Enjoying a Warm Spring Day

Me, posing under a bright colored tree

Probably the hardest downside of being self-employed and working from home is the limited social contact with other people. Most of the time you´re alone, scheming for ways to build up your small business.

Being stuck at home most of the time make me appreciate the gift of being able to go out, walk around, and spend some time away from my computer.

As you know, living in Europe has its own cons too and one of it is the long winter. Cold seasons are much more longer than warn seasons. That means staying home where it´s warm most of the time in a year.

But yesterday was different. It was gorgeously warm and sunny, my husband picked me up from home (on his way from work) so we could drive to the city and walk around. I enjoyed it immensely.

It´s also a form of bonding for us. We talk as we walk, we laugh, hold hands, and just enjoy each other´s company. I also got to enjoy my favorite fish burger teamed with some ice-cream, yummy.

On our way to the parking lot, we saw this beautiful pink tree. It looks like blooming fully with flowers although the pink aren´t its flowers. Click the photo for a bigger view. This is a remembrance of a beautiful spring afternoon spent well.

Dream Interpretation: Turtle

Last night I saw a turtle in my dream. It was a green, clean and healthy looking turtle. It was guiding my way. I saw myself walking in an unfamiliar narrow road and the turtle was leading me, I was following.

The catchy part of the dream is that somewhere down the road, the turtle took a right turn and left me to continue taking the route that we were supposed to take. "Where are you heading and why are you abandoning me?", I asked. "You already know the way, you can do it now by yourself." He said.

I saw myself wondering what made the turtle left me. I thought I could trust him in leading me.

Whenever I have dreams that stay vivid once I wake up, I try to understand its meaning. So I googled for the dream interpretation of turtle, and this is what I found from Dreammoods.com.

To see a turtle in your dream symbolizes wisdom, faithfulness, longevity, and loyalty. It also suggests that you need to take it slow in some situation or relationship in your life. With time and patience, you will make steady progress. Alternatively, a turtle indicates that you are sheltering yourself from the realities of life. You are putting forth a hard exterior and not letting others in. As a result, you are feeling withdrawn. To dream that you are being chased by a turtle indicates that you are hiding behind a facade, instead of confronting the things that are bothering you.

Because I was following the turtle and not chasing it, the last meaning, "hiding behind a facade", is eliminated. When it comes to relationship, I and my husband are so close and we´re very compatible, we hardly have issues in out marriage. We do argue, but nothing that we can´t fix before the day ends.

The first meaning, that turtle symbolizes wisdom, faithfulness, longevity, and loyalty, applies to me. I keep searching for wisdom. I´m also faithful and loyal to my husband, my family, and friends.

But given that the turtle which I relied my safety on left me, I figure that my dream takes the third meaning, that I am putting forth a hard exterior and not letting others in. I find this quite true to me at the moment. There are people in my life right now who are literally living close to me whom I don´t want to be close with because of some reasons. I feel that being too close to them results to the invasion of my privacy, so I keep a distance.

This dream is quite interesting because this is the first time that I´ve dreamed of turtle. It leaves me with so much to ponder upon.

photo credit: Elena Kalis via photopin cc

What Would You Do If You Arrive at the Fork in the Road?

Choosing which path to take isn´t always easy.

You sometimes find yourself at a fork in the road. For someone like me who isn´t good with remembering landmarks and finding directions, if I´m at a fork and I´m not sure which path to take, I stop.

I look at each road for a moment, pray, and then listen to my guts. I rely on my instinct.

Because I have a big trust in God, I believe that through my instinct, He will let me know the right way. And for how many instances, more than I could count, He never failed to show me the way.

Right now I find myself at a fork of the road once again. I´m not at loss of my way home literally, but I´m lost in terms of my career.

See: Why my Dad Changed Career

I remember a post I wrote in 2010 about my rant on changing career. Well, I actually did change career. I left my teaching profession to become a full-time blogger. I hoped that online publishing will open doors for my ultimate dream, to become a published writer.

I concentrated on my passion for fashion. I focused all my time and energy in my fashion blog. But after almost two years of hard work and I´ve achieved the goals that I first set for my blog, I´m starting to lose that loving feeling. I blog just for the sake of maintaining the blog. And as a result, I see the downfall of my blog on a daily basis.

When I think of how much I´ve put on this website, I know that I have to do something to save it, bring it back to where it was in terms of google rankings, and keep it from complete ruin. But another side of me tells me, probably it´s time to follow my good old dream?

I recently read a quote that says, "Don´t abandon what you really want to do because of what you want to do now." It hit me, that´s true. While I love fashion and nothing makes me happier than writing about fashion, my ultimate dream is to write a fiction book. At this fork of the road, I have to decide.

photo credit: Stevie Rocco via photopin cc

How Your Thoughts Control Your Happiness

"The happiness of your life depends on the quality of your thoughts." ~ Anonymous

I met this proverb in facebook, it´s circulated around, shared by many users to inspire those who read it. This proverb isn´t new, it´s been said by many people in different mediums and in different ways. But are we actually reading the message?

Everyone of us seek to be happy. We have different definition of happiness. Other people search for it by acquiring more money, others hope to find happiness by looking beautiful, while others hope to be happy by inflicting misery on others. But no matter how much we chase for happiness, it remains illusive to many. Why?

The answer is simple - unless you learn to entertain only quality thoughts, you will never be happy. Instead, you´ll feel stressed.

Quality thoughts are thoughts that make you smile, give you hope, inspire you, make you thankful of all your gifts and blessings, fuel you with gratitude, encourage you to be content, and above all, thoughts that praise your Maker.

Although negative thoughts are often stronger than quality, positive thoughts, the good news is our mind can be trained. You can control your thoughts the same way your thoughts control your happiness.

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Insomnia Makes Me Unproductive

I never understood how insomnia can SO negatively affect a person until I myself was plagued by it. In fact, I never thought I would ever have insomnia because for almost all my life, sleep was never a problem.

But until I became self-employed and worked from home, when my working days are full of sitting in front of the computer with very less physical movement, I started having problem getting sleep at night.

I go to bed together with my husband at usually midnight and while hubby quickly doze off to sleep, I lay wide awake until four, and later, until seven o´clock in the morning.

As the alarm clock goes on signalling it´s time to get up and prepare for the day, only then I´d feel groggy, terribly tired, and I´d sleep. I would then spend more than half of the day sleeping.

The bad effects of this are that, as I rise from bed at past noon time, I still feel tired, unhappy, uncreative, and overall unproductive. I´m already at the point when I feel frustrated. In order to combat this insomnia, I and my husband agreed to actively go back to exercising. Starting this week, we´ll go to the gym daily and we will see if this will help regulate my sleep. I´ll let you know.

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Why People with Pets are Happy People?

My adopted pet named Orange

Did you know that people with pet are happy people? They´re also usually nice people. Well, that doesn´t mean just because you haven´t got a pet you ain´t nice. You probably are busy, no time to care for a pet, or that the place you live in isn´t conducive for a pet. But let´s say everything is perfect, would you love to have a pet?

Just when I craved to have a cat and my husband adamantly said "No", he found an abandoned cat in a cold, lonely street one Friday of November. It was the beginning of winter and the temperature was starting to get freezing. The cat was sick and clearly needed help. My husband debated not in himself, he quickly brought it home.

We named him Orange because of his color and because we were uncertain of his gender at first. We didn´t know if somebody i looking for him so we waited for a week, hoping that nobody would look for him and take him away from us. But in case somebody did, we were ready to return him. But after a week and we didn´t find anybody looking for him both in public "lost and found" boards and in news papers, we decided to take him as our own. We brought him to the vet to fix his bronchitis, and slowly, he regained his health.

He is currently the joy of our life and the center of our attention. He´s very spoiled especially to dad and is so loved by everyone including grandma. He simply the greatest gift I received last Christmas.

So if you ask me, why people with pets are happy people? It´s simple, there´s someone who always love to snuggle, to pet, and there´s always someone who makes you smile, making you forget any trouble you have. A pet is a perfect distressor.

My Growing Dislike On Kate Beckinsale

I used to really admire her, I was head-over-heels in love with her on that good old movie "Serendipity" and I was in big awe with all the stunts she did in "Underworld". I saw her as a dainty, sweet little creature with a beauty to admire.

But when I learned about how she stole someone else´s husband and father, when she started that affair with her Underworld director who was very married with a young kid, my admiration completely turned to dislike. I hate reading all the news about her enjoying a really hot and over-the-top sex life with her now husband but, don´t you really think how painful it is to the family that you broke? She simply didn´t live up to my adoration. And oh, I´m neither impressed with her bragging that she doesn´t wear knickers!

When questioned about her stealing someone else´s husband, her defense is that universal defense of the world´s mistresses and home wreckers, "their marriage was already on the rocks when we started dating. They were already separated when we became together." Which of course, the first wife claimed wasn´t true. Kate was always rude and had nothing good to say to her when the first wife visited her husband in the sets of the Underworld.

"Kate Beckinsale doesn´t know how to treat other women well", was how the first wife describes her.

I don´t have anything personal against Kate but I have this big thing against people destroying a marriage much more a home just to pursue their own personal happiness.

Oh, and please don´t hate me if you love this actress!