2012 Henri Award Winner Devotional and Motivational Category

Thank you!!!

JOY & COMPANY PRESENTS

THE 2012 CHRISTIAN LITERARY AWARDS

Date:

Saturday, November 3, 2012

Venue:

MT Olive Church of Plano
300 Chrisholm Place
Plano TX

Time:

VIP Reception: 4PM
Awards: 6PM

Tickets:

Awards and VIP Reception: $50
Awards only: $35

To purchase Tickets please visit

http://www.awards.joyandcompany.org/2012awards

CLICK HERE TO

READ FULL INTERVIEW 

Melani Ismail

 CLICK HERE TO VISIT PRO PLAYERS INSIDERS

WEBSITE FOR OTHER NFL NEWS. 

“The Freedom of Letting Go” Overcoming Fear and Apprehending Faith

by Melani A Ismail

 SYNOPSIS

The Freedom of Letting Go is a self help resource that presents as a memoir. The Author uses fun metaphors and a mix of humor to talk about some very serious issues including fear, divorce, bullying, and even tragedy. The Author then presents them as life lessons and information tools.The goal of the Author is to help the readers recognize fear, learn how to overcome it, and walk in faith, while taking them on a real time journey of self discovery.

Melani is currently on a speaking and book signing tour. If you would like to book an appearance date please email asmith@melaniismail.com

“The Freedom of Letting Go”

is also Available for Download:

CLICK 2 DOWNLOAD ON IBOOKS

 CLICK 2 DOWNLOAD ON KINDLE

]]> http://www.melaniismail.com/?feed=rss2&p=490 0 http://www.melaniismail.com/?p=391 http://www.melaniismail.com/?p=391#comments Sat, 07 Jan 2012 19:10:48 +0000 Melani http://www.melaniismail.com/?p=391 I have had this thought more than once since joining twitter so I decided to blog about it…

Im going on my 3rd twitter account so far and I think I finally might keep this one. I had my first twitter account a few years when I first heard the buzz surrounding it. Me, being the self taught techie that I am, I signed up. I always try to stay up on the latest greatest multi million dollar “marketed” fads that come across the various tech sites I visit. During that time, Facebook was in full swing and myspace was nothing more than…well, an empty space. Which in my opinion was quite unfortunate, because I for one thought it was an amazing outlet for independent music discovery. And for those musicians who were forced to go independent for a myriad of reasons not worth naming, it was a great way to reach fans directly. I saw first hand its impact a few years back when I was running a friends site. Almost half of her crowd raised their hands in response to her question of “where’s my myspace friends?”. I would say thats pretty impactful marketing, wouldnt you? Im still convinced to this day that the powers that be had something to do with the demise of myspace. Last time I checked the music industry doesnt benefit off artists who already have hundreds of thousands of fans buying product directly from the artist. Well I digress. Back to this twitter situation. RIP myspace or just maybe Mr. Timberlake can resurrect it from the dead and he can put me in his top friends! 

As I stated earlier, I am on my 3rd account and I am happy with the way its going so far. The first account seemed a major waste of time and facebook seemed like a much more effective way to communicate. Plus I love to talk, and 140 characters seemed extremely stifling. I need room to run my mouth! So I cancelled that account after a few months. I was back to being a facebook junkie. I updated several times a day and if you were my friend you could pretty well access my personality and quirks just based on my posts. I kept my friend list to about 500 and made it so I wasnt publicly visible. I really wasnt too keen on random people knowing me personally or flipping through my photos of friends. Overall, facebook was cool for me. Then, I did a reality show in 2011 and we were encouraged to open twitter acconts. Although reluctant, I obliged. My account quickly started to grow and became very active. I had very little time to add anyone or respond since the show was a time consumer on many levels and twitter was the last priority for me. After we wrapped the show, everything shifted to social media. I had fun interacting while the show was airing and since I was kind of a laid back character I didnt invite much drama. Well, that changed quickly as I was sometimes included in on twitter conversation I wanted no part of. I was even called a few choice names by those who felt I was either for or against their favorite character on the show. And yes, I say character because from my experience, when the cameras come on, the characters come out. Some more than others, but there is bound to be a few who can turn it on for the camera. I personally dont mind it as long as you dont get in my space (no pun intended). I think it definitely makes for good tv and these days thats what tv is about anyway, right? As the weeks went on and my numbers grew I noticed that my attitude would change as soon as I logged on. I began to brace myself for the worst and carefully and slowly read the next posts. I wasnt sure what I was going to get. And for those who know me well they can tell you that I can be a sensitive soul. I rarely get into arguments, and for the most part, shun confrontation if I can help it. But the more I interacted on twitter and my numbers increased the more negative my timeline became. I pretty much only followed the people I knew already and a few industry friends so I could keep up on new projects. I followed Rev Run and Oprah like the rest of the world and every now and then I would add random followers as a courtesy. But the funny thing was, even though I followed less people my timeline remained a bit too negative for my taste and I decided to shut it down. A twitterless life was fine for me and I went back to my facebook ways. At least I could control the posts and keep my friends to a minimum. But I had to admit I kinda missed reading random timelines after a few months and idle time got the best of me, so I decided to open another account. Im glad. This time around has been quite pleasant. I dont get too many references to the show and if I do they are all positive things like they want the show to come back or they enjoyed me on the show. I think  I found my crowd. People who do follow me, do so because they either like what I post or because I got the dope fresh avatars! Okay maybe its the posts over the avis but nonetheless, Im back to reading timelines and I will usually follow people back. I have a few rules. 1. No spamming. 2. Dont blow my DM up if you dont know me like that. 3. Dont blow my DM up even if you do know me like that Lol 4. If you are a jerk, unfollow me first cuz its a matter of time before I unfollow you. 5.Well, Im just writing stuff now so thats about it. I will follow as long as I can. If for some reason I hit a million plus followers this year, its good youre following me now cuz Im not clicking that button a million times! I dont use any of the bots to add followers because I really want to know that people are following me because they find what I have to say interesting or because they want to support what I do. So who knows how fast I will hit my first million, or if twitter will last that long or get ousted by the next new thing. One thing I do know is that if 10 people tell 10 people who tell another 10 people and so on to follow me I wont have to do as much work in marketing my book which is due out in the Spring 2012. (Plug w no shame) Now thats twitter marketing for ya! Have a great day people and feel free to follow me @melaniismail

The next time you hear a politician use the

A billion is a difficult number to comprehend,

but one advertising agency did a good job of

putting that figure into some perspective in

One of its releases. 

A.

A billion-seconds ago it was 1959.

B.

A billion minutes ago Jesus was alive.

C.

A billion hours ago our ancestors were

Living in the Stone Age.

D.

A billion days ago no one on the earth walked on two feet.

E.

A billion dollars ago was only

8 hours and 20 minutes,

at the rate our governments

Are spending it.

While this thought is still fresh in our brain …

Let’s take a look at New Orleans ….

It’s amazing what you can learn with some simple division.

Louisiana Senator,

Mary Landrieu (D)

is presently asking Congress for

250 BILLION DOLLARS

to rebuild New Orleans … Interesting number …

What does it mean?

A

Well… if you are one of the 484,674 residents of New Orleans

(every man, woman, and child)

You each get $516,528.

B

Or… if you have one of the 188,251 homes in

New Orleans , your home gets $1,329,787.

C.

Or… if you are a family of four..

Your family gets $2,066,012.

Imagine, now $700 billion bailing out banks in the US.  That’s enough to fund complete medical care for every man, woman and child currently alive in the US for 11 years!!

50 billion to bail out the auto industry???

Washington , D.C.

&

Ottawa 

< HELLO!!! >

Are all your calculators broken?? 

Accounts Receivable Tax

Building Permit Tax

CDL License Tax

Cigarette Tax

Corporate Income Tax

Dog & Cat License Taxes

Federal Income Tax , Federal Unemployment Tax (FUTA)

Fishing License Tax

Food License Tax

Fuel Permit Tax

Gasoline Tax

Hunting License Tax

Inheritance Tax

Inventory Tax

IRS & Rev. Can. Interest Charges (tax on top of tax)

IRS & Rev. Can. Penalties (tax on top of tax)

Liquor Tax

Luxury Tax

Marriage License Tax

Medicare Tax

Property Tax

Real Estate Tax

Service charge taxes

Social Security Tax

Road Usage Tax (Truckers)

Sales Taxes

Recreational Vehicle Tax

School Tax

State & Prov. Income Tax

State Unemployment Tax (SUTA)

Telephone Federal Excise Tax

Telephone Federal Universal Service Fee Tax upon Tax

Telephone Federal, State and Local Surcharge Tax

Telephone Minimum Usage Surcharge Tax

Telephone Recurring and Non-recurring Charges Tax

Telephone State and Local Tax

Telephone Usage Charge Tax

Utility Tax

Vehicle License Registration Tax

Vehicle Sales Tax

Watercraft Registration Tax

Well Permit Tax

Workers Compensation Tax

Income Tax

Everything Tax

STILL THINK THIS IS FUNNY???

Not one of these taxes existed 100 years ago …

And our nations were the most prosperous in the world.

We had absolutely no national debt …

We had the largest middle class in the world..

And Mom stayed home to raise the kids.

What happened?

Can you spell ‘politicians!’

And I still have to

press ‘1’

for English.

I hope this goes around the

US & CANADA

at least 1 billion times