Blog Award

Thanks to Liz @ Clay Jar People for adding me to her award list.

In retrun, I am passing on the award to blogs that I hold close to my heart. These blogs are is a mirror of amazing people and worth following.

Pretty organized palace
Chatting at the sky
Balancing Beauty and Bedlam
Like a warm cup of coffee
My First Kitchen
Christine and Moody
Jennie and Wess
Kristine @ Pajama Mama
Jennifer @ The Hope Studios
Happy House wife
Melissa @ The Inspired Room
Nicole Wick

Here is a rule of passing on the award:
1) Accept the award, post it on your blog together with the name of the person who has granted the award and his or her blog link. 2) Pass the award to 15 other blogs that you’ve discovered. Remember to contact the bloggers to let them know they have been chosen for this award.

Our New Hammock

I always wanted a hammock since I was a kid, it is such a great way to relax in the backyard reading a book, or watching the sunset or even better just laying on it with your loved one. I had only mentioned that I wanted a hammock once in front of my loving husband, and as always he heard me and put it in his mind to get it at the right time.

We just purchased our house and it has the perfect backyard for a hammock, Moody did not waste anytime and surprised me last night by purchasing this lovely hammock. Of course the surprise put a big smile on my face not just because we got our hammock but also to see how thoughtful my habibi is of me all the time.

I can't wait to have our hammock shipped so we can hang it together and of course to spend time on it watching the sunset together.

Thank you ya habib alby.

Couples: Dinner & Movie recommedations??

Getting so inspired by the Top Chef show on Bravo last night, Joicy and I decided to start making one new dish every week. I would like to go around and ask you to share your favorite dish and link it to our post.

Ladies and gentlemen, we are also compiling a list of the most romantic movies in your opinion. Tell me which one and I will include yours. We are planning on watching all of them as we prepare dinner.

With your recommendations, we will have a list of new dishes to cook together and enjoy our time. We need you to be part of the Z Couple family and send us your recommendations.

We can’t wait to hear from you and we can’t wait to enjoy our first dinner and movie based on your recommendations. Just post a comment.

Couples: Trading Shoes!!

See, I am a size 9 shoe, but my wife is a size 8. She probably will kill me once she reads that her shoe size is up on the Internet :).
Have you thought of what your spouse responsibilities are all this past time you been married to? Do you know what you wife go through to make the house clean and presentable? Do you think of how much laundry she takes care of? etc. And, you,, Have you though of how much work your husband do taking care of the house, the cars, the bill, the yard, not even the stressful burden of responsibility of leader of a family worrying about every detail.

The question is, how you truly appreciate someone until you really be in his or her shoes?
So, here is what I thought last week... How about trading places and exchange responsibilities for a whole full week. I thought that would be the only and most fair way to understand and appreciate my wife. So, I decided that next month, I will take care of the house responsibilities from cooking, cleaning, etc and I will ask my wife of taking care of my responsibilities.
So, I asked Joicy to write down all the things, that she does through out her day and tell me exactly how she would like them done. I will take notes and I will try to walk into her shoes to a week.

I also thought that would be a great idea for me to learn many things about her responsibilities. Sure, I will pick up some food receipts and see how hard it is to put a good meal together.

I believe Joicy will learn a few things as well. Maybe she will get to know which oil the car needed, or when is the right time to cut the grass. The reason behind the excises is getting closer to each other by walking into each other shoes and get a sense of what the other person feel through out the day. We also will end up knowing so much and learning so much and completing each other. There is nothing better than the feeling that your spouse completes you.
I will keep you updated on the progress.

One on One with Liz

Today, I have the pleasure to introduce to you my blog friend Liz. The blogger author of Clay Jar People

Liz is "a 22 year old, blessed wife of a wonderful Godly husband. A qualified make up artist but currently work in the financial sector"
Liz and I met through the Internet few month ago when I am was searching for a Godly inspiring real people who live life as God want us to be. The purpose of my search is to see how real people really live life and as the same time be true Godly to their believes as Christians.

Reading Liz's blog about her daily life and about her relationship with her husband motivated me to be a better person and seeks not what it is for me but what is for God.

The most wonderful thing about her blog, that once you start reading it, you will sense the joy and the happiness that no one else but Jesus and Godly heart can provide.
Lets see what she got to say when I asked her a few questions...

How would you introduce yourselves to others and to yourselves?
I’m a child of the Almighty King of the Universe, wife to Christopher, mom to Charlie (3 yr old Yorkie) and Ickle (3 wk old dwarf rabbit), love crafts, music, children. I currently work as an insurance broker.

If you can summarise your lives in one word, what would it be and why?
That’s difficult but I would say… Blessed. We are blessed to be saved and both have stable jobs.

Why did you start blogging and how you find time for it?
I actually started blogging to talk about make up and beauty… but my blog turned into something totally different. I usually blog on the bus to work, or weekends.

What inspires you, and how you come up with ideas for your blog? Life is pretty inspirational, but I get most of my ideas from other blogs that I read, or things that happen to me.

What do you think of marriage? And how you describe yours?
Marriage is a great gift from God and it’s an amazing testimony of His divine plan for the world. Our marriage is a partnership, and like all partnerships you get good times and bad ones. The bad times make you appreciate and enjoy the good times more, as well as making you stronger. The good times are a blessing and make for great memories.

What was your perspective of marriage before you got married and did it change?
I thought marriage was much easier, I didn’t think much would change between us. But I must say, we are much more independent of each other now than we were before we got married. Chris goes to friends more and I get more time alone, to do what I enjoy. This is great, as you get to grow within yourselves as well as together.

If there is any advice you would like to give to newly wed, what it would be? Don’t sweat the small stuff… try to remember why you married your spouse, as there will be times where he/she does things that make you so mad! Always remember to keep God at the centre of your marriage, it’s His design, so He knows what’s best for yours.

I always say, that marriage with difficulties is a living marriage? What are your thoughts?
I agree with that, and that difficulties make you stronger and grow together. I think that we need to keep our eyes on the Lord and make sure He is the focus of our lives and marriages, and even in conflicts keep that in mind.

How you deal with conflict?
I run away J/K No, seriously, I like to deal with conflicts head on, so talk it out and come up with a solution, however its not always possible right away, Just make sure you don’t hold a grudge towards the other person if the conflict isn’t resolved immediately.

Tell us about your past two year’s journey?
It’s been an interesting journey… we’ve grown as people and I must say I think we are much wiser and closer now than before. The Lord has blessed us by providing all our needs, even when we thought we weren’t going to make it through the month.

Are you goal oriented or detail oriented?
A bit of both, I like to have goals that I can aim for, and I’m pretty fussy about details.

What makes you walk up every morning and strive to be the good wife and the better person that God's seeks?
Knowing that if I’m a good wife, my husband is blessed and happy, and that the Lord is glorified through me if I reflect His love and grace.

What is the current book you are reading?
I’m planning to start reading the Power of a Praying Wife or Married for God – I’m still deciding.
What do these words means to you?
God – my Saviour and redeemer
Suffering - what Jesus endured on the cross for me.
Little things – These details can make or break your marriage if you focus to hard on them.
Wisdom – something I still need lots of, but by the grace of God, I will grow to have.
Mistakes – learning curves, we grow and learn from our mistakes.
Destiny – to be a godly wife and mother and glorify the Lord in my life
Doubt – I think we all struggle with doubt sometimes – but we have to remember that the Lord is in control and He knows what’s best.
Husband – the wonderful, loving man I was blessed to marry.

Liz, At the end of this interview, I want to thank you so much to giving the time for the interview. I am sure more people and more people will be inspired by reading your blog and your answers. Once again, you an example of real couple who are living life the Godly way and in the the process inspiring and motivating others. Thank again.

Couples Friends

It is a blessing to have couples friend like Tony, Bisho , Shady, Mercy and the new addition to the church family Kevin and Cristin.
It is so important to have this kind of friendship that provide help, counseling and support.
We took Kevin and Cristin to Providence where we meet with Bassem and Miray and the new wed Nancy and Ramy. It was so much fun to go out with them and enjoy their company. Again, It is a blessing.

Planting For the first time.

My in laws sent us this lovely plant of lilie in celebrate of our first year of marrige. It is Joicy's fav flower, so I thought of planting it, so that it grow longer and last longer....

Couple, need to plant seeds together in order for it to grow, both need to feed it.

Our New Home Take 2

Here are some pictures of our new home. Thank You Lord.

Couples: "Go with God" A Family Motto

Reading this morning my fav blog "like a warm cup of coffee" for Sarah Mae about her family motto reminded me of our family motto.

See, since we moved to the new house and got a place of our own. I found my self asking Joicy to say the words "Go with God" every time I leave the house. It is so interesting that I inherit these things from my parents. I remember how may parents use to say it all the time to one another and to us as kids.

It is great to remember who you belong to as you leave your home and enter the world. It is also important to realize my role in God's plan and will as we leave the house and see the responsibilities of every action and decision we make out in the world.

See, Joicy and I believe that we were planted in here for a reason and we understand that this didn't happened by a chance or accident . it is important for us to realize this and know that God has his plan for us wherever we are. But our role is bloom where we are planted.

We are planning on keeping our motto for the rest of our lives and hoping to seed them in our futures kids hearts.

We got to remember as we Go with God, every action we do does matter and every word is important. We also need to focus on our walk with God during our time in the world.

So, as Sarah encourages you, I would encourage every couple as well, to develop a family motto and plant them in their family hearts.

1 on 1 with Sarah Mae

Let me first start off this post by stating what a pleasure and honor it is to have Sarah the author of great blog titled "Like a Warm Cup of Coffee". I first came across her blog by a chance. I have to say that my first impressions of her blog was like sitting down with a friend and have a great conversions over a warm a cup of coffee.

Even with living so far away, having Sarah on my blog, I felt she is sitting a across from me and chatting like we are face to face. Lets just get to it and find more about Sarah.

Sarah Mae, Tell us about your self? "Hmmm...deep thinking, sensitive, driven, passionate, authentic, in-love-with Jesus, goofball."

If you can summerize Sarah Mae in one word, what would it be and why? "Transparent. I'm not good at the whole "mysterious" thing. I'm pretty much an open journal, with words written in pen that can't be erased. I try to be authentic in everything I do and all of who I am...weaknesses laid bare and all (as you well know if you read my blog!)"

Why did you start blogging and how do you find time for it? "I started blogging in 2007 with a personal family blog. In May of 2008 I decided I wanted to write "for an audience." I wanted to build a community of women that were doing the whole mommy, wifey, womanhood thing where we could learn together on this pilgrimage. Time? Haha...yea, that's a tough one. I mainly write in the evening when my kiddos go to bed, usually around 7:30pm."

What inspires you, and how do you come up with ideas for your blog? "I am inspired by Jesus, coffee, wild blue skies and everyday life! As for ideas, they usually come to me at night once I lay down in the quiet, usually when I'm praying. Sometimes the force is so strong that I just have to get back up and write. I process what I'm learning and growing in through my blog."

In your blog, you wrote 100 things about you? Since then, do you have any more to add, or would you feel to take any off? "It's funny you ask because of this: #70. No, I'm not pregnant. 71. That I know of. Hehe, turns out I was!"

Congratulations. Now, if there is any advice you would like to give to newly wed, what it would be? "Be a servant to one another...fight the good fight, don't give up when things get tough. Don't spend alone time with someone of the opposite sex. Husband, love your wife sacrificially as Jesus loves the church. Wife, respect your husband (even when you don't feel it). "

I always say, that marriage with difficulties, is a living marriage. What are your thoughts? "What I know is this, marriage is difficult. You will have seasons of abundant refreshment and seasons of drought. It will not stay "living" without Jesus at the center, and selflessness surrounding it."

You have a series of posts with the title Motivate me Mondays, let me ask you.. what makes you wake up every morning and strive to be the good wife and the better person that God's seeks? "I am a willing slave of Jesus Christ. If it were not for Him, I would have no hope. His grace sustains me and pushes me on each day. His goodness and gentle leading encourages my spirit when the everyday wrestles with my motivation. He is...everything to me."

What is the current book you are reading? "Well, I just got finished with Passionate Housewives Desperate For God. My current devotional is Chuck Swindoll's, "Come Before Winter" and it is excellent."

That was a great conversion Sarah, I really enjoyed it. I believe that we as a couple at zcouple.com learn alot from you and from your blog.

I thank the Lord for you, and your passion to continue following the truth. I also thank you for willing to be a guest on my blog and encourage me as a blogger. I really enjoyed chatting with you and it is refreshing to have a conversion with you.

At the end, I leave you with a small video from Sarah by Sarah...

Our New Home

Click on the picture to enlarge it.

Simply we love our new home... God has blessed us with a new home and we are so excited to be in it. We are thankful for God's gift to us and we are planning on using his gift for his glory.
Please keep us in your prayers so that God use us and the new place to his will.

Many thanks to every one who helped us achieve the goal of home ownership.
A lot goes to our friend Shady for helping us searching for the right home and standing next to us all the way til closing.. Thank you so much...

Our Bahamas Cruise

So Moody planned our cruise trip to celebrate our first anniversary. We wanted our anniversary weekend to be special, both of us had never been on a cruise before so we thought it would be fun to try it out for the weekend. Moody planned the weekend very well as always, we arrived to Miami on Thursday night, checked in our hotel and shortly after we went and took a walk in South Beach where we also ate dinner there. Right the next morning it was time for us to go to our cruise, our room was ocean view which was more spacious that what we had expected. The cruise had so much to do like shows and games thru out the day, 24-hour food, comedy shows and very nice and fancy singing and dancing shows each night. The cruise took a day to get to the Bahamas and it stayed there all day. Moody had planned a tour guide that took us around the Bahamas for two hours where he showed us what Bahamas is famous for, Atlantis was the highlight of the tour. Atlantis is a 900 million dollers project of huge resorts and hotels, we were amazed when we went in it by how gorgeous it is. We also shopped in the small tents where locals hand make Bahamas gifts and souvenirs. The next day the cruise started sailing back to Miami where we spent another day of lots of fun. Monday morning the cruise arrived to Miami where we decided to take a walk again on South Beach where we had a milkshake from Johnny Rockets and then we were off to our plane heading home. Our Bahamas Cruise was a lot of fun and it wouldn't have happened without all Moody's planning.

Couples: A Year to Reflect On and Embrace

It is almost a year, it is our first year... Joicy and I not believing it. The year went by so quickly.
People says, time goes by when you are having fun. But, it wasn't always fun for us this past year.
We are newly married and as they say, it is the most important year of your marriage. We didn't expect the road to happy marriage to be easy nor filled with roses. But we thought it won't be that hard. But we grow closer and yet more balanced. We learned so much about each other and we learned how to complete one another. It was a wonderful journey and I am looking forward to more of walking together toward a healthy marriage.


So, as we complete our first year, and celebrate our first anniversary, I wanted to spend time to reflect on the past year....
We are planning to run off to the Bahamas to take a few days of from our busy lives and reflect on the Good, the bad and of our past year. There is so much to learn from and look to and observe.

The plan is to have each one of us to write in his/her own words, as assessment of the year and give it to each other. The reasons behind it is that we need to look back and learn from every thing, the good and the bad. I am sure I missed a few things that Joicy would like to me to notice and the same goes for her.

That assessment also will help each one of us understand how our actions reflect on us and it makes feel loved, respected and protected.

lastly, we will use this assessment to write down goals for the next year of our marriage. Many of us set goals at the beginning of each year. we are going to plan to write down some goals and actions for our second year and examine those actions and goals as we go through out the year.

So, let me encourage you to take the time as you may also celebrate your anniversary to sit down and reflect on the past year of your marriage and write down how you feel as you embrace the future and plan ahead.

Christianity is continuous event of communication as marriage is. God give is marriage as an example for our relationship as the church with him the father. As we communicate with him about our feelings and needs, we need to express them as well to our spouse and work hard to achieve them as we work hard toward a very health marriage.
Remember, your anniversary is the day you die in order that your marriage lives. Marriage with difficulties is a living marriage with endless possibilities.

Moody and Joicy - Abba Photography Wedding Album

Moving weekend, yet Motivated Monday?

What a busy weekend we had. We moved on Sat, and it was long day. It started at 7am, with Joicy and I moving the small things in our cars, the mover were suppose to show up at noon, but that didn’t happened. I end up calling someone else to come and move the heavy stuff at 9pm… going up and down the stairs for so many times, it killed us…. But I was happy knowing that we are going to have our own place and seeing Joicy supporting me every step of the way.

At last the movers were done moving every thing in the house, it was about 2am and we were dead tired. We had to go to church the next day and teach Sunday school. Then we spend time helping the registration for the July conference, then we ate at the church, and we ate again at Pastor Khaled house. soon after, we left to our old apt to vacuum and clean a bit before we give back the keys…back to the new house to clean the fridge with Joicy in order to put our food in it… what a long weekend, but was very fruitful…

So enough about the tiring weekend, and now to the Motivated Monday.. while driving this morning to work, still tired, I put on the radio to shine radio and the song for Third Day was playing... While I'm Waiting "I will move ahead, bold and confidentTaking every step in obedience" The song made me forget all about the tiring weekend and encouraged me to move forward. Joicy and I are very please with the new move. We are very thankful to the Lord with every gift he gave us. So, as I may be still suffering from food and back aches, I am may still march ahead motivated by the support of my Lord and wife.