Books I Read: 2013

“Why do I read? I just can't help myself. 

I read to learn and to grow, to laugh  and to be motivated.
I read to understand things I've never been exposed to.

Reading for me, is spending time with a friend.
A book is a friend. You can never have too many.” 
― Gary Paulsen, Shelf Life: Stories by the Book

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That is precisely the reason why I love to read. I read to learn new things, new words, new places, new experiences. Reading for me is like Harry Potter entering platform 9 3/4 and gaining access to Hogwarts Express that is eventually leading to Hogwarts Castle where new adventure awaits.

On that note, I'd like to share to you the seven books I read in 2013. I am frustrated with the stat. Hubby read about 20, I hate him! Haha!  

My top three favourite in this batch are: The Husband's Secret by Liane Moriarty (paging Lianne, I'm now a fan! Count R too!) followed by And The Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini (seriously this guy is a genius!) and then The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd.

I loved The Husband's Secret because of how unpredictable the story is. It kept me guessing and getting the story wrong every page, every chapter. It's narrated in many perspective in a seamless way that I actually touched based with each character's humanity. It's funny and witty. It's sad and melancholic. It basically touches on life using a different kind of style I have never previously read before. It's also the second book I read that was based in Australia so I was curious to read about how its people view life, love, family and everything in between. I was also in love how the book ended. It left me a valuable lesson in life: to be compassionate about others, because we don't really know what they are going through or have gone through. There's always more to people than what we see in the outside. And this one thing is perpetually true: Do not withhold the truth. A simple one, yet hard to live by. The maxim "the truth shall set you free" is never been truer than true in this book. I'm not really a good book reviewer and this is not meant to be a book review. This is just me telling you how the book impacted me and how much I enjoyed reading it. 

For next year, I plan to read at least 30. That is a very ambitious goal I knooow but once we move to our new apartment, I will have more travelling time from home to work and vice versa. That travel time will be allotted to reading. I am planning on cutting off my social media time. I spent waaaay too much time in FB and Instagram that I failed to do what I really enjoy to do and what will help me grow more. Reading for me is growing and expanding my horizons. So cheers to turning pages and growing in 2014! 

One Christmas Morning

It is during these times that I miss Philippines the most. *Sigh (long and deep). It's already the second year that we are spending Christmas in Ireland. With us being together, I know I have nothing to complain about. We have made friends and family here, albeit not by blood, in the past two years that lessens the homesickness somehow.

It's just that it's really different in this part of the world. Christmas here isn't celebrated as loud, as warm and as festive back home, in my opinion. Or maybe it's just the cultural differences I haven't grown accustomed to. After all, it's just our second Christmas here. It might take a lifetime for me to get used to the silence of the neighbouring houses on this very special day. 

Nonetheless, Christmas is Christmas. Jesus was born and gave us a chance at eternity. As for us, we are together, cuddling each other on Christmas morning. We might not be the recipient of warms hugs and greetings from our loved ones today, but in God's time I know we will soon be. In the meantime, we take comfort that our parents, our siblings and our nieces and nephews are all healthy. That, alone, is the single most important blessing today. 

Merry Christmas everyone. It is my prayer that we remember the reason for this season---it's Jesus. If you have Him in your home today, everything else---the neatly packed gifts, the overflowing food on the table, even the presence of loved ones--- is just icing on the cake.

Maligayang Pasko. Merry Christmas!

We have started our Christmas tradition!

The goal is to start an annual Christmas tradition that we can pass on to our future children. Here's what we came up with.

Since we've gotten our first real Christmas tree, we thought of buying Christmas tree ornaments for each year, one from each of us. Then we will write the year that we bought it on the ornaments. In the future, years and years after, wouldn't it be fun to hang the ornaments chronologically? And then to recall the story behind them or the reason(s) we bought them?

So a day after we bought our tree, we strolled the shops in the city and then separately bought our Christmas ornament. Since the only ornaments that we had at first were the Christmas balls, cards and lights, these would make a great addition.

Here was Rolando's:

Here's mine:

Now onto the Christmas tree:

Let's see how this tradition will go! In the meantime, I hope you too are enjoying this Christmas season! :)

Our DIY Christmas Cards

One of the traditions that surprised me living in Ireland is that card-giving is still very much alive in this part of the world. Most people here still do send their Christmas greetings and wishes through a tangible piece of paper called cards. This is despite the fact that the whole wide world is getting "more and more paperless" these days.

If I remember it right, I rarely received any back in the Philippines and I'm not counting the tiny gift tags as proper Christmas cards. Don't get me wrong. I like gifts with tags, even without tags. :) It's just that for me, a simple card can mean so much. It's not always a "greener" year for most of us and there are seasons where all we can afford to give and bless others are cards. During these times, words personally written and thought of are more than enough to touch one's heart, to let others know that they are remembered, that they are loved. It is really the thought that counts people. 

To give you an example: Last year, we were recipients to a number of Christmas cards even though we didn't give any. It was our first Christmas here and receiving cards meant that we were part of something, that we belonged, that we were thought of.  It was a simple gesture that truly warmed our hearts on our first cold (temperature wise) Christmas ever.

So for this year, R and I bowed to send back some Christmas lovin' through a DIY Christmas card. I was inspired by buttons as a creative theme for this year so off to Pinterest I went and found these plethora of inspiration! (Pinterest never fails me).  We spent two nights creating these and we were glad we did:

Have a joyful season everyone! Hope you will remember that it's not always the material things that capture a heart. :)

***

Materials we used: white plain textured cards, buttons and craft glue (all from Arts & Hobby shop), used gift wraps, used ribbons and twines, and a calligraphy pen (or a simple pen will do). 

Our First Christmas Tree

Presenting our first Christmas tree:

Friends, the time came when we could already afford to buy a Christmas tree. Yay! We were both blessed to have jobs this year and we could, at last, be able to decorate our tiny home with more than just some DIYs. Last Christmas, our first Christmas as a married couple, the only Christmas decor we could afford to decorate our home with was this DIY advent calendar. Not that it didn't look good and festive enough, it's just a real Christmas tree is both a dream of ours. Yes, this is one of our little childish dreams that we carry in our hearts.

This is then how our journey looked like from buying our first ever Christmas tree to setting it up in our tiny home (all photos were taken  using an iPhone5, so forgive the quality).

Our first hunt for this tree started in IKEA which failed miserably because first of all, they didn't sell real ones and secondly, I hurt my finger and needed medical assistance to treat the cut. Oh well... We went home shoulders low but humour high singing this song to the tune of Oh Christmas Tree:

"Oh Christmas tree, Oh Christmas tree

Wala pa rin kaming Christmas tree..."

The week after, we went out to search for this tree again that would seemingly complete our second Christmas season in Ireland. Luckily we found this Christmas tree market at this busy street in Dublin almost just a street behind R's office.  From a row of almost 50 pine trees, we selected a medium-priced one. Well, actually I let this man choose, the reason for his precious smile.

When R insisted on a real one, logistics issue wasn't considered (i.e. how to bring the tree from market to home). We didn't have a car and since we were too frugal like that, R chose to hand-carry (or shoulder-carry?!) it home---a 15-minute walk if you weren't carrying anything heavy. Needless to say, it took a good 30 minutes or more to bring our baby home. But it did arrive to our house threshold alright.

Another challenge was how to place it in our tiny living room slash dining area. We cleaned and rearranged, tried dozen arrangements and we even moved the couch (not seen here) just to see how everything would fit together!  But that too was taken care of. 

The decorations consisted of basic Christmas balls of red and gold (bought on sale), a plain white Christmas light (that's not even musical but it was at least LED), and an angel topper given by an Ate from church knowing that we were buying our first Christmas tree ever. We were grateful. 

And after a while, here's our first ever real Christmas tree which just doesn't make this season festive, but warm enough to get us through another Christmas we are spending away from our families. Merry Christmas soon! :)