heels and jeeps

I was contemplating if I will share this here. This has been living on my notepad for a while now, but I thought I never intended to not be genuine on this blog (it's personal blog after all) so why not. This is my box of feelings as I contemplate how far I am from the image of God, but thank God for his grace. 2 Corinthians 3:17-18 Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.   18 And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit +++ FOMO / Doing things only because others are there Leviticus 26:11-12 I will make my dwelling among you, and my soul shall not abhor you.  And I will walk among you and will be your God, and you shall be my people . Looking at the messenger instead of the message Hebrews 4:12   For the word of God is alive and active . Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even

My son went thru a phase of being really into puzzle (not so much now). But when I say into, I meant he really likes doing it over and over again. As soon as he finishes completing his favourite set, he will undo it and start over again. He prefers me to sit down next to him though as he do it.  One time, as I watch him do the same puzzle for the nth time, a comparison to the puzzle occurred to me. I realised, it’s like our life with God. Our life with God is complete. In Jeremiah 1:5, God said “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you…” and He continued in the same book in chapter 29 verse 11, “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”. He knows the big picture, but the tricky part is that we don’t. We would try to build our puzzle - some has set plans in doing it, some just go with the flow putting the pieces they grab wherever they see fit, or wherever it is convenient at that time. So

Our work from home set-up at work has been extended once again. We started working from March-2020, so it is going almost two years now. Though we've been back to office in some form in between, WFH seems like a permanent fixture in most of office life now. I actually started working from home even before Covid. After my maternity leave, I went back to work full time in 2018 but I requested if I can do the WFH set-up twice a week which my manager at that time agreed upon. I am really thankful about that, but it does came with challenges (as we now all know as we are all doing the same set-up). However, at that time I have an additional layer of challenge, I actually got anxious thinking people might say I was not working when at home (lol) which I can say hand on my heart is not true, even so I can say I work even more when at home.  By the way, in the period pre-Covid that I've been doing work at home, never have I ever received any feedback from my manager about me not workin

As mentioned on this post , I've had some time to watch a lot of movies/series during the holidays. Lucky, one of the streaming services we have has Almost Famous . I get to re-watch it. This movie has always have a special place in my heart. I think I've first watched this back in college when I and my college friend Mhadz would visit the video rental store in our city of Lipa in the Philippines and exchanged copies to maximise the rentals. Side bar - imagine explaining that concept to kids this day (does sharing Netflix password be a good comparison?). Anyways, this movie was actually released back in 2000 so I was a little late when I first watched it, but it's cinematography held up good. And to be fair, Kate Hudson who played the lead woman on the movie never aged a day so I could honestly have seen it on its release day and I wouldn't see any difference. In case you have not seen it yet, just a quick movie premise, fifteen-year-old William Miller accompanies Still

Then Covid happened... In August 2019, I got a call from a Sydney land line number while at work. I took it 'cause we have office in Sydney, and thought maybe it's someone from work. Turned out, it's someone from Forex Cargo . It's a freight forwarding service that I have used to send my first ever balik bayan box to PH. The person on the other line told me I won the major prize on their promo. I'm like a deer in the headlights cause I never joined any contests recently (though I do have good track record - read here ). The prize? A two round-trip ticket to the PH from Forex Cargo How did I win this? By sending a balik-bayan box to PH. Again, I did not even know they have a contest at that time, I just genuinely required their service... and won! This was the email I got:   Hi [Full Name Redacted], Congratulations, you’ve won the GRAND PRIZE on our Forex De Mayo 2019 Raffle Draw Promo. As the winner, you are entitled to Two (2) return flights (flying Philippine Airl

I pray that the worry you had from last night has already fallen to the ground like a fruit broken down into a nutrient nurturing a better positive thought. xx, Belle. 

The holidays (and being quarantined due to Covid-19) has afforded me the luxury of being able to watch a lot more movies / series / documentaries. Choosing one is quite a challenge now a days... because there's just too much on offer. In our household we have access to three paid streaming services - Netflix, Disney+, and Amazon Video. When we first had Disney+, I fell into the trap of rewatching the Marvel Cinematic Universe a couple of times (and I have to admit I still can't for the life of me predict what will happen next in Captain America: The Winter Soldier ... just love the layers of that movie). However, I think it was not serving me well that I watch the same thing over and over again so I made a commitment to further my list. I have a notepad where I add what I watched since I made that commitment, and I thought to share some of the notable ones here. As the beautiful Marvel Studios Celebrates Movies   video states...  we go and see movies t o escape , to get lost i