December already

 How the time flies, remains a mystery for me and for many others. I take it that also for some of you. 

Of course I have been too busy to be able to put time aside and continue my writing here on my blog, but is never too late they say. 

Since August when I last tried to right something here, I had many adventures and many travels, but also many experiences and life changing events. 

There is no need to thing BIG, even the small things that happen in life can have a big impact. 

Since August, I have visited few continents, I have been to the US (San Francisco, Los Angeles) and I have been to Australia (Melbourne, NewCastle, Sydney). It feels like it was a dream come true. 

But not like any dream that you actually had, this was a dream I never knew I had, and it still happened. 

But I will do my best to have some separate posts for each of these travels, as there is a lot to write on each of them. 

And now, with 2 days before 2024, I am getting ready for a new year, full of challenges but also of opportunities. 

I plan to have a YES year, a year in which I will say YES more often than NO, a year of changes and of sustainability, a year of simplicity and connecting to the roots. 

Let's hope it will be a good one! 

Good to be back :) 

New chapter - fearless !

 I am building myself. I am setting myself for the next decade. 

I am allowing myself to live my dreams. What if the thing I love most (working with and through people) is the the thing that can bring me money and I can have a switch in my career? 

This is what I am exploring. And it is soo exciting!

This is the second step that I am taking in that direction. I want to be able to achieve my professional and personal dream, and I am so grateful and happy that I am doing this first step. 

Thank you Lord for all the opportunities! 

May this be something that will honor You! 

Hard day - in need of Your Grace

 Today is one of those hard days, emotionally at least. 

Is the day when Erik Moses will be buried, and is a day that will open up different emotions and different things for me, and for sure for others as well. 

It is a very sad thing that Erik is also gone. Too many people, dear to us have left us and is hard to embrace it and to get use to it. It hurts too much. 

I pray for strength and for peace in our hearts as we walk him to cemetery and as we will be present for all the ceremony of the funeral etc. 

I pray for his parents and for his little brother. May they be comforted somehow, through Your never ending love. 

May we love each other more, and may we understand the fragility of our nature. 

Happy birthday to me!!! I am 40! And grateful!

 Almost there. As I am writing this post I am still 39, but I will finish it when I will be already 40, which is great! I did not manage to finish this post, and I am already 40 years old and 10 days, so I hope is not so so late. 

It was great to celebrate my 40st birthday, it feels like my life is just beginning, and I am very happy and grateful for that. I have managed to finally fly my mother to Bucharest, so she took her first trip with an airplane, and it was great, she enjoyed it, although for her it was a bit tiring in Bucharest, due to the many activities we had. 

I have also passed my exams to the Economical studies and I am so grateful for that. I have a degree in Economical science, it is a very big achievement, considering where I am coming from. 

It was such a stressful period, and I am so grateful that in the end I did it, and now I am just waiting for my diploma. Thankful and blessed for the many resources I had and for this achievement.

On top of this I had a cool and beautiful party, which was planned to be 40@40 - 40 people at my 40st birthday. In the end I did not manage to meet the numbers as there were more than 40 people, but it was still my birthday, and it was a great party. 

It started the night before with some girlfriends that were helping me with the background and all, and it was a night full of fun and joy. We made crafts, we ate good food and cakes, we had balloons, we talked and they prayed for me, it was really amazing. I am so blessed and grateful to have such girls in my life, that love me and surround me with care and compassion. 

The day of the party I had everything planned, good food, good cake , music and the best people, the ones close to my heart, my family and my friends. I was very relaxed, I did not stress that much, but it was really warm. My prayers were heard for no rain, so it did not rain at all. 

The party was very chill, i received cool gifts, and everyone seemed to have a nice time. Not so many activities, but at the same time, not so many boring moments, when nothing was happening. 

People had a chance to reconnect with one another, so i think they really enjoyed it. 

Of course, colleagues from work were present as well, and they really enjoyed it. 

I liked the fact that everyone had a small gang, so i did not need to entertain anyone. I relaxed as well, talking to some people, trying to see if everyone was ok, normal stuff i guess. 

My mum had also a nice time, she seemed pretty happy and relaxed with her two friends, so I was really grateful for that. 

My favorite moment was the end of the party, when people left, and only around 10 friends remained, and i could finally feel the freshness of the evening and open a beer, and simply relax and take it all in. 

It was a perfect celebration, and a corner stone into my life, I am 40 :). And fabulous. 

My heart is not so fabulous. I am still thinking about her, and missing her. I wish she was here with me for this celebration, she was missing for me, and for others I am sure. 

I sometimes hear her voice encouraging me, or telling me that I am wrong, or fighting with me on different topics. 

I miss her so much, in all the things. Grief is not going away, you just learn to live with it, and to carry its burden. Sister I love you, now when I am 40, before and for ever. You were my person, the one that always had my back. There is no one else like you, and this is tough. 

Wish you were here, not just for my birthday but for ever! I'll never forget you! 

Pictures from the day , speak more than words: 

Happy birthday to you!

A day I used to wait for and planned for to be and spent with you. Even if I was far away or around Cluj I would plan for us getting together and doing something nice to celebrate your birthday. And today I am still with the same expectation, but without you and without being able to do a lot for this, as you are not here. 

47 years old. This would have been your age today, and instead the aging process stopped back in January 2022. I am trying to accept that you are really gone for ever. Part of me can not accept the fact that you are gone, for ever.  

You are deeply missed my dear Raluca, and we all would like for the things to have happened differently and to get more time with you, and with each other. 

Love you , 4 ever! 

Goodbye my friend - Joy!

 One love, one heart - my heart - Joy

Born in March 2011 - 12 June 2023 

My sweet dog said goodbye to us this morning after a difficult night with challenges in breathing. 

She was one good dog we had the privilege to own, she was loving and stubborn, playful and beautiful dog.

She was our dear friend, no, she was actually a family member. 

She is dearly missed already, although only hours have passed since her departure. 

I wonder if there is a Heaven for pets, I hope it is the same one, and we will be reunited when we will all get there. 

I want everyone to experience the love of a dog, the love of this dog Joy. 

You will never be forgotten! JOY.

June - 2023

 I am becoming more and more lazy. Or I do not prioritize well my time. Or simply I have nothing else to say, i am poor in words and in expressing myself here, in writing. 

It is June, the beautiful month of Summer, a special month for me, for many reasons, but one in particular, her birthday. 

It is hard not to think about her, and not to miss her. And this is what i usually do, specially when I approach a white paper. The only thing I want to write about is her, the only thing I want to remember is her. All the rest does not really matter. 

I wonder if I am the only one that is experiencing grief like this, or if other people are doing this similarly to me. Sometimes I feel i am weak for experiencing loss to such an extend, but I am not able to experience it differently. 

I struggle with acknowledging her loss, and I am running away into my travels...so many, that I can not count. 

Well maybe this is the time for travels. 

I hope you travelled well my darling!

Love you always!!! 

Happy life - World meet Teddy!

 Coming back after a bit of a break is always nice, specially when I am coming with some good news. Noo, is not the news of having found the man of my life, or it can be, depends on how am I looking at it. 

It is with great pleasure that I am happy to share and to pin down the fact that on the 09th of April I brought home a new friend, Teddy! 

Teddy is a dog I found near Valisoara, a place where we go with some friends to spend quality time. And at Sunday lunch, I saw that we had a visitor, this lovely dog that was kissing the cat outside, waiting for us to come and give him some cuddles and some food. 

I was already impressed by his love for other animals, mainly cats, so when I saw his behavior with kids I just knew I need to see if he can be mine. Since there it was a rollercoaster. Called some people and got the ok that the dog can be brought home, and so I did. 

He was received well by everyone in the family, and he found a place to stay. I think he likes it and he is a happy dog. 

But I want to touch on my happiness, cause it is so amazing to actually have a dog again, besides our beloved Joy. I feel so full of energy and of passion to wake up and spend time with him. 

I am also eager to go for walks with him, he is such a lovely companion. I am simply happy , after such a long time, I feel like this dog brought tears to my eyes, both grief tears, cause somehow I am missing my sister even more when I am around him, and happy tears, cause he is just lovely. 

Welcome Teddy to your new family! We love having you!!!!

Born again - 12 years

 03rd April 2011 - such a special day for me and for my life, and for my after life. 

I still remember the day when with a heart filled with joy and with a slight fear of water I stepped into church, all dressed in white, to confess in the water that my life is made new, and that I have a new direction and I believe in the One and only who died for me and rose again to life! 

This is maybe the closest that I will get to marriage, who knows, maybe I will only be dressed again in white when I will be dead. 

But till then, I had this perfect occasion to rejoice for this wonderful day! 

And now 12 years have passed since then, sometimes I do not believe this much as passed. 

I am grateful for the step I took and the faithfulness that I have experienced in these 12 years. 

I am grateful for the support I have at all times, for the fact that I feel lonely, but I am never alone, and this is such a great blessing. 

More than my birthday this is my special day. The day when I turned my life over to live a wonderful life of His holy presence. 

I want to honor this decision for as long as I live, and even when times will get difficult, even when I will doubt myself and others, I still want to honor it. 

I pray for the strength and for the love that covers me , to never let me go! 

Happy New Birthday! to me! 

April is here - the smell of another blessed spring

 Waking up slowly and it is already April. The nature is also awake and the trees are blooming around us, it is a beautiful scenery and a privilege to be a witness of this amazing nature transformation. 

The colors are everywhere, from pink, to red, to white, yellow under a background of blue skies. It is just perfect. The temperature is growing steadily, and in the same way as nature gets new clothes, humans also change their winter clothes with the more spring clothes. 

Everything seems perfect. 

Until one night, when a heavy rain starts, temperatures drop and the rain transforms into snow. One day of heavy snow, and the beautiful colors are transformed in a pale brown, sign that all the trees that were blooming froze. It is  a sad image, of beauty that is gone, yet too soon. But the force of the nature is not weak so they will recover somehow. 

This is what happens in life as well. At times we experience such a great blooming season, full of achievements, of confidence, full of positives and of excitement. But then, over the night, or even in a matter of hours all of this can be taken from us, and snow can cover us, and the signs of spring are gone in a blink of an eye. 

In such instances we need to find the Force within, and in the same way that nature recovers, we need to do the same. We need to find the meaning of life, we need to come back to our motivation for living a great life and start over. With small steps rebuild the spring seeds, and be glorious, beautiful and optimistic. 

Cheers to a beautiful season of nature and of life! 

Requiem - a sort of funeral

 Friday afternoon and suddenly a simple day that was preparing the weekend, became this sad and tensed evening because of different things. The experience of others is not visible in social media, it is clear for me now. Words do not replace the presence of the human being in the same room. Our other senses are not at work when it comes to social media. We only use the sight and we feel the cold keyboard. The rest is all subject to our imagination. 

We often add the voice of our counterpart, we add their thoughts into our mind, we assume what they meant to say when the text is not making enough justice. Is a perfect opportunity to be misunderstood, or to misunderstand someone else. 

This happened to me today, and it was really painful. I felt this pain for many hours, and I still feel it even now. And to finish the day in a positive note, I had tickets to Verdi's Requiem. And as I was sitting there, hearing the music and ignoring the two people in front of me, a feeling on loneliness filled me. 

I just felt alone, I felt like I am completely alone. As a side note, I was at the concert with a friend, so physically I was not alone. 

However, at a soul level, I was alone. And since my sister died I think I had more moments like this one, moments in which I am realizing, with excruciating pain, that she is no longer with me, that she is no longer alive, that she is somewhere else. 

And with that, I realize that I lost my biggest sister, my biggest fan, my number one supporter; I lost the care she was giving me, in her own way, I lost her love that she always had for me, no matter what, and no matter when, I lost the companionship, the fact that she was always there with an encouragement, even when I have done the worst things possible. 

Even when I was not right, she was always by my side. And not having that, leaves me with a big empty space in my heart, that is aching during a lovely interpretation of the Requiem, that is aching during any conflict with any of my friends, cause I come to the realization, that no one was like her. 

That she was the one, my blood, my sister, my caretaker, my protector, and the person who believed the most in me. She would have the right words for me all the time. With her smile, she used to tell me, You can do it, You can do anything you want to do, You are amazing, There is no one like you, etc. 

And now, I think these is who she was. These were not words only about me, these words are reflecting her, truly. 

This Requiem tonight was for you my dearest sister. 

I miss you so much!

And as time goes by, I feel like I miss you more. 

I wish so many things, but I need to keep it real, it is part of life, and I believe in the afterlife, the place where we will meet again. Maranatha! 

Love you, so so much! 

Redefine yourself_ explore

 A new day and a new challenge ahead. This is the time that you should explore and try to do new things. January was just a simple playground test, February was starting to do sports (something I do not like ), March will be about going to visit Timisoara, April will be about Lent before Easter, May will be about going to Valencia, June will be about climbing a small hill or mountain, July will be about throwing a 40 years old party, August will be about going again into the Summer camp, September, October and November I will need to think about. And December, if God allows will end my 40 year of life with a trip to the Holy Land of Israel. 

I am very excited about all of these ideas, and I hope and pray I will have the time and means to achieve them. 

But today I wanted to briefly touch about the Sport element. This is so new for me, and I am still in denial that I actually started. 

What can I say ? 

It matters the person with whom you are working, so I pray that we will have a good connection and I will like working with her. 

It is also important to have the right mind set for this - I can do it, slower, easier but I can do it. Important thing is to believe, and to actually try to do it. It is all about consistency. 

It is important to be happy before, during and after. If the feeling is consistent, again it will help you keep the practice; me in this case. 

It is not about the destination, it is about the journey. Enjoy each day and time of the exercises, and results will appear. 

Letter from an optimistic in his second day of physical activity :) . 

Fingers crossed. 

A brother's love

 I am very excited to right this post from a gaming keyboard, but not just any keyboard, is a gift keyboard that I received from my dear brother.

What we both like about this keyboard is the lightning, it has colors that are changing constantly, it is really nice and relaxing, so I hope it will increase my productivity at work. 

Also, the keyboard is really noisy, so that will stop me from multitasking while in calls, this will be really challenging, but perhaps is also a good thing to be able to change some unpleasant hobbies.

Now coming back to my brother. He just turned 47 and he is one of the coolest people I know. He is very famous, but somehow he manages to keep his fame and his humbleness very well control, so if you would see him on the street you would not realize he is one of the most known in his field. 

But these are not the traits that define him. I think he is defined by genuine goodness. He is the kindest person I have ever met, with his friends, family, strangers, colleagues. He is keen to help, or encourage whenever he can. He had a life full of suffering and for that I am genuinely sorry. I wish things would have been different for him, but for sure the life he lived helped him become what he is today. 

I also wished we would have met sooner, perhaps our relationship would have been different. It is great as is, but I can not help but wonder how things would have been if we would have met earlier. It is just one of those things that I will never know. 

But I am very grateful, even more now than before, that I still have him, and that he is in good health and professionally is shining. 

I wish him all the best and I hope to be around and live wonderful moments in his presence.

Grateful as well for his fantastic wife, she is one of the people that unites us, and generally all. Probably as a sister in law she could have been not interested in building a relationship with me, or help us connect as many times as possible, but she is not like that, she is quite the opposite and for that (and many other things) I respect, admire and love her. 

As the Bible said, it is good to count your blessing, and on this occasion, from a gaming keyboard I want to count them as one of my biggest blessings. 

1 year ...since you are not with us

 Is it something that we are celebrating? I would say it is a commemoration of 1 year since you are not with us. You left us too soon, and our hearts are still suffering from longing to see you and to be in your presence. 

You were so loved. Both of us we really loved you, and perhaps we did not show it well enough or strongly enough, but there is no doubt that you were the center of our earthly lives. 

And now, for the past 365 days it feels like we are running in circles without knowing exactly what to do next, and how our lives will look like further. 

I hope you are well wherever you are! I hope that all the pain is now gone, and your soul is resting. Selfishly I would like to believe that you are watching us or that at least you are thinking about us, but perhaps this is just nonsense. It is a nonsense that help us think about you and smile. 

You were one of the most beautiful persons inside and out. I am nowhere close to what you were, but i would like to be. I miss you saying hello, saying you loved me so much, encouraging me over and over again. I have no one who is doing that for me. You saw me perfect. But i was not even close to perfection, generally and more specifically in the relationship with you. 

And still...you loved me more and more each day. That is faith in action, that is love, the one kind of love that you had for me and for us. 

I celebrate you my dear, i celebrate your life and your character, your personality and your heart. I love and i will love you forever! 

With time this will become easy, but to be honest not sure if I want it to be easier. I just want to remember you and to talk to you, and to miss you. It is impossible for me not to miss you after how much i loved you and how important you were to me. 

You still are, and in a way I am longing to be with you where you are, so that we could be together again. 

Love you sis, to the moon and back...and even further! 

Happy New Year! Welcome 2023!

 A bit later than usual. I would like to say that I am late because I was so busy in doing some amazing things, but actually I am just late because I caught a cold and it is taking longer than expected to recover. However, it is always nice to start writing on a white sheet, and specially in a new year. 

2023 you are here! And you deserve to be welcomed with all the energy that I can! Welcome 2023! Please be gracious to us. 

After a 2022 that almost knocked me down off my feet, here comes 2023, that catches me sick and numb to a certain extend. 

My heart is becoming colder and colder, and maybe this is the process that happens while you age, or this is what sadness is doing to a very warm heart. Sadness...I have now learnt to live with it better. 

10 more days to go till the most difficult moment of last year. The moment in which I had the chance, although I did not wanted to experience loss, and that feeling is still with me since then. 

So what I am doing this year? I am counting , counting stars you would like to me to say, but that is not the case. 

I will be counting the small numbers of friends that I have, the calories that I had, the relaxation moments that I had, the kilos of weight that I lost (i hope), the months of pain, but also the months of joy, excruciating hope and glimpses of happiness. 

Happiness is not just in one thing or in one person, it is in all the small things that happen around me, and that I have time to notice. 

Time is very important, I want to take a note about this, I want to pause and reflect, time is an asset, mind change needed. 

Expectations from 2023? None. Only intentions. 

Intentions to live a full life, a life of things that make it life. 

With gratefulness ...Welcome 2023!!!