Paying taxes owed with credit cards - have we reached a new "low"?

You tell me.....according to Yahoo Finance today (dated March 2, 2008), "The Internal Revenue Service even has a list of features and benefits of paying your taxes by credit card, which include convenience, safety, availability, security, quick confirmation and the chance to gain rewards." What?!?! In one simple gesture of pretense convenience, I think the government is fueling the spiraling economy of United States. One of my co-worker's famous allegory for mis-directed focus is "you are worrying about the finger nail when the whole arm is falling off??!!". In this case, are we applying a band-aid to a leaky dam?

To read the rest of the article....

http://finance.yahoo.com/taxes/article/104467/Resist-the-Urge-to-Charge-Your-Taxes

Happy Lord's Day!

Pictures - Dylan eating stinky cheese - Guyer, in Paris.

Jacqueline Potter Collection Spring/Summer collection has arrived!

Fans, Friends, and Family - Jacqueline Potter Collection's Spring/Summer collection has arrived! Don't forget to check it out - click here. Here's a sample of our new collection. While you are there, don't forget to bookmark/subscribe to the site. Let's just say you'll be helping me out a great deal with a simple click of the mouse. :-) Blessings, love and peace to you all!

Happy Birthday to me and Paris!

Well, actually it was last week....no, wait, it was 10/11 days ago (11th)! Wow...time flies. February has always been my favourite month of the year, especially when I was a child. Not only is it the shortest month of the year, a month where every four years (leap year) you get an extra day (so cool), it's also my birthday month, Chinese New Year almost always falls in February, and according to the Chinese calendar, I was born on the 8th day of the new year. As a child, it's all about ang pow (red packet). You can click on the link to read up more about "ang pow" on Wikipedia. Essentially, it boils down to the fact that I get extra red packets - $$$. :-D And as I get older, Valentine's Day, which is just a few days after my birthday, provided another reason to celebrate.

There was no huge fan fare on the day itself. But since there's so much to celebrate, we decided to make it a trip to Paris! Oui! Oui! :-) We left on Feb. 14 and came back in the wee hours of the morning of Feb. 19th (a direct consequence of flying ultra cheap flights). I must admit that after a not-so-good experience in Milan, I was very skeptical about going to a country where people are known to be "rude" and eat food that I don't particularly appreciate i.e. snails, lamb etc. to "celebrate". But, I must say, lo and behold, Paris is now #1 on my list of cities I would like to live in!! To set the record straight, Parisians were SUPER FRIENDLY!!!! Don't believe the hype (like I did for years)!! As for food, I really have nothing to report. Maybe on our next trip (yes, there will be a next trip). We were on a budget travel so we just bought baguette, cheese, hummus etc. from a grocery store around the corner to our hotel everyday. And every night, we had Chinese take out from the Chinese restaurant just next to out hotel. We actually be-friended the restaurant owner who gave us two silver spoons as oppose to plastic spoons when I asked for plastic spoons with our take out one night. You see, we needed spoons for our cereal in the morning. ha ha. We went there for the sights and not necessarily the food so we didn't mind. The one thing we did indulge in is French pastry. I can confirm that is one "myth" that is accurate. Yummy!

Paris is definitely a metropolitan city, just like Manhattan. What got to us in the beginning is there were a lot of Chinese in Paris and they all speak French! I spoke to a restaurant owner one day and said I found it to be odd that Chinese people spoke French and only French (especially the younger generation). He said it's not odd if you think about the Chinese people who settle in America/UK who speak English. He had a point. And just like in the US and UK, the younger generation has adopted the culture and language in order to fit in, so much so, they can't speak their mother tongue.

The sights....where do I even begin? Dylan asked why I like Paris so much. And my instinctive answer was the grandness of it all, if that makes any sense. It's not only the ancient gigantic structures that makes you gasps every time you come across yet another mega building, it's also the vastness of space, the neatness and order of the buildings that made it so all so wonderfully just my taste. I am not a big fan of crowded cities like Manhattan. But with Paris, it has got the city feel without the sheer filth (which typically comes with any major city) and sardine-in-a-can-like feel when you walk the streets. And coming from the land of everything-is-so-very-expensive (UK), shopping in Euro (in Paris) proved to be a breath of fresh air! I will have to preface that this will not be the case if you are coming from the U.S., converting USD to Euros. Sorry.

We attended worship service on Sunday at the Notre-Dame church. I must say that is the biggest and oldest church I have attended a Sunday service in! The church was constructed between the 1100s - 1300s. Amazing! Even though we attended the "International Service", it was in French. Between Dylan and I, we probably know a handful of French words! We stuck it out and tried to follow as best as we can. ha ha.

Without further ado....here are some pictures to feast your eyes upon.

Unveiling 'Jacqueline Potter Collection'

You may or may not have heard of the new business venture I have taken on recently. This new venture began shortly before Christmas, and after working tirelessly for about a month, it's finally completed!

Without further ado, I would like to present to you 'Jacqueline Potter Collection', and here's the website -- http://www.jacquelinepottercollection.com.

Jacqueline Potter Collection is a celebration of unique and valuable jewellery designed to evoke conversations. Our jewellery collection is a contemporary expression of classic design, as tasteful as it is timeless....














































I will be grateful if you would forward the link to as many friends, families, colleagues, and even strangers :-), men and women, as you can. Valentines' Day is just around the corner. For those of you who need some intervention, I'd be happy to send along a hinted message with the website link to your significant other if you provide me with the email address. :-)

Every Blessing,
Jacqueline Potter

The Sabbath Day

The whole topic of the Sabbath day has been on my mind for a few days now. It started when I watched, for the 2nd or 3rd time, the movie Chariots of Fire (if you haven't seen it, it's a MUST), a movie that has won 4 Oscars. The film tells the story of 1924 Olympic gold medalist Eric Liddell who refused to run on Sunday which happened to coincide with the qualifying heat for his best event - the 100m race. He was the favourite to win for that particular event, but instead was disqualified as a result of his decision. He eventually went on to win the gold medal for the 400m event and a bronze for the 200m. You can imagine that through the whole ordeal, his actions proclaimed very loudly his faith to the world, something that he was not ashamed of at all. He died later as a missionary in China. The responses one would anticipate from many Christians would be "wow...that is so great that he stood firm for his faith. Good for him!" But is it just good for him? Is God's commandment in the Old Testament so far removed from us that we do not think it applies or that it's completely impractical?

Let me probe you to review what the bible says about the Sabbath day - In Exodus 20:9-11, God introduces the Sabbath "9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant, nor your animals, nor the alien within your gates. 11 For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy."and then again in Isaiah 58:13-14 "13 If you keep your feet from breaking the Sabbath and from doing as you please on my holy day, if you call the Sabbath a delight and the LORD's holy day honorable, and if you honor it by not going your own way and not doing as you please or speaking idle words, 14 then you will find your joy in the LORD, and I will cause you to ride on the heights of the land and to feast on the inheritance of your father Jacob." The mouth of the LORD has spoken.

Now, let me fast forward and bring to you another story that perhaps is more "modern". I must confess that I did not get this story out of any form of comprehensive research but through a show on the television called The World's Richest people....something like that. On this particular episode a couple of days ago, it featured billionaire Dan T. Cathy, COO, an American, and son of founder Chik-fil-a, a fast food restaurant chain. I must admit I didn't even know it existed until I moved to Pittsburgh. That's when I noticed this new (to me) fast food chain, which strangely closes on Sundays?!?! My first instinctive thought was "Why? How stupid. Sunday is a day families eat out, they are loosing a ton of profit!" I remembered asking Dylan why the place is closed on a Sunday, very strange and completely unheard of for a fast food chain. That's when I found out the owner is a Christian.In the show, Mr. Cathy was clearly not ashamed to proclaimed that he is a Christian. Amongst all the charities, and God-honoring servant-leadership characteristics he displays to his employees (college scholarships, etc.) and customers (free food for life for the 1st 100 customers every time he opens a new store), Mr. Cathy boldly closes all restaurant chains on Sundays. Every Sundays he dedicates his time to God/church, serving the homeless in shelters, and spending time with his family. Wow. Of course, one could easily say that "well, he's got so much so he really doesn't need the extra profit from keeping the restaurant open one extra day." If we really examine the human nature, one is never satisfied with enough, especially when it comes to money and material things. As a society in a developed and developing world, we pride ourselves for working longer and longer hours in a week and celebrate those who put in those long hours by way of promotion. We attribute our success to our own hard work and by how many hours we can put in at the office, often at the expense of family.

I was truly inspired by Mr. Cathy. God gives us 6 days to work and only demands that we rest for one day and dedicate that day to spending time with him, to find our joy in Him, through worship and fellowship with others in a church or with our family and friends etc. Why is that so difficult to obey? Personally, I have been struggling to walk away from the computer on Sundays now that I am working from home. It is so tempting to say "oh, just this one little thing (work related. Mind you, let's not turn into Pharisees now since Jesus did works of necessity and mercy on the Sabbath) then I am done". But that one little thing inevitably will lead to another, and before you know it, you have dishonored God in a big way. Perhaps this is God's way of helping us not make an idol out of our work? Ah-ha! Who here doesn't assess their self-worth, identity or status in society by what they do rather than their identity in Christ? Are we afraid that if we stand firm with regards to the Sabbath, we are going to appear weird in the eyes of our bosses and co-workers? What about God's words to us? God said "If...., then..." (see Isaiah). Does that mean anything to us? Are we really going to loose that much by standing really firm on the sacredness of the Sabbath, the way God intended it to be? Can we bring ourselves to trust that if we honor God by keeping the Sabbath holy, He will in turn fill us with His joy (first and foremost) and everything else?

I must say I am definitely convicted by this new revelation. It'll be a new (and struggling) journey to honor God this way for me. I hope you'll join me in this journey, if you haven't already.

New Year's eve - Hogmanay

We went to the New Year's eve celebration right here on Princess Street Edinburgh called Hogmanay. Every year, Princess Street, which is about a mile long, is blocked off for Hogmanay. This event typically draws over 10,000 people. I believe the party starts at around 19:00. We got there at 22:30 (oh right, over here military time is used throughout...not sure why) since Dylan was not feeling well. At 22:30 the party was well into full swing. We were exhausted and starting to get frustrated after we managed to snake our way to the start of Princess Street. The air was damp and started to drizzle shortly after we got there. There were roughly 4-5 live bands staged at different spots along Princess Street. Street vendors selling festival foods and drinks lined the street, adding to the congestion. After a futile attempt to make it to the other end of Princess Street (we only managed to go a quarter way), we decided to park ourselves at the start of Princess Street, back where we started, which was less crowded.

Some of the more memorable scene we took in that night were a girl who passed out drunk way before midnight. She was on the wet ground totally gone to the world while her poor girl friends were left to wonder what to do with her. Dylan was approached by a random young girl for some "pills". What pills, we wondered? Did she want vitamins??!! Wished I had some then, I would have gladly given them to her! Not to mentioned loads of indecent display of "affection" by couples or random strangers who just hooked up. Guys who were wearing kilts were more than happy to flash passerby and friends. And since there were way more people than porta-potties, you can use your imagination on what we witnessed - boys and gals alike!

Now, I guess I don't have to tell you that these behaviours were driven by drunkenness. How sad. Strangely enough, here's a couple of verses in Isaiah 5 from my bible reading last night - quite scary. Verses 11 & 22 - "Woe to those who rise early in the morning to run after their drinks, who stay up late at night till they are inflamed with wine." and "Woe to those who are heroes at drinking wine and champions at mixing drinks". Wow. But rather than passing judgment, perhaps prayers for God's mercy with this nation where excessive drinking is quite commonly celebrated, old and young alike (who do not know Christ)?

Blessings and peace to all!