Category: Community

Today my daughter, her friend O and I went to Amazing Glaze and designed and painted cups for cancer patients.  If you’ve been following this site for some time, you might already know that I  knit hats for cancer patients and NICU babies, but participating in being creative with the cups we paint means my daughter ( and her friends when we invite them) can participate also. You can decorate/paint the cup however you like and the only requirement is that you include the word, Believe, somewhere on the cup.

Believe Big, is the organization that partners with numerous crafty companies to make this possible. I learned about Believe Big, through the Small Group Leader at the Lutheran Church where I’m a member. We arrived late. Why? That morning, my daughter’s friend had a swim meet but since I’d let the organizer know in advance, there were chairs/table set aside for all three of us. It was nice to see church members, from various ministry groups all getting creative at Amazing Glaze.

Believe Big is a wonderful organization. I really the statement (that I’ve included below) that appears on their website…

What Are Believe Mugs?
Believe Big is passionate about encouraging patients and their families to seek God in the midst of their pain. We bring spiritual and emotional refreshment to patients by distributing Believe Mugs that are hand-painted by children and adults within our community. Each beautifully decorated mug contains the “I Will Have No Fear” prayer.
Our prayer is that each time a patient uses a mug, he or she is reminded to believe that with God all things are possible, and that people within the community care. With your help we will be able to encourage over 1,000 patients and their families this year!

 

What a powerful message and it’s so true, anything is possible with God.

You want to know something? Initially, I thought I’d be waiting on my daughter and her friend to finish designing their mugs, but much to my surprise, they were finished before me!  They waited (somewhat impatiently) for me to complete mine. Once our cups were finished they were set aside to be glazed and eventually passed on to the Believe Big organization.

There are several businesses within Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania and New York, that contribute to this wonderful organization, so if you’re in one of these states and would like to become involved with something such as this. Check to see if there are businesses within your area that offer this service.

The lady that took care of us, told me that the mugs from our group would be posted on Facebook. I haven’t been on there in a few days, but I’ll be sure to log on and check out what others have created. I must say the people that worked at Amazing Glaze were extremely friendly. I liked the it so much that my daughter and I will be going back there to make personalized mugs for ourselves.

I wonder what this cat did? 😉

Friday evening my daughter told me “I had a lumpy letter with lots of stamps…”

I had no idea what she was talking about, but promised her I’d take a look as soon as I was finished cleaning.

 

As soon as I walked towards the package I knew who it was from, Suituapui’s! He lives in Malaysia!

If you haven’t strolled over to Suituapui’s virtual planet, you’re really missing out. He has a very active community and he keeps his readers entertained with all the delicious foods and the entertaining stories that accompany them.

 

 

My daughter and I loved the items that were included. Thank you, Suituapui! I’m going to laminate the poems so they can be “bookmarks.” My daughter and I read a lot, and this way we’ll  always have something to remind us of our Malaysian blogging pal. My daughter saw the turtle magnet and promptly claimed it for her own. She loves turtles. She’s already added the postcard to her scrapbook.

 

 

When I first heard that suituapui lived in Sibu I instantly thought of the Song of the Cebu. I was pronouncing “Sibu” as “Cebu”.  When my daughter was younger it was one of her favorite Veggie Tales songs.

Thanks so much suituapui, for the lovely items, you added a bright spark to my already sparkling day!

“If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.”
― Mother Teresa

Celebrate Life has been offline for the past few days (not intentional) as I switched hosting providers. In hindsight, I would have done a few things differently…

While my site was offline, I did respond to chat with Jennifer’s email about why my site was offline. Because of my hectic schedule, I haven’t done any blog visits, but I did communicate with Jennifer via email.

This is a first for me, since once I host a site with a provider it usually stays there. There’s only been one other time when I’ve switched, and that was when I hosted my first blog. That was in 2002. The service was awful, and two weeks later I moved my site to LunarPages.

I’ve been active online with various hosting providers for over ten years.  If I really think about it, it’s been a bit longer since I’ve been active since 1995. Anyone remember GeoCities? That’s when I first started being active online. I purchased my own website hosting packages a few years later.

Regarding migration, I wasn’t really worried about having my files migrated to their new hosting provider service. After all, I regularly make full backs of Celebrate Life. It’s a smart thing to do.

I can’t claim that I moved this site to its new server home… my new hosting provider did. When I have more time, I’ll write about my first impressions of my new hosting provider and the extra benefits I’m now receiving for this hosting package.

Last year my daughter and I were able to attend one of Maryland Ravens game. They used to be called the Baltimore Ravens, and although they’ve been around much longer than the professional football team (40 years if I remember correctly) the Baltimore Ravens they still had to change their name… they chose the Maryland Ravens.

The Maryland Ravens are a great group of people that can’t use their legs but still manage to participate in a sport they love, and they do it so well. I’m on their mailing list so I still receive updates.  I’m so proud to hear that currently they’re ranked #1!

I also love their motto … Ability Despite Disability. I personally know a few able bodied folks that really should apply that motto into their own lives.