Here are some of the pictures that I would like to share with you. To some of you it may be nothing new, but to me … It made my day. LOL So, don’t be surprise if you see me having ‘fun’ taking picture of tulips :

And here’s the outcome: (tulips near Puente Romana/Roman Bridge at Cangas de Onis)

Eventhough we’re stranded at Bilbao, at least that city has pretty tulips for my camera.

Look closely and you will spot the sparrow!

We spotted a rows of big tulips while driving to leave Gijon and we end up looking for parking!

 The same color tulips were spotted on the roadside in Ribadesella.

“Abseiling (German: abseilen, “to rope down”), rappelling in American English,[1] is the controlled descent down a rope; climbers use this technique when a cliff or slope is too steep and/or dangerous to descend without protection.”

1. Everbody is helping! Our group is the first to do abseiling AND I was the first to go down through that scary looking platform

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2. Before we started, the instructor requested that those who don’t want to do it, can’t do it (for whatever reasons) to step aside …. and half of the team left especially ladies and the senior ones. But I have told myself, I will do it. I will conquer my fear. The last time I did it was like 20 years ago but that was a bit different because I decended down a hill and my feet can touch the hillside to control while decended down the rope. The scariest moment was to let go my feet from the abseiling platform because you realise that you’ll be hanging.

3. If you noticed the instructor has to convince me and later he pushed me a bit so that my feet are off the platform, otherwise I’ll never get down. lol. And that was when everybody heard my first scream!

4. After that it was no longer scary. But I have another problem … I keep on spinning instead of going down. I supposed that because not enough weight to pull me down. heheee. If you look at the way I hold the rope it was like 45 degree which is meant for the rope to bring me down, while if I hold the rope behind my back that is like a brake, to stop the rope.

But overall, it was a fun experience. What I am proud of is that, after seeing me doing it, half of those who step aside came back to the group and decided to give it a try! I am proud of those who gave it a try! Afterall, it was meant for us to conquer our fear.

The little ant finding his way to the nectar ... slowly but surely

The key to balancing your desire to be at peace with your need to achieve, perform, and earn a living is in recognizing that there’s no such thing as stress; there are only people thinking stressful thoughts. It’s really simple as that. When you change the way you process the world, the world you’re processing changes.

Stress is an inside job. You can’t fill a container with it because tension isn’t a physical item or object. There isn’t some ‘thing’ that you can point to and say. There it is, that’s stress! It simply doesn’t exist in that form.

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Being out of balance on this stress measure results in being on of the millions of people requiring medication to manage the symptoms listed above. It means that you often feel exasperated because you never really enjoy the life you work so hard to achieve. You may frequently feel as if you’re running on an endless treadmill. All of the pressure of working and striving for many wordly rewards, yet at the same time there’s a feeling of going absolutely nowhere.

If this sounds familiar. it’s a signal to begin reconsidering ways of processing thoughts about your life and work, and start pursuing freedom from the symptoms of stress by becoming more balanced. Getting into balanced isn’t necessarily about changing your behavior. Certainly you can pursue stress-reducing activities such as meditation, excercise, walks along a beach, or whatever works for you. But if you continue to align yourself with achieving more, defeating the other guy, winning at all costs, and going faster because you believe that’s how to keep up, then you’re guaranteed to attract the vibrational equivalent of this thinking into your life – even if you do yogas and stand on your head chanting mantras everyday!

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Those are excerpts from Dr. Wayne W. Dyer book’s ‘Being in Balance’. I keep it on my office table and grab it whenever I have a few minutes break. Sometimes we need to be reminded ….. to live ourselves a normal life in this hectic world.

Happy Friday!

Love – Larra

The title of my blog ‘Langit Ramadhan’ is in my language which means ‘Ramadhan Sky’. That’s how the sky looked like yesterday at 7.20 pm, 4 minutes before breaking fast. The bluish bit of the sky, the cloud and last trace of sunlight …. all composed into one …. become a language of the heart. I felt calm, yet nostalgic. I felt close, yet very far. I felt content, yet lonely.

At this time during Ramadhan, family will get together, food will be served on the table, everybody especially children will be eagerly waiting for the ‘Azan (call for prayer) to mark the break of fasting. The head of the family will recite the breaking fast ‘Doa and it will followed by a glass of hot/cold drink and ’Tamar (dates). Some will continue with normal meals while some will stop and pray ‘Maghrib (evening prayer) prayer and continue with meal after the prayer.

I guess, I must be lonely and missing breaking fast with my family and loved ones. I hope the day will come where I will have small family of my own to break fast. When that day arrived, it will be the most meaningful Ramadhan in my life. Until then, I’ll wait.