Of ropes and knots

It's been a roller coaster October and November so far.  I feel like I've been walking on the tight rope - with work, last week's vacation and the house titling stuff.  Before heading off to vacation, there were too many pending issues at work, with a pending trip approval hovering.  I even had to snuck a couple of work hours during vacation as my boss required me.  Good thing, I was able to get positive responses from my contacts.

These days, my insides feel like they're all tide up in knots. Although there are happy and positive updates, there are still a lot of knots to untangle.  For work, I still have to make 10 million calls tomorrow and the next few days, send out the surveys, organize the global Press Release schedule, attend to what the boss will require.  Make another trip to the Registry of Deeds on Thursday.  Start packing our stuff for the BIG move.  Orgazine our finances. Plan for the trip on the last week of November.  And I haven't even started on the Christmas shopping yet!  No Christmas tree yet pending the move.  I only decided to bring out the parol for now.

Thank God there are happy moments tucked in between the To Do's.  Time with my hubby and son.  Chats with family and friends.  Little happy things to make me hang on to the rope and let go of the knots.

Where to report?

I'm getting really frustrated with this business of transfering land title to our name.  First with the Munisipyo and now with the Registry of Deeds.  The Registry of Deeds tells you to follow-up 20 days after you've filed the request.  It's been more than 20 days now and they still said that it's with the encoder - and they couldn't tell me who.  The sad part is, the number that we should use to call is a mobile number, which is turned off in the afternoons.

I searched the Department of Justice website to see where we can raise this "usad pagong" process, but found no "Contact Us".  Paging Sec. Leila De Lima!  Seriously.

Due to my frustration, I called the Office of the Ombudsman to raise this concern.  They said I should go to their office to file a formal complaint.  I might just go there.  Let's see how that pans out.

Should I consider going to the Media instead?  ABS CBN or GMA?  Whadyathink?

Heaven help.  I'm going pull a mega eksena if we have to extend another month in our current place.

Recent book love

Picture taken from Melissa De La Cruz's official website

I read mostly fiction - lots of books which bring me to places and times I've never been to.  My favorite books are Lord of the Rings, lots of Jane Austen books, Harry Potter.  In high school, we were required to read the classics - Anna Karenina, Brothers Karamazov, Pride & Prejudice, among others. 

I also enjoyed John Grisham, back in the days when I was dreaming of becoming a lawyer, and way before the books became movies.  I used to read Nicholas Sparks too, but felt his books to me too emotional for me.

In college, I devoured Judith McNaught & Jude Deveraux.  After college, I went through the Asian female authors like Amy Tan.  Chick lits are another favorite - the Shopaholic series, the two books of Kristin Gore.  And who could not love Paulo Coelho and Gabriel Garcia Marques?

I used to buy a lot of books - and not from the discounted shelves.  But now, I mostly buy from the sales or discounted racks.  I'd rather buy the new titles for my little one.  And that's where I found Blue Bloods by Melissa De La Cruz.  I couldn't put it down, had to sleep at 3am on a week day!  I enjoyed it a lot.  I didn't have time to hunt for her other books on a real book store after reading the Blue Bloods... you know, life took over.  So I was super elated when E, an office mate, showed me a link of online books and I found 3 more books of Melissa!  I read Masquerade, Revelations and The Van Alen Legacy in 2 days, resting only for sleep, meals and a bit of work LOL  Loved the books and can't wait to get copies of the last 2 books in the series.

Yaki mix - happy mix

Spent one friday night with office friends over at the newly opened Yakimix in Greenbelt 3.  I had the loveliest time - we were there at 6pm and finished at 10pm.  Four long hours with the funiest people I know and the sumptous Japanese & Korean buffet in town.

With the pretty griller and the happy camper

For P550 per head, Yaki mix is all worth it.  Am actually looking for a new reason to go back there... now, would the Barangay elections be a good reason enough? haha

This Crazy Love Affair

I've always loved food, I grew up with my family getting together for meals.  Being with family to me equals food on the table.  I didn't grow up rich, but there's always been food in our kitchen.  Suffice it to say, I was never skinny.  Add to the fact that I wasn't into sports my whole life, I was more into reading books, the "weighty" issue has always been present.

Growing up, I didn't know that junk food was bad.  My mom kept a huge tupperware (and I think it still exists) full of food - from Chippy, to bread, to cookies.  After a meal, she'd be planning on the next meal.  And I honestly thought all families are like that.  I thought it's excusable not to eat vegetables, that only older ones liked vegetables.

And then I got married.  I learned that I shouldn't be eating junk food.  That vegetables are a must on the table.  That chicharon is awful.  That chicken skin can lead to a slow death. 

It's a total paradigm shift.  Slowly, I've started eating vegetables and surprisingly, I actually like them.  I've also only been eating brown rice and paksiw na isda.  I've stayed so far away from chocolates (such sacrifice! :( ).  Although I've slowly become a healthy eater, partly to keep myself alive longer and partly to teach my son, I still have these cravings.  I still long for that junk food fix, or for that chicken skin or for that lechon.  I do keep the cravings in check - I don't overindulge like I used to.

I don't know if I can totally kick the cravings.  I really hope I do.  Or so help me God.

Go away flu!

I've been feeling slightly under the weather since Saturday.  I just overdozed on Fern C and lots of fluids.  I'm quite alright when the temperature's not cold.  So at home, I feel fine.  It's when I get to the office that I feel horrible.  Like yesterday at work and today.  I couldn't slack off too or work at home as it's our peak period.  I just need to brave it out until end of the week.  Sneezy, sniffy and drowsy worker I am.

Little boy's hand writing

Good thing I have my son's letter to keep me up. 

Charice in Glee!

My whole family, including my husband, sat down in front of the TV last Thursday night to watch Glee. Charice certainly did not disappoint. She was awesome! And I loved all the songs in the first episode this season :)

Asian Hospital's Female Clinic

Tropical island or what?

Last month, I had my annual routine female check-up.  I went to my OB Gyne and she ordered series of ultrasounds for me.  I'm all right, so worry not dear lone reader.  Anyway, this is really not about my health but about the spanking female clinic at Asian Hospital.

In 2009, I had my ultrasound exams at the typical hospital room.  While waiting for my turn, I sat on a typical chair in a typical beige hall.

It was a surprise when I was told that the ultrasound is done at another floor and this scene greeted me:

Waiting area (sorry, blurry pic, this was taken using a camera phone)

The waiting area was huge and clean and totally so hotel-like.  The ceiling was of palm trees and they had couches!  Not chairs, but couches!  So awesome.

Relaxed while waiting

September milestone

I biked last weekend and it was a milestone.  I usually bike along an uphill route going to one posh village from our humble village.  Total bike time take an average of 40 mins - from our gate.  Last weekend, I had the best time.  It only took me 27 minutes!  I'm so proud of that time.

Biker me! haha

And then I biked a bit further to this tree-lined street.  I recently discovered this road.  My husband find it too boring coz it's just a flat road.  But to me, it's a little taste of home.  I loved biking long the shades, the air's cooler and there aren't a lot of vehicles passing by.

Love this road

It's finally Thursday!  Can't wait to go biking again this weekend :)

Happy kind of change

One early Sunday with my boys

Last Sunday, I went to the mall. Alone.  To gather my thoughts and also do a bit of shopping.  My Mom gave me an advance birthday gift you see, so I had money to burn LOL 

I wanted to spend the whole day, well, until about 6pm at the mall.  But I found myself checking the hour every so often, which was no easy feat as I didn't have a watch or a cellphone on me.  Yes, it was the kind of day when I just wanted to disapper and disconnect from others.  Anyway, back to time checking.  I had to ask strangers for the time, or glance at other people's watches.  Some might have thought that I was a pick pocket for watches LOL

7 years ago, it would've been splendid to spend my whole Sunday at the mall.  I would've found so many things to do to entertain myself.  Sat down in a cafe, drank coffee and read a book.  Had a meal.  Watched a movie.  Went shopping or window shopping.  Met up with friends.

But now, I just keep thinking, how lonely it was in the mall.  I keep noticing parents with their kids in tow.  Specially parents with toddlers/pre-schoolers.  I can see the parents' frustration at times and stress too.  And I also see how happy they are to spend the day with their kids and husbands/wives.

I had to go home as fast as I could... to be with my own family, my own pre-schooler and own hubby.  Life has changed.  It's a happy kind of change.  It's a change that fills up my heart with warmth.

Bohol Bee Farm - a must visit place

As promised in my previous post on Bohol, here's the Bohol Bee Farm chica :)

My friend highly recommended Bohol Bee Farm, so much so it topped my list of "must visit" places in Bohol.  We didn't stay overnight though, only went over for lunch and a quick tour.  We got hurt hiring a van the previous day, so we just hired a tricycle to bring us to the farm.  I imagined our ride to be hot and extremely bumpy.  It was bumpy indeed, but hot it was not.  We travelled through an island surrounded with trees, which made it a cool ride.  Cool enough to almost lull me to sleep LOL

Anyhoo, we arrived there at around 11am, and so headed straight to the resto.

This sight welcomed us

The menu was all organic and pricey, but were said to be great healthy food.

We tried the spicy Salad

This is the Spicy Salad... and yes, the flowers are edible

This is the "Halang Halang" soup.  Which literally translates to "Hot Hot" soup.
It was hot and yummy!

The next few pictures are of our meal - and only have one description : YUMMY! :)

It's called Pizza bread - the little one's meal.  He didn't eat the flowers though... it was too much for a 4 year old.

He did eat the whole thing, and said "It's yummy!"

Grilled Squid was my meal.  It was so (yes!) yummy and filling.

This was Mama's and Hubs' lunch - Grilled fish.

We got a tour and saw the organic plants

What's a Bee Farm without the Bees?

The highlight (to me) is Bohol Bee Farm's home made ice cream!  So yummy!

A rather productive holiday

As I said yesterday, I needed to work today.  I was at the office from 10am to 1:30pm, so it wasn't that bad.  But traffic on the SLEX going home was bad.  Boo SLEX!  I arrived home at 3pm.  When I got home, the little one was not taking his nap, so I got right down to business and napped with him LOL

Woke up at 5:30pm to a very humid afternoon.  The kind that is usually followed by rain.  And it did rain around 8pm.  I worried a bit coz both my sisters are still out and have responded to my texts. 

Before dinner, I searched for our Marriage Certificate from our church wedding.  And successfully found it.  We're off to get the little one's baptismal certicate, a requirement for big school next year.

Since it's the "ber" months, I decided to create personalized gifts tags this year.  I know, pretty early, but the next few months are expected to be extremely hectic - with the pending move, peak at work, trips and yes, Christmas parties.  So this is a good time to do the tags.

Thanks to SM Advantage!

Oh, decided to finally buy a rice cooker since our last one conked out a few months back. I just realized it's almost been a year since we had a rice cooker. Not that we didn't have the budget, I just didn't feel like buying an item that's going to die an early death. Anyway, so finally bought one, and because of my love for cards which earn points, only paid PhP279 for the rice cooker. Seriously! That my friends, is a great buy!

Bummed

Tomorrow's a Philippine holiday.  But I need to go to Makati, there's a scheduled training for our regional sales team - and I'm one of the trainors.  Bummer.  We can't change the date since this session has been announced 4 weeks ago and the holiday was announced only last week.

I do get Day-In-Lieu for work done, and hopefully transportation and food reimbursement.  It's such a pain to commute on holidays though - my car poolmate won't be going to work and the vans in front of our building won't be servicing.  So I have two options: drive to work or take the bus.

Oh well.  Have to go sleep now, need to prep to run after that bus :S

From our backyard

I've had tea from our own backyard, courtesy of the tarragon plant we have.

Enjoying this after breakfast and dinner and it's free!

You know what's up? Our Meralco bill!

This is our electricity consumption in graphical presentation:

Our August consumption is the same as our March consumption

So imagine my surprise when I saw the amount that I needed to pay for August:

As you can see, I needed to pay almost 2.4k for August

So I checked my past bill in March and I only paid this much:

I only paid close to 1.6k

So Meralco, can you explain to me what there's an P800 difference between my March bill and August bill when the consumption is almost the same? Seriously.

Wishing for 3 day weekends

K biking in Nuvali on a wonderful lazy weekend

Coming to the office this morning, I was fervently wishing for another long weekend.  Don't you just love 3-day weekends?  Can we make all weekends 3 days? LOL

Bohol Highs and Low

After Cebu, we headed to Bohol aboard the Super Cat.  We then checked in at Bohol Tropics, which we enjoyed that day.  Check-in time took less than 10 minutes.  Room service arrived in less than 15 minutes.  All good, right?

Rows of cottages at Bohol Tropics

Bohol Tropics' Poolside

The next day, we went on a "Choco Tour" as they call it.  It'll bring you around the main tourist spots in Bohol - Chocolate Hills, Tarsier, Butterfly Farm, Man-made forest, Loboc River Cruise, Baclayon Church and the Sandugo.

We enjoyed the Choco Tour.  Found ourselves marvelling at the beauty of our country.  Sadly though, it was also at that time when my Ipod was stolen.  From inside my bag! :(  And because of that, we spent the last two days of our trip going to the police station - major major downer to our trip.

After that day, we spent two more days at Panglao Island.  Our first night there, we stayed at the Paragayo Resort.  It was clean, quiet and affordable (at P1,400 a night), although it was too far from the beach.  Weird thing though, when I tried to pay using credit card, the resort staff informed me that they will charge 3.5% as surcharge.  I consulted this with a friend J, who works at DTI.  She confirmed that resorts shouldn't be adding surcharges for credit card transactions.  Apparently this rule is ignored in the whole of Bohol.

So we moved to a beach front family-owned resort - Blanca* something LOL  So sorry, I forgot the name of the resort.  But it's right behind Lost Horizon - where incidentally, all tricycle stops.  This Blanca resort is awesome - beach front and more affordable than Paragayo and all the other resorts for only P1,500 per night.

This was at the Blanca resort

*I found the calling card of the beach front resort and it's called Playa Blanca de Asteria.  Do visit it.  The owners are Aster and Dodong Alegrado, both are nice :)

Food in Bohol was surprisingly expensive.  They didn't have the "eat-all-you-can" dinners along the beach like Boracay did.  And the options were too few.  What Bohol did have were the great massages - and Bohol Bee Farm - which deserves one separate post :)

The little one got a massage too

Beach front

Cebu - Revisited

I've always loved Cebu.  My grandfather is Cebuano and my Mom's bestfriend is from Opon, so I grew up travelling to Cebu until I was in high school.  The last time I went to Cebu was in 2003, with a close college friend R. 

So when we were able to purchase discounted seats of Cebupac,  Cebu was a sure itinerary.  We only spent 3 short days there though.  But we loved it so much, we could well be going there again soon.

This greeted us in Cebu... quite the opposite to the rainy Manila we left that morning

What's a visit to Cebu without trying the Lechon?

Mga Bisaya lang ang kasabot unsa ang puso :)

A plus!  Got to (finally) meet up with Kaith, a NFF :D

We did the touristy thing and visited Fort San Pedro

Said our prayers at the Sto Nino Church.  Pit Senyor!

This was right outside Sto Nino Church... we couldn't miss this

The last stop of course is Ayala Terraces... It's huge and gorgeous!

Bike for life

I've always loved biking. When I was a kid, I'd snuck out of the house just to go biking with my cousins and neighbors usually after lunch, instead of doing siesta. If I get caught, I never hear the end of it from my Mom. But I seldom get caught then coz my Yaya is my accomplice LOL

April this year, I've taken up biking again. My hubby got himself a bike and bought me a bike too. We're hoping to get in shape and we've seen so many bikers in our area. At first, I thought it'll be something I would just do on weekends. But now, I can't wait to find time to bike every chance I get. On days when I work from home, I bike early in the mornings. And then on weekends too. We have lovely trails around our area and I promise myself I'd be able to bike up the "Cardiac Hill" in December! :)

Biker chick in action :P

And it's done wonders for my health! I haven't totally lost weight yet but I feel more energized and my BP has gone back to normal. When before, if I don't take by medicine, BP would go up. Now, even if I don't take my medicine, my BP is normal. Can't wait to visit my doctor and tell her about the improvement. Hopefully I'll be taken off the medicine :) Praying and crossing my fingers!

Bike partners *heart*

Not to mention that it's a great bonding activity with the hubs :)

 

We'd bike along wide open spaces. Open roads. Uphill climbs. It's an awesome activity!

Morning madness

Our home is a frenzy of activity in the mornings.  And since school started in June, I'd get really stressed.  My youngest sister who's in first year college live with us.  She has 7am classes on Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays - the craziest mornings in our house. 

To get to my ride in time, I have to shower at 5:30, get out of the bathroom by 5:50 and out of the house by 6:05 at the latest.  I can beat that time... mostly.

Since we only have bathroom in the house, my sister needs to get to the shower by 5am and out the door by 5:30 at the latest.  But she takes an hour to shower!  I'd be knocking on the bathroom door by 5:30, asking her to hurry up and she still manages to delay me by 10-15 minutes.

I could so hurt her! LOL  She's a pain in the behind.  Seriously.  I don't like getting stressed in the morning.  I haven't even started working yet and I'm all riled up because of her.

I can't wait to move to our new home.  There, I'd have my own bathroom inside our room.  And the hubby just takes 10-15 minute showers :)  One more reason why I love him LOL

Tamad Tuesday

Today seemed to have dragged on.  I'm so tamad to work!  But I couldn't work from home coz I've got 2 conference calls to attend.  One's done, but I still got a 7:30pm one.  Drat.

So since it's Tamad Tuesday, I'm going to do my 10 grateful list:

1.  I have an amazing God.  Who listens to our hearts desires :)
2.  Our dream to own our own home is very close to becoming real.  Please help us pray for this.  Thanks!
3.  I've a great family.  Hubs knows who I am and a son who's super smart :D
4.  Found money in my ped.  See for yourself

5.  Free coffee from the office pantry.
6.  Being able to watch What Happens in Vegas from my desk (don't tell my boss!) haha!
7.  Loot bag for my little one
8.  Having Tamad Tuesdays :P
9.  Car pool service is launched.  Got to the office hassle free and gusot free! haha
10.  The fact that it's almost 4pm and I should be heading home in about 4.5 hours

Hope you had a better Tuesday than I! :)

While PNoy was preparing

We had to run a very important errand this morning, so the hubs and I took a day off from work today.  SLEX traffic was horrible, due to a traffic accident on the Skyway.  The drive from our home to Makati took more than 2 hours.  We were already on the road from 6:30am, and got to Makati at 9am. 

After doing our (very) important errand, we decided to celebrate a bit by having a great lunch.  Cafe Mediterranean is a great lunch, so off we go.

This has been my favorite since early '90s

Hot sauce and garlic sauce combo

Hummus with pita bread - a wonderful appetizer

Chicken Kebab was the hubs' lunch

And my favorite - Mousakka! :)

We got home in time for Pnoy's SONA.  As my son clarified, a SONA is a message of the president.  It surely was.  I loved Pnoy's message!  Let's pray that we all could do our part.