Lent (Latin: Quadragesima, "fortieth") is the Christian observance of the liturgical year from Ash Wednesday to Easter Sunday.

The traditional purpose of Lent is the penitential preparation of the believer—through prayer, penance, repentance, almsgiving, and self-denial. Its institutional purpose is heightened in the annual commemoration of Holy Week, marking the Death and Resurrection of Jesus, which recalls the events of the Passion of Christ on Good Friday, which then culminates in the celebration on Easter Sunday of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ.

During Lent, many of the faithful commit to fasting or giving up certain types of luxury as a form of penitence. The Stations of the Cross, a devotional commemoration of Christ's carrying the Cross and of His execution, are often observed. Many Roman Catholic and some Protestant churches bare their altars of candles, flowers, and other devotional offerings, while Crucifixes, religious statues, and other elaborate religious paraphernalia are often veiled in violet fabrics in observance of this event. In certain pious Catholic countries, grand processions and cultural customs are observed, and the faithful attempt to visit seven churches during Holy Week in honor of Jesus Christ heading to Mount Calvary.

I think this is a beutiful tradition. I told my friend i made a promise to myself to blog once a day and she asked me if it was for lent. I'd never heard about it or celibrated lent, but im taking this on me now, to sacrifice something or make a speacial promise. So today I'll make my promise, to blog every day and I'll write some porstcards to my loved ones. That'll be my rent promise, perhaps not very compassionate but as my first lent promise it will have to due.

Whats hard in life is to love one self, believe in whats true, spit greed in the face, open up your feelings and show them without shame, spending time on yourself, compassion, understanding, follow your inner voice whatever you call it, asking for help when you need it the most, be yourself, still it's what we need to aim for. As it is said, the answers are blowin in the wind. Change is beautiful, change with the wind. Let it take you places and see where you end up. Control is scary, cos we fear to be without it. Now is the time, yesterday was too and tomorrow will be as well.

The heart (♥) has long been used as a symbol to refer to the spiritual, emotional, moral, and in the past, also intellectual core of a human being. As the heart was once widely believed to be the seat of the human mind, the word heart continues to be used poetically to refer to the soul, and stylized depictions of hearts are used as prevalent symbols representing love.

In religious texts the heart was historically ascribed much mystical significance, eighter as methafor or as an organ genuinely believed to have spiritual or divine attributes.

In Egyptian mythology, the heart portion of the soul was weighed in a balance against the feather of Ma'at, symbolising truth, in the judgment of the dead in the Egyptian Book of the Dead. Egyptian sources do not actually reveal whether the heart had to be lighter than the feather for the deceased to pass into paradise—all depictions show only the weighing of the heart, not the actual results, heavier or lighter.

Similarly, in the Bible, this idea emerges in the earliest passages; Genesis 6:5 situates the thoughts of evil men in their hearts, and Exodus 5 through 12 speak repeatedly of the Lord "hardening Pharaoh's heart." By this it is meant that God made Pharaoh resolve not to let the Israelite slaves leave Egypt, in order to bring judgment against Pharaoh and demonstrate his power: "'Go to Pharaoh, for I have hardened his heart and the hearts of his officials so that I may perform these miraculous signs of mine among them'" (Exodus 10:1). In the Book of Jeremiah 17:9, it is written that the Lord is the judge who "tries" the human heart.

The Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary are traditional Roman Catholic devotional images.

Many classical philosophers and scientists, including Aristotle, considered the heart the seat of thought, reason or emotion, often rejecting the value of the brain.

The Stoics taught that the heart was the seat of the soul.

The Roman physician Galen located the seat of the passions in the liver, the seat of reason in the brain, and considered the heart to be the seat of the emotions. While Galen's identification of the heart with emotion were proposed as a part of his theory of the circulatory system, the heart has continued to be used as a symbolic source of human emotions even after the rejection of such beliefs.

We're only young and I am still, we require certain skill. The mood it changes like the wind, hard to control when it begins. The bittersweet between my teeth, trying to find the in-between. Fall back in love eventually. Can't help myself but count the flaws, claw my way out through these walls. One temporary escape, feel it start to permeate. We lie beneath the stars at night, our hands gripping each other tight. You keep my secrets hope to die, promises, swear them to the sky. The bittersweet between my teeth, trying to find the in-between, fall back in love eventually. As it withers, brittle it shakes, can you whisper? As it crumbles and breaks, as you shiver, count up all your mistakes. Pair of forgivers, let go before it's too late.

My friend introduced me to this quote by Oscar Wilde: Always reach for the moon, cause even if you miss you land among the stars. Now this is apparently a well known Wilde quotation that i had missed completely. But i liked it. And then later on we got on the subject of what it is to live without expectations and what it means to make plans in your life. I've never felt bad about making plans, crazy ones as realistic ones cos the beauty of it all is that nothing ever goes as planed, and i guess that is what it's like to live without expectations. To not expect the planes to turn out like you mean them to, but still, nothing wrong in making them. Plans for the future makes me feel safe and gives me motivation and lust for life. I see nothing wrong in it. I think it's just as healthy as it is not to expect them to plan out as we plan them to. So I guess it makes complete sense to aim for the moon, even tho you might realize that what you were looking foor all along was a shiny little star.

We will look at the people in our lives today and see what we can give them, and what they can give us. We travel together on different paths. We may learn to be more tolerant. Impatience might be our weakness, and wherever we are we are greeted by cues, slow cashiers, trafic jams. Our companions are carefully selected by our inner self, the spiritual guides who so well understand what's missing us in life. We are both teachers and students. We need both our friends and those we call enemies, for they also have something to teach us. - each day a new beginning

Baby myles always gives baby smiles and you can't help but smile back, baby liam always gives baby kisses that warms you soul, yes, your entire freakin soul warms up. My hostdads frenchy english makes me laugh. I smiled when myles eyes were droping and he fell asleep, I also smiled when he woke up. I smiled when i thought of all the funny things my boyfriend says and the funny things he does. I smiled when i was skypeing with my babysister and i smiled when i looked back on the fun weekend that just passed by. I smiled when liam was in hes jamys this morning and hes hair was funny. I smiled when i saw the chinese man walking bakwards in the park. I smiled when I but on german baby bum cream on my lips cos i thought it was funny. I remember smiling when i woke up. I'm smiling right now too thinking about lovely small things. 

First thing in the morning. Sun salutions and meditation. Most people prefer to do this at sunrise cos in theory that's the most spiritual way to do this practice. But I do it in my basement in paris. You worm up buy getting your body warm, streching your mussles and your spine. It's refreshing and relaxing. If your body feels good so do you, although im not a health freak. I had a chocolate cookie for breakfast today but I enjoy feeling my body in these movements. You clearly notice how you can strech more and more while doing it. The breathing is also in focus, you breath into your mussles so that you can hold a possition and feel your body working. Personally i like the idea of saluting to the sun in the mornings, the sun is light and brigs us brighter days. Now meditation is my favorite. I love the mysteries of the mind and i love to see it change and go quiet. It's hard for alot of people to shut your mind of, but it comes easy for me. I struggle sometimes, sometimes it's nearly impossible. And i never go in deep, just deep enough to forget time. It's like sleeping but while being awake, i love this experience and i think it's healthy. I read somewhere that praying is talking to god and meditation is listening to god. I like the saying. We need to listen to whats inside us, whatever that is. And you can read about so many interesting things when it comes to meditaion. Ill get back to it later on.

There is a street in Chetelet with animal shops. Im always happy to go there cos they make me so happy, but i think in sweden this would be something like animal cruelty. They keep them in small glass cages. I don't know if they take them out, i hope they do! They're all beautiful and I can't help but feeling a desperate need of saving them. Kind of like those vegans who let animals to run free and then the animals dont know what to do cos they've been in cages all there lives, it never ends well. If I for some reason end up in paris, im going to save at least one. I was even allowed to take pictures of them, whitch felt a little wierd somehow. But they were posing so well !!

There is one rule when you eat chocolate, no matter for what reason, if your eating cos you need comfort or simply just cos you love it so much, comme moi, the rule is to always smell it before taking a piece of the marvelous creation. Its like forplay before sex, it triggers the pleasure. And pleasure is important, if you give yourself pleasure, good pleasure now that makes you feel good without hurting anyone else, then your telling yourself you're worthy of it. It's something to do for yourself, as a treat just cos you are you and thats wonderful, you deserve something to enjoy and something that makes you a tiny bit happier. Linger in bed, favorite foods, a hot bath, singing, resting in the way you know best. It's also about making the best of the small things, that is basically what keeps the days bright. The problem is not really to allow yourself to enjoy life in small moments, the hard part is to remember it. So much of life is the meeting with other people, seing them, knowing them, its kind of in focus if you think about it. So it is super easy to forget yourself sometimes. There is different ways of reminding yourself tho! Or other people might, smell the chocolate. It's a good rule.

Self-esteem is a term in psychology to reflect a person's overall evaluation or appraisal of his or her own worth. Self-esteem encompasses beliefs (for example, "I am competent", "I am worthy") and emotions such as triumph, despair, pride and shame. Some would distinguish how 'the self-concept is what we think about the self; self-esteem, the positive or negative evaluation of the self, is how we feel about it. A person’s self-concept consists of the beliefs one has about oneself, one’s self perception, or, as Hamlyn expresses it, “the picture of oneself”. Baumeister described Self concept as total perception which people hold about him/ herself. It is not the “facts” about one-self but rather what one believes to be true about one-self. - Wikipedia