Bruce

I've been thinking about it for the last 13 months. At the start of 2015, the desire was too great not to do something about it. (It is more of a need, actually, not a want. Yes, I am justifying my action.)

His name is Bruce. He's small for a guy but quite brusque in my opinion. He's black. Please, no judgment there. He's actually cute and charming but has this air of being smug, sort of reserved and secretive. My dad didn't like him when he met him. But all dads are like that. He wanted Red but at the last minute, I chose this guy.

My daughter wanted to call her Nicki. I asked her why. Her reply: Nicki Mirage.  

Just this morning, I've decided she/he will be named Nicki Bruce. 
Gender: Gay. Yeahhh! Lalaki sa umaga, babae sa gabi at pag weekends. 

P.S. In January 2015, en route to Baguio with my family, we first went to Manaoag and as I saw cars lined up to be blessed, I made a mental note to have mine blessed there too. I didn't realize Our Lady was listening. 

The cars we drive say a lot about us.

~Alexandra Paul

Sometimes it's the journey that teaches you a lot about your destination.

~Drake

New Year

Oh yeah, I was supposed to blog about a few things....

It's a New Year in different ways for me so let me run down those "few" things I wanted to blog about for the last 3 months that I was in hiatus from this blog.

New school year.  The little big man, who is 10 years old, is now in 6th grade.  Schoolyear 2013-2014.  Can you believe that?  I must change the picture on the top of this blog soon.  That was so 5 years ago.  (I guess)  And the little girl, who is 7 years old, is in 2nd grade.

CPU and external hard drive are dead.  Yes, 2 weeks ago, my Seagate 500gig external hard drive containing most of my family pictures for the last 8 years, just went kaput.  And just this weekend, our family's personal computer crashed.  I need to start over.  I don't need to tell you how devastated I am about all that I've literally lost.  I did not shed tears but you can imagine my insides falling apart piece by piece as the computer tech told me that none of my data stored in all of that can be retrieved.  

Back  to old coach.  The little big man started training again with his former taekwondo coach.  Yeah, the one who disowned him some 2 years ago.  We've been wanting to communicate with him for the past year and the few times we've connected in some tournaments, he was friendly enough for us to eventually tell him that we wanted our little girl to start training with him.  And then he asked, what about the little big man?  So we took it as an invitation for us to come back and train with him again.  And we did.  There's no turning back.  So last May, both kids went into rigid 4 times a week training with him.  

Home-grown.  In connection with that training, the little girl , after training for about 3 weeks, went into her first official tournament, albeit a mini-tournament.  It was so mini that she did not have an opponent in her category who is a girl.  So, the organizers pitted her against boys.  Yes, she sparred with 2 boys within her height range.  And she won over both. Her first official gold medal in taekwondo has been sealed.

New business.  So after all the ups and downs of the previous year, the parents helped hubby and I put back together the canteen.  It's now located in our own yard converted into a cozy enough, decent enough canteen for students and for the neighborhood.  We called it Joy Avenue Foodstore, derived from our street name, Ligaya Street.  

Work-related.  Last December, the office renovation got semi-completed and my department was moved back up to the 2nd floor.  My new place is right in front of the door leading to the warehouse.  Last April, my Chinese friend and supplier noticed I'd been sickly the last couple of months.  I told her it was probably because of the crazy schizophrenic weather and that I was seated in front of the door that pushes in warm air everytime it opens and closes.  To this, she was appalled.  She said, in Feng Shui, it is bad luck to be working right in front of a door because the negative energy is right at you.  Aside from that, my back was towards the door so I could be prone to back-stabbing, literally and figuratively.  For this, I requested my bosses if we could have a wall put behind me to block the door, to which they immediately said yes.  But to this day, 2 months later, still nada.  

Still work-related but on the side.  I tried to revive SALT last February but my full-time job just keeps me too busy and tired.  So after a few successes for 2 months, I am lying low on this biz again.  My time will come.

Babies.  My younger brother has a new baby.  Cheska was born last March.  My PD Officer Jacq is pregnant and is due in late July or early August.  Her baby's name is gonna be Yuri.

I know I have a lot more to update but this will be all for now.  I will try my best to blog often so I won't forget.

baby

http://great-pictures.com/baby-pictures/

it's been a while again.  i guess i've been pretty busy (meaning: happy) to have the time to blog.

anyway about two weeks ago, here's another mind-blowing conversation with my little girl:

mommy, gusto ko pa ng baby.  she meant a baby sister which she hadn't asked for for quite a while now.

wag na 'nak.  ikaw na baby namin.

ayoko, gusto ko pa ng isa pang baby.

wag na nga.  para kayo na lang ni kuya ang babies ko.

sige na.  tapos pag malaki na sya, ibenta natin sya.

me, flabbergasted.  ha? baket??

e ayaw ko na pag malaki na sya.

6th on a high

the little girl celebrated her 6th birthday yesterday.  the occasion fell on a maundy thursday and weeks ahead, i already had it figured out that we'd just go to the mall, eat at a nice resto that she's never eaten in before, get her birthday cake and go shopping.

a lot of things did not fall into place though.  

we realized a few days before that the car registration has expired at the end of march so we had to commute.  well, we rode a cab.  

it turned out that there were no malls open.  metro manila was a ghost town every year during this time so what (the heck) were we thinking!  so we directed the cab to go to nearby qc memorial circle where the hubby and i knew there were nice restos at least.  

once there, most of the restos were CLOSED as well.  how lucky can our birthday girl get?!  i did not want to give up and not make her special day a fun day.  hubby argued we should just go to a nearby mcdonald's or jollibee where he was sure the kids would have fun.  but i was insistent that we go somewhere we don't usually go to.  alas, we found a bacolod chicken inasal packed with people right beside the max's resto which was also closed.

so we ordered.  and ended up not happy with the food either.  the hubby cooks way, way better than what was served us.

i was frustrated as hell. 

so we walked around under the trees while the kids tried to have fun.  we watched some parkour guys practicing until somebody directed us to the kid' play area.  that's when the  F - U - N started.

Julla's birthday on a HIGH

make up

recently i've noticed the little girl watching youtube videos about make-up tutorials.  and consequently, she has been bugging me to buy her make-up.  it even came to a point that she was bargaining that she will not tag along to somewhere i was going to where she was not allowed on the condition that i will bring make-up when i get back.  i knew i was going to give in eventually  but i didn't want to go to the mall just for that.  so i told her to wait till the weekend when we do go.  she bawled over, gave me the bratty attitude which i so hate, did everything to make me buy her but to no avail.

but yesterday, i found these pretty little things at hortaleza.  made for girls 8-18 "who are in the advent of many beautiful first experiences." 

the culprits:  hypoallergenic pressed powder, lip gloss,
shimmer cheek blush with sunscreen, sparkle eyeshadow

i know, i know! my girl is way too young for make-up.  goodness, she's only turning 6 this april! but i had to humor her.  or maybe, humor myself.  i can't help but give in.  so shoot me, my self-rightoeous, condemning, judgmental readers! ;-)  disclaimer:  i am not, in any way, advocating, endorsing or justifying make-up use for 5-year olds.  

did you shoot me already?

but let me just say that i did lay down the rules.  1)  that she can only wear them if she's going to sing or dance in a school presentation.  incidentally, her moving up ceremony is coming up next month and she's actually going to dance the doxology!  2) that she absolutely cannot wear it in school or in church.  3)  that she washes her face everytime after.

here she is wearing her trial make-up.

on a side note. there was a time when the little girl was told by her teacher that they will have make-up classes on a saturday because of the several typhoons that cancelled classes.  during the evening after of one such class, i asked her how her make-up class went, her reply was, hindi naman kami nag-make up e.  nag-aral lang kami.

year of the dragon

and so the hubby decided to delve into the rice business.  yesterday we bought the first 10 sacks for trial.  it was timely that yesterday was chinese new year, enter the year of the water dragon.  i'd like to think of it as a lucky start.  and to think, one of the variants of rice that we bought for the house was named Dragon something.  the hubby said if things work out with this one, i can stop working as an employee and concentrate on this one and the t-shirt printing business, while being a stay-at-home mom, just as i've always wanted.

may God be with us in this endeavor.  

kung hei fat choi!

rice, anyone?

someday, we will have this.

the new baby b



http://www.achildbirth.com/birthing-options.html



last year, hubby and i decided on a new baby:  http://ceschami.blogspot.com/2010/07/baby-b-electricity-and-water.html

only this year, this month has it finally come to fruition.  well, just so that on the onset, everything is clear, i'm not talking about a human baby.  we got everything set up already and all it needs is the actual implementation and roll out.

well they said it was the rapture yesterday, if not the end of the world, but i say it's a new beginning for the hubby and me and our little family.  God spoke to me again last friday while we were preparing everything for the baby.  i saw a couple, the man was on crutches and the woman was on a wheelchair.  they were already doing the exact same thing hubby and i were planning to do!  and there i was, watching them in awe, teary-eyed as always, because God's ways of making me realize His blessings for me and my little family are simply awesome.

so wish me luck and by the grace of God, the patience, perseverance and will to carry this through.

Birthing a business is like birthing a baby.

You go through the gestation period as you begin to manifest your idea.

http://www.selfgrowth.com/articles/starting-a-business-is-like-having-a-baby

baby B / electricity and water

the hubby and i are having another baby.  we already have a name for it.  but it isn't coming out until after a couple of months or hopefully, less.

we've been dreaming about having it for the last few years.  but we think now is the right time.  and we've decided to just do it. we're planning things very carefully now.  we promised to stay committed to this because it is our family's future that is in store.  

i will let y'all know the details once we're sure. ;) 


now on to my issue of the day:

so last week there was the loss in power supply for at least 24 hours due to the typhonn basyang.  and this weekend, water supply.  due to i don't know what.  arggghh!!


let's see. for this family, no electricity meant... 

• darkness as early as five p.m. which gave us the opportunity to use our scented candles which the kids enjoyed 
• early dinner while there was still some faint sunlight
• early bedtime since they got sleepy at seven p.m. 
• no cellphone charging, ang i only had 1 bar left! 
• no internet access which was torture for all of us since we are a computer-dependent family
• no TV which wasn't supposed to be so bad, but since there wasn't internet and anything else to do, became horror!
• no airconditioning which was nightmare because i had to manually fan my kids to sleep and still continued until the electricity came back on.  and when we finally had airconditioning, their body temperatures were a little high and ended up coughing 

i was glad it lasted only for one night.  but it did cause all of us to get sick until the weekend.  especially the little big man who is now on antibiotics because he got super high fever last saturday.  and check out my bill for the past month -- all time high of 7k!  

now my dad told me sunday that water supply is gonna be cut down till the 23rd.  today, with less than 24 hours into it, i don't know which is worse -- no electricity or no water, which meant...

• no bath (nyarrrrr!) for the whole family, wisik-wisik lang last night before hearing mass
• dishes, spoons, forks, glasses, pots and pans piling up at the canteen 
• storing water in a big pail, a vat, a small pail, even a dipper.  wherever we can put water, we filled 'em up!

well i think bullet number 1 is enough reason to cringe.  so i haven't decided yet which is worse.  and it's time to leave this computer and wake up the kids.  it's a monday and we're starting the week right.

you decide which is worse and let me know. 

jullana ysbel

my baby girl was born on april 5, 2006 at 4:44am. i was scheduled for operation supposedly at 8am but went into labor at 3am. birth weight is 2.9 kilos (=6.38lbs) and birth length is 51cm.

i was awake allthrough out the operation although i didn't feel anything coz of the anesthesia (spelling??). when i heard her cry (more like yelp) i was relieved. "sya na yun?" i asked the anesthesiologist who was standing beside my head. "oo." she replied.

now, baby julla is 19 days old, has gained weight and is looking more beautiful everyday.

24 april 2006 / 9:44pm

crunch time

i'm on my 33rd week of pregnancy. baby seems to be healthy, always kicking and pushing his/her way around my tummy. we don't know yet if it's a boy or a girl. but finally have names for both...jose rafael (raj) or bettina ysbel (ysa).

i can't wait to see my new baby. but am anxious too coz of the crisis ahead. just this week, our boss declared a 4-day working week effective march. this means a significant decrease in monthly income. he said this would only be temporary due to loans and payables that the company needs to update. even 2 of our company's 7 phone lines have to be cut so as to cope with the numerous expenses. all possible cost-cutting measures are being implemented asap.

so what's a mom to do? tighten the budget even more. i do not want to make this negative situation a setback to the joy of having a new baby. as much as possible, cesar and i do not wish to let our kids feel the crunch. we will do our best to augment our monthly income and lessen unnecessary expences.

life is unfair, just as i've always known. so all i can really do is deal with it, pray hard and hope for the best. that's the spirit, ayt? atta girl.... :)

23 feb 06 / 1pm