conversations

at the newly opened Joy Avenue Foodstore:

little girl was lingering while there were no customers.  my brother's kumpare was there, who incidentally has the same family name as ours so the hubby calls him 'insan (meaning: cousin).

'insan came over the softdrinks fridge, calling out 'nay pahingi ako ng royal. (<-softdrinks font="">

bayaran mo yan ha, said the little girl.  so she thought, by saying "pahingi" the guy was literally asking for it for free.

ayoko nga bayaran.  bakit ko babayaran e pinsan ako ng may-ari?

e ako nga anak ako ng may-ari nagbabayad ako e.

ayoko pa rin bayaran, 'insan taunted her, laughing as he said this.

the little girl, obviously pissed, retorted, ta-taekwondohin na kita.  marunong ako mag-taekwondo.  lumalaban ako ng lalaki, tumatalo ako ng lalaki.

to which 'insan and everybody within earshot started laughing.  and usually, when she's laughed at, the little girl gets really annoyed. she said, naiinis na ko sa yo.  iiyak na ko! then  broke down in tears.

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.

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. 

hubby and me

one of our...what should i call it... bonding days.

we went to quiapo church. a short prayer and off we went to our suppliers for our new business. years ago, he and i prayed at this same church when we requested for our first baby. little did we know that i was already pregnant at the time we were there. even if he didn't tell me, i know he prayed for our business. as i did. for it to become successful, for it to be a good source of providing for our family, for it to be our bond. aside from our marriage, that is.

we capped off the day with going to the grocery to buy a couple of items for the kids. nido fortified for migo, lactum 1+ and eq dry diapers (now size large finally) for julla. kids' shampoo, kids' toothpaste, kids' toothbrush, kids' body powder and kids' cologne. and two 1-liter bottles of C2 apple. a quick fastfood dinner of sharksfin and rice.

now home, he's downstairs chatting with friends, making the most of the time we have left in this community. pretty soon when we move to our new home and our new endeavor, he won't have much time for friends anymore.

but i know we're both happy with the way things are heading. things are definitely looking upfor this little family!