My recent thoughts…

June 5, 2016June 5, 2016 jacquelineobyikocha20 Comments

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

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

Your Harvest Comes In Heaps And Spades…

February 19, 2016 jacquelineobyikocha27 Comments

‘Icho ime ife, ime e ya ofuma.’

These wise words echoes in my ears as I write this post and it translates to mean ‘ anything worth doing, is what doing well.’

I remember growing up and having to go to our farm with my parents to till the ground for planting maize, cassava, potatoes, pumpkin and any other crop that was due to be planted. Back then we grew most of our food.

With my hoe, I would make what I considered a nice mound of red earth and when my dad comes round for inspection, he would call me by his pet name for me and in his gentle way, he would say: ‘you’ve done well, but it would be better if the mound was just a little higher’ and would complete his correction with that sentence up above.

This was repeatedly applied in so many ordinary things that we did, from our house chores of sweeping with the broom, washing plates, clothes, weeding the compound to our studies.

Thus it became embedded in my mind, that if you choose to do something, give it your best shot.

If you choose to love someone, love them without placing the conditions that they must fulfill to become worthy of your love.

If you are working for someone, do it wholeheartedly because some day, someone will probably turn around to work for you. As my people would say ‘when you respect the King, Kingship will also come to you.’

In everything that one does, they should do it to the best of their ability. Not for the sake of eye service, but for the sake of self-service.

Sow and Water and leave the bountiful harvest to providence. It always pays in heaps and spades.

Let me leave these three extra farming proverbs for you to mull over with your cup of coffee:

‘Good gardens are not made by sitting in the shade.’

‘As the farm grows, so does the farmer.’

‘If you tickle your earth hard enough, she will laugh for you with bountiful harvest.’

I would like to thank Maria Jansson for her generous invitation to participate in the quotes challenge and would like to extend the invitation to these lovely bloggers.

Melinda

Kay Morris

Sarah C

P.S. No hard rules to participate.

Inspiration - Motivation · Life · Photographs · Quotes For You · Three quote challenge

iWitness…The Antics Of 2 Pigeons.

February 12, 2016 jacquelineobyikocha19 Comments

Nature teaches us a lot of lessons if we open our eyes to see them and learn.

One of the reasons that I enjoy my little walkies as often as I can fit it in, is that I am always rewarded by stumbling on glimpses of the simple things that inspires my mind and gets me thinking.

My family have grown used to my two steps forward, two steps halt or back and a pause to assimilate something.

These little things are the best things in life and they are totally free. They bring me so much contentment and stimulation.

I took a not so brisk walk off my usual route and this scene of two pigeons trying to pick at crumbs which were scattered on the road caused me to pause, find a leaning spot and watch.

Why was it interesting? It interested me because they both courted danger with cars moving around them. Of course they could easily fly off if a car got too close and one of them did run off when the heat got too much.

The determined one doggedly kept darting back to the pecking spot at every given opportunity , vigorously filling itself while the scared one stood by the sidewalk cooing.

I think I spent a good five minutes or more observing this antics and taking a few photos.

As I watched them, I had several thoughts running in my mind and some of the lessons I learnt and I will write them in quotes are:

‘A little more effort and a little more persisting, that which seemed like it was a hopeless case, might actually become an opportunity for a resounding success.’

‘We should not give up on our quest at the very first sight of a barrier.’

And the last quote from William Eardley IV came to my mind:

‘That ambition is the path to success and persistence is the vehicle that you arrive in.’

One bird ran off, the other stood his ground and was well rewarded.

I want to thank Amra and Spiritual Journey for inviting me to take part in the quotes challenge and I would like to extend the invitation to these three bloggers:

Common sense gal

Ann

Mystical writer

These are the rules:

Post three consecutive days.
You can pick one or three quotes per day.
Challenge three different bloggers per day

Challenges · Love · Three quote challenge

Those Steamy Smooches…The Great Big Book Of Lists.

February 11, 2016February 11, 2016 jacquelineobyikocha19 Comments

I wonder what La Duchesse Derat has been up to these past few days to send me on an assignment to declare my hot steamiest smooches of all times.

Duchess, I am beginning to suspect your back-ache with a wiggle of my eyebrows 😃😃

It’s the season of Valentine and in the spirit of love I have gone watching smooch re-runs and using the steam emanating on my TV screen to judge.

I am a Hallmark romance kind of girl and I enjoy the build-up in the entire romance, so maybe I lost focus when it came to keeping the kissing counts, I am therefore totally lost in an attempt to list my favourite kisses.

I have spent an hour and half, fast tracking my favourite romance movies to the kissing part to try to analyse the kiss department of each one and my husband is beginning to wonder if I am up to something exceptional this Valentine.

Oh well! I cheated on this one as I stumbled on some videos on YouTube about some good puckering up that I quite agree with some *at least the movies that I have seen in them.

So pucker up and enjoy the smooch videos. Now I know to keep count of hot kisses when and where they do happen 😉

Inspiration - Motivation · Little rants · Social Issues · Three quote challenge

Nope! You Can Never Go Wrong…

January 28, 2016 jacquelineobyikocha23 Comments

People watching is a social science hobby that I spend quite a bit of my time engaging in. Observing people in recent times, some of the little things I see shows that there some fine redeeming human values which seems to be at loss these days. I am quite sure a good number of you would have observed these things as well.

Two days ago, I watched an elderly lady who was counting her steps struggle with the few things that she had and a couple of the items fell from her hands.

She paused briefly, bending gingerly to try and gather them and from my observation, she probably has Arthritis.

My natural instinct was to run up and help her, unfortunately my distance was a little far off to offer immediate assistance.

Meanwhile, two young men, probably in their mid-to-late twenties stood two steps away from this lady, puffing away on their cigarettes and not one of them bothered to render a helping hand to a woman who looked old enough to be their mother.

For all you know, they were probably busy videoing her difficulty for their YouTube Channel, which seems to be the new thing these days.

People would rather spend time shooting a video of a dying man in an accident instead of figuring out how to help.

I honestly had to curb my desire to make my way over and give them a talk or two about chivalry, they might not take it well.

However, I gave them a thorough scolding in my head 😉 and reminded myself that I have to keep teaching my boys how to be gentlemen.

By extending a hand of fellowship or help no matter how little to those around us who need it, we can never go wrong. We are actually not just helping others, but staying in touch with our humanity.

These are some little nuggets of quotes that you might wish to spend a couple of seconds on.

‘Instruction in youth, is like engraving in stone.’ African Proverb

‘The old woman looks after the child to grow its teeth and the young one in turn looks after the old woman when she loses her teeth.’ African Proverb

‘We rise by lifting others.’ Robert Ingersoll

Several dear bloggers have invited me for quote challenges and each day, the invitation increases by a notch.

I don’t like to let these things trail for so long, but I also don’t like to just toss quotes out there with nothing to say about them.

I try to look at the things that I observe around me and let them serve as lessons or inspirations for my thoughts.

I would like to thank Sepultura and That Little Voice for their generous invitation extended to me, to participate in the quotes challenge and would like to invite the following bloggers below to take up the quote baton and run with it.

Bunkaryudo

Sheridan Johnson

GloverDeb

No pressures at all. Just go with it if you wish to.

The Little Rules are:

Post three consecutive days.
You can pick one or three quotes per day.
Challenge three different bloggers per day

My regards,

Inspiration - Motivation · Life · Quotes For You · Three quote challenge

When You Agree…

January 22, 2016 jacquelineobyikocha29 Comments

In my place, there is a saying which states that ‘when you agree, your God agrees with you.‘

A blogversation that I had recently with an awesome blogger brought back this saying that my dad used ever so often back to my mind and I spent a little time dwelling on the thought of it’s meaning.

As a child whose parents used lots of proverbs to buttress a point, I never quite understood some of what they were trying to say to me then, but as time went on, these kernels of words planted have been germinating profusely and I find wisdom tucked inside them.

It is a common belief back in my place that each person has their own little ‘Chi’ or ‘God’, also perceived as a guardian Angel and that whatever limitations the person sets for themselves, that is equally where their God will set himself.

If you buy into the myopic view of a misguided person that you are not good enough, then you will remain so.

If you set limitations for yourself with all the usual excuses: because I am poor, black, brown, fe/male, tall, short, etc, you will not grow past your limitations. To grow past them you have to stop agreeing to the negative feedback of ‘You Can’t.’

‘What are you agreeing to?’

There is no disputing the fact that there are socio-economic challenges, gender limitations, race boundaries and all the conceivable ceilings out there that hinders us from breaking through the invisible barriers to our perceived success, but wait a minute.

What of the glass ceiling that you have placed on your own mind? No one else will break through it and free you other than yourself.

In as much as there are things we are unable to stop from happening, we have the will power to choose how we react to these things.

Do we remain victims of our own minds, or do we break free from the bounds of mind enslavement of whatever it is that we are agreeing to and become victors?

The choice is yours. What are you agreeing to? What ever it is, is what your God will agree to as well.

I shall leave these little quotes here for you to dwell on.

‘It is not what you are called, but what you answer to.’ African proverb

‘As a man thinks in his heart, so is he.‘ Proverbs: 23.7

‘Be careful how you are talking to yourself, because you are listening.‘ Lisa M. Hayes

For the quotes challenge invitation, I thank Kaushal of Expressive Human for the invitation, and would like to invite the following awesome bloggers to participate in the 3 days, 3 quotes challenge.

No pressures at all to do so.

The rules are: