year 1

a year has passed.

we have experienced a lot this year.

we are continuously learning each day.

we aim to continue to love, accept, and piss off each other :p

we are thankful for the bountiful meals that we have eah day.

we are thankful for the fruitful talks, and sometimes, the absence of it.

a lot of things are uncertain. unstable. one thing remains constant - we are here to stay, and, as mama says, to always have each other.

portraits and gifts :)

for these and more

- for the delicious pochero that filled my tummy tonight. the warm soup seemed to have the power to heal me from the inside. replenishing.

- for the steady job that provides for us. we may not have all the luxuries in the world, but in these trying times, as long as we do not get hungry, we are in a better state.

- for the little girl who drives us crazy. she may be learning new things each day, but it's more for my benefit when i watch her learn. for the priceless hugs and kisses that magically melt the worries away. so powerful.

- for the husband and wife that alternately become sponges. a sponge that absorbs tears, anger, frustrations, happiness, craziness, worries, fears, and everything else that's unimaginable. for us who vowed to make it through the good times and bad times.

- for my mother's loving voice. in life's most terrifying moments, all you really need is to hear that magical voice. it's like having warm milk.

- for the warm showers that don't make me jump, because i'm ginawin that way.

- for the tiptop health (so far). no medication, life support needed.

FOR THESE AND MORE, I THANK YOU, FATHER!

gardener

nakakaaliw ang panlasangpinoy.com. i'd spend saturday mornings just browsing through their youtube videos. parang ang dali dali lang magluto! i love how they demo even the most complicated recipes in less than 10 minutes. not a drag!

i saw this hardinera recipe and tried it out last, last week. it's something new. the name is catchy too :) it's like embutido / morcon / afritada in a lyanera... or in a garden jejeje.

the recipe calls for pork cubes. i used ground pork instead to lessen the cooking time. it also calls for a can of liver spread, but i used some ground fresh liver instead. we don't have the almighty reno in this corner of the universe, it's a luxury (aka bawal). i just popped a big capsicum in the oven as a substitue for canned roasted sweet peppers.



pics:

UL: assembling the sliced hard boiled eggs, capsicum, and raw eggs at the bottom of the lyanera.

UR: mixing the pre-cooked ground pork with all the other tidbits: raisins, bread crumbs, pineapple, hotdogs, cheese, pickles.

LL: dumping 'em all in the lyanera, then steam galore!

LR: as usual, no pic of the finished product. pwede na ang picture ng pangalan ng recipe :p

what didn't go too well:
* the absence of the liver spread. bitin sa linamnam.
* i may have used a bit too much bread crumbs. i could taste some bread in there!
* medyo bitin ata ang raw eggs ko as binder. it came out a bit loose when sliced.

but it's all good. kakaiba sa panlasa at pananaw :)

overheard

guy 1: you're rude!

guy 2: f#*@! you tell the truth and it's rude?!

muni-muni

- you can't go wrong with being too much appreciative.

- a little thanks will also do.

- no matter how angry you get, contain it. there are creative and unhurtful ways of releasing.

- yes, you can quit, and you can quit now.

- when you cough, it's great to have a hagod on your back.

- when there's an opportunity, grab it. you don't get it everyday.

- you are not building a sari-sari store. don't hoard.

- share.

- if it's for your own good, you can't be mad (sometimes).

- sometimes "don't settle" just won't work. you really have to settle, and it's just so sad.

- it's disgusting to dahak in public.

sweet treats

some 15 years ago, mami and i marvelled at watching heny sison bake on tv. she did it all in a breeze - mixing, folding, decorating, ikaw na ang magaling! :)) i just wanted to watch her then. i never thought that i would try baking!



last year, april convinced kuya that we need an oven and an electric mixer. april and i have had an on and off relationship with baking. sometimes tsamba, sometimes it's just a plain disaster. there was a meringue that looked like slime, there was a sponge cake that had lumps of uncooked flour even after baking, there was mamon that tasted like egg whites. so weird! :))



i learned that baked goodies are so bad for you - with all that eggs, flour, butter, sugar. sugar is crazy! sugar is bad, all those ingredients are bad. it would be good if there were healthier substitutes/options simply because i feel good doing it :)



i learned that it's very difficult to substitute ingredients because using the wrong ones will affect the outcome big time, and that's in a bad way. unlike with cooking, you could always use any handy ingredient in your cupboard in the absence of hard-to-find (read: expensive) ingredients.



i learned that it's hard to estimate when you are a newbie. when it calls for 1 cup, it can't be 1.20! and when it calls for sifting, it means YOU HAVE TO SIFT. hindi pwede ang pwede na! :)) hindi pwede ang tamad!



and i still stand by my belief that as long as you can read, you can cook, and you can even bake! it's fun! here are some of my attempts:







upper left: banana chocolate cupcakes, recipe taken from home cooking rocks. please excuse the holes on the cupcakes. i used, ehem, chopsticks instead of toothpicks. we don't keep toothpicks in the house :p



upper right: revel bars (but in cupcake form), recipe taken from somewhere in the internet (can't remember where). it was a wish from mike. he said his, ehem, ex made the best revel bars during HS. revel bars are made of oatmeal-soft-batch-cookie-like stuff. there's a chocolate coating on the top. i like that it's like an energy bar (with all that sugar, who won't be energized?)



lower right: basic vanilla cupcakes, recipe taken from "bake, sell, give" magazine. it tastes a bit like mamon :) kulang na lang ay frosting, which leads me to...



lower left: an imbento recipe for icing that looked like neon pink paint. so annoying! :)) it was sent staight to the bin. sayang!



looking forward to more sweetness in life. ang sweeeeeet namaaaaan!

wiwi

i had a dream last night... well, make that this early morning. papa and mami were there. we were taking mami to a job interview. somewhere along the way, we had a pit stop (read: wiwi stop) at a posh building. i saw a vacant cubicle, but there was a suspicious looking plastic bag on the floor. so i thought it wouldn't be safe to use this cubicle for wiwi purposes... but i really, really had to go...

then i woke up. poof! and felt the urgency to go to the toilet to wiwi. thank God! i could just imagine what could have happened if i didn't wake up and i made wiwi in my dreams. nasty!

it was 1987. i was in grade 1. my teacher was mrs. dela cruz. i don't know what issues she had back then. when you need to go to the toilet, you'd say, "ms, may i go out?" to which she'll reply with a stern face, "no."

the toilet was just adjacent to our classroom. it was old and smelly. it had 3 cubicles. i can't recall if there was flush but there certainly was running water on the faucet, which was a relief, but still it stunk big time. or was there just a big, blue drum of water that collected water and kiti-kiti? can't recall.

sometimes she'd say yes if you asked if you could go, but on that particular sunny day, she said no quite a lot... and i really, really had to go... and i had no choice but to go back to my seat and hold back like forever.

the unavoidable happened eventually. you see you could only hold back for so long :-S "pssssssssssss," so said my wiwi trickling through my chair and on the floor :-S it was 1987. i was in grade 1.

ang bigo at ang wagi

last night, mike requested for pancakes for saturday breakfast. "kaya lang wala na tayong pancake mix," he said.

i told him that my lola used to make pancakes from scratch, and that i can do it too! all i have to do is look for a recipe online. the internet will never fail you.

i found this: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/good-old-fashioned-pancakes/detail.aspx

it looked promising and super easy. however, i thought it would be wise to use just half of the measurements since it's just for us 2. everything was doing fine with the half-half until i came to the egg. ok, no sweat, i'll try my best to divide a beaten egg into 2.

kwengkwengkweng... it was hard! i ended up using the whole egg. the pancakes somehow ended up looking like a crepe and tasting like a salty crepe. creep!

anyway, i think i could still pull this off. there are still 4 slices of ham and maybe it will taste pwede-na with the crepe a la pancake.

when i started frying the ham, it smelled panis! haha weird how ham could smell that way. ok, that's it. i told mike that we should go to mcdo for breakfast instead.

here's the bigo breakfast meal:



and here's the wagi breakfast meal:



what more could you ask for? :)

vetsin frenzy

it's a mike-and-me time for two weeks. kuya, april, keyla, and tita are in manila. the house seems so empty without the little girl laughing and shrieking and running around. we thought it would be super sad, but i think it's not that bad. we miss keyla terribly though.

well, it's always dinner for two! last night, we decided to go to chinatown for a dinner out. maiba lang :) we saw some hawker type stalls and we chose this stall that sold local delights. we got the seafood fried rice (that was good for around 4 people - geez), deep fried squid, baby kailan, and chicken/pork satay.



chicken/pork satay was good, it tasted a bit like our pork bbq, but with less flavor. what made it special was the peanut sauce. it's like peanut butter dip! delicious! there was also the rice-like-puto-like stuff that you eat with it. i'm not too fond of it.

the seafood fried rice was super yummy. however, we found a good dose of vetsin at the edge of the plate. it wasn't mixed too well. so that's why it tastes so good! kanin pa lang, ulam na :)

squid was also good! it's crispy and tasted like, well, squid!

the baby kailan also didn't fail. buttery and oyster-saucy and garlicy.

all good!



after dinner, we did a little stroll. i bought a skirt for 10sgd. it was a good date night :)

it's my birthday!

august 17, 2011 - i am 31.

what changed since my last birthday?

my pants don't fit me anymore

i am more health (and weight) conscious now

i am now married

i have graduated from the LDR sector

my teeth are becoming sungki - wisdom teeth extraction side-effects (yata)

wrinkles

home address

and what things were unchanged?

my height

oh, i still don't have white hair!

employer

my passport - which i should renew this year

my surname - which i should legally change soonish

there there! so the birthday started with the traditional midnight bulahaw cake. i knew there was a cake. i saw a red cake box in the ref haha! but who would mind being bombarded at midnight if the bombarders will bring something like this:



kuya, april, and keyla gave me a perfume! it's been ages since i last bought one. love it!



my mike gave me this wristlet. we gave the same but black color to tita during her birthday and i liked it then. "di mo na gagamitin yung luma at marumi mong purse" awww



that plus a lunch treat in our favorite chinese resto, din tai fung. you are looking at the yummiest food in the world!



jan and frank gave these dr. seuss books! i didn't know who dr. seuss was until i got these wonderful books:



then last thursday, i got this:



it contained this much messages from friends and family! so good to receive messages from people all over the world! hehehe. each card was intricately crafted by the loving hands of good friends (and a drunk man, apparently. hahaha) needless to say, naiyak ako.



too much love in the world! makes me thankful i'm alive!

dear Lord, thank you for another year. thank you for another day. thank you for the overflowing love. thank you for all the blessings.

ps:
mike and i believe in this song...
Even though we ain't got money
I'm so in love with ya honey

but not in this...
When we’re hungry...love will keep us alive

how? how? how?

happy birthday!!!

quasi tourists

for the 46th national day celebration, there's an electronics fair at suntec. we heard that 1) they are selling items for $46. items = washing machine, tv, camera, etc. 2) people started queueing since friday night for the opening at 11am on saturday. really, the things people do for a sale :) i would do the same if i had all the time in the world :)

so sunday, we decided to make uzi at the fair. some facts: 1) atm, we don't really need something electronic hehe. 2) no funds to buy something electronic hehe.

the day started bad like this:



because sundays are meant to be SUNdays and it made us really late for mass.

after lunch, the sun came out and we decided to go to the fair. just outside our block, a bird decided to poop on my arm. tita said it's malas. 3 friends said it's lucky. dun tayo maniwala sa majority at sa kaaya-aya :)) i changed clothes and we went to the fair after all.

as with all IT fairs, the crowd was incredible. as with all IT fairs, we go home empty-handed.

well, not really. we were able to watch a kung fu show. so cool! like i'm watching kung fu panda, only these are real people:



this is my favorite character. he seems so young! yet his bod's so developed, so are his skills! galing galing!



the kung fu show was the highlight of our date. we also bought goggles, swimming cap, combos, micro fiber towel. oh, and we got nice, free, sturdy plastic bags that could serve as trash bags. electronics fair ba yun?!

on our way home, we turned our tourist mode on and took pictures of these:

view from the memorial park:


the business district:


the suntec convention center:


i've always wantes to take pics of those. dyahe lang kasi ang daming tao lagi hekhekhek. happy birthday, singapore!

swim like a whale, eat like a whale

in an effort to trim down our tummies, we are on our 3rd week of jogging and we have been faithful to our program c/o the 5k runner app. highly recommended. not that our tummies have already toned down, but the app showcases interval training and kuya says it's an effective program. maganda raw na ginugulat ang bady mo at hindi yung consistent run lang. run-walk-run-walk ang drama. i also noticed that my knees hurt kung todo run lang. you know, old age.

we run 3x a week.
venue: there lang sa side side
time: after office hours

and we swim 2x a week.
venue: pasir ris sports and recreation center
time: after office hours

ang chochal ng new sports and recreation center at pasir ris. ong gondo!

there's a dipping pool, a kiddie pool, slides too! there's even a giant pail that spills when it's full. patok sa mga bata! apparently keyla didn't find it appealing. natakot daw. pero if i were a kid, i'll lavit!



an olympic sized pool. i love super! i'm not a fast swimmer. i feel nasusuya na nga ang mga lifeguard sa kabagalan kong lumangoy. hahaha! weh bakit? ehersisyo lang mga kuya!



nice ceiling lights. fancy them!



mistulang bromance. hehe joke lang powhz!



view from outside. there's a gym, tennis court, badminton court, at iba pang court na 'di ko na maalala.



and nice trees that i also fancy :)



yey! swim swim swim!

the problem with swimming is you get really hungry after a swim. then you tend to eat a lot, which kind of defeats the purpose of exercising (and dieting).

kebs. chos.

OLOPS

i like having vivid dreams. when i wake up, i'm reminded of good things. sometimes good, sometimes bad, but it's always good to be reminded. a few nights ago, i had a dream about this:



the dream was: i found my HS teacher praying the novena. it was very vivid - she was holding the blue novena booklet and i interrupted her prayer to discuss about the thesis.

and the memories that rushed through when i woke up were incredible...

my first commuting-all-by-myself experience was when mami asked me to meet her at the baclaran church so we could pray the novena on a wednesday. i was about 10. a jeepney ride from sto. nino to baclaran was a great milestone for me. it was also my first novena.

our novena attendance wasn't constant throughout the years but we tried to brave the crowds whenever we can. the feeling is different if you pray the novena alone and you pray it with thousands of devoted people. the latter gives you an unexplainable feeling of being closer to Mama Mary.

at the entrance of the church, there's a statue of Mama Mary that's enclosed in glass. the people knock at the glass, as if asking Mama Mary to give them just a tiny bit of attention and to listen to their prayers. they also wipe on the glass with small towels. so overwhelming.

people walk on a kneeling position from the entrance to the altar while praying the rosary. it's quite a long, difficult "walk". makes me think that whatever they are praying for is something grave. that, or they are simply devoted.

throughout the novena, your voice will drown in the voices of others. people are praying and singing at the top of their lungs. maybe, just maybe, they feel that there is a higher chance of God hearing their pleas if they pray louder. again, overwhelming devotion.

i remember seeing all sorts of people. you see a difference in the way people look - rich, poor, young, old, man, woman, burdened, contented, happy, sad. you could see a thousand varieties but there's no difference in the way they express their devotion.

there's a sermonette section where the priest will read a letter from someone whose wish has been granted - sort of a testimony. deliverance from sickness, poverty, finding a spouse... the stories are endless.

Our Lady of Perpetual Help has a special spot in my heart. the novena is also a bonding moment for mami and me. it made me feel that you will never be alone in the darker phases of life, that somebody saves, that something out of your comprehension will help you. put comprehension aside, belief is all that matters.

here in SG, she is known as Our Lady of Perpetual Succour.

when we visited italy last 2008, we found ourselves in front of the original image of the Perpetual Help. it wasn't planned and we just found it by accident. we met one filipino redemptorist priest who was there for an event. i felt so blessed.

this is my favorite line from one of the songs... "when the voyage is o'er, o
stand on the shore, and show him at last to me"

a day at the park

we went to the pasir ris park today.

the plan:

stroll as one big happy family - kuya, april, keyla, tita, mike, me. naks!

keyla to play on the playground.

caths and mike to do 30 min walk/run.

pasir ris park is a hidden gem. it's not that crowded like east coast park is. the place is clean and big. children could play, the whole family or barkada could do ihaw ihaw. lovers could stroll. others even go fishing, camping, biking. the park is this big:



interesting finds:

fishing. at times you get the big ones, at times the tiny ones, at times nothing at all. life goes on anyway. try again another day.



lush. i wish mother earth will always be abundant like this... that she may last a million years... that my children's children's children will be nurtured the same way.



pathways. and sunsets. all sunsets are beautiful.



bridges and water and plants.



run. running used to be a burden for me. now i find it therapeutic, just like mopping floors and walking alone.



sturdy. my God is as sturdy as this tree is. rain, lightning, scorching sun? nothing will harm me as long as my God is here. i admit i am frightened at times, but my God sustains and protects! amen!



lovers. yihee. i wish everybody finds his/her soulmate!



friendship. you know you are friends if you could sit all day and talk about everything and anything - and you don't get bored!



family. so heartwarming to see a family gathered together. i always look forward to weekends with family!



silver lining. there will always be one! always!



and more beautiful sunsets.



simplicity. a child's life is so simple. sleep when tired, cry when hungry, play when awake. makes me want to go back to
childhood but that is not the proper order of life! :p



solitude. inner and outer.



and the opposite of solitude, chaos. the chaos that is my hair. and pimple outbreak. argh.



and love! heard at rx today: a vampire will never go into your house/life unless you invite him. maybe love is like a vampire. let's always welcome love then! it will never come uninvited :)



ps:
muntik na
kaming
masagasaan
ng motor
dahil
sa cheesy
pose na ito
bow

scented

it's a wonderful feeling coming home to a house that smells nice. it's a challenge for our house though as the windows are always open -it's hard to contain and maintain the scents.

the room odor's a bit easier to conquer! we used to hoard keep a number of bottles of scented oil from body shop. these are the types you dilute with water and use in a burner. smells good, really. we liked strawberry, pomegranate. i found lavender and tea tree scents in a small stall in suntec and these are good as well. relaxing.

jan introduced reed diffusers to me. these are reed sticks that you stick into bottles with scented oil. at first, i wasn't too keen in trying because i thought that the scents might be too weak. i could never grasp the idea as to how sticks could help spread the scent in the room.

one day, i went to jan's place and noticed the very good smell of the house. i asked and she said it was the reed diffuser. so nice! then she gave me a bottle of reed diffuser oil so i could try. it's powder scent and i lily, lily, like it.

i bought 3 cute bottles but i think they're a bit too shorf. tsk tsk. i think the room smells nice anyway! so nice! we're switching to reed diffusers!

rektikano

i am married to a man who's very highspirited when it comes to basketball. during the nba games, he requested that we subscribe to the sports channel. he looked for basketball playmates here so he could shoot some hoops. luckily, there's a bb court near our block. there's a filipino community (a big one) and they share the same passion in basketball. all good :) i love seeing the glow on his face everytime he goes home from a game. sweaty, yes. happy, super yes.

if he's in manila now, he would probably be watching the live uaap games with his friends. but since he's here, the best that he could do is watch the games via online streaming. something like this:



i wish i had some of that spirit in me. that's the dlsu animo squad in the pic. i didn't even know our team was called that. sheesh. at least i know the chants and cheers! yay!

back to my husband... yesterday, he was so animated while watching the game in our room! shouting everytime his team, ust, shoots or misses. they were leading all the time. tabla sa bandang huli but they ended up losing the game after an almost-buzzer-beater-3-pt-shot from the kalaban, feu. then he became like a madman. he threw the pillow on the wall and shouted and shouted and shouted. i was a bit scared. in my mind i was thinking, "lumabas muna kaya ako baka masuntok ako?"

i mustered a, "o tama na baka atakihin ka."

hahaha i wasn't hurt, neither was he. he calmed down after a few minutes. he just so loves the game that way.

this morning, i saw his fb post from yesterday:



susmaryosep si kuya oo! hmmm, that's my laptop he wants to destroy! bwahahaha! i commented:



i now pray for the safety of my laptop when there's a game. ipag-adya sana sya dahil i have no plans of replacing it soon. bwahahaha! susme! :))

peranakan museum

last, last friday, i took a day off from work to accompany mike in the submission of the formalities of his long term pass. we were done by around 10am so we decided to go to the peranakan museum.

but before we went to the museum, we feasted on the pinakamasarap na pancit sa balat ng lupa. the stall is located at the suntec foodcourt and good to see there's a kuya pinoy staff at the store. he may have added a few strands of pancit on our plate. divine! this is breakfast number 2. the first one was maggi chicken noodles at home. you can't blame me. i got traumatized with long queues and no breakfast. :p



on our way to the mrt, i saw these ceiling lamps. nice!



it was raining. but so what?

then we got to the peranakan museum:



"Who are the Peranakans? For centuries, the riches of Southeast Asia have brought foreign traders to the region. While many returned to their homelands, some remained behind, marrying local women."

hybrid! mixed culture!


this cat welcomes the visitors. i'm not so fond of cats, but i'm caths. gets?



a peranakan family in telok kurau area. so formal! look at the 2 girls holding on to the plant stands. what's up? :)



this granny looks like lola felicing - our neighbor in sto. nino and my lola's best friend. kailangan talaga may haplos?!



i love the background! apparently, butterflies were popular motifs for the peranakans as these signify good luck. cheers to the best of luck!



the museum showcased stuff from the old peranakan families. this is our reflection on one of the antique cabinets.



and another one. they look an awful lot like our cabinets from the philippines. the ones you find in the buena familias chochaleras houses. i bet kuya will not be too keen in owning one. think about spirits living in cabinets. boo!



and another one of those buena familias dresser tables. chochal!



benches by the main doors were also popular for the old peranakan houses. here's mike relaxing on one of the wooden benches. my lola has a special bangko back at home. it was her favorite siesta spot.



an old phone, ca 1930s. if you lift the earpiece, you could hear a recorded conversation. cool! rpg!



here's a latter model. i remember having a similar unit in our house. yesteryears! that was our first phone!



this girl looks like my cousin irish! so posh! look at the dress and the bag and the overall impact hihihi.



at the dining table. how much platos and platitos could one household use? i have a dream... someday, i'll be a housewife and i'll prepare all the meals for my family... and we'll eat together happily... all the days of our lives! ariba!



and a typical kitchen. i like it!



and more of the intricate plates and serving dishes. nakakahinayang gamitin, ang ganda kasi hihi. i'm reminded of a tansan. i wonder why.



here are some beaded bags. so intricate! i learned that the manner of beading is somewhat similar to cross stitching. the patterns are the same, the ones with the grids and you follow the color per cell.



while daoism and buddhism dominated, catholicism somehow seeped through. here's an interesting item - an altar with the image of the holy family.



and another nice background.



at the end of the day, we were this happy!



lunch was tapa king at lau pa sat. what a lovely day! what a lovely life!