A Walk Through Life

My walk through life blog presents... Dipdip at eleven months old! This only means one thing -- One more month and she'll turn a year old! :-) Yes, she just turned eleven months and she's such a talker! Only that the right words won't come out from her mouth just yet. Watch this video only if you want to see it. Thanks! :-)

Do you own a printer that always runs out of ink? Are your children always complaining because they can’t print important pages for their projects just when they would need it for the week’s submission? Why, what’s up with that inkless printer? Why do you own a branded printer but can’t afford to buy that most coveted ink? Surely your printer now is lying there useless and abandoned because you didn’t buy it new ink. You say you would just wait until your next month’s salary comes so you can buy the ink for the printer without messing on your budget. Wow, so that’s how expensive your ink is? I tell you, we all need to be practical. So, don’t go for that expensive stuff anymore. Why be so lavish about an ink when you can buy cheap ink? With a cheap ink, your need to print a lot of pages will no longer be put on hold. You don’t worry now about your children being late on their projects again because they won’t be, ever. You don’t worry about printing your own self-made greeting cards. S...

It is still February, right? I figured you want another dose of happy moments from mom's journal ... During one of our home parties given in favor of my brother who has just arrived from his singing stint abroad, he had 2 of his closest friends (Bebe and Roque) to stay up late for a very interesting discussion - a topic about linguistics applied to different countries. Manny, my brother said that in Japan, it was very hard to apply what you can easily learn in English. "In English language," he said, "we can use terms to substitute the words we mean to say. Synonyms, in short." "Yes, it's true!" the younger visitor of the two, nicknamed Bebe, said. "Just like for example when we say "like". It's like "love" and there's another term for that. There are many substitutes you know... it is...." he forgot and asked Roque about it. Roque mentioned many synonymous words yet they haven't agreed because the yo...

The next paragraphs you will read below are my husband's thoughts about cars and car maintenance. I am just his secretary for now. And he is guesting on my blog! :-) In the past, owning a car was considered a luxury, but today it becomes a necessity especially if you're living in urban areas. Commuting in a public transportation can either get you fired or deny you to get that elusive promotion because of tardiness. Therefore, owning a car is a must to get to your workplace on time. A car provides us comfort and independence to get to the place we want. This is why it's very important to have it regularly maintained by trusted car maintenance shops. If you're in Dallas, for example, there are plenty of Dallas auto repair shops that can help your car engine to give its best performance. Aside from giving the car's engine maintenance care, we must not forget that power without control is dangerous. I'm referring to your car brakes. You don't want your car...

Listen now, would you buy this idea? I had a little discussion with a relative about wives gaining weight after delivery and having a hard time losing it. This whole discussion started when this relative was surprised to see me not losing so much of my maternal weight ever since I gave birth almost a year ago now. Yes, it's almost been a year since I gave birth but for the life of me, I'm still not reduced to my desired weight, shape and form.  Photo courtesy of Shiela Hamac Anyway, going back to the discussion on gaining weight, she and her sister told me that I did not lose weight because my husband did not fool around and that I can easily get thinner if he turns unfaithful. They said they were telling from experience.  Now, would you rather have a faithful husband and not lose weight?  On the contrary, why would any husband stay unfaithful when he has a sexier wife now? So silly. But then relatives are relatives. Maybe they were just telling me that to make me ...

I'd like to share my mom's secret wish. She shared it to the Lord in her prayer first. Well, we always share our secrets with the Lord, right?   If you can't read this, it says " Lord, I wish  I could make just one book that is one of the best sellers! If one by one all our dreams will come true, please let this be the one . " Even though I know she wasn't able to fulfill her wish because the Lord already made the courtesy call for her to be in Heaven, I can make that wish fulfilled for her pretty soon. If I can't do it myself, then I'll pass it on to my little girl. :-) So, my secret wish is to fulfill my mom's secret wish. I guess it is no longer a secret, huh? What about you guys? Would you like to share one of your many secret wishes? *wink*

I'm saving this space again to make way for Mom's journal about me when I was 10 years old. If you have read my prequel to the writer and the pen post, then don't miss out on this one. This happened when I was in the fourth grade, I think. I guess I was a little hard headed during my younger years. :-) Read on if you're curious about what I did which deserved this entry to my mom's journal of happy moments. Got No Pain!  My daughter, Joan, has something in common with her brods and sis. It was her way of handling physical pain in a detached manner . One time, she was trying to play spinning top. I immediately told her to give back the top to her elder brother coz she has no right to play a game that befits the opposite sex. She was 10 years old, this time. However much I rebuked her not to do such a thing, she positioned herself to spin the top and she did it clumsily that it landed not on the floor but on to her gums! Believe me, I really saw blood com...

" Haste makes waste." But why do superiors keep pushing 'SPEED' to their subordinates? Why do some of them care about the quality less than the speed? Well, maintaining a so-so quality with a huge emphasis on speed can bring on good and better income for the company. But the question is, for how long? While this is quite a disappointment for employees who want a touch of perfection in their work, they can't do anything about it but to comply. Indeed, it makes such a waste to do things in haste. How many times did we try doing things too quickly that we didn't and aren't able to do them well enough and only to find ourselves doing and re-doing it again? Again and again, because time is gold , we shouldn't do things in haste. We don't want to get stuck doing the same thing because we haven't done it well the first time. Nothing personal. Just my random thoughts. :-)

When dipdip's teeth started to appear, which started somewhere between her sixth and seventh month, we have already started putting a little fluoride on her teeth and gums. This was the pediatrician's instruction. We were worried at first because she doesn't know how to spit it out but we were told that it's okay for her to swallow some fluoride as long as it is just a little amount. We've been planning to really let her brush her teeth because each time she sees us brushing our teeth, she gets so amused and looked really excited to have the same experience. Last night, she ate a lot of fish and we didn't like the smell of her mouth after taking her dinner. So, we decided it's time to let her use the new toothbrush that's meant for her age. By the way, we only used just a really, really, really tiny amount of the toothpaste because she's not learning how to spit it out just yet and we have also learned that too much fluoride on a child can cause fl...

On Valentine's Day, I didn't have my husband and my daughter to myself. We were celebrating it with my in-laws. I would have wanted to celebrate it with my own family as well but they were literally in different places. Aside from that, the invitation from my in-laws came ahead. It was like we were really booked to be with them on February 14 like two weeks ahead. It was a fun celebration even though it was more of a birthday celebration and fiesta in honor of the patron saint, Sto. Niño. I am happy to say that my in-laws really treated me like their real family even from the start of our marriage. Because we are really family now, right? There were lots of food prepared on the table. And I managed to eat just a little of everything. All right, I guess I slipped again. But it's Valentine's Day, okay? And there are February birthdays to celebrate. So, why shouldn't I partake?  :-) Even the papaya's felt really special on that day. Overall, it turned out to...

This one is inspired by Mary's Madness Top Ten list, here are the top ten things I slightly don't like about Valentine's Day! 1. Restaurants Are Filled Sure Valentine's Day is a time for great dinner dates and all but when all you wanted is to eat at your favorite restaurant and there are no available seats, you might just end up ordering for a takeout and then find yourself celebrating VDay in your home! 2. Valentine's Day is on February 14, Not February 15! When both of your salaries fall every 15th and 30th of the month and you weren't able to save a portion of your previous month's earnings, you and your partner are off to celebrate it the next day. (Now this solves the problem on list #1). 3. Celebration of Valentine's Day can sometimes be too expensive. If list #2 is not a problem, you're lucky -- but be prepared to have a fair amount of cash on your wallet. Or at least have a credit card that's not maxed out! 4. Taxis Are In De...

Why do we take the time to smell the coffee? Why do we take the time to smell the flowers? Why didn't it say that 'Time is diamond' if we were to emphasize on how precious time really is? Quite frankly, it is not realistic to think that we have time forever in our hands. In fact, we are catching up on it! Seriously, time is gold but we don't need to rush. In fact, it means that our time is precious that we need to spend it wisely. Let's not do too much goofing around. Let's not keep doing too much intermission in our lives when we know we've got so many things that are left undone.

To tell you the truth, it's my husband who does much of the cooking around the house. I believe he cooks better than I do. And faster, too! If you want me to cook, you better give me a lot of time so I can do it pretty good. When husband is cooking, he would already heat the pan or start the cooking right away while he is also busy cutting, slicing or preparing the rest of the ingredients to his recipe. He's definitely an ideal home chef! As for me, I like to have everything cut, sliced or prepared ahead before I turn on the heat and get everything started. Yesterday, when there was power interruption, I decided to make spaghetti for all of us. I thought it would be a perfect pre-Valentine's Day treat! I especially made my husband's spaghetti plate extra special by carving out small hearts by knife from the red bell pepper. I secretly carved it out when he did the errand to buy the can of spaghetti meat sauce. So, when I served him his spaghetti plate, he was like sur...

After all the many things I've written about my brother Jason, I still feel like writing about him. Brother J had been my long time boardmate or housemate for many years before I got married and lived with my husband. In all those years where I became her guardian parent when he was still a student, I guess you can say that we've put up with one another, hehehe. I guess at some point (or shall I say 'at times') I was the typical 'overprotective' sister that most siblings would not dare wish to have. During my time, back in my student years, I've never really fooled around. I was the typical student and a home buddy. Sure, I have friends but they're also my kind. So, when it comes to brother and my younger sister, I thought it would help them be in the right path if I act as their sister disciplinarian but then I realized that this has not really helped at all, especially with my brother, because most of the time they would end up hating me for it. I...

My brother McAldz has been working in Abu Dhabi for almost 3 years now. Even though he's got a job there, it's not a job which afforded him some luxury, which explains why he would hardly make overseas calls to us. On one special occasion, he thought of calling our grandmother to check on her. He thought it would be a beautiful conversation with grandma considering that it had been a long time since they caught up on each other. However, instead of getting a good greeting from the other end of the line, he didn't expect to hear an angry voice. Grandma: Wa ko nalipay sa imong gibuhat! (Translation: I am not happy with what you did! ) McAldz (puzzled): Ngano man 'la, unsa diay akong gibuhat? (Translation: Lola, why, what did I do? ) Grandma: Nganong karon pa man ka kahuna huna ug tawag nako? (Translation: Why have you thought of calling me only today? ) LOL. I really found it funny when brother relayed this to me because he really thought he did a really major offense!...

Okay, this is February; so I guess I should write about love, love, love. Hmmmm, are you feeling mushy? Let's get my fingers typing now. How do I begin to write something about love? Oh well, I got a clearance from my brother to write something about his lovelife. Or should I say the love he never had ? Hahaha. I told him, maybe it wasn't love. Maybe it's an obsession with love. Well, let me kindly just rephrase it--maybe it's an obsession, period . But who are we to judge, anyway? This younger brother of mine (he is 7 years younger), when it comes to one person, is probably the world's shyest person. Well, torpe would have been the most appropriate word for it but I don't know how to translate that in English. I tried to Google it but I am not satisfied with the translation. But anyhow, he probably had reasons for being so shy about his feelings at that time because he felt he was no fit for her, being just someone who didn't have anything to brag about....

I thought I should post this video of dipdip where she happily walked away from her mom to be with the nannies who usually take their walks every afternoon. This was the same day we took the many faces of my baby . I was surprised to see my daughter, now at 10 months, walking away from me because she loves to stroll with her friends. Oh my, she's really walking now! I never thought it would be this early but oh well, there might be other babies who walked earlier than she did. I just thought I wanted to "baby" her, you know--where you just simply cuddle her and all. Now, she wouldn't usually want to be carried because she likes to walk !!! And I was like thinking of postponing her to grow up faster hahaha just kidding. Anyway, so here's that short video of my daughter walking away from me. :-)

It's tagging time! Thank you, Andrea, from Memories As A Mom for this Lucky Chinese Tag - we're not Chinese but it's definitely fun to fill up these eights! ♥ 8 TV Shows We Like to Watch ♥ It's Showtime Wowowee Sharon Banana Split (Daily Servings) ASAP 2010 Pinoy Big Brother Rated K Oprah P.S. Except for Oprah, those are Philippine TV shows, so some of you probably could not relate to it. :-) ♥ 8 Favorite Places to Eat & Drink ♥ Jollibee McDonald's Gerry's Grill Max's Chow King Sunburst Shakey's Pizza Hut ♥ 8 Things I Look Forward To ♥ Going to Bohol to have a closer view of the Chocolate Hills Going home to San Carlos City (my home town) Weekends! and lots of weekends to spend with family Have enough budget to beautify our house Losing more weight and feel good about myself again Watching at least one live concert a year Family's good health Another year of blessings ♥8 Things that Happened Yesterday ♥ Took a...