A Walk Through Life

Indeed, birthdays can be made special without spending too much. In our case, here's how we've basically done it and I am sharing this to my blog as fun tips to help enjoy birthdays without splurging way too much.:-) 5 Tips to Make Birthdays Special Without Spending Hugely 1. Keep a low profile so that only the very few significant people will know that your birthday is coming. Only when your birthday is over that people will realize that you just had a happy one. :-) 2. Don't feel pressured about having to hold a birthday spree. Some friends or workmates are likely to send you a hint or two that they're expecting a birthday blowout but if it is not within your budget, you can just politely smile or beg off. For friends who send their birthday wishes on your Facebook's timeline (which you forgot to turn off), you can also jokingly say to your well-wishers " Your greetings are good but I need cash! " or " Can I convert all your birthday greetings...

There's really no stopping January to end soon. Yay, Valentine's Day month, almost! So now I need to get out of this blogging hiatus fast and catch up with my last two posts for January. By the way, my rock star brother turned supervisor celebrated his birthday on the 26th while a DG BFF is celebrating her birthday today. Happy birthday to the both of you, J and J! I promised myself to devote a post for my New Year's resolution before January ends. I've written this last year but I still haven't executed some of them. I had this saved in our computer so I think my husband had been all over this list and probably laughing, too, because there are just some of them that I couldn't bring myself to start doing. My analysis? If it's anything related to doing something for myself, it would seem like, procrastination is my best friend. Oh, I hope not! Okay, I really don't want to come up with too lengthy post about me and my New Year's resolution. :-) ...

If there is one thing that help other friends remember the day of my birthday - that would be because my birthday falls on Veterans Day. In short, you also need to remember what date Veterans Day is being celebrated annually. It's funny because some of my friends I met at work a few years back would rather celebrate Veterans Day than celebrate my birthday with them. I really don't blame them if they'd like to get rid of my birthday on the calendar because I usually celebrate my birthdays the frugal way. That means "no birthday spree" from me especially now that we have a baby. :-) Anyway, it is definitely an honor to have co-celebrated my birthday with the military veterans. The bravery/courage they have shown for their country is truly admirable and worthy of emulation. Now, I've learned that there's a very good way of honoring these military veterans. You can do this by donating your old vehicle. Wow, I wish I can do something like that but we don'...

There are two things to celebrate for this month of October - our wedding anniversary and my husband's birthday. FYI, and as usual, we are going to celebrate them our own way (the frugal way, that is. LOL). You know, I'm always excited about the anniversary of important dates in our lives even though my excitement doesn't mean we are going to celebrate them in a major kind of way. Somehow, it just feels great to remember what it was like on our actual wedding day. When that day comes, we will have officially reached the three year milestone in marriage.  Yes, up until now, we still smile when we look at our wedding photos. Ah, priceless! Three days after our wedding day, it's going to be hubby's birthday - truly an October to remember. If you want to know how we celebrated this month last year, check out this short video that hubby made for us. Then comes November. Oh, let's not talk about my birthday. Okay, we can talk about it. It's funny because I ...

Even though we had already agreed that the sendoff party was also our celebration of mom's birthday, we (hubby, yours truly, Dipdip, and the nanny) went to Compostela to celebrate with grandmother. We're the only ones who are available on that day since my brother already returned to Abu Dhabi while everyone else (including dad) has already returned home for the next day's work. And so, we just brought with us a cake, lola cooked two or three dishes, and my aunt prepared macaroni salad. Well, I can't show a lot of pictures because my camera was showing symptoms of A.D.D. again  :-) But look at how amused my Tita S (mom's sister) was with my daughter who seemed to be energetic at that time to show everybody her talent in dancing. Yes, lately, our one-year old princess dances everytime she hears music from the television commercials. Sometimes, she would sing, too (believe me). We didn't really celebrate that much because my Tita S has been diagnosed with th...

Last weekend, as I mentioned earlier, we were at our in-laws to celebrate Easter Sunday with them. Among other occasions to celebrate (hubby's two cousins graduated from the Nursing course), they also held a little celebration for Dipdip's first birthday. So, literally, it was dipdip's second first birthday celebration. I don't have pictures to show yet since we have already returned Papa's handycam and we weren't able to download the pictures and videos prior to leaving the gadget to the rightful owner. I was able to take a shot of the balloons from my own injured camera though before it automatically shut off because I forgot to charge the batteries. Hopefully, I will update this post with pictures of Dipdip with her cousins wearing party hats. Hmmm, looks like everybody's spoiling my princess... Thanks to all the sponsors! :-) By the way, I'm no longer expecting a third first birthday celebration but.... who knows? hahaha

I promised to write about Dipdip's first birthday celebration, so here it goes.. Dipdip's first birthday celebration was a "simple celebration" like we wanted it to be. It was in fact a belated birthday celebration because it had to be celebrated the day after her birthday. Her birthday fell on a Friday and so we thought it would be convenient for the attendees to celebrate it on a Saturday. The nanny and I took Dipdip to church on her birthday, though, to thank God for giving Dipdip good health. On the other hand, her father was sick for 3 days. He had fever which was secondary to tonsilitis - thanks to her sister's chocolates hehe (I'll write about my sister-in-law and her hubby who arrived from Norway in my future posts). Thankfully, hubby was out of bed on Saturday. The birthday celebration turned out well. This may well be just a first first birthday celebration since my in-laws will also be celebrating Dipdip's first birthday with them along wit...

It's been a year ago since I've written about coming home with Baby Pauline (Dip-Dip) from the hospital. This time, I'd like to do a little recap with DipDip's one year milestone. Newborn It was March 26, 2009 when I delivered Dip-Dip via Caesarian, it wasn't a planned Caesarian. It was a decision we both had to make at the eleventh hour to ensure that she will be safely delivered into this world. I guess Dipdip pretty much liked it inside my womb that she didn't want to come out. And of course, it also had something to do with my safety as well. It's funny because some friends would blame it on my age (referring to me as "old") because I had Pauline at the age of 32 years old. But what can I do - I only got married just a few days before I would turn 31, ya know. Well, anyway, we were so happy that the Lord has answered our prayers to bless us with a child. She was 6.8 lbs (3.1 kgs) when I delivered her. Not bad! First Month This was a pic...

This is a post of gratitude. I know I have said my thank you's to these guys already but I just want to do it here, so that when Didpdip grows up, she will be able to see this. Come next week, Didpdip will be celebrating her first birthday. There's always something with "first birthdays" that would really make us want to celebrate, especially for the sentimental moms like us. Hubby and I were going over our financial ledger, though, and already agreed to celebrate Dipdip's birthday by ourselves. However, there's a little pressure to have at least a simple celebration especially because they say it's a first. And so, thanks to my father who got my brother to donate something for Dipdip's birthday, we can hopefully have a simple celebration next week. Didn't have anything planned yet, as of. Well, another surprise came in just this week. A friend of mine "Cat" emailed me to say that she'll be sending a little something to help with ...

Today is my brother's birthday! He's in Bahrain, so we couldn't be with him on his special day. So, as our birthday treat, we just made a simple video greeting courtesy of animoto and youtube (we didn't spend a penny on this one but you know it's A for effort hehehe) to greet him a happy birthday. And as another birthday surprise, I will share to you mom's journal about him when he was still 8 years old. Okay, Fight!!! Jason, my youngest son when he was eight and one of his classmates became mortal enemies. I don't know why but I always hear them to be having boxing bouts everyday on very trivial things. This I've learned whenever he's home with cuts or bruise, sometimes only a scratch to indicate he has won at times. One time, according to Jason, her Lola (my mother's sister-in-law) saw them fighting across the street. He was scolded and they were stopped and separated at one moment only to be surprised when her Lola then moved them ba...

I just have to write about this. I'll write this under 'senti moments' category. It's really true that we feel special when we find our name on a birthday cake. Even though I didn't get to celebrate my actual birthday with a bang, I celebrated post birthdays with my in-laws last December 28 and had my name on a cake! Actually, this was the second time that I celebrated post birthdays with them and we always have a sponsor -- my husband's sister Ruthie! Isn't she sweet? This was actually my second birthday cake with them but I feel a renewed excitement just seeing my name on the cake every year even though the limelight is shared with other names. I guess I am really OA. :-) So, to all of you out there who probably have no idea what to give to their loved ones on their birthdays, as simple as a birthday cake with their name on it would give them a smile on their faces.

It's been thirty-three years of existence, and still counting, and yet at this point in time, I felt like I haven't really done much. Or have I? I think and I know there's still so much more to achieve. I don't have to be a perfectionist to be able to realize that I can go through life better than this. So much better than this. I didn't mean the material things because they're just passing fancies. Everything and everyone will all come to pass. Pondering on these things, I just realized that I've already hit my middle age, that is, if you look at the current average life span of a human being. And yet, at this stage in my life, I felt like there are lots of things that are left undone. Frankly, I really don't know why. I guess I'm just so afraid life won't permit me to fulfill all my dreams for my family while I still can. I'd like to see my daughter grow up, go to school, have a job, and have a family of her own. Or who knows, she just mi...

Yesterday we went over to Compostela to celebrate my late mom's birthday. We, minus my dad and brothers who are abroad, attended mass and got together for dinner. I don't know but I just felt bad that dad didn't try to make it to the celebration in memory of mom. He just chose to stay in Medellin because he said he's got work on Monday (that's today). Even though he also scheduled and attended mass in Medellin church for mom, I expected him to go out of his way to make it to Compostela. I thought maybe he's just not comfortable being around his in-laws because maybe (just maybe) he'd feel awkward because the in-laws are somewhat aware that he's dating someone. And maybe he wants to avoid any discussion with them about it. I know that he's already free to date (and I don't have any right to go against his decision or his happiness) when he became a widower but I don't know, maybe it just takes a lot of getting used to. Or perhaps I expected to...

it's my birthday today but i never felt any older, just wiser (ahem). maybe it’s because i love what i’m seeing in the mirror each day--a bulging stomach, joke. i thought if there’s anything i want granted for my birthday this year, it will not be for myself but for the rest of my family to be happ ier . i especially wish for my siblings to finally achieve what they want in their lives and for dad to feel that he’s not alone despite being left behind by mom. my birthday was simply celebrated in the privacy of our home. me and my husband shared together the special pancit that he had cooked for me. cheers for a long life of togetherness! pancit is his specialty. it's funny because when he was still single, he's not doing any cooking at their house, but now he's doing a lot more cooking than i do. i believe it's true that the saying also applies to us women: the best way to a woman's heart is through her stomach . hmmm, i guess i'm referring to my pregnancy ...

what else is new? i cried again today. i don't know if i can always blame it to hormones and pregnancy stuff but i've been emotionally unstable lately. my emotions are sometimes uncontrollable. when we got home from work, there was one birthday card waiting for him, with a free fastfood meal ticket as a birthday treat. it's from the telecommunications company. call it pathetic but i really felt so bad that i broke into tears because i didn't get anything for my husband's birthday, not even a simple birthday card, like the one he just received. i've been meaning to get him something for his birthday but since we always go out and go to work together, i didn't have the chance to sneak around and play the thoughtful wife. i had my chance yesterday morning when we had to file for a leave. we had to go separate directions to save some time--he went out to renew his driver's license while i had to visit my ob gyne for my vitamins. unfortunately, ob gyne didn...