Category: Challenges

Lifestyle · The Great Book Of Lists

Embracing My Quirkiness….The great book of lists.

jacquelineobyikocha28 Comments

Dolls[1]

La Duchesse gave us a prompt ’embracing my quirkiness,’ that not only made me laugh but also made me spend a little time looking at those itty-bitty sides of me that though they may not be original, are part of me, like dusting of freckles or the little mole that occupies a part of your body.

I’m showing you my clay feet and it’s possible that the list is longer than this, but I’ll keep it short so that you don’t run away into the bush to get away from me 😉

  1. I am a touchy feely person, especially with those who I feel close to (but it’s not uncommon for me to hug a new found friend).
  2. I nibble my husband’s food when he’s eating. This used to drive him nutty, but 16 years has made him soften, that he now feeds me himself 😉
  3. I doodle while thinking or listening intently. I have no idea why, but I hear clearly this way.
  4. I carry a notepad everywhere. Everywhere!
  5. I could go for eons without remembering to watch TV. Just leave me with sufficient books, a thick notepad, and music, please 🙂
  6. I watch people’s feet and mentally try to build a fictitious life about them. Please don’t ask me why.
  7. I make up nonsensical songs about anything and sing when cooking. I think I borrowed the singing when cooking from my mother. She did it all through my growing up years and she’s been in the choir like forever.
  8. I always start a conversation with a total stranger; in a safe vicinity of course.
  9. I write to deal with issues on my mind. I pick it apart on a piece of paper.
  10. Okay, I am a die-hard romantic and still enjoy my Harlequin romances et al… feel free to wiggle your eyebrows 😉
  11. I collect itty-bitty silly dolls and give them names.
  12. I am always barefoot at home; pregnant or not. I just like the coolness of the floor under my feet and only put them into my cozy froggy footwear just before bedtime. I’m still trying to understand that.

Thank you for bearing with me and not running off by now. I’ll be watching your feet 😉

Jacqueline

Below is my first just published Poetry Book “Out of the silent breath” which is available on Amazon and Smashwords.

When you buy my book, you support me in an invaluable manner.

Stars, Five Stars, Logo, Icon, Symbol, Five, Rating

I have to say I’m in awe and spellbound by her poetry. She is amazing at describing love and life in her poems. She creates such beautiful images with her words. Truly, she is a talented writer and I’m so excited to have her poetry book and to continue reading through it.

Out of the silent breath

Writer's Quote Wednesday

A lifetime of adventure…Writers quote challenge

jacquelineobyikocha7 Comments

The cover of a book
is a door through a nook
that leads me down adventurous paths
where I’ve never been before.

The last book I read
had many tales to tell
of a maiden who sought adventure
and found true love’s treasure

She was a lass from Singapore
who wanted something more
she desired more of life’s pleasure
and set off on an adventure

She arrived in Dallas
where she met a bloke with class
a cool cowboy with a banjo
who twirled her in a tango.

Our prompt for this week’s Writers Quote Wednesday’s challenge is ‘adventure,’ a word that is synonymous to something exciting.

However, my question is does adventure have to be only when we set off on something grand to escape the ordinary?

If that’s the case then the greater part of our lifetime is lost when we fail to collect our little moments and turn our otherwise mundane life into an adventure of finding deep pleasure in the simple things.

© Jacqueline Oby-Ikocha

 Below is my first just published Poetry Book “Out of the silent breath” which is available on Amazon and Smashwords.

When you buy my book, you support me in an invaluable manner.

Stars, Five Stars, Logo, Icon, Symbol, Five, Rating

I have to say I’m in awe and spellbound by her poetry. She is amazing at describing love and life in her poems. She creates such beautiful images with her words. Truly, she is a talented writer and I’m so excited to have her poetry book and to continue reading through it.

Out of the silent breath

Rononvan's Weekly Haiku Challenge

Sihouette’s

jacquelineobyikocha6 Comments

This week’s prompt ‘top and light’ from Ronovan gave me an opportunity to try different story lines and I settled for these two eventually.

She knows he’s at home.
Light streams out of his apartment window
that’s on the top floor

Looking up as she dials
she sees his silhouette in the light
and another without her top

Thoughts race through her mind
like light, they flit by so fast
who’s the other topless lady?

**

I crawled to the top

of the dark, dingy and scary pit

into the brightest of lights.

Below is my first just published Poetry Book “Out of the silent breath” which is available on Amazon and Smashwords.

When you buy my book, you support me in an invaluable manner.

 

From the very first poem, “Dreams,” this book captivates with passionate and perceptive words. Jacqueline Oby-Ikocha captures a broad expanse of the human experience in this book of richly layered poems.

Out of the silent breath

Life · Three quote challenge

My recent thoughts…

jacquelineobyikocha20 Comments

Cybernetic blonde invited me for the quote challenge and my mind drifted to African proverbs.  Thank you, Brenda 🙂1465108007692[1]

From time immemorial, proverbs have been used by elders in my place to punctuate and convey important messages during a conversation.

When I was younger and my parents or grandparents spoke in proverbs, idioms, and all the wise words, I barely understood, but as I age, I find them worth ruminating over especially when I find myself in a quandary of thoughts.

“Even the best cooking pot will not produce food when no fire is lit underneath.”

“When building a house and the nail breaks, do you stop building or do you change the nail?”

“If you run after two Hares, you will catch neither.”

These three proverbs above reflect the thoughts that have been going through my mind of late. So let me briefly explain them.

The first is an advice to myself that even though I have all the storyline of my second book known to me until I sit down and flesh it out as I should, those ideas won’t miraculously turn into a book.

The second one has to do with some mind distractions that I’ve been having of late. So many loose ends of things to tie up and I’m using them as an excuse to digress from doing what needs to be done. It’s time to drop that tack and get serious.

Lastly, I remind myself to taper off unnecessary things and concentrate. Running after too many things at once will all make me harried and at the end of the day, nothing would have been achieved.

So, back to tapering off, tacking with the right nails and cooking up those stories.

Do you fancy a whirl at quotes? Indulge 🙂

Jacqueline Oby-Ikocha

Below is my first just published Poetry Book “Out of the silent breath” which is available on Amazon and Smashwords.

When you buy my book, you support me in an invaluable manner.

Out of the silent breath

 

Stream of Consciousness Saturday.

Book me down!…Stream of consciousness Saturday.

jacquelineobyikocha8 Comments

Book writing, book reading, book store’s, bookshelves, bookworms, book-keeping a lot about my life these days revolves around books.SoCS badge 2015

Reading a book takes me on an adventure where I journey with the writer through apertures unknown, on exhilarating trips of thoughts, experience, and wonder.

I love books. It’s an easy way to melt my stress and when anything else gets on my nerves I can bury my nose in a book and come out feeling better.

I have been craving a specific type of bookshelf, but because my living in the UAE is possibly transitory, I find myself reluctant to get on with the idea of investing funds and energy into having that personalised bookshelf only to get up and have to leave it here a couple of years down the line. Moving books or bookshelves as you migrate is not an easy feat.

I know how I felt about my books back in Houston. I felt as if I was giving away my good friends but the good thing is that donating the books to an old people’s home and the library made me feel better and happy.

Two of my young ones are turning into bookworms, it’s as if they are chewing through them so fast that I have to keep buying more books each month. I remember myself at their age. I read voraciously as well and we had a mobile library that catered to my passion and made life easier.

Going to the libraries over here takes planning because it’s not close by, unlike back in Houston where our home was five minutes away from the huge Lones Star library in Cypress. That’s a haven of books!

Well, right now, I’m trying to trick my mind to focus on writing my second book which I have been working on in jerks and stops. It’s all about books. Can’t get it off my mind.

The title I used for this post ‘book me down ‘ is a popular Lagosian phrase that we use to indicate our interest or availability for something. I wonder where else they use that?

Thank you, Linda, for giving me permission to:

Beat about the books

I’m going to use every trick in the book 

to get my hands to keep still and write my books

‘cos writing a book 

is definitely different from cooking the books.

To be a bookworm 

is borrowing a leaf 

from an open book 

now let’s sing from the same hymnbook

as long as you don’t throw the book at me 🙂

P.S. Just feeling silly. After all, it’s Saturday folks

Below is my first just published Poetry Book “Out of the silent breath” which is available on Amazon and Smashwords.

When you buy my book, you support me in an invaluable manner.

Out of the silent breath

Writer's Quote Wednesday · Writing

Feeding The Inspiration…The Writer’s Quote Wednesday Challenge

jacquelineobyikocha15 Comments

This week’s prompt for Writers Quote Wednesday Challenge is ‘inspiration’ and I found an interesting quote below. The poem following the quote is my thought on how I feel sometimes about inspiration.

“The Page awaits the inspiration even as inspiration roams the world of man, seeking a page upon which to unfurl itself, body and soul, bare yet clothed in immortality if not immediacy. And the gods said, “Let there be a Page and many a Page,” and there was a Book. And we saw that the Book was good.” ― Chila Woychik

Like delicate butterflies darting around
inspirations float quickly past
that to catch and keep it
my pen has to be
as swift as a hawk.

They are like shiny dew drops
that evaporate in the morning sun
Therefore, I catch them
and store in my bottle of thoughts
to imbibe at my pleasure.

Surrounding us at every turn
some inspirations are little buds
that blossoms into full-fledged ideas
gathering momentum as it opens up
or shriveling to death from lack of nourishment.

What inspires one to write? I’m yet to find the answer. I just know that there are driving forces inside my head that makes me write what I write and I follow the voices.

Some ideas I bank for use at some point in time and some dance around in my head until they either go to sleep or I do something about them.

What I’ve also come to realise is that though sometimes we may lack the perfect inspiring moments to write, we should write nonetheless. Even if it’s fodder for our waste basket 🙂

© Jacqueline Oby-Ikocha

Below is my first just published Poetry Book “Out of the silent breath” which is available on Amazon and Smashwords.

When you buy my book, you support me in an invaluable manner.

Out of the silent breath

Rononvan's Weekly Haiku Challenge

Unforgettable…

jacquelineobyikocha2 Comments

This week Ronovan has given us ‘flag and fallen’ to use in honour of Prince for his weekly haiku challenge.  Here’s my take:

Momentous memories flag through minds
listening to eclectic, musical and Princely chords
of a fallen, unforgettable Star.

Jacqueline

Below is my first just published Poetry Book “Out of the silent breath” which is available on Amazon and Smashwords.

When you buy my book, you support me in an invaluable manner.

Out of the silent breath

The Great Book Of Lists · This Is My Life

Elements of my day and so far so good…The great book of lists.

jacquelineobyikocha17 Comments

 

La Duchesse has given us a double prompting and I’ll just race through me as quick as breeze:

Veggie sauce bubbling on the gas :-)
Veggie sauce bubbling on the gas 🙂

Her idea for this prompt ‘elements of my day and so far so good,’ comes from Brandon Burchard’s day planner.

So, the instructions are to build your list :

  • quickly jot your to-do list
  • what are the 3 things you are excited about today
  • what are the 3 things you are truly thankful for today

My quick to do list

  • Revise for the end of year exams with the children. I have to quiz them and go through their subjects before shooing them confidently out of the door to go and get those grades.
  • Conclude my monthly bulk cooking of stews, soups, and stuff: I always prepare at least two batches of our native soup amongst other stews to ease life a bit. These could serve as quick dinner or lunch on busy days. It earns me some hours of putting up my feet 😉
  • Continue partying on my blog and mixing with fab folks. Come on in 🙂
  • Place some calls to family in Nigeria.
  • Writing quick drafts of some of my blog posts for the coming week so that I can face my other writing works.
  • Tweak my second self-hosted site a little bit. Not yet ready to run.
  • Do some research work for work on Mastermind Learning and Development strategy.

    Native vegetable 'Edikan-ikong' soup.
    Native vegetable ‘Edikan-ikong’ soup.

I am excited

  • That school Summer break will commence over here in a couple of weeks. Don’t have a holiday plan yet but looking forward to working out something.
  • I have been nominated for The Annual Blogger’s Service to Bloggers Award. Have you voted yet? Please do cast your votes. Who would have thought that lil‘ me will be nominated for such 🙂
  • Some new ideas are cooking in my head and it makes me feel all warm at the thought.
  • Getting my teeth into my second book. It’s been a bit slow.
  • A 3-day self-improvement workshop that I’ll be attending. Okay, I’ve overshot the 3 things.

I am thankful:

  • For my husband and children. They are kind and supportive.
  • The blog World and the great supportive people I meet here. I’ve learnt so much in this space.
  • For life in general. Each day is a splendid opportunity.

So far so good and so not good.  I had to slip that in there 😉

  • I feel naughty and guilty for not having stuck to the ‘treat your body better rule’ that I set for myself. My weight loss has been sitting put like the Sitting Bull, but it’s my fault 😉 Okay, I’ve got that off my chest. Now to the good part.
  • My published poetry book makes me very happy.
  • The decent growth of my blog in just a year of blogging always amazes me. It’s just wonderful.
  • The endless burst of inspiration keeps me bubbling. I wish my fingers could work half as fast as the ideas that are streaming through my head.

Thank you, Duchesse. I enjoy your promptings.

P.S. You can join our Summer blog party by clicking the link. It’s taking place right now and really bubbling. It’s fun and you get to meet fantastic folks. Looking forward to seeing you:-)

Below is my first just published Poetry Book “Out of the silent breath” which is available on Amazon and Smashwords.

When you buy my book, you support me in an invaluable manner.

Out of the silent breath

Life · Stream of Consciousness Saturday.

Express on WordPress…Streams of consciousness Saturday.

jacquelineobyikocha20 Comments

Pressure cooker on the gas. I’m cooking up a storm this weekend. Both in my house and on my blog.

I’m doing my month end large pots of sauces and our traditional soups. It saves my life by several inches to do so.

There are days that get hectic that those earlier prepared and saved bowls of stew and soup saves this lady from expiring.

I’m also stirring some broth in my cooking pot of a blog right now. A lovely Summery blog mingle is bubbling as I write and you are hereby invited to join the mix.

What a lovely thing and way to express ourselves on WordPress. I’ve met lovely people from different locations, Malaysia, London, NY, South US, Nigeria….and the list keeps growing.

Isn’t that impressive that we have this opportunity? I don’t know what your opinions are but for me, it’s fabulous. Let’s keep the wonderful expressions flowing. You rock WordPress 🙂

 

P.S. You can join our Summer blog party taking place right now. It’s fun and you get to meet fantastic folks. Looking forward to seeing you.

Below is my first just published Poetry Book “Out of the silent breath” which is available on Amazon and Smashwords.

When you buy my book, you support me in an invaluable manner.

Out of the silent breath

Writer's Quote Wednesday

Flying Free…Writers quote Wednesday

jacquelineobyikocha14 Comments

“Free yourselves from mental slavery, none but ourselves can free our minds.” Bob Marley

I totally love this quote taken from Marley’s song.

Birds

When I look up to the skies
and watch the way a bird flies
free from any inhibitions
that hinders its expeditions

I wonder if you and I
are free to fly that high,
or are we buckled down by precepts
handed over time to preempt?

True state of freedom, I find
lies in the state of mind.
For the one who seeks to be free
must learn first to master the mind.

Today’s prompt for writer’s quote Wednesday challenge is “freedom” and interestingly this is one theme that I’ve been thinking of throughout this week.

Freedom to be. Can we truly experience freedom in entirety as a human race? Freedom to be you without the silent permission of others?

I doubt it. Society can’t exist without rules. Freedom comes at the price of having responsibility and most people don’t like responsibility.

However, I cherish the freedom to pursue my passion one word at a time. The freedom of etching my words can’t be taken away from me.

P.S. You are invited to our monthly blog party this weekend. It’s fun and you get to meet fantastic folks:-)

Below is my first just published Poetry Book “Out of the silent breath” which is available on Amazon and Smashwords.

When you buy my book, you support me in an invaluable manner.

Out of the silent breath

May I live,

unafraid to breathe.

Free from a choke-hold,

that becomes a stronghold.

May I live,

unafraid to live,

clinging to my expectations,

with feral desperation.

*

*excerpts from my poem*