Wordless Wednesday - Pier at Cocoa Beach

Losing The Key - To The Glory Of God's Name (Update)

May everybody have a blessed Sunday today as I do have.
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This post is an update about the key that was lost few days ago. It is still in the state of "lost" right now. It has not been retrieve yet. However, I believe that it will in His perfect time.
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My employers keep inquiring me if I found they key yet and I feel sorry that I have to give them the sad reply "NOT YET" to it. I could have faked it by making a duplicate of the key because they gave me another one, and it would have make them happy and relieved that the key has been retrieved, and it will do good on my part, too, but... this is not how God wants it to happen. Absolutely not! God definitely don't need my manipulative help to save His name. My two boss and I were praying together, with joined hands, that they key will be retrieve, and faking the divine answer would be a blasphemy in God's holy name. Well, we did our part. We prayed and trust in Him that He will answer our prayer because we have faith that this is not impossible to Him, His part is to answer our prayer, and He takes pleasure in doing so... in His perfect time. So, here I am, living in faith every minute of my day, praying that the key will soon be retrieve... to relieve my employers... and above all, to the glory of God's mighty and powerful name for this is all about Him.
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“Again, truly I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything they ask for, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them.” (Matthew 18:20 NIV)

Losing The Key - To The Glory Of God's Name

Few minutes before I had to close the store, I was going to grab the key from my pouch and found out that it was not there. I was worried. What should I do? I called my husband to have him try to look around our house, and after several minutes, he called me back to tell me that he could'nt find it. I started to feel frantic. I didn't want to bother my employer which must have rested already by then, but I got no choice but to call them and let them know the situation I was in.
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The moment I arrived home, I was looking all over the places. I can't find it. I don't understand how it happened, because I thought I was always very careful in everything especially when it is related to work. It was almost 2 o'clock in the morning when I decided to sleep it off, with the hope that by morning I will find it. So, the following day, I started looking for it again, and no result. I prayed. God's answer was "Stay calm. This is my work. Have faith in me." By saying, "have faith", God did not mean to have faith and the key will be retrieve. What God was trying to tell me was that whatever will happen, there is nothing to worry because this is God's activities, using my life, all for the glory of His name. So, I declared that I am living by FAITH right now. No "why's". No "but's". Just "Yes, Lord." After all, He is the best architect, the best engineer, the best designer, and to top these all, His service is FREE. All He need from us is our FAITH. (Hard, huh? I know.)
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I talked to my employers about it, that I can't find it. They give me a temporary one, but told me that I still have to keep looking for it. My one employer told me to pray about it. "I did." They told me that sometimes it takes a while before it can be retrieved. My other employer decided that we all pray together for it right then at the spot. He led the prayer that the key will be retrieve soon, and while he prayed, I begin to understood why God causes this thing to happen to me. His purpose was to unite my two employers and I in prayer, in believing that God answers prayer and that He is awesome. You see? This give glory to His name! Praise God!
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I will still keep looking for the key all over our house though, and maybe in our car, too. It will not matter to me anymore if I can find it or not, because I know that God is concern about His own credibility, and He'll take care of that. The thing that matters to me most is that the purpose on why this problem occurs is being served to the glory of His holy name.

Happy Valentines Day

As I was making the big sign for our store prior to the Valentine's Day few weeks ago, my boss asked me, "What is the Valentine's Day about?". I was stammering. I can give him answer but I am not sure of the right answer for that question. He then told me about the Valentine's Day 1929 Massacre in Chicago, that the mob were bathed in their own blood which was believed that was led by Al Capone; America's best known gangster and the single greatest symbol of the collapse of law and order in the United States during the 1920s Prohibition era. He lost me there. I was just listening, but I don't understand what it has to do with Valentine's day other than the fact that it happened on Valentine's Day.
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Anyhow, whatever is the story behind this Valentine's Day, I am happy that this was created because I believe that some people who were not naturally loving in a daily basis, are trying to show some love on this day just for the sake of it. Knowing that this is a worldwide event, it is a good thing to know that on this day, it is LOVE that prevail everywhere on this earth.
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However, sad to say that there are some people behind evil thoughts were trying to spread horrible things on this day, just like this one that I mentioned above. We also have similar stories in the Philippines.
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To those people who don't show their love in a regular basis, take this chance to say your love to somebody. Although it is true that action speaks louder than voice, but sometimes words are sweeter to our hearts. Happy Valentine's Day everyone!

My Favorite Part Of Babysitting

This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of Boudreaux's Butt Paste. All opinions are 100% mine.

My friend from Michigan visited us today. It was a wonderful time having them over dinner, catching up with the several months that we haven’t heard from each other. She was the first Filipino that I met and became friends when I was still in Michigan. She is very thoughtful that she always made something to prevent me from being homesick. She and her husband are very nice persons that it made me feel so bless to know them personally. God had blessed them, too. They just had their first baby and are both very passionate about taking care of him.

While I was playing with their baby girl, I realized that I miss having a baby to take care of. I spent most of my teens’ and twenties’ taking care of my nephews and nieces. I love all of them and I was taking care of them as if they were mine. My brothers and sisters were happy and comfortable having me as their children’s babysitter because they know that they children were very well taken care of. My favorite part of babysitting was bathing them, dressing them up and making sure that they are comfortable. Boudreaux's Butt Paste was one of the must-have supplies (and made sure that I don’t run out of it) to make them stay comfortable and away from diaper rash which is the number one that causes discomfort to babies. This has been proven effective and has been the favorite of millions of moms since the production of this. FYI, Boudreaux’s Butt Paste was specifically formulated by a pharmacist with direction from a respected pediatrician to provide effective diaper rash care, and that is why it is recommended by the pediatrician because they know its quality.

If you haven’t tried this product on your babies, I guess you missed the most beautiful thing about baby care. I suggest that you visit their site to receive your own free sample of Boudreaux’s Butt Paste. Try it on your babies and see to yourself its great performance. They are available in convenient sizes that you can carry wherever you go. It is a worry-free product because it got pleasant scent and skin protectant, with 16% zinc oxide and Peruvian balsam that gently treats diaper rashes and soothes irritated skin. This is very popular that this has been featured in Oprah Show, Tonight Show and many other favorite talk shows. Grab them now. 

True Grit (2010)

Few weeks ago, my Dad-in-law took us all to a movie theater and he picked "True Grit" for us to watch. Well, you can't complain because it was his treat. On the positive angle, I love country theme movies, and I was not at all bored with the movie. However, the movie ended up great, and we all left happy and satisfied.
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Let me give you a brief review about the movie, and maybe it will stir up something in you that will make you decide to watch it anyway. A 14-year old farm girl Mattie Ross was following the murder of her father, and hired Rooster Cogburn, the toughest U.S. marshal she can find to aid her. He is the man with "true grit", whose drinking, sloth, and generally reprobate character do not augment her faith in him. Against his wishes, she joins him in his trek into the Indian Nations in search of Tom Chaney, the man who murdered her father. They are joined by Texas Ranger LaBoeuf, who wants Chaney for his own purposes. The unlikely trio find danger and surprises on the journey, and each has his or her "grit" tested.
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One of the things that really impress me with this movie is the very outstanding act of the newcomer Hailee Stenifeld (Mattie Ross). She totally beat out 15,000 other girls in the movie industry . Commentators said that their uses of accents and language is what made the True Grit sounds completely authentic and came up very prominent. To top it all, I also love their soundtrack which is the "Leaning On The Everlasting Arms". I started falling in love with this song when Twila Paris sung this. Of course, they revise it again on this movie, and that was why I had a little doubt when I first heard the instrumental. Although it was only instrumental throughout the show time, but it confirmed itself at the end of the movie, and I believe that it added spice to it.

Why Pay More When You Can Pay Less?

One more sleep and we will be on our way to car shopping. Yay! This should be fun. I was thinking, if we consider purchasing a new car, then, we should consider, too, getting car insurance. I am glad that I am not in the Philippines where vehicles on the road are running like crazy. If you are a Filipino or if you have been to the Philippines, you know what I am talking about.

The car insurance that my husband is paying right now is very costly, and wished he can find cheaper one for both of us. Well, as he said, that pretty much all the car insurance rate are with the same price that he have. Or maybe he just didn’t look around thoroughly. Well, what can I expect from him. My husband don’t like shopping, either actual or online, and that is why if he needs something, he always buy the first to pop up. It is only a matter of comparing and that is what he hates to do. Well, I guess this is gonna be my task now.

Here is the cheap car insurance Lincoln. They give you options such as Eligibility for Discounts. The first one in line is the Safe Driver Discount which is perfect for my husband. I am so proud to say (and God bless him always) that my husband is a very safe driver. He is always careful, and I am praying that it will stay that way, and that God’s traveling mercy be with him always. Well, I am going to show this program to him, and maybe he will make up his mind to give up his current insurance and switch on this.

Are you paying too much on your car insurance, too? It is about time that you ask yourself, "Why pay more when you can pay less?"Try what I just did. Check your eligibility for discounts, and who knows, they will cut the price you been paying in half. Whoo! That would be a whole lot of savings there.

Thankful Thursday - Let The Thanksgiving Overflow

It is Thankful Thursday once again. This is a big opportunity to us, Christian bloggers to give glory to our God in the form of thanksgiving because He deserves this. Let me highlight to you this bible verse:
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"All this is for your benefit, so that the grace that is reaching more and more people may cause thanksgiving to overflow to the glory of God." 2 Corinthians 4:15 NIV
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...*I thank God for the protection and provision He bestowed on us every single day in our life.
...*I thank God for all my sponsors that enables me to keep earning here in my blog.
...*I thank God for all my blog's visitors and commentors.
...*I thank God for the sponsored opportunities that I received all through these days.
...*I thank God that my husband is doing good in his class, and is praying that he will stay this way until the end of his studies.
...*I thank God for the job He gave to me along with the skills and talent that he gave me and become useful in the present.
...*I thank God for His grace that sustains to my husband and I day by day.
And many, many more. Let us all remember that we can not ran out of things to be thankful for. Being thankful to God will drive Satan away.

Dollar Bill Token Of Love

Sun Umbrella

My parents-in-law are now home in Michigan. They left yesterday early morning. Tomorrow, my work schedule and my husband's school schedule conflicts (again), and that means he can't take me to work. Should I say that the day has finally come that I have to ride shuttle bus to take me to my work place? I don't know. We will see what will happen tomorrow. We can ask my husband's cousin, Annette, to take me to work though, but deep inside of me is that I really want to try to ride the shuttle bus going to work. I want to be independent. However, I have worries. What if I can't make it on time to my work place? How long do I have to wait on the road (under the sun) before the shuttle bus will pass by? Thinking about the burnt skin I will have made me say "Never mind the shuttle bus. I will ride with Annette." I don't have sun umbrella; and even if I had, I will not feel comfortable using it because nobody does here in Florida. They would think that you are silly for using umbrella against the nice sun rays.
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This is something that my husband (and most of the Americans) can't understand. Asians like me don't want to be under the sun. We avoided it as much as possible. Our skin easily get burn and wrinkled from sun exposure. Unlike the fair-skinned Americans, it takes time before we regain our true skin color. That is why, if you go to the Asian country, particularly Philippines and Japan, all women, even men, used sun umbrellas when we go out during the hot day.
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Another thing is that American women who have sun-tanned skin symbolizes their social activities in life, while Asians who have fair skin symbolizes higher status in life. The funny thing is that, Americans are trying to fake their skin by going to tanning parlor, while Asians are manipulating their skin by using whitening lotion. Crazy, huh?

Have A Healthy Heart

I am filing for a weekend off from work this week because my husband has a medical appointment at Gainesville on Friday, and we may need to stay in that area overnight. My husband is also setting up our Valentine’s Saturday night somewhere. In other words, we will not be home ‘till Sunday. I am looking forward to these days with excitement. I love traveling and I love spending the weekend with my husband somewhere that we haven’t been to.

Back to his medical appointment; I am glad that my husband is very cautious with his health. He never missed any of his medical appointment which is a very good habit, and when I talk about his health, I can’t help but brought back to my mind his critical condition almost two years ago. He almost had a cardiac arrest that his parents, his sister and I have to watch him 24 hours a day after he was released from the hospital. His sister, who is a nurse, was there to monitor his heart beat and everything. We stayed up late at night and take turn to sleep.

Talking about heart problem, Health.Yahoo.net has a lot of very helpful information on everything that you need to know about health, wellness, diet, fitness and more. In fact, it is where I find the references for cardiac disease symptoms . Other than that, I also found that the most common cause of heart disease is a narrowing of or blockage in the coronary arteries supplying blood to the heart muscle.

Health is a topic that all of us are involved. You can’t say that you are healthy enough to be exempted to learn something about health. Therefore, I suggest that we should take a regular dose of health news for useful knowledge to have a healthy heart.

Psalm 50:7,11

Know My IQ

I am thankful that my parents-in-law are here with us, if not, I would have been riding a shuttle bus going to work and back to home. On some days, my work schedule and my husband’s class conflicts and that is why it is my parents-in-law who have to drive me, because I don’t drive yet. I know I need to learn to drive to be able to go anywhere on my own. Believe me. Everybody is telling me that, too. I’m going there, anyway, in a few months.

However, my parents-in-law will be going back to Michigan sometime next week. That means it will be about time that I will really be riding a shuttle bus to take me to work and home. I know I would love to ride public transportation, but my problem is the waiting period or maybe the possible of missing the shuttle on the waiting area which is just on the next block from our house.

Well, I guess they are right after all. I need to learn to drive to be able to get around on my own. I like the thought, and to have my own car is even more exciting. I heard about Scion IQ that will be launching this year. I just love its over-all appearance. It is a friendly competitor to the Smart Car. Scion is a brand of vehicles produced by the trusted company, Toyota Motor Corporation, and its long term goal is to appeal to Generation Y consumers. This is the car that I want to have.

If you are interested, too, I suggest that you check Scion IQ release date . Do not be left behind in style. Get IQ news and updates for more information.

NaCl = Table Salt

NaCl= table salt

I found out that the table salt is part of every meal here in USA. It is actually on the table on every meal time. My husband (and everybody that I know here) put salt on their food (plate). I don't. However, in the Philippines, we use salt for cooking, dips and preparing the food.
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NaCl is used for many purposes.
It is used to add flavor to food;
... is used to draw out the water in foods;
... is used to cure food for longevity;
... is used to create traction on icy roads.
(Calcium chloride is actually used for this purpose more, but if you don’t have any of that sitting around, you can use table salt to create traction on your front step on a snowy day.)
I believe that salt was even used for antiseptic purposes.

The physiological requirement by the human body is immediate and life sustaining . Without salt any animal including the human animal would die and the importance of salt to any civilisation may not be underestimated. In comparison many other everyday uses are today taken for granted. In ancient times, before any chemical analysis was possible, experience and wisdom, was necessary to discern the purity of the salt for use with the many every day specific applications. To sustain a growing population, more salt was required. The fact that salt may have been available or was relatively easy to produce was a basic condition which allowed a population to increase and develop. . Where salt was not available..... populations stagnated and even disintegrated.

The bible tells that the believers of Jesus Christ are the salt of the earth. We are the ones who add flavors to the life of those who needs us. We are the one who preserves lives. We may ask "how?",
*by our little act of kindness towards another,
*by giving a genuine smile to others,
*by taking time to listen to them
*by being there when they need us
These and more can made others realized that we are the ones who help preserves lives. Those who have committed suicide, they were the ones who were unreached by the "salt of the earth". Their lives could have been saved if some "salt" was applied on them. But hey, look around... there may be somebody who needs us. Lives that they consider "tasteless". Forward, believers of Christ! Share the salt that we have to make others life worth living.

"You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot. (Matthew 5:13 NIV)

"Super Bowl" Sunday Cook-Out

This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of TABASCO® Original Red. All opinions are 100% mine.

Few more days, and it will be the day of the USA's most famous "Super Bowl". I'm one of the millions who is looking forward to it with excitement; not because I am a football fan, but because I want the football season be over, and so that we can have the Sundays free again. Yeah, since the football season started, I can't get my husband go anywhere else on Sunday afternoon. He have to be home and watch his football game all afternoon and evening.

Other things that I love about "Super Bowl" Sunday is the cook-out with the whole family by the lawn. We had hotdogs, pizza, chicken wing barbecue, taters, chips and salsa. This has become the tradition in my husband's family, and I am loving it. It is fun having everybody at one spot, sharing the food and cheering the football game.

Food is my husband's favorite subject that we both shared, especially if it involves his favorite TABASCO® Original Red . It is "So Much More Than Hot". We will never  enjoy eating chicken wing barbecue without the Tabasco. It enhances the flavor of the food so you can get the best of every bite of it. My husband also loves Tabasco on pork rinds. It is perfect as a beer-match.

Experimenting on food is fun. The ideas are endless. Let me share to you this page where you can find simple ideas and recipes for your Game-Day Party Menu . Everybody will surely love them. And if you are a pizza-lover, Pizza Perfected would surely be perfect for you.

Tabasco is an all-time favorite partner on every meal, even on breakfast. My husband loves his egg burito with it. Tabasco is not just about "hot", it also got the flavor that really perfected your food. Tabasco is the original food enhancer for years. It was first introduce by the McIlhenny family back in 1868 and is still popular up to the present.

February - International Friendship Month

Many of us thought that February is solely the month for couples in love, but somewhere back in time, the "International Friendship Month" was founded. Though this was more about diplomacy among countries, but I want to view this in another perspective. Internet users from around the globe became friends through blogging. Isn't it awesome? It is through blogging that I earned tons of friends. In fact, I realized lately that I have more online friends now than the "reality" friends I had when I was still in the Philippines. My gratefulness for the art of blogging is beyond measure. Personally, I started blogging three months after I moved here in USA. What I thought was only a personal journal has turned into worldwide open book of my life. I earned a lot of good friends and sisters in Christ from different countries that I could probably have not met in other way. Some of my followers are really following my post and are looking forward to it regularly. It is through my blog that some of my friends and family members follows my whereabouts here in the foreign world. I could say, blogging kept me from being bored when we were still in Michigan and didn't have job yet. It is fun to see visitors on my blog with different language other than English and Filipino. But whatever they are saying, I believe, it is the common language of friendship. I feel like I traveled around the world. Cheers to the Cyber-Friendship!
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"Perfume and incense bring joy to the heart, and the pleasantness of one's friend springs from his earnest counsel." Proverbs 27:9 NIV