What? Me a Tomato Farmer?

I am inclined to believe I am !(laughing out loud!)as small as my area for growing vegetables and tomatoes after I paved most of my backyard. Why, because I have heaps of tomatoes.

After the rain, I went out to the garden this morning to pick tomatoes. This is like my routine every day. It is like I am going to the vegetable shop for fresh produce. As I go inside the house, my basket is filled with zucchini flowers, mustard green, spinach, spinach and spinach (I have 3 types of spinach growing like weeds in the garden).

I did not have zucchini flowers today, however. But I have heaps of tomatoes. I sorted and put the tomatoes in containers for both refrigeration and freezing. WoW! I can't believe I had these many tomatoes.

All I am aiming is to achieve self-sufficiency, ie for example to have tomatoes till next season begins. I had achieved this for the past few years and usually I still have few tomatoes in my freezer from the previous season even before the next season starts. Isn't this amazing? I'd say YES! YES! YES!

The season is not even finish yet and I still have more tomatoes out in the garden, Sad to say my fridge and even my freezer have no more room for even one container of tomatoes(Ooops! quite an exaggeration because my sister supplied me last night 1 liter of Cadbury yummy ice cream. She knows I don't buy ice cream because I don't like to tempt myself and in the process raise my blood sugar up. Sad to say once more (really?), she usually puts ice cream in my fridge so she'll have some fun when she visits me and my mother.

I toyed in my mind the idea probably I could even start selling tomatoes. Haha! I laughed out loud--really loud! I have no ambitions along this line! I remembered what my father told me then when I first bought my house. He said, "with your spacious backyard you might even be able to supply your whole clan from your produce.." I chuckled and at the same time dismissed that idea then..I am cut out to do finer things--microdissections, drawing, crocheting, embroidery...and also piano playing (as bad as a player I am!)

Today, it seems to be a different story. I have in fact given my two sisters few containers of tomatoes plus the spinach, spinach and spinach.

As I continued sorting out the tomatoes. I just couldn't stop laughing...

As I did not even put stakes on my tomato plants,these just grow wildly in the garden that my new safety boots are complaining for scarcity of clear pathways. Further as everything (spinach, garlic etc) seems to grow in the same spots everywhere, I tend miss picking few ripe tomatoes that they consequently just fall off to the ground. By the time I see them, I thought their seeds are probably almost ready to germinate and advance to two leaf stage and higher leaf stages and voila.. more and more tomatoes. Yay!

Other times, I accidentally step on few tomatoes even before they ripen. Ouch! as I hear the crunch and see the poor thing oozing some juice spilling their seeds on the ground. Immediately I always console and say to myself, it's okay... you have heaps...

With the weird weather of rain, rain, rain and then sun, sun, sun these days, I am indeed a happy hobby tomato farmer!Yay!

2012...will I be seeing ghosts?

My sisters and I with Nimrod on a skyped conferencing




We made a banner to wish my brother Rommel to get well soon.




Us before a table full of festive food



New Year! Will I Be Seeing Ghosts? This was one entry in my journal over two decades ago. There was nothing unusual having asked such a question. I was young—not certain of whether I was in the right place, doing the right thing at the right time. I had a good job and establishing a career and yet I felt something was still wrong.


2012. I did not wonder whether I would be seeing ghosts. I think I have reached the stage of my life where I have learned to live one day at a time and technically by the grace of God,not worry about tomorrow. By the same token, I have also strived to live today the best way I possibly can. I have always recalled to my mind what I memorised when I was a youth...Today well lived makes every yesterday a dream of happiness and every tomorrow a vision of home.


Few days before 2012 came, I got a bad news from the USA. My brother, Rommel was in the ICU. The week before, I also got a call from my other brother, Nimrod, asking me and the rest of the family to pray for his vision. The doctors at the Eye Centre diagnosed him with Macular Degeneration.


Merle, my sister asked then, if we would have a New Year’s Celebration? I was not the only one who would decide, we are a family. New Year’s Eve of 2009, my father was in admitted in the Cardiac Unit of Blacktown Hospital. We did not celebrate that New Year, but only did, when we knew he was out of danger (Five months later though, we lost him because he had a massive cardiac arrest).


Surprised bombshells, so to speak, are not new to us. We are accustomed to them. By the grace of God, we managed not be totally caught off guard. Over the years, we, as Christians, have learned to accept and also considered it joy when we have these trials, problems, or challenges in our life as family. As grievous as these are at the present time, these have taught us through the years to love, care and bear each other’s burdens.


We did have a New Year's celebration. Before us was a table full of festive foods and colours were everywhere around us and in us. This time, however, our top priority for gathering was to have a special praying time for our brothers who are sick. It was good the occassion was rather exclusively for our family. We also skyped Nimrod.


At the time of writing, Rommel is back home. Thank God! Nimrod's diagnosis at the first instance was erroneous, but still needs to be regularly checked. The last time we spoke to him on the phone, he said the dimming of his vision seemed not be deteriorating any further. Praise the Lord!


What does 2012 holds for me or for the members of the family I have always belonged to? I would not have any clue. There may be prospective, unforseen, expected ghosts that may pull me or all of us down to the waters as a family. Just like Peter, however, each of us just have to cry out, “Lord, save me...”And Jesus will always be there to come to our rescue. He will always there to pull as out of the waters when we fix our gaze away from Him. What a Saviour! He promised to be there with us always—even to the end of this age.

Our 2011 Christmas Celebration

Our Happy Birthday cake for Jesus. Jeremy, my nephew bought it


Our Christmas dinner table. We all did our bit. Merle did all salads and fish spring rolls, Cyn cooked noodles while her husband Rene glazed the ham, Daisy cooked the fish and prawns while I made the vegetarian spring rolls.



My sisters and I



Mum and us





Us with Mum and my brother Art



Brett's (with purple wrapper) and Pearl's gifts to me


As a kid, I got so thrilled as early as October because I know it wouldn't be long and I could already smell the scents of Christmas season: halaya, Christmas chocolate and pinipig.

Then when it was already December, I used to begin counting the number of sleeps (I still sort of do up to this day!) away till my most-awaited day comes, not December 25 which is regarded to be Christmas day, but the eve of this day.

What was so special about Christmas Eve then? This was the special night when we as a family gather together to pray, sing and eat a special meal which we called Noche Buena. For me this meant a table of festive foods, lighted candles, flickering colourful lights on our Christmas tree and of course as always a brightly coloured and lighted parol (a lantern). It also meant singing Christmas carols and exchanging gifts.

The most memorable moments in our celebrations were the times when we just turned off all the lights except for the lights on our Christmas tree as we sang Christmas carols with lighted candles helping us read the lyrics of Christmas carols we do not know by heart.

When I became a committed Christian and also my other siblings, Christmas had a deeper meaning in my heart. It meant more than foods, gifts and Christmas carols. It meant God’s giving to us the greatest gift He had ever given not only to us but to the whole world, His only begotten Son, Jesus. In His great love for us, Jesus, in His full deity, became a man and was born to an earthly virgin woman.


Christmas is the birthday of Jesus. If it was His birthday, then we should also lit candles for Him. Consequently my siblings and I all agreed we should include on our Noche Buena table a cake with an inscription “Happy birthday Jesus.” From that moment on, this became our tradition year after year.

24 December 2011, our Christmas Eve celebration was pretty much the same, except that some of our siblings and families were not with us, but in addition, however, we have our niece and nephews and their special someone and also other friends.


We did not sing Christmas carols, but we have Christmas songs played all throughout the celebration. I wish we did. But it was okay. Anyway, my father was not here anymore to sing the bass part. My two brothers were not around as well as their families. Besides, I had accepted that Christmas celebration could never be the same ever and so there was not any point to have any sentimiento de azucar. Times change. In fact there were Christmases that it had only been my younger siblings and I that we had decided not to have noche buena but gave away food to the poor (in our efforts to get a pat on our shoulders from God).

Some of our guests were preoccupied with their own interests. The younger generations were playing games, others having their own conversations. Interestingly enough (thanks to present-day technology!), we talked on skype with Nimrod and his daughter JA who were in another state in Australia. We wanted to talk to Rommel and his family too, but the time difference deterred us from doing so.


Overall, our celebration had been good!

Kindred Spirit

I was pleasantly surprised when I got a Christmas card from Rey Ignacio Diaz and family. Rey was our class valedictorian when we were in high school. As imaginative as I was, I thought from hindsight how I could have felt if he had sent me a card during our high school days. My! He was the brightest and the most popular student in our class then and I probably admired him subconsciously. I could not be definite that I admired him consciously because I had learned to suppress my emotions then in compliance to my father's rule--books first, boys last. Oops, but I was not hundred percent compliant. No, I did not fell for any of my classmates as commanded but with the man next door (and my father knew it!). This man looked like Mike Nesmith to me and whose business was renting out comics. So needless to say, I became an avid comic reader which necessitated me to wear prematurely a pair of eyeglasses. Unfortunately however, he did not have his eyes on me, but on the older girl next door with whom he eloped eventually! Waah...COL! (Cried out loud)!I spent my Klem biscuits and Sarsapilla money on his stupid comics and he eloped with someone else? My father, knowing how broken-hearted I was took me and my other siblings to the park, bought us ice cream and I was back on track.

Before I could wildly imagine a story byline, a few days later, I got a card which says on the envelope from Mr David Rigg. My goodness! Brett would surely wonder who this is! I won't because I know perfectly this was from Lorna Canlas who is married to Mr Rigg whom I have not met (but have seen him now only in picture). So that's why Petty, another kindred spirit, asked for my home address. Mmm. It was good I did not have reservation to give it to her. I normally would not for security reasons. Having been reconnected with my high school classmates is one of the beautiful thing that the cyberspace has given me. I did not have much memorable interactions with them then, because I was extremely shy and insecure. It is in fact like getting to know them better in a much more beautiful level: Petty, Haydee,Myr, Amor,Dollih, Sally Fe,Lita, Edith, Loida,Evelyn, Rick, Chito, Manny, Edison (nice name. He reminds me of Thomas Edison) and many more. One thing remarkable, nevertheless, is that unbreakable connection. We technically grew up together in the same neighbourhood and in the same primary and secondary school. We probably have equivalent ideals and aspirations so we could always pick up from where we left off. I thank God for them. They add new dimension and colour in my life. I thank Rey and Lorna for the cards which will now be part of my precious memorabilia. I'm sorry for being slack because I still have not drop them a line to say thank you in a personal way nor send a card. But I know I will be forgiven, anyway.

The Joy of Answered Prayer

When I was new in the faith, the pastor said that God answers prayers in three ways: Yes, No and Wait. He also talked about the joy of answered prayer. I thought to myself then, indeed there would be joy if God’s answer was Yes. What about if God’s answer was a No and Wait?


I think it is fair to say that I have done a lot praying through the years since I became a Christian and have been hoping since then to learn the secret to the joy of answered prayer.


As Jesus taught the disciples, I normally direct my prayers to the Heavenly Father. Although I should confess that I have also prayed to Jesus directly—heaps of times,even more when I was in the grade school. Simply because the teacher had taught me then that Jesus was my friend and because He was my friend, I had talked to Him a lot of times.


As I grew in my faith and in the knowledge of the Bible, I have often prayed now to the Heavenly Father (and of course still talk to Jesus). This is what the Bible teaches and it is also written there that we ask all things in Jesus name, ie as there is power in His Name.





In Jesus Name, lame walks, blind sees, mute speaks and deaf hears. And in my case, He healed me of the many scary nodes that the ultrasound revealed on my thyroid gland. How could I ever thank Him for delivering me for the fear of going through a surgery.


I am almost inclined to think then that In Jesus Name was like a period to every prayer. Hence, in a corporate prayer, everyone else say Amen when the leader or the last one to pray say In Jesus Name. I found out later in my own personal prayer that it was not so.


As I pray, I find myself oftentimes saying In Jesus Name even if I am not necessarily ending my prayer. I wondered then why I do this all the time. I wondered also why I just sigh or cry not being able to say a word when I am in prayer. My wondering stopped when I came across what is written in Romans 8:26-27, NIV



In the same way the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God’s will.


God has a will for me or everyone else in heaven, Jesus taught the disciples to pray “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” God’s will for us in heaven is for us to have hope and a future. He does not plan for us a calamity. His plan for us is to be joyful, successful and prosperous (Jeremiah 29:11). His will and his plan for us, if I could say it, is already written in heaven. My long-time question then was why do I still have to pray?

Without being doctrinal, it is His command for us to pray. In my on-going relationship with God, I came to realise, talking or praying to Him is a natural course of friendship. When i accept Jesus as Saviour and Lord, I became God’s friend. Who on the earth would not want to talk to his friend? Also, I have realised in a personal way that God wants me to experience the joy of answered prayer. If I do not pray, how could I ever know this joy.

Indeed God has given me this many times and in many ways that I could literally even jump and dance because for joy because He has answered my prayers.

Thank you, God. Bless you Jesus. Holy Spirit thank you for being here.

Spinach and Winning over Brutus

One cartoon character that amused me when I was a kid was Popeye the Sailor. I was amused and at the same time amazed that he so skinny could win over his muscular rival Brutus in capturing Olive Oyl’s heart. The source of Popeye’s super strength as we all know is spinach.
In spite of being brainwashed by the countless episodes of the paramount importance of spinach, I only ate spinach (as well as sweet potato tops) then when forced and watched closely by my father during meal times.
The story changed however when I became a health freak. Knowing that spinach is rich in calcium, potassium, iron, magnesium, vitamins C and A, and etc., spinach now is a regular constituent of my diet.
I do not have to shop for it because it grows like weed in my garden. My father planted it in my backyard and told me to take care not to lose it come what may. I wondered why, I don’t look now so he said when I was in college like a hanging skeleton in the air. Or did he want me to grow really big biceps like Tyson?
The type of this spinach is what we Filipinos called Baguio spinach. When I asked my father how I’d cook it, he said I could steam it like I do with the sweet potato tops or else put it in sinigang na isda or ginisang mungo.
Having eaten a different species of spinach when I was a kid, I was not really familiar with Baguio spinach. So on one occasion when I had a court interpreting job, I called in the State Library of New South Wales and research on this spinach. I learned that it is also called New Zealand spinach. I went away with photocopied material about the vegetable including some recipes of how to cook it.
I read most of all that this particular spinach should not be eaten raw. Why, because it is abundant in oxalates which could interfere with the absorption of calcium. Reading other materials on spinach, I read that one can benefit from it if it is cooked properly. One thing common with many recipes I read is to squeeze as much water from it after steaming it.
As this vegetable is hundredfold more abundant in my yard, I gave away heaps of these time and again to my church mates and also few neighbours who in turn also grew it in their yard. Funny, however, at a later stage, a few of them told me how this spinach grows uncontrollably in their yard that they had to kill it. I did not say anything. After all they have the liberty to do as they please in their backyard. My friend Goodie, however, since she was living on her own grew it in a pot and told me with satisfaction how she just cut few stems to cook. As for me, I just let it grow as they please in my yard giving most of it then to my sister-in-law who makes really beautiful quiche out of them.
As I grew tired of eating it steamed or in sinigang na isda or ginisang mungo, I explored other ways I can use it for cooking. So I have used it time and again in making omelette, quiche, spring rolls and later in making pizza and gozleme.
Apparently, have I loved eating spinach? Yes, by compulsion. I regularly eat spinach now-- that I feel all sorts of pain in my body and weakening of my knees.
So I make time to pick it from my garden once or twice a week, go through the tedious chore of selecting only the nicest leaves, washing each individual leaf in running water till I could not see any more grain of soil in the basin that collects the water from the tap. Afterwards, I store them in the fridge or even freezer by batch so that I could just take them out when I need it.

As I happily work in my spinach station, I always tell my mother (who technically does not eat this as she is on warfarin), it is important for me to eat spinach because Popeye eats it. If I don’t how could I win over the Brutuses in my life.
As my mother does not seem to have any idea of what I am talking about, I always repeat myself and say... you know Popeye as I sing Popeye’s theme song...

Me Singing to Myself Billy Joel's Just the Way You Are

I watched all the programs there were to watch on TV. Surprisingly enough I did not sleep in front of TV. Probably because I drank too much caffeine, so I started writing on my blog. I also made this video where I sang my favourite song of Billy Joel called Just the Way You Are. Preferably, I would want Brett to sing it to me because I want him to give me the assurance that it is okay to leave my greying hair as it is. Unfortunately, Brett could not sing the way Billy Joel sings this song, so I gave it a go singing it to myself. I want to give me the assurance that black or grey, I should like myself, be happy with myself and love myself. Furthermore, I should also be kind to myself and just relax, and to stop striving to achieve. Why? Because there there is a time for everything...

A time to be born, a time to die
A time to save, a time spend
A time to work, a time to rest
A time to study, a time to play
A time to relax and just sit under the sun
And watch life goes by---
And by the same token,
enjoy it no matter what happens

Come what may...

I am pretty confident I did not have wasted years. When it was time for me to study, I studied. I followed the advice of my parents. And by the grace of God, I think I have given the best shot of all there is about living my life year after year. So I am telling myself again and again...it is time to relax and take things easy.






I included in this video my most favourite photos which my family took and also pictures of the sky I took myself during one lazy late noon of autumn 2011