What Life Is

Good morning blogger friends!

I woke up around 3am and could no longer sleep so I just waited for Josef to leave the house at 5am. He still works from home Thursday and Friday, same with Nissa but on different days.

I know, I am neglecting blogging. It used to be when I miss it when I don ‘t blog at least twìce a week. I told you before that I joined posting a blog a day back in 2011. I lost my badge somewhere. And when you blog every day, even such mundane things like writing about what you had for breakfast, lunch or dinner is worth-sharing. I think I am really growing old, I’ll be turning 66 in a few months. Would that be worth-celebrating? I think so even if my body is beginning to give up on me. Pains, unexpected laboratory results that I worry about. I’ve been through so many things – two major operations, chemotherapy, kidney bypass and the like. Still and all, I am still here standing tall. My kids and I have gone through twenty years without the hubby by our side except for one month every two years for vacation. He worked in KSA. I acted as the tatay con nanay of my two kids. He came home ten years ago only to leave us again for good for another woman. I’d like to think that I was strong enough facing these life’s challenges.

Every day is quite different, sometimes I feel sad, at other times exceedingly happy. I was even more elated when Nate came into our lives. Nowadays though, their monthly visits were cut short because of Covid-19. Nissa and I thrive on daily conversations on Messenger and occassional hi and hellos from Nate and Obet. The last time we saw each other was when my brother Alden died three months ago.

I still enjoy gardening but I could no longer trim the carabao grass because I feel exhausted after a few minutes cutting the grass so Josef is always to the rescue. I am glad though that I was able to transfer some of my plants in new pots. It still rains here every day. I hope September won’t bring too much rain that would cause flooding.

My stash of e-books are filing up. Right now, I am reading some books by James Patterson. Hopefully, I’ll finish the Goodreads’ challenge well and good by December.

Dawn is beginning to show a bright morning. Daily chores are at hand. Bye bye for now.

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Falling In Love?

And I don’t mean the romantic love that we all know and talk about.

Have you ever felt that certain kind of happiness that makes you smile every time you remember?  There are certain things in our lives, certain things that cost so little or none at all that make those smile painted on our faces.

I fall in love with a baby’s smiles and laughter. Those unguarded moments when he/she smiles at you and reach out his/her hands to touch, to feel, to make his/her self comfortable in your arms.

I fall in love with sunrises and sunsets. The wonder of the rising sun gently caressing your back and the beauty of the sunset signaling you to just admire it and take a rest. The beauty of an unexpected rainbow on a cloudy day. Those clouds passing by in a rapid move and you wonder what they’ll bring, rain or a glimmer of the sun’s face.

I fall in love with lovely surprises, kindness from people I have just met and thoughtful friends who never  fail to make you smile. Even meeting them once in a while, listening to their voices over the wire,  hugging and embracing them when you see each other.

Morning coffee or  tea at night while reading a lovely book and you fall in love with the characters and the place. And you wish you’ll attain the same success as they did in the story.

The heady scent of flowers in your garden  and the peace and quiet gardening brings. You fall in love with creating a lovely panorama of different plants, the wonderful feeling it brings to your quiet world.

The undivided attention you get from your pets.  The way they lick your face and your hands showing unconditional love and the non-judgmental  way they look at you. They bring so much joy within.

I fall in love with the music of yesteryears.  The nostalgic way you hum  a song because you have memorized the lyrics over the years.  The way you swing your head to the music, smiling and at peace listening and remembering those years that gave you joy.

Ah, I could go on and on but I’ll reserve them for another post. Have a great day everyone. Think happy thoughts always.

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Something Orange

Glitches again?

I don’t know what happened earlier today. For some reasons, I could not publish my post and when I opened another window and tried publishing it, only a third of it was published so I erased the whole thing because I could not even edit it.  Sometimes, it is just so frustrating when you’ve done something you need lots of patience in the process to finish.

Orange is not exactly  a favorite color but since time immemorial, I have loved things with the color orange. When I was done with my chemotherapy years ago, I blogged  about this color (twice) and one of my friends honored me by wearing orange polo shirt to work.  He sent me a picture with a small note attached to it.

Accordingly, “orange combines the energy of red and the happiness of yellow. It is associated with joy, sunshine, and the tropics. Orange represents enthusiasm, fascination, happiness, creativity, determination, attraction, success, encouragement, and stimulation. It is the color of fall and harvest”.

What inspired me to blog about it today? I saw these lovely orange blooms of my Cassandra plants while I was pruning and weeding early this morning and I took shot of one cluster of flowers. A vibrant and fiery orange bloom.

Sometimes I wish I could grow one color of blooms in my garden. I specially love white. It’s a good thing I have some of them but I miss my Gardenia bush. I don’t know if it is a coincidence again (something happened last week that made me smile and I asked my friend on FB if it was a coincidence. Wilma, you know about this, right?).  A friend, a mother of one of Nissa’s best friends sent me a picture of a lovely white flower and she thought I could identify it but  it was the first time that I saw it. She said that they grow  plants with scented flowers in the garden because her Mom likes  them.  Gosh, how did she know I was also thinking  of my Gardenia? All I have now by way of scents and smell are my Kamuning plant and the flowers of our two calamansi trees.  She told that she would plant some cuttings of their Gardenia and will give me one.  Wow! Dreaming of those heady scents again.

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Something New

I am excited to show you my two new air plants. They arrived today together with my air plant holders.

The two in front are called Tillandsia Ionantha while the one in the middle is Ionantha CV. One of the two latest additions would turn red when it matures and they produce flowers too. I am excited. Hopefully, they would grow healthy.

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More Books To Read

I’ve just finished a Patricia Cornwell book called Postmortem. It was my 109th read.  Fast paced and riveting. It’s a crime fiction.

This made me smile. Early this morning I saw the shout-out of one of my favorite authors Richard Paul Evans on Facebook, (we are online friends for a number of years now). His newest book is coming out on October 27 and I commented, “That’s my birthday”. And he answered, “That’s a sign Arlene”. Haha,  I am excited to get hold of it, if I could find a copy here.

My reading list was derailed again. I found more lovely books which are not really lined-up for me to read until the end of the year. The Prisoner of Heaven is a continuation of Daniel’s story in the Shadow of the Wind, Marina by the same author.  I am also looking forward to Memory Wall by Anthony Doerr.  He is that same author of All the Light We Cannot See which won Goodreads Choice 2014.  John Jakes’  The Warriors is also on the list  of my TBR. Pilgrim At Tinker Creek is  a memoir by  Annie Dillard. It will be the first time that I’ll read one of her books.  I guess I’ll start it tonight.

What have you been reading lately?

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Starting All Over Again

I lost most of the photos I uploaded on my documents in my computer. I should have copied them to my hard drive but I was so lazy. Anyway, at least some of them are still in my camera.

I could not concentrate reading until I master this block editor a bit. I am finally getting the hang of it. Hopefully in the next few days, I’ll be well acquainted to it.

Spent the time gardening the last two days. I was able to trim our carabao grass and plant more seedlings in the process. I actually ordered three air plants together with air plant holders at Lazada. Here’s the first one.

It is called Ionantha CV air plant. I hope I could propagate it someday. My order of different colors of Zinnia has just arrived from Lazada. I hope they thrive as well. I divided my Sedum, planted them into four pots. They love the sun.

People call those who love plants plantitos and plantitas here. I’ve been a gardener for too long to be called such, I’d rather be called a simple gardener.  Those who are crazy about those lovely plastic pots, some with even corrugated designs  just love to show off what they have planted.  I’d rather plant them direct to the soil if I can.

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Growing Things

I need potting bags or seedling bags.

My youngest brother and I had a nice talk last night.  We talked about gardening and he showed me his garden, his vegetable plot and some plants that Lanette, his wife is nurturing inside the house.  Some had LED lights focused on them so frost would not let them die.

I showed him several photos I took  of the garden. He was so impressed and suggested to have some  replanted so I could sell them too. Anyway, gardening is the “in” thing here now because most people stay in their homes with not much to do because of this pandemic. Why not indeed?

This morning, I transferred some Fish Eye  in five pots. Since I don’t have extra pots, I decided to order seedling bags at Lazada and  I plan to grow some cuttings of our  plants here.  I haven’t seen any Arius tree around except the one in our garden. Crossandras are self-propagating like crazy at the back of the house. Maybe I need to separate my Bichetti grass too into several pots. I need soil, looking for sellers on the net. My Shrimp plants and Syngonium need to be trimmed so I am thinking of propagating those too.  Bleeding Hearts are aplenty, so with my Fukien Tea plants.

My brother said, “start now so you would have something by December”.  He talked to  Alden, my brother who resides in the province and the latter told him about the plants they have sold lately there. Our garden in the province is quite big and my sis-in-law is an avid gardener too.

A friend promised to send me one of his plants this week – a gold moss stonecrop.  I saw their  garden and some are growing in bottles with water.  A few months ago, I sent him some seeds of our Ternatea plant for his collection of dragons. Yes, they eat flowers. Maybe, he is just returning the favor and I appreciate it.

Wanna sell seedlings? Why not? Gonna try it one of these days.

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Saturday Blues

Lazy, lazy afternoon! For the first time in so many days, I spent at least two hours in bed having a siesta. The afternoon was cold but it didn’t rain.

I opened the computer just to post the Bible readings for next week at our Catholic page in Facebook. Then I received this message from Fr. Pao, he is one of those anchors of Interaktib. The name of the program is Catholic Sync and they were in its first episode this morning. Catholic Sync is devoted to religious education and catechism.  Fr. Pao was  the speaker. He was introduced by  a brother at St. Paul . I was surprised when the latter said that Fr. Pao graduated Summa Cum Laude in his Theological studies. I told him he should be proud of it coz I  know how a parent feels having a child garnering  Latin honors.  He said Nissa must be a literati too. I told him in passing that she is a bookworm and very strict with grammar.

I finally finished the book I  Will Always Write Back last night. Beautiful, beautiful story. And there were real pictures of the authors which make the book more real.  Memoirs have always been fascinating reads  for me.

I set aside some books on my TBR list to read Sommersgate House by Kristen Ashley. Ghosts and reincarnation? Must be  intriguing.

And it’s a lazy evening, perfect time to have that hot cup of rice coffee.

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I Will Always Write Back

Intriguing title, right?

But I just borrowed from a book I am reading at the moment that I simply could not put down. It is actually a memoir  but it is a contemporary YA book.

Zimbabwe.

It’s the first time I read something about this country, formerly called Rhodesia, a land-locked country located in Southern Africa.

How one letter changed two lives is the main theme of this book. Two teens exchanging letters from two continents.  They are pen pals. A Zimbabwean boy and an American girl. The former is dirt-poor, on a hand to mouth existence  while the girl came from a well-off family. I cried so many times reading this book and I have only finished two-thirds of it but I can’t ignore writing about it. Besides, if I could, I promised myself to write every day until the end of September. Another challenge, I guess.

Caitlin and Martin –  and the lovely narrative simply written. I almost forgot that this is a memoir.

Back in college, I had an opportunity to meet two Japanese girls and an Australian  via pen pal writing. It came about when a fellow student librarian gave my name to them and they started writing to me. I could still remember their names until now – Junko Yao, Satomi Hasegawa and Suzanne Gilding. Wouldn’t it be nice if I could find them now? Junko was the more diligent writer and she sent me some packages before – Japanese green tea, chopsticks, Japanese candies, a hair accessory ( a lovely Japanese comb)  and stationeries. I am just sorry I stopped  corresponding with them when I started work at the bank.

I  Will Always Write Back is just an awesome read.

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Excited

Oh my!

This is exciting!

I finally got the Adenium seeds I ordered from Lazada. Just a trial if it would grow. When they do, I will order some more with multi-colored blooms. There is a bonus of three Sunflower seeds in the packet.

Anyway, I am keeping my fingers crossed they would all thrive. I planted them in small plastic pots.  Our compost pit is a big help. The pulverized leaves which turned into rich soil  has a lot of earthworms. Yeay 🙂

I found a page on Facebook called Adenium Growers of the Philippines. My, but they have lots of seedlings in different parts of the archipelago and like the grown ones with large caudex,  they are quite expensive. They can even ship to several places but the shipping fees are also sky-high. Grafted ones are the best. They could combine several colors in one plant.

Wish me luck please.

Oh, the drizzle  has just stopped. Just enough to water the grass and my plants.

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