Thank God It’s Friday

Hey friends, I am back after almost a week of not even visiting WordPress until now.

It is summer here now and it is so hot. We are due for some house repairs and supposed repainting but then again I am so lazy to contact a carpenter to do the job.

Alden is in the hospital at the moment. He had colonoscopy yesterday and ultrasound this morning. They will probably go home this afternoon. They are renting a room for my niece who serves as their runner when they need something from outside the hospital. He is in a three-bed ward so only one companion is allowed. He had to have another blood transfusion before his scheduled colonoscopy. I am praying he could recover soon. Please pray for him. Thank you so much.

I don’t think this is funny. VP LENI was interviewed a few days ago and they asked her about her favorite book. She said To Kill A MockingBird then went on to explain why. She was influenced by it on becoming a lawyer. Those detractors who don’t even know the title of the book bashed her again saying that she didn’t answer the question. She did but knowing how they seem to be all-knowing, they probably thought that To Kill A Mockingbird is not the title. It is just so annoying that these pretenders don’t even know a good book. If you are a reader, you remember the story and the title of the book which is your favorite, right? Which reminds, I like to reread that book one of these days. I don’t know where my copy got to.

Talking of being lazy, I finished three books by David Baldacci lately, The Fix, The Fallen and Long Road to Mercy. They are all so captivating. Enjoyed the read. I am doing some spiritual readings too for Lent. Watched a new episode of the Fourteen Stations of the Cross at the Hundred Islands in our province in Pangasinan.

By the way, today is April Fools Day and I am again reminded of the song The April Fools.

In an April dream
Once you came to me
When you smiled I looked into your eyes
And I knew I’d be loving you
And then you touched my hand
And I learned April dreams can come true

Are we just April fools
Who can’t see all the danger around us
If we’re just April fools
I don’t care, true love has found us nowLittle did we know
Where the road would lead
Here we are a million miles away from the past
Travelin’ so fast now
There’s no turning back
If our sweet April dream doesn’t last

Are we just April fools
Who can’t see all the danger around us
If we’re just April fools
I don’t care, we’ll find our way somehow
No need to be afraid
True love has found us now

There you go. HAPPY APRIL 😘🌷💐🛻🌞

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Something Nice….Memories

I dreamt again of the old house my maternal grandparents had in the province. I remember that in each window, Hoya orchids were always in bloom. One of my aunts (who is now 98 years old) took charge of growing plants while my oldest aunt had a small sari-sari store in our barrio then.

My brothers and I spent the first four years of our elementary school in our barrio except our youngest. When we three older kids were already in high school at the University of Santo Tomas, my youngest brother was transferred to the public school near our place in Quezon City.

I remember those years spending the first six years in a public school. I started in Grade one, no nursery, no kindergarten. It was just a two-room school house with two teachers. Grade one and Grade two were in one room while the upper grades were in the other. One of our teachers was mom’s first cousin.

Being in a public school here is very different from spending in a private school. In the former, we were taught to take care of the plants planted in the school yard. I spent my last two years of grade school in our town proper. My classmates and I were divided into groups because after school hours, we were obliged to clean the room. Since the flooring was wood, we waxed it every Friday and used coconut husk to clean it.

Us girls had this Home Economics subject where we were taught to keep house, cook, embroider, crochet and make a simple budget. I love that separate building where we spent our H.E. class. It was complete with a bedroom, a small comfort room, living and dining rooms where we had our classes and a tiny kitchen where we learned to make fruit preserves.

I got a shock of my life during my first year in high school. I was a probinsiyana and my classmates then came from different schools in Manila and chose University of Santo Tomas to finish high school. Back in our time, it was not even a co-ed institution. We were separate from the boys. They belonged to the afternoon session. We even had separate entrance and exit. I enjoyed my nine-year stay in UST. Took up BSC Economics and worked as a student librarian for three years. Hence the love of books.

Oh, oh, remembering the years, the life of a younger Arlene.

Happy weekend.

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Sunday, Sweet Sunday

Today is the first Sunday of Lent. We renew our baptismal vows and renounce satan. Our godparents did it for us when we were baptized when we were babies.

My goodness, it seems that blogging has temporarily lost its appeal for me. It’s been a while. I have been catching up on my reading. I found new authors, discovered some awesome books too. For the first time I read Blindness by Jose Saramago, an intriguing and interesting story about people who were struck blind in their community and how they struggled to keep alive. It reminds me of the pandemic we have right now. I also found a copy of Robert Frost’s The Road Not Taken. His poems are like short stories complete with dialogue about ordinary things. I have finished 28 books so far this year.

Been busy too uploading our Catholic page and two more private pages of which I am one of the admins.

I took some photos of my garden blooms and trimmed some plants. It is almost summer and my plants are beginning to bloom again. Sometimes I water the garden twice a day because the last few days have been sunny and hot during the day.

We are all observing Lenten abstinence even if mom and I are already exempted from eating meat because we are seniors. One has to give up something too and alms-giving is also recommended.

Happy and blessed Sunday everyone.

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Sunday, Sweet Sunday

Today is the first Sunday of Lent. We renew our baptismal vows and renounce satan. Our godparents did it for us when we were baptized when we were babies.

My goodness, it seems that blogging has temporarily lost its appeal for me. It’s been a while. I have been catching up on my reading. I found new authors, discovered some awesome books too. For the first time I read Blindness by Jose Saramago, an intriguing and interesting story about people who were struck blind in their community and how they struggled to keep alive. It reminds me of the pandemic we have right now. I also found a copy of Robert Frost’s The Road Not Taken. His poems are like short stories complete with dialogue about ordinary things. I have finished 28 books so far this year.

Been busy too uploading posts at our Catholic page and to two more private pages of which I am one of the admins.

I took some photos of my garden blooms and trimmed some plants. It is almost summer and my plants are beginning to bloom again. Sometimes I water the garden twice a day because the last few days have been sunny and hot during the day.

We are all observing Lenten abstinence even if mom and I are already exempted from eating meat because we are seniors. One has to give up something too and alms-giving is also recommended.

Happy and blessed Sunday everyone.

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TGIF

Just had a meeting with our chief admin and another admin at our Catholic page. Fr. Louie laid out his plans for our page in the next days until Holy Week.

I am now beginning to earnestly appreciate Zoom, whereas two months ago, I didn’t know how to use the app. Being active in our Catholic page and another Catholic group which I am admin is a big help in my life. I am learning a lot, gaining new friends in the process.

There are more people you’ll meet along life’s road, some would teach you a lesson, you make beautiful memories with a few, you laugh with many. I met a new friend at Sambuhay Interaktib, a co-admin actually, who have the same taste of books as I do. She has also read most inspirational books that I have read before. It is always fun to reminisce and remember. She writes too. There is no dull moment when we get the chance to talk.

I have been more active reading (done fourteen books) than visiting this blog. Sorry if I am quite slow in responding to your posts.

It’s Friday again, some of us always look forward to weekends. Have a lovely and blessed one.

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Happy Weekend

Finally done gardening yesterday. A back-breaking job but it has to be done.

I bought five pieces solar garden lights but for the past two days we didn’t have enough sunlight to charge them fully. They need at least eight hours in full sun. Sayang! I am excited seeing the garden illuminated at night.

Jovy told me last night not to cook anymore for lunch because they ordered lechon pork belly. It’s the latest craze now here but we haven’t tried it yet. The belly is tied like a roll and cooked slowly in charcoal. They marinate it first before grilling.

It was only yesterday that we said goodbye to some food we had for New Year. I ordered dried fish online and milkfish from the vendor who passed by yesterday and made them into daing na bangus. Yummy dish paired with sliced tomatoes and boiled sweet potato leaves.

How was your New Year celebration? Do you still make New Year’ resolution. I don’t anymore but I promised myself to read another 100 books this year. Done with four.

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A Blessed Weekend To All

Just a thought: At the rate this pandemic is going, we might be able to reach more than 300,000 before  September ends. So really, really sad. And because it is so expensive to stay in the hospital for treatment, many probably don’t seek medical help anymore. 

Finally, Josef and I were able to prune the Eugenia, Fookien Tea plants and Tagaytay cherries.  The garden is looking good now, bagong gupit….haha!

He helped me pick kalamansi and we were able to harvest those at the top since he used a ladder to pick them. We harvested almost two kilos of ripe ones and gave some to our neighbors. I also made juice out of it. So soothing. Lots of vitamin C there.

I was supposed to end up reading the three books of  Pooh for my year-ender  reading challenge at Goodreads but I only finished one because I got distracted again by another book called  The True Story of Hansel and Gretel  by Louise Murphy. A reimagined fairy tale  and a war story retold.  It happened in the region in Eastern Poland  which was overrun  first by Russians then the  Germans during WWII.

“In prose both luminous and enlightening, Murphy explores the power of memory, the necessity of love in times of great trauma, and the redemption that can come about through the refusal to erase one’s own past. This is the tale of two brave children who never give up, of women who refuse to be defined by convention, and of the bitter cost of survival. Over the course of the winter, Hansel and Gretel will come of age. Their mother dead, their father and stepmother in hiding, by necessity forced to alter their own identities, they become survivors.”  (from Penguin Books).

And I agree with the other reviewers, this is a fairy tale rewritten for adults and I can’t put it down.  I’ve always been attracted to reading historical fiction. It is also classified as a literary fiction and fairy tales.

Indeed, it is a heartening  message of hope.

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Saturday, Saturday ( I Am Looking For A Copy Of Libertine’s Destiny)

Yeay, even if the rest of the week are not that busy, weekends I think are still the best. Even if Jovy and Josef work from home, midweeks are quite a little bit toxic than weekends. Time to relax and pamper yourself drinking tea and  applying Jeju Aloe Ice on your skin, savouring the ice cold lotion. It is better applied when it is cold.

I am still reviewing my earlier posts. I am in the middle of 2015  and I am definitely enjoying reading them again –  the days spent with Nate picking calamansi and staying in  the garden, the quiet days  and blissful nights of reading, time spent discovering new books, conversations with  friends, glimpses at Facebook etc.

Last Thursday night, I told Fr. Pao that it was like I had my own segment in their program Interaktib.  I contributed three random excerpts from my blog and they collated it before reading on air. I remember Brother Ed saying “eto na ang quotable quotes”. Haha! I  am also enjoying their show, pampatanggal stress talaga, lots of laughter coupled with news of our Catholic faith.

Previously, I blogged about this. Until now, I am looking for a copy of P. Anciers’ Libertine’s Destiny. I read it when I was in college. The Humanities Section of UST had only one copy and it was always out. Every time a student returns it, there is always another student who would like to borrow it. I should have looked for a copy long ago and bought one too. It is no longer in circulation. Even a reading group at Goodreads is on the lookout for this particular book. All I remember is that it was  set during WWII.   Has anyone of you read it previously? It was serialized long ago in a  women’s magazine here.

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Yeay, It Is Almost Two Months

Staying home for more than two months now. I don’t know, since the enhanced community quarantine, I’ve been reluctant to go out even just at the nearby talipapa  two streets away from our house inside our subdivision.  It is where we buy our food, necessities in the kitchen like pork, chicken  and other veggies. I learned to transact online the last two or three weeks and they deliver them here right at the gate.  Eggs are sold by trays (30 pieces). Many homeowners have become small entrepreneurs providing necessities to homeowners who don’t want or cannot go out because of the lockdown.  You can order cooked food for lunch or dinner along with different kind of snacks on the go. Most of them deliver for free but when you order from a different place aside from our town via Grab Food, delivery fees are included in your bill. But that is just to be expected since they spend time outside risking their health to go grocery shopping for you or to buy cooked food from open establishments that only provide take-out, no eating inside their places.  Just have enough cash at home to meet your needs.

I miss going to the church and attending Sunday masses.  Although masses in different churches are held almost every hour online via live streaming, you cannot go to communion and I miss that. There is a talk that they will extend this lockdown for another two weeks, I am all for it but barangay and local town mayors should also be strict in its implementation. So many people are still on the streets. So many people still go out every day.

It’s getting harder to imagine when we start to begin life “normally”  again. Until they find vaccines for this virus, we are left thinking how many days more we have to get through  this “new normal” aspect of our lives.  I want to share with you this photo I took nine years ago when we celebrated Mother’s Day.  It’s of Nissa and Josef, now we have Nate.

Keep safe friends! Be mindful of your health 🙂

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Another Week Is About To End

My, my but it is too hot. It is definitely summer now. I am not much into following the weather since this Covid lockdown has started.

We have two workers here at the moment, they’re fixing the locks of our bedroom doors and installing an aircon unit at the other room.  It is just a small .5HP inverter type air con, good enough for a small room. Since Jovy and Josef are working from home now, they need a cooler room for work convenience.  Oreo misses the window to our dirty kitchen, he has no more window to look out to when I am cooking.

I am so lazy to blog again. It’s been two days since I last visited here. Trying to find nice but short fiction books that would tide me over in the next week or two.  So lazy to cook too. We ordered lunch at McDonalds,  placed an online order for snacks and for dinner.

Lockdown was extended for another two weeks until May 15. I hope they would concentrate on testing  possible COVID 19 individuals so they could flatten this curve that they have been reporting now and then.

How are you friends? Keep safe always.

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