Category: Family Life

365 Snap Shots of Life: Day 154

· 4 Comments ·

Today is very special for my family and I. My oldest girl Elena graduates from Home School! I asked her to write a final essay and share her home schooling experience and she allowed me to post it on my blog. last night her dad and I presented her with a ring and as we toasted her I felt a knot in my throat. I thought, ‘This is it! We did it!” I also thanked her dad because he is part of the reason I have been able to stay home to educate our four kids. He works hard to keep things going so I can do what I do. We are quite the team 🙂 So without further ado I present you the first graduate of Brincat Academy Class of 2012! I am wiping away tears as I type this..it’s all good! 

The First Twelve Years

Education has always been a key factor in success. And an even bigger key is home education, where you learn the essence of life. Because of this, many people have become historical successes; historical figures such as Abraham Lincoln, and George Washington. God put every one of us on this earth for a specific reason, giving us a purpose. Once you merge God’s purpose for you, with education, you begin to see things in a clear light, making your future bright. I’ve heard all this over the years. Therefore my purpose, is to go out and do the things I was made for. Thanks to my education, my  journey will be easier.

 

I can’t recollect when I first “started” school, or when my “first” day was. I never remembered, because I was born learning; making the adage true that : We are all born learners, non of us are stupid, making stupidity an excuse for ignorance. All throughout my first 17 years of learning, I’ve learned how to respect others, and to follow the golden rule. Because  I learned this virtue, and used it, then it continues to help me; with my encounters with others in both the professional world, and personal world. Another virtue I gained, was learning how to properly take care of and clean a house;making a house a home and learning to appreciate my blessings. Both my parents  instilled in me a good work ethic, that will take me far, wherever I go, in my career.

Growing up, I  always loved playing dress up, and make-believe, and this is something I continue to love and enjoy. I think this should have been the first tell tale sign, that I wanted to be an actor. So as time went on,over the years I always knew what I wanted to be. I  watched movies, and enjoyed acting  out scenes from the movie  afterwards. Even then, I was self discovering. Family has always been an influential ingredient in my success, for either the good or bad. All my life, my mom has always been there, encouraging, and enlightening me and my dreams.  She always pushed me to do my best, and to follow my dreams. She always encouraged me to want more.

As part of my upbringing, I was taught and learned to not grow up fast, and to enjoy my childhood. Later on however, I realized I had to. So I did. I guess subconsciously, I realized that I would need to someday down the road. I appreciated it. I thank my mom, for teaching me to never settle for less when my heart is crying out for more . Through this, I figured out how to pick the things I want in life, and to take my time doing so. Listening to God’s Spirit has helped me to become in tune with who I am . because of Him, I now know and understand more of who I am, and I thank Him for the strength He’s given me.

Looking back, I see where I have come, and I see who I have become. Homeschooling has helped me to accept me, and my flaws. Loving myself , with a healthy amount of respectful love. When in doubt, don’t look back, keep moving forward. Be who you want to be, love who you want to love, and have no regrets about it. Mom and Dad: I just hope I’ve served you well, making you proud, despite my flaws. I accept myself completely, so I thank you, and God, for helping me.

 

 

                                                       Elena Brincat 2012

365 Snap Shots of Life: Day 147

· 2 Comments ·

The home school prom was last night and it went better than I anticipated. I don’t know why I was so surprised that it centered around family and not just kids. I went to mine 25 years ago and having gone to public school for 12 years, you learn that adults are the enemy and to be avoided at all costs. Last night the scene was beautiful. I chaperoned my girls and they both had dates; 2 boys they are good friends with took them. I gave my girls space and before hand I told them this night was about them. That they deserved it and to forget that I’m even there. That took both of them by surprise. I know we live,work and play together and they needed that time and space away from me.

Once we arrived at the venue, I took a seat way in the back away from the dance floor. I love to dance and I figured I’d stay back there an dance by myself. Then my friend, another home schooling mom came by and I asked her if I could dance. Again, I was unsure of what my role as a chaperone was. She laughed, telling me to relax and just have a good time. Not too long after, the music was bumping and I worked up the courage to join the rest of the party goers on the dance floor; which consisted of kids and adults dancing up there and not caring what anyone thought.

I went to order a set of pictures and I overheard the man in charge of taking the orders say something quite amazing. He was telling my friend that he does many school proms and that he’d never seen a prom where it’s all about family;it was one big family party last night and he commented he’d never seen anything like it. Ladies and gentlemen, I’m proud to say that home school parents are instrumental in taking back America’s families from the brink of destruction. It was evident last night that when you home school, it makes for a close bond between parents and children. The best part of it was that I had a chance to see my daughters having so much fun. And they sang when we came home,” I had the time of my life,and I never felt this way before, yes I know it’s true and I owe it all to you.”

One more quick note. I  hear that in these times we live, in Prom is a very expensive deal;it’s all about spending money to impress. Well last night my girls were laughing over the ridiculously low amount of money we put into their special night. Then I remembered how hard I worked so I could go to mine. 25 years ago I spent a little over $150 on my Prom. By today standards that is very inexpensive. The girls were proud of looking amazing and not breaking their parent’s bank account. I even overheard my oldest tell a woman who was complimenting her on her beautiful dress that she found it at a second-hand store.Most of the young men didn’t wear tuxes but they came wearing what they felt comfortable in and maybe what their parents could afford. I smiled because from watching most of the young people in that room, I could tell they weren’t there to impress but to have a good time and make great memories as child hood winds down for some of them. Prom 2012 was definitely a success and I’m glad I was part of it!

 

 

 

 

 

 

365 Snap Shots of Life: Day 136

· 4 Comments ·

FORCED to FIND MY FAMILY…

I was certain I would never know the love of a mother for myself. God has a wonderful way of completing us when we least expect it and with the most unlikely people. I have been friends with Margaret for 20 years. We met back in Atlanta at a time when I would not allow myself to peek into my damaged,trauma filled past. Margaret came into my life back then with arms opened.

She would look at me with such warmth,enough to begin the process of melting the glacier that was taking over my heart in those days. She knew what I needed emotionally and freely gave it;for the first time in my early 20’s I experienced a mother’s unconditional love and I craved for more.Much like a new-born in dire need at feeding time.

My heart broke when a few years after meeting her our lives changed,sending both of us in different directions temporarily. Like everything else in my life,I embraced the new changes ,still clinging to Margaret even from afar.

A few years ago I reconnected with her and I felt great to have been able to become re-acquainted with another member of my family. Ever since then I have chosen to call her Mamacita because she  embodies  everything I have ever imagined about having my mother.

Have you been ostracized by your own blood relatives as I have been? We all have choices to make. We can stay bitter in our isolation or the alternative is to open our hearts to the people who God sends into our lives to give us the family we need. I chose to forgive and stay open to what God has for me. People get blessed with good looks,good genes,talents wealth and strong family ties. I was not one of the fortunate who comes from a loving family;this set
me on a course that forced me to search out and find a family of my own. And I have,through my friends.

Fear will hold some of us bound ,keeping us from opening our hearts to those who offer to love us.We all come into this world in dire need of love;yet few of us are brave enough to admit our need to ourselves and to others.

Mamacita,thank you for offering me your cup! It was you who offered a drink from your over flowing vessel;to this dusty,weary,thirsty traveler. Cheers to you and I will forever be thankful that you did! Had you not offered, I would not have had the courage to ask you for a drink!
Te amo…tu hija

-Eva Santiago copyright 2012

365 Snap Shots of Life: Day 126

· 4 Comments ·

VACCINES: THEY SCREW YOU  ROYALLY

Those vaccines screw you up BAD. So here you take a baby who comes into the world without any defects and then you are told to vaccinate them to prevent them from getting sick. So they give your baby a TB shot and that disease lays dormant during the child’s younger years but then as the child develops and gets into  adolescence, things start going screwy on them and you begin to attribute that to just normal teen behavior and it’s something far more sinister . Then you find out one day that those shots your child received during her infancy are wreaking havoc in her body. The TB shots have affected her at the cellular level to where the cells in her body cannot communicate properly with her organs and glands. Essentially your daughter is RNA deficient. She feels out of sorts and you try to help her, she gets temporary relief but nothing lasting. A few days later she’s back to feeling chaotic inside.  She even confesses that she’s beginning to feel like if she could only turn to some substance for temporary relief, that would be better than nothing.

So as the parent you wonder if this isn’t just “normal” teen behavior, and something tells your gut it’s not. Then your child starts to want to hurt herself in the physical sense and that’s when all bets are off and you begin to look for answers. You rule out taking her to a conventional doctor because you’ve seen from first hand experience that all they’re going to do is put her on some drug in attempts to calm her nerves. They won’t really investigate because they really don’t care. So you take her to your naturopath whom you have trusted for years because she is a very good one. Doc Lisa talks to your daughter and she finds out what’s been troubling her . She then starts looking in her books for the answers.

Then you mention that of all your kids, your eldest child was the one who received several of her baby shots. Lets’s face it, you realise because she is your first child, you didn’t know what was going on back then and you followed everyone’s bad advise blindly.  You gave her those shots because you just did not know any better. The drug companies and quacks capitalize on your ignorance. Please let THAT sink in. Nodding her head, Doc dives back into her books. Next you hear the most troubling news. There are 5 diseases which have plagued humans since time began. She names them: Leprosy, TB, syphilis, gonorrhea, cancer and………. By then you stop listening because your mind is racing, connecting all of the dots and now everything you ever suspected is confirmed as truth. These diseases can be traced back to ancestral family lines and a family can be predisposed to one of those diseases because of an ancestor who had the disease and that’s how diseases become hereditary. She mentions that the disease gets activated in  a person through trauma or get ready, drum roll please….VACCINES! You are dumb founded and relieved to finally be getting some answers.

Well, we ruled out trauma because your daughter hasn’t experienced anything like that . And the culprit are the vaccines just as you had suspected. Doc continues telling you that  your daughter is exhibiting ghost like symptoms of TB and you can only sit back and be angry. Angry because you were lied to. Angry at yourself for not having listened to what your gut instinct was telling you back then. You knew before you even gave her one single shot that there was something not right about giving a very healthy baby a disease to prevent her from getting the disease later on. Then you asked people whom you thought wiser than you for advise and they just told you the same thing: “ Give her the shots because you never know what can happen later if you don’t.” So you stop listening to that inner voice and agree to it because you’re a new mother who wants the best for her child and you go against your God-given gut instinct and allow her to be poked in her arm with TB.

I wrote this in the 3rd person to remove myself from this anger I’ve been feeling lately towards this. I also wrote this to inform people. Please listen: If you have a brand new baby whom you are considering vaccinating, DO YOUR HOMEWORK FIRST! Don’t take my word for it. Look into things yourself regarding everything that pertains to your children. The medical establishment DOES NOT have the answers. I have seen so many kids who are sick and the parents blindly follow what they’re told. And let’s face it, even though there ARE some very good MD’s out there, many physicians still try to make you feel stupid as if you don’t know anything because they have all the answers and you don’t know a thing. NEVER accept anything blindly when it comes to your health or that of your children. With all of the information we have available at our fingertips today, your best defense is to stay informed.

365 Snap Shots of Life: Day 122

· 1 Comment ·

My daughter wrote this..please read it and pay attention to the youth because they are way more in tune with life’s events than most people will give them credit for.

 

I am a senior in highschool…YAY CLASS OF 2012! I am proud to proclaim that I have been homeschooled all my life. Throughout my years of learning, my mother has instilled in me the skill and love of reading. And not just reading regular writings, but literature. And all through highschool, my mom has had me read to her. I have read and discovered all sorts of works, like that of Edgar Allen Poe, Shakespeare, John Bunyan and so forth. I have even read literature from Ye Ol’ English, dating back to the infamous Beowulf.

Though I have read some bad things, along with the good works, I have grown to love literature. It’s become my favorite subject. You learn about yourself when read things like these. You learn and find where your morals, and views stand…you self-discover essentially. I have grown to love poetry a great deal. It has inspired me to write some of my own. Through reading literature, you gain culture, knowledge, and a well-rounded  vocabulary, which you use in turn to write works of  art. My mother always taught me the value of communicating well. Not sounding like an idiot when you’re speaking to somebody…whether it be for a job interview, or in a social setting among educated people. It’s important to have this…because you never really know where you’ll be, or when you’ll need it.

I hope you enjoy!

Bleeding Sacrifice

Your body, feels good next

To mine,

As I run my fingers down your Spine.

Your body, feels like it’s in its

Place,

Everyone questions

They think us a disgrace

Forget them Love,

Live a little.

All we have is the now,

There’s no turnin’ back.

I see you,You see me.

They think us Crazy.

We’re each other’s baby.

We see each other as

BEAUTY!

No one can see our

Pain,

See our veins,

Dripping with the blood

They make us.

We come together now

Healing each other’s

Wounds.

In our weakness,we gain strength.

In our fight to save

Each other.

We fall,

Joining another paradise.

Elena Brincat

365 Snap Shots of Life: Day 118

· 4 Comments ·

Today I was having a hard time coming up with a post. Then my 11 year old daughter said,” Mom just go on Pinterest and find something on there to blog about. You don’t always have to use YOUR WON photos you know! ” HA! So off I went 🙂

This picture reminds me of the times I have told my uncle in whose home I grew up in, ” I love you.” And his response has always been,” Thank you.” When I met my husband and I told him that, it freaked him out. I just didn’t think anything of it because that’s how he raised me. Thankfully, I see it all differently now. Have a superb week-end blog world!! 🙂

365 Snap Shots of Life: Day 115

· 2 Comments ·

Yesterday I blogged about how a very dear friend of mine passed away this past Sunday. What caught me off guard were the strong emotions I felt when I heard the news. Then I realized that you don’t have to talk to a friend everyday or even see them to feel close; when a  dear friend passes away you’ll feel the loss just as strong . Then I remembered the letters I received from her and I took them out and re-read them to my kids. There was my healing balm. Re-reading them after all these years, I felt her love all over again.

The cool thing about hand written letters is that when your loved one is gone, they are pieces of them you get to keep. ♥
 I am so happy to have those! So today my photo is of those precious letters I’ll treasure forever. Happy Tuesday everyone :)!

365 Snap Shots of Life: Day 114

· 2 Comments ·

I just received news that a wonderful woman I knew passed away today. She was the midwife who assisted me in delivering my 4th child in a lovely home birth. I wrote this poem a while back about her and I’m posting it here today in remembrance. R.I.P. Sweet Kaye…

I post no actual photo today but in its stead, I’ll paint you my word picture of this precious soul.

KAYE

Blue eyes that tell a story,

of loves’ loss,

tinged with perhaps a bit,

of yesterday’s glory.

 

Eyes of azure,

tinted with sadness;

azure,cerulean, lapis-lazuli,

oh why have they not seen their jubilee?

 

Hiding behind a curtain…

…seen way too much?

perhaps losing hope?

is it too much with which to cope?

 

Life and death situations abound all around,

one day up, the next, she’s low to the ground,

and still Kaye hearkens her ear to the sound….

…. phonic, sonic, supersonic faith sings her resounding song.

 

Not a faith based on what is seen,

but on trust and belief,

that only comes once,

from the secret place.

 

Kaye will dwell ,occupy and reside,

in the secret place of The Most High,

she’ll abide and remain under His shadow,

proclaiming Him always her refuge, her tower, her strength!

-Eva Santiago copyright 2012

365 Snap Shots of Life: Day 110

· Leave a comment ·

I noticed something interesting. When I write my blog offline on my computer, I  flow better than if I just go on WORDPRESS and write it from there. I don’t know, do any of you fellow bloggers out there ever experience that?

Today I went and got rid of crap I have not used in forever. And by forever I mean more than 6 months to a year. A long time ago when I used to go to church a visiting preacher from South Africa was talking about storing up treasure in heaven. At the end of his lesson, he mentioned that he had a rule he lives by in order not to amass stuff. He said that if he looked around his closet and if he saw something he hadn’t worn in at least a year, he would donate it to charity. Well I adopted the same rule and I’ve done that since then.

My family knows, if I have not worn it, touched it or even looked at something in at least a year, it’s GONE in 60 seconds 😀 Ok, ok, I’m exaggerating there, but you get the point. I find it liberating. Anyway, this rule doesn’t apply to some things like books and family heirlooms. For everything else though, there’s the Goodwill!

So I leave you with this photo of the ocean taken when I went to Malibu…BREATHE!

365 Snap Shots of Life: Day 102

· 7 Comments ·

RE-SPECT = LOOK AGAIN

It is a tough thing to face daily that a loved one is dying right before my eyes. He went from being a man with a spring in his step when I first met him. After more than 2 decades of knowing him, his steps are weighed down with the cares of life. When I first met him his honey colored eyes were alive with hope and now, they are opaque and the light in them significantly dimmed. When I first met him, he had a full hair of beautiful thick, wavy,soft hair. Now his scalp shows through in patches and it feels brittle to my fingertips. A long time ago he never stopped- always wound up tighter than a clock. Now, he needs naps just to stay alive it seems. And they’re not little cat naps; the kind that rejuvenate and nourish the soul. He naps and I fear he’ll one day not wake up at all. He said he wasn’t addicted when we first met. He said he could always quit. Now that she has taken him for good, I see him bound by her oppressive chains and all I can do is weep because there’s nothing else to do for someone who is  deep in the clutches and final stages of addiction.

My anger is gone. I used to be so upset at him for not taking care of himself. Now, I have a newfound respect. I’m looking again and I see a dying person who deserves to be treated with something he never ever received in his whole existence- Dignity.