This Rugged JoyFull Home

"Every marriage is made up of two ingredients, togetherness and separateness. In good marriages, the partners carry equal loads of those. Let's say there are 100 points of togetherness and 100 points of separateness. In a good relationship, one partner expresses 50 points togetherness and 50 points separateness, and the other does the same. They both do things on their own, and that creates some mutual longing for the other, and the togetherness creates some need for separateness."   BOUNDARIES By Dr. Henry Cloud  Part 1 The Season of Togetherness Part 2 The Season of Separateness As quoted above, Dr. Henry Cloud described a  healthy  togetherness and separateness in marriage. But it's interesting to note that this also holds true for  a healthy parent-children relationship especially for  home-educating  families, presuming that they have a close relationship with each other. This is the kind of perspective that helped you process and...

Part 1 The Season of Togetherness Part 2 The Season of Separateness How to wrap around your mama-heart, the thought of your daughter leaving home for college in Manila, Philippines? It's nursery, kinder 1, kinder 2, and then grades 1 to 12, we're talking about 15 wonderful years of preparing her for this season of going to college. 'She's finally on her own now and away from your leashes' was a joke that somehow felt like a reality. But would those 15 years be enough to train her to overcome the challenges of university life and eventually the real life for which she was called for a purpose? Yes. You thought so.  You will worry and you will be scared naturally, thinking about how she will survive mostly living on her own in the big city. But that is not how you're going to take this season in your life. It's not about the worrying or the doubting, although you can't deny that this struggle is real. Now what is this all about, then? This is all about yo...

"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...