Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Remembering Uncle

The past two weeks had been both happy and sad for our whole clan. He went to the big city for his monthly checkup with his cardiologist. He felt chest pains. He was immediately admitted in the hospital and within two weeks he died.

He struggled with diabetes for years. This coming April was supposed to be his kidney transplant. A new life. A better life. That is what we all dreamed of. What happens now then? It's sad because after Grandpa died, he became the whole clan's father and now that he's gone, life as we know it will never be the same again.

We all dream of having a better life at some point. In our case, we wanted a better life for Uncle. A life where he is not restricted by his medicines, by the food he eats or by the activities that he do. We wanted to spend more time with him and why not? He was kind, gentle, humble and smart. His smiles were precious and his admonitions were authorities.

Uncle was the quiet, reserved type. They say no one really knows what goes on in his mind. But this is what we all know- he had a good heart, he fought for justice and for what is good, he cared for the poor, he loved his family and He loved God.

Before going to bed last night I chanced upon an old article about making an Ethical Will. Ethical wills are often written documents made to pass on values and wisdom to the next generation. These are your legacies, your own personal manual on life sifted by your experiences which you share with your family or other persons close to you in the hope that they may preserve and even follow what you value. These may be stories of your family history or simply letters of love to your loved ones.

Think not of evil, for evil thinking leads to evil doing, (Eleazar of Worms)
Avoid bad society, make thy books thy companions, make thy book cases and shelves be thy gardens and pleasure-grounds. (Judah Ibn Tibbon)
Never turn a poor man away empty handed. (Eleazar the Levite)

Uncle believes these things and if he had made a written ethical will, I'm pretty sure I can find these words there.

We have days left before his funeral and we are spending these times remembering, reminiscing, crying, laughing, and praying. We are all truly going to miss him but we are all also happy that he is now home with the Lord. God bless you, Uncle. We love you so much. May you rest in peace.


Source: Wikipedia

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Blogger Template and Blogger Background for Dummies

As if you are not having trouble enough thinking what to blog about then here comes the trouble of choosing a blog design. I know newbies like me like to browse the web for that perfect blog to get inspiration from.Then trouble begins. "Oh, I love this blog's design!" " Oh, I love this one, too and this and this..."

Open Google search. Enter "free templates". Click download. Go to your blog's html editor then edit html. Voala! A new design! Not! You preview your blog and some of your widgets disappear. What's worse is that you don't even like the design after all. Well, cry no more. For newbie bloggers who can't get enough of blog designs but do not know how to edit html, here's a fairy for you.

The Background Fairy offers free, yes, free backgrounds for your blog without you changing your blogger template. The problem sometimes with changing blogger templates is that a lot of the codes get lost and deleted. Also, new  buttons  or page elements are created which you don't know how to edit. Even if you know how to edit html, sometimes the task is too difficult especially for dummies like me. It's hard to trade those precious buttons and widgets you made for your blog for a blog template that you may or (God forbid) may not like. The solution is quite simple. You just leave the blogger template alone and just change the background.

I have tried this in Blogger, just go to your Blogger dashboard, click "Layout" then click "Add a Gadget" and choose "Html/Java". Copy the code that the fairy will provide and place it in the "Content Box" of this html gadget. Click "Save", sit back and enjoy your new blogger background.


Monday, February 1, 2010

"How to be Free"

Sometimes we don't even realize we're being boxed in. We forget how to be free. Until one day the barriers we always thought were there suddenly weren't!


I just have to post this. This cures a "robin moment" , don't you think?  What a lovely, funny, even heart-warming commercial by LG. I might just buy that TV (SL Series LED LCD TV), too. I hope they have stuffed toy versions of the birds as freebies.;-)