My Heart is Overflowing

This is a thing I rarely admit to anyone: I love people. Just like that, people in my everyday life or even people I read about. I so love people who are nice to others and to the world in general, who made a discovery benefiting to the humanity or who just help an old women cross the street, those who make us laugh I love dearly and those, men AND women, who are able to give an uplifting compliment to every women they know, hence to every human being they know - we all need it. I have this thing, this moment when I feel my heart overflowing with love and joy and in some of this situations I have to restrain myself from hugging people around me.

Now don't get me wrong, I've been hurt by people and I suffered but I forget easily and I simply am not able to hate - I'm so happy about it!

I too love doing nice things for people around me. Just last week I made some "faux" cupcakes for the birthday of a young girl I work with. I bought brownies but I decorated them with cheese frosting and colorful sugar sprinkles. Everybody loved them, but there was a young girl who is allergic to peanuts and she couldn't eat them, didn't want to take a chance with bought brownies. So I decided to make it up to her and I baked  cupcakes myself, decorated them exactly like those brownies before and brought them to her in the beginning of this week. She was flabbergasted! She couldn't believe I've made those especially for her. I got a big hug and she was so happy, she even called her mom and her friends to tell them about it.

But to tell you the truth, I'm the one who has gotten the most from it: one of those priceless moments that fill your hearth with joy...

My Heart is Overflowing

Owning My Time

Why is it we don't appreciate what we have until it's gone? Like some people around us, time for ourselves or youth? Sigh, don't let me even started on the last one...
Today I wanted to share with you a wonderful article written by Mary Schmich for Chicago Tribune in June 1997. I wish I new some (or all!) of this things when I was 20 year old!

 Never to late to learn some things, though...here it goes:

"Advice, like youth, probably just wasted on the young
Inside every adult lurks a graduation speaker dying to get out, some world-weary pundit eager to pontificate on life to young people who'd rather be Rollerblading. Most of us, alas, will never be invited to sow our words of wisdom among an audience of caps and gowns, but there's no reason we can't entertain ourselves by composing a Guide to Life for Graduates.

I encourage anyone over 26 to try this and thank you for indulging my attempt.Ladies and gentlemen of the class of '97:

Wear sunscreen.

If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it. The long-term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by scientists, whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience. I will dispense this advice now.

Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth. Oh, never mind. You will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they've faded. But trust me, in 20 years, you'll look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can't grasp now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked. You are not as fat as you imagine.

Don't worry about the future. Or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubble gum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind, the kind that blindside you at 4 p.m. on some idle Tuesday.

Do one thing every day that scares you.

Sing.

Don't be reckless with other people's hearts. Don't put up with people who are reckless with yours.

Floss.

Don't waste your time on jealousy. Sometimes you're ahead, sometimes you're behind. The race is long and, in the end, it's only with yourself.

Remember compliments you receive. Forget the insults. If you succeed in doing this, tell me how.

Keep your old love letters. Throw away your old bank statements.

Stretch.

Don't feel guilty if you don't know what you want to do with your life. The most interesting people I know didn't know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives. Some of the most interesting 40-year-olds I know still don't.

Get plenty of calcium. Be kind to your knees. You'll miss them when they're gone.

Maybe you'll marry, maybe you won't. Maybe you'll have children, maybe you won't. Maybe you'll divorce at 40, maybe you'll dance the funky chicken on your 75th wedding anniversary. Whatever you do, don't congratulate yourself too much, or berate yourself either. Your choices are half chance. So are everybody else's.

Enjoy your body. Use it every way you can. Don't be afraid of it or of what other people think of it. It's the greatest instrument you'll ever own.

Dance, even if you have nowhere to do it but your living room.

Read the directions, even if you don't follow them.

Do not read beauty magazines. They will only make you feel ugly.

Get to know your parents. You never know when they'll be gone for good. Be nice to your siblings. They're your best link to your past and the people most likely to stick with you in the future.

Understand that friends come and go, but with a precious few you should hold on. Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and lifestyle, because the older you get, the more you need the people who knew you when you were young.

Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard. Live in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft. Travel.

Accept certain inalienable truths: Prices will rise. Politicians will philander. You, too, will get old. And when you do, you'll fantasize that when you were young, prices were reasonable, politicians were noble and children respected their elders.

Respect your elders.

Don't expect anyone else to support you. Maybe you have a trust fund. Maybe you'll have a wealthy spouse. But you never know when either one might run out.

Don't mess too much with your hair or by the time you're 40 it will look 85.

Be careful whose advice you buy, but be patient with those who supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia. Dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it's worth.

But trust me on the sunscreen."

Send this to EVERY young women you know, they'll  thank you one day.

Owning My Time

Message From the Past

What a lovely surprise! As I was organizing my stuff in my sewing room I found a lovely message written probably more than a decade ago. It was engraved carefully in a piece of red tailor's chalk with child's hand.

This is one side of the chalk:

And here is the surprise on the other side:

I can't believe I never saw it before! I was moved to tears (but than again, this happens fairly easy in my case). Just lovely! I'm almost certain that it was my daughter who did this as she loved playing by my side while I was sewing. This little discovery made me happy instantly and put a permanent smile on my face...

Message From the Past

The Love Story About Two Dirty Socks

As I'm starting to write this post I'm not certain how it will turn out. I've been wanting to write it for quite some time now but, to be honest with you, I hesitated because of the person involved in this story. You guessed it: it's my better half. I've been working him for weeks and I think I finally wore him down. This post  may be even considered as the continuation of my post about beauty of imperfection. I was inspired to tell this story by young girls, like my daughter, who found themselves in the somewhat serious and longer relationships, usually with guys who are "almost" perfect. Those girls believe firmly that they can change their man once they live together under the same roof. To DIY a perfect husband or partner so to speak. Husband improvement project. Now, I've seen things and lived long enough to know it doesn't work that way. So whenever I hear something that let me believe this particular girl might think she can change her partner or his bad habits, I tell her my story about two dirty socks.

It all started insanely long ago when I studied at the university and got to know this young boy with the most beautiful  hair, lips and eyes in the world. We were only nineteen years young. Aside from not being able to repair home appliances (very big deal as I come from a DIY family!), he was a very nice guy and I was madly in love with him. I couldn't wait to live with him together. Four years later we married and moved to our first apartment. As many of you may already know, dating and actually living together isn't the same thing. I knew my young husband was always very orderly, sometimes even excessively so. Luckily for me, he continued to be that way and from the beginning on we did our household chores together (thank you, dear mother-in-law!). But there was one thing that drove me nuts each day! He used to leave his two dirty socks inside-out on the floor beside the bed each evening and forgot to put them away in the morning. So whenever I looked there they were: two dark stains on the floor. In the beginning, I asked him nicely to put them away in the laundry. Didn't work. At all. Then I started being upset about it and not too rarely we had a fiercely dispute because of that. One day it all escalated and I was so mad that I didn't want to speak with him. But the socks were still on the floor beside the bed. We didn't speak so I couldn't tell him to put his damn socks away! So as I was cleaning the bedroom and putting things away, I grabbed his socks and put them in the laundry. Thing I refused to do till that day. It took me 2 seconds. Everything was calm. 

It might seem dumb to you, but it took me more than one year to understand that he's been putting up with my flaws (open books and magazines literally everywhere) while I raged about his socks. We were still madly in love. So we decided to not take this matter too seriously (apparently people freak out and divorce over a toothpaste?!). It was so easy and so simple: to love each other for all the good reasons and to accept each other's insignificant flaws. The secret is to not sweat the small stuff. There is no need to ruin the whole marriage or relationship over the toilet seat and the toothpaste! You can't change another person, you can only love them for who they are. So you have to be ready to love, accept, respect and tolerate the person as a whole, with all his good and eventually bad sides. That's it!

As for my DH's two dirty socks, they still live on the floor beside the bed. Occasionally, I make a joke about them and my husband put them away and promise me in all seriousness never to leave them there again. We are still madly in love.

The Love Story About Two Dirty Socks

Happy Valentine's Day Y'all!

Happy Valentine's Day Y'all!

Love Everyday - Free eBook for Married Couples

While everyone is preparing for the official Day of Love, Mandi over at Organizing Your Way is offering a free eBook on everyday love in relationship and marriage. I'm a fan of Mandi's site for many reasons but I really loved this eBook that she prepared in collaboration with other editors and contributors.

You can get a free Copy of the Love Everyday eBook HERE. As Mandi said, feel free to share the eBook with your friends, family and blog readers.

Love Everyday - Free eBook for Married Couples

Heart-Shaped Dessert Recipes For Valentine’s Day

It's that time of year again, everybody is talking flowers, chocolate and love. I must admit I'm not so much into it as I prefer to celebrate love every day of my life with small gestures than to party once a year in this commercial(ized) way. But ok, yeah, I admit it - I kinda love all this red and pink kitsch, can't help it, it's a little girl in me. This year I wanted to make something at home for my Hubby and me so I decided to make a heart-shaped cake or dessert. As I was searching for an easy cheesy recipe I stumbled upon 20 recipes for heart-shaped desserts on Woman's Day Web page. Aren't they just delightful?

  Don't panic right away please! They might seem complicated to make but there is a recipe for every level of cooking expertise. It starts with a 2 minutes Valentine Dessert For Two (can you really make a dessert in 2 minutes?! Incredible!) and it gets  to more complicated and time consuming cakes. There are also incredibly beautiful  No-Bake Mini Heart Cakes. You can find all of the 20 recipes here. I find it more caring and thoughtful to make something for someone you love than just to buy any commercial product. I'd say: go and make some of this beauties and share them with your loved ones!

Heart-Shaped Dessert Recipes For Valentine’s Day

Living as a couple in a foreign country

I just got back from the local radio station where I was invited for an interview. The hostess prepares a mini-series about different aspects of immigrant women's lives in Quebec. She wanted me to talk about what it meant for my couple to live in Quebec in comparison to our country. This was not my first interview on the radio and it wasn't live so I was not so nervous and it all went well. On my way back home I continued to think about other things that I could have said or expressed in a different way. And then I was suddenly overwhelmed by so many memories, so many challenges life gave us, I could have filled hours and days talking about it. Our life was changed drastically several times, we had to flee from danger, learn foreign languages, cultures and customs, change professions, overcome numerous other obstacles. At the same time, we tried to live as normally as possible in order to offer a happy childhood to our children. No, I won't cry, but seriously, i have to fight tears writing this. Yes, it was difficult, but I was more than blessed to have to do it with the man on my side who never stopped holding my hand since we were 19...

And even if so many things changed in our life as a couple, that was the one true thing that remained the same throughout all the experiences. And  for that I'm grateful...
Back to the radio interview: if you are by any chance interested to listen to  this radio program, tune in on radio CKIA on the  February 24, 2010 at 1 pm Eastern Time (USA and Canada). The program is called 'Égalité: genre féminin' and it's in French.

P.S. I love you!

Living as a couple in a foreign country

Power of Words - Words of Power

Sometimes I don't know what I'm getting myself into. Like today, I just wanted to talk about this cute little online gagdet that I discovered lately. Its name is Wordle  and you can create word clouds from any text or internet address you provide. This is what I got with the address of my blog:

And as I was thinking yesterday evening, trying to fall asleep, about writing this post I became aware of the importance and the power of words in our everyday's life. Rest assured, this is not the first time I thought about it, as I learned the hard way that words can leave emotional scars, sometimes for the rest of your life. Real power of words can transform life, help, inspire, heal or encourage but also can bless, make fear or angry. Any emotion can be inspired by words. They're not only words, they're powerful tools or even weapons. As I did a little research on the Internet I noticed that  I'm not alone preoccupied by this subject. Try to google 'power of words' and you'll see for yourself, so many people smarter than me said beautiful things about the power of words and about words of power - not the same thing at all. So I decided that instead of trying to say something new and smart about it, I'll bring up the inspiring quote by Marianne Williamson from her book: 'A Return To Love: Reflections on the Principles of A Course in Miracles'. To be honest with you, I never heard of this author before today but even if I'm not overly spiritual or religious, I found this words beautiful and comforting:

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn't serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are born to make manifest the Glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us, it's in everyone, and as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."

I dedicate this post to my two lovely children.
Have a nice day!

Power of Words - Words of Power