MBR Updates

My boys painted our MBR last week and I am loving the new color. It feels so much more presko and bright - it was exactly what I wanted.

We didn't get to paint the baseboard heater covers anymore for the following reasons:
- we couldn't find the glossy white paint. I know we still have a can and I didn't want to buy more
- we were iffy about taping painters tape on the newly-painted walls before the paint had time to set in.

As it turns out, I barely notice them anyway. And yes, I realize that they are covered in both pictures I'm publishing with this post. That was not intentional :)

Our furniture arrived as scheduled the week after. The delivery truck arrived first thing in the morning - 7am! And they quickly unloaded the stuff. Ambilis!

Probably took them half an hour to get the stuff unloaded - dresser, chest of drawers, 2 nightstands, a king sized bed frame with headboard, and dual box springs. The bedframe had to be put together during this time while the other pieces already came pre-assembled.

At the time when this 2nd picture was snapped, the mattress had not been installed yet, we asked them not to put it on yet as we wanted to clean the wood pieces first.

I am so happy with our furniture and the 2 year wait is so worth it. I'm glad we didn't buy just for the sake of buying before and opted to wait till we find a set that we really like.

Home organization

Our home has been a work-in-progress since the time that we moved in - roughly, 9 months ago - and given our very slow pace, each update is really an achievement in itself :)

So here's our latest acquisition - the Kallax shelf unit and Knipsa baskets from Ikea. It's really doing a good job of keeping the clutter down (not completely gone, but it's way better now).

It's really similar to the one that we got for my home office (Ikea just renamed the series) and admittedly, this wasn't what I had initially envisioned for our living space. Since we have an open concept house where the living room, dining area and kitchen flows right into each other, I was thinking of getting a nice buffet for this wall here. As it turns out, this is one of those times when I'm sort of grateful that we didn't rush furnishing the house as this is really more appropriate to how we use the space.

In the ideal world I envisioned, all the toys are confined to the playroom, however, that isn't really practical in the sense that how am I supposed to confine Swe-cha within his playroom while I am in a completely different section of the house ?

Anyway, we can always move this shelf into one of the bedrooms eventually when we're done using it this way  =)

This is a wider view of the space.

We have two more things on my list to get before I would say that this space is complete, I'd like to get a big clock that would also serve as wall art and a TV & media table so we can get our TV off the floor.

Wish us luck!

Nice Guy Handyman (2)

The main reason why we called in a handyman was to come in and repair our 2nd bathroom upstairs. It had a huge gaping hole in the ceiling (can't find the pic I took last month) where the sheetrock was already rotted from steady drip from the hole(s) in the bathroom exhaust vent.

Jeff replaced the venting system w/ aluminum coated vent material, set it up so that there is some sort of a trap (much like a sink trap), patched the ceiling back up, tried to replicate the swirls (didn't too good of a job there, but hey, it's not like people spend a lot of time staring at the ceiling to compare swirls) and painted it up again (he matched the existing paint color). He even left the leftover paint behind for us so we can use it in the future if we need to get more work done.

We also wanted to replace our tub spout whose water diverter had broken off years ago.

It still works, you just have to sort of stick your finger into the hole in the spout. This is okay most of the time but when we have family & visitors come over and you have to explain how to do it... eh.. medyo kahiya.

And while we were doing this, hubby wanted the shower head replaced too.

This is supposed to be easy but the last time we tried doing this ourselves, we broke the shower arm off & left a piece inside the pipe behind the shower wall, we had to pay $150 for a plumber to come & fix it.

I figured, it was worth it to just get a professional to do things right rather than have to pay through the roof to repair what we botched up.

The spout was difficult to do. He had to cut off the existing pipe & solder a new one in. He had to do this a few times before the spout fit, looked and worked right. This wasn't a surprise because we had tried to replace the spout lots of times before. We bought different brands, types, shapes and sizes but none fit the existing pipe.

Lastly, the fill valve in the toilet is also cracked and leaking water big time. We've had to turn the water to this toilet off because water was constantly running all the time and would leak down to the floor.

This, too, is supposedly easy to do but the mechanism inside the tank is stuck to the porcelain due to calcium (hard water buildup). I didn't want to force anything because the last time we (okay... it was me!) did this, the tank cracked and we had to replace the whole thing.

Jeff replaced the toilet tank fill valve ($12 for the part) and the water hose connector ($6 for the part). I checked prices for the parts and his were reasonably-priced.

Nice Guy Handyman (1)

We're almost done w/ the home repairs, we've gotten the major fixes done, at least. My next few posts will be about the various repairs that were done to our place by Jeff, the Nice Guy Handyman.

This post will be about our laundry area (o sige na, ... closet).

Problem 1: Existing ductwork is made of plastic, this is no longer up to current building codes and is a fire hazard. Clothes dryers need to be vented, the vent goes into the wall, up the ceiling and should go all the way out of the building/house.

The outer ductwork is aluminum coated (up to code) but the ductwork inside the wall is made of plastic (outdated & could be a fire hazard because lint & dirt collects inside).

Problem 2: As luck would have it, it turns out that somewhere along the way, one of this condo's previous owners decided to cut off the ductwork in the ceiling and attached this vent to one of the roof struts.

Yes, our clothes dryer has been venting heat, moisture and lint into our ceiling all these years. We didn't know until Jeff went into the ceiling to check it out. The insulation around this vent was wet.

Problem 3: See the water hookup ? That hose is made of rubber. Rubber hoses (non-metal clad ones) should be replaced every 5 years and I recently heard from a friend that some condo associations are requiring owners to use metal-clad hoses in their units already.

Problem 4: See that faucet w/ no hose ? For some reason, our washer wasn't hooked up to the hot water, it's no biggie but I decided to just let Jeff check if the hot water source is live and if it is, to hook the washer up to the hot water.

Work done:

Day 1: Jeff replaced the plastic vent with aluminum coated venting material and connected it back to the ductwork (already exists) that leads out of the bldg. He installed metal clad hoses for the washing machine water hookups, patched up the holes that he made in the closet (for installing the new vents).

That night, hubby decided to cover the ugly walls up of the closet with some paint.

I wasn't really feeling up to it and I felt it was a waste of time since this was a utility closet anyway but I suddenly remembered that we still have that unused gallon of white paint left over from when we were doing some DIY work in 2009 (we stopped when we found out I was pregnant with Swe-cha).

An hour later, we had finished painting the upper portion of the closet. We only painted up to the part where the shelves were going to be installed, we figured we can continue the rest later.

I'm glad that hubby sort of insisted that we do this because the new coat of paint makes everything look so much cleaner and nicer. This is how it looks after Jeff put the shelves back up on day 2.

Now, I'm much much happier, after having done a couple of loads of laundry using HOT / WARM water :)

I'm hoping that we can finish the rest of the painting soon so this doesn't look half-done (and I know us... the longer we put things off, the lesser the chances of it ever getting done at all).

For the vent work, Jeff charged us 1/2 of what the other company quoted us. He also only charged us a little bit extra for the water hose replacement. I'm glad that we had this fixed because the existing vents were almost choking w/ lint (we really have to get the vents cleaned more often) and all that moisture being vented into our ceiling ?... can't be good.

Monitor Woes

Hubby's computer monitor, the hand-me-down that we got from my friend A, decided to retire over the Thanksgiving weekend. It has served us well for almost 3 years (not to mention the years that she spent with her original owner) so it just seemed kinda appropriate to me that it went with a loud *bang* yesterday - without any sparks or burning smells, thank goodness.

I guess I should also look to this as a blessing, that the monitor chose to go out in time for Cyber Monday.

Hope that hubby finds something that he likes in the price range that I like.

Our first harvest

Our tomato plant, a gift from good friend A, has flourished and gifted us with our first harvest of the season.

Hubby got a bit sad again as he was taking these pictures and snipping the ripe tomatoes off of the vine. He has been the primary caretaker of our little container garden and he gets very sad at the thought of this tomato plant dying at the end of the season.

Meanwhile, here's a picture of our rosemary plant grown from snippings that we got from A too.

Laki na no ? (pwera usog)

I'll be using these to make some baked porkchops soon.

Officially Empty

Popcorn: 0, Checking Account: 1

"Haha!" said my checking account.

I recently blogged about our finances. Specifically, I talked about how we're running on fumes.  Anyway, the fumes have officially run out now. My heart gave a leap - poor heart, it keeps getting startled nowadays - when I checked both credit card accounts and sorted through ouor recent mail this morning

Egad!

$$ for card 1 due on the 14th.

$$ for card 2 due on the 7th.

$ monthly condo maintenance fee at the end of the month 

$ Car insurance payments due on the 9th

$$ life insurance premium

- utilities

I crunched the numbers and no matter how much I've been saving and scrimping, there's no way we're gonna be able to afford to pay off the total without dipping into the supposedly-do-not-touch* account - which, by the way, is also almost depleted. There's really nothing to worry about because we're still at the $0* debt level, except that the "do not touch" backup account is $0 balance too. Haha!

I'm not complaining. All these purchases were legit - half of card 1's total is part of the new car'sdownpayment. We maxed out the amount that we can put on the card as per the dealer's policy, we did this so we can maximize the cash-back rewards on our card. Card 2's balance is mostly my family's plane fare for their July visit. I did get back the charges that I disputed last month, but that barely made a dent in the statement total.

I've been living in America for several years now but this is the first time I realized how easy it is to get buried in debt. Today is the first time that I can truly say that I can empathize with those who owe so much. I've always made it a policy to pay off my bills at the end of the day and I've always thought that this was enough to curb our spending.

Hindi pala.

This month just proved to me how easy it is to go through your money, no matter how kuripot you are, no matter how much you watch your cents & dollars and no matter how hard you think about your purchases. 

I hope this doesn't come as too much drama because we're still a long way off from being destitute but to those who are struggling to make ends meet, I know how you feel.

---

*Edit:  I just realized that we're not at the $0 debt level because we just took on this auto loan for the 2nd car. Sigh. So correction, we're at the $ xx,xxx debt level. For now.

Fumes

I was asking a friend who recently started a new job how things were. He said "eto, okay naman, nakakapanibago na parating merong laman yung checking account namin," and that made me want to check our checking account too.

So I log on. 

and gasp.

and faint (almost).

and I checked our credit card statements.

and almost fainted again.

We always make it a point to pay off our credit card balances when the statements arrive, this way we don't carry any debt. Our CC bills for the past few months have been ginormous because we've had to pay for some extras that we charged to the card:

- the bath lights and exhaust fans my uncle ordered (uncle paid me cash already)

- bro's purchases (bro paid me cash)

- Business travel expenses (company reimbursed me already)

- theater tickets with bro / hubby and pasyal expenses

- plane tickets for bro's visit (mom reimbursed me)

- plane tickets for mom, dad, achi & 2 boys' tickets (mom reimbursed me)

And then for that recent DP on our car purchase, I maxed out the checking accounts.

Oh, and let's not forget those fraudulent charges that were made to my account all the way from Spain. Unfortunately, I've been charged for these (I'm on automatic payment) even though they're being disputed. 

For those items that I've already been paid for, the money either went into my wallet or into a separate account so the account that normally funds the credit cards is feeling the burden.

For now, we are running on fumes and there's this delicate juggling act. Hopefully, the fumes last us till next payday and I won't have to touch any of our savings.

Prayers

I've always believed in prayers. 

Even during the hardest times of my life, I never felt abandoned. I would just take a moment to pray and raise my concerns up to the Lord and afterwards, I'd feel as if the burden has been lifted off of my shoulders - if not totally lifted off, then alleviated at the very least. After every prayer, I feel at peace with the knowledge that I've given up control and God has the reins and that He would never let anything bad happen. I know that whatever does happen to me is for the greater good.

On a different note, I've never really known how hubby felt about prayers. He was never the church-going type until we became bf-gf, and even then, he'd attend church with me but never when I'm away.

When we were talking marriage, I was kind of thankful that he's agnostic. I was not willing to let go of my faith and my church and I didn't relish having to argue my way to church every week. 

And with that background information, let me segue into the main inspiration for this blog. Every now and then, it has always been my habit to remind hubby of the things that we need to pray for - either in thanksgiving or in supplication. 

"Pray for a baby ah"

"Pray for our stability"

"Give thanks for the "

And always, he would answer me yes. 

I was pleasantly surprised last weekend when he added, "I always pray for our friends too."

Nakakatuwa.

Finally!

It's been weeks since I last updated this blog and so much has happened since then.

Our lives have gotten an upheaval in the past few days that it has taken me a while to get a breather and a chance to blog again. I have a couple of tidbits that I would be sharing in the near future and I'll start with one now.

A couple of weeks ago, Mom delivered the happy news that she and Dad have decided to join my sister and her kids for their visit this July. This is good, except that this sent us scrambling around looking for a 7 or an 8 passenger vehicle for our second car, rather than the sedan that we were thinking about.

Considering that my not-so-little younger brother is arriving for his annual visit next week, we thought it would be prudent to just purchase the 2nd family car now rather than later. I didn't want to have to juggle our schedules again.

I've always dreaded car hunting. You see, I get impatient easily and having no idea about prices, I do hate to haggle - especially with car salesmen who try to slip things past you and talk you into signing up for extended warranties and prepaid service contracts that would turn out to be impractical later on.

Thankfully, I did manage to get a few days off of work and I spent the time looking around for price estimates, dealerships and promotions. We thought that we had armed ourselves with enough information and had our hearts set on getting the Mazda CX9. A 7 seater, 3 row full-sized SUV with nice looking interiors and comfortable 3rd row seating. It didn't hurt that Mazda was currently offering 0% APR for the next 3 years for the CX9.

Unfortunately, we discovered during the test drive that the 3rd row does not have AC vents - a big no no because my nephews would be occupying those seats in the summer and they get carsick easily, the AC helps them stay comfortable. And asking around some more, we heard comments that "Mazda's AC has always been weak". Hmm, not good.

This discovery sent us running off to Toyota to check out the Highlander, another SUV. The Highlander, which I remember as being nice from our visit to the dealership last year, was so disappointing. The thing with Toyota is that the base model is really a base model. It's cheap-looking and lacks the bells and whistles that make the other vehicles so desireable.

I'm sure that the more expensive trim would look so much better, but the one we saw at the $32k level (same price level as the CX9 that we looked at earlier) had manual seat adjustments for the driver & passenger seats and really cheap dashboard material. Did I mention that the CX9 had the upgraded Bose sound system w/ 6 cd changers already ?

So while the Toyota's AC was satisfactory, the interior of the vehicle left us very disappointed.

The same day, we also checked out the Honda Pilot and we didn't fall in love with it.

While still not entirely happy with the Mazda CX9, it seemed like it was the more sensible and practical of the two (vs the Toyota Highlander) and in the hopes of sealing our decision, hubby asked to drop by Subaru to check out the Tribeca and I agreed. We wanted to sort of check out and eliminate all the other options before we move forward and buy the CX9.

And so we found this baby. Ours isn't exactly the one in the picture, but it looks like that one in silver (hubby does not like the red). Will post new pictures soon.

I wasn't really expecting to get another Subaru because our current car is already a Subaru and with AWD (All Subarus have AWD), the gas mileage isn't really very good compared to a 2WD vehicle.

But gosh, it handled really well during the test drive. I was mildly surprised to find hubby - who had so many complaints about the gas pedal and the steering during the test drives - smiling. He was actually smiling! and happy!

We switched places and I loved it too! When we got back to the lot, we whispered to each other and agreed that this is it. 

3rd row seat - comfortable.

AC vents for all passengers - yes!

steering - perfect

Two hours later - well past the dealership's closing time - we brought home our 2nd car. Di na ako kulong sa bahay and we're happy :D

Photos taken from www.MazdaUSA.com, www.toyota.com and www.subaru.com

The freebies started it all!

This is how the entertainment system in our living room looks like right now. It sort of embarasses me - and yet, here I am posting it in a blog! - to admit that half of these items you see in the picture are inherited from friends.

The TV is from the old company apartment - it was going to be thrown away and I asked for it. The 2 speakers on each side of the cabinet were inherited from friends and so are the receiver on top shelf of the cabinet and the DVD player on the middle shelf (right).

The Tivo, Wii and even the cabinet, we did buy for ourselves. *whew*

We watch most of our shows on a much nicer flat-screen TV, but not an LCD or a plasma, in our bedroom. We've been thinking about and planning to replace this TV with a bigger flat panel version but we're taking our time. No hurry.

The problem with this TV now is that most games are designed with wide-screen TVs in mind. When we play guitar hero, the song lyrics are so difficult to read. I cannot practice and show off my karaoke prowess tuloy.

Anyway... I digress. I am posting to this picture to sort of mark the time and try and see how long it will take us to implement the improvements that we've been planning in our heads since we inherited the speakers.

Getting the speakers sort of started an avalanche of home improvement ideas and these thoughts started running through our heads:
- if we have these speakers & a receiver now, the TV looks overwhelmed, we should get a new TV.
- if we get a nice TV, we should get additional surround speakers & a subwoofer to complete the setup
- but acoustics in the living room isn't good -> transfer plans for a home theater system in the master's bedroom, this means we need to get a complete set of speakers (smaller ones) plus a new receiver.
- need to buy new TV for masters' bedroom. Where to put it ? Ah, in between the his/hers closets! but the doors are in the way.
- so need to replace the bi-fold doors in the closets, ah, sliding doors (and we actually went to home depot!) or custom accordion doors
- ah, the new closet doors are nice,... we need new hardwood floors to match the doors
- the bathrooms will need to be updated too, then. Because it will look off if the rest of the rooms have nice floors and bathroom tiles are outdated (we actually looked at new toilets, vanities, sinks and cabinets in home depot too)
...

and now, we are overwhelmed.

... parang gusto ko nang isoli na lang... - NOT! :D

Valentine's day 2009

I'm flying out to company HQ again tomorrow and I'll see you guys in a few days. I enjoyed the weekend and am enjoying the extra day off today (President's day).

Hubby and I didn't go out on a romantic date on Valentine's day but we did have lunch at our favorite steak place. We both got rib-eyes this time and as always, they were cooked beautifully.

We had to forego Jollibee yesterday too but we did have a quiet and romantic lunch at a nearby Mexican place that serves mostly French food (eh ?).

It's nice too because we were surprised to find such a nice restaurant in an area (street) that reminded me so much of an LRT station along Rizal Avenue in Manila.

This was a pleasant surprise which followed our very disappointing trip to Jollibee.

I'm now thinking of going to more out-of-the-way places to check out the local sights and restaurants. A visit to Wilmington, NC Luxury Real Estate might even be a good idea, am sure that Wilmington, NC is a wonderful city with lots of activities to offer tourists.

Back to work

Mom and Dad are flying back home this weekend, I'm betting that my sister and her family - with whom they've been staying with for the last few months - are going to miss them sorely. I hear that Lyle has been asking his Ama (grandma) daily if they're leaving today. He's sad about them having to go.

If anyone's happy about this arrangement, am sure that it's my brother who was left to man the fort while the parents are away. I'm sure that he'll be very happy to have them back. After all, he tells me, he's so sick and tired of having to do the marketing (else, he goes hungry).

Me ? It's water off of a duck's back. My parents aren't with me anyway and we still get to talk to each other often (daily, even) wherever they are so I don't really care where they are physically. I'm sure Mom is raring to go back to work. Though I'm sure she enjoyed playing homemaker for a while, she must be bored out of her mind by now.

I've been bugging them to set up a website for the family enterprise(s). It would be really helpful if someone could just "google" a keyword and get a hit that leads them to our website, no? It would be good publicity sana and bring more people. I'm not really sure yet if they're on board but I'm hoping that they'll be able to check it out when they get back to work. I did volunteer to set up their website anyway and I'm pretty confident that it'll turn out great (and easy) with this premium wordpress theme from WPRemix.com. I checked out their demo earlier and it seems so complete already. Everything that you need for a website seems to be there, you just have to provide the content.

Am hoping that this could be some sort of a family-project that the younger cousins could help put together.

Winter 2009

A friend, hubby and I went to Hunter Mountain to go skiing and snowboarding this season. Hubby & friend tried snowboarding for the first time yesterday, I left them at the learning area while I went zipping down the slopes by myself. Whee!

It didn't take long before we all realized how (horribly) out of shape we were and even up to now, we are still feeling the after-effects of our day on the slopes yesterday. We are feeling all sorts of aches and pains all over our bodies - even on muscles that we never even knew existed. Haha!

We all had fun and can't wait to get back on the slopes, hopefully, within this season too.

I end this post with a picture of the exact moment in time when hubby decided that snowboarding isn't for him. This was his nth fall and he didn't want another one. :-)

He says that next time, he's going to try skiing instead.

Good news

Hubby received good news from work yesterday. He's not only been given a (retro-active) salary increase, he got a year-end bonus as well. When distributed into semi-monthly salary payments, it's not a lot really. But in these economic times ? When people should be thankful to still have jobs ? This is a great blessing.

My friend who lost his job last year also had good news to share with us. He's currently working on a project on a contractual basis, but he already has a job offer for a full-time position. There is also talk that the company he is currently working for (the contractual job) is planning to hire him full-time too. To top it all off, his unemployment benefits which had already reached the 6 month limit was granted an extension for another several months. He now has a backup for his backup for his backup. How cool is that ?

When it rains, it pours.

Now, all we need to wait for is for the economy to bounce back so we can all feel much safer. While we're waiting for that, Money Now! USA is available to help you sort out your personal finance problems.

I'm very happy that our 2009 started on this good note. I can't wait to find out what else God has in store for us.

Ski season

MIL just reminded us that by lunar reckoning, hubby and I have been living in the US for 2 years now. This is one of those instances when time just went zipping by and I didn't even notice.


That conversation with MIL reminded me that I have not skiied in 3 winters! I remember wrapping up my gear and placing them in (temporary) storage the season before I got married (to avoid accidents) and I remember talking this over with hubby and agreeing with him that we'll be doing some snowsports when he gets here. We just never did.

So this year, eto, am taking out my skis to be tuned up. I also just found out that I couldn't fit in any of my snow pants anymore (argh!) so we'll have to buy new ones for both me & hubby.

Hopefully, I should have ski/snowboard pics to post in the next few weeks.

On the downside, I'm still having some trouble with dry skin. I've tried everything that has been recommended to me - I use bath oils, body oils and slather on thick lotion AND thick cream every so often - but when the weather gets really chilly (and note that I am home 95% of the time!) I get super dry & itchy skin. I'm ready to try this new 7 Cream with Manuka Honey and hopefully, this can work a miracle.

Kong hei fat choi

Guess what we had for dinner ?

Leftovers.

We still had a lot of food left over from the Hotpot dinner on Saturday night so we decided to finish them off, didn't want to stick them back in the freezer. We got ourselves some more sliced beef (we don't consider it a proper hotpot without our favorite sliced beef) and got it going.

Masarap pa rin.

Kiong Hee Hwat Chai to all of you. Have a happy new year.

Lunar New Year

This was what we had for our hot pot dinner:
1) broth made from pork broth boiled and simmered for hours, this was later flavored with Sate sauce
2) spicy broth was from #1, but with some Chiu Chow spices

and the dippers:
1) sliced rib eye (shabu shabu beef)
2) vegetables - Sweet pea & Baby bokchoy
3) shrimp

4) shrimp balls
5) cuttlefish balls
6) fish cake - balls and sheets
7) kani - crab sticks
8) Enoki mushrooms
9) sweet corn

We also had 2 kinds of noodles - sotanghon and soba.


... and this is us, taken just before we dug in.

Times like these make me realize how much I miss working in an office setting. I remember and see & talk to real people. I miss those days when we would have activities such as those offered by TOOBEEZ Teambuilding. Those were fun times.

We spent the afternoon preparing for the hot-pot dinner that we were hosting to celebrate the lunar new year.

Hubby and I had great fun setting up the table and the place settings, it was tiring because we didn't know the exact # of people to expect - we had invited some HS friends over but they couldn't commit, eventually, they cancelled.

Anyway, our friends should be coming by soon, hope everybody has a good time tonight.

Snow banks in MA

I just got back from my monthly business trip to HQ and I just wanted to share what greeted me when I got to the office.

See that mound of snow on the sidewalks ? It's higher than my rental (a sedan) and it made driving around so much harder because there's all these snow piles covering your line of sight so you'll have to make sure you slow down as you approach intersections or when making turns.

My trip to HQ went well but I was glad to get back to good 'ol Jersey. We do have snowpiles on our sidewalks but they're not as high as the ones in MA.

We invited some friends over for a small salo-salo on Saturday night to celebrate Chinese (lunar) New Year. Hubby and I need to stock up on food - and thankfully, we won't have cook anything before hand so this saves us a lot of work - and we also need to tidy up a little. We have too many stuff at home as it is and our basement storage is already full. At the rate we're going, we might have to get a storage rental soon.

I've started doing some decluttering activities but it's going really slow (translation: tinatamad).