Reinventing?

Last night, I went over my posts for the past few months and since I have started blogging. I found out that some of my posts are uninteresting and it really shows that it’s the works of a forty something or a mother with teen-age kids. Most posts dealt with parenting and the realities in life. In other words, it's not as interesting to a wider circle of followers especially the teenagers and young adult groups. My attempts were all confined to simple things in life.

While trying to visit other bloggers' sites, I was amazed to see how their blog sites were beautifully created and artistically made. The templates used, the layouts made, and the contents of their blog sites, all were unique in their own.

Some bloggers are very young yet full of creative imaginations. Some mostly dealt with poem writing and they were exceptional creations. Others are into fiction writing but it drives home a lot of moral.

I thought to myself and if my being a teacher would work, I would say I can give these young bloggers a grade as high as 99% or an almost perfect grade, because they are really good at their craft.

And I realized that maybe I may try to reinvent my style of writing so that I may have a wider circle of followers.

But try as I may do, I won’t let myself become a copycat or a trying hard. I would like to be myself and do what I can do without exerting too much effort yet fail in the end.

Life Is Short

Life is short

treasure it.....

we must take care of ourselves and our health.

Life is short

enjoy it.....

we may regret later we didn't try doing what would have made us happiest.

Life is short

value families and friends.....

we can no longer say "I Love You" and "I Care For You" when it's too late.

Life is short

go for your dreams.....

we must not let time pass by without letting our dreams come true.

Life is short

love and be loved.....

it's the ultimate reason why we want to exist longer in this world.

Life is short

thank God for the life He gave us.....

it's the best way of showing gratitude to the Almighty Creator.

Reality Check

Yes, we must. We must do some reality check, or sincerity check? and my friend says so. A simple rift caused me to do some reality check.

But now I do understand why we need to often undergo reality check. Especially if you are a dreamer like me. Dreamers are just dreamers. They often forget the real thing and what is real. They keep on dreaming though it seems beyond imagination and realization.

And now i realized that you can't have everything you want or anything you want in life. The best is, just dream, let it happen in a dream, it's free and nobody will know what you are dreaming of. Just keep it to yourself, just to satiate your imagination.

1 HF + 1 HF = 1HF

The title seems intriguing, isn't it? Well, the equation simply means: One Happy Family + One Happy Family = One Happy Family. How would that be possible? The story runs this way:

There's a one happy family, composed of a father, a mother and three kids. And another one happy family composed of a father, a mother and four kids. They are a blissful family. The two.

One from a happy family fell in love to a one from a happy family. The result? Equals a new happy family.

Think. How could that have happened? Is it possible?

This one new happy family wants to maintain their respective old happy family. How is that? Think.

And this one new happy family is the happiest of all. Because they found real happiness. Because they were extraordinary people who found their soul mates from the one happy family and the one happy family. Why? Now tell me how? Think.

Life is not really a bed of roses. Happy though it seems, but spices in life do come by. To create a whole new world in a whole new happy family? Maybe? And it happens. How?

That’s the simple story I want to share. Now think. Does it happen? Now think.

Exorcism

I tossed and turned in my bed and could hardly sleep tonight. It was about my hubby's story. It was about the paranormal who secretly conducted an exorcism of the devils around the neighborhood, at the heart of a banana plantation near our home. According to the paranormal's story, they reside there and not exactly in the mango

trees where the first paranormal had said. Under the mango trees are just their playground and also within the green painted house (huh? that's our house, the only house painted with green in the neighborhood?).

But what is exorcism. Based from the research I made, Exorcism is a practice of expelling

demons or evil spirits from people or places that are possessed, or are in danger of possession, by them. Exorcism usually is performed by a person with special religious authority, such as a priest or shaman. The practice was common in ancient societies and was based on the practice of magic. Ancient Babylonian civilization, in what is now Iraq, had special priests who would destroy a clay or wax image of a demon in a ritual meant to destroy the actual demon. The ancient Egyptians and Greeks had similar rites. Many religions in various parts of the world continue the practice of exorcism.

The Bible includes a number of references to demons and exorcism. The New Testament describes occasions when Jesus Christ expelled evil spirits by prayer and the power of his command. In the Roman Catholic church, exorcism is an order that priests may practice with special permission. It is mainly used as a preparation for the sacrament of baptism.

Hopefully, this time, what the paranormal have done will work. I am not really a firm believer of these things but everyone in the neighborhood does. According to the story and I continue, the man asked some rice and salt in the house beside our house because we were not home when he did the rituals so we didn't actually see what rituals he conducted.

This time when I heard the story, I didn't feel any creepy feelings anymore. Maybe they're gone now, thanks to the salt and rice being offered, maybe it worked. So that's the end of my story about evil spirits residing in the neighborhood and within us. As what my friend said, paranormal or otherwise, evil cannot defeat God. And maybe, we ourselves can exorcise the evils around us just by trusting in God's omniscient power.

Brewing the Hirameki Way

Over a cup of tea. That’s how I while the time away. This is my third week that I am on leave in office. My daily routine is simple, casual and quite boring. I wake up early to cook breakfast, wash the dishes, clean the house where we are temporarily staying, do the laundry, cook lunch, sleep after lunch, cook dinner, watch TV, sleep. Boring. No mind exercise. Just physical exertion day in and day out. That is, while waiting for the schedule of my husband’s operation. He’s on medical leave due to an accident he met at work. Dx: Rupture of extensor of Digitorium tendon? That’s a medical term. In layman’s term, he can’t move his middle finger because the tendon that makes it mobile was cut during the accident. The shipboard doctor who attended to him overlooked the real injury. He applied two stitches to the cut/wound, put a brace to keep the finger in place. Believing it has already healed, he removed the brace only to find out the finger was damaged. Result? Medical sign-off from shipboard work. So here I am, attending to my special patient. And I am on leave from office work.

But why brewing the Hirameki way? I love to drink tea, almost three times a day which may be the cause of the yellowing of my teeth. Lipton Yellow Label tea. At the back of the box of the tea is etched the following: “Brewing the Hirameki Way”. And what’s all about it? I have to use my eyeglasses just to be able read what it means. HIRAMEKI, it says, is a word that means “Get inspired”. When you get stuck, you need to feel relaxed but alert so you can get Hirameki. And this is because the tea is made up of black tea leaves that contain Theanine. Theanine helps bring you to a relaxed but alert state of mind. Hmm…nice!

I’m quite stuck for almost three weeks now. Now I realized how important one’s work is. Before, I wish I could get absent from work whenever I woke up not feeling well, but I need to go to work. And being stuck, I crave for tea. Thus, I drink tea every now and then. And while being bored at home, while drinking tea, I try to write blogs. I have written several blogs now but I can’t post it yet. No net connection in the place where we are temporarily staying. I have even finished Chapter 6 of my short story, and maybe, write Chapter 7 after finishing this post.

Thanks for every cup of tea. I feel alert and inspired to finish every chapter of my short story and some other posts such as this. It really helps to brew the Hirameki way. Does it make sense? Maybe, but it’s up to you, my followers. You may just as well try to brew the hirameki way so you may get inspired, relaxed and alert amidst the changes, the interludes and the chaos that we encounter in life.

Mingling with the Invisible and the Unknown

They must be sitting now beside me in my bed while I am tapping the keyboard of my laptop. And they must be everywhere inside the house, some watching TV, others watching those who are at the kitchen preparing our dinner for tonight and still others are trying to find a great place inside our house to rest for the night.

I feel hazy and foggy this moment. This day was a totally tiring, exhausting, grueling and nerve-wracking one. As I try to piece together the events that had happened to us, in my family, in our home, many years ago, many months ago and many days ago, you wouldn’t believe that we were really mingling with unknown creatures which our bare eyes could not see, which our sensitive arms could not touch and which our receptive ears could not hear.

Though against our belief and our religion, we consulted a paranormal as a medium for us to be able to find out what’s really happening to my niece-ward who was forced to stop schooling, now in 4^th year college because of a display of unusual behavior for the past couple of months. So much has changed with her. She’s no longer the bubbly and ever-smiling beautiful young lady who’s got a happy disposition in life and who’s got great dreams for herself and her family. Instead, she turned into a weird-acting girl who would suddenly give you those dagger-look eyes if you try to look at her face to face. She often give statements which gave us a hard time deciphering like: “ I am no longer the good girl you have known”, “evil spirits reside in me”, “my soul is already being burned in hell”, “there’s nothing left with me except this physical body”, “the girl you have known no longer exists in this body”, and many more.

We went to the paranormal’s house, an hour’s drive from our place. We only brought with us a picture of my niece. Upon seeing the picture, the paranormal-medium felt hairs on her arms as well as on her head raised, that eerie feeling, you know. And that feeling did not leave her throughout the time we were in their house. She told us the evil spirits are just too strong. We tried to contact my niece who’s already back with her family in Pampanga but we can’t connect to her phone and only just the text could reach us. And again, we were left frightened by what’s happening.

The paranormal-medium suggested she wants to see our place and we willingly obliged and brought her with us back home. And what she was seeing in her mind was confirmed when we reached our place. She saw the two big mango trees near our house where the evil spirits are residing for quite a long time now, according to her. We went inside our home. Suddenly, she went into a trance, and then spoke with a different voice. We were shocked, coz she uttered so many things my husband and I were left in awe. King Philip was the name of the evil spirit who nagged us why we were trying to bring our niece far from him. He liked her; he wants her because she’s a very good girl. He wants her to be his wife. And he’s mad at us for bringing her to a faraway place. The evil spirits complained that the neighborhood has reduced their kingdom into a garbage pit. They demanded that we clean it and even demanded that we also make our home spic and span because they also live with us. That sent shivers into our spine. Who the hell are they for trying to demand that we try to make our home clean always? Though I know that I always make it a point to make our home clean, I just wonder how clean they would want it to be. And why they would stay with us and consider our abode as their permanent dwelling?

They further demanded that we should always offer them food. What? Feed those we can’t see? I was thinking differently. That is, if the medium was speaking the whole truth about it. We just listened while she talked to the evil spirits. And at the end of the medium’s encounter with them, I surmised one thing; I am not really a firm believer that there are evil spirits residing in our home. If it is so, so much harm would have been done to us. I casually asked the medium that if they really reside with us, why is it that they don’t bother any single member of our family? The medium answered and told us that these evil spirits never bothered us because we’re good people and we have a very strong faith in God.

However, on her concluding statements, the medium told us to abandon our house before things get worst. She advised us to look for a new home far from the place. What? Abandon our home? The home which we have built through sweat and blood and through many sacrifices? At the back of my mind, I already doubted the medium’s tone of statement. I may now believe that she’s out to play a trick on us. If we will believe her, then we will be searching for a new house where we may be boarders and transients. Of course, I am not into it. This is our beloved home and we will never surrender it because of what the medium told us. I believe that not all paranormals say the truth and that what they say is not always true.

We paid the medium P500.00 for her services. And she took the picture I showed her (actually, the whole family is in that picture plus Nicole, our niece, and except my husband, he’s not in the picture). I am afraid she would use that for an experiment. I prayed hard she will not use it. She promised to continue her encounter with the evil spirits and request them to let my niece go, heal her and let her live a normal life in this world since they are from another world.

Lessons learned from this? It was a mistake consulting a paranormal. Our life would have become a mess if we tried to follow her advice. But what I am thankful for, she told us that we should continue to pray and that there should always be prayer meetings at home. After all, she’s a God-fearing paranormal and believed in the power of God and the power of prayers. The truth is, evil will never overcome the good. Evil cannot defeat God.