Oprah’s Favorite Things Hits Big This Holiday Season – by: Shelly Lowery

Oprah Winfrey is one of the most popular talk show hosts in American television history. As her show enters its 21rst season, she has millions of viewers who tune in each day. One of her most popular segments is her “Favorite Things” holiday show. During this show, Oprah shares with the studio and television audience some of her favorite things including jewelry, gadgets and vacation getaways.

People love this show because on the “Favorite Things” episode, audience members get the extravagant gifts that Oprah displays. Around 300 audience members are showered with gifts each holiday episode. The amount varies, but Oprah audience members can each expect to receive between $4,000 and $15,000 worth of gifts. But, Oprah is a big winner as well. The 2004 episode of “Oprah’s Favorite Things” had the highest ratings ever for a “Favorite Things” episode and was the second highest rated episode for the season.

Oprah has been doing her “Favorite Things” episode since 1999. Guests received a set of Illumination Ritual Candles, each one to inspire different feelings like love, peace and passion and each candle contained a tiny gemstone inside. The 12-candle set was valued at $169.95. Dog owners were no doubt thrilled with the Fifi and Romeo Pet Clothing ($150 and up) – one of Oprah’s favorite things of 1999. One of the most extravagant gifts that year was a Susan Abbott Personalized Painting, ranging from $5,000 and up. Oprah loved the Susan Abbott painting given to her by author Sarah Ban Breathnach.

In 2000, Oprah added many hi-tech gadgets like the Motorola Talkabout pager (priced at $179), so audience members could receive email while on the go. Another favorite thing from 2000 was the book equivalent of the iPod, the Gemstar REB1100 eBook from RCA ($299). The Gemstar let users download up to 8,000 book pages, so they never had to carry around a book again.

The BlissLabs Glamour Gloves ($44) and Gel ($22) was one of Oprah’s favorite things in 2002. The Panasonic 4-in-1 Digital Camera from Frontgate ($449) was also a big hit that year. The camera, the size of a credit card, takes pictures and video, but can also be used as a MP3 player and audio recorder.

In 2003, Oprah decided to do two episodes of her favorite things segment – one in the Spring and one in the Fall. Spring audience members got an Apple iPod ($399), Silhouette Minimal X Sunglasses ($175-$250), and a Hewlett Packard Digital Camera, Printer and Dock (total value $730) among other items. Fall audience members racked up with UGG Classic Short Boots ($110), a Philip Stein Teslar Watch ($595), and a Sony DCR-DVD200 Handycam ($1000).

2004 was a very special Favorite Things segment for Oprah. She convinced 300 teachers to attend her show, under the premise of talking about education and a teacher’s daily routine. Instead, she surprised them with the Favorite Things episode. The teachers received gifts such as a Sony VAIO S260 notebook computer, a Dell 30″ wide-screen LCD television, a Maytag Neptune Top-Load Washer and Drying Center, and a trip for two to the exclusive Miraval Resort and Spa. Total gift amount for each teacher was about $15,000 – much more than the previous year total of $4,800. Oprah, a supporter of education and teachers, knew the teachers were worth every penny.

In 2005, Oprah decided to make her favorite things audience up of Katrina relief workers. Among the gifts were Sony VAIO® FJ Notebook, Kashwére® Shawl Collar Robe, BlackBerry 7105T™ from T-Mobile, and a couple of Oprah’s favorites from 2004, UGG Australia’s Uptown Boot and an Apple iPod. While considerably less than the year before, the 2005 recipients still received over $7,000 worth of items.

Probably due in part to Oprah’s television audience as well as her personal appeal, each year the manufacturer’s of the items found on Oprah’s favorite things donate all the gifts. But they reap great benefits from doing so. They get television exposure and an immediate increase in sales after each episode. Companies like Sephora and Macy’s have both publically stated that as soon as Oprah mentions one of their products, people are coming in the stores in droves to get it.

So in the end, it is a win-win situation. The manufacturers see increased sales, the audience gets great gifts, and Oprah just keeps on getting more and more popular with her viewing audience.

About The Author Shelley Lowery is a successful writer with an interest in celebrities like Oprah Winfrey. She demonstrates the power of Oprah’s Favorite Things list each year on the holiday shopping season. http://www.oprahs-favorite-things.com.

Have You Got Your Ear To The Ground Or Your Head In The Sand?by: Mike Cheney

What happened on your website yesterday? What about last week or last month? How about in the past hour? How many visitors come to your website as a result of using a search engine? How long do people stay on your website for on average? Which pages do your visitors go to?

If you don’t know the answer to some or all of these questions you are effectively operating a website blind.

This is like riding a bike blindfolded and expecting to arrive at the right destination. It’s impossible and the likelihood is that you will crash, wreck the bike, lose pride and get left behind.

If you don’t know what’s happening with your website or how people are using it and how they are finding it how can you hope to ever improve the site? Sure – you can rely on second-guessing or asking the opinion of a handful of people but that’s hardly going to give you accurate information on which to base a decision is it?

“Mike – I know what you’re saying. It’s true that I need to track what’s happening but I don’t have the X”

X = Money?
X = Time?
X = Knowledge of where to start?
X = Need, as I already do this?

If you answered “Money” – this would seem to be a valid reason but you can get your hands on the basic information about how your site is performing for nothing (ask your developer or web hosting company for starters and they’ll be able to point you in the right direction or check out the resources below)

If you answered “Time” – I’m sorry but if that’s the case why do you even have a website if you don’t have the time to measure how it’s performing? Would you behave the same way with your business? Thought not..

If you answered “Knowledge of where to start” then this is fair enough. To get started try these resources that will help you:

• http://www.cryer.co.uk/resources/websitetracking.htm
• http://www.netiq.com/webtrends/default.asp
• http://www.statcounter.com/

If you answered “I don’t have the need, as I already do this” – congratulations – you get a week’s free pass to the Smug Club. But seriously though – you might already get all the statistics about how your website is performing but do you spend time viewing them, interpreting them and most importantly – USING them? When was the last time you used the statistics about your website’s performance to implement a change on your site and then track the results on subsequent statistics to see what effect it had? It’s all gone quiet in the Smug corner…

Feeling uncomfortable with all these questions yet? You should be. If you’re not happy with your website you need to dig a little deeper and ask what it is exactly that you’re not happy with. Did you set definite, time-linked and realistic expectations for the website’s performance prior to starting out? If you’re not getting the leads or sales you had hoped for you need to work out why this is the case – scratching your head won’t do it. Tracking the performance of your site and viewing detailed statistics on how people use it won’t give you definitive answers either – but it will propel you several miles in the right direction.

You are the doctor and your website is the patient – you need to connect it to an ECG and start monitoring and recording everything. How else can you work out how to make the patient better? Or maybe you have the perfect patient who doesn’t actually have anything wrong with them?

Mike Cheney
www.magnet4web.com

 

---

Mike Cheney is making over $19,000 a month just from AdSense and his videos show you how he does it: http://www.adsense-videos.info

---

 

About The Author You can get free access to lots more articles that will help you to improve your website’s performance plus a Free Bonus Special Report “How To Turn Your Website Into A Customer Magnet” worth a value of £47 ($85) here: http://www.magnet4web.com/website_services/?page=freeguide

A Cotton Candy Machine Is The Most Popular Piece Of Concession Equipment! – by: Mike Yeager

A cotton candy machine is welcome at any festive occasion! Cotton candy is a favorite treat of young and old alike. If you are looking for concession equipment for a special event, you’ll want to give the cotton candy maker top priority. A real crowd pleaser, there’s always a line of people wanting cotton candy. Your guests will be delighted!

The cotton candy machine is a hot item for a fund-raiser. The raw materials are quite inexpensive, making for a wide profit margin. Cotton candy is so attractive, that once the first person has some, everybody notices and wants some too. A cotton candy machine usually pays for itself easily, making the rest of the sales pure profit for your fundraiser. Many people associate cotton candy with fairs, carnivals, and the circus. A cotton candy machine can bring that feeling to your event, however large or small it may be.

Cotton candy has been around for nearly a hundred years. The interesting thing about a cotton candy machine is that it can take regular sugar and melt it into a liquid. The machine then spins the liquid sugar at a high speed and forces it through several tiny holes. As the liquid passes through the holes and cools it becomes a wispy, cotton like candy; a treat that is colorful, light and very tasty…all made from your cotton candy machine.

About The Author Mike Yeager Publisher http://www.a1-candy-4u.com/

Cheap Wedding Gowns – Just Because They’re Cheap Doesn’t Make You Cheap – by: Amy Lee Johnson

If your wedding is on a tight budget then you need to take a look at cheap wedding gowns. Not everyone has the money to buy designer wedding gowns, but that doesn’t mean you can’t look stunning. Many cheap wedding gowns still have the look of elegance.

With the invention of the internet, finding cheap wedding gowns are so incredibly easy. You can sit right in front of your computer in your PJs and browse through hundreds of different gowns. And when I say cheap, I mean you can get a very high quality wedding gown for under three hundred dollars.

Sure, it won’t be the quality of say Vera Wang wedding gowns, but for the price you just can’t go wrong. Saving money on your wedding gown also opens opportunities to spend more money in other places of your wedding such as the wedding rings or honeymoon. Because, really, how many times will you be wearing your wedding gown? Wouldn’t you much rather spend your hard earned money on something that will last longer than one day?

Like every other aspect of the wedding, you need to plan ahead 4-6 months when ordering your gown. You need to make sure that you get the gown in time and that everything fits properly. If there are mistakes, you want to leave yourself time to be able to get these fixed.

[ Submitted with ArticleSubmitter Pro - http://www.articlecity.com/article_submitter_pro.shtml

About The Author Amy Lee Johnson is a freelance writer that often contributes to http://www.wedding-vows-4u.com – a site that offers information on such topics as writing wedding vows and selecting wedding gowns.

Can Your Theme Be Proved In Your Story? – by: Nick Vernon

Creative Writing Tips –

Your theme has to be something you can prove in your story – It doesn’t have to be a universal truth. This means that your theme doesn’t have to be something that happens in real life all the time (providing our logic can accept it, in order for us to believe it).

Whatever story you choose to write, be it a contemporary or a story which requires elements of fantasy such as in horror, science fiction etc… the events of that story have to appear logical.

What is not logical and consequently not believable is…

A character that has no knowledge of computers and overnight becomes a computer whiz

A car that goes over a cliff, bursts into flames and the character manages to escape unscratched

Etc

These are not believable because they can’t and don’t happen in real life and our logic doesn’t accept them.

Your theme will be believed when you prove it (providing of course you can.) Let’s see how you can do that.

We’ll start with a theme…

“Hard work leads to success.’

Our story is about a character whose goal is to reach a managerial position within the company that he works. For the reader to see how the character will reach his goal I will show him…

• Working hard
• Working long hours
• Using his initiative
• Being responsible

And all those qualities, in the end, will secure him the promotion he has been aiming for.

So my theme here will be proved that ‘Hard work leads to success’ because my character succeeds in the end.

>From the examples I have given so far, you may have noticed that my stories end on a happy note. Yours don’t have to. The ending will depend on the story you are writing and how you, the writer, prefers to end it.

I could have done the reverse with this theme. I could have said,

“Hard work doesn’t lead to success.”

My story will be the same but in the end I will have the character missing out on the promotion. Both themes will be proved because I have proved them in my story.

Any theme can work in a story providing you can prove it.

Have you proved your theme?

About The Author Besides his passion for writing, Nick Vernon runs an online gift site where you will find gift information, articles and readers’ funny stories. Visit http://www.we-recommend.com

Full Steam Ahead, Just Don’t Go Off Half Cocked! – by: Richard Vegas

Do you do things that you don’t want to do? Do you not do things that you do want to do? Do you find every reason in the book to delay what needs to be done? Would you like to know the secret of getting things done? Then hang on tight, cause this buds for you.

How do you make the secret of getting things done an everyday part of your life? It’s done by a nasty word…..habit. Ok then, how do I develop a habit? Another dirty word; by repetition. Plant a cotton seed and you’ll grow cotton. Plant a habit or action and you’ll grow a habit.

Here it is: The Naked Truth!

Sow a good habit and you’ll grow a good character. Sow a good character and you’ll grow a great destiny. Bend over backwards to help others and you’ll be the first with the most all the time. Sow insult to injury and you’ll go off half-cocked.

Oh.. But you hurt my feelings. Nah!! That ole dog won’t hunt. So, there’s no sense in you putting him in your pick-up. Don’t you get mad at me now.

Listen; we all become what our habits make us. And, we all choose our own habits. Either consciously or unconsciously by repetition we become what our habits dictate. The nice thing is; we can go full steam ahead when it comes to developing desirable habits.

Here is a good way to develop a favorable habit. Program your brain to a make an affirmation. One that I have used for many years is the affirmation, “Do it Now.” And then act as soon as your subconscious flashes that affirmation to your consciousness.

Swallow your pride!

Here is an example. Next time your stomach says, “Eat that second piece of pie”, and your “hips” say, put it back, you say, “Do it Now.” Get it?

This has held me in good stead for many unpleasant tasks that I would really just as soon put off as long as I could. You know things like baby sitting and changing dirty diapers. I mean hey, changing dirty diapers is way down on my list of things to do,… right next to snake hunting. Hehehe.

Well, I didn’t coin the phrase “Do it Now”, but I have used it for many years. And, it is very important that you take action as soon as you say it. The action is what causes this to become repetitive. That’s why you should only use this for a good and desirable habit you’re trying to develop. Half-Cocked habits can be just as destructive as good habits can be productive.

Quick As A Lick!

Immediately act as soon as your subconscious flashes this affirmation to your conscious. Make it an everyday practice. Then in times of emergency, when you really need to take immediate action, the good habits that you developed will come to your aid.

If you will begin using this self motivator with little things it will become easier to get things done in big matters later on.

This will help you to act when opportunities come your way and not just sit there batting your eyes like a toad frog in a hail storm. That frog may have very powerful legs to jump to safety, but the dumb frog just sits there.

And, how many times have we seen “our” opportunity come along; I mean it had our name written all over it. It was everything we had envisioned it would be; just like we had planned; it looked just like we knew it would look; we could even taste it. And what do we do? Sit there like a frog.

And, if someone should ask us; “Why are you just sitting there?” We might not answer in these words but this is what it comes down to; we start thinking like a stupid frog. And, we think that since we don’t have wings we’re going to bump our little bu** when we land. Geeze….”All good things come to those who wait”…..

We can come up with the most reasonable sounding excuses for sitting there. Of course, we don’t call them excuses because that would make us look like we’re gold bricking. We call them rational prudence, or some other stupid Froggy line, so that everyone will think we are so intelligent.

A Force You Better Reckon With!

Not doing the things we need to do habitually creates a strong pattern of procrastination. It causes people to miss planes, be late for work, and sometimes can cause very serious catastrophes in our lives. Ideas can be forgotten and opportunities lost that could change our lives for the better.

History has recorded great battles that were lost because someone hesitated when the time had come to take a desirable action. I talk to people all the time and the common theme of habits that most people would like to eliminate is procrastination.

And my favorite secret that I tell all of them is in the title of this article. Use the affirmation “Do it Now” and go full steam ahead. Just be sure you are going for the gold and not going off half-cocked.

This Is As Good As It Gets!

When things begin getting done in your life you will sense a re-invigorating of your attitude. It will cause circumstances to go from negative to positive. It will cause the darkest of nights your have ever spent to become a new and pleasant day.

Notice how this young man took a terrible dark night and turned it into a beautiful day. Jorgen was a young man from Denmark who wanted to visit America. He had saved and made the trip to Washington DC. All the money he had was in cash and after he checked into his hotel room he noticed his wallet was missing.

Thousands of miles from his home country and not having any family or close friends here he had no way of getting more money. His hotel was pre-paid and he still had his plane ticket home.

So, those two items were not a concern. He had two choices. One he could be happy; the other, he could be miserable. He couldn’t make his wallet fall out of heaven so the only thing he could do is tell himself “it’s time to be happy”. And, this he did.

He said I’m the same person I was yesterday before I lost my wallet; I’m going to be the same person tomorrow. I was happy yesterday, I will be happy today. That was Jorgen’s affirmation. He refused to spend his time being unhappy over his loss.

Don’t Just Sit There Like A Bump On A Pickle!

He realized that now is the moment. Now is the time to take action, now is the time to move full steam ahead. There is no tomorrow, only today is promised. So, when you find that it’s your time to go Full Steam Ahead, Don’t start cooling your jets.

Richard Vegas ©

About The Author Richard Vegas is a popular recording artist and internet marketing professional. He invites you to subscribe to his FREE weekly ezine “Wing-Tips” The Success System That Never Fails at: http://1-work-at-home-based-business-opportunities.com/Articles/articles.html. You may also hear and follow Richard’s music career at: http://richardvegas.com webmaster@1-work-at-home-based-business-opportunities.com

7 Winter Exercise Tips for Busy People – by: Dale Reynolds

7 Winter Exercise Tips for Busy People

—Finding Time in Your Schedule—

Many people find summer exercise easy, because there are so many fun activities available when it’s warm outside. But if you live in the North, you might find exercise during the winter much more difficult. I refuse to run outdoors when it’s very cold, the road is icy, or the snow banks have narrowed the road significantly. But I also refuse to hibernate, since exercise helps improve your immune system to help you fight off winter colds and flu, and also gives you energy and a positive outlook. So, here are a few tips to get you thinking about staying active all year long!

Find exercise videos you love, and carve out a space indoors with the equipment you need. I exercise in my basement all year long, and add outdoor activities when weather permits. The great thing about having an exercise video collection, and the right space, is that you have absolutely no excuses! Weather, time of day, long lines for equipment, etc. will not stop you from burning calories! My personal favorites come from The Firm, and my favorite place to shop is Collage Video. Visit my website, www.slimdale.com and click on Links to get there.

The new fall television lineup will be here soon. Use TV commercial breaks! Many people ignore strength training because they feel cardio burns more calories. But adding muscle to your body will raise your metabolism, allowing you to burn more calories all day long. Resistance training also strengthens your bones, and just getting stronger can help you with a multitude of daily activities. So find a book, magazine article, wall chart or other resource showing exercises to work all major muscle groups, and do a set of repetitions during each commercial. You’ll get a 20-minute workout during one 60-minute show!

Join a walking club at a local school, or walk inside a shopping mall. You can window-shop before the stores open so you go right to the store that has the best sales or the styles you love when they are open.

Park farther away from the door and walk. At work, at the grocery store, at the mall; any place where you’re stuck walking outside anyway, just bundle up and get a few extra steps. When indoors, take the stairs instead of the elevator or escalator. You’ll burn lots more calories. You can even try using restrooms, copy machines, etc. on a different floor just to get more exercise. Consider wearing a pedometer and challenging yourself to keep increasing your steps per day.

Use your lunch break if you work in an office. If your company has a gym, use it. Walk outside when the weather permits. If it’s raining or snowing, walk laps around the parking garage or laps around each floor perimeter plus the steps between floors.

Be less efficient! If you live in a multi-story house, take as many trips up and down the stairs as you can instead of saving things to go up or down. At the office, take a walk to see your coworkers instead of always using email. Face-to-face conversation is often better anyway, as it avoids misunderstandings and leads to better bonding and teamwork.

Consider winter sports. Skiing (downhill or cross-country), ice skating, and snow-shoeing can all burn lots of calories. Also, just play in the snow! Go sledding or build a snowman, and make some snow angels!

I hope these tips help you to stay active this winter! Remember, the key to weight loss is to burn more calories than you consume (and weight maintenance is balancing the intake and the burn equally over time.) If you don’t burn calories with exercise, you’ll need to cut your food intake, and that will be especially difficult during the holidays. I personally would rather exercise more and enjoy a few holiday cookies! So get in the habit of exercising consistently now!

About The Author Dale Reynolds lives in upstate New York where she works as a weight loss counselor and has recently published a book, “A Slim Book On Weighty Matters” Visit her website and sign up for her free newsletter! dale@slimdale.com

Oops She [Britney Spears] Did it Again – by: Salim Jordan

Both The National Enquirer and Star Magazine are reporting that Pop Princess Britney Spears is going to have another child. These tabloids were the first to break the story of her first pregnancy, the very story that the singer continually denied until she was months along…

Sean Preston Federline, was born on September 14, 2005 in the Santa Monica UCLA Medical Center in Santa Monica, California to Britney Spears and Kevin Federline. Spears married Federline before twenty-seven guests in a surprise, non-denominational ceremony at a residence in Studio City, California on September 18, 2004. The legitimacy of the marriage was initially questioned, but on November 18, 2004, a representative of the Los Angeles County registrar’s office confirmed Spears and Federline had successfully filed their marriage license with the county within ten days of their ceremony, and were therefore legally married.

The latest news comes just weeks after she was criticized for driving a car with her baby sitting on her lap, instead of in the car seat where the law (quite rightly) says he belongs. Her justification for such a reckless act was rather odd, so as a result, very few people believed it. She said she was afraid of the photographers that were trying to take pictures of her child, so to protect him, she just drove off – leaving him at risk for some terrible injuries had she crashed.

Britney seems to have put all the gossip that surrounded the incident behind her, however. According to the tabloids, she has been happily telling people that the telltale bump she has been seen carrying is NOT the remainder of her pregnancy weight gain, but evidence that another Federline baby is on the way.

“I’m pregnant!” revealed the 24 year-old pop star to another woman in the spa at Maui’s Four Seasons Hotel where Britney, Kevin, and their baby son Preston are staying.

Britney recently took off to New Orleans without her husband, forcing him to follow her there to celebrate Mardi Gras. From Louisiana, she jetted off to Hawaii with Kevin in tow, causing people to speculate on the state of their relationship. Insiders are saying that the marriage is all but over, and Britney is in fact looking to lease a house on Maui where she can have the baby by herself.

The singer is no stranger to the tabloids. Whether it is kissing Madonna or marrying a childhood friend only to have it annulled 55 hours later, the pop icon always gives the media plenty to talk about.

About The Author Salim Jordan publishes MoreThanLinks (www.morethanlinks.com). He writes on celebrities, including pop sensations like Britney Spears. Visit http://buzz.morethanlinks.com

The Basics of Asking for a Reciprocal Link – by: Marc Singer

Candy molds make candy making easy! With only a few basic tools, you can make candy that looks professional and exquisite, as if they came from any of the finest specialty shops.

For chocolate lovers, you can find a chocolate candy mold of practically any design. You can make chocolate hearts, chocolate eggs even chocolate Christmas trees! Holidays and special occasions are only the beginning. Think of the gift baskets you could give to friends! Who wouldn’t be pleased to receive a basket of beautiful fine chocolates!

Nothing is more delightful than a clever sucker. All you need is a hard candy mold and a little time in the kitchen, and it’s easy to make a batch of creative sweets. These are especially popular with the children.

With candy molds, you can make treats for any occasion, at a fraction of the cost of buying them from the store, and have a lot of fun doing it! It’s amazing how satisfying it is to see the work of your own hands turn out so beautifully.

Candy molds are great to use when you need to make specially designed treats for a wedding or other special occasion. Chocolate party favors are always a hit, especially if they’re made with a favorite candy mold designed to accentuate your parties theme.

About The Author Mike Yeager Publisher http://www.a1-candy-4u.com/

Fear of Fake Marriages Making Permanent Green Cards Difficult to Obtain – by: Heather L. Poole, Attorney at Law

The quickie green card marriage may not be so easy anymore. CIS is limiting green card issuance that can directly impact the immigrant and his or her sponsor’s future. Even if an immigrant is married to a U.S. citizen, if the marriage is less than two years old at the time the green card interview (adjustment of status interview) takes place, U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Services (“CIS”, previously known as INS) will only grant the immigrant a two year green card.

This “conditional green card” will terminate in two years if the couple cannot prove that they are still living together as husband and wife. This requirement was created in 1986 when Congress believed that the only way to counteract fake or sham marriages was to require ongoing proof that the couple still lived together and the marriage was not a mere economic or business transaction.

To convert the conditional (2 year) green card into a permanent green card, the U.S. citizen or legal permanent resident sponsoring spouse and the conditional green card-holding spouse must together to petition to have the condition removed, or else the green card will expire and lawful permanent residency status will be terminated.

This petition must be filed within the 3 month period before the green card expires.

In reality, though, the two year expiration can potentially cause quite a few problems for marriages that were real when the couple wed but are now leading to divorce due to domestic violence, adultery, or other “irreconcilable differences” near the time the immigrant’s green card is expiring. By requiring the cooperation of the petitioning US citizen, in most circumstances, to sign and file to have the condition taken off, the process creates a power-struggle between a feuding couple and worse, gives more power over the immigrant to an abusive U.S. citizen spouse.

There are limited exceptions available to an immigrant when his or her U.S. citizen spouse will not cooperate or help the immigrant file to have the condition taken off of the green card. If a couple separates or divorces at any time after the green card is first issued, it is unlikely that the originally sponsoring U.S. citizen or LPR spouse will cooperate in helping the immigrant spouse release the condition on the green card for a number of reasons. If this happens, the immigrant may be able to apply to have the condition removed from his or her own green card by applying for a waiver. The waiver allows the immigrant to apply to remove the condition on his or her green card without the assistance of their spouse. There are currently three different ways or grounds to apply for a waiver:

(1) good faith or bona fide marriage ground (if your divorce is final at the time of filing);

(2) extreme hardship (to the immigrant if deported to their original country); or

(3) extreme cruelty (proving that the immigrant suffered physical, emotional, or financial abuse from their spouse)

CIS allows an immigrant to apply for any number of these grounds on the same petition. Waivers are generally more difficult to have approved. If an immigrant files a waiver, the current policy is that an interview will be required. If you file a joint petition and depending on the evidence submitted, an interview may not be required.

If an immigrant fails to file for either a waiver or to file a joint petition with the spouse within the 90 day period, the green card will be terminated.

Once a CIS receipt notice is received from CIS, the immigrant will have proof that his or her green card is still valid for another year or until the case is decided, whichever comes first. If the case is still not decided within a year, the green card will be extended for another year and will be extended on an annual basis until the case is decided.

A remaining concern for many immigrants is what happens to their eligibility to apply for U.S. citizenship, especially if the immigrant does not stay with their spouse and instead files a waiver petition on their own. If the immigrant receives their green card through marriage and is still living with their husband or wife 3 years after the green card is initially issued, the immigrant will be eligible to apply for U.S. citizenship, even if the joint petition to remove the condition on the two year green card has not yet been decided. Actually filing for U.S. citizenship will speed up the process of CIS deciding the conditional residency issue, as conditional residency will no longer be an issue if a person has already received U.S. citizenship.

If an immigrant is applying for a waiver because he or she is divorced or for any other reason is not not living with the spouse anymore, then the immigrant will be eligible for citizenship after 5 years in lawful permanent residency status. The one exception to this is if a waiver is approved based on the “extreme cruelty” ground, which requires the immigrant to show that s/he suffered physical, financial, and/or psychological abuse from their spouse. If approved on this ground, the immigrant will be eligible to apply for U.S. citizenship in 3 years, even if not living with the abusive U.S. citizen spouse.

Before deciding whether to stay in a bad marriage, an immigrant must address their available options under both the waiver provisions and the joint petition provisions of the Immigration and Nationality Act. An immigration lawyer may be in the best position to help an immigrant flush out the potential advantages and disadvantages of choosing a particular route and many consultations with immigration attorneys throughout the U.S. are given free of charge. The most important concern remains for immigrants to ensure that a close eye be kept on the expiration date of their conditional green card and not let it expire before seeking legal assistance. To learn more about conditional green cards, visit the U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Services’ website at www.uscis.gov, for a general overview.

About The Author Attorney Heather L. Poole is an expert in family-based immigration and U.S. Citizenship, located in Pasadena, California. She is a published national author on family-immigration issues, frequent lecturer on marriage-based immigration, and member of the American Immigration Lawyers Association & National Network to End Violence Against Immigrant Women. For more information and for a free consultation, visit www.humanrightsattorney.com.