I love Sundays. This is the only day in the week that you will surely find the whole family together. Since my sister and my brother are both working and going to school on Saturdays, we only get to eat lunch and dinner together on Sundays. Sometimes we eat out.

This is the only thing I look forward to on Sundays. Spending time with the whole family.

What about you?

Join us here.

Note: I haven’t joined Weekly Questions in a while but I still want to answer past questions. I will be posting it later

Little things could make me cry. I am a crybaby! Do you know that when I read James Patterson’s Suzanne’s Diary for Nicholas, I cried buckets while my sisters were sleeping? In the morning, my dad and my siblings looked worried when they saw my swollen eyes. Hahaha! They didn’t know that I cried because of the novel. I also cry while watching sad movies and tv shows. Especially when a person sick with cancer is shown dying. Strikes a chord in me.

I actually don’t have any ritual that I follow. I am not fussy when it comes to my face, fearing that the more I put on it, the more I would be prone to skin breakouts. I wash my face at least 15-20 minutes before I go to sleep. Just with soap and water. I don’t use cream or anything on my face.

When I find a pimple on my face, again, just plain soap and water. I only use cream when I am in a cold place and I feel my skin is dry.

What about you? Any rituals?

Happy Sunday everyone!

Definitely a swimmer! First off, since this is just wishful thinking, I might as well wish for something that I truly fear of doing. I don’t know how to swim. I have this irrational fear of drowning. Plus, I don’t have the body of a swimmer.
I have always regretted the fact that I didn’t learn how to swim early on. It would have been cool and useful to know how to swim. But growing up, we were not really into outdoor activities. We tended to stay at home and well, I got hooked into reading novels…

What about you, what sport would it be?
Have a great week everyone!

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Teacher Julie says… Let’s say we forget every stress, in whatever form and shape that comes our way and indulge in SIMPLE PLEASURES that we can enjoy alone. This is much like what we want to do during that Extra Hour where we spend “me” time.

The Weekly Question #9:

What are the 5 simple pleasures that will give you, well, simple pleasures?

I am a person who is easily pleased. Here are the 5 simple pleasures I have in life:

1. Hanging out with my family. I love chatting with my sisters about anything and everything under the sun. It doesn’t matter if we’re at the mall or just hanging out at our living room. As long as we are together, it pleases me a lot.
2. Making everyone around me happy. I have this attitude that it doesn’t matter if I am not happy or uncomfortable, as long as everyone around me is having a grand time then I am happy.
3. Buying clothes for Hazel. I just love buying girly clothes for the little girl. Before, I kept on telling family and friends that I would rather have one boy than a girl. But now, with Hazel, I think I would love to have a girl and a boy hehe
4. Buying, reading, collecting good books. I am a bookworm. I have to have three books at any given point in time. I have this weird habit of reading three books at the same time.
5. Just seeing and hearing everyone at home laughing. Don’t you just love to hear your family laughing? It’s music to my ears.

There you go. Simple things that give me pleasure. Come on, tell me what simple pleasures you have in life.

I hope everybody’s doing great… How was your week so far?
*If you want to participate in Weekly Questions, you can go to this LINK and leave a message.

How would you like to spend your special day, your birthday?

It will be my 30th birthday in a few weeks. I want to celebrate it with my family. This is how I want my 30th year on earth to be celebrated…

Go to mass in the morning to say thanks for the 30 years of my life.
Go watch a movie.
Invite a few friends over for some snacks.
Have dinner with my family.
And just enjoy the rest of the day.

A couple of months ago I was contemplating having a party. But with the state of the economy right now, it would be impractical to stage a lavish party. Even to shell out for a small party would be impractical in my book. I would rather just have dinner with my family on my special day.

How about you, how would you celebrate your special day?

Have a safe and productive week everyone!

*If you want to participate in Weekly Questions, you can go to this LINK and leave a message.

If we set aside an extra hour each day to do what we would rather do and not what we should be doing, what would you choose to do?

Every single day, when I open my eyes, I face the computer. Sometimes, I write the whole day, stopping only to eat meals. There are days when I go out to go to clients and whenever I get back home, I immediately boot up the computer. I have a lot of work to do and I enjoy it, to be honest.

But if I could set aside an extra hour each day, I would just read and read and read. Does it sound boring to you? I love reading. It relaxes me and it improves my disposition. It doesn’t matter if I am reading something sad or happy or inspiring. Reading just lifts my spirit and if I can set aside an extra hour each day, that’s what I would do.

How about you? Come on, let me know…

Anyway, I missed the Weekly Question for June 29 which was…

Can you describe yourself as a friend? Or how do your friends describe you as a friend?

I am loyal. And forgiving. I never forget the good things that a friend did for me. I will definitely find a way to repay a kindness done to me. I can listen to a friend whine about his or her work and I can also listen to a friend gush about a new love.

You can ask Joshua about it
Have a safe and productive week everyone!

*If you want to participate in Weekly Questions, you can go to this LINK and leave a message.

What lies ahead for me (and my family) during these tough times? Do we know where we are heading?

When I think about it, and this is often, I get scared. That’s the truth. With the increasing prices of basic commodities, fuel costs, and just about everything that has a tag price, well, there are days when I wonder if my income (and my sisters’ contributions) will still be enough to make both ends meet. Also, with what happened to China and neighboring countries, I have this fear of natural disasters. There are just too many things that can go wrong these days. Not just for me and my family but for everybody.

BUT I do pray. Our family prays a lot. And I know that if we put our collective efforts to good use, there is hope for the nation, for the world.

Anyway, we are planning to take our chances abroad. Maybe this year, or the next one. We want a better future for the whole family. Abroad, when you retire, you get benefits from the government. You cannot expect that in this country. When you suddenly keel over abroad, chances are someone will pick you up and a hospital will take you in, even without a deposit. In this country, if you keel over, chances are someone will come near you, people will speculate as to what happened to you, when they think you are already losing a lot of blood or going as pale as the pavement beneath you, a good samaritan might call an ambulance. But the hospital will not accept you because you don’t have money to deposit. They will probably put you on a wheelchair or let you sit down on one of those plastic chairs only to make you wait until you die. We don’t want that. Abroad, there will be better chances of being taken cared of by the government, that’s for sure.

Hopefully, we will head that way. Abroad. But so many things can still change over time. We never really know what will happen in the future. We can only do so much. We can only pray that things will go the way we plan it.

Have a safe week everyone! Please pray for the victims of the typhoon Frank.

*If you want to participate in Weekly Questions, you can go to this LINK and leave a message.

What valuable lessons have you learned from your father?

Before I answer the question, let me tell you something about my dad first. My dad is the firstborn child in a family of 10. But he has an older brother, his mom’s child before she got married to his dad. He is more closer to his older brother than with anybody else. His family is not very vocal and showy when it comes to their affections. He and his siblings grew up not voicing out their emotions but rather showing it through gruff manners. If they show their concern, they will effect a tough manner, angry-like, and will scold you. But they are concerned. My siblings and I learned how to distinguish concern versus real anger from my dad. Due to this awkward way of showing his concern and love for us, we were never really close to him when we were kids.

When my brother died of leukemia, things started to change in our household. We’ve grown closer, albeit just a little. But when my mom died two years ago, that brought us closer to our dad.

What I would like to point out here is that, the lessons I learned from him are not directly pointed out to me but these are things I learned because I see him do it.

>>Learn how to be friends with everybody, no matter what their station in life is.
You can say that my dad is friends with almost everyone in our neighborhood. I know that he has really rich friends and yet you can see him talking to those old beggars inside the church. I learned how to converse with just about anyone because of him.

>>Work hard.
My dad is a stickler for attendance. Even if he has a fever, as long as he could go to the office without passing out on the way there, he’d surely be in the office. That’s how he was when he was still working for this insurance company. I may not be the same when it comes to his standards in working hard but I do work hard. My determination is something that I have seen mirrored in him.

>>Pray. Keep the faith.
This is the most important lesson I learned from him. So many things happened to our family already. If we didn’t see how my dad remained faithful to Him, well, we would have probably lost our faith. He is a very prayerful man. He may not look like one but he is. And that is something that I thank him for because he led by example. We all became closer to the Lord because of him.

There are more lessons I learned from my dad but I thought I’d just write down three
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What were your favorite books as a child, specifically in your elementary school years?

Growing up, I had these Bible story books given to me by my aunts. I loved reading Bible stories. I also had several classic children stories like Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Rapunzel and the like. But what I loved the most are those mystery books that my cousin gave me. I already forgot the titles and lost the books when we had our house renovated but it’s from those books that I got this love for reading mystery novels.

Happy Sunday and have a great week everyone!

*If you want to participate in Weekly Questions, you can go to this LINK and leave a message.