One morning this week, I finally decided to kill two birds with one stone (no actual animals were hurt ) and proceeded to “write” on my walls while giving my body a workout (gym equipment = ladder and squeegee). The hubby had been amply warned (“Honey, I plan to put these up on the walls, okay?”) and I knew–in the way that spouses who live together long enough can read each other’s minds–that he was nervous about the possibility of our home turning into a large scrapbook layout, so with total consideration I embarked on my plan while he was at the office. Mwahaha.
My arms still hurt till today (let me tell ya, it’s not as easy as it looks to scrub typography on your walls, especially if your walls have texture! ) but I got a total kick out of the reactions of my boys, so it was all worth it!
A couple of soundbytes from the fam:
Son No. 1 (coming home from class at univ): Mom! Did you just paint words on our walls?
Son No. 2 (coming home from school): Mom! Mom! Did you just write on our walls? This is so cool! (yes, he is thirteen).
Son No. 3 (looking up at the graffiti in our bedroom): I can’t read connected letters. What does that say?
Son No. 4 (also looking at the graffiti in our bedroom): What’s that black thing?
Son No. 5 (also looking at the graffiti in our bedroom): Ha. Ha. Ha.
Hubby (entering our bedroom and looking up): Relax. Ha!
(Uhm. I’ll take that to mean he approves )
Just today, the hubby told me this one is his favorite. (Yes! He does approve!) It’s at the foyer, right by our front door:
This one is in our main gathering place in the home (yes, we are big on meals ):
This one is in my craft room which doubles as our guest room (anyone wants to sleep over? )
And this one is my favorite, especially because when I’ve been working all day on my compy and I lean back to rest my eyes, this is what I see. Mmmm. (It’s also what you see when you first enter our bedroom–how’s that for reminding you about what it’s all about, huh?)
The best part about it? I love the idea that when I say “Read the writing on the walls, buddy” — I can actually mean it literally.
(And yes, my son did say “Our home looks like a scrapbook, mom!” Hahaha!)
I will, at the risk of revealing certain factors that may make it possible for you to guess my age group, admit to being a child of the Seventies, and loving every moment of it. A decade like no other before or after it (yet), the 70s espoused the wild and carefree spirit that the 50s didn’t have, but was less rebellious than the 60s and less daringly anti-establishment than the 80s and the 90s. The 70s were the perfect decade for coming of age (possibly not a very objective view, considering that they were, after all, the years that I grew up in), but I will dare to venture that proof of this fact lies in the vivid recall of memories of anyone who was a child in the era of America, Bee Gees, and James Taylor.
(And for total ambience: America’s Ventura Highway, folks!)
The 70s taught me a lot about life and love, and the lessons are inextricably intertwined with childhood memories. Allow me to share both–the memories and the wisdom–of those wonderful years with you.
Lesson 1 – Follow, Fella
When I was about 6 years old, my paternal grandparents celebrated their golden wedding anniversary and, because we had the house with the largest space, ours was chosen as the venue for the big party. Great excitement filled the air as household help prepared the place (and hired men butchered numerous chickens in my first exposure to real-life gore). We had a jungle-gym of sorts in our backyard, and at six in the evening of the big party, I was still busy turning somersaults, my hands holding on to the bars of the gym while I threw my legs up in the air and left my head suspended midway like an astronaut in zero gravity. My mom told me to stop playing as it was time to get ready for the party and performance–oh yes (groan), who kid didn’t get asked to perform for relatives back then? I decided I could afford to do just one more somersault before going inside, so I did–and promptly hit my face on a rock whose existence on the ground I hadn’t even noticed until it caused me to see stars before my eyes. Wonderful: more real-life gore, on me this time, and a bad gash on my face which registered in all the photos of the grand event.
Lesson learned: Listen to your parents because they really do know more than you do. And obey. Immediately. (I have the scar to prove the importance of this lesson).
Lesson 2: Dance in the Rain
These days, when a little rain falls, many children will easily be seen in thick plastic raincoats, shielded additionally by umbrellas carried by their loving nannies. It wasn’t always this way. Back in the 70s, my brother (who’s two years older than me and therefore, by default, my partner in many crimes) and I would wait till the heavens poured down water in torrents and then we would gleefully grab our towels, shampoo bottles, soap bars, and run. In the wide expanse of our backyard we would dance and play and yes, take a full bath in the rain! Fully clothed. With mud stuck to our legs. Boy, it was a load of fun. Today I still try to get my kids to attempt this, just to experience the utter joy of feeling raindrops on their faces and arms, but they look at me with a mixture of doubt and amusement. (And then I almost see the thought-bubble forming in their minds: “Ah, mom–she is so charmingly nuts!”)
Lesson learned: Take time to frolic in the rain–or in the sunshine, for that matter. Happiness is a decision. It certainly doesn’t cost much, and it can be found in the simplest of things.
Lesson 3 – Fly Like the Wind
As a child I loved spending weekends at my cousin’s house. There was a park nearby, with great big mango trees that were perfect for climbing, and we would sit on the thick branches and contemplate deeply on the answers to some of life’s most troubling questions, such as which flavor of ice cream should we buy, and should we buy it now or later on? There was a big swing set, a serious one, nothing like the unremarkable Little Tykes plastic ones all over the place nowadays. No sir, these swings were made with wooden seats and real metal chains that squeaked as you pedaled with gusto. Unbeknownst to my mom and dad, I would pump my legs on those swings, trying to reach the sky, pedaling harder and stronger and faster, till I reached the point were the swing seat was almost parallel with the top of the swing bar. Then, at that point of greatest height, I would let go, push off, and soar through the air, landing on the grass feet first.
It’s a miracle I broke no bones. But in my 41 years of life, few things have topped the exhilaration of flying through the air.
Lesson Learned: Be fearless (within reasonable limits, of course. We’re talking about launching from swings here, not from roofs of houses). Dare to push the envelope. Don’t be afraid to fly. You may just discover talents you never dreamed were hiding inside you.
Lesson Four: A Little Dirt Never Hurt
We would start right after the requisite one-hour-rest-after-lunch (“or you’ll get appendicitis if you run around right after eating,” warned my grandma each time, like the broken ’45s that played on the turntables back then). We would end our playtime only when the sun threatened to set, our backs wet (no cloth diaper corners hanging out of our shirts because we never used diapers past the age of 8 months, much less on our backs!), our faces and hands grimy from a whole afternoon of Tumbang Presoor Patintero. When there were no neighbors to play with, I would “cook” leaves and sticks with mud in clay pots over coal. And I could do this all summer long with never a single whine about being bored.
Lesson Learned: Go outside. Get your hands dirty. Experience life with all your senses. There is no substitute for playing in the sunshine, sweat trickling down the side of your cheeks. (You don’t just give your muscles a workout, you also learn what it’s like to win and lose with grace).
Lesson Five: Of Canals and Combantrin
A cousin of mine and I always wanted a swimming pool. We didn’t have one in our house. So one hot day, we decided to take our wishes into our hands and pronounced the kanal outside the gate as a pretty good substitute. (Our kanals, as opposed to “canals”–which are large waterways–were about a meter wide and were meant to serve as sewage waterways… you can see where this is going). So into the kanal we jumped and splashed around, not minding the green moss floating but being careful not to dip our heads and open our eyes in the knee-deep water. Our older brothers and sisters mocked us, but we laughed right back in their faces and said they were missing out on the best thing… till something that did not belong in a swimming pool came bobbing by. We scrambled out just as my mom came around, her eyes wide open with mixed amounts of worry and anger. She made us take a bath in alcohol and water, and then made us drink 2 bottles each of Combantrin (I swear I can still taste that sticky deworming syrup).
Lesson Learned: Sometimes you’ll be ashamed of certain things you’ve done. But you’ll live through it, don’t worry. What doesn’t kill you can only make you stronger. And one day you’ll laugh about it. And if you were lucky enough to learn something from it, you’ll have even more than just a funny story to pass on.
Lesson Six: Humor Is Never Overrated
My brother would get his kicks from teasing me and mispronouncing my already-difficult-to-pronounce full first name. I would get back by sneaking close while he was building a tower with several decks of cards and happen to get an uncontrollable urge to sneeze right when he’d be putting the last few cards at the top (thereby sending cards flying in all directions). No matter how we annoyed each other, we continued to play together and have the time of our lives. Our guiding principle back then–to which we still subscribe today–was Picon, talo (“He who gets upset, loses”).
Lesson Learned: When things irk you, you either laugh at yourself, or you learn to dish it out in a spirit of fun as well. Life’s too short to spend wallowing with a morose face in a pool of gloom.
Lesson Seven: Beware the Bangaw and the ‘Bao
Every morning, my father would wake up the six of us, children, at the crack of dawn so that we could walk to Mass at a convent a block away from our home. We kids would trudge along the street, half-asleep, but not for long. See, walking with half-lidded eyes could only result in falling prey to one of two risks: (a) planting your feet deeply into squishy, warm fertilizer material freshly laid by the herd of carabaos that just passed by on their way to the grazing fields, or (b) walking headlong into a sleeping large fly (aka bangaw), your eyes flicking wide open at the instant you realize you’d been hit dead-center on your forehead. And that’s if you’re lucky, because if you had otherwise happened to have your mouth slightly open, there’d be at least a 98% probability that the offending large fly would sleepwalk straight into your throat, causing you to sputter in disgust, all sleep forgotten by your now-revolting body.
Today my father no longer wakes us early in the morning but he, my sisters and brothers, and I still find ourselves attending Mass regularly, some even daily, in our own respective parts of the world.
Lesson Learned: Old habits die hard. So make sure you establish really good ones while you’re young, especially if these habits have something to do with being physically and spiritually healthy and peaceful.
The Gift of the 70s: The Four F’s – Essentials in Life
Taken all together, the best gift of the 70s era for me was my discovering that there are really only four essentials for living a full and happy life: Faith, Family and Friends, and Funniness (i.e., a great sense of humor). You can have all the money and possessions in the world, but none of that can ever come close in value to the joy and fulfillment and gifts brought by the Four F’s.
So whatever decade you grew up in, or are presently growing up in, I wish you all the best of the 70s lessons, and may you be blessed with the Four F’s in your life.
NOTE:
* This was published in my ParenTTalk column, October edition of The Glimpse.
Credits for Images:
RetroMovies image by saine @ stockexchange.com
Cassette image by ugaldew @ stockexchange.com
Carabao image from tiger.towson.edu
Patintero image by Orville Tiamson for ForexWorld Artwork.
Some days just turn out to be serendipitously happy ones, for no particular reason except that … it’s a happy day!
Am celebrating it with this song!
And this!
And this!
And this!
Dance with me?
Today’s Funny
As my son J and I were riding home from school today, he was (as usual) telling me about his day in school. Our discussion revolved around a classmate who probably had a bad day and ended up dealing a few punches and a kick to my son. (Ah, boys!)
So naturally, mama took the opportunity to talk about the importance of using words, not hands or feet, to express oneself.
Me: Maybe you can tell your friend to use words next time he’s upset. Only babies use their hands and feet because they don’t have words to express themselves. Grown-ups use words.
J: I know, Mama! I used words today! (said proudly)
Me: Really?
J: Yes. Someone told me “Hey, you, poopy-head!” So I said, “Hey… you! Back at you… poopies!”
ROFL. I think this kind of boy-talk I can tolerate.
Today’s Freebie!
And because it’s a happy day for me, and happiness is meant to be shared, here’s a freebie for you!
This large (approximately 6×8 inches) grungy frame brush can easily be resized if you need a smaller frame. It comes in .abr format and .png format (so if you use a program other than Photoshop or Photoshop Elements, you can still use the frame! Yay!)
Preview Stock Photo Credit: Ayla87 at stock.xchng
{ Click on image to download. Please see Terms of Use included in zip file. }
Here’s how I used my frame on one of our class projects done for my dear friend Jessica’s awesome Photo-Editing 2 course at jessicasprague.com!
Spraground Shoppe: My Newest Baby
I’ve got a new product up in our shoppe! YAY!
(Image is linked to the Spraground Shoppe. Click on it and find yourself in our awesome Spraground candy store! )
My Storyboard Album Template Pack will help you create your own album with a graphic, storyboard look in a jiffy! It comes with twenty-one 12×12 layered templates (in .psd format), including a title page (with optional text path included), filler template pages which work well if you use them side by side in order (or you can also jumble them up and mix and match them), and a special template page for the last page of your album. I’ve included text boxes and text paths which you can use as is, or you can also opt to replace these with your own.
Because the Storyboard Album Template Pack is done in graphic style, you can use it for virtually any album theme you want! Use clipping masks in Photoshop or Photoshop Elements to clip your own papers and photos of choice. You can choose to use all the masks for photos, or if you’d rather clip patterned paper on some of the masks, that’s totally fine too! Add a bunch of your embellishments if that’s the look you want, or use just a few if you prefer the clean and simple, minimalist look. Don’t you just love all the freedom you have at your fingertips?
Best of all, you can use it again and again for as many albums as you wish to make!
And… that’s it for today, folks! It’s back to the drawing board to create more stuff for you!
So. I have been trying to get my head focused on the one million and one things that need to be done (is your to-do list any shorter? Fancy trading yours with mine?), and I figured the best way to get my motors revved is to … procrastinate! bwahahaha. just kidding. Of course, what I really meant is: the best way to get me energized to do the ton that needs to be done is to sit on this porch, have a little chat with you, and when it’s over, I’d have amassed the energy and inspiration I need to go and attack that workload!
Let’s play catch-up, why don’t we? Here we go!
Something to look at:
Last week I got the biggest surprise of the year. See, there was a thread on our Spraground forum with a cryptic message from my friend Dawn who said something about “great seeing you ladies on p. 37!” (not verbatim, but you get the picture). It was a fabulous way to trigger the curiosity antennae… so I soon found out that my dearest friend Jes had done a layout of our beta Spragfest held in Chicago last year (lots of happy memories, that one) and it came out in her column in the June issue of the Creating Keepsakes magazine!
How awesome was that!
Of course I found out about this close to midnight. Of course I got out of bed in my pajamas, drove to the house of my regular magazine-stand girl, and demanded that she check the most recent shipment of CK for the June issue so I could get my hands on p.37 and savor the sweetness myself!
Well, not really. But I came close to it (ask Jes, she’ll vouch for it).
So… a day or two after the thread came up, I got my own copy of the mag, and yippee! There we were, the Chicago babes! And there was Jessica’s AWESOME layout! Never mind if I looked like a dorky kid. To be a glue dot on Jessica’s layout is honor enough! ROFL. So here’s the page:
And here’s a close up of the fab layout that Jes made:
And here’s a funny:
I showed the page to my nanny. She took one look at it and said, eyes peering closely at the photo, “Oh, it looks like you, Ma’am.” I said, “Yep, cos that’s me!” Her response: HAHAHAHAHAHA!
No, she still doesn’t believe it’s me. To this day.
Something to marvel at:
My 7-year-old son J, who loves drawing so much that he’s going to make trees quiver in their roots once he’s done recycling all our paper at home, has just recently discovered that broken crayons can be taped together so they don’t go to waste. And he’s been using that discovery to mend all his little colored friends.
One day last week, he came to me all excited. “Mom! Look! I found triplets!” he said, holding up a crayon broken into three. “This crayon is going to the crayon hospital!”
Five minutes later, he comes to me and says, “Look, Mom! All better!”
Voila. Crayon Operation, folks. Who’da thunk you could actually staple a crayon together? Did you? I didn’t either.
Amazing, kids are. Makes you wonder just how much we could achieve if we adopted the same kind of brave, nothing-is-impossible attitude toward all that life throws our way, doesn’t it?
A friend of mine emailed me with this question: Can you download two or more things at the same time? (Cute, isn’t it, the innocence in that question? )
This is my answer:
Oh yes, my friend, you can. And boy, do I thank high technology all the time that indeed, we CAN!
Something to think about:
I keep this guy on my desk (among other “guys” ).
First of all, I love that my teenage son thinks I’m a cool mom because I have this… this creature… on my desk. (He has about 5 of his own. It’s apparently the in-thing with kids these days. )
Secondly, I love that it says 23:59. In fact, that’s what made me take it on its short journey from shop shelf to cash register. Initially, I loved that the time and all those (what are those anyway, veins? ) spindly things seem to empathize with me when I’m rushing against deadlines (which I seem to get a lot of in regular doses).
But this little thing has evolved, and today I found that 23:59 stands for more than just deadlines. It makes me think about time running out (one minute left, lady!). It makes me think about how this life is temporary, how we really are just travelers passing through, making our way to our final destination. It makes me think about how all we really have is now, and how we need to grab Now by the collar and do all the good that we can and give all the love that we have… NOW.
Amazing. Little did I think when I picked up this little guy in the store that day, that he would stand for so much more than four numbers on his little face.
Something too precious for words:
I hope I never run out of love letters like this:
Something to laugh about:
Okay, so I think it’s been established that google reads our emails (or at least their robots do). My friend Jes and her carrot cake addiction will attest to that.
But nothing prepared me for finding this in my spam folder when I went to clean it up…
I mean, seriously? French Fry SPAM Casserole.
Right.
And yes, I fell off my chair. Rolled on the floor, in fact. Laughing out loud.
Have a wonderful, laugh-out-loud day too, my sweeties! Over and out!
Last week, the boys (read: my family ) and I went on a 5-day vacation to the mountains/beach. I have to work through uploading the tons of photos I took. This post is meant to give myself a jumpstart. >heehee<
“Shine sweet freedom, shine your light on me. You are the magic, you’re right where I wanna be…” ~ Michael Mcdonald
Seriously, though. I honestly think it works. In the same way that two people in love can speak volumes without uttering a single word, people from all corners of the world can find connections with one another despite differences in skin color, eye shape, body mass, age, nationality, beliefs… if they–we–only pause long enough to hear the soft whisper of what ties us all together as one.
Fraternal love. It’s the universal language that needs no words to affirm its existence.
And happiness, that great emotion that moves us to swing our arms and shuffle our feet and sing out loud.
Enjoy:
* Thanks to my dear sister, who shared this vid with me. She’s a total expert at finding jewels on youtube. *
The English version of this Filipino song goes, “Planting rice is never fun…”
It’s a song that tells about the difficulties of the life of a farmer, how one has to bend over the entire day, with no time to sit and no time to stand. And then it goes on to summon the listener to join in, to keep the industrious spirit alive, to continue the hard work in the hopes of securing a brighter future. Wonderful how the song reflects the positive, hopeful mentality of the Filipino.
Somehow, though, the true heart and emotion of the statement, sadly, gets lost in translation (boy, did that movie get the whole concept right in that three-word phrase!)
So. I love taking shots of farmers at work in the fields. Because the Philippines is primarily an agricultural country (“despite plans to turn it into an industrialized economy by 2000″ ), it’s pretty safe to say that farmers constitute a huge part of the images that come into my mind when I think nationalistic thoughts. Plus there is something so humbling about seeing these men and women working hard to give us the most basic of our needs.
I remember in my first year at the state university, I had a teacher named Judy Ick for English 2. I will never forget her, not just because she gave me my very first grade of 1.0 (though yeah, that added to her unforgettable quotient), but mainly because she was totally cool. Back in the early 80s when teachers wore proper 2-inches-below-the-knee skirts and tailored tops, Judy came to our classes in the mini-est of mini skirts and razor-cut hair, shorter on one side than the other, chewing gum, smoking a cigarette, and holding a can of Coke. She was the epitome of cool to the young teenagers that we were. And when the EDSA Revolution broke out, she held our classes underneath the trees in the university’s fields across Palma Hall. And best of all, she was smart.
So how does all that relate to farmers?
See, a group of friends and I–there must have been 6 or 7 of us–heady with the youngsters’ typical bloated sense of freedom that comes from knowing you have certain advantages in college that you didn’t have in high school, decided to make use of that wonderful freedom to absent ourselves from class via the “free cut” route. We stayed in the one sorry cafeteria then, called CASAA (what it stands for, I cannot recall anymore, although I always got a kick out of pronouncing the double-A ending because it sounded so much like the then-famous weatherman’s way of saying PAG-ASA. And this, I do remember, stands for Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical, & Astronomical Services Administration. Phew, what a mouthful!).
So there we were, with our arms splayed out on the caf tables, chattering away and playing Pusoy Dos (poker, Philippine-style), when we really should’ve been in our English class. Just our luck… twenty minutes into class time, who came into CASAA looking to buy her regular can of Coke to go with the mint gum in her mouth?
I can still recall with 100% clarity how she looked standing there, staring at us, mouth agape. Wordlessly, she turned around, Coke can in hand, and marched off.
And we? We were as red-faced as overripe tomatoes, guilty beyond doubt. A flurry of debate followed:
- Should we tail her and attend class?
- No, what for? She already caught us cutting her class!
- But it’s worse to continue to sit here and play while we know that she knows we’re throwing her class away for a bunch of cards.
In the end we decided to follow her. In shame. And because we were a bunch of loonies, we bought brown paper bags for each of us, cut holes in them for our eyes, and wore them over our heads as we marched back to our classroom in a line. (And yes, the brown bags were meant to charm Judy Ick with a bit of humor. They worked. )
When we came in, she was giving a firm-sounding lecture to the entire class, and paused just a second before she said, “See? Here they are! These are the guilty ones I was telling you about!”
But because the brown paper bags worked their charm, she softened up and ended her reproach with these words of wisdom that I have carried with me throughout the years (and yes, I’ve told them to my sons over and over again).
She said:
You have to remember: when you study in this state university and you cut classes, you are not just wasting your parents’ money. You are wasting the money of Juan, Pedro, and Tomas, and all the other farmers who work long hours in the fields from morning till night, toiling under the heat of the sun, never stopping even when the rain pours down, just so that they can earn enough to send YOU to school while their own children sit in their homes, unable to attend school themselves.
(At that time, tuition in our university was largely subsidized by the government, and we had to pay a very very very small fee to add to it).
Oh yeah. It was the perfect guilt-trip laid on us. And it worked. I never cut another Judy Ick class again.
And I think I’ve loved farmers ever since.
*photo taken on the road during our trip to the mountains last week* more photos coming soon *
This is pretty much what I looked like the entire month of March:
… and what a ride it’s been!
I have two sons graduating this month and embarking on new journeys: one is going on to university (can you believe it? Am I feeling the creak in my bones? Uhm… yeah. ) and one is going on to high school. Of course we are incredibly proud of them and we celebrate this additional feather on each son’s cap. Never mind if that means that there are a ton of only-in-March obligations to attend to (all school-related: baccalaureate masses, enrolment in the new schools, buying new outfits, getting the required medical and dental sheets filled up by the pedia and dentist, attending all these “no, they are not optional” parents’ meetings which are included in the acceptance requirements of the new schools… and wait, I’m not even half done, but let’s end it there before you doze off).
But hey, that’s not too much to attend to, right? So let’s throw in a number of family reunions (ah, now we’re talking really happy stuff!) My darling brother, two years older than me, whom I have not seen in almost 10 years, finally came home with his family for a couple of weeks, and because there’s just so little time before he has to fly back, naturally we’ve been trying to get together as often as we can. My aunt, whom I haven’t seen in just a little less than the time I haven’t seen my brother, also came home with my cousin, so it was just totally wonderful to get together with family this month. (The only thing I regret about my brother coming home is that I just know I’m going to miss him and his family soooo much when he flies back in a week’s time. >sniff<)
Since in my family I have the most kids, and most kids = most home space, it was decided by majority (we’re a democratic family ) that the reunion dinner be held in my home. I love having visitors over. I love having family over. I love having friends over. I love having company over. I love hosting dinners, impromptu or planned.
But wait. Did I mention that our home is currently undergoing *major* renovation?
So. That’s why I’ve been absent for such a long time. I received your sweet, sweet emails and notes, my dearest friends, asking why I’ve been quiet… I am so grateful for the hugs you sent my way and so moved by your sweet concern, and I am so so sorry for having been unbelievably remiss in keeping up with my new year’s resolutions. (Yep, No. 5 – I will blog at least 3 times a week. I am so pathetically behind. Tsk tsk.)
Lots to catch up on.
Home on the Range
… or should I say Range in the Home?
Remember the photo of the undone kitchen some time back? Well, work on it is finally done. (Yay! Score 1 for the rooms in the home!)
The kiddos’ room is also done. Score 2 for the rooms in the home!
Finally found another use for all those beloved (accumulated) figures.
Monsters, Inc., anyone?
None of the other rooms in the house are completely done yet, so this is all I’ve got on the homefront for now.
This Week’s Funny
Preface: We walk around our home in bare feet because we’ve got wooden floors, and then there’s the fact that the kids (and I) will jump at any excuse to walk without shoes
So a couple of days ago, I was feverishly working on my latest kit while my newly-7-year-old J and my soon-to-be-5 S were sitting on the floor of my bedroom a couple of feet away, playing with toys together with their nanny.
Suddenly, J half-screamed in shock and distress: “AAAACK! Mama! Yaya’s feet are bleeeeding!”
I turned around and said, “Whaaaaat?”
Yaya (their nanny) was totally calm, and with a very embarrassed look on her face, she whispered (loud enough for me to hear): “That’s nail polish. I polished my toes.”
Without missing a beat, S ran to me, anguish written all over his face: “Mama! She punished her toes!”
Hmmm.
This is probably the biggest disadvantage of having a mom who keeps her fingernails and toenails short and unpolished. My poor boys have absolutely no exposure to such feminine toys of vanity. hehehe. (Seriously though? I can’t grow my nails simply because I find they get into the way of everything I love doing: working on my compy, taking photos and changing lenses, holding my kids’ hands without fear of scratching them accidentally, giving my scalp a good massage as I shampoo my hair… ya know, those kinds of things. )
Humor and Cuisine, Filipino Style
Two things that are very basic Filipino food fare: adobo and puto (though not necessarily eaten together).
In Filipino cuisine, adobo refers to a common and very popular cooking process indigenous to the Philippines.
When Spanish colonizers first took administration over the Philippines in the late 1500s and early 1600s, they encountered an indigenous cooking process which involved stewing with vinegar, which they then referred to as “adobo,” which is the Spanish word for seasoning or marinade. Dishes prepared in this manner eventually came to be known by this name, with the original term for the dish now lost to history.
Thus, the adobo dish and cooking process in Filipino cuisine and the general description “adobo” in Spanish cuisine share similar characteristics, but in fact refer to different things with different cultural roots. While Philippine adobo can be considered adobo – a marinated dish – in the Spanish sense, the Philippine usage is much more specific.
Typically, pork or chicken, or a combination of both, is slowly cooked in soy sauce, vinegar, crushed garlic, bay leaf, and black peppercorns, and often browned in the oven or pan-fried afterward to get the desirable crisped edges. This dish originates from the northern region of the Philippines. It is commonly packed for Filipino mountaineers and travelers. Its relatively long shelf-life is due to one of its primary ingredients, vinegar, which inhibits the growth of bacteria.
The standard accompaniment to adobo is white rice.
Outside the home-cooked dish, the essence of adobo has been developed commercially and adapted to other foods. A number of successful local Philippine snack products usually mark their items “adobo-flavored.” This assortment includes, but is not limited to nuts, chips, noodle soups, and corn crackers.
Puto is steamed rice cake popular in the Philippines. Rice, the main ingredient in this dish, is an important staple in the Philippines. It is typically eaten in most meals and has been known to be featured in all types of sweet and savory Filipino dishes. Puto is usually eaten as dessert, but can also be eaten for breakfast dipped into or paired with a cup of hot coffee or hot chocolate.
There are many variations to the recipe ranging from the type of rice used to the method in which the rice is prepared. In its traditional form, puto is of a plain white color. Adding certain common Filipino ingredients like ube and pandan (made from pandan leaves or Pandanus amaryllifolius ) slightly changes the flavor and completely changes the color of the finished product. Likewise, food coloring can be added to change the puto’s color but still keep its original flavor.
Most varieties often include the addition of coconut milk and this influences the flavor.
This is what puto looks like:
(image courtesy of Wikipedia)
And here is the reason why we have this little lesson on Filipino cuisine. Because it’s the preface to this showcase of Filipino humor at its finest.
I was riding the car on my way to a dinner hosted for my brother-back-from-abroad and his family when I looked up and saw this little diner with the funniest name. And I had my camera with me, whoopee-doo! So of course I turned around the block just so I could come back to this little resto by the roadside and snap a photo of it.
Isn’t that such a hoooot?
I am so inspired to travel around the city, heck even the entire country, searching for more of these hilarious signboards, showcases of the ever-amazing sense of humor of these people on my side of the world.
Okay. Time for bed. It’s 4.30am and I’m going to crawl through tomorrow if I don’t hit the sack right now. But it was just *awesome* sitting with you on this blog porch after such a long time! I have totally missed you and am so glad to be back!
More tomorrow, including a wonderful announcement about an upcoming course or two (wink, wink, wink!).
And forgive me for being absent for such a long time! In my part of the world, the Christmas season is the biggest feast/festival/fiesta (as the Christmas carols playing on the airwaves as early as September would prove), and the number of parties and reunions and out-of-town trips increase tenfold! So yeah, I was pretty much buried under piles of Christmas lists, then Christmas wrappers and tape, then Christmas parties and reunions–and along with that, Christmas food (which is now safely tucked away in my stomach, thank you very much, BURP!)… and whatever time left over that I’ve been able to grab, I’ve spent working on a “couple” of things that have to remain a secret right now but which I’ll definitely share with you come mid-January
So… for the meantime, I thought I’d share with you some photographic evidence that I have not been lying around doing nothing but filling my mouth with holiday goodies (uh… more like moving around doing a lot while filling my mouth with holiday goodies, heehee!)
Wrapping Fury
Quick, answer this question: How many Christmas gifts did you wrap? You know? Well, I salute you! I bow to you! Because I can never count the total number of gifts I wrap each year; all I know is that if I seem to disappear for a few weeks during the holiday season, all anyone needs to do is wade through mounds of wrapper and tape and boxes and voila! You’ll find me buried under them, trying to work my way up.
This year, I *did* attempt to count the gifts I wrapped… at least the ones for my sons’ teachers. I have to confess, though, that I lost count somewhere between 25 and 40. Multiply 4 kids in 4 different levels in 3 different schools, with a different teacher for each subject, then add the teacher aides and security guards, and you have… how many? See what I mean?
So here’s the photo of this year’s bunch of teachers’ gifts:
And because gifts need a home… in comes the tree!
The Tree Boys
One of the really great things about having five boys is that you eventually get to the point where you can assign certain duties to them, such as putting up the tree! Every year, we put up the tree on the weekend of December 8th (Feast of the Immaculate Conception, which also means that most schools give the kids the day off… so in our home, that means the kids have the entire day to hang out and put up the Christmas decorations!)
This year we deliberately kept the home decor simple, since we had men working on the annex that we’re attaching to our home (read: breaking down the wall to connect another unit and completely remodeling said unit). The work isn’t done yet, and I think it’s safe to say it’ll take us about 3-6 months to really fix up the unit (we’re changing all the bathrooms, installing blinds in all the rooms, putting in new furniture, etc. etc. etc.–you get the picture. ).
So anyway, that explains why the Main Thing this year was our tree!
There are few things that beat the joy of watching one’s kids help each other trim a tree, don’t you think?
My eldest helping my youngest… mmmmm! What a lovely thing to watch!
S gets a helping hand from R:
And my little J gets help from his nanny
We have a tradition of getting each child something of his own to hang on the tree each year. Then when they are old enough to have homes of their own, they’ll have a “starter kit” of their very own decorations to hang on their own Christmas tree, gathered from their very first Christmas from the time they were born.
But there’s one item hanging on the tree that has my name on it: this one! (Gotta love my Starbucks coffee! )
So it’s a 16 year old tree, and it’s not 10 feet tall, but it’s been with us from the birth of our eldest son and we love it.
The View from the 41st
On my side of the world, the holiday season gives everyone the best excuse to party. It’s a wonderful time because you get to meet up with people you hardly see the rest of the year. Relatives from around the world fly back home to be with family. Office people turn into party animals in a 180º transformation that puts the pumpkin-coach metamorphosis in Cinderella to shame.
My hubby’s office party was held in the 41st floor of a hotel, and as always, I brought along my Nikon D90 with me. His office Christmas parties are always themed, and the different divisions come up with a program of sorts where they compete against each other to win the prize for the best presentation. ‘Course I’d never pass up the chance to take advantage of the photo-ops!
A couple of photos of that evening:
The theme this year was Asia; this was the winning team’s presentation:
Awards were given for best costume of the night… these ladies were the nominees:
(I think Asian costumes are so exotic! )
So anyway, when the party was over, I looked out of the floor to ceiling windows down at the city below and decided the view would make a GREAT shot! DH saw me fiddling with my camera (no tripod in tow), and teased me: “There is no way you’re going to get a clear photo of the street from this distance without a tripod and with the complete lack of lights.”
Well. Have I said that deep down inside, I have this little rebellious streak that surfaces when one presents me with a challenge that sounds more like a dare? So of course, I took a photo of the street from above. Here it is:
Don’t you just love those Christmas trees made of lights?
Project 365?
Are you doing this? Project 365, as I understand it (correctly, I hope? ) involves taking a photo every single day of the year (hence the 365). This was started some years back–the first time I heard about it was on the photojojo blog, with photos being uploaded to flickr. As all good things go, the interest in this project spread, and now some of my Spraground sistas have decided to join this project (boy, do I envy their energy and their ability to do this! I so wish I could, except that I’m also absolutely sure that I’d fail by the first week!)
I love taking photos and I joke that my Nikon is surgically attached to my body, but I’m not sure about whether I’d be able to keep up taking a photo every single day. Now if it were a weekly thing…
So I’m wondering: am I the only one who isn’t brave enough to take on this challenge? All this wondering led me to more thinking: what other options are there for people like me, who may not be able to keep up with the daily photo-vitamin requirement?
If I am fearful of my ability to tackle a daily thing, what about a weekly thing instead? Documenting a few days a week for 52 weeks in the year… that’s 52 layouts… hmmm! Tempting! *eyebrows going up and down*
What if weekly is still too daunting? What about a monthly thing? Documenting the highlights of each month for 12 months in a year… that’s 12 layouts… certainly do-able! *eyebrows going up and down faster*
Heehee. So you know where all of this is leading to, right? What can I create to share with everyone who wants to play with their cameras, whether on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis?
Yep! Here it comes! A freebie, finally! (A small one, but one that comes with a lot of affection anyway!)
Here’s a photo tag which you can use to write down the date when the photo was taken and a few notes to record the special moment captured. I’ve included two versions of the tag: one flat and one curled.
Click on the image above to download. Thank you for the love you leave on my blog as you download
I’ll be back soon, but for now I need to jump into bed because the sun is about to rise!
Happy New Year (((((hugs))))) to you, my sweeties!
Yep. Lotsa buzz going on around here. Starting to feel like a real bee (not a queen, though… that’s wishful thinking. I’m more like the worker type or the drone )
BUT! It’s all good, right? There is always so much to be thankful for! And on that note, before I forget, Happy Thanksgiving to one and all! Hope you had an awesome time celebrating all that’s warm and wonderful in your life (and hope you had a great Black Friday shopping spree, too! )
We’ve got a lot to catch up on, so I hope you’ve got your shopping for the day done (at least for today ). So get comfy, sit back, grab that cold drink (or warm, if the snow outside is starting to freeze you), and put your feet up… and here we go!
The Gift that Lasts Forever
Have you gone Christmas shopping yet? You have? No fair… you can do mine.
I haven’t done any Christmas shopping, but that’s okay… there’s time to freak. Let’s see… I have exactly 19 days to go on a wild race to the stores. (And believe me, given the Christmas traffic in my part of the world, that’s not a lot of days to shop in. It’s not surprising to spend a quarter of each day sitting in traffic–and that’s if you’re lucky. *sigh* Okay, so maybe I’m exaggerating. It’s just that I like traffic–any kind of traffic, any length of traffic–as much as I like … hmmm… bitter gourd. Each holiday season, I tell myself I’m going to shop the entire year next year, so that by December I would have no one left to shop for–you know, that dream of sitting contentedly, all gifts wrapped and ready to be delivered way before the 20th day of December–and of course, every year December rolls around and I wonder where that shop-early resolution got shelved during the past 11 months. What can I say? It’s an elusive dream. )
But hey, guess what? There’s a gift you can give which doesn’t require you to lock arms with the rest of the country as they run around the malls, looking at their lists and checking them twice. Better yet, this gift is truly special, the kind that doesn’t make you fat, that doesn’t collect dust on a shelf, that doesn’t get broken if dropped. This is the gift that lives on, long after the wrapper has been turned into recycled paper… (the season allows me to be cheesy, right?). It’s gift of learning, of discovery, of creating, of celebrating.
So yeah! Give the gift of digi-goodness to those you love this season! (Yes, that includes you! You can give yourself this gift too!)
There’s a huge, first-time-ever, crazy-generous gift over at our Spraground, and it’s called the Holiday Sale! Jessica has taken the best-selling digital courses and slapped on a huge discount on them, and there are even bundled offers (where you get a really, really great class for free if you take the bundle of 3 courses).
It’s so awesome that you can even divide the bundle gift between you and your friends! (You can give the entire bundle, lock stock and barrel, to your BFF or you can give one or two courses to your friend and keep the third and the free one for yourself. Oooor you can even give the four courses to yourself if you just joined us on our Spraground recently for our super-successful Stories In Hand free course and decided you like our Spraground enough to paint your name on a swing.
The sale goes on till Christmas Day, so you can totally do your last-minute shopping on the web as well. You can send the gift either with a print-able card (we’ve got them on the Spraground–you just need to download them and type or write the coupon code before you give them to your loved ones), or you can send the gift via email. See? Isn’t Jes awesome? She thought of everything to make life in the fast-season lane easy for you!
(Alright, you may run to the Spraground and grab those courses now… I’ll wait right here for you to come back. >heehee< )
(Oh and PS. the image is click-able… it’ll take you right over to our Spraground! )
PAD makes a Comeback
Remember the photo-a-day we had last May, where we took a photo each day of the month, and at the end we have an entire day-by-day account of the extraordinary found in the ordinary days? We have that going on again over at our Spraground, upon the suggestion of one of my dearest friends, Lindsan. We’re taking a photo a day for each day of December (especially tricky, if you’re wrapped up in a million things to do this month, or especially exciting, if you’re one of the more organized people who’ve got their decor up and the gifts all wrapped and are just waiting for the 25th to roll around. If you’re the latter, I wanna be you. )
It’s only Day 4 and over at the special December 2008 Photo-A-Day gallery that Jes put up for all those who want to join (yes, that would be you, too, if you haven’t yet joined… COME!), there are soooo many wonderful photos and layouts coming up! I wish I had the time to leave love on all of them (yep, that’s on my to-do list too)… one of these days, I’m going to be successful at catching up with this! (There were 24 pages of photos/layouts last time I checked. )
If you want to take a photo a day and collect warm fuzzies from the awesome folks over at our Spraground but just found out about it now, come and join us anyway! (You can always post the previous days, a few days late! )
And in case you’re thinking twice… there’s another special treat that Jes has cooked up to make our Photo-A-Day adventures more fun! Go read about it on her blog HERE.
And just to show you what a win-win situation we have here, at the end of December not only will you have had the chance to win a great prize, not only will you have experienced the special brand of Spraground warmth in our community, not only will you have had something exciting to do with your camera for every single day of an entire month, but–best of all–you’ll have 31 photos worth of wonderful memories, preserved forever either in photographs or in layouts!
How awesome is that?
Totally! Here now are my first four days of December PAD (with stories interspersed):
Day 1: Bread for Breakfast
A few weeks ago, some close friends of dh and mine invited us to a joint-birthday celebration at this little deli where they sell the yummiest and freshest French bread ever! Since then, I’ve filled our table with all the different types of French bread (and yes, with the cheese and the sausages to go with it! Mmmmm!)
Warm bread and Christmas warmth… it’s a perfect fit!
Day2: Igloo, Southeast-Asian Style
When I was a kid, I wanted to have my own playhouse. I had a nipa hut in our backyard, complete with ladder and windows that you kept open with sticks (authentic!), but I didn’t really like spending time in there because it was hot and it made me itchy (and between me and the teddy bear family I kept in it, there just wasn’t enough space). And to my little mind, it wasn’t cool. hehe. What was cool for me and my brother, 2 years older, was having our own treehouse. There was just one tiny problem: though our backyard was full of trees, they weren’t members of the treehouse-strong-branch family. The closest we ever got to making our treehouse back then was hanging a floral blanket over the branch of the aratilis* tree. It probably looked pathetic to the adults, but for us, it was treehouse-teepee heaven.
(*aratilis – For those with green thumbs: I did a google search for aratilis, and found out that it belongs to the genus Muntingia, and is a close relative of the Jamaican cherry. It’s tinier than the first joint of your pinky finger; it’s green and hard when it isn’t ripe, and red and squishy when it’s ripe. Never enjoyed eating it, though my sister loved it. )
So… this yearning for a playhouse–is it genetic, you think? Is it something that all kids pass through? Because all my kids passed through a stage of trying to build their own playhouses (never mind that there are Little Tykes ready-built playhouses; there must be a primal urge to build a cave with one’s own hands).
My fifth son just built his a few days ago. Right in the comfort of our living room.
Yep. I knew those huge floor throw pillows had to be good for sumthin’.
Day3: Oh Happy Day!
Oh happy day! Oh happy day! My package finally came in! My long-awaited Bind-It-All, accessories, space bar, acrylic and chipboard covers, and o-rings, finally in my home! Yabba-yabba-yeah-YEAH!
Okay, so maybe I kind of went overboard with all those o-rings… shhhhh. ( Wouldn’t you, if it took about a month for the supplies to get to you? Yeah, yeah, I know, I’m justifying it. heehee).
Of course, since I happen to be a gadget queen, it should come as no surprise that I totally love this tool?
A corner rounder that can cut through chipboard and other thick stuff! Mmmmm! It’s like a long-lost relative of my beloved Cropadile!
Now, all I have to do is learn how to use these. Unlock the Power of the Tools! Indulge in the Gadget Love Affair! Let the hybrid games begin! bahahahaha!
Oh! Along with the BIA, I also got a bunch of books (to read during the Christmas break–yay!), ordered from both Amazon and ideabooks4u.
Love these two stores, amazon & ideabooks4u. The best part? Great customer service. I ran into a snag with Amazon (Ali’s book was listed as available, and then not), and they fixed it up as best as they could. Gotta love that. This was the first time I ordered from ideabooks4u (to get that Ali book which wasn’t available in Amazon), and they did an awesome job of delivering quickly and shipping the items wonderfully.
I am a sucker for great customer service. The product, whatever it is, has to be fabulous–of course, or else, why buy it, right? But even if I’ve got an excellent product staring me in my face, if it isn’t accompanied by excellent customer service, I can easily turn around and march right out, empty-handed and wallet-full, without an iota of regret.
Let me digress a bit and mention that (based on my experience) all digi shoppes are awesome and I have not yet met a designer who wasn’t a really, really nice, generous, sweet person. But I need to give a shout-out to my friend, Becky, who handles customer service at Scrapbook-Graphics.com. Each and every time I have run to her for help, whether it’s a tiny issue or a huge concern, she has always treated my pleas for help with much gentleness, concern, kindness, and immediate action. If there was an award given for excellent customer service in a digi shoppe, I’d vote for Becky any day. She’s definitely one of the reasons why SBG is among my favorite digi-shoppes!
I think it’s totally great to take an ordinary day and make it special by celebrating people who do their jobs with much heart and dedication. Just appreciating them is enough to put a smile of gratitude and quiet contentment on my face! (Among these people would be the three security guards who serve at my sons’ school. They are such a joy to meet every morning! Everyday when I take my kids to school, I’m greeted with big smiles and warm “Good morning!” greetings… every. single. day. Rain or shine. No fail. I love that, you know? That cheerfulness in the morning that lasts all the way till later on in the day when I come over to pick up my kids–it’s so precious! They’re definitely one of the best things I love about my sons’ school! What about you–whom would you like to celebrate today?
Day4: Belen on a Deadline
Ever tried crafting on a deadline?
Last Wednesday afternoon, my son R came home with news:
“Mom, my teacher wants me to submit a belen for extra credit.”
Belen is the Filipino term for the nativity scene, which can be found at Christmastime in every Filipino home (that, and the ubiquitous parol, or Christmas star).
I noted the information and… promptly forgot about it, thinking there’d be the weekend to deal with it.
Well. Yesterday afternoon, R came home with news again: “The belen is due tomorrow.”
And: “It has to be artistic.”
Whaaaaa? You need this is less than 24 hours?
Zoom. Off we rushed to the malls to look for a nativity scene that could be bought off the shelves. Shouldn’t be a problem, right? After all, this is standard Christmas decor fare.
Wrong. Six stores and two pairs of tired legs after, I decided to buy a nativity scene figure and some raw materials and c.r.e.a.t.e. the nativity scene. I had absolutely no idea how it would come out; I only knew that it was our only option, since the bookstores we went to had absolutely no books with a nativity scene of the paper-doll kind; and none of the toy stores had any toy nativity scenes.
Here’s what the preliminary stages of the nativity-scene-creative process looked like:
The bare naked facts:
The backside:
(jumble of rice lights peeping on the right side)
The front:
And let’s not forget the recipe:
Ingredients:
extra thick chipboard, leftover unused chopsticks from Japanese-food takeout, some strapping tape, glue sticks, PVC glue, brown crepe paper, glittery fronds, a set of tiny rice lights, leftover animal toys borrowed from children’s toy box, and one store-bought Holy Family figure
Tools Needed:
glue gun, cutter, cutting mat, and yer good old trusty Cropadile
Procedure:
Mix together, pulling cobwebby strands of glue from the glue gun (which manage to find their way all over the stuff). Cut some, measure some, laugh a lot. Plug in the lights when done, and voila!
The finished product, and my Day 4 Photo-a-Day accomplished as well!
Freebie Mini
And since you made it this far, I thought it would be really nice if I could reward you with a little freebie, right?
This is just a tiny one… I have found that if I wait till I’ve got a fuller set to give away, I end up not blogging for days while working away on my designs. Then I end up torturing you with these long, long, looooong posts!
So I decided to try a different route and give off little freebies now and then… that way I get to see you more often, and you get to download more (albeit smaller) freebies! Does that work for you?
So here’s what we have for today:
This is a 6×6 chipboard journaling block… just type (or write, if you’re doing hybrid ) your journaling on the lines, and voila!
Click on the image to download the journaling block (or should I say journaling circle?)
PS. 4shared no longer allows comments on the download page unless you have an account with them and are logged in… so I would totally embrace you if you took the time to leave love on my blog as you download.
And before I go (it’s mid-dawn once again!), I have a little riddle for you:
Question: What could a 14-year-old teenage girl and her middle-aged aunt possibly have in common?
Answer: A love for Jason Mraz! Well… more specifically, absolute adoration for the boy by the teenage girl, and absolute love for the music (not the boy, LOL) by the aunt.
And because my niece is in Paris, this one is especially for her, in hopes that she manages to bump into the boy of her dreams while he walks along the streets again, someday in the future.
Enjoy, and I’ll see you soon, my sweeties!
PS. I can’t believe the guy just chased those pigeons down! Ooogy! I remember the first time I was in Paris, and dh wanted to take a photo with all the pigeons on the street… and I love birds. NOT. I think you can tell from my hunched up shoulders and the body-tilt (away from the birds, far far away) in the photo below. bwahahaha!
) and proceeded to “write” on my walls while giving my body a workout (gym equipment = ladder and squeegee). The hubby had been amply warned (“Honey, I plan to put these up on the walls, okay?”) and I knew–in the way that spouses who live together long enough can read each other’s minds–that he was nervous about the possibility of our home turning into a large scrapbook layout, so with total consideration I embarked on my plan while he was at the office. Mwahaha.
) but I got a total kick out of the reactions of my boys, so it was all worth it!
And this one is my favorite, especially because when I’ve been working all day on my compy and I lean back to rest my eyes, this is what I see. Mmmm. (It’s also what you see when you first enter our bedroom–how’s that for reminding you about what it’s all about, huh?)
The best part about it? I love the idea that when I say “Read the writing on the walls, buddy” — I can actually mean it literally. 
Lesson 2: Dance in the Rain
Lesson Four: A Little Dirt Never Hurt
Lesson Six: Humor Is Never Overrated
block away from our home. We kids would trudge along the street, half-asleep, but not for long. See, walking with half-lidded eyes could only result in falling prey to one of two risks: (a) planting your feet deeply into squishy, warm fertilizer material freshly laid by the herd of carabaos that just passed by on their way to the grazing fields, or (b) walking headlong into a sleeping large fly (aka bangaw), your eyes flicking wide open at the instant you realize you’d been hit dead-center on your forehead. And that’s if you’re lucky, because if you had otherwise happened to have your mouth slightly open, there’d be at least a 98% probability that the offending large fly would sleepwalk straight into your throat, causing you to sputter in disgust, all sleep forgotten by your now-revolting body.
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