The Happiest Hobbits

A birthday post, and a quiet rebellion Today I turn a year older. And instead of a party post or a list of lessons learned, I’m giving myself this space to return to the roots of who I am: A writer. A woman. A wife and mother. A soul quietly pushing back against the noise, reclaiming what matters. . . . I’ve always been writing. As a child, it was in perfumed diaries – unfiltered, emotional, sometimes messy, always honest. Sometimes dad would let me use his typewriter and I loved it even more. Later it was the now defunct Xanga and Angelfire , then Blogspot as She Who Wears the Crooked Halo and now The Happiest Hobbits . Over the years I wrote because it helped me breathe and understand what I was feeling before I could name it.  Then life changed. It got full, and fast. I stopped sharing, took a long hiatus, turned inward. I wanted to be more private, and I still do. But the words never stopped coming. Somehow, when I write, I feel more truly myself. And when I don’t – when life ...

 Thoughts and highlights while reading on holiday I brought Good Inside by Dr Becky Kennedy with me on holiday, thinking I’d skim through a chapter here and there between outings and downtime with the kids. But just a few pages in, I found myself underlining nearly every sentence. I’ve learned over time that I remember better when I write. There’s something about putting thoughts into words that helps me process what I’m reading – and come back to it when I need it most. So here I am with a new series, jotting down some of the ideas and lines that struck me the hardest. These are my personal notes and reflections, written more for memory than mastery. Maybe they’ll speak to you too. * * * * * Big Ideas That Hit Me: 🌱 “Your child is good inside.” This isn’t just a nice thing to believe – it’s the foundation of everything Dr Becky teaches. She invites us to shift from seeing our child’s behaviour as bad to seeing it as a signal. Instead of thinking, “Why is my kid acting like this...

Posted for International ADHD Awareness Day, 13 July You might hear it from classmates, teachers, strangers... Even from people who love you, but don’t understand: “Why can’t you just sit still?” “Why are you always talking?” “Why don’t you try harder?” “You’ll grow out of it.” “It’s not even real.” But I’m here to tell you, loudly and clearly: You are not broken. You are beautifully wired. . . . You are not alone ADHD is real.  It is how your brain is wired to process the world – sometimes louder, faster, more intensely. It means your thoughts might sparkle and scatter like fireworks.  It means you might feel everything – joy, anger, wonder, frustration –  big and fast . It means that school might be harder sometimes. That forgetting things, starting things, or stopping things can be exhausting. But it doesn’t mean you’re lazy. It doesn’t mean you’re bad. It means your brain works differently. And different is not less . . . . You are capable Your brain is a storm of po...

This is part of my blog series,  Uyayi: A Lullaby Across Generations  — an homage to our roots started from the month we mark  Araw ng Kalayaan  [Philippine Independence Day]. Each post explores the title of four picture books we brought home after our last visit to the motherland; Filipino words I didn’t grow up using, but now read aloud with love and intention: Inip. Gigil. Hiya. Sabik.  I gift these words to my children, one page at a time. . . . There’s a special kind of ache  that comes not from pain,  but from yearning .  That’s sabik . It’s my toddler squealing when she hears the key turning in the lock. It’s my seven-year-old counting down the days until the weekend. It’s my husband who watches me rush around and jokes that someday, when the children are grown, he’ll finally have me to himself again. I laugh and roll my eyes, but I know exactly what he means. Many times in my life, it was me too: The child who couldn’t wait to leave her ...

This is part of my blog series, Uyayi: A Lullaby Across Generations — a homage to our roots started from the month we mark Araw ng Kalayaan [Philippine Independence Day]. Each post explores a single word from a picture book we brought home after our last visit to the motherland. Filipino words I didn’t grow up using, but now read aloud with love and intention. Words I now gift to my children, one page at a time. Inip. Gigil. Hiya. Sabik.  Even one word, spoken often enough, can begin to root a child. There are words we inherit without knowing it. Words that live in our bones before they ever cross our lips. Hiya is one of those words. . . . Hiya . A word often misunderstood as shame. But in the depth of our culture, it is also humility, reverence, and relational awareness. It is the quiet that follows reflection. The pause before we speak. The breath before we act. Hiya is what I feel posting this, weeks after I meant to. Hiya, not as guilt, but as humility – a remi...