Counting Sheep

I CAN'T SLEEP.

Been trying to sleep. I can feel it behind my lids, but sleep just won't come. My thoughts have been invaded once again. I don't want to think about it anymore. Life has been hard, but God says DO NOT WORRY.

Nyar.

So I shall count my sheep until the ZZZs overcome me.

Melting!

I spent the day cleaning out my junk room (read: extended junk drawer! hehe, oops!). Oh wait, we actually have two - part of the maid's room, and A's bedroom (she doesn't sleep there since we moved her bed to the master's bedroom).

I actually started out with looking for A's old Barbie pool. It was sweltering hot that I wanted the kids to take a dip. But RL hates swimming in the big pool, so my goal was to set the inflatable pool by the balcony and have them swim there. Well, sit in water. Hehe.

I ended up swimming in sweat. The maid's room felt like a sauna. We went through boxes and boxes of stuff - stuff we failed to unpack since we moved up to this unit a year and a half ago. Ho-hum. So we decided to just go through the junk. I spent the whole morning and half my afternoon throwing away stuff we didn't need. I went through a mountain of toys in A's room (who wants free toys, say 'ay!') but I didn't find the pool. So I gave up on that and continued cleaning out the room. We threw away about a dozen bags/ boxes full of junk. Ay-yah! How did we accumulate so much in 9 years? :P

And right when I went back to check on a bag I saw containing props and halloween costumes, I saw the pool on top of the old spin dryer! Yey! So at 5pm, the kids went for a dip. I sat by the pool to watch the little one and I didn't mind getting wet at all. It's just too hot! If I was an ice cream cone, I would have melted 100x over!

My little boy took a bath a total of 4x today! Yes, he was that sweaty. Ha!

~~~

We were actually planning on checking out Rockwell Tent for MYOH 2010, but I figured I didn't need another pair of flipflops. Sayang, wanted a white pair with red straps sana. Oh well. There's always next year.

If you have time to get your own pair, Make Your Own Havaianas 2010 runs until Monday, 26 April 2010 at the Rockwell Tent. Prepare for long, snaking lines. Bring a helper to fall in line for you. Good luck!

To My Daughter, A.

APRIL 2010

Dearest A,

You just turned 8 and I already feel old. Wasn't it only yesterday that you had no hair and Momma made you headbands with huge flowers just to make you look pretty and all dolled-up? But you were and still are a pretty girl. Not so little now. :)

I still remember how you used to make "gigil" and everyone got a kick out of it. How you used to dance to "Asereje" and how it was the only song that would calm you down and keep you quiet in your car seat during long drives. Yes, you are so much like your brother in a sense, since like you, only one song keeps him strapped to his car seat. But his song choice, Break the Silence, is way better than yours. Haha! You always have a knack for the fad songs, no? Asereje, Nobody, Boom Tarat Tarat, Pinoy Ako, and all those songs Yaya J taught you when you were little. Nyar.

You've always been strong. Physically, you are our creatine baby. I can still recall how you'd hold on to daddy's arm, hang there for a few seconds - at 7 months! How you learned to walk at 8-9 months and how we surprised yaya when she came back from Bohol, to find you walking already! You didn't even crawl! You are still strong, in fact, you under-estimate your strength. Do remember to be gentle, especially when handling your brother, because you don't know exactly how strong you are. And of course, because you are a girl. A little lady. Even when you still think you are Momma's baby. :) And you are, you will always be.

I am so thankful that God gave me a smart, smart girl. You have always been bright. At 1, you already knew how to operate the video player. You knew how to sign the alphabet and even taught your Yaya how to sign. You mastered spelling simple words at such a young age, we were so amazed. You've always been the little techie! People were surprised to see a little toddler using a digicam properly, or playing Bubble Bash on my mobile. Yun nga lang, you were bulol. I remember listening in to you playing with your Barbie doll and found that Barbie was also bulol! LOL!

Eight years! Wow, time flew! And look at you now. You're almost as tall as mom! Thank you so much for being a good girl. You are a great big sister.

I pray that God will bless you with wisdom, and that you will grow to love Him even more. I am amazed at your resilience, but I know that sometimes, life hurts. But do not forget that Momma loves you very much and that God is always there for you. He knows the missing parts in our lives and will fill the holes. Someday, things will be better for us. I promise you, it will. Never stop praying and believing. God's promises are waiting around the bend.

I love you, Sweetie! Happy 8th Birthday!

Momma

Securing Your Child's Future

I spent the day listening to my aunt explain the wonders of life insurance. Yep, from morning 'til about 30 minutes ago, my head got it's fill of "face amounts, terms, cash values, endowment, maturity", etc. Not that I am complaining, but I spent the whole day in her office digesting every possible information on the investment I got for my kids.

Are you insured? Are your kids insured? Life Insurance isn't as simple as you may think it to be. It is not merely money you don't see (as some of my friends put it), but money set aside to secure your family's future. It is a guaranteed investment. The only guaranteed, sure-sure investment I could bank on, really.

5 years ago, my former officemate W and her hubby were gunned down on Araneta Avenue after withdrawing money from their bank. They were supposed to meet my aunt a month before that happened, to purchase Life Insurance for themselves and for their child. But they had to postpone the meeting because they had a US trip to take and needed the cash. Had they purchased the plans as planned a month before they died, they would have left a legacy to their only child. But no, circumstances prevented them to do so. Sayang, the child could have gotten a good amount plus she could have been insured for life for free.

However, Life Insurance isn't just about sure money after death. It is so much more. In my case, I purchased Life with Endowment for my kids. It is complicated to explain, but I know my kids have something for college, for business, or for whatever they want when they reach a certain age. And yes, it is better than keeping money in a bank. It is the best thing I could have gotten them, with what little I could afford.

Most of my friends think that life insurance is a wasted investment as it is not tangible unless the person insured passes away. But that only shows that they know so little about what is available to them. I am telling you, if you don't have a plan today, it is time to go and get one!

Credit goes to itstimeph for the YouTube video of the It's Time! Commercial featuring James Yap and Baby James.

Should you be interested to know more about what Life Insurance can offer you, leave a comment and I will get back to you. :) Don't pass on this chance to give your family something they can fully depend on.

Omnomnomnom!

Today is Brothers Burger Summer Special Day! After work, A and I trooped to the nearest Brothers Burger joint near our house to get ourselves some juicy burgers at half the price! This year, they only had their Big Brothers Burger on sale at 50% off the regular price of P175.00. Last year, the pounder went on sale as well. According to the girl at the counter, they had a lot of complaints last year due to order delays, so they decided to stick to just one variant this year. Never mind though, their burgers are just oh-so-nom!

Our helper, T, looks forward to Brothers Burger Day every year. She just loves their burgers. Two years ago, when I was pregnant with RL, Brothers had a special close to the Christmas Holidays. We got our burgers right before heading to World Trade for one of the Christmas Bazaars. T tried her best to save her burger for dinner, but she ended up eating the whole burger in the car! Nothing compared to the usual fastfood joints, she concluded. Yup, these burgers are the bomb.

Looking forward to the next Brothers Burger Day. We all know how I can only afford to have so much burgers in a year. Day 2 of killing my diet indeed. :P

~~~

Oh, Starbucks had a special day today as well. Free brewed coffee for anyone who brings in a reusable mug from 10-11am (Save the Earth!). But with all the meetings I had today, from 7am onwards, I missed that. Oh well. Not much of a coffee drinker anyway. I go to Starbucks more for their pastries. LOL! (Just kidding! I love coffee. Dang! I missed the promo. :P)

Happy Birthday, A!

Today, my daughter A celebrates her 8th birthday! We celebrated with a cake and some Blue Bunny Mint Chocolate Chip ice cream for merienda here in the office. Her party's scheduled for May, when the baby has been cleared from Chicken Pox (I am still keeping my fingers crossed that he won't get it). Meanwhile, the small celebration at the office made her day.

It's been a fun, eight years, Sweetie! Thank you for making Momma proud. I love you with all my heart. :)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

Look'it!

Look at what I finally found today! After visiting the Starbucks Emerald branch for two nights in a row, to no avail, I decided to go ahead and make a morning trip to Starbucks Tomas Morato to check out the newest doughnuts in town - Starbucks' Top Pot Doughnuts! Alas, trip well worth it, because we were able to get our hands on them!

According to Starbucks Philippines' Facebook Page, Top Pot is a family owned business started by two brothers, Mark and Michael Klebeck. Starbucks hand-selected Top Pot back in 2005 to carry their doughnuts in the Starbucks pastry cases of stores throughout western Washington. Now in the Philippines, Starbucks is pleased to offer its customers a unique, old style hand-forged doughnut. Let me tell you, it is reminiscent of deep-fried doughnuts from the corner store! What's more is that it is supposed to be 0g Trans Fat!

I am in love with their Glazed Old Fashioned Doughnut (as pictured)! I am telling you, my diet just died!

Top Pot Doughnuts come in 3 variants - Glazed Old Fashioned, Chocolate Old Fashioned and Top Pot Apple Fritter. We tried both the Glazed and the Chocolate (P55 each). These doughnuts have been launched at selected Starbucks stores. Check this facebook page for details on which branches already have them.

Crazy Meralco Bill!

IT'S BEEN A CRAZY WEEK. What without a nanny to take care of the little boy! I have to take over nanny duties when I get home, not that I mind. Except that it pains me to have to leave him with my helper during the day, who isn't so keen on taking care of kids - being a kid herself. Still blessed to have a helper until end of the month though. After which, I desperately have to find househelp or else I'll have to take time off work! Nyar. And I cannot afford that.

Early this week, I came across Chuvaness' blog post on the crazy Meralco rate increase. Got me dreading my bill! True enough, when I got my bill last night, it was up by 120%!!! What the...???!!! So let's see... We were out a total of 5 days for the previous month, aircon usage has been limited to about 3x a week (normally, as a bonus to us on weekends), and an average of 5-6 hours per day only. We iron our clothes once a week; we have a spin dryer that gets used about 2x a week and it's not the heavy-duty, heater dryers that eat up electricity. I gave away my microwave. We cut off the water heaters. We have two fans. And a refrigerator. Plus we use the rice cooker once a day. And given that the month that had passed gave us rotating brownouts, why is my Meralco bill so high??? Ok, it's nothing compared to Chuvaness' bill, since mine is around P4.2K only, but hey, for a 2-BR Condo Unit with 1 adult, 2 kids, and a teen, plus the fact that we're hardly home all day... ay-yah!

My friends share the same frustrations. Today, most of their statuses on Facebook are about Meralco and the sky-high rates this month. What's pissy is that we can't even do a single thing about it! I feel like Meralco took advantage of consumers and thought the summer months would be the perfect ploy to cover up the seemingly high increase in generation charge. But hey, there are consumers who constantly estimate their bills, given that they live within a budget, how can you explain a crazy increase when it isn't commensurate to usage?

I also read Chuvaness' other post on this issue - the one where Meralco writes back and tries to explain it's way out of charging her more than double her average bill. So their generation charge went up by almost P1.00, that's approximately 15-20% their previous rate. So why, pray tell, are our bills 100-150% up from usual???

It's crazy, I tell you! CRAZZZZZYYYYYY!!!

Crazy Day!

I had no choice but to take my kids to work today. I figured it'd be pretty easy to handle the little one, with his Ate A there with me. I was wrong. All day, I had to keep his little hands off everyone's laptop/PC/ Mac. Wherever he went, he attempted to grab this and that. He even attended our weekly staff meeting, found small blocks and banged the table with it, and just made a ruckus.

The funny thing is, no one else noticed the noise, except for me. I was stressed to the bone, trying to keep my little boy quiet, when all that time, everyone just found it cute that he was in the office. I took him to the finance department right before lunch, and he found some empty 5 gallon containers and started hauling them across the floor. Over his shoulder like a pahinante, which of course, everyone found adorable! I stressed over the fact that he was making a mess, and kept asking him to put the containers back. But each time he did, he'd fancy the next container and go about his hauling to here and there all over again.

I thought he was sleepy when lunch time came so I gave him a bottle to calm him down. We were gonna have lunch over at Trinoma, so we took the stroller with us, just in case he falls asleep while we were eating. But that didn't happen. The sight of food just woke him up. I ended up taking 5 spoonfuls total. The rest, he ate. Yes, the little boy has quite the appetite, and you don't have to fight to get him to finish his meal. He usually takes second helpings.

We had to get a few things at the supermarket, and he was getting all fussy in his stroller, since he never gets to ride on it when his nanny's around. I gave him the rest of his bottle and true enough, he fell asleep. Until we got back to the office, which was a good 5 minutes away. Then he was wide awake until we got home tonight.

Overall, it was a crazy, crazy day. Tomorrow, we'll be off on another road trip. This time without a nanny. I'm still deciding if I should bring my other helper. If I do, that means we can't stay over the weekend, because I won't be bringing Mickey with us. Oh well. I love this crazy life anyway. Wish me luck!

Nanny Woes... Again! *Sigh*

So RL's nanny had to go on vacay because of her bout with Chicken Pox. Today, she texted my other helper that she wasn't coming back. Argh.

Needless to say I am stressed to the bone!

Rant and Rave: S&R

(For lack of a better title, and not wanting to make it too general. :P)

Went to S&R Congressional for lunch today. Decided to grab two boxes of Fla-Vor-Ice for the kids. RL (will use this to refer to the little one, so you don't get confused) loves freezer pops! If there is one thing that will keep him distracted, this is it. Anything to beat the heat, I guess. Last night, I was trying to keep him from typing away on my laptop, and I tried all sorts of tricks. The Hawaiian Punch Freezer Pops did the trick (we got those from Clark). So today, I figured I might as well get him some more Fla-Vor-Ice from S&R. The more I keep on hand, the more surf time I get for myself. Hehehe. We were supposed to shop for more but decided to just limit it to the pops, since A was hungry already.

After lunch, I decided to grab some Hacienda Macalauan Fresh Milk to take home (Yes! S&R has them too). We were in a hurry to get back to the office so I chose the cashier with the shortest line - Register 12. No hitches until the cashier I was at realized she had no more of the smaller plastic bags. So she calls out to the bagger at the next cashier (Register 11) and asks for one, "Kamote, pahingi nga ng isang maliit na plastic o."

And the bagger feigns deafness. To which she prods again, "Pahingi naman ng maliit na plastic, naghihintay yung customer o."

The bagger looks up from the groceries he was putting in bags and says "Bahala ka diyan." The cashier next to him (Register 11) sees me staring at the bagger and quickly grabs a small plastic bag and hands it to the cashier at Register 12. The bagger continues to hurl insults at my cashier as she bags my milk and thanks me apologetically.

I gave the bagger a 'look' (if looks could kill, this was probably it). What a dumb*ss. He looked back smug like he didn't care if he insulted anyone. I went to my brother and told him what the bagger did. A wanted some ice cream, so after I got her some, I noticed the same bagger walking towards the Tires and Outdoor section near the ice cream stand. He looked at me like he was some untouchable and pretended to write on a piece of paper on top of a box display of chamois towels. Then he walked back to the cashier and got a push cart. So I asked the lady manning the ice cream stand what the bagger's name was. Turns out he was a Sales Assistant at the Tires and Outdoor section named Julio.

Well, Julio or whatever your name is. I hope one day you get reprimanded for this. You are not handsome. You even look like you could use a good nose trim! (ok, ok, out of line, but grrrr... ang yabang mo kasi!) Don't go acting like you're the coolest guy in S&R because you're not. And next time, respect your women co-workers! They don't deserve your slack just because you think you're better or way cooler than them (because really, you aren't!). And hey, don't make it personal when you're at work! There are customers that need to be served and they don't need to hear your bull about how this cashier broke your heart or how that cashier stood you up. Geez!

So there. I left S&R irritated. The atmosphere obviously wasn't customer-friendly. This Julio guy just stole points away from the somewhat pleasant shopping experience S&R could've given me today. Or maybe it's just too hot to be in a good mood. Bah!

Oh No!!! and All Sorts.

Our nanny caught the Chicken Pox Virus! And since the baby hasn't had his shots yet, he's a shoo-in for the Pox as well. :P I guess it's best that he gets it now. I'm just a tad weary because like R, he scars.

So our nanny had to sit out Easter celebrations. We attended the Easter Event at Crowne Plaza. Nothing fancy, and my little boy refused to don his pirate costume. But it was fairly easy to win prizes, so my kids, including the little one, had a blast. We took home tons! But like I said, nothing fancy. No traditional egg hunt either. They gave out cards instead, and you had to collect stamps from key people with Easter Eggs. My little boy contented himself with throwing the eggs on the floor, picking them up and placing them in his Mickey egg bag. Well at least he had fun! ;)

Note: Photo on right shows R (without his Pirate costume, of course!) picking up Easter eggs from the floor.

Thus, the best Easter Party we've ever attended still goes to Edsa Shang for their spectacular Easter event 5-6 years ago. And maybe Manila Penn for that time we stayed there when K was 6 or 7 (that's 11 years ago!).

Speaking of parties, A's 8th birthday is coming up and she wants a party since she wasn't able to have one last year for her 7th. Thinking of having a small Littlest Pet Shop party. But now that the baby is set to catch the Pox, we're moving preps and are looking at a party sometime in early May. Oh well, at least that buys me more time for last-minute planning. :)

Hope you had a lovely Easter!