Caroleen’s Treasures

Our day went pretty well except for a little stress in my part as a stage mother. Tomorrow and Friday will be Ella’s final examinations for the first semester and I am quite horrified what mark she would have in her report card at the end of this semester. I have given to Donald the duty of reviewing her on her lessons since I got a very short patience and as a choleric person, I want her to get right away what we are studying about. But I promise to myself I work on this one; I am trying to level myself with my 5-year-old. I called her after I made the reviewers and we studied peacefully but as minutes passed by, I began to feel I need to turn this over to Donald.   Read the rest of this entry »

Talk about laundry that has piled almost up to the ceiling? That is finally taken cared of and Donald and I are very proud we did it! For a month I did not do laundry. You read it right I was too lazy, sick, weak and busy throwing up for the whole month. I am serious, for a whole month! I am just thankful that I was leaving the first trimester now, so no more feeling so sick and like a puke.

Yesterday I started soaking the whites and Donald was surprised. I said I have now the “energy” to do it. So this morning when I woke up, I started washing the whites and the colored ones. Donald helped me and did most of the job as I could not do more than little physical exertion. Having MVP and being pregnant can make me crazy and I mean it. I was just so lucky that Donald does almost all the chores that I could not do right now. After almost 5 hours of washing, we finally hung the last piece and he told me we need to celebrate for this. Read the rest of this entry »

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.

It was such a tiring yet fulfilling day. After I have posted my entry last night, I got a message from Kuya Ace that I will be called for a back up coding. Most of the coders lost power due to the typhoon and there is a very huge amount of captchas to be dechipered. So I took the shift from 1am to 9:15am. I am getting more used to this job although there is still a long way for me to go. There are still a big room for improvement and that will surely be filled in time.

At 7am, Ella and Donald started preparing for school. Like yesterday, she wore  knee socks that goes with her jeans skirt and dainty top. She will wear knee socks for some time until her bites will completely heal. I am regularly putting cocoa butter on it so the the scars will fade quickly. I hope it will…soon.

I should have slept after logging out from the site but I missed blog hopping and chatting so I spent a couple of hours more infront of my pc. Just before lunch, I went to do the laundry that I soaked last night. I decided I have to finish it today even I needed sleep because Mr. Sun appeared today. He is always playing hide and seek with us and if he hides, it takes a couple of days before he decides to show up. Donald helped me as usual and we had a good lunch, chicken liver After lunch, we went back outside to finish the last batch of laundry then we took a nap afterwards. I didn’t feel well rested after hours of sleep (it is not actually a nap!) because I had some bad dreams. Made me more tired.

Oh I gotta go. Crislyn sent me a message to do coding tonight. Wish me luck!

Oh I forgot to tell you about the lizard who has two eggs on her belly! Yes, you read it right! Last night, while I was here doing some blogging and Donald was on the bed, he pointed to me a lizard on the ceiling. You could see clearly that she has two eggs because she was just beside the flourescent light. It was like an ultrasound! I was amazed at what I saw. I think she was about to lay those as it has the size of a regular lizard eggs I see around the house when I clean. How I wish I could see a baby lizard just coming out of its shell. I just love lizard’s tail though. When I was still a child, I would grab a lizard’s tail. Then it will be detached from the body and the will be moving in frenzy on the floor. Oh well I know some of you are reacting violently, but hey, I am not hurting them. I just am helping them grow more beautiful tails

Enough of the lizard thing and we’ll need to talk about real life issues here. Early morning, we woke Ella and prepared for school. As usual me and Donald attended to her like she was a Princess She was as excited as yesterday and hope it won’t fade away as days passes by. I waited for Donald to come home from Ella’s school as we have to tackle a real life issue. The big issue was: today is LAUNDRY DAY. As usual, my assistant seemed to complain but just held it to himself or else his clothes would not have been washed Because we expect the sun will hide again after noon time, he helped me with 5 basins full of laundry. I soaked it last night so we need only to do a mild rubbing. I sent Donald to pick Ella up from school in the middle of taking care of the real life issue Ella seemed to be so tired walking to and from the school but she looked so pretty on her new haircut and Donald teased her that she looked like Dora But hey, Ella is prettier than Dora (she is my daughter remember!) I inspected her paper and she has a “Very Good” in it, better than the “Good” yesterday. They wrote the letter E and draw a picture of a man using the shapes circle, square, rectangle, oblong and circle. I have to tell her that they are still on a review of lessons last school year so she won’t keep telling me she needs to be in “ementary” school. (she’s so cute saying that word)

It was the most terrible night here. I got chills and I almost cannot get myself to pull another blanket to keep myself warm. The fan was turned off and windows were shut but it I can feel the cold seeps into my bones. It was the coldest night ever since we moved here.

I went to the grocery store to get a few items and headed straight home. Tatang and Inang arrived shortly from Kabacan and Davao. They have attended two consecutive funerals and I can see how tired they are from the sleepless nights and the 6 hour trip back home. Inang handed money to Ella from Mamang Ising (my mom’s older sister) for her birthday. Mamang Ising and Inang met in Kabacan and was talking about how we are doing here and that she misses Ella so much. She has a grandaughter same age of Ella but Ella is much sweeter and fun to talk to as what she says. Now I am the proud Momma again

There had been many visitors today. After Inang and Tatang arrived, one neighbor came…then the husband…then their two kids…and then the sister-in-law. When they all left, I went washing our sheets and towels. Then came Tatang and Inang’s son with his wife and 1 year-old daughter as the darkness sets in. He happen to be Donald’s friend back in Davao. Ella and Nica (their daughter) played while the daddy’s talked. I soaked the rest of laundry and went back in as it is getting so cold. His wife is nice. We invited them to join us for dinner, so this was our first dinner with company.

I am done with the full load of laundry J ALONE. I did not bother Donald to help since he and Ella were still off to dreamland. My sis and I were in front of our pc when he came out of the room, so he prepared a lunch fore everyone all by himself. That’s the good thing in there; I just let him get all the sleep he wanted until his head aches, then he will willingly help out with the chores.

 My sister’s in laws just arrived today from Dumaguete and Cebu. For all that has not with me when I started blogging last month, we were staying at my sister’s in-laws parents (who happened to be our godparents on our wedding) while we are waiting for the move to Agusan. Seemed we are waiting forever! L Glad that I have this blogging thing to get busy with which keeps my insanity. I hope soon we will get news about the truck to get us and our full load of boxes and so on. I am planning to start a VBS with the kids when we get there and it was already April!   Anyway, Ella got some chocolates and lollipops from my sister’s in-laws and you can not imagine her gobbling one after another. That’ll keep her up until after midnight with lots of energy to burn. When she talks about my blog, she will always say “Caroleen’s PRESSURES” (instead of Caroleen’s Treasures ) and that made me have a good belly laugh. Maybe that will be a better blog title, don’t you think?  Little girls are just so cute. They sometimes say more than they ought to and that made me crazy all the time! J Just tonight, I told her I got a headache because I hit head on to the door jam while going out the house to hang the clothes. I was expecting for a more sympathetic reply (she always does that) but she just kissed my forehead and said: OKAY LANG ‘YAN MOMMY, MALAYO ‘YAN SA BITUKA… (That’s alright mommy, it’s far from your intestine). What a very comforting thing to hear from a daughter J She cannot be blamed, her daddy and me sometimes make jokes with her about the intestine thing. At 4, she had learned so much from her parents. LOL  

I have not done much today. I suppose I would do the laundry again tonight. I did some last night, just a few pairs. I wanted to wash everything but then Donald was in protest. He didn’t feel like hanging clothes in the middle of the night. That is his part during laundry day and I really appreciate him doing that because it will take me a lifetime if I was to do that. I wanted everything in order, the size and color and even the distance between should be uniform. But Donald, a sanguine as he is, doesn’t care about these things and finishes the job in lightning. I should still be reminding him almost all the time to put the colored ones on the shade to prevent from fading. Again as sanguine as he is, he always forgets. But there is one great thing about his being forgetful, I can tell stories over and over again and was still amazed by it.

Well, there is always a big difference between couples. Before we got married, we attended a workshop in our church called “Choosing your Mate in God’s Way”. It was organized by our missionary workers from the US and we did enjoy every moment. We took the personality test and I was a bit shocked about the result. I have taken the test in high school and I can’t believe I have changed in 5 years. I was sanguine before and when I looked at the result, I am choleric! Donald is obviously sanguine. We we’re lucky to have known our personality types which really helped us having to live with a total stranger. But Mother Prissy (one of the organizers) knew about my personality type all along (I don’t know how she was able to know). Before the workshop had started, there are few young people whom they asked to help out during the preparation. I was the one of them with Donald, Archie, Ate Rose and her three children Holly, Hope and Sean. Mother Prissy gave me a task and let me work ALONE in the workroom and I appreciate it so much. I tend to be distracted by noise and wanted to do it alone. While the rest, except Holly who had a task alone also and a choleric too, were in the auditorium blowing balloons and decorating the hall. Guess what? They are all sanguine! They were all laughing and playing while working and I wonder how they were able to finish their task.

 I don’t know if it was also a part of being choleric but I can not stand surprises and the like. During the preparation, they played a joke on me. We were all in the workroom for the merienda when Holly began calling one after another to tell a SECRET.  Moments later everybody has been called except me. So I asked Holly what was it all about and everyone looked at each other and just smiled. I went around asking what the secret is and they will just say I will know about it later. When I began telling them I could not stand to wait any much longer guessing what it might be, Holly confessed there was really no secret to be told. She just want to see my reaction on the situation :-) Even Donald has learned that I should not be told that he has a present for me. That he must not show his present until it was about time to open it. When Ella was one, Donald wrapped a gift for me which he said be opened on New Year’s Eve. I kept on asking him what’s inside but of course why would he tell me anyway? To pacify me, he gave me a hint and my head was in circles. I kept on guessing but he just shrugs then laughs out real loud. I was beginning to get annoyed. I still have to wait 4 days and I hate waiting while guessing!!!! That night I waited for him to sleep, tiptoed in the living room and carefully opened the box. Inside was a nice pair of slippers and underwears :-) How on earth will he give me underwears when I still have more to put on? I was trying to keep from him that I did peek in the box but I couldn’t. When he woke up, I asked him if he was not ashamed of buying undies. His eyes were like the size of a ping pong ball in disbelief and tickled me to death. I am not to blame because I warned him that I could not stand surprises But I tell you, I am trying to be good now…. I am learning to exercise my imagination when I am into that situation and it works.