Durian Visit

I was back home in the province for a very short visit.  Yet no matter how short, Immediately, my heart rate changes, my skin glows and I become very, very hungry!

The sun was bright, the sea was calm, the ricefields in different shades of green, the air was balmy and the stories of growing up still the same. 

Basically I just touched base. A quick dip in the river, then I was gone!

And my dance teacher was by her porch when our truck passed by on our way to the pier. 

Take Care Of You!

Love yourself. I agree. We all want that. What difference will it make if we all love ourselves?  We always say that when we can't get the love we want from someone who we want to love us. we say, love yourself first. 

When i sometimes feel that I am a loser, then the boss of me tells me to love myself. But that does not always work because I am my number one critic. 

But! It is also true that you do to others what you want others to do to you. I don't like soppy sticky attention so I am not also a honey to others. Which means that I am not sweet to myself.  But I can be kind. 

Thus, i will be kind to me. I have thrown half of my baggage so i was good to myself that way. Tough love.  Brave love. 

I tried by showing myself that I love me, so I gave me presents. But Me got bored. 

I tried affirmation.  Told me : Oh what a beautiful creature you are, you are! That did not work. You are awesome, you are bright!  Who am I foolin'?

Regardless, bottomline is, don't let others drag you across the dirty floor then expect you to smile, brush the dirt off your poor self and lick your wounds. 

NO WAY!! 

And so my friend, respect for self is the ultimate love one can give your one and only bestie: Youself. Meself.  

What's Petty is Important

         Petty.                   Impt. 

We make decisions every waking hour of our life. We decide where to eat, what to eat. We brush our teeth, our hair, brush aside someone's idea because we decided to. Will life proceed without a decision to live?  Without being aware of that decision, we still decided to live. Because we can also consciously decide to turn our life off. 

So if we take accountability for what we care to do or allow others to do to us, we become more aware of the choices that we personally make. 

We can change our world with the decisions we make, with what we decide to think, say or do. 

A while ago, i decided that all issues that are vexations to my spirit be filed under PETTY. 

All issues that make me happy including a bar of chocnut, siopito from Ate Leny, crinkles by Mrs. Clemente, Brad Pitt, sleep, a trip to Etsy online, date with the gremlins are filed under IMPORTANT. 

Petty and Important.

If it is life threatening, it is petty. If it is Important, then it must be something i will spend my precious time on. 

If my husband will keep it from me that he dug up gold coins-  PETTY. 

If he will tell me about it - IMPORTANT. 

Simple solutions for a healthy lifestyle. 

 

Weather Report

Sugar would want me to say that this are pili nuts from his pili trees in our old place in Antipolo now HEDCen

We live in a world where miracles happen every nanosecond of our infinite time:

Where the sweet fruits of the earth is a glimpse to paradise. 

Where a tiny flower is a perfect universe. 

(Will Ana be better off without me in school today? The officials of the department of education are coming for an ocular inspection of the proposed classrooms for grades 11/12)

This world where life thrives without fuss and beauty without care.  (I got a haircut yesterday and tried this hair wax that is supposed to keep my hair in place and read that massaging the face with jade keeps the skin supple and young)

Where some things were created to be consumed. 

early morning harvest of corn from our garden

And where we sometimes find ourselves hanging... Not knowing the when and where and how or why of things. 

Sinigwelas Americano in our front yard

And where we will end up .. In the cruel or compassionate hand of men (i like my emerald nail polish.)

a pair of tailorbirds spent the night in our room

Or beast?

I wonder where these little feathers came from.  definitely not from the birds we freed this morning

(Should I do yoga or not?) 

Have a Lucky Monday

There is a chance that today is going to be a sunshiny day. 

The birds are definitely happy to be on a dry perch for a change. Mine seem to be ecstatic basking in the morning sun. 

Even the umbrellas are taking a break. They are on a holiday sun bathing! 

The garden is glorious and glowing. 

This pot of coriander is kilig to the bones being sun-kissed!

So is this guy who waits by this bay all day, all night. 

There's light everywhere just as I imagined and hoped for. 

And this bedroom is my weather forecaster as it receives the first ray of sunlight. It knows when it is gonna be a good day. 

Wishing everyone a brave and lucky Monday!

In Pursuit of The Perfect Eyebrows

     Robyn's perfectly shaped eyebrows

I remember my dear mother telling me that eyebrows say a lot. Eyebrows can make you look sad, angry, troubled, pathetic, alert, sophisticated, natural or blank.

Fashion has gone from one liner to Brooke Shields bushy, now its Cara Delevingne. 

It required a lot of tweezing to get that thin line Twiggy eyebrow look if you have plenty of hair and you can get carried away tweezing and end up with almost nothing. 

The tools have not changed much. Tweezors that look sophisticated to one that can be seen in clinics. There's threading, waxing or blade that requires great skill and care if you know what I mean. 

There are counters just for eyebrows. I have sat down twice on a swivel chair and had done my eyebrows in public. Try Benefit. Or you can have eyebrow extensions.  i heard that it is an alternative to tattooed eyebrows. Can you imagine the permanency of a tattoo?? 

Anyways, just think of this pair of mustache on everyone's lower forehead if you will have a facelift. Where will it end? Try drawing it on a photo of yours!

(I am resting after bf3 introduced a "kittle" weight in today's workout.  Hehe! It looks like a kettle so i just figured it out. )

I don't know why i thought of eyebrows as I sat resting from today's workout. I know some eyebrow mishap stories that I can write about but since they are not about me, I will keep them to myself for now. 

 

When I Am Not Looking

R

Thank you!! Even if i don't know you and you are stalking me, I cannot believe how much you have already inferred from my musings alone. You know me better than my husband! 

It is marvelous knowing you. Maybe I was your little sister or your student in our past life. 

May the path you take be full of grace and may you be blessed as you bless others. 

Further on my 100th musing: MOLTING

It is an indomitable challenge to let go to weigh less by trimming all that is unnecessary in your life.

Emptying is daunting. And I am afraid. The void is terrifying. Material things and even old ideologies can be addicting. Who will I be after shedding? 

But people move on. We shed skin and new skin grows, we trim our fingernails and they grow back, we cut our hair and it grows long again to whatever length we want, we lose a tooth or more, we lose memory... That's how I know that I move on, and that I am changing.  We lose some but win some with luck. 

 I can imagine the relief to be new once again once you've shed. 

So on this premise, the boss of me approves that i decompress to keep me focused on what is important and what gives me joy. 

On the 100th day of musing

As i end this challenge of 100 days of musing, i hope that I learned to love more of what I have like the life that allows me to love in little ways or great ways, wrong way or right way if there is such a thing. And to accept that to love is to learn to let go. Very quickly now, all my grandchildren will be grown ups.  I can only try to remember how i have opened my arms to receive them and how I will do it once more to also let go. 

It is also clearer that I am a bit foolish, and quite sentimental for my own good. 

I hope that my musings did not cause any problem to those who read them. 

A favorite feedback from one of my "  fans" who followed my musings is that my blogs were a good substitute for Abante and show biz chismis. 

Let's see how this daily discipline will become part of my existence in the next 20 years of my life besides living with less.  

#99th musing: Do Not Take Me Seriously

The world has begun to shrink. Every continent is now accessible for as long as there is internet. 

Maybe, there will just be one emperor that will govern the world one day, one constitution, one currency. 

Maybe the subjects in "school" will be Life, World Economics, Humanities and the Arts. 

The children will no longer be chasing butterflies because they will all be plugged in. There will no longer be the art of conversation and so the subject Life, humanities, arts. 

People will create jobs for themselves and there will be more than 5 jobs all being done simultaneously for as long as there is an internet connection. 

Love and everything beautiful about it, that wonderful feeling to be in contact or in communion with a fellow human may be obsolete by then. 

As there will be more young women with polycystic ovaries, child bearing might become rare or uncommon. 

Men might have slow sperm motility due to radiation. 

Maybe, cloning will be a procedure as common as artificial insemination. 

What will the sky be like by then? 

This is ny 99th musing. Do you want to know what my 100th will be?

 

98: my Boss

Since I have no supervisor nor a boss to report to, i had to be my boss. The boss to regulate me, to give me deadlines and feedback, to promote me or worse to terminate me.

The boss of me tells me that I am very lazy at times but the boss of me thinks so because she can be hard on me. Well it is her opinion and I respect that. 

I have not had a raise or promotion for 23 years but the boss of me believes that I should tackle other projects to keep me from leaving this firm as she believes that it is not in the money bag that makes one stay in her job.  She thinks that it is in being given the room to be creative that gives job satisfaction.  She firmly believes that I have to earn my own keep as I have been stricken out of payroll because I am too old to be employed according to her manual that only applies to me. 

It is difficult enough to have a boss who bosses, but this boss of mine is the laziest boss on earth! she makes me do just about everything! From her make-up to her spiritual salvation!

But we have managed to get a few things done though.  Me I mean with her as boss.

Here is my schedule from the boss of me: 

#97: Regrets of Sleeping Beauty

97: housebound

I did not notice that i had been taking photos of family, of home and neighbors largely for months and months and years perhaps. 

I am not complaining because I am not really a traveller but i thought that i would always like the fact that I have the whole universe in my corner and that there is something strange or new or interesting to document each day. 

The rain in the past days alone have caught my fancy that I have tirelessly been obsessed with it.  

And have even mused about the rain twice or thrice in this project of musings daily. Now I feel trapped! 

What's worse is that I take pictures of my house, sometimes of the same spot at different times of the day. And my relatives!  Same subjects! What a small world now! Will you agree? 

I sigh as I write now. And it feels like the same feeling when one has eaten or has had too much of anything. The Tagalog word for that is "nauta", "nauyam", "nasuya", "nanawa" which is to have reached the point of satiation or nausea.   Exactly!  

96: sponge Bob

I do not sit down to watch cartoons with the gremlins. I have truly grown too old for such things that I have not even watched Sponge Bob!  Or maybe because I have gotten rid of the television in favor of other things. 

Thank God I was so famished after an hour of circuit training by the ruthless bf3 who sadistically put me in such torturous routine.  Famished and very tired!  I am not complaining because i got to watch with the gremlins while i wait for a meal with wings since i was partially paralyzed!

Sponge Bob, max chicken and a promise  of ms body beautiful!  Panalo!

#95 cat meowsings: pest or pet?

I had cats when I was a little girl. One would wake me up in the mornings by tapping me lightly on the head. If that did not work it played with my hair. She climbed the caimito tree from the kitchen to the roof, then would jump into the window of my bedroom, then find its way under my mosquito net. 

Cats die when someone gets sick very bad. I had a dozen. When my father superman had his surgery, a few days later ALL of dem cats died one after another. No poison. No wounds. Daddy recovered. 12 cats to save him! I only needed one! 

I grew up with black cats too. Black luck? No way. When my sister moved from quezon city to las Piñas, her black cat was found gripping the chassis under the truck that transported all their appliances and accoutrements, lest she would be left behind in Matatag St. 

This is the root of my belief that cats are sensient beings and always suspiscious. 

Having cats also turmed me into the best sniffing catspoo locator finding every source of this disturbing odour that comes from their deadly excrements!! That is why I didn't like cats anymore!

I had enough cats in my lifetime to write many stories and muse about.  

Burma was an unforgettable character and beauty. Maruja was a closet queen because we were all duped in believing that he was a girl!! Ming shwe, Putol... And another cat i would give this chewy batangas kalamay to, to keep it away from the table for a long time. 

Then one day, I decided that I was a lonely girl... So I got myself a cat after many years that I already banned cats because of this one reason why i dont like cats anymore. 

This Marmalade is as wild as the civets in our neighboring forest. But she's getting sweeter and cuddlier and I am not a fan of that. I like her wild and cold and suspicious. But i trained her not to bother my canaries and to stop jumping after birds. So she is ok. After all, she only has 2 guiding principles in life:  "i likes" or "i don't cares... a damn". 

94: the magic of rain

The rain is bringing us back what summer took away. 

Suddenly, life is teeming in my garden. 

Greens are sprouting and hundreds of birds on trees. 

The river too is gushing with excitement. Water! Hallelujah! It seems to gurgle. There's more water to push the debris that summer left on its bank and rocks. 

The forest is fertile and saplings are trying to outdo each other in its race which one grows faster and stronger. This biome is strangely trying to build its reinforcements with more vines holding the trees' branches for support. 

Anytime, the frogmouth will be back on its perch again. Same branch. Same tree. Same season. 

I will be constantly at awe.  

93: Como Esta?

The process of letting go of one's accumulated material things is not like a walk in the park. It is a process that is very similar to the art of haggling - internal haggling or bargaining with one's conscience of desire and attachments. 

"...Should I let go no you keep it who gets it they might not value i won't find anything like this again it they will just throw it but it is a memorable piece... Nnnnnnnnoo??? yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyessss!..."  

Saying no is quicker and easier than yes. 

But this ring is staying! 

I have brought out everything in my closet for assessment. I did not have much. Good girl. 

I realize that I have a talent for preserving my valuables well. But just in case i get maimed by the water that I drink or the air I breathe, i parted with my treasures to the ones who are meant to have them. 

My 55 year old terno was given to my eldest granddaughter Sofia. It will be passed on to all the funny girls and they will have a picture of theselves wearing it. 

This froggle shirt was a favorite wear of Ana when she was 2. There's nothing special about it except that it was a beautiful part of my younger days as a first time parent. It goes to Ziva who wore it with an aptitude!

The little worn out baby clothes that all three of mine wore one after another are in a box including a knitted string bikini top of Ana. I won't impose on my daughters in law to keep them for their babies. The contents of this box goes with me. Except for the baby clothes I made. They have been given to Ana for her boys to wear when they were infants. I did impose on my daughter, and well yes... sometimes to Anne and Marie, lol!

I made my office staff very happy with some loot too. An exquisite silk nightgown I never wore but kept because it was a gift, went to our new bride Mrs. B. It is indeed lovelier the second time around for her! And as i saw her face blush, I  knew why I had that nightgown when I am a beaten up shirt/ pyjama kind of girl! I was meant to give it to the person who was meant to have it! 

The other thing to consider when giving your things away is to be considerate.  Don't dump friends, relatives, employees with your "treasures" that are actually meaningless "junk" to them. They should want it. And if I know that the person I am giving my stuff to is already a hoarder, she ain't qualified. 

I am doing my children a favor by deciding now where my small stuff should go. 

Travel light _/ check!  

I hope to stay on track. 

Musing on how I would live the last 20 years of my life... 

92: I can't believe you are 24 HEDCen!

I was not aware that this was going to happen:
to give birth to you at the time I could not even afford to.
I did not even know that I was pregnant!

Pregnant in my head that is.
I kept dreaming that I was going to have another baby after my third child.
I thought that I was delusional because the OB said no more babies for me.

So I kept dreaming that I was pregnant and all the signs of pregnancy I went through
in my dreams.

Vitty was 11 when I had you.
One night of labor to draw and imagine you.
Then on July 1, 1992
You were born.

If you were a human baby, you would be androgynous
but you are not human.
You are a vessel.

Yet I treated you like my fourth child
and together with the entire family
we welcomed you and 11 children on July 1, 1992.

No grand illusions
We just did what should be done.
a classroom without walls and windows, not even a door.

The rest is history.
You never fail to amaze me.
You are not my work alone.
You are His work for I do not know anything.

So I thank God that The Little Farmhouse is now a ranch as I would be joked by friends.
You are also known as HEDCen!
The mighty HEDCen a.k.a "Holy Stick!"
A pun unintended from the boys you have encoutered in soccer!

Body, mind and spirit.
Our work is never done.

As I have grown old, I may be the mother
but I guess, that the continuation of this "epic" is now in collaboration
with the trusted faculty.

you even have your own children now.
Ana and Juaqui are dedicating their gifts to continue and to enrich, to further innovate and polish.
Our past students are coming back to teach.

So I am a grandmother.
Five of my grandchildren are in your classrooms or
they would not be if you were not great enough!


All schools need a grandmother.
And my role has shifted to be the doter, the unconditional lover.
 

Thanking all of you who have been part of TWENTY FOUR years!

More to come! great and small!
Let's build a better world for all!

KJ? JC?

Life is funny! Humorous! Hilarious! 

We carry a child in our womb and we are too serious! Aren't we laughable walking around looking like we swallowed a round watermelon?  If it's a girl, they say stomach is round.  And there are elongated watermelons. It's a boy we will have if we look like we swallowed an elongated watermelon!

Even sex is funny. You should see your faces!!!  

And when we are dying and it is portrayed by actors,  take out the drama, it can be funny. Take a look at children dramatizing death or dying, it is hilarious!! 

And if it is not funny, because life is a lemon when it sucks-  you can try JC. He is not KJ. 

When I asked to let me see my mother again (she was my age when she died) i dreamed that she rose from the grave and scared me!!  Ridiculous prayers get ridiculous answers!! And He will not run out of ways to meet us where we are. 

I prayed long ago to fix me, to overhaul me when I was terminally jealous and bereft of confidence. And He did something that up to now, my siblings still rotfl!  

KJ si JC? Nah!!!!

You want to know?? Hahahaha!!!

Buy a box of notecards to help build a classroom.  Two if you want to find out about my "almost affairs"!  

The photo above is my cat LOL!