Weekly Photo Challenge: Reflection

This may come a bit  late for last week’s challenge  but you may have noticed that I don’t get to blog everyday nowadays. Just too busy catching up on things at home that blogging has become my least priority. Well, for one thing, I just set up another blog for my grandson so I am somewhat focused there.

I have only two shots that I want to include here, not because they reflect the challenge at hand but they remind me of the happier days when we used to go on road trips with the kids. These were taken at The Farm, a spa facility that boasts of large gardens and  nature at its best. This is located in Lipa City, Batangas, about three hours away from Metro Manila. Would love to come back here one of these days, God willing.

This is their Lagoon where I spent so much time reading and just looking at the ducks feeding nearby. Why not try visiting this place, they have some excellent reviews from people who’ve been there.

 

Advertisement

Read Full Post »

Weekly Photo Challenge: Green

It’s always a delight to discover new things in our garden in Patar. How fascinating it is to see these different varieties of tropical plants growing in one corner. Ferns and palms and a sprinkling of other blooms which I don’t have in my small garden.

Sometimes, I sigh in frustration that I could not identify the names of these plants.I am quite clueless, but I simply love the different shades of greens in this set. Then  I learned that Anahaw is our national leaf, hooray!

 

 

They call this Livistona , a family of palms.

A footstool palm or anahaw.

That’s all there is to it, I think. There are around 1,200 varieties of ferns so it’s a lost cause for me to identify all these. My sis-in-law takes charge of our garden in the province. These are just some of the evergreens that we have there.

Read Full Post »

Weekly Photo Challenge: Renewal

Yes, we have our own interpretations of what renewal means in our lives. Renewal means birth or it may also be interpreted as life changes that we have to go through.

There is something so uplifting about seeing  rain droplets clinging to the leaves early in the morning. It reminds you  of a new day, a new beginning  and all that it promises.

A scenery like this is like food for the soul…it speaks of peace, renewal and rebirth and new challenges to journey through.

And seeing the fish swim is similar to observing the continuity of life in all its glory.

What could be more beautiful than to see the beauty of nature!

This literally speaks of what renewal is all about, at least for me because I always find a deepening faith every time I visit this place – that kind of feeling where you have a big lump in your throat not because you are unhappy but because you feel that God is so near.

Read Full Post »

Weekly Photo Challenge: Silhouette

Silhouette 

And I thought that silhouette shots are poorly done so I didn’t give them much thought until today. I did some silhouette shots while experimenting with light and shadows. It was a hit or miss, mostly  the latter 🙂

Nuestra Senóra de Candelaria Church in Mabitac, Laguna. This is the bell tower of the old church. I took this  during our Visita Iglesia in the towns of Laguna.

One of my favorite places….Caleruega.

I was actually fascinated by the cloudless blue sky with our old avocado tree in the background.

Transfiguration Chapel, a part of the beautiful landscape of Caleruega in Nasugbu, Batangas. This is one of my favorite destinations.

Read Full Post »

Weekly Photo Challenge: Happy

This may come a little late but since I am  searching for the best photos to define the Weekly Photo Challenge which is entitled Happy, I opted to upload new shots here which I took early this morning at the garden. Yes, it is such a nice surprise seeing new blooms and feasting your eyes on something you didn’t really expect to see.  And being happy means  exactly that. Fancy seeing my Gardenia sprouting buds at this time of the year. Gardenia usually bear flowers during the months of May and June. Maybe, it’s nature’s way of telling me, “I’ll give you a surprise today to make you happy.”  And to my surprise too, I saw new buds of my  lone Amazon lily,  a promise of another day to document its lovely bloom!

And yes, this is the first time that I used the image gallery of WordPress. Just click on each picture and you’ll see it in full.

Happiness is really how you make it and simple things could make you happy! St. Augustine says, “Indeed, man wishes to be happy even when he so lives as to make happiness impossible.”

 

Read Full Post »

Weekly Photo Challenge: Solitary

The wonderful feeling of shutting out the world for a moment –

and all you have is the here and now,

a small dot in the universe

a small corner between earth and sky.

 

Read Full Post »

Weekly Photo Challenge: Everyday Life

I seldom take pictures  of people but when I get the chance, I love clicking my camera and freezing  one particular shot that speaks of how they deal with everyday life – the man on the street, the rituals of earning a living, a dignified way of  earning a few pesos to make both ends meet. I love the topic for the week – everyday life, everyday survival, everyday experiences of what life is all about.

I took this shot in Caleruega and I remember this moment because I asked this gardener the name of the plants they have there. Tilling the soil and loving it, I surely could relate because I am a gardener too.

 

Saturday marketing would not be complete without our friendly suki. I regularly buy cartoons of fresh eggs from her and sometimes, dried sea food like pusit, tuyo and dilis.

They’re part of the garden scene every morning when I water the plants. Sad to say, we lost two of them recently.

Life in Binondo. Have you ever tasted a durian fruit?  I don’t like the smell but they say it is one of the best fruits we have growing here.

Chestnuts…I always equate Christmas with this and even when they are plenty here, they’re still costly.  How much do you think this vendor earns selling chestnuts?

 

 

The dignity of labor.

Weather means more when you have a garden.  There’s nothing like listening to a shower and thinking how it is soaking in around your green beans.  ~Marcelene Cox

Took this at Regina RICA in Tanay.

Student life. Do you miss it? It just makes me feel nostalgic at times.

Read Full Post »

Weekly Photo Challenge: Free Spirit

Silence is golden so they say. Don’t you just wish that sometimes, you could just shut your eyes and just savor the silence in your soul?  Inner peace comes when you let yourself experience the silence – feel, just be!

I am quite envious of our cat Miming. She can just ignore everything around her just to have that shuteye!

Quiet is peace. Tranquility. Quiet is turning down the volume knob on life. Silence is pushing the off button. Shutting it down. All of it. – Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner

Free spirits. Children have that ability to just live life as they see it. No extra baggage. Just a sort of smile that says, I am happy.

Read Full Post »

Weekly Photo Challenge:Growth

“And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” – anais nin

It’s always a thrill to find some nice subjects that would represent how one would interpret the weekly photo challenge here at WordPress.  Some would be just symbols but it’s also quite a thrill to literally point your camera  at something  that means exactly how one views the subject at hand. Growth – an ampalaya plant just out from its bud and a oregano just starting to sprout new leaves. They’re both growing nicely  in  our backyard.

Read Full Post »

Weekly Photo Challenge: Purple

I actually have so many  photo collections of purple flowers but they would spoil the beauty of this one if I mix them here.

Meet my Sanggumay Orchids!

Read Full Post »