Giveaway at A Hopeful Romantic

A Hopeful Romantic is hosting a giveaway, but it is ending soon so don't waste time check'n it out :)

http://becomingahopefulromantic.blogspot.com/2011/12/my-memories-review-and-giveaway.html

A Post of Christmas Ramblings

 Although I haven't made a post in several days and am unsure what to even write about, I decided that a random post of Christmas ramblings was due ☺ 

Lets just start with rambling 1# : I am sick of Christmas music!

I always thought my mom was crazy for being annoyed with Christmas music but now I finally get it; It is just downright annoying at how much of it they play and how slow and droaning it is at that! The ones on the christian radio station aren't even that upbeat! They sing in the lowest voice that I have never even thought possible and at a very slow pace at that. It is lullabying in a irritating sort of way. 

Alright so if you absolutely LOVE Christmas music then you probably think I came from Mars, but I will be happy to listen to some upbeat normal music that lifts my spirits a bit more. 

Rambling 2# : Why can't gifts be outlawed?

With the title of this rambling you might be wondering if something is loose inside my head, but don't worry, I am quite certain of what I just said; Gifts should be outlawed! Alright, I might be being a bit extreme, but if you knew my family then perhaps you would agree. Year after Year my grandparents make this big production of getting their part of the family together to eat, and squeeze together family that, for reasons I don't understand, doesn't get along well: and someone always ends up crying and everyone has to open up gifts and squeeze into this crampt space, Snap! Snap! Say Cheese! and then in a whirlwind the night is over and you feel as if you have been hot and sweaty listening to people make nicey-nice talk just to be glaring at each other at the next family event. Alright, so my extended family is far from perfect.... But I guess what the point of this is that I get so tired of everything being about the gifts. Thats what it honestly feels like at some of those get-togethers. A few years ago my family went to Mexico to spend Christmas with my dads family, and that Christmas was the best day of my life! All of the family get's together and helps cook the meal, there is no stress or tension, just laughter and joy of spending time together. All 30 something cousins get together and break out the board games, which is a blast! We stayed up till 3am playing games, eating, and just having fun. At 11pm my tia broke out the boombox to some dance music, and the adults had fun with that and just talking. Gifts were not even a thought, that would have completely ruined the moment.

So I am not saying gifts are bad, for they can be very touching and sweet, but when gifts start to consume, that is when it's not so sweet. Really what Christmas is about is the gift of Jesus being born to us, and that is what the focus should always be on. I still get my immediate family gifts though, and we cherish the moments of being together on Christmas day as a family :)

Rambling 3# : Christmas Cookies make me Happy ☺

I absolutely love making Christmas Cookies! They are pretty and so much fun to decorate ♥ Lately I have been trying my best to make super beautiful cookies, although they do take a bit longer to make.... We recently had a cookie party were I used the exact amount of a 10 pound bag of flour to make cookies. Let's just say that there was well over 200 cookies when all was said and done! That day I had upped my experience in rolling out cookies and cutting them out, to the point that I didn't want to see a cookie ever again ;) 

Rambling 4# : I am in love with snowflakes!

Lately I seem to be going through a snowflake stage, their just so pretty! I love drawing them, making cookies that look like them, and writing about them! So yes, I love blue or white snowflakes, whether real, drawn on paper, or on a cookie, they are just so pretty looking ♥

Rambling 5# : Christmas Tea!

For some it may be cocoa, for others egg-nog, but for me it's tea! I love tea; whether it's chai, english breakfast, or raspberry -it's all amazingly delicious! Nothing quite warms me up like a good ole cup of tea. And especially with Christmas, I find myself loving it even more ♥

~*~

If time permits then I may post a song or something short on my blog, but otherwise I mya not make a post until after the holidays.

I pray that all of you readers have a blessed and merry Christmas!

Walk the Talk

"Talk is cheap. Actions speak louder than words"

As I read this I was personally convicted and thought back to all the times I say "I can do it tomorrow". And I guess what gets me the most is how I put off my relationship with God and the things that I need to work on to get closer to Him. I suppose lately I have gotten a bit better at it, since whenever I think of something that I need to work on I will pray and/or read my bible right then and there. I am still far from perfect though. I still am lazy and wish to do things when it's more 'convenient', but there never seems to be such a time.

Excuses. One of the worst enemys sometimes. They give you reasons why not to do something when you know you should. They make you think it's okay to put something off. And they pretty much are easy to dish out; I mean, how long does it take to think of an excuse? About 1 second I'd say. Not long enough, for we (more like I) can deliver them without a second thought at times.

So I guess my question to both myself and you is, What is keeping you from moving forward in your life and/or your relationship with God?

For me it's at times the excuses that I make, or perhaps what is buried behind the excuses; fear. Fear that I may fail. Fear that I may not be good enough. These are just a couple of the many possible fears that may cause apprehension in moving forward with your relationship with God and the plan that he has for your life.

But how does this lead back to the point of this post? Well, you can only begin to do the things that you know need to be done when you strip away the excuses and fear. I can't grow closer to God if I make up excuses. I have to pray to God to give me the strength to grow in him and to act upon it. I must set aside my own selfishness and desires that keep me from doing the things that I know and say I should. I need to set aside anything that hinders me from 'walking the talk'. I can think of a million things I must do, or say I must do, but in reality I only will go through with the action of completing 1 or 2. This needs to change, and it needs to change today. I can't simply write about it in my blog but I must take action in my life to change the things that hinder me from my relationship with God, to bewrid of everything that keeps me from growing closer to him.

As I mentioned above; Talk is cheap. Actions speak louder than words.'

So what are you waiting for? Make a change in your life today by doing what you wish to put off for tomorrow.

The soul of the sluggard craves and gets nothing, while the soul of the diligent is richly supplied.
Proverbs 13:4

Blessings,

AFIB Giveaway Announcement!

Hello Dear Readers! Here is the winners of the A Flower In Bloom 1 Year Annaversary Giveaway;

The Winner of mini flower hair clip;

Nela!

The Winner of Warm Vanilla Sugar Personal Hand Sanitizer;

Ali!

The winner of Quiet Moments in the Garden;

Vanessa!

Alright then, you all have until Wednesday the 14th to claim your prizes and e-mail me your mailing address that you wish for the items to be sent to (adrianawaleenac@gmail.com). Thank you all so much for paticipating! :)

Blessings,

A Taste Of My Own Medicine

Now it's time for me to eat my own words and swallow. 

A taste of my own medicine I suppose you could say.

Whether I am making any sense at all or not is to be determined, but maybe this will clarify it;

Not so long ago I wrote a post about thanksgiving and being grateful for what you have. I believe I even mentioned counting your blessings as the proper medicine to remedy ungratefulness. Well let's just say that I am due a teaspoon about right now.

Just earlier today my mom was talking with a close family friend. We've known them for what seems like forever but haven't been in as close of contact these last few years. Anyhow, they have a daughter that is like 4 days older than me, and so they were each talking about their daughters. Well, it just so happens that my friend Melia is an amazing singer who is learning to sing a song in 3 different languages that she will perform in an operah. Along with this Stanford University is trying to recruit her for her amazing talent of singing. So what does this have to do with me? Well, it just so happens that I have always dreamed of singing. There was never anything else that I wanted to do in my life besides sing. Yes I have had some other dreams, but singing has always been number 1. But guess what? I can't sing! I believe I wrote a post about this before, but to sum it up, at the begining of this year I auditioned to sing in our church worship team and ended up feeling humiliated and have had no desire since to ever sing in public again. So let me get back to the topic here.

Ever since that humiliating experience I have asked God and myself why out of all my talents singing couldn't be one of them. I mean, I never asked to be good at drawing, painting, or baking. I never asked for any of those, my one and only desire was to sing even if it was only in the worship team at church. Well, I guess God had other plans in mind with me. But after hearing about my friend it left me with an ungrateful taste in my mouth. It made me wonder why I couldn't have been gifted like that. Why I couldn't be the girl with the voice. And it pretty much showed me how spoiled rotten I was to be so selfish and not be happy for her and be grateful for what I do have. 

So now I am starting a list of my blessings, because as I have mentioned, giving the glory to God is the best remedy for ungratefulness. 

Among many others, here are a few items on my list;

I am grateful for....

...My many talents

...Loving friends that are always there for me

...Loving parents that believe in me

...My blog readers that encourage me to write, which helps me to sort out my thoughts at times

...A God that loves and sees me as something special no matter what I can or can't do

I suppose you all now know a little piece of my thoughts/feelings at times, even the ones that aren't completely 'christian like'. Even so, I know God will continue to use these experiences to grow me closer to Him so that I can continue to grow deeper in knowing Him.

Many Blessings,

Interview; Clackamas Fire Lieutenant

So this is an interview that I completed for my Journalism class, hope ya enjoy!

~*~

Ken Mulkey is a local citizen that has been in the fire service since 1991 and currently works at Fire Station #17 in Oregon City. He grew up in Keizer and attended McNary high school. He spent the last twenty-five years being married and has three children. Let’s take a deeper look at Mulkey’s life and job;

Interviewer: So what exactly is your official job title or rank?

Mulkey: I am a lieutenant. Each station has a lieutenant, an officer, and a driver. The driver, he or she drives, listens to the call, runs the pump -if it's not a fire that they help with, then it's medical, and many other things. A Lieutenant is the one that kind of organizes whats going to be done. If it's a structure fire then there is usually five or six pieces of equipment, and the officer is the person that is in charge of his crew, to assign them a task to complete, like to ventilate the roof or a search of the building. He oversees his crew and makes sure it's getting done and looks out for situation awareness; Making sure his crew stays safe and gets the task completed.

Interviewer: How much training did you have to go through to get to were you are now?

Mulkey: I have a two year degree in Fire Science. Typically most firefighters want to have an associates degree, some will have a bachelors degree, and that can vary. A lot will have a bachelors degree in Fire Administration. If your interested in progressing up to a management position then a degree in fire science and business or fire administration would be very practical to get.

Interviewer: Did you always want to be a firefighter?

Mulkey: No, actually I wanted to be a policeman. But then I realized they had targets on their back and I would rather help people out in a time of need.

Interviewer: Going back to your early days of training, was there any obstacles that you had to overcome?

Mulkey: Ya, I wasn't the best student.

Interviewer: Do you mean grade wise?

Mulkey: Yes, grade wise. And I'm also a paramedic and it was very hard to get through paramedic classes. The thing is that I wasn't the best student when it came to academics. And that was an obstacle that I really had to work on by learning good study practices.

Interviewer: How many of the calls that you receive are actually related to fires?

Mulkey: Very little. I think our statistics show on our website that 85%-89% are actually non-fire calls, the other 15% deals with fires, car fires, wires down, some type of a road hazard or something.

Interviewer: Do you think that from having different experiences of seeing different traumas, that you have become more numb to tragedy's that you see in your work?

Mulkey: For me it has, I know a lot of guys that maybe not, but I'm a little bit less sensitive, a little less compassionate I guess, as you do get a little hard. A lot like the police officers, they deal with criminal aspect a lot so there really numb to things in society. So I feel that that falls true also in the fire service. You can't -It will just eat you up sometimes if you get personally involved with it, and we don't want that to happen.

Interviewer: And that's why you have your counseling and services like that

Mulkey: Yes, good relations with friends and stuff, that your able to de-brief yourself with. And the way we de-brief on certain things, an outsider looking in might think it's really strange the way we do it; there might be a humor factor in it, that's just the way we kind of de-brief ourselves, we try to use comedy in some of our de-briefing, ‘Why?’ I guess is so that it doesn't really impact us

Interviewer: What would you say then is the most important thing in your life?

Mulkey: I would have to say my faith.

Interviewer: Would you mind explaining that a little bit more?

Mulkey: I just have a good christian faith, I think a lot of times that helps with some of the traumatic experiences your in. And it kind of gives a sense of hope for others when there dealing with a situation, and they have more of a resource, and it also gives me more of a resource when I need help because I got a whole church family that I can rely on to get support. And seeing people with death and dying it just makes it easier on my aspect, because I know if that were me I wouldn't have to have the fear and the worry that some people do when  they know that there about to... die.

Interviewer: If there was a young person who wanted to become a firefighter, what would your advice be to them?

Mulkey: My advice would be to obviously stay in school, that sound like maybe a cop-out but it's not, if your in high school really concentrate and try and get good grades. Grades do matter, in the long run as you look at things. Things are so competitive these days that colleges look at students with better grades and so if they have an opportunity to get a student that has a 4.00 and a 3.00 your going to try and get that 4.00 student, and so it's very competitive. Try hard, study hard, go to college, and just work. Also, if you want to be in the fire service, find a community hospital that has a volunteer program or explore while your in high school and volunteer. There’s different types of volunteer programs. You have a residency program were you live in the station, or you just live in the area and respond to the station when there’s a call.

Interviewer: Are there any last words or anything else that you would like to talk about?

Mulkey: Actually, you know being in the fire service, it's called the best job in the world, and I think it is because you work one day on, two days off, If I take a vacation day, I get five days off then, where as anybody else who takes a vacation day gets one day off. So you work a lot, your up a lot at night, and your working 24 hour periods, but you have more time off to do more family oriented things,

Interviewer: Well you just mentioned staying up all night, do you have a hard time adjusting to that?

Mulkey: You do, and we have a dormitory, each station has one. From 8am to 5pm we do business things, Inspections, we drill, we study, we have house cleaning, we have things that are put on our calendar that we have to do. Then around 4 or 5 O'clock our day winds down and we do personal time, I'm taking a class, so I study for the class that I'm taking, and at night we can sleep, but if the alarm goes off, were right here and we have to go. I just came from a station that averaged 3 calls a night, and that really messes up your schedule. I would go home and be very tired and have to take a 1 or 2 hour nap, other stations don't run quite as many calls a night. I've been in the fire service for twenty five years, and you learn to adapt.

Interviewer: Alright, it was nice getting to interview you and I really appreciate you allowing me to do that. Thank you,

Mulkey: Thank you and have a good day

Interviewer: You too!

It’s important that we as citizens respect the firefighters that work so hard to help the people of the community. I was truly honored to meet Ken Mullkey and to interview him, and now have an even deeper level of respect for the men and women that serve our community.

If your interested in becoming a volunteer firefighter, then you can visit the Clackamas Fire Volunteer page; http://www.clackamasfire.com/volunteerservices/index.html

Written by Adriana Castillo

AFIB 1 Year Anniversary Giveaway!

  Drum roll please.....

May I announce the one year anniversary of A Flower In Bloom!!!!! 

And what better way to celebrate this than a giveaway for all of you readers! 

So, May I also announce the first giveaway hosted at AFIB! 

Here are the list of prizes;

~Mini Rose Hair Clip~

This little clip is 2" in diameter and as cute as can be!

~Warm Vanilla Sugar Hand Sanitizer~

From Bath & Body Works comes a beautiful scented 1oz Hand Sanitizer that fits perfectly inside purses and great for making hands feel clean and smell great!

~Quiet Moments in the Garden~

This is a sweet little book with some quotes about the garden

The Details

• This Giveaway is opened from  Saturday December 3rd to Friday December 9th, 
• The winner will be announced on December 10th via random draw. 
• The winners will then have until December 14th (A Wednesday) to e-mail me their mailing info.

Only open to people in the U.S. (for mailing reasons)

How to enter:

You must be a follower or follow by e-mail to enter;

1 Entry for following or follow by e-mail 

*Extra Entry's*

1 Entry for posting giveaway link on your blog 

1 Entry for e-mailing link to 1 or more friends

1 Entry for posting on Facebook or Tweeting Link

For each entry make a seperate comment.

So What are you waiting for? Enter Now! ☺