The day we moved in the province, which was 2nd of May last year, mails and packages for Ella started pouring in. Those are from friends abroad wanting to surprise her on her birthday. Some were received before her birthday and some came later. She was beyond thrilled and always waits for the postman to call her name by the gate. If we only had a mailbox, I am sure she will be over the moon to see it being flooded with cards on her next birthday. How nice it would be if we only have one. It just doesn’t add to what I call “ornament” in the yard, but will also serve as theft protection. Mails will be a lot safer if we have one. I don’t like the idea of mails and packages left at our neighbors. Read more… »
Ella calls my BIL “TOTIS” when she could barely talk. She couldn’t pronounce “Tito Ace” at that time and we find it so cute and endearing. Until now we (the grown ups) sometimes refer to BIL as TOTIS long after Ella could very well pronounce the words.
Picture taken last March 11, 2008 at the Agro-Trade Fair during the Kadayawan Festival.
Today’s my birthday and I wanted to celebrate it “peacefully” and so I already briefed Ella and Donald not to tell anyone in the neighborhood. 
When the clock ticked 12:01am, Donald and Ella greeted me and in the morning I got messages from my sisters, BIL, cousins and friends. Wish they are here to celebrate with us. We already prepared the food and had a nice dinner last night since I want to spare myself from the stress in cooking and cleaning on my birthday. We just had macaroni, spaghetti and puto cheese. Read more… »
I would just be making an update about Ella’s business since it’s nearing midnight and we have just arrived from Ate Lourdes house. She invited us over for dinner and spent almost the whole night chatting with her SIL-Ate Rosie Tejada. Read more… »
Early this morning I woke up with a very heavy head and it went on until late in the afternoon. I can’t seem to figure out the reason. It’s not migraine, just a pain on my temple but I have problem trying to relax. This goes on for a couple of days and during the evening, I feel tightening on my nape. We eat healthy foods and if we had meat, we always add vegetables as extender and I do cut down on salt. So how come I feel my blood pressure is shooting up again. 
Oh well, I just hope it’s because of the weather which could be too striking hot during the noontime and would end up raining late in the afternoon. Read more… »
Last October 1 was Auntie Carmen’s (my sister Crislyn’s MIL) 57th birthday. We happen to be there again like the past 5 years or six maybe. The plan is to meet with Auntie Carmen and Uncle Tony for dinner at a buffet restaurant near the Mall so we (Donald, Ella, Crislyn and BIL) decided to kill the time during the day by going to the Crocodile Farm. We have been there before when Ella had their excursion trip two years ago. That time we just borrowed a camera from Donald’s cousin and I presume they have deleted the photos before we could upload it. So I asked my sister if she wanted to go there and she and BIL agreed since they have their SLR and they could very well use it there. 
Read more… »
It was cold in the morning and the weather is quite fit to just snuggle in bed but I am coding since 11:15 last night. When I had a 15 minutes break at 8 am, I quickly cooked instant pancit canton. Then went back to my “throne” again with the plate on my lap. I finally rested at 10:28 am and I jumped right to bed.
We had snow here before noon!!! Ella played with the styropores and was jumping and giggling. She was so thrilled to play with those tiny white balls.
There is a man peddling fish and we bought “danggit”. I pity those tiny creatures…just the size of a euphorbia leaf! Not the large one…but the new one that has just sprouted from the stem. Since it is too tiny to fry, I decided to make it a “paksiw” and Donald said it was the best paksiw I cooked. “Twas my first time to cook danggit, maybe it is in the kind of fish because it is tastier than the other saltwater fishes.
The thing that I like when we eat is Ella doesn’t choose what part of fish she would get…especially the chicken. I like the wings and drumsticks and I hate the part with no skin. Ella doesn’t care as long as it is chicken so she gets these parts. 
At least it is healthier than the parts with skin. I explained that skin has too fats and it can cause many illnesses and she don’t want to get sick.
In the afternoon, we went to attend a birthday party. Tatang and Inang are also there. Just a simple party with only a few relatives and us. When we got there, Ella was thrilled to see three kittens. They are sooo tiny but I didn’t notcied one is premature! Yes indeed. This kitty was born a week before her two siblings and she is so frail looking and tinier than the others. Ella also saw a tiny globe, she held it and was turning it around trying to find our house in there! Silly girl!!!
We had a short service lead by Donald. There’s a special “biko” (made of glutinous rice, coco milk and brown sugar), maja blanca (made of cornstarch, coco milk, white sugar and some peanuts and corn kernel…for more special, cheese may be added), spaghetti and bihon guisado (sauteed bean noodles with meat and vegetables). While we are enjoying the food, Ella went missing for a while unnoticed and came back with 4 kids from the neighbor. She says they are her classmates 
She gave them plates, spoons and forks then ushered them in the table saying “Come on…do not be shy…just get what you want to eat…it is not my birthday though….it is Kuya Mon-Mon’s.” Then she even served them with coke! I was blushing because it is not her party and yet she invited those kids! Good thing that the mother of the celebrant was pleased those kids came since they so shy to come.
At last I ended my shift in OHJ at 8am after 12 long hours. I slept until almost 11, just in time Ella and Donald arrived. As usual Ella played until lunch time. Siesta afterwards but I opted to blog hop while they napped.
Tatang came here to ask if Donald will be going with him to the wake of one of the member’s grandmother. It should only be about the wake but we ended up chatting the afternoon out. We are talking about lots here and Tatang was encouraging us to invest on it. I made the “best” pancake for merienda then we (Tatang, Donald, Ella and me) went to their place to get rice (Ella’s subsidy) While we were there in the farm, Ella visited Mr. and Mrs. Pig, Mr. Cow, the stubborn chicken and quails and me? I hunted for anything I could plant on my plastic flower pots which I just bought last Saturday. After loading the rice and plants on the motorbike, we went back here and exercised. Yeah, exercised pulling weeds in the yard
Today is Crislyn’s birthday and we are supposed to go to the city for a check up. It was suppose to be the wonderful time to be there because they will have a special dinner with crabs and shrimps!!! But since the money from my paypal hasn’t appeared on my bank account yet, we postponed it tomorrow. So we are crossing our fingers that there will be some left overs for us.
Here is a photo of Tita Crislyn and Ella last March 2008 at Agro Trade Fair show in Davao City. Ella was Tiat Crislyn’s favorite niece (‘cos there is no other nieces and nephews except from cousins)
To Tita Lyn-Lyn…HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!!!!
There is not much going on here today. I just sat infront of my pc earlier than usual. I took Crislyn’s shift because she needs to go shopping for her party tonight. She actually asked me last night what time will we arrive there today ‘cos she will ask me to do the food shopping since she has a 10am to 4pm shift. I told her the case and suggested I’d take her shift so she can do the shopping and cooking They are expecting my cousin and her daughter to be there tonight. I am sure they will enjoy the food!
Early in the morning I woke up feeling fine. As if I got the complete sleep my body requires. I crawled to bed at past two in the morning reading blogs but too tired to comment After Ella and Donald left for School, I sat on my pc and went on Opps hunting but no luck I wish tonight I can grab…even just one.
I did some box wrapping today too. The shoe boxes and other boxes I found around the house I wrapped with gift wrapper to give it a more decent look to store stuffs like Ella’s school supplies, my craft supplies and other abubots. I have done several boxes and went to see some more box in the second room where I put all our stuff from Davao. I saw a box outside the house and asked Ella what is the box doing outside. She said she has nothing to do with it so I asked my other child…I mean my husband about the box sitting on the table on the shed.
I found out that Donald put it there the other night when he caught the rat (named Donald Jr.) and put it inside the shoe box. So yesterday, Donald was grumbling about the rat who escaped from the box. He was saying….”He was such a rat!” What else could he call it aside from rat? So to make the story short…(I hope it will really make it short) He caught the rat in the sink the other night, put it in a box with two holes in it. He covered the box and inserted a lit paper (of course it was smoking) to suffocate the rat. He could not kill it as he feels unhumane to kill a living thing (Remember when he doesn’t want to kill bugs and he would just drop them in the chamber pot to drown instead of squeezing them to death?) After sometime, thinking that the rat have died, he went back inside the house. The following morning when he woke up, he saw the box empty. So the brilliant rat escaped! I told him, “You should be ashamed of yourself. The rat is laughing at you. You didn’t know while you are trying to suffocate him, he went into prone position and covered his mouth and nose?”
So much of the rat story In the afternoon, I and Ella had a nap. At three pm I went to see a doctor for my chest pains and was advised to have a ECG and x-ray in the city. So this means we are going to Davao again. I was hoping it can wait until next month so I can save money for it.
After the check up, I went to pick up a few items in the grocery store and a little present for a 2-year-old boy who invited us for a small party this afternoon. I also got few wrappers to use for the other boxes and also picked up pencils and erasers sets that i can give to two other kids in my Sunday school class who will be celebrating their birthdays next week. It is not much but I am sure they would be happy to receive a present as they are not used to having some during birthdays. After the quick grocery shopping, I went home to drop the grocery bag and off we went to the party. It is far from here and we are the “guest of honor” Only us came from afar, most of the visitors are relatives and friends nearby. They house is small and you can tell they are struggling financially but hey, the still managed to give the boy a happy birthday We had spaghetti, buko salad, bihon guisado, cake and Coke.
When we are done and full…we sat there chatting for a while when we received a message from Tatang to go to her daughter’s house ASAP ‘cos it is Ate Venus birthday too. Oh this is what I miss…too much food It is getting dark when we left the place. I feel horrified by the dark clouds as it will pour heavy rain (if I say heavy, it is really heavy) It is a remote place and we are like in the woods in the story The Red Riding Hood. We ran as fast as we could, Ella was on her Daddy’s shoulders while I was following them. Only a few cabs get there and we are just so lucky there was one. As soon as we got on the cab, it rained so hard. When we finally arrived at Ate Venus’ place, Ella had a nice time chatting with the visitors who are two to three decades older than she. Only a few friends were there but we had soooo much fun. The visitors could not help but laugh when after we sang “To God be the Glory” and Donald said a prayer, Tatang began to sing loudly The Birthday Song and two more songs. We sang with him trying not to laugh but the visitors almost fell on their seats in laughter because they assumed they can start filling their plates with food after they said Amen :lol: Since we are full, I had only a little rice and steamed catfish. I also picked puto cheese which I really missed and so are Donald and Ella (this is what we are making back in our hometown before to earn a living). We also had buko salad, choco moist, chicken soup, bam-i and fried quail We left with a bag of food for Bogart who patiently waits for us at home.
