An Unforgettable Dinner

Papa sat at the end of the table, as head of household, and from there he darted a loving look at each of his children and grandchildren around the table.

A strange feeling came across my entire body that evening when I caught papa's look. I saw a small and happy smile on his face. A look of total satisfaction! He ate very little, but just smiled and looked at us. For the life of me, I felt something odd about his behavior, but I couldn't pinpoint to it.

Often, papa would take his supper early and then went on with his daily devotion. That evening though, he insisted on waiting for my siblings to come home from work so we could all have a family dinner together.

Nothing fancy was offered that evening! We had rice, salad, and pork stew, but everyone was laughing, talking, and sharing their day experiences, including the children. Papa took a bite of food, and then parked his look with a smile on each of his beloved faces.

My papa was happy! That was all I could convince myself and dismissed the nagging bad thought. The way my papa smiled and looked at dinner that evening, stay always memorable in my mind.

Joining the writing prompt at Mama's Losin' It!

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Y Is For Yikes...

It was a strange thing that happened last week when I linked my X post to Alphabe-Thursday. I did it correctly so I thought, since I never had a problem with linking up before. I did what Mrs. Matlock told us to do, and visited more than 15 other posts.

However, I have very few returns! It astounded me and curiosity led me to click on my own link on Mrs. Matlock's X post today. My own Raw Thoughts And Feelings took me to a totally different site! How did that happen? Had my site been hi-jack or hacked?

I knew there is another Mumsy out there in cyberland, but I didn't know that there is another Raw Thoughts ans Feelings website. I could change Mumsy, but I cannot change the title of my blog since it is a domain name and it's paid for a year already.

Ok, whatever, I told myself because I have very little time on my hand to investigate the matter. Yielding...Yawn...Yodeling...Yearning to try again this week!

As with life, it must go on! Yard work is waiting, and a little physical exhaustion will do my mind some good.

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A Bouquet of Pink and Yellow Tulips

My tulips are trying to come, and I saw the plants trying so hard to push through the cold frozen earth. They are about two inches tall now, but with the sleet storm we had yesterday, I'm afraid for their immaturity.

This bunch of tulips were available at the supermarket, and these gorgeous colors of pink and yellow were just so striking to me.

These last couple of years, I started to see flowers coming in a wonderful mix of colors like these tulips, and always amaze me. It must take great skills and patience to produce such vibrant colors.

Linking this post to  Pink Saturday, and  Today Flowers!

Related Posts On Tulip You Might Like to See:

• Purple Tulip
• Tulip Blossoms
• Raindrops On Tulip

X Is For Xenophobia

The letter X has very few words in the hard copy of my dictionary. Thus, I look at dictionary online, and Webster online for the X word. Finding no result, I sought after thesaurus online, and here I learned the word "Xenophobia."

We all know what "phobia" means, but what is "Xeno"? Well, there is no such word as xeno, but if you put the two words together, it becomes Xenophobia, a noun, and its definition is "belief without basis, information, intolerance". The synonym has a wide variation including: narrow-mindedness, discrimination, prejudice, injustice, unfairness, aversion, detriment, enmity, racism and so on.

How fascinating is the word xenophobia! After spending time looking up words, I realize that there are words I would never heard of or use, and there are hundreds if not thousands words that I don't know nor learn yet.

The most amazing part of this discovery is that I love to learn new words. Words that I don't often hear or use or see. I also find that by reading old classic stories by Charles Dickens, Jane Austin, the Bronte sisters, Leo Tolstoy, etc..I acquire new vocabularies.

There is another interesting X word such as xenophagy, and it is just as fascinating as xenophobia to me. For those that honored Lenten season, xenophagia means abstention from eating, or fasting.

Now, aren't you glad you stop by?

Joining Alphabe-Thursday!

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Deep Orange Zinnia

This was another kind of zinnia flower as you can see the petals were totally different than the other orange zinnia that I've showed in last week post.

If I have a large area in my yard, I probably would just plant zinnia even though they are perennial flowers. They are so very easy grow, and no fuss at all in the caring part. The flower stalks are tall enough to use as cut flowers.

I have tried to grow many different kinds of flowers from seeds, but zinnia is the only flower that comes through for me.

Linking this post to Today Flowers!

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W Is For Woman Warriors

My daughter prefers to me as a woman warrior!  It is a term of endearment, and I'm proud of it! This phrase just simply means: strong, and nothing is impossible.  It is what we use to encourage each other when we face a huge challenge.

Together, we have learned to fend for ourselves, and to take care what we have to. We had turn dirt over to make a garden, we had taken out bushes, we had put together a grill, we had chopped down trees to make room in the yard, and we had fixed broken faucets. Though some of these maybe a small task to others; we viewed them as great accomplishments.

Over the years I have found that many other women are also warriors when they face unimaginable situations. Some went through spousal physical abuse, such as Lori, who was pushed down stairs, resulting in broken arm and leg, but chose to stay to keep the family together. Others had to take on two jobs to put food on the table while watching their husbands struggle with unemployment.

These women are, in fact, all warriors in my book despite their choices or references! It takes a strong spirit to withstand hardships! I am bias when it comes to women, but after my divorce I came to respect women's in a much deeper sense than I've had ever.  Women always seem to rise above many obstacles with grace and very resilient.

So in honor of the letter W, woman-you are all Warriors in my eyes! You all know your strength and weakness. If anything throws your way, you will rise like a Woman Warrior that you are!

Joining Alphabe-Thursday!

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Orange Zinnia

I don't remember when I first discovered zinnia flowers, but I know I love to grow these long lasting flowers in my garden. They were so easy to grow, require very little tender loving care, and the flowers lasted very long.

Zinnia comes in a variety of colors, and they are all very beautiful to see. They are not perennial so you have to re-plant them when the weather is warm enough.

Linking this post to Today Flowers!

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V Is For Vanity

You can't possibly change someone's mind when they are in a stage of conviction that their thoughts and feelings were the absolute right ones. Their vanity is set in stone, and their perpetual bad behavior is the only excuse for human kind.

Dealing with this type of a person left me somewhat in awe of his existence. His righteousness is so poisonous to my being and frustrated me to my bones. I don't believe in the power one has over the others, including parents over their own children. The X, you see, think that he has control over the children while I argue that we are merely the guardians of their lives.

We only have rights to guide them to the best of our knowledge and to be great human beings. We must not control them on the merit of power! The children need to have some controls, some choices, some decision making, and have some saying in how their lives should be. After all, these were parts of the learning process to be mature.

Well then, I finally accepted the fact that the X will never be mature nor grown up. Like a child, he wants what he wants! His vanity will be satisfied first before anyone else. He carries the body of a man, but his brain has yet developed into adulthood. He has never even live father than 5 miles from his own parents, so how could he become a real man.

After much of contemplation, I give up and declare that his vanity has taken over my sanity as a whole. However, everything has an ending, and I have six more years to go on this journey before I can be completely free of this vulture!

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Bee And Flower

Aah..These photos were from last year, and had been sitting in my archive until now. What a joy it was to see again.

When the bee was so busy drinking the nectar, I was free to take as many pictures as I wanted. I love all the colors of flowers.

I'm waiting for spring as anxious as ever! Winter seems longer each year, or maybe I'm just having less patience as I'm growing older to wait.

Linking this post to Camera Critters,  and  Today Flowers!

U Is For Unfathomable

Nothing frustrated me more than making a phone call to one of the service provider companies, whichever it might be, and was put in touch with a heavily accented Indian tech, with whom I had constantly repeating "what did you say" every few seconds. Since I don't have a home phone, the minutes on my cell kept adding up, but still I couldn't get the answer that I needed.

Believe me, I'm just as a foreigner as could be, and I had a great deal of patience tuning in with every fiber on my body of what were saying, but really, can I get someone in America to help me since I live in America, I bought a product in America, and isn't there an American tech who would be more than qualified to troubleshoot problems?

If you have made a phone call for tech support, you know that our phone calls were routed to an answering call center, where you would be in touched with mostly Indian people. I have nothing against them, and they all tried their best to help solved the problem.  My only question was, why can't American tech have this job?

Unemployment is high in this country, and many people are out of jobs. Why can't we train American people to do the jobs that we route to another country? How can we help American people when whatever available is saved for others?

One of my relatives is currently working for a company that specialized in hiring just Indian people, and cut through red-tape to make sure that the description for job requirements only fit perfectly for Indian people. Now, I ask you, is this right? Is this unfathomable or not?

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Wild Aster Flowers By the Water

A Bunch of Wild White Asters

At the end of fall last year, I found these beautiful asters still in full bloom by the water! These wild flowers are my favorite since they lasted through the beginning of dark days.

Asters Still Growing

I love these four flowers in the way they formed to show each own beauty in the sun. It was very windy and they danced around.

Asters Turning Colors

I like the lighting in this picture. It showed dead leaves all around while these flowers were still in bloom and fresh.