Got all these from a friend. I was surprised to receive this on the night after my birthday when I got home from work. They said she called up the house that she's going to drop something in the guard house.
How sweet of her to have personally made a birthday greeting card for me. She also gave my favorite chiccos (nananghid ka sa imong lolo ana Chell? or your brother ra nag-kuha? heheeh), a tumbler and most of all a very cute decorative miniature mug (so like it!!!)
As I have promised myself, I tried making my birthday today different. I did my grocery alone and was just happy my hubby gave me as his birthday presents, four thousand pesos, to buy the ingredients I wanted to cook and then the rest of the money is mine (wide grin). I'm now thinking what to buy for myself.... hhmmm...a new branded t-shirt perhaps? Whatever it is.. it is some reason to be happy on my birthday other than being happy for having another year to celebrate.
So there it goes!! the foods that I cooked or rather co-cooked with my mama. Well, I would admit I couldn't do it alone you know. You just need to have some assistance in preparing the ingredients. I did the Pata Tim and Humba. As much as possible as I would like to think and believe that we religiously followed the measurements and the manner of cooking the food, as my mother said it, in order to taste a different taste of Humba, Pancit Bihon and to taste Pata Tim.
All the food are just liked by the eaters except that my Pata Tim is a disappointment. I don't know what happened to my sauce when I did follow the measurement. Bottom line, the sauce didn't turned out as it should be. Well, at least my Humba is tasty and tasted just the way I like it (I will cook it again). As to the Pancit Bihon, though it was my mother who cooked it but I sure did watch how she did it. The result?I so liked our Pancit Bihon.
To stay on track of my plans, I had our helper went with Jaiden and I to the Lipata Chapel to hopefully attend a mass or light some candles even though it was drizzling. However, we arrived there at almost the end of the mass. So we went to the candle lighting area only to see a box of matchsticks without any candle at all. With this, we went inside the chapel and prayed. After which, I already had a feeling that Jaiden wouldn't be contented to end the activity by just it and I was correct. He said and pointed to the road saying "want to go there?" - he wanted to go beyond the Lipata Chapel, somewhere down the road. But, it was raining, so I find an alibi telling him that we go home to blow the candles of the cake. Without hesitation, he oblige - such a very good, sweet child.
Everybody was in celebratory mood. Hubby wasn't just around to eat together with us but with Jaiden with me, he surely made my birthday extra special when he sang me the birthday song and blew the candles with me.
Thank you Lord, for this another year, for all the blessings and being with me always when trials came and for hearing my prayers and letting me see and realized things.
If before I would just wake up, go to work, reading messages from regular birthday greeters, now I will have to try to make it different. Yes, for the first time, since my working career, I will not be at work on my birthday. Thank you to my new corporate employer who values work, life balance - I will be on leave on my coming birthday.
Lately, I am into cooking by just simply looking at the recipes posted on the net. In fact, I have already tried chicken macaroni soup to which only me and my hubby believed to have been delicious. My other housemates's taste buds are so into traditional tasting that they didn't like the taste nor the smell of the celery. I learned later that celery, aside from carrots, are one of the main ingredients when you want your soup to be so smelly-tasteful.
The recipes I cooked or shall cook doesn't have to be a 5-star sophisticated food but just a simple one that our usual Filipino palates can handle and today I missed my mama's bola-bola (meat balls) that I tried cooking one. Other than the ground pork, the vegetable ingredients were just the finely chopped: carrots, chayote, potatoes, small amount of red bell pepper and onions. However, I just added few seasonings and didn't taste it (to which my hubby commented to be my biggest failure) that I later learned when the fried meat balls were cooked, that these tasted bland. I was so disappointed of myself (that feeling of excitement to taste my missed-bolabola wasn't coming to life). Good thing my husband suggested to make a tasty sauce to save it. Fortunately, I was able to made an okay sauce (thanks to Oyster sauce as the significant ingredient) that out of ten meat balls, only three are left uneaten.
Going back to my coming birthday, I now decide to make it different by cooking the foods that we would be eating. I will then be cooking Pata Tim, Humba, Camaron Rebosado, Adobong Kangkong and Pancit Bihon. I know that what I enumerated are just our everyday food (I think except for the Pata Tim?) that we encounter but mind you I want to follow the measurements and the recipe that are on this site http://www.myfilipinorecipes.com/. I think that it's different when you cook it yourself. Hopefully, I will be able to deliver it to the best of our palates. So wish me luck on my birthday!
p/s I will be posting pics of my cooked foods then :)
Once my friend told me, that according to her favorite actress, that "you have to be alarmed if you're already too comfortable in your zone because it means that you're no longer learning". As I understood it, it's one of her reason why she decided to work here in Cebu in spite of her father's protest. The saying stayed in my mind.
It seems surreal that I'm almost two months of my new adventure. It has been such a goal and determination to be in it which I would admit that once I was in there, it was really hard, especially at the start. I was on the verge of entertaining the thought of giving up but then I realized that it was probably too early yet to surrender. Maybe because it had been such a long time that I forgot how was it being pressured. But then, I consoled myself by asking, "isn't this what I wanted?"Am I not living what I had been praying?
I believe it's a normal thing to want more in life. Although money is always the determining factor but in my case, it's not. I felt the need to be challenged, to be of self-worthy, to be needed, to achieve something daily, to spend more time with my family on weekends and much more is to be there for my son when there's a call for it.
To achieve our want and being in there is to strive hard to cope up with the new challenges that comes with it. It's like jumping on another bridge and trying to calm down the movement you have created wherein possibilities of rejection is inevitable. You're balancing things and get to be acquainted with the new environment.
I don't think that everything in this world comes easy. You always have to work hard to get your want until again you reached the point of your comfort zone and then it goes on and on because LIFE is just simply ROUND.
We attended our Sunday mass in the Sto. Nino since we planned to go to SM to buy our baby new clothes for his birthday which we planned for him to wear in his pictorial that'll be used in his birthday invitation..
My hubby was right that it's not an always good idea to go to SM if you don't have much money to spare because it has always been proven that we ended up going home buying something unplanned which usually are expensive.
We were able to buy our baby his clothings in a total of P3T+. Quite high huh? Yes, because we bought him two sets of church attire and three sets of house clothings. The unplanned something that we bought is the Vtec's First step walker which Jaiden really enjoyed much testing the toy around the store. He was really showing much enjoyment of the toy, as in! So we bought it at a price of almost 3T. Gosh! I don't know what's next for our baby!
I'm very much exhausted because the stroller is of no use to us in the mall except as his sleeping comfort when he doze off for about thirty minutes. Jaiden wants me to carry him around which I eagerly did. No matter how I know that my body would surely feel all the aches after malling, I couldn't trade the physical bonding I have with my baby. So I carried him around from the near the Flawless clinic area of North Wing to the Otto boutique area and then to Junrex (to see somebody) area then back to near the Flawless area to meet my hubby. It seems just so easy to picture out based in my writing here but believe me I'm physically tired. However, I still took the time to write this blog because this Sunday is an another financially-damaging Sunday but again for our baby - anything is possible as long as we can take it.
It's barely more than weeks now and my baby's birthday is fast approaching. I have made lots of blogs and promised myself to make one about my the ever challenging and memorable happenings of my life before my baby came to this world. The blog will be a sort of an anniversary tribute of one of the best things that ever happened to my life. But somehow, for reasons I can't seem to figure out yet, I just can't finish it. In fact I've already made two drafts and they're almost in their finishing or wrap up stage.
Maybe it has got to do with one of the facts that I now have very short time to write because my baby now demands more of my time. The moment I arrived from office, I even can't change my clothings because he wants me to carry or cuddle him immediately to the extent that he would cry if I would just pass by him to my room. Now, you don't like that to happen! I wouldn't want him to feel that I'm not excited as he is to see him or that I don't miss him (though it's just hours we're apart). So I really have to scoop him up and cuddle him immediately the moment I step foot of our home. I even have to carry him upstairs to our room then put him down in his crib so that I'll be able to change. Then a waiting baby is staring up at me hoping for me to pick him again immediately. Then we can do our usual things for about two hours.
After I put my baby to sleep, I already find myself exhausted of the playing activities I did with him. So I think this is one of those reasons why I can't seem to finish my said blog.I don't know. I think I just have to tell my baby personally about it.
Another thing is, I realized that it's hard to write about your pasts specially when it happened more than a year already. It seems hard to recall and hard to compress the events in a way that you don't end up writing a book already about your life. I think spontaneous blogging is easy. Writing down immediately if something comes up in your mind and without interruption allows you to finish it on the spot. What I've done about writing my worst and bad experiences during my journey to our baby was writing it in staggered which I think could also be the reason why I'm now lazy to finish it. I don't know yet if I would have the interest. I'm just tired.
What could be guiltier than forgetting your diet! Yes, I grossly forgot my diet-watch tonight. It started with eating Julie's Spanish bread just a few minutes before taking my supper. I just so miss the taste of Spanish bread and was hoping it would be like that of Charito's (back then in Labogon) though it was still delicious but it wasn't what I had expected.
Then I ate creamy mongoes soup with pork and I think I ate more than a cup of rice with it.
Jaiden and I went to the basketball court in our subdivision for his wobbly-walking enjoyment. there were many children playing because their guardians were waiting to attend the Novena Mass for our upcoming patron saint's fiesta. Mama followed suit and brought our Abaniko fan since it was very humid. Then I remember mama said that she likes to eat Cornetto so I asked her to get some money to buy as my treat. However, it was me who bought it and I was tempted to eat but they only had Magnolia drumstick - a P33 compared to Cornetto's only P20. So I only bought one and bought Josh and myself their fruit-salad-iced-candy instead . Jaiden obviously has no diet regimen so he gobbled almost half of mama's drumstick ice cream. Mama was just okay with it because she likes vanilla but I bought a chocolate flavor. Jaiden wasn't able to consume it all, so I ended up finishing it. Gosh!!! I had too much sweets for the night!!!
When I weighed myself, disappointingly I am 112 lbs. AGAIN!!!! HHHaaayyyysssttt.........
Though we have to observed the season, as was supposed to be, to be holy but sadly we weren't able to do what a devout Catholic should do except I think preparing binignit. Having binignit last Good Friday had at least made us "in".
4.21.11 Holy Thursday
I started the day doing Jaiden's morning routine: assisted him in walking with his new pair of sole-sounding shoes on, had him take his vitamins plus the Lactulose lilac while he was watching one of those Brainy Baby CD to keep him still on his high chair, then had him his Gerber vegetable mix and Cerelac wheat and milk as his morning food (after a while of eating pure Gerber vegetable mix, he puke.), then had him took his usual bath. After an hour of wobbly walking and climbing up the stairs, Jaiden fell asleep for an hour and a half in our couch. That was a record of his morning sleep. His mamala said that he just usually slept for only half an hour but in his stroller. The rest of the days was spent with Jaiden, with his papa all along and with my laptop. Nothing much had happened except that there were more physically exhausting-laughter and amused-entertaining moments with our baby.
4.22.11 Good Friday
Manang Laling prepared for our breakfast our binignit. I was surprised when she told me the cost of the grated coconut. It was twenty-five pesos!!! Shocks!!! Nowadays, you really can no longer make a delicious binignit for just having a fifty-peso budget.
The rest of the day was just normal except that I finished already summarizing all the soft copy pics for printing. That night I watched Slumdog Millionaire. It's a very good movie and it deserved to won the 2010 Oscars. Then I fell to my goodnight sleep and I awoke past midnight to feed our baby and later on found myself writing this.
4.23.11 Black Saturday
Two days of staying at home doing the normal routine. In the past when we were just a couple, those two days would already been so boring. It would seem that we would have to go out somewhere to kill the boredom. However, this time it is different because everyday is an exciting and joyous moments with our baby. By just hearing his hearty, innocent laughter and shrieking are just more than enough to make my day and I believe his papa also. Thus, that Saturday was different.
Manang Laling went home for her day off. So inevitably either my hubby or I had to do the basic household chores but I ended doing it all :-) which I think worsened my already destroyed no-longer-shiny fingernail-colors.
In less than an hour for lunch my mother-in-law arrived with his first grandson. She and hubby cooked bihon-based meal with the main ingredient that of a canned mushroom and pork leg. I forgot what was the name of that canned meat and mushroom (hubby dear, care for help?). I think the cooked bihon was sumptuous. It was very delicious that made me again forgot of my diet. Sidenote: I am now 110lbs. (yehey!!!).
While baby took his afternoon nap, mother-in-law (I think almost the whole afternoon) did telebabad (talking over the phone with a friend for more than an hour) while his first grandson enjoyed playing Plants vs. Zombies. Hubby and I stayed upstairs in our room with our baby. He played his computer games while I watched The King's Speech (such a very nice movie, again). The rest of the day that happened was usual - playing with our baby after his regular nightly routines.
4.24.11 Easter Sunday
While most of the devotees are up very early in the wee hours to witness the "Sugat" (reenactment of Jesus' risen from the dead with the accolades of the angels). I can't describe much about how the Sugat is reenacted and its incidental activities because (poor me!) since birth I haven't witnessed one. Maybe I'm just that sleepy head then and still, at present. Now that we already have our baby to care, I doubt if I can ever witness one but I think I will, someday, in God's time.
Our baby awoke as early as six plus in the morning. So I had him practice his walking within our house' vicinity. Our neighbors were busy getting themselves ready for their beach outing - the traditional (Pinoy?) activity during Easter. Watching them suddenly gave me a jolt festive feeling. So I thought to myself that before we would fetch my mama in Labogon we would have to drop by SM. I'm sure that our baby would enjoy strolling as much as I would enjoy myself too and to see him happy.
When I told my hubby about it, at first he agreed. Then later, he changed his mind not to side trip to SM for the reason that we have nothing to do there and I half-agreed. Moments later I realized that it was what I really wanted to do. I had been hoping to stroll the mall for quite some time already. Hence, we need to go there and hubby agreed for he has no choice at all.
Indeed, we just seemed to smell the mall for an hour. However, we were able to visit the Sparkles Balloons' stall and saw what their postcard invitation look like. Also, we went to the SM toy department to see a not so costly Winnie the Pooh stuff toy to hopefully buy it for our baby so that he would be acquainted with the character for his later on special day. Unfortunately upon seeing the toy, either his sleepy mood made him not amuse of it or he just loves his Edie so much that he doesn't like Edie to have a competition of his affection. With this, we decided not to buy yet. Oh! by the way, we had the photos below as our souvenir.
Arriving in Labogon seems like something new to our baby though he was able to visit there already more than once. He was in all excitement mood that when he saw the faces of my cousins he didn't hesitate to smile at them for a few seconds then stopped for a moment to look at them intently - my signal that he is about to scrutinize the unfamiliar faces and probably would have again his stranger anxiety. So I didn't wait for him to feel the anxiety. Hence, I abruptly ended the meeting and proceeded to my premarital home. He seemed not to mind the unfamiliar house upon seeing the familiar faces of his mamala, his papalo and his dear-playmate-cousin. He immediately felt at home that he automatically made his wobbly walking through and through the house. Still not enough, I had him practiced his walking in the uneven ground outside our house where there are lots of eroded stones. These stones are something new to him as he is used to the do walking exercise in the cemented ground in our subdivision. So he really enjoyed stepping on those stones and I had inevitably had a short work out (by just merely assisting him). I think we did it for about thirty minutes, then head back inside to have his supper. We bought with us his necessary things - his Cerelac, his dishes, his soap for his nightly bath et al.
Bath time was such messier than usual because the house just had a small basin. So just imagine the result; the floor was about to be totally wet and we had to hold the basin so as not to tumble it. Later on we decided to put him inside the pail since he very much liked to get inside of it. Thus for his rinsing, I had to get the water directly from the faucet. So he was kind of surprised to felt the water cold. With all the inconveniences we had caused, at least we were able to established his normal routine as much as possible. With this, we are and in behalf of our baby, thankful to my mama and papa for being patient and understanding to us.
After a few minutes, our baby fell asleep. I believe he was just so tired because he hadn't have his usual two hours nap in the afternoon and he had his wobbly walking in SM and in the grounds of our Labogon house. Even in our car when we were going home already, he was still asleep. He just woke up for a while then fell back again to sleep. We arrived safely in our residence. Then regular life is about to unfold.
We may not have been able to do what a Catholic would've done but I'm very sure that by those serene family moments we had made us closer to each other and by our own ways made us recollect and reflect our lives as Christians.
For more than a decade, I never thought we would come to this point of our lives. I had always been proud that you had stuck with me all through out. Back then you were so sweet and I thought you had full of care. Now I'm beginning to have second thought.
I was always the one who walked out whenever I couldn't stand it and remember? you were the one who made it a rule to always finish it no matter how tiring and how late it would take us.
Everything changed when He gave us our ultimate joy. I thought it was the stress and the situation. However, last night I told you how I felt about it. Now it pained me to realize that you seemed not to care. I thought I just have to keep it to myself. I don't know why it seems very hard now to do the thing we have very much struggled to worked out in the past. The thing that made us strong and is our very core foundation until lately. I really don't know why.
After this, I'll talk to you for the last time. I'm afraid that this will all build up within me and in fairness to you because if I don't do it now, it might be late for you to do anything about it.
I thought it would be fitting to borrow Carrie Bradshaw's line in Sex and the City 2 though it's not exactly the situation we are in. She said, " we were perfectly happy before we decided to live happily ever after". I hope this isn't the case we have now.
As a deep, analytical thinker as my friend said it, here I am again pondering. In the Purpose Driven Life book, it said that before we were born and even before we were formed inside our mom's tummy, God already imprinted us in his record or knows what our life would be. He already set for us our purpose in this world. He has already his master plan for each one of us. And I guess as I pondered on about your life, I'm beginning to think that we are indeed created by God for a purpose.
I have watched you grow.
I have witnessed everything.
We were playmates.
I protected you at my very young, fragile body not to let you fall.
So innocent as I am, I was there in front of your head, in front of the stairs doing all my might, all ounces of my energy not to let you fall.
Maybe then I am born to protect or help you and you be the helpless and be the instrument that would remind us that there is God.
Your life had been challenged to death, as young as before your first birthday.
Helpless as you are, I know it wasn't your choice.
At that time, I know they were in their deepest pit of their lives.
Though they wouldn't tell me but I felt the sorrow, the hardships and the struggle they were in.
But yours was the hardest.
You were in the most pain a baby can ever have.
You'd fought for your life as much as they did their best to put you out of your misery.
That was then one of those turning point of their lives.
As the situation seemed bleak,
they have turned to God and they made it through.
We had grown up.
We dreamed of beautiful simple lives.
We worked hard for it while they did their best to make our ends met.
Everyday was a challenge for us,
but it was very much for them, emotionally and financially.
We went on and on hoping that there's always a light at the end of the tunnel.
We were so busy working our heart out,
that we tend to forget Him.
He then let us came to our senses.
Something unexpected happened,
a wake up call reminding us all that He is the ultimate architect.
The tunnel then, still had to be journeyed
and was yet far from the end.
As a new life was about to unfold,
ours was unfolding to an unimaginable detour.
It was so hard to accept it.
It devastated us all,
though I know that you felt the guilt.
I know you never meant to hurt us.
But with God, there's always a way.
He made his ways.
Resources had been there to helped you through it.
My boss once told me that "everything happens for a reason".
Maybe it indeed happened for reasons only Him knew.
One thing was for sure,
it brought us back closer to Him.
God was so good.
In just a matter of time,
He made your life backed on track.
You were happy and excited but at the same time sad.
Sad because as you get to know your new found love,
you were also about to distance yourself to your first priceless love.
I knew you were torn.
But then again, God is everywhere and you re-found Him there.
I believe it was your most pillar in trying your best to live in that unfamiliar place,
now you learned to call home.
Again, I, together with my other half, was God's instrument for your rising.
I know that God is always good.
Every thing just fell to places.
The tidal wave just eased.
For quite some time now, the sea has been calm.
I wish time would stood still.
I know I'm dreaming the impossible.
Now you awaken me.
Life indeed is a roller coaster.
This time it's different.
I know you can handle it.
Though it'll affect all our lives,
I know that there'll always be a way.
With Him nothing is impossible.
Always remember the song, Footprints in the Sand;
"During your times of suffering, when you could see only one set of footprints,
I have this pic as my FB profile. I happened to go over it as I made my summary of soft copy pics for printing. I like how my hand looked good with my ring on it so I uploaded it and made it my profile just yesterday. As I browsed FB today, well, guess what? somebody also made her hand, with her rings on it made it her profile pic. Coincidence? hmmmm..... maybe but at the back of my head says its not. Anyways, though she had two rings on it but my single engagement ring still looks beautiful than those hahahahah!!!!! so mean of me! heheheh.... at least I'm honest to myself. Peace to her! if you know who I mean or you know who you are anyway :P Have a nice day!!!!
gem: gem: My Hopeful Weight Monitoring: "gem: My Hopeful Weight Monitoring: 'gem: gem: gem: Reality Hits Me: Yay!!! it's a good sign. Within a week I lost 1lb. So as of now, I'm 11..."
Well, it's been a while since I've talked about this goal of mine. I still do my morning cardiovascular exercise but I don't know why I'm still stuck in 118lbs. :( too bad. Yeah, I know! it's been quite a while now and I'm no longer loosing any weight. Maybe it has got to do with my diet? I just lessen my rice intake but the rest specially the meat, I haven't done much about it. Or maybe this is really now my normal or regular post-pregnancy weight ? The incidental pregnancy fat is already impossible to diminish? Mama told me that because I really had flabby stomach during my pre-pregnancy period then my pregnancy has contributed much to it. Hence, there'll be no wonder why I'm having a worst one now.
Sometimes I forgot about my goal and got tired of it, specially when I think that my weight has stuck in 118lbs. I'm sometimes discouraged of it because I can't sacrifice eating regular foods. Also, I sometimes forget the no-no kind of food to eat like the bread, the concentrated powdered juice, the soft drinks during weekend and just yesterday the most grave one was p-i-z-z-aaaa!!!!! weeewww!!!!!! I guess I just have to succumb to the fact that I have to say goodbye to my long-stored denims. Then buy a new one of my current size?
As of now, I just don't know. As in I DON'T KNOW!!!! sa bisaya pa - AMBOT LANG!!!
Oh well! It's nice to learn that tomorrow is already Friday. Again! I often not able to realize that the week is about to end. So far, I'm very much happy with what I have now. Thank You Lord! that days have passed without my realization.
So far ever since our baby Jaiden's arrival, I'm really not able to keep track as to what day of the week is it already. It means I'm enjoying enough my everyday life. On the other hand, my nights are fun-filled with activities with our baby Jaiden. If not, I'm busy doing stuffs that lessens my things-to-do-list. Also, I haven't minded how busy my hubby is. I just have been able to find my own ways of entertaining myself.
Thank you, Lord! for all the blessings, for the happy moments and for our baby Jaiden. And I especially thank you Lord, that I'm not able to keep track the days of the week because it means that I'm doing something great that feeds my body and soul. And Yes! thank you that tomorrow is Friday again!
Now that his big day is approaching, we're now making early preparations. There are lots of things to do. Deciding as to the venue, the food, et al. I salute those event coordinators because event preparation is a challenging task. It's really not easy juggling your budget while at the same time not compromising the quality of the outcome.
What we're doing now brings back memories of our wedding preparations six years ago. Well, I'm glad and I thank the Lord that this happy challenges that we have now is for our bundle of joy that we have earnestly asked Him.
Six years ago we were challenged by the preparation of Our Oneness with God. Now we're challenged by the preparation of the celebration of the First Natal Anniversary of the product of our LOVE.
I guess when you're age is already at the end of the calendar, you tend to find your birthday as just an ordinary day unless you like to feel great about it although I know that it still depends on the person. However for me, I decided to not make it a big deal. Probably because there's not that much to celebrate but just give thanks to Him. Mama gave me her birthday gift the night before my birthday, a red blouse. Upon wearing it, the redness of it somehow gave me the feeling that it's indeed my birthday. So I managed to took a picture of myself to mark the day.
On the other hand, I awoke to Jaiden's commotion and saw him standing by the other side of the crib. Upon greeting him, he made a productive cough. I was alarmed. Instantly, I was thinking that his pediatrician has no clinic today so I called her for her advice. She told me that she has a clinic but in LH Prime located in A.S. Fortuna Mandaue. Well, anything for our baby, we always make it. So, I was absent in the morning yesterday.
I always told my friend-officemate that aging doesn't matter. It's how you live your life. I was telling her that "look at me! I don't even feel my age!" In fact when an insurance agent called me up and asked me about my age, I told her I'll be turning @#$@ this coming 12th. Then I laughed because I haven't realized that I am about to be a year older already. I mistakenly told the agent how old I am. Another thing is, when I bought a cough medicine for my nephew. I asked the sales girl what medicine fits for a child aged 6 when suddenly a sort of amazed (or shall I say surprised?) lady buyer beside me asked me if I do have a child. So you see, also the strangers see me as a single lady! hahahahha!!!! what a compliment to behold!
This is it! You be the judge.
I just realized that my officemate-friend is already more than a year with me (in the company) so I asked her before we went home to beautify herself because we were going to do poses to also mark the occasion. She didn't believe me at first. She thought I was joking. I told her I was serious and that it was for the purpose of having a memento of ourselves, how pretty we looked on that March 12, 2011.
When I arrived home, my picture-taking momentum continued. So we also took shots. Only Josh and my hubby aren't present. Josh doesn't like pictorials while my hubby hasn't arrived from his over time work yet.
Sort of I would only remember my birthday (yesterday) as a fun-filled pictorials until my hubby arrived. As every woman would love to receive this from their loving someone, he brought me a bouquet of flowers. Now, it completed my birthday.
As much as I greatly appreciated the flowers, Jaiden was too as he found it something new to his senses.
Though he isn't present in my birthday-pictures but I'll always have in my heart his thoughtful gesture of giving me this
beautiful gift.
1) We went to the church as a family. Pangga and I decided to make it a usual Sunday, starting today. It has been a while since we attended Sunday mass because we couldn't figure out yet how our baby would behave or what will our baby's mood be. We are very much traumatized that the incident during his baptism would happen again. However, this morning was different because our baby was able to survive the church environment even if he hasn't taken his morning nap yet. Instead, he took his nap during the mass in his stroller. But before that, he was very much in the good mood even though his eyes showed that it were sleepy. I can't blame him because he woke us up by around five this morning. This is his usual waking time lately. :( So, it was no wonder that he would really fall asleep during the nine-thirty mass we attended. He started his nap during the homily and towards the end of the mass. He wasn't aware that he was already being strolled towards our parked car. If I didn't get him out of the stroller to ride in our car, he wouldn't have wake up. When he woke up, he smiled. He wasn't irritated that his sleep was disturbed (unlike before) because he now likes to go out. He loves to see new places and new faces. It was no wonder then that he was very much in the mood.
This is now our sugba-anan or barbecue-han.
2) After the mass, we headed to Gaisano Minglanilla. It was my first time to visit it. (So, you see, this made it different too.) Their basement parking has no fee. The guard isn't strict. Pangga opened the trunk of our car, only then did the guard realized what to do with it. Pangga said "way klaro" (heheheheh). We bought a few grocery items. I was surprised to know that they required a valid ID if you would pay through credit card. Alas, I didn't bring any. Good thing they accept ATM savings card. So, I just used my Metrobank paycard. Then we headed upstairs and looked for a small thermos for our baby Jaiden's Similac milk but we didn't found one instead I found what I have been longing for us to have, a griller (sugba-anan). The moment I saw it (priced P300), I immediately decided to buy it. Now I can look forward to eating grilled food, specially barbecued meat.
3) When we were about to go to the basement parking (to go home), we met my Ob-gyne, Dr. Enghog. Baby Jaiden was holding his bottled milk in his mouth looking intensely at (her) the stranger in front of him. It was Dr. Enghog's first time to see our baby after she had me delivered him. So it was kind of nice to think, that our baby met her for the first time, knowing that she was a very big help in having our baby around in this world.
4) Our baby was able to take his afternoon nap around four in the afternoon already. He was unable to eat his usual afternoon solid food eating because until this very moment (7:58 PM) he's still asleep. I think, his sleep is for good until morning. Maybe he got really tired of what we did today.
5) We had our first grilled belly in our newly bought sugba-anan. Hence, we had a sumptuos grilled pork belly during dinner.
I like our Sunday today and I'm hoping that it'll be nice too in the next Sundays to come.
gem: A Christmas Present: "You have not been conceptualize from the start. He just suggested in you in passing. Somehow he gave me the idea and made me think. One day..."
I'm forever grateful to my Pangga for gifting me a laptop. As I have said, I have never realized how it would made an impact in my new chapter of life. Ever since I have it, my past time activities has very much changed other than it has already since our baby Jaiden's arrival. This laptop has helped me a lot in coping up my ever challenging tasks as a working mother. I am able to make a flexible time for my self recreation. The last time I watched a movie in a big screen was the day before I delivered our baby (June 27, 2010). I can still remember that the movie we watched was a 3D Toy Story 3. I think during that time I already had a pre-labor but the pain was just tolerable. Maybe our baby made his reaction with the loud noise the theater made. With my laptop, since I couldn't afford yet to go in a movie house, I own my time as to when and what movie to watch. Also, there are so many things I can do to pass my time while at the same time taking care of our baby after office hours and during Sundays.
The following are some of those activities but not limited to:
1)I was very much engrossed with my blogging, that I was able to made quite plenty already during night time when our baby allowed me, that is when he fell asleep before 10P.M. However, it made me sleep very late which I think resulted to my acne. Blogging serves as my medium of expressing myself but with limitations (of course! my partner is so adamant about this) because you have the international network as your audience. It also enhances my English composition. Hence, FYI, I very much welcome comments, corrections or suggestions .
2) Before I just saved pics in USB then had them printed. Now, I'm able to edit our pics in Picassa or Picnik according to my likes before I saved them for printing. However, as of now I'm not done yet because somehow my blogging really has its way of getting into me (hehhehe). I have less or no more time left after I finished blogging. Before I know it, it would already be time to sleep. Then again and again, I have to tell myself that I should finish my picture editing and summarizing.
3)I always bring my laptop in the office. So whenever I'm bored, Facebook, Google news et al are just within my arms' reach. It's just not boredom but also drowsiness. Like now, I'm writing this article to open up my eyes. I believe that no matter how sleepy or tired your eyes are if you're doing something that interests you, your will surely be wide awake and just this afternoon I'm really not mistaken (hehehe). I know it's wrong because it's supposed to be working time but I'm not productive when I'm sleepy so I have to find ways, right?
4) Pangga installed a camera in our sala. We are able to watch our baby through this camera's website in our office. So, we seem not far from our baby then.
5) My laptop also helps me entertain my baby until he falls to sleep at night. He very much likes to watch Twinkle Twinkle Little Star (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCjJyiqpAuU) and Baba Black Sheep (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBEHFFnV3RY) in Youtube. I believe that Jaiden and I are one of those who made these videos have a count of more than a million views. We watch those almost every night.
5) When Jaiden would already have enough of those mentioned videos (above), I switched to MyDSL Watchpad. This is one of the benefits of being a PLDT internet subscriber. You get to see some cable channels like CNN, NatGeo, History et al.
6) Lately, I've been taught by my Pangga how to download movies in www.torrentbutler.com . I'm very much happy to now have the power to download the movies I want. I had been asking him to download Sex and the City and The Twilight Eclipse but indirectly he didn't give in to my demands. I just realized now what could be the possible reason. There are just so many movies to choose (in torrent, oh! such a piracy) and it would take very much time to download. Even I myself is finding it hard to decide what to download first. Other than the movies I had asked (him to download) are so girly meaning not his thing, the internet speed is very much affected once you download. The speed would become very slow. Nevertheless, at least for now I have lots of movies in queue for watching like Black Swan, Dear John, Season of the Witch, Sex and the City and Twilight Eclipse . I finally get to see the movies I had been demanding. By the way, I have just watched Resident Evil, After Life last night. There was no story in it just much action.
7) My laptop also serves as my knowledge enhancer if not, answers to anything I want to know. This is possible through different search engines but I'm into Google. Anything I want to know, links are there for you to learn. However, you have to learn cautiously.
So you see, my laptop has greatly affected my life. As to how, you be the judge. :)
*****"I felt cold and prayed to God immediately to let me handle the situation properly in case my doubt would be true. I couldn't contact his cellphone. nor his office landline phone. Where is he?"*****
He turned over to me his other cellphone just for the sole purpose for me to use the flash light every time I wake up during wee hours to feed our baby. Just a while ago, this cellphone received an SMS from an unregistered no. that stirred my curiosity to read the whole text since the summary or the front text (text ID before you're able to read the whole message) had a word "lab" (love). So I read the whole two SMS. It said "Labs, wer r u? D tka" (love where are you? I can't) is the first text then followed by the next text "D tka makontak lalabbs...." ( I can't reach you love). These messages are undoubtedly can make any wife heart's beat so fast from the shocked of reading it. I paused for a moment thinking what to do, then I contacted the phone his carrying (currently using). Voila! his cellphone couldn't be reached. Was it just a coincidence? I called up again but to no avail. So I dialed the number of the unknown sender (of SMS) using my cellphone. Voila! (again) a lady with a youthful voice answered the phone then hanged up after I said my hello (by this moment my heart beat faster). I dialed again but her phone can no longer be reached. I paused for a moment, then dialed again. This time it rang once then the phone can no longer be reached again. I did this twice. Now, I felt coldness or did I shudder also? I can't remember anymore. It just happened so fast but I'm pretty sure I felt coldness all over my body. I can still remember the coldness of my palms. I paused for a few seconds thinking "what to do next?". At the back of my head I thought of any clues of his past actions that were possibly doubtful but I couldn't remember any. If he was acting then he could surely win a Grammy award as a best actor. All I know is that lately he went home very much late. "Oh gosh!".
I went downstairs to call his land-line office phone and alas! the phone just kept ringing until the answering machine voiced. At that moment what came to my mind was "God please help me!". I went back upstairs acting as if everything's okay since mama is in the dinner table. I remember one night mama asked me how come he always went home late. I told her why was she making a fuss of it and that it was no problem with me. I told her his current job situation made him do it. Now mama's comment sprang to my mind but as much as I could, I managed to set it aside because the voice inside me told me that it's impossible he would do it but still "who knows?".
I went back to our room not knowing what to do. I still couldn't reach him when I tried again. I don't know if I wanted to cry or shout. For a moment, there was paranoia in me. I told myself to calm down, there must be some ways that I could reach him. I saw my laptop and thought that I could probably reach him through Facebook or Skype if he is online but he wasn't. I sighed. I saw our baby asleep in our bed and told myself that our baby will stay with me and that he has to financially support him if ,God forbid, worse comes to worst. Suddenly, his cellphone received another SMS from the lady texter. By the way, she had no idea yet that when I called her (using my cellphone) a while ago, I had read her SMS messages (in his cellphone). The SMS said, "Labs, asa nka oi? Ma. late nata sa atong flight" (love where are you now? we'll be late of our flight). Whheeww (deep breath)!!!! I was just so relieved. What came to my mind after was "is she joking or making fun of me knowing that I called her?" or "did she just like to mess people's lives and found out that she was successful in doing so?". By then I had already gain my composure. Then came his call. By the sound of his voice, obviously he has no idea what has transpired. Then I received an SMS in my cellphone from the lady-texter. She asked who am I. She surely was wondering why I called her. I replied to her asking if she know the person who has the no.0917xxxxx (his cellphone number), whom she has just sent lots of SMS. Simultaneously, his cellphone received another SMS, "Gisapot na imong mommy ky ngano nawala ka kalit..... reply asap" (your mommy is already mad why you were gone so suddenly). This SMS now totally erased my doubt and fear.
Using my cellphone, we then exchanged SMS. She replied (after I asked her about his cellphone no.- above) that she was sorry because she SMS the wrong number and found out the reason why her hubby didn't answer her. I told her how I felt. She earnestly (I would assume) said sorry again. I answered that it was okay and thanked her for honestly replying my messages. So that was it.
Whhheeww!!!! what a night! there must've been something that made me panicked upon reading her first two SMS. That something is something to figure out. Maybe partly due to regular listening of Papa Joe's numerous caller with marriage problems seeking for advice. Unconsciously, I must've collated everything I learned and has exposed myself to unique marriage situations. Hence, gathered the do's and don'ts et al.. Well anyway, this night is surely something to remember on. She really had me there for a while. :)
gem: My Valentine's Day: "gem: Happy Valetine's Day!!!!: 'Though every day should be a day of LOVEJust like we have our birthdaysToday is an occasion for LOVE I don'..."
The blog above has been edited to the max because just like the MTRCB the person mentioned didn't like it.
Just when I thought the outcome would be positive, I'm grounded again. Privacy, oh! privacy! to what extent do I divulge? My being talkative comes in. I forgot that the whole international network could possibly read this. So I must learn when to restrain to protect my privacy and my family as well.... tsskkk...tsskk... I have just been reprimanded and I feel so bad right now.
I'm having thoughts of blogging other stuff now and lessen about my everyday life.... this is what I need to rethink.......
One thing's for sure is that I feel so bad right now. It's not easy to be scolded when you think what you're doing would give him joy or would be of interest to him.
