AS LONG AS THERE ARE ROSES

“Until we have met the monsters in ourselves, we keep trying to slay them in the outer world. And we find that we cannot. For all darkness in the world stems from darkness in the heart. And it is there that we must do our work.” ― Marianne Williamson,

Cheesecake! Unfortunately, I've reached my quota for the year.
No sweets till Christmas. 

Mexico unbelievably suffered an earthquake - again! I am seated here with my coffee caught half way between lip and mid-air, sad and gravely sobered. 

The United Nations heard a seething speech on how certain rogue nations are likely lined up for err...roasting. No sweet feels there. Sometimes ballistic words need to be launched to target a meaning. Remember humanity, there is no rising from the dead in the event of a nuclear war, right? Who will carry the conscience?  

GAIA is traumatized! I can't bear to mention everything, and I'm not CNN anyway, but - the way catastrophes  and other calamities puss the planet this exact moment, you'd think a galactic virus had been beamed from space paralyzing our common sense to thrive! 

The world is a Shamalan movie meets Freddie Kruger, and unless you're darkly holed up in your own shades of grey self - cave, I've no idea how this universal dyspepsia could escape anyone. 

Doesn't mean we give in to despair though. No. Never.  As long as there are roses there is hope! As long as there are fields of flowers, and farmers of flowers,  and merchants of flowers, and establishments with flowers, and homes laced with flowers, and folks holding flowers, it means one thing: that the world is still partnered with love! 

Despite despots and despair the world breathes through people with an emphatic spirit of ascension. The brave ones that do battle with body, mind and soul. They dare look within their darkness to carve out a way for light.  Their transformation is so luminous, they evolve from mere breathing beings to somnolence of light. To meet them is to change,  and I have met some of them. 

Who are they? Where do you find them? 

Exactly, I cannot tell. One thing I know, they are not to be found in fancy restaurants, or in noisy bars, or in podiums of preachiness. They simply wander into your life when you are quiet and ready.  And there lies the secret. That in the midst of this world's chaos, you must invite the pure part of the mind to be your guide. You must allow it to walk you through distractions and forebodings until you have carved out your own pool of light. 

There, they will meet you, in your luminescence, bearing roses.  

“Let your life lightly dance on the edges of
Time like dew on the tip of a leaf.”
― Rabindranath Tagore

Today's Latest Loot is a Hoot, haha! :D

Today's Latest Loot!! by Slidely Slideshow

It's the end of the strain, it's the joy in your heart! :D

No, it doesn't take much to drive me ecstatic! It's one of the things I thank God for - an innate ability to be so appreciative of the slightest cute, the little'lest happy, the simplest pretty. This week's loot proves my lot!

 I went about my usual errands, with a side trip to a  second hand bookstore (as usual), and my usual pre-loved store selling everything second hand, mostly Japanese tea cups, plates, platters and saucers, pots and pans, cabinets, clocks, bikes and golly' dee' doo'...just about anything one can think of. The place is a veritable promise of joy in your heart, and needless to say, I'm thrilled with my teacup finds!

Pushing my supermarket trolly, meantime,  (not the usual supermarket I go to, thank goodie!), I chanced upon a section of handicrafts, ribbons, hairpins and such - lo' and behold' there it was - that ultra- fushia supermarket glamour darling of a tote hahaha! I'm a sucker for summery type native bags and  fell ever so tightly totally in love with it! Those beads, those beads yes, did me in! :D

Who doesn't fancy a bit of shopping, eh?!? Going from one boutique to another curiously ogling the latest fascinating fashion is an  indulgence, and so is scouring malls for that perfect pair of pants or some fancy dress. It's fair fun but nothing though', comes close to the puritanical pleasure of unearthing a fabulous bargain find, because you just KNOW what you hold in your hands is a revelation - a bit of collectible - priced for a song - a thrill for close to nothing!

The "Country Tea Parties" book is utterly delightful! Page after page of glossy paint prints, intimate tea descriptions and proper recipes. Here's the Goodreads description. Clicking on Goodreads would  lead you to the link.

From intimate get-togethers to large social events, tea is the perfect excuse for delightful parties of all kinds. Whether you’re looking for traditional menus of teas and delicate accouterments or you want to host a unique party filled with unforgettable personal touches, Country Tea Parties teems with creative, eminently doable ideas to fit any occasion. Fill your house with fragrant rose petals and invite some friends over to cozy up around a fresh warm pot.

 Airs and Graces is fun. The best kind for a before I sleep book read with a cup of chamomile tea at a convenient reach on the side table. I'm halfway through and look forward to reading it every evening. Here's the book description from the Erica James website:

Ellen has been living on her own in a picturesque, if damp cottage in Cheshire since her husband abandoned her to go and live with another woman in Provence. Having married once for love, she is now determined that the second time around it will be for money. Close at hand is Duncan, her not unattractive, and enticingly single, divorce lawyer… 

But then two new people enter her life: Jo-Jo, a homeless girl several months pregnant; and Matthew, an artist who paints murals in country houses and who, on his first meeting with Ellen, openly criticises her for being mercenary and devious. But, as hostility gives way to friendship, Ellen realises that she has wavered off course from her original plan and she has to remind herself very strongly indeed that Duncan is the man for her.

Starting The Week with A Feels for the Marvelous! :D

“Stop seeking out the storms and enjoy more fully the sunlight.” 

~ Gordon B. Hinckley

Good morning! Glorious feeling over here with sweet sunlight and a rush of  the good life. Life should be good, full of yum and fun and satisfaction. Even in the midst of challenges and the everyday hum- drum ov' it all, there ought to be healthy space for calm and recollection. 

  I am ever so grateful for deep brown/black coffee with just a touch of cream and side serving of cookie. There's inspiration and renewal and that palpitating excitement of newness! This week is going to be vavoom' I can tell! O yes, I can tell because I am gong to MAKE IT SO!!! For one, there's a stash of new books to peruse, one particularly I' m currently so in luv' with! It's a fantastic cookbook - quite vintage, and yes, I'm going to blog about it but not just yet. There's a lot of cooking in sight - plus, I'm planning a bit of a fun happening. 

My exercise routine takes full swing, and so does my doodle art and writing. What's important to me right now is how I feel. I intend to feel my optimal best - mentally and physically HEALTHY!  It would take discipline and a lot of loving - and yes, I'm all for that. I won't look around for inspiration - I will be my own inspiration - and my own discipline officer, haha!

This typing here is  quite a rush as there's something that needs to be done at the moment. I'll be back later to chat this space up. Meantime, all is well, all is fab, all is glam! :D

MY KIND OF FRIDAY EVENING!! "MIDHAVEN" by W.E.D. Ross

MIDHAVEN by: W.E.D.Rosse

No husband right now!! He is a country away for work. My sons are doing their own thing. O' wait, one has arrived and is now ensconced in the privacy of  his cave.  -- This leaves  me on a Friday evening, technically,  all alone. Yes, I am left to my own devices, and frankly, I'm pleased, haha!

What to do, what to do, hehe! I've got it all planned. I've had a roast chicken dinner, and my warm warm bath is bidding. Incidentally,  I found a KennethMD hypoallergenic bath soap from the hubby's recent trip, all stashed in our soap drawer - smells good  so I'll try it. My face right now is itchy and totally allergy feeling.

I intend to spend the next couple hours before midnight immersed in that book above, O' yes! It is my  find of the century, haha! Dug it from a second hand bookshop I frequent.  Can't describe the thrill I felt when I spied it - all anciently yellowed pages with a 1964 original copyright! I know a good one when I see one. I just love the cover of this! Plus, it's a horror story of just the right sort, nothing bloody, but enough  sinister umph' to keep the pages turning.  Aiks, I hope I don't get nightmares, lols!

Here's the gist of it:

MIDHAVEN: W.E.D Ross

Her mother a suicide, her father dead from an accident in which she was involved, lovely Rita Myles attempts to exorcise the devil within her. It all starts out when she was asked to uncover the mystery of the 'hanging suicides' at a private clinic. -- Somewhere, somehow in the terror filled days that followed, was the answer to her own horror. Posing as a disturbed patient she felt herself inescapably caught up in the madness of the patients, never quite sure she might not become one of them.

If that's not fabulous for a Friday night, I dunno' what is!
Off to reader land...this will be so snuggly.
But first to feed the dog. 

Singapore Trip and The Great Shout Out for Inspiration

Roselle Quin's Slidely Gallery by Slidely Photo Gallery

If Slidely folds up I am so - ahem' - screwed. I've been posting slides for months now, and if for any  reason Slidely decides to bid adieu, then, alas, all my dazzling posts will be bereft ( as in VOID) of glamour pictures, haha!  And -- the posts hardly make a dent without the visuals, aiks!

Ah, gad, here I am once again worrying, worrying, worrying about anything and everything! It's a grand past time of mine lately, the worrying thing. You name, I'l worry about it! I'm not so batty tho, as I still have a third of my innate sense of humor intact - at least I think so.

In fact, I was over at my SWEET SEMANTICS  blog, chatting it up a bit because that site, wow, it's gone stale! The page is all but a dormant volcano left to snooze for 10 centuries! Strangely, writing there  gave me a surge of typing inspiration which  coursed  through my fingers. Here I am therefore, blabbering and calling out to my writing angels and muses for a much needed and desired visitation.

Oh, my dearest writing angels and muses, come to me, as I desperately  want to revive my writing stamina! I want want WANT my blogging(s) to be more alluring, more....magnetizing...more charismatic...more revealing and connecting. I need to resurrect my sense of semantics and my deep passion for stringing words and offering it bravely to the world!  

Now, about my head tensions, they have eased somehow. For this I am wholeheartedly grateful to our dear Lord and all heavenly divine friends. There is a more "normal" feel to my entire being - more specifically the past days.  I believe I'm getting there. There being the feeling of being entirely, completely healthily my old/new self.  I feel saner, lighter, stronger.

My anxiety  attacks brought about by lingering ails' are quiet and pacified. I am happier...happy enough to get back to my artistic endeavors with renewed vigor. Two dolls are in the making. They are ever so sweet, and I am excited to post about them - very soon.

The Birth of a Thought on an Ash Wednesday Morning

 O' Jesus, attract my heart, and confirm it in your love. Grant that detached from all things and uninfluenced by the allurements of self love, I may breath only your love,  and neither seek nor love anything but you in all  things. ~ Reflections, Vatican ll

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A dozen fetching cutie possibilities I dunno' where to start! All I know is to  make these series of months pop alive with pinks, lavenders, yellows, creams and all whimsical shade of greens! 

I feel compelled to create so many beautiful dainty things. ornaments, adornments, - by hand - my imagination is running wild with colors & blueprints which tell a tale of pretty. ! 

⊰✿ It is a wild thankful thought melting in the aperture of my wits.  I'm growing into smiles and understanding; an all  encompassing acceptance of every cleverness,  haha!  Maybe this is wisdom, arms outstretched in the quintessence of living. 

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My Struggle -> Pose

“The quality of your life is dependent upon the quality of the life of your cells. If the bloodstream is filled with waste products, the resulting environment does not promote a strong, vibrant, healthy cell life-or biochemistry capable of creating a balanced emotional life for an individual.” ~ Tony Robbins

Struggle pose I call it; to sit straight on the floor with the back  arched, your arms reaching out in differing stretching angles that require your spine to fully engage with the movements. This was the challenge early morning yoga class.

I get what's it's all about - support and confidence that  your spine will hold you up limber straight, when asked, and flow gracefully supine with the movements. Hah, none of that for me, I'm afraid. Surprise! Surprise!

My whole torso was in a state of stiff, bent puzzlement - like gurl' what the eck' do you want me to do and why, what for, do I really have to?!?  I felt a wave of  complaint as my backbone, new to the experience, simply  couldn't perfect the 'look'. It had a mind of its own opting to bend comfortably, resisting the ensuing straightening, lengthening experience - unsure, questioning, trying, failing, then trying again, and somehow managing to get through the whole experience with a tad of pride that the newness of something, a type of change was hurdled.

For the first time in my life, I'm treating my  body as I would a child - with  the gentleness,  kindness and  firm guided discipline of a responsible parent. Every sweat is  an enlightening joy of  nourishing and creating aliveness. Every movement is an experience,  an adventure that unlocks not only  hidden strength but colorful positive realizations as the process unfolds. 

How wonderful too, to be surrounded by people who  believe that the body gets better, fitter and even stronger as one age,s as long as you have consistent faith  coupled with motivated action to treat yourself with respect and reverence. I affirm that health and vibrancy is mine - because where focus goes, energy flows

(✿◠‿◠)The Sunflower Bench✿

Roselle Quin

“Sometimes since I've been in the garden I've looked up through the trees at the sky and I have had a strange feeling of being happy as if something was pushing and drawing in my chest and making me breathe fast. Magic is always pushing and drawing and making things out of nothing. Everything is made out of magic, leaves and trees, flowers and birds, badgers and foxes and squirrels and people. So it must be all around us. In this garden - in all the places.”~ The Secret Garden

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The afternoons are of no use - it rains. It rains - a - lot. No space for garden work during the monsoons when the 'noons are drenched in pettite' pours and shimmie' plops at precisely indeterminate timings. It's here, it's not - simply no telling when the skies will water except that it happens after lunch! --- No, this isn't my garden, heeha! :D

Roselle Quin at Sonya's Garden

These pics were taken last summer when friends and I went 'summering' in Sonya's Garden. A pretty garden to roam in still, but the presence of too much folks, compared to the first I strolled the place, was quite off putting. - Nevertheless, my sweet glams and I  savored the moment spent and had  the time of our lives taking turns photographing each other, haha!

What I adore in Sonya's garden, are the little twisty paths that tempts one to explore. As a profound lover of paths and inner dirt roads be it stone cobbled, pebbled or grassed, these twinee' diversions are lavish enticements to me. 
"Come, take a step, get lost in life and find another," it murmurs. Reality taps on my shoulder reminding, "there isn't time." 

Agh, there isn't time, always the time! I turn to a leaf and instruct it to be till time creates the occasion for another visit. I sit down for one last shot in the Sunflower Bench, a sublime throne of flower power. 

-- An ardor  of petal-ish' joy overpowers my senses.

What a pleasant attack, I feel! 

Nature assaults most  juicily. 

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It Only Takes One Star: Persistence

Roselle Quin ~ "Afternoon Tea at The Shang" 

September seems to be a month of recurring challenges. The first week alone saw a trip to the hospital with the hubby slumped in a bout of nasty flu. Sporadic allergic feelies' have descended on me after that episode - not surprising - the onset of the "Ber"months have always been a pesky trigger to my seasonal rhinitis. Agh' just talking about this makes my left eye spasm and twitch! Thank goodness I don't feel as weakish' - I remember years  ago how frighteningly soggy'I  went, half breathing, wheezing and teary  red eyed  from inhaling.  ------ I've been dawdling with a low'vibe energy these last few days; a trailing elk'from the nasties'. Good to know, 'cause at least I'm  much aware that this'ill - turn 'round pretty soon. Meanwhile, I'm doing my bit to carry me out of this stupor, First thing is to reminisce on happy occasions represented by these pictures here. Been awhile since I've done something this dainty cute' involving violins and mini conciertos'..I could, in fact, I probably should,   to get me'self tuned up. I will.

"It only takes one star to pierce a universe of darkness."

~ Richelle E. Goodrich

Roselle Quin ~" Afternoon Tea at The Shang"

Right now tho'there are  things I need to 'start'and follow up and put in order and launch. A myriad mix of the mundane and exciting. There's nobody to do the WANTS I want done , so I'm counting on me', the Holy Mother and St. Therese in petitions to the dear Lord. 

If I get on the move, I'm up for little victories, Victories, whatever scale deserve sweet cute celebratory whoohoos' and that's where the plans come in. Oh, I need my quirky rosie' imagination to get me going. It's all grey in me right now - but as they say, it only takes one star to pierce a universe of darkness.  And you know me....ever always all about the shine. 

How To Make a Smashing Week

Roselle Quin photo:
"Tea by the Pool"

Write it on your heart
that every day is the best day in the year.
He is rich who owns the day, and no one owns the day
who allows it to be invaded with fret and anxiety.

Finish every day and be done with it.
You have done what you could.
Some blunders and absurdities, no doubt crept in.
Forget them as soon as you can, tomorrow is a new day;
begin it well and serenely, with too high a spirit
to be cumbered with your old nonsense.

This new day is too dear,
with its hopes and invitations,
to waste a moment on the yesterdays. 

~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Felicitations to a new week! 

My best brightest self welcome's Monday with a favorable juicy feel for the positive. Major compelling realizations have popped and  shape shifted in my mind. I am soaked in plans and dreams and decisions. The heavens will be my guide, my inspiration, my connection. Yes, no  mortal muse can entice me.  My plans are as a big and venturous as never before!

There is work to do, but make no mistake dear me, there is no room for drab or dreary. Labor will be intensive but suffused with relish and recreation. One must be in love with one's work. One must be in love with one's days - the minutes, hours and seconds not left to dawdle by itself - there is harm in that. 

How does one make a smashing week? 

Specially after having dealth with the naughtiness of  past weeks gone? Why,  by blessing the what-not's of  troubles a - visiting and thanking them all for lessons learned, stamina built and new hopes aroused. If it were not for the challenges of the past weeks, I wouldn't have had this vision for a future I desire to experience. I can almost feel it. I am almost there. 

Much to scribble, even more to scrawl and I am compelled to begin. This particular rumination, I bring to conclusion with the burning thought that I should write it upon my heart that each day is the best day of the year. 

Alive. Daring. Brave.

Do visit: Roselle Quin's Fine Poetry

Remembering Persi

Like my hands were hogtied and my cute floaty cells braided into humidity frazzled strands of exclaiming question marks. I'm saying it's been a very VERY - infinitesimally -> very long time since I was last seriously here. Pictures are from a light year ago left marinating in juicy tenderness of blog blandness. 

     I've been to cute corners of my life's here and there since I last hitched this site,  none of which have seen the spotlight of a post. BUT, no worries, my alternate me, (hehe!) because your's  truly intend to flower power this oh' too quiet corner. There's about half' a dozen drafty' writings in the dungeons on hold, and, yes, I do intend to allow them  the light of day.

Persi staring at me. Ya' should've kept to my good side! 

Meanwhile I take high sweet pleasure in pics of last year's flowers, vased on top of last year's white decoupaged table top, which I gave away to our trusty' village handyman. And the cat picture above is "Persi"..who left me one morning never to return again. I still don't know why he did that. To be honest, I'm hurt, quite slighted and a little bit hoping.

He was the epitome of persistence which earned him the name, Persi as a fur ball teenie.  I never do allow garden cats inside the house, mind you, but noh, this little black creature would claw and paw and bawl whinny screechie' lamentable meows behind my closed screen door until the drums o' my ears bled bad and I've endured enough insane ruckus. His royal kitty' cuteness had the run of my house, climbing here, crawling there, nuzzling asleep wherever he wanted to. 

He would never  leave my side. That is,  until a stranger cat, huge and imposing and quite dramatically roughed up  enough to possess a touch of that street Puss n' Boots' type. 

Well, this villainous character came a'visiting often enough, more frequently when I wasn't around to shoo his tail off. I noticed how he'd  walk into the gate with a mastered  swagger, giving sly put down glances on Persi coupled with the under breath of that slow grating moewrrr hiss of his...Most likely he bullied and teased how such a sissy Persi was all clean and pampy inside a proper boring house, when the streets are action filled and food is a' plenty. Alley living on the edge is what a true cat's life is, I bet he mocked and enticed.

I sawPersi walk off with the scheming feral Pied Piper Tom cat soon after, nary a glance back, never to be seen, heard or found again. 

There must be about 30 something black cats in the neighborhood,  more than half a dozen a true Persi doppelganger. 

Whenever I'd come across one, I'd halt my steps and stare into the cat's luminous eyes, much to the poor creatures bewilderment. I must look quite the fool, so I make sure no one is around when my sleuthing kink kicks in. I do so want to know where he wandered to but all points lead to nowhere, tsk! 

Life has given me 2 new garden cats to pamper. They were both born in my garden so I'd say nature has an uncanny way of plopping creature responsibilities on me. A man I hired to tidy the garden suggested that if I starve them enough they'd move away. A horrid idea, and I had to kindly show how mortified I was by reminding him that I had a pulse..and heart! Plus, brains.

And thats THAT about cats fer' now. 

 Meanwhile, I'm posting this old pic below to remind myself that I luved' this book. Must dig out from my now cluttered cabinet of books and re-read again. I've done some book shopping a week ago. Me' thinks my collection now rounds up to 270 + and so. 

The Enchanting Legend of the Koi Fish

Roselle Quin photos taken at Koi pond in Greenbelt, Makati - Philippines

Being a true mermaidy'  Piscean, I hugely adore pools of any sort and remember fondly how sweet and  lovely my grandmother's koi pond was! She had an interesting 60's wood slated sliding door in her Asian inspired home that splendidly opened to a gleaming water garden - a tranquil spot in the far end corner of her living room. I can see it still, in my mind's eye, how the home had an airily lit, shall I say - chakra point - illuminated by the buoyant murmuring presence of  water,  color and nature.

Several sizable birdcages also graced the garden, its cheery tweetie' occupants being dozens of lovable lovebirds the sight and sound of which was adorably amazing! Fronting the bird cages was the mini zenish' black pearly' pool  lorded by what seemed to little girl me,  hundreds of magnificent Koi fishies' - an auspicious sight, both enthralling and mysterious. 

An authentic bonsai masterpiece theatrically mounted in an auspicious corner of the Greenbelt pond. 

It was one of the happiest places to be, standing there, fascinated by the leisurely graceful swimmy' moves of spotted yellow, white, orange golden Koi's  creating gentle concurrent ripply waves as they gingerly sashay towards you in anticipation of bread treats. 

A feisty swarm of Maya birds seem to fancy these bushes. It was quite an entertaining sight.

And those were the days, as they say. 

Nowadays, I get my unrelenting 'Koi fix' from public gardens, a most accessible favorite spot being the verdant Greenbelt fish ponds. I have languid afternoons seated at the adjacent Museum Cafe' - sometimes with a friend, at times merely me, - where for a moment's cup of coffee, life is nary a care but for the fishes to see. 

Koi's have quite an enchanting legend.  Story goes that when the greatest sage, Confucious, had a son, a certain important king presented him with a black carp called a Magoy. According to legend, that particular Magoy was 'the great ancestor' to all present day Koi's.

Interesting. 

I'm in the throes of Koi pond envy and would sure like to have my own (tiny) pond in my little garden. Video tutorials are a' plenty in Youtube, all I have to do is coerce, I mean convince my husband that maintaining the fishies' would be manageable. :D

Art in the Park Photos: A Collection

Two ( or is it 3?)  Saturdays ago, I had the pleasure of a  great summer afternoon viewing the most fascinating display of paintings and artworks by up n' coming Philippine artists. My bit of adventure was made more fun by the presence of my youngest son who accompanied me.

I snapped a volley' of pics' as we meandered from one folksy' stall to another. There was a LOT to see and the place was bursting with all smiles curious  people!  The event was dubbed ' Art in the Park' and here are my favorite sets.

Being a super flower lover, the bloomy' galleries were more my kinda' thing. These flower paintings are lovely! There was a lot to look at, and I wish I took more time going through everything. 

This was a really cute birdie' eye treat! :D

And this lady 

that makes you see

 3 is 

fascinating!