Love is the Greatest Energy

I am about to finish a painting I abandoned a few days ago but any excuse to not to is more than welcome. So i distracted myself from the moment's goal and decided that i will blog instead. 

Since today is Valentine's Day, I am remembering all the people (past and present, dead and alive, active and inactive) I love and who love or loved, me. 

I look past the moment now and remember with longing and gratitude those who loved me the most while they were here with me. 

Today, I visited my daughter for a healthy breakfast of granola, hopia, fried egg and banana and to return the gremlins who slept over in my house last night. 

Marie brought her funny girls while Yaya Lyn brought Lucy to visit too. 

And I thought that seeing and being with all the gremlins and funny girls is a testimony of love in action which brings joy and nourishment and gratitude. Knowing that I tried to be a good parent and seeing my children try their best in being good parents is a Happy Valentine's day for me. 

I'm sure about my old and on-off valentine and the partner I chose to raise this family with know that we are blessed. 

Ziva contemplating on life and intensely sending loving thoughts to her Daddy. 

Stay...

I. 

Small but great impact. My bird Boogie stopped dancing.  I held it in my hand when it became very still and tried to imagine how it was a cheerful, sprightly companion till the last day of 2015. 

II. 

I thought that the pillow I received from the House of Queens for my birthday captured my love for birds. Sofia, the beautiful-boned funny girl designed it while her mama Marie executed the awesome concept. 

 III. 

As I sat down for an early morning excel work, i realized the uncanny coincidence of losing my white canary and receiving an art work depicting her everyday as it sits on my old wicker sofa. 

Almost everyday... except during laundry days. 

Push ups

Physical push up is very much like mental and creativity push-up. My motivation is time. There are only a few hours left or a day and 12 hours before 2016 while I try to document these final hours by pushing myself to paint. 

Wanting so much to go on a retreat somewhere scenic and inspiring but I decided to make the most of what I am ignoring where I am. 

I am also trying to let go and do nothing about the remaining calendars I still have to sell. And while I have let God, I sold a few whilst I paint. See? My heart is full! 

Oh it is a face of a woman seeing through the eye of a pink hibiscus. Got a leaf for an earring! I like it!  

H-spot

My! Oh My!! Was busy with the 2016 Happiness Calendars. I am on the tail-end of this year's project and so I find myself in a good place and time, writing again. 

Since I have no other boss but God who does not breathe down my nape and does not demand my full time and attention (or so I thought), I had to take on a task that will make me labour and toil and stretch my little and narrow brain in all sides and proportions. So the object of building just one classroom out there in a typhoon stricken area, crossed my mind, through my art. 

This is the second year. Far from my target of 1.8M, I am however, very much on the happiness spot or h-spot!  It Is the journey as they say and not much on the destination but while i am not yet there, I am enjoying the view. 

The long and challenging climb has allowed me to see and experience friends- rediscovering friends and making new ones. Most of them have stretched a limb to help or should I say, created a room in their hearts to help,  a few decided to stay away from me. Sad but if they only knew that all it takes is a No and an honest heart, then there is no way to hide and play possum. I have friends who just watched and followed the day to day status, and I still loved them.  They are part of my journey. Everyone who heard and listened, saw and followed, took me for a ride or doubted my integrity, are part of this whole thing; believe it or not.

I am glad that there is only great joy in what I am doing and nothing can burst this rainbow bubble! 

After all, happiness is right where there is sadness, disappointment, betrayal, loss and emptiness. It is the opportunity we create for ourselves to go beyond our speed, strength and faith that will give us a ray of sunshine, the early morning rain, and the feeling of warmth and light inside. 

      Taken right from where I am. 

The cuckoo's nest

Are you ready to make a life-changing decision within the next 365 days? It could be the darkest and longest hours of your life or the most-awaited answer to your prayers. 

Getting married or staying single? 

To be in a relationship or out of it?

To keep wearing your rose-tinted sunglasses or to face your realities 20-20? 

To just go with the flow or reinvent your life? 

To married couples who have stayed together long enough to bear the tests of indifference, challenges of boredom, life transitions, bad habits, growing old including health concerns- it is painful to watch them so drawn apart and the only relationship present is a form of parasitism that involves sucking the life out of each other. 

It takes the persistence of a good mountaineer to score the heights and dificulties of getting to the summit without breaking or turning back. 

Sometimes a couple will decide to weather it together.  But only the presence of grace and deep knowledge of self and acceptance of the other can build a fortress welded by love. This is difficult.  Without kindness, they macerate each other. 

Sometimes love and kindness are not enough.  When the heart changes season and you are caught in any of its transition, even the promise that once sealed the deal becomes unrecognizale, null and void. 

Sometimes we are not equipped to deal with a partner's inner workings. And if we are, it cannot be our burden. It is only the presence of desire and intention to will to be in the presence of each other's difficult bearings that one can last. And yes, the grace of God. 

Romance in reality is good for 3 years with partners whose EQ is below average.  Marriage either is not made to last. After some years,  it would be good to start over.  Otherwise, it just becomes a very unhealthy habit.  

So maybe, like a car that needs to be re-aligned, whose mileage has gone beyond  5k miles, marriage should undergo the same recalculation. 

Don't you think?

Happy anniversary to my children Ana and Lloyd, Vitty and Marie!!!

Bed time reading

I type and Jose reads. He reads before i even finish typing. Not much ado. We do it for fun.  

Rock Your Wardrobe!

This is an alternative way to

1.  Conserve the natural materials used in the production of clothes especially use of electricity while clothes are being sewn at night and yes while the sewing machine's motor is plugged????

2. It saves dressmakers from consuming softdrinks while they try to meet their quota needing the much needed sugar rush????

3.  Pre loved items have already been broken in. Remember when you were young and how your pair of new shoes gave you blisters while you went around your neighborhood and relatives on Christmas day for "papasko"? Same with clothes, especially with denim jeans that they try to sell looking battered and soiled- well you don't have to be fooled that way anymore. Pre-loved clothes are not artificially worn-looking. They honestly are!

4. Branded fashion clothes? Let the other fashionistas spend their fortune buying them. If you wait and you know how the stylist people behave economically when it comes to clothes, you get the slightly worn and severly slashed clothes in pre-loved sales a.k.a. Garage sale like the poster above. 

5. Not all best buys are new and mall-fresh. If you are impulsive, you are a compromised shopper. Why not let others do the impulsive buying and you buy the after-thoughts? 

 I have a small collection of branded clothes for fun. They are great as your ootd's, you can even do selfies wearing a very expensive Alexander Mcqueen for an obscenely cheap price in the ukay ukay.  I will not in my dreams want to get them from a rack where a dress could cost you a small classroom in a God-forsaken area.  

Otherwise I get mine personally sewn for me by a dear friend who owns a dress shop.  Where the dressmaker thinks of me all the time while making the dress. Oh well, they are privy to body secrets too but that's how clothes to fit are made. 

I am extremely awed by how the young women i know around in my neighborhood are doing their garage sale upscale and really classy!  I cannot wait to see their clothes up in my garage. You would want to see a fashion design graduate's collection of clothes. I want! Or a young artist's who is into edgy but  comfortable no nonsense fashion! Or my daughter-in-law who would fit into a girl's dress. I know it's hard to find adult clothes that would fit that frame, but her fashion sense rocks so there- she has found the mature dresses for those who are in her size range. I hope she does not sell her white hippie skirt. I am still hoping to fit into that! Lol!

We try to do little things to save the world   Sometimes advocacies can be found on the streets. Sometimes in garages.