Categories Explained

Hello and welcome to my blog.

For my very first post here, I would like to talk about the categories that I’ve chosen to include on this blog. This is something that I had a lot of fun contemplating on during the past few days, and ever since I decided to create this blog.

All right, let’s get started.

Arts

First one is Arts, since this has been a long playing passion that has been occupying both my time and mind, and it has given me that feeling of excitement for the longest time. For years I’ve been praying for a hobby that I will not only be passionate about, but also something that’s not based on feeling zealous all the time. Something that I will continue to persevere with even in the midst of adversities and challenges. I love how I still choose to be persistent even if I am not highly motivated to do so. During those days when the novelty of being zealous has faded, I still stick with it and kept pressing on. It is one of the things that is keeping me grounded during these times and I’m very grateful to finally have an answered prayer in this area.

Painting

I am still learning how to paint and so most of my paintings are not original compositions at the moment. I do have the intention of improving and developing my skills so I am able to create my original composition, then eventually, if there is a willing market, I will be able to offer some of my pieces for purchase. I don’t know when that will happen, but I am positive, with the grace of God, that it will. Check out this page as I will be posting my works there in the future.

Inarts Gallery

This subcategory will bring you straight to my arts gallery link so you can check my paintings that are available. Paintings that you can take home for yourself or for your loved ones.

Art Therapy

Another subcategory where I will get to share my journey as a new artist. My favourite medium at the moment is acrylic on canvas. I will probably try oil on canvas in the future. I did not go to arts school and am more of a self taught artist so I have definitely more struggles than most real artists. And that’s okay. If you really like something, you will persevere, right? The goal really is to enjoy art as a therapy and having fun in the process.

Photography

I developed an interest in photography because I wanted to capture our Oz (ounce) of Adventures memories and so I can have “original” pieces that I can use as inspiration for my paintings. I am fairly new in this hobby so I have nothing much to offer in this area. All I can say is that you are welcome to witness my journey towards getting better at photography or perhaps you can give me some tips if you already are a pro.

Grounded

I’ve read about being grounded as similar to mindfulness, but I chose this word because I like how it conveys a deeper meaning other than just being in the present. I like how it could be associated with humility, like staying grounded, while achieving the ability to stay mentally calm and collected. This is an area where I need more practice. I would love to grow into the kind of person where I am free from anxious thoughts and be able to connect to the core of my being under any circumstance. Having emotions that are neither too strong nor too weak.

Nature

Spending time in nature is something that we would like to encourage our daughter to do. We want to cultivate this as part of our lifestyle. Even if it’s just the nearby river that we discovered last summer. We intend to spend more time there as soon as winter is over and the lock-down is lifted. This is something that I would love to document here as well.

Gardening

Gardening is one of my favorite things to do. It’s nothing grand really, as we don’t have a huge space for a big garden. I often refer to it as a pocket garden. It started when we lived in our previous apartments and I started planting a variety of herbs and plants in pots.

Wellness

This will be about over all health that will help and contribute in attaining an improvement in our holistic approach to health. This includes our family’s journey to achieving systematic and practical ways to prepare nutritious food frequently and consistently. Perhaps whatever fitness journey we choose at the moment.

Mind Matters

Anything to do with improving your mind. Whether it is mental health, psychology, technology, philosophy, sociology, beliefs, values, book reviews, and even comic books! I love how random it is. Anything that will help in adding to your knowledge. Whatever it is that exercises the mind. There is nothing too shallow nor too deep in this category really, no one will judge anyone – just like the rest of the categories. It can range from basic knowledge to something vague like philosophy. This could be anything under the sun that concerns the mind. Exciting!

Self-care

This one does not require an explanation, I guess, as this has been pretty popular recently. We are encouraged to take a rest in this fast paced era since most of our activities require us to be swift and become our optimal self. Some people are an expert in this self-care business, but if you’re like me, I am still in the process of learning this important requirement on how to live a good life.

Life Style

Speaking of the good life, my goal is to practice speaking life and focusing in the goodness of life rather than the dark, depressing and ugly side of it. No matter how real or imagined it is. We do not have space here to argue about that. The sole purpose of this blog is to serve as my outlet to encourage people while also helping me have an outlet to release negative energy and convert it into something that is more noble.

Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.

Philippians 4:8 NIV

So please, if you find yourself comparing the worst of you against what you see here (which is the best of me) please stop right away. If you see yourself having a negative feeling while you’re on this blog for whatever reason, either you think it’s too superficial or you feel bad for your situation, again, please stop. Or even if it’s the opposite and you start feeling proud because your situation is so much better than mine and question if it’s worthwhile for me to share my stories, please do us both a favour and just stop reading this blog and close it. However, if you find this blog as helpful and it does inspire you, then I welcome you in this journey.

Café Crawl

I love food! I especially love trying out different cafés. Living in Australia fits this passion perfectly because of it’s café culture. Years ago, before I decided to go back to school, this is one of the categories that I was so passionate about that I documented in our family blog ozofadventure.com. We have redesigned this blog and will now serve as our memory bank for photos or anything about our adventures as a family.

Food, Feasts, and Recipes

Did I mention I love food?! There was a time when I lost my appetite for food, and that was one of the saddest phase of my life. I would have my most favourite food, or the best coffee, or the most expensive wine that I’ve ever tried, and I couldn’t taste the difference. At this point, my appetite has come back to normal so I am taking advantage of it. Thus I’d love to document this side of adventure as well.

Travel

I haven’t travel much in the past years because I was busy pursuing other stuff, but my family, especially my daughter would love to. This is probably something we would document in the future, when we are finally allowed to do so.

Style

This is anything extra extra that is not covered in the Arts category. Like fashion, home design, or maybe make up?

Faith

This is primarily the purpose of this blog. It will encourage me to learn how to share my faith journey out in the open. I’ve never done that before as I’ve always been a “silent Christian”, if there’s such a thing, but after reading Purpose Driven Life again, I learned from the heart that I ought to share my story because people might be encouraged in their journey as well. There is no such thing as simple or non extravagant story. A testimony is relevant no matter how little or how many lives you may touch.

On Purpose

According to Rick Warren’s Purpose Driven Life, your life is not about you. Your purpose in life as a Christian is to give glory to God, enjoy fellowship with your fellow believers, work out your spiritual growth, contribute to the community of believers, and communicate the good news to those who haven’t heard of it.

Devotion

I plan on sharing some insights or experiences with regards to my spiritual journey. After going this far and writing this many, I suddenly felt scared whether I should continue doing this. A series of what ifs are slowly creeping to mind. But… I was commanded to share my stories, so let’s keep going.

Scripture Study

This will probably be a collection of notes that I would normally write in my notebook whenever I study the bible. It will look more like bullet points and numbered lists as opposed to an essay. Maybe there will be days that I will only be going to share a photo of my notebook.

There you have it. Whew! That was lengthy. I told you I enjoyed contemplating categories for this blog. Let’s just hope that this excitement will not only end with planning categories, and that I will be consistent and persistent as long as it’s still possible for me to write.

Although these are the categories that I chose at the start, I am open to changing them eventually, whatever fits the purpose of this space.

That’s it. Thank you for staying with me up to this point. 🙂