I'm a full-time mummy

Ladies and gentlemen, I feel I really should share out this with you guys. It's definitely not a professional lesson, more like a mini tutorial from me, a knowledge transfer I'd say. I think from now on, if I learned any new things that I can think can benefits you guys who are passionate about blogging, I'd like to share it out through my own blog meme, which is:

So, what is a Gravatar? No, no, not Avatar. I meant, GRAVATAR. With the letter "GR" in front. According to the website,

"Gravatar is an image that follows you from site to site appearing beside your name when you do things like comment or post on a blog. Avatars help identify your posts on blogs and web forums, so why not on any site?"

Errmm... does any of that make sense to you? Put it to simple lay-man words, Gravatar is an icon that represents you, an image in this sense that whenever you go to other people site or when you leave your comments, your icon/image will appear right where your identity is. If you are using Blogger, then your profile picture will be the one showing. But you see, nowadays, Blogger is not the only thing available for people to use on their blog or website. There are Wordpress and other blog host as well. So this is where Gravatar comes in handy.

If you noticed my blog, some of the people who left their comments have this funny looking images next to their profile:

Now it's definitely not my blog visitor / reader's choice to have that funny looking image as their profile picture. It's just that I like to imagine the people who left me a comment really looks funny like that hahaha... kidding kidding...

Back to being serious, now this is because on my blog template, it is defaulted that comments are to use Gravatar images to show the user's profile. If the person's email address is not found in the Gravatar's database, then this funny looking images will be shown - cos this is from the Wavatar settings in my blog template.

Meaning, when you leave me a comment, my blog template will search the Gravatar database using your email address. If they finds it, they will show your image next to your comment in my post. Else, the funny Wavatar icons will be shown. There are many other websites and blogs out there and a lot of them are using the same method, only that most of them choose Monster ID or Identicon instead of mine, which is Wavatar.

Monster ID icons looks like these:

Identicon icons looks like these:

As I'm no longer using Blogger, I cannot use the user's Google profile picture to show on their comments, hence Gravatar is the best choice. When you leave a comment on my blog post, you will notice a short description right next to the email entry which says " (Will show your Gravatar icon) " - this is because Gravatar extracts your image using your email address. I can of course select MonsterID or Identicon to show as your profile image but I prefer to use Wavatar instead.  RequiredPlease enter a valid e-mail

Simply put, to create your profile on Gravatar, you just need to enter your email address and upload your image into their site. Easy peasy! Of course, just a note of advise, if you are serious about blogging and establishing your own identity and also your blog identity, you'd want to design your profile image as close to your blog template. This is to make people associate the image with your blog whenever they see it!

You can click at this link to start creating your own Gravatar now! That's all the mini tutorial I have for now. Will post more when I came across any new stuff! Or feel free to drop me a comment or email and if I know how to do it, I'll be glad to share it in the next post, else I'll try my best to find out if I don't know about it. Cheers!

I wanted to share this awesome article today with you guys as part of my own blog meme which is:

LET IT GO: FORGIVING THE UNFORGIVABLE

By: Jasmien Hudson

Jesus gave strict instructions to "bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you." (Luke 6:28). Doing such things is one way we step further into our true "sonship" in Jesus Christ. Understand, being born into God's family is a gift, but taking on his traits - such as forgiveness - is a choice. True forgiveness comes when we choose to give up our right to our feelings in exchange for the God's will in a given situation.

If you are harboring incomplete forgiveness (i.e., bitterness) you might want to consider the following:
1) Where would you be if God did not forgive you for some the things you've done, are doing, and will do?
2) What blessings of your own might you be blocking due to a lack of forgiveness?
3) What negative impact(s) is/are unforgiveness having on your life?

For me, the most profound notion that taught me to forgive is this: I was warring with myself, because my object had no idea how I was feeling. But whether covert or overt, unforgiveness hurts you more than the other person!

Before you decide to keep unforgiveness alive, ask yourself this:
Will this matter next year, next month, tomorrow, and above all, will it impact my eternity? If the answer is "No", you’ve got several reasons to let it go!

You have no idea how timely this article is to me! I was having some problems with my MIL this afternoon but happy to say that we've evaded any major arguments. I don't want to dwell or elaborate more on what was mentioned but I guess I really have to just let it go and forgive. Hubby (youngest out of 5) is the only one left who is staying on and live together with his mum. The rest of his siblings are all either married with their own family or have their own house. I mean, my MIL is already 60+ years old, no one knows for sure how many years on earth we all still have, why waste time on arguing and feeling bitter right?

Oh God, please give me strength and patience to not dwell on things like this. Give me an open mind and open heart to accept that it is not up to me to change a person. All I can do is pray that their mind and heart will be opened up to listen to others, willing to accept other people's suggestions and feedbacks and to understand that we all meant the best for her.

Got this from an email forward (*Thanks to my brother!). Reading it just makes me chuckle! Although most of them are funny, I couldn't help but to pause and think of how truthful and simple it is when the topic of love comes to the mind of our little ones. It's funny how we tend to make things complicated when we grow older. Anyway, here it goes, enjoy!

Children are so innocent. Too bad we have to become adults and forget what is important!
 
What Love means to a 4-8 year old .... 

Slow down for three minutes to read this. It is so worth it. Touching words from the mouth of babes. A group of professional people posed this question to a group of 4 to 8 year-olds, 'What does love mean?' The answers they got were broader and deeper than anyone could have imagined See what you think:

* 'When my grandmother got arthritis, she couldn't bend over and paint her toenails anymore. So my grandfather does it for her all the time, even when his hands got arthritis too. That's love.' Rebecca- age 8

* 'When someone loves you, the way they say your name is different. You just know that your name is safe in their mouth.' Billy - age 4

* 'Love is when a girl puts on perfume and a boy puts on shaving cologne and they go out and smell each other.' Karl - age 5

* 'Love is when you go out to eat and give somebody most of your French fries without making them give you any of theirs.' Chrissy - age 6

* 'Love is what makes you smile when you're tired.' Terri - age 4

* 'Love is when my mommy makes coffee for my daddy and she takes a sip before giving it to him, to make sure the taste is OK.' Danny - age 7

* 'Love is when you kiss all the time. Then when you get tired of kissing, you still want to be together and you talk more. My Mommy and Daddy are like that. They look gross when they kiss' Emily - age 8

* 'Love is what's in the room with you at Christmas if you stop opening presents and listen.' Bobby - age 7

* 'If you want to learn to love better, you should start with a friend who you hate,' Nikka - age 6

* 'Love is when you tell a guy you like his shirt, then he wears it everyday.' Noelle - age 7

* 'Love is like a little old woman and a little old man who are still friends even after they know each other so well.' Tommy - age 6

* 'During my piano recital, I was on a stage and I was scared. I looked at all the people watching me and saw my daddy waving and smiling. He was the only one doing that. I wasn't scared anymore.' Cindy - age 8

* 'My mommy loves me more than anybody. You don't see anyone else kissing me to sleep at night.' Clare - age 6

* 'Love is when Mommy gives Daddy the best piece of chicken.' Elaine-age 5

* 'Love is when Mommy sees Daddy smelly and sweaty and still says he is handsomer than Robert Redford.' Chris - age 7

* 'I know my older sister loves me because she gives me all her old clothes and has to go out and buy new ones.' Lauren - age 4

* 'Love is when Mommy sees Daddy on the toilet and she doesn't think it's gross.' Mark - age 6

* 'You really shouldn't say 'I love you' unless you mean it. But if you mean it, you should say it a lot. People forget.' Jessica - age 8

And the final one:

* The winner was a four year old child whose next door neighbor was an elderly gentleman who had recently lost his wife. Upon seeing the man cry, the little boy went into the old gentleman's yard, climbed onto his lap, and just sat there. When his Mother asked what he had said to the neighbor, the little boy said, 'Nothing, I just helped him cry'.