Under One Roof

I am talking about computer cabinets. I think I mentioned a number of times in the past that we have limited space here at home so whatever that can save us space we really welcome. I would love to have one of those computer cabinets but one that is customized to meet my needs. I want a small desk where I can put my desktop monitor and keyboard and mouse on top and the CPU below it. A compact cabinet will do.

I am the type of person who gets stuck on something that I have in mind. I get fixated on getting what I want and couldn’t move on until I get it. That’s how I feel towards that cabinet.

My Tita Winnie called up the other day reminding us of the invitations she extended to us and to the cousins to go to her house blessing and town fiesta celebration. It will be held this coming September 11th and she wants us all to be there.

I want to go but her place is just too far. If I don’t have any pending assignments that day, I will go but if I have important stuff to do I might have to beg off. It takes us more than an hour in travel time and that’s just one way and without traffic jams on the road. But I would really love to go if there’s enough time I can spare.

I was watching Hoarders in BIO Channel with my sister a while ago. We were talking about how those people can live like that. Mountains of trash and rotten stuff around you inside your own home. Eeek!

Two families are featured in each episode. In the episode that we caught today, both mothers were hoarders. One hoarded a lot of stuff including clothes, toys, undergarments and even junk. Her two youngest children would be taken by Child Service if she wouldn’t start cleaning up her house and her life. The other mother hoarded not just junk but pets as well! She had so many cats, dogs and other pet animals and her house just reeked of pet waste and other rotten stuff. A concerned neighbor called the authorities and reported the state of her house where her children also lived with her. Her children were taken away from her and would stay with her sister until authorities say otherwise.

Both mothers had personal issues from when they were young and those were the reasons, the root cause, of hoarding. One mother was neglected by her mother, the other was raped when she was a teen. They were still bothered by those issues in their lives and couldn’t move past it.

This is just my personal opinion…

Future dads and moms, if you know you have personal issues you have to deal with, ones that will potentially affect your parenting, please reconsider having a kid of your own. Don’t think of being a parent until you already chased away the demons haunting you. Please DON’T! It will just be unfair to your future kids if you will subject them to an abnormal life because you still have personal issues you haven’t faced head on.

If you want something badly, you can have it done in any way possible. Now, if you don’t want to do something, then there are so many excuses available for you to use. I’m sure you know that. I’ve been telling my cousin that there are Waiter/Waitress Jobs waiting for him. He didn’t finish freshmen college so while saving up for his college tuition fees, he can work.

There are jobs aplenty for those who are really looking for one. It’s up to the individual if he/she wants to grab the opportunity to work while waiting for something to happen in his/her life, or to just become idle and earn nothing!

I am amazed at how fast my uncle and aunt’s business is growing. They just installed a Retail System in one of their stores and now they are opening another one just outside the city! It is growing by leaps and bounds and I think before the year ends, they would have opened up three more stores in other parts of the country.

Patience, perseverance, a good head for business, and the support of everyone around them… that’s what my uncle and my aunt have been telling everyone who wants to open a business of their own. Those are the things they need and hard work.

Our family loves noodles. Any variant, any kind of dish with noodles in it. Yakisoba, pancit canton, lomi, sotanghon, miki, bihon, angel hair. You name it and chances are we’ve eaten it already and loved it!

This one is a Yakisoba dish. Oh so yummy I tell you!

Happy Monday everyone! Praying for a fruitful week for all!

Hazel at 3

Hazel at 5

Our Hazel is now a Kindergarten student. She is growing up so fast! One day she’s just 3, the next she’s already 5! She will turn 6 on October and is full of mischief each and every single day!

But no matter how makulit she is, she is still the most adorable kid for me

Happy Tuesday!

I know there are circumstances in which a person feels like it is the only way out. Suicide. It should never be an option. I would like to believe that a silver lining is just around the corner, waiting to change the landscape of your life. Our lives. You will never get to see that if you snuff out your life.

You might be thinking that suicide is the best way to save your love ones. In truth, it can leave them scarred for the rest of their lives! The stigma attached to suicide is far painful to carry than the problem which triggered it.

Let’s all pray for those who have committed suicide. May their souls rest in peace. Let’s also pray for those who are contemplating it. I do hope someone would reach out to them and talk them out of it. Life is a wheel. You may be down and out now but it will turn and before you know it, you are on top enjoying everything life has to offer.

I saw these two plants when Hazel and I went on her educational trip. We found these two, one is a look-alike of lemons while the other is a flowering plant with red leaves. I took photos of the two because I was intrigued by it.

Do you know what these two are?

Happy Monday to all!

The little girl loves riding kiddie motorbikes when we are at the mall. You rent out motorbikes like the one in the photo for 35 pesos (roughly less than a dollar) for 5 minutes. She’s happy when she gets to ride for that short amount of time.

Sorry for the quality of the photos. I took those using my Nokia C3 camera only.

Have a great week everyone!

How do you deal with your problems? I believe burdens come to test how strong we are. God doesn’t give problems that He knows we can’t solve. As they say, if there’s a problem, there’s always a solution to it. An anecdote that I read inspired me and help me how to deal with life problems. It goes this way…

Did you know that an eagle knows when a storm is approaching long before it breaks? The eagle will fly to some high spot and wait for the winds to come. When the storm hits, it sets its wings so that the wind will pick it up and lift it above the storm. While the storm rages below, the eagle is soaring above it. The eagle does not escape the storm. It simply uses the storm to lift it higher. It rises on the winds that bring the storm.

When the storms of life come upon us – and all of us will experience them – we can rise above them by setting our minds and our belief toward God. The storms do not have to overcome us. We can allow God’s power to lift us above them.God enables us to ride the winds of the storm that bring sickness, tragedy, failure and disappointment in our lives. We can soar above the storm.

Remember, it is not the burdens of life that weigh us down, it is how we handle them.

I visited a friend’s house the other week and it reminded me of one of my goals this year: to cook more! When I was younger, I used to cook a lot. In fact, I was always with my mom in the kitchen when I was at home and she’s preparing meals. I loved watching her slice the ingredients to a sumptuous dish. And she used to teach me how to cook. I learned a lot from my mom.

Lately though, a couple of years ago to be honest about it, I stopped cooking. There was a period about a year ago that my love for cooking came back and it prompted me to keep reminding myself to cook more. I want to be able to cook for the family and relieve my dad of the duty.

I’ll start next week. Wish me luck!

One of my favorites… choco banana crepe. Yummy! I remember stuffing myself full of this when I ate at Edsa Shangri-La’s Heat. I think I ate 3 servings of this hehehe

Happy Monday everyone!

I was able to talk to a friend of mine who’s working abroad. She told me that she still has two siblings left to send to college and then she’s done with her tuition fees obligation. She told her siblings that after the last two in college, they have to step up and take care of their parents while she pursues postponed life goals. Her siblings said yes. One is already a bank teller and two brothers are working as airport personnel. My friend can’t wait to finally quit her nine to five and pursue what she really wanted to do the most… sing! Yes, she wants to be a singer. For now, though, she is fine working as an auditor. Income is steady and she doesn’t worry about where to get tuition fees of her siblings.

There was a time when she had to go looking for costa rica payday advances because she forgot about allotting a portion of her paycheck for a sibling’s quite costly seminar fee that she needed for school. My friend had no savings account to speak of because she sends every penny she has back home. Naturally, she panicked! She wasn’t used to being without funds to send home. The seminar was very important and payday was still a week away that time. Thank goodness there are payday advances that save the day of people like her. Small personal loans that are used in lieu of a paycheck and paid once payday arrives.

Now she never forgets to budget her money. But if and when she will be faced with another panic attack like that seminar fee she forgot about, then she will only need to apply for payday advance.

One of the things that I wanted to have learned early on in life is discipline. I think being the eldest in the family and the apple of the eye of the elders made me take discipline for granted. You know how it is when every one’s catering to your whims…

Discipline is very important. Especially on kids. If they don’t learn discipline while they are in formative years, chances are they won’t learn when they’re adults already. I should know. I am disciplined in some areas of my life but when it comes to eating, discipline is very foreign to me. I eat whatever I like even if I know it will be bad for my health. I eat as much as I want even if I know it will lead to diabetes at the very least. I don’t have discipline when it comes to eating and I am not proud of it! I wish my parents, especially my mom, taught me how to discipline myself. I wish I wasn’t given almost everything I wanted when I was a little kid. Maybe I would have learned how to control myself and say NO to what my body is craving for.

Discipline your kids. I am not saying to use corporal punishment. NO, don’t use that. Talk to your kids and learn to say NO to them. Believe me, they may cry now when you don’t give them what they want but in the future, when they are already applying discipline in areas in their lives, they will say thank you for what you taught them. Discipline will go a long way.