A Simple Prayer 26

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It’s My 16th Year On WordPress

WordPress sent me a congratulatory note and a reminder that I am on my 16th year of blogging now. I do appreciate it.

The truth is I opened WordPress sixteen years ago with a lone poem culled from my journal upon the recommendation of a friend I met at Multiply. I loved that platform. I only had about a hundred friends who really engaged and commented on my posts there. I really don’t celebrate  March 13 as the start of my blogging journey here, instead, I like to remember May 09, 2009 when I got brave enough to experiment, customize my blog, choose a theme and transfer some previous entries I did on Friendster and Multiply. To add those years I stayed in those platforms,  I’ve been blogging for seventeen years now.

I actually started journaling when I was in college. That pink journal is now a tattered one with its spine and pages so yellowed from constant use before. Can’t really believe I lasted this long writing about my journey as a cancer survivor, sharing my plight having six cycles of chemotherapy, indisposed for almost a year because of its effect on my body. I’d like to think that between 2010 and 2013 were my most productive years. I met so many people in the same predicament as I was. I was bold and brave enough to join the Post A Day Challenge back in 2011 and that’s when my stats soared. I earned a badge for it from WP but I don’t know where it is now.That was when, I used to earn an average of 300 to 400 views a day. Still wondering how I’ve written those posts religiously every day. Sometimes I look back and I loved those posts I did before. Sharing something about life, my family,  my hopes, dreams and faith in a loving God.

Thank you to my followers and to the online friends I met over the years. I appreciate the engagement of my loyal online friends. As I have said over and over again, blogging has become a way of life for me. It lifted me up during those somehow boring days when I had so much time in my hands. I learned a lot reading other blog posts, admiring their gifts as writers and oh, those so lovely and beautiful photos they have shared through the years, the places I visited through their blogs, the book reviews  and knowing that some bloggers are also voracious readers like I am.

Sixteen years, I am dreaming of blogging still in ten year’s time. Dreams do make us reach those seemingly impossible tasks over the years.

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Hmm, Social Media

I am not being mean but these are just my plain observations using social media for so long. Let’s take a particular look of one such,  Facebook.  I am not against the use of it since I became a member around late 2009. At first it was a lovely way of getting to know and getting in touch again with long-lost friends, friends and relatives living abroad, meets with soon to be friends, my own family members living far from me and such. I particularly love Messenger, as long as one is online, you ‘ll get free calls and messages any time of the day or   night sometimes.

I could not give it up although at times it is so exasperating to look at my newsfeed. You see, I am one of the admins of a Catholic page for almost fourteen years now and also an admin of two Catholic groups. I personally  met some of my friends through the page and the groups. Facebook has changed through the years. Before, I used to see inspirational quotes from pages that I follow but for the past year or so, Facebook has become so noisy. I could no longer see those pages and most of my friends’ walls unless I find and click the sites. Everyone has become content creator? They are using Tiktok to the max probably thinking that it is a good app. I don’t think so. Never mind that the video is blurred most of the time and so fast.

One of my friends, a teacher at that makes it a point to post her photos almost every day and one is not enough, there are about five or six images in one posting all showing her face. I have a cousin who does the same thing and even added those apps altering one’s face through Magic Swap, Photolab etc. Then Facebook posts those sites that you may want to follow and they do that every day. Finally, I found that clicking those sites you don’t want to see every day and snoozing them for thirty days did it. I could now see those sites that I used to admire and like. General cleaning, that’s for thirty days or so…haha🤩

One thing good about Facebook is allowing Catholic churches to create their own pages and broadcasting their masses online every day at different  hours. I can choose which church to visit. A big help really  since I am using hearing aids. I love the Historical Fiction site too since most members  post titles of books that they have enjoyed reading. Being a reader, it is a plus for me. I love Memories too  and making albums where I keep my photos.

I guess Facebook is here to stay but I still prefer WordPress. I’ve given up Twitter long ago, don’t have InstaGram, I no longer have an account at Photobucket,  my Goodreads is active and I have ReadMe app for e-books.

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Thank God It’s Friday

I purposedly didn’t write a post yesterday. I went out to buy maintenance medicines and  some sore throat lozenges that function like antibiotics so they are costly. I’ve got colds again sometimes accompanied by coughs. The weather is stifling. Almost every day, you can’t see clouds in the sky. I also bought some groceries.

Done reading another book by  Tessa Afshar called Pearl In The Sand. Rahab, the main  character in the book was, according to the book of Joshua, a Gentile woman who lived in Jericho. She was a prostitute, a harlot who helped two spies escaped Jericho and because of her faith, she and her family were saved when the walls of Jericho were destroyed. A glimpse of God’s love is shown in almost every page.

In the New Testament, Rahab is lauded both as an example of a saint who lived by faith in God. I want to find Afshar’s other book entitled Land of Silence.

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Diabetic Eats

I just had a healthy dinner  of four slices of fish embutido (tasted like milkfish), lumpiang togue (from SM Mart) and a half cup of oatmeal. I have to take my food supplements at least thirty minutes before breakfast, lunch or dinner and at least two hours before or after medication. Coffee or tea are not  allowed two hours before too. Even rice is not allowed during dinner. I only eat rice once a day either during breakfast or lunch. I noticed that I always have a good sleep taking these food supplements. Praying that they would really help lower my diabetes and flush out my gall stones. The latter have been there even before my sigmoid surgery fourteen years ago but my doctor explained that having two operations in one go was not good for my recovery. He likened the two like windows, the gallstones at the upper level and my cysts in the colon at the ground floor.  Most of us have gallstones and not bothered by them unless they begin to move in other areas that affect our health.

I decided to postpone my lab tests as required by  the naturopath practitioner since it is just two weeks away from the lab request of my endocrinologist and they are almost the same. It’s like killing two birds with one stone. I am feeling good, thank God.❤️🙏🏻👏

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Another Winner

Since I finished my fourth project a few days ago, I started with Jovy ‘s gift, a 20cm x 20cm Paint  by Numbers canvas, the prints  are just too small so when I finished two-thirds of it,  I was ready to give up.

I switched to my other hobby, reading. I started The Book of Lost Names by Kristin Harmel yesterday and finished it just a while ago. It is a historical fiction that I loved.

The Book of Lost Names is Harmel’s take on the true story of the brave citizens of war in France during Germany’s occupation  during WWII.  How a young girl through the French resistance learns how to  skillfully forge documents and helps save the lives of countless innocent French citizens. It is a romantic historical fiction that shows the power of resilience, hope and love.

I started reading the books of Kristin Harmel a few years ago. I particularly loved The Parish Daughter, The Forest of Vanishing Stars and The Life Intended.

I set aside reading this book for a long time because I have more interesting ones on my TBR list. It has two timelines, 2005 which is the present and the 1940’s  in the past.  Two forgers  inscripted the names of the children in a book so time won’t forget them. It was inspired by real life French forgers during the WWII.

Eva Traube Abrams was a semi-retired librarian in Florida. She was shelving books one morning when she saw a photograph in a magazine, an image of a book she hasn’t seen in sixty-five years. The 28th century religious text was thought to have been taken from France  by Germany during the waning days of war. Thus begins the recall of a story of  Eva and another handsome forger named Remy . They kept the record of names when they forged the documents of children who were too young to remember who they really were.

Life turns on the decisions we make, the single moments that transform everything.

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Moon Rising

When the moon is low

You can see the sky

Brightest with its glow.

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Fading Moon

It’s a white orb in the sky

With its faint glow

When the sun shines

It slowly loses its light.

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Doing Everything Out Of Love

Do you enjoy your job?

I like the question so I’ll answer it briefly. Maybe you are referring to a day job, an 8am to 5pm that you have to report to from Monday to Friday and Saturday even, if you have overtime. I did that years ago but I retired from it when I was 43. What? You mean too early? But family comes first, right? Since we couldn’t find good helpers anymore, I have to stay  at home and take care of my family. After all these years, I no longer miss commuting and going to an office job everyday wearing corporate attire that goes with being a unibanker.

But if you ask if I enjoy staying at home and doing everything for my kids, I don’t consider it a job  rather it is an obligation done out of love. Believe me, there is nothing glamorous about preparing meals every day, cleaning  the house, sweeping the yard, watering the plants, sometimes doing odd jobs too but I have enjoyed doing them over the years. I enjoy grocery shopping at our village store. When I need something that isn’t there, I go to the mall and to the supermarket. I like our home spick and span always.

I always have the “me” times that perhaps other people don’t have. I indulge myself with hobbies that I enjoy. Reading has become a priority too. Lately, I am enjoying painting by numbers. Yesterday, I was talking to Nissa and she promised me that she’ll buy a diamond painting kit so I could try doing it too. Blogging is a daily activity that I enjoy. When I feel so lazy to cook, I order food online from some neighbors in our village and they deliver it free of charge. They send the list of their menu for the day that I could choose from. They are a lot cheaper than ordering outside.

Life is a happy life with the family. Although Nissa, Obet and Nate are far from us, I still enjoy getting in touch through Messenger.

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We Were There

We were there.

That is the last sentence you would read in the The Women by Kristin Hannah. She is one of those authors I follow on Goodreads. This is a story of a war veteran nurse who served in Vietnam for two years during the Vietnam war back in the seventies.

A fellow blogger and an online friend wrote about her own review of the book. I was in the middle of reading it when she posted it.

I was already in college  (1973 ) when I learned of the Vietnam War with the US but according to my research, it started in 1959 up to 1975. And like the rest of world happenings, you just didn’t concern yourself with it as long as you are not directly affected. It was on the news alright  but it was just that, a part of the news reel that you see on television. It was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on April 30,1975.

Hannah’s book was based on the real happenings in Vietnam. According to her, it took her a year to write it based on real life stories of people who have been there. I can just imagine the atrocities done to the US war veterans who went home either in coffins, lost of limbs, suffering from the effects of war, struggling with tragedies, PTSD and the like. Vietnamese civilians and especially children were victims too.

The Women gave me a glimpse of how life was back then. When these women came home, they were looked down with disdain and some people even said that there were no American women involved in the Vietnam War. Most of them were nurses. They found it hard to start a normal life again after coming home.

It took the US government a decade to dedicate a memorial to all those war veterans. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial is located on the National Mall in Washington, DC. The memorial consists of three parts: the Vietnamese Vetersns Memorial Wall, the Three Servicemen Statue and Flagpole and the Vietnam Women’s Memorial.

I know I  listed the books I want to read from my TBR list on a previous blog post but when I saw the nice and not so good reviews of the book on the Historical Fiction page on Facebook, I just have to get hold of it. It took me almost a week to read it in between painting my new project.  Next on my list is Still Life by Sarah Winman, a new author for me.

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