More Greens

I told you in a previous blog post about our Gardeners’ party yesterday. Here’s my loot. I don’t actually know its name  but I love its variegated leaves and the way it is growing. Had to find a bigger pot for it.

I re-potted this white grass two weeks ago but our Shih Poo Oreo loves to play with its leaves.

Just trying to put more greens indoors.

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Let’s Party

Just attended an early dinner with the members of Gardeners’ Tambayan at Facebook in our neighbor’s house. Some of them came over earlier to visit my garden and asked for some cuttings  for planting.

This was the first time I met some of them and it was a lovely and lively gathering. Jom gave me a small pot of a variegated plant which is great for indoor but I don’t know its name.  The food was great and all of them were so friendly.

I left early because mom was alone in the house and she doesn’t want to be alone even if I was just across the street. I enjoyed it though. Bonding with fellow garden enthusiasts was simply great. Most of them brought seedlings and seeds for planting. Someone brought lovely pots of dainty rose blooms. Succulents were plenty too.

When you talk about something dear to the heart, your heart swells with joy.

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For All Those Years, Thanks!

It’s almost the end of the year and I think it is the best time to assess how this particular blog performed. I don’t much mind my other four blogs since I am not that active on those sites.

The last time I blogged about my stats, followers and blog posts was August 01, 2018, almost five months to the day.  I miss the yearly reports of WordPress on how one particular blogged performed for the year.  For the last two years, it hasn’t been there. I do hope they’ll bring it back.

Last August 1, I registered a total of about 537,574 views and this morning when I last looked,  this blog has about 558,297 views, an increase of 20,723 in more than four months. I am happy that they still visit my blog even if sometimes, I am not really inspired to write.  It also registered 206 more followers since August  with a total now of 3,566 though I must admit, there are only a few who regularly visit and make comments. That’s okay though. Around 90 of those are my followers at Twitter which are added to the numbers and around 35 friends who follow the site via e-mail. The latter don’t have WordPress accounts but they read my posts  through e-mail.

I’ve been here at  WordPress for more than nine years now and there were apps before that are no longer active.  WordPress used to comment how many blogs you have written for the day and how  good it was in their eyes. Oh yes, I used to get those words like fantastic, fabulous, beautiful, uplifting etc. They didn’t have those “likes” though and “re-blog” and “press this” were also non-existent yet.

This is my 2,477th post for this blog alone but if I were to add my  four other blogs, it  would probably be  close to 3,000.  Looking back, sometimes, I could not imagine writing all those posts. I could not even remember some of them now.  Maybe some posts are just repeats of the previous ones but with a little twist here and there.  But most are current events that happen in my life. Learned lessons and inspired moments that give life meaning.

For all of you who visit this blog and read my posts, a big THANK YOU.  Hoping for more blogging years  meeting more bloggers in the process.

 

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One Of Those Days

I was at the mall yesterday to buy some toiletries  and a Christmas gift for Oreo.  The latter is the last on my list. His favorite toy is a  stuffed head of a bear mounted on a stick. As you might have  guessed, the stick is gone now and what is left is the tattered head of the bear. I always wash it  but after two or three days, it gets dirty again. When you see it in his mouth and he comes near you, it’s time to play. Toss it somewhere and he’ll be quick to jump, run and bite one ear of the bear head and bring it back. Toss it again and the same thing happens until he is probably weary of it and will just sit besides you while you are watching the news on television.

When we are eating lunch or dinner, one seat is allotted to him. He will press his head at the side of the dining table with one paw folded and the other hanging out.  He won’t touch anything, it’s enough for him to watch us eat.  Try to put a cup of coffee for him to smell and he would turn his nose out.  He doesn’t like the smell of coffee…haha 🙂

Oreo with Nissa at the garden.

He has become playful though. I transferred some variegated white and green grass plants on a small pot for our side table. Gosh, he likes to chew those fresh leaves.  That is why I haven’t put up our tall Christmas tree, he might play with the trimmings that his mouth can reach.

Going back to the gift. I bought him a soft toy to play with and I have to wrap it first so he could open it on Christmas day. This is the first Christmas  that he will spend with us since we bought him a month after he was born.  Jovy is also planning that we will celebrate his first birthday come February.

He is currently asleep near me while I am writing this blog probably dreaming  of something more  to  chew come Christmas day.

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Icicles

I wonder why there are still no icicles/snowflakes falling on each  WordPress blog. It used to be when each December, you would see them fall gently and and it reminds  you of the special event that is Christmas.

 

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Living in Faith

In some blogs here, I featured St. Padre Pio Pietrelcina Chapel in Libis, Quezon City which we usually visit but not regularly. Then I saw this Christmas tree made out of probably thousands of different rosaries. Amazing 🙂

Thank you Philippine Star.

 

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Spelling Christmas

I always see these words everywhere. It seems as if the whole word is so hard to type that you have to write, “Merry Xmas”.   Christ with an X.  It’s just like those shortened version of text messages that sometimes you cannot understand.  How long will it take one to write the proper word with six letters compared to the four-letter word?

Accordingly, X can mean so many things. For example, when we want to denote an unknown quantity, we use the symbol X. It can refer to an obscene level of films, something that is X-rated. People seem to express chagrin about seeing Christ’s name dropped and replaced by this symbol for an unknown quantity X. Every year you see the signs and the bumper stickers saying, “Put Christ back into Christmas” as a response to this substitution of the letter X for the name of Christ.

There’s no X in Christmas

First of all, you have to understand that it is not the letter X that is put into Christmas. We see the English letter X there, but actually what it involves is the first letter of the Greek name for Christ. Christos is the New Testament Greek for Christ. The first letter of the Greek word Christos is transliterated into our alphabet as an X. That X has come through church history to be a shorthand symbol for the name of Christ.-  (Legonier Ministries)

I still prefer writing the word Christ though in Christmas, no abbreviations for me. It seems the meaning is lost when you just write X. Same thing with greeting someone with “Happy Holidays”.  Of course we know it is a holiday but for us Catholics, it’s a Holy Day.

So X is just the first letter of the Greek name for Christ.  Cristes Maesse or  “Christ’s Mass” is an old English term for “celebration of  Christ”.

Beyond the traditional festivities that we observe during December, Christmas reminds us of Jesus’ birth.  We start our nine-day Novena masses on the night of December 15 (for anticipated mass) and dawn masses early morning of December 16.  It’s a tradition for us. We call them Simbang Gabi or Misa de Gallo.  It is a unique Filipino celebration of  Christmas.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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More Veggies On The Table Please

My left ankle still hurts when I accidentally step on uneven surfaces at the garden. And here I thought it has healed well. Now I am afraid to use the ladder to trim the blue ternatea vine which is invading my kalamansi tree.  I am thinking my kalamansi tree might die it it becomes covered by  the vines. I could always plant new blue ternatea but it is hard to wait for kalamansi to bear fruits. It usually takes years.

The burgundy  okra I planted a few months ago is now bearing flowers and fruiting too. I wonder what’s the difference between the green one this, are they more nutritious.  Burgundy looks lovely though than the green. I took a photo this morning but the light was so bright, it came a little blurry. I don’t want t go back and take another shot again.

The three shrubs of pigeon peas are sprouting more branches when I trimmed the tips. Maybe in a few months, they’ll have those pods too. We locally call them “kadyos”. The young green pods could be mixed with other vegetables  while the matured but not dry seeds are usually mixed with chicken recipes.

This is how they look like when they are ready to cook.

photo culled from Market Manila

Would love to plant more veggies even in pots. Our trellis is ready again for hanging vines and vegetables like upo and ampalaya.  Still thinking which I should plant first.

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Busy, Busy Weekend

I have always said that when you are used to blogging every day, a day missed seemed like a week, right?

For two consecutive days during the weekend, I helped Jovy and Josef with the baking. They have so many orders and they also joined a bazaar over the weekend. It’s actually a hard job but when you like and appreciate what you do, you would enjoy it.

A close friend just dropped by a while ago to get her orders of five tins of dream cake.  Dark chocolate, white chocolate, ganache, you name it, we have them here. She loves it so much when I gave her a tin last month and she swore with its melt in the mouth goodness. The good thing about it is it is not too sweet, unlike those commercially sold chocolate cakes in the market. Pasti mallows are sometimes a hit too.  They just baked brownies with  easy melt white chocolate on top. We have to do with food ordered at our local Tapsihan corner here at the village because we had no time to cook, otherwise, it’s canned goods for a while.  It’s quite heartwarming to hear that they love what we bake.

I haven’t read in a while, for about three days now. An Absolutely Remarkable Thing is on my “currently reading” list.  It’s Goodreads’ Choice Award For Fiction and for Debut Author  for 2018. I didn’t expect to enjoy this, the story is so different from the other stories that I’ve read  before. I don’t actually read sci-fi fiction but this is somehow engrossing. I just don’t have enough time to read continuously.

It’s only two weeks more to go before Christmas and I have yet to wrap some of the gifts that I bought late.  It’s time too to think on what menu to prepare on Christmas Eve and  Christmas day.

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Dreams In Her Pocket

She thinks of the days passing by.

She hopes for better things to come.

Someday, she would write another poem.

Maybe talk about her pretty dog Noki

And her pet Oreo.

Maybe  she would cultivate a vegetable garden

More than the ornamental planted there.

She talks about finding more books to read.

More book reviews to write about.

Simple things that make life what it is.

Simple things that make one happy.

Joy is contagious when shared.

The laughter, the smiles, and conversations

Deep into the night.

She dreams one more time.

That life will treat her well

As the days go by.

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