Warwick Adventure With Wonderful Ladies

We had a blast at the Warwick Castle today with a group of wonderful ladies from church. Almost two years ago, my hubby brought us there, together with our boys. It was so wonderful for me to see all those life-sized dioramas portraying life in the medieval castle. Today, it was all about picture-taking and the beautiful outdoors around the castle.

My Elijah kept on complaining about our picture-taking. Though, I managed to take a few photos of him and his friends.

My friends wanted nothing but take photos. I was just going with the mood and flow of things. To be honest, I was just too happy being there and being with all those wonderful people. I didn’t mind joining in their poses for the camera every once in a while.

Neither did I mind the long walks and easy strolls and the going up and down the stairs. The bags of food we carried were heavy but it was alright. In short, it was just a relaxing day for me and I hope, everyone else.

On our way back home, the van driver said: “I never had these many women sleep on me before.” I couldn’t blame him because the drive home was more than an hour and he saw nothing in the van but women who were all asleep – bless him!

Thank you, Lord for the wonderful weather and the whole experience.

Trip Snippets – Pining

pwetty cousins: rosely, jhea & zaki

 
Well, not that I don’t think my boys will turn out to be caring or reliable. It’s just that daughters are the more probable ones to be there in times of sickness and all that. Don’t get me wrong, I do not have a utilitarian view about a daughters (ie, I just need a daughter to help me later on). I just find it sweet and wonderful when I imagine  having a minnie me in my life, that’s all. Someone to cook with, shop with, or simply have girl talks with.

beauty & brains Reginia Mae

 
Wouldn’t it be nice to have a little live doll that we can dress up and look pretty with? Someone we can wear matching tops or dresses with? Someone we can share shoes and bags with? Tell  me, is this too much to ask?

 
But then, reality bites. For one, my hubby wouldn’t hear any of it. He is now baby-phobic. Second, I will have to give up living in the UK and go back home to the Philippines if I will have another baby because I just can’t raise a small child while also working here without any child minding help.

little dynamo is the only word to describe this girl, don't be fooled by that bedimpled smile

So, I content myself with pretending that I have a lot of daughters through my friends and my in-laws. My hubby comes from a family of 11 (no kidding). All his siblings are now married except for the youngest and there is an abundant supply of pretend-daughters for me like the pretty girls in this post. They are all my hubby’s nieces.

jamie - this girl can dance!

I have the pleasure of watching these girls grow and I pray that they will all turn out to be as sweet and caring as all girls should be.

It’s Like Coming Back Home

I have been been away on a long, long trip. Well, figuratively, I mean. I have been away from this blog and been busy with a lot of other things. It’s not that I haven’t thought of this space throughout my absence. In fact, in my mind, I would imagine myself writing here everyday. But it’s harder done than imagined.

So, during the few times that I can come back here to express myself and put into words my thoughts, I feel like it’s a big homecoming for me.

And when I’m “home”, I can put up my feet, drop my guard down and be myself!

And speaking of home, I remember my Mom, and so, I am wishing her, together with all the heroic Moms around the world, a very happy Mother’s Day!!!!

With this, happy weekend, everyone!

Victorious

Failure was never meant to be final in the Christian life. In fact, victory is the only object of a life lived in the Christian faith. When Jesus died and rose from the dead, he became victor over everything that threatens our chances to live glorifying lives here on earth and spending eternity with Him in heaven. The Lord’s ultimate goal is to ensure that His people will be able to be with Him in paradise. He planned for it for the longest time, He implemented His plan and He successfully achieved victory over death, over sin, over the enemy.

The term “victorious Christian life” is somewhat of a mystery to a lot of Christians. Quite simply, it is the life that Jesus wants us to live here on earth. As one Christian author said, the victorious Christian life is simply Jesus living in us and through us. Most of us believers think that this kind of life is way above our capacities to live. It is almost unattainable to us and there are times, if only we are honest, that we truly believe that we are never gonna achieve it.

 Actually, living the victorious Christian life is not hard. It is IMPOSSIBLE to live it – on our own apart from Christ. But then, Jesus died the death we are supposed to suffer and through His resurrection, we also rose with Him from the dead so that the life we live now is not ours anymore, it is not through our own strength anymore but His and His alone. How can we fail?

 What if I tell you today, that all the powers of the Godhead, His attention, support, resources, and all His mighty angels are at our disposal to be able to live a victorious Christian life. Do you believe me? The Book of Ephesians says so. The power used to raise the dead body of Jesus and transform it into the glorious body that He had before He came to earth is the pinnacle, the peak, the zenith of God’s power at work. And that the same power, is at our disposal if we are willing and committed to live according to God’s will.

 Last but not least, II Corinthians 5:15 says: “And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.”

 If we live for God, then failure is never an option nor a possibility.

Happy weekend, everyone!

Freebies for Coffee Addict Me

My hubby and I (well, more of me than him, really) are coffee addicts. We drink coffee every single day and every time Nescafe is on sale in our local supermarket, we buy at least two big jars to last us another two months or so. So, we get to collect a lot of the coffee beans for their Nescafe Beans promo.

Last year, we availed of their offer and we got ourselves a free sitting for a family portrait in a very good studio. We ended up buying 10 more shots, plus one free photo as part of the promo. The whole family enjoyed the experience. I blogged about that here.

This year, we got another freebie from the same promo! This time, it is a luxurious, soft and snugly bathrobe for my hubby. We just paid £1.50 for the postage. Now, we all want to hug my hubby when he is using it. It is really warm and perfect for winter.

The Nescafe Beans promo has gone completely online this time. All the detachable beans from the jars have special codes at the back so that we can enter these codes in the online form. For this year, though, I don’t like  the available freebies. They are mostly discounts for various items that I am not interested in. So, I might stop collecting the beans. Nevertheless, I am happy with what I got so far from the promo.

Ah! freebies make a girl happy, indeed.

Character vs Reputation

I will now be adding nuggets of my thoughts about my faith once in a while in HotMomma. I hope you will find them uplifting, enlightening and encouraging, as this is my goal in posting these.

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“What you are in front of other people is your reputation. What you are in front of God, when nobody else is looking, is your character.”

Reputation can be faked or doctored. That is why there are spin doctors in business today that are hired by celebrities, famous personalities and groups or businesses. Spin doctors are hired to release positive information to the press about their clients, so that the media will portray these personalities and groups with a positive spin. That’s why they are called spin doctors.

Character can NEVER be manipulated to appear okay. Character goes down to the very core of one’s being, which is evident and obvious to God alone. You can fool others or even yourself that you are a good person, you are okay, or you are growing in the faith. But in the eyes of God, you are what you really are.

On the other hand, if you are the type of person that is always misunderstood, or that you are not popular because you are not attractive in the eyes of other people, God knows who you truly are. Do not despair if you belong to this group of people that do not come across as attractive to others, or you are not gifted with the charm and attractiveness that others have. God sees who you really are.

“What a man is when down on his knees alone with God, that is what he is and no more.” Whatever or whoever you are in God’s eyes when you are kneeling down before Him, that is the accurate summation of yourself as a person, and nothing more. If you are good and faithful in the eyes of the God you are kneeling before, that is what you really are. But if you are a hypocrite or a spiritual loser in His eyes, you are nothing more than that. You cannot add your wealth or your beauty into the mix to “improve” your appearance or “score”. What truly counts is the heart manifested by your character.

Work on improving your character, and leave your reputation to God.

Trip Snippets – A Happy Boy

My son Elijah is a nature lover. He is always drawn towards plants and trees and animals and anything that “God created”. When we went home to the Philippines, he got introduced to the “calesa”, a horse-drawn sort of carriage that is used as a means of public transportation in Tuguegarao, City.

Even before we went home, we already promised to take him on a calesa ride and he couldn’t wait. It really made his day.

I know, animal rights activists will be mad to see this gaunt, thin horse being used as a means of livelihood. I agree with them, but I can’t do anything, can I? It’s what people do for a living. The horse is well-looked after, in keeping with the  owner’s ability or capacity to do so. Sorry for sounding defensive. If it helps, it didn’t help to make me feel any better about the horse.

But look at the joy on my boy’s face:

Even Jonathan, my eldest found it cool, too!

Elijah felt sorry for all the horses, inspite of his enjoyment. He said that this particular horse was lonely – with all certainty, as if he knew it for a fact. But it didn’t stop him from having a picture as a remembrance of that first-ever calesa ride.

Spring Thoughts

It’s a long weekend and spring is in full swing so it is the perfect time to unwind and shake off the tight grip of winter on us. We have started spring cleaning already though it is quite far from being completed yet.

The boys are out of school also for two weeks and the hubby and I are on leave for  a week. We are doing some “family stuff” and just be together as a family. Then, I have some few dishes lined up for me to whip up in my kitchen (which I have started already) plus a few writing jobs to do for church. Overall, I feel all these creative juices inside me just wanting to ooze and express myself and inner feelings and whatever. I don’t know but spring seemed to have  cast a spell on me. Or, it’s just the magical effect of seeing the sun again!

I hope I won’t go crazy like this boy.

  He thinks that his head is his butt but is shy to show to the rest of the world that he thinks so.

 Whatever. He’s my boy, so maybe that also explains why he behaves this way sometimes.

A Blessed Easter, Everyone!

The symbol that best represents the victorious spirit of the Christian faith is not the cross, but the empty tomb. The Saviour of the world did not stay dead when He paid the sins of all mankind, but He rose from the dead and legally took power over Satan and death and sin ONCE AND FOR ALL.

HotMomma joins the rest of Christendom in celebrating this victory. May you all find time to meditate on and celebrate the real meaning of Easter, even in the midst of your busy-ness with family traditions like Easter egg hunts and family Easter dinners. May your families stay united in the love of the Lord Jesus Christ.

God bless you all, my dear friends!

Image: Microsoft clipart

Staying Healthy for the Family

Two weeks ago, I was off from work for a week due to illness. I had what the GP (General Physician) calls a frozen shoulder. Sometime in the past, I also suffered from severely painful elbow joints. This has made me thinking about starting a new topic in this website which focuses on women’s health.

I hate to think that I am not able to look after my family because I am the one needing looking after. If this is to happen again, I will have to re-think the way I am looking after myself. I am sure a lot of mothers feel the same way, since we moms take our roles in the home very seriously, don’t we? We want to be there for our husbands and kids when they need us and we even refuse sometimes to take it easy even when our bodies are already complaining of fatigue. We just want to be absolutely able to look after them 24/7.

But we do get some physical ailments as well and it is only right to give ourselves enough time to rest and recover. We should remember that the entire family is affected when we fall ill.

As a vegetarian, I am generally fit and well. However, I am not a very physical person. I mean, I don’t like exercising because I don’t want to perspire and smell yucky. I watch what I eat and I try to get as much sleep as necessary but no, I don’t like physical exercises. I have enough household chores to do to wear myself out in some exercise machine or something like that. It does not help that most of the year, the weather here in England is not particularly conducive to early-morning jogging.

But I think my vegetarian diet is causing me to miss out on a lot of food that can give me iron and calcium, thus these persistent problems with my joints. For the sake of being healthier, I want to increase my intake of vegetable sources of these two minerals that I need, especially now that I am not getting any younger. I am also contemplating of eating meat again even just in small quantities. But the mere though makes me gag. I have been without meat for ten or so years. This is clearly a dilemma.

But whatever, my point is, it is important and crucial for us moms to look after ourselves. Aside from problems with the musculo-skeletal system, women are also prone to anaemia, and diseases of the reproductive system like breast and cervical cancers. We should always be careful to avoid things that might increase our chances of having these health problems. We are the heart and light of the home. Therefore, we must be well enough to bring love and warmth to those who matter most to us.

Here’s to healthy moms all lover the planet – Cheers!