Happy 2012

Have a blessed 2012...we just passed into new year that means crossing the old things in favour of the new ones. A new season, new ideas and for many of us- new resolutions!Not for me I don't make resolutions and I don't take changes very easy at times but I've learn to let the Lord to restore my passion for new things and to not be afraid of unknown and I always want to do everything in accord with God's word and try to sensible to others needs, and emotions.

As I look at 2012 I have lots of hopes and needs,opening a new business, my daughter going to college, my son trying to be accepted into medical school, new opportunities for Mario and I to serve in our community and the list goes on as I'm sure your does too. Beyond any of it -any surface level hopes my deep desire to serve the Lord and to experience God's full love for me.

As you and I we anticipate and dream about the coming year, don't allowed your hopes and dreams to be solely about the gym membership(that some of us we might not even use it) let's all try to seek beyond ourselves, let's seek God's fullness and have a abundant year.

Looking forward to serve you and your families in 2012...
Love and blessings!

Channel One!

I got an bunch of personal emails from so many of my friends(you), in response to "The disease called Perfection" I was overwhelmed by your kind words and for understanding my point so what I can say to you all is this....let's all get out of channel one and let's be real with one other. In my opinion channel one( the perfect channel) communicate and focuses on things like"how is the weather? where did you got your shoes from, what kind of car you drive, or something like that. It's not bad or wrong to communicate on channel one, I've done it , we've all done it and I think at times it's absolutely appropriate,but the problem is some of us we get stuck on channel one and we never get on any other deeper channels, I believe the feeling and the friendships that we experience are not as rich and fulfilling as they might be.

I don't want to spend any energy on trying to convince people that I live perfect and in "my world" there is nothing imperfect.... by doing that I will probably start attracting only people that they are convincing themselves that everything in their world is just"perfect" and they tend to focus on mostly superficial topics.
Been there...done that! not for me thank you!!!

There's someone in my life that I've know for many years everytime we get together usually once or twice a year, our time together is typically the same, her initial greeting is very super cheery and limited to the channel one. She always smile and everything is doing is great,everything around her is wonderful, her dad is "wonderful" even his spends most of his time in the hospital than at home, she is doing "great" even she never wanted to be a full time working mom. The problem for me is that there's really nowhere to go with conversation like this, and like I said is nothing wrong with a channel one conversation maybe at times a deeper,more honest discusion will be (again in my opinion) something like: "you know Magda, I'm usually a very happy person but like everyone else I have some frustration in my life" I think this will open a door for prayer requests, for deeper connection between us. While we might not get in all the details of her frustration it will be leaving me with the feeling that she was honest and open.

My point here is to make sure that we understand each other and we are able to "dance" from channel one and initiate deeper interaction depending of the situation.

You can be a happy person but not have a "perfect" life and is just fine, more than fine! Our joy should be real and should come from the Lord, we need to let Him shine on us, when our feelings are phony and we are afraid to be real we can't realate to anyone's heart level and we can't get feel nourished.

I love my family and my friends, can't live out them and even at times I've isolate my self from people, trying to put my feelings and troubles under the rug it didn't help me.... it was the Lord that help me to past the hardships and to start seeing that being real and sharing from my heart will really feed my spirit. The acceptance and the closeness that I get is beyond words...I'm offering my unconditional love to people around me as well as opening myself up to be loved this way.

Xo ~

My love hate relationship with Pinterest

Hi everyone my name is Magda and I'm addicted to Pinterest.

OK, there it is where you say...Hi Magda :)

Have you heard of pinterest? It is a complete time-suck but such great resource for creative ideas and is a place where I go when I was stuck thinking "oh if I can really come up with something really really good this minute"

I started pinning as a way of keeping track of some great inspirational design ideas and food recipes. It help me tremendously and I was able to look back after I use one of the design idea in one of my clients home so after my work was done, I pat myself on the back for following through on most of the pinned ideas.

As I was doing this I came across all this awesome outfits people puts together on polyvore and posts. Discover polyvore back in my designing school.... what a fun way to spent putting together outfits. Is my happy place it cheers me up, just looking at all the amazing things.

THEN there's the food!! Lord Have Mercy! The food and desserts are amazing on here.I can't tell you how many things I try but I pants for sure can tell...I even start baking like never before , I make the dough, I freeze it then pulled them back on Friday night and bake them right before dinner, so I will do the same on Saturday and on Sunday, you got that right? that's what pintrest can do to you!!! But the good part is whatever I make turns out in fact looks exactly like what I pinned and how can I not try again.

Now the problem is I found a big pile of projects on there that I'm dying to get to and maybe in between Christmas shopping, caring for my kids,husband, cat and dog, planning few gatherings with friends, manging my household just to name few, I'll do them (in my dreams) but for now I'm going to have to deal with the fact that it's just a large doze of Awesomeness that just need to wait, I limit myself to just 10-15 minutes a day though, because it can be truly addicting.
LOL!!!

There you go! Go find something to pin and have fun! Happy pinning!
Xo

The disease called"Perfection"

Well I spent more than twelve hours writing this post because this message is important to me! I wonder if I'm the only one aware of this infection of mental disease laying on so many of us. There is a serious pandemic of "perfection" spreading and it needs to stop. Hear me out because this is something for which I am passionate and constantly hurting over. It's sickness that I've even trying to put into words for years without much success(maybe because English is my second language) It's a sickness that I have personally struggled with. It's a sickness that at times has left me hiding me in dark corners and hating myself. And chances are it hit you too!
For the longest times I will get so anxious and worry that i"ll say or do something stupid and people will judge me and my family till one day when the Lord open my eyes and let me see what I need to do and say.
What is the disease of perfection? well this is the real life symptoms...we live a life where we feel an amount of pressure to always appear perfectly happy, perfectly functional and perfectly figured. "Perfection" is much different than perfectionism.

The following examples of "perfection" are all real life examples that I collect in my mind over the years from confidential sources, family, friends or my own life.

"Perfection" is a wife who feels trapped in a marriage to a lazy, angry man but at soccer practice tells the other wives how wonderful her husband is.

"Perfection" is a husband who is belittled, unappreciated and abused by his wife, but he works endlessly to make his marriage appear incredible to those around him.

"Perfection" is a daugther that facing learning difficulties that keeps it hidden for years in high school because she doesn't want to be the first among her friends and family to be imperfect.

"Perfection" is a couple drowning in debt but who still agrees to the cruise with their friends because the words" we don't have money" are impossible ones to push across their lips.

"Perfection" is a mom hating herself for not being as busy as others and for not being like very other moms around her the perfect mom, the perfect wife, the perfect neighbor the perfect christian. " I"d give anything to be like &&&& she runs 10km a day, she cooks six completely meals, participated in every church activity, every children's activities. What we might not know is that this mom might cry home right now because of the pressure to be "perfect" never lets up.

"Perfection' is the dad hating himself because he can't give the same things to his kids that other dads.

"Perfection" is a man feeling like a smaller man when a friend or a neighbour brags about his new boat, his new trip, or his latest new promotion.

I could go on and on...this is a small sampling of the disease that is called "perfection". We all have fathers, mothers, friends, sisters, brothers, extended family members and children who are ALL these things,yet none of us will ever know.
"Perfection" is a hideous monster with a beautiful smiling face. The problem is we are all infected at one point in our lives... but I believe that there is a cure.

Be real! Let's all pray for each other, let's all share and be bold with one another.

We need to embrace our weakness, because everybody does have them. We need to embrace the reality that our body is not perfect, that there are things we can't control and that only God is in control.

Let's be real with each other, be bold with our weaknesses and you and I will change people's lives. Once Jesus can heal us from this disease others will come to us asking if we can pray for them or if they can talk to us...we're all desperate to talk and share but we're afraid of being judged, being unfriend.. after people will find out your struggles. Some of the most "perfect" people around us will tell you that they struggle like you and I...they will break down in tears telling you how difficult live is for them to live this perfect life.

All we need to do is love them, accept them and love yourself even more for being real and for not being perfect.

"Perfection" is infecting every corner of society, it infects our children school, our neighborhoods, our churches, our workplaces, I'm not saying that there aren't a lot of genuinely, happy people...no not at all.

The reason I'm writing this is because in the last and half year I see this everywhere but only few people ever notice. I believe the Lord wants us to find somebody to put our arm around them and to be "real". We need to realize how beautiful that is even with all our imperfections, and struggles. This is me right now sad and desperate for my daughter and for all the girls around her to love themselves, this is me trying to help her and reminding us to feel little more perfect by asking to act a little less perfect(makes sense I guess?) Remember English is my second language!! feeling a bit less perfect right now!!!!!

Let's get real, get vulnerable...if you want your friends and people around you to start being real, you have to start first.

I will not post anything this intense for a while now or nearly this long but I needed to share this because it was very important to me to share with you my inability of being perfect.

I will post something more funny tomorrow. :)

When life gives you lemons learn to make limoncello

Life's tossed some lemons our way and we've decided to embrace them, squeeze them, grate them and infuse them in our lemonade or limoncello(Is an Italian lemon liquor) But in the mist of all this I find encouragement in Jeremiah29;11 that says For I know the plans I have for you says the Lord: The plans are to prosper and not to harm you to give you future and hope. Is it amazing how the Lord promises make me feel secure in my dependency on Him and on His amazing grace. So grateful for that!

After months and months of delays and rejections we're are closer than ever to say hello to "Chameleon Cafe" The wait was well worth it! The name we choose for our restaurant will synthesizes our philosophy of changing menu and to adapt a new idea from serving cafe to really amazing meals.

Before we start working on renovating the place we are applying for all the licences and Inspections from the city and we are hoping for Mario and his crew to start right after that.

They will come on board to pound, bang, saw,drill,sing to make this place complete. I'm sure they will be few bumps on the road but I'm sure overall will be all good and exciting.
So in the mind time can I ask you for a teeny little favor? Until Chameleon's door opens actually doors, please pray for us, shout out a word of encouragement or two every so often. I'm so excited by the whole process and feel so unbelievably fortunate to be fulfilling our dreams once again, but every so often it will feel overwhelming.

So I will try something different. I will let the fun begin and I will continue to trust the Lord, and celebrate the coming of Chameleon.

Thinking of menu making decisions and being creating is something that I love so t the thought gives me goosebumps. Think about fried chicken served on a beautiful plate, I know is not gourmet but let's face it who doesn't love a piece of crunch fried chicken? I do...even Thomas Kelller loves fried chicken...so there!!!

I'm really excited for Pumpkin spice out of the oven with a cup of morning coffee, butternut squash soup dotted with creme fraiche and chives. We will bake, cook, make pizza, fresh bread and many more. We have a vast amount of foodie knowledge and we're up to date on all the foodie trends.

I will keep you updated with photos and information's a soon as contractions begins.

From my kitchen to yours,

Magda

Yesterday someone inform me that she feels she knows me so well and is probably not much she doesn't know about me. I didn't really know how exactly I should, respond to that but upon further thought, I realize that there probably a lot of things that she might not know about me, especially the quirkiest ones and I realized it's the little things that make a person who we are. So Here are some things about me that might be considered a bit different:

I hate being touched with wet hands(like shaking hands)
I like having things lined up at 90 angles
I don't like drinking milk with anything other than peanut butter sandwich
I'm horrible at understanding lyrics and often make up my own words to songs( don't laugh)

I crave sweets throughout the whole day
I despise scary movies
I must sleep with the covers over my shoulders
I don't like people I don't know well(or at all) touching me or getting to close to me
I don't go to sleep till I read
Aside from my very good friends and my family I don't really like hugging people, I'll do it but very lightly and for a second.
I like hot coffee but cannot drink it until is lukewarm
I can't stand socks on my feet -especially when I sleep
I make an insane amount of lists(I constantly take notes or make lists)
I have a journal since my teen years

Now I hope that you all know almost everything about me even my quirkiest things.:)
What are some of your quirks?

Happy Birthday to Me! :)

Today is my Birthday ~ is fantastic to be 43 and is fantastic to feel loved!

There so many new things and exciting things on the horizon...God is so good and we are trusting Him with it all.

Hmmmmmm....what would I like for my birthday, you might ask? Well is easy to answer that because I don't need anything and all I need is from the inside out, so there is now you know. What I really want is to have my relationship with God healthy, and for my spiritual maturity to show in me and to still have the sparkle awe and gratitude for the incredible undeserved privilege of being God's child.

Do I enjoy my age...Yes I DO enjoy my age a lot.

Today I will enjoy my family, my cake, the flowers and I will accept the wrinkles that didn't show last year and the gray hair that has appeared- prematurely of course! But most of all I will celebrate what the Lord has done in my life and what He wants to do in the future.

Happy Birthday to Me !!!!