Hello there! I'm taking a break from my usual blogskin-making mode today. I think I had too much to drink after 3 days of not sleeping so I have to take it easy today. Looking back at it though, I haven't drunk alcohol for a long time now. Two bottles easily made me tipsy.

Well, enough about me. I am actually putting a post here so I could feature my new found addiction, Maitri's blog called Magic and Moments from Dragonfly Cottage. Maitri Libellule is a writer, a pet keeper of all sorts and a wonderful gardener. I hope at this point, you have already made an effort to click the link already and has already seen what I mean.

This new blog addiction I developed started just a month ago. I was in such a turmoil, emotionally, then and I wanted to clear my head. I remembered that I went to this certain blog of a woman who had such a passion for her writing and also about life so I immediately used all my powers (meaning Google) to search for her blog once again.

The initial hook that caught me was her profile:

Maitri is a writer, an independent publisher, and a fiber artist. She lives with 6 parrots, 4 dogs, a beta fish named Vincent, and is an avid gardener. Maitri's work and life are centered in works of compassion and loving kindness. You can see the entire scope of her work on her 9 year old site, dragonflycottage.com. She is also currently working on a book called "The Road To Dragonfly Cottage," The parrots, pugs, big dog and beta fish will all help of course.

Her pets will help her in her work!!! What a wonderful thing to read on an extra sad day! So after reading that, I started inching my way through her posts. The very first post I read on her blog was Every Night I Go To Bed Laughing! which was about how her pugs cheered her up. Being a pet lover as well, I went on reading and the rest was history.

In my heart, I found that her writing kept my spirit still. Simple words and heartfelt gratitude to the many blessings of Life are the two best things I found on her blog. Hearing (or rather, reading) about what makes your day wonderful actually has such a powerful impact on the psyche that it can actually make other people happy. I've tried doing that in the past but sorrow has overtaken me yet again. This is a reminder to start doing a gratitude journal once again.

Additionally, her writing about her pets always has some happy factor in it that makes me laugh. Compared to Maitri, I am actually a cat lover but I still find her pug entries fun. Dogs still has some charm over me but I would rather prefer cats over dogs. Here at home, we also have some sort of a zoo going on. We have a cat named Doggie. My sister named her like that because my aunt called her Muning (Tagalog name for almost every cat a Filipino family could have). The cat recently gave birth so we also have 3 kittens. We also have a cage full of love birds (budgies actually). Then there are the 3 mynas (Sweetheart, Honey and Darling), the 2 cockatiels, 2 sparrows (I really don't know what they are really), the dogs (Taneki, named after one of my louder aunts who's nickname is NekNek; Aladar, yes from the movie Dinosaur; and Bogart; Seph, our german shepherd, recently passed away), the monkeys (Takeshi and Kail), my dragonfin fish (Jetsam), the goldfishes, and the hamsters. If you will notice, Maitri and I have almost the same number of pets.

Unfortunately for me, I cannot post the pictures of our pets here because I have a deadly curse that I couldn't break. When I take a picture of a pet, the pet dies. So sorry for not posting my pets' pictures.

And then, there is this little thing she calls her garden. Take a look at her banner. Maitri's house is so gloriously covered around with flowers! I love it. She also takes photographs of her plants. Her profile picture has one, if you've noticed.

The last time that I read through her blog was just 2 days ago. Sadly, her mother has become ill and considering her age, might not live through it. I ask that everybody pray for her and Maitri as well. Pray to give strength in this most trying of times.

I hope you are reading this Maitri. Hugs!