What If?

The sun is late in showing its face today. I visited the garden for a while. Oh, the sweet scent of  my Kamuning. And the Gardenia is showing those tiny green buds. They usually bloom in the month of May. My Amazon Lily is blooming too. I love  white flowers. Add the white Shamrock blooms. It is all white in the garden.

I met Randall online years ago when he visited Tacloban after the onslaught of typhoon Haiyan known in the Philippines as typhoon Yolanda. It was one of the most powerful tropical cyclones ever recorded.  Randall took lots of pictures at the devastation that happened there.  We became friends online following each other’s posts. He seldom blog about his journeys in different places mostly in Asia but there is always a lovely write-up of his wonderful photography. He  lately blogged about his journey entitled The Road Taken and several wonderful photographs. Such wonderful musings. You can reach him at Global Sojourns Photography – https://dalocollis.com

Talk about choices in life, the roads we decide to take instead of the usual ones people do. See the importance of focusing on the process (journey) rather than the outcome (destination). The poet Ralph Waldo Emerson is credited with the phrase “life is a journey“. Randall  talked about the “what if” in life. I told him I blogged about it before and he said he wants to read it. Sad to say, I could no longer find the title and exact date of the post.

What if we did choose those seemingly unpopular choices but gave us a more concrete end result? What if we didn’t dare to do what we had in mind and regrets  came late? What if we just accept things as they are without challenging them at all? Possibilities are endless, afterall, life is a great challenge to journey through.

Read Full Post »

Sunny Morning

The sun is slowly showing its face

Blue replacing the orange hue of the dawn

I would like to start the day right

Smiles while humming  an old song

Look, look, feel the balmy air.

It bites the skin

A signal to start

A new day again.

Read Full Post »

Adjusting…Still

Would you believe, since I’m alone in the house when Josef and Jovy report to work three times a week, for the last two weeks, I wake up at 3am when they come home and it is hard to go back to sleep again. But then, sometimes at 6:30pm I am already asleep.

By 6am, I’ve done my routine of cleaning the house, preparing a small breakfast, sweeping the yard, filling our overhead tank and sometimes watering the plants when it doesn’t rain at night. I am not yet used to having so much time in my hands without my mom around. I simply miss our rituals of having breakfast together and preparing morning coffee when she wakes up. Nakakapanibago!

Early this morning, I changed the curtains and throw pillow cases in our living room. Next would be the dining area and kitchen. Josef and Jovy have Korean blinds on their windows, one less task to do. Thinking of putting that album about mom, her solo pics gathered through the years.

We will bring her remains home next week and have it blessed by the parish priest in our town before we proceed to the cemetery. Some of my friends, Nissa and I have mass offerings for her. Even one of my aunts on my father’s side did a novena for her.

Perhaps I’ll get back to reading again. Planning of having the house repainted in the next few months as soon as I can find an all-around carpenter to do the job.

I really don’t like this feeling of going home to bury our dead. This is the second time in more than a year that we will do so.

Bless us O Lord.

Eternal rest grant unto my mom O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon her. May she rest in peace. May almighty God bless the family with peace and strength. In the name of the Father, and of the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen❤️💕🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻💐🌸

Read Full Post »

Random Thoughts ( A Repost)

*Our eyes met

You smiled

I found a friend.

*I knocked

I saw your face

I am home.

*I was lost

Saw the light on your window

Thank you

For being  my guardian angel.

*If you ever see gardenias in bloom

You’d probably say,

“Those are her favorite flowers”

And I would tell you,

“Thank you, what a nice

tribute to a friend”.

I actually wrote this during my short stint of blogging at Friendster. When I moved to WordPress on May 2009, I selected some posts worth- reblogging. This is one of them.

Read Full Post »

Glimpses….From The Heart

There are days when looking back is just as lovely as watching how the day unfolds.

When Friendster closed sometime last May 2011, I opted to share some of my blog posts at Facebook through their Notes. I wanted to preserve some writings I did before. Can’t believe I wrote this article fifteen years ago. That’s how long I have been blogging since Friendster days. If I remember I think I made another blog post here of similar title.

A friend says that it is the luxury of time that we lack nowadays and I say, if you allow yourself to think like that, then you would never enjoy the little things that contribute to the wonder of living. Give me the pleasure of watching the sun rise and visiting some place like Batanes and I would gladly trade it off with a three-course meal at Burgoo’s and a cup of latte at Starbucks.

Some people whine at every obstacle they find. They probably climbed the mountain too high and never noticed the beauty of the wayside flowers along their way nor the melodious tune of bird songs somewhere near. Life is a rat-raced competition, alright, but then in order to live fully, we must strike a balance between eking out a living and nourishing our souls.

Moments of bliss touch us everyday of our lives. The trick is to open our eyes and feel with our hearts. A few nights ago, as I was feeding our dog Boo, I noticed the myriad twinkling of night stars high up.I tried to locate the Big Dipper just like what our science teacher taught us in grade school. Here in the city, seldom do we see such an array of night lights like these. I felt quite small but proud to witness another wonder of God’s creation.

Yesterday on my way home from a party with my high school friends in Kamias, I passed by Robinson’s Galleria Foodcourt. There was an ongoing concert at the activity area, a group of three young men and a lady playing instrumental music. A kind of music that tease the senses and touch the hearts. They were about to start “The Promise”. Remember the song from the movie with the same title and the equally touching book of Danielle Steele? That book is a “must re-read” for me every time the red colored days of February come near. A sort of getting in touch with my romantic side and affirming my previous love for tear-jerker books and movies from way back. That song was followed by several more almost all of which brought tears to my eyes. It was truly an unexpected gift from above. I left the mall feeling uplifted – can you imagine that kind of sensation like you want to smile at everyone you meet? Or hug yourself because you were simply elated?

When winter ends, there is always a promise of spring. (February 10, 2008)

Read Full Post »

Journeying Through

There are paths that lead somewhere –

To the innermost corner of your heart ,

And you sometimes feel the pain of rejection

A love lost

A love gone.

Life is never perfect –

But deep within

You say,

I should.

I can.

I will.

Moving on,

Letting go,

Another journey to traverse

With courage,

With faith,

With acceptance.

(previously published at Multiply then reposted it here. this was back in july 2012)

Read Full Post »

Nobody Wins

You  feel you’ve triumphed

Seeing your opponent cry

But did you ever see

The hurt look in her eyes?

You feel you have scored

Making life like it was a game

But did you ever think

That in an argument,

Nobody wins?

She hurls hurting words at you

And you do the same

But did you ever see

That she was trying to let you know

“I take that all back

Because I don’t want to hurt you.”

And behind those shouts of anger and pain

You long to see her smile again.

(Reposted from July 13, 2011. I remember during my early blogging years, comments and like were practically unheard of although visitors just came and go. It was then WordPress would get back to one’s post and you’ll read the words fantastic, amazing, beautiful etc. etc.)

Read Full Post »

These Things

 Love those moments between dawn and daybreak  –

the sounds of a new day, the smile of the morning sun, the feel of the gentle wind on my face. And slowly, the nocturnal music of the night becomes the  noise of the morning, the honk of school buses ready to pick up their student riders, the noise of motor vehicles always in a hurry to get to their destination and the bark of our six dogs, some waiting to get out of the gate for a morning walk but they don’t get to do it nowadays. The garden is enough. I love the smell of  hot Pan de Sal  freshly bought from the bakery, the taste and aroma of a hot cup of coffee and the sizzle of  eggs in the frying pan to go with it.

I love those moments  that a typical day brings –

the silver hues of raindrops on the grass, the earthy smell,  the discovery of  new blooms in the garden which I  am always so excited to snap with my camera.  Simple things that may seem too mundane to others but these are the same things that make one’s day special.   There’s no use crying over spilled milk, is there? There’s no use  showing to the world that you carry its weight on your shoulders. Time is gold so they say , and  we hurry and forget to appreciate everyday blessings that come our way. We chase the day like there is no tomorrow and before we know it, it is gone and all we remember is the stress we experienced and so much work  left undone. When you begin to see, really see what the day has in store, there are outstanding moments that you get to appreciate more.

Read Full Post »

This Moment

I wrote your name in the sand

Only to be erased by the noontide

But the essence remained

When my morning comes,

I’ll write your  name again.

The breeze whispers a gentle sound of “hello”

Calling me, you

Beckoning us to the world beyond

I hear the sea

And I hear you

Calling, calling my name.

I feel your face

And see you smile

While the ripples gently dance at our feet.

I watch your serene countenance,

And nothing moves

Except the breeze and the ripples

We treasure this moment, this minute, this hour

A silence that inspires us

To write our names again in the sand.

Dusk is falling

And the only remnants are our footprints

And the sea calling our names.

Note: (previously published on March 01,2010)

Read Full Post »

My 700th Blog After 29 Months Of Blogging

Reposting this blog I wrote back in November 3, 2011. Most of you here were not yet my friends then but I had a few followers I lost touch with over the years.

When I look back at the times that I felt so down, writing my thoughts on paper helped me to cope, a sort of  catharsis for me since I found out I had Stage 3 colon cancer. It was not a walk in the park  but faith , prayers and love of friends and family made me realize  that when you have all these, you have enough. When you believe that you will get well, you will. And when you believe that God is by your side, He is.

So this is my 700th blog according to WordPress. Since they have introduced letting bloggers know which post was magnificent, grand, dandy, splendid, sensational, fabulous,far-out, groovy, slick, superb, super, wohoo, way-out and all the other positive words they say about a current blog post, I’ve recorded every word count and which post describes all those words. It’s kind of fun to know what word they will use to describe what you have just posted. At the start of the year, I was in a quandary whether to take part in the Post A Day Challenge 2011. I asked myself, “will I be able to do that, write and blog everyday the whole year of 2011? “ Two more months to go and I will be able to say, “I did it.” And George S. Patton was right when he said and I quote: Accept the challenges so that you can feel the exhilaration of victory.

I was reviewing my earlier blogs this morning and I was smiling like crazy thinking, I was a little emotional in some of them but who cares, it’s the process of writing that heals you. And I would like to share a list of at least twenty-five top-rated blogs that I wrote in a span of twenty-nine months. They are not exactly my favorites since there are other blogs which I like better than some of them,  echoing what I feel and describing the true “me”. But the following are my most read, obviously for the simple reason that they frequently appear even if I wrote them a year or almost two years ago. You are welcome to read through my search box since I don’t exactly remember  when they were published here.

1. Homepage
2. The Early Bird Catches The Worm But the Second Mouse Gets The Cheese
3. UAAP Season 73 (University of Santo Tomas)
4. Friendship Quotes
5. Soulmates, Karma, Reincarnation
6. Unang Taon, Ulat Sa Bayan Ni PNoy (June 30, 2011)
7. Happy Birthday MAMA MARY
8. Dapitan Arcade (A Shopper’s Delight)
9. It’s Why I Love It
10. University of Santo Tomas at 400
11. On Meeting Dr. Samuel Ang Again
12. The Aquino Grandchildren And My Own Memories of Ninoy
13. Bank Of The Philippine Islands, Let’s Make It Easy
14. Suha,Lukban, Grapefruit, Pomelo
15. The Famous Transfiguration Chapel – Caleruega, Philippines
16. Oh, Oh!
17. Quotes To Live By
18. It’s Kung Pao Chicken Pasta For Dinner
19. Some Tidbits On Pres. Noynoy’s Inauguration
20. Moringa Juice
21. Sioma-making, A Great Feat For A Six-Year Old
22. Celebrating 400th Year (University of Santo Tomas)
23. Meeting Manuel Baldemor, A World-Renowned Artist
24. New Life, New Hope, New Beginning
25. Special Palabok

Thank you all for visiting my blog and leaving lovely comments. Hooray to blogging! And WordPress says, this blog is wonderful😀

Read Full Post »