Weaning myself

The past months/year, I've been hooked on a couple of things which I'd like to get away from:  Facebook and the Blackberry.  I'm always on Facebook, like the moment I sit on the bus or the shuttle on the way to the office, I'd open Facebook on my Blackberry and check what my friends have been up to while I was sleeping.  And then when I get to the office, after going through my emails, I'd open facebook and check on the albums.  When I get bored or loose my interest in work, I go to facebook.  Bad, huh?  So this year, I've resolved to check facebook less.  Starting with just opening twice a day and then eventually just once a day.

Blackberry.  Is both a source of happiness and pain.  Back in 2006, after I gave birth, I was handed a blackberry by my boss so it'll help me manage emails while on the road.  And it did just that, I was able to respond to emails while I was on the road and managed my workload once I got to the office, as I already knew which emails were urgent and which weren't.  But then it also somehow slowly took over my life, like when I'm home already, and I'd suddenly receive an email from our offices in NY or London, I would itch to respond to it... sometimes get stressed over it.  The email would be the last thing on my mind after I drift off to sleep and the first thing when I wake up... not good.  So now, I am really bent on not to check my blackberry after 9pm.  And to do that, I already turned off the blinking red light and got myself another cell phone to use when calling family.  It's still a struggle though, I still instinctively reach out for my blackberry on some nights.  I do think thought that every addiction requires a bit of weaning time.  Wish me luck! :D

Seeing red

I've been tagged by Kaith.this particular tag requires you to: 1) list down seven red things that can be found in your home and 2) tag seven people to do the same.

A must have at our home.  The little one can't eat without this.

Pepper shaker

My 4 year old Havs.  Please don't mind the scruffy feet :D

2009 Olympics souvenir

The little one's go kart

Our ever trusty digital thermometer

Ang kape.

Fishy blooper

The fishes happily swimming

We saw a man selling colorful fishes inside clear plastic bags along the airport road in NAIA. The little one loved it so we decided to buy it, his first pet. The sales guy told us they would survive in fresh water...until we went to buy a fish bowl at the pet shop near our home. Much to our surprise, the owner/manager said they were salt water fish! We had to buy a 5 gallon water tank, stuff that goes with it and get salt water. We could mix fresh water the salt solution to get salt water, but we thought we'd just get real sea water.

The nearest beach is Lian, Batangas and we headed there on a Saturday afternoon. Travel time was roughly two hours one way - 4 hours total. And we only stayed in the beach for 2 and a half hours. We had enough time to swim a bit, grill fish, pork and hotdog for dinner, witness the beautiful sunset, and get about 12 galloons of sea water. And then we drove back home.

ICU Rm 1

Worried that we would be too late for the fishes, we hurriedly packed our things after dinner. Thankfully, when we got home, all of them were still swimming. Although one was swimming on his/her side and another one was slightly tipping over. Quickly, the tank was prepared and then the healthy fishes were moved there and we isolated the other two "sick" fishes... each inside his/her container - which we called the ICU lol

Upon waking up, we all checked on the fishes first. The ones on the tanks were happily swimming away. And the two on the ICU are both fine. Yay! Now let's wait for another week to see if they all survive.. :)

ICU Rm 2

Gifts I love

One yummy Christmas cuppy from a friend

I received a few gifts from family and friends last Christmas and though I always appreciate the little things given to me, I specially love a few.

Topping the list is a pajama set from my eldest cousin, Ate V.  And no, not Ate V the star for seasons and the governor of Batangas. LOL  It's nothing fancy, just a set of pajama but I do love pajamas, I could live on them.  In fact, when I was in high school and college, pajamas were my favorite get-up on weekends.  Reading books in my pajamas.  Now that's how books should be read :)

Then my closest friend from the office, M, gave ma a mirror.  Not a pocket mirror but a full-length wall mirror for our house.  M gives the most thoughtful gifts but this one is thoughtfulness to the max! :)  I've been telling her that our wall mirror was broken, and so we don't have a decent mirror at home.  I was actually asking the hubs to give me a mirror for Christmas, but M made it first :)

And then my parents gave us a lava lamp.  I super love it!  I've been planning on getting a lamp for our room, something I can use when my boys are sleeping.  Though the lamp isn't great for reading, it'll work and it's quite pretty.  Too pretty that I logged it from Cagayan de Oro to here, fearing that it might break.  Thankfully it arrived in one piece.

Other things I loved was my Coach key chain from my boss.  I don't carry keys at all, so I used it as a chain for my green wallet.  Then I got bag holder, the one you can hang on a table.  I even got 2! Means they know I love bags! haha:)  Another sweet thing I got was a nail cutter from an office.. and the history here is that I always get hang nails and would usually borrow her nail cutter :)

What about you?  What gifts do you like?

Wishing well

I find myself wishing for a few things this past few days:

1. Wishing for more time to sleep and recharge.  For the past two days, I didn't wake up to my alarm! And hence missed my ride :(  When before, I even wake up ahead of my alarm.  Guess I'm really tired.
2. Wishing for time away from the office.  To spend time with my little one.  To watch Sherlock Holmes with the hubs.  To chicka with my mommy friends.  To read a good book.  To organize my things.  To de-clutter our house.  To plan my son's 4th birthday.  To really do research on that business thing.
3. Wishing for a trip, hopefully at the beach.  Bohol would be great.  Cebu too.  I can even do Batangas.
4. Wishing I had a lot of money so I can invite all our friends to my son's birthday party.  And also enough money to start a business and build our house.  At the same time.

I guess, I'm just tired.  Maybe tired from the holidays, our trip home and from thinking about that house or business venture.  I'll try a pedi tomorrow - usually a sure pick-me-up trick.  Let's see.

What a December!

The little one by my cousin's huge Christmas tree

To say that I had a hectic last month of the year is an understatement. December started with the visit of my parents in our home. Had to coordinate airport pick-up with less than 2 hours intervals, my Dad came from Qatar and my Mom from Cagayan de Oro. It would have been easy, but they both came on our coding day. But I survived that and then had to hop on a plane myself to attend a really busy work week in HK. This one I barely survived. I had thought that my last business trip was busy, the December trip though, by far is the busiest on record. I was dizzy most of the time, maybe because of the stress… and it was the first time I met my boss’ boss’ boss. We spoke on the phone all the time before, but first time face to face meetings are still unnerving.

We had initially planned for the hubs and our little one to follow, good thing they didn’t coz all I did after work was sleep. My mom still went with me to HK so we stayed over the weekend to go to Macau. Macau was wonderful at night and for short trips. I can’t imagine staying longer than 3 days there… It felt more like home since Filipinos were everywhere. Literally! We saw about 3 Filipino stores on one street.

When I got back, it was all work again and parties everywhere. I missed my hub’s company party, which was a treat last year. I was able to attend our company’s party, a surprisingly nice one too. Then I attended parties are friends’ and hub’s friends and my son’s school party. It was all a slur of parties for 2 weeks until we all hopped on the plane on the 23rd to go home to Cagayan de Oro.

Arriving in Cagayan meant parties still. Parties with my Mom’s family, then my Dad’s, then of course spending time with the hub’s family and relatives. I only was able to meet-up with one friend… Cagayan meant spending time with family. The little one had a blast reacquainting with cousins and playing with them. He can never forget how much fun he had and what they did. It was a joy to see him enjoy being surrounded by cousins, he doesn’t have cousins here in Manila.

A wonderful, busy and stressful December. Good thing I had done my Christmas shopping way early in October. If I had to do my shopping in December, I would’ve crumbled into pieces! Now, I’m back at work (but at home), Christmas decorations in storage, pictures aplenty (which needs uploading in FB!) and millions of little pieces of wonderful memories of the holidays. Now on to make 2010 a prosperous, glorious year :)