Hope · Life · Midnight motivation and musings · Self Help

Midnight Motivations and Musings 79

jacquelineobyikocha11 Comments

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Life is full of possibilities but you’ve got the leave the corridors of I can’t to the elevators of I’ll do my best to keep seeing change and empowering results.

Most times, change is painful and slow, but once it’s set in motion, there’s an incremental result.

We have to leave negativity behind to see clearer. Always keep an open mind, hearing ears (note that there’s a difference between listening and actually hearing), seeing eye’s – beyond the peripheries and an empathetic questioning mind.

We are called to live life in the fullness of joy and though this might be impossible to achieve 100% of the time, it’s possible to get it 95% of the time.

Love and Light,

© 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

I can see clearly now the ghosts are laid to rest

Broken visions melded and better than the first

Atop the ladder of scattered dreams and buried bones,

I glimpse the brighter vision reflected and renewed.

**an excerpt of my poem**

Family · The Great Book Of Lists

Those who influence my life…Personal

jacquelineobyikocha9 Comments

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This week’s prompt for The great book of lists, La Duchesse wants us to talk about those who inspire us, so here goes:

At each juncture in my life, there are those who have inspired me and still inspire me. Their presence influences my past, present, and future.

My Dad: Without doubts, my father -God rest his soul- has remained the most influential man in my life.

He was a peaceful, loving, upright and hardworking soul whose views to life was very simple.

His integrity was impeccable and he would always tell us that once you don’t covet that which belonged to another, you would have a peaceful life.

There’s no day that passes that the echoing whisper of his words doesn’t reverberate in my mind. Especially when he would always tell you that anything worth doing, is worth doing well.

My quintessential mother: A gracious, generous, beautiful woman.

If half of the milk of human kindness that flows in this woman’s veins flows through mine, then I will consider myself a decent human.

She still remains my confidant, my prop, my source of inspiration and light.

My dear Himself: This husband of mine who drives me crazy, loves me and makes me know what love is. He’s a good man. A generous and loving dad to his children.

He pushes me to be better and to aspire for more.

He dreams big dreams and his intelligence never fails to impress me.

Now, if only I can get him to agree to everything I say….;-)

My children inspire me every day. I want to be a great parent because of them.

I want to leave a legacy that when they look back tomorrow, even when I’m gone, they will be happy that God chose me as their mother.

Others: I have a healthy dose of respect for people (famous or not) who wear the aura of positivity despite all the challenges that they might have faced or are facing. Such people inspire me.

My aggressors: Why would I choose such negative crowd?

This is a story that hasn’t been told.

Not because the words and the memories are gone, but because I’m not mentally ready and maybe some day, it will find it’s way into my memoir.

Yes, they inspired me not to curl up and die.

They inspired me to rise out of the burnt ashes from moments of insanity.

I will rest here. Blessed Be.

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

I can see clearly now the ghosts are laid to rest

Broken visions melded and better than the first

Atop the ladder of scattered dreams and buried bones,

I glimpse the brighter vision reflected and renewed.

**an excerpt of my poem**

Dubai · Echos Of My Neighbourhood · Personal · Photographs · Travel

The Waldorf Astoria and a birthday dinner…Echoes of my neighbourhood 18

jacquelineobyikocha25 Comments

On Thursday’s, I share pictures about ‘Echos of my Neighbourhood.

I would like to invite you to participate. The challenge is quite simple.

Every Thursday, share a photo of bits and pieces of wherever you are at any point in time. It could be a house, backgrounds of your neighbourhood, activities and so forth and you can tag it Echos of my Neighbourhood, add my link to your post so that I will get the ping from your post.

Every other Thursday, I will publish a post with the links of all those who participated the previous week.

This is just a fun way of getting to see more of the World around us through your eyes since we cannot all be at those places, we could, at least, see them through you.

A birthday in the family is a good excuse for a little treat, so my little man’s birthday gave us a good excuse for some good grill at Waldorf Astoria Dubai which is located on one of the fronds of the artificial Archipelago of The Palm Jumeirah.

The Waldorf Astoria is an exquisitely finished luxury hotel with lots of restaurants. We chose the Island grill where each seating canopy is positioned in water The ambiance is fabulous and it was a good treat. The food is great, but my opinion is that the service was a bit too fussy for hungry people.

I am not one to have the waiter hovering over my shoulder all evening, but all in all, it was worth it.

Last Week Echoes took us to different neighbourhoods, hop on let’s go see and we will be glad to see some of yours.

Such a lovely day: A beautiful day in Bavaria like the title says. Now I want a Tortoise in my garden 🙂

Gorgeous Gardenias and more Have you ever watched a minute-by-minute unfurling of beautiful gardenia’s?

Blooming cherry blossoms  these would inspire a poet out of 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

Never leave me lonely

With words left unsaid

You walk away into the dark

Like a mist that melts away

Uncategorized

Featured Posts 52…Let me share your post links.

jacquelineobyikocha

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‘PLEASE KEEP SENDING IN THE LINKS.’ 

Today’s featured blogs posts are:

Anecdote lesson from my grandma Yes indeed, this is a delightful read and a good one to start my day with 🙂

Silence speaks Have you ever listened to silence? You stand to hear and learn a lot.

Point blank, sometimes when the words are not enough, the tears drop to express itself.

My two cents transgender restroom issue The most sensible approach that I’ve read in a long time.

A quick drive-thru to say hello can gain you a friend.

‘Do you want more eyes on your words?’

Well then, add your LINK INTO THIS LOOP.

P.S. Comments are disabled here to keep the loop tidy. Any comments or link you want to send can be added through the link in the post.

Thank you for your understanding and regards.

‘We create a cohesive community when we come together.’

© 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

Never leave me lonely

With words left unsaid

You walk away into the dark

Like a mist, that melts away.

Everyday People · Fashion · Photographs

Hello Yellow!…Every day beautiful people 40

jacquelineobyikocha12 Comments

“How wonderful yellow is. It stands for the Sun.” Vincent Van Gogh

Yellow[1] Yellow_2[1]

One cheerful colour that I like. It perks up my mood and yes, it makes me feel bright 🙂

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

Never leave me lonely

With words left unsaid

You walk away into the dark

Like a mist, that melts away.

Photographs · Poetry/Poems · Writer's Quote Wednesday · Writing

Embracing Change….Writers Quote Wednesday Challenge

jacquelineobyikocha14 Comments

Today’s Writers quote Wednesday challenge prompt ‘change’ has me thinking of two different things.

My brief thought went to the quote from Coco Chanel which states that:

“a woman who cuts her hair is about to change her life,” which I find to be true.

Since I had the big chop in January, it’s been a blissful time. I enjoy the cascade of water down my head without worrying about my braids, perms or weave. I don’t spend as much time at the hairdresser’s and in fact only visited a hairdresser last weekend to get some natural locks.

Now, I’ve done some locks with my hair to switch it up and believe me when I say it’s just fun.

Gosh! I can’t believe how much energy had gone into my hair maintenance.

Life is simply too short to be stuck in the salon!

I wrote a poem on change below following the quote from Benjamin Disraeli that:

“change is inevitable, change is constant.”

Though you choose not to be a participant
life’s changes happen even with your reluctance
it’s a cycle that’s constant
and has a way of changing your circumstance
It may grab you by happenstance
and toss you around with every chance

Some changes are a ghost of a dance
while some changes are worth taking the chance
that way you do have a slim chance
of not being led on a merry dance
when you embrace such change it just might enhance
and sometimes, it improves your finance.

I once knew a chap who chose to freelance
he soon gave up because of his finance
he didn’t enjoy taking such a stance
‘cos it wasn’t a sport that paid in advance
I still recall his askance
at how tough change was in his circumstance.

© 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

Never leave me lonely

With words left unsaid

You walk away into the dark

Like a mist, that melts away.

Life · Midnight motivation and musings · Self Help

Midnight Motivations and Musings 79

jacquelineobyikocha7 Comments

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Challenges will come and sometimes they will shake your faith and hope. These tribulations present themselves to taunt and test you. That’s called life.

Unexpected incidentals of life happen when we are busy making plans about other things that we want to do, so in order to brace ourselves for these little bumps, we must equip our system with buffers like hope.

Hope is not an abstract word. It’s a very active word that lives and grows when we build on it.

It’s like a safety net or emergency funds that we draw on when the need arises.

How do we build up hope? I’ll be sharing a post specifically targeted at building hope on Sunday.

Love and Light

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

Never leave me lonely

With words left unsaid

You walk away into the dark

Like a mist, that melts away.

Family · The Daily Post

A gap too wide to bridge…

jacquelineobyikocha5 Comments

Yes, we were generations apart

our understanding was never at par,

but when you looked me in the eye’s

the love that shone through

cut through every generation gap.

***

© Jacqueline Oby-Ikocha
Generation, The Daily Post Prompt

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

Never leave me lonely

With words left unsaid

You walk away into the dark

Like a mist that melts away

Family · Gratitude · Life

Is it ever too much? personal

jacquelineobyikocha23 Comments

I must admit to you that there are days when I start out to pray and that little impish voice in me will say “but you thanked God for this same thing yesterday, so why should you bother him to thank him all over again?” Thankful[1]

….And the wiser one in me tells me that “God is never tired of hearing my voice and that I should never forget that he inhabits my praise,” which I can assure you keeps the impish voice sulking in a dark corner and wondering what wise retort to come up with.

Unfortunately for the imp, it always falls short.

Yesterday was my son’s birthday which was also a school day, even though he’s of the opinion that such an important day should be spent eating cake and making merry – which is not a bad idea,  however, we struck a good bargain – that boy can negotiate 😉

A bargain that he’ll go to school for classes as usual and also join his mates for their scheduled outing to Ski-Dubai, with the promise that we would have a birthday dinner in the evening and also take him to the theme park to play during the weekend.

For some reason, I wasn’t comfortable with the school outing and my niggling mind led me to pray with them and talk to him about being careful.

By mid-afternoon, the day was running smoothly until my phone rang and it was the school nurse. I detest getting such calls because it’s never something to jump up and down over.

The lady nearly gave me a heart attack! Her slow narration on how some other boy got a bit rough at play with my son and mistakenly hit him in the eye had me chewing my nails in angst. A riot of emotions ran through me. I felt like having bionic powers and hurtling off to the school to grab my child, but a little voice told me to keep calm and thank God.

In relief, I thanked God, for it could have been worse. Asides from a slight redness and puffiness which had gone down, he’s as beautiful as ever.

Which brings me to this point of my story.

Each new day is a present day, a new beginning and the fact that I thanked God yesterday for Grace, Mercy, Favour and hedge of protection over my family, should not make me not to thank him today and tomorrow and the next…

For we are told that when we commit our ways unto the Lord, our paths are established. There’s nothing like too much praise when it comes to the goodness of God.

I hope that there’s something that you are thankful for today.

You can join Colline’s  or Maria Jansson gratitude challenge platforms.

@ithankful 🙂

© 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

Never leave me lonely

With words left unsaid

You walk away into the dark

Like a mist, that melts away.

Humor - Bellyful of laughter · Photographs · Wordless Wednesday

Sweet!…

jacquelineobyikocha6 Comments

After reading my dear Van’s ice-cream truck post yesterday, I was inspired to post this photo.

It was taken last weekend. A mango sorbet purchased from an ice-cream truck at the park. Yummy  😉

Ice-cream[1]

“Life is like a cup of ice-cream, even the last drop is sweet and enjoyed by those who really love it. Enjoy it before it melts away” Anonymous

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

Never leave me lonely

With words left unsaid

You walk away into the dark

Like a mist, that melts away.