Love Personified
As light rain drizzles the cityscape and the horizon is blanketed by grey darkness, I thought of home and of holding my baby, tightly, in my arms.
At once, I was embraced by melancholy.
Because there is a woman holding him right now, one that both of us hardly know.
And I was seized with a realization: I am the one with the college and post-college degrees yet she is the one who is holding the prize.
The Way It Should Be
On 10-10-10, a marathon was sponsored by the ABS-CBN Foundation. It was no ordinary marathon because it was ambitious, its main aim being the rehabilitation of the Pasig River, a major water artery choked with human refuse that traversed the countenance of the once clean, once beautiful, Metro Manila.
Moments
It is called “The Most Sinful Chocolate Cake”. And when Connie of HomeCookingRocks.com wrote about it, I knew I had to try to make it for one of my “frugal nights”.
A little backtrack. I started having “frugal nights” because I was getting frustrated with the restaurant scene where I was paying so much for food. Especially dessert.
It’s crazy.
As If In Prayer
But first, the back story. On the year I sold my house in Cavite, I bought life insurance coverage for my daughter. It was an endowment type of insurance, one that I would have to pay for 5 years. According to the plan, the sum insured would almost double (x 1.8) on year 3 and my daughter will start receiving money on the 8th year and every other year after that. I thought it was a great plan and a great investment and a wonderful beginning for my insurance business. After all, I get a commission, which means I get to have a good discount. I forgot that I had to pay premium for 4 more years. (pained grin here)
And then I read an article that insurance for children is not really recommended. After all, the purpose of insurance is to replace the income of the person living. Children have no income. Parents provide for them and not the other way around. Life moves forward.
But it was too late. I already bought it.
A Door, Windows
“Did”. I am not sure about that word. Because it is in the past tense and means the fun and the adventures are over. When they are not. We are just beginning.A reader wanted to know how we “did it”. She said she read my first post but that I just skimmed the surface of how we overcame the bleak prophesies of our first financial planner, that I did not really explain how we got that 24% increase in our annual income, and more importantly, how we overshot it. If you have not read that first post, here is what our first financial planner said:
“While the couple’s Emergency Fund Ratio (EFR) will be over 1x by the end of 2007, the ideal ratio is 3x. The couple would need to add around Php149,000 to their annual income to meet such a ratio. To raise their savings rate to 18.1% from 6.7%, the couple would need additional annual income of Php262,000, or add 24% to their current annual income.”
So, how?
The Other Half
The Art of Being Still
But my mind keeps wandering off – to where, I am not sure. It just needs to meander about and hop from one idea – question – thought – decision – realization – to another. I cannot stop it. I cannot keep it still. It has to ponder the blueness of the sky or the crispness of the winds (yeah right) or what I have to do next. And before I know it, I am standing up, or jumping about, or talking on the phone, or tinkering with my computer keys, or ruffling the pages of the newspaper or a book – anything but still. It will not be still.
Cloud Bursting
You are writing. You want to be shaken to your core, inspired beyond belief, get your thoughts flowing but the words won’t come. Today is one of those days, you tell yourself, brows furrowed, while trying to figure out what it is you are supposed to do now. How do you get to the zone?
If the experts are to be believed, there is no zone. There is only you. And that you are blocking you.
Or you are blocking your chakra. And It could be stress, fear, insecurity or worry that are the culprits – negative emotions that are of your own making but ones you think you cannot heal or overcome – at least at that point in time when you are calling upon your inner genius.
But there is something you can do. You can tap.