Stephanie Life of Determination

Whitney After six years, a well thought out documentary on Whitney Houston has been made.  Whitney is an in-depth look at the life and music of Whitney Houston. Through two hours Kevin Macdonald, writer/director, gave an insight of what Whitney was going through throughout her life and career. The movie opens up with a variety of what was happening during the year 1960s during Whitney’s childhood. Many snapshots and videos showing what her parents had to deal with while raising her and her brothers in Newwark, New Jersey with all the violence and race riots. The film then speeds fast forward to the 1980s where her career really takes off. We see her getting booed at the Soul Awards because the African American community felt she was turning white. Fame was slowing catching up to her. Whitney enjoyed sex and did play around with her sexuality trying to keep it secret to the press until she met R&B artist Bobby Brown. He changed her life for the better and for the worse. 

Books pass the time when I'm at the doctors' offices, so I thought I would put some book reviews on here.   I got my hands on Jody Hedlund's book  Newton & Polly.   I was drawn to her book because of the cover and description.              This is a typical historical faith romance. A boy meets girl, but boy or girl has to fight to be together, usually because of re ligious views and financial class.   Newton & Polly  reminds me a lot of  West Side Story  and even  Romeo and Juliet .  John Newton, a sailor, who sails the sea just living life because he has to.  His father finds him jobs but he tends to screw them up. One day, Newton meets a beautiful dashing woman but is faced with the reality of her being of the wealthy class and he isn’t. She falls madly in love with him, but her father says, "no".  Newton won't take "no" for an answer.  Polly's father will do whatever he can to make sure Newton, the bad boy, will stay clear awa

OMG!! I can't believe it. Pop!  Funko is coming out with an I Love Lucy line. You don't know how excited I am. I love anything Lucille Ball & I Love Lucy. I have a huge collection. One day I should show you my collection because it is pretty crazy.   According to Funko's site, they will be coming out sometime in August 2018. Barnes and Noble and Target will have the exclusive black and white version.  

Award-winning author and speaker Latan Roland Murphy's book " Courageous Women of the Bible" " empowers women through stories of choices that positioned them for success. She encourages her readers to look beyond their circumstances by laying out ways to develop more courage through scripture. She has her readers look at eleven biblical stories such as  Deborah, Widow with Two Coins, Joel, Abigail, Bathsheba, Samantain Women, Mary, Mother of Jesus, Shulammite Women described, Shunammite Women. As someone who isn't very familiar with the Bible I had a hard time connecting the women from the Bible and relating it to myself without having to do more studying. However, I did find some very inspiring messages such as: "Obstacles are simply opportunities with God by our side." "Own your tomorrow by making your way to Jesus today" -p. 48 There are many great messages in her book. However, I really wish she explained in detail more on the eleve

Trailers sure can make movies look good.  For me, this is what happened with Red Sparrow .  Jennifer Lawerance plays a Russian Ballerina who gets injured and is forced into being a Russian spy by her uncle, so she can help pay for her sick mother. While on her mission she runs into an American spy who changes her mind into helping the American catch the Russian mole. This movie takes you on the journey of deciding whom can you trust and whom can you not trust. It is a movie with twists and turns.  I am very surprised this movie was not rated NC-17 for the severity of the nudity, sex, and rape in this film. Red Sparrow is filled with lots of uncomfortable sex scenes.  Not only do you see Jennifer Lawerance's breasts and butt you will also see many men's penises as well. There is a lot of violence including some pretty graphic rape and sex scenes. I am all for movies that have sex and violence in them as long as it has a purpose.  Yes, the sex and violence in this film have

May of 2017 I had a really bad ear infection. I have had sinus infections all the time, but never ear problems. After a variety of antiobotics and ear drops it seemed to go away. Two months later I got another one. My ENT doctor put me back on some more antiobotics and ear drops. It went away again after a month of fighting it again. Then in August it came back again. This time it caused a couple of holes in my ear drum. My ENT said I need surgery. He told me he is going to repair the ear drum and put in a tube. I had to wait 2 1/2 weeks for surgery.  In the meantime he stuck some purple stuff in my ear. This caused my ear to be completely plugged.  Four days before my surgery I got into some gluten causing me to vomit. I was stupid and desided to do a paid taste testing thinking I could get away with it. I was completely wrong. The $30 I made was not worth it. Everytime I throw up it made me get really dizzy. The dizziness caused me to vomit some more. I ended up going to ER becau

Last week Friday, I went to see a play my friend was acting in.  A good friend of mine came with his mother because I had two free tickets.  My stomach wasn't doing very good that whole day. Before leaving I had some of my favorite Progresso Soup (Rice Roasted Chicken Wild Rice). That was a huge mistake. I got to our seats. These seats are you typically theatre seats they are just basic chairs. It sort of like a black box theatre. The building only contains one exit out of the theatre. The worse part is the restroom is downstairs where the actors dressing rooms are. The show got started and my stomach started really getting worse. I was seated clear across the exit. The only way to exit is to walk on the stage area. On top of it, I was seated dead center and would have to climb over a bunch of people. It felt trap and my anxiety shot up. Finally, intermissio n came.  I hated leaving and not congratulating my friend as well as leaving my friend and his mom. But when you have to