Cristina Matasaru

Addiction is a strong word, but I think for many people out there it’s the right one. Myself included. There, I said it. How did I get here, you might wonder? I will tell you how: step by step. One day at a time, one friend that really isn’t my friend at a time, one app at a time, one picture at a time… I like to think of myself as a mature young woman, I have a full time job in a serious institution, and yet I find myself in this pickle.

My initial plan was honorable, I will tell you! I thought facebook will help me stay in touch with my friends back home, that was the ONLY reason I joined in the first place.  That purpose is being served, I suppose, but not at the level I thought it would be. We look at each other’s pictures and post silly, irrelevant comments, and so who needs actual conversations?!? WOW, what a great time saver! And so much fun, too! (*sarcasm*) 

Soon after opening my account, the snowball effect started: I wasn’t very disciplined and I started adding people that I barely knew, just because I was curious to see what they’re up to, who they hang out with, what weddings they’ve been to, are they married etc. These are people that I would never approach face to face, though. Such curiosity is a bad thing, it’s kind of like reading tabloids. I was able to stick to one rule, though: if I have no idea who a person is, I won’t accept them as a friend, even if they’re friends with my family members or my entire hometown. At least that much…  

How about those addictive games? I only played 2 of them, not counting the occasional arcade style games: Happy Farm (NOT Farmville - note the difference, please) and Yoville. Harmless, right? NO. I spent way too much time on those games, tending to my crops, stealing from my neighbours (hey, everybody did!), decorating my apartment, baking cookies etc. For some strange reason though, about a month or so ago I just suddenly stopped playing. I didn’t make the decision to stop after a long thought process, I just stopped. Thank God for that! Unnecessary stress went out the window. (The stress of being at work when my crops are ready and knowing that my friends will get to them first if I don’t play. I sure am glad that’s over!)

The apps were quite overwhelming as well. Collect hearts, collect smiles, give hugs, Romanian gifts, Irish gifts, girls’ gifts, all gifts, pick the photo of the day, friend of the day, quote of the day, your daily luck, how good/bad are you today… and then the quizzes! Oh, noooooooooooooooooo! These may be fun at first, but they get old really fast. 

In an effort to cleanse my wall from all random junk, I started blocking apps from posting on there. I also started blocking some hyperactive facebook enthusiasts that were pretty much spamming my wall. I am cancelling all e-mail notifications - just seeing them on facebook will be enough, I don’t need them to flood my inbox.

I started deleting some non-friends (acquaintances): people that I know are on facebook just to see other people’s profiles and pictures but they don’t put any pictures on theirs (Hey, you’re curious about me but I’m curious about you, too!), or people that I know I will not talk to in person (because really, we don’t know each other, we only know OF each other… if that). These are the easier ones, but I still have some difficulty with deleting other people, because I’m afraid of hurting their feelings. Or of them thinking I’m some kind of stuck-up person. Or something like that.

Right now, the truth is that I spend way too much time on facebook, because there’s always something/someone new. I thought that if I get a smart phone with a built in facebook app, I’d be satisfied with just using that. Well, I love my Cliq but I still go on facebook on the computer. I don’t spend as much time on it, but it’s not like I was able to completely eliminate it either.  I just have another way to get to it. Yay.

The truth is simple: facebook became this time consuming, privacy invading monster only because I allowed it to. I don’t want to give it up completely because I do see a benefit in it, but I am definitely downsizing. It’s a work in progress.

I’ll go post this on facebook now.

These days there is no hotter topic than the new Health Care Reform Bill that just passed. It’s all over the news, websites, blogs, radio - everywhere! I mostly enjoy reading the blogs and than the comments that follow – and boy, do people have a lot to say on this one!

I am definitely no expert on this and I know that I’m just scratching the surface here, but from what I’ve read, these are my main concerns about the bill:

First of all, that you are FORCED to get health insurance – I for one will always want to have it, I think it’s good for everyone to have it, but I think it should be a matter of personal choice, not a condition mandated by law. “The land of the free”, right?

Secondly, I think there’s something wrong with a system where you can’t afford health care unless you have health insurance – paying out of pocket is very expensive even for the little things, most people would probably go banckrupt to have to pay for surgeries and more serious issues….

Thirdly, the cost of insurance is going to go up, new taxes will be imposed and they’re saying those two things alone won’t be enough to cover the estimated cost for this “reform”. So something will have to give… and it’ll most likely be the quality of the medical services. People will have a limited choice when it comes to health care, doctors will be the ones deciding what kind of treatment patients will receive, there will be long waiting lists for surgeries… and there won’t be anything anyone can do about it.

Lastly, I don’t agree with taking money from the rich to pay for the poor. I don’t have anything against either category, but this is very far from the idea of capitalism. While I understand that some people truly don’t have a choice (and I can really only understand that for a limited period of time), others are poor because they choose to – they get by on Welfare, food stamps and other things like that, paid for by working people anyway. Why would they even get a job when they can do just fine sitting on their couch all day long? The government should penalize that, not encourage it.

So these are just a few points that were brought up. One more thing though: this bill has 2,700 pages – who knows what else is in there that we don’t even know of? Sooner or later we will find out.

It’s a gloomy perspective… Reactions from people cover the whole spectrum: some people support it, saying that it’s a good thing and it won’t affect them at all. That to me sounds unrealistic. Others go as far as saying that they feel guilty for bringing children into this world, that America is headed towards socialism. Too much government interference will do that, I think.

Several states are sueing the federal government over the constitutionality of the bill.

And then there’ this: www.FireNancyPelosi.com . In 37 hours, people have donated $981,000 for this cause!

Let’s just say that it will be interesting to watch what happens next.

[I appologize in advance for the length of this post - I had lots to say! ]

I was watching the Winter Olympics opening ceremony this last Friday and all I could think was: “Why am I not over there right now?” With Vancouver, B.C. being about 6 hours away and a 3 day weekend ahead, it looked very doable. I shared my thoughts with my WONDERFUL husband and he must’ve been thinking the same thing, because he just said “Well, why don’t we go?”. That’s how an incredibly amazing Valentine’s weekend started for us.

Our initial plan was to just get out of town, we were thinking about going up to Seattle but hadn’t really made any definite plans, no reservations. Saturday morning I woke up and my SWEET husband had already done some research so we booked a beautiful, beautiful, beautiful room at a hotel in downtown Seattle. (Think 5 blocks away from Pike Market – and it was such a bargain you wouldn’t believe it!)

We weren’t sure if we’d make it all the way to Vancouver, but we still packed some warm sweaters and boots – and our passports. Later that day we called our friend in Vancouver and asked her about going up to Whistler and she gave us all the information we needed. We found out that we wouldn’t be able to drive our car to Whistler, we’d have to take a shuttle from the city. Since it was kind of late Saturday, we weren’t able to book anything so we just enjoyed our night out in Seattle. (The 1st Hard Rock Cafe had just opened the previous week. ) We figured that even if we don’t make it to Whistler, Vancouver should still be a lot of fun these days. We woke up not too early on Sunday (8 a.m.) and after a few phone calls, we got the numbers to the 2 companies that provide shuttles from Vancouver to Whistler. We called the first company – oops, they needed reservations to be made 2 days ahead. We called the 2nd company, Pacific Coach, and we booked our shuttle… for 11:40!!!!! (The only other option would’ve been 3:30, which would’ve given us too little time in Whistler.) By the time we left Seattle, we had about 2.5 hours to get to Vancouver, or $150 would’ve been thrown out the window. Oh, and there was a border crossing between those two. Needless to say, we raced all the way to Vancouver, went over the speed limit the whole time, crossed the border around 11:05 and made it to downtown Vancouver 3 minutes before the scheduled departure for the shuttle. Big WOW right there.

However, that wasn’t good enough. When we got to the bus, a lady was just purchasing her ticket and 2 other men were waiting to get on the bus. Of course, we wanted to be curteous and waited for the lady to finish her transaction…. only courtesy was the last thing on the driver’s mind, since he shut the door the second the lady got on the bus and drove away, leaving 4 people with confirmed reservations wondering what on Earth was going on. Apparently Pacific Coach wanted to make more profit than their means allowed them. Luckily we had one of their representatives there with us and he managed to get us on the next bus, an hour later, appologized on behalf of his company, said he didn’t know what the driver was doing and also that our tickets will be refunded. (I’m curious how that will work out.)

We made it to Whistler around 3 o’clock in the afternoon. It was such a beautiful, sunny, gorgeaus altogether day in Whistler! Lots of people all around the village, cameras rolling at every corner, big screens that were showing all the different events going on, everybody cheering for their own country. (We were standing next to a group of Germans when 2 of their peers won Gold and Silver in Men’s Single Luge competition – talk about excitement!!!) It just felt like people from all over the world finally managed to put aside their differences and came together to support the world’s best athletes. It was great to be a part of that.

We didn’t have tickets for any of the events going on and we were late for most of them anyway, but we did get a free gondola ride up to the luge track. We looked for a Romanian flag in all the little souvenir stores but couldn’t find one. We bought a French flag instead and then went to a hotel reception and asked for a yellow highlighter – if they don’t sell Romanian flags, we can make our own, no problem! We waved that flag like crazy, in front of every camera that we saw. We had a US flag, too, so we kind of took turns.

We were out in the village for as long as we could, walking up and down the little streets, taking in the Olympic atmosphere, but then it got quite chilly as the day was coming to an end. We delected ourselves with a traditional Canadian dish for dinner, called Poutine Canada (french fries, brown gravy, fresh cheese curds and beef sausage – interesting but delicious combination!).

We left Whistler Village around 9:30, not without some minor misunderstanding about the shuttle – again, Pacific Coach proved to be a pain – how did they ever get such a big contract??? All in all, it was an amazing experience, I felt so blessed to be able to be there! We got back to downtown Vancouver around 11:30 that night and took some pictures by the Olympic torch – the city was full of people walking on the streets, it was great!

Driving back home the next day, my AMAZING husband and I were talking about our wonderful weekend and I told him that to me it seems like we always try to make good plans when ever we go somewhere, but our trips are usually so short planned that we don’t get to decide on every detail, we plan to play things by ear… and that’s usually where God comes in and takes everything from good to great and makes things better than we could’ve ever planned for! It’s so amazing to see God do that for us over and over and over again. It leaves us speechless every time and so, so thankful to be loved by such an amazing God.

Have you heard of Bearmore yet? What do you mean “No”? Well YOU WILL NOW! Bearmore is a great company that provides a unique service: it allows people from Romania to shop for things in the States and get them delivered at home! What a great idea! (OK, can you tell I’m excited???)

Bearmore is actually our little baby – my husband’s and mine. We started the business about 2 years ago, shortly after I moved to the US. To me it was just amazing to see how cheap you can buy some things here, as opposed to back home in Romania. If you know where to look (and we  sure can tell you where to look), you find everything cheaper, and sometimes A LOT cheaper: clothes, shoes, accessories, electronics, appliances and everything in between. And let’s not even mention the sales!!! I kept telling my husband that if we could pass those deals to Romanians, we’d have a great business. So with him being the great entrepreneur that he is, he suggested that we do just that.

We never really advertised for Bearmore – all the business that we got was from friends and friends of friends. Word of mouth is a powerful tool! We send a lot of different products to Romania: from evening dresses and wedding gowns, to ipods and digital cameras, to kitchen appliances and accessories, wedding favors and decorations… and many others! Our clients are always very happy with the products they get and of course, we do our very best to offer them the best possible service.

Right now we’re at a stage where we want to grow our business. We’ve always charged a very low fee for our services and we want to keep it that way. Of course, for that to make sense from a business point of view, we need to grow in volume. We’ve recently launched our website (www.bearmore.com) and are planning to do some outside advertising, in order to reach more clients.

If you or your friends are looking to buy something from the United States, please send us an e-mail. We’ll be very happy to assist you in any way we could and you can be sure that you’ll get the best service. We can’t wait to hear from you!

Yesterday was Thanksgiving Day – and what a great day it was! We spent the evening with some good friends and after dinner we started talking about our reasons for being thankful this year. Of course we’re thankful for a lot of things in general – family, health, jobs etc. – but I was surprised that it was so difficult to think of specific things. We even tried to go month by month and we were able to come up with some specific things that way. I still felt a little strange in my heart because I really am SO THANKFUL for everything that God has given me, and us as a family, so why could I not name those things?

I was thinking about this while driving to work this morning (yes, I have to work on the day after Thanksgiving) and I realized that except for a few highlights, this year has been somewhat uneventful. And then I realized: uneventful is not necessarily a bad thing! We didn’t move into a big house, but we also didn’t lose our home this year, like many others around us. We didn’t get fabulous new jobs but we are blessed to have good jobs that we enjoy doing and are appreciated for – and with an unemployment rate over 11% in our area, I think that’s pretty big! We didn’t buy new fancy cars, but the cars that we have are paid off and have not been giving us any problems. What a blessing that is! We didn’t go on many vacations but we did get to see Greece this Summer and visit family overseas – and that’s better than 20 other vacations ANYWHERE!

I really feel that we are blessed beyond measure and our “uneventful” year is a wonderful testimony of God’s protection over us. With the economy being the way it is and the word “recession” being mentioned every other word in the media, I can really say that we are not touched by it. It’s like… it’s everywhere around us, but it’s not affecting us. Like Daniel and his friends in the fiery furnace – they were in the fire but they were under God’s protection so the fire couldn’t touch them. That’s how I feel right now – like I’m in a protective bubble. I am SO THANKFUL for that, especially since I know I didn’t do anything to deserve it. But that’s just God and the kind of things He does.

Elena is a sweet 6 year old girl. She is the definition of the girly girl: she loves her headbands, she sits with her legs crossed, she can never wear enough pink and  loves lace and ruffles. She is also what some people would call “the perfect child”: she eats her veggies first and she’d rather have milk than soda (but it has to be in a wine glass and you have to say “cheers”). I already love her! She loves babies and all she wants in life is to be a mom! Well… all she ever wanted…. because Elena passed away 2 years ago, after a 9 month battle with an inoperable kind of brain cancer.

She was diagnosed at age 5. In the little time she had after that, she showed everyone just how special she was. She realized that time was precious and so she made a to-do list for herself, or rather a wishlist: she wanted to swim with dolphins, to drive a car… She got to see all those wishes fulfilled. 

The greatest thing she did for her loving family was only discovered after she was no longer with them. Months after her death, her parents started finding little notes hidden  all over the house: in the corners of their dresser drawers, in their backpacks/briefcases, between dishes in the china cabinet, between books on bookshelves… These notes professed Elena’s love for her family, for her parents and little sister. Her dad said that she knew somehow that one day they would need these notes to continue. Each note is a reminder of her strength, her inspiration and her love. What a wonderful gift to leave behind!

I admire her parents, Brooke & Keith D.,  for their strength and their ability to show Elena that her life was a joy, not a tragedy, until the very end. I can’t imagine what it must have been like for them, but it definitely says a lot about what kind of people they are. During Elena’s last 9 months, they started blogging about her daily struggle, in an effort to keep the family updated on her situation. They later found out that a lot of other people were reading the blog, because they found it so encouraging. It was a real lesson to all parents to treasure their children. They started The Cure Starts Now Cancer Foundation (www.thecurestartsnow.org) shortly after losing their daughter. It is an international effort of families, friends, businesses and even strangers, united in the desire to cure cancer, one child at a time.

Brooke and Keith’s latest project is a book called “Notes Left Behind”, which is the true story of Elena and her battle against brain cancer. It’s a candid and sincere journal that talks about their struggle with the contradictory impulses to both fight Elena’s cancer at all costs, and to realize the inevitable outcome that awaits their daughter. The book can be found in all the major bookstores and also online, all profit being donated to The Cure Starts Now Cancer Foundation.

Elena’s story is a sad one but the lesson that she teaches us is priceless and it’s something we, as adults, should think of more often: to treasure every single day, to love life, to love our families and be creative in showing our love for them.

Sources: www.notesleftbehind.com , www.abcnews.go.com

All Summer long, on my way home from work in the evening, right at my freeway exit, I saw a man. He was there every single night, holding a sign that read something in the lines of “Homeless and hungry. Anything helps. God bless!” He would just sit there with a kind of blank stare in his eyes, as if purposefully avoiding eye contact with the drivers. If you didn’t want to give him anything, he wasn’t going to make you feel bad about it.

On one particular evening, being the last one to catch the green light and turn left,  I saw him just dropping his sign to the ground and dropping his head in his hands, with a desperate look on his face. This was more than 2 months ago yet I still think about it and it makes me just as sad as it did then. I don’t know  if I’ve ever seen a more desperate gesture… That was the last time I saw the man and I can’t help but wonder where he is right now and if things are going better for him.

Every time I see a beggar my stomach tightens. What’s his story? Can I help him? Should I? It makes me so sad to see an old man sitting in the rain with his dog, asking for “anything”… Or another man in his 70’s maybe, sitting on the side of the freeway, trying to sell a metallic blue boombox for $10… could that have been the very last thing he owned? But then I see a young man in his 20’s, holding a sign that says “Parents kidnapped by evil ninjas. Need money for kung fu lessons” or another one saying “My X-wife took it all…” I just say “Really???”… and keep driving. Their energy would be better spent looking for a job. But when they’re old people that have probably worked their entire life and they’re at the time when they should enjoy a peaceful retirement, that just breaks my heart and I try to help as much as I can.

This is a tricky business, though… you never know which one of them has a nice Mercedes in a nearby parking lot and he’s just putting in his 8 hours of “work”. Hey – I wouldn’t mind some free, non-taxable money myself! If only I could get it while sitting in a nice comfortable chair and reading… but that probably wouldn’t be to believable, would it? So I understand why people would be suspicious and generally cautious when it comes to giving money to strangers on the street.

Then there’s also the thought that one person can’t help everybody, so as long as you do your part on a regular basis, that’s the most you can/should do. Why give it a second thought, right?

Right… but then sometimes you just feel something in your spirit and you start thinking… Is my Starbucks coffee, my new nail polish or who knows what other insignificant purchase I might make, more important than this person’s legitimate need? Maybe they don’t have what to feed their children and I’m going to buy yet another shade of lip gloss, just to make sure my 15 other lip glosses don’t feel lonely… I always try to remind myself that some people have REAL problems and we, as Christians, are called to spread God’s love in this world. Sometimes we can do that by helping a stranger in need. I truly believe that if you help someone like that and you give them money, in the end it doesn’t even matter if their need was legitimate or if they’re just crooks, I think God is pleased with us because our heart was in the right place.

I will not draw any conclusions on this subject because really, I don’t think there’s one rule to go by. Of course I believe it’s good to help people but I also think that it’s smart to listen to what God tells us, in any given circumstances… and I will stop here before I start preaching!