Celebrating Advent and Christmas

just a detail from my Christmas tree!

This month's prompt for The Peony Project's linkup is Advent.

As I may have mentioned earlier in my blog, Christmas is my absolutely FAVOURITE time of the year! I just love putting up my Christmas tree, curling up by the fireplace watching Love Actually while drinking an enormous cup of tea, and buying presents for the people I love the most.

However, this year, Christmas won't probably be nearly as magical as it usually is. My exams start on the 5th of January and I would really love to pass them... so I won't be able to spend as much time doing that kind of stuff as I always do. Also, money is kind of tight (university life, yay!) so I can't buy as many gifts as I want to.

This has made me think: I haven't been focusing on the right things through all these Christmases (is that a word?). I think it's very easy to forget what Christmas is all about.

Christmas celebrates the birth of Jesus, who came to rescue us from our own darkness. It's a celebration of hope for better days, because we are saved - we just have to follow that light. It's also a celebration of love, because there's no bigger love than the love God showed for us by giving his son to the earth. So, instead of focusing on material stuff, we should put ourselves out there and give more this season! I know this sounds kind of 'obvious', but when I look around, it's not obvious.

I must confess that a part of me is sad because I won't get in the 'spirit of Christmas' like I was used to. 

But, if that means I will enjoy my favourite holiday in a more genuine, thankful and generous way, well, that can be a good thing!

I shall end this post with a quote from my favourite Christmas movie, Love Actually:

"Whenever I get gloomy with the state of the world, I think about arrivals gate at Heathrow Airport. General opinion makes out that we live in a world of hatred and greed— but I don’t see that. Seems to me that love is everywhere. Often, it’s not particularly dignified or newsworthy, but it’s always there. Fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, husbands and wives, boyfriends, girlfriends, old friends. When the planes hit the Twin Towers, as far as I know, none of those phone calls from people on board were messages of hate or revenge, they were all messages of love.

If you look for it, I’ve got a sneaky feeling you’ll find that love actually is all around."

So, this season, let's spread the love all around! Let's look at the true meaning of Christmas and bring that love and hope to the people around us who need it most.

As I've referred earlier, this post is for The Peony Project's monthly linkup!

The Peony Project is an amazing community of women who love blogging, Jesus and each other. If you are searching for that kind of community, you're always very welcome!

love,

Mariana ♥

Taking Time

In my actual season of life, it's been really easy for me to feel overwhelmed with anxiety. So much to do and so little time.

The solution I found may seem kind of weird, but it works!

I find it necessary to take more breaks and enjoy the moment. It may sound like a contradiction: 'so you're feeling overwhelmed? taking time for yourself doesn't sound like a wise option'.

But taking a break doesn't necessarily mean procrastinating for an hour, sleeping on top of my books, or lying on my bed staring at the ceiling and wondering what to do with my life.

Here are some of the breaks I get to have, and that make me feel better when I'm feeling stressed or depressed:

- Having lunch with my friends from college at the mall.

- Seeing my high school friends, who are 'the family that I chose and that chose me too'. They can always make me feel like myself again.

- Marveling at nature: near my faculty the trees have such beautiful colours and I can't help staring at them, trying to capture the moment. I also get to see beautiful rainbows sometimes, like in the picture below!

- Fridays, after my WORST class of the week (with my terrible Anatomy teacher who terrorizes me and makes me feel completely anxious and stupid) I have the BEST time of the week with my boyfriend. We get to do lots of fun together and it feels like home to be with him! (I won't get extra cheesy, even though I could)

How do you take time for yourself during stressful times?

love,
Mariana

Community

The prompt for the first Peony Project link-up is Community. It's kind of a 'free' linkup, there aren't many rules, so I will basically start by defining what community means to me.

Community happens when people come together and unite their efforts towards something. It allows us to experience new perspectives, to learn new lessons, and most importantly, to create relationships which will make us feel less lost in this big world.

Friendship, for example, is a form of community - and, now, I will share the story of how finding a group of friends I could relate to changed my life.

I've mentioned that my early teenage years were a difficult time. I spent a lot of that time inside a funk and without considering getting out, but my two best friends kept throwing me a ladder and offering me their help to pull myself together. 

Things changed for the better when I started high school. You know the book The Perks of Being a Wallflower? (It's my favourite of all time, by the way). I was a wallflower myself, but a very lucky one, because, like Charlie, I found the most amazing group of friends ever. 

Even though I already knew some of those people (including my best friends), I finally understood that I was not the only one who was hurting. I started having REAL conversations with them, about the good and the bad, and feeling like somebody thought like me helped me a lot. Despite all the fights and tears, I felt like I belonged somewhere. 

I learned so incredibly much about myself and about the good and the bad there is in people.

I learned to hug and be hugged, to have the courage to express my problems, and to do my best to help out my friends in the hard task that is growing up. 

I am so incredibly grateful for that experience of community.

Now that I'm in college, it's way harder to stay in touch with these incredible people. But it's necessary to me; so I try my best to call and have meals with them whenever I can!

I'm also meeting a lot of new people at school, and I'm starting to form a really nice group of friends. We usually meet at lunchtime and have amazing conversations. Hopefully we'll also be able to form a  lovely community together :)

In the online world, I am also a part of a community! 

"The Peony Project is a community for women who love Jesus, love blogging, and are looking for a common space to share ideas, encourage one another, and make real, honest friendships with one another."

I was barely a blogger when I joined The Peony Project. I'm still a baby blogger, but these ladies have been helping me a lot with making my blog a space to express my thoughts and beliefs! But The Peony Project goes way beyond just blogging: those amazing women pray for each other, share their worries and concerns, and I feel close to their hearts even though I live so far away from them.

If you relate to the sentence above, please click the link and join; I'm sure you won't regret it!

What does community mean to you?

love,

Mariana

Stuff I'm Thankful For: Strength for Tuesdays

Tuesdays are the hardest days of my week - eleven hours at college, and the only break is lunch time!

(this is my second home right now)

My average Tuesday starts with waking up at 6:40 and rushing to college to start with Anatomy at 8... and it ends at 8 pm, with me landing in bed, exhausted, after my nerve-wracking BIDS class (it's basically building data bases and stuff like that)

It's obviously not my favourite day of the week, and every Monday night all I can think is 'I can't believe I'll go through a Tuesday tomorrow'. But then I remember: that's not good. There are good things in Tuesdays and I know I can make them great days!

Every Tuesday, I'm thankful for:

- another day when I have the chance to study what I love the most. I am so very much in love with my degree, even the hardest parts of it!

- lunchtime, when I get to eat delicious food at the mall nearby and spend two hours hanging out with my new friends! 

- getting to know people at college better. I spend a whole day around my class, so there's a lot of time to figure out those new people!

- going home feeling physically and psychologically drained, and knowing that I'm giving all of me so that I can be a doctor someday and help people.

What makes you thankful in your hardest days?

love,

Mariana

About Depression

This is the kind of post I'm never sure if I'm supposed to put in my blog. 

But aren't those the most important posts?

I've never talked about this to many people. It makes me quite uncomfortable to be honest, and I always fear that people are going to think I'm an attention seeker.

But. maybe, that's the main reason why I ought to talk about it, as openly as I can, in my blog. So that people who are struggling know that they're not alone - even though they may feel as if they're stuck in a dark and deep pit; so that they know that it's okay to ask for help to climb out of it.

Stuff I'm Thankful For: Autumn Love

Autumn is, by far, my favourite season. 

It's a season of change, which brings me great joy and excitement!

from Tumblr!

I'm going through some MASSIVE changes in my life right now. 

I'm trying to adapt to a completely different way of life. There's just SO. MUCH to study from 2000-page books - yes, Gray's Anatomy, I'm looking at you - so many new people to meet, so much effort to preserve my previous friendships, and to get to spend time with my lovely boyfriend in my free time!

However, sometimes I feel the need to stop, look around me, and give thanks for the beauty that Autumn brings.

Here's a list of things I'm thankful for this Autumn:

- golden trees

- sunlight (we hardly got any of that this summer!)

- libraries

- being in love

- gaining my independence

- having meals with new friends

- stepping on the fallen leaves

- random acts of kindness

- cups of tea

- coffee!!!

Well, these are just a few. Eventually, more will come!

love,

Mariana

New Beginnings

Here's to new beginnings, to scary challenges and to breaking out of our safe bubble!

I'm sorry for the lack of posts through the last week, but starting college can be overwhelming - thoughts and prayers are appreciated!