Dinengdeng was what the mama prepared for dinner almost every day during summer when I was a kid. It's an Ilocano dish made of a variety of vegetables, which was quick and easy for the Mama to put together and cook after a long day of work pollinating vegetables. Because dinengdeng has such a musical sounding name, the dish ought to have been delicious, a comfort to my aging soul. Nope. The dish—the way the mama cooked it—continues to be a memory of Yuck! It wasn't because of the vegetables. I liked them all: eggplant, long beans, squash flowers, saluyot (jute leaves), parda, bittermelon, and whatever other else was growing in the daddy's garden. When the Mama cooked the same vegetables as pinakbet, a vegetable stew with a tomato base, I couldn't get enough of it. But, dinengdeng. Shudder! Still, I ate it. Quickly. This summer, I started cooking my rendition of dinengdeng. That's only because I try to beat the Mama to the kitchen to cook the combination of veggies t

I want to do this: Go bouncy-bounce on a trampoline over here . So, I'm doing this: Jumping/hopping on my two feet 10 times, at least 3 times a day. Every day. Why? I have this crazy fear of jumping, including jumping into a pool and bouncing on a trampoline. Sure, four years ago, I stepped off a plane from 18,000 feet high. But that was different. I was dropping into air while hooked to a professional skydiver. No jumping involved there. The thing is I'm not getting any younger. It's time for me to get rid of this silly fear. My first day of 3 x 10 times of jumping was scary. My feet cleared the floor by a couple of inches, if that. I had to use my arms (Imagine: arms in broad jump pose) to get my momentum going. I got a lot of pounds  of gravity to contend with, mind you. But, I did it. I was actually amazed that I did it. I'm also pretty proud of myself. I think the husband is too. When he's nearby as I'm jumping, he cheers me on.What a guy! Today is my four

"Stripes" is the theme of this week's PhotoHunt, hosted by TNChick. My offering is this photo of a chapel door at Mission San Juan Bautista . To check out other PhotoHunters, click here .

This is how I think my mind looks (the cabinet, that is) when you look at me: Blank. This is how I think my mind looks like a lot of the times: Disorder! This is how I think my mind looks like when it really should be taking care of business: La, la, la, la. I'm hanging out at Wordless Wednesday today. Come check out other bloggers with me by clicking here . P.S. It's early Friday morning. I'm hooking up at Java's Never Growing Old: Follow Friday 40 and Over. Come check out other blogs with me by clicking here .

Night clouds? Nope. I took this picture of clouds in the middle of the day. This morning I was playing with Photoshop, and this is what happened when I used the auto color adjustment button on the original photo. Amazing, huh? If made me wonder if Photoshop stripped out the blue color because the blue really isn't there in the sky. We see a blue sky during the day because of the way light waves rush through the atmosphere. Something like that. For the actual explanation, click here . Anyway, I thought it was rather cool how the clouds looked in a darkish sky. Here's what the original photo looked like when I used the Auto Contrast adjustment button.  Clarity of blue. And, here's the original photo untouched by Photoshop voodoo magic. By the way, don't the clouds look like two people dancing or maybe two people having a gab fest? All this musing about blue skies got me yearning to hear  Willie Nelson's rendition of Irving Berlin's Blue Skies . I thought you wou