monday dinner

so it was a monday and a holiday in our little country and the four of us -- the hubby, the little big man, the little girl and me -- went to dine out, for the heck of it.  mainly coz we didn't have househelp during weekends and holidays  and hubby didn't want to cook.  and y'all know i don't.

so in our pambahay and tsinelas, we went al fresco at chow king -- a couple of hundred steps just outside our home.

migo had fever since sunday night but still had an appetite so we decided to get him one of his favorites, sweet and sour pork.  no softdrinks, thank you.  i'm proud of him that he is not into that.

julla was her usual self, trying her mighty best not to eat anything.  i force fed her some siomai and tiny bits of pork with sweet and sour sauce mixed in with rice by bribing her that she won't get any lollipops tomorrow.

and their dad?  well, he pretty much ate everything up just as he usually does.  since i don't eat much during dinner, he gets to consume my share of the meal.

i like it that we have these simple feasts.  it makes me secure that this little family is well-bonded and happy.

today will be better, i swear

today i am reminded of the story of the mother who taught her daughter (or is it the father who taught his son?  or the professor who taught the student?) about the different ways people respond to problems in life.  she brought with her a potato, an egg and coffee and each put these items in boiling water.  the potato came out softened, the egg came out hard-boiled and the coffee changed the water and made it a totally different entity.

all my life i've known myself to be the cry-baby of our family.  i was always the unassertive daughter compared to my more intelligent older brother and sanguine younger brother.  so i was a potato.  ironic though that i was the more independent one among the three of us.  i asked for my own room while still in elementary while my siblings stuck it out with ima for the longest time.  i did my own homeworks without my mom's assistance as early as 1st grade.  i never asked my parents to use their connections so i can land a job after i finished college.  i decided for myself, always believing that i have to do things on my own so i will never have to blame anybody else for failure but myself.

i've noticed one thing about myself that i've not really considered that i guess i've had for some time now.  i have learned to immune myself from negative things that are happening in my life.  i don't cry over problems as often as i used to.  i don't get depressed for more than  a few minutes.  it's not like i'm always happy, it's more like i always find something to smile about despite the challenges that come my way.  i've learned how to sit back unaffected while everybody else is panic-stricken all around me.  have  i become a hard-boiled egg?   jaded?  or have i merely accepted the things i cannot change?

maybe i should read about the phlegmatic personality again.  this post has started to depress me. :)

so i want to be coffee.  i want to be able to turn situations around.  make better things out of not so good things.  find the silver lining behind every cloud. 

for inspiration, here's the song:

today will be better, i swear. -- stars

pagbabago

i've been keeping diaries since i was in high school, in the written form, in cute notebooks i buy.  my objective was, like everybody else who does this, to keep my memories on ink and paper.  just in case i get alzheimer's someday, i'd be able to read back. 

then came the world wide web. i started this blog as an online diary.  and it was timely that my hubby and i, with our then 2-year old son were going to move out of my parents' house into our own home.  thus, the title of this blog "our dwelling."

below is my very first blog entry on December 24, 2004 that started a major change in my life.

"today is my last day at work before i go on vacation for the holidays. within this vacation, me and cesar and migo will transfer to our new home. it will be just the three of us and our nanny. this is a major turning point in my life since you all know i've lived with my parents, brothers and ima all my life. i've never lived anywhere else except for a few days when i go abroad for work or the weekends i spent away when i was still a team member of sade.

my life has always been intertwined with my parents, brothers, ima & tyrone. things will be so, so different now that i will officially become "a homemaker". i will be in charge of everything now, there will be nobody to depend on but me, myself & i. i will do the cooking, shopping, laundry... gosh, a jillion things... and it does seem so hard. my boss asked me why i wanted to live on my own when i had it so easy with my parents. i said it's about time i did. funny but however frightening it seems to not be with my parents, i am pretty excited to plunge into this new phase in my life. i know it will be hard. but i chose this new life. come to think of it, i should've chosen this 3 years ago when i married cesar.

anyway, wish me luck!"

click here for actual blog entry
 

today, 6 years later, i could say that i've grown into a different but better person.  independent of my parents, i now draw strength from my own little family, with 2  adorable kids and a loving hubby.  through it all, goldilocks took part in every birthday, anniversary and any occasion this little family had to celebrate. 

looking back, my life would've been totally different had i not decided to live on my own.  and i come to realize that change, no matter how difficult, is something that is inevitable and all i have to do is accept, cope and face up to the challenge.

here's to more happy years ahead!

mommy matters

the other night, the little big man handed me a brown sheet of paper from school.  it read "pupil's behavioral report".  it showed 5 minor offenses committed by him to which i had to sign to prove that i am informed of this situation.

i was saddened by this that i couldn't help but shed a few tears right in front of my son.  which made him feel soooo full of remorse.  he cried and hugged me and promised to behave in school from now on.

makes me think of all those times that my friends would tell me what a great mom i am.  to which i always tell them that i actually have a lot -- a whole lot, for that matter -- of flaws as a mother.  for one thing, i do not cook.  i do not iron clothes, much less wash them.  i spend too much time on facebook, farmville and market street instead of sitting with them through a good book.  i don't know how to braid or even tie my daughter's hair properly that won't make her look like she's having a bad hair day.  i let them get dirty but i do make them wash up after.  i sometimes forget to check their homeworks, boo!!  i don't wake up in the middle of the night to make them pee , thus, a wet bed at 3 a.m.

i cannot, for the life of me, bear the smell of barf but i am unbelievably able to clean up several ounces of julla's fresh barf every so often.  i learned to clean up my kids' poo back during their diaper-wearing days too.  i am ever patient with them when they are being whiny or clingy.  i do wash the dishes.  i sew my kids' names inside their underwear and i make fabulous name tags for their books, notebooks and school supplies which i  really think is quite cool.  i read to them whenever i can (or when i'm not on facebook hahah!).  i buy them cool clothes, shoes and toys believing it boosts their confidence to have cool things.  i make sure they go to good schools and expose them to everything i can to make them well-rounded persons.   i lie in bed with open arms and let each kid snuggle up in each armpit, every night, hugging them to me until they fall asleep.  by request, i skip work to spend a whole day with them.  and everyday, i go straight home from work to maximize family time. (and facebook time, har-har!)  i attend every school activity or extra-curricular event that my kid is involved in. 

i wake them up gently.  i tickle them.  i bathe them.  i kiss and hug them as often as i can and as much as they'll allow me.  i never break promises as long as i can help it.  i

i  could go on and on.  yet, i can never claim to be worst mom in the world.  nor the greatest.  i think, each mom has something only her own children will benefit from.  the way we love them is our own.  we will only know we're doing the right thing everytime they hug us back, kiss us back. 

Don't worry that your children never listen to you:

worry that they are always watching you. 

--Robert Fulghum

hot

at jollibee with my little big man, my little girl and the hubby on a sunday afternoon.  we ordered chicken joys, jolly hotdogs, peach mango pies, no softdrinks please as the kids have already learned not to drink those.  instead, we asked for glasses with ice and fetched purified water from their dispenser.

we had to wait couple of minutes for the chicken after specifying we wanted thigh part for all of us.  so as we waited, conversation with the kids and the hubby went from how much time they'd be able to nap before we hear mass, to the reason why migo always loses his ballpen or ID or book in school, to why julla should sit properly on her chair and not remove her slippers in public places such as this and that public congested places usually cause people to get sick.

then migo asked from out of the blue, mommy what does feeling is hot mean in tagalog?

slightly irked, believing that he knows the answer, only he wanted to sound inquisitive, i replied, eh di mainit ang pakiramdam.  pag feeling mo nilalagnat ka.  feeling is hot.

to which he replied, almost puzzled, eh bakit sya nakasulat sa peach mango pie?

quota

in the retail business where i'm at, there's such a thing called quota.  every month, each department is required to meet a minimum amount of sales that will total the desired sales for the month of the brand.

last december, my department reached 137% of our quota, which gave me great pride in what i do.  after that, the next months till today, the highest we ever reached was 92%, in which times i've  suddenly questioned my capacity to make saleable jeans.

this past week, there have been sales issues in the office and i heard of a meeting amongst the vp for finance, accounting manager and merchandisers.  it turned out that my department was, to quote the accounting manager, the healthiest among the departments.  she said that, although we did not reach our quota the last 6 months, there is a steady growth in our sales per month. further, we do not have "sleeping" inventory, we don't give too high discounts during sale events aside from having a healthy profit margin in the products we sell.  which means, we are contributing to sales more than we thought.

big smile on my face.  can you say that again, nem?

i would like to believe that i'm the best at what i do.  it's something i think i can do even in my sleep.  sometimes, i even think it's too easy.  but sometimes, i feel so unappreciated and taken for granted and i get discouraged and think maybe i'm getting old for this job.

but having told of this development at work made me gain back the confidence and respect i have for what i do.  it also reaffirmed that i am doing the right thing.  it's like a pat on the back that made me want to strive even more to outdo myself and it gave me more reason to continue what i do.

folded&hungjeans pre-holiday collection at f&h stores this august.  check it out.

photography

and so my dream to delve into photography begins in august 2010.

back in college, i had a photography class that turned out to be useless.  our prof only showed up on the first day of class to tell us what plates to submit every week, which places to go to shoot and gave us a super brief lecture on aperture and shutter speed.  i never got to go into the dark room and develop actual pictures.  i didn't see him again.  not even during the submission of plates.  next i saw him was during the finals to get our class cards and our grades. 

it began during my pre-wedding preparations. i was looking for a good photographer for my wedding so i browsed at different websites checking out the works of local and foreign photographers and the uneducated me loved most of what she saw.  i've been appreciative of a good, well-thought of photograph since.   and i thought, i want to do this too.

so armed with a 5megapixel point and shoot digicam, i started documenting occasions, trips, even ordinary days by shooting candid, unexpected, supposedly unstudied photos of people and places.  my digital photos use up most of my computer's disk space and it even caused my old computer to crash.  i was literally crushed when that happened because most of my elder son's baby pictures are there and they were gone.

my best photos (in my opinion) are those captured the first time.  if i try to repeat the same angle of the same subject, it usually isn't better than the first.  or it comes out differently, not the way i wanted to.  i like shooting off center.  i like to put a story in my photographs.  i like unconventional composition.  but technically, i know nothing.

this week, i got me a dslr -- a nikkon d3000.  they call it an entry level dslr ideal for beginners like me.  i'm tinkering, clicking, focusing away since friday but i have yet to schedule a  trip to somewhere where i can shoot a decent digital photograph to make it useful.  but like i said, this is where it all begins....

tryout

sports is human life in microcosm. 

-howard cosell

i don't know why i found it irrelevant to blog about my little big man being first pick at the tryout last week for the  bulacan team that will compete in the national championships.  somehow, i didn't write about it so i won't seem redundant in this blog, with the lame belief that i had too many readers who might get bored of the same ol' topic.  it's always about him and his taekwondo achievements so i thought i'd wait until the actual championship to write again.

so came the 33rd National Taekwondo Championship, 31 July 2010.  my little big man migo had a fantastic performance in his first game with a 21-5 score and a very damaging axe kick in the first round so his opponent conceded before the second round could start.

unfortunately, his team didn't win in the championship yesterday.  migo severely lost his second game with consecutive roundhouse hits to his head which caused his opponent to break away in points.  coach protested that the opponent must be overstaying in novice category but went unheeded.  but since the team won  3-2 despite his loss, they went on to a third game.  but migo lost again by a mere one point and two other teammates didn't make it so the team lost.  had he won or any of the other two won, they could've moved on to the next fight for bronze and if they won again, it was for the gold.

i felt how disappointed migo was as he held back tears while he slumped beside me at the bleachers.  it was his first national competition after winning many provincial and regional finals, and he failed.  everybody had high expectations of him and he didn't pull it through.

but now i know the relevance of the tryout.  as i look back,  his tryout last week for this competition was one of his major achievements.  being chosen amongst many, standing out from the rest, being personally hand-picked by the top coaches in bulacan.

yesterday's competition was his tryout for the bigtime.  where he did not make it.  YET.  which was what his dad and i told him.  it only meant he still had a  lot to learn and there is  still much room for improvement.  his coach and his dad found where he was weak at and now know where to concentrate in his training.  that next year, he will no longer be in novice and will be fighting in advance category and he will come back next year with a whole new armor.  

yes, it would've been super great had he and his team won.  but it only made him more eager to learn and improve his sport and look forward to next year's nationals.  it was not only a lesson in defeat but a lesson in winning.

my cousin commented in my facebook status that someday migo will go international.

not yet, malynn.  BUT WE WILL, i promise you that.