posted by Jennie on Aug 31
The husband and I have been meaning to go back to playing badminton for the longest time. But because of our respective busy schedules and priorities that need to come first, we only got down to doing it lately. We will try our best to include playing badminton in our Monday date nights from here on out.
Our spanking brand new Yonex rackets. We thought getting ourselves matching rackets will motivate us to finally get to it. High repulsion and ultra-thin gauge. They did, fyi. Got them stringed with BG-66 ultra-thin 0.66 gauge — designed to provide excellent repulsion and shock-absorbing performance. :-)
You see, before our little guy came, we played practically every week. It has been more than six years for me and a little less for Jeff. He continued playing with our friends before he semi-permanently switched to martial arts. I never thought I would ever be able to beat my husband’s ninja like stunts. But I did! 15-13, on our debut after so many years. Let’s just say, he went easy on me.
Sweaty and hearts racing. I’m all smiles after our game. I won 15-13 against my lovey dovey. But then, it never happened again after that night. It was probably just the gentleman in my hubby playing. 
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posted by Jennie on Aug 18
How did it all happen so fast?! It was towards the end of July when I was surprised to see my 6 year old son’s first two lower incisors peeking behind his still standing baby teeth. I am not sure what made me think of checking. We were then killing time while waiting for my turn to have my wires adjusted. I remember checking just a few weeks back and there was nothing yet.
For fear of sounding overly dramatic, I have stalled on blogging about it. But then again, I was reminded that it was because of my desire to journal these milestones that I decided to start blogging in 2004, to begin with. Hence, blogging away, I am. I can’t help but second guess myself if I was normal or not. Because it did feel like it was just nothing for my husband, when I broke the news to him. He was then with us. His reaction was just plain, “Oh!” As opposed to my being almost jumpy during that time. Thrilled but at the same time a little sad. Not the bad kind of sad. It is, for one, some sort of coming of age moment for our son. Typing through this entry alone takes on a melodramatic mode. It all seems like yesterday when I was a struggling young mother and now my son is slowly moving away from my apron strings.
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posted by Jennie on Aug 13
I have been so looking forward to getting hold of John Maxwell’s Put Your Dream to the Test for months now. It would be a great addition to our John Maxwell books collection. When months came and went and no book has arrived in my doorstep, I figured I could check out with Thomas Nelson and I was pleased to know that I can download an e-book version for this review.
“Disappointment is the gap between that exists between expectation and reality.” ~John Maxwell
Put Your Dream to the Test has pretty much accompanied me these past days. There was no second guessing that this was yet another good read from John Maxwell. This is probably the best book to read on ushering dreams to reality. This is especially true if you happen to be one of those people who -
… once in their lives have been discouraged from dreaming by others.
… hindered by past disappointments and hurts.
… got in the habit of settling for just the average.
… lack the confidence needed to pursue their dreams.
… lack the imagination to dream.
John Maxwell ingeniously came up with a valuable readiness checklist of putting our dream to the test. The ten questions were designed to help us assess our dream and its plausibility of turning into reality.
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posted by Jennie on Aug 2
Last Sunday, Jeff preached about how God uses our friendships in our spiritual growth. It was yet again another insightful message he shared with us that day. He reiterated how people are wired for relationships and we should nurture our friendships by:
1. Helping each other grow.
Romans 12:10 “Be kindly affectionate to one another with brotherly love…”
2. Praying for each other’s growth.
Ephesians 3:14-19 “For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.”
3. Admitting our own mistakes.
James 5:16 “Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.”
4. Encouraging commitment.
Timothy 4:7b “Exercise yourself toward godliness.”
One of the more interesting things I learned that day was about a study made by UCLA. It was discovered that to be a healthy, fulfilled, satisfied adult; we all need 8-10 meaningful touches a day. For me, that’s a real lot! Coming from a family of origin where being demonstrative was not exactly a strength, I’d think I’ll be good with just five. This is in the same principle why some babies who are not caressed fail to thrive. (Failure to Thrive Syndrome)
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posted by Jennie on Aug 1
As promised, I raffled off the winner of the BabyBond Couture Giveaway first thing today!
For my sanity’s sake, I used the comments section and assigned the number IDs following the contest joiners and entered the numbers 1 to 59 and clicked the generate button. As opposed to having to jot down all names and use the list randomizer.
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