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X-WR-CALDESC:Events for Gereja Oikos Australia >> Place of Blessing
X-WR-TIMEZONE:Australia/Perth
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DTSTART:20100214T100000
DTEND:20100214T120000
DTSTAMP:20100908T030648
CREATED:20100212T152226
LAST-MODIFIED:20100419T115336
UID:232@http://gerejaoikos.org.au
SUMMARY:Happy Valentine's Day!
DESCRIPTION:11 Easy—and Free!*—Ways to Say "I Love You"    To strengthen unions, marriage experts advise couples to "make weekly dates" or "go away on a couple's weekend." Those are great ideas, but let's be realistic: how often can busy couples expect to drop everything and get away? These 11 quick and simple ways to express love let busy couples rekindle romance among the chaos of everyday life.        1. Embrace your past. Assemble a scrapbook together, pull out your wedding video, or write your own personal romance story. Reliving special memories together is a great way to strengthen your bond.    2. Be kids together. Have a pillow fight, challenge each other to a game of hopscotch, or cuddle on the couch and laugh as you watch cartoons.    3. Wrap your mate in love. While your sweetie showers, sneak his towel into the dryer, and as he steps out, wrap him in fluffy warmth. Or use the same idea to warm her feet when she snuggles in bed on a chilly autumn night.    4. Speak the languages of love. Surprise your "amante" (Italian for "lover") with some international sweet talk. Access an exhaustive list of ways to say "I love you" in different languages atwww.electpress.com/loveandromance/iloveyou.htm.    5. Write love notes to each other. Spell it out in his oatmeal with raisins, on her dashboard with yarn, or use lipstick on your bathroom mirror. Compose your own poem, borrow a verse from Song of Songs, or just write "I love you."    6. Turn on the charm. Who says you have to stop flirting once you're married? At your next party, wink at him across a crowded room, or slip your arm around her as you make social small talk. That personal connection amid the crowd is like saying, "This is great, but I'd rather be with you!"    7. Connect online. E-mail your spouse throughout the day, just to say you're thinking of him.    8. Remember the little things. When you step in to help with the day-to-day "drudge" chores—making dinner, bathing the kids—your spouse knows she's appreciated and loved. And completing a chore for your sweetie frees more time and energy for the two of you to enjoy other activities together.    9. Send it snail mail. Take time to write an encouraging note, slap a stamp on it, and mail it. Your spouse will love the surprise—especially since it won't be a credit card bill or junk mail!    10. Celebrate everything. Most couples celebrate the anniversary of their marriage or first date, but how about the anniversary of your engagement, or first kiss? (If you don't remember, make it up!) There have been all kinds of milestones throughout your relationship, so mark each one with flowers, a card, or a romantic interlude.    11. Just say it. Your spouse needs to hear those three simple words daily. Whisper it, sing it, shout it. Say it.        Beverly Dillard, a freelance author, lives with her husband in Georgia.    Copyright © 2005 by the author or Christianity Today International/Marriage Partnership magazine. Click here for reprint information on Marriage Partnership.
LOCATION:517 Hay Street, PERTH, WA, Australia, 6000
URL:http://gerejaoikos.org.au/blog/2010/02/12/happy-valentines-day/
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DTSTART:20100214T100000
DTEND:20100214T100000
DTSTAMP:20100908T030648
CREATED:20100129T010053
LAST-MODIFIED:20100419T115359
UID:126@http://gerejaoikos.org.au
SUMMARY:Happy Chinese New Year!
DESCRIPTION:Chinese New Year or Spring Festival is the most important of the traditional Chinese holidays. It is sometimes called the "Lunar New Year" by English speakers. The festival traditionally begins on the first day of the first month (Chinese: 正月; pinyin: zhēng yuè) in the Chinese calendar and ends on the 15th; this day is called Lantern Festival. Chinese New Year's Eve is known as Chúxī. It literally means "Year-pass Eve".        Chinese New Year is the longest and most important festivity in the Lunar Calendar. The origin of Chinese New Year is itself centuries old and gains significance because of several myths and traditions. Ancient Chinese New Year is a reflection on how the people behaved and what they believed in the most.    Celebrated in areas with large populations of ethnic Chinese, Chinese New Year is considered a major holiday for the Chinese and has had influence on the new year celebrations of its geographic neighbors, as well as cultures with whom the Chinese have had extensive interaction. These include Koreans (Seollal), Tibetans and Bhutanese (Losar), Mongolians (Tsagaan Sar), Vietnamese (Tết), and formerly the Japanese before 1873 (Oshogatsu). Outside of Mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan, Chinese New Year is also celebrated in countries with significant Han Chinese populations, such as Singapore, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Thailand. In countries such as Australia, Canada and the United States, although Chinese New Year is not an official holiday, many ethnic Chinese hold large celebrations and Australia Post, Canada Post, and the US Postal Service issues New Year's themed stamps.    Within China, regional customs and traditions concerning the celebration of the Chinese new year vary widely. People will pour out their money to buy presents, decoration, material, food, and clothing. It is also the tradition that every family thoroughly cleans the house to sweep away any ill-fortune in hopes to make way for good incoming luck. Windows and doors will be decorated with red colour paper-cuts and couplets with popular themes of “happiness”, “wealth”, and “longevity”. On the Eve of Chinese New Year, supper is a feast with families. Food will range from pigs, to ducks, to chicken and sweet delicacies. The family will end the night with firecrackers. Early the next morning, children will greet their parents by wishing them a healthy and happy new year, and receive money in red paper envelopes. The Chinese New Year tradition is a great way to reconcile forgetting all grudges, and sincerely wish peace and happiness for everyone.    Although the Chinese calendar traditionally does not use continuously numbered years, outside China its years are often numbered from the reign of Huangdi. But at least three different years numbered 1 are now used by various scholars, making the year 2009 "Chinese Year" 4707, 4706, or 4646.[2]
LOCATION:517 Hay St, Perth, WA, Australia, 6152
URL:http://gerejaoikos.org.au/blog/2010/01/29/happy-chinese-new-year/
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