Skyway

I won't be talking about the Skyway in Manila which is a well known highway going to the Ninoy Aquino International Airport. To some extent, I will talk about the "Skyway" that I've known when I was still a child decades ago, when I wasn't even studying yet. We lived in a restaurant called "Skyway" which was in front of the Cotabato City airport at that time (no longer the airport now). I had a very good childhood because my first cousins were also there and when our parents were busy attending to the customers at the restaurant at lunch time, they would leave us playing to our hearts' content in the living room. I think it was in the afternoon when they would allow us to play at the runway field for the airplanes. It was such a big playground so I could say I was one of the luckiest children at that time, together with my eldest brother and first cousins.

A decade passed when I again lived in a restaurant called "Skyway II" by my mother since it was near the airport in Paranaque. It was again a very happy place because my youngest brother was only one year old and customers were always entertained by his antics especially his "dancing" while seated on the counter of the restaurant with the jukebox playing. A photo of my brother dancing was taken during one of those moments but I wonder who holds a copy of that photo. My sketch of my brother shown here is what I could remember of that photo.

Life has ups and downs and I think it was after a year when I had experienced the first "downs" in my life as a child. My youngest brother was two years old and he knew nothing about our situation. He remained happy as usual playing in his big playground which was the wide frontage of the line of apartments where we lived in one of the doors. We were in "K" door so you can imagine how long my brother's playground could be. He played and played with his t-shirt full of holes and his face dirty. I was not even a teenager at that time, I thought that was normal for all children his age. I was his caretaker at that time while our mother was earning a living. I would feed him bread and canned pork and beans at lunch and he was always happy and contented with his food.

Although my brothers and I were happiest as children while in a place called "Skyway", I can say we had a very good childhood in general because we saw the differences between hard and easy, happy and sad or more and less at an early age and perhaps realized early also that there was not much difference between them because they would always lead to the other. Our place called "Skyway" always had a lot of people inside, perhaps that was also one reason why we were happy in those places. As far as I can remember, the reason why we left "Skyway II" was because of its risk to our lives since there was always "gun shooting" in the vicinity and during those times our mother would tell us to lie flat on our tummies.

I wonder if we still have the right to use the name "Skyway" since it originated from us. Just in case we will use it, it should be "Skyway III". My youngest brother is no longer young, I think "Skyway" can have a deeper meaning as far as he is concerned because he has helped and prayed for a lot of people as a pastor, and God Has called him to accomplish more.

A Better Pomodoro

This post should be a sequel of my post three months ago, titled "A Better Life", which mentioned about my goal to get rid of cancer cells present in my body, and present in everyone's body my age, by the way. I seem to be successful in my goal so far, because the results of my pre-diagnostic tests on the presence of cancer cells showed they are gradually decreasing, though still within the positive range meaning if I don't do something about it and make it negative, then it can be a case of diagnostic cancer later.

The past year, I've been cooking Pomodoro but using a canned marinara sauce, canned mushrooms and canned spicy tuna. I can no longer do that because canned goods are forbidden for a person who'd like to eliminate cancer cells. Until I found bottled alternatives, though seemed more expensive at first. Like the Cadia Marinara Sauce which costs 279 pesos at Healthy Options but may be used for 5 recipes of Pomodoro. Instead of spicy tuna, I used bottled Spanish sardines. For salt, it should be sea salt, not iodized salt which can be synthetic. The oil must be extra virgin olive oil in bottle and the heat should be the lowest heat of the stove. Anyway, here's the recipe of what I call "A Better Pomodoro":

For every 100 grams of uncooked spaghetti pasta:

2 tbsps. chopped white onion (1/4 of a big bulb)
2 tbsps. Extra Virgin Olive Oil (includes 2 tsps. for sauteing)
1/2 cup marinara sauce (bottled or may be prepared beforehand using another recipe)
1 tbsp. water
1/2 tsp. sea salt
1 tbsp. coarsely chopped fresh basil leaves (around 10 leaves)
2 pcs Spanish sardines if bigger than usual, broken into 5 or 6 parts with fork (Milk Fish Spanish Style sardines may be used), or 4 pcs. small sardines, each piece broken into 3 parts (the Young's Town brand has bigger sardines than other brands).

In a pan using low heat, saute the chopped white onion in 2 tsps. of Extra Virgin Olive Oil until soft. Add the 1/2 cup of marinara sauce, 1 tbsp. water, 1 tbsp. Extra Virgin Olive Oil, 1/2 tsp. sea salt, then mix and simmer for about one minute. Add the chopped fresh basil leaves and simmer for half minute. Set aside (this Basic Pomodoro sauce may be used some other day by freezing).

Boil water just enough for the spaghetti to be cooked "al dente". Drain.

Add the prepared sardines to the Basic Pomodoro sauce in the pan and add 1 tsp. of Extra Virgin Olive Oil. Simmer for half minute and remove from heat.

Pour the drained cooked spaghetti on a platter and pour the Pomodoro sauce with sardines on top. Toss with forks until thoroughly mixed. Best served with green salad which helps digest starches more easily.

A Better Life

If you were one of those who enjoyed life to the fullest, this post might be for you. I was also one of those people, so I might be speaking for myself but at any rate what I will share can give you a new insight or simply serve as a reminder.

I’ve enjoyed my life to the fullest because I have danced, sang as much as I could, and best of all, I’ve eaten any food I’ve wanted. What I enjoyed the most was those bonding moments with my children, eating burgers or fried chicken as well as French fries and doughnuts. It is always a good feeling to think about those times.

Indeed some good things never last because my children whom I spent those beautiful moments are adults now and are enjoying their own lives. I am now in this phase where I have to attend to myself and get rid of the bad effects of most of the foods I have enjoyed. Though I am always young at heart, I have to accept that my body is not that young. Toxins from the food I ate and from the modern environment have accumulated in my body. Because of that, cancer cells have grown for sure, everyone my age has a number of those cells, and my killer cells are continuously fighting with them.

Who will win in the battle between the cancer cells and the killer cells depends on me. My whole immune system will need my help, to choose only the food they need, and cut the food supply of cancer cells like sugar, meat and toxins, not only from the food and environment but also from my emotions like anger. I had a good life in the past but trying my best to keep my body as young as my spirit can give me a better life. And because I chose to have a better life, I bought the tools I will need like a juicer and some health gadgets.

I am now enjoying this new phase in my life because I discover new recipes, some I created on my own, and I feel closer to God because I eat the food He created just for people, in its natural form. I eat a lot of raw vegetable salad, drink the juices from raw vegetables even from cassava. I’ve discovered a food for snack by steaming the pulp from the juiced cassava just for 5 minutes and sprinkling the steamed pulp with muscovado.

When I asked God where to get the cure for dreadful diseases during my conversation with Him in June 2001, He said the cures are abundant and I knew at that time He was referring to the plants around us. Later I also realized that sunshine of course is abundant and just 15 to 20 minutes exposure at the right time, from 9:30 to 10 o’clock in the morning is sufficient.

My husband and I were also blessed by a special child a year after my conversation with God, and this child who will be 11 years old next month, gives us now a natural way to exercise and sweat out the toxins in our body. What more can I ask from God?

A Tribute

Today, March 26, is the first death anniversary of my mother-in-law, and if ever there are tributes for her left undone or messages left unsaid, I guess this is the best time. The last time she was still able to see the people around her, she looked at me when I called her to check if she was alright, and that was her last gaze to a person.

As days and months went by, I've been trying to analyze if that last gaze meant something, and unexpectedly, I found a lot of meanings.

"Mamang" was always described as a plain housewife, but as the priest during her eulogy said, being a housewife is a very noble vocation. In Mamang's case, I could describe her as the "President of a Corporation" consisting of her offspring and their offspring. She sees to it that everyone in this "corporation" is doing well, and would announce to the world that they are indeed doing well, a recognition every employee would always wanted to hear from his or her bosses or employers. It is not only that quality that can make her a "best boss", she was also a servant leader, another quality of a good boss, because she always checks what each person "in her corporation" needs, and would offer her services to fulfill that need.

For some, and that included me, the services she would like to offer were most of the time exaggerated because she always thought she could do them all. A special child I adopted brought us closer, but also became a reason for occasional misunderstanding between us. That was because she would always claim she was capable of taking care of such child, while I consistently claimed that a caregiver is indispensable.



To make my story short, I am now taking care of this special child, with my husband's help because this child has grown tall, but no caregiver, and I have no intentions of getting the services of a regular caregiver at least in the next one or two years. Beyond that, I can't tell because my husband and are are no longer young, but I believe this activity of caring for our special child kept us stronger and more conscious and responsible for our health. At the time this special child was born, my bone density was at the boundary of normal and osteopenic, but ten years had passed and it is now high normal.

My mother-in-law's last gaze was meaningful because it made me realize that her statements in the past were not exaggerations because she had experienced them all and she knew she was capable of doing them, moreso because she had performed them out of love. Saying "sorry" without being enlightened doesn't seem right, but now that I've realized a lot and learned from Mamang, I'd like to say I'm sorry for those times I misunderstood her.



Today is also "Holy Tuesday", or the second day of Holy Week. We are reminded how Jesus Christ was misunderstood and persecuted. He died on the cross to save the whole world. It makes me think now that from every death, some people will find enlightenment and salvation. Jesus Christ sacrificed on the cross to start it all, and His death will continue to save mankind.

My blogging story

This is my 50th post and I'm approaching my seventh month of blogging! It would probably be nice to look back on how I started to blog.

And this is my blogging story: I was desperately waiting for a regular job that I'm expecting to get until it seemed hopeless. Until I thought I can probably find a way to earn through online data entry and found several sites that will provide me with opportunities for such jobs but the sites required either a monthly subscription fee or a one time payment so I decided to forget about it. During one of our meetings with our coffee kiosk business partner whom we've sold our share of the business, our partner told me about his friend who was already earning by blogging about just one topic. He said there are sites that will teach me how to do that and all they require is just a one time payment. So I looked for those sites again, found one where I paid US$40 I think, which led me to this site of Blogger by Google.

Blogger provided all the tutorials and tips in blogging, and that was how I learned to start a blog. I also learned that monetizing a blog can be done later and what's more important is a blog's contents, so I decided to create a personal blog because there is just a lot to share. I realized that a blog can be the best medium for me to share a message of God to mankind, a task I've been holding for years because I just can't find the right way. I was hesitant at first until after several posts in my blog and also reading other blogs, I gained the confidence even to repeat the message in an indirect manner, maybe like what I'm doing now.

This blog was first titled "My Retirement", but it seemed that it was psychologically affecting me in a negative manner, so I woke up one morning saying "I don't want to retire!". I had just a few post then so I thought maybe it is not yet late to change the title of this blog, so I changed it!

"I Don't Want To Retire!" makes me feel energized all the time, that I always have to move to make the remaining years of my life worth living. I'm still young and I may still have at least 20 years more to live. That seems too long for me to retire by now! Of course I can have a vacation once in a while in a serene place, but what is more important is how I can help more people, even just by sharing all the lessons I've learned in life.

While I'm still living, I also need to dream, so I created another blog titled "Dreams List". The nice thing about this blog is it makes me feel that all my dreams will soon be fulfilled!