Amazing Benefits of Strawberries

I love strawberries! Strawberries are in season now here in Japan, so I always make it a point to buy strawberries every time I  get the chance to go to Gourmet. The price is a little bit expensive, but the benefits are worth the price.

50 Things Money Can't Buy

Money changes everything, as I remember from the song of Cindi Lauper (in the 80's), but money definitely can not buy everything.

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Money

It can buy a house, but not a home.

It can buy a bed, but not sleep.

It can buy a clock, but not time.

It can buy a  book, but not knowledge.

It can buy a position, but not respect.

It can buy medicine, but not health.

It can buy blood, but not life.

It can buy sex, but not love.

Spring Photo Challenge

I joined Instagram about 8 months ago but I was not active in posting pictures because I didn't know how it works back then.  I decided to reactivate my Instagram last December when my 2 girls finally joined the band wagon :). I started following their account.  I learned from them how to make my Instagram fun and exciting by using different filters to enhance my photos and how to use hashtags to share my photos to other photo enthusiasts out there and to gain likers and followers too.  I started posting pics again after being inactive for 6 months :).

For this month, I will be doing something different on my Instagram to revive my passion on photography. I didn't actually lose my passion for taking pictures. I just don't have much time now to spend on this hobby given my busy schedule.

I decided to join the Spring Photo Challenge of iHeartFaces for the month of March.  The mechanics of this photo challenge is very simple: submit one photo or as many photos as you can that follow the theme for that day. Add your photo on Instagram or Twitter and use  the hashtag iheartfaces so that everyone can find your photo entry.  There are really no strict guidelines for this challenge. You can participate anytime you can, can join any day or all of the days, there is no stress at all (yay!).  Well, this is really a fun challenge because it brings out the creativity of everyone.  I hope I will be able to complete this challenge till the end of this month.

I have submitted my photo entries from Day 4 to Day 9, and tried to catch up the first 3 days that I missed. I have completed the 9 themes as of today, yay!

http://instagram.com/glo_gee

Message for Today

Today, Glo, we believe God wants you to know that ...

if you feel too busy, you are.

Give yourself permission to be un-busy. Give yourself an hour or a day to simply be. 

Allow yourself the luxury of a small retreat. Allow your spirit time to be restored. 

Even God took a day of rest.

What's Up?

I just came back from a ski trip with Rokko Island Pinoy friends in Okuibuki ski resort located in Shiga prefecture.  It was a fun trip as usual.  I am tired and sleepy now, so I will not write long. I will post more pics next time.  Happy Sunday!

7 Rules of Life

A very timely reminder ...

Happy 5th Birthday Kent!

Today is one of the days where the word "diet" does not exist in my vocabulary, not again :).  We just had a children's party in our Pinoy community here in Rokko Island for Kent's 5th birthday celebration. As expected, food was overflowing. I over indulged with Filipino food and ate maybe more than 3500 calories, never mind the diet, haha!.  During celebrations like this, we usually help the celebrant's mom in cooking food for the handa,  and we usually cook a lot.  Oh well, Filipinos love food and after the party, we still have "pabalot" :).

Happy 5th birthday Kent!

With the cute birthday celebrant

Baked goodies prepared by the celebrant's mom Helen

candies for the kids while playing

Kids busy playing with the games prepared by the game masters Bimbo and Olga.

Here we are with our face painting, supposed to be for the kids, but the adults enjoyed it too!

Face painting

Health Tip: Drink Water on Empty Stomach

Worth sharing health tips.  This was shared by a friend on facebook and thought of sharing it here. I want to try it.

~~DRINK WATER ON EMPTY STOMACH~~

It is popular in Japan today to drink water immediately after waking up every morning. Furthermore, scientific tests have proven its value. We publish below a description of use of water for our readers. For old and serious diseases as well as modern illnesses the water treatment had been found successful by a Japanese medical society as a 100% cure for the following diseases:

Headache, body ache, heart system, arthritis, fast heart beat, epilepsy, excess fatness, bronchitis asthma, TB, meningitis, kidney and urine diseases, vomiting, gastritis, diarrhea, piles, diabetes, constipation, all eye diseases, womb, cancer and menstrual disorders, ear nose and throat diseases.

METHOD OF TREATMENT
1. As you wake up in the morning before brushing teeth, drink 4 x 160ml glasses of water

2. Brush and clean the mouth but do not eat or drink anything for 45 minute

3. After 45 minutes you may eat and drink as normal.

4. After 15 minutes of breakfast, lunch and dinner do not eat or drink anything for 2 hours

5. Those who are old or sick and are unable to drink 4 glasses of water at the beginning may commence by taking little water and gradually increase it to 4 glasses per day.

6. The above method of treatment will cure diseases of the sick and others can enjoy a healthy life.

The following list gives the number of days of treatment required to cure/control/reduce main diseases:
1. High Blood Pressure (30 days)
2. Gastric (10 days)
3. Diabetes (30 days)
4. Constipation (10 days)
5. Cancer (180 days)
6. TB (90 days)
7. Arthritis patients should follow the above treatment only for 3 days in the 1st week, and from 2nd week onwards – daily..

This treatment method has no side effects, however at the commencement of treatment you may have to urinate a few times.
It is better if we continue this and make this procedure as a routine work in our life. Drink Water and Stay healthy and Active.

This makes sense .. The Chinese and Japanese drink hot tea with their meals not cold water. Maybe it is time we adopt their drinking habit while eating!!! Nothing to lose, everything to gain...

For those who like to drink cold water, this article is applicable to you.
It is nice to have a cup of cold drink after a meal. However, the cold water will solidify the oily stuff that you have just consumed. It will slow down the digestion.

Once this 'sludge' reacts with the acid, it will break down and be absorbed by the intestine faster than the solid food. It will line the intestine.
Very soon, this will turn into fats and lead to cancer. It is best to drink hot soup or warm water after a meal.

A serious note about heart attacks:

· Women should know that not every heart attack symptom is going to be the left arm hurting.

· Be aware of intense pain in the jaw line.

· You may never have the first chest pain during the course of a heart attack.

· Nausea and intense sweating are also common symptoms.

· 60% of people who have a heart attack while they are asleep do not wake up.

· Pain in the jaw can wake you from a sound sleep. Let's be careful and be aware. 

The more we know, the better chance we could survive...

We Meet People for a Reason

We don't meet people by accident. They are meant to cross our path for a reason or for a lesson.

Something to ponder on...

Five Lessons From TFPYMH

Five Lessons from the book "The Five People You Meet in Heaven" by Mitch Albom

The First Lesson:

"That there are no random acts. That we are all connected. That you can no more separate one life from another than you can separate a breeze from the wind."

There are no random events in life. People are all connected in one way or another.

The Second Lesson:

" Sacrifice is a part of life. It's supposed to be. It's not something to regret. It's something to aspire to. Little sacrifices. Big sacrifices."

"Sometimes when you sacrifice something precious, you're not really losing it. You're just passing it on to someone else".

Sacrifice is a part of life. We make small and big sacrifices for the people who are important to us.  When I was assigned to work here in Japan in 2007, we moved here as a family. My 2 daughters continued their studies at the Canadian International School here in Kobe (thanks to my employer). When both of them graduated from high school, they had to leave Japan to study in college. I can not give up my job to be with them. So I have to sacrifice for them and they also have to sacrifice living away from their parents.  This is a big sacrifice for all of us, but we trust God's plan for us.

The Third Lesson: 

"Holding anger is a poison. It eats you from inside. We think that hating is a weapon that attacks the person who harmed us. But hatred is a curved blade. And the harm we do, we do to ourselves."

Eddie hated his father so much that's why it was so hard for him to forgive his father.  His father treated him badly when he was a kid until he got older. His father had caused him so much emotional damage and it was hard for him to forgive and forget what his father had done to him.

No matter how bad a person has harmed you, you must learn to forgive and forget.  Otherwise, you will just do more harm to yourself.  Release anger and learn the valuable art of forgiveness. That's what I did. I learned to forgive and forget this person who betrayed me and hurt me badly.  I felt much better and at peace after doing that. 

"Forgive. That's because no one is born with anger. And when we die, the soul is freed of it."

"In order to move on, you must understand why you felt what you did, and why you no longer need to feel it."

The Fourth Lesson 

Love is never lost even in death.

"Lost love is still love." 

"Life has to end, love doesn't."

The Fifth Lesson

Everyone has a purpose on this earth. We are all here for a reason.

Through the fifth person whom he met in heaven, Eddie finally realized his purpose on earth which made him appreciate the life that he lived that he once thought as meaningless.

The Five People You Meet in Heaven

I happened to read my friend's blog about this book and so I got inspired to read it again. I read this book about 2 years ago.  I know that this book is good and it's really worth re-reading.

The story is about an 83 year old man named "Eddie" who was unsatisfied in his life.  He was a war veteran and was working as a maintenance man at an amusement park at the time of his death.  The story begins at the end, with Eddie dying, trying to save a little girl from the falling ride.

"All endings are also beginnings. We just don't know it at the time".

When Eddie died,  there were five people who were waiting for him in heaven.

"There are five people you meet in heaven. Each of us was in your life for a reason. You may not have known the reason at the time, and that is what heaven is for. For understanding your life on earth."

"This is the greatest gift God can give you: to understand what happened in your life. To have it explained. It is the peace you have been searching for."


Each of the five people that Eddie meets in heaven is there to teach him a lesson to help him understand and appreciate his life.  Each of them had crossed Eddie's path before they died.  Some of them he knows well and some he has never met, and they all wait for him in some place familiar to his past.

"There are no random acts. That we are all connected. That you can no more separate one life from another than you can separate a breeze from the wind."

If I had the choice of five people I could meet up again in heaven and spend time with, my five choices would be:

1. My mother who died of cancer 20 years ago.  She died when my first born was less than a year old. She didn't get the chance to see my 2 beautiful girls grow up.

2. My brother who died in 2009. He was found dead in his room. I cried a lot when I found out about his death. I was so guilty because I haven't had the chance to show him how much I care and how much I love him. I was able to talk to him on the phone in Oct. 2009, and then he died Nov. 2009.

3. Inang Aning - My grandmother (my father's inang) who took care of us when we were small kids. My inang lived longer than my mother. She died of old age.  She got the chance to see my 2 girls that's why my girls can still remember her.

4. Lalet (my cousin's daughter). She died of ovarian cancer at a young age of 20, gone too soon. She would stay in our house during her school break to help us in household chores. She was like a sister to me.

5. My bestfriend Marilou. She died at the age of 37. She left for US when she got married. We would see each other in the province every time she had the chance to go back to Philippines. She was the only one whom I could share all my secrets with. It was really sad she left behind her 2 young sons at a young age.

I'm Back!

I just came back from my vacation and the past week had been so hectic to me, with so many things to do at work. Well, that's the price that I have to pay for being absent for a long time. But I am not complaining :). I enjoyed all the time that I took off from work because I was able to spend quality time with my family back in the Philippines.  Time had flown by so quickly and now I am back to reality. I will miss again my family in the Philippines, aww :(. But we will be together again in three months time. The girls will get the chance to visit Japan again during their summer break before I move to Singapore.

Hello Singapore! I am coming soon but still have mixed feelings until now. I just so love Japan and I am really sad to leave this place, my second home since 2007. But life is all about letting go and moving on.  I just have to keep my faith in God. Life goes on and on and on....

Moving On to 2013

New Year is all about moving on, turning over a new leaf or beginning a new phase in life.  Life is not always perfect. At some point in our lives, we do experience dark and cloudy days. Good and bad things happen to us, whether we like or not. I hate to admit it, I tend to dwell too much on the cloudy days and I find it hard to move on.  I know that dwelling too much in the past is not good. So I would like to include this in my new year's resolution -- not to dwell too much in the past, but instead learn from my mistakes,  just let go and move on. New year, new life, new beginning!

Inspirational quotes about moving on.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year! Today is the first day of 2013 and I will not let this day pass without making my New Year's resolution.

1. The first thing in my list is to lose the excess weight that I gained from eating too much during the Christmas holidays and get back on track again :).

2. The next thing in my list is to control my impulse buying habit, stop splurging on things that I like, and spend less on things that I don't need or nice to have things, so that I can save more.

3. The third in my list is to read more books this year. I have not read much last year and this year I resolve to read more.

4. The last thing in my list to finish my unfinished cross-stitch project that I started almost 2 years ago but stopped last year due to busy schedule.

I hope I will be able to fulfill my New Year's resolution. Wish me luck!

9 Days Before Christmas

On the ninth day of Christmas,
my true love sent to me
Nine ladies dancing,
Eight maids a-milking,
Seven swans a-swimming,
Six geese a-laying,
Five golden rings,
Four calling birds,
Three French hens,
Two turtle doves,
And a partridge in a pear tree. 

It's nine (9) days before Christmas and I am still busy with all my remaining items in my to do list at work before I go on vacation.  The past weeks have been very busy for me at work. I will be going on a month long vacation in my home country starting 18th December, that's why I need to complete all the remaining work items in my to do list. I only have one working day left, but still a lot of things to do. Oh well, with the way things are going, I will be most likely working during my Christmas break.  I only hope I can find time to post some new stories while on vacation. For now, I need to focus on my work so I can complete all the things that I have to finish and enjoy my vacation without thinking of unfinished tasks at work.

Christmas is indeed more fun in the Philippines. That's why, I am sooo looking forward to my vacation and spending Christmas with my family.  I miss the parols, bibingka, puto bumbong, Christmas lights, and Simbang gabi. One thing for sure, I'll be home for Christmas :)).

Puto bumbong

Christmas lights

Parol

Bibingka

Belen