Taking a Breather

Busy days are still up ahead but after spending the past weeks on work, mini-trips and running around supervising renovations (home and office), Jerry and I found some time to visit Body & Sole at the Forum for some foot scrub and massage.

It was a glorious 1 hour break from all the dizzying schedules. I think I must have dozed off while the lady attending to me was busy kneading and scrubbing my weary footsies.

After gulping the last drop of hot tea, we drove to nearby Waterfront Hotel, Lahug for a few drinks. Our stop was at Treff where Jerry had a couple of San Miguel beer bottles while I tried something I should have done (but didn't) in S'pore, the Singapore Sling.

Hmm...a relaxing massage, some drinks, good conversation with my best bud and thumping chill-out music sure unhinged my knotted muscles a bit.

How was your weekend?



Body & Sole at the Forum




Singapore Sling

Summer 2007-Trip #3 (Bohol)

This should have been trip #2 as it happened before Jerry and I went to S'pore. However, the recent spate of rush activities at work and at home prevented me from updating my posts promptly. Anyway...

When the Manila office went to La Luz in San Juan, Batangas for their company outing, Cebu decided to go to quiet Bohol for an overnight trip. Except for a few, all of us hauled ourselves to the pier early Saturday morning of April 14 for a Supercat trip that would take us to Tagbilaran.

Since the boat fare was only about P600 for a Cebu-Bohol-Cebu trip, Jerry and I decided to take the kids along. The three boys were all excited. 3yo Jake couldn't stay seated and kept mingling with the office employees while on board the boat. Two hours later, we arrived and docked on the pier which was pretty small but looked newly renovated.

First stop was the food shop where we had a sumptuous seafood lunch that set the mood for this entire trip. By 1pm we were inside the coaster that took us around the sights of Bohol. Sagbayan Peak was slightly over an hour away and fortunately for us, Jake slept throughout the drive. By the time we got there, he was up and about until after we got back to the hotel after dinner.

If I completely narrate the beauty that we saw in Sagbayan, Carmen, Loboc, Baclayon, and Panglao, this entry is going to be reeealllyyy long. Let me just embed this slideshow just to give a glimpse of what Bohol could offer its visitors, but believe me the pictures don't do justice to these faces sights!

Summer 2007 - Trip #2 (Singapore)

Back in February '07, we decided to purchase roundtrip tickets for Singapore. Total fare for the two of us was a little more than 15k. Not bad, considering that the flight was straight out of Cebu and back via Cebu Pacific. That alone was enough justification for us to decide on taking the trip plus the fact that we timed it on our 15th anniversary. :)

It was Jerry's second time, while it was my first time to see the place. Thanks to my good friend from high school in DLS-Z who opened her impressive condo for our 2-days-2 nights stay. She even gave us valuable sightseeing, shopping and food tips!

Together with Jerry, I had fun doing these...

- spending time with friends...
- taking the MRT and experiencing one of the most efficient transport systems in the world...
- blending in with the locals and people of other cultures...
- taking the Duck tour for an hour of sightseeing...
- seeing the Boat Quay, Merlion Park, Suntec City, Night Safari, Orchard Road at night, Clarke Quay, Forbidden City Bar, hawkers, Sim Lim, Little India, Orchard Road at daytime, Mt. Faber...
- touching the little sharks and manta rays in Underwater World, Sentosa...
- seeing a fantastic view of Singapore and neighboring Indonesia and Malaysia aboard the Carlsberg's Sky Tower...
- sampling the famous fish head curry, laksa, chicken rice, prawn noodle soup, roti prata, sugar cane and lime juice, one shot of vodka kiwi inside a -12degree bar...
- shopping...

Our trip was simply too short and we would have wanted to spend a day or two more. It would have been nice seeing more of the place, tasting more of the exotic foods and meeting up with Singapore-based Marikit sisters! The short trip however did not stop us from taking in as much of what the place could offer. Singapore was a totally new experience for me and I still have a lot more reasons why we should go back... someday... soon.

Have you been to Singapore? What did you enjoy seeing/doing the most while there?

15 Years Today

ONCE IN A LIFETIME

Once in a lifetime comes a love,
So sweet, so pure, so rare;
A flashing, brilliant, blinding light,
Like a comet through the air.

A love without rhyme or reason,
That knew no space or time;
Wrapped itself around my soul,
And captured this heart of mine.

There was something there so special,
Mere words cannot explain;
The way our hearts were intertwined,
And how that still remains.

A fabric woven tightly,
Each strand a color rare;
An intricate pattern of richness,
With beauty beyond compare.

Once in a lifetime comes a love,
With no beginning or no end;
The sweetest gift I ever shared,
With my love and my best friend.

Allison Chambers Coxsey
©1995 ~ All Rights Reserved



Happy Anniversary to Jerry and me! :D
Thanks Junnie for your anniversary post!




...at Fort San Pedro, Cebu (April 2007)




...Loboc River cruise, Bohol (April 2007)

Ahh... Elusive Sleep?

Not for Jake and certainly not for me.... Sleep is our friend...



photo courtesy of 13 year old son, Matt


The sleep of a laboring man is sweet. - Bible, Ecclesiastes v. 12.
Blessed is the person who is too busy to worry in the daytime and too sleepy to worry at night. - Unkown


Do you have a hard time sleeping? :D

Just For The Sake Of...

Everyday I stuff my laptop bag with folders containing invoices for payment processing, receipts for reimbursements, printed pages from the internet like maps and tips for our upcoming trip, bank statement for reconciliation, unread newspaper for the day, etc....

A lot of times, these papers don't even get the chance to be taken out of my bag and looked at which I regret not doing, when I wake up the following morning. I get sidetracked by listening to my boys' stories about their activities for the day, by watching Jake's antics the moment he sees me walk in the door, by watching Sanjaya on American Idol or Grey's Anatomy, by going online, by dinner, and (gasp!) by the junk food...

Why do I keep doing this? Hehehe...It's a lost cause, isn't it?

Have you (ever) tried bringing home some paperwork hoping to be able to get something done? How did you fare?

To Date

- We now have a new house help. Yay!
- Our house renovation is almost done.
- Our office renovation is 90% completed. Target move-in date is in a week's time.
- Our loan from Mama Sol is already FULLY PAID (just a few more loans to pay off).
- The family had a 4-day Manila trip and stayed overnight in La Luz, San Juan, Batangas together with Manila colleagues.
- We will be going to Bohol this coming weekend for our company outing.

There are still more to happen (which I will mention in a later post)!

Things are definitely looking up this side of Cebu! ;)

How about in your part of the world? Highlight what recently happened to you. Or better yet, is there something you're looking forward to?

Black Saturday 2007

Our cook and all-around househelp went home to nurse her health. She's been advised to rest so as not to aggravate her thyroid problem. We are now left with just the nanny who's also doubling up as all-around househelp.

Our stop-gap solution:
1. Jerry takes over the kitchen.
2. I take care of Jake.
3. Matt washes the dishes.
4. Kyle cleans up after his mess.
5. We have our laundry professionally cleaned.

Well, I guess we're managing... :D

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To avoid having to clean up, we all went to spend most of the day out of the house. In the morning, we tried to drive to the Celestial Gardens on the hills of Banawa to check out the life-size statues of the Stations of the Cross. There must have been a big crowd who went on a pilgrimage to the site yesterday (Good Friday) as it was littered with all sorts of wrappers and food debris! What a disappointing sight...

We decided to just go back to the place some other time when it's not the Holy Week. Perhaps it would be a lot cleaner. Driving down back on the road, we decided to just have our lunch in the mall. Chowking was our first choice for their Salo-salo meals only to be told they just have about 5 items available on the menu. Oh well... Out we went to try our luck at Harbor City...

The food outlet was packed as if the whole Chinese community decided to converge to the place... We were lucky to be seated right away.



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As usual, the time spent wiping out all evidence of food was much less than the wait. Trust Matt and Kyle (and soon Jake) to do the "clean up" in just a few minutes. To work the calories off, gained from the rich dimsum for lunch, we stopped by the cellphone shops. I was about ready to relinquish my present Sony Ericsson W800i in favor of Matt as I promised to give it to him if he gets back to the top 10 of his class.

The year-round sale is on (yey me! hehehe) and I was (almost) willing to get lured into buying the Sony Ericsson W710i. I didn't want it for the form factor but more for the features it offered. It was very much like my present one plus added features that I sort of liked: a calorie counter (yeah right) and a pedometer (nyahaha!).

After some thought, my good sense prevailed (thankfully!). I couldn't stop thinking about it though, which is actually a bad sign. Oh well... Note to self: "Delay gratification!"

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We drove to Mama Sol's to get Mamarazzi. By the time we got there, Jake was already asleep. Perfect! We spent an hour driving leisurely to the South Reclamation Project (SRP) and back. Then went to show Ma what used to be Kawit Islet but is now connected to the SRP, the Malacanang of the South and finally stopped at Fort San Pedro.

It was here that we spent much time taking pictures of everyone and videos of Jake as he chased all the pigeons away (funny sight!).

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By 530pm we were on our way to Ma. Luisa for a visit to the boys' A-ma. It was a short meeting between the two grannies (my Ma and Jerry's mom) after a long time. We left the kids for about an hour, stayed at Bo's Coffee Club in Banilad Town Center, dropped Ma off to Sto. Nino and went back for the kids.

Back home by 8pm, we gathered around the dinner table to partake of the mouth-watering Sr. Pedro roasted chicken (which we hurriedly bought on the way), and finished off our meal with pieces of ponkan for dessert.

That was how our Black Saturday went. Mind sharing yours?

Starting a Holy Week Tradition

Holy Thursday for our family means going to Confession in the morning, doing the Stations of the Cross and attending the mass (washing of the feet) in the afternoon.

Good Friday is listening to the 7 Last Words and attending the mass and veneration of the cross.

Today, we added a new twist to our Holy Week tradition. We all agreed to refrain from complaining, whining or saying anything negative. If we feel like saying something negative, we have to re-phrase it to make it sound positive like:

Instead of saying "It's soo warm!", we say "The sun is shining brightly today" or instead of "You're too slow", we say "Let's move faster", etcetera. The "punishment" is P1 to the pot if we go against the rules.

The 4 of us are making the extra effort to be extra conscious about everything that we say. Funny thing is, we have been so accustomed to griping, whining, giving negative comments etc., that it can be quite tricky to stay within the rules. Everyone is watching himself as well as the others if somebody attempts to say something. I, myself, am not spared from coughing up these P1 penalties. And the pot is slowly (buti na lang slowly) getting bigger.

It's an effective way teach kids and adults to have a more positive attitude. It usually starts with the words that come out of our mouths.

"Until when do we have to keep doing this?", Kyle, my 10 year old 2nd son asked. "Until Easter Sunday", Jerry replied "or probably continue for life".

Instead of the usual: "Huh?" or "No..." or any other word of protest, we heard a long sigh from the boys.

See? Didn't I just say it's effective?
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As I was working on something on my laptop this afternoon, I felt the urge to... uhh...pass some gas (excuse me), on account of which, Jerry laughed and suddenly blurted at me: "One Peso!"
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So there's an additional rule included... No obnoxious sound effects too!

2007 - Visita Iglesia

Last year, we went on a road trip to the south of Cebu to visit the different centuries-old churches... The weather was perfect and we had a good headstart in the morning for a trip that stretched for 6 hours on the road. Lunch was bangus from Jollibee (Carcar branch) and devoured heartily by the shores of Ronda...

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This year, we decided to drive to the north of Cebu to see their churches. We left after lunch and thought we'd just go as far as Sogod before turning back to the city to catch the 6PM mass.

The weather started perfect but as we reached Danao, it became overcast. From the coastline, the water looked rough. There was drizzle. Inspite of it all, we managed to see some parts of the beautiful countryside of northern Cebu province and visit two churches - in Danao and Liloan.

Plus, what made the roadtrip more special is the fact that we made it with the kids' Lola, my Mom, who saw more of Cebu for the first time.

Funny Way With Words

One day 3-year old Jake was excitedly telling us about some tv feature about the Sinulog (Feast of the Sto Nino in Cebu).

“Pa, pa, Jacob watch 'SiHulog'… tv…”, he chattered away.

“Really? When did Jacob watch “SiHulog” on tv?”, my hubby asked.

“Jacob watch 'SiHulog' yesternight”, Jake proudly replied with a big toothy smile.
—

This morning, Jake was playing with my office laptop. The game was Warcraft. Matt, my 13 year-old son, was trying to help him out.

I didn’t realize, until today, that 3 year old Jake could already string words to form a coherent grammatically correct sentence, completely in English.

“How do I find the castle?”, he asked Matt.

Only, he mispronounced the last word as “cas-ol”.

Random Stuff

InVISIBILITY

Ok I may have prematurely raved about Globe's Visibility . Now my Visibility connection is crawling...ever...so...slowly.
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Withdrawal Symptoms

After the Jobstreet Career Expo last weekend, my officemate inadvertently brought my laptop bag to her hotel, thinking it was hers. We all had the same red colored laptop bag issued by the company.

I have never been away from my Mac. I bring it along wherever I go. Imagine my surprise when I learned the following morning that it wasn't in the house nor in the car! Just when I was all excited to spend a few minutes of blog time...

That same day, I had fever.
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Clean Bill of Health?

My resistance must have been lowered by the hectic schedules we had the past couple of weeks, hence my bout with cold and headache a few days back. But after my basic panel / laboratory tests this morning, I'm glad to find out I'm A-ok.

Even my right leg x-ray didn't indicate anything to be worried about. Now I'm scared about the nagging bruise I have just above my ankle, right below my shin. Hmmm... Rebuke! I'll just pay the doctor a visit this coming Tuesday. Like my tests, I hope everything's normal.
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Have a blessed Holy Week, everyone!

Jobstreet Career Expo In Cebu

It was a gruelling 2 days as our company participated in the Jobstreet Career Expo in Cebu this year. Together with some other IT companies and call centers, we set up our booth at the Ayala Center Cebu the night of Thursday. Starting Friday morning up to late afternoon of Saturday, we saw a continuous trickle of interested applicants both fresh-graduates and those working and looking for new options in their careers.

We had about a hundred registrants for the code camp we plan to hold in Cebu for the first time. This is a 6-week training program (with paid allowance) for fresh-graduates where they get to immerse themselves in the different technologies we use. After rounds of eliminations, out of about 3 groups, the winning group gets a cash prize, a free trip to Hongkong Disneyland and the chance to be employed by our company.

Thanks to those who volunteered and took their time off from the office for a few hours (Erle, Jann, Jevica, Bong, Korina, JM, Teody, Diana, Harold, Jackie), or manning the booth would have been more daunting for Jerry, Rox, Mafe and me.

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After the career expo, I found myself suffering from a bad case of cold and migraine. The fresh calamansi juice at Oh Georg helped a bit together with several doses of Decolgen forte and Biogesic. But the virus proved more potent early this morning (Sunday) as I suddenly developed a mild fever, rendering me unable to join Rox & Mafe at Costabella beach. *Sigh*

I'm feeling a lot better now, I hope the virus has run its course. Off to sleep...