Valentines – Plan the Day

A person can get another relationship, but not another “each other”.
It’s just a few days until the annual celebration of romance is before us. Will you choose to approach this Valentine’s Day intentionally? Or not?
Will you see the day as an opportunity to show your Valentine that they are your priority?  Or not?
Will you choose to spend just a little time to make this Valentine’s Day not necessarily extraordinary, just not ordinary? Or not?

Grand gestures won’t carve your name on their heart nearly as much as your tenderness and thoughtfulness will.

From my own experience, wooing starts best in the bloom of the day, followed by one or two surprise whispers of love as Valentine’s Day fully blossoms.  As you design the day, imagine how you’d like Valentine’s Day….and the night to unfold.
Perhaps you’ll start the day by softly sweeping the hair from their brow and presenting them with the perfect cup of morning coffee, a paper and your shared excitement about the day.
Mid-day could be a simple phone call to remind each of you of the love you share.
Evening plans can be as elaborate or as simple as you choose.   Without a lot of fuss, you could invite your Valentine to a cozy fireside dinner or a “carpet picnic” in your living room. Prepare your own specialty.  Or opt for takeout at your local market and tell “Deli- guy” that it’s your night to cook!
Will the dress code for your soiree be evening gown and “tails”, or provocative “PJ’s’?
As the evening progresses, will you test the waters by lighting candles and drawing a fragrant, bubbly bath for the two of you?  Or play a love song and slow dance in the foyer?  Maybe a soothing massage is  more your style.
I offer these ideas just to ignite your own imagination. It’s all very affordable. On this special day, face it, can you afford not to woo the one you love?
If you are considering a Valentines gift that will express your love to “your love” not only on Valentines Day but everyday, check out the Pocket Heart and Loving Heart Pin for men and Loving Heart necklaces, earrings and charms for women.  
My passion, my company and my line of jewelry are about helping people express their love to the special people in their life.
This Valentine’s Day will you treat your Valentine like “the one of a kind” they really are?
– by Jean Schnaak, Designer
 The Loving Heart Collection by Jean Schnaak^®

Tags: Date Ideas, express your love, heart jewelry, hearts, I Do, intentionality, Loving Heart Pin, Pocket Heart, relationships, Romantic Valentines Evening Ideas, Show Your Love, Valentines Day, Valentines Gifts, Valentines Gifts for Men, Valentines Ideas
Posted in Being Intentional, Valentines | 3 Comments »

Matters of the Heart

June 24th, 2009 In these busy times this author believes that where we live, how we live and what we do all pale in comparison to how we express our love to others.

To love intentionally, planning will be required.  Swirling around in my head have been some thoughts as to how to go about this.
To better express my love for the people who are important to me, I need to identify who they are and rank them.  That sounds a little cut and dry, but think about it – don’t you have unspoken rankings of people you know?
Consider if you will, those to whom you give Christmas cards versus Christmas gifts; birthday cards (calls, emails, texts, Facebook posts)  versus birthday presents.  How about your guest lists for holiday parties, cookouts, weddings and so on? Whether written or simply in our minds, these lists imply a sort of value ranking of our relationships.  Don’t they?
As I continue my pursuit to love more intentionally those who are most important to me, I will take a look at how often and through what means these love connections have taken place over the past several years.  Have our communications occurred weekly, monthly, quarterly, yearly or beyond?  Has the quality of the relationship strengthened or weakened over time? Is the relationship heading in the direction that is best for all concerned?
There are friends I feel compelled to talk with every two to three weeks.  It’s like I need a  friend fix. These close friends and I make time for each other – to grab a cup of coffee and visit over the phone for a bit.   To talk with them is like a “shot in the arm.” (Just to be clear for anyone who did not grow up hearing this expression, a “shot in the arm” is intended as something good for a person, not a painful experience.)
Then there are other friends with whom I may connect every six months or yearly as we exchange Christmas cards and family highlights of the past year.  (Perhaps the Christmas cards with family update letters say a lot about peoples’ desire to stay connected regardless of these busy lives we lead.)  Anyway, it seems there is a rhythm to these love connections – something to do with frequency, mode of connection and desire.
As I review each relationship and consider my desire for this relationship the future, I’ll rank each one. With only so much time to spend with those I love, I must define the optimal love connection for each person who is important to me.  Then again, simply not forgetting a dear friend’s birthday or a nephew’s little league game would be a great improvement.
To do anything well, I must be deliberate.  By July 15th, I intend to do the following:

• Identify the people with whom I wish to have a lasting relationship,
• Define my ranking system based on moving forward in time and  my level of commitment to the relationship,
• Define frequency of contact per relationship (daily, weekly, monthly, yearly)
• Identify options for connecting  (outings, phone, email, Facebook, special occasions, holidays, etc) and
• MOST OF ALL write it all down.

Once written, implementation of a system of Outlook Calendar reminders synched with my new iPhone, plus the occasional Post- it note should insure my success.  If  Follow-Through was for sale, I’d buy a bottle of that too!
You may be wondering what prompted these grand plans of mine.  If so let me shed a bit of light as to my why.  My adult life has involved relocating at least ten times, accruing lovely friends, colleagues and lots of  neighbors along the way.  Stretched over time and many miles, I have a pretty long list of people that have been a part of my life. Within the past year, I relocated within 25 miles of where I was raised.  Locally, I have many relatives and school mates whom I’ve not lived near since the seventies.  It is taking time for me to adjust to being back home.
With this transition, I want to reflect on who I am in relation to all those who are a part of me.   There are folks that I never want to let time or good intentions lead to our drifting apart.
Despite E-mail, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc my top of the mind approach to staying connected, I’m afraid will only become more tedious as time goes on.
To embrace my relationships with the people who are the very fabric of my life,  I think a system will help.

expressing of sadness

Monday, January 21, 2008

To Express Sadness

To express sadness with the words, "I am sad."
Is like telling your mother she was right about something.

But it is not about your mother
or hearts that don't want to work anymore
or a God that you have faith in
or a friend you have lost

Or anyone even being right about something.

To feel loneliness when you are alone,
Is like agreeing with dentists about flossing.

But it is not about gingivitis
or being a follower
or a listener
or a loner

Or even teeth

To think about the future without a friend
Is like to bake a cake without the flour

But it isn't about you
or the chemistry or gastronomy
or what happens tomorrow when my alarm goes off
or if you're also out of frosting

Or if it is even a cake that celebrates something

To cry because you've lost
Is like shouting when you've won

But it isn't about scoring more
or doing less
or writing a poem
or what words can say hearts or pain or uncertainty

Or if you didn't have words to say about it a week ago.

I couldn't be sadder.
There, I've said it.

But it isn't about me
or how alone I feel
or how hopeless it is to lose someone
or how much I've cried.

Or what comes next.




God, I can only have faith, will heal. And do good things. And show he is purposeful.


Please pray for my friend. He was my father's best and favorite friend. He was a good man. He was loved by so many people who will never forget him.
He will be missed for as long as I live.

~Sami

And Happy, Happy Birthday Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr!

His quest for justice, much like my friend's, has been inpirational, timeless, and never in vain.

"I won't have any money to leave behind.
I won't have the fine and luxurious things of life to leave behind.
But I just want to leave a committed life behind."

present continuous (progressive) for annoyance

Hi there,

While the sentence:

' She is always getting on my nerves!'

is a standard example of the Pres.Cont. tense used for expressing annoyance, the sentence:

'She is never paying attention to me'

sounds wrong to me.

1. Is it wrong?
2. If so, can we use the Pres.Cont. for expressing annoyance with the adverb 'always' only?

Thank you 

Re: present continuous (progressive) for annoyance

---

Quote:

Hi there, While the sentence: ' She is always getting on my nerves!' is a standard example of the Pres.Cont. tense used for expressing annoyance, the sentence: 'She is never paying attention to me' sounds wrong to me. 1. Is it wrong? 2. If so, can we use the Pres.Cont. for expressing annoyance with the adverb 'always' only? Thank you

For some reason, your sentence with 'never' would sound more natural with the simple present.

> She never pays attention to me.

As well, I think that 'present continuous' to express annoyance should collocate with the word 'always'.

Expressions for showing annoyance
Oh, dear! Oh, no! Bother! Damn! (some people may find this offensive) I can't believe it! Why does this always happen!
For	goodness heaven's pete's pity's God's (some people may find this offensive)	sake!

compound sentence

Definition:
A sentence that contains at least two independent clauses.
Compound sentences can be formed in three ways:
(1) using coordinating conjunctions;
(2) using the semicolon, either with or without conjunctive adverbs;
(3) on occasion, using the colon.
The compound sentence is one of the four basic sentence structures. The other structures are the simple sentence, the complex sentence, and the compound-complex sentence.

Reading Harry Potter in English

Have you read J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series? Let me ask this again. Have you read the Harry Potter series in English?

Why do so many people love Harry Potter?

1. Harry is an orphan. Many popular tales start out with the main character losing one or both parents. Think of all of the popular Disney movies. Most of them start this way!
2. Harry is loveable. For a book to be successful, the main character has to be adored by the readers. The average human can relate to Harry Potter despite his abnormal life.
3. Harry is magic. Humans love to read about worlds of wonder. Perhaps this is a form of escape from our own reality.
4. Harry has his fair share of trouble. Conflict is the key to a good story. The Harry Potter books are page turners. Once you are hooked you can’t put them down.

The Harry Potter books are available in over 60 languages. However, if Harry Potter is truly your “favourite book” why not read it in English? Reading a translation is not the same as reading the original. In fact, it is a little bit like watching a movie adaptation. You lose part of the author’s true vision for the book.

Will you accept the challenge to read Harry Potter in English? You can use the comments below to motivate each other. You can also ask questions about vocabulary from the books. Why not start a Harry Potter reading group on MyEC?

Wordchecker:
orphan: a child whose parents have died
relate to: understand because it is familiar
fair share: as much or more than the average person
page turner: a book that you can’t stop reading
hooked: convinced to continue reading (or using)
vision: a plan in one’s imagination

Did you know J.K. Rowling taught English as a second language? English learners truly are an inspiration!

Materi Bahasa Inggris: Narrative Texts

Narrative Text, adalah teks yang isinya merupakan cerita atau kisah tentang sesuatu. Contoh narrative text: cerita rakyat (folktale), cerita binatang (fable), Legenda (legend), cerita pendek (short story), dan sejenisnya. Di dalamnya terdapat konflik/puncak masalah yang diikuti dengan penyelesaian. Fungsi utama teks ini adalah untuk berkisah atau menghibur pembaca.

Ciri-ciri narrative text:

1. Generic Structure:

• Orientation: berisi pengenalan tokoh, tempat dan waktu terjadinya cerita (siapa atau apa, kapan dan dimana)
• Complication: Berisi puncak konflik/masalah dalam cerita. Sebuah cerita boleh memiliki complication lebih dari satu.
• Resolution: Pemecahan masalah. Bisa berakhir dengan kegembiraan (happy ending) bisa pula berakhir dengan kesedihan (sad ending).

Catatan:

Terkadang juga susunannya (generic structure): Orientation, Complication, Evaluation, Resolution dan Reorientation. Untuk “Evaluation” dan “Reorientation” merupakan optional; bisa ada bisa tidak. Evaluation berisi penilaian/evaluasi terhadap jalannya cerita atau konflik. Sedangkan Reorientation berisi penyimpulan isi akhir cerita.

2. Grammatical features menggunakan tenses “past”
3. Sering menggunakan kata penghubung waktu (temporal conjunction), misalnya: once upon a time, one day, long time ago, …

Contoh Narrative Text:

Ali Baba

Once upon a time there were 40 cruel thieves who put their stolen money and treasures in a cave. They went in the cave by saying ”Open Sesame” to the cave entrance. A poor person, named Ali Baba saw them while they were doing that, so he heard the opening word. After they left, he went toward the cave and opened it. Suddenly he found a very large quantity of money and golden treasures. He took some of it and went back home. After that he became a rich man and his brother wanted to know how he became rich.

Ali Baba turned into the richest man in his village. His evil brother was really jealous of him, and wanted to know how he could get such a lot of money. Therefore, when Ali Baba went to the cave again to take some more money, his brother followed him. He saw everything, and decided to go back the next day to take some money for himself. The next morning he found a lot of money in the cave, and he wanted to take all of them. Unfortunately, when he was busy carrying the money to his house, the thieves came. The boss of the thieves asked him how he knew about the cave. He told everything, but unluckily they killed him and went to Ali Baba’s house.

After finding Ali Baba’s house, they made a plan to kill him the following night. Some of the thieves hid in big jars, and the boss pretended that he was a merchant who wanted to sell the jars to Ali Baba. Ali Baba who was a kind man invited the boss of the thief to have lunch together.

After lunch they took a rest. Luckily, the house maid went out of the house, and found that there were thieves inside the jars. She finally boiled hot oil and poured it into the jars to kill all of them. The boss of the thieves was caught, and put into prison.

Ali Baba was saved from the danger, and he finally lived happily ever after with his maid who became his wife shortly after.

Tentang Global Warning..

jangan berfikir langkah kecil kita tidak berpengaruh apa-apa, sebab persoalan besar seperti Global Warming sebenarnya adalah dampak akumulatif dari perilaku individu yang kecil-kecil ada beberapa hal yang dapat kita lakukan:
1. minimalisir penggunaan plastik ;
sebenarnya HMTL ITB akan mengadakan kampanye anti plastik, sebagai bentuk pewacanaan     awal. karena kita semua tau mustahil dapat langsung berhenti dari pemakaian plastik (secara…     hampir semua produk mengandung plastik, dan jika belanja pasti dikasih plastik !!)
MAKA (dengan asumsi semua disini tau bahwa plastik non degradable )
* hindarilah membuang plastik banyak2, kalo perlu disimpen aja soalnya bisa membebani             sampah kota bandung (kan ga ada TPA)
* kalo belanja, jika masih bisa langsung dimasukin tas, masukin aja. jadi ga perlu plastik kan!
2. ” Switch off”
hemat listrik = mengurangi dampak pemanasan global,
* matikan lampu sebelum tidur
* ganti lampu bohlam ke jenis lampu CFL (karena  hemat energi sampai 60%)
* jika meninggalkan kamar/rumah, cabut segala perangkat elektronik seperti: DVD player,             kompie,s/d charger dsb… jika sudah selesai menggunakan) kebiasaan meninggalkan dalam             keadaan stand-by harus dihilangkan.
3. Pilih Produk ramah lingkungan
* seperti memilih kertas yang mudah didaur ulang
* kalo bisa pakai kertas semaksimal mungkin (bisa pakai kertas re-use/ bolak-balik) kec kalo         untuk hal resmi ya lah…
4. Transportasi Hijau
* kalo kostan deket jalan kaki saja..
* kalo pake motor, rajin-rajin lah di servis !!!
* kalo pake mobil, sebisa mungkin maksimalkan kapasitas penumpangnya. . di servis juga !!
karena apa? saya rasa semua dah tau kalo pertambahan kendaraan bermotor di kota bandung         setiap harinya mencapai 50 %, mau sampai berapa juta angka kendaraan bermotor membuat         polusi meningkat ??? bikin macet juga kan!!
5. Tanam pohon
bagi orang-orang rumahan, jangan lupa dirumahnya harus ada lahan hijau.. jangan dihabiskan         semua untuk bangunan,,, bermanfaat juga untuk resapan air… INGAT LOH… permukaan air         tanah di bumi semakin meningkat… so ntar air tanah makin dangkal aja dong… jadi berbaik         hatilah pada tanaman..
yah.. begitulah saya rasa hal-hal sederhana tadi dapat kita lakukan sekarang juga…
meski terkesan sepele, namun berdampak sangat besar untuk kehidupan di bumi ini.
jika kita membiasakan diri,, dan menularkannya pada orang lain, insyaAllah nanti semakin banyak yang sadar..

jadi,.. mulailah dari diri sendiri dan tularkan kebaikan ini pada orang lain…