Blogging Dividends…personal

December 19, 2015December 19, 2015 jacquelineobyikocha39 Comments

The measurement of success varies from one individual to the other and for me, mine is measured by the amount of positive pleasure that is derived in the pursuit of my passion.

For a whole lot, their success may only be cached on how much money is lining their pockets and if that is the case, then that deep satisfaction and contentment that comes from the unquantified simple things of life will continue to remain elusive in the never-ending need to make an extra buck.

Even though it’s a fact that one must earn a living however, one’s success should not only be determined by the yardsticks of the greenback.

The past fortnight have been such bloggisatisfying time for me that I kept going to bed each night with a wide smile pasted on my face.

It first started with Ben Huberman sending me a very polite and surprising mail inviting me to participate in contributing a theme/prompt for the just concluded poetry class and believe me when I say that my heart expanded in extra warmth.

I had not planned to take the class initially, but I am so delighted that I did and yes, I feel proud to have had my prompt chosen and even if such an opportunity never arises again, this was a big bolster for me, so I am preening. Thank you.

Then Carlos a darling blogger sent me a surprise letter which brought tears to eyes and my heart expanded some more.

In no way did I know that those little words that I kept sharing with him had such meaningful impact enough to warrant taking the time to write me a special letter.

This totally reminds me of these quotes: “Encouragement is said to be the oxygen for the human spirit. Do not forget you are carrying someone’s air with you. Encourage them. Help them breathe” – anonymous.

”Make someone smile whenever you can. You never know how much of a difference you could be making in their life at that moment.”

It’s me Saraa topped my weeks sweetness with her own ration of surprise sprinkles and I continued to smile.

…And to complete my harvest of smiles, few weeks ago at the neighbourhood cafe, I met Lara, a lovely, smiley Filipino lady with whom I had a brief chat when I was busy scribbling and tapping away seriously on my laptop.

She struck a conversation asking me what I was working so intently on. I told her that it was my blog and she requested for the name, which I scribbled on a scrap of paper and gave to her.

Believe me when I say that I never thought that she would even bother. I just thought that she was being polite and that the scrap of paper would be lost even before the ink dried.

Well, I ran into her once again today and with smiles dotting her entire face she walked up to me and said Miss Jacqueline, I have been reading your blog.

You write and rhyme so well. I enjoy reading your blog in the evening. I am following you now and sent you an FB request.

I quickly checked my FB request status which has close to 200 or more requests yet to be answered *covering my face* and I accepted her request right there and then, but I simply felt like I had won some pretty penny.

We chit-chatted some more and I think I hummed back to my house or should I say tweeted back to my house in utter pleasure.

There you have it. I have seen a lot of magic and earned a lot of satisfaction this week. A good evening to you from Dubai.

A link to my neighbours/Community · Blogging · Humor - Bellyful of laughter · Inspiration - Motivation · The Daily Post

My Dear WordPress….It’s not possible!

December 14, 2015December 15, 2015 jacquelineobyikocha51 Comments

My Dear WordPress,

If I can recall a not so dim memory in my conversations with you, I remember that we have had this chat before, when you slyly asked me to take a pick of my three favourite blogs out of the wholesome lot of my blog-some friends.

I told you that my eclectic tastes and needs makes variety the spice of my life. That these needs are fed in their itty-bitty parts by each and everyone of my committee of friends and basically, in a day I go visiting at least a 100-200 of my friends, which makes it rather impossible to pick 3 posts out of so many.

Since you can’t quite remember this conversation, let me refresh your mind.

I told you my dear WP ( I hope I can call you that, since we are such bosom buddies) that a lot of my friends fill so many gaping gaps in my life.

They make me howl in glee till tears run down my face.

They plaster smiles on my face and sometimes do make me frown.

A good number of them have clicky fingers and they show me vibrant pictures that leaves me in awe.

Some keep me grounded and in touch with my humanity and yet some make me reflect deeply about life itself.

Some remind me that I should always be grateful for the little things, sharing their tips freely and indeed I am grateful for these friends of mine.

Some fellowship with me and throw more light on my spirituality and some are generous enough to share their blessings with me.

They have shared their lives, their children and spouses, their pets, their horses and even garter sssnakes at times (now I have the heebie-jeebies just from the ssss word and it’s all your fault).

A good lot of my friends feed my appetite with the flavour bursting, delicious meals that they serve up online – thank God we can’t add weight from looking at all the pictures.

A staunch number of my wonderful friends encourage and inspire me to spread my wings, to soar and reach for the skies and some even take me on their own wings on expeditions to places that I have never been before.

Some give me cause to pause and share a silent prayer, hoping that all is well with them and lest I forget, a good number of them weave very delightful tales and write delicate poems.

I do have a raunchy bunch too and the political man as well.

A lot of sage counsel is equally on offer and they’ve got my back as well.

So you see, my crowd is quite a mix, even with music and I really think that maybe you should join us? Need I say more? What do you say?

Maybe, if I send you the list of 719 of them to marinate over, that might help you make a decision, whilst I go and get acquainted with some more.

Finally, don’t forget that saying which goes that ”you should never ask a mother to choose out of all her children, it’s simply not done.” If you are wondering how she can cope with them all, I must highlight to you that she is the multi-breasted one.

My regards to you WP. I have enjoyed having a good natter.

The Daily Post prompt Press It

Give some love to three blog posts you’ve read and loved in the past week, and tell us why they’re worth reading.

A link to my neighbours/Community · Blogging · Family

Missing In Action…Have You Seen Him?

December 10, 2015 jacquelineobyikocha137 Comments

What do you do when a blogger that you have become attached to just ups and suddenly disappears into thin air?

I met an awesome Christian blogger and we were consistently supportive of each other and I loved his quiet reflections. Sometime ago, he hinted on changes going on in his life though he was not specific and I didn’t needle to pry, but I sensed his unhappiness.

For several weeks, going on two months actually, he has neither posted nor visited and bantered with me like he would and after waiting for a while and missing his blessings sufficiently, I decided to go looking for him.

It was a shock to find his blog was now private and needed a password. I sent a request for access some 3 weeks ago and not a peep.

I am almost tempted to mention his name and ask if anyone has seen him floating around cyber-space and just to know that he is fine and didn’t do something stupid.

Then I simply whispered a prayer in my heart hoping that all is well with him. That whatever his problems were, I hope he has found sufficient grace to surmount them.

I have tried to find reasons not to worry, yet my mind wanders now and again to my friend and it is a bit surprising to realize how much I care.

How much a great number of people that I have met here mean to me.

How overtime our blogging friends start feeling familiar and like extended family.

How we develop attachments with total strangers across the globe.

I realized that maybe I am putting too much of my personal emotions in the friendships developed here, thinking that maybe, I should feel detached so that I wouldn’t notice if someone is missing in action; but that is simply not who I am.

Even bloggers who are blogging incognito, I have assigned voices and faces to their ambiguous status.

I can start writing a long list of bloggers that I will miss if I don’t see them for a bit and my list would be so long because I think I virtually follow everyone who follows me.

I simply think that if they find me worth spending their time on, then they are worth spending my time on as well.

So, I guess this is blogging life. Now here, tomorrow gone Not happy.

Please, to all my blogger friends, do let us know when you want to run along and I want to let you know that I appreciate meeting you in this space and time wherever you are.

Blogging · Humor - Bellyful of laughter · Inspiration - Motivation · Musings · Success · The Daily Post · Writing

Yippee! It’s Over Now…singing a song

November 30, 2015 jacquelineobyikocha63 Comments

Tra la la la! Yippee!

I did it, Oh yes I did it!

I am doing a jig and a boogie-woogie at the same time 😉

I managed to finish the NaBloPoMo with a flourish.

Not a prompt missed.

Honestly, there were some mornings that I woke up and wanted to play truant, but the little effervescent encouraging voice in me kept prodding me to try, and this was in fierce contest with the little imp of discouragement that kept saying ”come on, just a day’s kicking back won’t hurt.”

It seriously, wasn’t easy trying to do this, coupled with other posts that I usually make, in essence, each day, I was posting 3 to 4 original articles per day.

Some of the prompts were fly by the seat of your pants prompt like The Daily Post; I love participating in The Daily Post because you just never know what the prompt is going to be all about, so it helps my thinking quickly on my feet.

Somethings did suffer a bit with all these writing and the very first one was my butt. This is my little ditty about a writers flat butt.

The second thing that took the flake was my book. Instead of a thousand words a day, I was limping in at 500 words.

Each night, by the time I read two paragraphs of the John Grisham that I am currently reading, I am out cold and I bet I was snoring too – mind you we ladies don’t snore, we just make delicate noises.

My hubby is too nice to tell me that I am snoring. He knows the side that his bread is buttered on *wink* if he wants his nice hot meals 🙂

Now to celebrate, I am just going to kick back for a couple of days; I will still post each day as usual; but not with the rabid intention of the past few days.

Where is my Irish cream and some deep tissue massage?

Hmm! I feel the relaxation coming on before the next upheaval.

Thank you for staying with me my dear friends and for all your beautiful support.

To persevere and to finish is really a good feeling 🙂

NaBloPoMo prompt – Monday, November 30

What do you like to do to celebrate an accomplishment?

Blogging · Inspiration - Motivation · The Daily Post · Writing

It’s A Consuming Art…

November 29, 2015November 29, 2015 jacquelineobyikocha27 Comments

Until I started blogging, I didn’t realize that not only is it an art, it could also be an intense affair which gets a bit addictive, most especially if a blogger is striving for excellence in content and building connections.

It is also a slow burning, time consuming venture. You’ ve simply got to love writing, learn how to organise thoughts, have a schedule, set sensible goals in order to make it less stringent as well as interesting.

It is easy for a blogger to burn-out if the balance becomes badly skewed heavily to work and just more work. Once it becomes tedium, it loses its appeal, so striking a balance between fun and professionalism is also taken into account.

I am still learning the ropes as I go and making the rules that work well with my circumstances.

There are days my brain cells feel as if they are getting fried from all the original content writing, connecting and browsing other blogs, coupled with the rest of my life’s exigencies.

I notice my stress when I start feeling my shoulders bunch up, which is my main stress point and once I feel that way, it is time to de-stress.

It is time to take a step back and relax. I let the phone and the rest of my paraphernalia lie fallow for several hours and do something different to detox my brain.

An act as simple as a leisurely walk, singing off key to favourites, going to the cinema, watching a comedy that makes you laugh until tears roll down my eyes, spending time faffing around with the kids, going to a spot to people watch, can go a long way in recharging my batteries, then I get back into it with gusto.

One smart blogging practice that I started, which I have found very helpful is that on the days that I feel up to it , at least once a week, I work flat out for hours, producing rough draft’s of different post’s. I go with my feel of the moment. It could be a poem, a story, a haiku, a thought, an inspirational post, prayer…

On days that the energy is flagging or inspiration is not kicking in as usual, those drafts come in very handy and I borrow from there.

This further reduces the hours spent staring at the shiny box, leaving you with more time to just be.

The Daily Post Bloggers Unplugged

Sometimes, we all need a break from these little glowing boxes. How do you know when it’s time to unplug? What do you do to make it happen?

Blogging · Humor - Bellyful of laughter · Musings · Quotes For You · Weave that Dream

I am Jacqueline Of All Trades and not a Boring Bumkum!..

November 25, 2015 jacquelineobyikocha25 Comments

How would you feel if you are at a cocktail party or any social gathering, where several chit-chats are going on in small circles and you are stuck with a Mr/Ms Know-it-all, who is busy spouting boring bunkum over a singular topic that would probably put you to sleep at the get go; no matter how much you try to steer them into a more interesting topic?

Your ears will twitch and strain in a giraffic eavesdropping attempt to catch morsels of discussion going on across the room, where every body looks animatedly engaged, while you nod in mindless agreement to phrases and lip movement’s of a conversation that lost your attention 2 minutes after it started

I bet you, once you think it is polite enough, you would definitely find the quickest and possibly a dumb excuse; usually a visit to the rest-room always comes in handy, then make a fast get-away, only to slink back in and go over to join the merry crowd who are laughing off their heads and having a swell time.

I definitely don’t want to be that boring bunkum that you want to escape from!

I love to know bits and pieces of this and that, even if I don’t know all of them with the proficiency of an expert, at least let me know enough to hold a sensible, intelligent and entertaining discourse.

Certainly, there are people who are designed to be experts in physics and geology and what not but, I am simply not one of them!

My interests are so diverse that sometimes I wonder when on Earth I am going to be able to experience doing them all!

Serious consideration on making a bucket list as long as ever, is currently on-going on my part, so that I can start prioritizing those things that I want to do or learn to the best of my ability and for my own pleasure.

Maybe it is due to my spirit that seeks to find beauty and fulfillment in everything that I see that pushes my desire for a bit of knowledge of diverse things.

I would rather have a spicy and flavorful life of bits and pieces of knowledge than a staid, cold custard of expertise.

NaBloPoMo Prompt – November 25, 2015

Do you think its better to be a recognized expert for one thing or known to be really good at a lot of things.

Blogging · Family · Writing · writing ideas

What’s your Expertise?..

November 24, 2015 jacquelineobyikocha19 Comments

Though the Business Dictionary defines an Expert as: The basis of credibility of a person who is perceived to be knowledgeable in an area or topic due to his or her study, training, or experience in the subject matter, the word expert connotes more meaning for me.

In my layman’s opinion, an expert is that person who is able to teach me something that I need to know and he/she knows it better than I do.

In my place, there is a proverb that says that “what one does not know is bigger than that person” which highlights the truism that knowledge is indeed power.

My young children seem to be more abreast with the electrical gadgets in the house than their mother and they are always amused when I have to call one of them to ask for help in fixing or putting on the new-fangled plasma screen TV etc, in return they get called praise names by me, like ”my Bobo genius, Mummy’s Champion” or any name that pops into my head and you can see their glow in proving valuable, so in such little instances, they are my experts.

During my growing up years, I believed that my dad was a genius and an expert.

He tinkered and fixed just about everything that got broken in his spare time, even those of our neighbours.

It occurred so often that it became the norm to see an honorary auntie or uncle come calling with a broken iron or kettle or car issues and you would hear them right from the entrance of our house saying ‘‘Jay, Jay Martins (that was my dad’s alias among his friends) biko/please can you help me look at this thing? I wonder what is wrong with it?”

He would collect it, fiddle around and in a lot of instances, he got it sorted. This was done freely.

It was just a hobby and not his job. He was not a trained engineer. He studied and worked as a crop scientist, yet his interest in knowing how things worked not only made my mum and his friends happy, but it put a lot of joy and smiles on his face.

Personally, I do not view expertise in the literal sense of the word of just being knowledgeable in a field of study, but the appropriate application of that knowledge to achieve required results.

Prowess in a particular field of knowledge may not be a subject of interest or a need to know information for me and therefore at that point in time, it is almost irrelevant.

On several occasions, I have asked other bloggers how they were able to do something that I found admirable and as I go on, I keep my eyes and heart open so that I may glean off the expertise of others while still working on developing the muscles of mine.

What areas of your life would you consider that you have sufficient prowess to be deemed an expert? Have you ever given it a thought?

NaBloPoMo Prompt – Who is an expert you admire and why?

Wednesday, November 25

Image credit:

Blogging · Photographs

Random Trios…

November 21, 2015 jacquelineobyikocha27 Comments

Not much of a photographer do I make,
Random trios did I take,
Let me serve up some of my keepsake.

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Photo Challenge Trio

A link to my neighbours/Community · Blogging · Creative Writing · Fiction · Humor - Bellyful of laughter · Love · Short Stories Series

On The Prowl! Husband Wanted Urgently!…

November 21, 2015November 21, 2015 jacquelineobyikocha45 Comments

Tess sifted through dozens of photographs of possible date matches. It was a surprise to discover an entire World of supposed eligible bachelors out there.

Putting up her own profile was a task she hadn’t expected to be that demanding. Her attempt to make a headline grabber, the right smile, the right amount of information was not as simple as she had thought.

The increased pings of her messenger for her new dating account, increased her excited nerves even though she still had trepidation about the whole thing, especially with the list of do’s and don’ts Kate had mentioned to her.

It was almost beginning to sound like an espionage escapade.

”Make sure you have a pepper spray handy!”

”Set up a separate email account.”

”Don’t give out your address or house number.”

”If need be, invest in a stun gun!” ”What? I don’t want to go shooting anyone!” She had shrieked.

”Only meet them at a public place.”

”Use spiked drink detector nail polish, so you don’t find yourself suddenly floating along with all his requests.”

”Don’t allow kisses on the first date.”

”No going to apartments for a night cafe etc, etc.”

”Make eye contacts as you talk to him.” ”If they are shifty, don’t trust him!”

Blah, yadda, blah, blah..

Whats a girl’s to do when she needs to do to find her prince in these tough times, she thought to herself?

These days, the competition was stiffer.

The good guys were all grabbed and even a lot of very delicious looking ones were into other dudes.

She still recalled her utmost disappointment when she had moved in and met the very polite handsome Latino hunk of a male specimen living downstairs, Steve; he was equally taken by another interesting looking bloke!

This one doesn’t look so bad, she mused to herself as she stared at the face on her laptop. He had such a sincere, earnest, open look and not too bad looking as well. His bio also read well.

”Nothing ventured, nothing gained”, she muttered to herself as she clicked the button to initiate a chat.

”I cannot afford to live through the debacle of another uncoupled birthday with my folks.”

”I’d rather buy a ticket to Mexico than go through that embarrassing episode again.”

How could Mama invite Deaconess Elfrida’s son, Humphrey to pair up with me?

He is such a sanctimonious and pompous ass!

Auntie Virginia had kept rattling on and on in her persnickety high-pitched voice on ”Tips of how to catch a guy.” A most mortifying moment.

”Time for hair touch-up girl”, She thought, as she idly fingered her locks.

To be continued. Husband wanted urgently Part 1

This was meant to go out last week Saturday, but I couldn’t bring myself to send it out in the light of recent activities and in that time, I have found more gems in my neighbours garden. Do take a peek with me.

10 ways to be grateful even on bad days, found in the yadadarcyyada’s front lawn.

Vital security information for the holidays, by Tasha.

Shrimp Po Boys, from What’s for Dinner Moms?

Some sweet and Delicious chocolate cookies, from Lynz Real Cooking.

A beautiful read, the boy who dared to be great, from MLou.

A poignant civil war letter- found, in a corner of Elusive Tropes troves.

The simple truth handed by The adventures and musings of an Arch Druidess through the auspices of Sepultura’s blog

This quote shared by Meg Sorick reminds me of someone I know 😉

10 easy ways you can make the world a better place, by Danny of Dream Big, Dream Often.

Good budgeting tips here at how to stuff your pig, especially during holiday seasons when overspending tends to happen more.

It’s a wrap my good people. Let’s have a calm weekend shall we. God Bless and take care.

Image credit: Pinterest.

Blogging · Fiction · The Daily Post

BOND Girl! Yeah Right!…

November 20, 2015 jacquelineobyikocha43 Comments

In my younger days, I had two major crushes on two male actors.

The first actor was Captain Von Trapp of Sounds of Music.

I simply wanted to be the singing Maria – Julie Andrews, but I was just too young and after a while he started looking too old for me 😉

My second movie crush moved to James Bond.

OOOh! I had a crush on most of the gentlemen who played James: Sean Connery, Roger Moore and Pierce Brosnan. Not sure if it was the men or the character that I liked most.

I kinda liked Timothy Dalton and Daniel Craig but for some reason my huge crush went down several notches with these two and I am glad to realize that maturity has fizzled away the crushiness especially when my young brain finally assimilated the fact that it was not real life.

Wouldn’t have minded being a Bond girl just once (the one that gets to keep sleek Brosnan to herself 😉 and get to go on those scary adventures.

It would have been nice to say:

Call me Mrs. Bond, Jackie Bond *wink, wink*

The Daily Post prompt It Builds Character.

Tell us about a favorite character from film, theater, or literature, with whom you’d like to have a heart-to-heart. What would you talk about?