Cupcakes, Why Not?

So how are you guys?  It’s been a while. I got addicted to reading e-books, that’s why. Not only that, for the past few days, I tried to finish two books by Jenny Colgan, two wonderful, funny and engrossing chick lit read.  She’s a new author on my list  so it’s quite a novelty to read something with lots of cupcake recipes and pointers on baking…yes….cupcakes.  I never tried baking cupcakes though since the few sessions that I had with Sylvia Reynoso Gala’s Culinary Studio , I took money-making courses like Chinese cuisine, making bars and cookies, cupcakes not included. Once you learned the basic of baking, you could always experiment on other recipes as long as you have the right ingredients. I’ve done that for the past few months and it’s quite a thrill to discover new things in the kitchen.

If you have time and if you love chick lit books, I highly recommend these two, Meet Me At The Cupcake Cafe and Christmas at the Cupcake Cafe. Both books have excellent reviews at Goodreads.

Of course,  reading an e-book could not compare to holding  and smelling a nice, newly printed book in your hands but then sometimes, it is easier to get hold of a copy and read  it conveniently through your phone. It does not need so much space on your bulging bookshelves and you can delete it once you’re done to give way to other e-book titles.  Reading is such an engrossing hobby and once you start all over again, you simply forget the time. When you are transported to a new world, there is a different kind of magic.

Maybe one of these days,  I’ll try cupcakes too.

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A Thousand Mornings (Part 2)…. Hello Mary Oliver!

Okay, I am reviving my month-ender and  “happy new month” blog. I used to do it in some of my posts but sometimes, in the midst of daily living, you forget things that were part of your routine.

May has quietly faded into June  and  as always it left something to cherish and to treasure. It was terribly hot but the afternoon showers that we got during the last week  somehow diffused the humid feel of the month. Yesterday, I visited my daughter at her office at BPI to get a package  sent by a friend from the US. I took an FX taxi from our place to Ayala Avenue and along the way I was like a child getting re-acquainted with an old place and taking note of changes that were not there thirteen years ago. Thirteen years, seems so long  ago -  yes, it’s been thirteen years since I left Bank of the Philippine Islands  when I availed of an early retirement to take care of my two kids.  Seeing new faces  but looking for old ones who were my former office mates, I now can’t imagine myself as part of the young crowd waiting for elevator rides  and beating the 8:30am rush  to log  in to work. I was with BPI for more than twenty-one years, right after I graduated from college. Waking up early, car pooling,  early morning masses at Greenbelt chapel, lunch breaks and quick walks to Glorietta, afternoon rush to share a ride with friends on the way home, the routine of a working mom, they came rushing back when I saw the facade of BPI. Ayala Avenue has changed of course with more high-rise buildings sprouting from every nook and cranny, it’s after all the Makati Central Business District. What I noticed though was there were lots of people lining up the sidewalk of Ayala Avenue smoking. I am glad I brought a face mask. During my time, smokers just stay at the back of our building at the open parking space. Why can’t they totally prohibit smoking in public?

Sometime last October, I wrote a blog on the newest book of Mary Oliver, A Thousand Mornings dreaming of having a copy of it when it’s published. It has become one of my top-rated posts  although it was more of me than the book. Yesterday, I finally got hold of it and perused each word, smiling like crazy holding it in my hands, enjoying the feel of  silk because the dust jacket  is so smooth to the touch.

This is my second book of Mary Oliver and I love how she portrays nature in so many different ways. It feels like you are beside a brook or just looking at an unknown bloom by the wayside or discovering the glint of the moon on a dark night.  Odette, who has become a close friend sent me all these, three books, two latest publications from my favorite author Richard Paul Evans and a copy of A Thousand Mornings together with a hard drive which she says I could use for all the shots that I want to save. Speaking of blessings, they pour in a thousand ways too.

Let me share one of her poems with you. Reading her words always keep me inspired, silently smiling to myself and telling the old me, I am lucky, aren’t I?  The  journey is long but I am blessed.

The Gardener

 

Have I lived enough?

Have I loved enough?

Have I considered Right Action enough, have I

      come to any conclusion?

Have I experienced happiness with sufficient gratitude?

Have I endured loneliness with grace?

 

I say this, or perhaps I’m just thinking it.

       Actually, I probably think too much.

 

Then I step out into the garden,

where the gardener, who is said to be a simple man,

       is tending his children, the roses.

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And The Mountains Echoed

All my life, I have lived like an aquarium fish in the safety of a glass tank, behind a barrier as impenetrable as it has been transparent.  I have been free to observe the glimmering world on the other side, to picture myself in it, if I like. But I have always been hemmed in, by the hard unyielding confines of the existence that Baba has constructed for me, at first knowingly, when I was young, and now guilelessly, now that he is fading day-to-day. I think I have grown  accustomed  to the glass and am terrified that when it breaks, when I am alone, I will spill out in to the wide open unknown and flop around, helpless, lost, gasping for breath.

Siblings, parenthood, friendship – words  and topics that make up a good and brilliant story. I won’t attempt to make a review here that would probably spoil your fun in reading the book. This was recently released last May 21 so maybe some of you haven’t got hold of a copy yet.  I read his first two books, The Kite Runner which was released in 2003 and was  adapted into film later and A Thousand Splendid Suns  which was made available to the public in 2007. If you love Amir in The Kite Runner and cried with Mariam and Laila in A Thousand Splendid Suns, you would surely appreciate  Pari and Abdullah  in this new tale  “revolving around brothers and sisters, and the ways in which they love, wound, betray, honor, and sacrifice for each other.”

I wrote a review of his second book  A Thousand Splendid Suns back in 2007 and posted it here  two years later when I was organizing my blogs at Multiply. I was quite excited when I read about his third book  not knowing what to expect since my views of him as a writer  were colored by his first two novels but here is a good review I found after finishing the last page without spoiling your fun of discovering what makes it a five-star in my list of lovely reads.  There is that feeling  when you reach the last few pages and you don’t want it to end  – you feel the intensity, the emotions playing in your mind and you want to know more about the characters who have endeared themselves to you in the first few pages.

My best read so far this 2013.

 

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Authors And Books

I am going back to reading although it has become a bit slow for me. There was a time when I used to read three books a week, getting  older though made me quite a little slack doing some of my favorite hobbies, reading being one. Come to think of it, among all my books (probably  a thousand of them) there are only two signed copies that I treasure for the simple reason that they are the only signed copies that I have Two years ago, my daughter gave  me a copy of Nicholas Sparks’ The Best of Me   as a birthday gift  on the condition that I attend his book signing at The Podium at Ortigas Center. There was an attached invite from National Bookstore but it was not an assurance that I’ll be able to have my book signed. Nicholas Sparks is more of Nissa’s favorite author so I’ve read almost all of his books. The book signing was right after my birthday so you can just imagine how nervous I was because I have never attended one before.  Read my adventures here on how the day went. It was an unforgettable event in my life. I was really tongue-tied when I met him face to face. All I can utter was “hello Nicholas”.

Richard Paul Evans is  one of my favorite authors. Hmm, let me amend that, he is my favorite author. I’ve blogged  about him so many times here. Last year, I received a signed, first edition copy of his book  The Last Promise , a gift from an online friend that I met at Multiply.  Look at how he signs his books. This may sound  crazy but I guess, the value of a book increases when it is personally signed by the author. Do you agree?

I am looking forward to my three  new books  which will be sent by another friend from the US, my copy of A Thousand Mornings by Mary Oliver and two more latest books by Richard Paul Evans.  Right now, I am in the thick of reading Anne of Avonlea (second in a series of the classic books by L.M. Montgomery).

And I wish that like the late D.J. Salinger, I could do this too, ““What really knocks me out is a book that, when you’re all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it. That doesn’t happen much, though.”  It hasn’t happened yet because I don’t have  a terrific friend  who is a book author

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The Hand That Rocks The Cradle Is The Hand That Rules The World

Happy Mother’s Day to all our wonderful mothers out there. Every year since I started blogging at WordPress, I write about my own experiences as a mother, my tribute to motherhood. I would love to share this lovely poem by William Ross Wallace.

Blessings on the hand of women!
Angels guard its strength and grace,
In the palace, cottage, hovel,
Oh, no matter where the place;
Would that never storms assailed it,
Rainbows ever gently curled;
For the hand that rocks the cradle
Is the hand that rules the world.

Infancy’s the tender fountain,
Power may with beauty flow,
Mother’s first to guide the streamlets,
From them souls unresting grow–
Grow on for the good or evil,
Sunshine streamed or evil hurled;
For the hand that rocks the cradle
Is the hand that rules the world.

Woman, how divine your mission
Here upon our natal sod!
Keep, oh, keep the young heart open
Always to the breath of God!
All true trophies of the ages
Are from mother-love impearled;
For the hand that rocks the cradle
Is the hand that rules the world.

Blessings on the hand of women!
Fathers, sons, and daughters cry,
And the sacred song is mingled
With the worship in the sky–
Mingles where no tempest darkens,
Rainbows evermore are hurled;
For the hand that rocks the cradle
Is the hand that rules the world.

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Thoughts While Reading Mary Oliver

 

Amazing! There is always something new every time I read Mary Oliver’s poems and you get to imagine the scene while appreciating every word. You get  to open your eyes to the way she sees the world – and you smile because somehow she has accurately described what you feel. I can’t wait to read her new book, A Thousand Mornings which a friend  bought for me.

Value time, value each moment,  love nature! Expressed in simple words but touches the core of your being. So much to learn, so much to appreciate just reading her poems.

Song of the Builders

On a summer morning

I sat down

on a hillside

to think about God -

 

a worthy pastime.

Near me, I saw

a single cricket;

it was moving the grains of the hillside

 

this way and that way.

How great was its energy,

how humble its effort.

Let us hope

it will always be like this,

each of us going on

in our inexplicable ways

building the universe.

Where Does the Dance Begin, Where Does It End?

Don’t call this world adorable, or useful, that’s not it.

It’s frisky, and a theater for more than fair winds.

The eyelash of lightning is neither good nor evil.

The struck tree burns like a pillar of gold.

 

But the blue rain sinks, straight to the white

feet of the trees

whose mouths open.

Doesn’t the wind, turning in circles, invent the dance?

Haven’t the flowers moved, slowly, across Asia, then Europe,

until at last, now, they shine

in your own yard?

 

Don’t call this world an explanation, or even an education.

 

When the Sufi poet whirled, was he looking

outward, to the mountains so solidly there

in a white-capped ring, or was he looking

 

to the center of everything: the seed, the egg, the idea

that was also there,

beautiful as a thumb

curved and touching the finger, tenderly,

little love-ring,

 

as he whirled,

oh jug of breath,

in the garden of dust?

 

 

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Catching Up On The Beauty Of Words

Short of saying I haven’t read in quite a while, I am happy that since the start of January, I was able to catch up on my reading. It’s now a feat for me to read five books in a span of  almost two months because for a while there, reading has taken a backseat although I have accumulated  and bought more books that would last me the whole year, I think.

I am a fan of Richard Paul Evans. Since I found him more than a decade ago, I enjoyed sourcing bookstores to look for more of his books. Luckily though, even some of my friends joined in the search and sent me hardbound copies of his books from abroad. And as if that is not enough, Richard is an online friend at FB so I am always updated on what is new and what I’ve missed. Last night, I finished reading one of his earlier published books, The Looking Glass. It’s a re-read actually but like the first time that I encountered it, it never fails to give me that smile. One becomes reflective when you read about life and all its angst. One becomes a mirror that reflects how life is, at the moment, in a heartbeat, for a lifetime. No, this is not a book summary, I’ll just want to recall all the beautiful quotes I marked with pencil while reading it. You might have noticed that I regularly post quotes here from his timeline (with his permission, of course).  And I love those diary entries every start of each chapter of all his books.

-The dreams still haunt me, leaving me in the dawn wet with tears. It is true, there are moments in one’s life more memorable than entire years. But these moments are those usually wished forgotten.

-I do not wonder at the cruelty of this world, as it seems the nature of it. I find myself more perplexed as why there is good at all.

-I have learned a great truth of life. We do not succeed in spite of our challenges and difficulties, but rather, precisely because of them.

-Oftentimes  it takes the darkness of another grief to shed light on our own.

-The truth of ourselves is too often blurred  by the capricious image  of our self-perception. I believe it is among greatest  quests of life, not just to see life as it really is, but to see his part in it.

-Until you see yourself  worthy of love, you will forever be chained.

-Not all pain was equal. That there could in fact, be delicious sorrow.

-The greatest shackles we bear in this life are those forged by our own fears.

-The measure of a person’s heart, the barometer of good or evil, was nothing more than the extent to choose life over death. That the path of God was simply the path of life, abundant and eternal.

-Though one does not forget the wounds of the past, scars can bring gratitude if we will consider the healer.

-Nowhere does man err more greatly than when he looks to see the reality of what he is.

I have just started on another Anita Shreve book, A Change of Altitude.  I hope it will be just as good as her other books.

 

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More Quotes From Richard Paul Evans (9th In A Series)

Here are more quotes from my favorite author, Richard Paul Evans. Some are lifted from his soon to be released book, A Step of Faith.

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The Summer Of 42 Reblogged

Moments.  Oh please, don’t ask me how this came about. I was just listening to the music of Henri Mancini, Two For The Road particularly when I suddenly remembered  those movie themes that I regularly listen to on YouTube.  There are times when you get a little sentimental over sad and beautiful music that you grew up with. And I  wish to share  my very first blog which I originally posted at my Multiply site.   My journal entries way back in college don’t count of course, they are more personal – the growing up years contained in a thick notebook  which I still keep until now.  Funny how, this story talks about teenage life, first love, and heartaches. It reminds me so much of those days and nights  that I’ve done the same soul-searching. Life is full of chances to grow a little better, life is full of experiences that teach us how to truly love.

The Summer of  42 (April 22, 2008)

I truly believe that something happens when you least expect it.  Yesterday, while I was waiting for my urologist at the satellite clinic of the Medical City at Ever-Ortigas, I decided to while away the time going to my favorite jaunts. First stop was NBS, they have this bargain bin in one corner of the store and it is always a delight to find something worth-reading.  Next was a visit at the friendly Booksale lady at the 2nd floor.  Third stop was at Books and Mags. I was just browsing with no particular book in mind. There is a growing stash of books most of which I made on impulse buy.  I decided that I will stick to my Wish List and wait for another sale perhaps at Bestsellers and NBS.

Tom Clancy (plenty stuff there), Dean Koontz, Binchy – I found this small volume, Summer of 42 by Herman Raucher, a Dell book, 1971 edition. What came to mind was the music, Theme from Summer of 42 by Michelle Legrand. I distinctly remember that way back in 1971, this was one of the contenders for Best Instrumental Arrangement/Composition along with Theme from Shaft by Isaac  Hayes and Theme from Love Story by Francis Lai, for the prestigious Grammy Awards. Of course, Theme from Shaft won hands down (and I still have my Jingle chordbook magazine, Chapter IX to prove it),. But I am digressing here.

Summer of 42 – made into film by Warner Bros. with Jennifer O’Neill (Dorothy) and Gary Grimes(Hermie) as the main characters.  In everyone’s life, there is Summer of 42. A beautiful love story, poignant, warm, funny, sad, coming of age – it is just perfect.

The summer Hermie turned fifteen, he fell deeply  and passionately in love with an older woman of twenty-two and a married one at that.  Along with his two best friends Oscy and Benjie, Hermie spent his time running and playing on the beach and it was there that he saw and fell in love with Dorothy.  The story revolves around the fun and mischief of the three young boys, displaying their raw innocence about sex. It behooves me to think what life was like in ’42.

I dare not describe the details here because it is always best to read the book and enjoy it. The wording  of the song from the book sums it all:

last night I started out happy
last night my heart was so gay
last night I found myself dancing
in my favorite cabaret.
you were completely forgotten
just an affair of the past,
then  suddenly something happened to me
and I found my heart beating, oh so fast

there will be no new romance for me,
it’s foolish to start
for that old feeling is still in my heart.

(note: I don’t own the video, just uploaded it from YouTube)

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Spending The Afternoon With Mary Oliver

Then she said:

I have a notebook with me all the time, and I begin scribbling a few words. When things are going well, the walk does not get anywhere; I finally just stop and write.

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