Caroleen’s Treasures

The service started earlier than usual today at 7:30am because the Medical Mission was continued after the worship. I had no choice but to take a bath in the neighbor’s well because we are using the chapel’s bathroom and I don’t want to pass by there and get seen by the early birds. I tried sewing the hem line of the communion table’s cloth but messed up with the serging because I accidentally cut it in the wrong measurement.

Dr. Samuel Cariaga delivered the sermon and right after the worship service, the medical services began. It went until 7pm and I was the last patient to get checked. My BP is 150/100 and was given medicine for hypertension and asthma. The team are very quick to set up and are quick to restore too. They had dinner then off they travelled back home 3 hours away from here. Dr. Sam was behind the wheels and surely he is dead tired.

This afternoon, Ella was on her own playing and finding something to eat. Donald caught her buying peddled ice cream which we call here “flavor of the road”. She has this Barbie sling wallet that comes with her backpack where she put the loose coins that she had saved for weeks now. Since she isn’t used to holding money, she hasn’t bought anything from it. Just today. When she saw this ice cream cart infront of the chapel while the check up was going on and I was busy giving out drugs and Donald has his own work too taking pictures.

She was counting her money…I don’t know how she counted it right :-) 

then waited…..

and waited for the ice cream man to scoop her some home-made ice cream

She finally held the cup and

got to taste the heavenly flavor. But her looks cannot justify it.

Tried once more and over the moon because she rarely gets the chance to have this kind of ice cream.

Early in the morning, just when I logged out from OHJ, the team of the Body and Soul Ministries who conducted the Medical Mission arrived. Donald and Ella went with them at Tatang and Inang’s place for breakfast while I did the dishes and cleaned the kitchen. While I did this, members and neighbors started to arrive and waited in the chapel.

After I had my shower and was dressed, they arrived and the setting up of the medicines and equipments began. I was busy going to and fro the house and the chapel while Ella was doing her own thing. She was at the Doctor’s side or the patient’s back.

The doctor asked her if she wanted her bad tooth to be pulled too and she answered, “I have cough and colds now, maybe next time….”

Dr. Samuel B. Cariaga and her two assistants are from Butuan City and was over the Asia and the Philippines doing this ministry. The Body and Soul Ministries in cooperation with the Churches of Christ of the Philippines has helped many people. There are over a hundred patients that were checked up and given medicines and vitamins. One has a cyst removed and more than a dozen who have their teeth pulled. Thanks to the sponsors aborad for the generosity.

 Tomorrow is Sunday once again, Ella’s favorite day of the week. Still I have a shift from 12 midnight to 8 in the morning tomorrow…I am used to it now. WE have not been checked up yet so tomorrow we will be falling in line after the worship service. Hope you all will have a blessed Sunday!!!!

I hope I won’t bore you all today because I myself was bored Oh not really bored due to not having anything to do, but I was feeling so bored with all the works at church today. Boring in a way that me and Ate Edith are the only member who cleaned the sorroundings. Tomorrow the Medical Mission Team will be arriving here and they will conduct free dental and medical services for two days. So Tatang and Inang are like busy bees while me and Ate Edith does our own works too. My back really aches from pulling weeds in the yard and scrubbing all the white chairs that turned to gray. But I did enjoyed it because I prefer working with only few people around me.

Ella has no class today so she was out in the yard playing with the kids. We had “biko” in the afternoon. (Glutinous rice cooked over brown sugar and coco milk). Then I peeled one big green mango, dipped it in shrimp paste and vinegar. Oh my mouth is watering again!

I noticed I loved eating rice a

Probably this is the most tiring day for me since school has started. Donald usually goes to school with Ella and was the one who is attending PTA meetings. But today was different. Ella asked me to go with them at school for their Nutrition Month Celebration and won’t accept my alibis that MsE or GE won’t let me end coding because the queue is very high. As early as 6:30 in the morning, I already sent pm to the admin asking for permission to log off at 8 am and stated my reason but it was already quarter before 8 and still no response from them.

Ella: Mommy, sama ka sa amin sa school….please….(Mommy, please go with us to school.)
Me: Baka hindi ako payagan mag-log out eh….(I may not be allowed to log out.)
Ella: Lambingin mo lang si MsE…wag mong biglain para hindi magalit. (Ask MsE in a sweet and  gentle  manner so she won’t get mad…)(It was like-Break it to me Gently)
Me: Eh paano pag ayaw talagang pumayag? (What will I do if she won’t really allow me?.)
Ella: Eh di patayin mo na yang computer mo. (You shut off your computer.)

A 5-year-old does know more than we isn’t it?

Luckily, Crislyn went online a few minutes before 8. maybe she has received my SOS txt message and also MsE has answered my pm because one coder called her about my case. She apologized that she hasn’t responded immidiately because she was also coding that time to help keep the queue low. Ella and Donald went ahead and I followed after an hour. The whole program went fine.

Each level has table to set. There was a table setting contest and the “binignit” cooking contest. Our group, the kinder 2 won. Since it was Nutrition Month Celebration….nutritious foods from the GO, GROW AND GROW food groups were served…..roasted pig and chicken, hotdogs, spaghetti, cake and ice-cream plus there are candies Well, I cannot argue with the master minds of this because I was not there during the meeting. All I can do is grumble why on earth does they have these sort of food in such celebration. Nutrition Month Celebration…so nutritious food should be served. But hey, maybe it was during my time…:lol: It’s generation Z now. Ella was busy pointing who did this, who did that to her…But anyway, the whole program was a success!

In the afternoon we went to Bunawan, a town next to Trento, to follow up about a neighbor’s lot that she was planning to sell (to us). Bye for now, have to rest.

Thanks to Yen for considering me an online buddy ;) 

Awarded: Mai | Yen | Carol Your blog where you posted this.

My first award ever from 4 months of blogging I am passing this award to my online friends Julie, Crislyn, Borski and Nai, Sheng, Beverly, Avee, Miah, Lizz, Michelle, Mitch, Jean, Annie, Arlene Vicy and Prily.

Enjoy!

It was drizzling early in the morning and we had no problem waking up Ella for school….you just say she can wear her raincoat today, she’d jumped out from bed in lightning speed. Me and Donald are coding for more than 13 hours since last night. Glad that the boss lets me ask Donald to take my post when I needed to pee or rest for a while. The whole day was wet! But I cannot let the laundry sit there for another night so I went out after lunch still drizzling.

At 10 in the morning, Donald went to fetch Ella bringing her boots. She was even more thrilled to use those used rain boots that we have bought at the Ukay-Ukay stalls in Tagum last week. When we went to Tagum, she saw a pair of pink rain boots and insisted on buying them. But I told her to stay with the pink one and I will look for a nicer pair. Luckily we found a yellow Pooh boots that she tried on and would not want to remove it. She want to go home, riding a bus with rain boots on in a starry starry night. Now she finally got the chance to wear them, grinning from ear to ear while walking.

I have washed the curtains last night and was not yet completely dry but I will hang them anyway and let them dry up. For the clothes, I hope in three days it will get dried. With this weather, I doubt if it will.

At school, some of Ella’s classmates (boys) are making fun of her everyday. From Monday to Friday, she will tell me one has kicked her canteen on the grass, the other put her bag in the trash can and one has spat on her notebook. I cannot enumerate all the other foolishness these kids has done to her. So last week, I have told her what to do in case someone bullies her. I grew up with bullies and I am thinking I was a big moron not to have scared them. I have told her what she must do and what she must say. So today Ella reported that there were boys who keeps on pulling her hair. They kept doing it even she tried to ask them not to….so she stood up and said to them with her hands on her hips…”Do you all want to see stars?????? Pull my hair and I will show you some stars over your heads.” And they stopped. That is my girl!

I think I should teach her that because just last week, a girl in Ella’s class was pricked by a sharp pencil on her right cheek. The poor girl was spitting blood and was rushed to the clinic. When I heard about it, I told Ella not to let anyone do that to her and let the bullies run for their lives when they try to bully her by saying the scariest things she could think of.

Tomorrow’s laundry day and my ritual begins with soaking it overnight. So tonight I have segregated all the laundry in different tubs but I wasn’t happy because there’s only two baskets full of laundry. I am not used to washing small loads and this won’t make the clothes line so colorful. But anyway, Donald is the one who will be smiling because he won’t spend hours hanging clothes.

I also rearranged the living-dining room. Since we moved here without any furnitures, the only furniture we had is Ella’s study table plus the long and tall table that as here before we moved in. We used it as our dining table. A week ago, we moved inside the small table from the shade in the backyard and put it on the corner as Donald and my table and I put two plastic book shelves on the side of the wall. So we just imagine our house with three tables and no chairs at all. Ella has a wooden chair that goes with her study table and we got plastic ones that we borrow from the chapel and carry it back before the worship service on Sundays.

Since Ella was not allowed to go to the neighbor’s house except to her Lolo Iting and Lola Sinta’s house which is just beside our house, whenever she saw a kid passing by the house she will call whoever it was. One time a girl was with her when we asked her to buy something at the store. I have not seen this girl before. Ella introduced me to her saying, “Mommy, this is Joy-Joy. Joy, this is my Mommy Carol.” I was doing the dishes that time and overheard their conversation.

Ella: When were you born?
Joy: I don’t know.
Ella: What!!!! You are not born? You are just found and picked from the garbage?

I was about to faint.

 

No, not the movie of Mandy Moore but the America’s largest fundraising event and awareness promotion on Alzheimer’s disease. My grandfather on my Dad’s side suffered from this disease started a few years until his death. And with the increasing number of older men and women are suffering from this disease with their families having not enough knowledge regarding this disease. This event does not choose age and gender. Everyone is welcome to join and be one of the champions in the fight of Alzheimer by taking part in Alzheimer’s Memory Walk which will be a 2-3 mile walk in the early weekend morning in the fall. This is a great time to bond with the whole family. You can support the cause, have exercise and quality time with your family. With the success of this event, you have walked with purpose and moved towards the world’s without Alzheimer’s.

 

I was not able to blog yesterday because I was called for back up early. And since it was Saturday night is my shift on OHJ, I was coding until the worship service was about to start. I have more than a dozen kids yesterday on my Sunday School class and we continued on the story about Moses. It is good that kids from the neighborhood was here at last. Ella wore the dress I have sewn. Of course I feel so proud that I have sewn her a dress. But even it is the simplest design I have seen in the internet, I still had a very hard time figuring out what part to pass through the serger machine first

It was also our Meal Fellowship and a baptism of two more souls after lunch. It was just a simple fellowship and everyone enjoyed the food. I wa expecting to see frog on the table but there is none. I hope next fellowhip there will be “adobong tokak” (frog cooked in soy sauce, vinegar, pepper, onion, garlic, ginger and bay leaf with a little sugar).

Today a package from Australia arrived. My friend Kylie sent it and it was a big envelope with gifts for all of us three. I got….

Donald got….

And Ella was so happy to receive….

There is also some seeds but I will keep it and plant it in our own yard. We are planning to buy a lot near here and we pray God will bless our plan. It is nice to live here in the parsonage but it is better to have a place to call our own. Of course we will not buy an expensive lot. Got to go now, have to check on how to get a passport. Who knows we will need it someday

My second earning from OHJ was sent this morning to my eon account. Yey! I was supposed to sub for Crislyn but there are some changes now. Those who have shifts have none and all are on calls. So I still worked since they needed a back up from 9:38am to 6pm. I have a shift tonight on graveyard but we’ll see if I can get in.

I have sewed a dress for Ella. I will post the photos later when I finish 6 dresses.

As I was reading some blogs, I came through a blog that talks about a car accident wherein a family of 11 was riding their SUV and a truck came crashing in their side. Glad that there is no one severly injured. But if it was here in the Philippines with most peole not wearing seatbelts, they could have been all dead with the strong impact. With this incidents, I was thinking more and more in looking for cheap life insurance quotes that we can afford. It will really help a lot.