Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas Everyone!

Have a beautiful, memorable and meaningful holiday with your loved ones.

Christmas for me is a reminder of God's faithfulness, goodness and forgiveness.

It is a day for restoration, reconciliation and faith

It is a celebration of victory, let earth receive her King.

Christmas is a holiday of love, hope, renewal and faith in Christ Jesus, 

who came to this earth for you and I,

to live abundantly in His purposes,

to live in freedom by His grace.

It is also a day to cherish with your friends and family!

Pray together as a family (my favorite),
Read Some verses about Christmas, whether you agree-like it or not, it is Christ's day :)

Isaiah 7:14 Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. 

Isaiah 9:6 For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. 

Matthew 1:21 She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins. 

Luke 2:10 And the angel said to them, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.

Luke 2:11 For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.

Luke 2:14 “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!” 

John 3:16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

Romans 6:23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Romans 15:13 May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope. 

Make a memory that will last forever,
not just focusing on what presents you will get or to get others for Christmas.
It is fun and all, but it is NOT the purpose of this day.

We tend to commercialized everything,
selling-buying-profit,
then make it all about Santa Claus,
corny Christmas movies that has NOTHING to do with Christ,
mostly about how desperate a woman is to bring a husband to a family dinner,
a workaholic man/woman,
Santa saves Christmas,
 finding a husband for mommy, etc.
LOL
We ruined the meaning of Christmas!

Be a blessing to someone,
especially those who has nobody to celebrate the holiday with,
even strangers.
If you see someone in a supermarket, street, etc,
wished them a Merry Christmas, a smile, a helping hand, share something!

Spend time with your loved ones,
I miss all of my family and my memories with them on this holiday,
those memories makes me smile and I will pass it on to my children someday.
Take a lot of pictures,

Eat a lot of foods,

Laugh,

Love,

Hug!

Hope your day be MERRY and BRIGHT!

;)

xo,

Lindsay

Pearl Harbor

We Shall NEVER FORGET Our Heroes,

Those Who Sacrificed Their Everything,

So That Others (we) May Live Freely!

~December 7TH 1941~

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Our Love, Gratitude, Respect and Prayers To Those Who Lost Their Lives and Loved Ones On This Event.

~We Remember~

PS. Check Out These Websites For More Information:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attack_on_Pearl_Harbor

http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/events/wwii-pac/pearlhbr/pearlhbr.htm

http://www.usswestvirginia.org/ph/phlist.php

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Arizona_Memorial

http://www.pearlharborhistoricsites.org/

http://www.pearlharboroahu.com/

xoxo,

Lindsay

My Christmas Tradition

Christmas is my favorite holiday of all time! I love the tradition my family used to do when I was a kid, I love the decorations, I love the Christmas songs, I love the weather, the cookies, hot chocolate, seasonal coffees, sales on stores and people seemed to be happier during this holiday season.

My Family's Tradition 

I grew up in Manado, Indonesia, where the majority of its people are Christian, even though we are located in Indonesia, the largest Muslim population in the world. But, in Manado, people with different religions lives with peace, love and harmony. 

Anyway, starting December fifth, the children are getting ready to meet a very special person on Christmas season: Santa Claus and Zwarte Piet  (click on it to find out more about them). Zwarte Piet is from the Dutch language, they are Santa's helpers. Manado has a lot of Dutch, Portuguese, Spanish, British and Japanese's influences due to our history. Therefore, our names, languages, foods and cultures are influenced a lot by those countries. The Zwarte Piet was known as a black person, so in Manado, because our skin is not as dark, those who "played" the role as the Zwarte Piet must put on some body paint all over their bodies to make it very dark. 

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But, unlike Santa's helpers in America, in Manado, the Zwarte Piet are very scary and they make all the children afraid of them (you will not get your gifts if you are naughty lol). So, the parents usually enrolled their kids to some churches or organizations who did the annual Santa Claus season and write the list of what to tell their kids (their best and bad behavior). The goal is to make the children understand that they will get gifts when they do good and when they are bad, they will not get what they wanted. We must earned our gifts, so December is the month where all the kids are behaved and afraid to see the Zwarte Piet (over there, their role is to scared the kids so they will not be naughty for the whole year lol). The parents will choose to either invite Santa and the helpers to their house or to go to the place where it is being held (mall, church, school, etc). 

I remember, I used to be afraid when I heard the Santa's car coming to my neighborhood and have this loud microphone to tell you which houses they will visit. I, personally, think that the idea to make the kids behaved well is good, but the way they presented it, is not healthy for the children. But, the presents are always a huge reward for us back then lol.

When I was older, my mom decided not to invite Santa anymore, instead she was being very creative created Santa into our own house. So, on the night before Santa "supposed" to come, my mom will tell me to go to sleep and when I woke up in the morning, she created the house has a grass trail and a little mud here and there on the floor (because Santa's reindeer were there lol) and I will followed the grass trail and found my gifts wrapped beautifully under the tree along with a note from "Santa". And yes people, because of that, I was a believer of Santa Claus when I was a kid, my mom is the best! :)

In Manado (at least when I grew up), people started to bake the cookies since early December, so the smell of fresh homemade cookies are everywhere. People are starting to decorate their houses with Christmas trees, lights, ornaments, fake snow lol, it really feels like North Pole, even though we live in a hot, sunny Asian country (usually on December, it rains a lot so it is not as hot as summer time).

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You will find jars of cookies like that picture in almost every house in Manado. Let's eat!

On Christmas Eve, we usually gathered in a family member's house to pray and eat some Christmas foods, my mom and grandma made some special dishes only for Christmas, so we waited the whole year for those dishes LOL. Sometimes we went to church on Christmas eve, which is one of my favorite holy moment. It was just so beautiful, peaceful and amazing. At 12 A.M on Christmas Eve, we will pray together as a family to start the Christmas day. Then we will eat tons of foods and go around the city where they held a lot of fireworks, music, and yes you can visit ANY house started December 24th all the way to January 3rd. HA! Yes, people, my hometown is the real deal when it comes to Christmas! There really is NO other place like Manado when it comes to celebrate Christmas. Where else can you visit any house to eat, even stranger's house, from Christmas eve to January? Only in Manado!! ;)

These are just a glimpse of Christmas in Manado:

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December 25th and 26th are church time! So, since AM to PM, you will see people are wearing beautiful dresses going to churches together and then after church, we will eat again, either at our own houses or visiting families and friends all over the city. We also like to visit graveyard, bring flowers to our families/friends who are in heaven by now. It was a sweet time, not that we worship dead people, it is more likely to remember their lives and gathered together with our family to remember the good ole time we had with those people who are no longer with us. Flowers always look nice on a graveyard anyway :)

Manadonese LOVES to cook, eat, party and very family oriented. We know everyone in the city and we love to invite everyone to have a party. It is in our culture to help each other, eat, dress up and party! So, we have a lot of varieties of foods, from Asian dishes to western dishes and of course local dishes. We have a lot of homemade cookies as well, from cheese, chocolates, caramel, peanut butter, strawberries-pineapple-any berry on earth, etc. In almost every house you will eat appetizers, main menu and desserts (cookies, puddings, salad, fruit cocktails, cakes, pies, etc).

We also love to dress up and look nice everyday, especially on Christmas time, so sometimes it could be stressful for those who do not have money to keep up with the latest trend. I was NOT one of those people, I thank God that my parents taught me to live well, loving God, others and not worry of having new things on Christmas day. My mom used to literally pushed me to go to stores and buy something new for myself, because I am one of those kid who do not wanna put burden on my parents shoulder to buy me new gifts, even though we are not poor. I am a believer of contentment and my mom always tell me that she is forever grateful to have me as a child..LOL..!

So, Christmas in Manado is all about JESUS, family, feast, friendship and celebration of love, faith and  hope. So, what is your favorite holiday? What is your family's tradition? Tell me..tell me :)

Matthew 1:21 

She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins. 

Matthew 1:23 

“Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel” (which means, God with us). 

My husband and I at Union Square, San Francisco, last Christmas Eve (2011).

Ho..Ho...Ho...

xoxo,

Lindsay

Love is NOT blind!

I have heard this saying, "Love Is Blind", since I was a baby lol. I mean, people have their own opinion, reason and excuse about everything in life, including your own opinion for a certain statement, such as:

 LOVE is blind.

I have always disagree with this statement, simply because I, personally, think that we must be able to see to understand and to love someone or something. Yes, your heart could also see beyond what eyes have not seen. Your eyes, brain and heart must work together to accomplished a balance judgement, decision and choices in life.

We must be able to open our eyes to see the imperfection, injustice, fear, abuse, passion, talent, etc. We must be able to see so that we will have compassion about something or someone. If we chose to close both eyes and be "blind" about love, then we will never know whether it is love, lust or attraction or temporary feelings. When we are "blind", we are lost in the dark, not knowing what to do or what suppose to be done (In this context, I am not talking about/trying to make fun of blind people).

I am a big believer of if I am about to be in a relationship with a man, I have to like that man, I have to at least have a physical attraction to him. Come on! You cannot say it is all about the heart and you do not care of what they look like physically. I am not talking about a certain race, body shape, face shape, etc, because beauty is in the eye of the beholder, right? I am talking about personal attraction (physically). Everyone has different taste when it comes to see other people's beauty. Personality is a huge part and a great heart is also a double plus points, but if you are not attracted to that person at all, then it is hard to build a relationship with him/her because someday, sooner or later, you will try to change them or wished they look like someone else or you will find someone else that will make you re-think your choice. 

A lot of people chose to be blind when it comes to loving someone, too blind that they let this other person treated them like crap, disrespectful and almost like a sad recycle garbage, excuse the comparison, I chose it wisely so that we understand that we are NOT a garbage. We are a human being who deserves better than a punching bag or visiting hours only when they want something from us and then throw it away after they get tired or bored with us. That is not healthy and NOT love either! Love should make your eyes open with gladness, your heart flourished with happiness and your brain smiles. Love does not make you forget who you are as a person, love does not create fear, love does not mean you lost yourself so that the other person would/might like you, love honors you, love respects you and love treats you as a human being with dignity and soul.

All I am saying is that to love someone, you must OPEN your eyes (heart and brain), so that you will be able to understand them as a person, to accept things about them, to learn about them, to love them regardless of their weaknesses and strength. THAT is why love is not blind, to see is to understand-accept-learn-love and be loved for who you are (or he/she is) as a person.

How do you know that someone loves you? through their words and actions. You need to SEE the facts and the proof that they love you. 

I stand with "Love is NOT blind" :)

xoxo,

Lindsay

VOTE

Just a reminder for the American people to go out and vote!

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 6TH, 2012

Make your voice be heard and VOTE for someone that you believe could and should be the President of The United States. 

Vote for someone (the party) that represents you, someone (the party) whose policies are closer to what you think is the best for the country and the people. Vote because you care for some things and issues that are important to you and others that you care about in life. 

There is never a wasted vote, your vote counts for something and someone. So, make a difference and vote tomorrow.

Stop complaining, whining and hating the government when you do not even make time to vote. Whether you choose to vote or not, it will impacted your life because you are an American (or live here), so instead of thinking way too much about things that might never happened to you, think of what you could do as an individual to change the world NOW (present time), to make your life better and to prevent certain things from happening to you (or others, things that matters to you) in the future.

Educate yourself on the issues as well, don't just listen to celebrity, your family, friends, co worker, religious leaders or politician on TV, I meant consider their voices, but also read, do some research and see the point of views from both sides, not just what you wanted to hear or what will benefit yourself and make other people suffered.

Be wise, be smart and represent yourself! Pray and Vote!

These are the CANDIDATES:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_2012

These are the ISSUES that you need to learn/understand:

http://campaign2012.c-span.org/issues

If you are still confused, try this QUIZ lol:

http://www.isidewith.com/

Stay Safe and Be A Good Citizen..

VOTE  (click on the name for more information) for: Obama, Romney  , Johnson

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xoxo,

Lindsay

Test Your Limit

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One of the many excuses I have heard is: "I can not do it!"

Can not and will not are two of our very own enemies inside us that limited our abilities to grow and to move forward. We will never know our own strength unless we give it a try and so many times, the first try, second and third might not get us right to the top. Everything has its own process and purposes, including strength, whether it is physically, mentally or spiritually strength. Strength is trained and gained, it is not given or received overnight. It is a journey and process in life, sometimes it is a short ones and many times it is a long one. But one thing for sure is that you will get stronger when you try one day at a time, one foot ahead of the other, one step at a time. A step further is better than a step backward!

What might seemed to be impossible will not be impossible unless you try it, right? Everything seems impossible for those who never try to seek the possibility. A baby will think that walking is impossible, then he tried to walk and succeeded. What seemed to be hard, might not be as hard once you trained yourself to face it.

You are stronger than you think! I used to not being able to do a perfect push up or pull up, now I am able to do any form of push ups and pull up (with some help lol). I used to think that lifting weight is for men who wants huge muscles, but I was so wrong and I am in love with lifting weight now and I could lift heavier weight with squats or on a balance ball, name it! lol!!.

So picture what you want for yourself, set a goal in your mind, get moving and make it happen! A stronger, leaner, healthier, happier, better you is just one step ahead (for starter). I used to see a fitness model and thought, wow she must be crazy to do that. Today, I look at them and I was like "I could do it too with one leg or one arm" ;)

Test yourself and see how far you passed your so called "limitation".

xoxo,

Lindsay

Fortune Cookies

 HA!

Last night, after I ate my delicious Chinese Food for dinner, I decided to have two fortune cookies because they were so yummy! In my opinion, some fortune cookies are just better than others. Anyway, these are the result of my fortune cookies! The statements compliment each other and finished each other sentences LOL.

Sometimes it is nice to hear or read encouraging words from other people, may it be someone you know, a stranger or even some fortune cookies lol. This is why I love collecting words of wisdom, write it down on my journal or take picture of them as a reminder of what I could be if I am willing to do it. I also love to write them down to encourage myself and others. 

When something captured your eyes, your heart and soul, your brain tends to remember it and stored it for future references. That is why we need to stored wisdom and encouraging words into our brain so that we live by those words instead of negative, self pity, discourage words that will pull your spirit down along with the people that you meet in your life. You know, misery loves company kinda person, you don't wanna be that person. Nobody deserves to live a miserable lives and nobody have any right to bring other people down with them, dives into their unhappy life.

Say something nice to other people today, do something good for others, try to encourage other people without being fake. What do I mean by that? we do not have to compliment others and lie as well. Every person has their own uniqueness, whether they realize it or not. Bring that out of them, point it out to them so that they could see it as a gift, talent, useful and special instead of weirdness, bad and useless. 

Don't compliment others based on something that is not in them, for example do not encourage someone to pursue a singing career when everyone think they could not sing, including that person himself lol. Encourage them to pursue something that you know they could do and would be good at it plus it will satisfied them as well. Sometimes people just need a little push, a word of encouragement to step into their "dream comes true" world.

Go after your passion, your dreams, use your talents for something good and be happy with what you have accomplished now. Life is not over until we are dead, so as long as we are still breathing, we could still reach our goals! Good Luck and Best Wishes!

xoxo,

Lindsay

Happy Halloween

Hello Readers,

First of all, I am not into Halloween, but I do love candy and I did these pictures just for fun, inspired by one of my favorite TV show, "The Walking Dead". It's funny because I am not into Zombie's movie, I like horror movies but not Zombies and everyone keep telling me that The Walking Dead is so good. So, thanks to Netflix and Google TV, I watched the series and it is a great show. 

xoxo,

Lindsay

soMEbody loves you

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Nothing is better than to love and be loved by other people.

This is for all of you who read my blog. 

I hope that you all know that I love you and appreciate your time to read, comment,
pray and share my thoughts.

Have a great week and wonderful journey everyone!

Be Strong and Courageous,

Be Happy and Joyful,

Be Wise and Honorable.

Enjoy Life Without Losing Yourself In The Making!

xoxo,

Lindsay

Happiness Is A Journey

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Because we are living in the era of "Express", we wanted everything in our life to be express as well. We would love to have a date stamped on a specific event in our life, we wanted to control everything, including how fast a certain thing should be fulfilled.

Happiness is a journey!

I love those words! It does not mean that along the way you should be unhappy, miserable and cranky LOL. But, for some people, everything takes time to reached a certain degree of happiness. Forgiveness takes time, forgiveness is also a journey in life. 

There are steps that we must going through before we arrived at our "destination" or should I say degree of forgiveness. First, we must feel the hurt, then we got mad, confused, angry, sad and all of the emotions mixed together in our soul. Then we acted our emotions out, may it be crying, blaming someone (or yourself), regret, planning a revenge, hurting someone, being alone, partying, etc. After that, we have some options, we could either forgive the abuser and move on with our life or we could plan a revenge that might not just hurt him/her but yourself and others along the way. We could confront the person and tell them that we are hurt in a mature way or not so mature way, we could live miserable our whole life playing the blaming game, never ending regret or the "what if" mentality, or we could just cry, pick up our own life, move on toward a more positive renewed uplifting and better life. 

Everything takes time and that is why it calls a journey instead of a destination, because I think that life is a journey. We continue to walk and filled our life with surprises that we found along the way and we continue to walk our journey. We have options to stop and enjoy a certain moment in that journey, take some pictures, laughed or cried, remember or forget. We also have some options to unpacked some baggage that we have been carrying along the way (baggage: unnecessary burden). 

Aren't you tired carrying those emotional baggage that is hurting you, emotional, physical and mentally?. Why carrying those people who hurt you, abused you, did not appreciate you with you on your journey/life? Let them go, unpacked them, leave them behind and never look back. You have learned your lesson, now it is time to let go and live your lighter life. Filled your bag with new experiences, good people, moments and lessons to cherished and worth remembering or carrying along the way. Create beautiful moments not miserable moments. Remember the great times not the bad times. 

If you still find it hard to let go, then make a promise to yourself that you deserve better and make a goal to help yourself out to move on with your life, so that you could reached your next destination in your journey.

When or if you have arrived at your next destination, may it be the next city, next boyfriend you have, next job, next ministry, etc, unpacked those unnecessary baggage. You do know that those losers do not even think of you anymore, remember you or even know what they did wrong to you, right? So stop the pity party and expecting him/her to come to you and admitted that they were wrong and they were sorry. Some of them did regret and apologized but MANY of them did not even know what they did wrong. So, stop wasting your time analyzing why bad things happened to you and create your own happiness without destroying yourself and others. Happiness does not mean you could do whatever makes you happy, there are rules and limitation to everything on earth. Drinking, food, shopping and partying makes you happy, but if you do it way too much, you will ended up hurting yourself. 

Live in the present!

We could not change the past and we do not know what tomorrow holds, so why bother and worry way too much about it? We should just cherish the present moment, make it worth our time to remember, to smile when we think about it in the future. There are two things in the past, one that is worth to remember and one that is worth to forget. Only carrying/taking with you what is important and worthy of your soul and time, leave the emptiness, bitterness, sadness, unhealthy lifestyle and unhappiness behind so that they will not contaminated or dictate your future.

Remember that happiness is a journey which means every single step that you take should create happiness until the day God calls you home to His everlasting arms. We all going to die someday, the when-how and where is unknown, that is why we should just enjoy our life before it ends because life is short. 

The journey of happy life does not mean we are always happy, because there is nobody on this earth, past-present and future people, who will never experience fail-hurt-death-sickness-drama in life. Everyone has its turn to experienced pain and gain, because it is part of life and living with other people with different background and characters. 

Sometimes we must experience the bitterness to understand and appreciate the sweetness of life, that is of course if we are wise enough not to do the same mistake twice or picked up/chose the same people twice (could be different people with the same attitude/character than the first mistake we made).

Chose, create, live your happiness and enjoy your journey!

xoxo,

Lindsay