TGIF

Just had a meeting with our chief admin and another admin at our Catholic page. Fr. Louie laid out his plans for our page in the next days until Holy Week.

I am now beginning to earnestly appreciate Zoom, whereas two months ago, I didn’t know how to use the app. Being active in our Catholic page and another Catholic group which I am admin is a big help in my life. I am learning a lot, gaining new friends in the process.

There are more people you’ll meet along life’s road, some would teach you a lesson, you make beautiful memories with a few, you laugh with many. I met a new friend at Sambuhay Interaktib, a co-admin actually, who have the same taste of books as I do. She has also read most inspirational books that I have read before. It is always fun to reminisce and remember. She writes too. There is no dull moment when we get the chance to talk.

I have been more active reading (done fourteen books) than visiting this blog. Sorry if I am quite slow in responding to your posts.

It’s Friday again, some of us always look forward to weekends. Have a lovely and blessed one.

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How’s Your Sunday?

I got engrossed for a while reading two books by Lucinda Riley consecutively in the last five days and before that, another book of hers last October. Read four all in all.  Anyway, I am trying to find more authors to follow. When I get excited with a particular book and a particular author, I  tend to look for more of his/her works.

Yeay, I only just discovered watching music videos on Facebook and those previous episodes of Pilipinas Got Talent. I am not bragging here but when it comes to music, Filipinos are the best. From ages about thirteen to twenties, they’ve got it.  There was even this Filipino shadow artist who had  the stage lit up in gold when he got the Golden Buzzer. So proud of these talented individuals.

Yesterday, I posted a photo  at Facebook taken when I got sick several years ago which was also used by my friend ( a producer of GMA 7) in their episode 24 Oras (Magic ng Pasko) four years ago. I know I featured that video here when they had their shoot here at home and included a segment of my plight as a cancer survivor. It earned a lot of hearts and likes.

I remember Doc Julie, one of my medical oncologists At the UST Benavidez  Cancer Institute eleven years ago. Those days when a smile  meant a lot  to me at the lowest ebb of my life.

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A Nice Surprise

Nissa surprised me with a new silicone cell phone cover for my phone. It is a Samsung A20 which I bought last year on my birthday. Back then it was just out in the market and a good buy with a 13MP +5MP cameras and an 8MP front camera. I bought a simple rubberized cover, a plain one actually to protect it. Since it’s color is deep green, Nissa also chose this leaf design….haha!

She said I am not a techie because I don’t tend to explore its nice features. Come to think of it, I haven’t even changed its screen saver and its other features so Nissa did it. We laughed together while I was exploring those lovely photos. She chose this green one so even the apps are colored green too. She says I am a green lady because I love nature.

Along with the cover were two large bottles of Nivea Body Milk and a large bag of different breads she bought at BreadTalk. Little surprises like these tickle the heart. Nissa is a very thoughtful daughter.

And for the first time too, I downloaded the Lazada app. Lazada is the number-one online shopping and selling destination in Southeast Asia – present in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. I wanted a bathroom caddy since ours broke a few days ago. Wow, there are so many cheap items which are even delivered for free. I have to create an online account for it, write it down because for sure I won’t remember it when it’s time to use it again. I don’t want to use my Visa card so I opted for COD payment. Nissa told me that once I get the hang of it, I might purchase other items again. I told her I am looking for gifts to give this Christmas. She told me to download Shoppee too, another e-commerce platform based in Singapore. The truth is I am afraid to purchase online but there are things you have to look out for – the reviews, the items they sell compared to other vendors, the quality of the merchandise, the number of buyers and their ratings etc. You can all see them online. The joy of online shopping even if you won’t have to buy an item but your eyes are pretty satisfied.

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A Blessed Weekend To All

Haven’t have the strength do anything else  and my ever reliable PC comes in handy.  And in between taking a peek at my Facebook site and occasional chats with long-lost friends, I’ve  done some gardening  and uploaded some photos on my hard drive.  I am finally appreciating watching TV, something I’ve never cared  about before.  The things you do to combat boredom. And for the first time in  a week,  I’ve finished a book  by David Baldacci called Divine Justice. I’d rather read thrillers nowadays instead of other genre. It makes for good reading at a time days are so uncertain.  I am tired though of watching those nonsense speeches done close to midnight when everyone is sleepy. I wonder why.

Well, we are still under lockdown but some people seem to ignore those hours that they’re not supposed to go out except to procure medicines, groceries and buy food for their daily needs.  Starting tomorrow here in our town, curfew hours were changed to 3pm until 6am. People are only allowed to go out from 6am to 3pm.  We haven’t bought Mom’s maintenance medicine yet, what we have here is only good for two more weeks. It’s her 91st birthday on Monday. Most medicines that people need for high blood pressure, vitamins  and for sugar are out of stock.

I tried ordering online some barley capsules and vitamin C but it hasn’t arrived yet. A week ago, I also ordered some veggies online. They were delivered the next day – tomatoes, okra, eggplants,  upo (bottle gourd), corn,  banana  and string beans.

I planted eggplant seeds early this morning and some seeds of string beans. For the first time this month, it rained, somehow diffusing the heat  we’ve been experiencing the past several days. It is summer here now. Hopefully, I’ll have seedlings in a few days.  People are encouraged to plant those easy to grow veggies. If one has enough space, why not?

 

 

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Welcome March!

It was like the way you long for a lovely sunshine when you wake up or probably pancakes with hot syrup and butter on a Saturday morning.

You love the peace and quiet of a Sunday  morning. You love to listen to old, old music from the past.

Saturdays and Sundays, perfect time to reminisce and to remember.

Oh, and that book in your hands. You discover another new world while reading.

Don’t you just love  weekends?

Welcome another month in the calendar. May your month ahead be filled with good health, friendship, compassion, strength and love.

 

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Friday Finds

Early this morning, I went  to the Municipal Hall to pay our land and realty taxes for the year. The clerk there suggested that if we pay by the month of November or December for the following year, there is a 20% discount. I will remember that and will try to settle our 2021 taxes before the year ends. 20% is big enough, don’t you think?

On my way home, I dropped by the Liwasan (our town plaza fronting the Catholic church in our town). I love this idea of Mayor Kit Nieto to invite vendors/sellers from different provinces to sell their produce in our town (from Friday to Sunday) every week. It is cheaper than those sold at the groceries and wet markets. It’s been going on for more than a month now.

I was overjoyed to see different items – veggies, fruits, rice, meat, preserved fruits and veggies, dried fish of different kinds. There was even a vendor selling jars of rice coffee. There was a free taste and it was a nice drink, no caffeine of course. I didn’t buy though cause my shopping bag was already full. I bought white onions, eggplants, a whole squash and dried tilapia. It is Friday today,  every Lent I make it a point to abstain from eating meat on Fridays so we’ll have the dried fish and eggplant fritters or maybe roasted ones with fresh tomatoes for lunch.

Bought this kilo of Guava Java for only P70 pesos. They are fairly large and that jar of roasted peanuts (cooked without oil) is P60 pesos.

Can’t wait to take a bite on those juicy guavas.

 

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Saturday Memories

Happy Sunday people and friends!

My gosh, I already reached 76% of my allowed free space for this blog. 24% more to go. I wonder how long will that be. Considering I have limited posting photos here and avoided posting them in high resolution unlike before, maybe it might take a while. I have another blog entitled Dreams Never End which you might like to visit too. The last time I updated it though was December 2019.

Yesterday was another lovely family day for us. Nissa’s family was here. Our good friend Fr. Aly spent lunch with us. We had a good chat about those earlier days. He has been our friend since our house was blessed in October 1995. He was only about two years into the priesthood then. He also officiated Nissa’s wedding more than eight years ago. It is really nice to bond with old friends, it’s like there is no gap in between.

I laughed at Nate for sneaking out some of his toys here. He was so proud when they were about to go and he was holding them in his hands. I told him, he has so few toys here compared to what he has accumulated at home. He wouldn’t leave them behind. He brought a Captain Marvel notebook and some colored pens which Nissa gave him. He divided the pages into Things Done, Drawings. Good, Bad etc. I laughed at his entries under Good. He watered the plants, he swept the floor ( he spelled the floor with just a single 0), he was behaved and he read books. On the Bad space he wrote: Daddy got mad at me because I was noisy. Under Drawings, he has several. He even drew a tree complete with roots and fruits showing 🙂 I taught him to draw a box and he imitated it and told me there was something inside it. Nate could be creative and expressive. I asked him what was inside, he told me he kept his toys there….clever idea! He is quite tall for his age and we have now the same size of footwear, haha.

Come to think of it,this is the only picture I took yesterday. We were more focused on sharing laughter and creating memories.

I hope you are having a wonderful weekend!

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Here Comes December

I was suddenly  reminded of the song with lyrics like this: and now the end is near…..

It’s not really all about facing the final curtain which is a certainty for all of us but it is more on changing another leaf in the calendar.

And here comes December….finally!

Photo culled from the net.

Looking forward to the cool December days although the start of the month it is marred by a tropical storm coming in anytime next week. Good thing Metro Manila will  not be  directly affected but it will surely bring more  rain.  Weather disturbances this late in the year are usually strong.  It’s the 20th tropical cyclone for 2019.

Falling in line for quite a while and when it was my turn to transact at the ATM machine located at the mall, it suddenly went unavailable because it ran out of cash inside. Since I didn’t want to use my credit card (cause I already paid the December dues in full), I have to wait for another day or go to a nearby branch of the bank to  withdraw some cash. Mall ATMs are so convenient though, it’s like killing two birds with one stone. And there are those ever present mall sales but I don’t usually buy because of foot traffic and sometimes you end up buying something you really don’t need just because it’s on sale. It’s better to be practical nowadays.

I am trying to catch up on my reading, trying romance books this time. I found a seven-novel-box set from seven different authors, done with two, so far so good. According to some reviews, Romance Through the Ages is an excellent read. They are light reading, some are funny, one is a  bit historical. Just enjoying the days waiting for Christmas, doing some general cleaning. We’re done decorating a week ago.

 

 

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Thank God It’s Saturday

The truth is I felt so lazy to blog or even make comments on posts on my reader feed. So sorry for that blogging friends. I just got engrossed reading, updating our  Catholic page on FB since I won’t be around for three days probably to visit Nissa at the UST Hospital for her surgery next week.

Nissa’s  family, Josef and I had lunch at T.G.I Fridays at Robinson’s Galleria this afternoon. It was so nice bonding with the family again.  I was amazed at how Nate looks now. He is not exactly fat but in Tagalog, you call it “bumilog”. Nissa took care of taking some photos of us.

Nate coloring some pics provided by the restaurant while waiting for our food.

Typical Nate post.

They call this flat bread but it tasted  and cooked like pizza.

Their platter consisting of sausage, chicken, garlic fried rice, coleslaw, baked ribs and mac and cheese with French bread on the side.

Pasta with shrimps

We also ordered a vegetable salad topped with calamare, a big burger for Obet and bottomless ice tea for all of us. It was all so sumptuous and yummy.

Two peas in a pod?

And the family photo. Look at those smiles.

Nissa is finally scheduled to check in at the hospital on Monday. This is a little late celebration of her promotion as Manager of the bank where they both work.

I love weekends  and I love Saturdays.

 

 

 

 

 

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Sunday Is For Blogging

Did I just say that?

Yes I know, Sunday is for relaxing. For the first time in so many weeks, I attended an anticipated mass last night after doing the laundry late in the afternoon. So  Sunday is free, apart from the usual task of watering the plants (it’s still like summer here), doing a little cleaning here and there and preparing breakfast for Mom and me. Mom attends  mass on television because she can’t walk that far when the car isn’t here.

Yesterday was another family day for us. Nissa, Obet and Nate came over  to join us for lunch, late celebration of Josef’s birthday the other day.  We just had food delivered and I bought two kilos of ready to fry chicken mix at SM Ortigas City. I went earlier to Medical City to get the result of my lab for Vitamin D deficiency and to visit my doctor.  Thank God, everything is normal. Even my blood pressure is in the normal range. Still have to go back maybe in two weeks to have labs again, re: fasting blood sugar and urinalysis.

Nate got tired of his old toys here so he re-arranged his books and read some of them. I am pretty amazed, he could read now. He and his dad played frisbee together in the garden then later on picked calamansi for them to bring home. Nate was so happy they gathered more than a kilo of it.

Bonding time with family is priceless no matter how you spend it together. What is important is the presence of each other. It is nice to be updated on what is happening in their jobs, how hard it is sometimes to cope with so much work.

Oh, I remember, I’ll be going out in a few hours to redeem my  free  boxes of pizza and mojos from Shakey’s. A  P3,000+ spend in one purchase entitles you to one redemption certificate which you will just have to show at the food chain. It’s courtesy of Bank of PI. I am entitled to three redemption for the three purchases I made earlier  between March 22, 2019 and June 22, 2019. Hooray!

Have a blessed and fruitful  Sunday everyone. Happy week ahead.

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