Silence Speaks

 

To feel the soft breeze

to   see the gentle unfolding of the morning

to listen to the silence all around

priceless gifts that another day brings.

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New Year Blessings

Turning 58 at last!

I had a good eight hours of sleep last night and I thought when I woke up this morning, “so this is how it feels to be 58″.  Three weeks ago, one of my close friends came home for a short vacation and she insisted that we celebrate my birthday early since she was only given two weeks by her boss.  After deliberating on where to spend lunch and getting in touch with a few more friends, we finally settled at Vikings, Megamall, a luxury buffet restaurant that serves lunch and dinner but you need to  reserve seats  at least three or two days before going there. It was my second time to eat at Vikings but it was my first time to visit their Megamall branch. Last year, my daughter treated me to lunch in one of their branches in Marikina City. Vikings serves sumptuous feasts of delectable European, American, Japanese, Chinese and Filipino dishes. It is always a joy to discover something new that you haven’t tasted before. Birthday celebrators during the month are free of charge and they even have  this  singing duo to greet you happy birthday with a small cake to wish on. It was fun. The food was good and the company even better, priceless moments of togetherness with friends. Thank you sis Odette for the lovely treat.

At Vikings – SM Mega Fashion Hall, SM Megamall

I attended the 6am mass at Our Lady of Light Parish and when I reached home, my son was laboring over the hot stove preparing pasta.  He seldom cooks and this was his first time to cook spaghetti. Imagine, having pasta for breakfast with some slices of embutido as side dish.  He asked what my birthday wish was. Nothing tangible I said, just good health and happy moments with the family. Isn’t that what we always wish for? An appreciation of life and what it brings and the many small treasures that we collect as we traverse our journeys, we long for simple things that make  the heart happy.

After breakfast, it was a busy morning going back to the town proper with some neighbors to visit the mayor’s office, had coffee at McDo then went home exhausted to prepare lunch. I cooked  pancit habhab though and had some fresh veggie salad for dinner.  I missed some calls on my cellphone, answered  a lot of private messages on Facebook.  I don’t allow postings by others on my timeline except when they tag me and I have to approve it.  I am grateful for all their birthday wishes and prayers.

Desserts – rice cakes from Cainta

Who needs a birthday cake when you have this, the best kakanin  in town. Cainta is known as the bibingka capital of the Philippines.  Take your pick, they have it all.

My day ended with Nate’s shouts of “Love you Nonna” and “happy bet-day”. Thank You Lord for the gift of life, thank You for another year of blessings.

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Borrowing The Words Of Henri Nouwen

“When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares.”

Was it only a few days ago when I blogged about finding happiness in simple things? I found these wonderful words from Henri Nouwen (another favorite author) which exactly echo my own thoughts. Time and again, I’ve quoted the same words when I blog about friendship.Sometimes, you are lucky to be inspired by how other people see things, how they look at life from their end, how in one way or another, you feel that you are exactly at that same place and you smile because you are blessed.

My youngest brother and I love to talk about our younger years. Early this morning he asked me how I am going to celebrate my birthday. Will there be a party? At my age, you don’t call it a party but a gathering of friends  you are close to. You laugh out loud at some silly jokes but no one would really mind because they laugh at the same things. You shed a tear or two and they also get teary-eyed while sharing their own unique journeys.  Kindred souls…that’s who we are.  They lift you up when things seem to be not right in your world and they are not blind to your faults.  I look forward to seeing them again soon.

I found this lovely meme from one of my friends’ timeline.  How true!  It’s from lessonslearnedinlife.com.

lessonslearnedinlife.com

You’re lucky when you find a friend who celebrates with you at your best and be there for you at your worst.

 

 

 

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Bonding With Friends

“When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares.” – Henri Nouwen

Henri Nouwen, another favorite writer has exactly describe what a real friendship is – those moments when just being there for a friend would be enough, those moments when just holding their hands is a comfort in itself.

I meet lots of people at the Catholic page I manage with a priest friend and a lay minister, most of them OFW workers from different parts of the globe. Through the years that I help manage the site (it’s been four years now), I have met a few who have become close to me where we manage to see each other once in a while. When we do,  the day is not enough to catch on with each  other’s news. We share on how life has been but often we  talk about our beliefs and our joy in our journey with God.  Last Saturday is one such day I will treasure in my heart. Visiting Padre Pio Chapel always gives me a wonderful feeling of peace and happiness and it was even more magnified spending it with a few close friends that I treasure.  They call me Ate, Tita, Mommy and Ms. A. I don’t mind really because they are affectionate ways  of telling me I am loved. It’s more  of  sharing and laughter, sometimes we cry at those moments of weakness remembering what we’ve been through, sometimes we laugh our hearts out telling simple stories. We cry, we laugh and embrace each other in a show of faith  and love.

Pho Hoa Vietnamese Noodle House at Eastwood City

Pho Hoa is a Vietnamese restaurant that serves authentic Vietnamese food. We tried their Pomelo Shrimp Salad (the best there is) with a simple dressing, fresh spring rolls, grilled chicken and grilled pork with fried spring rolls, noodles, mango crepe with ice cream, buko pandan salad.  I love the banana fritters with caramel.  As if the fulfilling lunch was not enough, we had a quick snack at Yellow Cab Pizza. We laughed at some remembered moments during our first two gatherings at Sto. Domingo Church, we talked of catechism 101 (seriously).

Yellow Cab Pizza, Eastwood.

Moments of bliss. And when friends meet, hearts warm.

BTW, this is my 1490th blog per WordPress count. Happy Tuesday to all :)

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Hello!

I haven’t visited this corner for a while. No particular reason though except that I’ve been busy the past days. It’s Lent and I have to make advance  posts and do some research  for my apostolate at Apostles Filipino Catholic Community in which I am one of the admins. We now have  an astounding 51,000 members with a total reach of around 5 million views daily. We’re definitely growing.

Last Wednesday, some friends and I had a wonderful lunch at Max’s in SM Megamall. One of our members came home from Canada and she treated us  to lunch. I love bonding with them, we could talk about any topic under the sun, catching up on each other’s lives after almost three years – precious moments filled with laughter and sharing. One day is not always enough for all the things that we have to catch up on.  Friends are wonderful gifts from above. It was also my first time to visit the chapel located at the 5th floor of Megamall. One of these days, I would love to attend a mass at the Chapel of the Eucharistic Lord.

One thing that I always notice every time there is a slack in my blogging is, it’s quite hard to write again.  One somehow loses the momentum of sharing one’s thoughts.  Oh well, sometimes, I feel so lazy to sit in front of my computer and think.  Apart from doing research, I have gone back to reading e-books.   Who knows, I may even reach my goal of 70 books to read this year. I am keeping tab of it  so I would know.  Right now, I am on my 17th book and just finished a wonderful one yesterday entitled The Help. I am less inclined to make a review though because I am excited to read the next book on my list. Finally, I was able to watch the movie adaptation of Markus Zusak’s  The Book Thief.  Read it four years ago and it was one of the best read I ever had. One can’t compare the movie versus the book because definitely, the book is more detailed but the acting is also superb and charming. Sophie Nelisse is perfect as the protective and loving Liesel.  I cried reading the book and watching it onscreen is equally touching.

It’s my grandson’s 16th month today but that would be in another blog.

 

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The Best Gifts

Oh, the comfort – the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person – having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but pouring them all right out, just as they are, chaff and grain together; certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and then with the breath of kindness blow the rest away.”
-  Dinah Maria Mulock Craik

I’ve been a lazy bug lately. No, don’t get me wrong. I am just resting my weary body from fatigue. The last few days, I was so busy that I was not able to check my blog and post something.  Finally, I found time to sit here for a while  and update my blog. When you haven’t been blogging for a week, it seems as if you’re starting all over again.

It’s all worth it though because our little potluck  lunch party was a success – lots of food, laughter and sharing. Those precious and priceless moments that only friends can enjoy together, something worth-reminiscing and the thought of it makes me smile.  We were joined by two priest friends, Fr. Tacky, a Franciscan and Fr. Boy, a Dominican. Not that it matters that they belong to different congregations because  they both studied in Rome and met there.  We took lots of pictures of course, what’s a party without those wacky poses and shots that make us laugh. We even have to use a tripod so we could all fit into the frame. There is this picture window  at our house that never fails to attract our friends and visitors to have their pictures taken there. Believe me, it has become some sort of trademark for the members  of our Catholic community  who drop by when they are on vacation.

We had an exchange of gifts just for fun. Imagine the laughter we had when we simultaneously opened them and found things like a roll of tissue paper which Darlene said she will take with her on her trip back to Abu Dhabi, a small bottle of efficascent oil from Reena  which Matt got, packs of marshmallows  and so many more. What do you think, the gift should only be worth P30 and what can you buy with P30?  Reymon, aside from bringing three whole roast chicken gave us individual bags of gifts from Bench.

They were surprised to learn that eating green mango with the skin on is the best way to eat one. I asked Joan to bring me some and when they saw me eating a slice, they all tried it  except Matt :)  Endless laughter!

We can’t get enough so the party extended on to early dinner with ice cream, Fuji apples  and suman na pinipig (the best  suman I’ve tasted) for desserts. And they all said, “sa uulitin”.  Until next time guys.

One of the best gifts that we could ever have is the gift of friendship.

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Ready, Set, Go

Call me a little OC when it comes to entertaining but as much as possible I see to the tiniest details that are sometimes overlooked when one is a bit busy in the kitchen. This morning, I made a list of the things I need to do and posted it where I could check everything before my friends arrive tomorrow. Earlier on, we have decided on a potluck lunch and merienda  but I will prepare baked macaroni with meatballs and marble potatoes with ham and cheese spread.  I was busy the whole day despite an occasional headache that makes me rest after each task that I finish. They say they are okay with disposables – paper plates, plastic spoons and forks and whatever you can use to save on washing later. I am not used to it though so I washed two dozens of china ware, several Pyrex  trays, three dozens of spoons and forks  and lots of drinking glasses.  Never mind that there will be chaos when the party is over, I just don’t want to balance my food precariously on a delicate paper plate, one wrong move and everything topples over.  Neither do I want using plastic spoon or fork that sometimes breaks  in the middle while you are eating.  I think that’s more practical when you are attending a children’s party or a pica-pica type of food, when kids can’t handle a big plate nor hold a glass safely in their hands.

I’m looking forward to meeting all of them again.  Hopefully, this would be a success. There is always a certain kind of joy in meeting friends, kindred souls who would make you smile even if they tell  and share with you the ugliest anecdotes , repeated stories that become longer with the retelling.  At least four of them are coming here for the first time.

I am excited.

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