Deanna Doss Shrodes

Larry and I went to Shephard's for an anniversary dinner and he had arranged for some friends to be there to surprise me and celebrate with us. Our friends, Currie's, Riveras & Shehans joined us. Dinner was so yummy...amazing seafood, prime rib, baklava...so many favorites, we were loving it and the conversation of course...
Here we are last night...and we've been married 22 years today! Larry also surprised me by having our wedding video (VCR tape...yeah, we were married in the old days) put on DVD. Pastor Trinity did it for us and dropped it off to the hotel last night so we'd have it to watch. We had an awesome room with a view of Tampa Bay and a balcony. Of course the best thing of all is spending time with him. :)

Tomorrow is our wedding anniversary ~ and at 2:00 pm we will have been married for 22 years. Today Larry made reservations for us to go to Safety Harbor Resort where we will stay tonight. We're going to have dinner at one of our favorite places, Shephards -- where they have amazing seafood.
I'm really looking forward to a night away with my husband. It's been a week and I'm feeling a bit overloaded. In addition to my normal work in pastoring (which entailed some extra things thrown in this week I didn't expect), and moving forward on getting my health issues straightened out, we got a bunch of new clients this week in my career coaching job. There was a plant that shut down in the midwest and we are serving ALL of the employees. I had a list of clients that I was given on Wednesday to engage and...after much hard work at 10:30 pm last night every single one of them was what we call officially "engaged", meaning they are signed on the dotted line, I have ha…

I was hit with the stark revelation once again yesterday that medical insurance companies could really care less whether you live or die. Commercials about being "there for you" are meaningless. Let me say up front, I have Blue Cross Blue Shield. Right now, I'm so angry with them, and I hope they are like so many companies who are googling themselves to see what bloggers are saying about them. I've actually had two companies contact me that I blogged about who wanted to apologize to me for poor service and ask for my business back. I think businesses and corporations are starting to see how much influence bloggers have. So, let me just say to Blue Cross Blue Shield...YOU MAKE ME SICK!!! LITERALLY!!! And I want the whole world to know it. I hope a bazillion people find this through Google search and see the truth about you.
I have been sick since the third week in November. Read about it here if you want.
Currently one of the top specialists in Tampa is treat…

"Some of us are becoming the men we wanted to marry."
Gloria Steinem

There are some people who won't really see the value of this quote and dismiss it, focusing exclusively on who said it rather than the meaning. That's a shame.
What does it mean? Simply that a woman doesn't have to marry a man to achieve a place of influence by virtue of being married to him. Her own leadership skills can carve a niche for her, instead of having to rely on a marriage license. Gone are the days when women had to marry certain men to utilize their leadership skills. Now women can just become whatever they want to be instead of marrying what they want to become and living vicariously through them. Today women have opportunity to have the career they want, and marry for love instead of for hopes of achieving something in whatever field they are interested in.

This is becoming exceedingly clearer all the time in the secular world, but my hope is that young ladies in ministry will see t…

I would like to dedicate this picture post to my friend, Pastor Paul Grabill, senior pastor of State College Assembly of God and Assistant Superintendent of the Penn-Del District of the AG.After lunch yesterday, we were walking through a party store to get some supplies for a church event and Larry found a huge display that they had set up for July 4th parties and excitedly called over to me and said, "Deanna, you've got to come take a photo with this stuff, just for Paul Grabill!!!" So, I happily obliged while the staff members with us were in stitches laughing and setting up this impromptu little photo shoot that Larry was convinced would be such a blessing (?) for Paul. Anyone who has read his blog for more than a few posts knows that we spar often on issues such as patriotism, the flag, the military, capital punishment, war etc. however for all the debating we do on these many sensitive subjects, I have a tremendous amount of respect for him. He is an integral…

This is why you should ALWAYS twirl once in front of the mirror before you leave the house!

Photo I took with my new camera... It was a splendid day today. I'm so tired right now, therefore only taking time to blog for a moment. We had a full day at church and then went to the Currie's for a lunch. Good times, bbq'ing and enjoying all that goes with it, for Father's Day. After an afternoon of fellowship there both our families headed to the movies together and then back to their house once again for ice cream til' after 11 pm. We talked while the kids swam in the pool. I am exhausted, will have an extremely busy week this week with church, coaching, and more. Sometimes going into weeks that I know look like this, as far as my calendar/schedule goes gets me discouraged but I am going to try to look on the bright side of everything. I have a lot of opportunities to help people...what could be greater?

This morning was life coaching at the church and as usual it was a fantastic time. I absolutely love, love, love this time with my ladies.
After life coaching I went to grocery shop and get things for our Father's Day dinner. We are going to be spending it with the Currie's and BBQ'ing. Larry requested that I make his favorite dessert, carrot cake, [a prizewinning recipe] and I made it today. It looks amazing, better than I made it last time. I'm not sure about why as it turned out right last time however this time it just seems exceptional so I just hope it tastes as good as it looks. I also made potato salad because he really likes my homemade recipe for that too.
Larry is going golfing this afternoon/evening and I'm working on the house, cleaning, ironing, returning phone calls & e-mails, laundry, weeding, and I'll take time in there to walk a few miles. A woman's work is never done. I am so ready for a vaca.

I had a good Fun Friday today. Got up late this morning (oh the bliss of the kids not having school!) right in time for a client (coaching) meeting. After that I headed to get a fill (pink) and then when I came home Larry said he wanted to go on a date to the movies. We went to see "The Proposal". I loved it!!! If you read my blog or Twitter very often you probably notice I go to the movies on a constant basis. Usually I have seen just about everything in the theatre at any given time since my son works there and our family goes for free whenever we want. It's wonderful.

We picked up Savanna who has been at the Hart's all week. She and Morgan babysat twins this week, all week long and she stayed at her house since it simplified things and plus that they just love being together. After dinner tonight I walked 2 miles. Then showered and did some much needed cleaning and laundry at my house . It was a good day. On to tomorrow morning and life coaching...one of my favori…

A pastor friend from Africa sent me these photos recently of me ministering in a service there in '08... Heart is aching today -- can't wait to go back.

Is blessed.
Woke up this morning to Maddie running in the room, putting her face in mine and pawing me to get up. I was so tired but knew I was in the home stretch of this week. Went to the office and finished cleaning out a bunch of stuff. Yes, I have gotten around to cleaning my office. I thought it would take me til the end of summer but I simply decided, I'm taking the time and doing it. I still have some more old stuff to clean out but by and large I am almost done cleaning. The offices were even steam cleaned today. In addition, I threw away a bunch of old things some of which quite honestly were not good for me to have in my office. By that, I don't mean anything sinful. I'm talking about some memories which probably weren't the best for me to hold on to. So, zap...gone. Feels awesome. I still have a few more things to get rid of but I'm well on the way. It's a newday, a new time...
After work I met my friend & church member Jenn for dinner at Weck'…

I'm exhausted but it's a good exhausted. Larry and I got home and then to sleep at about 4:30 am after doing the show. I got up this morning right in time for a conference call. And the day is off like a rocket from here...I have work projects, Fusion tonight, and we have several errands to run, such as getting a car tune up. Tonight I'm finishing up a 10 week series I've been teaching on "transformation". It's been such a good teaching topic for me, and...I've changed along with everyone else, in several ways. It's SO important that we keep changing...after all, it's what the Christian life is all about. My photos from our beach day/picnic/water baptism...out of the 400+ photos that we took... on this amazing day...did I mention we baptized 16 people? :)

Jordan and Eddie

Beautiful ladies...enjoying the sun and conversation...

Morgan and Savanna

My hunky man :-)


Jordan hamming it up as usual...

James walking along the beach with his daughter...

K…