Grateful

One of the good things that has come out of the recent disaster brought about by Super Typhoon Haiyan to our countrymen in Central Visayas is the overwhelming support that has poured in from all over the globe.

I can't help but get teary-eyed with gratitude and joy to realize that the Philippines isn't alone. There are so many heartwarming stories of random people, including children, who generously share what they have, stage fundraising events in their communities, give unexpected hugs and words of encouragement to Filipinos they meet on their way, and give us shoutouts on the web, telling us that we're all in this together.

And there's the official relief assistance, including logistic equipment and manpower, being sent over by countries such as the USA, Australia, Canada, Japan, United Kingdom, France, Korea and so many more. They're helping deliver food, water and medical care to the survivors as well aiding in clearing operations.

Philippines International Typhoon Response in pictures. More HERE.

FAiTH Report

Despite our differences in faith, politics, culture and status, it's amazing at how everyone has managed to set all that aside to respond to a common goal: to HELP another who is in need. And that restores my faith in humanity. 

THANK YOU, WORLD!

Mood Music: Unity by Shinedown

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Hard times

2013 has turned out to be an extremely trying year for the Philippines. Not that we've ever had it easy but we've, more or less, learned how to deal with the natural disasters, corruption, peace and order situations, and poverty that seem part and parcel of our lives. But this year, it has been especially hard.

In August, my hometown of Zamboanga came under siege by separatist bandits which resulted in 19 days of fighting between them and our police and Armed Forces.

After it ended, we'd barely begun to recover when nonstop rains caused citywide flooding, the likes of which Zamboanga hadn't experienced in decades.

While locals, members of the national government and concerned countrymen tried to help us get back on our feet again, a 7.1 magnitude tectonic earthquake hit Central Visayas. It greatly affected the cities of Cebu and Bohol and caused widespread damage to infrastructure as well as death and injury to people and displaced hundreds of thousands from their homes.

And, while we were praying and hoping for the best, the worst came and plowed through Central Visayas. Super Typhoon Haiyan, one of the strongest storms in world history to make landfall, smashed through Leyte, Samar, parts of Cebu, Negros and Palawan, and left in its wake indescribable devastation.


The entire country is still reeling from this latest incident. The delivery of aid to survivors of the monstrous typhoon was initially very slow due to many factors and has only recently started to flow more smoothly with the arrival of international aid.

It's going to take a long time to rehabilitate all that has been destroyed - from Zamboanga to Bohol to Leyte - but I'm optimistic that we will get there eventually. I'm inspired at how Filipinos have come together to support each other despite our differences in opinion. And it is even more inspiring to see how the world has come together to help us get back up on our feet, particularly for the survivors of Haiyan.

As I end this post,  I say a silent prayer in my heart, asking that we will be given some time to breathe, to mourn, to mentally and emotionally recover, and to rebuild before the next big challenge comes again. And may we never lose our faith.

Mood Music: Rise Up by R. Kelly

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brand new

Every day is a new beginning. Treat it that way. Stay away from what might have been, and look at what can be. - Marsha Petrie Sue

Mood Music: Beautiful Day by U2

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Captain of my soul

Rely on your own strength of body and soul. Take for your star self-reliance, faith, honesty and industry. Don't take too much advice — keep at the helm and steer your own ship, and remember that the great art of commanding is to take a fair share of the work. Fire above the mark you intend to hit. Energy, invincible determination with the right motive, are the levers that move the world.

~ Noah Porter

Mood Music: Don't Stop Me Now by Queen

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a leaf off Pollyana

When walking through a "valley of shadows", 

remember, a shadow is cast by a light. 

- H.K. Barclay

Mood Music: Take a Giant Step by The Monkees

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Gracias!

This is today's entry from one of my favorite blogs, Things We Forget.

Things We Forget #534

It doesn't matter how our day turned out. There's always much that we can be thankful for in our lives, be they big or little things. If we focus on that, we'll be so much happier. :)


Mood Music: What A Wonderful World by Louis Armstrong

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my kilig fix for today

I just can't help it, I have to post this video. It literally has made my day.

The guy is Iker Casillas, team captain and goalkeeper of this year's FIFA World Cup champion, Spain. The reporter is his girlfriend, Sara Carbonero. According to one YouTube user, who gave a rough translation of the interview, Iker was thanking the people who've stood by him through it all - his parents, his brother - but choked up when he was about to mention her. She tried to tell him something like, "don't worry, we'll talk about the game and come back to this..." but he said no and thanked her before he moved in to kiss her. Kiliiiiiiggggg!!! :L

I can't get over the adoring way he was looking at her. So sweet. And I can't stop smiling because of this. :D

Mood Music: L.O.V.E. by Nat King Cole

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being grateful

A few days ago, my blog friend Elaine tweeted about having gotten herself a gratitude journal and I suddenly knew what I was going to do with my extra Moleskine notebook. 

I used to regularly write down 5 things I was grateful for everyday but since I became a mom, I lost the habit. Elaine's tweet reminded me of that and I realized how life seemed even better back when I took the time to reflect on my day and be thankful for the blessings, big or small, that God had sent my way. 

I'm back on track now and I'm loving the positive vibes I'm getting. Elaine also pointed me to a Gratitude journal application that I've also installed on my phone and have started using it, too. With both the notebook and my phone, there's no way that my faulty memory can forget to make my list right before I go to bed. And I'm going to do that right now.

"The single greatest thing you can do to change your life today would be to start being grateful for what you have right now. And the more grateful you are, the more you get."

Mood Music: Daylight by The Kinks

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Flower child or Flapper girl?

If I'd been given the choice to choose which decade I would have wanted to be born in, other than my actual decade, I'd have to say it would have been either the '60s or the '20s.

I'm crazy about the music from the 60s: The Beatles, Led Zep, The Who, Janis Joplin, Burt Bacharach and Hal David, Simon and Garfunkel, Jimi Hendrix and more. Then there was the Bohemian fashion, the attitude and the activism people exercised. I would have been a great flower child.

But I also love the the roaring 20s. I can almost imagine myself as a Flapper Girl with the bobbed haircut in a black fringe dress, having fun at a night club with friends while watching and listening to the likes of Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington play jazz music.

Mood Music:  Daydream Believer by The Monkees

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Put your records on

Personally, my younger years belonged to the cassette tape but I really got started on vinyl records since those were the ones my father used to play as I was growing up.

I loved it when he would ask me to clean a record before putting it on the turn table to play and out would come the raspy voice of Louis Armstrong, the silky tones of Lou Rawls, the smooth crooning of Frank Sinatra and more from the music greats of the past. Yes, it would sometimes skip and the sound wasn't as clean as today's digital recordings but that's where my love for music began - on a flat disc made of plastic inscribed with thousands of tiny grooves.

 

 Mood Music:  Reminiscing by Little River Band

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“Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”

That's the famous opening sentence from Leo Tolstoy's masterpiece, Anna Karenina, which I first read back in high school. At that time, although I loved to read, my tastes ran more to young romance novels, techno-thrillers and whodunnits. The only classics I'd read then were Little Women, Black Beauty, Treasure Island, Huckleberry Finn, The Prisoner of Zenda and a few others. I wanted to challenge myself to dip into something heavier and substantial.


I can't recall how I found myself a copy of Anna Karenina but it became my reading project. It took me more than a month to finish the 800+ pages. Russian literature is quite hefty - definitely not your relaxing beach read. What made it more difficult for me was the mature theme of marriage and adultery and Tolstoy's attention to detail. The characters were very complex and my uninitiated brain had a hell of time following them. Even after I was done with it and felt like I'd achieved something, I couldn't honestly say that I'd fully understood what the book was all about. It wasn't until several years later, when I felt brave enough to pore through it again, that I was finally able to appreciate the story's richness and complexities.

What do you recall as being your most challenging read?

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what makes up a good day

Kisses from my two men. What could be a nicer way to begin my day than to be kissed by my husband and my son? Their show of love and affection make my heart swell.

Sticking to my diet. I don't mean diet as in skipping meals or starving myself. I have recently learned how to eat moderately as opposed to eating like there's no tomorrow and it makes me happy when I get through the day without giving in. It makes me feel real good about myself.

Laughter. Laughing at my son's antics, laughing at something my husband has said or done and laughing together as a family. There's nothing like it!

Being alive. No matter how difficult things can get sometimes, it's still a good day when I'm alive and well because that means I have another chance to make things better tomorrow.

A moment with God. To be able to touch base with the One who gives life, love and grace in a moment of prayer and reflection makes me realize how blessed I am.

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DO IT ANYWAY

This week’s theme on American Idol was inspirational songs and the song that Kristy Lee Cook sang definitely did that for me. It was originally sung by Martina McBride. Here are the lyrics:

You can spend your whole life building
Something from nothin'
One storm can come and blow it all away
Build it anyway

You can chase a dream
That seems so out of reach
And you know it might not ever come your way
Dream it anyway

God is great
But sometimes life ain't good
And when I pray
It doesn't always turn out like I think it should
But I do it anyway
I do it anyway

This world's gone crazy
It's hard to believe
That tomorrow will be better than today
Believe it anyway

You can love someone with all your heart
For all the right reasons
In a moment they can choose to walk away
Love 'em anyway

God is great
But sometimes life ain't good
And when I pray
It doesn't always turn out like I think it should
But I do it anyway
Yeah - I do it anyway

You can pour your soul out singing
A song you believe in
That tomorrow they'll forget you ever sang
Sing it anyway
Yeah, sing it anyway

I sing
I dream
I love anyway

Nothing is certain in this world but that shouldn’t stop us from giving our best, from doing what is right and good and from loving with all our heart.

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blessings in disguise

I was thinking about what happened lately to my friend NNG and an interview that I read last year about Ellen De Generes came to mind.

She was asked about her childhood dreams and this is what she shared...

"I wanted to be famous. I thought if I could find a way to be famous, people would love me. And then you get all that stuff - and I worked really hard to get all that - and it sounds crazy but I got the biggest, most wonderful blessing I could get which was I lost my show, and I lost my entire career, and I lost everything for three years."

So, why was it a blessing when she lost everything?

"Because I got to learn that I was strong enough to start over again. I got to learn how to sit back and watch other people and learn what judgment was and have compassion. And learn that not only was I strong enough to make it in the first place, but I was strong enough to come back and make it again. How lucky am I to have learned that? That's why I look at it as a blessing."

Whenever an unfortunate event takes place in our lives, instead of just crying or moping about it, we should also take a good hard look at the entire situation. There may be a blessing there that we can't see.

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Tomorrow

*I visited my friend, nononsense girl, and she had this idea of posting something, like a framed poem, that inspired you. Mine's from a poster in my bedroom. It's something that helps keep me going whenever I'm down in the dumps.


If I can endure for this minute
Whatever is happening to me,
No matter how heavy my heart is
Or how dark the moment may be,
If I can but keep on believing
What I know in my heart to be true,
That darkness will fade in the morning
And that this will pass away, too,
Then nothing in life can defeat me
For as long as this knowledge remains,
I can suffer whhatever is happening
For I know God will break all the chains
That are binding me tight in the darkness
And trying to fill me with fear,
For there is no night without dawning
And I know that my morning is near.

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