so funny

When the gardener came for his watering routine this afternoon, I showed him the drying leaves of my white flowering plants. He told me through action that it was because of lack of sunlight. He said he will transfer the plants outside my lanai. I said ok.

I was in the kitchen fixing my snack when to my surprise, I saw my five potted plants proudly fixed in the middle of my pocket garden.

I hurriedly went out and yes indeed, all of them have joined my flowers and calamansi plant. OMG

 My two tall plants and behind are my two white flowering plants.

See, my tomato plant was also uprooted.

And look at my empty pots now neatly aligned on my barbecue place.

But what can I do? My gardener is a non English speaking Pakistani and it was my fault that I did not clarify what he was telling me. I thought we had the meeting of the minds. Oh well. Anyway, I still gave him my pound cake for his effort of planting by himself. Let's just hope those plants survive the cruelty of the summer season or else I am dead to my Boss Dar. :)
Now my lanai is bare again.

Maybe this time I will consider nice artificial plants. There are lot of them in the Garden store but as expensive as the natural ones. Well, everything here in Dubai is expensive. Lalo na ang halaman, parang ginto. But we have no choice. A little semblance of home is all we can have as of the moment.

On this note, I'd like to wish you a wonderful weekend. Bless you. :)

wiped out

This is what happens when a hungry hippo has only this bowl of strawberry as her main food for lunch

in just a matter of minutes

Ubos. that one left is for her dessert. :)

my everyday

When my mother went to visit us for the holidays last year she kept on telling me that I was fortunate to have the kind of life that I have. I agree with her that this has been what I had always wanted--- to be with my children full time. But I also warned her not to make any conclusion about my life being a bed of roses all the time. Yes, I don't think of our finances anymore. Yes, my husband buys my whims.Yes, we can eat anywhere. We can go on vacation, etc etc. The list may go on and on if I want to. But I told her that it is not how easy as she sees it. 

You see, when everyone has left I am all alone in this house. Back in Laguna, being alone means I can go and chat with my neighbors while I walked my dog around the village. I also did all the chores back home but if I wanted to relax it was easy to drive myself to Paseo de Sta.Rosa for a soothing thai massage or if I wanted a quiet me time I could head straight to Nuvali for my coffee fix in French Baker. Here, I have a lot of me time but mostly it's all within the four corners of my house.

No, I am not complaining, just stating how life can be full of compromises sometimes. Actually, my husband has been telling me many times already to enroll in driving and culinary, I just couldn't find the motivation and the enthusiasm to do so. It's just so different from home. Oh well, let us see in the coming days.

Anyway, as soon as I am done with this, I will be on my chores. And it's true, cleaning this house everyday is tiring. In the beginning,we wanted to get a maid. But I decided to put if off for now. I can still manage and I am still sane. 

So what eats my time? Most of it are in the chores. To give you an idea how I begin, take a look:

Every morning, this is how DJ's bed looks like. Actually, this is how the boys' room looks like after dressing up for school.

It's so different from the girl's.

When she wakes up, she makes her bed.

DJ's study table

 as against Anjo's

Look at the boys' toilet

 and look at hers

That's why I am thankful I have a daughter. If I all of them were boys, how can I manage? :(

This house has 4 bathrooms (including the maid's which I use for storing and washing my cleaning materials) and one powder room which my kids also use as their toilet. Ouch! 
And who can stand a dirty CR? And so that's what I do everyday. Scrub, disinfect and deodorize. OMG. And this is just the toilets my dears.

And that reminds me --- I need to go now. Inday duties! 

Business in the future?

As far as my husband and I are concerned, we'd like to enjoy our retirement life. Meaning, my husband wants to enjoy the fruit of his labor when he is still robust and capable to see the world. 
This early, we are already figuring out the best time to say "Enough" and just savor all the hard work. Hence, we are planning how the hard earned money can work for us even if we are just sitting, or having our afternoon tea or traveling... dream, dream, dream.

Investments like mutual funds, time deposit, real property, agriculture, franchise, etc. always come into our minds. One day, he asked me what kind of business interests me, I said I want something laid back like a coffee shop maybe selling home baked cookies, blueberry and NY cheesecakes and chocolate cakes. He advised me to better enroll myself in baking while I'm here in Dubai so that when the time comes I already have the know how. Ay teka, parang ayoko  muna ng school school na yan. 
So, I told him I also wanted to put up a nail spa similar to the one owned by the wife of Ka Tunying of Channel 2.  But then he jokingly asked me if I could hold/touch other people's feet because as  the owner, I should know how to do pedicures too. I have to learn the ropes myself, he said. Oh wait, lemme consider then :)

The third lingering in my mind is putting up a parlor with hair and make up services. I don't know if its profitable but it really fascinates me to watch make up videos in the youtube. In fact I have accumulated quite a bit of make up stuff. 

I remember that I was not really so much into make up when I was still working. Yes, I did experiment with eye shadows, mascara, lipstick and blush. But now that I have so much time in my hands, I watch videos to learn the basics as well as the techniques. 
In fact I have my own organizer now.

take a look at my "passion"

Theses are my liquid and cream foundation, BB cream and CC cream. Givenchy CC cream and Dior BB cream are recommendable. Mac has nice coverage too but I think it works wonderful in the evening. It tends to be heavy on the face during daytime. I have yet to search the best primer for my skin, but I am more likely to stick with those brands with skin care options like La Prairie, Chanel, Dior etc.

my face powder, bronzer and blush. I don't experiment much on blush, in fact my three blushes you see (smash box,maybelline and make up forever) are with me for years already. For face powder, I am loving my Dior. Mac powder, I noticed is causing me open pores.

These are my mascara, eyeliners, eyeshadows and highlighter/concealer. Most of my eyeliners and mascaras were given by friends/cousin. I am thinking of buying matt eyeshadows (on the brown side) one of these days.

Lippies. I am a fan of estee lauder. The lipsticks that I have here were bought before I discovered estee.

Theses are my make up brushes. But I need a couple of brushes more, for contouring, blending etc.

Hubby can just shake his head when he sees my kit. hehehe. Just shake it off my dear. It's a girl thing. :) But seriously, I hope that in the future I can make something useful out of this passion.

Happy Sunday everyone!

I'm starving

When my favorite feel good teleserye ended, Be Careful With my Heart, I switched my TV habit from afternoon to morning. Now, I am a loyal Kris TV fan. It's aired at around 10:20 here, so I make it also as my breakfast pang aliw, while I eat.

So today, I made myself white spaghetti with prawn.

I checked for a number of recipes of carbonara but I didn't really follow any of them. I just wanted to get the main ingredients and the general procedure. And I made my own.

It has onion, garlic, cherry tomatoes and prawns sautéed in light salted butter, with cream, and mozzarella cheese added, topped with sweet basil.

As much as possible, I stock tiger prawn in my fridge. I prefer seafood over meat for my pasta and veggie dishes. Pang diet kuno.

I am not OC, in fact I am kalat. But when I cook I want it clean and orderly. After cooking, I want everything dish washer ready. Shoot lang ng shoot sa banga.

While I cook, I wash. Para pagkaluto, tuloy ungkot at kain :)

Kaya sa lababo, ready din sila. Hand soap.

Today is Thursday and tomorrow is weekend. Yeheyyyy!

I wish you the most pleasant Saturday and Sunday!
God bless us all!

rambling

just rambling. 

Yesterday was a damp day in Dubai. It was raining with lightning and thunder in the morning. I felt like I was in the Philippines. I was tempted to get depressed, so I pushed myself to listen to the songs  from Lady Antebellum and Lea Salonga in my tablet.  
Rain stopped towards late afternoon.

Today was sunnier and I am again listening to Lady Antebellum and Lea Salonga. In case you are wondering,sila lang talaga there. :) I am glad husband has a nice speaker. 

"mood lifter"

Warm lemon juice

Also this morning is my 4th day of warm lemon juice. Contrary to what I expected, it did not give me an upset stomach. I am not so sure if it's this lemon juice or the lessened rice intake, but I feel lighter. In case you are interested to try, I squeezed (manual) one  lemon to a mugful of warm water first thing in the morning. Coffee and breakfast would be like 2 to 3 hours later since I take a nap after I sent off the kids. It's health benefits are available in the internet. I was looking for an organic lemon but unfortunately it was not available that day. Next time.


This weekend

This Friday, we are scheduled to have a lunch date with a very nice person, significant in our career life both for me and dar. I checked my closet today for an appropriate dress and I noticed that I have been buying the same style over and over again. It's all Peter Pan collars or something similar to it. Take a look.

Haha. Talking about a very limited fashion sense. I better start reading fashion bloggers to educate myself. But wait, who cares about their taste, right? We should know ourselves better, what fits us, what suits us and what makes us happy. So keber na lang. Tuloy ang ligaya. :)

Hope you have nice day!

Reflection

I woke up past 10 am today and I chanced upon the Quirino Grandstand mass of the Pope. Lucky me. You see, since this cold season set in, I would always go back to bed right after the kids had left for school. Bad habit...

But, back to Pope Francis.

I sat down and settled comfortably in our living room and watched ANC's live coverage. I was not surprised by the multitude of people. It was expected. Aside from being a country were majority are Catholics, Filipinos are sentimental and emotional.

 When the 1995 Papal Visit theme song was being sang cameras were showing the mammoth crowd. Suddenly i felt a big lump in my throat. It was not the song, nor the Pope that made me cry, it was the unwavering faith of those people who braved the rain and stayed wet and cold the whole day just so they could receive the blessings of the Pope. It was truly amazing. Beyond words.

I am Catholic but I am not religious. I never defended Catholicism nor justified its practices to others. I avoid giving opinions on religions because for me faith is always a personal thing. Your relationship with God is something you cultivate, nourish and deepen. It should not depend on what sect you belong. However, I believe that everyone should have religion because their doctrines and teachings will serve as the moral compass in life. But again, each to his own.

But did I ever doubt my faith? Yes. But from the start, it was in my consciousness that I will never change my religion. I was born and raised Catholic and I will do the same to my children. Staying Catholic is my own way of honoring my maternal grandparents. They were devout Catholic, they were good people and they led a morally upright life.

Today is a renewal of faith for many of us, I guess.

May we stay blessed.

what's for lunch?

One of the few advantages of being left home alone most of the time is I get to decide whether to cook or not to cook, to eat or to eat more.Today, i decided to check what could be salvaged from  the fridge coz tomorrow is refill day.

 Mixed vegetables. I love having this in the freezer.  It was packed fresh and you cook it directly from the freezer. No need to thaw. It's crunchy and taste so good. It's halfway consumed because we used it for DJ's sports nutrition video.

Corn. The ever present corn in the freezer. If you want to hear a heartfelt "Thank you Mama from Anjo, then cook a cup of this. It's her staple food. Everyday corn. Ugh.
So, I got two pieces of prawns, sliced two onions and sautéed everything in lightly salted butter.

 Ground pepper and salt.

Tadaaannnnnn. Yum Yum Yum

Attack!!!

Oh weight!

My apology.
I did not have the chance to post any holiday greetings. Hubby had a an early vacation from office and so undivided attention attention must be devoted to him. :)
Anyway, I am sure you had a blast celebrating Christmas and New Year. Good for you coz I terribly missed all the foods that I used to enjoy and took for granted :(. My mother came to visit us so our holidays was not as gloomy as we expected it to be :). Hooray!!!!

But I gained weight. Sadly. From 51kg (sometimes less), I became 54kg plus plus. Parang VAT ang fat. So last week, I decided to start starving myself. Haha. Just kidding. I just went back to my normal eating habit. Less rice and less meat. But since I might be attending our 25th HS Reunion this April, I needed to look fab and fit. Naks! Artista ang drama.
So this week, I am pushing myself a little some more.

 Whole meal bread (wheat) to keep me full for a longer period of time.
and Fruits.
One of these days, I will start with my warm water with lemon first thing in the morning. Wish me luck.

 Sweet potato (boiled) and russet potato (baked maybe). Instead of rice. But I am not getting rid of my bff rice. I just can't. Once upon a time when almost everyone walked out on me, it was only Jasmine who stayed with me :) I love you Jasmine.

Oh I have cheats. Tao lang po. My favorite. Can't pass a week without this duo.

Also. Need I say more?

But of course, cheats must always be in moderation. Because I have a Goal.
It's this!

This is my size pre Christmas. The day I bought it (a day after Christmas) the gracious saleslady was giving me my actual size during fitting (one size bigger) but I politely refused. Excuse meeeehhh!!! Haha.

So this is it. For now. Need to go down. I might be burning our dinner. :)