This Rugged JoyFull Home

"Consider it all JOY, brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing." James 1:2-4 Consider it all JOY, my brethren, when you encounter various trials ...  such as the tragedy that struck my family last October 3 when two gun-wielding criminals riding a motorbike fired multiple shots at my eldest brother and his 15 year-old son. It happened so fast in split seconds that both of them died on the spot in broad daylight, right at the driveway of their own home. It was difficult watching the news on national TV and on the internet the following days.  It was a double-murder tragedy. I've seen hundreds of news like this before. But this day was different. This  was my brother. This was my nephew.  You and I both know that a tragedy is a tragedy; it is unthinkable, it cut so deep, the shards of glass ...

(Note:Pls. keep scrolling to the end to watch  a fun video clip of our laing preps.) Trying to frame a perfect view for a windy-rainy morning here on this side of the planet. It's a perfect day to cook a family favorite  ulam  which is none other than   the    delectable  laing.  And because   I hail from the province of Oriental Mindoro, I also call it  pinangat  or  pangat  for short .   The main ingredient of this   well-loved Filipino dish is the lowly  dahon ng gabi  that propagates in your swampy backyard or in your neighborhood's unkempt vacant lot. If you have a friendly neighbor — reword, if you are friends with your neighbor that grows a  gabi  patch, you can score it for free. The same situation applies to your  malunggay  and  dahon ng saging  cooking needs.  Gabi,  or taro in English,  is primarily a starchy root vegetable th...

A fishbowl photo from 2009. Bethany and Noah, seven and one year-old respectively, year 2007.   Year 2007, when I was "21" and Noah was one year-old. Ha! Happy birthday, Noah Bear😍 Last year, on the same month of July, our family went to a dinosaur museum  in Moscow to celebrate our Noah's 10th birthday.  It was a dream come true for him, a decade-long wait had been over. How time flies around here and now he turns 21 11!  He is our boy from the wild and below is a poem to prove it just in case you can't tell.  He's into poems lately. And I guess too much rain in the Philippines lately has been making him write poems to curtail the boredom that's starting to seep in. The Ocean By Noah Isaiah The deep, deep ocean Dark and blue Is teeming with life You never knew Underneath this world You will hear  The call of a Whale That is near Its scars, visible From the fight with a Squid And it is gone In its stomach, it is hi...