Who doesn't think that's courageous and impressive? Check out her stuff, it's amazing, and you might find yourself a little jealous if you're as non-artistic as I am.

peace. love.
BJJ - the 'other' sister

Give LOVE

As Valentine's Day approaches, remember that everyone deserves to know love.
Spread some love by donating to one of my favorite organizations. Because they've always said: If you want to be loved, then love.

http://www.savethechildren.org/ - Help children nationwide who are in need.
http://www.stjude.org/ - Help the children's research hospital continue to treat patients regardless of their ability to pay.
http://www.reecesrainbow.org/ - Young children with developmental disabilities in an international orphanage and waiting on their forever homes. Each child has a donation account that helps pay for surgeries, intervention, and education.



much love, much peace, many blessings xoxo
bjj - the other sister

Now You Know

Books are good for the soul. They help us learn and they teach us new things. We can escape reality and live life through characters who allow our imagination to take over and expand our thoughts and ideas. We can indulge in our secret, guilty pleasure by reading trashy romance novels, being an adult and actually giving a damn about what is going on in a fictional teen drama in Upper East Side New York.

Some books have a whole generation of girls believing that true love is best found through vampires... well, I guess we all believe when it comes to love and our partner they can all be some sort of monster.

But some books open our eyes to the things beyond the fictional section at the bookstore. The true crime, the self-help, the biography or novel that changes your life forever.

Being as Barnes and Noble bookstore is my 'escape place' from the chaotic and cramped life of a 22 year old college student, I am intrigued by all the knowledge and wonder that is held within the massive bookstore. I grab my Chai Tea or Skinny Vanilla Latte from the Starbucks counter and I browse. And browse. And browse some more. It's mystifying and wondrous to walk down each aisle and being drawn to so many pages of other people's ideas. Enchanting, really.Needing an escape last night and with the help of a Barnes and Noble giftcard I received as a Christmas gift, I sipped on my Venti sized Chai Tea and browsed the Fiction, Biography, and Self-Help books of the store that sits on McFarland Boulevard. Two and a half hours later I made my purchase and I can't wait to finish up my studying so that I can submerge myself into someone elses reality and begin reading the novel I found.

It is called "Now You Know" by Susan Kelly. (An emotionally vibrant story of family secrets and the sacrifices that love compels us to make). Maybe I just felt connected to it as I read the summary on it's back cover or maybe there are chapters full of life lessons that I need to gain right now in my life. Either way, I'm doubtful that this will be any sort of disappointment when it comes to my pleasure seeking through paperback novels.

The summary is this: Their friendship is born an early-September day in 1947, in a freshman dorm, when the brassily Yankee and free-spirited Libba Charles meets her roommate, a near perfect flower of modest young Southern womanhood in the person of Frances Simpson; and for forty-six years it flourishes.

It ends with a promise. On her deathbed Frances extracts it from her three daughters - the utterly capable homemaker Alice; the recalcitrant Allegra, a recovering alcoholic; and bohemian Eddie, who shrinks in the face of any commitment: their promise to "look after Libba." As if formidable, tough-minded Libba Charles, author of ten book, a literary celebrity, needed looking after.

Yet when they are summoned by Libba to Creek Cabin, their mother's summer hideaway in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina, they go. None of them is prepared, though, for what they will discover there - about their mother, about Libba, about themselves - in this poignant, adroit rendering of reunions and farewells.

The author, Susan Kelly, graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill so obviously she's not an idiot and that makes me a fan of her from the start. But what compelled me to this reading was how close to home this 'emotionally vibrant story' just may be for me (figuratively and literally).

And when you're all alone in this neurotic and chaotic college world and trying to find yourself for who you are, I do not see how this book can be any sort of wasted time. I'm not expecting it to change my being in the way that Mitch Albom's "Tuesdays With Morrie" did but I do hope it helps in some way or the other.

After looking online at reader's reviews of the book I feel as if this might be something that I send to my grandmothers, my aunt, my mother and my sister - all of whom I love so much and have been most blessed and able to experience the kind of divine friendship that only comes from family and womanhood. This just might be that book that changes my life forever.

Everyone has 'that book', don't call me a nerd.

Peace and Love,

BJJ