36 Hours

Seriously.

I wish the day had 36 hours. I will try my best not to complain of being tired, just give me 36 hours! There's so much I need to accomplish, and so little time each day. I liken it to attempting to shove humongous stuff that could fill up a whole hiking backpack into a teeny weeny wristlet purse.

But God (or the force --  if you're one of those believers of some other magical or scientific reason) -- though it's still my God for me, my loving God, designed the day to have 24 hours, as dictated by the rising and setting of the beautiful sun, so there must be a supreme reason for being so. I think I'm just trying to achieve so many things all at one time that I feel that there's so little time. Maybe I need to sit back, relax and weigh my priorities.

So many interests have taken a back seat since I got swallowed up by chores and yet more hobbies. My hula dancing, which is on for only 2 hours a week now -- and performing once in a while (we'll be dancing with the big parade in A-town this coming 4th of July if you happen to be here in NorCal!!!), and then my art: wire-wrapping projects and sketches,  Italian lessons, photography with my husband, and a hodge-podge of other things, my blogging (and writing) which is slowly moving unto the back seat for some other writing projects *hint* *hint*... I hope you guys buy my book when it comes out. My book project is eating up all of me lately, consuming my energy and attention that I am worse than absent-minded most of the time. It's set to release by my birthday this year (Christmastime) so please pray for me. And pray that I meet the deadlines and encounter no difficult publishing hurdles especially since I too have taken the liberty of dropping the illustration requirements on my own lap. All these in between wifey duties (50% chef, 50% bedroom goddess *LOL*) and a serious full time job! I'm not complaining. I hope I can find the time to really sit down and accomplish things. I keep working and re-working my schedule to the point of catatonia.

*sigh*

I might have to let go of other things temporarily until the book project is done. But which one?!?

I've had some health scares recently too.  You know, these health and life-threats...they purify you. They make you transcend over the pettiest of matters -- considering them completely irrelevant. These things make you grow.  You see, when you come face to face with your mortality, no matter how false alarm it might be, nothing seems to matter anymore. Well, unless you get there, you'll never know how possible that state of mind can be.  That not a single material thing, not a single emotional entanglement nor relationship issue, no negative quirks nor trivial encounters with acquaintances or strangers will move you...none of these affect you anymore.  You simply transcend to a higher level of wisdom where you find unalterable peace in your heart that makes you dismiss everything human and trivial-- and certainly not with a fist to punch back -- but with a nod of your head, and then you proceed to concentrate on living your life to the fullest and making good use of your time on earth, and hoping that everything benefits more people, and yet more people even if nothing comes back to you -- whether there's not enough time left for you, or you still have million miles before you kick the bucket.

I am on this level where I am in pursuit of my biggest dream, something that has fallen into place recently in a grand eureka moment in the car with my husband. 

And at this age, 36, I can finally say that I have truly discovered what I want to be when I grow up.

I might not turn out to be the best. But who cares, as long as I know that I've given my best.

Christmastime, this year...my book(s) are coming out.

Please help me pray for it. And pray that this dream comes into fruition come hell or high water.

Dandelion Fields

I now have an online gallery for my works, click on the photo to visit it:



I started drawing with my father as soon as I was old enough to hold a pencil (what is old enough for me? 12 months? *teehee*). In preschool, I felt a little awkward and embarassed because I was already sketching things in 3D, while my classmates were struggling to draw stick people. I can still vividly remember my rendition of the flame and the partially melted ice cube with a wet pool around it (thanks to Daddy -- whose idea of playtime and bonding time is the Drawing Guessing Game, way before Pictionary came out). I still do the drawing guessing game with little kids. I think we need to tap into their creative, inferential and expressive skills early on. It matters a lot to shaping one's character for later in life.

Sadly, all my sketchbooks and sketchpads of two decades (including those that were on exhibit for a time when I was in the university) were never returned to me -- even threatened to be burnt and are perhaps really ashes by now -- after a previous relationship has gone awry. I still don't know what came of them.

So I have nothing much to show now, only lessons learned. And a testimony of the truth that...LIFE GOES ON. Art prevails! And this site is a form of my commitment to find time to create works of art again inspite of my busy schedule.

Though I'm not the best in the world, I'm proud of my works because this hobby (and skill) is one of the most special things that connect me to my DADDY who still sketches wonderful drawings up to this day. Though he and I are geographically apart now, like a secret magic thread, this language ties our hearts together. Tightly.

Meet Milo

-TAKEN FROM MY "WONDER WIFEY" SITE, SANS THE ADVERTISING-

I was spring-cleaning our laptops, deleting unnecessary files and creating back-ups for photos and important documents (I'm very "anal" when it comes to organizing the archives in an external hard drive), when I came across this photo that I took of the darling of our family a long, long time ago.

One million trial shots on the couch amidst stuffed animals, inside a giant antique vase, the piano plus a severely disoriented puppy with almost one broken leg for hopping off the couch in disgust and "antsy-ness" two hours later, I came up with one that I liked and I gave it to my sister to enter the Photography Contest featuring pets called "Furry Tales".

Lo and behold, it won Second Place amongst hundreds of entries! My sister and I agreed to pass it off as her shot since she's the one who bought Milo anyway (for a bargain price, really -- he's the real clearance puppy) and brought a totally different kind of love into our family. I'm cool with that. It didn't matter who got the credits, what mattered was that the photo won and we brought home a lot of prizes.

Milo received gift packages, gift certificates, dog food, toys, and other treats. The best part was the gift certificates to "people" restaurants that he also received which he'll never use, of course, since he's a dog and which are meant for the family. So we all had several outings as a family, eating to our heart's delight for free, courtesy of our pet. How cool is that!?! How often in life do you get that?

One great thing too that came out of Milo being on the spotlight and the little darling of the crowd when "he" claimed the prizes during the awarding ceremony, was Daddy -- an official and certified cynophobic-- falling in love with him realizing his cuteness, appreciating all his funny antics and overcoming his fear and avoidance of canines altogether. Milo, after all, really possesses heart-warming characteristics that endears him to everyone.

Milo's a little old now. When I came home to visit last year, he seemed to have forgotten who I was -- his adoptive mom, the one who walked and ran with him, played fetch, and the one he guarded during those late nights I stayed up to finish some work at the computer. I think he's mad at me for leaving. Or because he is just different, a mixed breed of sorts: terrier, lhasa apso and a hodge-podge of untraced canine ancestors. Through the years he had turned territorial, selective, possessive of his masters, and sometimes just plain eccentric.

It's okay. My affectionate relationship with him might be over but I'll never forget the lessons that he taught me about unconditional love and loyalty. To cut to the chase, Milo became my dad's bestfriend through the years. I remember that day I was about to leave home, I cried and wept and told Milo to watch over my parents while I'm gone to a far away place. Eversince I left, he never left daddy's side. And for that I am so grateful. He's still there, keeping him company. And Daddy also spoils him to bits. My mom loves him too but he's more loyal to Daddy if you know what I mean. It's a great relationship. I hope Milo lives long to fulfill his promise to me even longer.

It's as if this "SPECIAL" pooch heard my request that day. Even if, the truth is, Milo had been diagnosed clinically deaf since birth. HE LISTENED WITH HIS HEART.

We, humans, are supposed to teach dogs. But can you imagine how much this dog has taught me instead?

Milo and I in 2006

Why I blog...

I blog as much as I can for three main reasons: PURPOSE, EXPRESSION and INCOME. So I guess if you put the three together, that really amounts to churning out 60 million words in multiple sites. My favorite author Robert Fulghum once said, "We are all dying". That struck me so much because it's true. It's only a matter of who bites the dust first. It made me re-think my multiple purposes in life. What is it that I like to do? And what is it that I want to give to the world? Blogging is one of them. (And I'm blessed that I can squeeze this in my coffee and lunch breaks, or at home while hubby and I watch TV). Though it sounds so urban tchotchke-ish, I find deeper meaning in blogging. First, to help anyone who can hopefully vicariously learn from my journey...the little steps, the big milestones, humps, potholes and all. To entertain in my own humble way. To express myself (there's always a burning feeling inside my heart -- a concept, a thought or a butterfly that yearns to get out of the cocoon to conquer the world!)...A legacy of my own. To guide those who'd want to follow suit. And the income is just icing on the cake. Lately, I've been wanting to share the bounty. I'd like everyone who's interested to taste that icing too! And the joyful part is, at the end of a blogging day, I find it amazing that I really don't care if nothing comes back to me.

I never even remembered today that I hate Mondays

- taken from Coffee, anyone? - but sans the advertising...

So maybe, we're really good friends now.

I'm far from lethargic, there are no weekend withdrawal symptoms, I'm cheerful and humming and whistling...instead of wishing that I'm at home, on my comfortable bed, watching TV...wait a minute...now that I'm remembering, I'm starting to hate Monday again. 

It's all in my crazy mind, isn't it?

But the good part is, four more days and it's going to be weekend again.  The loop never stops.  It's already June! Almost midyear, yup, almost there.  In the wink of an eye, it's going to be Christmas again.  Didn't we just cook the turkey for Thanksgiving last week?

That's what my friend Mo has in mind.  She's back from being off for 5 days last week and she emerged from it like a new-born infant.  I knew she's back the moment she went into my cube to show one of her most recent online purchases.  She gets shoes, clothes and jewelry most of the time.  This time, she showed me this very beautiful heart-shaped locket studded with a tiny diamonds (2-ct TW). She got it on sale for $ 100. from Macy's for her daughter, who I thought was celebrating her birthday. Nope! It's a Christmas present.  This soon?

Six months to go, baby.  Where did half of the year go?!?

Meanwhile, let me focus on loving this Monday.  After all, shouldn't we focus on each moment and each day that passes?

 

Here's something my uncle shared with me before his passing:

Yesterday's gone, we cannot relive it.

Tomorrow's something we can't be absolutely certain of.

But we have today to fulfill our mission in life. And if we concentrate on living every moment well, TODAY is ENOUGH.

-Anonymous

Coming Full Circle

-originally posted at Coffee, anyone? - but edited to conform with the conditions in this blogsite: non-commercialized and straight from the heart..

With the coming of summer, I feel that snippets of our family life are coming full circle so fast. It does every year. I felt it again this morning as I unearthed my summer stuff from storage bins. Wasn't it just yesterday when I packed them away? And when I wrote OVERDRIVE and OUT OF WHACK and other posts that completely detailed the tween and teen adventures in our makeshift tween/teen daycare whenever my stepdaughter spends schoolbreaks with us and the cousins get together in our place for like a whole week of chaos, day trips, summer adventure, field trips, food trips and F-U-N?

I can almost smell my oven-baked cookies that they like to eat with milk or scoops of vanilla ice cream. And the military style breakfast of bacon, eggs and freshly baked biscuits I shoot out from my kitchen for 8 kids who are kids no more and who could already eat like hungry pitbulls on steroids.

I'm going to start getting sleeping bags ready, new scary movies up our sleeves, the heavy blankets they spread on the floor, pillow cases, different colored toothbrushes, facial wash, extra bottles of shampoo and those little soaps I try to hoard from our hotel stays as much as I can. It's like a teen daycare alright. Backpacks strewn around, those jackets sprouting from nowhere, the multi-colored candy-like Nike Dunks, belts, socks, cellphones, curling irons, hair straighteners, iPhones, earphones, chargers, candy-colored nail polish, Nintendo DS, PSPs...

With things coming full circle too fast every year, it won't be too long until all those teen artifacts start disappearing. 

I think I'll treasure every moment of it.

Courage in Pink Boxer Shorts

Great potential for a book title, eh?

Boy, he cracked me up!

Good thing he didn't show the crack!

Nope, this isn't one of those clips from World's Funniest Commercials, nor a feature from Punk'd. This is an actual war document. And if you're curious, you may read up on the complete story of this army soldier in eastern Afghanistan who drew media attention this month after rushing to defend his post from attack while wearing pink boxer shorts and flip-flops by clicking on the photo above or here.

An incredible innovation in pyschological warfare, indeed.

He is Army Specialist Zachary Boyd from Fort Worth, Texas, eager to defend his post from attack, rushed from his sleeping quarters on May 11 to join fellow platoon members at a base in Afghanistan's Kunar Province after the unit came under fire from Taliban positions. I still think that was the purest show of dedication to one's mission.

He cracked me up, but WHY AM I NOW IN TEARS???

Zachary is only 19 years old, like a lot of our soldiers who are still half-boys and half-men. Half-kid, half grown-up, with so much future ahead, and who hasn't even lived 50% of the average life in this world. Zachary, like the others, is still for the most part a son, and most likely not even a father himself -- yet.

Please, dear God, DON'T LET HIM BE ANOTHER STATISTIC down the road...

Eat, Pray Love

I'm a late bloomer. I haven't read the Twilight series. (But I'm purposely delaying it for personal and spiritual reasons)

---

And I haven't read Eat, Pray and Love.

I had the book for over a year now. I had it with me in the long plane ride going to PI last year. But my body decided to utilize the flight hours to fly to dreamland. The book made friends with every nook and cranny of our house before I finally got interested to pick it up again last night.

It's back in the magazine rack in my toilet (proud frontliner!). And I'm enjoying every sentence --and thought bubble?-- that Elizabeth Gilbert poured in there, whilst in the midst of intense...meditation.

I'll tell you the details (of the book, dear) when I'm done. Maybe next year.

I read an average of one page a day, that's why. I always read more than 5 books at one time but don't be awed!!! Each book has an own assigned reading station so it takes a long time for me to finish them all. I have a waitng/waiting-room book, a falling-in-line book, a restroom book, bath tub book, watching TV book, going to sleep-bedside book.

Sometimes I mix them all up in my head too.

And that's the fun part.