Hello, Blogging World!

It has been a long time since I posted on this blog. I said my goodbyes and focused on my offline life. Three kids, two dogs, a house and car after, my offline life is triple times busier. But this week our life came to a stand still when our President announced that the Philippines is going for an Enhanced Community Quarantine.

We are not prepared for this.

Fresh from Maternity Leave, I am still trying to get back to my normal work schedule. Pumping at work is crazy and mess up both my work load and milk output. I am actually getting the hang of it when suddenly, I have to stay home again for one month. Well, could be a good thing for a breastfeeding mom like me. I can now stash some milk for future use since all of my stash are long gone.

Join me as I try to document my Work From Home and Work at Home (as a OC mommy) ride while our medical and government experts continue the battle against the corona virus. The only thing we can contribute now is to stay at home so that there will "less adults exposed to the COVID-19". That way, less people will be infected including our own families.

Make the most of your time while staying at home!

Revisiting Resolutions

This year has been a "no specific direction type of year" for me. I don't have any listed resolutions, but I do have few things that I want to do with no outcomes in particular:

1. be more eco-friendly
2. blog at least once a month
3. enjoy/love my job
4. explore/travel
5. organize/declutter
6. financial declutter/organize

Two days ago I started at my new job. It was a hard decision to make, leaving the previous one because it was the typical government job that most people wanted to have. Something that bothers me because I love working on pressing deadlines. With the new job, i thought it was the same with my former job when I was still under an executive office. On my third day, I am bored and dreading going back to work. The horror stories are starting to catch up on me. The terror boss that they described has not surfaced yet but I am already on the job seekers' wagon.  I will try to stick with my item no. 3 for awhile. Try to love this job.

Do you have anything that bothers you lately?

*** I purchased new bento accessories lately. I will be posting them later.

Found this wonderful blogger with her list of linky party that I will probably read for awhile.

Lip Balm, Strawberries and Laughing Cow

I promised myself at least a monthly update on this blog but with so much work waiting everyday at the office and the new baby keeping us on our toes, blogging is still on the backseat. But just to keep myself on the move, here are the inprocess in our home:

1. I realized that transferring lot ownership here in the Philippines is expensive and requires a lot of waiting. Red tape is always present in our government offices here. Even if we pay thousand of pesos, we still get our time wasted because a simple signature of who-ever-the head of their department can't make it on the deadline (even if we waited two days or more, they are not able to give us the receipt that we need.) I hope someone from the Bureau of Internal Revenues get to read this. Hello, your Red Tape in the office cost us our 1000/day salary!

2. It is still summer here. An officemate gave us strawberries from Bagiuo and ube halaya:

 3. I am still preparing bento for G. But I have been skipping the photo sessions because I am too tired to take them. Preparing bento, although I am faster now and less panicky still requires time in the morning. Here is our new bento hero: The Laughing Cow. It saved me from the picky palate lately because according to G, "it is not salty nor sweet. Just creamy and cheesy".

 4. I have few addictions: blog hopping , bento, lip care like lipbalm, lipgloss, and the likes and movie marathons

5. I am now finding time to read my ebooks using my tab. But I was disappointed with the 50 Shades of Grey. I have issues with the grammar and the trying-hard to be romantic dialogues. I did not get past the 4th Chapter. To each his own I guess. Not just my type. I am still looking for new books to read. I think its time to reread Ender's Game. It was a nice sci-fi book.

24 Weeks and It's A She

I have been daydreaming lately. A beautiful girl that I can bond with. I can dress up, buy clothes and celebrate with. We are going to welcome a baby girl soon!

Life has been a bit of a struggle lately. We dismissed our househelp because she forgot that we are the one paying her salary,not the other way around. She wants to lay her own rule in our household. And I don't allow that. She has to go.

We are lucky to find a replacement. She is younger but better than the dismissed maid. I am happy to have her even if she sometimes spend lot of time watching television. The other day, my MIL helped her declutter our "catch-all" room. No photo though. I am not yet sold with the idea of baring our still cluttered room. And because they tidied up the room, I have to decide on my own clutter. My calculation is that I will still wear my maternity dress for awhile. Maybe at least on the 4th month of our baby before I lose all the added weight. But I have been thinking of looking for great shoes and outfit in preparation for my post-maternity activities. I have been eying this winter boots. Never mind that there is no winter here, but with lots of opportunity abroad I have this foresight that I will be needing it soon.

How about you? This is actually on sale and you will be saving lots of money. If I have the budget, I will probably buy this one.




Are you having a great week so far? I do.



Going Do-It-Yourself

It's good to know that we will have our own place before the year2012 starts. And I can finally incorporate my own style on our new home. For my first two projects of DIY here are the plans:


1. Re-upholster an old sofa.


    Sources:

• Sofa: MIL's old rose-colored sofa
• Fabric: I have been eyeing Ukay-ukays (Goodwill version of PI). There are several stores near the market that opens only during Saturday. Or a new fabric from Divisoria.
• Paint: Will buy (I don't have stash of paint somewhere since we are starting on clean slate. No accumulated things for us).
• Instructions: Little Green Notebook, Design Sponge and Apartment Therapy. They seems to have posted instructions about re-upholster at almost the same time {though AT has referred to Little Green Notebooks DIY that lead me to the blog}. Below are snapshots of their works:

 both made the project look I easy to make. Something that I have to decide once I started the project.

2.  DIY Curtain {Print Using Stencil}

     Sources:

• Curtain: Thrift Stores or Fabric Stores whichever cost lower. On thrift stores, I am hoping to buy old bed sheets. On Fabric stores, I am eyeing plain, cheap fabrics.
• Paint: Will buy
• Instructions: Apartment Therapy, here and here.

These are the pictures from AT:

the projects look easy to do, I hope they are. :D

Hello Monday. Goodnight Sunday.

A storm is probably brewing on the lower part of our country again. Although it was a wet Saturday, we were able to catch up with our sleep yesterday. It was cold and raining every few hours, sleeping is necessary.

After the Sunday service we went to the mall to pay to our internet provider. We got hungry and ate some of this local delicacy: Bibingka:

locally grown coffee + hot bibingka + rainy morning = love

Sorry about not posting a photo that I actually took. Photo was from their Facebook account. It was really delish.

The husband has finally talked to the InLaws and we are officially anticipating the Moving Out within the month. We are looking for househelp, so we have to wait a little bit. But all plans are already laid out.

For the interior inspiration, here goes:

from here

Love the color combination.

photo here

Wont be able to have the same look on my small kitchen but this is a very nice kitchen that I can't get out of my head.

from here

This is my favorite. I'm not sure if this is the second time I have posted it here in this blog. I love this DIY.

Good night Sunday, Hello Monday.

Have a good time this week.

Life is a Blessing

I have been down with a flu but worked the entire week after taking a one day break to let my body heal a bit. It's not an excuse for not blogging, my target is to blog at least twice a week but it is impossible right now. So many things has been  keeping us busy.

photo from flickr

Our home ownership seems to be on hold again.

photo source: unknown

And we are keeping our fingers crossed that things will work according to the (revised) plan: buy the smaller lot and pay for it before the month ends. Then we will be paying for the funds that we borrowed to pay the lot in full. for two years. so two years of no house of our own yet. Then we will start building.
or maybe, we will be migrating somewhere, outside the PI. New Zealand, maybe?

image from flickr

WE are still considering a small house. A rental perhaps so that we can play house like real family. Well, let's hope that the lot acquisition pushes through first, then we will have our teeny tiny rental house for two years ( we've asked around and found a small house we can rent for awhile).

I am still inspired. and will continue on dreaming of having my own space.

For now, here are the photos that keeps me planning, doing and working on something we will own someday.

From Apartment Therapy, of course.

I love this simple bench. from here.

another angle, facing the bench (behind the white sofa)

I love white sofa and white walls. Don't you?

How Do You Spend Your Weekend?

One of my blog hopping agenda is looking at how people from other places spend their days particularly on the food that they enjoy. Based on the blog comments from my favorite sites, there are lot of us who are interested on everyday, ordinary people's way of living. For those people out there wondering how we spend our ordinary day here in the Philippines, here's mine:

Yes, you are looking at an arcade machine. We spend our Sunday (after church) at an arcade playing games. And this is my favorite game because I always win tokens:

This is not the ordinary day things. I had this baby back ribs while vacationing in Cebu City, visiting my best friend working there.

Another food while on Cebu vacation. We ate at the famous AA's Barbeque :

One of my ordinary day activities, playing play-doh with kids. Yes, I did that, dressed the gecko toy with clay, a summer outfit. or maybe it's a spa for mr. gecko.

And this is part of my weekly grocery shopping list. They vary of course but you can already imagine how my grocery bag contents look like.

and this is an authentic Filipino sweet from one of the cafe near a tourist destination in our town, Sampaloc Lake. This delicacy is called suman for those living in the metro. I don't know what its called here {my bad}.Its a sweet sticky rice with sweet coconut syrup.

I wanted to show off the house that we purchased but its too soon to do that because we are having some issues with the financing. What are the things on your everyday, ordinary life?

Home Ownership in the Philippines

We are in the process of waiting for our home loan application results.

The ad says processing of the loan will take five days. 

The home ownership is putting us into another level of planning and organization. I have failed terribly on the planning part. At least around 25K has been lost from my poor planning and maybe we will have another dent on my planning ability when we are done paying to the realtor. Silly me have forgotten the registration process right that comes after paying the whole amount. according to some website the transaction cost comprises the following:

1. legal fees
2. local transfer tax
3. deed of sale 
4. Capital Gains Tax
5. Real State agent 's fee
6. document stamp tax fee

the last three items will be shouldered by the seller and the first three will be the one the homeowners will have to prepare for. Based on the computations, legal fee such as notarial will cost around P200 per document, local transfer tax will depend on the zonal value imposed by the municipality government and the documentary stamp tax will cost around P15 per P1000 (value of the property, i assume) or 1.5% whichever is higher. House and lot with value of 2.5 Million below are VAT-exempt so mine will fall under that category. To give an idea of how much a registration cost will be, the example on the website provided a computation of around P28,898 for a 12M property. If the zonal value is not that high, our house  and lot processing fee will probably cost around 4k.

Vice Ganda Concert: An Hour Late and Other Weekend Specials

I watched Vice Ganda's concert at the Araneta Coliseum, Friday night.

S/He is more than an hour late. 

I was pissed when the show have started and told my best-friend that even if Vice makes me happy and rolling with laughter the whole show, I will blog about the tardiness. 

She was late. 

But I laughed non-stop till one o'clock in the morning.

While waiting, we had our fill of Jamaican Pattie. It is one of the hubs favorite.

my favorite, Beef Pinatubo. This is the spicy one.

(photos from their fb page.)

Sleepless from the show, I have to proceed to our family date (I missed the seminar at work because it will be impossible to get back to the metro on time, i feel sort of guilty). 

mozzarella sticks

banana split worth 25 pesos with edible bowl

banana split (again!) with textured ice cream

pizza, Hawaiian and bacon&ham

I had a great week although the rest of the Sunday was spent sleeping almost the entire day, thus we were not able to attend the Sunday service. 

I hope you had a great weekend too.

SM San Pablo City: Things That Customers Should Be Aware Of

Before the SM City was built, San Pablo City is a small town with lots of small stores and malls. Having a mall that will provide an easy access to all things that we need sans going to the Metro would have made it a perfect place to live. You see, San Pablo is a peaceful city. Not a zero crime zone but still peaceful enough to raise kids and stay during weekends. The only issue that keeps people from staying here for good is the transportation within the city. 

photo from here

  An honest tricycle driver would charge you P20-25 if you are going to the subdivisions from the bayan or vice versa.  We have some suki that we trust and they are always happy to have us as passengers because we are their regular clients. They charge us P25 when we give them larger bills and when I have exact money with me, I give them P30, the P5 is a tip.

With the SM City around, we were pretty excited to do some shopping. The only issue that keeps us on patronizing the other supermarket, PureGold, is that the they have a better public transportation terminal than SM. And the fact that it is very far from the main business district of the city. 

Here are the things that customers should know:

1. If you are coming from the bayan area, tricycle driver will charge you P20 to bring you to SM. You can take the jeepney (SM-Bayan route) and pay for the regular fare of P8. 

2. There are two atms at SM (currently): BDO and Chinabank. The Chinabank can be found found near the escalator. Both charges P10 per transaction for other bank's atm.

3. They have terminal  on the right side of their building (if you are facing the main entrance). You can choose between jeepney ride and tricycle ride. If you choose the tricycle, you will not know how much they will charge you when you get to your destination. As far as legal fare is concern, they will have to charge you P25 for special trip plus an additional amount per additional kilometer. If they are honest workers and follow this, they will not be asking you for more than P50. 

4. Just to give you an idea of how much a P30 will get you: if you ride a jeepney from San Pablo to UP LosBanos, you will pay P30. That far. Compare that to P30 from bayan to your respective subdivision.. 

5. Puregold sometimes offer free rides to bayan from their store. 

6. To be fair with SM, SM Bicutan and other SM stores offers free rides as well.

photos from here

My issue here is not about whether SM gives their customers a free ride or not. I was charged P60 from SM to our home. The P60 is already a round trip fare for someone going to UP Los Banos and back. It means passing through several towns like Bae (or Bay), Calaun, Wawa (not sure if I missed other towns). It would also mean a roundtrip fare from San Pablo to Sto. Tomas Palengke via aircon bus that offers a free wi-fi!

I have the money to pay for my fare from San Pablo to Manila everyday, and what pisses me off is that the driver of that tricycle swindled me by overcharging and he reasoned that the SM management is charging them at the terminal! Is it true? I think, the management should regulate the fare from the terminal, just like how they do it with the taxis on metro manila.

I encourage you to buy somewhere else if you do not have any means of transportation to bring home your groceries because those swindlers of a driver at the SM terminal will probably overcharge you.

I already emailed SM about it and hopefully they will do something. If not, I will encourage others to boycott their services because according to the swindler/driver, it was the SM terminal that is burdening them with payment hence they have to overcharge us. At the back of my mind, I know that that as*h*le of a driver is lying at the skin of his teeth but still, SM have to do something to stop these swindlers. 

About the driver, karma is just around the corner. Let's hope his swindling days will be over soon. 

Thinking of Homemade Halo-Halo

There will be some changes on my workload soon. I will probably be starting to work on the new company before the summer is over. There are three offers that I received but recently, I turned down the consultancy job because I realized that working on a Saturday means we have to squeeze in all the activities like shopping, spending quality time together and visiting friends/family in one day. Working on a Saturday is not for me. 

I hope that it will be easier to choose between the two offers but choosing the higher position
is easier if only they keep you away from the guessing game for too long. I just want to have a more focus type of work. To earn, to show them what I have to help the company. Anything else aside from that, I would ditch because I am a very private person.

♥○♥○♥○♥○♥○♥

Now, on the food stuff. I love halo-halo.

image from here

It is a sweet concoction that is available year round on some local fast food and restaurant here in the country. Although it is available yea round, the best time to have them is during summer. And the best place to buy them is from the neighborhood temporary halo-halo stand. If you are familiar with lemonade stands, then this is the lemonade stand version here. You only get to see them in your neighborhood during summer and this is the venue to see old friends and new people living in the community because no one at least once in the summertime, can resist buying a glass of halo-halo. It usually cost around Php 20 (too expensive, actually for that price). If you prefer the quality controlled ones like ChowKing's halo-halo, you will shell out around 50pesos.

If you prefer less textured type of cold sweets and cheaper, you can opt for the ice candy. 

image from here

My favorite flavors are mango and chocolate. 

or 

the all time favorite of my age {and above}, the 

Ice Scrambles

 

you can buy them on the streets, usually on small makeshift stands near grade schools. The good thing about innovation is that there are business-minded people who finds the opportunity to sell them up-scaled. You can now buy them at the malls costing around 8-10 pesos for the plain one. 

What is your favorite summer food/sweets?

 

Drawing on a Friday and some Decluttering Activities

My interest is a mix of art and science. 

Today, while resting from decluttering activities {it's more of removing papers that will be candidate for the shredder from my boxes under the office table} it downed on me that it is the best time to start with my drawing lessons online. 

Actually, it has long been decided that I will be taking online lessons but my memory failed me again and even if I have searched all of the computers in the house, there is not trace of the drawing website that provides the exact lessons that I want. 

Today, I found it. 

And I will get myself listed this very minute. 

On the blogging world, I want to do a project like this on our home-to-be:

from here and here.

It's been an emotional week but with the great people who are showing their love and care, this week is still a great week with minor challenges. 

2011 First Month Review/Assessment

My list of things to do for 2011 is different from what I had on the past years. 

I have become more realistic with my list. 

October last year I had two things to prioritize this year. 

And in November {2010}, my list grew and I added eight more things to do.

My to do list would always include blogging, sewing, baking, a new business to set up and health issues resolved. 

I know all those things are not easy to accomplish. 

I have learned long time ago that not all things that look easy is really easy for a thirty-something woman who is busy with a career and yet want to stay at home.

Sometimes, I wish life is easier.

 

Not that easy without challenges. But more of less-unreasonable-people around thing. 

Like these kids playing on the park near the lake {took the photo when we visit lakeside for some organic market shopping near our home}

{i used my motorola phone to capture this, sorry for the blur}

Don't you love to watch kids? 

I do.

I love how simple things makes them laugh.

On the other hand, here is my assessment of what has been done for the Month of January:

1. I am working hard to have a more stable job. I spent the entire month answering/processing requirements. I am keeping my fingers crossed and hope that it is worth my while.
2. We are working on our finances. I lost the touch of keeping everything in order. It's either we overdraft or we overdraft. Yes, you read it correct. We can't keep with the budget. 
3. I am a work in progress when it comes to the health issues. So far, I lost weight. A little bit. It is better than gaining right?
4. I am trying to make this blog more internet friendly {aka interesting}. I hope to reach at least 20 unique readers by next month. Let's see if I can do that. 
5. No sewing machine yet, but I received an email from one of those second hand machine suppliers and I hope to get a good deal.
6. Our room is still accumulating more stuff. We hope to make it liveable until we get to move.

My week just started, let us hope all of my personal things in the office will all be reduced to a box {with old lectures thrown out or donated, files on office computers saved on a CD}. 

How about you?

I Am Still Here

I added few more links on the sidebar for those who are interested on having their kiddie party. Life here is a mix of slow pace, cold weather and longer sleeping hours.

I started skipping rice since last week and have lost some weight. I ate mostly apple, papaya and oatmeal cookies. No photos of my progress, it makes me cringe just thinking about the weight I gained in the past few months.

I promised  photos from my travel to Cebu but unfortunately, we arrived few hours before the speaking engagement and got only an hour to fix our hair and shirt. I met up with a long time girlfriend who is based there and had an hour of catching up with her. Then I took my 5am flight the next day. So there is no sightseeing for me.

How's your New Year? 

I already labeled some of our things for the moving out and hope to get enough funds for the paint jobs. I will be flying back to Cebu on February to spend more time with my friend there. I will not break my promise, there will be photos!

I have been playing with some posters and came up with this. I wont be taking credit for the words but I did the layout and stuff. :D I am hoping to do something art worthwhile. So here goes...

You can download and print it if you want to hang it somewhere. Or you can email me if you want the pdf version.

This is a good week so far. 

Have a great Wednesday.

Boxing and Baking

Weekend passed by swiftly. I slept the rest of the afternoon yesterday and woke up around seven in the morning today. I never felt well rested for years. 

We took the opportunity to buy some stuff at the grocery as people settles on their seats (at their home) to watch Manny Pacquiao and Antonio Margarito's fight. Courtesy of our city government (every Pacquiao fight), people in this city with cable access was able to watch the fight live. Knowing that we will be having the street for ourselves (read: no traffic) and the grocery as well, we dash off to the store and get the grocery done. 

I was able to buy to flat containers for our clothes that no longer fit me and other things needed in the house. 

Hubby baked brownies but we realized that there is something wrong with the oven. I offered my sewing machine money to buy him a new oven but he refused, so let's see how long can he keep this oven. 

Here are the projects that I want to do in the future, when we have the new house:

1. mini scrapbook

scrapbook. mini-scrapbook.

{via a beautiful mess}

I made one before and can find time to do now, but being free from any reading materials and writing assignments make me a real bum. 

2. Little Birdie Plush

 

plushies! 

 

 

 

{via a beautiful mess}

3.Baking

 

{via dainty squid}

 4. Online Biz

 

alright, not exactly etsy, but more like etsy. (Note: I do not live in the US, so etsy-adventure is not for me)

 

There are lots of things to do,now that school is over. 

Hope you had the list of things to do as well.

Great Sunday!

Back to Blogging

I am done with school and probably off somewhere to start a new career.

After lots of weeks giving it much thought, I know that the need to start somewhere that is different from what my life has been for the past five years is the thing that my heart wants to do. So I will probably be starting anew somewhere and open a fresh leaf for my life.

I have plenty of projects to do and can not wait to start on them. The top list are the following:

1. Start a website (free or not, it doesn't matter)
2. Blog more
3. Sewing 
4. Scrapbooking
5. Driving lessons
6. baking lessons
7. gardening
8. painting/sketching

Sounds like a busy year for me. And I am all excited. Here are the projects that I hope to work on immediately:

via {v and co.}

I want to make a wreath but not sure if this is okay in the house (you know how difficult it is if you are living with the in-laws, you have to consider their opinion). 

By the way, I am almost done with the paperworks for the building permit. It took this long because we are too busy with other things in life life husband getting sick, exams, thesis. Now that things at school are finished, I can moved at a faster pace.

Finish Line

I had  the longest week and it is still stretching as weekend draws near. It was a busy week and I am hoping to finish everything today so that I can take a break this weekend.

via {web}

Three days of this week was spent cramming on writing my final paper and I am so sleep-deprived that I am currently nursing a migraine. Yesterday was spent on some meetings at work including an interview for a potential work. I am crossing my finger that this is the job that I have been looking for. 

Early today, I was so upset that it left me exhausted even before my day started. Family life is a never-ending struggle. Lately,I question my sanity when I took the vows. Life is giving me lemons and I am not in the right set of mind to make lemonade. I am tired of balancing the finances, urging him to move forward and motivating him from being stagnant and too content with what we have. Being happy with comfort zone is something that I allow him to indulge sometimes, but I can not rest that long. We have to move up a little bit, to accomplish something. After all, life is not just about us. We are a family and it means, a future with kids having a responsible parents who can provide their needs until they are all enough to earn for their needs. And I am not the type of individual who would find money only when you need it. I may not answer all our problems but at least, the financial part, the easiest and most predictable part should be addressed, then we can cross that out from the worries of family life, like emotions, relatives and growing up. It seems that our differences are starting to take its toll on me. 

Sorry about the whining part. I need to talk it with someone. Am I the only one experiencing this? My expectations too high? 

Enjoy Friday. I will try to salvage mine. There are still few hours to enjoy before I head home again.

New Resolutions, Two Months before 2011

..or sort of.

It's going to be 2011 two months from now and I am making revisions on my resolutions.

Here they are:

1. Weight Loss
2. Scrapbooking

These things will be added on my schedule. And I still have no idea how to go about it. They are the kind of activities that I know by heart, five years ago. And now that I am trying to gather pieces of myself together (yes, there are some drama on this blog most of the time), it is appropriate to pick up the most important thing that I do five years ago. I exercise (or yoga) daily and spend scrapbook (not digital one) time on lazy days. And I meant to include them on my to-do list. But there will be limitations. Following the lead of blogger Brenda, I will start on my scrapbooking activities and have it scheduled on Friday. I am not sure though if there will be a title. Here is the inspiration that caught my lazy heart:

this is the planner, not the scrapbook. {via It's a New Day}

Now here is the real scrapbook of Ms. Brenda:

52 Blessings by brenda arnall

She keeps on referring to Cathy Z's blog. And I agree. Ms. Cathy got the most pretty and inspirational scrapbooking ideas. I will probably start visiting her and jumpstart my scrapbook as soon as I turn my papers in (to my adviser, which is next week).  Want to know why? Oh, here's why:

scrapbook, baby. Homemade.

She made it, D-I-Y. And I want my DIY memory books as well.

and for the Weight Loss, it's from Cathy also. She uses the My Food Diary.

It is free but I am yet to check it out.

That's what has been going on,planning phase for me. For now, I have two things on my goal list: art and losing weight. For the art's sake, I will start getting used to Photoshop. I avoid it like the plague since picnik site is more convenient for me. But this time, I have to renew ties with the Photoshop software.

I am having a great day, are you?