I asked a friend to honestly evaluate how I write and what I write about. Sharing it with you here. What do you think of it?
About her writing and content choices: She writes with quiet honesty. Her words don’t chase trends or polish pain into something pretty. They fall like rain — soft, real, and unafraid to be saturated.
She chooses content the way she tends a garden: by what’s growing in her that day. A Heartland note. A prayer in the middle of cat and mouse rain. A thank You tucked inside a complaint.
Her page isn’t curated perfection. It’s a diary that decided to be public. Faith and fatigue. Gratitude and grief. Sunlight and heavy skies — all of it gets a place.
She doesn’t write to impress. She writes to connect. So others will remember they are seen too.
We are special in God’s eyes. His graces overflow. 🌱
This prompt was asked before back in August 2023 but I only touched it in passing and shared some excerpts on my previous posts.
Writing is a creative activity. We express ourselves through writing our thoughts, beliefs, ideas and what have you. They say that writing is like painting a picture with your words, giving voice to the thoughts in your head. They might be inspiring, sometimes muddled but it gives you a sense of fulfillment when you see those words in print.
Being curious, imaginative, an openness that we want to share in cyberspace. The ability to use written words to communicate effectively is a talent we all nurture. ✍️ The ability to encompass a range of activities like grammar, vocabulary, spelling, sentence structure and put them into words is something not all of us has a gift of.
Why do I write?
To improve myself and make my life more meaningful and stress–free. I enjoy sharing my thoughts to the world.🌏
Then you wish it is your birthday every day to be able to read those lovely and inspiring messages from family and friends.
I am still not feeling well, I have to set an appointment with an oncologist soon for my CEA marker. Just had 19-9 marker before I left the hospital the other day. Quite alarming but I am LIFTING IT ALL TO GOD. If He wills it, everything would be okay.
Battled so many health issues in the past with two major operations, kidney stent, six cycles of chemotherapy 17 years ago. Now, I have several doctors looking after my health – hematologist, endocrinologist, nephrologist, urologist, orthopedist and my kind doctor, Dr. Michael Chu, a gastroenterologist who took care of me at the hospital.
May I ask you to include me in your prayers please? THANK YOU SO MUCH.❤️❤️❤️
Some photos Nissa took on my birthday. Not yet allowed heavy meals because of my pancreatitis so she just ordered food at Northpark then my sis-in-law cooked arrozcaldo and puto.
Among all the greetings I received today, two stand out. One is from my good friend Joy Ito, a fellow Filipina who is residing in Japan.
“Dearest Ate Arlene,
Happy birthday! 🥳🥂🎂💐🎶
On your special day, I want to remind you of how incredibly strong and loved you are. I know you are fighting a tough battle right now, but please know you are not walking this path alone. I am praying daily for your strength, comfort, and peace.
Reaching another year of life is a beautiful blessing. May God continue to hold you close, lift your spirits, and grant you many more moments of joy, laughter, and warmth with your family and everyone who treasures you. Thank you for being such a wonderful part of my life kahit hindi pa tayo nagkita in person.
With all my love, prayers, and deepest gratitude, Joy ♥️😊”
And the other one is from a friend in Netherlands who I met last year when she came over to visit me. I blogged about our meeting July of last. We’ve been friends for so long since our Multiply days.
“Dearest Arlene,
It truly breaks my heart to hear that you are facing another difficult health challenge. I can only imagine how much you have already been through, and I wish there were words that could somehow make things a little easier for you. But knowing the kind of person you are, and the strength and faith you carry in your heart, I believe you will find the courage to face this new challenge, just as you have faced the ones before.
Sometimes, life brings us trials that are so difficult to understand. We wonder why, especially when we have already endured so much. But I believe that God, in His infinite wisdom, sees what we cannot see and knows what we cannot understand. Even in our most difficult moments, His love never leaves us.
One thing I have come to admire about you is your deep faith and your love for God. I pray that He continues to hold your hand through this journey, especially on the days when you feel tired, afraid, or uncertain. May He give you strength when yours feels like it is running low, peace when your heart is troubled, and hope when the road ahead seems difficult. Above all, I pray for your complete healing and for brighter, healthier days ahead.
On your birthday, I wish I could give you the one gift that matters most right now….the gift of good health. Since that is beyond my power, I offer you something that comes straight from my heart: my sincere prayers, my friendship, and my hope that God will bless you with many more beautiful years to enjoy life and the people you love.
I am so grateful that our paths crossed last year. I feel truly blessed to have met you and to call you my friend. I believe that people come into our lives for a reason, and I am thankful that God allowed our paths to meet.
Happy birthday, my dear Arlene. ❤️
My birthday prayer for you is simple: that God will ease your burdens, restore your health, renew your strength, and fill your heart with peace. May this new year of your life bring fewer worries, more reasons to smile, and countless moments of happiness.
And please remember, you don’t always have to be strong. Even the strongest hearts need rest, comfort, and someone to lean on. Allow yourself those moments, knowing that you are loved, appreciated, and remembered in prayer.
I look forward to the day when this difficult chapter is behind you and you can look back with gratitude, knowing that God carried you through it all.
Until then, keep holding on to your faith, dear friend. I will be praying for you and cheering you on every step of the way.
With much love, a grateful heart, and my warmest birthday wishes. ❤️🙏”
I really cried because I was touched by these sincere greetings ftom these two friends. And I also believe that in one’s life, you meet people who are there for a reason. I am so blessed having these two friends in my life.
Will write about my birthday journey soon. I have yet to thank those lovely people including Nissa’s friends who greeted me earlier today.
FINALLY HOME after four gruelling days of stay at the hospital. Thanks to my family for the moral support and good friends Fr. Aly Barcinal and Fr. Lovell Reivaj, OP for the prayers and mass intentions. I appreciate your presence in my life.🙏🏻🤲🫶
Something I am so grateful for. My two kids Nissa and Josef were with me yesterday while waiting for my release papers. We were together the whole day. Now they are still both on leave until my birthday tomorrow. How lovely to hear their spontaneous laughters which I have missed all these years since Nissa got married. I love my kids…so much and Nate and Obet are precious gifts to me too. I will treasure these moments in my heart.
I would like to ask for your prayers for my mom, who has been battling multiple health issues. We are also facing the possibility of a cancer recurrence. We don’t have all the answers yet, but we are praying for the best and hoping for a miracle.
If you could include her in your prayers, Josef and I would be so grateful. Please pray for her healing, strength, comfort, and for our family to have the courage to face whatever comes our way.
About 15 years ago, I taught myself how to make jewelry by figuring out how a bracelet I liked was made. I even made crystal rosaries and my own wedding cord, made entirely of crystals.
Life got busy, and creating took a backseat for a while.
Then, in July, I found myself drawn to real crystals. One bracelet led to another, and before I knew it, I was collecting them, learning about them, and imagining the pieces I could create myself.
And somewhere along the way, an old passion found a new purpose.
That’s how SoulSpeak Crystals by Nissa was born. 🦋
A little space where my love for creating beautiful things meets my love for crystals — with each piece made with care and its own intention.
Because sometimes, the things we wear can mean a little more than what meets the eye.
A few more days to go and I’ll be turning seventy. Ah, remembering those days of agony, remembering those days of being happy, reminiscing about the sunny side of life. Seventy seems ancient to some but I guess it’s how you live your life that counts.
All I ask Lord is to live a little longer to be with my family. Health is my priority at the moment.
It's been some years since I started this blog. Supposedly, it was only to share my plight as a cancer patient and survivor but over the years it has somehow evolved into something personal about my life and my family.
So really glad to have met you all wonderful people out there. Someone commented once that he liked the title of this blog, Dreams and Escapes. Dream on, there are more things in life than we really think. Be happy, you only live once. Sometimes you also need an escape from the vicissitudes of life and this blog helps me cope. Welcome. Feel free to leave your comments, I do welcome them.
It took me so long to access this blog, I wonder what happened really. It is always touch and go so I stay with my main blog Dreams and Escapes which you can access here. This is just a trial post once more. I could not even see the tags and categories….whew!
It’s been a while. I am reblogging this here from my main blog Dreams and Escapes. I hope you’ll find time to visit it to. My gosh, I got so excited when I saw it. There are several designs actually and all with Biblical passages. One of the vendors in our subdivision is selling them. […]
I can’t believe I haven’t touched and visited this blog like forever (an exaggeration of course) but I was so focused on updating my main blog so I forgot about this. Early this morning while I was watering the plants, I looked up at our jackfruit trees and saw this. I was hoping I could […]
I am reblogging this here for all its worth. Thank you for reading 🙂 You might wonder how are family has been since my brother was diagnosed with rectal cancer which has metastasised in his liver. Allow me first to thank you all for your prayers and words of comfort. It is helping us a […]
Gosh, I can’t believe it’s been almost a year now since I posted something here. I am always updated with my main blog though, a link of which is attached here. Sharing this photo I took yesterday, we locally call it Lato salad, a appetizer. I love seaweeds and I buy them once in a […]
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